keep them all. Hence it was, when the Ifraelites broke the fourth commandment by gathering of manna, that the Lord charges them with breaking all the commands, Exod. xvi. 28. "How long refufe ye to keep my commandments and my laws ?" Why fo? Because he that makes no confcience of keeping the Sabbath, will not much stick to break any of the reft.

3. It hath a folemn memento prefixed to it, which the rest have not; God ushers it in with a remember, which is very emphatic, and is, as if he had faid, "Keep this command always in your minds: forget what you will, forget not this." God fpeaks, as a mafter that hath fome fpecial affair, among many others, to recommend to his fervant: Among all other injunctions, he bids him particularly remember fuch an affair; thereby thewing a special concern for it, more than the rest.

4. It is delivered both positively and negatively: All the rest of the commands are delivered only one of the ways, but this is both ways. It is not only faid pofitively, "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy; but alfo negatively, "In it thou shalt do no manner of work," &c.

5. The Lord preffeth obedience to this command, with more reasons and arguments than any of the rest, which were enumerated before. And this he doth becaufe he knew the confcientious obferving of this com mand would engage us to make confcience of all the reft, and because he forefaw wicked men would attack it, and reafon againft it more than any of the reft. Now, is it probable that God would fhew fuch a con cern for a ceremonial law, that he would place it in the middle of the moral precepts, and prefs it with more reasons and arguments than any of them?

6. He makes the keeping of this command, and fanctifying of the Sabbath, one fpecial end of man's creation; because therein God is highly glorified. The Jewish Talmund propounds the question, "Why God made man on the evening before the Sabbath?” and gives this one reason, that man might forthwith enter upon the observation of the command to keep the Sab bath, and begin his life with the worthip of God, which VOL. IV.

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was

was the chief end why it was given him, as if the keeping the Sabbath were the great end of his creation. And indeed there is folid reafon for this affertion, if we confider that, as the end of the Sabbath day is to commemorate God's glorious works, and celebrate his praises for the fame, fo the chief end and defign of. man, whom God made on the fixth day, as his last and moft confummate work of all, was, that he might be the tongue of the whole creation, to trumpet forth his praises for all the reft of his works. And accordingly, just on the back of his creation, he entered upon the keeping of a Sabbath for that very end. So it may well be faid, that God made man chiefly for this end, to keep the Sabbath day.

7. The Lord entails many fpecial bleffings upon the keeping of this command, and denounces many fad threatenings against the breaking of it. Read the 56th chapter of Ifaiah throughout, where the Lord not only pronounceth him bleffed that keeps the Sabbath, but promises to give him a place and a name better than of fons and daughters," to fill his heart with " spiritual joy," to give him a " fpirit of prayer," and to "hear his prayer:" God will both give him ability to ferve him, and then accept and reward his fervice when it is done. Alfo read Ifa. lviii. 14. Jer. xvii. 24. where bleffings, both fpiritual and temporal, peace, wealth, plenty and profperity, are promised to fuch as keep the Sabbath. On the other hand, how terrible are the plagues he threatens against a land or people for breaking this command. Read Jer. xvii. 27. Ezek. xx. 21. to 26.

8. He hath feverely punished finners for the breach of this command, as if it were the fum of his whole fervice. He caused a man to be put to a cruel death for gathering fticks on the Sabbath," Numb. xv. The offence might be thought small, but God looks on the contempt of the Sabbath as an affront to the Creator who initituted it, and to whose honour it was dedicate, and an incurfion upon the whole law, about which God appointed the Sabbath for a hedge. It was the flighting of the Lord's Sabbaths that caufed Jerufalem

to

to be burnt with fire, Jer. xvii. ult. Many inftances of judgments against Sabbath-breakers might alfo be brought from human hiftories.

V. A fifth argument may be taken from the prophecies of the Old Teftament. We find Ifaiah, that evangelical prophet, pronouncing a bleffing on thofe that fhould keep the Sabbath, even in evangelical times, Ifa. Ivi 1, 2. "Thus faith the Lord, keep ye judgment, and do juftice for my falvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Bleffed is the man that doth this,that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it." That is a plain prophecy of Chrift; yet, in his times he declares them bleffed who fhould keep the Sabbath: Yea, ver. 6. he puts "the keeping of the Sabbath" in a manner for the whole duties of the covenant. That this evangelical prophet is fpeaking there of the New Teftament times, there is no ground left to doubt; for he is speaking of the time when the ftranger and eunuch fhould be joined to the Lord, and when there fhould be no diftinction of perfons, Jews or Gentiles, but both fhould be alike welcome to God and his ordinances: And yet, in these times, there are many bleffings promifed to them that fhould keep the Sabbath; which demonftrates it to be a moral and perpetually binding duty.

us,

VI. Chrift himself plainly tells "That he came not to destroy (or abrogate any part of) the moral law, but to fulfil it," feverely threatening those who would feek to invalidate the obligation of the least of these commands, Matth. v. 17, 18, 19. and, in confirmation hereof, he bids Chriftians" pray that their flight might not be on the Sabbath day," Matth. xxiv. 10. Now, the flight he there speaks of, was to happen in Vefpafian's time, about forty years after that all ceremonies were abolished, together with the Jewish Sabbath, as I fhewed before; and yet we fee Chrift plainly enough homolagates the morality and perpetual obligation of the law for the Sabbath, under the New Testament : for he still supposes that a Sabbath would be in being and in force, after all the ceremonies were abolished;

and therefore he warns his difciples, and in them all Christians to the end of the world, to make it a petition in their prayers upon any approaching calamity, to be delivered from the neceffity of fleeing upon the day when the duties of the Sabbath fhould be observed: Seeing it is no fmall aggravation of our distress to be forced to flee and travel on God's holy day, when we fhould be employed in attending the folemn ordinances of his worship, and enjoying communion with God therein.

VII. A feventh argument may be taken from the abfurdities that would follow upon the denying the morality of this command. For then, 1. There would be but nine commands in the moral law, which is directly contrary to scripture; for we are told that there are ten in it, Deut. x. 4. "And he wrote on the tables, according to the firft writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord fpake out of the midft of the fire," &c.

2. It would open a door for atheism and immorality, and tend to caft loofe the whole moral law: For if we yield that the fourth commandment is not moral, but ceremonial; why may not fome, in the next place, rise up and fay, the fecond and fifth are not moral neither? and fo on, concerning the reft. But the Lord, having written the whole moral law in tables of stone, and the fourth command in midft thereof, doth teach us thereby, that the whole of it should be indelibly written in our hearts, and that the obligation of it, and of this command among the reft, can never be extinguished.

Lastly, The univerfal church have ftill held the com mandment of the Sabbath to be moral, and of perpetual obligation, and that the seventh day of our time fhould be confecrated unto the Lord. The conftant practice of all true Chriftans, fince the apoftles times, in obferving a weekly Sabbath, is a great confirmation of this truth; especially if we confider, that the judgment and practice of the catholic church have been fo uniform, conftant, and uninterrupted in this matter, that we do not find so much as one heretick, or perfon of any fort in ancient times, that ever prefumed to oppofe or contradict this doctrine.

And

And as the forefaid univerfal confent evidenceth this truth or law to be of divine inftitutio, fo it proves it to be a dictate of the law of nature and found reason, that one day of the week fhould be dedicate to the worfhip and fervice of God. Yea, fo ftrong is the light hereof, that those who have apoftatized from the true religion, and have taken up with the vileft of superstitions, have still found it neceffary to fix upon a certain day of the week, for the p-rforming of folemn worship; and fo the Mahometans have chofen Friday for this end, and the Parthians obferved Tuefday: For it is evident to every rational man, that the religious obfervation of a weekly Sabbath is the greatest prefervative of a folemn profeffion of religion in the world. Take away from amongst men all confcience of obferving a ftated day of facred reft to God, for the celebration of his worfhip in affemblies, and all religion will quickly decay, if not come to nothing in the world. And it is to be obferved, that, wherever religion flourisheth in the power of it, there we find most conscience made in the observation of the Sabbath.

Quest. V. If the fourth commandment be moral and perpetual; how then could the Sabbath be changed from the laft to the first day of the week, as we fee it done?

Auf. The precife day of the week for the Sabbath not being of the effence of the fourth commandment, but only an alterable circumftance in it, the actual alteration thereof under the New Testament makes no more against the morality of the fourth command, than the change of the outward ordinances and means of worship under the gofpel, makes against the morality of the second command That the keeping of the precife seventh day of the week is diftin from the fcope and fubftance of the fourth command, which is only to inftitute one day in feven for the Sabbath, is pretty evident from the command itfelf, both in the first and laft words of it. The first words, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," do contain the whole fubftance of the command: the laft words, "Wherefore the Lord bleffed the Sabbath day and hallowed it," do

contain