have kept the Sabbath on Sunday as on the Saturday St. Pauls practice taught Christians then that difference of days was taken away Unto the Jews saith he I became as a Jew 1 Cor. 9.20 When he was with the Jews he kept the Saturday-Sabbath as the Jews did Acts 17.2 and 18.4 and 13 14.42 But when he was with the Gentiles that were turned unto Christ and imbraced the Gospel he observed and kept the same seventh Sacred day they did which with them was called the day of the Sun on which day they usually met together 1 Cor. 16.2 Acts 20.7 There arose no small difference between the converted Jews and the converted Gentiles hereabout The Jews esteeming the Saturday to be more Holy than the Sunday condemned the Gentiles for Prophaners of the Sabbath because they observed not the Saturday and for that they kept the day of the Sun the Jews held them to be Worshippers of the Sun as other Gentiles were The Gentiles on the other side upbraided the Jews as superstitious for their observing their set Holy-days whereof their Saturday-Sabbath from evening to evening was one which were abolished This upbraiding and condemning one another in things indifferent St. Paul speaketh against and writeth to the contrary in his Epistle to the Romans Rom. 14.5 and to the Colossians Col. 2.16 The Jews were no more bound thenceforth by the Law of God to keep their Sabbath on the Saturday than on the Sunday The Sabbath-day by the Lord Commanded to them and to all in this Law being not this or that day but the seventh relating to the six days of our labour before-going is the seventh day of the week with all People Now that it may the better appear what the seventh day of the week is and that Sunday is the seventh day of the week with us and generally with all Christians I will shew 1. What some have held to be a week in chap. 11. 2. What a week and what the week is and what the seventh day of the week is in chap. 12. 3. The Antiquity of weeks in chap. 13. 4. What hath been chiefly objected against the Antiquity of weeks in chap. 14. 5. That Sunday was the seventh day Sacred with the Gentiles in chap. 15. 6. Why the Gentiles after their Conversion continued Sunday to be their standing day of the week for Gods Worship though it had been before Idolatrously abused to the Worship of the Sun in chap 16. CHAP. XI The Opinion of some concerning weeks How it 's hatched from the Earths supposed plainness IT hath been the general Opinion not only of the Vulgar but of the Learned also that the seventh day commanded us in this Law hath relation only to the six work-days of the Lord God and not to the six work-days with men as if the meaning of these words of the Commandment Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy VVork but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord thy God so it is in the Hebrew should be thus The six days in which I wroutgh when I Created all things shall be thy six work-days in them thou shalt do all thy VVork but the seventh day wherein I rested thou shalt rest and do none of thy VVorks on any part of that day but shalt keep that day Holy it is the day of my Rest From hence they will have a week to be none other with any People but seven such days whereof the six former days be the same with the first six days of the Creation and the seventh be the same with the day of Gods Rest Weeks in use with the Jews they held to be such the first six days of their week to be the same with the six days on which God wrought and their seventh day which was from Friday at the setting of the Sun to Saturdays Sun-setting to be the very day of Gods Rest Though Sunday be the day following the six days of labour with us and on which we rest from our labour having wrought six days before yet we do not rest on the seventh day as they say according to Gods example but on the first day from Sunday to Sunday they will not have to be a week but from Saturday to Saturday only And from hence do they who deny the Morality of the seventh-day-Sabbath teach and write that the boundary or seventh day of the week must be the day of Gods Rest and that the day of Gods Rest was the very day which God Blessed and Sanctified and in this Law commanded to be kept holy and that the Jews Sabbath only was the seventh-day Sabbath which in this Law is commanded to be observed Holy and that the Jews Sabbath-day being Ceremonial and abolished by the coming of the Messias the seventh-day-Sabbath in this Law expresly commanded to be Sanctified is abolished also and not to be observed by Christians and that sith no other set day is instituted in stead thereof by any Divine Authority it resteth in the bosom of the Church or Magistrates to appoint what day they please for Gods publick Worship Though all and every of these be very false yet are they all by these men held to be even as true as their Creed they little considering from how unsound and rotten a root these and every of them have had their first spring and that is from a supposal that the Earth is plain and not round It is an odd but an Old conceit of some Philosophers which afterward was held and maintained by the Antient Fathers that the Earth was not roâ—nd but plain as a Champaign-field They thought there could be no dwellers under the earth which go foot to foot against us and that if there should be any Antipodes imagined yet them not to be Adams Posterity whom they held to have all dwelt upon the Earth and to have been all drowned except eight persons when Noahs flood covered all the face of the Earth So strong did this Opinion prevail with the said Fathers as that whoever held the contrary was counted near as bad as an Heretick Witness Vigilius whom some call Virgilius who was complained of by Boniface unto Zachary then Pope and was degraded for holding that there were Antipodes and that they had a Sun and Moon to shine unto them as well as to us This story may be seen in Aventine (a) Aven Annal Bar. l. 3. and in Baronius who sought to cover the fact with fig-leaves Now that the Adversaries to the Morality of this Law held all those tenents before-said and that they all sprang from this errour of the Earths supposed plain superficies I will next shew For the clearing whereof I need not cite many of them one may serve for all being approved by them all Neither will I tell here all that he Writes hereabout but that which chiefly concerns the point in hand Mr. Ironside a Reverend Divine and of singular gifts and Parts but overswayed by the stream of late times
of them and gavâ— names to the Creatures suitable to their Natures He knew them to be not Eternal nor a year old and therefore might as well know their Age to a day When the Lord brought Eve unto him he knew her by sight He knew she was not three days nor a day Old He knew that she was made of him and on the same sixth day in which he himself was made and that the Lord on the next day rested from his Works of Creation By this Pattern and Standard of the Lord he might mete out time by weeks before he could have any Experimental knowledge of months and years which were afterward in time gotten by observation of the course of the Sun and Moon And we find that in Antient times there was much difference and variation in the count of years and months with People Some had but three months some ten the Jews had sometimes twelve and sometimes thirteen months to the year Their months did also much differ for length but never was the week counted to be more or less than seven days with any People Thirdly From the Testimony of sundry Learned and Pious Writers Chrysostome thus Jam hinc ab initio doctrinam hanc nobis insinuat Deus erudiens in circulo hebdomadae diem unum integrum segregandum reponendum ad spiritualem operationem (a) Christ Homil 10. in Gen. Aug. Steuchius on Gen. speaking of the seventh day affirmeth it to be in omni aetate inter omnes Gentes venerabilis sacer Beda in his Hexameron testifieth that the rest of the seventh day semper celebrari solebat They who compiled the Book of Homilies tell us That it is according to the Law of Nature to have a time as one day in the week wherein we ought to rest from our Lawful works (b) Hom. for the time of Prayer Mercer commended by Dr. Heylin for a Learned Protestant (c) Heyl. part 1. page 5. is of opinion that the first Fathers being taught of God keep the seventh day Holy Philo Judaeus also maketh this challenge Quis sacrum illum diem per singulas hebdomadas recurrentem non honorat (d) Phil. de vita Mos l. 2. Josephus to the same purpose Neque est ulla Civitas Graecorum aut Barbarorum neque ulla gens ad quam septimi diei in quo vacamus consuetudo minimè pervenerit (e) Jos Cont. App. l. 2. Fourthly From the Testimony of Antient Heathen Poets such as Homer Hesiod Callimachus and Linus who have spoken very Laudably of the Creation of the seventh day (f) Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 5. This knowledge of the Creation and of the seventh day and consequently of the count of days by sevens or weeks they could not have but by Tradition or from the Books of Moses From the Books of Moses doubtless they had it not for they were not Extant in the Greek Tongue until Ptolomie prevailed to get seventy two Seniors of the Jews to turn them into Greek which was many hundred of years after Homer While as the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah flourished the Gentiles could never get the least parcel of Sacred Scripture The Jews counted it to be an high Prophanation of the Books of Moses if they were any ways Communicated to the Heathen John Gregory plentifully sheweth and proveth that before this interpretation was made by the said 72 Seniors the Heathen had no light from the Books of Moses (a) Jo. Greg. discourse of the seventy c. If it should be supposed that the Poets got the knowledge of the seventh day from the Books of Moses then must it be the Jews Satturday-Sabbath which they spake so Laudably of but they knew that to be an Holy day with them no Antienter than Moses Septimum diem more Gentis Sabbatum appellatum in omne aevum jejunio sacravit Moses The seventh day with that Nation called the Sabbath Moses made a perpetual Holy day saith Trogius (a) Jo. Greg. discourse of the seventy c. (b) Trog l. 36. for which supposed Innovation brought in by Moses the Heathen generally envied them and their Poets wrote very disgracefully of them about their Sabbath-day It was not then from Moses but by Tradition that they had the knowledge of the Creation and of the seventh day Fifthly Gomarus who with all his might opposed the Morality of the Sabbath day doth yet acknowledge that Adam Methuselah Sem and Abraham had knowledge of the Creation and of the seventh day (c) Gomar de Sab. p. 113. And why not Moses also and thousands beside them Moses indeed had a full knowledge by Divine Revelation and infallible Inspiration by the Holy Ghost which guided him in the Historical Relation of the Creation of all things and of the day of Gods Rest as well as of other things related in his Books yet questionless he had some general knowledge by Tradition of most things he wrote of as they were delivered from Father to Son unto his days It would have been a very wild conceit of Gomarus to think when he wrote that the knowledge of the Creation and of the seventh day came from Adam to Methuselah and from him to Sem and from Sem to Abraham that the knowledge there of was intailed to the Heirs Male or to some Persons in a lineal descent from Noah to Abraham and not to others also Incredible is it that Noah should teach the knowledge thereof to Sem only and not to Cham and Japhet too and that Sem should reveal the same to Arphaxad only keeping it as a secret from all other his Sons and Daughters and that Arphaxad should do the like unto Sala and he to Hâ—ber and he to Peleg and he to Reu and he to Serug and he to Nahor and he to Terah and he to Abraham and that none of them should impart that knowledge to any other of their Sons and Daughters and that the remembrance as well of the seventh day as of the Creation was wholly extinct with Abraham Without all peradventure Cham and Japhet and their Posterities had and retained the knowledge thereof for many generations some of them to the days of the before-named Poets and long after too Orpheus Eschylus Aratus Pindarus Epicharmus and others mentioned by Clemens could else never have spoken so truly of Jehovah whom they called Jove as he relateth them to have done d Sixthly (a) Clem. Alex Strom. l. 5. From the Testimony of those who have been the chief Writers against the Sabbath 1. Mr. Ironside professeth that he maketh no question but that the Heathen who never heard of a seventh-day Sabbath have weeks as well as months and years (a) Irons ch 4. But he thinks they had the knowledge hereof by the subdivision of months as if knowing most of our months to consist of one and thirty days by subdividing them there must be just seven rather than eight days to
doth in his book called the Seven Questions of the Sabbath Dedicated to the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury VVilliam Laud tell us First That it is necessary not only for the Learned but also for the weak and inferiour sort of People to know to a minute when the Lords-day or Sabbath doth begin and when it doth end and that for two special reasons The one is for the Peace and quiet of their Consciences which else would be wounded and disquieted The other is for that unless the very day and the whole day be kept to a minute all the duties done on that day are lost His words words are these It is necessary to inquire of the dimensions of this day of what duration and continuance of time it must be (b) Irens 7. Quest pag. 2. Amongst those things which disquiet and perplex the Consciences of the weak concerning the Lords day this is not the least where it is to begin and how long it lasteth For God requiring of us perfect and intire obedience without diminution or defalcation unless every minute of time which the Lord requireth of us as his tribute and homage be duly tendred to him our whole labour bestowed upon the parts and pieces of the day is not regarded (a) Pag. 126. It is also that which concerns the most sort of our inferiour People to be satisfied in lest the Commandment requiring one thing their imployments another they many times wound their Consciences and rob themselves of that Peace which otherwise they might enjoy (b) Pag. 127. 2ly That God might have his due tribute and the weak if they will may keep their Consciences quiet in observing the true and full time of the Sabbath he setteth down the precise day of the Sabbath as he conceiveth and the exact time to a minute when the Sabbath-day is to begin As for the day he tells us that the Sabbath-day must be precisely the day of Gods Rest Thus Assoon as God had ended his VVork he ordained and appointed that the seventh day the day of his own Rest else he will not conceive that it can be the seventh day should be that on which the Church should rest (c) Page 21. Unless we rest that very seventh day in which God Rested we no more resemble his Rest than a man that hath a Ladder resembles Jacob that had a Vision of a Ladder (d) Page 90. As for the exact time when the Sabbath is to begin and end he tells us that the very minute in which the Sun is in the Horizon at his rising is the true beginning of the day and he proveth that it must so be for that when the fourth day at the Creation began the Sun was then in the Horizon at his rising so that any of the inferior sort of People he before spake of may by looking in his Almanack tell to a minute if Mr. Ironsides rule fail him not at any time throughout all the year and in any place throughout the World when the fourth day of the Creation and the very day of Gods Rest and so consequently when the Sabbath beginneth These are his words If the natural day be measured by the Revolution of the Sun as all confess sure it is that untill the Sun begin his course the day cannot begin At what time now did the Sun set forth upon the fourth day at the Creation Common reason will say when he first appeared in the Horizon The rising therefore of the Sun in the Horizon must needs be the first Period of the Natural day (e) Irons 7. Quest page 12. 3. 3ly He tells us that the Jews Sabbath-day was the day of Gods Rest and the same with that which God blessed and sanctified making no difference between all these three His words are these That particular Sabbath-day given unto the Jews even the day of Gods Rest is not a Sabbath but the Sabbath even that which God sanctifyed The Sabbath must be the same with the seventh or else there is no tolerable sense or congruity in that Law (f) Page 70. Whereas he saith the same with the seventh he meaneth by the seventh the seventh day from the Creation even the very day of Gods Rest which he proved to begin at the rising of the Sun like as the fourth day did Now whereas some may and that not without just cause doubt how the day of Gods Rest which began at Sunrising as he saith and the Jews Sabbath which ever began at the setting of the Sun wheresoever they dwelt could be one and the same day Sith that they as well in respect of their beginnings as also in respect of their endings are Heavenly wide the one from the other even as far as the Sun-rising is distant from Sun-setting between both which there must be half a days difference And so the day of Gods Rest must begin either at Sun-rising before the Jews Sabbath day began or at the Sun-rising after If at the Sun-rising before that is on the Friday morning then the Turks Sabbath so Doctor Heylin (a) Heyl. part 1. page 48. calleth it may more truly be called the day of Gods Rest than that of the Jews But if at the Sun-rising after then our Christian Sabbath-day ever began on the day of Gods Rest the which the Jews Sabbath never did For the wiping off this and all such doubts Mr. Ironside tells us both at what time and also by what means the day of Gods Rest and the Jews Sabbath was made to be one and the same day which were always two before His words are VVhen God Commanded the Jews their Sabbaths from evening ot evening the order of the Natural day was inverted by him not so much looking to the number of four and twenty hours as to the time of Israels deliverance out of Egypt which began when the Passover was eaten at Even (b) Iron p. 138. c. His meaning in these his Words may be conceived to be this When God Commanded the Jews after their coming out of Egypt to keep their Sabbath on the Saturday and to begin the same at the Sun-setting of the day before-going that is on Friday at the setting of the Sun God miraculously at an instant turned the East into the West and so the place of Sun-rising came unto the place of Sun-setting so close as they kissed each other as he saith the end of one contiguum is the beginning of the other (c) Iron p. 138. If such should not be his meaning it is not to be conceived how he should make Sun-rising and Sun-setting or the day of Gods Rest which he saith began at Sun-rising and the Jews Sabbath which began at Sun-setting to be one and the same Fourthly and lastly He tells us that the observation of the Sabbath is abrogated this error is strong with him because the Jews Sabbath-day is abrogated he thinking no difference to be made between the Jews Sabbath-day and