The Lords day Vinaicated OR The First day of the WEEK THE Christian Sabbath In Answer to Mr. Bampfields Plea for the Seventh day in his Enquiry Whether Jesus Christ be Jehovah and gave the Moral Law And whether the Fourth Command be Repealed or Altered BY G. T. a Well-wisher to Truth and Concord Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him LONDON Printed for Samuel Clement at the White Swan in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. TO THE READER THo' there be many Books already written on this Subject the following Preface will justify the Seasonableness of this Modest and Judicious Reply to Mr. B. especially among serious Professors in the West of England But it cannot be unfit upon other Considerations that such a Discourse be now Publish'd when the Doctrinal Truth in the Controversie of a Weekly Sabbath is opposed by so many and the Practical Sanctification of it neglected by so many more It has been generally observed that the Power of Godliness hath Flourished or Abated in every Age and in every part of Christendom as the strict and consciencious Observation of a Weekly-Day of Holy Rest did obtain or not And particularly in our own Country no outward Means can be assigned that hath more availed to help the Preservation of Pure Reformed Christianity among us On which account it concerns all Christians to enquire what is our Warrant for the Observation of One day in Seven and likewise whether the Seventh or the First day of the Week which according to a true Account may also be called the Seventh ought to be observed as the Christian Sabbath What is said on this Argument in the following Reply to Mr. B. discovers so much the Candor and Moderation of the Author as will recommend it to every Impartial Reader His Distance from London and nothing else occasions or needs this Epistle as will doubtless be thought even by such as have some different Conceptions from him in some lesser Matters of this Controversie That it may advance the Honour of Christ and help to satisfy the Minds of some Wavering and less Established Christians and promote the real Interest of Practical Godliness upon which the Doctrin of the Weekly Sabbath will have a great Influence as it will answer the Authors Design so our Desires and Prayers John Howe John Shower The PREFACE IT may afford cause of Wonder to considering and serious Persons what should be the Inducements of the Author of the Enquiry whether the Lord Jesus c. to Print and divulge it at such a time and under such circumstances as we are brought into And though he hath proposed no Preface to his Book to plead for it's Emission yet I think there has scarce been a Piece sent into the World these many Years that more required and needed it For 1. He well knows that the whole Christian World is engaged against him herein and that they have Sciptural grounds and the practice of the most ancient Churches the Doctrin and Testimonies of the must Orthodox and Learned Fathers derived immediately from the Apostles with an uninterrupted Succession through several Centuries and their own Education Custom and Practice received down from many Generations with their own blessed Experiences of the Light of Gods countenance the operations of his Spirit the activity and growth of their own Graces on that blessed Day c. for their consecrating of the first day of the Week to Divine Service and their Religious and Devout appropriating it to and imploying it in those Duties which immediately concern the Glory of God and the Spiritual and Eternal Weal of their own Souls Which things are not easily overcome and laid aside with as great and Rooted Prejudices against his opinion of the Seventh-day-Sabbath as that 't is Judaical Fanciful and Singular such at least as has had but very few Favourers and Abetters either in the ancient Churches and these branded for Heresie or else in the modern some three or four starting up of late years among our selves daring by Writing and Printing to endeavour the Introduction of this Novelty into the belief and practice of Vniversal Church All which and other Prejudices against this Opinion cannot slightly be eradicated out of the minds of Men and therefore he could hardly imagin any great success to this undertaking unless he could have produced undeniable demonstrations to our Reason or irrefragable Testimonies of Scripture to our Faith Which I hope we shall see he has been far enough from 2. He should also have considered and concluded that these Arguments which have been produced heretofore by those of his perswasion are not likely now to convince and convert the whole Christian World to his thoughts and practice Seeing they have been so often and by so many worthy Learned Orthodox and Pious Divines answered and in the judgment of Wise and gracious Persons fully confuted and satisfactorily baffled to the deeper Rooting and more firm Establishment of the Churches of Christ in their constant Observance of the Lords day Wherefore if he would have effected any thing by this attempt he should have offered some new Inventions of his own that have never yet encountered with any opposition But in all his Book to the best of my Remembrance I have not met with any one place of Scripture nor argument drawn therefrom nor Improvement thereof for his own Sentiments Nor yet any Text of Gods word or Topick against ours no nor any one solution of our Authoritative or Rational proofs for the confirmation of our Contrary Belief and Practice to his which has not been already produced by others and as largely and strenuously managed as by himself and that too in the same manner 'T is no great Prudence in a Combatant to make use of the same Weapons Modes and Arts against his Antagonists which have been frequently Baffled Defeated Broken and retorted into his own Bowels Wherefore 't is strange to me if any Victory over any considerate studious Person could be hoped for by such a casting of the Gantlet 3. But suppose he could have expected to have proselited some to his Opinion as who has not though the Doctrin be never so absurd Heterodox and Impious yet sure it could not be thought a sufficient means to prevail upon all the Churches no nor upon the universality of the National Church of that Collection of so many millions of counterminded Christians and Protestants whereof he is He could not certainly presume that all the Authority of these Nations both Ecclesiastical and Civil would follow his Dictates or receive new Light from his Torch and acknowledg themselves to have been in gross Error and in a sinful Practice ever since and always before the Reformation since they Professed Faith in the Lord Christ And that they should alter all their Acts and Statutes all their Canons and Articles in this particular And herein acknowledg him to be the infallible Apostle
Command is of perpetual Obligation to the Churches therefore the first day must be that day and the Sabbath was excluded that the Lords day might succeed and that the Promises made to the Rest of one day in Seven in the Command are made to and entail'd upon the first day of those Seven now as they were upon the last of them before its Expiration and that a due Observation thereof shall have a gracious Acceptation with a bountiful Remuneration from our God and our Saviour according to all the Blessed Experiences of the strict and consciencious Observers thereof That there is a more express and peremptory Abolition of this Sabbath in the Scriptures of that Apostle than there is or can be found in them for the Cessation of many other particular positive and ceremonial Institutions which yet Christians in general and this Gentleman in particular disregard as dissolved and vanished And I profess if I could see but half so much in the Second Command to prove a Form of Prayer to be the Pesel there forbidden or at least included therein I should utterly deny all Forms as Idolatrous which now I dare not do but in some cases hold them not only lawful but necessary and Praise-worthy or but half so much in any Line or Sentence of the New Testament against the use of the Lords Prayer in the publick Congregation I would never so use it more but to my due power would endeavour its Banishment thence If I say but half so much as I find expressed for the Seventh days Deposal well may we wonder that in such things a Man sees what scarce no Man else ever did in the word of God and yet in this that he should not see what almost every Man else can plainly discover Wherefore I question not but all our Divines and Ministers of Congregations are sufficiently satisfied that they serve God duly as to the Circumstance of time on Lords days and may and do in Faith associate on the Lords day as the only Sacred day of the Week with all other Christians in the Apostles days since our Saviours Resurrection home to this very Generation And I cannot but hope that this piece how specious soever it be and with what confidence soever recommended however back'd with the Pretences of Divine Authority of Jehovah's Will c. with pathetical Inculcations of those in multitudes of its Pages for the Observance of the Seventh day will find but very few if any Proselites among our common Professors and I am confident none among our Wise Stade experienced Christians or if any be in danger of Infection I pray to God that this Reply intended for this end may be an Antidote to secure them Lastly it will be good Advice to this Gentleman who hath caused the Expence of so much time in this Controversie to bethink himself how his Opinion leads us to Judaize and this work of his tends only to divide the Church to stumble the Weak to imploy and please the Silly Fantastical and Giddy in matters of Religion to encourage the Profaners of the first day or rather of the Lords day to scandalize and grieve all and therefore to cease from farther Attempts of this kind And all I desire is that the Reader would impartially compare what he has written for his Seventh day against the Lords day and what I have written for the Lords day against his Seventh day and beg Wisdom and Understanding from God to have a due Insight into and draw a right Conclusion from both FINIS Books Printed for Samuel Clement at the Swan in S. Paul's Church Yard GOD's Revenge against Murther and Adultery expressed in Thirty several Tragical Histories Wherein are lively delineated the Various Stratagems subtle Practices and deluding Oratory used by our Modern Gallants in order to the seducing young Ladies to their unlawful Pleasures To which are annexed the Triumphs of Friendship and Chastity in some Heroical Examples and Delightful Histories The whole illnstrated with about fifty Elegant Epistles relating to Love and Gallantry By Thomas Wright M. A. of S. Peter's Colledge in Cambridge A Compleat History of the Late Revolution from the first Rise of it to this present Time in Three Parts The English Grammar setting forth the Grounds of the English Tongue and particularly its Genius in making Compounds and Derivatives with many other Useful and curious Observations Wherein are also explained the usual Abbreviations the several hands used in Writing and Characters in Printing the Variety of Styles the Art of true Pointing and the Way to understand Books With a Prefatory Discourse about the Original and Excellency of the English Tongue and at the end an Alphabetick Collection of the Monosyllables being a Treatise of Orthography for Writers and of Rhymes for Poets A Necessary Work in general for all sorts of Persons desirous to understand the Ground and Genius of the English and very proper to prepare Young Men for the Latin Tongue By Guy Miege Gent. Cerevisiarii Comes Or the New and True Art of Brewing Illustrated by various Examples in making Beer Ale and other Liquors so that they may be most Durable Brisk and Fragrant and how they may be so ordered as to yield the greatest Quantity of Spirits in Distillation To which is added the right way to refine and bottle Beer and Cyder and a Cure for those that are Sick and Ropy so as to return them to their internal Sanity as also the true Method of manuring Lands and the Art of making Salt-Water fresh All proved by Demonstration and Sound Philosophy to be more agreeable to Man's Body than otherwise and so not only sit for English Constitutions but also for Transportation Published for the fake of Variety and therefore recommend to all that esteem demonstrated Truths before Notional Theory By W. Y. worth Medicin-Professor
or at least the only happy Doctor of this great part of the Christian World no nor of the greatest or any considerable part thereof but only of a few here and there of unsetled Scruplous Superstitious minds No person could have a Rational and probable Prospect of a greater Return from such an Adventure or Crop from such a sowing And so wisely have judged that all his expectations would never quit his cost nor be worth his Risk Especially considering that 4. He should deeply have weighed the sad and sinful Consequences and scandalous Effects that his appearance in Print has a direct tendency to produce Though I trust such a tendency will be obstructed and frustrated by the good Spirit of God and by the Wise and setled Principles of our people The Natural Tendencies are such as these 1. An encouragement to the Profaners and deniers of the Lords-Day in their Principles and Practices They who have no Inclination to separate any Day as Holy to the Holy God in a performance of Holy Duties will take advantages from hence to decry the strict observance of the Lords-day and to fortifie themselves in their Idleness Recreations Worldliness and sinfulness thereon and withall slight and deride the Seventh-day-Sabbath as Judaical Fanatical and Singular and so being taken off from the First-day-Sabbath they will acknowledg none but give that and all the following days of the Week to their Interests and to their Lusts to Earth and to Hell And we have heard that this Book has already produced this fearful effect in our City 2. An Offence and Stumbling-Block to sincere and affectionate Saints who have their Hearts established in Grace and their Heads in the grand Fundamentals of Faith and Practice but are not acquainted with disputations about such remote things as these and therefore having very tender Consciences and dreading to offend God and to approach unto any moral evil hearing of such a piece as this from such an Author so known to some of them will be apt to be startled and excessively troubled with Fear lest they have hitherto lived in Sin and provoked God all their days by a Holy resting upon the Lords day and Working upon Saturday and so all their Services of God upon the one in the works of their General and the services of themselves their Families and the humane Society of which they are Members upon the other in the works of their particular Callings have been provocations and evils to be Repented of for we know what Aggravations scrupulous Consciences and a tempting Devil are apt to make of smallest things and to live in perpetual fears and doubts in their continuance in attendance upon Gods Ordinances on those days whereon they are only to be had in the most solemn manner and all of them at least in the professing Church of God And so they will be deprived of much of that Spiritual Comfort and saving profit thereby which they formely received in and by them And still would had not such an unhappy Scandal been laid in their way Which is no small Offence and Sin against Christ And this also we know to be another product thereof such Christians not daring to neglect the observance and Ordinances of the Lords-day because of their former Perswasion Practice and Experience and yet doing it with doubts and fears lest they should Sin thereby because of this Piece 2. A perverting and withdrawing of the more simple and unstable into this Opinion which we doubt not to assert and question not to evidence to be ill grounded and false and so will prove a scandal indeed even to lead into and to build up in Sin and an unwarrantable Practice And thus to Offend weak ones in Christ is a very great Evil 1 Cor. 8.11 12. But suppose the Authors notion be Orthodox and the contrary Heterodox yet another pernicious Tendencie of it is 4. By a Proselyting of some Persons or some Ministers so many as may make Assemblies and Congregations he will be the Author of a needless Schism and Separation and of inevitable Feuds Rancors and mutual Reproaches and Condemnations The Observers of the Lords day will decry and exclaim against the others as Jews and proud Schismaticks and the keepers of the Seventh day will censure and condemn the other as willful breakers of Gods express Command and profane compliers with the will and Traditions of Men. And he that has not the Gift of Prophesie may easily foretel what sinful and dismall fruits will grow upon such a Root of Bitterness Men should be cautious how they disturb the peace of the Church and rent our Saviours seamless Garment 5. He should seriously have pondered the Days and Times we are faln into the sad and deplorable Divisions of the Church of God among us and the dangerous and fearful Prejudices Rancours and Enmities begotten and fomented thereby with the uncharitable and inexcusable Effects they have produced already in Tongue Pen and Hand as the general Division between Conformists and Non-Conformists and the divers Opinions Parties and Separated Societies of the Latter Though blessed be God the most considerable and Orthodox of them the Independents and Presbyterians have coalesced in their Subscriptions to Articles of Agreement and how unseasonable and inconvenient 't is therefore to broach new Opinions among them and to increase their Divisions and Animosities and so also give an Advantange to their observers to encrease their prejudices and augment their Accusations against them and their Insultings over them as fickle inconstant and heady not knowing where to fix nor what to hold and Practise now that they have forsaken an universal and uninterrupted Conformity unto them Such a stout Non-Conformist to the Church of England ought to have used all caution not to have given the least occasion of weakning or vilifying his own Party 6 Lastly All these things laid together in the Ballance of a sound Judgment would have informed him that no such thing as he hath hereby attempted should have been undertaken unless it had been about the most weighty and necessary Truths of our Religion such as do necessarily concern the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls or very near bordering thereupon Which I hope he does not beleive the Controversie to be seeing 't is not not about the Substance of Duty or the very heart of a Command but only about the least Circumstance if I may so term it of it Not about what Proportion of time God shall have Consecrated to his service For that is agreed to be the Seventh But only what day of two of them must be that day of the Week And therefore he that observes the First-day gives and devotes to God the Seventh part of his time as well and as much as he that does the Seventh-day Wherefore though the Authors Integrity and Intent may not be questioned yet certainly his Prudence in this Work and the Work under such Circumstances are no way plausible And he
Subserviency to his farther Design And therefore 't is very remarkable and worthy our most diligent Observance that when the Apostle Paul had sound the Jews given up so far to their cursed Blindness and Prejudice against the Lord Christ that all his Pains he took with them all the Affections he shewed he had for them all the undeniable Demonstrations from Scripture he produced before them could prevail nothing with them but rather they contradicted and blasphemed He forsook them and their Society and turned to the Gentiles Act. 13.45 46. and doubtless went into their Synagogues no more on the Seventh day In other Places he did go into the Jews Synagogues after this on the Seventh day as long as he had any hope of succeeding in his Preaching the Lord Christ to them but when he saw that they were generally hardned and took Advantage to speak Evil of the Lord Christ and his Doctrin before others the Gentiles he turned away quite from them and forsook their Synagogue and made the School of a Heathenish Philosopher one Tyrannus the common Meeting-place of his Auditors Act. 19.8 9. and so questionless altered the Time and Day as well as the Place of his Preaching and the Meeting of his Auditors For after this throughout all the remaining Book of the Acts throughout the remaining part of this Chapter and all the other Nine you find not the least Mention of Paul's Preaching or Praying or Associating with any others upon the Seventh day neither could this Author produce because he could not find any such Passage after this Eighth Verse of this Nineteenth Chapter Wherefore that Word of Mr. B. Pag. 45. Line 15. Continually might well be omitted for he did not continually go into the Jews Synogogue on the Seventh day but ceased from it when his great Design thereof was frustrated and never is said more to do it after this time No not at Rome where he lived Two whole Years in a hired House of his own and might have appointed what day he would for the Collection of his Disciples and Hearers Is he ever said to have called them together on the Seventh day which I assert to be a clear Proof that he never did it before out of any Regard to that day as more holy than other And therefore this Discourse of Two or Three Pages and the particular Remarks which he makes upon this Practice of St. Paul in some few of the Chapters of the Acts and the great Advantages he thinks he has for the Seventh day from them are dwindled and vanished into nothing If he would have gotten any thing for his Cause from this Practice of St. Paul he should have shewn these or such like Particulars 1. That St. Paul called his Auditors together upon that day which he cannot do for the Jews assembled themselves thereon 2. That he associated himself with the Gentiles and made their Religious Assemblies upon that day but this he never reads 3. That he did this perseveringly even when he turned from the Jews but this he can never shew and therefore all this shew is but a shew Besides we know St. Paul preached where-ever and whenever he found a convenient Auditory in the School of Tyrannus Acts 19.9 in the Market-place Acts 17.17 on Mars-hill v. 22. at the High Priests Bar and before Festus and Agrippa and as he made no distinction of places so none of days as to the preaching of the Gospel though as to the Churches solemn stated Worship he did though not the Seventh day and so these days and times have as much to plead for their Sanctity from the Apostles preaching on them as the Seventh hath But I suppose I have said enough of this to satisfie any unprejudiced considering Person Page 46. To his Question we grant that the Holy Scriptures do call no other day of the Week a Sabbath but the Seventh though Dr. Lightfoot shews that one day of the Year is called a Sabbath day whenever it falls out upon any other day of the Week viz. Pentecost and do not begrudge him all the Advantage he can take from hence Thus I hope by Gods Assistance and Guidance I have ran through all this Author's Arguments for his Sabbatarian Opinion and if I deceive not my self have proved them to be very weak and ineffectual as to the Edifying and Establishment of it And now I must proceed to try his Skill in plucking down and to see if he be more Dextrous and Successful in defeating our Arguments against the Seventh day and for the Sanctification of the First day which from henceforth I will take liberty to call the Lords day which he judges to be most weak and empty even the Conjectural Mistakes of the meaning of some Passages in Scripture let us see whether he can prove them to be such SECT XII THe first Objection against the Seventh day and Argument for the Lords day is Page 47. from the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that day c. Against which he has nothing directly and particularly but only hints the Differences of Opinions about the changing of the day but all save one do agree that it is changed and reason would judge that their universal concurrent Suffrages should weigh more for its Mutation than their Differences about the Circumstances thereof should against the Change of it He answers there is no express Alteration of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath And he expresses his meaning to be not by any express Precept but we say there are other ways of Abrogating and Establishing things in Scripture than by express Prohibitions or positive Injunctions even by genuine Consequences from Doctrins from Examples of those that are proposed to our Imitation c. And that the Sanctification of the Seventh day is as much abrogated in the Gospel and the Lords day established in its stead as any of the Ceremonies of the Old Administration are And I think we may challenge him to produce any one express Command for the Abolishing of any one of the Jewish Ceremonies or of all of them conjunctly which because we cannot find consequently we must still look upon them to be in force and keep them alive in the Christian Churches and these days of Reformation I do verily believe if my Judgment were sway'd with such Arguments against the Lords day and for the Seventh they would lead me back to all the Jewish Religious Worship because they were all as really commanded by the Second Command even all instituted Worship as the Seventh day is by the Fourth both which are in themselves positive though referred to and virtually contained in the Moral Commands yet he acknowledges the Abolition of these without an express Command and why not of this Let him bring his Arguments from Scripture for the Abrogation of any of them and I do verily believe we shall be able to use the very same for the Exclusion of the Seventh day I know not any one