554 TILE SABn T$ PERPETUAL, &C. plain command for it under the New 'Testament ? Why should we be left in such obscurity, that we can only spellout our duty, by inferences from the Old Testament, and some examples and probabilities, in the New, concerning the observationof one day in seven, as well as concerning the change of that day from the seventh to the first ? Give use leave to answer this two or three ways: First, If our Saviour, or his apostles, had insisted too early, and tooplainly on the observation Of one day in seven, as a day of holy rest from labour, they had been in danger of giving occasion to the Jewish christians to have continued their rigour of sabbatising ; for they were so fond of these yokes and cere- monies, that theywere very hardlyweaned from them: Many of the weakly disciples would scarce have known how to distin- guish between the strict ceremonial holiness of days imposed in Judaism; and the appointment of religious worship, under the gospel, with a merciful release from the labours of.l.ife on the Lord's-day. But I answer, In the second place, bygiving an instance of the like kind, wherein God has left a moral duty under the same obscurity. Was not monogamy, or the marriage of but one wife, as im- portant, and as necessary to the peace of families, the regular and pions education of children, and the good order of the world in all ages and nations, as it is to christians under the gos- pel ? And why then was the law, which prohibits more wives than one, left so obscure and so uncertain under the, Old Testa- ment in the patriarchal and Jewish age, that it seems to he un- known, and was often violated both by Jews and patriarchs ? Why was there a sort of permission for divorces given by Moses upon other canses, besides fornication, when our Saviour forbids it under the gospel, and seems to declare it to have been an irre- gular thing even fromthe beginning of the creation ; Mat. xix. 3 -9 ? And yet there is no plain disapprobation of polygamy, nor divorces, till the days of Malachi, the last of the prophets ; Mat. ii. 14Iß. But let it beobserved, that our Saviour gives us the reason of this doubtful and uncertainnoticeof this moral duty, wherehe tells us, that :.Moses, because of the hardness of their hearts, -suffered them to put away their wives, though from the begin- ning it was not so ordained, that is, the general reason, why God leftit under, this obscurity, and gave no such plain and ex- press precepts and prohibitions about some of these things to the Jews and patriarchs, might be, because he foresaw that strong temptations from within and, from without, from thecustoms of the world, and the appetites and passions of nature, would ren- der the duty difficult to be constantly practised in their circum- stances, or the sin i.itfleult to be avoided : Now, where is duty is
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