the last and best day of the Week to take my sweet repose in him who formed all these things and who had brought forth such a world somewhat for me vile unworthy sinful me But that which was and is through the Grace of God an Holy Rest to me has been and is like further to be through the corruptions of men a troublesom Controversie from them Must I now be made a man of contention who have so much desired and endeavoured to be a man of Peace My LORD is going forth in his comely Honour riding upon the word of his Truth and he will prosper His Truth is victorious for this must I be valiant and earnestly contend in his strength For this end was he born and for this cause came he into the world that he should bear witness unto the Truth Every one that is of the Truth heareth his voice Happy is he who has a good report of the Truth it self In the Order of my pursuit after the refining and raising of useful Arts and profitable Knowledges I am now led to that day the Seventh which is the last day in the week wherein Aelohim the Creator himself did Sabbatize on this day he rested to contemplate his own Works For having now framed and disposed the glorious Fabrick and the goodly structure of the whole Universe and having put it into its beauteous ceconomy and regular Polity he closeth the week with a day blessed above all the other foregoing days of the Week The righteous cause of which sanctified Day I am now to plead against the many Contenders against it Having thus in a former Treatise attended followed and walked with Aelohim in some of his great Works on the several distinct six foregoing days of this created World I am now brought to Sabbatize and rest with and in Him on his weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath There are divers profitable Disquisitions that might be made with respect to the Seventh which is the last Day of every Week For the advancement of this Holy Art and for the Improvement of this Spiritual Science which would be a great promoting to this useful Learning As Q. Whether every Day of the week be of equal length Particularly whether the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week be not longer in time and have more minutes in it than the First day of the week If the Seventh-day be found longer in time it has a concreated Excellency in nature unchangeable dignoscible to Sense Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be from Shabath or from Jachab If from Shabath there are many Truths and Duties which that word would clear up and also demonstrate the Observation of the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath before the Promulgation of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do point out the daily and weekly seasons of created instituted time for daily-evening-and-morning-Worship and for weekly-Sabbath-Worship Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not in divers Scriptures set out the Seventh the last day of the Week and this in some places before Aelohims proclaiming of the Ten words at Horeb Q. Whether the LORD Jesus Christ having risen again the Third day according to the Scriptures that Third day be the Full complete Third day from the time of his burial and what that particular large day of the week was and what the certain hour of that particular large day was in which He did actually arise and what Scripture-evidence there is of this which is queried not at all in the least to question the Truth of his Resurrection which we firmly believe but rather to strengthen our Faith therein and to promote Scripture-knowledg of the Doctrine of Christs Resurrection upon which the whole of the Christian Religion doth so much depend and for some other good ends For the present there are some weighty reasons why I do not interpose my own Apprehensions about these Quaeries but leave them to those who are of studious inquiring Spirits who by a deeper search into the word of Truth in the Supplies of the Holy Spirit may make those Discoveries that will at once both convince and shame the ignorant-mistaking-World Whilst for the better satisfaction of serious seekers after Christs mind about the weekly-Sabbath I shall in a Word-way through the whole Scripture where this Case is spoken to and of treat of this one Enquiry returning a plain and as I judge a full Answer thereunto Q. Whether the Seventh Day which is the last Day in and of the Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the old-Testament-administration of Grace through and be so under the New Testament Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-Sabbath-day A. The Seventh-day which is the last day in and of the week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the Old-Testament-Administration of Grace through and is so under the New-Testament-Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-Sabbath-day The whole Scripture is profitable for this Doctrine and for this Duty This closing part of the History of the Creation is express for it When Jehovah Aelohim had finished all his Works relating unto the six foregoing days of this one week The LORD Christ now on the Seventh-day actually perfected and will continue actually perfect in the whole and in every part of it His delegated-work which he had made adornedly-really to exist preparedly perfected and He did then Sabbatize and his will was is and will be that from thence his people shall Sabbatize ceasing resting from other motion and work of the fore-mentioned creating kind In a Day that Seventh from all his Work the which he had made and he did and will bless in word and in deed in a continued way in the weekly revolutions of it as long as weeks shall last in this world That day That Seventh and he did and will sanctifie by severing it from a common use and destinating it to an Holy Use accomodating it to instituted Ordinances of solemn Worship the same because in it he hath sabbatized and will Sabbatize from all his work the which he had created pure without spot or blemish of corruptness or uncomeliness for to make This Seventh is a Number completely perfecting the Week For when such a number of days hath filled up the week then we begin again with one second third fourth fifth and sixth till it comes to another seventh And there the Week in the continued revolutions thereof doth still receive a perfective end The Greek Interpreters here as in a many of other Scriptures else where are Corrupters of the Hebrew Text who do translate in the sixth day for the Seventh and
Christ is the great Exemplary Pattern for his Disciples to imitate and to follow he rested on that Seventh-day and therefore his people must also rest on the same seventh-day Thus he himself doth argue He was the First-seventh-day-Sabbath-Observer and under all the several Administrations of Grace He called upon his People to do the same In the days of his flesh here on earth after he was born of the Virgin Mary he through the Weeks of his life yielded Obedience unto this Command by keeping the Seventh-day as the weekly Sabbath-day and no other day in the weekly return as such And this was and is a part of that perfect Righteousness which every sound believer doth apply to himself as his Plea of Justification in the sight of God for his Sin of Sabbath-breaking and every such believer is to conform in Sanctification to Christ in all the Acts of Christs Obedience to this Law of the ten words He as his Custom was went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read He taught the people such as would give him the hearing on the Sabbath-days And whither shall we go to get our selves cloathed with Sabbath Righteousness but unto him putting on this Lord Jesus and making this Jehovah to be our Righteousness How can there be such an apt proper distinct suitable Sabbath-Righteousness from Christ applyed to the Soul but by those who make out after that weekly seventh-day-Sabbath-Righteousness which was in its perfection in Christ Those that observe any other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath cannot so directly go to Christ for such a days Righteousness not particularly for the First-days Righteousness as to a Sabbath which First day Christ all his life through never observed as the weekly Sabbath He has left us an example a Pattern a Copy such as Writing Masters do leave to their Scholars that we should follow his steps He that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked Because as he is so are we in this World if we keep to his Rule and Example for the Scripture speaks of things as they ought to be taking it for granted that they be so and they are so so far forth as Believers do act regularly like themselves as doth become them According to this Pattern we have Paul practising after Christs Ascension into Heaven on every Sabbath-day it was his Custom and Usage his constant Practice the same Expression that sets out Christs continued weekly observing of the Seventh-day-Sabbath that it was usual to him is affirmed also of that eminent Servant of his That it was also usual to this Paul O that the same might be truly testified of more in our Day of Leaders and of their People that Christ might hold such forth before others and say Here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus The Holy Seed of Christ and of his Church are such as keep these Commands of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ O the happy Progresses O the blessed goings on with a strait foot of such as do his Commandments A Second Reason of his affixing to this Holy Law of the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath who is Wisdom essential Wisedoms All Wisdoms in one is this For that Aelohim blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day Thus it was from the beginning and thus it is and will be to hidden ages of hidden ages The blessing is its peculiar Portion and what is Man that he will take away this Heritage of Blessing from the Seventh-day to endeavour to settle it on any other day on the first day particularly where the LORD himself never so gave and secured it The Seventh-day the Seventh-day Aelohim blessed the Seventh-day he hath blessed it he doth bless it and he will bless it and it shall be blessed O blessed day which Jehovah himself hath blessed so blessed This blessing was afterwards renewed revived solemnly openly declared at Mount Sinai and affix'd to the seventh-day Six days thou shalt labour but the seventh-day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any work For six days Jehovah made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh-day Wherefore Jehovah blessed that day that Sabbath the blessing is gone forth for this Seventh-day-Sabbath irreversibly from the Mouth of Jehovah Mashiach himself It has his Applaud and approve for its due estimation and deserved renown its noble majestickness and Royal imperialness How many are the Prerogatives and Priviledges which he hath Conferred upon it Christ is the Seventh-daies-benedictor and benefactor This is the day which he hath Dedicated to the Instituted worship and service of Jehovah Aelohim A day greatly to be desired and delighted in by his Children Friends and Servants as a day of holy rest and of Heavenly joy A day of sweet converse between him and his Saints A day that calleth upon them for a singingshouting-triumphing-rejoycing-frame and therefore there is a peculiar Psalm fitted for this purpose to this end Thus is the Crown of special Benediction put upon the head of the Seventh-day and no other foregoing day of the Week is to share with it in this princely honour Isaiah that evangelical Prophecier and Preacher has from Jehovah Pronounced those Blessed even to admiration O the happy Progresses O the happy goings on of such that do keep this Sabbath and not prophane it They shall enjoy many a covenant-favour O how choice Spiritual blessings are there that do visit the Hearts of Holy observers of this seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath under the New-Testament Administration O what a Blessed day did Christ make it to be unto some whose sick bodies he healed whose sinful Souls he pardoned whose sadned Spirits he comforted unto whom his Gracious words were converting and Restoring teaching and enlightning quickning and strengthning whom he met in Sabbath ordinances and gave them the Blessing of this separated day and how many a Soul had cause to bless the LORD for ever who so prospered Pauls labours on the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath for blessing for good to them Christ taught daily in the Temple and Paul was often in the Synagogues on the foregoing daies of the Week and much good was done thereby but the whole Scripture doth take peculiar notice of this That the Seventh-day as the Weekly Sabbath-day carried away the Sabbath-blessings which no other day in the week did though the LORD do bless his People every day yet not with Sabbath-blessings but only on the seventh-day Aelohim gave a Special Blessing an appropriated Blessing to this day above all the other daies So true and good is that saying of Christ still That this Sabbath was made for Adam for Man for a blessing to him every way for his cheifest and choicest good It was Christs counsel to
of Promise made to the observers of the First day as such What one word of threatning against any that do not so observe the First day as the weekly Sabbath day and if there be not any one word here for the First day either as to Institution or Command or Promise or Threating how can any observer keep it aright either in Faith or Obedience in Hope or Fear The direct plain meaning of this Scripture is if I mis-judge not that this day doth evidently relate to that providential Day of the LORD Christ's appearing in the fulfilling of this Prophesie who appeared to John as LORD pleading the Cause of his Kingly Lordly Office which has been too long and too far invaded by the Kings and Lords of the Earth who have not inforced Christ's Laws nor made them to be the Rule of Government but usurped an unscriptural authority over mens consciences and souls How Lordly a Day therefore will it be when Christ will recover and exercise his Power and his Right Those great things which this ever-blessed LORD of Glory would do in the latter ages were represented to John from Christ by an Angel in a way of Prophetical Revelation This manifestation by Vision and by Voice was after such a manner as if the thing had been acted and performed before and to John's senses By comparing of this passage with some other passages in the same book of Revelation relating to the same matter he that doth diligently mark and wisely observe and rightly understand may see that this Lordly Day is the great Providential Day of that God that Almighty One a name several times given to Christ in this Book There are several parts of this great comprehensive large Vision and there are several seasons of their fulfillings and accordingly several days in this great Day Ezekiel doth mention one part of this Prophesie that will last seven years The LORD Jesus Christ will come and come in several Judgements on several Hours Days Weeks Months and Years It is one of his Names to be such a one as is coming and he is called the coming King And his Kingdom is a coming Kingdom and the age of this is said to be a coming Age and the World to come a coming World In every age of the Church of Christ there were fulfillings of this in part Those in John's time had somewhat of this Lordly Day who therefore were to behold Christ's coming This was partly Historical before John's death when Christ came in his admirable way of wonderful providence to destroy Jerusalem according as was foretold in other Scriptures and partly Prophetical to be accomplished in the several ages after John's time John saw this Day in a Vision and speaks of it with a double confirmation John was made to be in the Spirit on that Lordly Day An expression of which he had experience as is mentioned in other places of this Book The Article added that Lordly Day doth determine but indefinitely There is no such certain particular Day of the Week pointed out so to our understanding on what Day of the Week it will begin or on what Day of the Week it will end This is not the design at least not as to the pretended change of the Weekly Sabbath-day It was that Lordly Day of Christ's coming when he would convert and recover the chosen remnant of those of Israel and of Judah and destroy the Rebellious and the unbelieving among them If men will be limiting of this day to any one determinate definite particular day of the week what one day has such a plea as the Seventh-day Sabbath Seeing for the dreadfully executed Judgement part of it as the first Temple was destroyed being burnt with fire on the tenth day of the fifth Moon which day according to Jeremiah's Prophesie is granted even by many adversaries to be the Seventh-day Sabbath he told the Jews before it came to pass that their Temple would be burnt with Fire if they profaned the Sabbath of Jehovah Answerable unto which is that passage in another Prophet who on the same day of the same Moon reproved Sabbath-breaking when the Elders came to inquire what the mind of the LORD was And as the second Temple was under the like threatning from the mouth of the LORD Christ himself putting them upon earnest importunate Prayer lest otherwise that terrible destruction brake in upon them on the Sabbath the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath Those who are sond of Ecclesiastical Histories may find it recorded in them that the second Temple was actually destroyed according to this Prophetical threatning of our LORD on the seventh-seventh-day Sabbath The change of Jehovah's Ordinance of which mens changing of his Seventh day Sabbath is one is soretold in Isaiah with respect to the later ages of the World to be one great provoking Cause of his sending of Judgements upon the rebellious and unfaithful World when keepers of his seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath shall have his holy Arm revealed for their Salvation Some of the first great rejections of the unbelieving Jews in a way of Church censure after Christ's ascending on high were occasionally and deservedly by their prophane blaspheming miscarriage on the Seventh day Sabbath of which some account hath been given before So that if a particular day of the week in the weekly returns of it were here designedly pointed at what day can plead and claim a fairer Title and Right unto it than the Seventh-day which is the Sabbath of or to Jehovah or to the LORD Jehovah is the chief choice Name of the Eternal Ever blessed Self-being the Being of beings as that Name doth signifie And that Word which in the Greek doth answer to this Hebrew Name Jehovah some do draw from a word that doth signifie I am which they constantly render LORD So that Jehovah in the Old Testament is often rendred by this Word in the New which we do translate LORD That which in the Old is Hear O Israel Jehovah our Aelohim Jehovah One is in the new Hear O Israel The LORD that God of ours is one LORD Thus also the Hebrew Text doth sometimes but Adonai supporting LORD for Jehovah Thus that whith in one Psalm is I will confess thee among the peoples O Jehovah is in another Psalm I will confess thee among the peoples O LORD Further Christ Jesus saith of himself that he is LORD of the Sabbath of that Seventh-day Sabbath which he created commanded and observed being a keeper of his Fathers Commandments whereof this of the Seventh-day Sabbath was one Those that do relie on the judgement and authorities of men about the meaning of this expression may consider that Ecclesiastical Historians do relate that John and his followers the Eastern Asiatick Churches did keep the Passover on the Seventh-day not pressing the observation of the first day for the celebration of the Passover as
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΣΑΒΒΑΤΙΚΗ ΗΜΕΡΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septima dies Dies Desiderabilis SABBATUM JEHOVAE The Seventh-Day-Sabbath the Desirable-Day The closing completing DAY of that FIRST Created Week WHICH Was is and will be the just Measure of all succeeding Weeks in their successive Courses BOTH For Working in the six foregoing DAYS and for Rest in the Seventh which is the Last Day by an unchangeable LAW of well-established Order Both in the REVEALED WORD AND IN CREATED NATURE The SECOND PART By FRANCIS BAMPFIELD Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE Second Part OF THIS TREATISE ATransition from the First to the Second Part Page 1 2 3 Of the Seventh-Day p. 3 4 Q. Whether the Seventh-day which is the last Day in every Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof have been from the Beginning and so continued to be all the Old Testament-administration of Grace thorow and be so under the New Testament dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the End of the World the weekly Sabbath day 4 The Answer at large given to this Inquiry is in the Affirmative that it is so from 4 to 149 Vnder this Answer are divers particular useful Truths and Duties opened As that the Seventh-day was Created for to be the weekly Sabbath the last day of the week being that Seventh and no other day of the week so Thus it was in the Primitive Creation 4 5 6 7 Which matter is resolved into a Scripture Determination 4 5 6 7 That all the Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim doth give for the due Observation of a weekly Sabbath do belong to to the Seventh which is the last day in every week and to no other day of the week as such 7 8 9 10 That Aelohim rested from his Works of the foregoing six days of the week on the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day Which Seventh day Sabbath righteousness in Christ is that Righteousness which a Believer is to apply himself to cover his Sabbath-unrighteousness 7 8 That Aelohim Blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath day 8 9 That Aelohim sanctified the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 9 10 That all the Scriptures thorow where the Holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath-day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly Revolutions and successive Courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly Sabbath-day Page 10 11 That no Command is given for the observation of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 11 to 15 Where is also further discovered that pretended unwritten Institutions for a First-day weekly Sabbath are a false deceitful wrong cooked rule which we may neither measure nor walk by 12 13 That Christ as Mediator had it not in Commission from his Father to change the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First 13 14 15 That there is no Promise made to the observing of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh-day which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 15 16 That there is no threatning all the Scriptures thorow either denounced against or executed upon any that shall not observe any other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week 16 to 19 That Aelohim bath put this weekly Seventh-day Sabbath into Created Nature by a standing unchangeable Law 19 20 21 22 Here is declared what is meant by Nature in Scripture 20 21 22 Where also seeing it is called for by some as an argument to men is disoovered That this particular Seventh-day which we now count to be the last day of the week is the Seventh-day by the Judgement and Tradition of such Historical Records as many are so fond of although we do bottom our judgment and practice upon Scripture Revelation and created Nature 22 23 24 25 Objections against this Seventh-day Sabbath are answered from 25 to 147 Here is proved that it was not a seventh part of weekly time or a seventh day But the Seventh-day the last day in every week this and this only is the weekly Sabbath-day having a special honour put upon it by Aelohim himself by notes of Demonstration by particles by pronouns by praepositions all significant in their places to point out the Seventh-day to be the only certain known determinate fixed particular unchangeable day of the weekly Sabbath where the emphatickness of the Hebrew Ha is asserted 25 to 33 It is further evidenced that what is in the English Transsation in seven places of the New Testament the first day of the week is in every one of them in the Greek one of the Sabbaths in propriety of speech and so its colourable pretence for a First day weekly Sabbath is convincingly reprehended as Scriptureless from 33 to 45 That five of these seven places mentioned in the four Evangelists relate to the Paschal Sabbaths and not to the weekly Sabbath 33 to 41 That Believers in the times of Christ and of his Apostles before the New Testament was written could find nothing in all their Scriptures of the Old Testament for a pretended First day Sabbath 32 33 That in one place where it is The first of the Sabbath this speaks nothing to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day but has a quite another meaning both in the significancy and in the intendment of that phrase 35 36. 37 38 That the weekly Sabbath under the New Testament is not barely or no more than an half-holy-day between Sun rising and Sun set but that it is an whole Seventh-day from Evening to Evening 38 That Christ's Redemption Work as well as his Creation Work has established the Seventh-day to be still the weekly Sabbath day 39 40 That Acts 20. 7. is no firm ground to bottom the pretended First day Sabbath upon 41 42 43 Neither is 1 Cor. 16. 2. 43 44 That the eleven Disciples did not meet on Christs Resurrection Day as a newweekly Sabbath day in memory of that Rising 45 That the weekly Sabbath under the new Dispensation is not left so much in the dark and deep as some pretend but is clearly the seventh-Seventh-day in the plain Precept as of old 46 47 That the true stating of the Matter of right in this Question about the weekly Sabbath doth not depend upon Ecclesiastical History Page 47 to p. 62 That mens cause of
of the Gospel to be expressed on this day the First day he speaks of nor to be any thing distinguished from the Night of other Days of the week So writes a Learned Man Thus we have a kind of half Holy-day set up by a Man in the room of an whole Seventh-days-weekly-Sabbath Created and Instituted by Jehovah Aelohim But what part of Time shall we reckon that Night-time to It must belong either to Working-day or Sabbath-day If to Sabbath-day-time then it is a part of the time of a Sabbath-day If to Working-day-time then we have more time than Six Working-days in one Week which is contrary to Scripture-revelation and to Created Nature For the Evening is as Natural to the Created Days as the Morning The Creator Himself did some of his works in the Night As Particularly He created Darkness in the beginning of the Evening of the one Day in the first Week of the created World and the night-part of every one of the Large days and it is the Commendation of a Virtuosa-Woman that she and her Houshold do work some part of the Night Whereas we are expresly forbid to do any Work of our particular Functions on the Seventh-day-Sabbath all that kind of work is supposed to be done on the six foregoing days of the Week and I have before shewed that the Night-part as well as the Day-part belongs to the Weekly Sabbath-day And how doth this Assertion of that learned Man agree with another Affirmation of his so often repeated in that Book of his that That part of Time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven If so Then how can this Learned Man and his Followers in This well groundedly expect Acceptance with God When the seventh-part of Time is not observed as the Weekly-Sabbath but one half of that Seventh part is cut off by him quite contrary unto what God has declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment This incoherence and inconsistence doth bewray the Darkness and doubtfulness that is upon the Minds and Hearts of the most Learned Opposers of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath What will become of Jehovah's Laws and Prescriptions if Men take such an Unwarranted Liberty at one blow to cut off the half of the Weekly-Sabbath contrary to the LORD's Appointments and contrary too unto their own Concessions and Assertions especially also when on this piece of a pretended Sabbath they give such a Loose to carnal Hearts as to leave any to be a Rule unto themselves for their words works and actions upon this half part of a day of Rest as if all others were Men of a Legal Spirit and were Judaizing Sabbatizers that will be exact according to the Scripture-rules of the good old way in these Matters Who sees not what an Unscriptural liberty even good men will be too prone to allow themselves if once they apprehend that this is referred unto themselves to judg Determinately of Where doth the whole Scripture leave any Man or Men to be rules unto themselves Must we not in all these Cases be Directed Determined and Judged by the Word Here again My heart would be at work in sweet thoughts and in raised affections towards a dear Redeemer who has done and suffered so much for his unworthy Creature that my Heart and Head and Hand may cease a while from giving answering Solutions to Fallacious arguings O how full how sutable a good is here Thou who readest this canst thou truly say this Redeemer is my Redeemer this Mediator hath loved me and hath given himself for me Redemption is wrought out and finished by Christ for me He will perfect it in me as well as for me All the just demands of the Father are fully satisfied by the Son of His love In the vertue of his Satisfaction and Intercession I will go to the Father and expect Audience and Assistance Acceptance and a Blessing O how well will it go with them and with their Cause who have Christ for their Advocate How sure is that Covenant of Grace which hath Christ for the Surety The Reader now may expect that I say something to that part of the Objection which doth suppose the work of Redemption to have been finished on the day of Christ's Resurrection So that He being then Gloriously Manifested to have Rested from it the Objectors think that Christ might have good cause to Honour the First day of the Week above any other day as the Weekly-Sabbath-day Here is Mens Thinking and Reasoning but the serious Inquirer doth look for Christ's Instituting and Commanding which he can never find in the Word as to the First-days being the Weekly Sabbath-day Redemption in the whole and in all and every of the parts of it and in all and every of the Fruits and effects of it I beleivingly confess praise and apply according to those growing measures of Scripture light and of saving Graces which the LORD hath graciously given me therein about this Both those great works of Jehovah-Christ Creation-work and Redemption-work are highly to be valued and one of them should not be set against the other let them both be brought in Creation-work and Redemption work too as proper matter for Meditation conference and Praise whereby the Seventh-day-Sabbath may be Celebrated and Sanctifyed in the Weekly returns of it The observationâ— of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is inforced by the Lawgiver himself to be kept holy to Jehovah by an argument drawn from Salvation-work from Redemption work The LORD Jesus Christ who is Redeemer was Creator too as I have clearly proved from self-evidencing-Scriptures It was he that Rested from his works of Creation Blessing Sanctifying and keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath in the First week of the World Jehovah Christ as Mediator did himself at Mount Sinai Proclaim this Law of the Ten words whereof this of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is one It is he who is our one and our only Lewgiver It is he whose Voice then shook the Earth at that Mount It is he who was from his Father an Angel by delegated Office sent for this as for many other purposes to be with Moses in the Wilderness It is he who wrote this Law of the Ten words in the two Tables It is he who brought his People Israel out of Egypt and gave them this Law of the Seventh-day-sabbath It is he who came down upon that Mount attended gloriously with ten thousands of his holy Angels and promulgated this Law That Sixty Eighth Psalm doth evidently to a spiritual discerner commend Christ in his glorious Excellencies as to his wonderful person as to his wise Government and Gratious Administration particularly to the Israelites in their Journey out of Aegypt in giving them to Inherit the promised Land in confounding of their Foes all which Favours and Blessings to his Covenant people are set out to be the
and they were at that meeting where Christ appeared to the Eleven The Sun was gone in before that time So that if this pretended Historical Hint be mistaken by those Objectors so then is the next also which they alledg of a second appearing as to the particular day of it the place it self doth expresly confute their assertion For that appearing was after eight Days After observe which could not therefore be that very day which they name Not the first day by their own Computation Besides what cogency is there in this kind of arguing from Christ's appearing to the Disciples For he appeared often to them in the forty days between his Resurrection and Ascension and once when they were Fishing which is no weekly-Sabbath-days-work and employment at which time also Christ did eat somewhat of what Fish they had taken Upon a due long serious Consideration of the whole of this matter There appears nothing to me not the least shew or colour of any sound Scriptural reasoning in all these Allegations which men in Reputation have been by a Traditionary Religion in this so fond of What a great way about do they go quite out of any Scripture-path to fetch in something that might look like an Argument with those who take up such matters of humane invention upon Trust from their misguiders who in this teach them to Err in a Dark-walk where they see not how nor whither they go and then tell them that the mind of Christ in this is a great Deep and not so easie for plain Understandings presently to fathom Whereas we who are brought under the New Testament-Administration of Grace are put into a state of clearer Light than those were in who were under the former Dispensation Doctrines Duties Graces Priviledges do shine forth in more Glory before us as the Apostle doth argue in the second of his Epistles to the Church at Corinth the design of which passage is to shew the New-Testament-Glory to be excelling They of old had a veil on their Ministration by Figures Types and Shadows whereas we now do at least we may and should behold things with unveiled Face As for the Laws of the Ten words particularly this of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath they are clear as the Light And therefore the Holy Scriptures of Truth do give them that Name of Light of self-evidencing and clear-shining are they containing Commandments so right in all things so enlightening the eyes of mens understanding though otherwise they be but simple silly and weak the very opening entrance or door of which Word doth give light to make the silly ones to be understanding ones especially when the Commandment comes in the Demonstration of the Spirit and with Power and former pre-conceptions and prejudices are laid aside A Law so guiding the Obeyers of it to walk in such paths of Rightness a Law so true so holy so just so good so spiritual so perfect such a Law of Liberty setting a renewed enlarged heart so free to run in its Way A Law so comprehensive a Law so formed in right humane Nature being at the first concreated with it A Law so convincingly opening it self and its true mind and its proper meaning and so fully expounded throughout the whole Scripture which is a large exposition upon it insomuch as that all the rest of the Word so far as concerns Duties to be performed and sins to be avoided is but as it were Jehovah Aelohims Commentary upon and Interpretation of it So that here Those of an inquiring Spirit are led safely out of the Maze of those perplexing difficulties which the Objectors reasoning about the necessariness of human Histories to make up a full evidence of the Scriptures in the matter of the first day would hurry them into and such diligent re-searchers are brought into a plain way and the Good Old way or the way of hidden Ages or of Eternity The Words of this Law do carry a plain Evidence in them As all the rest so particularly the fourth Word or Command concerning the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath It has in it self a common and familiar understanding the sense and meaning whereof doth appear at the very first sight It is but hear or read and every man that is endued with Reason and will exercise it without any prepossession or imposings will forthwith conceive aright of it That the weekly-Sabbath-day is the Seventh-day That the Seventh-day is the weekly-Sabbath-day This Objector doth assert it That it is agreed on that the Passover that year when Christ was cruciâ—yed fell on the Sabbath-day It must here be his meaning the Seventh which is the last day of the week which he takes to be the First day of that Feast of unleavened bread On which the Paschal Lamb according to Institution was to be eaten which was not the First day of the Week but the Seventh Upon this Supposition I would thus questioningly argue either Christ that year kept the very day of Passover according to Institution or not if Christ kept the true Passover-day as I do not at all doubt but that he did for he was to fulfill all righteous Observances and accordingly he did It being the Work which his Father gave him to do and which he finished The Antitype directly answering in every thing with great exactness to the Type And the History in the written Word which doth report this matter of Fact in Christ doth expresly call that day on which he did with his Disciples eat the Paschal Lamb the Passover-day as the Scriptures in the Margin will undeniably prove and he dying the same day which was the Passover-day If this be granted by this Opposer to be the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath what then becomes of all the rest of his arguing and pleading for the First day which according unto this Supposition was not that particular day of the Week on which Christ arose from the dead For according to this that First day was the next immediate day after his death and could in no Sense be called the Third day on which he rose again If he say That the true Passover-day which not Christ but the Jews kept was the day next after the death of Christ we call for an Answer to the forecited Scriptures in the Margin and expect a Word-proof for what he asserts Although if that could be cleared yet has it no Rightness or Forcibleness of arguing in it to demonstrate what it is brought for as to a First-day-Sabbath But if those Scriptures do in so many express Words give the day of Christs being apprehended and condemned and crucified and killed the First day of unleavened bread and the passover-Passover-day whilst we have the Scripture thus speaking we have no cause to be moved at what Humane Authorities and Church-Histories do record to the contrary And this has now brought me to an Examination of the validity or invalidity of Church-histories and of humane Authorities in these matters Though
several of the Ecclesiastical Historians have been examined by me upon this subject matter and I have some Collections by me about it enough to shew how little credit is to be given unto those kind of Authorities which are so fallible and sometimes so self-contradicting and so altogether unsatisfying when the matter of Right comes to be Inquired after and determined any further than they do speak the mind of Christ in his word For either in these Cases of Conscience they write and speak according to the word or not If they do let these Scriptures be particularly pointed to with which they accord If not they are not to be received or followed Yet in regard that my design is to bring all to the Scriptures of truth referring this and all else under Aelohim to their Judgment I shall therefore now debate the Principle with this objector So much of matters of fact as do relate to matters of right and as are necessary for us to believe in order unto Salvation is Recorded in the word of truth Whereunto the whole Scripture is profitable which is enough for us if no more were written by me concerning this particular question in hand For that Scripture referred to is proper and pertinent to this purpose about Christ and his Resurrection and his appearing to his Disciples and his Blessing of them and conference with them as is plain in the foregoing part of the same Chapter and other Scriptures collated and compared with this do evidently speak it But we have yet much more to say about this To assert the perfection of the Scriptures is one of the great truths of the present Age The forces of Earth and of Hell are now joyning together and putting forth their strength to assault and to attempt the overthrow of this useful Doctrine As it was in the daies of Christs Flesh when he was familiarly Conversant here on Earth the Roman Power the Grecian Wisdom the Jewish Traditions Ethnick Philosophers and Diabolical possessions all the humane and devilish Force and Art and invention was called together to War against Christ and against his word So in the latter daies the Worldly might Old and New Philosophy Institutions and Impositions Histories and Traditions Inventions and Authorities of men unwritten pretended necessary verities Generall Councils sayings of those whom they call Fathers Articles of Faith composed by men Confessions and practise of Protestant Reformed Churches the judgment and practice of Learned and Godly men these and such like Extra-scriptural places are the swaying Authority with many whereby Antichristianism and Antiscripturalism in a many of particulars are still held up and maintained against the LORD and against his word who in this Providential day is pouring contempt upon all Flesh upon men and upon their sayings bringing a Blast upon them so far as they are contrary to sound Doctrine and do oppose the mind of Christs Revealed in the written word and is putting a Crown on Christ and an Honour upon his word the Testimony of men may be and often is in Fact Erring and Fallible uncertain and lying self-contradicting and unsatisfying Into which therefore the Christian Doctrine Faith and Religion is not to be resolved either in whole or in part For the word of Jehovah is like himself who is the Author of it of invaluable veracity and of unchangeable truthfulness He truth it self and his word The Truth He a God that is true and that cannot lye and his word That which is truly purely such the word of truth His Law is the truth The asserters of the Seventh day to be the Weekly Sabbath for which we have the whole Scripture are charged with Errour because we will not be resolved by humane Authorities to own the First day in the Room of it Whereas if men do err greatly err it is therefore because they know not the Scriptures nor the Power of God put forth in a word-way To assign somewhat else for a cause of this which is not a cause is a by-way of paralogizing-deception of sophistical-arguing and of Fallacious disputing The LORD Jesus Christ doth not in his word and where else as from him shall we look for it assign this as a cause of mans erring that they do not know the magistral dictates of humane Rabbies It is the proud Arrogance of the Antichristian usurper to impose his own placits upon the Churches as if he were imperial Dictator to mens Souls and vniversal Monarch over their Consciences Neither is their Erring from hence that they know not the Antient Records of uncanonicall Church Histories which do sometimes write Contrary to themselves and to one another as those do understand who have been faithfull diligent comparers and collectors of such passages and this both in matters of Fact and in matters of Right and this Objector himself doth confess he Judgeth that some of the writings of these Antients are spurious and corrupt And how few are there of those to whom the Gospel is preached and upon whose Hearts that word of Grace and of Truth doth take most saving holds to which word the LORD himself doth bear witness are versed and read in this kind of Ecclesiastical History And which way shall they be ascertained that it has been all of it read over by others by their Guides and teachers particularly or that the report is faithfully brought to them or if that were whether they ought to be swayed by it Were Church-Histories unerringly inspired Who is so bold as downright to assert this Or if any were so daring how can he prove it Who of our plain Converted People had humane Histories in his thoughts when he was thorowly Regenerated and gratiously visited from Christ and from the Father of Christ by the Spirit of Christ in the word of Christ What a kind of Faith is that which doth ultimate it self into humane Church Histories He that would have judged of the state and Case of Jehovah's Church and people in the daies of Ezra by making search in the book of those Ecclesiastical Records and have judged according to what was Historifyed there would have brought in an hard Charge of Rebellion and of Sedition against them and have been ready to have irritated the powers that were over them against them as their Adversaries did Neither do men therefore err because they know not the Tradition of the Elders which has long obtained by common Custom and by little Controlled usage so as to plead prescription unscriptural Customes and Tradition is a part of that Redemption which our LORD has wrought out for his People And it is a choice Mercy to be throughly delivered from them For in the event and effect they would un LORD Christ and the word of Christ of his and of its due Autority For which he condemned those Scribes and Pharisees of his daies who would have obtruded these upon him and upon his Disciples but he confutes them by his
their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their men of understanding shall hide it self though they hide their Counsels never so deep Where is the wise where is the Scribe Where is the Inquirer of this Age Hath not God made Foolish the wisdom of this world which doth measure and judge of the truths and things of God by unscriptural Rules How do such Arguers say then we are wise and the Law of Jehovah is with us Lo certainly in vain worketh the false pen of the Scribes There will be a time when such wise men will be ashamed affrighted and taken Behold they have rejected the word of Jehovah Wisdom-what to them They steal away the word from Aelohim's People which word would be Wheat wholsome nourishing Bread and Food to them and bring unscriptural empty Chaff in the room but these are not ready Scribes in the Law as Ezra was Even a Paul himself is no further to be hearkened unto and followed than he speaks according to the word and is a Follower of Christ Neither doth Errour arise from hence that men do not know or conform to National establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of worship in their humanely-invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Liturgies it has been one of the main Occasions of most of the persecutions that have been carryed on by Adversaries against the Church and People of God in all Ages the inventing Instituting and imposing of unscriptural modes and forms of Worship exclusive of all other which are Regular according to the word and then framing it into a Law with inflicted penalties upon all Non-Conformists And what strong Rationalists do some take themselves to be in pleading and arguing for this and producing many humane Authorities in Church-Histories for this and there want not flatterers at Court who perswade Governours that the main of their Authority and power doth consist in determining of such matters of Indifferency as they miscall them That the appointing of times and seasons and daies for publick worship is left wholly in the Hand and power of the Magistrate and that the way of maintaining peace and preserving Religion in the Land is to enforce uniformity in the service and worship of God according to such National Statutes by seeing mulcts to be inflicted on all Recusants and dissenters Whereas Christ tells us that it is vain worship such humane-traditionary-Worship teaching Doctrines the commandments of men And that every such Plantation in the matters of Corrupt both Doctrine and worship which is not of his Fathers Planting shall be rooted up The LORD reproves the People when they keep Idolatrous superstitious Statutes Too much advantage has been given by the Non-Conformists in their writings and conferences against the Formalists and ceremonialists in that they have not in downright express Terms condemned all humanely-invented-instituted-imposed forms and ceremonies in the matters of Worship as sinful and unlawful especially when they enjoyn them as exclusive of other worship where these are not conformed unto and when they impose them as necessary terms of Church Communion whereas they are expresly in the very letter and meaning of the second Commandment forbidden For we are not to make unto our selves all Form any Form every such Form which men of their own head and out of the device of their own brain do thus make unto themselves and so to others also is under a plain prohibition by this Holy righteous just and good law of the LORD How many have been brought into Courts and Condemned sentenced and fined and Imprisoned as Routers Rioters ill-behaviour'd Schismatical Seditious Turbulent ones for conforming to Christs Laws and for not conforming to the customes and Laws of the Land but doing contrary to mans decrees because they Worship God according to his institutions but not according to mens Ordinances Whereas we are expresly charged not to give our selves to such commandments of men as turn away the truth from us or would turn us away from the Truth And yet they urge a mis-translated Scripture as if we must submit to every Ordinance of man Whereas it is to every humane Creature There is an Honour due to all men as men to some more than to others to the King as superior as having Authority over and above others and to others in their Inferiour places It is because or for the word that Persecution ariseth For the Receiving of this word and a conforming unto it by the Disciples of Christ that they are hated of the World If National establishments were the Rule and measure of Truth and errour were to be judged of by a contrariety to that Then the same thing would be one while Truth and another while Errour when National establishments do upon turns of times and changes of Laws make contradictory Decrees So it was in the Reigns of the Kings of Judah One sets up Idolatry another pulls it down One commands Right Worship according to Institution Another brings in corrupt mixtures Such interchangeable vicissitudes there were in the daies of Abaz Hezekiah Manasseh and Josiah They are to be avoided who ever they be that do cause divisions and offences contrary to received-Scripture-doctrine Then do men err when they go astray from Jehovah's Commandments from his precepts from his statutes They are Humane lies that cause men to erre and to despise the Law of Aelohim Errour proceeds from not knowing and not observing all his Commandments then do a People err in their Hearts when they have not known his waies Unscriptural Establishments in the matters of worship are the work of Errours Further yet neither do men err therefore because they do not know man-invented-Arts and sciences of Philosophical knowledges and of University-humane-learning Nicodemus was a master of Arts and a Doctor of Sciences and yet he greatly erred in the necessary Doctrine of Regeneration Paul greatly erred from the great Truths of the Christian Religion whilst he sat at the feet of Gamaliel a Pharisee a Doctor of the Law held in esteem by all the People one of the Chief in the privy Council of the Jews This Grave tutor of Paul perfectly instructed his attentive diligent Pupil in that kind of Pharisaical Learning and way of Worship and he was a sharpwitted Disciple But when the LORD Christ Revealed himself to and in Paul now he saw how much he had erred from saving Truth and Paul a Convert differed much in his Apprehensions from Paul a Pharisee All other knowledge now in comparison with right Scripture-knowledge with the eminent Excellency of the knowledg of Jesus Christ and of him Crucifyed and of the way of Justification and of Salvation by Faith in him and in his Blood and in his Righteousness he Judgeth as nothing as Dung as Loss as Dogs meat And he saw the gross mistakes of the Learned-University-men at Athens endeavouring to convince them of their Infidel-Errours Antichristian mistakes and Philosophical-falsehoods Now he commends to
Histories where private interest and particular partyship do incline them to write over favourably of themselves and of their own Facts and how hatred of and prejudice against others who are of contrary Principles and practises do put them upon hard misconstruings and wrong misreportings of the Actions of their Adversaries So that it is a rare Ingenuity in an Historian to give a true Narrative of the matter of Fact in the several Circumstances of it under the opposition of an Enemy Especially if some Ages have passed away since the matter of Fact there is the less certainty and credibility And more especially yet if there have been such ages coming between which were Ages of thick darkness of prevailing Ignorance and of gross imposture and when in such cases as wherein Antichrist has imposed much upon the Churches by his Humane Additions Supplements and Traditions thereby to obscure or to corrupt or to thrust out to take from or to add to what is Christ's mind in his Word which is the present case And he who reads the story of Eustathius the Popes Legat in Roger Hoveden by what counterfeit Artifices and false Pretences and forged Visions feigned Voices and lying Wonders he introduced the observation of the first Day of the Week here into England no longer ago than in the Reign of King John may unless he very much dote on such humane fallible Testimonies see cause enough to give little credit to such Church-Histories as would so report the matter of Fact as thereby to determine the matter of right which those who go this way generally do whilst they place the first day in the Week in the room of the seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day under the New Testament ministration So that I am the less fond or rather not at all fond of Humane Histories in these matters relating to sin or duty from cited Church Authorities in matters of Fact having my esteem heightned from Scripture Records and word-commands chiefly in such cases where the whole Scripture doth contain such Reasons of the LORD 's own assigning founded in the very Nature of Created Existences such names and things such Precepts and Prohibitions such Promises and Threatnings such suitable Examples and such like as these which do uniformly throughout speak a quite contrary thing and go a quite different way from those sayings which Church-Registers do wrong tell me and from that By-path into which Humane Histories would mislead me as they would in this case when they would take me off from the due observation of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath to drag me along to keep the first day as a separated day for holy Worship I am bound to believe Scripture History as a true report from the infallible veracity of a truthful Aelohim it is necessary this Faith to my Salvation But I am not under such an obligation neither is it so necessary for me to believe Humane History so many hundreds of years ago especially such circumstances as have been mentioned before in such matters of fact as are but pretended to be transacted in Scripture times chiefly to whom they are so argued against the whole of other Scripture How can this objector prove to me that those Ecclesiastical Histories whose certainty and credibility of reporting this he so much cryeth up were directed and dictated thereunto by the Spirit of Truth in this matter And if not how can my Faith be swayed by their Authorities Jehovah Aelohim himself appointed Scripture Histories to be written by the Prophets and Priests these Historiographers were ocular Witnesses in much of that which they wrote and registred and in this as also in the rest they were God inspired So were those Evangelists and Apostles also who wrote the New Testament History As for Tradition we receive what is scriptural Believers are delivered from Patro-traditional conversation such as is unscriptural we receive the commandments which Christ hath delivered but we reject Humane Traditions which are not according to Christ and his Word If the case were so that all the Men and Speakers and Writers and Printers and Books and what other humane Authorities did tell me what I know evidently is expresly otherwise in Christ and in the Word of Christ it were of no validity with me The Prophets and the LORD Jesus Christ the sender of his Prophets did refer the Jews not to the Traditions of Rabbines especially when they were such Traditions as would have UNLORDED him and his Word of his and of its due Authority but to the Law to the Scriptures Scripture Traditions which are allowed of in the Word of Christ we approve of about sound Doctrine and Faith of the Truth and holy conversation and about observing of a naturally comly decent order in Church-assemblies But we reject what is of mens own and in their own name It is an Observand in Scripture that the Scriptures do refer to Scriptures often may we meet with such expressions it is written and as it is written and for it is written and according to that which is written This is under the LORD the Judging Rule and the Lawful Determiner in all cases By this were Truths confirmed and by this were errours confuted Even whilst the Apostles were alive there were false supposititious writings thrust upon some as if they had been the Apostles own true Writing and therefore the Apostles subscribed their Epistles with their own hands they used some peculiar subscription such a subsigning as was well known to the Churches How much more was the World like to be imposed upon when they were dead and gone by the writings of men who would be fathering of their own unscriptural brats of false tenets upon the Apostles there being many Antichrists gone forth even in John's time Paul whilst living to confute the falshood yet was strongly charged with saying and asserting of that which he utterly denies though others would affirm it to be so he was evil-spoken of and wrongfully accused as if he had expresly taught a damnable Doctrine which he wholly disowneth And if they were so bold in his days how can we be so over confident of a matter of fact reported by a mere humane traditionary Knowledge above sixteen hundred years ago without any God-inspired Scripture Revelation or Natural Demonstration How can any man to his own or others satisfaction affirm that by Humane History he certainly knows that all the Christian Churches have constantly set apart and observed the first day for holy Worship when he cannot certainly know that he hath read all humane Histories that have recorded that particular matter of fact Or that no humane History hath recorded a quite different both Principle Judgement and Practice in some particular Church or Churches and when the matter of fact for any evidence he hath to the contrary may have been quite otherwise in some Church or Churches which yet is not recorded in any humane History This
writing and to keep the Records of it well attested especially when another doth claim a former Title for some hundreds of years As this of the seventh-day Sabbath did for some thousands of years for some ages beyond the memory of man and when they could not but foresee that their Title would be so much called in question and controverted and especially too where the Matter of Fact is pretended as it is by this Author so much to prove the Matter of Right All Matters of Fact that do pass into Historical Writing are fittest to be written in the same age wherein they were done as being then better known in their circumstances by sensible demonstrations which cannot be so well discerned in after ages How fond are Traditionists of unscriptural humane Antiquities and Universalities Whereas Errors have been ancient even as long full home to the times of the Apostles Even then did the Mystery of iniquity begin to work there were even then many Antichrists and Malignant Assemblies and when the Antichrist shall be revealed there would be a great Apostasie and Defection from the Truth The Revelation hath foretold that all the World would go a whoring after the Beast and would worship the Beast and the Dragon that gave him power yet are these some of their Notes of a visible Church Antiquity and Universality which that they might be the sooner imposed upon the hoodwinck'd credulous World have another vain pretence going along with them altogether as unscriptural and vain as they that is that the Church cannot err And they falsly call their particular Romish Synagogue the Catholick Church I expectingly believe and hopingly wait for a coming day when our plain tender sincere upright-hearted people will be undeceived and no longer to suffer themselves to be deluded and imposed upon by such confident Assertions as this Objector doth bring them As if that which beyond all doubt must assure them that de facto the first day was by the Apostles separated for holy Worship especially in publick Church Assemblies is the full and unquestionable expository evidence of the practice of all the Churches in the World since the very days of the Apostles For so has this Learned Author affirmed Reader bethink thy self what thy Faith must resolve it self into if it will follow this misguiding How can such believers as never traded in this kind of humane Learning ever come to undoubted assurance about the matter How can they be fully ascertained of this who were never versed nor are ever like to be neither are under any such obligation by any Scripture Precept to be throughly versed and understandingly read in all and every of the Writings of all and every of the Ecclesiastical Histories that do write about this Or if it were possible and facible that they could compass this of which I can see no end who yet have more helps and advantages this way than the most How can they unquessionably be confirmed in this perswasion that there never was any one Church of Christ that did escape the Humane Church-Record and History And if so who can tell them but that that particular Church might be of a different judgement and practice What doth this kind of arguing in this Author mean What would it have our people to resolve their satisfaction and assurance concerning the pretended first day Sabbath into that report which their humane fallible Guides do make unto them of this without their tryal of it The Word of Christ doth call upon them to try the spirits whether they be of God and to prove all things that are thus brought them by Teachers by the Scripture-canon and Touch stone as the one and the only infallible Rule What a kind of Faith is that which is a trusting of fallible men without tryal a depending upon Humane Authorities without Scripture Evidence The God-inspired Authority of Christ and of his Word is fully attested within the holy Scriptures own bounds and needs not step out to Humane Histories Authorities and Traditions However this Author would buz into the ear such amazing expressions as this that it is impossible it should be otherwise than as such Humane Historie doth record of the practice of all the Churches since the times of the Apostles and that this Testimony is infallible Humane History and that part of it which they call Ecclesiastical History however it be a pleasant study and an employ someways in its place profitable yet of all kinds of Scientifick Learning is one of the weakest common places of arguing and the least convincing for demonstration because it doth resolve its probations into the fallible Testimonies of lying men and so doth not cannot give any firm full satisfaction to an inquiring Spirit and studious Mind who will still be doubtful and afraid how he doth bottom his Faith in so weighty a case as is now before him upon such an unsure and unsafe ground as he can build no firmness of belief and certainty of knowledge upon even the uncertain witness of deceivable men what their eyes and ears and tongues and pens have reported to us who are so many hundred years come into the World after they were dead and gone that way of disputing therefore which this mighty man of Humane Reason has walked in to find out some place if he could where to make his First day Sabbath cause to stand is such a by-path as doth mislead his Reader into bogs where he cannot settle and stay with any good confidence and sound comfort Such arguments may take with over credulous minds and with passive intellects who through idleness and guile of spirit in a matter which would ingage them in so much of self-denyal and of cross bearing had rather use another man's writings and reasonings than be at the pains of studying of the Scriptures and of exercising their own understanding What has at large been written in trying this Objectors spirit upon the former Scriptures in an answer also to the next mentioned by him in the Revelation which he calleth another Historical hint of the New Testament How can a change of the weekly Sabbath-day from one day to another from the seventh to the first be soundly proved from this other Scripture where he that is of a serious spirit and doth diligently inquire after word-satisfaction about this matter cannot find either Sabbath or First day either in terms plainly expressed or clearly implyed or necessarily inferred in this place or in the context or in the design of the Holy Spirit here or by comparing of it with other places of Scripture Those that would lay the foundation of so great a change should see their Scripture grounds to be more evident convincing and firm What one Word is there in this Scripture that doth warrant any new Instition from Christ for the observing of the First day as the weekly Sabbath-day What one word is there here of command so to observe the First day What one word
other times so at these two seasons one in Christ's life time the other after his death and both before his rising The chief Priests did count themselves and were counted by others to be Builders yet thus notoriously did they refuse Christ The word in the Psalm according to the Hebrew in its propriety of signification is they have reprobated rejected despised refused scorned or turned away from and that expression in a place of the New Testament doth signifie ye have earnestly desired and refused and that when Judge Pilat had absolved him in his own declared judgement yet did they crave earnestly that a man murderer and a seditious one might be freed and that Christ whom yet they could not justly charge with any crime or the least sin might be crucified Then and thus was Christ reprobated of these men Was it not an eminent Day of monstrous rejecting when the question being put to them whether of the two they would have to be released they preferred a seditious Murderer Though there were other times of their refusing and rejecting of Christ before this and that on the Seventh day Sabbath but it was more notorious on the Passion day It was also Prophesied in that Psalm that the people would pray O Jehovah save now or prosper now blessed be he that cometh in the Name of Jehovah This was fullfilled before the Day of Christ's crucifixion when he rode into Jerusalem and the people went forth to meet him crying Hosanna Hoshignana in the Hebrew or Hosanna as it is put into the Greek These things are plain familiar and clear evident of themselves upon the bare reading of them and are not any forced interpretations of my own What a far way about do Objectors go and carry their Followers along with them to bring them at last to that which is no proof at all of that for which they have brought them thither As for the Day spoken of which Jehovah made for his people to rejoyce in it is the large Day of Grace under the New Testament Dispensation of Grace which doth take in many a Natural Day And as for spiritual rejoycing it is every days work though more especially upon the Seventh-day Sabbath so that in short there being not in the Scriptures urged by Objectors either First day or Sabbath-day either in the letter of the words or in any necessary consequence naturally flowing from thence or any design that looks any thing like a change of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath translating it to any other day How any satisfaction can such a change be inferred and inforced from hence To return therefore a while unto that place in the Revelation although there must be some particular distinct determinate Day of the Week when John first saw the beginning of this Vision For all that doth come to pass in time must necessarily be on one Day or other of the Week yet this Lordly Day here spoken of had not this design at all in it to set up the first day in the room of the seventh The skilful in the Greek Tongue do know that an Adjective joyned to a Substantive doth usually mean the Genitive Case of that Substantive as the Lordly Day is the Day of Lordship or Day of the LORD So we find this expressed in other Languages In Hebrew it is in the Day of our LORD in Syriack a Day of the LORD So in Spanish in a Day of the LORD In Greek the Participles have sometimes the force of the Nouns So in English the LORD's Day or the Day of the LORD as in the other instance where the word is used the LORD's Supper or the Supper of the LORD For which Supper we have evident express both Institution appointing of it and command injoyning us to do it Promise making over and sealing the benefit of Christ's Death to such as partake of it worthily after a due sitting manner and threatning denouncing judgements against the profaners of this Ordinance None of all which either Institution Command Promise or Threatning have we yet after all our search found for the first Day to be the Day of the weekly Sabbath in the place of the seventh so that here is no foundation for belief and practice to build upon Where any one place of Scripture is so interpreted as not to have the Harmonious Oneness and the well agreeing consent of the whole Scripture where they do treat of that matter or subject there that is the interpretation of mens own private spirit and not the interpretation of the Spirit of Aelohim And therefore the cause of the first day as the weekly Sabbath not having the whole Scripture profitable for the proving of it cannot stand in the judgement notwithstanding one misinterpreted Scripture is yet further alledged to defend it if the urger of it could be any Art plead it One historical hint more this Objector doth suppose may be with respect to the Day of Pentecost which he thinks was that year on the first Day of the Week when the pourings out of the holy Spirit were on the Apostles and so thinks it to be the Day separated by the Apostles for holy Worship especially in publick Church Assemblies and yet he says he was loth to name the day of the sending down of the Holy Ghost Holy Spirit it should have been said was given as a proof because that some do controvert it but it seemeth to him a very considerable thing I must therefore return somewhat in answer unto this It is much of the Artifice in the present age as in some other cases so concerning the matter under debate to darken and obscure some particular places of Scripture either by corrupt Translations or by false Interpretations upon which to ground their wrong Inferences and conjectural consequences and then to perswade the plain people how deep these things do lie and how much they should lean upon the Wisdom and Advice of their Church Guides who much study humane Histories for them to lead them through what through those dark Mazes into which these Guides have misled them Whereas the Scriptures about the weekly Sabbath are full of clear Light and of satisfying self-evidence to those who are made throughly willing to do the acceptable Will of Jehovah Aelohim What conviction can there be brought in upon the understanding concerning any change of the weekly Sabbath-day from the seventh to the first day of the week where is not either expressed or implyed any thing at all of any such change and where the Reader cannot find the first day spoken of or hinted to to any such purpose The Passover is acknowledged by this Author on this year of Christ's Death to be a Seventh-day Sabbath If so then including that day in the number of fifty and seven Sabbaths reckoned and added to that day Pentecost or the fiftieth day was a Seventh-day Sabbath also for so was the computation seven times
so a rule unto us under the New And then let me be discharged from this Scholastick War Let this be one premise which is several times in short expressions here and there in this Treatise That it is a choice priviledge and a special liberty which Believers do enjoy under the New Testament Administration of Grace Christ profiteth them nothing by his coming in the Flesh born of the Virgin Mary to accomplish and to perfect the Types of old which did so set out his thus coming who keep themselves still under the former dispensation of Types Shadows and Figures We thankfully acknowledge to the Honour of our LORD that gracious administration especially now towards the latter-day glory of it that we are brought under which if compared with the former under the Old Testament as to the different manner of dispensing For otherwise we are to discover in it's place that the Christian Religion is one and the same for Doctrines Duties Gifts Graces Priviledges under both has excelling advantages such as these for the measures and for the degrees of them It has more lively efficaciousness more quick sensible Fellowship It has more clear convincing Light and more abounding spreading knowledge And blessed be Jehovah who is in this providential day clearing up and reviving some too long neglected Truths and Duties amongst some others this about the weekly Seventh day Sabbath It has more manifested Grace It has a more spiritual way of Worship It has a more excelling Holiness refined purity and shining Glory having through the Spirit who is the LORD more power to transform into this those who with unveiled Face do look into this Glass It has more enlarged liberty of heart in the way and service of the LORD It has more of self evidencingly revealed mysteries It has more Royal privileges set out therefore by a Kingdom of God and of Heaven And the things of it are called Heavenly things This is meant of a Church State here on Earth For above in the Heavenly glory there are no unfruitful ones no Tares no Scandals no Doers of Iniquity no bad Fish no foolish ones This New Testament Church State has the name of a Kingdom of Heaven as it doth much resemble that glorious Kingdom which is above in Heaven in its way of Government In its order of subjection in its sights of Faith in its enjoyments of Communion in its service of Delight and in its conformity of Holiness Here these are in growingness of measure There they are in fulness of Perfection This new Church State has much brought down from Heaven to it Such as are gracious visits from Jehovah-Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirit Angelical Ministry like-affectionedness of the perfectly sanctified spirits of just Men and Heavenly Messengers with the Everlasting Gospel This new Church State is drawn up to be much in the Spirit in Heaven above by joynt unions By mutual Fellowships and it doth believe and expect a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new City where they shall be all the Saints and Believers both of Old and New Testament together with one another and with the elect Angels and with their LORD to hidden Age ever as yet Thus it grows up into a Spiritual Kingdom How large and delightful a Field is here for Heavenly Meditation The manner of administring is not now by obscure Types and by darkish shadows as of old but without a veil and open faced yet Christ is the substance of both the Old and the New Testament the same promises and rewards of Life everlasting were in this Christ and purchased by him and there was one way and the same mean of receiving of this under both which was Faith in the Messiah The difference that is between the Old and the New doth discover it self in the Form of dispensation which had a diversity for the manner of it in the Old from the New But this made no real specifick difference or change in the essentials of the Christian Religion Under the Old Believers had an eye towards a Messiah who was then to come in the Flesh to be born of a Virgin and so they eyed the Pattern and Propheties and Promises looking for the coming Christ What were all the Figures and Types the Rites and Shadows but confirmers of their Faith in and encouragers of their hope of Christ's coming In the New we have it revealed that Christ is now actually already come to accomplish those Types and to perfect Salvation by his personal Sacrifice The Reader may therefore be well satisfied in this that our pleading of the cause of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath as it hath no tendency in it self so no design in me To cast any back or to hold any under the Old Testament Administration as to the Types Shadows and Figures of it much less to draw off or to thrust back any from coming into and enjoying of New Testament priviledges I shall not say that it was the Objectors intended aim but it is evidently consequential from his manner of discourse that his Lines about this would secretly insinuate into the Reader of them as if the Assertors and Observers of the weekly Seventh day Sabbath did Apostatize into Judaic ceremonies I have here another opportunity to wipe off a slanderous charge which some have brought in against us as if we stood guilty according to those two Scriptures in the Margin of catching at the shadow and letting go the body Let it be granted that the Elements Rudiments or first beginnings mentioned in that place of the Epistle to the Galatians are the Mosaical Rites ceremonial Laws and shadows of a Christ who under that dispensation was then to come to be born of a Virgin but is now already come so born This then doth shew that the Apostle condemneth their superstitions observing or their keeping besides Right and Equity as that word which they tranflate ye observe doth signifie when taken in an ill sense Especially when it was with an opinion of acceptance and justification in the sight of God thereby such either un-Scriptural days as were never instituted by Jehovah Christ or Scriptural days in an un-Scriptural manner This were a foul matter of sinful Fact sharply to be reprehended As when either the right object a God in Christ is not worshipped or when for the matter of observing it is not New Testament Worship Or when for the Form of observing of Times and of Worship there was not an orderly address unto Jehovah Aelohim To the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit in a word way not in a spiritual manner not from inward principles of new Nature of Faith of Love and of Obedience or when the ends of observing of Days and Times were not right ends when the Gospel designs of humbling emptying and abasing of Man and of exalting and glorifying of a God in Christ were not promoted thereby when there was a
the Prophets Should not those who are fellow-members with them of the same body under that one Head the LORD Jesus Christ rejoyce together O how delightful is it to be with them in the Spirit The Church of Believers of old was then more in her Infancy she is now grown up they now have all their Veils of Figures and Types taken off and they see and enjoy Christ face to face They are brought into the light of the Divine Majesty which is in Christ cloathed in our Flesh Christ is now no longer hidden to and from them under shadows these former Coverings are now removed and the clear Light is not kept away They are now able to look into the bottom of Moses's Ministry They now so behold the Glory of the LORD as to be possessed of the heavenly things themselves having a clear view of Christ who is the Image of the invisible God the brightness or resplendence of his Glory and the Engraven Form of his Person There they receive their Reward which God doth graciously give unto his Servants the Prophets and to his Saints and to all that fear his Name Having thus at large manifested it to be according to the Word that there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament-administration and that the privileges of the LORD's Covenant-people even then were the same for kind with Believers now though differently dispensed I shall here further discover that the Seventh-Day-Sabbath it self was some ways a sign of this thus improving this Expression and Meditation to a right useful purpose which some Adversaries do wrongfully pervert to an ill end Thus they object The Seventh Day-Sabbath was a sign of their Sanctification to whom it was given and therefore of a Ceremonial nature and not given to all men These to whom the Sabbath was given to them it was a sign of their present Sanctification but it was no sign of the present Sanctification of all people over the whole World And therefore it was never given to all the people of the whole World but only unto God's people Israel And therefore of no Natural Consideration therefore Ceremonial Thus it is objected This Objection is like to have the more satisfactory Answer if there be a due clear distinguishing of the several things which are contained in it and a proper Application of each Particular unto the present matter in hand that so the understanding Reader and the spiritual Discerner may see that way plain before him which may directly lead him into the Mind and Will of Christ and he may the better learn the Truth as it is in Jesus I purpose therefore to distinguish of Signs of Sanctification of the Law of the Ten Words of Peoples of Ceremonials of Giving this Law of the Ten Words Signs are either natural Signs such as have a force of signifying from the created Nature of that thing which is the Sign Thus the Heavenly Luminaries are Signs of divers things particularly with respect to the Seventh-Day-Sabbath There is the same word in the Original A diligent Observer with the eye of the motions of those Luminaries may see that set Times and fit Seasons for solemn Assembling and for Instituted Worship are directed to and pointed at by these shining Lights to measure out Daily-Evening and Morning and Weekly-Seventh-Day-Sabbath Opportunities for our direction in Working and in Resting or the conserving of the orderly course and state of this World in the required matters of appointed Services due from Man to his Creators and Makers throughout all the Ages all the days of this Earth Which is also put into a Promise And the Covenant of Grace is confirmed by these natural Signs If these be Signs of created Nature of the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath after the six foregoing working Days in the same Week and this Seventh day-Sabbath have foundation in created Nature and both these be by the Ordination and appointment by the All wise Creator then this being so established by an unchangeable Law of pure Primitive Creation the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath must continue as long as those Luminaries do continue to be such a Sign Which Seventh-day-Sabbath is also a sign of Aelohim's creating the World of Heaven and of Earth and of all things therein in the six foreging Days and of his Resting on the Seventh which is the last Day of the Week This being expresly rendred by himself as the Reason why it is called a Sign Or Signs are instituted which do signifie somewhat by Vertue of some special appointment by the only Supreme Soveraign LORD and Lawgiver Jehovah Christ Thus the Typical Sacrifices and such Ceremonial Figures as were after wards annexed for a time to the weekly Seventh day-Sabbath were Signs and Shadows Types and Figures These were significative of a Christ who was then under that Dispensation to come to be born of a Virgin So they were perfected and accomplished in and by Christ when God was thus manifested in the Flesh when Christ was then born of the Virgin Mary But the weekly Seventh day-Sabbath had its created Being before this and distinct from this and so continued after this did pass into its Antitype This weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath doth stand firm established for ever in the Word and in Nature If the Objector or any other do further affirm that the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath is still a significant Sign by Institution and that this significativeness is a part of it If they mean that it is thus a shadow of that Spiritual Eternal Rest that Sabbatism which doth yet remain for the people of God in the Heavens let them look well to their Scripture-proofs for this but I shall not contend with them about it it rather making for the cause I undertake For the Type must continue till the Antitype come Let these men therefore keep the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath till they get to Heaven if ever they come there and then and there they will know more clearly and fully If any further Typical significativeness be pretended and urged when I understand what it is it is like to pass under Examination and Consideration with me Observe here that the Typical Signs superadded unto the Law of the ten Words did establish that Law in the natural unchangeable Holiness and Righteousness of it Only by Institution they did put some further thing into it during that former Dispensation of Grace Or they are notifying-testifying-certifying-Signs By these somewhat is made known and witnessed unto them unto whom these are given from the LORD for some particular use and end Thus the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath is a Sign Consider here the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath as proclaimed and given by Jehovah Christ put into a Covenant of Grace as have been proved Thus it was is and will be a Sign For there is no particular Verb of definite time expressed in one of the places in the Original to determine when and how long so as if then and
Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the New In my entrance upon this I must express my aâ—horrence of that bold daringness in some who charge the LORD Jesus Christ himself with being in his life-time a counâ—enancer of some breaches of the Seventh-day Sabbath Thus flying in the face not only of this holy Law but also of the Supreme Lawgiver They give two Instances one in the twelfth of Matthew and the beginning of that Chapter the other in the fifth Chapter of John the ninth tenth and so on to the sixteenth Verse As to the the former concerning Christ's Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn and eating on the seventh-Seventh-day and Christ's pleading their Cause Consider well their Case in all the Circumstances of it They did what was lawful on the Seventh day it being a needful refreshing of their outer man thereby to strengthen for Sabbath-worship and Service where other provision was wanting a work of Mercy as Christ shewed it to be an action tending towards the Sanctification of the Sabbath and not bringing any Duty thereof It was according to what the Law of Jehovah did allow in the two last Verses of the twenty third Chapter of Deuteronomy which had foundation in right Nature and in just Equity amongst all Mankind who did allow this in a case of present necessity And this Christ's doth further exemplifie in a like case of David Concerning the later Where Christ healed the man diseased and bid him To take up his bed and walk And this on the Sabbath-day The diseased man was there on his bed in the way of his cure a cure was lawful on the Sabbath-day a doing good on such a day a work of necessity and of mercy and so lawful This was a Work that the diseased man could not foresee or prevent before the Sabbath came nor being healed was he to delay it till the Sabbath was over left he had lost that of his goods which his duty was so to preserve the Creator on the Seventh-day Sabbath preserved his Creatutes which he had made on the six foregoing days of the same week It was a publick Testimony of the truth of the Cure and of the power of the Healer who as God-man spake the cure It was an act of Faith and of Obedience in him who was whole and did not hinder any Sabbath-worship For you may find him in the Temple in the fourteenth Verse Having already proved that the LORD Jesus Christ was Admininistrator under the Old Testament and that he was the Promulgator of the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai who was to be believed and obeyed in that Day as well as now and that the end of the Law also the great design drift purport and meaning of it was Christ for Righteousness to every one that believeth That which is now upon my hand to defend and maintain is that it is still a Rule of Obedience now unto the New Testament for the confutation of Anomy or Antinomianism This Law of the ten Words was confirmed by the express Doctrine of our LORD Jesus Christ when he took to his God-head the Humane Nature born of the Virgin Mary and dwelt here on Earth and conversed with men for some years particularly in his Sermon at the Mount So that as he was the Proclaimer of them at Mount Sinai Thus also was he here again at the Mount the Preacher and Confirmer of them in the faithful discharge of his Kingly Prophetick Office He would not have any Disciple of his so much as to give way unto any one thought that he came to dissolve any of the least commands of this Law of the ten Words the least Consonant or Vowel or Point whatsoever it was that was originally this of Christ's own giving and writing from his Father by his Spirit in his Word Nothing not the least part of it was in any wise to pass from it Who-ever he were that did loose or dissolve one of these least Commandments more especial too if he did further teach men so such an one was not in a fiâ—â—edness for the New Testament Church-state which is set out by the Kingdom of Heaven He was neither to be admitted into this State where it was known or if he unawares crept in yet being discovered he was not to continue in that state without the exercise of Church Discipline And that Christ doth speak of this Law of the Ten Words is manifest for he doth give particular instances of particular Commands in the Decalogue Of the Sixth Word or Command in the one and twentieth Verses of that fifth Chapter of the Second or Fourth Words or Commands though set out after the manner of the Old Testament Dispensation which at that time was not so fully perfected and accomplished as I have shewed else where in the twenty third and twenty fourth Verses of that fifth Chapter where the manner of Worship and the times and seasons of Worship are spoken to and of Of the Seventh Word in the twenty seventh Verse and onwards to the end of the thirty second Verse Of the Third Word in the thirty third Verse and so forward to the thirty seventh Verse Of the First Word in the nineteenth Verse and further even to the end of the sixth Chapter If thou be a discerning unprejudiced Reader it is but open thy Bible and read those three Chapters and thou wilt conclude with me that this Sermon is Christ's reviving of and Commentary upon the Law of the Ten Words making this to be the Doctrinal Foundation upon which wise Believers are to bottom and to build The same Truth and Duties which are here taught and commanded by Christ are the same which the Prophets of old did commend to the people and which Moses also did deliver as may be seen in the Citations in the margin It was by this Law of the Decalogue that Christ doth prove the truth of his Doctrines and the equity of his Commands It is Christ's obedience unto the Law of the Ten Words wherein he propoundeth and setteth himself as a Pattern and Example for Believers to imitate and to follow him This Law of the Ten Words is affirmed in the New Testament to be in its own nature an Holy Just Good Spiritual Law a Perfect Law commanding all good and forbidding all evil All and every sin is a transgression of one or other of the Ten Words which are still the Believer's light to guide his steps aright in those straight ways wherein he is to walk The Apostles in the History of their Acts and in the Epistles which they sent to the Christian Churches are full of this Doctrine which doth constantly attend their preaching of that great Truth of Justification by faith in Christ particularly even as to the Laws of the Second Table The Prophesies
of the Scripture that do foretell of an Holy Righteous People in the purer Churches of the later days have respect unto this Law which is sealed in Christ's Disciples which is transcribed in their new Heart It is engraven on the Hearts and Minds of Christ's New Covenant people by the LORD the Spirit Anti-christ that lawless one will set himself most to persecute those Disciples of Christ who do stick closest to Christ in walking according to the Rule of this Law Both the Old Testament and also the New doth close with a Reviving and Inforcing of this Law and that under a terrible threatning of Excommunication against scandalous Transgressors of it and a dreadful Curse denounced against such as shall add to or take from it whereunto other Scriprures do well agree For the accomplishing of what John had in a Vision Believers do now wait even that the Temple of God may be open in Heaven in which Temple may be seen the Ark of his Testament or Covenant in which Ark there was nothing put but the Two Tables on which the Ten Words written with the finger of Aelohim This Law shall yet once again come forth out of Mount Sion This Law is one of the Great honourable things of Aelohim All the LORD'S Appearings in his way of Justice against Sin for Holiness is his Vindication of this Law And all his free Rewardings of his obedient people in his way of Righteous performing of Covenant Mercy is his Approbation of this Law for upon this bottom do all his Judicial Laws stand These later days do call for Advocates to plead the Cause of this Holy Righteous Law Antichrist now doth more appear to be the Anomous one The Antichristian party have mangled the ten Words for thus they publish them in their Psalters and Catechisms 1. I am the Lord God thou shalt have no other God but me 2. Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain 3. Remember to sanctifie the holy days 4. Honour thy father and mother 5. Thou shalt not kill 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery 7. Thou shalt not steal 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness 9. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours wife 10. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours goods Here they wholly leave out the second Commandment They thrust the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath of Jehovah out of the Fourth Word and substitute their own unscriptural holy-days they turn the last Word into two They teach religious reverence to be done to Creatures as to Angels to Souls departed to the Cross c. they hold it lawful to be present at idolatrous service keeping a man's conscience to himself they teach Invocation of Saints they allow blasphemous Oaths they teach Will-worship Idolatry Superstitions and their fabulous feigned Traditions and such vows as are unwarrantable and unlawful they lay aside the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and set up days of mens inventing instituting and imposing dedicating them and the worship and service on them much to Creatures they hold that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in the Matters of Religion they exempt their Clergy from the jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate They absolve Inferiors from their subjection to Superiors They justifie Murthering of Princes and of others that promote not their Cause they tolerate Stewes they allow uncleanness to some persons as venial and scarce a sin They assert officious and sporting lyes to be lawful and justifiable if good may be attained by it They dispense with the whole Decalogue by Usurpation If the Pope command what Christ doth forbid or if he forbid what Christ doth command yet they require their people to obey them contrary to Christ's Law The sins of the later days are expressed by the name of Anomies which is often declared against in the New Testament as well as in the Old Violence to the Law and partiality in the Law is one great Article that will be brought in by way of charge against corrupt Teachers in the later days This is the great comprehensive sin which the LORD doth so much hate One Word for Law is used if I have not misreckoned abvoe one hundred and ninety times in the New Testament and another word for a commandment about seventy times And those who are nefarious not consentaneous to Laws Out laws and lawless ones are the gross erring ones in principle in practice or in both O how zealous was the LORD Christ for this Law of his How careful to have the whole of it all and every part of it to be safely kept He put it all into two comprehensive Precepts and there hung it up to stay it that none of it might fall to the ground or be lost All Religion conspireth into these two This is that way of Righteousness wherein Believers ought to be found walking Anomy Antinomianâ—sm lawlessness or a disowning and rejecting of the Law of the ten Words this is a description of sin as opposed to Holiness and Righteousness 1 John 34. Rom. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Anomy is that foul comprehensive evil which Christ doth hate Heb. 1. 9. To be reckoned amongst the Anomous ones is to be reckoned amongst the vilest and most notorlous of sinners Mar. 15. 28. Luk. 22. 37. They were Anomous hands which did crucifie Christ Act. 2. 23. Anomous works are grieving and vexing to the Righteous Soul of a Righteous Man 2 Pet. 2. 8. Anomy is that great Evil which Christ came to redeem his people from Tit. 2. 14. Anomy is that sin which all Christ's justified ones have freely forgiven unto them Rom. 4. 7. Heb. 8. 12. and 10. 17. Anomy doth lay aside that Rule by which we must judge of Good and of Evil of Sin and of Duty Rom. 4. 15. and 5. 30. It is one of Antichrists Names that he is the Anomous one 2 Thess 2. 8. Anomy is the hainous crime of the later days Mat. 24. 12. 2 Thess 2. 7 8. Anomous ones will be cast out of Fellowship and Communion in the purer Churches of the later-day-Glory Mat. 13. 41. Such as live and die working of this Anomy will at the last be shut out of the New City and the Heavenly Glory Mat. 23. and 23. 28 33. We must take one and all one and every one of the ten Words They are conjoyned into one body of the Law and must be so likewise in our Obedience It is as it were one copulative if you dissolve and break one you dissolve and break all and thereby violate his Authority who requires obedience to all and to every one of them All the ten Commandments is but one Commandment A Law Kingly A Law of Liberty A Law by which we must be obliged A Law by the works of which men must manifest their Faith to be of the right saving living-kind and by which Faith is made perfect The same Aelohim who spake one of the Laws of these ten Words
successive courses are as the daies and week of that one Created week were At the First Creation was this Law given to Adam in respect of his humane Nature and in him given to all the World of Humane Creatures Even adversaries themselves in their Writings against the seventh-day-Sabbath have confessed that the Law given to Adam from the beginning is unalterable and therefore remains still in full force so that all men to the Worlds end are bound to yield obedience thereunto and that the Rest of the seventh-day-Sabbath was entred into from the Foundation of the World Christ himself the Creator rested the seventh day from all his works and that Aelohims resting on that Seventh-day-Sabbath doth necessarily imply Mans Resting on that day as well as Gods resting God's entring into that rest being the ground of Man's rest at the same time which they prove from Heb. 4. 3 4. The created nature of it as the seventh day and the cogent reason of it as the Weekly Sabbath-day not being peculiar to the Israelites but common to the Gentiles the Command is not proper to one of these only excluding the other but doth belong unto both the LORD 's resting on it which gave such occasion to his Blessing and Sanctifying of it has an Universal preceptive respect to Adam and to his whole Posterity it is a common Instruction and a general Command unto all men in all ages to labour in their particular callings functions and employments on those six fore-going days of the Week wherein Jehovah Aelohim made the Heavens and the Earth and to cease and rest from such labour on the seventh-day because in it He Sabbatized or rested from all his work This Law was made and it came with Authority in the beginning of the Created World and it shall continue and last to the end of the World Adam the Father of Nations and of Generations was put under the obligation of it and so are all his Off-spring from first to last throughout all Nations in all Generations Every Man has a teaching light and law of Nature which he doth carry about with and in him and is born and bred together with him There are still some reliques and remainders as dark Letters in an old Monument of those Holy Just Good and spiritual Laws of the Ten Words still to preserve and keep alive the memory of Man's first created Honour and Dignity His Rectitude and Uprightness as also for some other ends Though those seeds are corrupted now Natural right reason will teach men that seeing all men in all Nations do measure their time by Weeks and their Weeks by seven days they should besides what part they separate of their time as due unto God every day set apart one whole day of every week unto their Maker who has allowed them so liberal a portion of time wherein to provide for themselves and for their families there being no other proportion of time that can so well provide both for the worship and service of God every day as Evening and Morning of every day and every week as the whole Seventh which is the last day and also for the necessities of all Families as that which remaineth of the several six fore-going days of the Week and that is so well fitted to all functions and Callings and Employments There is that in every man who has the due exercise of his right reason that will directly answer unto this especially when compared with these created beings and more especially yet when having the advantage of Scripture-revelation The light and law of Nature when cleared up will tell men that all mens labour and motion being in order to Rest and Rest being the perfection and end of Labour into which labour and work and motion do pass that therefore the seventh which is the last day in every week is the most fit and proper whole day for a weekly religious rest unto the Creator for his Worship service and honour The natural reasonableness of this Command for observing the seventh-day-Sabbath doth suggest That Man and Beast should have his Resting-day every week The Ass that poor beast so much used to burdens and drudgery on other days must rest and the Stranger be refreshed on the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath That word in the Original which doth set our conventions for Worship to those who do understand it and who will make a diligent observation and due improvement of it would inform them that they may with their own eyes discern something of this in the motion of those Heavenly lights which would instruct men that set times of their Creator's appointing for solemn Assembling and for his instituted Service are directed to and pointed at by those Great Luminaries which the All-wise Aelohim hath set up in the Heavens As for many other good purposes so also particularly for this Great and Holy end This naturalness of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath should make all the judgments and wills of grown reasonable Creatures to bend and to bow before it and should for ever stop the mouth of all gain-sayers never more to speak or write or print a word against that which is so Legible in its own created Existence Pure Primitive nature in Scripture is put sometimes for the essence of a being or for the Essential Properties of it Thus the Goddy-nature is His Essence His unchangeable Being a lively resemblance unto which communicable properties in Him such as His Wisdom Goodness Truth Holiness and such like are impartable to rational creatures especially to new creatures For otherwise as for His very Essentiality This is incommunicable to any meer Creature Hence as to Creatures Nature is put for the person or thing it self Indeed or In-truth really so For the essence and being of a Creature for that which is Concreated born with a Creature Connatural with it For that which is proper Genuine and Innate For the Natural Law particularly Aelohim will not change what He did create to be pure and good naturally essentially so It is the Seventh-days proper nature to be the Weekly-Sabbath This Seventh-day and the Weekly-Sabbath were Concreated It was so made and ordained according to pure Primitive Creation When the first pure created state of what Aelohim made was defaced by sin much of his doing in the World is to bring back to that Original purity and goodness Therefore the work of Redemption is set out by Creation and for the same reason it is called a renewed Creation So is his work of Preservation of and of Providence over his creatures So will his work of Regeneration and of Conversion still be Thus also his constituting of his Church Thus also his work of Instauration and of Renovation of the Heavens and of the Earth This work of first Creation by the creating Messiah is the rule and Standard the pattern and exemplar to which all must be brought It is as to the final cause
thereof for the glory of Aelohim The glory of Christ The good of the Elect and of the Believing The work of Creation in that one week of the Erected World was a glorious work every way perfect particularly of Man as Man That Sabbath which was thus from the beginning must still stand The first created Seventh-day-Sabbath is throughout the Scripture most natural according to the Scripture This alone and no other Day is the Sabbath in pure created Nature This Seventh in order has the natural name of Sabbath which the First second third fourth fifth and sixth have not The creation has a natural order The several works thereof having been so created in such due order in six distinct days doth carry that along with it in the very nature and order of their creation which would convince a natural conscience exercising right reason especially when the true information and clear discovery thereof is brought unto him by Scripture-revelation that the Creators wisdom doth shine forth in that order and that this self-evidencing light should be received entertained and improved with ready submission to its obliging Law which doth bind such a natural conscience to believe observe and obey it The first created time as to the weekly Sabbath was perfected and appointed in its proper prime pure and natural Created state and therefore the created order of the seven days of that one week must still keep their natural Names and so the last day of the week and no other is alone the seventh-day and the Sabbath-day Which day then cannot be altered unto a working-day Aelohim's Law must still be obeyed and his Example followed whilst Time has duration To carry the Sabbatizing rest from the seventh to the first day and the Labouring-service from the first to the seventh-day is contrary to the purest Created Nature There is not a translating either of the Work or of the Rest from one day of the week to another Aelohim would not have either of these to be separated from his from their appointed seasons It must abide to the End what was thus from the Beginning What the Holy Law of pure Nature doth confirm doth remain unmoved through all the Dispensations of Grace both of the Old and New-Testament-Administration This doth not destroy that which is pure and perfect in its natural created Being Scripture and Nature are in Harmonious Concord in this matter This seventh day is peculiarly sequestred by Aelohim for a Sabbath and has this Preeminence beyond all the rest the Vote and suffrage of Primitive Nature doth determine and conclude it to be so And what is Man that he attempts to change this Time and Law by a Devising of his own heart and to level this Honorable Day with the rest seeing it was the Institution of Aelohim in the very Forming of Created beings The Holy ends whereof were concreated uses natural and permanent for this portion of Time Which seventh day may not therefore be employed about the common ends uses and works of the six foregoing days of the Week Which six days in their order and names have their several distinct Existence as sense doth plainly demonstrate by the continued successive courses of Night and Day in their seasons At the first framing of Nature the very time it self of the seventh day was on that same day created and made an Holy Rest and was by Law and Sanction so declared The time it self of the seventh-day-Sabbath As such was and is and will be That distinct part of Time which was the object of Aelohim's blessing and sanctifying of it as the natural Weekly Sabbath to be a day of Holy Rest having Foundation in its own natural Existence This is manifestly evidenceable to every rational Man's revived nature and it is perfectly demonstrable by Scripture-revelation to every considering Believer who gives himself impartially to understand the substance and the end of Aelohim's creating of such a separated determinate portion of Time This is the true Doctrine and the Genuin meaning of the Weekly-Sabbath Man and this seventh-day-Sabbath being created in one and the same week will be coeval whilst Weeks do last They will live and stand together The fittedness of this Day was a Creating-Act The reason of which Day is of natural self-Manifestation and Obligation in which we are confirmed by Word-revelation This is the prime Make of it having its first rise with Created Nature and so is Perpetual and unchangeably fixed An Individual-Sabbath-day untransferrable to any other Day of the Week Sabbath-day and seventh-day are Connatural and Reciprocal Sabbath-worship and service must be done on the Day thereof All days of the week are not of equal accompt with God neither have they the same Honour Christ Himself hath put the Crown upon the Head of the Seventh-day and so let it enjoy its sole and lasting Royal Dignity It having a concreated Excellingness which will be and abide with it through the duration of the World A Primitive Constitution that must stand firm It is a distinct day and has a distinct word for it Thus let the Scriptural compleat Journal and its perfect Diary of that one Created Week in seven distinct days remain in its unmoveable Order And now if this Argument drawn from pure Primitive Created Nature be convincing and demonstrative let that Great Ratiocinator call to mind his Expressions I can consent saith he that all They take the seventh-day for the Sabbath who can prove it to be by meer natural evidence and in another place he thus writes This is the very hinge of all our Controversie For if this be once proved we shall easily consess that it he speaks of the Seventh-day-sabbath is not abrogated For Christ came not to abrogate any Law of Nature And further he writes That the great Laws of nature containing Man's Duty to God resulting from and manifested in our nature As related to God and in the nature of things or the works of God was still made the chief part of the Redeemer's Law So that this Law of nature whose sum is the love of God and of his Image is ever the Primitive unchangeable Law No title of this shall ever cease if Nature cease not The seventh-day thus speaks for it self and has its Creator and his word cogently pleading for it No other day of the week either in name or in nature is the Seventh-day The order of the Days is sensible from the first to the seventh He that can tell the days and knows their number understandeth that there must six go before in the same week ere he can come to the seventh A day which cannot be lost by all Mankind Will any apprehend that all and every of reasonable creatures have out slept just one whole day or more whereby this accompt is disturbed What colour is there for such an apprehension And if for Disputes sake such a groundless supposition were admitted yet the Day if thorowly searched after