By this last clause of the verse, 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind,' he doth plainly declare, that such days are now stript of their sanction.[16] For none of God's laws, while they retain their sanction, are left to the will and mind of the believers, as to whether they will observe them or no. Men, I say, are not left to their liberty in such a case; for when a stamp of divine authority is upon a law, and abides, so long we are bound, not to our mind, but to that law: but when a thing, once sacred, has lost its sanction, then it falls, as to faith and conscience, among other common or indifferent things. And so the seventh day sabbath did. Again,
Sixth, Thus Paul writes to the church of Colosse. 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ' (Col 2:16,17). Here also, as he serveth other holy days, he serveth the sabbath. He gives a liberty to believers to refuse the observation of it, and commands that no man should judge against them for their so doing. And as you read, the reason of his so doing is, because the body, the substance is come. Christ saith he, is the body, or that which these things were a shadow or figure of. 'The body is of Christ.'
Nor hath the apostle, since he saith 'or of the sabbath' one would think, left any hole, out at which men's inventions could get: but man has sought out many; and, so, many he will use.
But again, That the apostle by this word 'sabbath' intends the seventh day sabbath, is clear; for that it is by Moses himself counted for a sign, as we have shewed: and for that none of the other sabbaths were a more clear shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ than this. For that, and that alone, is called 'the rest of God': in it God rested from all his works. Hence he calls it by way of eminency, 'MY sabbath, and MY holy day' (Isa 56:4, 58:13).
Yet could that rest be nothing else but typical; for God, never since the world began, really rested, but in his Son. 'This is he,' saith God, 'in whom I am well pleased.' This sabbath then, was God's rest typically, and was given to Israel as a sign of his grace towards them in Christ. Wherefore when Christ was risen, it ceased, and was no longer of obligation to bind the conscience to the observation thereof. [Or of the sabbath.] He distinctly singleth out this seventh day, as that which was a most noble shadow, a most exact shadow. And then puts that with the other together; saying, they are a shadow of things to come; and that Christ has answered them all. 'The body is of Christ.'
Seventh, No man will, I think, deny but that Hebrews 4:45 intends the seventh day sabbath, on which God rested from all his works; for the text doth plainly say so: yet may the observing reader easily perceive that both it, and the rest of Canaan also, made mention of verse 5 were typical, as to a day made mention of verses 7 and 8 which day he calls another. He would not afterwards have made mention of another day. If Joshua had given them rest, he would not. Now if they had not that rest in Joshua's days, be sure they had it not by Moses; for he was still before.
All the rests therefore that Moses gave them, and that Joshua gave them too, were but typical of another day, in which God would give them rest (Heb 4:9,10). And whether the day to come, was Christ, or Heaven, it makes no matter: it is enough that they before did fail, as always shadows do, and that therefore mention by David is, and that afterward, made of another day. 'There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.' A rest to come, of which the seventh day in which God rested, and the land of Canaan, was a type; which rest begins in Christ now, and shall be consummated in glory.
And in that he saith 'There remains a rest,' referring to that of David, what is it, if it signifies not, that the other rests remain not? There remains therefore a rest, a rest prefigured by the seventh day, and by the rest of Canaan, though they are fled and gone.
'There remains a rest'; a rest which stands not now in signs and shadows, in the seventh day, or Canaan, but in the Son of God, and his kingdom, to whom, and to which the weary are invited to come for rest (Isa 28:12; Matt 11:20; Heb 4:11).
Yet this casts not out the Christians holiday or sabbath: for that was not ordained to be a type or shadow of things to come, but to sanctify the name of their God in, and to perform that worship to him which was also in a shadow signified by the ceremonies of the law, as the epistle to the Hebrews doth plentifully declare.