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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78514	The seventh-day Sabbath· Or a brief tract on the IV. Commandment. Wherein is discovered the cause of all our controversies about the Sabbath-day, and the meanes of reconciling them. More particularly is shewed 1. That the seventh day from the creation, which was the day of Gods rest, was not the seventh day which God in this law commanded his people to keep holy; neither was it such a kinde of day as was the Jewes Sabbath-day. 2. That the seventh day in this law commanded to be kept holy, is the seventh day of the week, viz. the day following the six dayes of labour with all people. 3. That Sunday is with Christians as truly the Sabbath-day, as was Saterday with the Jewes. / By Thomas Chafie parson of Nutshelling.	Chafie, Thomas.	1652 (1652)	Wing C1791; Thomason E670_3; ESTC R207035	89,318	121

afterward was held and maintained by the ancient Fathers that the earth was not round but plain as a Championfield 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 Witnesse 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 earth 's 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 concernes the point in hand Mr. Ironside a Reverend Divine and of singular gifts and parts but over-swayed by the stream of late times doth in his book called the Seven Questions of the Sabbath dedicated to the late Arch-bishop of Canterbury William 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 unlesse the very day and the whole day be kept to a Minute all the duties done on that day are lost His words are these It is necessary to inquire of the dimensions of this day of what duration and continuance of time it must be a 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 unlesse 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 b Page 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 employments another they many times wound their consciences and rob themselves of that Peace which otherwise they might enjoy c Page 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 work 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 d Page 21. Vnlesse we rest that very seventh day in which God rested we no more resemble his rest then a man that hath a ladder resembles Jacob that had a vision of a ladder c 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 inferiour sort of people he before spake of may by looking in his Almanack tell to a minute if Mr. Ironsides rule faile him not at any time throughout all the year and in any place through out the world when the 4th 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 Sunne as all confesse sure it is that until 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 a I rons 7. Qu pag c 123. 3ly he tels us that the Jews Sabbath-day was the day of Gods rest and the same with that which God blessed 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 b Page 70. Whereas he saith the same with the 7th he meaneth by the 7th the 7th 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 4th day did Now whereas some may and that not without just cause doubt how the day of Gods rest which began at Sun-rising as he saith and the Jews Sabbath which ever began at the setting of the Sun whersoever 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 farre as the Sun-rising is distant from Sun-setting between both which there must be half a dayes 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 calleth it may more truly be called the day of Gods rest a Heyl. part 1. pag. 48. then 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

and Assyria under the Assyrian Monarchy in the time the planets were held the gods of the world so counted the week and called every week-day by the name of the same planet as now generally we do They who shall be alive in America three hundred yeares hence and see there so many Nations of different tongues and all to have just seven dayes to the week and all to have Sunday for their seventh sacred day and call every of their other week-dayes alike will they not say or conceive that this could never have so happened had not their Ancestors in Europe observed weeks and had just so many dayes to the week and call every day of the week by the same names before ever they removed thence and were dispersed into so many and various plantations in America The like may we well conceive of the ancient Saxons Romanes Egyptians and other ancient Nations that it could never so have happened that every of them should have weeks and just seven dayes to the week and every week-day to be called by the name of the same planet with them all had not their Ancestors under the Assyrian Monarchs who first set up the idolatry of worshipping the planets observed seven dayes to the week and called the week-dayes by the same names of the planets before they came to be planted abroad in several Nations Secondly Adam at first had no other measure to mete out his age and time but dayes and weeks These he had from the Lords standard who having wrought six dayes and rested the seventh did sanctifie the seventh day Adam knew all ereatures at the first sight of them and gave 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 dayes 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 patterne and standard of the Lord he might mete out time by weeks before he could have any experimental knowledge of moneths and years which were afterward in time gotten by observation of the course of the Sun and Moon And we finde that in ancient times there was much difference and variation in the count of yeares and moneths with people Some had but three moneths some ten the Jewes had sometimes twelve and sometimes thirteen moneths to the yeare Their moneths did also much differ for length but never was the week counted to be more or lesse then seven dayes 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 Chrys Homil 10. in Gen. Aug. Steuchius on Gen. 2. 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 kept 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 f Ioseph Cont. App. l. 2. Fourthly from the testimony of ancient heathen Poets such as Homer Hesiod Gallimachus Liuus who have spoken very laudably of the Creation and of the seventh day g Clem. Alexan. Strom. l. 5. This knowledge of the Creation and of the seventh day and consequently of the count of dayes by sevens or weeks they could not have but by tradition or from the Books of Moses From the Books of Moses doubtlesse they had it not for they were not extant in the Greek tongue untill Prolomie prevailed to get seventy two Seniors of the Jewes to turn them into Greek which was many hundreds of yeares after Homer While-as the Kingdomes of Israel and Judah flourished the Gentiles could never get the least parcel of sacred Scripture The Jewes counted it to be an high prophanation of the Books of Moses if they were any wayes 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 Jewes Saterday-Sabbath which they spake so laudably of but they knew that to be an holy day with them no ancienter then Moses Septimum diem more Gentis Sabbatum appellatum in omne oevum jejunio sacravit Moses The seventh day with that Nation called the Sabbath Moses made a perpetual Holy day saith Trogus 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 questionlesse he had some general knowledge by tradition of most things he wrote of as they were delivered from father to son unto his dayes It would have been a very wilde 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 thereof was intailed to the heires male or to some persons in a lineal descent from Noah to Abraham and