nessecarily depending one upon another like the parts and members of a natural body most comely and beautiful so that the highest commendations Christ gives his Church in that book of the Canticles doth much more belong to that Body of Divinity held forth in the Scriptures by which she is begotten and conformed to his Image Add to this the consideration of the Pen-men thereof who being the Prophets and Apostles and living in several Ages yet without jarr have brought forth this noble work so that you may plainly see they were all guided by one and the same holy Spirit in the writing of them Fourthly The Effects and lively Power of them in the hearts of men declare from whence they are descended that which is spoken of their soul-searching and powerful piercing nature Heb. 4.12 every soul that seriously converseth with them findeth true He that in his old blind estate took his heart to be good when he comes to try it by the Scriptures finds it so notoriously filthy that he abhors himself and as it discovereth sin so it purgeth it out and makes the carnal heart spiritual and brings it unto the Love of God and Holiness which before he hated and works it up to the hatred of sin which before he loved so that its transforming nature plainly sheweth it to be the Words of God Quest But may not other Books perswade men as well as that how many are led by other books into error Answ Yea other books may over-come mens judgements but not transform their natures from carnal to be spiritual from earthlymindedness to be heavenly minded and to bring from the love of sin to the love of holiness as this blessed Book of the holy Scriptures doth Fifthly The constant fulfilling of the Prophecies of them preach to all men their â—nfallibility God made good his Promise to Abraham Gen. 15. as also that to David 2 Sam. 7.12 to the 17. Also his Threatnings to Jeroboam 1 Kings 13.2 As also the Promises made in the 2d of Haggai and 3d of Malachi concerning Christ's coming to the second Temple which is now fallen Also Christ's Prophecy of the fall of this Temple and of Jerusalem Mat. 23.37 38. 24.2 19 20 21 22. Luke 21.20 21 22 23 24. is also come to pass As also the Prophecy of Paul 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. is you see fulfilled to a tittle with many more instances if need were all proving their heavenly birth Sixthly The unsupportable burthen of a Conscience which God woundeth for sin The sealing Testimony of his Love by the Spirit to the soul of the true believer The gracious Answers to prayers made to God in the name of Christ with other like experiences give to all gracious hearts most full assurance that the Scriptures were endited by the Spirit of God Seventhly Jehovah himself hath born witness of them that they are his words beyond all contradiction 1. By declaring the ten Commandments with his own Voice with that terrour as is exprest Exod. 19. and writing them twice with his own hand these being the grand Law on which the whole Scriptures depend and being the foundation of all Religion as by and by will appear 2. The wonderful Signs and Miracles wrought to confirm them as the bringing Israel out of Egypt through the Red-Sea and the Wilderness and Jordan by a piller of a Cloud by day and a piller of Fire by night into Canaan to the terrour of all the Nations round about Also the Sun standing still and coming back The Resurrection of Christ which will be proved anon and the Resurrection of others by Christ with other numberless Miracles all preaching to the world that the Scriptures are the Counsel and Will of God Quest But how shall we know that these wonders have been wrought but by the Scriptures own Testimony or by the Church Answ It may be known if this be considered that the Scriptures have alwayes had and to this day have so many feigned friends open enemies either flatly opposing them or to their uttermost secretly undermining and disgracing them or exalting humane inventions above them in so much that no sober Christian can doubt but that if there had beene possibility to have denied the report of those Miracles in that day in which they are said to be done the World could not have wanted Volumes enough to have shaken the Faith of the Christian World so called long before this day but although they be carpt at and undermined yet may all that love them challenge all their enemies to produce one known and approved Author that hath undertaken to reprove the report of those glorious Miracles and if none can be found then have we the greatest assurance that can be desired that they are certainly true Eightly And lastly They have a Testimony in the consciences and mouths of those that like not to be ruled by them and therefore make as little use of them as possible they can in setting up Religion You have a clear instance of the Papists to go no further Evident it is that as many Decrees Canons Articles Traditions and Ceremonies as the Church of Rome hath yet with all these and her mass-Mass-book Pope and Councils to boot with all their pretended infalliability yet they cannot have a Religion without the holy Scriptures although it be a well-known truth that they love them not For all those that honour and obey them and dare not transgress those blessed Precepts are the only grand Hereticks with them And as for such as conform to their abominable Idolatries and superstitious Inventions pass for Catholick people with them although they be notorious transgressors of the Law of God and yet if these men did wholly cast off the Scriptures as ill as they love them their Religion could not have a Being I am neither insensible nor forgetful that there are both foolish subtile indeavours by several sorts of men besides these some of them I may meet with at another turn others a reasonable understanding will answer and therefore I will go no further in this Quest Have you not some other consideration about the Scriptures meet to be opened you spake a little before of the Dignity of the ten Commandments will you prove those sayings Answ I did so and before I go further I think it meet to do that work for now having proved the Scriptures to be of divine Authority we may with all boldness apply our selves unto them as a safe guide in Religion And first for the Dignity of the ten Commandments it is most evident that they are a superior Law on which all other Laws in the Scriptures depend For this see Christ's own Testimony Mat. 22.35 where giving us the sum of that divine Law consisting in Love to God and to our Neighbour he tells us in express words that the whole Law and the Prophets hang upon it and that this is not my own exposition of the Text but the Apostle Pauls see
14.12 Rom. 3.31 Ephes 6.1 2 3. with many other Again in particular to the Sabbath it self If our Lord did not intend it should continue after his Death but he nailed to the Cross with the other Ceremonies what reason could there be for him to advise his Disciples to pray that their flight might not fall out on the Sabbath or at the fall of Jerusalens seeing it fell out sorty years after his Death and wherefore should be tell us it was made for man and that He is the Lord of it if it have no being in his Dominions amongst the Children of men Mark 2.27 28. And besides all this doth not the holy Spirit call it Sabbath and how dare mortal worms call it working day For which way can it deserve the name of a Sabbath if it retain not the nature of a Sabbath But this is an Age in which men are bent to walk in their own wayes and neither believe nor do any thing that crosseth the flesh otherwise how were it possible for men to find so many evasions to keep off from so plain a Duty which was the constant practice of the Saints in the Primitive time as may be seen Acts 13.14 42 44. and 16.13 17.2 18.4 And it is observable that in the former of these Texts Acts 13. Paul keeps Sabbath with Gentiles and speaks not the least word against their Practice nor intimates nothing of a meeting any other day an evil that Paul would never have been guilty of had he known any thing of the abolishing or changing of the Sabbath-day for how earnestly Paul contended against the Gentiles observation of Ceremonies cannot be unknown Quest But is it not possible for the whole ten Commands to be observed although the Sabbath be transmitted from the seventh to the first day of the week Answ If the Lord or any other by his Authority had so done I would not have questioned his power or wisdom herein but seeing he did it not but it is meerly an invention of man I must condemn it for a wicked and ungodly Practice of which the old Serpent was the principal Author to cause the poor Jews to stumble at the Redeemer of the World to this day Quest Since Christ and his Apostles and Primitive Saints observed it what is the reason that the Jews do not believe in Jesus Christ seeing Sabbath-Prophanation is one of their greatest Arguments they commonly urge against Christ and the Christian Religion Answ There is no cause to wonder at their unbelief nor at the reason of it for how can we expect they should search the New Testament diligently to inform themselves what the mind and practice of Christ and his Primitive Saints was when they who profess it to be their Rule are so extream careless in this matter that they suffer themselves to be couzened some with another day and some with no day instead of the Sabbath now the poor Jews judging of the Religion of Christ by the lives of the generality of those that profess his Name cannot but stumble at him and abominate that Religion that alloweth such plain and notorious Wickedness committed against the express letter of God's most holy Law and it cannot be expected in reason that they should repent and believe till a more general Reformation be found in the lives of the Gentiles that profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ Quest Well if such prejudices as they take at the Lord Jesus should be removed how can it be clearly proved that Christ Jesus the Son of Mary who was crucified by Pilate is the true Messiah Answ There are many infallible proofs of it As first The certain Time of his coming being so fairly pointed at by the Scriptuies if Jesus be not he this will follow not only that we must with the Jews look for another but be constrained also to cast off the holy Scriptures received both by them and us and so shall be wholly at a loss to know what to believe or receive for truth in order to our eternal peace Quest Name some of those Texts and a little open them for the sakes of the poor Jews and the blind World who it is to be feared neither know Him nor in truth believe in Him but ignorantly confess him because it is the Religion of the Times and tradition and custom hath taught them so to do Answ The first Text is Gen. 49.10 The Scepter shall not depart from Judah and the Law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come and unto him shal the obedience of the Peoples 〈◊〉 â—hiloh here is Christ or the Messiah and so understood by the Hebrew Doctors as well as by Christians See learned Ainsworth upon the place And that he was to come according to Jacobs Prophesie at or near the time that the Kings and Governours of Judah ceased to rule is the manifest scope and intent of the Text And although Judah had no King after the Captivity yet her Princes were still known and by Permission some of them bore Rule as appears Ezra 3.8 9. Hag. 1.12 And evident it is the Heirs of the Crown of Judah were well known to the coming of Christ and Christ known to be Heir apparent to the Crown of Judah so well that when he wrought that Miracle of feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fishes John 6.14 15. the people would by force have made him King if he had not by hiding himself avoided it and that was a charge against him at his death that he was King of the Jews but neither Pilate nor the Jews could deny but that so He was his right to the Crown may well be perceived by what his enemies on both parts say in that 18 19 chapters of John but since Christ the World nor the Jews themselves cannot find any Law-giver or Prince that so much as pretended a right to the Kingdom but are so dispersed and broken that they are like to find none till that Prophecy be fulfilled Zech. 12.10 that they look upon him whom they pierced to whom the Peoples that is the Gentiles do gather acknowledge or obey according to this Text and impossible it is that this Text can be fulfilled in any that is yet to come for the House of Judah hath been without a Governour or Law-giver this 1600 years at least and so long ago or longer the Messiah must be come or else this Text must be blotted out of the Book of God and if once Moses's writings come into question then farewel all Religion both among Jews and Gentiles Now as for our Lord Jesus we know that all Prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in him He is a Prophet like to Moses most graciously opening and confirming all the moral Laws and in his own obedience unto the Death fulfilled all the ceremonial Laws and the Laws he hath added in the New Testament are so fully confirmed by many glorious Miracles and are so holy just
this were indeed true we might well give over writing Books about Religion for there could be no possibility of Salvation neither for Jew nor Gentile For if Christ were a sinner his blood could take away no sin and a sinner he must needs be if he broke Sabbath and taught others so to do in a very high degree although the Sabbath had been but ceremonial for there was no shadow of the Law could be neglected the smallest of all the Ceremonies without sin till by Christs Death they were abolished But if William had had so much charity for his Saviour as to have judged him a better expounder of the Law than the Pharisees he had not fallen into this blasphemy Is it not enough for the Pharisees to lay that sin to his charge but you must second it to the hardening of the poor Jews and the destroying of the Faith of the Gentiles as much as in you lieth Therefore if the Sabbath-keepers be ignorant of Christ's Mediation as you tell your Reader they be if they come to you for knowledge they are like to be well helpt up As for your discourse about what is naturally moral and positively moral it is not worth a dispute there is so little between them the one as truly binding the Conscience as the other but for the Sabbath I have some reason to believe that it is naturally moral First There was never any people professing a God but kept one day in seven for his Worship And there is no Precept of the first Table that men do come nearer to ordinarily that have not the express Letter of the Law for their Rule Secondly The time is yet to come that ever I heard or saw any man dispute or write or preach against the Sabbath but he at that very time and in that very work asserted some thing that did plainly manifest that it was fairely written in his heart or else run himself upon this Rock that he shamefully broke the fifth Commandment to dispute down the fourth as I could give instance if need were But answer The first is Wherefore I am so sharp in my Answer to W. Russel To this I say I am taught of Solomon so to do in such a case as this Prov. 26.3 4.5 2. I was in fear he would greatly dishonour the Gospel when he was going to print and desired to see his Copy and to reason with him first but he would not and 't is just to lash him that is past Counsel The second Question I expect is Wherefore I do not as well answer Mr. Ives as he To this I say For his Book Mr. Braborn hath answered it but for his dispute I have in part and shall in a few words more give some little account of it the naming whereof is answer enough When he began he denied the Seventh-day-Sabbath upon this account That it was never given to the Gentiles neither by the Law of Nature nor by the Law of Moses nor yet by the Law of Christ and his whole discourse was to this effect so that the Appendix of his dispute is in those words which to answer is enough and truly the answer to them is needless if we lived in an Age where Wisdom is to be found For what man of any reasonable understanding but must needs see that this Arrow is shot at the heart of the Scriptures as well as the Sabbath the whole Old Testament being as well denied to be a Rule of Life to the Gentiles as the fourth Commandment for all men know that as many as ever the Old Testament was given to the Sabbath was given to and he all along throughout the whole dispute made it his business to deny the Sabbath was ever given to any People or the observation thereof required at their hands save the Stock of Israel and those that Proselyted themselves and came and lived in the Confines of Palestina and it was no slip of the tongue nor an Arrow shot at a venture but his mind and intention to exclude all the Scriptures that ever were written to the Jews from being any Law or Rule of Life to us Gentiles is manifest in that he denied the Gospel of Matthew the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James only for that reason because they were written to the Jews and so concerned not us Gentiles And his exception against the Sabbath was not that which is common to some others namely that it was of a differing nature from the other nine but because it was Moses's Law and therefore never given to the Gentiles I need give no answer to this having said enough to this point before in the former part of my Book neither when I began to write did I intend to meddle with disputes but did think this Errour so sordid that it would die of it self and I had no pleasure to give it a resurrection but finding the contrary that it is as a spreading Leproâ—â— spanâ— there be yet some no wiser than to build upon this man as an Orâ—â—â—â— therefore I have given thee good Reader a true account of that Dispute so much magnified Now for to follow these men with any further reply than barely to discover their Errours I cannot see it reasonably to be expected until first themselves have declared what Books or parts of Books of the New Testament they do own as a Rule of Life to bind the Consciences of believing Gentiles that we may know by what Texts of holy Scripture the controversy shall be decided for if we should prove the Sabbath a duty from Matthew the Acts or James and they or any of them that deny the ten Commandments should answer These Books were given to the Jews and concern not the Gentiles all our labour is lost but when you have called a Council and agreed this among your selves then shall you have a fuller Answer if it be needful and required if I live to see it THE END