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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	day_n	lord_n	sabbath_n	2,881	5	9.6080	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96264	A sermon touching the divine right and due observation of the Lords day Preached before the Lord Deputy, and the Lords Spiritual & Temporal of the kingdom of Ireland; in time of Parliament. At Christ-Church Dublin. On Sunday the 6th. of October, 1695. With a preface humbly address'd to the whole body of English Protestants: especially those inhabiting the kingdom of Ireland. By Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1697 (1697)	Wing W1520A; ESTC R229732	26,838	68

its weekly course as is most probable upon Apostolical Orders for it was a continued or reinforced practical Divine Institution of the same Divine I said For none will doubt whatever Orders proceeded from the Apostles as Planters of Christianity in the World were of the same authority as if they had come immediately from Christ who sent them As to the practice of the Church At Troas St Paul passing to Jerusalem upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread preached to them Acts xx 7. St. Pau'ls preaching at that time might be as to that Church casual enough but it appears to have been the stated and usual course the Dies Natus for the Churches meeting together to break Bread Besides this solemn and continued practice we have the footsteps of the Apostolical mandate it self 1 Cor. xvi 1. 2. Now concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia even so do yee upon the first day of the Week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gathering when I come The Churches of Galatia were of a great extent He had given orders in those Churches and now gives orders also in Corinth for Lords day-alms The private laying aside at home if we will interpret it consonantly to what we are assured to have seen from the begining the usual practice was only in order to the depositing all in the Assembly with the Chief Minister of the Church called in Justin Martyrs days the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bishop For if this had not been design'd the end he mentions would not have been obtained There would have needed still a Gathering of all when he came But at the celebration of the Eucharist styled in those days Breaking of Bread the Deacons collected what each person offered and delivered it to the trust of the Bishop as we read more at large in the Antients This collection therefore proves a Communion that day and the Apostles order being plain for what was Accessary must be acknowledged for the Principal Now if the Apostle gave order for the Communion and Collection thereat on the Lords day no doubt he gave orders for the Assemblies thereon at which the one was to be celebrated and the other made And then if we admit that the Doctrine and Tradition of all the Apostles was one and the same as the Ancients affirm and I know not on what good reasons any can deny it will follow that it was an Apostolical Order that the Lords day should be the day of publick Christan Assemblies Sect. 14 In this assertion of the sacredness of the Lords Day partly from the The Antient Fathers are Unanimous herein Institution of Christ and afterwards by the Order of the Apostles the Antient Fathers are unanimous Above all others memorable is that large Text of St. Ignatius an early Martyr of Christ who himself avows as his Text is commonly rendred that he saw our Lord Jesus in the flesh after his Resurrection and who was ordained Bishop of Antioch by the imposition of the hands of St. Peter himself truely therefore St. Peters Successor and an Apostolical Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Let us therefore no longer Jewishly keep the Sabbath that is neither on the day nor in the manner the Jews do which manner he there exposeth But let each of us spiritually keep the Sabbath rejoycing in meditations on the Law of God admiring the works of his hand Let every one that loves Christ keep the Lords Day the Queen of days on which our life rose and victory over death was gotten with more Elogies of it there to be seen Now here the Jewish Sabbaths and Sabatising are expresly required to be laid aside and a Spiritual Rest and the Lords Day injoyned instead thereof But St. Athanasius in his Homily De Semente goes farther and teaches us the Lord of the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. translated the Sabbath Day to the Lords Day And further The Apostles Apostolical Men did ordain namely by our Lords appointment as in other cases that the Lords Day should be kept with Religious Solemnity saith St. Austin And much more on the same purpose have others which I must wave Sunday then does not stand on the same foot with other Church Holy days It is more sacred truly of Divine Right the Lords Day or a Christian Sabbath Sect. 15 Now as to the true Christian way of keeping it I was saith St. John How the Lords day is to be kept in the Spirit on the Lords day Time will not permit me to present the various glosses on this phrase To shorten all I will readily acknowledg we now adays cannot be in the spirit any Lords day as St. John was on this in the Text. He was in a prophetick extasy But that which in all likelyhood led him into this exalted temper and which in our state of things bears analogy thereto may be and ought to be our entertainment each Lords Day St. John was now in Patmos a small Island in the Archipelago between Crete and Asia minor banisht thither by Domitian for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ Here was no assembly of Christians for him to joyn with But the Lords Day coming upon him in course we cannot well but conceive him taken up in this his Solitude with Prayer Praise and Contemplations suitable to the day and in these being transported to have had his Soul wholly possest by the Holy Spirit and to have received from our Lord all those Revelations which in this book he Records And thus past that whole day at least far the greatest part of it with the beloved Disciple For in one day as is conceived by very learned Interpreters had he all those apocalyptick visions They who cannot ascend into heaven may yet go up to the mountain We are not in the present state to expect Visions and Revelations each Lords Day St. John himself had them not that we know of but while in Patmos and when God made his Church amends as I may say for the want of his common Ministry by extraordinary Revelations which were to convince the World and all the Powers of Hell that their malice could not suppress the Gospel but only make it shine another way clearer and farther and that however Tyrants might drive the messengers of those glad tydings into desolate corners so as some Assemblies might for a season want their living voice yet should they not be able to hinder but the whole World should ring of their testimony wherever they were and thereby know in what methods and disguises the Grand Master of all the Tyrants on earth the Devil has and shall in the several ages of Mankind set them on work to the end of all things so that I say St. Johns being thus in the Spirit was not common

even to himself Waving then what was extraordinary Let us attend to what is ordinary and ought to be constant We may and ought on the Lords Day to be 1 in Spiritual Exercises and 2 in a Spiritual temper for attending them Sect. 16 Spiritual Exercises I call the offices of Worship or ordinary duties Of Spiritual Exercises on the Lords Day of Devotion on the Lords Day and those are either Publick Private or Secret which cannot commonly be omitted without sin Publick duties are those which are performed in Church Assemblies And they are chiefly four in their Scripture Names Praying Singing Doctrine and Breaking of Bread There is no reason to surmise from what we have extant in the Acts and in the first Epistle to the Corinthians that any Lords Day in the Primitive Church passed without each of these in their Solemnity What amongst us is most neglected give me leave to touch upon Of which sort is constant communicating The Christian Church while it continued in any tolerable purity never spent a Lords Day without the Lords Supper on which of old it was more Scandalous for any Christians to turn their backs than it is now for Men amongst us to live Excommunicate this I could easily prove at large but must forbear And that our own Church esteems the Lords day but half celebrated without the Communion appears by her having provided a Communion Service for every Lords Day in the Year The Communion as we have heard was ever attended with a Collection for the Poor now called Oblations Never Eucharist without Offertory And this we have seen to be as ancient as St. Pauls planting the Gospel Doctrine was subdivided into Prophesying or Interpreting of Scripture which we now call Preaching into Reading Exhortation Teaching and perhaps otherwise Now the word commonly used for teaching is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Catechise This Office was of so great note in the Primitive Church that it was committed to some choice Person appointed purposely thereto but him commonly most learned And by Catechising I do not mean meer hearing young People repeat the words of their Catechism but expounding to them the Doctrine of it Examining them upon such Expositions and by all the several plainest ways possible inculcating these Doctrines till they understand them And for gaining reverence to this Office as well as for other reasons which I will not name Elder people ought to fit by In a word all forrein Churches outdo us herein And if we take not more care than yet usual amongst us as to this work we shall without a miracle in the next age go very neer to loose our Religion Private Duties I call those which are performed in private Families Parents Children Sojourners Servants joyning in Prayer and Praises to God and in reading his Word and other good Books as conveniency offers Secret Duties are such as every Christian should perform by themselves in the Closet or Retirements Such are Meditation self Examination Recollection of our improvements and in the close Prayer and Thanksgiving as occasion requires Section XVII Those who demand Proof for these being duties of the day will give me leave to ask them whether Proof for these Duties such practices in the Family or in the Closet be necessary and duties on any day If they be so there is no sufficient reason for their omission on the Lords day when by Law of God and Man there is most leisure for them Besides they will be pleased to consult Numbers xxviii 9 10. where they will find the peculiar sacrifice for the Sabbath both Morning and Evening was required of the Jews over and above the continual daily Burnt offering the like too upon the New Moons ver 24. and on other Festivals ver ult That which I infer from hence is that the publick Lords Days Worship and other Festival Offices must not supercede or abate our ordinary Private or Secret Devotions on those Dayes These are to be faithfully superaded to them Section XVIII This haply some will cry out is Fanaticism Puritanism Sabbatarianism and the like A Vindication of this Practice from ill imputations I answer there may be a Fanatical and perhaps a Pharisaical way too of doing these duties but the practice of the duties it self is not Fanatical or Pharisaical and much less is it Sabbatarianism We must make Fanaticks and Sabbatarians of the most Ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church and the most learned Doctors and Pillars of our own Church if we can find either Fanaticisme or Sabbatarianisme in spending the whole Lords day in a succession or holy exchange of such Duties as these mentioned Justin Martyr was no Fanatick nor Sabbatarian yet in his second Apology he tells us the Christians of that age which was but one hundred and forty Years from Christ used to repeat at home what they had learned that day in the Publick Assembly Origen and St. Chrysostome were no Fanaticks nor yet Sabbatarians yet both nay the later more than once press the spending 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. This whole day in the exercise of Spirituals And to wave others of the Ancients and come neerer home I scarce think any Son of the present Church will adventure to brand the Reformation in King Edward the Sixths days with Fanaticisim or Sabbatarianism yet under that I find a Canon acknowledged for spending the Lords Day in private Prayer and Thanksgiving acknowledging our Offences reconciling our selves to our Brethren visiting the Sick comforting the Afflicted relieving the Poor and instructing Children and Servants in the nurture and fear of the Lord. But to be sure the Authors of the Book of Homilies we must not say were either Fanaticks or Sabbatarians For the Homilies we are bound still to subscribe and approve at least if not publickly to read yet they teach that on this day people shauld cease from all common and bodily labour and give themselves Wholly note that word to the exercises of Gods true Religion Arch Bishop Whitgift against the Admonitioners was no Fanatick Puritan or Sabbatarian yet saith he no man doubteth the meaning of these words Six days shalt thou labour c. to be this that seing God hath permitted us Six days to do our own works in we ought in the Seventh Wholly to serve him Bishop Francis White in his Book against the Sabbatarians was neither Fanatick nor Sabbatarian yet he tells us our Church requires that upon the Lords day Parents and Masters instruct their Children and Servants in the fear and nurture of the Lord. Mr. Hooker was neither Fanatick nor Sabbatarian yet he teaches we are to account the Sanctification of one Whole day in the week a Duty which Gods immutable Law doth enact for ever Finally I believe no sober man will say that Excellent Book The Whole duty of man savours either of Fanaticism or Sabbatarianism yet Partit 2. Sect. 17. The Author teaches all in their Families the practice I have perswaded

best part of my books having been strangers to my Eyes now above seven years for which reason I have forborn to cite parricularly most of the Authorities I have alledged as I pass along But if need be I promise sacredly particular citations in a new Edition when God shall restore my books to me I alledge what I do now mostly out of Excerpta taken many years ago by my self but not with connexions and references so particular as I can fully trust to But to Return That which makes many persons of sound and good Judgment shy of this name Sabbath under Christianity is I conceive for that they who use it most seem under this style to endeavour the introducing a Judaical Yoke and entiteling the Lords day to all the Sabbatical strictnesses or severities of the bodily Rest imposed on the old people by the letter of the fourth Commandment and the Precepts appendant to it in the Law As to Duration of time they would oblige all Christian people to a Natural day of twenty four hours from Even to Even or from twelve of the Clock Midnight to twelve of the Clock Midnight in all which space they would bear us in hand nothing is to be done which was not lawful for the Jews to have done on their Sabbath Nay indeed as to the strictness of the Rest diverse Liberties allowed because not forbidden the Jews are by these teachers upon the pretence of a Sabbath Spiritual as well as Corporal said to be forbidden Christian people even by the letter of the fourth Commandment And thus intolerable burthens and inextricable snares the particulars of which would require a volume to set down are prepared for us As to all which I conceive if People would duely heed no more need to be said for the disentangling Conscience from the scruples these men have injected than that truely Apostolical Canon Acts xv It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay no greater burden upon you than these necessary things That ye abstain from meats offered to Idols and from bloud and from things strangled and from fornication Amongst which necessary things there is no Syllable importing any of the Sabbatical Rites Nor can it be said the Reason of such silence was the sense the world had of the immutable Obligation of the fourth Command for the Obligation of the sixth and seventh Commandments must be acknowledged as immutable yet is there mention here of Fornication and of Blood in the very Conciliary Decree I do conclude therefore as well from hence as from Colloss ii urged in the discourse that all the Ceremonial part of the fourth Command with the appendant Laws are truely ceased nailed to the Cross of Christ and by it taken away which is amply sufficient for the setting Conscience at liberty But I must together conclude that the Natural and Spiritual part of that Commandment are no whit at all infringed The natural part was and is nothing but immutable and Eternal Equity That God should have a due proportion of our time And that not so much privately by secret Devotion of our own though that be necessary also as by a publick separating it or cutting it off from Common Employments to publick sacred Offices Thus much of a Sabbath I insist on to be perpetually and naturally Moral from Paradise in Eden to Paradise in a better World And as to the Spiritual part of the Command that certainly is so far from being abated by the Gospel-Oeconomy that it is rather set higher There is none deny the Christian is bound to the Spiritual Rest onely some tell us and that not without Reason that this is our Duty for our whole life and not for one day in the week onely I embrace with all my heart this Doctrine of Christian peoples being obliged to endeavour their whole life may be a Spiritual Sabbath a Rest from Sin Carnality Voluptuousness c. And I onely desire we may hold to it Let all those therefore who hold this Doctrine pardon me if I adventure according to their Concessions Minus aequo petere ut aequum feram to intreat them and all Christian People but to keep the Lords day as such a Spiritual Rest In plain terms I would desire no more towards the keeping Holy the Lords day than that the Christians of the present Age would in private keep the Lords day as perfectly a Spiritual Sabbath as the Primitive Christians did every day in the week onely with this Addition That what publick Offices the Primitive Christians observed constantly on each Lords day may also be observed thereon by us at present and what Liberties they forbore always may be forborn on this day The point of controversy falls mainly on private or Family-duties These some men cannot endure that all Christian People should be obliged to And for the shifting off the necessity of these and setting the ordinary people free to Games and Sports on the Lords Day-afternoon diverse Laborious and some truely not unlearned Books have been written Wherein I must confess I cannot but wonder to see Protestant Doctors hunt for and greedily snap those Nice distinctions in use with the Popish Schools for the defence of the corruptions of their Church and gravely apply them for the decision of Cases of Conscience against their Protestant Brethren I will 〈◊〉 lanch forth into particulars of Controversy but instead thereof pursuant to what I now desired onely lay down two conclusions which I suppose must approve themselves by their own intrinsick Evidence without Controversy to the conscience of all who understand and will consider them 1. None who call themselves Christians may in this Age make such Liberties Sports Games and Recreations as it cannot be proved the Primitive Christians allowed themselves on any days to be their ordinary divertisments on the Lords Day And if so I am sure Cards Dice Tables c. within doors Dancing Pipeing Revells c. without doors must all be laid aside For none can shew the Antient Christians used these any daies On the contrary many Canons of the antient Councils severelly condemn them at all times especially to some Persons And if there should be any of our Clergy who plead for those within-door Games mentioned they will do well to consult the XLII Irish Canon and the Old Injunctions in the Reformation of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth whence most probably the Compilers of our Canons more immediatly took those parts of them and whence I hope they may be satisfied But to proceed I say 2dly In all doubtful cases it is still the best to take the safer side and that which in it self cannot be sinful but is Pious and commendable Now certainly upon the Lords day preparing our selves for our publick Devotions by private Prayer Examination of Conscience and composing our minds to a serious temper and awful apprehensions of God whom we are to worship before we go to Church Recollections in convenient time when we