Works, Book 1 · Discourse 15
DISCOURSE XV.
EZEKIEL 20. 20.
Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, to acknowledge that I Iehovah am your God.
THIS Commandment, with the End thereof, the Lord bids Ezekiel tell the Elders of Israel, that he gave it to their Fathers in the Wilderness. And it is recorded in the Law; so that I might have taken it thence: But I rather chose to make these words in Ezekiel my Text, as expressed more plainly, and so a Comment to those in the Law. The place there is Exod. 31. 13. where this which my Text containeth is expressed thus, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, to acknowledge that I Iehovah am your sanctifier, that is, your God; as the expression in Ezekiel tells us: For to be the Sanctifier of a People, and to be their God, is all one: whence also the Lord is so often called in Scripture the Holy One of Israel, that is, their Sanctifier and their God.
That which I intend at this time to observe from these words is, the End why God commanded this Observation of the Sabbath to the Israelites; to wit, That thereby, as by a Symbolum or Sign, they might testifie and profess what God they worshipped. Secondly, out of this ground to shew How far, and in what manner, the like Observation binds us Christians, who are worshippers of the same God whom the Iews worshipped, though not under the same relation altogether wherein they worshipped him.
All Nations had something in their Ceremonies whereby they signified the God they worshipped. So in those of the Celestial Gods, (as they termed them,) and those which were Deified Souls of men, were differing Rites, whereby the one was known from the other: Those Gods which were made of men, having Funeral rites in their services, as Cogni…ances that they were Souls deceased; and each of them some imitation of some remarkable passage of the Legend of their lives, either of some action done by them, or some accident which befel them; as in the ceremonies of Osyris and Bacchus is obvious to any that reads them. And indeed it is a natural Decorum for servants and vassals, by some mark or cognisance to testifie who is their Lord and Master. In the Revelation, the worshippers of the Beast receive his mark, and the worshippers of the Lamb carry his mark and his Father's in their Fore-heads. Hence came the first use of the Cross in Baptism, as the mark of Christ, the Deity to whom we are initiated; and the same afterwards used in all Benedictions, Prayers and Thanksgivings, in token they were done in the name and merits of Christ crucified: So that in the Primitive Church this Rite was no more but that wherewith we conclude all our Prayers and Thanksgivings, when we say, Through Iesus Christ our Lord and Saviour; though afterward it came to be abused, as almost all other Rites of Christianity, to abominable Superstition.
To return therefore unto my Text. Agreeably to this Principle, and this Custom of all Religions, of all Nations, of all Vassals, the Lord Iehovah, Creator of Heaven and Earth, ordained to his people this Observation of the Sabbath-day, for a Sign and Cognisance that he should be their God, and no other.Ezek. 20. 20. It is for a sign, saith he, between me and you, that I Iehovah am your God. And besides in the place I quoted before, the 31. of Exod. 16, 17. are these words; The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual Covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested: As if he had said, It is a Sign that the Creator of heaven and earth is your God.
But for the more distinct understanding of this signification, we must know that the Sabbath includes two respects of time: First, the quotum, one day of seven, or the Seventh day after six days labour; Secondly, the designation or pitching that Seventh upon the day we call Saturday. In both, the Sabbatical observation was a sign and profession that Iehovah, and no other, was the God of Israel: the first, according to his attribute of Creatour, the second, of Deliverer of Israel out of AEgypt. For by sanctifying the Seventh day, after they had laboured six, they professed themselves vassals and worshippers of that only God who created the Heaven and the Earth, and having spent six days in that great work, rested the Seventh day; and therefore commanded them to observe this sutable distribution of their time, as a ba…ge and livery that their Religious service was appropriate to him alone. And this is that which the Fourth Commandment in the reason given from the Creation intendeth, and no more but this.
But seeing they might profess this acknowledgment as well by any other six dayes working, and a seventh's resting, as by those they pitched upon, there being still (what six dayes soever they had laboured, and what seventh soever they had rested) the same conformity with their Creator; let us see the reason why they pitched upon t…ose six dayes wherein they laboured, for labouring dayes, rather than any other; and why they chose that Seventh day, namely Saturday, to hallow and rest in, rather than any other.
And this was, that they might profess themselves servants of Iehovah their God in a relation and respect peculiar and proper to themselves; to wit, that they were the servants of that God which redeemed Israel out of the Land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage:Exod. 14. 24, 27, 30. and upon the morning-watch of that very day which they kept for their Sabbath, he overwhelmed Pharaoh and all his Host in the Red Sea, and saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. This I gather from the repetition of the Decalogue, Deut. 5. where that reason from the world's Creation (in the Decalogue given at Horeb) being left out, Moses inserts this other of the Redemption of Israel out of Egypt in stead thereof; namely, as the reason why those six dayes rather than any other six for work, and that Seventh day rather than any other seventh for rest, were pitched upon, as Israel observed them. Remember, saith he, V. 15. thou wert a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm: Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day: Namely, not for the quotum of one day of seven, (…or of that another reason was given, the example of God in the Creation) but for the designation of the day.
But whether this day were in order the seventh from the Creation or not, the Scripture is silent; for where it is called in the Commandment the seventh day, that is in respect of the six dayes of labour, and not otherwise: and therefore, whensoever it is so called, those six dayes of labour are mentioned with it. The seventh day therefore is the seventh after the six dayes of labour, nor can any more be inferred from it: the example of the Creation is brought for the quotum, one day of seven, as I have shewed, and not for the designation of any certain day for that seventh. Nevertheless, it might fall out so, by disposition of Divine Providence, that the Iews designed Seventh day was both the seventh in order from the Creation, and also the day of their deliverance out of Egypt. But the Scripture no where tells us it was so, (howsoever most men take it for granted) and therefore it may as well be not so. Certain I am, the Iews kept not that day for a Sabbath till the raining of Manna: For that which should have been their Sabbath the week before, had they then kept the day which afterward they kept, was the fifteenth day of the second monethmonth; and which day we read, in the 16, of Exod. that they marched a wearisom march, and came at night into the wilderness of Sin, where they murmured for their poor entertainment, and wished they had died in Egypt: that night the Lord sent them Quailes, the next morning it rained Manna, which was the sixteenth day, and so six dayes together; the seventh, which was the twenty second day, it rained none, and that day they were commanded to keep for their Sabbath. Now if the twenty second day of the monethmonth were the Sabbath, the fifteenth should have been, if that day had been kept before; but the Text tells us expresly, they marcht that day: and, which is strange, the day of the monethmonth is never named, unless it be once, for any station but this where the Sabbath was ordained; otherwise it could not have been known that that day was ordained for a day of rest, which before was none.Numb. 10. And why might not their day of holy rest be altered, as well as the beginning of the year was*Exod. 12. 2., for a memorial of their coming out of Egypt? I can see no reason why it might nor, not find any testimony to assure me it was not.
And thus much of the Iews Sabbath, How and wherein it was a Sign whereby they professed themselves the servants of Iehovah, and no other God.
Now I come to the Second thing I propounded, to shew How far, and in what manner, the like observation binds us Christians.
I say therefore, that the Christian, as well as the Iew, after six dayes spent in his own works, is to sanctifie the seventh, that he may profess himself thereby a servant of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, as well as the Iew. For the quotum therefore, the Iew and Christian agree; but in designation of the day they differ. For the Christian chuseth for his Holy Day that which with the Iews was the First day of the week, and calls it Dominicam the Lord's Day, that he might thereby profess himself a servant of that God who on the morning of that day vanquished Satan, the Spiritual Pharaoh, and redeemed us from our Spiritual thraldom, by raising Iesus Christ our Lord from the dead, begetting us, in stead of an earthly Canaan, to an inheritance incorruptible in the Heavens. Rom. 4. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 4.In a word, the Christian, by the day he hallows, professes himself a Christian, that is, as S. Paul speaks, To believe on him that raised up Iesus from the dead. So that the Iew and Christian both, though they fall not upon the same day, yet make their designation of their day upon the like ground: the Iews, the memorial-day of their deliverance from the temporal Egypt and temporal Pharaoh; the Christians, the memorial-day of their deliverance from the spiritual Egypt and spiritual Pharaoh.
But might not (will you say) the Christian as well have observed the Iewish for his seventh day, as the day he doth? I answer, No; he might not: For in so doing he should seem not to acknowledge his Redemption to be already performed, but still expected. For the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the Ministery of Moses was intended for a Type and pledge of the Spiritual deliverance which was to come by Christ: their Canaan also, to which they marched, being a Type of that Heavenly inheritance which the redeemed by Christ do look for. Since therefore the Shadow is now made void by the coming of the Substance, the Relation is changed, and God is no longer to be worshipped and believed in as a God fore-shewing and assuring by Types, but as a God who hath performed the Substance of what he promised. And this is that which S. Paul means, Colossians 2. 16, 17. when he saith, Let no man judge you [henceforth] in respect of a Feast-day, New-moon, or Sabbath-dayes: Which were a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.