gather but find it all ready in the publick Ecclesiastical Treasure I am sure he can bring no Demonstration from the Text for his or against my Interpretation But then I have the Testimony of the most ancient Fathers that on the first day they publickly assembled and then they made Collection for the Poor in these Assemblies Moreover If the Apostle here enjoyned such a profane or worldly Task as he supposes why does he enjoyn them to do it on the First days seeing it might have been done as well n every day of the Week and better on the Sixth day If the Seventh were then their Sabbath that so they might know at the end of the common days what they might well and gratefully spare of that weeks Gains and so lay it up against the ensuing Sabbath for the Poors Stock Whence we see that this supposed Solution to this Argument has no ground at all from the Text and to be sure from no other Topick And therefore conclude that the General Collections and so Associations of the Galatian Church being on the First day And the Appostle commanding the Church of Corinth to make the same Collections on that day in Imitation of them or as they did is with the former a very good Evidence that that day was the instituted day for Worship and so consequently the Seventh excluded Page 60. That Proof for the First-day-Sabbath in Rev. 1.9 10. where that day which St. John calls the Lords-day we say was that day of the week which we will by no means grant but tells us what the Opinions of some singular Persons were concerning it that it was Annual not a weekly day either the day of Christ's Birth or of his Resurrection either Christmas-day or Easter Others say 't is a great providential day to vindicate his Kingly Authority and others the last day of his coming but how this day whereon St. John was in the Spirit should be a future day can hardly be conjectured but every thing must be hinted that may seem to serve to an Undermining of the First day of the week from being the day of this glorious Vision But at length it is granted that some take this Lords-day to be a weekly day But then again these some are crumbled into a Sub-division and some of them assert it to be the First day and some the Seventh day thereof and this is written as though the Assertors of the First day were as small a some as those of the former annual Opinion of a future day to John's Vision and of the last day of the Week Whereas I dare to say put them all together they will not amount to the hundredth part of those solid and learned Authors which understand it of the First day of the week but withall these some for the Seventh day as inconsiderable for number as they are in comparison of the other yet they are far better founded and proceed upon more certain and undeniable Grounds than the First-day-Men do for they proceed upon Scripture but these have only Tradition if they have that for their Opinion Now the Tradition which is pleaded for the First day to be the Lords-day is constant uninterrupted and universal from the days of the Apostles The Generality of Christians acknowledging the Dominical day to be the First day whatever Opinion they had of the Sabbath till of late Years some Sabbatarians have thought fit to question it and virtually if not expresly to deny it Which is such a Tradition as upon which their very Scriptural Proofs are grounded for 't is from Tradition that they know the meaning of the very words of the Scripture Whether the Original Languages carry the Sense they are interpreted in and whether we have the genuine and proper Significations of the Originals can be known by nothing but Humane Tradition for either it must be had from Translations or Lexicons or oral Traditions Wherefore if the Sabbatarians will renounce here such a Tradition as is pleaded they must withall renounce their own Scriptural Authority which course will make wild work in the Church He very well denies it to be Christmas-day or any annual one but the great Query is What day of the Week this was and here in the entrance of his Discourse he endeavours to invalidate the universal Tradition of the Churches for 1600 Years by an Induction of other unlawful Traditions as that of Polygamy among the Patriarchs of whom the Scripture mentions but a few particulars and what is that to the Universality of Christians And which was condemned by our Saviour as alien from the first Institution of Marriage And how does this resemble the First days being the Lords-day which was never blamed by him The like he mentions in the Omission of the Feast of Booths and the Custom of the Profanation of the Seventh-days-Sabbath before the Captivity But these were against express Injunctions and Commands still in force and obliging which we deny the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be and avouch and may yet more prove its Abolition as of other positive and ceremonial Commands without any express or literal Prohibition of them in Scripture What therefore he saith in the following Paragraph would be very cogent and undeniable If he could prove the Seventh day of the week to be still enjoyned by the Fourth Command which he hath not yet done by his positive Proofs for his own Opinion as we have seen nor by his Negative in denying of ours as has been in some measure seen already and may be more hereafter At length he comes to give us his own Judgment concerning this Lords-day what day of the Week it was and if he had not told us we should have presumed that it determined for the Seventh-day which in all things till the end of the World must have the Preheminence according to his thoughts but withall 't is grounded upon Scripture which we will candidly and fairly weigh and examine 1. That the Lord Christ instituted the Seventh-day-Sabbath just after the Creation he means too before the Fall quoting Gen. 1. begin which we utterly deny because Jesus Christ then was not nor could be we speak of his Existence not Gods Foresight and Decree for then Man was Guiltless and Sinless and so needed no Jesus nor could have had one But in all these Old Testament Proofs he runs upon that former Fallacy of Ill Composition taking for granted that whatever Jehovah did the Lord Jesus Christ did Jehovah the Godhead of our Saviour did create and institute the Seventh-day-Sabbath but not Christ himself which necessarily includes both the Godhead and the Manhood And therefore the Premises being false the Conclusion cannot be true nor the consequential Discourse thereupon of any Moment His second and third Arguments laboring under the same Mistake admit of the same Answer Besides we know that the positive and ceremonial Precepts of Jehovah before his Incarnation were to be abolished by himself after his Incarnation that
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
the Observance of it from either Jews or Gentiles to whom they write and consequently we may conclude that they never preached it for we truly hold that the Sum and Substance of all their Sermons is in their Books Yea their Writings have several weighty Passages against the Seventh-day-Sabbath Now our Saviour in his Commission which he gave his Apostles after his Resurrection just as he was ascending up to Heaven expresly commands them to teach all Nations to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them Matt. 28.19 20. Wherefore seeing they commanded not the Nations to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath Christ never taught them that Doctrin nor injoyned them to do it and therefore this cannot be one of those Jots or Tittles of the Law which in this Authors Sense was not to pass from the Law but only what was Moral in it We acknowledge that the Lord Christ also confirmed the Moral Law by commanding the Lawyer to love the Lord God c. But withall that whoever gives to God the seventh part of his time though it be not the Seventh day of the week does therein love God as to the Declaration as to the Fruit and Effect of his Love as much as if he did the Seventh day because it is as fully the Substance of that Command The same answer will serve to Mark 12.28 31. Page 30. with this Addition That the change of the Seventh-day-Sabbath into that of the first day is no more laying aside of the Morality of the Fourth Command than the change of Circumcision the Passover and other Ceremonial Ordinances of the Old Testament into Baptism the Lords Supper and other Evangelical Administrations under the New These being as really included in and commanded by the second Command at that time as the Seventh-day-Sabbath is in and by the Fourth And therefore as the change of those Rites and Modes of Worship by our Lord Christ and his Apostles was not the laying aside of the second Command but rather a perfect Obedience thereto and practical Confirmation thereof so the change of the weekly-day-Sabbath was no Infringement but rather an Establishment of the Fourth Commandment In the same Page he Insinuates that we take away those words The Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God which yet we neither do in Letter nor Sense for we leave the words in the Command and obey them in their purport and meaning For they do not so much enjoyn the Seventh day in order as in number not so much the last day of the week as one day of the week to be observed and sanctified by us as I suppose we may have an opportunity to prove Page 31. He shews from Scripture that one great Article of the New Covenant is Gods writing his Law upon the Hearts of his People which he with us expresly acknowledges to be the Moral Law How then can the Seventh-day-Sabbath as such be part of that Law which is not written upon the Hearts of Thousands to one of Gods People I judge this to be a clear Demonstration against the Morality thereof He could never have shewn that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was a part of the Law of Nature in Adam though the substance of the Ten Commands was it and therefore it was instituted by God as before Page 32. He shews us for so I have a Belief he intends that he had a mind to prove that Set Forms of Prayers or other parts of Worship under a Form though never so Excellent though in express words of Scripture are the Pesel or Graven Image that is forbidden in the second Command which is a Notion I am sure alien from the Resentments of the most Grave Prudent Learned and Experienced Christians of former and Modern Ages and very few of them have thought so uncharitably and rigorously of them as to brand them with the grossest Idolatry though many judge them fit to be lain aside by them to whom God hath given a good and competent Gift but yet much rather to be u sed and that comfortably and profitably too where such a Gift may be denied And I think by this Rule that everly Man that joyns with another in Prayer is guilty of Idolatry against the second Command for he makes the words of the Minister or private Christian to be the Set Form of his Prayer And why a Prayer written as a Form should be more an Idol than a Prayer spoken as a Form I do not yet understand In the same Paragraph he also hints that the Lords Prayer ought only to be used in secret and alone not in publick no nor in private with any others because of those Expressions in Matt. 6.6 9. When thou prayest enter into thy Closet and shut thy Door and Pray c. Whereas the Form of that Prayer in the plural Number the very matter of that Prayer being the universal Concern of the Universal Church and of every Congregation and Society of Christians as well as of every private Christian and our Saviour commanding his Disciples to use it without any such Limitation Of a secret Personal Retirement Luke 11.2 are sufficient proofs that it may be as well used Socially as Solitarily with others as lawfully and conveniently as by ones self In the following Paragraph he seems to be of the Opinion that it would be better to have Mens or Ministers own Inventions in singing of Psalms than the Divine Inspirations of David and other Authors in Scripture And when I can believe that theirs can be better than those in Scripture or can be convinced that there is neither Psalm nor Hymn in the Bible that can fit a present Condition either for Prayer or Praises or Gratitude c. I will think so but as to the former of these two I hope I shall never believe and as to the latter I think it is not likely to fall out in my days These things ought as curiously to be replied as the Author has started these Notions and when he sees fit to endeavour a more large Explication and Vindication of them then we may also see what may be discoursed agianst them And I heartily wish he had but hinted this of his Seventh day and so saved all this labour in answering of it for it is just another such Opinion as the former and deserved only to be mentioned Indeed not to be mentioned at all at least not in Print not in publick But of this in the Preface SECT VI. IN the next Paragraph he tells us he has much to do to recover the word Seventh of the Fourth Commandment Whereas none but the Deniers of the Morality of the Seventh would wrest it from him for we all grant it to him and acknowledge it to be of the very substance of the Command that a Seventh day should be set apart for an Holy Consecrated Day to Divine Worship only we say that the Seventh day is so as the seventh part of the Week as one day of the seven
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