in the name of the Jews, but also to intimate that it might be raised by others also, who had taken on them the profession of their religion; for this was the third and principal cause of their hatred and animosity, namely, that they drew over multitudes of all sorts of persons to the profession of the law of Moses. And a good work this was, though vitiated by the wickedness and corrupt ends of them who employed themselves therein, as our Saviour declares, Matt. xxiii. 15. This greatly provoked the Romans in those days, and on every occasion they severely complain of it. So Dio Cassius speaking of them adds, Καὶ ἐστὶ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ̔Ρωμαίοις τὸ γένος τοῦτο, κολασθὲν μὲν πολλάκις, αὐξηθὲν δὲ ἐπὶ πλεῖστόν, ὥστε καὶ ἐς παῤῥησίαν τῆς vouíoews vixñour—“ And this kind of men" (that is, men of this profession, not natural Jews) "is found also among the Romans; which though they have been frequently punished, yet have for the most part increased, so as to take the liberty of making laws to themselves." As for their punishments, an account is given, in Suetonius in Domit., and others, of the inquisition and search made after such as were circumcised. And as to their making of laws unto themselves, he respects their feasts, Sabbaths, abstinences, and such like observances as the Jews obliged their proselytes unto. In like manner complaineth Juvenal, Sat. xiv. 100,— "Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges, Judaicum ediscunt, et servant, ac metuunt jus, Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses;" "Contemning the Roman laws, they learn the rites and customs of the Jews, observing and learning the whole right or law delivered in the secret writing of Moses." Seneca is yet more severe: "Cum interim usque eo sceleratissima gentis consuetudo convaluit, ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit; victi victoribus leges dederunt;"-" The custom of this wicked nation hath so far prevailed that it is now received among all nations; the conquered have given laws to the conquerors." And Tacitus, Hist. lib. v. cap. v.: "Pessimus quisque, spretis religionibus patriis, tributa et stipes illuc" (that is, to Jerusalem) "gerebant." The like revengeful spirit appears in those verses of Rutilius, lib. i. Itinerar., though he lived afterwards, under the Christian emperors:- "O utinam nunquam Judæa victa fuisset But it is not unlikely that he reflects on Christians also. 24. We may add hereunto, that for the most part the conversation of the Jews amongst them was wicked and provoking. They were a people that had, for many generations, been harassed and oppressed by all the principal empires in the world; this caused them to hate them, and to have their minds always possessed with revengeful thoughts. When our apostle affirmed of them, “that they pleased not God, and were contrary to all men," 1 Thess. ii. 15, he intended not their opposition to the gospel and the preachers of it, which he had before expressed, but that envious contrariety unto mankind in general which they were possessed with. And this evil frame the nations ascribed to their law itself. "Moses novos ritus contrariosque cæteris mortalibus indidit," saith Tacitus, Hist., lib. v. cap. iv. But this most falsely. No law of men ever taught such benignity, kindness, and general usefulness in the world, as theirs did. The people themselves being grown wicked and corrupt, "pleased not God, and were contrary to all men." Hence they were looked on as such who observed not so much as the law of nature towards any but themselves, as resolving "Quæsitum ad fontem solos diducere verpos," Juv., xiv. 104;— "Not to direct a thirsty person to a common spring if uncircumcised." Whence was that censure of Tacitus, "Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, adversus omnes alios hostile odium;""Faithful and merciful among themselves, towards all others they were acted with irreconcilable hatred:" which well expresseth what our Saviour charged them with, as a corrupt principle among them, Matt. v. 43, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy;" into which two sorts they distributed all mankind,—that is, in their sense, their own countrymen and strangers. Their corrupt and wicked conversation also made them a reproach, and their religion contemned. So was it with them from their first dispersion, as God declares: Ezek. xxxvi. 20, “When they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD." And their wickedness increased with their time; for they still learned the corrupt and evil arts, with all ways of deceit, used in the nations where they lived, until, for the crimes of many, the whole nation became the common hatred of mankind. And, that we may return from this digression, this being the state of things then in the world, we may not wonder if the writers of those days were very supinely negligent or maliciously envious in reporting their ways, customs, and religious observances. And it is acknowledged that, before those times, the long course of idolatry and impiety wherein the whole world had been engaged had utterly corrupted and lost the tradition of a sabbatical rest. What notices of it continued in former ages hath been before declared. 25. But it is further pleaded (p. 54), "That indeed the Gentiles could be no way obliged to the observation of the fourth commandment, seeing they had no indication of it, nor any means to free them ance. from their ignorance of the being of any such law. That they had once had, and had lost the knowledge of it, in and by their progenitors, is rejected as a vain pretence." And so much weight is laid on this consideration, that a demand is made of somewhat to be returned in answer that may give any satisfaction unto conscience. But I understand not the force of this pretended argument. Those who had absolutely lost the knowledge of the true God (in and by their progenitors), as the Gentiles had done, might well also lose the knowledge of all the concernments of his worship. And so they had done, excepting only that they had traduced some of his institutions, as sacrifices, into their own superstition; and so had they corrupted the use of his sabbaths into that of their idolatrous feasts. But when the true God had no other acknowledgment amongst them but what answered the title of "The unknown God," is it any wonder that his ways and worship might be unknown amongst them also? And it is but pretended that they had no indication of a sabbatical rest, nor any means to free them from their ignorMan's duty is both to be learned and observed in order. It is in vain to expect that any should have indications of a holy rest unto God before they are brought to the knowledge of God himself. When this is obtained,-when the true God upon just grounds is owned and acknowledged,-then that some time be set apart for his solemn worship is of moral and natural right. That this is included in the very first notion of the true God and our dependence upon him, all men do confess. And this principle was abused among the heathen to be the foundation of all their stated annual and monthly sacred solemnities, after they had nefariously lost the only object of all religious worship. Where this progress is made, as it might have been, by attending to the directive light of nature, and the impressions of the law of it left upon the souls of men, there will not be wanting sufficient indicatives of the meetest season for that worship. However, these things were and are to be considered and admitted in their order; and with respect unto that order is their obligation. The heathen were bound first to know and own the true God, and him alone; then to worship him solemnly; and after that, in order of nature, to have some solemn time separated unto the observance of that worship. Without an admission of these, all which were neglected and rejected by them, there is no place to inquire after the obligation of a hebdomadal rest. And their nonobservance of it was their sin, not firstly, directly, and immediately, but consequentially, as all others are that arise from an ignorance or rejection of those greater principles whereon they do depend. 26. The trivial exception from the difference of the meridians is yet pleaded also; for hence it is pretended to be impossible that all men should precisely observe the same day. For if a man should sail round the world by the east, he will at his return home have gotten a day by his continual approach towards the rising sun; and if he steer his course westward, he will lose a day in the annual revolution, as it is gotten the other way: so did the Hollanders, anno 1615. And hence the posterity of Noah, gradually spreading themselves over the world, must have gradually come to the observation of different seasons, if we shall suppose a day of sacred rest required of them or appointed to them. "Apage, nugas." If men might sail eastward or westward, and not continually have seven days succeeding one another, there would be some force in this trifle. On our hypothesis, wherever men are, a seventh part of their time, or a seventh day, is to be separated to the remembrance of the rest of God, and the other ends of the Sabbath. That the observance of this portion of time shall in all places begin and end at the same instants, the law and order of God's creation will not permit. It is enough that amongst all who can assemble for the worship of God there is no difference in general, but that they all observe the same proportion of time. And he who, by circumnavigation of the world, (such rare and extraordinary instances being not to be provided for in a general law,) getteth or loseth a day, may at his return, with a good conscience, give up again what he hath got, or retrieve what he hath lost, with those with whom he fixeth; for all such occasional accidents are to be reduced unto the common standard. All the difficulty, therefore, in this objection relates to the precise observation of the seventh day from the creation, and not in the least unto one day in seven. And although the seventh day was appointed principally for the land of Palestine, the seat of the church of old, wherein there was no such alteration of meridians, yet I doubt not but that a wandering Jew might have observed the foregoing rule, and reduced his time to order upon his return home. What other exceptions of the like nature occur in this cause, they shall be removed and satisfied in our next inquiry, which is after the causes of the Sabbath, and the morality of the observation of one day in seven. EXERCITATION III. OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. 1. Of the causes of the Sabbath. 2. God the absolute original cause of itDistinction of divine laws into moral and positive. 3. Divine laws of a mixed nature; partly moral, partly positive. 4. Opinion of some that the law of the Sabbath was purely positive-Difficulties of that opinion. 5. Opinion of them who maintain the observation of one day in seven to be moral. 6. Opinion of them who make the observation of the seventh day precisely to be a moral duty. 7. The second opinion asserted. 8. The common notion of the Sabbath explained. 9. The true notion of it further inquired into. 10. Continuation of the same disquisition. 11. The law of nature, wherein it consists-Opinion of the philosophers. 12. Not comprised in the dictates of reason-No obliging authority in them formally considered. 13. Uncertainty and disagreement about the dictates of reason -Opinions of the Magi, Zeno, Chrysippus, Plato, Archelaus, Aristippus, Carneades, Brennus, etc. 14. Things may belong to the law of nature not discoverable to the common reason of the most. 15. The law of nature, wherein it doth really consist. 16. Light given unto a septenary sacred rest in the law of nature. 17. Further instances thereof. 18. The observation of the Sabbath on the same foundation with monogamy. 19. The seventh day an appendage of the covenant of works. 20. How far the whole notion of a weekly sacred rest was of the law of nature. 21. Natural light obscured by the entrance of sin. 22. The sum of what is proposed. 23. The inquiry about the causes of the Sabbath renewed. 24. The command of it, in what sense a law moral, and how evidenced so to be. 25. To worship God in associations and assemblies a moral duty. 26. One day in seven required unto solemn worship by the law of our creation. 27. What is necessary to warrant the ascription of any duty to the law of creation. 28. (1.) That it be congruous to the known principles of it. 29. (2.) That it have a general principle in the light of nature. 30. (3.) That it be taught by the works of creation. 31. (4.) Direction for its observance, by superadded revelation, no impeachment of it. 32. How far the same duty may be required by a law moral and by a law positive. 33. Vindication of the truths laid down from an objection. 34. Other evidences of the morality of this duty. 35. Required in all states of the church. 36. These varied states. 37. Command for the Sabbath before the fall; 38. Before and at the giving of the law, and under the gospel. 39. Whether appointed by the church. 40. Of the fourth commandment in the decalogue. 41. The proper subject of it. 42. The seventh day precisely not primarily required therein. 43. Somewhat moral in it granted by all. 44. The matter of this command a moral duty by the law of creation. 45. The morality of the precept itself proved from its interest in the decalogue, in various instances. 46. The law of the Sabbath only preferred above all ceremonial and judicial laws. 47. The words of our Saviour, Matt. xxiv. 20, considered. 48. The whole law of the decalogue established by Christ. 49. Objections proposed. 50. The first answered. 51. The second answered. 52. The third answered. 53. One day in seven, not the seventh day precisely, required in the decalogue. 54. An objection from the sense of the law. 55. Answered. 56, 57. Other objections answered. 58, 59. Col. ii. 16, 17, considered. 1. WE have fixed the original of the sabbatical rest, according to the best light we have received into these things, and confirmed the reasons of it with the consent of mankind. The next step in our progress must be an inquiry into its causes. And here also we fall immediately into those difficulties and entanglements which the various apprehensions of learned men, promoted and defended with much diligence, have occasioned. I have no design to oppose or |