Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…

§. 9 Wherefore granting the sense of the Words contended for, there is yet another Exception put in, to invalidate this Testimony as to the original of a seventh Days Sabbatical Rest from the Foundation of the World. And this is taken not from ⟨p. 64⟩the signification of the words, but the connection and disposition of them in the Discourse of Moses. For suppose that by Gods Blessing and sanctifying the seventh Day, the separation of it unto sacred Uses is intended, yet this doth not prove that it was so sanctified immediately upon the finishing of the Work of Creation. For say some Learned men, those words of v. 3. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his Work which God created and made, are inserted occasionally into the Discourse of Moses; from what afterwards came to pass. They are not therefore, as they suppose, a continued part of the Historical Narration there insisted on, but are inserted into it by way of Prolepsis or Anticipation, and are to be read as it were in a Parenthesis. For supposing that Moses wrote not the Book of Genesis until after the giving of the Law, (which I will not contend about, though it be assumed gratis in this Discourse there being a Respect had unto the Rest of God when his Works were finished in the Institution of the Sabbath, upon the Historical Relation of that Rest Moses interserts what so long after was done and appointed on the Account thereof. And so the sense of the Words must be; that God rested on the seventh day from all his works that he had made; that is the next Day after the finishing of the Works of Creation; wherefore, two thousand four hundred years after, God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, not that seventh Day whereon he rested, with them that succeeded in the like Revolution of Time, but a seventh Day that fell out so long after, which was not blessed nor sanctified before. I know not well how men ⟨p. 65⟩Learned and Sober can offer more hardship unto a Text, then is put upon this before us, by this Interpretation. The connection of the Words is plain and equal. And the Heavens and the Earth and all the Host of them were finished; And God had finished on the seventh day all his work that he had made; and he rested the seventh day from all his work that he had made;

§. 9 Wherefore granting the sense of the Words contended for, there is yet another Exception put in, to invalidate this Testimony as to the original of a seventh Dayes Sabbatical Rest from the Foundation of the World. And this is taken not from