LECTURE ON THE GREAT SABBATH. Ezekiel 20:12

Moreover, also, I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.MWV1 157.1

THIS text is but a recapitulation of one in Exodus 31:13, and is repeated again by the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 20:12. You will take notice that it is a sign between God and the children of Israel forever. See Exodus 31:17: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” It is also a perpetual covenant: see verse 16. Now I want you should observe, that this sabbath was the seventh day sabbath. God calls it “my sabbath,” and shows his reason why: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” He engrafted it then into the decalogue, and it was written upon both tables of testimony, showing clearly that it would be binding under the gospel, as well as under the law. See verse 18: “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” And its being contained in the ten commands, written by the finger of God, on both tables of the testimony, graven on stone, to be a sign forever, and a perpetual covenant, proves, in my opinion, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is as binding upon the christian church as upon the Jewish, and in the same manner, and for the same reasons. “Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord.” This was the manner.MWV1 157.2