haling him through the Streets Therefore this must be the former part of the sixth day in the latter part whereof he was Crucified and laid in the Grave in which he continued throughout the seventh and out of which he rose very early in the Morning of the first day And so it could not be after as he would fain have it but upon the third day And therefore without any danger of shaking the third days Resurrection our Expositors according to the use of Scripture do thus interpret this Passage and this Preposition See another express place for this where after three days is said to be upon the third day 2 Chron. 3.5 12. And because it was our Saviour's use to appear to them upon that day even the first day 'T is strange that he should herein go against all the Criticks of that Language and against all the Sense of all the Expositors that I can see to serve his own Hypothesis 'T is without doubt that it was not upon the Seventh day that our Lord did now appear to his Disciples unless we will understand it thus after four or five days after the eighth day he appeared to them And thus he slily evades this other Argument for the Lords days Observance even his Appearance to his Disciples when gathered together for religious Worship which as I have shewed formerly was not once only but several times after his Resurrection And 't is the only day of the Week which is named by all the four Evangelists upon which our Saviour appeared to them and graciously discoursed with them no other day so much as mentioned nor the Seventh so much as hinted to be the day of his Personal Manifestation of himself unto them which is another high Honour and Prerogative our Lord and the King of the Church has bestowed upon this first day of the Week and seems to be a practical and exemplary laying aside of the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath-day and substituting the first day to be that day consecrated to the publick and solemn Worship of God and an Assurance that he will be in the midst of his People assembling themselves upon this his day and will come and Bless them which has been and is according to the Experiences of his People in their religious Devotions and publick Congregations for there have they met and do they still meet him in those his Galleries Then he brings them into his Wine-Cellar and his Banner over them is Love Then he gives them the ravishing Kisses of his Mouth Then they behold his Beauty in his Sanctuary apprehend his Glory Experience his gracious Power in and upon their Souls Then they are abundantly satisfied with the Fatness of his House and drink delicious Draughts of the Rivers of Spiritual Pleasures that flow therein Then they experience that that first day of the Week in Gods House is inconceivably better to them than all the days of the Week any where else or about any other Imployment whatever Wherefore we have just cause to hope that our People will not and persuade them that they do not neglect the Sanctification of the first day of the week and their Assembling themselves together on that Holy day Seeing herein they follow the Examples of the Apostles themselves and the other Christians in their days and experience the Gracious Spiritual Presence of our Lord in the midst of them as they did both his Carnal and Spiritual Presence then and turn aside after the novel and singular Opinion of this Author being also poorly grounded as we have seen He proceeds Page 51. against that which some bring from John 8.56 Abraham saw my day c. as the day of Christ's Resurrection and so the First day of the Week He says some would have it meant of his Birth-day for the Observance of Christmas others all the days of his Flesh and the things which he did speak and suffered and our Redemption thereby which I think to be a true Notion But then to be sure he must foresee his Resurrection and so a day thereof and this was the great Cause of his Joy and Gladness Because without this there could be no cause of Gladness in all the rest For his Birth Life and Death could have brought no Glory to him if he had still layen in the Grave nor Good nor Profit to us if he had not rose out of it but he would have been conquered by his Enemies and we forever undone But now his Resurrection is for his own greatest Glory his Enemies Confusion and our Comfort and Triumph This was properly our Lords day He calls the day and time of his Sufferings Luk. 22.53 the hour of his Enemies and the power of Darkness Because then they insulted over him and he was delivered into their Hands But the time of his Resurrection was his own day because he therein Triumphed over all his Enemies and had perfectly vanquished them and therefore this day must chiefly be intended by Abraham because 't was the chief day of his and all Believers Joy and Gladness Though Mr. B. does not so much as once mention it in all those Particulars he reckons up under this Head Moreover Page 52.53 he mentions those Texts Psal 118.22 24. and Heb. 4.1 11. where the day the Psalmist speaks of which God hath made some do interpret of the Resurrection-day and that therefore upon that day of the Week Christians or the Churches should go into the Houses of Worship and there praise the Lord and adore him And Psal 2.7 where the day of God's begetting his Son is interpreted the day of Resurrection And there is very good reason nay there is Divine Authority for it for it 's applyed and appropiated to that very day Act. 13.33 So that the Text in the Hebrews which speaks of a Sabbath besides the Seventh day from the Creation and that Sabbath or Rest which Jehovah brought Israel into in the Land of Canaan which was to succeed and as it were to antiquate and exclude the others is by good and excellent Authors understood of the Lords day the Sabbath of the First day Who bring many excellent Arguments for this their Interpretation and Opinion Which Mr. B. should have Produced Answered and Invalidated and not put them off only by a bare Denial or Calling them Shifts and Wind-laces As though his only Rejection of these Passages were enough to Counterballance all the Arguments and rational and scriptural Discourses which many good Scholars Divines and Holy Men do draw from them and give us upon them And therefore seeing he saith nothing to Confute what they have said and I desire to study Brevity I shall speak nothing more here but only refer the Reader to these Orthodox Authors themselves and Particularly to Mr. Warren in whom he shall find very good Improvement of these Passages for the Lords day Page 54. He mentions Act. 20.7 as an Objection against the Authority of the Seventh day and
Martyr An. 250. Athanasius An. 326. Hilary 355. Ambrose 374. Hierome 385. Chrysostom 398. Augustine in their Time Eusebius saith my Author testifies 't was observed all the World over And Bp. Andrews as I have read him in his Speech against Thrask a Sabbatarian in the Star-Chamber avows it on his Credit that there is not any Ecclesiastical Writer in whom 't is not found Viz. The sacred Observance of the Lord's Day that is the First Day of the Week Which Testimonies of so many excellent Doctors yea saith Bp. Andrews of all eminent Doctors of so many great and flourishing Churches carry much more Weight with them than all his Collections can pretend to do against them As touching Easter and it's Observance that is no Part of this Controversy therefore I shall only say that I am no Zelot for it's Observance and am perswaded it has less Grounds for it's Celebration than any other of those Festivals which are appropriated to our Lord and in Commemoration of his Birth of his Manifestation of his Ascension of his Mission of the Holy Ghost because the Lord's Day is a constant Memorial of that Resurrection being that Day of the Week whereon he rested from all the Work of his Redemption wherefore seeing there is a weekly religious and solemn Commemoration thereof there must needs be the less Cause for an Annual As for the other Festivals which are appropriated to meer Men and dedicated to their Remembrance and Praise as I have nothing to say for them so I think it neither prudent nor seasonable to say any thing against them But let him that keepeth a Day keep it to the Lord and he that keepeth not a Day unto the Lord let him not keep it And let both maintain the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Here I hoped to have annexed my Epilogue but some Passages in the Discourse of Easter do require a little Animadversion As when He tells us Page 134. which he had done several Times before that the Change of the Seventh Day to the First was introduced by the Bp. of Rome and so imposed by him upon the other Churches which he thinks evidenced by his former Collection But 1. We have seen it observed before there was a Bp. of Rome and he received it from the Assemblies of the Disciples and Christians just upon our Saviour's Resurrection and in the Apostles Days 2. We have seen it observed by very great Churches in the Purity of the Roman Faith and the Moderation of the Roman Ecclesiastical Government when either the Roman Bishop did not pretend to any Authority over them or if he did they rightly and stoutly resisted and refused it And therefore 't was rather an universal Reception of all the Churches conjunctly as from the Apostles and scriptural Authority than any Imposition of Rome upon them He has a strange Notion Page 130. as it appears to me which is that first Rome endeavoured to introduce the Observation of the Passover upon the Lords-day and so the weekly Holy Rest upon that day which to my Apprehension implies that Rome her self observed the Passover Lords-day before she did the weekly Whereas 't is clear that Rome observed the first day of the week because 't was the Dominical day the day of our Lord's Resurrection whereas the proper Paschal-day was two or three days before the Lords day And therefore in Honour to that day did the Bishop of Rome require Easter to be kept and not ordained Easter First-day as a Shooe-horn to bring in the weekly first day after Moreover in those Churches wherein they dissented from Rome as to the day of Easter they concurred with her in the weekly Lords-day So that the Lords-day was weekly observed by them before Easter was kept upon that day and therefore the yearly first day could not be an usherer in of that week-day which was before it SECT XXI AS the Conclusion and Result of all this Discourse I think I have shewn that the Lord Christ did not make the World that Jehovah was not Christ before the World that he never instituted the Seventh day nor rested on it till his Incarnation nor being Christ really till then that he gave not the Commands on Mount Sinai Neither were they there given to the Gentiles but to the Jews only and those mixed People that came out of Egypt That the Ten Commands were confirmed by our Lord Christ in his Sermons and Discourses but the Seventh-day-Sabbath never so much as mentioned by him in them all as that which was no part at all of the Moral Law but purely positive both in it self and in its Grounds and Motive upon which 't is founded and imposed upon its Observers in the Old Testament and therefore was liable to be changed with the other positive and ceremonial Precepts of the Law of God that our Lord Christ indeed observed it in his own Person in the Flesh because he was made under the antecedent Law of all the Ceremonies and Mosaical Administration and observed them all as well as the Sabbath but yet he then spake and did such things as declared its approach to Dissolution and its Non-Morality that he rested no more in the Grave on the Seventh day than he did on the Cross on the Sixth when he hung dead thereon but the day of his Rest from the work of Redemption was the first day of the week which day he supreamly honoured above all the days of the week by his Resurrection thereon from the Dead by his several Appearances thereon to his Disciples after his Death by his most gracious Discourses thereon unto them which he never did nor made on the Seventh day after his Resarrection and by the Mission of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples thereon Upon which account St. John calls it the Lords day and by all the Churches ever since that Lords day has been taken to be the first day of the Week That the Apostles and Believers kept the Lords day or the first day of the week as their religious Rest and met together on that day as the day of their publick Assemblies and we never read of any Assemblies on the Seventh day save those of the Jews our Lords Enemies in their Synagogues to whom Paul went to preach the Gospel then and there but when he experienced their desperate Obstinacy left that time and those Synagogues and we never read that ever on that day he joyned with any religious Society after that at Troas he preached and administred the Sacrament to the Believers on the first day the Lords day and that the Holy Ghost does call the first day of the week the Lords day being the day of the Redeemer's Rest from a far more glorious laborious gracious and beneficial Work than that of the Creation And that there is an express Prohibition of the Seventh-day-Sabbath in St. Paul's Epistles and consequently seeing the positive Morality of one day in Seven in the Fourth
The Lords day Vinaicated OR The First day of the WEEK THE Christian Sabbath In Answer to Mr. Bampfields Plea for the Seventh day in his Enquiry Whether Jesus Christ be Jehovah and gave the Moral Law And whether the Fourth Command be Repealed or Altered BY G. T. a Well-wisher to Truth and Concord Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him LONDON Printed for Samuel Clement at the White Swan in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. TO THE READER THo' there be many Books already written on this Subject the following Preface will justify the Seasonableness of this Modest and Judicious Reply to Mr. B. especially among serious Professors in the West of England But it cannot be unfit upon other Considerations that such a Discourse be now Publish'd when the Doctrinal Truth in the Controversie of a Weekly Sabbath is opposed by so many and the Practical Sanctification of it neglected by so many more It has been generally observed that the Power of Godliness hath Flourished or Abated in every Age and in every part of Christendom as the strict and consciencious Observation of a Weekly-Day of Holy Rest did obtain or not And particularly in our own Country no outward Means can be assigned that hath more availed to help the Preservation of Pure Reformed Christianity among us On which account it concerns all Christians to enquire what is our Warrant for the Observation of One day in Seven and likewise whether the Seventh or the First day of the Week which according to a true Account may also be called the Seventh ought to be observed as the Christian Sabbath What is said on this Argument in the following Reply to Mr. B. discovers so much the Candor and Moderation of the Author as will recommend it to every Impartial Reader His Distance from London and nothing else occasions or needs this Epistle as will doubtless be thought even by such as have some different Conceptions from him in some lesser Matters of this Controversie That it may advance the Honour of Christ and help to satisfy the Minds of some Wavering and less Established Christians and promote the real Interest of Practical Godliness upon which the Doctrin of the Weekly Sabbath will have a great Influence as it will answer the Authors Design so our Desires and Prayers John Howe John Shower The PREFACE IT may afford cause of Wonder to considering and serious Persons what should be the Inducements of the Author of the Enquiry whether the Lord Jesus c. to Print and divulge it at such a time and under such circumstances as we are brought into And though he hath proposed no Preface to his Book to plead for it's Emission yet I think there has scarce been a Piece sent into the World these many Years that more required and needed it For 1. He well knows that the whole Christian World is engaged against him herein and that they have Sciptural grounds and the practice of the most ancient Churches the Doctrin and Testimonies of the must Orthodox and Learned Fathers derived immediately from the Apostles with an uninterrupted Succession through several Centuries and their own Education Custom and Practice received down from many Generations with their own blessed Experiences of the Light of Gods countenance the operations of his Spirit the activity and growth of their own Graces on that blessed Day c. for their consecrating of the first day of the Week to Divine Service and their Religious and Devout appropriating it to and imploying it in those Duties which immediately concern the Glory of God and the Spiritual and Eternal Weal of their own Souls Which things are not easily overcome and laid aside with as great and Rooted Prejudices against his opinion of the Seventh-day-Sabbath as that 't is Judaical Fanciful and Singular such at least as has had but very few Favourers and Abetters either in the ancient Churches and these branded for Heresie or else in the modern some three or four starting up of late years among our selves daring by Writing and Printing to endeavour the Introduction of this Novelty into the belief and practice of Vniversal Church All which and other Prejudices against this Opinion cannot slightly be eradicated out of the minds of Men and therefore he could hardly imagin any great success to this undertaking unless he could have produced undeniable demonstrations to our Reason or irrefragable Testimonies of Scripture to our Faith Which I hope we shall see he has been far enough from 2. He should also have considered and concluded that these Arguments which have been produced heretofore by those of his perswasion are not likely now to convince and convert the whole Christian World to his thoughts and practice Seeing they have been so often and by so many worthy Learned Orthodox and Pious Divines answered and in the judgment of Wise and gracious Persons fully confuted and satisfactorily baffled to the deeper Rooting and more firm Establishment of the Churches of Christ in their constant Observance of the Lords day Wherefore if he would have effected any thing by this attempt he should have offered some new Inventions of his own that have never yet encountered with any opposition But in all his Book to the best of my Remembrance I have not met with any one place of Scripture nor argument drawn therefrom nor Improvement thereof for his own Sentiments Nor yet any Text of Gods word or Topick against ours no nor any one solution of our Authoritative or Rational proofs for the confirmation of our Contrary Belief and Practice to his which has not been already produced by others and as largely and strenuously managed as by himself and that too in the same manner 'T is no great Prudence in a Combatant to make use of the same Weapons Modes and Arts against his Antagonists which have been frequently Baffled Defeated Broken and retorted into his own Bowels Wherefore 't is strange to me if any Victory over any considerate studious Person could be hoped for by such a casting of the Gantlet 3. But suppose he could have expected to have proselited some to his Opinion as who has not though the Doctrin be never so absurd Heterodox and Impious yet sure it could not be thought a sufficient means to prevail upon all the Churches no nor upon the universality of the National Church of that Collection of so many millions of counterminded Christians and Protestants whereof he is He could not certainly presume that all the Authority of these Nations both Ecclesiastical and Civil would follow his Dictates or receive new Light from his Torch and acknowledg themselves to have been in gross Error and in a sinful Practice ever since and always before the Reformation since they Professed Faith in the Lord Christ And that they should alter all their Acts and Statutes all their Canons and Articles in this particular And herein acknowledg him to be the infallible Apostle
and not the seventh in order or the last day of the Week This we say is not expresly commanded therein and might be altered for another day of the Seven upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds as it is from it to the first In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue from Mat. 5.17 19. Luke 16.17 and then asks why those places confirm all the 10 Commands and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature which inclines us to be Gods c. when yet he knows that they that are for the change of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments which do amount in their Esteems to a divine Authority for that Change though they do not produce an express Command for it as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet what amounts thereto but it seems all these are not Reasons to him are not so much as Shews of Reasons But the only Reason is Man's Corruption Pride and Rebellion Whereas he cannot but know that many of those who in Doctrin and Practice admit of this Change are as free from these Vices and have as much mortifyed them as himself and are as Eminent for Holiness and Humility and Obedience to God as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be And their Earnestness for the First day does not spring from the Looseness of others thereon nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom But because they know 't is not Moral as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions with many other good and solid Grounds And here I shall ask him by way of requital if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral and by Christ confirmed as well as all the other Commands which are undeniably so Whence comes it to pass that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer either by way of Recommendation of it to them or commending of them for their Zeal for it and tthe strict Observance of it nor yet commanding of its Observance or teaching them how they should Keep and Sanctify it according to its first Institution seeing 't is clear that he in his Discourse doth particularize every other Duty of the Moral Law and Exhorts and Requires Obedience thereto In all his most copious and glorious Sermon upon the Mount where he Explains Enlarges upon and Injoyns the other Moral Duties we have not a Word about their Sabbath and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue he never mentions among them the Sabbath nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees and captions Jews in their condemning him and his Disciples as Profaners of the Sabbath c. to expound the Duty of the Sabbath and to shew them wherein the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto uttered by him only a Vindication of his own and his Disciples Practices from a Profanation thereof If I may judge at the Reasons I think they may be such as these 1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others not Moral as they nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already 3. Because neither they nor we neither Jews nor Gentiles should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day and its Conversion into the First day 5. Because as Place Priesthood Mode outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship which were before his coming into the Flesh were to be altered by his Authority as King of the Church so was Time also the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly observed into another day wherein his own Institutions were to be chiefly and generally practised by his Church And for these and such like Reasons he did not only particularly recommend and enjoyn but did also speak and do as has been formerly hinted and may be futurely evinced such words and things as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day but to a good Intention which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors Bloody Wars c. As though this general Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along since the days of our Lord Christ had no other Foundation but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots and not the least Footing for it in the Word of God An unworthy Suggestion and a most invidious Comparison and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading 'T is strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government Doctrin Worship and Practice of the Church according to the Word of God and the Patern in the Mount should mean as one if not the chiest of those Particulars the removal of the First-day-Sabbath and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu thereof When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox and his Adversaries in this Opinion prescribe the same rule for the Reformation and call upon those in Authority to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesiastial and Civil to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ And Commenius himself in his Practice and in his own Church was an Observer and Sanctifier of the First-day-Sabbath as he here acknowledgeth so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day And therefore questionless did not esteem the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule according to which he would have all Churches regulated But here we see what a strong fancy can do it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant if not directly contrary thereto SECT VII HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abrogating the Ceremonial Laws But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation as he requires us to do for not the Abrogation but only the Mutation of the Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another For I assert and can prove it that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ than his Seventh-day-Sabbath I take leave to call it his because though 't was Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ yet now 't is not so but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions while they are rigorous towards others and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments In the same Page he gives us a
Subserviency to his farther Design And therefore 't is very remarkable and worthy our most diligent Observance that when the Apostle Paul had sound the Jews given up so far to their cursed Blindness and Prejudice against the Lord Christ that all his Pains he took with them all the Affections he shewed he had for them all the undeniable Demonstrations from Scripture he produced before them could prevail nothing with them but rather they contradicted and blasphemed He forsook them and their Society and turned to the Gentiles Act. 13.45 46. and doubtless went into their Synagogues no more on the Seventh day In other Places he did go into the Jews Synagogues after this on the Seventh day as long as he had any hope of succeeding in his Preaching the Lord Christ to them but when he saw that they were generally hardned and took Advantage to speak Evil of the Lord Christ and his Doctrin before others the Gentiles he turned away quite from them and forsook their Synagogue and made the School of a Heathenish Philosopher one Tyrannus the common Meeting-place of his Auditors Act. 19.8 9. and so questionless altered the Time and Day as well as the Place of his Preaching and the Meeting of his Auditors For after this throughout all the remaining Book of the Acts throughout the remaining part of this Chapter and all the other Nine you find not the least Mention of Paul's Preaching or Praying or Associating with any others upon the Seventh day neither could this Author produce because he could not find any such Passage after this Eighth Verse of this Nineteenth Chapter Wherefore that Word of Mr. B. Pag. 45. Line 15. Continually might well be omitted for he did not continually go into the Jews Synogogue on the Seventh day but ceased from it when his great Design thereof was frustrated and never is said more to do it after this time No not at Rome where he lived Two whole Years in a hired House of his own and might have appointed what day he would for the Collection of his Disciples and Hearers Is he ever said to have called them together on the Seventh day which I assert to be a clear Proof that he never did it before out of any Regard to that day as more holy than other And therefore this Discourse of Two or Three Pages and the particular Remarks which he makes upon this Practice of St. Paul in some few of the Chapters of the Acts and the great Advantages he thinks he has for the Seventh day from them are dwindled and vanished into nothing If he would have gotten any thing for his Cause from this Practice of St. Paul he should have shewn these or such like Particulars 1. That St. Paul called his Auditors together upon that day which he cannot do for the Jews assembled themselves thereon 2. That he associated himself with the Gentiles and made their Religious Assemblies upon that day but this he never reads 3. That he did this perseveringly even when he turned from the Jews but this he can never shew and therefore all this shew is but a shew Besides we know St. Paul preached where-ever and whenever he found a convenient Auditory in the School of Tyrannus Acts 19.9 in the Market-place Acts 17.17 on Mars-hill v. 22. at the High Priests Bar and before Festus and Agrippa and as he made no distinction of places so none of days as to the preaching of the Gospel though as to the Churches solemn stated Worship he did though not the Seventh day and so these days and times have as much to plead for their Sanctity from the Apostles preaching on them as the Seventh hath But I suppose I have said enough of this to satisfie any unprejudiced considering Person Page 46. To his Question we grant that the Holy Scriptures do call no other day of the Week a Sabbath but the Seventh though Dr. Lightfoot shews that one day of the Year is called a Sabbath day whenever it falls out upon any other day of the Week viz. Pentecost and do not begrudge him all the Advantage he can take from hence Thus I hope by Gods Assistance and Guidance I have ran through all this Author's Arguments for his Sabbatarian Opinion and if I deceive not my self have proved them to be very weak and ineffectual as to the Edifying and Establishment of it And now I must proceed to try his Skill in plucking down and to see if he be more Dextrous and Successful in defeating our Arguments against the Seventh day and for the Sanctification of the First day which from henceforth I will take liberty to call the Lords day which he judges to be most weak and empty even the Conjectural Mistakes of the meaning of some Passages in Scripture let us see whether he can prove them to be such SECT XII THe first Objection against the Seventh day and Argument for the Lords day is Page 47. from the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that day c. Against which he has nothing directly and particularly but only hints the Differences of Opinions about the changing of the day but all save one do agree that it is changed and reason would judge that their universal concurrent Suffrages should weigh more for its Mutation than their Differences about the Circumstances thereof should against the Change of it He answers there is no express Alteration of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath And he expresses his meaning to be not by any express Precept but we say there are other ways of Abrogating and Establishing things in Scripture than by express Prohibitions or positive Injunctions even by genuine Consequences from Doctrins from Examples of those that are proposed to our Imitation c. And that the Sanctification of the Seventh day is as much abrogated in the Gospel and the Lords day established in its stead as any of the Ceremonies of the Old Administration are And I think we may challenge him to produce any one express Command for the Abolishing of any one of the Jewish Ceremonies or of all of them conjunctly which because we cannot find consequently we must still look upon them to be in force and keep them alive in the Christian Churches and these days of Reformation I do verily believe if my Judgment were sway'd with such Arguments against the Lords day and for the Seventh they would lead me back to all the Jewish Religious Worship because they were all as really commanded by the Second Command even all instituted Worship as the Seventh day is by the Fourth both which are in themselves positive though referred to and virtually contained in the Moral Commands yet he acknowledges the Abolition of these without an express Command and why not of this Let him bring his Arguments from Scripture for the Abrogation of any of them and I do verily believe we shall be able to use the very same for the Exclusion of the Seventh day I know not any one
spoken of Rev. 1.10 But I think I have disproved that Proof Page 91 He himself recurs to Tradition and undertakes to prove that throughout several Centuries there have been Churches who assembled themselves themselves for religious Worship on the Seventh Day And so this is set as a Bar against and a Counterplea to that Prime Primitive and universal Tradition for the Lords-day To which I answer in general 1. That a few Exceptions against a general Rule do rather confirm than weaken it 2. Every Antiquity or Tradition will not cannot serve to prove either Practice or Doctrin to be commendable or orthodox nor derogate from what is so For the Denyal of the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ is as ancient as the Apostles Days in which Corinthus was such an Heretick and the Ebionites Photinians and Arains have handed down that damning Doctrin to our Socinians 3. Scarce any Church since the Apostles Days have been without out their Flaws in Doctrin or Worship or both and we doubt not but this hath been one of them if it can be proved to be practised 4. In many Churches where they did observe the Seventh-day as a Day of publick Assemblies yet in them the Lord's-day was also kept and observed and that too as the chief Day For on the Lord's-day all in general were ingaged to wait upon God's publick Worship not so on Saturdays On the Lord's-day all the Ordinances of the Gospel were administred not so on Saturdays And so still the Lords-day had the Preheminence even in those very Churches Which general Answers may be enough to stop the Mouths of all his ancient Witnesses Yet I will take a little Pains and imploy a little Time to inquire into the Particulars for I think they neither deserve nor require much of either As to his first Instance if all the following be such I am sure they are stark naught yea they are not at all For he asserts that in the Apostles times the Seventh Day was observed as the publick Day of divine Worship Here he must meau by Christins or else he trifles But he can never find in all the Scripture that in the Apostles Days there was ever one Society of Christians gathered on the Seventh Day Indeed St. Paul did go on that Day into the Assemblies of the Jews to preach the Gospel to many of them which he could not conveniently do on any other Day But never did he invite any to keep that Day never did he assemble afterward on that Day when he was separated from their Synagogues finding them imperswasible and obstinate But now we can produce several Christian-Assemblies on the First day the Lords day after our Saviours Resurrection in which our Lord appeared to them And 't was then their Custom to Assemble and bring their Publick Alms to the Publick Treasure wherefore I cannot but marvel at this bold Assertion The Basis of traditionary Structue being so visibily sunk and come to nought makes me suspect that the erected Stories thereof will tumble and fall So that 't is clear we have the Apostle Examples the Churches Use in their days and their Commands against the Seventh day and for the Lords day as a sufficient Demurr to all his future Tradition Into which I now descend and must say that I have searched the Magdeburgenses for his Quotations but cannot find them where he quotes them and therefore believe that the Author used either another Edition or another that is various either in the Bulk or in the Pages I found in them the Eliberine Council but there he Twenty Third Canon hath nothing of a Fast upon a Sabbath day As to the other Authors I have them not and know not where to get them that I might peruse them neither is it needful for the matter of these Quotations makes very little for his Cause For whoever considers them will find 1. That very many if not most of them declare the Establishment and Separation of the Dominical day for Divine Service 2. That another great part of them prove the Observation or keeping both of the Dominical day and the Sabbath in very many of the Churches 3. These tell us that the Sabbath was kept as a Fast by the most if not by all of the Churches that kept it and the Lords-day as a Festival which all our Ecclesiastical Writers acknowledge as before And so evince that it was not kept with so equal Authority as the Lords day So does Dr. Young at large which also shews that they never observed it as the ancient Sabbath or 't was enjoyned in the Fourth Command But upon a new Account or for a new Reason even because our Lord Christ lay dead in the Grave on that day Therefore they would Fast and Humble themselves because their Lord and Saviour was on that day in his lowest Humiliation So far were they from this Gentleman's Opinion that his State of Death was his Rest after his Work of Redemption and they would observe the First day with Praises and Holy Rejoycings as the Christian Festival because 't was the Lords day of Triumph over his Enemies even of his Resurrection These include the greatest part by far of his Historical Examples and a very few are left which do not expresly acknowledge these things And they that do not express them may well be thought to include them I mean though some of these Quotations do not verbally tell us that when they kept this Sabbath they also kept the Lords day yet it may well be presumed they did so seeing 't was the common Practice of such Churches to observe both of them in the foresaid manner Such an one for Example is that of Socrates Scholasticus who tells us for I have examined him and find he does verbatim tell us in a manner all the Churches in the World do Celebrate and Receive the Holy Mysteries every Sabbath day after other Yet the People inhabiting Alexandria and Rome of an old Tradition do not use it Yet doubtless they also observed the Lords-day seeing 't was that which Constantine had before by Edict enjoyned the Churches to do And he saith in the very next Page and in the same Chapter of this Quotation that at Caesarea in Cappadocia and at Cyprus the Priests and Bishops do Preach and Expound Holy Scripture at Evening-Prayer on the Saturdays and Sundays by Candle-Light and therefore we may well presume that the other Churches did which before he spake of These being some of these all As for his Historical Account when the Lord's day was brought into Scotland viz. An. 1208. It may be very well answered that the initiating or bringing in of the Dominical day does not refer to the day it self but only to the Authority that introduced it even that in that Year it began to be Established by the Authority of a Council which before it had not been Or if it refer to the day it self it may not simply be understood as if that