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A26468 VindiciƦ sabbathi, or, An answer to two treatises of Master Broads the one, concerning the Sabbath or seaventh day, the other, concerning the Lord's-day or first of the weeke : with a survey of all the rest which of late have written upon that subject / by George Abbot. Abbot, George, 1604-1649. 1641 (1641) Wing A66; ESTC R3974 196,378 288

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13 Acts 32. 33. These words 32. And we declare unto you glad tidings how that the promise which was made unto the fathers 33. God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children in that he hath raised us Iesus againe as it is also written in the second Psalme Thou art my ●onne this day ha●e I begotten thee As touching the meeting on the first day of the weeke which you say we neither finde where nor by whom it began I have even now shewed you the originall of it both for time and persons to wit on the day of Christs resurrection by the Apostles and the day fennight after Had they only met the day of his re●urrection we might have thought it had been only accidentall and not of speciall providence or if it had been recorded that they had met any other day besides it might somewhat have weakened the force of this argument But meeting twice and it being recorded to be on the same day together with the effects thereof it doth wonderfully prove the thing to be of purposed providence both on Gods part in assembling them then and on Christs part in appearing to them thereby to give originall to this Ordinance which accordingly hath been so observed ever since And therefore it is not likely that the Apostles tooke it up by approbation from inferiour Christians nor yet that Christ honoured it only by way of approbation but also of institution for we see what honour he gave to it a principio by his often appearings thereon and the gift of the Holy Ghost Iohn 20. 22. on this day which you so Sophister like passe over and only instance in that which seemeth to serve your turne but that it was taken up from them Though this confessed approbation of Christs granteth it to be of the same authoritie with Baptisme which was brought in by Iohn Baptist and ratified by Christ. And if the people of the Iews held the Baptisme of Iohn to be from heaven and not of men though they had no expresse command for it but only his practice and though the chiefe Priests and Elders beleeved him not only for this reason because they held Iohn as a Prophet Matth. 21. 25 26. and this their beliefe of Iohn and his Baptisme producing sutable fruits of grace and holinesse in them was approved of Christ vers 32. I wonder how any dare deny the Lords-day to be of divine institution and affirme it humane that know and acknowledge Paul to be an Apostle the least whereof was greater then Iohn Baptist and the thing of such great consequence and benefit to the Church and otherwayes so backed But let us labour to imitate these contemned Publicanes and harlots in beleeving this point of the Lords-day to be from heaven by divine institution and not of men by humane ordination suffering Pauls practice as an Apostle to overrule 〈…〉 as Iohn Baptist as a Prophet did them and framing our practice to ou● faith like them And so obeying him and his Ministers let us not doubt in like case the approcation of Christ in our behalfes above the over-wi●e unbeleevers be they 〈…〉 And you shall 〈…〉 second Treatise pag. 22. 〈…〉 that o● taken 〈…〉 the Lords-day is in some sort de iure divino in some sort namely not by personall but by delegate authority that is not prescribed personally and immediatly by God himselfe but onely by vertue of that authority which by God was committed to the Apostles for the ordering and governing of his Church but being taken for divine Ordinance or Commandement it is not de iure divine And further he saith To entitle a Commandement divine is required 1. That the authority be divine wherby it is ordained 2. That the Author himselfe that ordaineth be so also that is that both the power whereby and the person that doth immediatly establish it be divine Which divine authority is confessed to be in the Apostolicall constitutions but the immediate Authors are denyed to be divine Now as all other events and actions receive their denomination from their immediate not remote causes so the constitutions of the Apostles although they proceed originally from the instinct and aspiration of the Holy Ghost Gods spirit yet proceeding immediatly from the institutions of the Apostles themselves which delivered them unto the Church in forme of Commandements they are to be tearmed humane constitutions and not properly divine Thus you have M r. Breerewoods opinion of the divine authority of the Lords-day much more Orthodox then yours only in answer to this later part where he saith that Apostolicall actions are to be tearmed humane from that principle That all actions are to receive their denominations from their immediate not remote causes He might have considered how that all the new Testament is called the word of God from the remote Cause the Spirit of God which inspired it though the Apostles and Evangelists writ it which were men and that by no expresse Commandement that we finde Bishop White averreth against T. B. pag. 91. That our weekly observation of the Lords-day in the time of the Gospell is an holy and godly practise for it is warranted by the example of the Apostles and those Primitive Churches which were planted by the Apostles and which received their Ecclesiasticall precepts and constitutions by tradition from the Apostles so that the Apostles first founded it as he further affirmes pag. 97. saith he It is an ignorant speech to tearme it a popish tradition for popish traditions had not their beginnings from the Apostles So also pag. 189. We beleeve saith he that the holy Apostles ordained the Sunday to be a weekly Holy-day because the Primitive Fathers who lived some of them in the Apostles dayes and others of them immediatly after and who succeedeth them in Apostolicall Churches did universally maintaine the religious observation of this day So againe pag. 192. It is probable that in the Churches at Corinth and Galatia the Lords-day was made a weekly Holy-day by the Apostles for they principally governed those Churches at this time 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. And yet Doctor Heylyn laboureth to prove this ordination of Paul to the Galathians to be upon a Sabbath-day and not upon the Lords-day And againe pag. 192. It could not possibly have come to passe that all and every Apostolicall Church throughout the universall world should so early and in the beginning of their plantation have consented together to make the Sunday a weekly Service-day unlesse they had been thus directed by their first founders the holy Apostles themselves c. Lastly it is a true that a long time after Christs Resurrection was the name of Lords-day given to the first day of the weeke * I have shewed before the significant use of the Sabbath paffing under the name of the first day of the week in scripture before it come to be stiled the Lords-day to wit when the first day of the week began to be most currantly
down the writings of the Apostles and turne Anabaptist in point of baptizing of Infants For as for the Scriptures what expresse precept of Christs have we to his Apostles for writing of them and 〈◊〉 the Epistles were most of them occasionally written by the Apostles and yet who of us for these reasons denyeth them to be the work of God universall and 〈◊〉 divi●o F●urth Po●ke Church ch●p 〈◊〉 For as Feild saith in answer to the Papists 〈◊〉 the imperfection of the Scriptures because they were written by the Apostles and Apostolicall men of their own motions and not by Commandement from Christ which is a paralel argument to this of the Christian Sabbath and the answer equall to both who knoweth not saith he that the Scriptures are not of any private motion but that the holy 〈◊〉 of God were moved impelled and carryed by the Spirit of truth th● the performance of this worke doing nothing without the instinct of the Spirit which was 〈◊〉 the● a Commandement And why may not all these reasons and grounds warrant and give equall force to their practice in the point of our Christian Sabbath or Lords-day as well as to their writing of Scripture So speaketh D r. Ames med pag. 359. Si dies bac dominica conced●●ur fuisse Aposto●●● 〈◊〉 author it as 〈…〉 est divina quia divino Spirit● agebantur Apostoli non minus in Sacris institutionibus quam in ipsa doctrina Ev●ngelii vel verbo vel script is proponenda Especially seeing that the same things that accompanied the Gospel did accompany the Sabbath the better to approve it to be of God to wit The gift of the holy Ghost And now we know there is nothing more ordinary in Scripture then for God to grace the first institutions of his Ordinances with extraordinary tokens of his savour which are of an argumentative nature and of an establishing and instituting force As at the first setting up of the San●drin among the Iewes Numb 11. 25. Every one of the seventy Elders prophecyed for a while to testifie that their calling was from heaven And though divers others besides these have had the Spirit of Prophecy bestowed on them that yet nothing detracts from Gods sealing the ordination of this Councell or Sanedrin by the Seventies prophecying So though Christ appeared to his Disciples on other dayes besides the first day of the weeke yet it detracteth not from his instituting and authorizing that day by his remarkable apparitions and operations thereon as D r. Heylyn would insinuate part 2. pag. 13. Againe at the instituting of the Leviticall priesthood and sacrifices there came a fire from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering also at Christs baptizing we see how extraordinarily the Spirit came down in likenesse of a Dove and so at Peters first preaching to the Gentiles what an extraordinary worke was there wrought Acts 10. 44. And may not we well conclude the divinity of the Lords-day from these manifold rare occurrences which fell out in the practice or usage of it * We have Davids example in a like case for in the 1 Chron. 22. he there concludeth Ieruselem to be the place that God had chosen for his more solemne worship by that speciall token of Gods favour to it in delivering it from the destroying Angell and such as are most remarkably and eminently recorded in Scripture mentioning the Time as well as the things themselves As That Christ appeared to them on the first day of the weeke and the first day of the weeke they had the gifts of the Holy Ghost given them and on the Lords day Saint Iohn was ravished in the Spirit not any other day in the weeke having the honour to be denominated the day of his appearance in all the New Testament though no doubt he did appeare to them on other dayes of the weeke besides the first in those other times of his appearances And why is all this But to give the better authority and estimate to that day Which we may the rather judge because that since then God hath shewne extraordinary judgements upon the breakers and prophaners of it which being frequently and remarkably instanced I will referre you for them to the Martyr-booke Practice of Piety and M r. Richard Byfeild pag. 99. 100. 101. As also if we consider the benefits which nationally we have enjoyed therby above all other Protestant Churches of Peace Plenty and also powerfull Preaching and Professing * Which now begin to leave us and to decline together with the Sabbaths declension For as one piously observeth The Ark shaketh through the old Sinnes and new Doctrines of our land for a long season and which doe experimentally and personally redound to the due observers of it how extraordinarily and feelingly they delight themselves in the Lord according to that promise Isai. 58. ult So that then beleeve it for the works sake as Christ saith in another case And indeed Argumentum ab effectis is an argument of no small evidence and power with those that professe Christianity in the power of it The want of which medium in the experiences of men either not at all wrought in them or else not taken notice of by them is the cause of so many false conclusions in these dayes as well as it was amongst the Galathians till Paul a man of spirit put them in minde Gal. 3. 2. And observe it as a maine argument in this way of experience That at the first beginning of mens conversions when God enlighteneth and convinceth the Conscience commonly the first thing the Conscience fastens on is the mispending the Sabbath and the first duty that he conscionably putteth in practice upon his conversion is commonly the better sanctifying and keeping the Sabbath Now as touching the baptizing of Infants there is neither an expresse precept for it nor yet an example of expresse practise delivered in Scripture and yet the grounds causes and reasons of the necessity of that practice and the benefit or good that followeth on it are evidently contained in the Scripture and for this respect it is named a tradition But yet the grounds of it being in Scripture as Feild in the fore-quoted place observes it is not therefore a bare tradition but is therefore of Divine authority and unalterable in the Church of God The same in all respects holdeth good concerning the Sabbath and with some advantage for that there is the expresse practice of the Apostle Paul in this point mentioned in the Scripture which is not so in the baptizing of Children And this is apparant that those things which had their grounds and reasons in Scripture the Apostles were not curious or exact in commanding them expressely nor intreating of them largely except they were then controverted and scrupled at which it seemeth the Lords-day was not but was currantly received and practised among the Gentile converts the Infant Iewes being born withall for on that day they ordinarily were wont