glorified in us and by us and the Interest of Religion in Purity Holiness and Righteousness be promoted amongst Men. J. O. Jan. 11. 1670. Exercitations Concerning the Name Original Nature Use and Continuance of a Day of Sacred Rest. Exercitatio Prima HEBR. Chap. IV. Ver. IX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Trouble and Confusion from mens Inventions 2 Instanced in Doctrines and Practices of a Sabbatical Rest. 3 Reason of their present Consideration 4 Extent of the Controversies about such a Rest. 5 A particular Enumeration of them 6 Special Instances of Particular Differences upon an Agreement in more general Principles 7 Evil Consequences of these Controversies in Christian Practice 8 Principles and Rules proposed for the right Investigation of the Truth in this matter 9 Names of a Sacred Day of Rest. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 3. Heb. 4. 4. 10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 3. Exodus 16. 23. Chap. 35. 2. Lam. 1. 7. Saturn called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Jews and why The Word doubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason of it 11 Translation of this Word into the Greek and Latin Languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 12 All Judaical Feasts called Sabbata by the Heathen Suetonius Horace Juvenal cited to that purpose 13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sunday Used by Justine Martyr Tertullian Eusebius Blamed by Austin Hierom and Philastrius 14 Use of the Names of the Dayes of the Week derived from the Heathen of old Custom of the Roman Church 15 First day of the Week Lords Day Lords Day Sabbath The First Exercitation § 1 SOLOMON tells us that in his Disquisition after the Nature and State of things in the world this alone he had found out that is absolutely and unto his satisfaction namely that God made man upright but they have sought out many Inventions Eccles. 7. 29. And the Truth hereof we also find by woful experience not only in sundry particular Instances but in the whole course of men in this world and in all their concerns with respect unto God and themselves There is not any thing wherein and whereabout they have not found out many Inventions to the Disturbance and perverting of that state of peace and quietness wherein all things were made of God Yea with the fruits and effects of this perverse Apostasie and Relinquishment of that universally Harmonious state of things wherein we were created not only is the whole world as it lyes in evil filled and as it were overwhelmed but we have the Reliques of it to conflict withal in that Reparation of our condition which in this life by Grace we are made partakers of In all our Wayes Actions and Duties some of these Inventions are ready to immix themselves unto our own disturbance and the perverting of the right wayes of God § 2 An evident Instance we have hereof in the business of a Day of Sacred Rest and the Worship of God therein required God originally out of his Infinite Goodness when suitably thereunto by his own Eternal Wisdom and Power he had made all things Good gave unto men a day of Rest as to express unto them his own Rest Satisfaction and Complacency in the Works of his Hands so to be a day of Rest and composure to themselves and a Means of their Entrance into and Enjoyment of that Rest with himself here and for ever which he had ordained for them Hence it became unto them a Principle and Pledge a Cause and Means of Quietness and Rest and that in and with God himself So might it be still unto the Sons of men but that they are in all things continually finding out new Inventions or immixing themselves in various Questions and Accounts for so saith the Wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves have sought out many Computations And hence it is that whereas there are two general concernments of such a Day the Doctrine and the Practice of it or the Duties to be performed unto God thereon they are both of them solicited by such various Questions through the many Inventions which men have found out as have rendred this Day of Rest a matter of endless strife disquietment and contention And whereas all Doctrines of Truth do tend unto practice as their immediate Use and End the whole Scripture being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 1. 1. the Truth which is according unto Godliness the contentions which have been raised about the Doctrine of the Holy Day of Rest have greatly influenced the minds of men and weakned them in that practice of Godliness which all men confess to be necessary in the Observation of such a Day of Rest unto the Lord if such a Day of Rest there be on what foundation soever it is to be observed For Christians in general under one notion or other do agree that a Day of Rest should be observed in and for the Celebration of the Worship of God But whereas many Controversies have been raised about the grounds of this Observance and the Nature of the Obligation thereunto advantage hath been taken thereby to introduce a great neglect of the Duties themselves for whose sakes the Day is to be observed whilst one questions the Reasons and Grounds of another for its Observation and finds his own by others despised And this hath been no small nor ineffectual means of promoting that general Prophaneness and Apostasie from strict and holy walking before God which at this day are every where so justly complained of § 3 It is far from my thoughts and hopes that I should be able to contribute much unto the composing of these Differences and Controversies as agitated amongst men of all sorts The known pertinacy of inveterate Opinions the many prejudices that the minds of most in this matter are already possessed withal and the particular Engagements that not a few are under to defend the Pretensions and Perswasions which they have published and contended for will not allow any great Expectation of a change in the minds of many from what I have to offer Besides there are almost innumerable eristical Discourses on this subject in the hands of many to whom perhaps the Report of our Endeavours will not arrive But yet these and the like considerations of the Darkness Prejudices and Interests of many ought not to discourage any man from the discharge of that Duty which he owes to the Truths of God nor cause him to cry with the Sluggard There is a Lyon in the Streets I shall be slain in the Way Should they do so no Truth should ever more be taught or contended for for the Declaration of them all is attended with the same Difficulties and lyable to the same kind of Opposition Wherefore an Enquiry into this matter being unavoidably cast upon me from the Work wherein I am engaged in the Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews I could not on any such accounts wave the pursuit of it For this Discourse though
been of no use nor Advantage As they are now riveted into custom and usage claiming their station on such a Prescription as in some measure takes away the corruption of their use I judge that they are not to be contended about For as they are vulgarly used their Names are meer notes of Ditinction of no more signification than first second and third the original and occasional Imposition of them being utterly amongst the many unknown Only I must add that the severe Reflections and contemptuous Reproaches which I have heard made upon and poured out against them who it may be out of weakness it may be out of a better Judgement than our own do abstain from the using of them argue a want of due Charity and that Condescension in love which become those who judge themselves strong For the truth is they have a Plea sufficient at least to vindicate them from the contempt of any For there are some places of Scripture which seem so far to give countenance unto them that if they mistake in their Application it is a mistake of no other nature but what others are liable unto in things of greater importance For it is given as the Will of God Exod. 23. 13. In all things saith he that I have said be circumspect and make no mention of the names of other Gods neither let them be heard out of thy mouth And it cannot be denyed but that the Names of the Dayes of the Week were the Names of Gods among the Heathen The Prohibition is renewed Josh. 2. 7. Thou shalt not make mention of the names of their Gods which is yet extended farther Deut. 12. 3. to a command to destroy and blot out the names of the Gods of the people which by this means are retained Accordingly the Children of Ruben building the Cities formerly called Nebo and Baal Meon changed their names because they were the Names of Heathen Idols Numb 32. 38. And David mentioneth it as a part of his Integrity that he would not take up the names of Idols in his lips Psal. 16. 4. And some of the Antients as hath been observed confirme what by some at present is concluded from these places Saith Hierome Absit ab ore Christiano dicere Jupiter Omnipotens Mehercule Mecastor coetera magis Portenta quam nomina Epist. ad Damas. Now be it granted that the Objections against the Use of the Planetary Names of the Dayes of the Week from these places may be answered from consideration of the change of Times and the circumstances of things yet certainly there is an appearance of Warranty in them sufficient to secure them from contempt and reproach who are prevailed on by them to another use § 15 But of a Day of Rest there is a peculiar Reason If there be a Name given in the Scripture unto such a Day by that Name it is to be called and not otherwise So it was unquestionably under the Old Testament God himself had assigned a Name unto the Day of Sacred Rest then enjoyned the Church unto Observation and it was not lawful for the Jews to call it by any other Name given unto it or in use among the Heathen It was and was to be called the Sabbath Day the Sabbath of the Lord. In the New Testament there is as we shall see afterwards a signal Note put on the first Day of the Week So thence do some call their Day of Rest or solemn Worship and contend that so it ought to be called But this only respects the Order and Relation of such a Day to the other Dayes of the Week which is natural and hath no respect unto any thing that is Sacred It may be allowed then for the indigitation of such a Day and the Discrimination of it from the other Dayes of the Week but is no proper Name for a Day of Sacred Rest. And the first use of it upon the Resurrection of our Lord was only peculiarly to denote the Time There is a Day mentioned by John in the Revelation which we shall afterwards consider that he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diem dominicam the Lords Day This Appellation what Day soever is designed is neither Natural nor Civil nor doth it relate unto any thing in Nature or in the common usage of men It must therefore be Sacred and it is or may be very comprehensive of various Respects It is the Lords Day the Day that he hath taken to be his Lot or especial Portion among the Dayes of the Week as he took as it were possession of it in his Resurrection So his people are his Lot and Portion in the world therefore called his people It is also or may be his Day subjectively or the Day whereon his businesses and Affairs are principally transacted So the Poet Tydeos illa Dies that was Tydeus his Day because he was principally concerned in the Affairs of it This is the Day wherein the Affairs of the Lord Christ are transacted his Person and Mediation being the Principal Subjects and Objects of its Work and Worship And it is or may be called his the Lords Day because enjoyned and appointed to be observed by him or his Authority over the Church So the Ordinance of the Supper is called the Supper of the Lord on the same Account On supposition therefore that such a Day of Rest there is to be observed under the New Testament the Name whereby it ought to be called is the Lords Day which is peculiarly expressive of its Relation unto our Lord Jesus Christ the sole Author and immediate Object of all Gospel Worship But whereas the general Notion of a Sabbatical Rest is still included in such a Day a superaddition of its Relation to the Lord Christ will intitle it unto the Appellation of the Lords Day Sabbath that is the Day of Sacred Rest appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus most probably in the continuation of the Old Testament Phraseologie it is called the Sabbath Day Matth. 24. 20. and in our Apostle comes under the general notion of a Sabbatism Chap. 4. 9. Exercitatio Secunda 1 Of the Original of the Sabbath the importance of this Disquisition 2 Opinion of some of the Jewish Masters about the Original of the Sabbath that it began in Mara 3 The Station in Mara and the Occurrences thereof Tacitus noted Exod. 15. 25 26. Jews Exposition of it 4 This Opinion refuted by Testimonies and Reasons 5 Another Opinion of the Antient Jews about the Original of the Sabbath and of the Mahumetans 6 Opinions of Christians about the Original of the Sabbath proposed 7 That of its Original from the Foundation of the World asserted The first Testimony given unto it Gen. 2. 2. Vindicated Exceptions of Heddigerus answered 8. What intended by sanctifying and blessing the seventh Day 9 Other Exceptions removed Series and Dependance of the Discourse in Moses cleared The whole Testimony vindicated 10 Heb. 4 3 4. Vindicated 11 Observation
The Church under the Gospel and its Rest. 19 The foundation of it 20 Christ his Works and his Rest intended Heb. 4. 10 21 This farther proved by sundry Arguments 22 What were his Works whereby the Church was founded 23 His entrance into his Rest not in his Death but in his Resurrection 24 The Day of Rest limited and determined hereby 25 The Sabbatism that remains for the people of God 26 The sending of the Holy Ghost 27 Church Assemblies on the first day of the Week 28 The Lords-day Rev. 1. 10. 29 The sum of the preceding Discourse 30 Necessity of the Religious Observation of one day in seven 31 Blessing of God on the Church-worship on the first day 32 Of the seventh day Sabbath Judaism restored in it Of the Ebionites 33 Schisms perpetuated by the opinion of the seventh day Sabbath 34 Penalty of the Law reinforced with it 35 The Whole legal § 1 HOw the Creation of all things was finished and the Rest of God and Man that ensued thereon hath been declared It hath also in part and sufficiently as unto our present purpose been evidenced how the great Ends of the Creation of All in the Glory of God and the Blessedness of Man in him with the pledge thereof in a Sabbatical Rest were for a season as it were defeated and disappointed by the entrance of Sin which brake the Covenant that was founded in the Law of Creation and rendred it useless unto those ends For the Law became Weak through sin and the flesh or the corruption of our Nature that ensued thereon Rom. 8. 5. Hence it could no more bring Man to Rest in God But yet a continuation of the Obligatory force of that Law and Covenant with the direction of it unto other ends and purposes than at first given unto them was under the Old Testament designed of God and hath been declared also Hence was the continuation of the original Sabbatical Rest in the Church of Israel with the especial application of its command unto that people insisted on in the preceding Discourse In this state of things God had of old determined the Renovation of All by a new Creation a new Law of that Creation a new Covenant and a new Sabbatical Rest unto his own Glory by Jesus Christ and these things are now to be discussed § 2 The Renovation of all things by Jesus Christ is prophesied of end foretold as a new Creation of All even of the Heavens and the Earth and all things contained in them Psal. 65. 17 18. chap. 66. 22. 2 Pet. 3 13 Hence the state of things to be introduced thereby was under the Old Testament called the World to come Heb. 2. 5. So it is still called by the Jewish Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Kimchi amongst other Expositions of the Title of Psal. 92. a Psalm or Song for the Sabbath day addes this as that which the most antient Rabbins fixed on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They interpreted it of the World to come which shall be wholly Sabbath and Rest and these are the dayes of the Messiah A spiritual Rest it is they intend and not a cessation of a Sabbath-day in particular seeing in the prophesie of the new Temple or Church-state in those dayes there is especial direction given for the service of the Sabbath-day Ezek. 46. 4. And this Renovation of all things is said accordingly to be accomplished in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17 18. Old things are past away behold all things are become New the Old Law Old Covenant Old Worship Old Sabbath all that was peculiar unto the Covenant of Works as such in the first Institution of it and its renewed declaration on Mount Sinai all are gone and antiquated What now remains of them as to any usesulness in our living to God doth not abide on the Old foundation but on a New disposition of them by the Renovation of all things in Christ. For in the dispensation of the fulness of times God gathered unto an Head all things in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth even in him Ephes. 1. 10. The whole old Creation as far as it had any thing in its self or its order that belonged unto or communicated any thing towards our living unto God and his Glory is disposed anew in Christ Jesus unto that End But this Renovation of all which is the foundation of all our acceptable Obedience unto God and of his present Worship consists principally in the Regeneration of the Elect making them new Creatures and the erection of a new Church-state thereby to the Glory of God Now this new Creation of all must answer unto all the Ends of the Old in reference unto the Glory of God and the Good of them who are partakers of it otherwise it would not be so rightly called nor answer the declared Ends of it which was to gather all things to an Head in Christ Jesus For what was lost by sin as to the Glory of God in the old Creation in this was to be repaired and recovered § 3 We may then as the foundation of our present Discourse consider how these things answer unto one another First the old Creation comprized in it the Law of the Obedience of all Creatures unto God This was therein and thereby implanted on their Natures with inclinations Natural or Moral unto the Observation of it And thus must it be also in the new Creation as unto the subject of it which is the Church This Law of the old Creation unto Man consisted principally in the Image of God in him and con-created with him For hereby did he both know his duty and was enabled to perform it and was acquainted with his Relation unto God and dependance upon him which rendred it necessary and indispensible But this Law in the state of Creation fell under a double consideration or had a double use first of Rule and then as a Principle As a Rule the light that was in the mind of man which was a principal part of the Image of God in him acquainted him with his whole duty and directed him in the right performance of it As a Principle it respected the Ability that the whole man was endowed withall to live to God according to his duty This Law as to its first use being much impaired weakned and in a great measure made useless by sin God was pleased to restore it in the vocal Revelation of his Will especially in the Decalogue which with his own finger he wrote in Tables of Stone In answer hereunto a new Law of Obedience is introduced by the new Creation in Christ Jesus And this principally consisted in the Renovation of the Image of God in the new Creatures which was lost by sin For they are renewed in the spirit of their minds and do put on that new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes. 4. 23 24. And
those Works and Rest of God or it could not be proposed as the reason of their suitable practice and for this end did God so Work and Rest. The Law therefore of this holy Rest he reneweth in the Decalogue amongst those other Laws which being of the same nature and original namely branches of the Law of our Creation were to be unto us moral and eternal For God would no longer entrust his mind and will in that Law unto the depraved nature of man wherein if he had not in the best often guided and directed it by fresh extraordinary revelations it would have been of little use to his glory but committed it by vocal revelation to the minds of the people as the doctrinal object of their consideration and recorded it in tables of stone Moreover the nature of the first Covenant and the way of Gods instructing man in the condition of it by his Works and Rest had limited this holy Day unto the seventh Day the observation whereof was to be commensurate unto that Covenant and its administration however the outward forms thereof might be varied § 7 On these suppositions we lay and ought to lay the observation of the Lords Day under the New Testament according to the institution of it or declaration of the mind of Christ who is our Lord and Law-giver concerning it 1. A new work of Creation or a work of a new Creation is undertaken and compleated Isa. 65. 17. Chap. 66. 22 23. 2 Pet. 3. 13. Rev. 21. 1. Rom. 8. 19 20. 2 Cor. 5. 17. Gal. 6. 15. 2. This new Creation is accompanied with a new Law and a new Covenant or the Law of faith and the Covenant of Grace Rom. 3. 27. Chap. 8. 2 3 4. Jer. 31. 32 33 34. Heb. 8. 8 9 10 11 12 13. 3. Unto this Law and Covenant a Day of holy Rest unto the Lord doth belong which cannot be the same Day with the former no more than it is the same Law or the same Covenant which were originally given unto us Heb. 4. 9. Rev. 1. 10. 4. That this Day was limited and determined to the first Day of the Week by our Lord Jesus Christ is that which shall now further be confirmed only I must desire the Reader to consider that whereas the Topical Arguments whereby this Truth is confirmed have been pleaded improved and vindicated by many of late I shall but briefly mention them and insist principally on the declaration of the proper grounds and foundations of it § 8 As our Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal Son and Wisdom of the Father was the immediate cause and Author of the old Creation Joh. 1. 3. Col. 1. 16. Heb. 1. 2 10. so as Mediatour he was the Author of this new Creation Heb. 3. 3 4. He built the House of God he built all these things and is God Herein he wrought and in the accomplishment of it saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied Isa. 53. 11. that is he rested and was refreshed Herein he gave a new Law of life faith and obedience unto God Isa. 42. 4. not by an addition of new Preceps to the moral Law of God not virtually comprized therein and distinct from his own positive institutions of worship but in his revelation of that new way of obedience unto God in and by himself with the especial causes means and ends of it which supplyes the use and end whereunto the Moral Law was at first designed Rom. 8. 2 3. Chap 10. 3 4. whereby he becomes the Author of eternal salvation unto all that do obey him Heb. 5. 9. This Law of life and obedience he writes by his Spirit in the hearts of his people that they may be willing in the day of his power Psal. 110. 3. 1 Cor. 3. 3 6. Heb. 8 10. not at once and in the foundation of his work actually but only in the causes of it For as the Law of nature should have been implanted in the hearts of men in their conception and natural nativity had that dispensation of righteousness continued so in the new birth of them that believe in him is this Law written in their hearts in all generations Joh. 3. 6. Hereon was the Covenant established and all the promises thereof of which he was the Mediatour Heb. 8. 6. And for an holy Day of Rest for the ends before declared and on the suppositions before laid down evincing the necessity of such a Day he determined the observation of the first Day of the Week For § 9 First On this Day he rested from his works in and by his Resurrection for then had he laid the foundation of the new Heavens and new Earth and finished the works of the new Creation when all the Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy On this Day he rested from his works and was refreshed as God did and was from his For although he worketh hitherto in the communication of his Spirit and Graces as the Father continued to do in his works of providence after the finishing of the works of the old Creation though these works belonged thereunto yet he ceaseth absolutely from that kind of work whereby he laid the foundation of the new Creation henceforth he dieth no more And on this Day was he refreshed in the view of his works for he saw that it was exceeding good Now as Gods Rest and his being refreshed in his work on the seventh Day of old was a sufficient indication of the precise Day of Rest which he would have observed under the administration of that original Law and Covenant so the Rest of our Lord Jesus Christ and his being refreshed in and from his works on the first Day is a sufficient indication of the precise Day of Rest to be observed under the dispensation of the new Covenant now confirmed and established And the Church of Christ could not pass one Week under the New Testament or in a Gospel-state of worship without this indication For the Judaical Sabbath as sure as it was so and as sure as it was annexed unto the Mosaical administration of the Covenant was so far abolished as not to oblige really the Disciples of Christ in conscience unto the observation of it whatever any of them might for a season apprehend And if a new Day was not now determined there was no Day or season appointed for an observance of an holy Rest unto the Lord nor any pledge given us of our entring into the Rest of Christ. And those who say that it is required that some time be set apart unto the ends of a Sabbatical Rest but that there is no divine indication of that time when not what it is or shall be if we consider what are the ends of such a Rest as before declared must allow us to expect firmer proofs of their uncouth Assertion than any as yet we have met withall § 10 Accordingly this Indication of the Gospel Day of Rest
supposition of a Non-obligation in the Law unto the Observance of the seventh Day precisely and of a New Day to be observed Weekly under the New Testament as the Sabbath of the Lord on what Ground it is so to be observed 12 Whether of the Fourth Commandment as unto one Day in seven or only as unto some part or portion of Time or whether without any respect unto that Command as purely Ceremonial For granting as most do the necessity of the Observation of such a Day yet some say that it hath no respect at all to the Fourth Decalogical Precept which is totally and absolutely abolished with the residue of Mosaical Institutions others that there is yet remaining in it an Obligation unto the Sacred Separation of some portion of our Time unto the solemn Service of God but indetermined and some that it yet precisely requires the Sanctification of one Day in seven 13 If a Day be so to be observed it is enquired on what Ground or by what Authority there is an Alteration made from the Day observed under the Old Testament unto that now in use that is from the last to the first Day of the Week Whether was this Translation of the solemn Worship of God made by Christ and his Apostles or by the Primitive Church For the same Day might have been still continued though the Duty of its Observation might have been fixed on a new Reason and Foundation For although our Lord Jesus Christ totally abolished the old solemn Worship required by the Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances and by his own Authority introduced a new Law of Worship according unto Institutions of his own yet might Obedience unto it in a solemn manner have been fixed unto the former Day 14 If this were done by the Authority of Christ and his Apostles or be supposed so to be then it is enquired Whether it were done by the express Institution of a New Day or a directive Example sufficient to design a particular Day no Institution of a new Day being needful For if we shall suppose that there is no Obligation unto the Observance of one Day in seven indispensibly abiding on us from the Morality of the Fourth Command we must have an express Institution of a new Day or the Authority of it is not Divine and on the supposition that that is so no such Institution is necessary or can be properly made as to the whole nature of it 15 If this Alteration of the Day were introduced by the Primitive Church then whether the continuance of the Observation of one Day in seven be necessary or no. For what was appointed thereby seems to be no farther Obligatory unto the Churches of succeeding Ages than their concernment lyes in the Occasions and Reasons of their Determinations 16 If the continuance of one Day in seven for the solemn Worship of God be esteemed necessary in the present State of the Church then Whether the continuance of that now in general Use namely the First Day of the Week be necessary or no or whether it may not be lawfully changed to some other Day And sundry other the like Enquiries are made about the Original Institution Nature Use and Continuance of a Day of Sacred Rest unto the Lord. § 6 Moreover amongst those who do grant that it is necessary and that indispensibly so as to the present Church State which is under an Obligation from whence ever it arise neither to alter nor omit the Observation of a Day weekly for the publick Worship of God wherein a Cessation from labour and a joint Attendance unto the most solemn Duties of Religion are required of us It is not agreed whether the Day it self or the separation of it to its proper Use and End be any Part in it self of Divine Worship or be so meerly relatively with respect unto the Duties to be performed therein And as to those Duties themselves they are not only variously represented but great Contention hath been about them and the manner of their Performances as likewise concerning the Causes and Occasions which may dispense with our Attendance unto them Indeed herein lyes secretly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and principal Cause of all the strife that hath been and is in the World about this matter Men may teach the Doctrine of a Sabbatical Rest on what Principles they please deduce it from what Original they think good if they plead not for an exactness of Duty in its Observance if they bind not a Religious carefull Attendance on the Worship of God in Publick and private on the Consciences of other men if they require not a Watchfulness against all Diversions and Avocations from the Duties of the Day they may do it without much fear of Opposition For all the concernments of Doctrines and Opinions which tend unto Practice are regulated thereby and embraced or rejected as the Practice pleaseth or displeaseth that they lead unto Lastly On a precise supposition that the Observation of such a Day is necessary upon Divine Precept or Institution yet there is a Controversie remaining about fixing its proper bounds as to its Beginning and Ending For some would have this Day of Rest measured by the first Constitution and limitation of Time unto a Day from the Creation namely from the Evening of the Day preceding unto its own as the Evening and the Morning were said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Day Gen. 1. 5. Others admit only of that proportion of Time which is ordinarily designed to our labour on the six Dayes of the Week that is from its own Morning to its own Evening with the Interposition of such Diversions as our labour on other Dayes doth admit and require § 7 And thus is it come to pass that although God made man Upright and gave him the Sabbath or Day of Rest as a token of that Condition and Pledge of a future Eternal Rest with himself yet through his finding out many Inventions that very Day is become amongst us an Occasion and Means of much Disquietment and many Contentions And that which is the worst Consequent in things of this nature that belong unto Religion and the Worship of God these Differences and the Way of their Agitation whilst the several Parties htigant have sought to weaken and invalidate their Adversaries Principles have apparently influenced the minds of all sorts of men unto a neglect in the Practice of those Duties which they severally acknowledge to be incumbent on them upon those Principles and Reasons for the Observation of such a Day which themselves allow For whilst some have hotly disputed that there is now no especial Day of Rest to be observed to the Lord by vertue of any Divine Precept or Institution and others have granted that if it be to be observed only by vertue of Ecclesiastical Constitution men may have various pretences for Dispensations from the Duties of it the whole due Observation of it is much lost
commonly called Sabbaths So Maimonides Tract de Sabb. cap. 29. speaking of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good Dayes or Feasts sayes expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are all Sabbaths to the Lord. And from this usage some think to expound that vexed Expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 6. 1. which we render the second Sabbath after the first So Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the second day of the Passeover and the first of unleavened bread And wonder not that it is called a Sabbath for they called every Feast Day a Sabbath Theophylact gives us another Day but on the same Reason Saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Jews call every Feast a Sabbath For Sabbath is as much as Rest. Oft-times therefore there fell out a Feast on the day before the Weekly Sabbath and they called it a Sabbath because it was a Feast And therefore that which was the proper Sabbath at that Time was called the second Sabbath after the first being the second from that which went before Chrysostome allows of the same Reason Hom. in Matth. 39. Isidore Pelusiota fixeth on another Day but still for the same reason Epist. 110. lib. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is called the Deuteroproton because it was the second day from the sacrificing of the Passeover and the first day of unleavened bread which he shews was called a Sabbath upon the general account of all the Jewish Feasts being so called For so he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By the way this is expresly contrary to the Scripture which makes the Day spoken of to be the proper Weekly Sabbath as it is called without any Addition Matth. 12. 11. whereon depended the Questions that ensued about its Observation But we are beholding to Scaliger for the true meaning of this Expression which so puzled the Antients and concerning which Gregory Nazianzen turned of Hierome with a scoff scarce becoming his Gravity when he enquired of him what might be the meaning of it Scaliger therefore conjectures that it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was the first Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the second Day of unleavened bread For on that Day they offered the handful or sheaf of new fruits and from that day they counted seven Weeks unto Pentecost And the Sabbaths of those Weeks were reckoned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the first that followed was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So he both in his Emendat Tempor lib. 6. and Isagog Canon p. 218. And this is subscribed unto by his Mortal Adversary Dyonisius Petavius Animad in Epiphar N. 31. p. 64. who will not allow him ever to have spoken tightly but in what the Wit of man can find no tolerable Objection against But this calling of their Feasts Sabbaths with the Reason of it is given us by all their principal Authors So Lib. Tzeror Hammor on Levit. p. 102. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because all solemn Dayes are called holy Convocations they are all called so from the Sabbath which is called holy wherefore the Sabbath is the Head of all solemn Feasts and they are all of them called by the Name thereof Sabbaths of Rest whereof he gives Instances § 13 Some of the Antient Christians dealing with the Heathens called that Day which the Christians then observed in the Room of the Jewish seventh Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or diem folis Sunday As those who treat and deal with others must express things by the Names that are currant amongst them unless they intend to be Barbarians unto them So speaks Justine Martyr Apol. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We meet for the Worship of God in common on Sunday Had he said on the Sabbath the Gentiles would have concluded it to have been the Judaical Sabbath To have called it to them the Lords Day had been to design no determinate Day they would not have known what day he meant And the Name of the first Day of the Week taken up signally by Christians upon the Resurrection of Christ was not in use amongst them Wherefore he called the Day he intended to determine as was necessary for him by the Name in use amongst them to whom he spake Sunday In like manner Tertullian treating with the same sort of men calls it Diem solis Apol. cap. 16. And Eusebius reporting the Edicts of Constantine for the Observation of the Lords Day as it is termed in them adds that it is the Day which we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sunday But yet among Christians themselves this Name was not in common use but by some was rejected as were also all the rest of the Names of the Dayes used among the Pagans So speaks August in Psal. 93. Quarta Sabbatorum quarta feria que Mercurii dies dicitur à Paganis à multis Christianis Sed noluimus ut dicant utinam corrigantur ut non dicant And Hicrome Epist. ad Algas Vna Sabbati dies dominica intelligenda est quia Hebdomada in Sabbatum ut in primam secundam tertiam quartam quintam sextam Sabbati dividitur guam Ethnici Idolorum Planetarum nominibus appellant He rejects the use of the ordinary Names unto the Heathens And Philastrius makes the usage of them amongst Christians almost Heretical Num. 3. All the Eastern Nations also amongst whom the Planetary Denomination of the Dayes of the Week first began have since their casting off that kind of Idolatry rejected the use of those Names being therein more Religious or more Superstitious than the most of Christians So is it done by the. Arabians and Persians and those that are joyned unto them in Religious Observances The Day of their Worship which is our Friday the Arabians call Giuma the Persians Adina The Rest of the Dayes of the Week they discriminate by their natural Order within their Hebdomadal Revolution the first the second the third only some of them in some places have some special Name occasionally imposed on them The Church of Rome from a Decree as they suppose or pretend of Pope Sylvester reckons all the Dayes of the Week by Feria prima secunda and so onwards only their Writers for the most part retain the Name of Sabbatum and use Dies Dominica for the first Day And the Rhemists on Revel 1. 10. condemn the name of Sunday as Heathenish And Polydore Virgil before them sayes Profccio pudendum est simulque dolendum quod non antebac data sunt istis diebus Christiana nomina ne dii Gentium tam memorabile inter nos monumentum haberent de Invent. Rer. lib. 6. c. 5. And indeed among sundry of the Antients there do many severe Expressions occurr against the use of the common Planetary Names And at the first Relinquishment of Gentilisme it had no doubt been well if those Names of Baalim had been taken away out of the mouths of men especially considering that the retaining of them hath
between the upper and inferior sort of creatures so he was divided in his Work and Operations suitably unto the Principles of his Nature and peculiar Constitution For they were partly to be divine and spiritual partly terrene and earthly though under the Government of the Soveraign Divine Principle in him Hence it was required that in this condition being not absolutely fitted as the Angels for constant contemplation that he should work and labour in the earth whilst he continued in it and his Terrene part not refined or made Spiritual and Heavenly This made a certain Time of Rest necessary unto him and that upon a double Account flowing from the Principles of his own Nature For his Earthly Constitution could not alwayes hold out to labour with its own satisfaction and his Intellectual and divine part was not to be alwayes diverted but to be furthered in and unto its own peculiar Operations This made a Sacred Rest necessary to him And in that Addition of sweat and travail which befell him in his labour afterwards That was not a new course of life enjoyned him but a Curse was mixed with that course and labour which was originally allotted unto him So then although there is a different manner of working more necessary and supposed in the giving of the Law then was at the first Institution of a Sabbatical Rest yet the change is not in the Law or Command for labour but in the state or condition of man himself The same may be spoken concerning the Addition about Servants and Handmaids For in the State of Innocency there would have been a superiority of some over others in that Government which is Oeconomical or Paternal Hence all Duties of persons in subordination are built on the Law of Nature and what is not resolved thereinto is Force and Violence And herein lyes the Foundation of what is ordained with Reference unto Servants and Strangers which is expressed in the fourth Commandment with an especial Application to the State of the Judaical Church and People Wherefore although there should have been no such Servants or Strangers as are intended in the Decalogue in the state of Innocency when we plead that the Law of the Sabbath was first given yet this proves no more but that this Precept in the Renovation and Repetition of it unto the Jews was accommodated to the present state of things amongst them that state being such as had its Foundation in the Law of Creation it self The places adjoyned of Exod. 16. 29. Chap. 31. 17. Ezek. 20. 12. do prove sufficiently and undeniably that in the Mosaical Paedagogie the Observation of the seventh day being precisely injoyned there were Additions of signification given unto it that is to the seventh day precisely by Divine Institution as amongst them it was to be observed And therefore unto the utmost extent of the Determination of the Day of Rest unto the seventh day precisely and all the significancy annexed unto it to that people we acknowledge that the Sabbath was absolutely commensurate to the Church State of the Jews beginning and ending with it But the Argument hence educed namely that God gave the Sabbath that is the Law of it in a peculiar manner unto the Jews therefore he had not given the same Law for the substance of it before unto all mankind is infirm For God gave the whole Law to the Jews in an especial manner and enforced the Observation of it with a Reason or Motive peculiar to them namely I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage and yet this Law was before given unto them who never were in Aegypt nor never thence delivered And upon the account of this peculiar Appropriation of the Law unto the Jews it is spoken of in the Scripture in places innumerable as if it had been given unto them only and to no others at all So speaks the Psalmist Psal. 141. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declaring his Words unto Jacob his Statutes and Judgements unto Israel Where only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ceremonial and Judicial Laws are intended so by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Words and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ten Words as Moses calls the Decalogue And of them all the Psalmist adds v. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath not done so unto any Nation namely not in the same manner for none will deny but that nine Precepts at least were given unto all mankind in Adam § 19 It is added by the same Learned Author Praeterea p. 51. si quies scptimi diei omnibus ab origine mundi hominibus injuncta fuisset non autem solis Israelitis à Tempore Mosis deus non solum Israelitas ob neglectum illius praecepti sed Gentiles semel saltem eadem de causa reprehendisset Cum vero Israelitas ea de causa reprehendat saepissime Gentiles tamen nuspiam reprehendere hoc nomine legitur qui propter peccata in legem naturalem commissa toties tam acriter à Deo reprehenduntur Luculentum ejus rei exemplum est Nehem. 13. Tyrii asserunt Hierosolymas omnes res venales quas vendebant ipso Sabbato Judaeis quidem Hierosolymis v. 16. Non tamen Nehemias peccati violati Sabbati reos arguit Tyrios sed Judaeos v. 17. Tyrios autem clausis portis pridie Sabbati à vespera usque urbem excludit ita compeseit tandem à muris urbis abigit v. 19 20 21. Si vero Tyrii hi una cum Judaeis lege Sabbati Communi praecepto fuissent obstricti nunne à viro sanctissimo ejus peccati nomine quoque reprehensi fuissent quod tamen factum non apparet Quum praeterea Scriptura impia Gentilium festa graviter reprehendat an sancti Sabbati neglectum si id quoque ipsis observandum fuisset tam constanti silentio dissimulasset The force of this Argument consists in this Assertion that whatever we find God did not reprove in the Gentiles therein they did not sin nor had they any Law given unto them concerning it 〈◊〉 not in Adam which will by no means be granted For 1. The Times are spoken of wherein God suffered them to walk in their own wayes and wincked at their Ignorance Hence as he gave them no Reproofs for their sins by his revealed Word so those which he gave them by his Providence are not recorded We may not therefore say they sinned in nothing but what we find them reproved for in particular 2. Other Instances may be given of sins against the Light of Nature among the Gentiles and that in things belonging to the second Table wherein that Light hath a greater Evidence accompanying it than in that of the first the first Precept only excepted which yet we find them not rebuked for Such were the sins of Concubinacy and Fornication 3. After the Renovation or giving of this
and of the knowledge of Good and Evil ceased as all men confess with that Estate And although God did not immediately upon the sin of man destroy that Garden no nor it may be untill the Flood leaving it as a Testimony against the wickedness of that Apostate Generation for whose sin the world was destroyed yet was neither it nor the Trees of it of any use or lawful to be used as to any significancy in the Worship of God And the Reason is because all Institutions are Appendixes and things annexed unto a Covenant and when that Covenant ceaseth or is broken they are of no use or signification at all § 36 There was a new state of the Church erected presently after the Fall and this also attended with sundry new Institutions especially with that concerning Sacrifices In this Church state some Alterations were made and sundry additional Institutions given unto it upon the Erection of the peculiar Church State of the Israelites in the Wilderness which yet hindred not but that it was in General the same Church State and the same Dispensation of the Covenant that the people of God before and after the giving of the Law enjoyed and lived under Hence it was that sundry Institutions of Worship were equally in force both before and after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai as is evident in Sacrifices and some other Instances may be given But now when the State of the Church and the Dispensation of the Covenant came to be wholly altered as they were by the Gospel not any one of the old Institutions was continued or to be continued but they were all abolished and taken away Nothing at all was traduced over from the Old Church States neither from that in Innocency nor from that which ensued on the Fall in all its variations with any Obligatory Power but what was founded in the Law of Nature and had its force from thence We may then confidently assert that what God requireth equally in all Estates of the Church that is Moral and of an everlasting Obligation unto us and all men And this is the State of matters with the Sabbath and the Law thereof § 37 Of the Command of the Sabbath in the State of Innocency we have before treated and vindicated the Testimony given unto it Gen. 2. 2 3. It will God assisting be farther discoursed and confirmed in our Exposition of the fourth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews The Observation of it by vertue of its Original Law and Command before the Promulgation of the Decalogue in Sinai or the first Wilderness Observation of the Sabbath recorded on the occasion of giving Manna hath also been before confirmed Many Exceptions I acknowledge are laid in against the Testimonies insisted on for the proof of these things but those such as I suppose are not able to invalidate them in the minds of men void of Prejudice And the Pretence of the Obscurity that is in the Command will be easily removed by the consideration of another Instance of the same Antiquity All men acknowledge that a Promise of Christ for the Object and Guide of the Faith of the ancient Patriarchs was given in those Words of God immediately spoken unto the Serpent Gen. 3. 15. I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruize thy head and thou shalt bruize its heel The Words in themselves seem obscure unto any such End or Purpose But yet there is such light given into them and the mind of God in them from the circumstances of Time Place Persons Occasions from the Nature of the things treated of from the whole ensuing Oeconomy or dealing of God with men revealed in the Scripture as that no sober man doubts of the Promissory Nature of those Words nor of the Intention of them in General nor of the proper subject of the Promise nor of the Grace intended in it This Promise therefore was the immediate Object of the faith of the Patriarchs of old the great motive and encouragement unto and of their Obedience But yet it will be hard from the Records of Scripture to prove that any particular Patriarch did believe in trust or plead that Promise which yet we know that they did all and every one nor was there any need for our Instruction that any such practice of theirs should be recorded seeing it is a general Rule that those Holy men of God did observe and do whatever he did command them Wherefore from the record of a Command we may conclude unto a suitable Practice though it be not recorded and from a recorded approved Practice on the other side we may conclude unto the Command or Institution of the thing practised though no where plainly recorded Let unprejudiced men consider those words Gen. 2. 2 3. and they will find the Command and Institution of the Sabbath as clear and conspicuous in them as the Promise of Grace in Christ is in them before considered especially as they are attended with the Interpretation given of them in Gods following dealings with his Church And therefore although particular Instances of the Obedience of the old Patriarchs in this part of it or the Observation of the Sabbath could not be given and evinced yet we ought no more on that account to deny that they did observe it than we ought to deny their Faith in the promised Seed because it is no where expresly recorded in the Story of their lives § 38 Under the Law that is after the giving of it in the Wilderness it is granted that the portion of Time insisted on was precisely required to be dedicate unto God although it may be for some Ages it will be hard to meet with a recorded Instance of its Observation But yet none dares take any countenance from thence to question whether it were so observed or no. All therefore is secure unto the great alteration that was made in Instituted Worship under the Gospel And to proceed unto that season there is no Practice in any part of Gods Publick Worship that appears earlier in the Records of the New Testament as to what was peculiar thereunto than the Observation of one Day in seven for the Celebration of it Hereof more must be spoken afterwards Some say indeed that the Appointment of one Day in seven and that the first Day of the Week for the Worship of God was only a voluntary Agreement or a matter consented unto by the Apostolical or first Churches meerly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratia or to keep good Order and decorum amongst them without respect unto any Moral Command of God to that purpose This they say directly with respect to the first Day of the Week or the Lords Day and its Religious Observation But those who appoint the first Day of every Week to be so observed do without doubt appoint that that should be the Condition of one Day in seven Now I could incline to this
Apprehension if besides sundry other invincible Reasons that lye against it I did not find that God had alwayes before in all States of the Church from the foundation of the world invariably required the Observation of one Day in seven and I know no Reason why what had been observed all along so far upon his own Authority he would have observed still but no longer on his Command but on the Invention and Consent of men Had the Religious Observance of one Day in seven been utterly laid aside and abolished it would and ought to to have been concluded that the Law of it was expired in the Cross of Christ as were those of Circumcision the Sacrifices and the whole Temple-Worship But to have this Observance continued by the whole Church in and under the Approbation of God whereof none ever doubted by a Reassumption of it through the Authority of the Church after God had taken off his own from it is a most vain Imagination § 39 I dispute not of what the Church may appoint for good Orders sake to be observed in Religious Assemblies But this I dare say confidently that no Church nor Churches not all the Churches in the World have Power by common Consent to ordain any thing in the Worship of God as a Part of it which God had once ordained commanded and required but now under the Gospel ceaseth so to do as Circumcision and Saorifices But this is the State of the Religious Observance of one Day in seven None can deny but that formerly it was ordained and appointed of God And it should seem according to this Opinion that he took off the Authority of his own Command that the same Observance might be continued upon the Authority of the Church Credat Apella Neither do the Footsteps of the Occasion of any such Ecclesiastical Institution appear any where on Record in the Scripture where all things of an absolute new and Arbitrary Institution whether occasional or durable are taken notice of There is indeed mention made and that frequently of the first day of the Week to be set apart for the Assembling of Believers for the Worship of God and a solid Reason is insinuated why that especial day in particular ought so to be But why one Day in seven should be constantly observed to the purpose mentioned no Reason no Account is given in the New Testament other than why men should not lie or stea ' Nor hath any man a Ground to imagine that there was an Intercision of a Sabbatical Observance by the interposition of any time between the Observation of the seventh Day and of the first of the Week for the same Ends and Purposes though not absolutely in the same manner If there be any Indications Proofs Evidences that the first Churches continued without the Observation of one Day in seven after they desisted from having a Religious Respect unto the seventh Day before they had the same regard to the first of the Week unto this purpose I wish they might be produced for they would be of good weight in this matter but as yet no such thing is made to appear For if the Obligation of the Precept for Observing one Day in seven as a Sacred Rest to God may be suspended in any change of the outward State and Condition of the Church it cannot be esteemed to be Moral I speak not of the actual Observance of the thing commanded which for many causes may occasionally and temporarily be superseded but of the obliging force and power in the Command it self which if it be Moral is perpetual and not capable of Interruption Now Testimonies we have that sundry persons not sufficiently instructed in the Liberty of the Gospel and the Law of its Obedience observed both the Dayes the seventh and the first yea it may be that for a while some observed the one day and some the other but that any Christians of old thought themselves de facto set at liberty from the Religious Observation of one day in seven this neither is nor can be proved This Practice then was Universal and that approved of God as we shall see afterwards and farther in another Discourse now more than once directed unto Now what can any man conceive to be the ground of this unvariableness in the commanded and approved Observation of one day in seven in all states conditions and alterations in and of the Church but that the Command for it is part of the Moral unchangeable Law Hereby therefore it is confirmed unto us so to be And indeed if every State of the Church be founded in an especial Work of God and his Rest thereon and complacency therein as a Pledge or Testimony of giving his Church Rest in himself as elsewhere shall be fully confirmed a Sabbatical Rest must be necessary unto the Church in every state and condition And although absolutely another Day might have been fixed on under the New Testament and not one in an Hebdomadal Revolution because its peculiar works were not precisely finished in six Dayes yet that season being before fixed and determined by the Law of Creation no Innovation nor Alteration would be allowed therein § 40 There is yet remaining that which is principally to be pleaded in this cause and which of it self is sufficient to bear the weight of the whole Now this is the Place which the command for the Observation of a Sabbath unto God holds in the Decalogue Concerning this we have no more to enquire but whether it have obtained a station therein in its own Right or were on some other occasion advanced to that Priviledge For if it be free of that Society in its own Right or on the Account of its Origine and Birth the Morality of it can never be impeached if it had only an Occasional Interest therein and held it by a lease of time it may ere this be long since disseized of it Now we do not yet dispute whether the seventh Day precisely be ordained in the fourth Commandment and do take up the whole nature of it as the only subject of it and alone required in it Only I take it for granted that the Observation of one Day in seven is required in the Command which is so because the seventh Day or a seventh Day in a septenary Revolution is expresly commanded § 41 It is indeed by many pretended that the Command firstly and directly respecteth the seventh Day precisely and one Day in seven no otherwise than as it necessarily follows thereon For where the seventh Day is required one in seven is so consequentially And they who thus pretend have a double Design the one absolutely contradictory to the other For those do so who from thence conclude that the seventh Day precisely comprizing the whole Nature of the Sabbath that day is indispensibly and everlastingly to be observed And those do so who with equal confidence draw their conclusion to the utter Abolition of the whole Sabbath and
Rest of a seventh Day was known and observed from the foundation of the World as hath been proved And therefore if from the Praefixe we are to conclude a Limitation or Determination to be intended in the Words Remember the Sabbath Day yet it respects only the Original Sabbath or the Sabbath in respect of its Original and not any new Institution of it For supposing the Observation of the Sabbath to have been before in use whether that use were only of late or a few dayes before or of more antient Times even from the beginning of the World the Command concerning it may be well expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remember the Sabbath Day 3. Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh Day precisely in the Ordinance given unto that people in the first raining of Manna then doth the Observation of that Day precisely by vertue of this Command necessarily take place And yet the Command which is but the revival of what was required from the foundation of the world cannot be said to intend that Day precisely in the first place For the Reason of and in the Original Command for a Sabbatical Rest was Gods making the World in six dayes and resting on the seventh which requires no more but that in the continual Revolution of seven dayes six being allowed unto Work one should be observed a Sacred Rest to God These words therefore Remember the Sabbath Day referring unto the Primitive Command and Reason of it as is afterwards declared in the Body of the Law requires no more but a Weekly Day of Rest whereunto the seventh Day is reduced as added by an especial Ordinance And the Reason of this Commandment from the Works of God and the Order of them is repeated in the Decalogue because the Instruction given us by them being a part of the Law of our Creation more subject unto a neglect disregard and forgetfulness than those other Parts of it which were wholly innate to the Principles of our own Nature it was necessary that the Remembrance of it should be so expresly revived when in the other Precepts there is only a tacit excitation of our own inbred Light and Principles 4. The Emphatical Expression insisted on Remember the Sabbath Day hath respect unto the singular Necessity Use and Benefit of this holy Observance as also to that neglect and decay in its Observation which partly through their own sin partly through the Hardships that it met withal in the world the Church of former Ages had fallen into And what it had lately received of a new Institution with reference unto the Israelites falls also under this Command or is reduced unto it as a Ceremonial Branch under its proper Moral Head whereunto it is annexed And whereas it is greatly urged that the Command of the seventh Day precisely is not the Command of one day in seven and that what God hath determined as in this matter the Day is ought not to be indefinitely by us considered it may be all granted without the least Prejudice unto the Cause wherein we are ingaged For although the Institution of the seventh Day precisely be somewhat distinct from one Day in seven as containing a determinate limitation of that which in the other notion is left indefinite yet this hinders not but that God may appoint the one and the other the one in the Moral Reason of the Law the other by an especial determination and Institution And this especial Institution is to continue unless it be abrogated or changed by his own Authority which it may be without the least impeachment of the Moral Reason of the whole Law and a new day be limited by the same Authority which hath been done accordingly as we shall afterwards declare § 52 It is yet farther pleaded Disquisit p. 9 10 11 12. That no Distinction can be made between a Weekly Sabbath and the seventh Day precisely And if any such difference be asserted then if one of them be appointed in the fourth Commandment the other is not For there are not two Sabbaths enjoyned in it but one And it is evident that there never was of old but one Sabbath The Sabbath observed under the Old Testament was that required and prescribed in the fourth Commandment and so on the other side the Sabbath required in the Decalogue was that which was observed under the Old Testament and that only Two Sabbaths one of one Day in seven and the other of the seventh Day precisely are not to be fancied The seventh Day and that only was the Sabbath of the Old Testament and of the Decalogue These things I say are at large pleaded by the forementioned Author An. 1. These Objections are framed against a Distinction used by another Learned Person about the Sabbath as absolutely commanded in the Decacalogue and as injoyned to practise under the Old Testament But neither he nor any other sober Person ever fancied that there were two Sabbaths of old one injoyned unto the Church of the Israelites the other required in the Decalogue But any man may nay every prudent man ought to distinguish between the Sabbath as injoyned absolutely in words expressive of the Law of our Creation and Rule of our Moral Dependance on God in the fourth Command and the same Sabbath as it had a temporary occasional Determination to the seventh Day in the Church of the Jews by vertue of an especial Intimation of the Will of God suited unto that Administration of the Covenant which that Church and People were then admitted into I see therefore no Difficulty in these things The fourth Commandment doth not contain only the moral Equity that some Time should alwayes be set apart unto the Celebration of the Worship of God nor only the Original Instruction given us by the Law of Creation and the Covenant Obedience required of us thereon wherein the substance of the Command doth consist but it expresseth moreover the peculiar Application of this Command by the Will of God to the State of the Church then erected by him with respect unto the seventh Day precisely as before instituted and commanded Exod. 16. Nor is here the least appearance of two Sabbaths but one only is absolutely commanded unto all and determined unto a certain Day for the use of some for a season § 53 2. That one Day in seven only and not the seventh Day precisely is directly and immediately injoyned in the Decalogue and the seventh only with respect unto an antecedent Mosaical Institution with the Nature of that Administration of the Covenant which the people of Israel were then taken into hath been evinced in our investigation of the Causes and Ends of the Sabbath preceding and been cleared by many And it seems evident to an impartial consideration For the Observation of one Day in seven belongs unto every Covenant of God with man And the Decalogue is the unvariable Rule of mans walking before God and living unto him of what
a shadow It is true that which is Moral so far as it is Moral cannot be a shadow We therefore say that the Weekly Observation of a Day of Rest from the foundation of the world whereunto a general Obligation was laid on all men unto its Observation the Command whereof was a part of the Moral Law of God was no shadow nor is so called by the Apostle nor did Typifie good things to come But that which is in its own Nature Moral may in respect of some peculiar manner of its Observance in such a Time or season and some Adjuncts annexed unto it in respect whereof it becomes a part of Ceremonial Worship be so far and in those respects esteemed a shadow and as such pass away In brief The Command it self of observing one Day in seven as an holy Rest unto God hath nothing Aaronical or Typical in it but hath its foundation in the Light of Nature as directed by the Works of God and his Rest thereon For its limitation precisely to the last Day of the Week with other Directions and Injunctions for and in the manner of its Observance they were Mosaical and as a shadow are departed as we shall manifest in our ensuing Exercitations § 59 But yet neither can it be absolutely proved if we would insist thereon that the Weekly Sabbath is in any sense intended in these words of the Apostle For he may design the Sabbatical Years which were instituted among that people and probably now pressed by the Judaizing Teachers on the Gentile Proselytes Nor will the exception put in from some of the Rabbins that the Sabbatical Years were not to be observed out of the Land of Canaan from which Colosse was far enough distant reinforce the Argument to this purpose For as men in one place may have their Consciences exercised and bound with the Opinion of what is to be done in another though they cannot engage in the practice of it whilst they are absent so our Apostle chargeth the Galatians as far distant from Canaan as the Colossians that when they began to Judaize they observed years as well as Dayes and Months and Times which could respect only the Sabbatical years that were instituted by the Law of Moses Exercitatio Quarta Of the Judaical Sabbath 1 The Sabbath how required by the Law of Nature as a Covenant 2 Explanations of the Law of the Sabbath in the fourth Precept of the Decalogue 3 The Law of Creation and Covenant of Works renewed in the Church of Israel with what Alterations 4 The Sabbath why said to be given peculiarly to the Israelites 5 Change in the Covenant introduceth a change in the Sabbath 6 The whole Nature of the Judaical Sabbath and how it is abolished 7 Jews sense of the Original of the Sabbath rejected 8 The first appropriation of the Law of the Sabbath to that people Exod. 16. 9 Their mistakes about its Observation 10 The giving of the Law on Mount Sinai with the Ends of it 11 Nature of the fourth Commandment thereon what Ceremonial in it 12 Renovation of the Command of the Sabbath Exod. 31. 12 13. 13 Occasion hereof 14 Appropriations made of the Sabbath to the Church of Israel in this Renovation 15 The Commandment renewed again Exod. 34. 21. New additions made to it 16 So also Exod. 35. 2 3. 17 The whole matter stated Deut. 5. 15. 18 The Conclusion The Fourth Exercitation § 1 WE have declared how the Observation of a Septenary Sacred Rest is required by the Moral Law or the Law of our Creation Now this is not absolutely and meerly as it is a Law but as it contained a Covenant between God and man A Law it might have been and not have had the nature of a Covenant which doth not necessarily follow upon either its instructive or preceptive Power Yet it was originally given in the Counsel of God to that End and accompanied with Promises and Threatnings whence it had the Nature of a Covenant By vertue of this Law as a Covenant was the Observation of a Sabbath prescribed and required as a Token and Pledge of Gods Rest in that Covenant in the performance of the Works whereon it was constituted and of the Interest of man in that Rest as also a Means of Entrance into it On this ground it should have been observed in the State of Innocency wherein the Law of it was given and declared For it was no less necessary unto that state and condition than unto any other wherein God requireth Covenant Obedience of men nor considering the Nature and Ends of an holy Rest or Sabbath can any Reason be given why it should be thought accommodated only to the Administration of the Covenant under the Old Testament after the giveing of the Law whereunto by some it is appropriated § 2 It is true indeed that in the Fourth Commandment there is an explanation of the Rest of the Sabbath so far as it consisteth in a Cessation from our own works that are of use and advantage to the outward man in this life suited as unto the state and condition of mankind in general since the Fall so unto the especial state of the Jews at that time when the Law was given as there was also in the Additional Appendix of the first Commandment But for the substance of it the same kind of Rest was to be observed in the State of Innocency and was necessary thereunto on the grounds before insisted or Servile Labour with Trouble Sweat and Vexation was occasioned by the Curse Gen. 3. 17 18 19. The State also of Servants and Handmaids such as was then and is still in use followed on the entrance of sin though meerly to serve be no part of the Curse 1 Cor. 7. 20 21. as having its foundation in that subordination which is natural And the Government of Servants ought not to be Despotical but Paternal Gen. 18. 19. In these things there was some Variation supposed in the giving of the Decalogue as to their outward manner from the original state of things amongst mankind But there was also Work required of man or labour in the Earth with reference unto his natural life and subsistence in this world in the state of Innocency For it is said expresly that God put man into the Garden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 15. to labour in it and to preserve it by labour for his Use. A Cessation therefore from bodily labour was consistent with and useful unto that condition that men thereby might be enabled to give themselves in the season they were directed unto by the Works and Example of God wholly unto the especial Ends of living unto him according to the Covenant made with them There is nothing therefore in the fourth Commandment directing unto six dayes of labour and requiring a seventh unto Rest that is inconsistent or not compliant with the Law of our Creation and the state of living unto God constituted thereby although the
eminent and answered Gods Rest from his own 2 Satisfaction in his works and the glorious product of them as those which had an impression on them of his Love and Grace Psal. 16. 7. § 23 It remains only that we enquire into his Entrance into his Rest both how and when he did so even as God entred into his on the seventh day for this must limit and determine a Day of Rest to the gospel-Gospel-Church Now this was not his lying down in the Grave His Body indeed there rested for a while but that was no part of his mediatory Rest as be was the founder and builder of the Church For 1 It was a part of his Humiliation Not only his Death but his abode and continuance in the state of Death was so and that a principal part of it For after the whole Humane Nature was personally united unto the Son of God to have it brought into a state of Dissolution to have the Body and Soul separated from each other was a great Humiliation And every thing of this nature belonged unto his Works and not his Rest. 2 This separation of Body and Soul under the power of Death was poenal a part of the sentence of the Law which he underwent And therefore Peter declares that the pains of Death were not loosed but in his Resurrection Act. 2. 24. Whom God saith he hath raised up loosing the pains of Death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it Whilst he was held of it he was under it penally This therefore could not be his Rest nor any part of it Nor did he in it enter into his Rest but continued in his Work Nor 2dly did he first enter into his Rest at his Ascension Then indeed he took actual possession of his Glory as to the full publick manifestation of it But to enter into Rest is one thing and to take possession of Glory another And it is placed by our Apostle as a consequent of his being justified in the Spirit when he entred into Rest 1 Tim. 3. 16. But this his entrance into Rest was in by and at his Resurrection from the dead For 1 Then and therein was he freed from the sentence power and stroke of the Law being discharged of all the Debts of our sins which he had undertaken to make satisfaction for Acts 2. 24. 2 Then and therein were all Types all Predictions and Prophesies fulfilled which concern the work of our Redemption 3 Then therefore his work was done I mean that which answereth Gods creating work though he still continue that which answers his work of preservation Then was the Law fulfilled and satisfied Sathan subdued Peace with God made the Price of our Redemption paid the Promise of the Spirit received and the whole Foundation of the Church of God gloriously laid on his Person in his Works and Rest. 4 Then and therein was he declared to be the Son of God with power Rom. 1. 4. God manifesting unto all that this was he concerning and unto whom he said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Acts 13. 33. § 24 Thus did the Author of the New Creation the Son of God the Builder of the Church having finished his works enter into his Rest. And this was as all know on the morning of the first day of the week And hereby did he limit and determine the Day for a sacred Sabbatical Rest under the New Testament For now was the Old Covenant utterly abolished and therefore the Day which was the pledge of Gods and Mans Rest therein was to be taken away and was so accordingly as we have shewed As the Rest from the beginning of the World had its foundation from the works of God and his Rest which ensued thereon which was determined unto the seventh Day because that was the Day wherein God ceased from those works which Day was continued under the legal administration of the Covenant by Moses so the Rest of the Lord Christ the Son of God is the foundation of our Rest which changing the old Covenant and the day annexed unto it he hath limited unto the first Day of the Week whereon he ceased from his works and entred into his Rest. And hereby the Apostle compleats the due Analogy that is between the several Rests of God and his people which he hath discoursed of in this Chapter For as in the beginning of the World there was first the work of God and his Rest thereon which made way unto a Rest for his people in himself and in his worship by the contemplation of his works that he had made on whose finishing he rested and a Day designed determined blessed and sanctified to express that Rest of God whence mention is made of those works in the command for the observation of that Day seeing the workship of God in and on it consisted principally in the glorifying of him by and for those works of his as also to be a means to further men in their entrance into eternal Rest whereunto all these things do tend and as at the giving of the Law there was a great Work of God and his Rest thereon in his establishing his Worship in the Land of Canaan which made way for the peoples entring into his Rest in that Worship and Countrey and had a Day of Rest enjoyned unto them to express the one and the other as also to help them to enter finally into the Rest of God so now under the Gospel there is a Rest answering all these in and by the instances which we have given § 25 And this is that which the Apostle affirms as the substance of all which he hath evinced Namely that there is a Sabbatism for the people of God v. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word is framed by our Apostle from an Hebrew original with a Greek Termination And he useth it as that which is comprehensive of his whole sense which no other word would be For he would shew that there is a Sabbatical Rest founded in the Rest of God remaining for the Church and therefore makes use of that word whereby God expressed his own Rest when he sanctified the seventh Day for a Day of Rest thereon That Day of Rest being removed and another on a new foundation namely the Rest of Christ upon his works introduced he calls it a Sabbatism or a Sabbath-keeping He doth not do this only and separately averring the necessity of a Sabbath-observation in the first place distinctly from a Spiritual Rest in Christ with an Eternal Rest ensuing thereon but in the manner and Order before laid down wherein the necessity of such a Day is included And besides the evidence that ariseth from the consideration of the whole Context there are two things which make it undeniably evident that our Apostle asserts an Evangelical Sabbath or Day of Rest to be constantly observed in and for the Worship of God under the Gospel For first without this design
there can be no tolerable Reason assigned why he should mention the works of God from the foundation of the World with his Rest that ensued thereon and referr us to the seventh Day which without respect unto another Day to be introduced doth greatly involve his whole Discourse Again his use of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sabbatism which is framed and as it were coyned on purpose that it might both comprise the Spiritual Rest aimed at and also a Sabbath-keeping or Observation of a Sabbath Rest manifests his purpose When he speaks of our Rest in general he still doth it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adding that there was an especial Day for its enjoyment Here he introduceth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sabbatism which his way of arguing would not have allowed had he not designed to express the Christian Sabbath Adde hereunto that he subjoynes the especial Reason of such a Days observation in the next Verse as we have declared And here do we fix the Foundation and Reason of the Lords-Day or the Holy observation of the first Day of the Week the Obligation of the fourth Commandment unto a weekly Sacred Rest being put off from the seventh Day to the first on the same Grounds and Reasons whereon the state of the Church is altered from what it was under the Law unto what it is now under the Gospel And the Covenant it self also is changed whence the seventh Day is now of no more force than the old Covenant and the old Law of Institutions contained in Ordinances because the Lord Christ hath ceased from his works and entred into his Rest on the first Day § 26 Here we have fixed the foundation of the observation of the Lords-Day on the supposition of what hath been proved concerning our Duty in the Holy observance of one Day in seven from the Law of our Creation as renewed in the Decalogue The remaining Arguments evincing the change of the Day from the seventh unto the first by Divine Authority shall be but briefly touched on by me because they have been lately copiously handled and fully vindicated by others Wherefore 1 when the Lord Christ intended conspicuously to build his Church upon the foundation of his Works and Rest by sending the Holy Ghost with his miraculous Gifts upon the Apostles he did it on this Day which was then among the Jews the Feast of Pentecost or of Weeks Then were the Disciples gathered together with one accord in the observance of the Day signalized to them by his Resurrection Acts 2. 1. And by this doth their obedience receive a blessed confirmation as well as their persons a glorious endowment with abilities for the work which they were immediately to apply themselves unto And hereon did they set out unto the whole work of building the Church on that foundation and promoting the worship of it which on that Day was especially to be celebrated § 27 The Practice of the Apostles and the Apostolical Churches owned the Authority of Christ in this change of the Day of sacred Rest. For hence forward whatever apprehensions any of them might have of the continuance of the Judaical Sabbath as some of them judged that the whole service of it was still to be continued yet they observed this Day of the Lord as the time of their Assemblies and solemn worship One or two instances hereof may be called over Acts 20. 6 7. We came to Troas in five dayes where we abode seven dayes 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 untill midnight I doubt not but in the seven dayes that the Apostle abode there he taught and preached as he had occasion in the houses of the Believers but it was the first Day of the Week when they used according to their duty to assemble the whole body of them for the celebration of the solemn Ordinances of the Church synecdochically expressed by breaking of Bread This they did without any extraordinary warning or calling together for in answer to their duty they were accustomed so to do Such is the account that Justin Martyr gives of the practice of all Churches in the next Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the Day called Sunday there is an assembly of all Christians whether living in City or the Countrey and because of their constant breaking of bread on this day it was called Dies Panis August Epist 118. And Athanasius proved that he brake not a Chalice at such a time because it was not the first Day of the Week when it was to be used Socrat. lib. 5. cap. 22 And whosoever reads this passage without prejudice will grant that it is a marvellous abrupt and uncouth expression if it do not signifie that which was in common observance amongst all the Disciples of Christ which could have no other foundation but only that before laid down of the Authority of the Lord Christ requiring it of them And I doubt not but that Paul preached his farewel Sermon unto them which continued untill midnight after all the ordinary service of the Church was performed And all the Objections which I have met withall against this instance amount to no more but this that although the Scripture sayes that the Disciples met for their worship on the first Day of the Week yet indeed they did not so do 1 Cor. 16. 2. the same practice is exemplified Upon the first Day of the Week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come The constant Day of the Churches solemn Assemblies being fixed he here takes it for granted and directs them unto the observance of an especial duty on that Day What some except that here is no mention of any such Assembly but only that every one on that Day should lay by himself what he would give which every one might do at home or where they pleased is exceeding weak and unsuitable unto the mind of the Apostle For to what end should they be limited unto a Day and that the first Day of the Week for the doing of that which might be as well to as good purpose and advantage performed at any other time on any other Day of the Week whatever Besides it was to be such a laying aside such a treasuring of it in a common stock as that there should be no need of any Collection when the Apostle came But if this was done only privately it would not of its self come together at his Advent but must be collected But all exceptions against these Testimonies have been so lately removed by others that I shall not insist farther on them § 28 That from these Times downwards the first Day of the Week had a solemn observation in all the Churches of Christ whereby they owned its substitution in the room of the seventh Day
applying the duties and services of a Sabbath unto it hath also been demonstrated And that this was owned from the Authority of the Lord is declared by John in the Revelation who calls it the Lords Day Rev. 1. 10. whereby he did not surprize the Churches with a new name but denoted to them the Time of his Visions by the name of the Day which was well known unto them And there is no solid Reason why it should be so called but that it owes its pre-eminence and observation unto his Institution and Authority And no man who shall deny these things can give any tolerable account how when or from whence this Day came to be so observed and so called It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Day the Day of the Lord as the Holy Supper is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11. 20. the Lords Supper by reason of his Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament which the LXX render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies indeed some illustrious Appearance of God in a way of judgement or mercy And so also in the Person of Christ this was the Day of his Appearance Mark 16. 9. So was it still called by the ancient Writers of the Church Ignatius in Epist. ad Trall ad magnes ect Dionysius of Corinth Epist. ad Rom. in Euseb. Hist. lib. 4. cap. 21. Theophilus Antioch lib. 1. in 4. Evangel Clemens Alex. stromat lib. 7. cap. 7. Origen lib. 8. con Cels. Tertul. de Coron milit cap. 3. As for those who assign the Institution of this Day to the Apostles although the supposition be false yet it weakens not the divine original of it For an Obligation lying on all Believers to observe a Sabbath unto the Lord and the Day observed under the Law of Moses being removed it is not to be imagined that the Apostles fixed on another Day without immediate direction from the Lord Christ. For indeed they delivered nothing to be constantly observed in the worship of God but what they had his Authority for 1 Cor. 11. 23. In all things of this nature as they had the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost so they acted immediately in the Name and Authority of Christ where what they ordained was no less of divine Institution than if it had been appointed by Christ in his own person It is true they themselves did for a season whilest their Ministery was to have a peculiar regard to the Jews for the calling and conversion of the remnant that was amongst them according to the election of grace go frequently into their Synagogues on the seventh Day to preach the Gospel Act. 13. 14. Chap. 16. 13. Chap. 17. 2. Chap. 18. 4. But it is evident that they did so only to take the opportunity of their Assemblies that they might preach unto the greater numbers of them and that at such a season wherein they were prepared to attend unto sacred things Upon the same ground Paul laboured if it were possible to be at Hierusalem at the Feast of Pentecost Act. 20. 16. But that they at any time assembled the Disciples of Christ on that day for the worship of God that we read not § 29 We may now look back and take a view of what we have passed through That one Day in seven is by virtue of a divine Law to be observed Holy unto the Lord the original of such an observation Gen. 2. 2. the Letter of the fourth Commandement with the nature of the Covenant between God and man do prove and evince And hereunto is there a considerable suffrage given by learned men of all parties The Doctrine of the Reformed Divines hereabouts hath been largely represented by others They also of the Church of Rome that is many of them agree herein It is asserted in the Canon Law it self Tit. de Feriis cap. licet where the words of Alexander the third are Tam veteris quam novi Testamenti pagina septimum Diem ad humanam quietem specialiter deputavit where by septimus Dies he understands one Day in seven as Suarez sheweth De Relig. lib. 2. cap. 2. And it is so by sundry Canonists reckoned up by Covarruvias The Schoolmen also give in their consent as Bannes in 2a 2a g. 44. a. 1. Bellarmine contends expresly decultsanct lib. 3. cap. 11. that Jus divinum requirebat ut unus Dies Hebdomadae dicaretur cultui divino So doth Suarez de dieb sac cap. 1. and others might be added We have the like common consent that whatever in the institution and observation of the Sabbath under the Old Testament was peculiar unto that state of the Church either in its own nature or in its use and signification or in its manner of observance is taken away by virtue of those Rules Rom. 14. 5. Gal. 4. 10. Col. 2. 16 17. Nor can it be denied but that sundry things annexed unto the Sabbatical Rest peculiar to that Church-state which was to be removed were wholly inconsistent with the spirit grace and liberty of the Gospel I have also proved that the observation of the seventh Day precisely was a pledge of Gods Rest in the Covenant of works and of our Rest in him and with him thereby so that it cannot be retained without a re-introduction of that Covenant and the Righteousness thereof And therefore although the command for the observation of a Sabbath to the Lord so far as it is moral is put over into the Rule of the new Covenant wherein Grace is administred for the duty it requires yet take the seventh Day preeisely as the seventh Day and it is an Old Testament arbitrary institution which falls under no promise of spiritual assistance in or unto the observation of it Under the New Testament we have found a new Creation a new Law of Creation a new Covenant the Rest of Christ in that Work Law and Covenant the limiting of a Day of Rest unto us on the Day wherein he entred into his Rest a new Name given unto this Day with respect unto his Authority by whom it was appointed and an observation of it by all the Churches so that we may say of it This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it as Psal. 118. 24. § 30 These foundations being laid I shall yet by some important considerations if I mistake not give some farther evidence unto the necessity of the Religious observation of the first Day of the Week in opposition unto the Day of the Law by some contended for It is therefore first acknowledged that the observation of some certain Day in and for the solemn publick Worship of God is of indispensible necessity They are beneath our consideration by whom this is denyed Most acknowledge it to be a Dictate of the Law of Nature and the Nature of these things doth require it We have proved also that there
this matter with the Blessing that attended it was that which multitudes now at Rest do bless God for and many that are yet alive do greatly rejoyce in Let these things be despised by those who are otherwise minded to me they are of great weight and importance § 32 Let us now a sittle consider the Day that by some is set up not only in competition with this but to its utter exclusion This is the seventh Day of the week or the old Judaical Sabbath which some contend that we are perpetually obliged to the observation of by vertue of the Fourth Commandment The Grounds whereon they proceed in their Affertion have been already disproved so far as the Nature of our present undertaking will admit and such evidences given unto the change of the Day as will not easily be everted nor removed The consequences of the observation of the seventh Day should the practice of it be re-assumed amongst Christians is that which at present I shall a little enquire into when we have summed up somewhat of what hath been spoken 1 It was not directly nor absolutely required in the Decalogue but consequentially only by way of Appropriation to the Mosaical Oeconomy whereunto it was then annexed The command is to observe the Sabbath-day and the blessing is upon the Sabbath-day God blessed the Sabbath-day And the mention of the seventh day in the Body of the command fixeth the number of the Dayes in whose Revolution a Sabbatical Rest returns but determines not an everlasting Order in them seeing the Order relating to the Old Creation is inconsistent with the Law Reason and Worship of the New And if the seventh day and the Sabbath as some pretend are the same the sense of the command in the enforcing part of it is but the seventh day is the seventh day of the Lord thy God which is none at all 2 The state of the Church and the Administration of the Covenant whereunto the observation of this day was annexed are removed so that it cannot continue no more than an House can stand without a Foundation 3 The Lord Christ who was the Lord of the Sabbath and by assuming that Iitle to himself manifested his Authority as to the disposal of the Day whereon a Sabbatical Rest was to be observed hath in his own Rest from his works limited unto us another day of Sacred Rest called from his appointment of it the Lords-day his Day who is the Lord of the Sabbath 4 The Day so introduced by his Authority hath from the Day of his Rest been observed without interruption or any such difference about it as fell out among the Churches of God about other Feast dayes whose observation was introduced among them they knew not well how as of the Pascha and the like And whereas the due observation of it hath been enjoyned by Councils Edicts of Emperors Kings and Princes Laws of all sorts advised and pressed by the antient Writers amongst Christians and the practice of its observance taken notice of by all who from the beginning have committed the Affairs of Christianity unto posterity yet none of any sort pretend to give it any original but all mediately or immediately referr it unto Christ himself The observation then of this Day First is an evident Judaizing and a returnal unto those Rudiments of the World which the Apostle so severely cautioneth us against I know not how it is come to pass but so it is faln out that the nearer Judaism is unto an absolute Abolition and Disappearance the more some seem inclinable to its revival and continuance or at least to fall back themselves into its antiquated observances An end it had put to it morally and legally long ago in the coming Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we may say of it what the Apostle said of Idols when the World was full of Idolatry we know that Judaism is nothing in the world no such thing as by some it is esteemed The actual Abolition of it in the profession of the present Jews by the removing of the Veyle from their Hearts and Eyes and their turning unto God we hope is in its approach And yet as was said there seems in many an inclination unto their Rites and servile observances It is apparent in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles especially that to the Hebrews that at the first preaching of the Gospel there were very many Jews who came over to the faith and profession of it Many of these continued zealous of the Law and would bring along with them all their Mosaical Institutions which they thought were to abide in force for ever In this weakness and mis-apprehension they were forborn in the patience of God and wisdome of the Holy Ghost guiding the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. In this state things continued unto the destruction of Hierusalem and the Temple when the chiefest cause of their contests was taken away In the mean time they carried themselves very variously according to the various tempers of their minds For it is apparent that some of them were not content themselves to be indulged in their opinions and practices but they endeavoured by all means to impose the observance of the whole Mosaical Law on the Churches of the Gentiles Their Circumcision their Sabbaths their Feasts and Fasts their Abstinences from this or that kind of meats they were contending about and thereby perverting the minds of the Disciples Some stop was put to the evil consequences hereof in the Synod at Hierusalem Acts 15. which yet determined nothing concerning the Jews own practice but only concerning the liberty of the Gentile-Believers After the destruction of Hierusalem City and Temple these professing Jews fell into several distinct wayes Some of them who as is probable had despised the heavenly warning of leaving the place took up their lot amongst their unbelieving Brethren relinquishing the profession of the Gospel which they had made not it may be with any express renuntiation of Christ but with a dis-regard of the Gospel which brought them not those good things they looked for of which mind Josephus the Historian seems to be one These in time became a part of that Apostate brood which have since continued in their enmity to the Gospel and into whose new and old superstitions they introduced sundry customes which they had learned among the Christians Some absolutely relinquished their old Judaism and compleatly incorporated with the new Gentile Churches unto whom the promise and Covenant of Abraham was transferred and made over These were the genuine Disciples of our great Apostle Others continued their profession of the Gospel but yet still thought themselves obliged unto the observation of the Law of Moses and all its institutions Hereupon they continued in a distinct and separate state from the Believers and Churches of the Gentiles and that for some Ages as some say to the dayes of Adrian These it may be were they whom Eusebius out
of the Law there These therefore make it a meer Typical Institution given and that without the solemnity of the giving other solemn Institutions to the Church of the Hebrews only And those of this Judgement some of them contend that in those words of Moses Gen. 2. 3. And God blessed the seventh Day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his works a Prolepsis is to be admitted that is that what is there occasionally inserted in the Narrative and to be read in a Parenthesis came not to pass indeed until above two thousand years after namely in the Wilderness of Sin where and when God first blessed the seventh Day and sanctified it And the Reason given for the supposed intersertion of the Words in the Story of Moses is because when it came to pass indeed that God so blessed the seventh Day he did it on the account of what he was then relating of the Works that he made and the Rest that ensued thereon Others give such an Interpretation of the Words as that they should contain no Appointment of a Day of Rest as we shall see Those who assert the former Opinion deny that the Precept or rather Directions about the Observation of the Sabbath given unto the people of Israel in the Wilderness of Sin Exod. 16. was its first Original Institution but affirm that it was either a new Declaration of the Law and usage of it unto them who in their long Bondage had lost both its Doctrine and Practice with a renewed reinforcement of it by an especial circumstance of the Manna not falling on that Day or rather a particular Application of a Catholick Moral Command unto the Oeconomy of that Church unto whose state the people were then under a Praeludium in the Occasional Institution of sundry particular Ordinances as hath been declared in our former Exercitations This is the plain state of the present Controversie about the Original of the Sabbath as to Time and Place wherein what is according unto Truth is now to be enquired after § 7 The Opinion of the Institution of the Sabbath from the Beginning of the world is founded principally on a double Testimony one in the Old Testament and the other in the New And both of them seem to me of so uncontrollable an Evidence that I have often wondred how ever any sober and Learned Persons undertook to evade their â—â—rce or Efficacy in this Cause The first is that of Gen. 2. 1 2 3. That the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them 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 There is indeed somewhat in this Text which hath given Difficulty unto the Jews and somewhat that the Heathen took offence at That which troubles the Jews is that God is said to have finished his work on the seventh Day For they feared that somewhat might be hence drawn to the prejudice of their absolute Rest on the seventh Day whereon it seems God himself wrought in the finishing of his Work And Hierome judged that they might be justly charged with this Consideration Arctabimus saith he Judaeos qui de otio Sabbati gloriantur quod jam tunc in principio Sabbatum dissolutum sit dum Deus operatur in Sabbato complens opera sua in eo benedicens ipsi diei quia in illo universa complevit We will urge the Jews with this who glory of their Sabbatical Rest in that the Sabbath was broken or dissolved from the Beginning whilst God wrought in it finishing his work and blessed the Day because in it he finished all things Hence the LXX read the words by an open corruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the sixth Day wherein they are followed by the Syriack and Samaritan Versions And the Rabbins grant that this was done on purpose that it might not be thought that God made any thing on the seventh Day But this scruple was every way needless For do but suppose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which expresseth the Time past doth intend the Praeterpluperfect Tense as the Praeterperfect in the Hebrew must do where occasion requires seeing they have no other to express that which at any time is past by and it is plain that God had perfected his Work before the Beginning of the seventh Dayes Rest. And so are the Words well rendred by Junius Quum autem perfecisset Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat Or we may say Compleverat Die septimo That which the Heathen took offence at was the Rest here ascribed unto God as though he had been wearied with his work Hence was that of Rutilius in his Itinerary Septima quaeque Dies turpi damnata veterno Ut delassati mollis imago Dei The sense of this Expression we shall afterwards explain In the mean time it is certain that the Word here used doth often signifie only to cease or give over without respect either to weariness or Rest as Job 32. 1. 1 Sam. 25. 9. So that no cause of offence was given in the Application of it to God himself However Philo lib. de Opific Mund. refers this of Gods Rest to his contemplation of the works of his hands and that not unmeetly as we shall see But set aside Prejudices and preconceived Opinions and any man would think that the Institution of the Sabbath is here as plainly expressed as in the Fourth Commandment The Words are the continuation of a plain Historical Narration Having finished the Account of the Creation of the World in the first Chapter and given a Recapitulation of it in the first Verse of this Moses declares what immediately ensued thereon namely the Rest of God on the seventh Day and his Blessing and sanctifying that Day whereon he so rested That Day which he rested he blessed and sanctified even that individual Day in the first place and a Day in the Revolution of the same space of Time for succeeding Generations This is plain in the Words or nothing can be thought to be plainly expressed And if there be any Appearance of Difficulty in those words he blessed and sanctified it it is wholly taken away in the explication given of them by himself afterwards in the Fourth Commandment where they are plainly declared to intend its setting apart and Consecration to be a Day of Sacred Rest. But yet Exceptions all put in to this plain open sense of the words Thus it is lately pleaded by Heddigerus Theol. Patriarch Exercitat 3. sect 58. Deus Die septimo cessaverat facere opus novum quia sex diebus omnia consummata erant Ei diei benedixit eo ipso quod cessans ab opere suo ostendit quod homo in cujus creatione quievit
exegetical of the other He blessed it by sanctifying of it as Numb 7. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he annointed them and sanctified them that is he sanctified them by annointing them or by their Unction set them apart unto an Holy Use which is the Instance of Abarbinel on this place This then is that which is affirmed by Moses On the seventh Day after he had finished his work God rested or ceased from working and thereon blessed and sanctified the seventh Day or set it apart unto holy uses for their Observance by whom he was to be worshipped in this world and whom he had newly made for that Purpose God then sanctified this Day Not that he kept it holy himself which in no sense the Divine Nature is capable of nor that he purified it and made it inherently holy which the nature of the Day is incapable of nor that he celebrated that which in it self was holy as we sanctifie his name which is the act of an inferior towards a superior but that he set it apart to sacred use authoritatively requiring us to sanctifie it in that use obedientially And if you allow not this original sanctification of the seventh Day the first Instance of its solemn joint National Observation is introduced with a strange abruptness It is said Exod. 16. where this Instance is given that on the sixth day the people gathered twice as much bread as on any other day namely two Omers for one man which the Rulers taking notice of acquainted Moses with it v. 22. And Moses in answer to the Rulers of the Congregation who had made the Information gives the Reason of it To morrow saith he is the Rest of the holy Sabbath to the Lord. v. 23. Many of the Jews can give some colour to this manner of Expression for they assign as we have shewed the Revelation and Institution of the Sabbath unto the Station in Mara Exod. 15. which was almost a Month before So they think that no more is here intended but a direction for the solemn Observance of that Day which was before instituted with particular respect unto the gathering of Manna which the people being commanded in General before to gather every day according to their eating and not to keep any of it until the next day the Rulers might well doubt whether they ought not to have gathered it on the Sabbath also not being able to reconcile a seeming contradiction between those two commands of gathering Manna every day and of resting on the seventh But those by whom the Fancy about the Station in Mara is rejected as it is rejected by most Christians and who will not admit of its Original Institution from the Beginning can scarce give a tolerable Account of this manner of Expression Without the least intimation of Institution and Command it is only said to morrow is the Sabbath holy to the Lord that is for you to keep holy But on the supposition contended for the discourse in that place with the Reason of it is plain and evident For there being a previous Institution of the seventh Dayes Rest the Observation whereof was partly gone into disuse and the Day it self being then to receive a new peculiar Application to the Church State of that people the Reason both of the peoples fact and the Rulers doubt and Moses's Resolution is plain and obvious § 9 Wherefore granting the sense of the Words contended for there is yet another Exception put in to invalidate this Testimony as to the original of a seventh Dayes Sabbatical Rest from the Foundation of the World And this is taken not from the signification of the words but the connexion and disposition of them in the Discourse of Moses For suppose that by Gods Blessing and sanctifying the seventh Day the separation of it unto sacred Uses is intended yet this doth not prove that it was so sanctified immediately upon the finishing of the Work of Creation For say some Learned men those words of v. 3. 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 are inserted occasionally into the Discourse of Moses from what afterwards came to pass They are not therefore as they suppose a continued part of the Historical Narration there insisted on but are inserted into it by way of Prolepsis or Anticipation and are to be read as it were in a Parenthesis For supposing that Moses wrote not the Book of Genesis until after the giving of the Law which I will not contend about though it be assumed gratis in this Discourse there being a Respect had unto the Rest of God when his Works were finished in the Institution of the Sabbath upon the Historical Relation of that Rest Mises interserts what so long after was done and appointed on the Account thereof And so the sense of the Words must be that God rested on the seventh day from all his works that he had made that is the next Day after the finishing of the Works of Creation wherefore two thousand four hundred years after God blessed and sanctified the seventh day not that seventh Day whereon he rested with them that succeeded in the like Revolution of Time but a seventh Day that fell out so long after which was not blessed nor sanctified before I know not well how men Learned and Sober can offer more hardship unto a Text then is put upon this before us by this Interpretation The connexion of the Words is plain and equal And the Heavens and the Earth and all the Host of them were finished And God had finished on the seventh day all his work that he had made and he rested the seventh day from all his work that he had made And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it God rested from all his work which he had created and made You may as well break off the order and continuation of the Words and Discourse in any other place as in that pretended And it may be as well faigned that God finished his work on the seventh day and afterwards rested another seventh day as that he rested the seventh day and afterwards blessed and sanctified another It is true there may be sundry Instances given out of the Scripture of sundry things inserted in Historical Narrations by way of Anticipation which fell not out until after the time wherein mention is made of them But they are mostly such as fell out in the same Age or Generation the matter of the whole Narration being entire within the memory of men But of so monstrous and uncouth a Prolepsis as this would be which is supposed no Instance can be given in the Scripture or any sober Author especially without the least notice given that such it is And such Schemes of Writing are not to be imagined unless necessity from the things themselves spoken of compell us to admit them much less where the matter treated
their Idolatrous Feasts But when the true God had no other acknowledgements amongst them but what answered the Title of the Unknown God is it any wonder that his Wayes and Worship might be unknown amongst them also And it is but pretended that they had no Indication of a Sabbatical Rest nor any means to free them from their Ignorance Mans duty is both to be learned and observed in Order It is in vain to expect that any should have Indications of an holy Rest unto God before they are brought to the knowledge of God himself When this is obtained when the true God upon just Grounds is owned and acknowledged than that some time be set apart for his solemn Worship is of Moral and Natural Right That this is included in the very first notion of the true God and our dependance upon him all men do confess And this principle was abused among the Heathen to be the foundation of all their stated Annual or Monthly Sacred Solemnities after they had nefariously lost the only Object of all Religious Worship Where this Progress is made as it might have been by attending to the directive Light of Nature and the impressions of the Law of it left upon the souls of men there will not be wanting sufficient Indicatives of the meetest season for that Worship However these things were and are to be considered and admitted in their Order and with respect unto that Order is their Obligation The Heathen were bound first to know and own the true God and him alone then to worship him solemnly and after that in order of Nature to have some solemn time separated unto the Observance of that Worship Without an Admission of these all which were neglected and rejected by them there is no place to enquire after the Obligation of an Hebdomadal Rest. And their Non-observance of it was their sin not firstly directly and immediately but consequentially as all others are that arise from an Ignorance or Rejection of those greater Principles whereon they do depend § 26 The trivial Exception from the difference of the Meridians is yet pleaded also For hence it is pretended to be impossible that all men should precisely observe the same day For if a man should sail round the world by the East he will at his return home have gotten a day by his continual approach towards the rising Sun And if he steer his course Westward he will lose a day in the annual Revolution as it is gotten the other way so did the Hollanders An. 1615. And hence the posterity of Noah gradually spreading themselves over the world must have gradually come to the Observation of different seasons if we shall suppose a Day of Sacred Rest required of them or appointed to them Apage Nugas If men might sail Eastward or Westward and not continually have seven dayes succeeding one another there would be some force in this Trifle On our Hypothesis where ever men are a seventh part of their Time or a seventh day is to be separated to the Remembrance of the Rest of God and the other Ends of the Sabbath That the Observance of this portion of time shall in all places begin and end at the same Instants the Law and Order of Gods Creation will not permit It is enough that amongst all who can assemble for the Worship of God there is no difference in general but that they all observe the same Proportion of Time And he who by circumnavigation of the world such rare and extraordinary Instances being not to be provided for in a general Law getteth or loseth a day he may at his return with a good conscience give up again what he hath got or retrive what he hath lost with those with whom he fixeth For all such occasional Accidents are to be reduced unto the common Standard All the Difficulty therefore in this Objection relates to the precise Observation of the seventh Day from the Creation and not in the least unto one day in seven And although the seventh day was appointed principally for the Land of Pakstine the seat of the Church of old wherein there was no such Alteration of Meridians yet I doubt not but that a wandring Jew might have observed the foregoing Rule and reduced his Time to order upon his return home What other exceptions of the like nature occur in this cause they shall be removed and satisfied in our next enquiry which is after the Causes of the Sabbath and the Morality of the Observation of one day in seven Exercitatio Tertia 1 Of the Causes of the Sabbath 2 God the Absolute Original Cause of it Distinction of Divine Laws into Moral and Positive 3 Divine Laws of a mixt nature partly Moral partly Positive 4 Opinion of some that the Law of the Sabbath was purely Positive Difficulties of that Opinion 5 Opinion of them who maintain the Observation of one Day in seven to be Moral 6 Opinion of them who make the Observation of the seventh Day precisely to be a Moral Duty 7 The second Opinion asserted 8 The common Notion of the Sabbath explained 9 The true Notion of it farther enquired into 10 Continuation of the same Disquisition 11 The Law of Nature wherein it consists Opinion of the Philosophers 12 Not comprized in the Dictates of Reason No obliging Authority in them formally considered 13 Uncertainty and disagreement about the Dictates of Reason Opinions of the Magi Zeno Chrysippus Plato Archelaus Aristippus Carneades Brennus c. 14 Things may belong to the Law of Nature not discoverable to the common Reason of the most 15 The Law of Nature wherein it doth really consist 16 Light given unto a septenary Sacred Rest in the Law of Nature 17 Farther Instances thereof 18 The Observation of the Sabbath on the same foundation with Monogamy 19 The seventh Day an appendix of the Covenant of Works 20 How far the whole Notion of a Weekly Sacred Rest was of the Law of Nature 21 Natural Light obscured by the Entrance of Sin 22 The summ of what is proposed 23 The enquiry about the Causes of the Sabbath renewed 24 The Command of it in what sense a Law Moral and how evidenced so to be 25 To Worship God in Associations and Assemblies a Moral Duty 26 One Day in seven required unto solemn Worship by the Law of our Creation 27 What is necessary to warrant the Ascription of any Duty to the Law of Creation 28 1. That is be congruous to the known Principles of it 29 2. That it have a general Principle in the Light of Nature 30 3. That it be taught by the Works of Creation 31 4. Direction for its Observance by superadded Revelation no impeachment of it 32 How far the same Duty may be required by a Law Moral and by a Law Positive 33 Vindication of the Truths laid down from an Objection 34 Other Evidences of the Morality of this Duty 35 Required in all states of the Church 36 These
Worship of God as he was a rational creature made to give glory unto him so the Instruction he received by the Works and Rest of God as made under a Covenant taught him that one day in seven was required unto that purpose as also to be a pledge of his resting with God It may be it will be said that man could not know that the world was made in six dayes and that the Rest of God ensued on the seventh without some especial Revelation I answer 1. That I know not He that knew the nature of all the creatures and could give them names suited thereunto upon his first sight and view of them might know more of the Order of their creation than we can well imagine For we know no more in our lapsed condition what the Light of Nature directed man unto as walking before God in a Covenant than men meerly natural do know of the Guidance and Conduct of the Light and Law of Grace in them who are taken into a New Covenant 2. However what God instructed him in even by Revelation as to the due Consideration and improvement of the things that belonged unto the Law of his Creation that is to be esteemed as a part thereof Institutions of things by especial Revelation that had no Foundatiin the Law or Light of Nature were meerly positive such were the Commands concerning the Trees of Life and of the knowledge of Good and Evil. But such as were directive of Natural Light and of the Order of the Creation were Moral and belonged unto the general Law of Obedience Such was the especial Command given unto man to till and keep the Garden Gen. 2. 15. or to dress and improve the place of his Habitation For this in General the Law of his Creation required Now this God did both as to his Works and his Rest. Neither do I know any one as yet that questioneth whither Adam and the Patriarchs that ensued before the giving of the Law knew that the world was created in six dayes Though some seem to speak doubtfully hereof and some by direct consequent deny it yet I suppose that hitherto it passeth as granted Nor have they who dispute that the Sabbath was neither instituted known nor observed before the people of Israel were in the Wilderness once attempted to confirm their Opinion with this supposition that the Patriarchs from the Foundation of the world knew not that the world was made in six dayes which yet alone would be effectual unto their purpose Nor on the other side can it be once rationally imagined that if they had knowledge hereof and therewithal of the Rest which ensued thereon that they had no regard unto it in the Worship of God § 18 And thus was the Sabbath or the Observation of one day in seven as a Sacred Rest fixed on the same Moral grounds with Monogamy or the marriage of one man to one only Woman at the same time which from the very fact and Order of the Creation our Saviour proves to have been an unchangeable part of the Law of it For because God made them two single Persons Male and Female fit for individual conjunction he concludes that this course of life they were everlastingly obliged not to alter nor transgress As therefore men may dispute that Polygamy is not against the Law of Nature because it was allowed and practised by many by most of those who of old observed and improved the Light and Rule thereof to the uttermost when yet the very factum and Order of the Creation is sufficient to evince the contrary so although men should dispute that the Observation of one Dayes Sacred Rest in seven is not of the Light nor Law of Nature all whose Rules and Dictates they say are of an easie discovery and prone to the Observation of all men which this is not yet the Order of the Creation and the Rest of God that ensued thereon is sufficient to evince the contrary And in the renewing of the Law upon Mount Sinai God taught the people not only by the words that he spake but also by the Works that he wrought Yea he instructed them in a Moral Duty not only by what he did but by what he did not For he declares that they ought to make no Images of or unto him because he made no Representation of himself unto them they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire Deut. 4. 15 16. § 19 But now to shut up this Discourse whereas the Covenant which man Originally was taken into was a Covenant of Works wherein his obtaining Rest with God depended absolutely on his doing all the Work he had to do in a way of Legal Obedience he was during the Dispensation of that Covenant tyed up precisely to the Observation of the seventh Day or that which followed the whole Work of Creation And the seventh Day as such is a Pledge and Token of the Rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other And those who would advance that Day again into a necessary Observation do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works and are become Debtors unto the whole Law For the works of God which preceded the seventh Day precisely were those whereby man was initiated into and instructed in the Covenant of Works and the Day it self was a token and pledge of the Righteousness thereof or a Moral and Natural Sign of it and of the Rest of God therein and the Rest of man with God thereby And it is no service to the Church of God nor hath any tendency unto the Honor of Christ in the Gospel to endeavour a Reduction of us unto the Covenant of Nature § 20 Thus was Man instructed in the whole Notion of a Weekly Sacred Rest by all the Wayes and Means which God was pleased to use in giving him an acquaintance with his Will and that Obedience unto his Glory which he expected from him For this knowledge he had partly by the Law of his Creation as innate unto him or concreated with the Principles of his nature being the necessary exurgency of his Rational Constitution and partly by the Works and Rest of God thereon proposed unto his consideration both firmed by Gods Declaration of his Sanctification of the seventh Day Hence did he know that it was his Duty to express and celebrate the Rest of God or the complacency that he had in the Works of his Hands in reference unto their great and proper End or his Glory in the Honour Praise and Obedience of them unto whose contemplation they were proposed for those Ends. This followed immediately from the Time spent in the Creation and the Rest that ensued thereon which were so ordered for his Instruction and not from any other Cause or Reason taken either from the Nature of God or of the things themselves which required neither six dayes to make the world in
place in the Promise of the Covenant that they should be written in our Hearts for if it should be so especial Grace would be yet administred for the Observation of those Laws now they are abolished which would not only be vain and useless but contradictory to the whole Design of the Grace bestowed upon us which is to be improved in a due and genuine Exercise of it Neither doth God bestow any Grace upon men but withal he requires the Exercise of it at their hands If then this Law was written in Tables of Stone together with the other Nine that we might pray and endeavour to have it written in our Hearts according to the Promise of the Covenant it is and must be of the nature of the rest that is Moral and everlastingly obligatory 3. As all the rest of the Moral Precepts it was reserved in the Ark whereas the Law of Ceremonial Ordinances was placed in a Book written by Moses on the side of the Ark separable from it or whence it might be removed The Ark on many accounts was called the Ark of the Covenant whereof God assisting I shall treat elsewhere One of them was that it contained in it nothing but that Moral Law which was the Rule of the Covenant And this was placed therein to manifest that it was to have its accomplishment in him who was the End of the Law Rom. 10. 3 4. For the Ark with the Propitiatory was a Type of Jesus Christ Rom. 3. 25. And the Reason of the different disposal of the Moral Law in the Ark and of the Ceremonial in a Book on the side of it was to manifest as the inseparableness of the Law from the Covenant so the establishing accomplishment and answering of the one Law in Christ with the Removal and abolishing of the other by him For the Law kept in the Ark the Type of him he was to fulfil it in Obedidience to answer its Curse and to restore it unto its proper use in the New Covenant not that which it had originally when it was it self the whole of the Covenant but that which the nature of it requires in the Moral Obedience of Rational Creatures whereof it is a compleat and adequate Rule when the other Law was utterly removed and taken away And if that had been the End whereunto the Law of the Sabbath had been designed had it been absolutely capable of Abolition in this world it had not been safeguarded in the Ark with the other Nine which are inseparable from mans Covenant Obedience unto God but had been left with other Ceremonial Ordinances at the side of the Ark in a Readiness to be removed when the appointed time should come 4. God himself separates this Command from them which were Ceremonial in their Principal Intention and whole subject matter when he calls the whole Systeme of Precepts in the Two Tables by the name of the Ten Words or Commandments Deut. 10. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those ten Words which the Lord spake unto you in the Mount out of the midst of the fire in the Day of the Assembly No considering Person can read these words but he will find a most signal Emphasis in the several parts of them The Day of the Assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that which the Jews so celebrate under the Name of the Station in Sinai the Day that was the foundation of their Church State when they solemnly covenanted with God about the Observation of the Law Deut. 5. 24 25 26 27. And the Lord himself spake these words that is in an immediate and especial manner which is still observed where any mention is made of them as Exod. 20. Deut. 5. 10. and saith Moses he spake them unto you that is immediately unto all the Assembly Deut. 5. 22. where it is added that he spake them out of the midst of the Fire of the Cloud and of the thick Darkness with a great Voice that every individual Person might hear it and he added no more He spake not one Word more gave not one Precept more immediately unto the whole people but the whole solemnity of Fire Thunder Lightning Earthquake and sound of Trumpet immediately ceased and disappeared whereon God entred his Treaty with Moses wherein he revealed unto him and instructed him in the Ceremonial and Judicial Law for the use of the people who had now taken upon themselves the Religious Observance of what he should so reveal and appoint Now as the whole Decalogue was hereby signalized and sufficiently distinguished from the other Laws and Institutions which were of another Nature so in particular this Precept concerning the Sabbath is distinguished from all those which were of the Mosaical Paedagogie in whose Declaration Moses was the Mediator between God and the people And this was only upon the Account of its Participation in the same Nature with the rest of the Commands however it may and do contain something in it that was peculiar to that people as shall be shewed afterwards 5. Whereas there is a frequent Opposition made in the Old Testament between Moral Obedience and the outward observance of Ordinances of a meer arbitrary Institution there is no mention made of the Weekly Sabbath in that case though all Ceremonial Institutions are in one place or other enumerated It is true Isa. 1. 13. the Sabbath is joyned with the New Moons and its Observation rejected in comparison of Holiness and Righteousness But as this is expounded in the next Verse to be intended principally of the appointed annual Feasts or Sabbaths so we do grant that the Sabbath as relating unto Temple Worship there intended and described had that accompanying it which was peculiar to the Jews and Ceremonial as we shall shew hereafter But absolutely the Observation of the Sabbath is not opposed unto nor rejected in comparison of other or any Moral Duties 6. The Observation of the Sabbath is pressed on the Church on the same Grounds and with the same Promises as the greatest and most indispensible Moral Duties and together with them opposed unto those Fasts which belonged unto Ceremonial Institutions To this purpose is the Nature and Use of it at large discoursed Isa. 58. v. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. § 46 Now it is assuredly worth our Enquiry what are the just Reasons of the Preference of the Sabbath above all Positive Institutions both by the place given unto it in the Decalogue as also on the account of the other especial Instances insisted on Suppose the Command of it to be Ceremonial and one of these two Reasons or both of them must be alledged as the cause hereof For this Exaltation of it must arise either from the Excelency of it in it self and service or the Excellency of its signification or from both of them jointly But these things cannot be pleaded or made use of unto the purpose intended For the service of it as it was observed among the Jews it
Creation is answered by the Rest of the Son of God upon his laying the Foundation of the New Heavens and New Earth in his Resurrection But that the Sabbath Originally and in its whole nature should be a free Institution to prefigure and as in a shadow to represent any thing Spiritual or Mystical after wards to be introduced is not nor can be proved It was indeed originally a Moral Pledge of Gods Rest and of our Interest therein according to the Tenor of the Covenant of Works which things belong unto our Relation unto God by vertue of the Law of our Creation It continueth to retain the same nature with respect unto the Covenant of Grace What it had annexed unto it what Applications it received unto the state of the Mosaical Paedagogie which were temporary and umbratile shall be declared afterwards § 57 But it is yet pleaded from an Enumeration of the Parts of the fourth Commandment that there can be nothing Moral as to our purpose in it And these are said to be three First The Determination of the seventh Day to be a Day of Rest. Secondly The Rest it self commanded on that Day Thirdly The sanctification of that Rest unto holy Worship Now neither of these can be said to be Moral Not the first for it is confessedly Ceremonial The second is a thing in its own nature indifferent having nothing of Morality in it antecedent unto a Positive Command Neither is the third Moral being only the means or manner of performing that Worship which is Moral An. It will not be granted that this is a sufficient Analysis or Distribution of the parts of this Command The principal subject matter of it is omitted namely the Observation of one Day in seven unto the Ends of a Sacred Rest. For we are required in it to sanctifie the Sabbath of the Lord our God which was a seventh Day in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Dayes Supply this in the first place in the room of the Determination of the seventh Day to be that day which evidently follows it in the Order of Nature and this Argument vanisheth Now it is here only tacitly supposed not at all proved that one Day in seven is not required 2. Rest in it self absolutely considered is no part of Divine Worship antecedently unto a Divine Positive Command But a Rest from our own works which might be of use and advantage unto us which by the Law of our Creation we are to attend unto in this world that we may intend and apply our selves to the Worship of God and solemnly express our universal Dependance upon him in all things a Rest representing the Rest of God in his Covenant with us and observed as a pledge of our entring into his Rest by vertue of that Covenant and according to the Law of it such as is the Rest here injoyned is a part of the Worship of God This is the Rest which we are directed unto by the Law of our Creation and which by the Moral Reason of this Command is injoyned unto us on one Day in seven and in these things consists the Morality of this Precept on whose account it hath a place in the Decalogue which on all the Considerations before mentioned could not admit of an Association with one that was purely Ceremonial 3. Granting the Dedication of some Time or part of Time unto the Solemn Worship of God to be required in this Command as is by all generally acknowledged and let a Position be practically advanced against this we insist on namely that one Day in seven is the Time determined and limited for that purpose and we shall quickly perceive the mischievous consequents of it For when men have taken out of the hand of God the division between the Time that is allowed unto us for our own occasions and what is to be spent in his service and have cast off all influencing Direction from his Example of working six dayes and resting the seventh and all guidance from that seemingly perpetual Direction that is given us of imploying ordinarily six Days in the necessary affairs of this life they will find themselves at no small loss what to fix upon or wherein to acquiesce in this matter It must either be left to every individual man to do herein as seems good unto him or there must an Umpirage of it be committed unto others either the Church or the Magistrate And hence we may expect as many different Determinations and Limitations of Time as there are distinct Ecclesiastical or Political Powers amongst Christians What variety Changeableness would hence ensue what Confusion this would cast all the Disciples of Christ into according to the prevalency of Superstition or Profaneness in the minds of those who claim this power of determining and limiting the time of Publick Worship is evident unto all The Instance of Holy Dayes as they are commonly called will farther manifest what of it self lyes naked under every rational Eye The Institution and Observation of them was ever resolved into the Moral Part of this Command for the dedicating of some part of our Time unto God but the Determination hereof being not of God but left un-the Church as it is said one Church multiplyes them without End until they grew an unsupportable yoke unto the people another reduceth this number into a narrower compass a third rejects them all and no two Churches that are Independent Ecclesiastically and Politically one on the other do agree about them And so will and must the matter fall out as to the especial Day whereof we discourse when once the Determination of it by Divine Authority is practically rejected As yet men deceive themselves in this matter and pretend that they believe otherwise then indeed they do Let them come once soberly to joyn their Opinion of their Liberty and their Practice together actually rejecting the Divine limitation of one day in seven and they will find their own consciences under more disorder then yet they are aware of Again if there be no day determined in the fourth Command but only the seventh precisely which is Ceremonial with a general Rule that some time is to be dedicated to the service of God there is no more of Morality in this Command then in any of those for the Observation of New Moons and annual Feasts with Jubilees and the like in all which the same general Equity is supposed and a Ceremonial Day limited and determined And if it be so as far as I can understand we may as lawfully observe New Moons and Jubilees as a Weekly Day of Rest according to the custome of all Churches § 58 The words of the Apostle Paul Col. 2. 16 17. are at large insisted on to prove that the Sabbath was only Typical and a shadow of things future Let no man therefore judge you in Ment or in Drink or in respect of an Holy Day or of the New Moon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of the Sabbaths or
Sabbath Dayes which are a shadow of things to come but the Body is of Christ. For hence they say it will follow that there is nothing Moral in the Observation of the Sabbath seeing it was a meer Type and Shadow as were other Mosaical Institutions as also that it is absolutely abolished and taken away in Christ. An. This place must be afterwards considered I shall here only briefly speak unto it And 1. It is known and confessed that at that time all Judaical Observations of Dayes or the Dayes which they religiously observed whether Feasts or Fasts Weekly Monthly or Annual were by themselves and all others called their Sabbaths as we have before evinced And that kind of Speech which was then in common use is here observed by our Apostle It must therefore necessarily be allowed that there were two sorts of Sabbaths amongst them The first and principal was the Weekly Sabbath so called from the Rest of God upon the finishing of his works This being designed for Sacred and Religious Uses other Dayes separated unto the same Ends in general became from their Analogie thereunto to be called Sabbaths also yea were so called by God himself as hath been declared But the Distinction and Difference between these Sabbaths was great The one of them was ordained from the foundation of the world before the Entrance of sin or giving of the Promises and so belonged unto all mankind in general the other were appointed in the Wilderness as a part of the peculiar Church Worship of the Israelites and so belonged unto them only The one of them was directly commanded in the Decalogue wherein the Law of our Creation was revived and expressed the other have their Institution expresly among the residue of Ceremonial Temporary Ordinances Hence they cannot be both comprized under the same Denomination unless upon some Reason that is common to both sorts alike So when God saith of them all You shall observe my Sabbaths it is upon a Reason common to them all namely that they were all commanded of God which is the formal Reason of our Obedience of what nature soever his Commands are whether Moral or Positive Nor can both these sorts be here understood under the same name unless it be with respect unto something that is common unto both Allow therefore the Distinctions between them before mentioned which cannot soberly be denyed and as to what they agree in namely what is or was in the Weekly primary Sabbath of the same Nature with those Dayes of Rest which were so called in allusion thereunto and they may be allowed to have the same sentence given concerning them That is so far the Weekly Sabbath may be said to be a shadow and to be abolished 2. It is evident that the Apostle in this place dealeth with them who endeavoured to introduce Judaisme absolutely or the whole Systeme of Mosaical Ceremonies into the Observation of the Christian Church Circumcision their Feasts and New Moons their distinctions of Meats and Dâ—nâ—s he mentioneth directly in this place And therefore he deals about these things so far as they were Judaical or belonged unto the Oeconomy of Moses and no otherwise If any of them fell under any other Consideration so far as they did so he designeth not to speak of them Now those things only were Mosaical which being instituted by Moses and figurative of good things to come or the things which being of the same nature with the residue of his Ceremonies were before appointed but accommodated by him to the use of the Church which he built 〈◊〉 such as Sacrifices and Circumcision For they were all of them nothing else but an obscure Adumbration of the things whereof Christ was the Body So far then as the Weekly Sabbath had any Additions made unto it or limitation given of it or directions for the manner of its Observance or respected the services then to be performed in it and by all accommodated unto that Dispensation of the Covenant which the Posterity of Abraham was then brought into it was a shadow and it taken away by Christ. Therewith falls its limitation to the seventh Day its rigorous Observation its penal Sanction its being a sign between God and that people in a word every thing in it and about it that belonged unto the then present Administration of the Covenant or was accommodated to the Judaical Church or State But now if it be proved that a septenary Sacred Rest was appointed in Paradise that it hath its foundation in the Law of Creation that thereon it was observed antecedently unto the Institution of Mosaical Ceremonies and that God renewed the Command concerning it in his Systeme of Moral Precepts manifoldly distinguished from all Ceremonial Ordinances so far and in these Respects it hath no concern in these words of the Apostle 3. It cannot be said that the Religious Observance of one Day in seven as an holy Rest unto God is abolished by Christ without casting a great Reflection of Presumption on all the Churches of Christ in the World I mean that now are or ever were so for they all have observed and do so observe such a day I shall not now dispute about the Authority of the Church to appoint dayes unto Holy or Religious uses to make holy Dayes Let it be granted to be whatever any yet hath pretended or pleaded that it is But this I say that where God by his Authority had commanded the Observation of a day to himself and the Lord Christ by the same Authority hath taken off that Command and abolished that Institution it is not in the power of all the Churches in the world to take up the Religious Observance of that Day to the same Ends and Purposes It is certain that God did appoint that a Sabbath of Rest should be observed unto him and for the celebration of his solemn Worship on one Day in seven The whole Command of God hereof is now pleaded to be dissolved and all obligation from thence unto its Observation to be abolished in and by Christ. Then say I it is unlawfull for any Church or Churches in the World to reassume this Practice and to impose the Observance of it on the Disciples of Christ. Be it that the Church may appoint Holy Dayes of its own that have no foundation in nor Relation and to the Law of Moses yet doubtless it ought not to digg any of his Ceremonies out of their Grave and impose them on the Necks of the Disciples of Christ yet so must it be thought to do on this Hypothesis that the Religious Observance of one Day in seven is absolutely abolished by Christ as a meer part of the Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances which was nailed to his Cross and buried with him by the constant Practice and Injunctions thereof 4. Herewith fall the Arguments taken from the Apostles calling the Sabbath in this place a shadow For it is said that nothing which is Moral can be
shall be to you an holy Day a Sabbath of Rest unto the Lord whosoever doth work therein shall be put to death Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath Day Here again the Penalties and the Prohibition of kindling fire are Mosaical and so is on their account the whole Command as here renewed though there be that in it which for the substance of it is Moral And here the seventh Day precisely is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holiness unto them or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Convocation of holiness an holy Convocation as it is expressed Levit. 23. 2. where these words are again repeated whose Profanation was to be avenged with Death The Prohibition also added about kindling of fire in their habitations hath been the occasion of many anxious Observances among the Jews They all agree that the kindling of fire for Profit and Advantage in Kilns and Oasts for the making of Brick or drying of Corn or for founding or melting Mettals is here forbidden But what need was there that so it should be seeing all these things are expresly forbidden in the Command in general Thou shalt do no manner of work somewhat more is intended They say therefore that it is the kindling of fire for the dressing of Victuals And this indeed seems to be the intendment of this especial Law as the Manna that was to be eaten on the Sabbath was to be prepared on the Parasecue But withal I say this is a new additional Law and purely Mosaical the Original Law of the Sabbath making no entrenchment on the ordinary duties of humane life as we shall see afterwards Whether it forbad the kindling of fire for Light and Heat I much question The present Jews in most places employ Christian Servants about such works For the poor wretches care not what is done to their Advantage so they do it not themselves But these and the like Precepts belonged unquestionably unto their Paedagogie and were separable from the Original Law of the Sabbath § 17 Lastly The whole matter is stated Deut. 5. 15. where after the Repetition of the Commandment it is added and remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Aegypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out Arm therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day The Mercy and Benefit they had received in their Deliverance from Aegypt is given as the Reason not why they should keep the Sabbath as it was proposed as a Motive unto the Observation of the whole Law in the Preface of the Decalogue but wherefore God gave them the Law of it to keep and observe Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Now the Reason of the Command of a Sabbatical Rost absolutely God had every where declared to be his making the world in six dayes and resting on the seventh The mention whereof in this place is wholly omitted because an especial Application of the Law unto that people is intended So that it is evident that the Mosaical Sabbath was on many Accounts and in many things distinguished from that of the Decalogue which is a Moral Duty For the Deliverance of the people out of Aegypt which was a benefit peculiar unto themselves and Typical of Spiritual Mercies unto others was the Reason of the Institution of the Sabbath as it was Mosaical which it was not nor could be of the Sabbath absolutely although it might be pressed on that people as a considerable Motive why they ought to endeavour the keeping of the whole Law § 18 From all that hath been discoursed it appears That the Observation of the seventh Day precisely from the Beginning of the world belonged unto the Covenant of Works not as a Covenant but as a Covenant of Works founded in the Law of Creation And that in the Administration of that Covenant which was revived and unto certain Ends reinforced unto the Church of Israel in the Wilderness it was bound on them by an especial Ordinance to be observed throughout their Generations or during the continuance of their Church State Moreover that as to the manner of the Observance required by the Law as delivered on Mount Sinai it was a yoke and burden to the people because that dispensation of the Law gendred unto Bondage Gal. 4. 24. For it begot a Spirit of fear and Bondage in all that were its Children and subject unto its Power In this condition of things it was applyed unto sundry Ends in their Typical State in which regard it was a shadow of good things to come And so also was it in respect of those other Additional Institutions and Prohibitions which were inseparable from its Observation amongst them whereof we have spoken On all these Accounts I doubt not but that the Mosaical Sabbath and the manner of its Observation is under the Gospel utterly taken away But as for the Weekly Sabbath as required by the Law of our Creation reinforced in the Decalogue the summary Representation of that great Original Law the Observation of it is a Moral Duty which by Divine Authority is translated unto another Day § 19 The ancient Jews have a saying which by the later Masters is abused but a Truth is contained in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sabbath gives firmitude and strength to all the Affairs of this World For it may be understood of the Blessing of God on the due Observation of his Worship on that Day Hence it was they say that any young clean Beast that was to be offered in Sacrifice must continue seven dayes with the Damm and not be offered until the eighth Levit. 22. 27. That a Child was not to be circumcised until the eighth Day that there might be an Interposition of a Sabbath for their Benediction And it is not unlikely that the eighth Day was also signalized hereby as that which was to succeed in the Room of the seventh as shall be manifested in our next Discourse The Fifth Exercitation OF THE Lords-Day 1 A Summary of what hath been proved a progress to the Lords-day 2 The new Creation of all things in Christ the foundation of Gospel-Obedience and Worship 3 The old and new Creation compared 4 The old and new Covenant 5 Distinct Ends of these Covenants 6 Supposition of the Heads of things before confirmed 7 Foundation of the Lords-day on those Suppositions 8 Christ the â—uthor of the new Creation his Works therein 9 His Rest from his Works the Indication of a new Day of Rest. 10 Observed by the Apostles 11 Proof of the Lords-day from Heb. 4. proposed 12 The words of the Text. 13 esign of the Apostle in general 14 His answer unto an Objection with his general Argument 15 The nature of the Rests treated on by him 16 The Church under the Law of Nature and its Rest. 17 The Church under the Law of Institution and its Rest. 18
the nature of the several Rests here discoursed of by the Apostle which will give light and confirmation unto what we have before discoursed To this purpose will the ensuing Propositions taken from the words conduce As 1. The Rest of God is the foundation and principal cause of our Rest. Hence in general it is still called Gods Rest if they shall enter into my Rest It is on some account or other Gods Rest before it is ours not the Rest only which he hath appointed commanded and promised unto us but the Rest wherewith himself rested as is plainly declared on every head of the Rests here treated of And this confirms that foundation and reason of a Sabbatical Rest which we have laid down in our third Exercitation Gods Rest is not spoken of absolutely with respect unto himself only but with reference unto an appointed Rest that ensued thereon for the Church to rest with him in Hence it follows that the Rests here mentioned are as it were double namely the Rest of God himself and the Rest that ensued thereon for us to enter into For instance at the finishing of the works of Creation which is first proposed God ceased from his works and rested This was his own Rest the nature whereof hath been before declared He rested on the seventh day But this was not all he blessed it for the Rest of man a Rest for us ensuing on his Rest an expressive representation of it and a pledge of our entring into or being taken into a participation of the Rest of God 3. The Apostle proposeth the three-fold state of the Church unto consideration 1 The state of it under the Law of Nature or Creation 2 The state of it under the Law of Institutions and carnal Ordinances 3 That then introducing under the Gospel Accordingly have we distinguished our Discourses concerning a Sabbatical Rest in our third and fourth and this present Exercitation To each of these he assigns a distinct Rest of God a Rest of the Church entring into Gods Rest and a Day of Rest as the means and pledge thereof And withall he manifests that the two former were ordered to be previous Representations of the latter though not equally nor on the same account First He considers the Church and the state of it under the Law of nature before the entrance of sin and herein he shews first that there was a Rest of God in it for saith he the works were finished from the foundation of the world and God did rest from all his works verse 3 4. As the foundation of all he layeth down first the works of God For the Church and every peculiar state of the Church is founded in the work some especial work of God and not meerly in a Law or Command The works saith he were finished from the foundation of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work that is of God the effect of his creating power was finished or compleated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the world a Periphrasis of the six original Dayes wherein time and all things measured by it and existent with it had their beginning This work of God as hath been proved Exercit. 3. was the foundation of the Church in the state of Nature and gave unto it the entire Law of its obedience On this work and the compleating of it ensued the Rest of God himself verse 4. God rested the seventh day from all his works This Rest of God and his Refreshment he took in his works as comprizing the Law and Covenant of our obedience have been explained already But this alone doth not confirm nor indeed come near the purpose or Argument of the Apostle For he is to speak of such a Rest of God as men might enter into as was a foundation of Rest unto them or otherwise his Discourse was not concerned in it whereupon by â—â—citation of the words of Moses from Gen. 2. 2. he tells us that this Rest of God was on the seventh day which God accordingly blessed and sanâ—tified to be a Day of Rest unto man So that in this state of the Church there were three things considerable 1 The Rest of God himself on his works wherein the foundation of the Church was laid 2 A Rest proposed unto man to enter into with God wherein lay the Duty of the Church And 3 a Day of Rest the seventh day as a remembrance of the one and a means and pledge of the other And herewith we principally confirm our judgement in the Sabbaths beginning with the World For without this supposition the mentioning of Gods work and his Rest no way belonged to the purpose of our Apostle For he discourseth only of such Rests as men might enter into and have a pledge of And there was no such thing from the foundation of the world unless the Sabbath were then revealed Nor is it absolutely the Work and Rest of God but the Obedience of men and their duty with respect unto them which he considers And this could not be unless the Rest of God was proposed unto men to enter into from the foundation of the world § 17 Secondly the Apostle considers the Church under the Law of Institutions and herein he representeth the Rest of the Land of Canaan wherein also the three distinct Rests before-mentioned do occurre 1. There was in it a Rest of God This gives denomination to the whole He still calls it his Rest if they shall enter into my Rest. And the prayer about it was Arise O Lord into thy Rest thou and the Ark of thy strength or the pledge of his presence and Rest. And this Rest also ensued upon his work for God wrought about it works great and mighty and ceased from them when they were finished And this work of his answered in its greatness unto the work of Creation whereunto it is compared by himself Isa. 51. 15 16. I am the Lord thy God that divided the Sea whose waves roared the Lord of Hosts is his Name and have put my words in thy mouth and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand that I may plant the Heavens and lay the foundation of the Earth and say unto Zion thou art my people The dividing of the Sea whose waves roared is put by a Synecdoche for the whole work of God preparing a way for the Church-state of that people in the Land of Canaan And this he compares to the work of Creation in planting the Heavens and laying the foundation of the Earth For although those words are but a Metaphorical expression of the Political and Church-state of that people yet there is an evident Allusion in them unto the original Creation of all things This was the work of God upon the finishing whereof he entred into his Rest in the satisfaction and complacency that he had therein For after the Erection of his Worship in the Land of Canaan he sayes of
it this is my Rest aná here will I dwell 2. God being thus entred into his Rest. in like manner as formerly two things ensue thereon 1 That the people are invited and encouraged to enter into the Rest of God This the Apostle treats concerning in this and the foregoing Chapter And this their entrance into Rest was their coming by Faith and Obedience into a participation of the Worship of God wherein he Rested as a means and pledge of their everlasting Rest in him And although some of them came short hereof by reason of their unbelief yet others entred into it under the conduct of Joshua 2 Both these his own Rest and Rest of the people God expressed by appointing a Day of Rest. This he did that it might be a token sign and pledge not now as given to this people absolutely of his first Rest at the Creation but of his present Rest in his instituted Worship and to be a means in the solemn observation of that Worship to farther their entrance into his Rest eternally Hence had the seventh Day a peculiar Institution among that people whereby it was made to them a sign and token that he was their God and they were his people And here lies the foundation of all that we have before discoursed concerning the Judaical Sabbath in our fourth Exercitation It is true this Day was the same in order of the Dayes with that before observed namely the seventh Day of the Week But it was now re-established upon new considerations and unto new ends and purposes The time of the change of the Day was not yet come for this Work was but preparatory for a greater And the Covenant whereunto the seventh Day was originally annexed being not yet to be abolished that day was not to be yet changed nor another to be substituted in the room of it Hence this Day became now to fall under a double consideration First as it was such a proportion of time as was requisite unto the Worship of God and appointed as a pledge of his Rest in his Covenant Secondly as it received a new Institution with superadded ends and significations as a token and pledge of Gods Rest in the Law of Institutions and the Worship erected therein So both these states of the Church had these three things distinctly a Rest of God on his Works for their foundation a Rest in Obedience and Worship for man to enter into and a Day of Rest as a pledge and token of both the other § 18 Thirdly The Apostle proves from the words of the Psalmist that there was yet to be a Third state of the Church an especial state under the Messia which he now proposed unto the Hebrews and exhorted them to enter into And in this Church-state there is to be also a peculiar state of Rest distinct from them which went before To the constitution hereof there are Three things required First that there be some signal work of God compleated and finished whereon he enters into his Rest. This was to be the foundation of the whole new Church-state and of the west to be obtained therein Secondly that there be a spiritual Rest ensuing thereon and arising thence for them that believe to enter into Thirdly that there be a new or renewed Day of Rest to express that Rest of God and to be a pledge of our eâ—tring into it If any of these or either of them be wanting the whole structure of the Apostles discourse will be dissolved neither will there be any colour remaining for his mentioning the seventh day and the Rest thereof These things therefore we must farther enquire into § 19 First the Apostle sheweth that there was a great work of God and that finished for the foundation of the whole This he had made way for chap. 3. vers 4 5. where he both expresly asserts the Son to be God and shews the Analogie that is between the Creation of all things and the building of the Church that is the works of the Old and New Creation As then God wrought in the Creation of all so Christ who is God wrought in the setting up of this new Church-state And upon his finishing of it he entred into his Rest as God did into his whereby he limited a certain Day of Rest unto his people So he speaks There remaineth therefore a Sabbatism for the people of God For he that is entred into Rest hath ceased from his works as God did from his own A new Day of Rest accommodated unto this new Church-state ariseth from the Rest that the Lord Christ entred into upon his ceasing from his works And as to this Day we may observe 1 That it hath this in common with the former Dayes that it is a Sabbatism or one day in seven which that name in the whole Scripture use is limited unto For this portion of time to be dedicated unto Sacred Rest having its foundation in the light and Law of Nature was equally to be observed in every state of the Church 2 That although both the former states of the Church had one and the same Day though varied in some Ends of it now the Day it self is changed as belonging to another Covenant and having its foundation in a work of another Nature than what They had respect unto 3 That the observation of it is suited unto the spiritual state of the Church under the Gospel delivered from the bondage frame of spirit wherewith it was observed under the Law And these things must be farther confirmed from the Context § 20 The foundation of the whole is laid down v. 10. For he that is entred into his Rest is ceased from his works as God from his own Expositors generally apply these words unto Believers and their entring into the Rest of God whether satisfactorily to themselves and others as to their design coherence scope or signification of particular expressions I know not The contrary appears with good evidence to me For what are the works that Believers should be said here to Rest from Their sins say some their labours sorrows and sufferings say others But how can they be said to Rest from these works as God rested from his own For God so rested from his as to take the greatest delight and satisfaction in them to be refreshed by them In six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed Exod. 31. 17. He so rested from them as that he rested in them and blessed them and blessed and sanctified the Time wherein they were finished We have shewed before that the Rest of God was not only a cessation from working nor principally but the satisfaction and complacency that he had in his works But now if those mentioned be the works here intended men cannot so Rest from them as God did from his But they cease from them with a detestation of them so far as they are sinfull and joy for their deliverance
is such a Determination of this Time unto one Day in seven as it must needs be the highest Impudence in any Person Persons or Churches to attempt any alteration herein And notwithstanding the pretences of some about their liberty none yet have been so hardy from the foundation of the World as practically to determine a Day for the Worship of God in any other Revolution of Dayes or Times to the neglect and exclusion of one Day in seven Yea the Light hereof is such and the use of it so great that those who have taken up with the worst of Superstitions instead of Religion as the Mahumetans yet complying in general with the performance of a solemn Worship to God have found it necessary to fix on one certain Day in the Hebdomadal Revolution for that purpose And indeed partly from the Appointment of God partly from the Nature of the Thing it self the Religious observation of such a Day is the great preservative of all solemn Profession of Religion in the World This the Law of Nature this the written Word directs unto and this Experience makes manifest unto all Take away from amongst men a conscience of observing a fixed stated Day of Sacred Rest to God and for the celebration of his Worship in Assemblies and all Religion will quickly decay if not come to nothing in this World And it may be observed though it be not evident whether be the Cause or the Effect that where and amongst whom Religion flourisheth in its power there and amongst them is conscience the most exercised and the most diligence used in the observation of such a Day I will not say absolutely that it is Religion or other Principles that teacheth men exactness in the observation of this Day nor on the other hand that a conscience made of this observation doth procure an universal strictness in other Duties of Religion But this is evident that they are mutually helpfull unto one another And therefore though some have laboured to divest this Observation of any immediate Divine Authority yet they are forced to supply such a Constitution for the Observation of one Day in seven as that they affirm that none can omit its Observation without Sin in ordinary cases whether they have done well to remove from it the command of God and to substitute their own in the room of it they may do well to consider § 31 Let then the state of things in reference unto the first day of the week with the presence of God in and his blessing upon the Worship of the Church therein be considered And this is a consideration as I think by no means to be despised It is manifest to all unprejudiced persons that the Apostles and Apostolical Churches did religiously observe this Day And no man can with any modesty question the celebration of the Worship of God therein in the next succeeding Generations In the possession of this practise are all the Disciples of Christ at this day in the World some very few only excepted who Sabbatize with the Jews or please themselves with a vain pretence that every Day is unto them a Sabbath Nor is it simply the Catholicism of this practise which I insist upon though that be such and hath such weight in things of this nature as that for my part I shall not dissent from any practise that is so attested But it is the blessing of God upon it and the Worship on this Day performed which is pleaded as that which ought to be of an high esteem with all humble Christians On this Day throughout all Ages hath the Edification of the Churches been carried on and that publick revenue of Glory been rendred unto God which is his due On this Day hath God given his presence unto all his solemn Ordinances for all the Ends for which he hath appointed them Nor hath he by any means given the least intimation of his displeasure against his Churches for their continuance in the observation of it On the other side not only have the wisest and holiest men who have complained of the Sins of their several times and Ages wherein they lived which procured the pouring out of the Judgements of God upon them constantly reckoned the neglect and prophanation of the Lords-day among them but such instances have been given of particular severities against them who have openly prophaned this Day and that upon unquestionable Testimonies as may well affect the minds and consciences of those who profess a Reverence of God in the holy dispensations of his Providence Nor can any of these things be pleaded to give countenance unto any other Day that should be set up in competition with the Lords-day or the first day of the week What of this nature can be spoken concerning the seventh Day now by some contended for and that which is grievous by some persons Holy and Learned Of what use hath it ever been to the Church of God setting aside the occasional Advantages taken from it by the Apostles of preaching the Gospel in the Synagogues of the Jews What Testimonies have we of the presence of God with any Churches in the Administration of Gospel-Ordinances and Worship on that Day And if any lesser Assemblies do at present pretend to give such a Testimony wherein is it to be compared with that of all the holy Churches of Christ throughout the World in all Ages especially in those last past Let men in whose hearts are the wayes of God seriously consider the use that hath been made under the blessing of God of the conscientious observation of the Lords-day in the past and present age unto the promotion of Holiness Righteousness and Religion universally in the power of it and if they are not under invincible prejudices it will be very difficult for them to judge that it is a Plant which our Heavenly Father hath not planted For my part I must not only say but plead whilst I live in this World and leave this Testimony to the present and future ages if these Papers see the light and do survive that if I have ever seen any thing in the wayes and worship of God wherein the power of Religion or Godliness hath been expressed any thing that hath represented the Holiness of the Gospel and the Author of it any thing that hath looked like a Proeludium unto the everlasting Sabbath and Rest with God which we aim through Grace to come unto it hath been there and with them where and amongst whom the Lords-day hath been had in highest esteem and a strict observation of it attended unto as an Ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Remembrance of their Ministry their Walking and Conversation their Faith and Love who in this Nation have most zealously pleaded for and have been in their persons Families and Churches or Parishes the most strict observers of this Day will be precious with them that fear the Lord whilst the Sun and Moon endure Their Doctrine also in
with all Believers in a peaceable agreement in the worship of God And therefore of all differences in judgement which lead unto practice those are the worst and most pernicious which occasion or draw after them any thing whereby men are hindred from joyning together in the same publick solemn worship whereby they yield unto God that Revenue of his Glory which is due unto him in this world And that many of these are found at this day is not so much from the Nature of the things themselves about which men differ as from the weakness prejudices and corrupt affections of them who are possessed with different Apprehensions about them But now upon a supposition of an Adherence by any unto the seventh day Sabbath all Communion amongst Professors in solemn Gospel-Ordinances is rendred impossible For if those of that perswasion do expect that others will be brought unto a relinquishment of an Evangelical observance of the Lords-day Sabbath they will find themselves mistaken The Evidence which they have of its Appointment and the Experience they have had of the presence of God with them in its Religious Observation will secure their Faith and Practise in this matter Themselves on the other hand supposing that they are obliged to meet for all solemn worship on the seventh day which the other account unwarrantable for them to do on the pretence of any binding Law to that purpose and esteem it unlawfull to assemble Religiously with others on the first Day on the Plea of an Evangelical warranty they absolutely cut off themselves from all possibility of Communion in the Administration of Gospel-Ordinances with all other Churches of Christ. And whereas most other Breaches as to such Communion are in their own nature capable of healing without a Renunciation of those Principles in the minds of men which seem to give countenance unto them the Distance is here made absolutely irreparable whilst the Opinion mentioned is owned by any I will press this no farther but only by affirming that persons truely fearing the Lord ought to be very carefull and jealous over their own understandings before they embrace an Opinion and Practice which will shut them up from all visible Communion with the generality of the Saints of God in this World § 34 We have seen the least part of the inconveniences that attend this perswasion and its practise nor do I intend to mention all of them which readily offer themselves to consideration One or two more may yet be touched on For those by whom it is owned do not only affirm that the Law of the seventh day Sabbath is absolutely and universally in force but also that the Sanction of it in its penalty against Transgressors is yet continued This was as is known the Death of the offender by stoning So did God himself determine the Application of the Curse of the Law unto the breach of this Command in the instance of the man that gathered wood on that day and was stoned by His direction Numb 45. 35. Now the consideration of this penalty as expressive of the Curse of the Law influenced the minds of the Jews into that bondage frame wherein they observed the Sabbath And this alwayes put them upon many anxious arguings how they might satisfie the Law in keeping the Day so as not to incurr the penalty of its Transgression Hence are the Questions among the Jews no less endless than those about their Genealogies of old about what work may be done and what not how far they might journey on that day which when they had with some indifferent consent reduced unto 2000 Cubits which they called a Sabbath-dayes journey yet where to begin their measure from what part of the City where a man dwelt from his own House or the Synagogue or the Walls or Suburbs of it they are not agreed And the dread hereof was such amongst them of old from the rigorous Justice wherewith such Laws with such penalties were imposed on them that untill they had by common consent in the beginning of the Rule of the Hasmonaeans agreed to defend themselves from their Enemies on that Day they sate still in a neglect of the Law of Nature requiring all men to look to their preservation against open violence and suffered themselves to be slain to their satiety who chose to assault them thereon And certainly it is the greatest madness in the world for a people to engage in War that do not think it at least lawfull at all times to defend themselves And yet they lost their City afterwards by some influence from this Superstition And do men know what they do when they endeavour to introduce such a Bondage into the observance of Gospel-worship a yoke and bondage upon the Persons and Spirits of men which those before us were not able to bear Is it according to the mind of Christ that the Worship of God which ought to be in Spirit and Truth now under the Gospel should be enforced on men by capital penalties And let men thus state their Principles The seventh Day is to be kept precisely a Sabbath unto the Lord by virtue of the Fourth Commandment for not one Day in seven but the seventh Day it self is rigorously and indispensibly enjoyned unto observation and that the Transgression of this Law not as to the Spiritual Worship to be observed on it but as to every outward Transgression by journeying or other bodily labour is to be avenged with Death undoubtedly in the practice of these Principles besides that open contradiction which they will fall into unto the Spirit Rule and Word of the Gospel they will find themselves in the same entanglements wherein the Jews were and are And as the Cases that may occur about what may be done and what not what Cases of necessity may interpose for relief are not to be determined by private persons according to their own light and understanding because they have respect unto the publick Law but by them unto whom power is committed to judge upon it and to execute its penalty so there will so many Cases and those almost inexplicable emerge hereon as will render the whole Law an intolerable Burden unto Christians And what then is become of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and wherein is the preheminence of the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel above the Carnal Ordinances of the Law § 35 And this introduceth an Evil of no less hainous importance than any of those before enumerated The precise observation of the seventh Day as such is undoubtedly no part of the Law naturally moral This we have sufficiently proved before as I suppose That Law is written in the Hearts of Believers by virtue of the Covenant of Grace and strength is administred thereby unto them for the due performance of the Duties that it doth require Nor is it an Institution of the Gospel none ever pretended it so to be If there be not much against it in the New Testament
Holy Rest which either for the matter of them or the manner prescribed have had no sufficient warrant or foundation in the Scripture For whereas some have made no distinction between the Sabbath as Moral and as Mosaical unless it be meerly in the change of the Day they have endeavoured to introduce the whole practice required on the latter into the Lords Day But we have already shewed that there were sundry additions made unto the command as to the manner of its observance in its accommodation unto the Mosaical Pedagogie besides that the whole required a frame of spirit suited thereunto Others again have collected whatever they could think of that is good pious and usefull in the practice of Religion and prescribed it all in a multitude of instances as necessary to the sanctification of this Day so that a man can scarcely in six Dayes read over all the duties that are proposed to be observed on the seventh And it hath been also no small mistake that men have laboured more to multiply Directions about external duties giving them out as it were by number or tale than to direct the mind or inward man in and unto a due performance of the whole duty of the sanctification of the Day according to the spirit and genius of Gospel Obedience And lastly it cannot be denied but that some it may be measuring others by themselves and their own abilities have been apt to tye them up unto such long tiresome duties and rigid abstinences from refreshments as have clogged their minds and turned the whole service of the Day into a wearisome bodily exercise that profiteth little § 7 It is not in my design to insist upon any thing that is in controversie amongst Persons learned and sober Nor will I now extend this Discourse unto a particular consideration of the especial duties required in the sanctification or services of this Day But whereas all sorts of men who wish well to the furtherance and promotion of Piety and Religion in the World on what Reasons or foundations soever they judge that this Day ought to be observed an holy Rest to the Lord do agree that there is a great sinfull neglect of the due observation of it as may be seen in the Writings of some of the principal of those who cannot grant unto it an immediate divine Institution I shall give such Rules and general Directions about it as a due application whereof will give sufficient guidance in the whole of our duty therein § 8 It may seem to some necessary that something should be premised concerning the measure or continuance of the Day to be set apart unto an Holy Rest unto the Lord. But it being a matter of controversie and to me on the Reasons to be mentioned afterwards of no great importance I shall not insist upon the examination of it but only give my judgement in a word concerning it Some contend that it is a natural Day consisting of 24 hours beginning with the evening of the preceding Day and ending with the same of its own And accordingly so was the Church of Israel directed Lev. 23. 32. From even unto even shall you celebrate your Sabbath although that doth not seem to be a general Direction for the observation of the Weekly Sabbath but to regard only that particular extraordinary Sabbath which was thus instituted namely the Day of Atonement on the tenth Day of the seventh moneth vers 27. However suppose it to belong also unto the weekly Sabbath it is evidently an addition unto the command particularly suited unto the Mosaical Pedagogie that the Day might comprize the Sacrifice of the preceding evening in the services of it from an obedience whereunto we are freed by the Gospel Neither can I subscribe unto this opinion and that because 1 In the description and limitation of the first original seven Dayes it is said of each of the six that it was constituted of an evening and a morning but of the Day of Rest there is no such description it is only called the seventh Day without any assignation of the preceding evening unto it 2 A Day of Rest according to Rules of natural equity ought to be proportioned unto a Day of work or labour which God hath granted unto us for our own use Now this is to be reckoned from morning to evening Psal. 104. 20 21 22 23. Thou makest darkness and it is night wherein all the Beasts of the forest do creep from whose yelling the Night hath its name in the Hebrew Tongue The young Lions rear after their prey and seek their meat from God The Sun riseth they gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Man goeth forth to his work and his labour untill the evening The Day of labour is from the removeal of darkness and the night by the light of the Sun untill the return of them again which allowing for the alterations of the Day in the several seasons of the year seems to be the just measure of our Day of Rest. 3 Our Lord Jesus Christ who in his Resurrection gave beginning and being to the especial Day of Holy Rest under the Gospel rose not untill the morning of the first Day of the Week when the beamings of the light of the Sun began to dispel the darkness of the night or when it dawned towards day as it is variously expressed by the Evangelists This with me determines this whole matter 4 Meer Cessation from labour in the night seems to have no place in the spiritual Rest of the Gospel to be expressed on this Day nor to be by any thing distinguished from the night of other Dayes of the Week 5 Supposing Christians under the obligation of the Direction given by Moses before-mentioned and it may entangle them in the anxious scrupulous intrigues which the Jews are subject unto about the beginning of the evening it self about which their greatest Masters are at variance which things belong not to the Oeconomy of the Gospel Upon the whole matter I am inclinable to judge and do so that the observation of the Day is to be commensurate unto the use of our natural strength on any other Day from morning to night And nothing is hereby lost that is needfull unto the due sanctification of it For what is by some required as a part of its sanctification is necessary and required as a due preparation thereunto This therefore is our first Rule or Direction The first Day of the Week or the Lords-Day is to be set apart unto the ends of an Holy Rest unto God by every one according as his natural strength will enable him to employ himself in his lawfull occasions any other Day of the Week There is no such certain standard or measure for the observance of the duties of this Day as that every one who exceeds it should by it be cut short or that those who on important Reasons come short of it should be stretched out thereunto As
we should have set up the Calves of our own imaginations to his greater provocation But he hath relieved us herein himself appointing the worship which he will accept Would we therefore give full Direction in particular for the right sanctifying of the Name of God on this Day we ought to go over all the Ordinances of worship which the Church is bound to attend unto in its Assemblies But this is not my present purpose Besides somewhat of that kind hath been formerly done in another way I shall therefore here content my self to give some general Rules for the guidance of men in the whole As 1 That the publick and solemn worship of God is to be preferred above that which is private They may be so prudently managed as not to interfer nor ordinarily to entrench on one another But where-ever on any occasion they seem so to do the private are to give place to the publick For one chief End of the sacred setting apart of this Day is the solemn acknowledgement of God and the performance of his worship in Assemblies It is therefore a marvellous undue custome on the pretence of private duties whether Personal or Domestical to abate any part of the Duties of solemn Assemblies For there is in it a setting up of our own choice and inclinations against the Wisdome and Authority of God The End of the Day is the solemn worship of God and the End is not to give way to the most specious helps and means 2 Choice is to be made of those Assemblies for the celebration of publick worship where we may be most advantaged as unto the Ends of them in the sanctification of this Day so far as it may be done without breach of any Order appointed of God For in our joyning in any concurrent acts of Religious worship we are to have regard unto Helps suited unto the furtherance of our own Faith and Obedience And also because God hath appointed some parts of his Worship as in their own nature and by virtue of his appointment are means of conveying light knowledge Grace in spiritual supplyes unto our souls it is certainly our duty to make choice and use of them which are most meet so to do 3 For the manner of our Attendance on the publick worship of God with Reverence Gravity Order Diligence Attention though it be a matter of great use and moment yet not of this place to handle nor doth it here belong unto us to insist on those wayes whereby we may excite particular Graces unto due actings of themselves as the nature of the Duties wherein we are engaged doth require § 19 4 Although the Day be wholly to be dedicated unto the Ends of a Sacred Rest before insisted on yet 1. Duties in their performance drawn out unto such a length as to beget wearisomness and satiety tend not unto edification nor do any way promote the Sanctification of the Name of God in the Worship it self Regard therefore in all such performances is to be had 1 Unto the weakness of the natural constitution of some the Infirmities and Indispositions of others who are not able to abide in the outward part of Duties as others can And there is no wise Shepherd but will rather suffer the stronger sheep of his flock to lose somewhat of what they might reach unto in his guidance of them than to compell the weaker to keep pace with them to their hurt and it may be their ruine Better a great number should complain of the shortness of some Duties who have strength and desires for a longer continuance in them than that a few who are sincere should be really discouraged by being overburdened and have the service thereby made useless unto them I alwayes loved in sacred Duties that of Seneca concerning the Orations of Cassius Severus when they heard him Timebamus ne desineret we were afraid that he would end 2 To the spiritual edge of the affections of men which ought to be whetted and not through tediousness in Duties abated and taken off Other things of a like nature might be added which for some considerations I shall forbear 2. Refreshments helpfull to nature so far as to refresh it that it may have a supply of spirits to go on chearfully in the Duties of Holy Worship are lawfull and usefull To macerate the Body with Abstinences on this Day is required of none and to turn it into a Fast or to Fast upon it is generally condemned by the Antients Wherefore to forbear provision of necessary food for Families on this Day is Mosaical and the enforcement of the particular precepts about not kindling fire in our Houses on this Day baking and preparing the Food of it the Day before cannot be insisted on without a Re-introduction of the seventh Day precisely to whose observation they were annexed and thereby of the Law and Spirit of the old Covenant Provided alwayes that these Refreshments be 1 Seasonable for the time of them and not when publick Duties require our Attendance on them 2 Accompanied with a singular regard unto the Rules of Temperance as 1 That there be no appearance of evil 2 That Nature be not charged with any kind of Excess so far as to be hindred rather than assisted in the Duties of the Day 3 That they be accompanied with Gravity and Sobriety and purity of conversation Now whereas these things are in the substance of them required of us in the whole course of our lives as we intend to please God and to come to the enjoyment of him none ought to think an especial Regard unto them on this Day to be a bondage or troublesome unto them 3. Labour or pains for the enjoyment of the benefit and advantage of the solemn Assemblies of the Church and in them of the appointed Worship of God is so far from entrenching on the Rest of this Day that it belongs unto its due observation A mere Bodily Rest is no part of Religious Worship in it self nor doth it belong unto the Sanctification of this Day any farther then as it is a means for the due performance of the other Duties belonging unto it We have no bounds under the Gospel for a Sabbath-dayes journey provided it be for Sabbath ends In brief all pains or labour that our station and condition in this world that our troubles which may befall us or any thing else make necessary as that without which we cannot enjoy the solemn Ends and Uses of this Holy Day of Rest are no way inconsistent with the due observation of it It may be the lot of one man to take so much pains and to travel so far for and in the due celebration of the Lords day as if another should do the like without his occasions and circumstances it would be a prophanation of it 4. Labour in works of charity and necessity such as are to visit the sick to relieve the poor to help the distressed to relieve or assist Creatures
and Worship was embraced by the Apostles who were to be as the chief corner-stones the foundation of the Christian Church For immediately hereon they assembled themselves on that Day and were confirmed in their Obedience by the Grace of our Lord in meeting with them thereon Joh. 20. 19 26. And it seems that on this Day only he appeared unto them when they were assembled together although occasionally he shewed himself to sundry of them at other seasons Hence he left Thomas under his doubts an whole Week before he gave him his gracious conviction that he might do it in the Assembly of his Disciples on the first day of the week From which time forward this Day was never without its solemn Assemblies as shall further be cleared afterwards § 11 Now because I am perswaded that the substance of all that we have laid down and pleaded for in all the preceding Discourses especially in what we have proposed concerning the foundation and causes of the Lords-day is taught by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 4. I shall present unto the Reader the sum of his design and scope in that place from vers 3. to vers 11. with an Application of it unto our present purpose referring him yet for farther satisfaction unto our full Exposition of the Chapter it self For this place is touched on by all who have contended about the original and duration of the Sabbatical Rest but not yet that I know of diligently examined by any I shall not fear to lay much of the weight of the cause wherein I am engaged upon it and therefore shall take a view of the whole Context and the Design of the Apostle therein § 12 The words of the Apostle are For we which have believed do enter into Rest as he said As I have sworn in my wrath if they shall enter into my Rest although the works were finished from the foundation of the world For he spake in a certain place of the seventh Day on this wise And God did Rest the seventh Day from all his works And in this place again If they shall enter into my Rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth taht some must enter therein and they to whom it was first preached entred not in because of unbelief Again he limiteth a certain Day saying in David To day after so long a time as it is said To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts For if Jesus had given them Rest then wonld he not afterwards have spoken of another Day There remaineth therefore a Rest to the people of God For he that is entred into his Rest he hath also ceased from his own works as God did from his Heb. 4. v. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. § 13 The design of the Apostle in this Discourse is to confirm what he had laid down and positively asserted in the beginning of the Chapter Now this is That there is yet under the Gospel a promise of entring into the Rest of God left or remaining unto Believers and that they do enter into that Rest by mixing the promise of it with Faith This he declares and the declaration of it was usefull unto and necessary for the Hebrews For he lets them know that notwithstanding their present and antient enjoyment of the Land of Canaan with the Worship and Rest of God therein which their Forefathers fell short of by their unbelief they were under a new Tryal a new Rest being proposed unto them in the promise This he proves by a Testimony out of the 95th Psalm the words whereof he had insisted on at large Chap. 3. and doth so again in this But the Application of that Testimony unto his purpose is obnoxious to a great Objection For the Rest mentioned in that Psalm seems to be a Rest long since past and enjoyed either by themselves or others They therefore could have no new or fresh concernment in it nor be in danger of coming short of it And if this were so all the Arguments and Exhortations of the Apostle in this place must needs be weak and incogent as drawn from a mistaken and misapplyed Testimony § 14 To remove this Objection and thereby confirm his former Assertions and Exhortations thereon is the Design of the Apostle in this Discourse To this End he proceeds unto the Exposition and Vindication of the Testimony it self which he had cited out of the Psalms And herein he shews from the proper signification of the words from the Time when they were spoken and the Persons to whom that no other Rest was intended in them but what was now by him proposed unto them as the Rest of God and his people in the Gospel The general Argument which to this purpose he insists upon consists in an enumeration of all the several Rests of God and his people which are mentioned in the Scriptures For from the consideration of them all he proves that no other Rest could be intended in the words of David but only the Rest of the Gospel whereinto they enter who do believe Moreover from that Respect which the â—â—â—ds of the Psalmist have unto the other foregoing Rests of God and his people he manifests that they 〈◊〉 were appointed of God to be Representations of that spiritual Rest which was now brought in and established This is the general Design of this Discourse In pursuit hereof he declares in particular 1 That the Rest mentioned in the Psalm is not that which ensued immediately on the Creation of all things This he evinceth because it was spoken of afterwards a long time after and that to another purpose v. 4 5. 2 That it was not the Rest of the Land of Canaan because that was not entred into by them unto whom it was first proposed and promised for they came short of it by their unbelief and perished in the Wilderness but this Rest which is now afresh proposed is such as the people of God must and will enter into v. 6 7. 3 Whereas it may be objected that although the Wilderness Generation entred not in yet their posterity did so under the conduct of Joshua v. 8. he answers that this Rest in the Psalm being proposed and promised in David so long a time above 400 years after the people had quietly possessed the Land whereinto they were conducted by Joshua it must needs be that another Rest then yet to come was intended in those words of the Psalmist v. 9. And 4 to conclude his Argument he declareth that this new Rest had a new peculiar foundation which the other had no interest or concernment in namely his ceasing from his works and entring into his Rest who is the Author of it verse 10. This is his way and manner of arguing for the proof of what he had before laid down and which he issueth in that Conclusion verse 9. There remaineth therefore a Rest for the people of God § 15 But we must yet further consider