A Threefold Treatise of the Sabbath, Section 7
SECTION VII. The Inſtitution was binding, and required the obſervation of the Sabbath, from the beginning.
THis Inſtitution was virtually binding, as a Law requiring abſervation of man, even of Adam in his innocency.
1. Though in Terminis the words be not *To ſanctifie a day, is either to keep it holy, or to make it holy; and ſeeing God keeps not any day more holy than another, the meaning muſt be, that he made it holy, which is as much, as to command the keeping of it holy. And this my Lord of Armach juſtifieth.preceptive, yet had they in them virtually a Commandment: For God in giving his Law deduceth out of this his inſtitution a Commandment, as before is ſhewed: For Gods Commandments do ariſe and are impoſed upon man, not from his abſolute authority, as if he commanded, becauſe he would ſo command this or that, but he doth it upon good reaſon, which reaſon carrieth the force of a Commandment. As for inſtance; God brought Iſrael out of Egypt, and great bondage; whereupon God frameth to them his firſt Commandment in the Law, and forbiddeth them to have any other God beſides him. Now what if God had not thus in form of words impoſed this precept upon them, had not his act of their ſo great deliverance bound them, as a Law, to have him only to be their God? yes without doubt, it carried with it the force and nature of that Commandment. Even ſo here, God having reſted from his work, made the ſeventh day a Sabbath, bleſſing and ſanctifying it for man, (for it was made for man: Mark 2. 27.) though the Commandment of keeping holy the Sabbath had not been publiſhed; yet Gods reſt, Gods example in reſting, and his bleſſing and ſanctifying the day for man, had been as a precept. Paraeus ſaith, the words are preceptive, and Marius a learned man, ſaith they were a Commandment. For Gods own example propounded to man for imitation, is as if he had ſaid, Do as you ſee me do: elſe it is to no purpoſe to propound himſelf to us for an example. And Gods acts in this nature *This way our Homily takes, teaching, that as obedient children we ſhould imitate our heavenly Father in this.imitable, and for mans uſe, binde men to make that ſame uſe of his acts, for which uſe and end he did ſo; as his bleſſing and ſanctifying the Sabbath, for to keep it holy to him, did binde them to keep it holy, as Gods Commandment in the promulgation of the Law, Exo. 20. 8. grounded upon this his act, ſufficiently evidenceth.
2. The keeping holy the Sabbath day, is called Gods Law, before the Law at Sinai. Exo. 16. 4. For the Law in this place is the keeping of the ſeventh day holy, as a Law: for what Law in all the ſixteenth chapter was there elſe, by which God would try his people, concerning the keeping thereof, but the keeping holy the Sabbath? as the maine of the chapter touching their Manna, in gathering it the ſixt day, in Gods preſerving it from Worms and ſtinking, in Gods not rayning it on the ſeventh day, in Moſes commanding to have them keep in on the ſeventh day, tended all to the keeping of the Sabbath to the Lord, which is the Law mentioned in verſe 4.
3. Some going out to gather Manna on that day, the Lord rebuketh the people for refuſing of a long time to keep his Commandements and Lawes, ſaying, how long will yee refuſe to keep my Commandements and Lawes? Exod. 16. 28. In which words we may obſerve theſe things: Firſt, that the people had Commandements and Lawes before this time, and ſo before the giving of the Law at Sinai. Secondly, that the Lawes and Commandements were not mens, but Gods, for he acknowledgeth them for his owne, ſaying, my Commandements, and my Lawes. Thirdly, in theſe words is comprehended the reſt of the holy Sabbath to the Lord, of which he maketh mention in the three and twenty, five and twenty, ſix and twenty verſes, before the reproofe of the breach thereof in this twenty eighth verſe: For ſome going out to gather Mannah on this day, he taxeth them for refuſing to keep his Commandements and Lawes, which hee would not have done, if the ſeventh day an holy Sabbath had beene none of them. Fourthly, that theſe his Commandements and Lawes they had knowne, and had refuſed to keep for a long time before; for he ſaith, How long refuſe yee to keep them? Underſtanding among theſe, the Commandement of the Sabbath, which being reckoned among the Commandements, it muſt needs be of a binding power.
If any man aske me, where doe we before this time finde mention of any ſuch Commandements and Lawes?
I anſwer, in Gen. 26. 5. which Abraham kept, and taught his to keep, Gen. 18. 19. and if you would know how they learned them, the Text there tells you, from Gods voyce, which voyce Abraham obeyed: for God never ſuffered his people to live by the unwritten Law in mans nature, without his poſitive Lawes after the fall; yea, hee gave a poſitive Law to Adam before, in his eſtate of innocency.