A TRACT ON THE Sabbath-Day Wherein the keeping of the First-day of the Week a Sabbath is justified BY A Divine COMMAND AND A Double EXAMPLE CONTAINED In the Old and New TESTAMENT With Answers to the Chiefest Objections made by the Jewish seventh-day Sabbatharians and others By ISAAC MARLOW London Printed by J. A. and are to be Sold by H. Barnard at the Bible in the Poultrey and by Hannah Smith at the Bible in Aldersgate-street 1693 4. THE Authors EPISTLE Christian Reader WHEN first my Thoughts were exercised in drawing up some Reasons to justifie our keeping the first day of the Week a Sabbath they were only designed for Private Use and to serve a particular Occasion that called for them But since the Providence of God has lead my Meditations farther into this Subject from other Considerations and by means of a Book lately Published by Mr. Tho. Bampfield for pressing the seventh day or Saturday Sabbath as the Duty of all Christians to keep Holy in Obedience to Gods command I have Thought it needful to present this Treatise for the eâ—â—ablishing of those that are unsettled in their Minds about it and for their Advantage who through the tolderness of their Consciences are exposed to divers difficulties because they cannot see that Liberty to be lawful which others take in making the Jewish Sabbath a working day To help therefore those sincere Christians tho but few in number that are intangled with this Yoak of Bondage I have considered diver Authors on their seventh-day Sabbath as besides the two Books of Mr. Edw. Stennets Mr. H. Soursby and Mr. M. Smiths Mr. VVill. Sellers Mr. Theophilus Brabourn and the aforesaid Mr. Tho. Bampfields two late Treatises which tho I have not directed the following Discourse in Answer to any one of them except in some particulars yet the Ingenious Reader may find I have taken Notice of the Chiefest Grounds and Arguments for their Sabbath contained in them all And if the Lord will graciously bless my well-meant endeavours for their right Information and hereby remove that bar between them and others or if any Benefit shall be received from this Improvement of my Talent I desire He may have the Praise to whom alone it is due However thô we or others may differ in some particulars thrô the various Sence we have of the Mind of God revealed in his Word yet as through the Grace of Christ we abhorr that which is Evil and cleave to that which is good with a Holy Detesta â—n of all apparent Transgressions of the Law consistent with Love and Pity to mens Persons and as we are Children of one Father and Co-heirs of Eternal Life through Faith in Christ that worketh by Love we ought to be united in kind Affections to one another And were our differences managed more in Brotherly Charity and by the gracious Conduct of the Holy Spirit controversial Discourses would be more acceptable the Reputation of Religion and our mutual Peace and Love would be better preserved which as I speak this more in general than desighing any particular Reflection on my aforesaid Brethren so I desire always my self to watch and labour to abound in this Grace of Love which is the Bond of Perfection To Conclude I have in the following Tract not only made the best Improvement I can of several things that others have wrote before me but as the Lord hath inlightned my Understanding I have added such Matters which I believe may be useful to clear the Case in hand hoping he will graciously Bless my Labour to your Advantage I. M. THE CONTENTS Sect. I. OF the use of the Word Moral Page 1. Sect. II. Of Gods revealing the first Sabbath to Adam Gen. 2. 2 3. which was then sanctified for Man before Israel observed their seuenth-day Sabbath in the Wilderness and was no Anticipation of the Order of Moses History Page 3. Sect. III. Treateth of the Law 1. Shewing wherein the House of Israel were more concerned in Sinai's Covenant than other Nations Page 5. 2. That the Israelites were not absolutely tyed to stand or fall Eternally by that Covenant without relief in Christ for the Elect Page 6. 3. Of the Ten Commandments and of their binding quality to the Gentiles Page 7. Sect. IV. Cleareth a Proposition 1. Shewing that the Gentiles were not absolutely required to keep the whole Ceremonial Law Page 9. 2. That there is Reason to believe the Gentiles before the Law had some Divine Revelation of the Will of God how they should worship him and that they were required to Sacrifice slain Beasts Page 10 11 12. Sect. V. In four Paragraphs proveth the Ten Commandments to be morally binding to all Nations Page 12 c. Sect. VI. Treateth of the Morality of the fourth Commandment Page 16. And of the Reasons why the Sabbath was first sanctified in the Name of the Seventh-day and not of the first-day Sabbath which it may be so called respecting its proper Nature immediate end and principal use first to Man Page 17. Sect. VII Sheweth that the Jewish Sabbath is Ceremonial and not morally binding to all Nations 1. Because it was a Couenant Memorial of Israels Deliverance out of Egypt Page 19. 2. Because it is abolished Colos 2.16 17. Page 19. 3. From the Order and Necessity of Nature wherein is shewed the Alterations of the accounts of Years Page 21. And of Days Page 23. As also the Interruption of the orderly Course of the Day Page 29. And the impossibility of all Nations observing the Sabbath after the Jewish Pattern because in some Places and Parts of the Year there is no Sun-settings nor Sun-rising for several Days and Weeks Time together Page 31 32 c. Sect. VIII Sheweth that Israels first Sabbath in the Wilderness was not a fixed Pattern that all men should originally have six working days before their Sabbath and not their Sabbath before their six working days Page 34. Sect. IX Containeth some Instances of particular Cases in the New Testament in which we are referred to the Pattern in our first Parents which serveth to justifie our doing the like to justifie our Observation of the first-day Sabbath Page 36. Sect. X. Explaineth the Pattern of Adams Sabbath Page 38. Sect. XI Treateth of the Types and Shadows that were of the Gospel first-first-day Sabbath under the Law Page 40. Sect. XII Sheweth that Christ arose from the Dead on the first-first-day of the Jewish Week Page 42. 2. That he appeared to his Disciples on the first-first-day of the Week Page 45. 3. The Apostle ordered the Churches to make Collections for the Saints on the first day of the Week Ibid. And 4. He broke Bread with the Church of Troas on the first day of the Week who on that day came together for that end Page 46. Whereto is added a brief Historical account that soon after St. Johns writing the first-first-day of the Week was called the Lords day in Distinction to the Jewish Sabbath Page 47. Sect.
XIII Sheweth the ancient Observation of the first day of the Week called Sunday by the Heathens And that there is greater Reason to believe it is rather than the Jewish Sabbath the Old seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation tho' neither the one nor the other can be assured of the same Page 47. Sect. XIV Containeth a brief Discourse shewing wherein our first day Sabbath answers the Pattern of Adams Sabbath better than the Jewish Sabbath doth Page 50. And also sheweth the time of Day when our Christian Sabbath should begin and the Reasons why we had no Positive Command left us in the New Testament to observe the first day of the Week a Sabbath Page 52 c. With a Discourse of the Morality of Adams Pattern Page 56. And of Gods accepting the first of Time Page 58. Lastly Answers to the Chiefest Objections made against our keeping the first day Sabbath A TRACT ON THE Sabbath-Day WHEREIN The keeping of the First Day of the Week a Sabbath is justified by an Institution of God and a double Example contained in the Old and New Testament THAT we have both a Precept and a double Example to justifie the keeping of the first day of the week a Sabbath I have here to produce from the Holy Scriptures The Precept is in the Fourth Commandment founded on God's first sanctifying the sabbath-Sabbath-day and we have the Example of Christs Disciples with the primitive Gospel Churches in the New Testament and of Adam to his Posterity all which I shall prove and explain as followeth SECT I. First That the Reader may not be under any mistake about the use I make of the word Moral throughout this Treatise I shall here acquaint him that in its self it belongeth to Manners Civility or Behaviour properly to the Actions of Man only as he is Man And so by some the Moral Law is taken for the Law Light or Instinct of Nature which Adam had in the State of Innocency which altho this be true yet I also make a larger use of the word For as no Man knoweth by Nature the extent of Adams light in all particulars for his Obedience when he was in Innocency and therefore cannot describe the whole of that Law of Nature And as I suppose the prohibition to him not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will not be deny'd by any to have been binding for all his posterity as Men so we must have recourse to Divine Revelation for the better understanding our Moral and universal Duty to God since the Law of Nature is so much obliterated in us through the fall And therefore because of the darkness and depravity of our Minds we have the substance of the Law of Nature given to us in written Precents which may be called Moral as they are not Ceremonial but perpetually and universally binding to all Men for their Obedience unto God and also Institutions by Divine Revelation as being now a more full discovery to us of the Mind of God first implanted in our innocent Parents than we retain in our Natures or can recover in our fall So that when I speak of the Moral Law or of Morality it must be taken as the Adjunct Matter governs it in either sence of the Law or Light of Nature alone in the State of Innocency or contained in those transcribed Precepts of the Ten Commandments as the substance thereof in general Heads and in those other Precepts that morally do explain them which I shall only take notice of wherein I am concerned and not collect and reserr them all to their proper Heads In brief I use the word Moral in common to those things that are of universal and perpetual Concern to all Mankind for their Obedience to God as their Creator For as to the case before us seeing it s said that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it We cannot say that Adam by his pure Light of Nature alone knew that it was meetest to have but six working days and no less as 5 7 or 8 together to one Sabbath but that from God's Example revealed to him the light of Adams Nature told him that it was most meet for him to divide his time like his Creator and so it became the Moral Duty of Men as Men to have no more nor less than six working or common days to one Sabbath SECT II. TO proceed on the Subject Matter of this Treatise I shall here recite the first Foundation Scripture for keeping the seventh day Sabbath as a boundary to six working days and briefly Note something of the Nature and Quality of the Text Gen. 2.2 3. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made It is here said God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it that is he made it a happy and holy day by setting it apart from common use for Man to worship him and he appointed it to be a rest for Adam by Revelation as he did that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for otherwise Adam could not by his Light of Nature alone know the time which had passed before he was Created nor could he understand the Mind of God as it was in God himself and therefore the knowledge Adam had of God's sanctifying the seventh day Sabbath was by Supernatural Revelation to him And this I presume none will deny for a time for Man to abstain or rest from his own business to exert his solemn Worship to God is morally implanted in the Heart of Man by Nature and surely God did not conceal from Adam the meetest time when he sanctified the first seventh day of the World for that end Besides before that God had formed Eve Gen. 2.7.8 15. he put Adam into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it and therefore Adam being appointed to do this business he might have applyed himself thereto immediately after Eve was formed and brought to him if he had not received the knowledge of God's sanctifying the seventh Day yea then it had been lawful for him to have worked on God's Sabbath if it had not been revealed to him Moreover Our Saviour puts this matter clearly out of doubt because he referrs the making of the Sabbath not to the first Institution of it at the gathering of Manna in the Wilderness but to the time of God's creating Man Mark 2.27 saying The Sabbath was made for Man and not Man for the Sabbath that is the Sabbath was not first made and then Man for the sake of the Sabbath but Man was first Created and then the Sabbath was sanctified for his Happiness as the blessing of it signifieth God's bare ceasing from Work did not make it for Man but
Sabbath as the Greek Word Sabbaton properly signifies but in the Text Col. 2.16 the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Sabbaths for so it is in the Greek and not Sabbath-days as we translate it is not their joined as in those other places to express any particular day of the Week but stands singly of its self for Sabbaths and therefore can only be understood of the Sabbath-days themselves which the Word properly signifies and cannot be otherwise understood but at least comprehensively of the seventh-day weekly Sabbath because other Holy or Feast-days are in the same verse expresly named distinctly by themselves So then seeing the seventh-day Sabbath is included with the New Moon and other Holy or Feast-days as Shadows of Gofpel things it was also abolished with them and there is the like Ceremonial Reason for it as there is for those other Holy-days Gal. 3. to v. 4. Chap. 4.3 4 5 9 10 11 21. Chap. 5.1 to 5. Chap. 6.12 13. Feasts and New Moon expressed with it it being a Sign of Israels Deliverance out of Egypt And considering also that the Apostle saith to the Galatians who after they had been converted from the Idolatry of the Heathens to the Christian Faith desired to be under the Law and were turning to those weak and beggerly Elements Ye observe Days and Months and Times and Years I am afraid of you least I have bestowed upon you labour in Vain I do therefore conclude that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath is abrogated with their other Holy-days and Times For to imagine that our Lord Jesus who is faithful over his own House Heb. 3.6 should by his Apostle so reprove the Observation of the Jewish Days and Times in general and Name their Sabbaths distinctly from other Holy-days and describe them all to be but shadows which are to be done away and changed with the Priesthood Heb. 7.12 without one word of Exception in the New Testament to confirm the Jewish seventh-seventh-day Sabbath for our Observation nor to leave us one Example of any Christian Churches Custom to meet on that day but on the first Day of the Week and yet to require us to keep their Sabbath is groundless and irrational to believe 3. I come to prove the Jewish seventh day Sabbath to be Ceremonial and not Morally binding to all Nations from the Necessity of Nature which renders it impracticable in divers Countreys and in Order therunto I shall first Premise four things 1. It was commanded Israel that they should celebrate their Sabbaths from Evening to Evening Lev. 23.32 and if after the Jewish Pattern the Sabbath must begin and end at Evening in every part of the World then in some parts of it the Sabbath would begin when it endeth in other places and so it could not be Gods design to bind all men to keep their Sabbath at one Point of Time prefixed to the Children of Israel in the Wilderness or in the Land of Canaan 2. The Mosaical seventh-day Sabbath could not be the same Successive seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation if this were either successively kept before their Egyptian Bondage by the Ancient Fathers or if these Patriarchs began and ended their Days and Weeks successively in the same Order of Time from the Creation For God was pleased to the end as it is believed that he might more effectually draw his People from the Idolatry of the Heathen to alter the account of the beginning and ending of their days and years in sacred things to what it was before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt and to what was afterwards observed by them in Civil things and this appears by the Evidence of divers Authors and from the Testimony of the Sacred Scriptures And 1. We find in Scripture that the account of the beginning and ending of the Year was altered to the Jews at their coming out of the Land of Egypt Exod. 12.2 8. This Month viz. Abib shall be unto you the beginning of Months it shall be the first Month of the Year to you Exod. ch 13.3 4. which Month is partly in our March and partly in April Thus their Sacred Year began but their Civil Year began after their Ingathering of the Fruits of the Feild Exod. 23.16 Chap. 34.22 Levit. 25.89 for then it is said to be the End of the Year in their seventh Month of Tisri or Ethanim partly in our September and October for on the tenth day of this Month was the Trumpet blown to begin their fiftieth year of Jubilee And this Mr. Ainsworth noteth on Gen. 7.11 where he saith The second Month to wit of the Year agreeable in part to that we call October For the End and Revolution of the Year was about the Month which we call September Exod. 23.16 and 34.22 and so the New Year then began This was after called the Month of Enthanim 1 Kings 8.2 where the Chaldee paraphraseth that they called it of Old the First Month but now saith he it is the seventh month for the Year changed the beginning of it Ecclesiastically upon the coming of Israel out of Egypt see Euod 12.2 and Levit. 23.39 compared with Exod. 23.16 And Mr. Ainsworth farther saith on Exod. 12.2 By Reason of this their going out of Egypt the Year which before began in September Exod. 23.16 hath his beginning to the Jews Ecclesiastically in Abib or March but for the Jubilees and Civil Affairs it began as it had done before Levit. 25.8 9 10. And to this agreeth Mr. Pool's and the Dutch Annotations on Exod. 12.2 And Mr. Godwyn in his Moses and Aaron page 85. 86. and Mr. Charnock in his Works Vol. 2. page 853. saith It is probable that from the Creation the Year began in September the Autumnal Equinox the Fruit being on the Trees at the Creation but now God orders the beginning of the Year from the time of this first Passeover which was in March the Vernal Equinox Lastly Mr. And. Willet in his Hexapla on Exod. 12.2 speaking of this alteration of the Year agreeth with others that the Jews Ecclesiastical Year began in their first Month called Abib and that their Civil Year began in their seventh Month yet his Opinion is that this Sacred Year began in renovation of the former account discontinued in Egypt but he citeth Josephus to whom saith he consenteth Perertus Simler that the Hebrews always before this time held the seventh Month to be the first Month as they did afterwards for the computation of Jubilee and for other Civil Matters As to Josephus Mr. Willet gives his sense out of his Book in the Greek Latin or some other Tongue for our late English Translation hath either from a corrupt Copy or default in the Translator or Printer an apparent Error viz. December is put instead of September or as the Year began before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt 2. I find there was also an alteration made of the Account of
therein Six years thou shalt sow thy Field and prane thy Vineyard But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the Land and thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto the forty and nine years then shalt thou cause the Trumpet of the Jubilee to sound and ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof ye shall not sow neither reap it shall be holy unto you That some of these days were appointed as Memorials of Israels coming out of Egypt is plainly shewed in the Scriptures and of the Jubilee besides what is expressed of it Some have thought that it was a Memorial of their rest and first settlement in the Land of Canaan but yet I conceive there was a farther meaning in them viz. as Types and Shadows of Gospel things For the seventh day Sabbath thô it was first appointed for a Moral End and to preserve the Memorial of God's making the World in six days and resting on the seventh Exod. 31.15 16 17. Heb. 4.9 Rev. 20.4 5 7. and was also afterwards a sign of Israels deliverance out of Egypt yet we find the Apostle makes a farther use of it as the Foundation Type from whence he proveth there remaineth a Rest to the People of God which to answer the Types and the Apostles reasoning in this Scripture is taken for the seventh thousand years of the World So then to follow this instance we may thus argue that those solemn Convocations on the legal first and eighth day and their fiftieth day which if you mind the Text was a first day Sabbath next ensuing one of their legal Sabbaths a plain and clear Type of our Gospel first-day Sabbath that should commence next after one of their Jewish Sabbaths And so their fiftieth Year of Jubilee which followed a seventh Year Sabbath may figure to us that as after seven Sabbaths of Weeks they had a first days Sabbath and as after the seven Sabbaths of seven years and all those legal and external Bondages of Persons and Things there should come a time of release by sound of Trumpet with a first Year Jubilee Sabbath so after all the bondage of the legal Administration there should come a time of Gospel liberty Rom. 10.18 proclaimed by the Gospel with a first days Gospel Sabbath Thus you see how these Types and Shadows under the Law does figure out our Gospel first days Sabbath as far if not farther than many Types does usually suit with Antitypes but as they have often exceptions in their parallels so they are not of themselves positive Proofs but illustrations of Gospel things which seeing we have the Examples of the Primitive Christian Churches keeping their Sabbath on the First day following the Jews seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath or on the first day of their Week which does fairly and fully answer those Typical Sabbaths under the Law that are not applicable to any other Scripture observed Times under the Gospel nor to our Eternal Rest for that is not doubted to be a Rest from Labour and a time of Liberty nor can it be typed to us by Time because it is Eternal or by an Eighth day Seeing there is a Time or Day of General Judgment of Wicked Men between the seventh thousand years of the World as some believe and Eternal Rest then surely the Typical first Days and Years Sabbaths under the Law does bare the greater Evidence to our first day Sabbath under the Gospel However I have no dependance on these Shadows for the Justification of our First days Sabbath but on the substantial Law of God and Adams Pattern answering the first Sanctification of it to which I shall here add the Example of Christs Disciples and the Primitive Churches in the New Testament SECT XII HEre I come to demonstrate the ground we have in the New Testament for our keeping the First day of the Week a Sabbath And 1. I shall premise That Christ arose from the Dead on the First day of the Jewish Week which is frequently called in the Greek Tongue The one of the Sabbaths after their mode of Speech agreeing to the custom of the Hebrews See Dutch Annot on Mat. 28.1 Luke 24.1 John 20.1 See Dutch Annot on Gen. 1 5. and on 1 Cor. 16.2 who sometimes set one for first as may be seen in Gen. 1.5 Chap. 8.5 Numb 29.1 Dan. 9.1 So that we must read the Greek The one of the Sabbaths for the First day of the Week as it is translated in our English Bibles agreeing to the Greek in Mark 16.9 Now when Jesus was risen early 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the first of the Sabbath or as it is in our English on the first day of the week As Luke 18.12 I fast twice in the Sabbath that is twice in the Week And the Truth of our Translation is farther confirmed because it 's said In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week Luke 23 53 54. to the end Chap. 14.1 c. Mark 15.42 John 19.31 Luke 24.13 15 21. 1 Cor. 15.4 See Mr. John Weemse his Christian Synagogue Page 75 81. John 19.14 Christ arose from the dead For he was crucified the day before the Jewish Sabbath and on the Sabbath it s said the Women which followed Jesus from Galilee rested according to the Commandment and very early on the First day of the Week they came to Christs Sepulchre and he was risen which was on the third day after he was Crucified according to the Scriptures Now it was the Custom and corrupt Tradition of the Jews when the Passeover Sabbath fell on the day before their weekly seventh day Sabbath they made but one Sabbath and kept their Passeover on their seventh day Sabbath as we find they did when Christ was laid in the Grave and therefore that Sabbath day being a double Sabbath was called an High Day And the first day after on which Christ arose from the dead was no Jewish Sabbath but only the First day of their Week for there are two things that do evidently and clearly shew that the one of the Sabbaths in the Greek cannot be taken for any one of the Jewish Sabbath-days but for the first day of their Week First Because that seeing Christ arose from the Dead on the next day after the Passeover Sabbath as it was then corruptly observed by the Jews and that the Passeover Feast had but two Sabbaths viz. Exod. 12.14 to 19. on the first and seventh day of unleavened Bread then forasmuch as Christ lay in the Grave their Passeover Sabbath the Day following on which he arose could not be one of their Passeover Sabbaths Secondly It cannot be denyed but that Christ did eat the Passeover with his Disciples on the right day according to the Commandment which after our vulgar speech was on Thursday Night or in the former part of the Jews sixth day and on
Fryday or their sixth day which was according to the Law the first day of their Passeover Sabbath he was crucified and there being no other Passeover Sabbath wherein the Jews were forbidden to work till the seventh day of the Passeover Feast it must then follow that the Sabbath on which the Women rested as it 's said according to the Commandment being the next day after the first true Passeover Sabbath was undeniably the Jews weekly seventh day Sabbath and the day next ensuing called The one of the Sabbaths and the first of the Sabbath on which Christ arose from the dead must of necessity be understood of the First day of the Jewish Week after their seventh-day Sabbath and from thence the Christians observe their First day Sabbath wherein they solemnly worship God And to this I shall cite the Confession and Testimony of Mr. Theophilus Brabourn in his Discourse upon the Sabbath day See his Book Pag 68. wherein he labours to justifie the keeping of the seventh day Saturday Sabbath saith he Remember Saturday to keep it holy c. Now that Sabbath day was a proper Name of one of their Week days is apparent to all since they counted all the other six days of the Week by the Sabbath day thus the seventh and last day of the Week they viz. the Jews called Sabbath-day the first-day of the Week our Sunday they called the first of the Sabbath the second day of the Week our Monday they called the second of the Sabbath our Tuesday the third of the Sabbath c. So that the clear Confession of the Saturday Sabbatharians themselves does confirm that which is undeniably manifest in the Holy Scriptures that the first of the Sabbath which is so called Marâ— 16.9 and is the same as one of the Sabbaths in the other Evangelists as hath been shewed is the Name of the First day of the Jewish Week See his Reply â—age 28. as it is also owned by Mr. Bampfield 2. This First day Sabbath at its first founding by the Resurrection of Christ thó it broke the Order of the Jewish working days among the Christians by taking their first day for our Sabbath and their Sabbath into the Christians six working or common days yet there was no breach of the Moral Law respecting the Order of the six working days considered as being bounded before and after with a Sabbath for the Jewish Sabbath after their six working days being followed with a New Sabbath made two Sabbaths together but this neither broke the Order of the six working days before the Jewish Sabbath nor of the six working days after the Christian Sabbath Luke 23.56 nay nor before it because we must suppose that the Christians at that time kept both the Sabbaths and did not reckon the Jewish Sabbath as a common day before the Resurrection of the Lord. So that at the first sounding of our Christian Sabbath it was bounded with six Jewish working days and their Sabbath before and six working days with the seventh-day of Christian Sabbath after iâ— and is as much our seventh-day Sabbath after our six working days as Adams seventh day Sabbath was after his six working days which Sabbath when it was first sounded on Gods seventh-day of Rest was also Adams first-day Sabbath From whence I observe that the Christians Sabbath considered as both their first and seventh-day Sabbath is like as it was in the beginning to which Christ refers us in other things for a Pattern to answer the Moral Law and to make void the Ceremonial Addition to it as hath been shewed And now since the abolishing of all Ceremonial Things in the Law of Moses that we have a Pattern for the Sabbath given to us by the Practice of the Holy Apostles and the Primitive Churches in the New Testament appears as followeth 1. After Christ arose from the Dead Luke 14.1.9 10 13 33 36. on the first day of the Week he appeared unto his Disciples and the eleven Apostles who were gathered together on the same day John 10.1.19.26 And after eight days Jesus appeared again to his Disciples that were Assembled which was on the next first-day being the eighth day for it was the custom of the Hebrews after this manner to express this day-week or this day seven-night as we have an Instance in 2 Chron. 10.5 12. And he said unto them come again unto me after three days and the People departed So Jeroboam and all the People came to Rehoboam on the third day Which Example plainly shews that after three days was on the third day and so here in the Evangelist after eight days was on the eighth day or after eight days were come and not after they were past on the ninth day as it is also clearly explained in Mark 8.31 The Son of Man must suffer and be killed and after three days rise again For Christ arose from the Dead not after but on the third day after he was Crucified And to this present day the Hollanders in their Vulgar Discourse express this day Week after the same manner saying Over eight days so that the Disciples were assembled also on the second first day of the Week after the Resurrection of our Lord who appeared to them on that day also 3. The Apostle ordered and appointed the Churches of the Galatians and Corinthians to make their Collections for the Saints on the first day of the Week 1 Cor. 16.12 which business had no temporary Reason in it to limit the doing of it to that day and therefore it is a clear Demonstration that it was the accustomed day of their Assembling together to worship God and for such Church Affairs otherwise it 's rational to believe the Apostle would have rather left them at Liberty to do it on any day which Example of this Nature having something of an Institution in it some have thought it is a sufficient warrant of its self to justifie our keeping of the first day of the Week a Sabbath 4. In Acts 20.6 7 11. It is said that Paul abode at Troas seven days And upon the first day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the Morrow and continued his Speech until Mid-night When he therefore was come up again and had broken Bread and eaten and talked a long while even till break of day so he departed First I observe from this Scripture that Paul abode there seven days in which time we hear nothing of his Preaching or of the Disciples coming together till on the first day of the Week which was the last of the seven days so that Paul came thither on the second day of the Week and tarried till the usual day of their Assembling together otherwise he need not have straitned himself for time so as to preach till Midnight when he was to depart at break of day but that it may rationally be concluded that he
could not conveniently see the Church in a full Assembly before their usual appointed Time on the first day of the Week Secondly Then they came together to break Bread viz to eat the Lords Supper for so the same Expression is universally understood in Acts 2.42 So that on the first day of the Week the Church of Troas Assembled to hear the Word of God and to solemnize the Ordinances of Jesus Christ which pattern together with the Example of his Disciples before mentioned and the occasion of the change of the Jewish Sabbath answering the Precept of the Moral Law founded on the first sanctifying of the Sabbath with the Observation of the first and seventh-day Sabbath by Adam is a sufficient warrant for the keeping of our first-day Sabbath there being both a Precept and a double Example that justifieth our Observation of it And this I conceive to be the same day which St. John calls the Lords day as Dr. Wallis shews See his Defence of the Christian Sabbath in Answer to Mr. Thomas Bampfield Page 48. that we have the more Reason so to presume because we find it so called by others very soon after St. Johns time as Ignatius who was not only Contemporary with him but was a Disciple or Scholar of St. John now Ignatius in his Epistle to the Magnesians even according to the genuine Edition published by Bishop Vshâ—â— out of an Ancient Manuscript not that which is justly suspected to be interpolated he doth earnestly exhort them not to Judâ—â—ze but to live as Christians not any longer observing the Jewish Sabbath but the Lords day on which Christ our Life rose again It is manifest therefore saith he as may be there further seen that within eight or ten Years after St. Johns writing the Lords day did not signifie the Jewish Sabbath but the first day of the Week on which our Saviour rose again and that it was then observed in contradistinction to the Jewish Sabbath he also adds the evidence of Justin Martyr and farther saith that Dominica or dies Dominicus hath been so used not only by the Ancient Christian Writers Ignatius Clement Ireneus Origen Tertullian c. but by the Councils and Church History all along Now this Historical Testimony of Ignatius c. that the Lords day was accounted from St. Johns time the first day of the Week is the more to be regarded seeing Mr. Bampfield in his Reply to the Doctors Book does not as I can find in the least invalidate the Reputation or any ways deny the Truth of the aforesaid History SECT XIII HEre I shall observe that the first day Sabbath which I have been treating of is asserted by many Authors to be as its Heathen Name viz. Sunday that is still in Vulgar use does witness the same successive day which the Gentiles from great Antiquity have observed as the chief day of their Week in worship to the Sun See Dr. Nath. Hâ—lmes his Essay concerning the Sabbath Chap. 7.8 9. as Dr. Hâ—lmes sheweth how anciently the Sun was worshipped Jerem. 43.12 13. He shall break also the Images of Bethshemesh which in our Marginal Notes is translated the House of the Sun that is in the Land of Egypt and the Houses of the Gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with Fire And Gen. 41.45 And â—haraoh called Josephs name Zaphnath-Paaneah and he gave him to Wife Asenath the Daughter of Potipherah Priest of On which he translates from the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priest of the City of the Sun And he citeth divers Authors as Jo. Gr. Assyr Monarch idem Biblian to shew that Nimrod having given to the Sun his greatest God the Name of Baal Nimâ—od Gen. 10.8 was the Father of Belus See Mr. Tho. Chasiâ— on the Sabbath Page 29. he afterwards assumed that Name to himself And â—elus giving to their greatest God the Sun the Name of Jove the Contract of Jâ—lâ—vah the said Belus afterwards took that Name to himself and was called Jove Bel. I shall add that the Sâ—â—â— and Moon and the Host of Heaven were worshipped by the Gentiles before Israels coming out of Egypt as seemeth by the strict command given to them and the Penalty of Death to any Man or Woman that should worship the Sun and Moon Deut. 17.2 See Mr. Tho. Chasie on the Sabbath Chap. 15. 3 c. Also Mr. Chafie proves from divers Authors that the Heathens did of old Worship the Sun and that the weekly day to wit the seventh-day of every Week with the Gentiles which they call the day of the Sun or Sunday was the very same day which we call the Lords day Moreover Mr. Tho. Bampfield in his Reply to Doctor Walles page 56 57. saith That Mr. Chafie tells us page 40. That to take off the Israelites from this Idolatry viz. of worshipping the Sun the Lord used this means for one that they should not have the day of the Sun that is Sunday for the day of his Worship but the day before that is the Seventh day which saith Mr. Bampfield I think refers to the Time of the sixteenth or twentieth of Exodus which saith he proves not only the Observation of the seventh-day by the Israelites but of Sunday by the Heathens and that very Anciently and that continually in the Weekly Circulation of days to this day And Mr. Chafie's ninth and fifteenth Chapters saith Mr. Bampfield I think might give satisfaction that all Nations of Note under Heaven worshipped the Sun and that very anciently as far back at least as the Time of Moses and that upon Sunday and that weekly Now all the Use I intend to make hereof is that our first day Sabbath according to the Opinion of some Persons and to what Mr. Bampfield approveth of in Mr. Chafie's Book stands fairest to be the successive seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation of the World See Dr. H. Essay on the Sabbath Page 78.79.82 Gen 12.8 Chap. 13.4 as Dr. Holmeâ— saith We know that Idolaters were always the Apes as Divines call them of true Religion As because Abraham builded an Altar on the Mountain near Bethel and planted a Grove in Beersheba and prepared all things at Gods command to offer up his Son Isaac Therefore Idolaters planted Groves and worshipped in high Places their Idols Gen. 21.33 Chap. 22. and made their Children to pass through the Fire to them and therefore saith he nothing can be more probable than that the seventh-day with the ancient Patriaâ—â—ks was no other but that which afterwards was the Sunday or Day of or to the Sun with the 〈◊〉 and from them was called Sunday by other Nations also To which I add that the Astronomers say the measure of our days by the Revolutions of the Sun in a whole Years time differs between five and six hours from the Revolutions of the Stars which make a day every fourth or Leap Year and yet that the odd Minutes in which their Measure differs
†Or within a very small time of it viz. of their seventh or second-day in the Land of Canaan And therefore seeing the Sabbath cannot be begun universally both at the precise Point of Time and Time of day as it should begin in the Land of Canaan to contemporize with them there And considering that Adams Sabbath was not only designed for the Moral end of Mans abâ—inence from Work for a time of solemn Worship to God but that it had its Memorial of the Creation and that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath afterwards bearing that Memorial was also appointed for â—loral Ends and for a Ceremonial Memorial that rendred it uncapable of being a universal Pattern and that the Memorial of Christs Purchase of our Spiritual and Eternal Salvation should be preferred before that of Israels Deliverance out of Egypt then we ought to observe our Christan Sabbath as much as can be to Answer thereunto the end of its chinge which may be done by all Nations including those Northern People keeping their first-day Sabbath in Distinction to and from the Jewish seventh day And as for its beginning early in the Morning or at the dawning of the Day the Scriptures shew that so it began in Judea Matth. 28.1 In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn or as John 20.1 While it was yet dark i. e. not light day towards the first-day of the Week came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary to see the Sepulchre c. And in Mark 16.2 It 's said they came unto the Sepulchre at the rising of the Sun and ver 9. Now when Jesus was risen early the first-day of the Week he appeared first to Mary Magdalen and said unto her John 20 1â— Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God And therefore seeing the Evangelists have Recorded the Time of the dawning and Sun rising of the Day to the History and Circumstances of Christs Resurrection and that we find he was then but newly riten because he had not yet ascended unto the Father when Mary first saw him We have then greater Reason to six the beginning of our first-day Sabbath in all Nations where we can at the dawning of the day expressed in the Scripture to bare the fuller Memortal of the Resurrection of our Lord than at any other time of the day And this we may strengthen from the Example of the Jews beginning their Sabbath in the Evening here in England and in other Nations tho our Evenings here differ and in other Nations are farther from the precise Time of the Evening in the Land of Canaan and their Reason for it is taken from the Precept of Moses which bindeth them to celebrate their Sabbaths from Evening to Evening Lev. 23.32 Exod. 12 18 19. And therefore seeing God was pleased under the Type of the Gospel Salvation Church and Sabbath to require the Memorial of that Deliverance by beginning their Sabbath in the Evening as the most proper time to bear its lively remembrance and that from thence they conclude it best answereth the express command of God and his End and Design in sixing the Jewish Sabbath to begin at Evening in the Land of Canaan for them to begin it so in other Countries also rather than to begin it at the precise Point of time of its beginning in Canaan and differ in the Time of day then we have Reason from the Type and their Example to begin our first-day Sabbath rather at the dawning of the day in all the World where we can than at the precise Point of Time at a different time of day to contemporize in all places And whatever the Jewish Sabbatharians may invent to say from the Necessity of the Course of Nature in those Northern or Southern Parts against the beginning of our first-days Sabbath early in the Morning or at the dawning of the day in all other Parts of the World the same Arguments will equally serve against the beginning of their Sabbath in the Evening where it can be so observed so that they cannot gain the least Advantage by opposing us in beginning our Christian Sabbath early in the Morning unless they can first invalid and disprove the Authority we bring for our keeping the first-first-day it self that it does not answer the Pattern of Adams Sabbath the Moral Law in the fourth Commandment and the Example of Christs Disciples and the Primitive Churches with all the ends of a Sabbath which is a task too hard for them And seeing the Scriptures sheweth by the Resurrection of our Lord that our Sabbath should begin at the dawning of the first-first-day of the Week it must consequently not end till the dawning of the second-second-day Mark 15.42 Luke 23.54 See Mr. Heemse Christ Synagogue Page 74. Who tells us the Jews had three Preparations to their Sabbaâ—h Succeeding each other And from the Custom of the Jews to make Preparations for their Sabbath the preceding Time from twelve a Clock on Saturday Night vulgarly so called till the dawning of the first-day it that time be not spent in our Nights rest it should be employed to prepare our Minds for the Worship and Service of God on the approaching Sabbath day But to proceed That I may remove any doubts that may yet arise about the usefulness of the Pattern of Adams Sabbath to us under the Gospel I shall add something to demonstrate how far it is of a Moral Nature for seeing I have forborn to call it a Moral Pattern because no one Pattern respecting the beginning and ending of the Sabbath can be wholly alike universally so to all Nations I think it 's therefore needful to explain the Moral use that is to be made of Adams Sabbath that so whatever different Apprehensions there may be about the use of the Word Mortal â—o Adams Pattern the thing it self may be understood and the Controversie may not be fomented about Words which some have made the Subject of much Discourse when they have not been able to Confute the thing that was plainly intended by them 1. Therefore as I shewed Page 2. that from Gods sanctifying the seventh-day for Man the Light of Adams Nature taught him that it was most meet to divide his time like his Creator and so it became the Moral Duty of Men as Men to have no more nor less than six working days to one Sabbath 2. See Page 24. I have also shewed the Reason we have from Scripture to believe that after Adams first sleep in the Night when the Hamane Nature was compleatly formed and Eve was brought to him at the end of the sixth Creation day their Sabbath began with the Morning day light of the seventh-day and the first day after the finishing of the Creation which seeing the Order of Gods Working and Rest and the Original Moral Duty of Man
alike Let every Man be fully perswaded in his own Mind Whatever some may imagine from this Scripture yet seeing Adam in Paradice had his Sabbath for the solemn worship of God Levit. 23.3 and Israel had their Sabbath for the same end and to rest from their work and labour there being still the same Moral Use and Necessity of Nature for a Sabbath there is Reason to believe that such a day is to be observed as well now and in after Ages as it was before And considering the undeniable Evidence that hath been given to prove the Decalogue to be Morally binding to us under the Gospel there is a necessity for the Preservation of the Concord of Holy Writ to give such an Exposition of this Text of Scripture as will both suit and agree with the Letter of it and the binding quality of other Scriptures to keep a sabbath-Sabbath-day To proceed therefore the Apostle surely would not have singled forth the first-first-day of the Week on which the Churches were wont to have their Assemblies as the properest time to make their Collection for the Saints Nor would the Apostle John have called it the Lords day as hath been shewed from History if it had not been a sanctified day for Holy Use neither would the Holy Ghost have Recorded the Disciples gathering together on the two first-first-days after the Resurrection of Christ nor that the Church of Troas came together on the first day of the Week to solemnize the Gospel Ordinances of Divine Worship as the only Examples to answer the Moral Law in the fourth Commandment If the same Spirit of Truth in the Apostle had here designed to make every day alike Common 2. If the Apostle in this Scripture had so designed he would not have cited so many Precepts of the Ten Commandments in Chap. 13.9 of the same Epistle and have said of the rest of them as binding to the Romans to confirm his Moral Doctrine That if there be any other Commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying namely Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self And therefore seeing he doth so plainly discover the binding quality of the Ten Commandments to the Gentile Christians there is no Reason to conceive he should dissolve the Obligation of any one of them in the following Chapter considering that the Liberty there mentioned of esteeming or not esteeming of Days is not there reserred or applyed as having Retation to the Moral Observation of the sourth Command 3. The Apostle would not have abolished as hath been shewed the Jewish Feasts Holy days and Sabbaths Colos 2.16 17. nor have said to the Galatians Ye observe Days Gal. 4.10 and Months and Times and Years I am afraid of you least I have bestowed upon you labour in Vain If he or any other by Christs Authority had given absolute Liberty for Christians to observe the Jewish Holy days And therefore the sence of this Text which is freest from all Exceptions is That the Apostle neither giveth us Liberty to sleight the Observation of the seventh-day required of us in the fourth Commandment as the Bond of the Gospel Pattern nor yet doth give us absolute Liberty to observe the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath and their other Holy-days but he is teaching us how we should bear with one another in indifferent Matters as the eating of Herbs and esteeming of Jewish days That in Case a Brother should be so weak as that after he is converted from the Jewish Religion to the Christian Faith he should still retain some esteem of their Holy days yet being sound in all the Essential Principles to Salvation and in the constituted Order of a Regular Gospel Church his Communion is not to be refused Ver. 1. but here let the Reader well observe that my meaning is not that any Church should receive such a Christian into full Communion with them at the Lords Table that holdeth and maketh our first-first-day Sabbath only as a common day to him for this in the Judgment of a Church according to Scripture Rule bringeth him under the guilt of Sin and the Church should not partake of it by their holding such full Communion with him But the Apostle means that in Case a Converted Jew as he is there treating of such a one as maketh a difference between Meats to be Clean and Unclean Ver. 14 1â— if he should still esteem some of their Holy days yet if he also keepeth the first-first-day Sabbath Holy unto the Lord the Church in such a Case should be tender of grieving his weak Conscience by Continual and Uncharitable Disputations with him about the Matter wherein he is not clearly enlightned so as to give him an occasion to stumble and sall at the Offence For seeing he Conscientiously keepeth Holy the first-first-day Sabbath Gal. 4.13 15 20 21 23. for his retaining an esteem for some Jewish Holy days so they be kept to the Lord in Christian Worship and not for Jewish Sacrifices or such things which betoken Christs not being yet come and fully exhibited in the Flesh we are not to deny Communion at the Lords Table with such a Brother seeing he neither observeth the Jewish days to uphold their worship contrary to the Prohibition of Legal Ceremonies under the Gospel Dispensation nor can any ways be charged with disorders in Ordinances or in Matters Essentially pertaining to the Regular Constitution of a Gospel Church And that this is the Mind of Christ in the Text appeareth in two things 1. Because the Apostle joineth this Liberty of Regarding or not Regarding of days with Eating or not Eating of Meats as things of a like indifferent Nature but the Keeping or not Keeping of the Weekly Sabbath hath been fully proved to be no indisserent thing but an absolute Duty and therefore it is none of the Subject Matter included in the Apostles Words 2. He intended to give no Liberty to observe the Jewish days for Legal Ceremonial Worship for this under the Gospel would not be counted a keeping of a day to the Lord but not a keeping of it to him and so as the Apostle argueth it is not a keeping of a day at all And thus having opened this Scripture and given the sence of the Apostles Words in Reconciliation to the Authority of other Places that are binding to us for the Observation of the Sabbath day I shall leave it to the serious Consideration of the Impartial Reader Answer 2. To the Objection from 2 Cor. 3.7 where the Apostle saith But if the Ministration of Death written and ongraven in Stones was glorious so that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the Face of Moses for the Glory of his Countenance which Glory was to be done away how shall not the Ministration of the Spirit be rather Glorious In Answer to this Scripture I shall Note that in the preceding and following Verses the Apostle is signifying the different and exceeding Glory of the Ministration of the quickening Spirit
he cometh home the first-day in Canaan is by his account but the seventh-day and contrarywise if he Travelleth round the World Eastward he loseth in the length of his days but gaineth a day in Tale so that by his account the first day in Canaan falleth to be his second day at his return from whence some have argued that neither a Law nor Example can bind us universally to the Observation of any one Day and therefore if it were agreed amongst men any day of the Week or one day in seven may be made our seventh-day Sabbath boundary to six working days and so would answer the Moral Law Answer 1. The Question is Whether the Moral Law bindeth us to keep the seventh-day which men may appoint at their own pleasures or the seventh-day that we are directed unto in the Holy Scriptures Phil. 3.17 2 Thes 3.9 Surely we ought to exert our Obedience to Gods Precepts after the Examples of those that are set forth to be an Example to us I say not that we should follow them in all things they ever did but in all things they did which were essential to answer any Moral or Gospel Precept given for our Practice and consequently in this particular of the first-day Sabbath For seeing the Ceremonial Precept for the Sabbath is abroga ed and the Course of Nature maketh it impossible to be morally binding to all Nations we have then no other Directions how to answer the Moral Law but the Gospel Pattern justified by the Example of our first Parents and therefore we having a positive Law to keep the seventh-day Sabbath we are under a necessity to make that our Pattern For tho' the Apostle did go into the Jews Synagogues and there preâ—â—â—hed the Gospel on their seventh-seventh-day Sabbath 2 Tim. 4.2 as the meetest time to Convert both the Jews and Gentiles who assembled together on that day Yet we no where sind in Scripture that the Apostles Disciples of Christ and Primitive Churches did of choice set a-part that day but the first day of the Week for Gospel Service and this being Recorded as the only Example of the Gospel Churches Obedience to the Moral Law in this particular of the Sabbath surely it is lest for our Directions whatever is otherwise handed down by Humane History as the Practice of some Christians for the Scriptures snew that divers were under mistakes and errors Acts 15.1 c. Gal. 2.12 Ch. 4.21 and Ch. 3 and very Subject to Judaize even in the Apostles days 2. Mr. Chasie saith That Mr. Ironside also from the Diversity of Meridians proveth that one and the same day cannot be universally kept and therefore never commanded the whole Church One and the same day sath he could not possibly be observed a Sabbath by all the Jews in the East parts and West parts 〈◊〉 of Judea and in Babilon and in Rome by Reason of their Diversity of Longitudes And if it be supposed to be but two or three 〈◊〉 difference of Longitudes yet will that difference make the days as truly to differ from being the same as will an hundred and three tho it will not make them so much to differ But altho' this be true and the Law of Moses for sixing the Jewish Sabbath to begin at Even in the Wilderness and in the Land of Canaan was never designed to bind the Israelites to that which is impossible viz. to begin their Sabbaths both at the same time of day and at the precise Point of Time to contemporize in all places where they sojourned yet it doth not from hence follow as some have argued that such differences of days do free us from all Obligations to keep any one particular day so that if Christians agree upon the fourth fifth sixth or any other day of the Week to make it the seventh-day Sabbath after our six working days it does answer the Mind of God in the Moral Law as well as by keeping our first-day Sabbath For altho as I have proved the Jewish Sabbath being by Law to begin at Even was therefore never designed for a universal Pattern to all Nations yet who will say that it was not a Pattern for the Jews in all places that had Evenings where they did sojourn and where the days have no Evenings for many Revolutions of the Sun there was no Provision made for their Sabbath in the Ceremonial Law which they were under For God had placed Israel within other Nations and required all their Males three times a Year to appear before him in Jerusalem And therefore Dem. 16.16 they were not to sojourn so far amongst the Heathens as those Northern or Southern Parts while they were a free and peculiar Kingdom of Priests to God Exod. 19.5 6. So then notwithstanding the Ceremonial Precept for the Sabbath was neither designed to oblige the Heathens In those Northern Countreys if they were then inhabited nor could by Reason of the difference of their days accommodate the Jews to keep their Sabbaths there Yet if that Law was binding at all under the least Alteration of their Day as I think none can doubt of that nor consequently that it was obliging to the Jews in other parts of the World also where the days differed more in Point of Time to begin their Sabbaths at Evening with allowance to comply with the Necessity of the Course of Nature I say then seeing that Ceremonial Precept was binding under such Alterations of their day it must be granted that it obliged them not to vary from one another in the time of keeping their Sabbath farther than the Necessity of Nature did compell them for the beginning and ending of it at the time prefixed by the Law Otherwise if their Law did not so restrain them it was of no force nor use to them and consequently if the Gospel Pattern for us to keep the first day Sabbath be any Pattern at all for us to follow as I have shewed it is it doth then oblige us to observe it with no farther Allowance to alter the day than to accommodate the Necessity of Nature in every Countrey where we dwell Object 4. Tho' Gods seventh-day Sabbath on which he rested after his six Creation days was Adams first-day Sabbath of Abstinence from work before his six working days yet that was properly Gods own Sabbath on which he rested and not Adams because he could not be said to rest before he had any working days and therefore tho Adam abstained from work on Gods Sabbath yet the Moral end of Gods Example fixed Adams first Sabbath to begin on the next seventh day after the Sabbath on which God had rested from his Work of Creation Answer 1. Adam was either allowed to dress the Garden on Gods seventh-day of Rest which he sanctified and so to have seven working days as hath been said before he could rest on the next successive seventh-day or have his seventh-day rest a day before it which I believe
of the Gospel for a successive Conversion of Souls and beinging of all Nations into Subjection to Chrills Righteous and Visible Kingdom cannot be accomplished unless the Christians of those Countreys remain inhabitants therein And for any to imagine that God should send a Moral Pattern by an Institution to men in general which is impossible to be observed by all Mankind in every Countrey under Heaven without the least Exception to accommodate the Necessity of the Course of Nature is both against the Nature of such a Precept the Righteousness of God and the Equiey of his Law But to conclude this Answer I shall make this remark on the Authors Words before recited That seeing he saith That they ought to return again into such Câ—umreys where they may be in a Capacity to serve God for Mens Habitations ought to stoop to Gods Law and not Gods Law to their Habitations It is plain he granteth the Law for the seventh-day Sabbath or the fourth Command which he Treats of as binding us to the Observation of the Jewish Sabbath cannot be kept in those Countreys after their Pattern from Evening to Evening and then it must needs be Ceremonial and the Moral keeping of that command is for them and us to observe our seventh-day after our six working days or our first-day before them as near as can be to answer the Gospel Pattern Object 12. Thô the Sun stood still in Joshua's time about a whole day and its going backward and sorward ten Degrees or Divisions in Abaz Dial might lose ten hours account of Time so that after these Interruptions of the orderly Course of the Sun their Sabbath began and ended near or about a whole days time later than they should have done if there had not been such an Interruption in the Order of Nature yet those longer days than ordinary were counted but for days and so the seventh-day was the seventh-day still successively from their first Sabbath Answer Altho' some have thus argued that the seventh-day was the seventh-day still Josh 10.13 Isa 38.8 See Page 29. yet after those Interruptions of the orderly course of the Sun if we count its ten Degrees or Divisions of going backward and then forward again to be ten hours lengthning of that day as there is the greatest Reason to believe that so it was then the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath fell near or about a days time later than their precise orderly Succession of Time would have placed it from their first Sabbath as was shewed before And farther as their seventh-day Sabbaths could not after those Interruptions he properly counted the precise orderly successive Sabbaths from the Creation or its Institution in the Wilderness so if this should be allowed as it is objected then we may also say in those Northern parts where the days are sometimes lengthened by the Suns continuing in their Hemisphere more than twenty four hours time unto Days Weeks and Months that we are still to reckon them but for days contrary to the Custom of those People See Mr. T. Chasie cited Page 33. and the length of days and weeks in Gods Pattern of meafuring time but after this account their days will differ in length of Time Days Weeks and Months from one another and so tho' they have the orderly Succession of the Settings and Risings of the Sun according to the orderly Course of Nature in those places yet the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath cannot possibly this way be successively kept precisely in Proportion of Time there like as it was in Canaan and other parts of the World So that for any to argue for the precise Succession of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath from their first keeping it or from the Creation after those Interruptions of the orderly course of the Day will consequently tend to draw us into great Confusions about the Sabbath and to maintain that in Name which is not properly so in Nature Object 13. The journeying of the two Disciples to Emmaus Luke â—4 13 and back again was near fifteen Miles which is more than a Sabbath days journey how then could their Travelling consist with the keeping of that first-day of the Week a Sabbath Answer 1. We sind Christ reproved them for their unbelief and if this will not be allowed as inclusive for their journeying from Jerusalem when they should have continued in Faith with the eleven Apostles thaâ— were there gathered together then I may farther add that it cannot be proved whether their journey was then Lawful or Unlawful for thô it be not lawful on the Sabbath-day to journey at all on the account of any common or worldly Business of our own yet there may possibly be a Moral necessity to journey on the Sabbath-day without Sin as it may be for the saving a Persons Life and therefore we cannot conclude that the two Disciples sinned in Travelling on the first Christian Sabbath or did thereby make it a common day unless we knew the occasion of it 2. Those two Disciples were not of the number of the Eleven Disciples or Apostles of our Lord which were themselves then but weak in Faith and in the Knowledge of Gospel things and therefore it is the less to be wondered at if those two Disciples did not observe that day a Sabbath when they doubted of the occasion of it viz. the Resurrection of Christ till he appeared to them which he also did to the Eleven Luke 24.33 Math. 28.8 and others who were waiting together on that day for the Confirmation of their Faith Object 14 The Jews reckoned their days to begin at Evening and therefore the Church of 〈◊〉 Acts 20.7 came together to break Bread on the begiâ—â—â—â— of the first day of the Week viz. on Saturday Night 〈◊〉 so called after the Jewish Sabbath was over and the next Morning Paul did go a soot to Asses where he had appoâ—â—ted his Companions to meet him with the Ship So that Paul and his Company travelled on the first day of the Week and therefore tho' he preached and broke Bread on it the Night before yet he kept it not as a Sabbath Answer It s true the Jews were appointed to keep their Sacred days from Evening to Evening or from Sun set to Sun set as Mr. See his Reply to Dr. Wallis Page 28.29,30 Josh 10.26 27. Prov. 〈…〉 Mark 1.32 Chap. 13.35 Baâ—pfield largely proves that the Evening belonging to the days of the Week began at Sun-set and is called the twilight And also Moseâ— dated Israels Deliverance out of Egypt from the Sacrifice of the Passover at Even at the going doan of the Sun But yet I have clearly proved that the days before and after that Deliverance were also reâ—koned from Morning to Morning as in Math. 28.1 In the â—nd of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first-day of the Week From whence its plain that the first-day of the Week on which Christ arose from the Dead was counted by the
being short of a day in four Years loseth near a day in one hundred Years and we know not which way or that any one Method of keeping the Account of the Age of the World has been constantly and successively used from the Creation thereof to this present day nor how much time we have lost the Knowledge of for want of the exact Account of the Ages of the first Patriarks c. unto Months and Days which are omitted in the Scriptures so that we cannot tell so much as the precise Year of the Creation of the World as our Astronomers tell us that according to Verity is 0000 viz. it is not known Collected in the 〈…〉 Eusâ—â—tus 〈◊〉 â—â—nicon 〈◊〉 552. 〈◊〉 in 1619. And in Eusebius we have divers Authors mentioned that in their Account of the Year of the World when Christ was born they differ many hundred Years from each other Yet the precise Succession of Weeks of seven Days and seven Nights bounded with as many Risings and Settings of the Sun are more eastly preserved and from Gods Example of six working days with a Sabbath were observed by Adam who at first had no other measure to mete out his Age and Time and by Noah Gen 8.10 12. and were successively handed down by Tradition to Laban who said to Jacob sulfil her Week and so forwards unto Posterity Gen. 29.27 〈◊〉 28. and this way the precise Succession of the Sabbath might possibly have been handed down to us from the Creation But seeing there hath been an Interruption of the orderly course of Nature and that the Sacred Scriptures do not any ways confirm it to us nor six the Jewish Sabbath as that precise successive seventh-day but rather gives us ground to believe that if the precise Succession of the first seventh-day Sabbath was preserved among the Gentiles in Worship to their Idols or to the Sun before Israels Deliverance out of Egypt that seeing God to keep those People from the Idolatry of Egypt and other Nations did appoint them a new beginning of their Year and to begin their days at Evening which before began in the Morning I say this rather gives us ground to think that God did appoint their Sâ—bbath to be kept on a different day also to what it was before therefore we may from hence perceive that thâ— neither the Jews nor do I believe the Châ—istians can justifie their seventh or first day Sabbath on this Foundation as being the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation yet our first-day Sabbath standeth fairest for it SECT XIV I Shall here make some Comparisons of the Gospel first-day Sabbath with the Pattern of Adams Sabbath and shew the disparity of the Jewish seventh-day and also treat of the first day Sabbaths beginning in the Morning with some other Matters and then proceed to Answer the chiefest Objections I find against our keeping the first or Lords-day a Sabbath And 1. Our first-day Sabbath better answered the Pattern of our first Parents keeping their Sabbath than the Jewish Sabbath did Gen. 1.27 28. for that after Eve was compleatly formed about the end of the sixth Creation day as Adam first entred upon his Subordinate Lordship which God had given him over the Creatures which he had made and on his first day in the Earthly Paradice on his first-day Sabbath So our Lord Jesus thô his Soul was in the Paradise of Heaven John 20.17 when his Body was in the Grave yet he was not compleatly there in Soul and Body too till he was raised on the first-day of his Ascension in our Nature far above all Principalities and Powers to take Possession of his purchased Inheritance and Kingdom to be increased without end So that herein our first-day Sabbath did Originally answer Adams first Sabbath better than the Jewish seventh-day did in the Wilderness 2. As Adam and Eves Sabbath was Originally their first-day Sabbath and after their six working days their seventh-day Sabbath too So our Gospel Sabbath is the Image or Likeness of it more than the Jewish Sabbath is for thô their seventh-day may be called their first-day Sabbath respecting their Original keeping it in the Wilderness yet the Scripture does not shew that it was their first-day Sabbath from so precise an Epocha of Time or notable Event of their Deliverance out of Egypt as our Gospel Sabbath is from the precise Epocha of the Purchase of our Spiritual and Eternal Salvation from whence it is a more proper first-day Sabbath and bears a greater likeness to Adams Pattern which had its precise Epocha of Time than the Jewish Sabbath does from its Original For thô the Jewish Sabbath was appointed to bare the Memorial of Israels Deliverance out of Egypt yet the Scripture does not shew that it took its Original from the Epocha of the Passover or from the Red Sea but contrariwise I find that Israel came unto the Wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second Month after their departing out of the Land of Egypt and the following Words are Exod. 10.1 2 3 11 12. â—er 5 22 23. And the whole Congregation of the Children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron for Bread And the Lord spake unto Moses saying at Even ye shall cat Flesh and in the Morning ye shall be filled with Bread Now their first Sabbath in the Wilderness was not till the day after their sixth day of gathering Manna and from this account See Mr. Weemse Christian Synagogue Page 9â— if we reckon as the Jews did their Lunar Year according to Mr. Weemse â—rogromma of the Hebrew Kalender that the first Month Nisan or Abib hath thirty days and then reckoning the fifteenth day of this Month on which they departed out of Egypt unto the fifteenth day of their second Month and add this day to their six days of gathering Manna with their first Sabbath it makes together thirty eight days and so their first Sabbath fell on the third day after five Weeks time from their departing out of Egypt and took not its Original from that Epocha nor any other precise Epocha as a first-day Sabbath for if any should insist on their gathering Manna six days as an Epocha which I have shewed was not so for sixing their six working days Precisely and Originally before their Sabbath it would only render it a seventh-day Sabbath Originally in the Wilderness and so it could not answer Adams Pattern of his first-day Sabbath nor be like it in its Epocha from the perfecting of the first Adam as our first-day Sabbath was from its Epocha of the perfecting the second Adam 3. If it should be yet thought thô there is no Reason for it that the Jewish Sabbath was originally sixed to the Israelites in the Wilderness as following their six working days I have this to say that if so then Israel kept their Sabbath therein after a Ceremonial Precept contrary to Adams Pattern in keeping his first-first-day Sabbath before his six working days but as for our first-first-day Sabbath we are justified in keeping it by the Example of Christs Disciples and the Primitive Churches and the more because as it was changed from the Jewish Sabbath it
when the Humane Nature was compleatly formed to offer the first of Time to the Praise of his Creator before he served himself did first begin the Sabbath with the day-light unto Man we have then Reason to conclude that such a Sabbath is most morally to be observed by the World as no other Sabbath can more universally suit with the Course of Nature in the greatest part of it Indeed God can by his Prerogative and as I have shewed did dispense with the Alteration of the Sabbath from this first Pattern by a Law to Israel as he did by the Precept of Divorcement dispense with the Moral Pattern in Adam and Eve that none should put away his Wife for the causes allowed afterwards by a Ceremonial Law but this we find did not at all destroy the Moral Use and Binding Quality of the Pattern in our first Parents after Christ was come and so it is with the first Pattern of the Sabbath which no doubt was binding to others after Adam as precisely to observe the same day as near to the orderly Succession of the same time as could be according to the allowance of the Course of Nature in every Climate wherein they dwelt It 's true it may be said we cannot keep the Sabbath from our Knowledge that we observe the same precise Succession and Order of Time as Adam did and others in the first Ages did or should do in their feveral Countreys But then as God was pleased Exod. 13.2 12 to 16. insigâ—d of the first-born of the Children of Israel which were the Lords to require and accept of the Levites for his Service Exod. 34.19 20. Numb 3.41 to the end Chap. 8.16 c. Levit. 27.25 26 c. Chap. 22.29 30. Deut. 12.6 but still kept up the Memory of his Right by Causing afterwards the Israelites to acknowledge it in paying Redemption Money for their first-born of Man and unclean Beasts and did still require the first-born of clean Beasts to be offered to him So likewise the Practice of Christs Disciples and the Primitive Churches shews us that the first of Time from the work of purchasing our Redemption bearing the Image of the first of Adams and Eves Time from the Creation is most acceptable to God and after the aforesaid Example of Gods Command and Allowance to Israel concerning their first-born we should likewise offer it as God accepteth of it instead of the same precise Succession of Time from the Creation in Memorial thereof and of the purchase of Mans Salvation And it is rational to conclude that seeing the beginning of the day was changed upon the account of the Type a day might well be changed upon the account of the Antitype If this in the Figure was reckoned worthy of such Note that the account of the days beginning from the Creation with the Day-light most give place to the Memorial of Israels Deliverance out of Egypt so as that their days must begin at Evening the substance of this Figure appearing might well be the Cause of the Change of a Day and of a Typical Memorial to its Spiritual and Gospel Memorial in our first-days Sabbath To close this Matter seeing the Moral Law requireth the seventh or first-day a boundary to our six working days and that the Precept for the Jewish Pattern is abtogated in the New Testament Nature it self also taking away its binding quality to all Nations because it cannot accommodate its necessity how then can we answer the fourth Command so well as by keeping such a Sabbath that every way agreeth with that Moral Precept that also suiteth with and is justified by the Morality of Adams Sabbath the end of its change from the Jewish seventh-seventh-day and the Example of Christs Disciples with the Primitive Churches which doubtless we are bound to follow in Obedience to the fourth Command as we observe their Examples in Obedience to other Precepts As for instance laying on of Hands for Confirmation of Elders or Church Officers and consummating their Ordination is a Divlne Rite which is the Duty of all Compleat and Orderly Gospel Churches Authoritatively to Practise Ordination of Elders being Instituted in Titus 1.5 but yet the manner of compleating this Institution is no otherwise known nor practised by us as I can find but from the Examples of the Apostles and Primitive Churches Acts 14.23 26. with Chap. 13.1 2 3. Chap. 6.1 to 7. Objections Answered Object 1. THE Psalmist saith Psal 147.19 20. He sheweth his Word anto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel He hath not dealt so with any Natton and as for his Judgments they have not known them Answer This Scripture is no ways repugnant to what I have said of the Use and Benefit of the Law of Moses to the Gentiles For we find the Israelites had continual Wars with the Heathens round about them and the old Inhabitants of Canaan were not wholly subdued till Joab David's Servant 1 Chron. 11.4 c. Chap. 19.20 took the Castle of Jebus which is Jerusalem or about the latter end of Davids days So that till they had obtained Peace and Rest and became in Repute and Honour in Salomons Reign it cannot rationally be supposed that any Gentile Nation for the Text excludes not single Persons had a full and distiuct Knowledge of Moses Law with the Statutes and Judgments therein contained Nay tho' the Gentiles had an Interest in the Uso and Benefit of the Law and were to seek after the Knowledge of the Oracles of God committed to the Jews yet such was their hatred against them and love to gross Idolatry that till about two hundred eighty Years before the Nativity of Chirst See Josephus Book 12. Ch. 2. Ptolomy Philadelphus King of Egypt had caused the Law to be translated into Greek by the Seventy two Interpreters it was never as I can find translated out of the Hebrew Tongue So that as David rightly said that God had not dealt so with any Nation viz. with any other Nation besldes Israel so as to shew them his Oracles under a peculiar Obligation in trust for others also He having designed to pour the Water out of Jacobs Buckets it is likewise also Evident Numb 24.7 that no Gentile Nation thenâ— in Davids Time had a full and distinct Knowledge of Gods Laws tho' respecting the particular Election of God among them they might by some means or other receive the true and saving Knowledge of the Messias through their converse with the Jews Object 2. Some may say the Apostle in Rom. 14.5 seemeth to leave the keeping of days to our own Liberty and also in 2 Cor. 3.7 8. Coloss 2.14 he seemeth to abolish the binding quality of the Ten Commandments as given on Mount Sinai and therefore it is doubtful whether we are under any Obligation to keep a Sabbath or Day of Rest at all Answer 1. To Rom. 14.5 One Man esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day
is our first-day Sabbath before our six working days and so it better agrees with Adams Pattern than the Jewish Sabbath then can do 4. If it should be said as I acknowledge it may that the Jewish Sabbath may be called their first-day Sabbath respecting their first observing it in the Wilderness as a boundary before and after their six working days and so by Imitation does answer the Pattern of Adams Sabbath I have this to Answer that yet the Jewith Sabbath did not imitate Adams Pattern as our Christian Sabbath doth in beginning it with the Morning Day light for the Jews began their Sabbath at Even contrary to Adams Pattern as there is Reason from Scripture to believe And if it be objected that the Pattern of Adam respecting the beginning of his Sabâ—ath in the Morning is not plainly exprest but drawn by Interence from the Scripture but the Jewish Pattern is expresly commanded and therefore there is better ground of the two to observe the Sabbath after the Pattern in the Mosaical Precept I answer 1. It is not expressy said that Adams first Sabbath was his first-days Sabbath Mark 2.27 But yet seeing Christ hath said the Sabbath was made for Man and that none can deny but that Adam was bound in Duty to God to observe Gods seventh day Sabbath wherein he rested from his Works of Creation then we may insist on the sufficiency of our Evidence for Adams beginning his Sabbath in the Morning it being so rationally inserred thô it is not in Words expressed in the Scriptures 2. It hath been shewed how our Lord made void the Mesaical Precept of Divorcement and justified the doing of it by the Moral Pattern in our first Parents tho' it was not by any express Word of God nor by so clear an evidence from Adam and Eves being one Fresh that he nor his Posterity but by a special permission of God should not put away their Wives except for Fornication as there is Reason to believe that Adam began his Sabbath in the Morning day light And therefore tho' Christ might have abolished that Precept without setting a Moral Pattern against it yet his justifying the doing of it from thence 2 Tim 3.16 is an Example to be of use to us in other Cases 3. We have greater Reason to begin our Sabbath in the Morning in every Countrey where it can be so observed after the Pattern of Adams Sabbath and the Reason of its change in the New Testament tho' his beginning of it so is but inferred from the Scripture and not expressed in it rather than to begin it after the Jewish Precept at Evening for were this universally binding it could not being a Positive Command accommodate the Necessity of Nature for the different beginning and ending of the Sabbath as the Pattern in Adam and the New Testament Example doth And this I conceive to be one chief Reason that the Jewish Sabbath is abrogated and that we have only the Pattern of Adams Sabbath left us by rational Inference from the Scripture and the Reason of the change of the Sabbath in the New Testament for our beginning of it in the Morning and that we have not any command fixing of it as it was to Israel For 1. That would have either bound us to the precise Point of Time of its beginning in the Lard of Canaan and then the Memorial of Christs Resurrection early in the Morning had not been signified by its beginning in other Nations remote from their Borders for in some places it must then begin at Noon c. and so its day-light there had been divided and the Service of God distructed and our worldly Affairs too much intruding on the meetest time for solemn Worship Or 2. Such a command to six the beginning of the Sabbath would have required it univerfally to begin in the Morning or at the dawning of the Day which is inconsistent with the course of Nature for many Weeks together in some Northern Parts of the World And therefore that those People should not be obliged by any Law to keep such a Sabbath which they are not capable constantly to observe God was pleased to leave only the Moral Precept of the fourth command founded on his first sanctifying of the Sabbath to be binding to us all that those Northern People should answer it by beginning their Sabbath with the first and seventh-day or proportionable Division of a day bounding before and after their six working days and allow it the same Proportion of Time and should preserve the Memorial of the Resurrection of Christ by observing the first day of the Week from and in Distinction to the Jewish seventh-seventh-day as near as they can to Answer the Example of the Primitive Churches in the New Testament And that we and all others that have constantly our natural days with Evenings and Mornings twenty four hours long should answer the same Moral Law after the Gospel Pattern and as precisely as we can to begin our first-days Sabbaths early or at the dawning of the Morning in every Nation For if we and all other such Nations should be tyed successively to begin our Sabbath at the very precise Point of Time of the dâ—wning of the first-day in Jerusalem to contemporize with them in the Land of Canaan where our Lord afore from the Dead then they must either in other Countries Eastward to the Sun from the Land of Canaan begin their Christian Sabbath later in their Day-light or Westward from them sooner in their Night than they should in Judea and so in the Compass of the whole World Eastward or Westward there would be a beginning and ending of the Sabbath near a day and night differing in their Time of day to the dawning of the day in the Land of Canaan and by this means in some parts of the World the Christian Sabbath would begin at Noon at Evening and at all hours of the Day and Night and so except in that very spot in and about the Land of Canaan they would lose its Memorial of Christs Resurrection at the Dawning of the Day But if other Countries Eastward and Westward from Canaan begin as they ought their first-days Sabbath like them at the same time of the day then they must either begin their first day sooner or later than the first day began in Canaan and so in the Compass of the World Eastward or Westward it must begin and end in all Hours of the Jewish seventh or second day of the Week and in some place their first-day must be in the same time and contemporize with their seventh * Or within a very small time of it viz. of their seventh or second-day or in some place with their second-day
Evange list according to their Civil days not to begin till the dawning of the Day or Sun-rising and agreeable to Mr. Bampfields Discourse against the first-days beginning at Midnight after the Roman account it must necessarily follow that the first-day Acts 20.7 11. must be reckoned to begin with the Morning day-light For it s said Vpon the first-day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the Morrow and continaâ—d his Speech until Midnight When he therefore had broken Bread and eaten and talked a long while even till break of day so he departed And here I observe that the Morning in which Paul departed was the Morrow which betokens another day and therefore it was no part of the first day of the Week So that it is not only undeâ—iably clear from the Text it self that the Night in which Paul preached was part of the first-day belonging to the preceeding day-light joining to it but it s also evident that the first day of the Week began in the Morning before and not on that Evening in which the Apostle preached and so it appears that the Morrow on which Paul travelled was the second day of the Week and the Text clearly proves that on the day before being the first day of the Week Paul with the Church of Troas Assembled to solemnize the Ordinances of the Gospel as on the Sabbath day Object 15. It s said Math. 12.40 As â—onas was three days and three Nights in the Whales belly So shall the Sun of man be three days and three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And this seemeth to disagree with other places of Scripture concerning the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Answer 1. It cannot be thought St. Matthew or the other Evangelists faw any Discord in the Testimony they bore of Christ or that the three Days and three Nights expressed by our Saviour should be repugnant to the other Evangelsts undeniable Evidence that Christ was not in the Grave three Nights Now to reconcile this Difficulty I shall cite Dr. Hammond on the Text saith he The way of Interpreting this place mast be taken from a Figure which expresseth one whole thing by two parts of it Thus the Heavens and the Earth in St. Peter 2 Pet. 3.7 signifie the World and so Christ is said to be three Days and three Nights in the Earth thô the first natural Day he was not in the Grave any part of the Night but the latter part of the Fryday all Saturday and so much of Sunday as until the Sun approached their Horizon And as it is practised in the business of Circumcision This of Circuâ—â—ision is alâ—â— affirmed by Mr. Wâ—â—mâ—â— in his Christ Sâ—nag Page 114. which was precifely observed the eighth day if the Child were born in one day thô but half an hour before the end of it that is before the beginning or Evening of the next that half hour was counted for one of the eight days because say they legal days are not accounted from Time to Time or from Hour to Hour Thus when Luke 9.28 'T is said about eight days after Math. 17.1 and Mark 9.2 'T is after six Days that is after six Days compleat the first and the last being not compleat and so thô numbred by one yet omitted by two Evangelists And accordingly the space of those very three days of Christs lying in the Grave until his Resurrection are when it is Prophetically mentioned in Hosea 6 â— said to be after two days 2. The Dutch Annotations also say of those three Days and three Nights For a part of the Days is here taken whole days and nights like that is Customary with the Hebrews see Esth 4.16 compared with Chap. 5.1 And so they take it after the Romanists reckoning that the days began and ended on the Midnight and so it falleth yet clearer To which I shall add this brief Note That seeing 't is said As Jonas was three Days and three Nights c. so Christ should be three days and three Nights c. 'T is thought from our Saviours Words that sonas was not compleatly three Nights in the Whales Belly but as Christ was in the Grave Object 16. Christs Body rested in the Grave on the Jews Sabbath and his Soul in Paraaice and therefore he never intended by his Death to make it a common work-day Answer Luke 2.21 Gal. 4.4 Math. 5.17 18. As Christ was born a Jew and was Circumcised and came to fulfil the whole Law so every Jot and Little of it was rulsilled by him and therefore he always observed the Jewish Sabbath and if his Body being in the Grave and his Soul in Paradice should in some Sence be taken for a rest in Comparison of what he laboured under before for our Redemption yet then it must be only so considered with respect to the Law tâ—â— our Justification was compleatly Purchased by the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead Rom. 4.25 â— Cor. 15.17 18. who was delivered that is to be Crucisied for our Offences and was raised again for our Justification And the Apostle also saith That if Christ be not raised your Faith is vain ye are yet in your Sins Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished So that thô the Vail of the Temple was Rent at his Passion as a Sign that there was thereby a Rent made in the Types and Shadows of Heavenly Things which was then making void yet the Heavenly Things themselves were not compleatly purchased for us until the Body of Christ was raised for our Justification Heb. 9.12 And then as the Apostle saith By his own Blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us Now therefore thô Christs being in the Grave should be called a Comparative Rest to what he suffered on the Cross yet it cannot be understood of his Ceasing from the Work of purchasing our Redemption until the Omnipotency of his Divine Nature was put forth in loosing him from the Pains of Death Heb. 2.10 Chap. 5.9 and Chap. 11.40 Acts 2.24 or part of the Sentence of the Law and raising his Body to Life again for till then the New Creation was not perfected in the second Adam And then on the first day of the Week having ceased from this Work and so rested it was thereby sanctified in stead of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath which was then to be abolished as all other Legal Ceremonial Things were And the Gospel first and seventh day Sabbath taking its place was to answer the Moral Law and to bear the Type of the Rest that remaineth to the People of God as also principally the Memorial of Christs Resurrection and to continue our Sabbath unto his second Personal Coming To close this Treatise seeing we are obliged to keep the first day of the Week a Sabbath or Day of Rest from our worldly Business to worship and