Lastly This Dominica might possibly point at the old Sabbath-day which was really a day of the Lord 's appointing which yet the Writer abstained from calling it Sabbath 〈◊〉 the day-Day-Sabbath was then utterly dissolved with the City and Temple and long before this Revelation was written And if there were not something of greater concernment to be considered in the Sabbath-Law than Hallowing of a day there can be no sufficient cause alleaged why the antient sabbath-Sabbath-day was not still retained which yet ought not to be in any wise albeit some Sabbatarians would have it and others would have our Sunday to be the Sabbath These two disagreeing in the day yet agree in misunderstanding and abusing those words of Christ Pray that your flight Matth. 24. 20. be not in Winter neither on the Sabbath day By which words each party would have their severall Sabbaths confirmed and continued To this we answer First This was said to the Apostles when as yet they were but Disciples and they were all dead except only St. John before the time he spake of came Therefore this monition was intended as to be declared to the Jews whom Christ knew to be intangled in Sabbaticall superstition and that they would so persist as that people do to this day for it had been no sin to fly for life on that day even when it was a Sabbath really in force much lesse afterward when it was abrogated 2. It is said Pray that it be not in the Winter surely no Jew would think it a sin to fly for life in winter onely because 't was winter But Winter and Sabbath are here joyned to shew the reason of both to be the same and that not to be sin but onely danger trouble and inconvenience First for Winter Because the daies would be short the waies foul the season cold and dangerous to themselves and their little ones especially to abide in desolate Mountains unto which vers 16. they are directed to flye Secondly for the Sabbaâ—h Because their fellow Jews being involv'd in that superstition would account them enemies to their Religion and so neither joyne with them nor afford them any succour and moreover kill them as they did many upon pretence that they were flying to the Romans 3. â—â—is monition was meant onely to the Jewishly-affected Sabbatarians because as it is remarkably observed by Eusebius * Hist l. 3. c. 5 de Dem. l. 8. at the time of begiâ—â—ing Jerusalem not one Christian was left in that great City they were all departed before to Pella beyond Jordan to which they were warned by that Divine Oracle Migremus hinc as Eusebius thought 4. It is observable that Christ upon the same occasion then said Woe be to them that are with child and give suck in 〈◊〉 19. those daies he woe must signifie temporall woe of affliction and not eternall woe for no man will say that child-bearing or giving of suck are sins because in Scripture both are accounted blessings So that praying against this Sabbath-Hight or Winter-flight is but to pray against temporall calamities 5. If to fly on the Sabbath-day at that time had been a sin Christ would not have said Pray that it may not be but he would absolutely have forbidden it as he did all transgressions of the Morall Law 6. The meaning of Christ was to forewarn the Jews to dâ—sist from their vain Sabbatizing as if he had said The Jews who so much dote on their Sabbaâ—h day and hate me and seek my life for dissolving it as Joh. 5. 18. What will they do when their enemies invade them on the Sabbath day for then they must either break their Sabbath by flight or else die in their sloath and superstition Therefore they have need to pray that this pressure come not on them upon their Sabbath day 7. They that urge â—his place for a now-now-Sabbath should first agree which day they will insist on whether Saturday or Sunday 1. If Saturday we ask Why themselves do not keep it 2. If Sunday we say This place will appear miserably invalid to prove because Christ never at all mentioned it nor did any Apostle command it as is shewed before nor did any of the Sabbatizing Jews then apprehend it or to this day believe it For these or for better reasons the late Learned and Reverend Bishop of Worcester my most dear Country when he was Professor of Theology in Oxford doubted not to conclude publickly upon this very place That it is ridiculous for any to argue for a confirmation of a Sabbath Dr. Prideaux de Sab. Orat. An. 1622. from these words which Christ foretold but onely as an inconvenience which would arise from the Judaicall superstition I find also another pretty argument used of late to prove our Sunday to be a Sabbath for The word Sabbath signifieth Rest therefore Sunday being a day of Rest ought to be called Sabbath If this will hold VVhy should not our late frequent fasting-Fasting-dayes and Thanks-givings be called Sabbaths which were enforced by watch-men and under penalties with as great caution as our Sundayes from working and travelling Or why should not Nights the time of generall Rest and our Beds the place thereof and even our Graves be called Sabbaths But if the Inventer of this Argument had considered that the Fourth Commandment or Scripturall Sabbath doth not signifie onely the corporall Rest of man but onely his spirituall Rest and moreover and most principally the mystesterious Rest of God as it is said God Heb. 4. 4. Rested he might easily have answered his own argument with a better For the true Sabbaticall Rest cannot otherwise be rightly understood but onely of the Rest both of God and Man and this Rest can no where be found but onely in Christ the Saviour There is yet another scruple occasioned by our translation of the fourth Commandment which either haâ—h or may divert men from the right understanding thereof for thus our English read it Remember to keep holy the Sabbath c. Hence some imagine that to keep holy relateth onely to a Day and not to Christ But the more clear and true and unscrupulous Translation might have been by our old English word Hallow or by the word Sanctifie borrowed from the Latine thus Remember that thou Hallow or Sanctifie the Sabbath day This doubt will be plenâ—ifully cleared by the perusall of the Chap. 9. ninth Chapter of this Book Notwithstanding all this it may be granted that Christ giving that monition to pray did fore-see and relate to some kind of Law whereby the Jews of that time would be girt and obliged to keep the old Sabbath But if we enquire by what Law we shall find it to be neither the Moral nor the Ceremonial Law of God but onely a popular Club-Law or Law of Arms which was indeed the tyrannicall and superstitious Law of those grand Zelots and Rebells which cruelly insulted over their Country-men the Jews as
they are not fit to be imposed on Christians CHAP. III. Of Ceremonial Laws Why God expressed a dislike of them before they were abrogated Of the dissolving of them and particularly of the Sabbath by Christ Why Christ dissolved the Sabbath The judgment of the Fathers therein That it is now pernicious to Sabbatize as the Jews did and yet do That Christ appointed no new sabbath-Sabbath-day instead of the old CHAP. IV. Of Laws Moral and why they are so called More of Sunday-Sabbatizing Of Origen and of his Christian Sabbath That Saturday was a church-Church-day for Sermons Sacraments and Scripture-Lessons and a Fasting-day long after Origen's time That Christians did more reverently keep Saturday then the Jews did that Sabbath That Sunday is not to be called Sabbath Why easter-Easter-day was altered from the Jewish paschal-Paschal-day The Author 's reverent esteem of the Christian-Sunday CHAP. V. Of the fourth Commandment what part of it is Morall and what is Ceremonial Why a Ceremonial is taken into the ten Commandments Of the Memento and some other prerogatives proper to this fourth Commandment The excellent benefit of this Sabbath-Law Why it is placed in the midst of the Commandments How the whole Law by it is performable by men CHAP. VI. That Christ is the true Morall Sabbath Why he is concealed under the word Sabbath That the Scriptures do declare him to be the Sabbath The difference of the Lord of Sabbâ—oth and the Lord of the Sabbath Of that Sabbatism mentioned Heb. 4. 9. A passage of Isaiah and another of St. Paul applied to Christ's Sabbathship That Sabbath-breaking is not called a sin in the New Testament CHAP. VII The doctrine of the Primitive Church concerning the Sabbath shewed out of Tertullian and other Father How the Patriarks kept the Sabbath before the daies of Moses The doctrine of the Church herein The meaning of the Prayers at the rehear sing of the ten Commandments How the Law may be written in our hearts and how it is so performable CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the world is described without mention of evening and morning The Sabbath described by Philo the Jew That the Sabbath and Melchisedech were parallel types of Christ CHAP. IX The sanctifying of the Sabbath How thâ— Godhead is said to be sanctified How the human nature of Christ is sanctified Of the name of God That it signifies God himself That the name Jesus signifies the Person of Jesus How God sanctifieth us and how we sanctifie God How Christ being the Sabbath is to be sanctified or kept holy CHAP. X. Of God's Resting That it is not acessation from working Nor meant of his ending the Creation Nor of layiâ—â— aside his care and providence in Government That his Rest and Working do consist together Something concerning the Originall of human Souls Of Universalls what they are and where to be found A Question discoursed Whether God created any new kinds of Creatures since the first seventh day Two Queries propounded CHAP. XI That the Rest of God is fixed on the seventh day onely although he did intermit Creation for some time in every former day That his Rest did not consist in any meer creature Of the Rest of God before the Creation That God performed part of the Creation on the seventh day and what that was Jewish Fables concerning the creation of Adam and Eve CHAP. XII Why the Rest of God is not mentioned untill the seventh day Why it is fixed on the Creation of mankind rather than of any other of the Creatures Answers to certain Enquiries That the consideration of Christ to be propagated from the man and the woman was the onely cause of this expression of the Rest of God CHAP. XIII That the Rest of God consisted in his purpose of producing Christ is proved by Scripture and Reason Of the Image of God Why the Woman was taken out of the Man Of the union of Christ with Mankind That this union was shewed by Christ in the Sacramentall Bread and Wine That the Soul of Christ was derived or propagated from the first man Something concerning Universall Redemption CHAP. XIV Of Adam's solitude and something concerning Monastick life with the reasons thereof That the help by the Woman consisted not in respect of Society nor of Child-bearing simply considered but onely in respect of the propagation of Christ Of Child-bearing and that it is not salvificall without faith in Christ Of Good and Evill occasioned by the Woman Why she was called Vita or Life Why God permitted the Woman to occasion the Fall CHAP. XV. An Answer to the Question How God can be said to Rest That the Rest of God is onely in Christ and Why That the Tabernacle and Temple are called God's Resting place onely as they were figures of Christ That the Ark is called God's strength in the same respect That God's Rest in Sion is also meant of Christ That the union of God and Man in Christ was ordained onely in order to man's Salvation and everlasting Rest That man's Rest is called God's Rest Certain Conclusion concerning this Rest of God CHAP. XVI That the Rest of Man is called God's Rest is shewed by other like passages of Scripture That Christ is called the Rest of God Onely because he is the Rest of Mankind An Answer to the second Querie above mentioned viz. Why God is said to Rest onely on the first seventh day and not before The Conclusion of the Doctrine of God's Rest and St. Austin's judgement therein CHAP. XVII An exposition of the Ceremoniall part of the fourth Commandement begun That the six dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the seventh day is called a Sabbath onely because it was a figure of the true Sabbath That the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the eighth day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the daies of Moses St. Jerom's translation and our English examined The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of works on the Jewish Sabbath That their corporall Rest was but a figure of our spirituall Rest in Christ CHAP. XVIII The Exposition continued Why the Woman is not here mentioned That sons or servants sinned not by working upon command The miseries of servants Why Cattle might not be wrought on Sabbath daies That strangers were not obliged to Sabbatize except they resided within the Jewish pale Why cattle are mentioned before strangers Why servants cattle and strangers are not mentioned at the beginning of this Law with the Memento That by these circumstances the seventh-day-Sabbath is proved to be meerly Ceremonial and Judaical CHAP. XIX The Exposition continued How God is said to have made all in six daies and yet that he ended not his work untill the seventh day Why the Creation was prolonged six daies Of the order of Creatures
for that people being under that command but we have not any such command nor warrant now to expect such miraculous provisions 2. If the Jubilean Sabbath law of repossessing estates by the Ancient and rightfull owners should now take place with us as was commanded Levit. 25. 13. This would bring much sorrow to our late purchasers or intruders into other mens estates would reduce many of our new Gentry to their former trades and much disappoint their Gentle-homified posterity 3. If all those which by ordinary works transgresse the law of the Jewish Sabbath which is our Saturday should be put to death as was commanded Ex. 31. 14. What would become of traders manufactors market-keepers husbandmen and of the greatest part of the Christian World 4. If all false Prophets should be put to death that speak to turne us out of the way which the Lord our God hath commanded us to walk in as is commanded Deut. 13. 5. it would be ill with many of our new Time-serving Preachers for Preaching in the New Testament is often called Prophesying as Mat. 7 22. and 1 Cor. 14. 1. 5. If those that Curse their Parents though but a Domestick Fathâ—r only of a family should be put to death as is commanded Ex. 21. 17. Levit. 20. 9. what should become of those Sonnes of Beâ—â—al which have cursed and blasphemed their Publick Father Patrem Patriae 6. If Sacriledg should now be punished with death as it was Joâ—h 7. 25 Or false wittnesses Such as our Bithynian and b Iuvenal Sat. 8. Cappadocian knights of the post are Or if all young married woemen which are discovered after mariage to have bin deflowred before marriage as Deut. 22. 21 Or if no usury must be taken of our brethren as Deut. 23. 19 Or if all debts must be released freely to our neighbour or brother every seventh year as it is commanded Deut. 15. 2 Such Judicials would much displease a great number of people of this kingdom He that imagineth that he can compose one frame of lawes Politick or Ecclesiastick that may fitly serve and accommodate all christian Commonwealths and Churches may as easily phansy as it is in the fable that he can make a coat for the Moon Let him first perswadeour Nobles and Gentry to keep them to one fashion of apparrel our Legislative Statesmen never to make new or abrogate old Lawes either of the Commonwealth or of the Church But wee have seen both Politick and especially ecclesiastick lawes changeable as the Moon To Solomon the Church appeared fair as the Moon Cant. 6 10. Upon which words the Gloss saith Variatur status ejus nunc clara nunc dehonestata vitiis pravorum i. e. The Church is somtimes cleer somtimes denigrated by the vices of men her state is variable Doctor Donn was a profound Divine and a rare Poet Poets are called Divine and the Scripture calles them Prophets Tit. 1. 12. Luna est Ecclesia quia à filio illuminatur qui est Sol. Aug. in Psal 10. This learned Doctor as a propheticall Divine intituled one of his books Ecclesia Lunatica i. e. The Church Lunatick as St. Austine calls this life a Aug in Solilo c. 11. Tom. Vitam Lunaticam This I trust is enough to shew that the keeping holy of the Jewish Sabbath or Saturday or a weekly Seaventh day cannot be inforced by any authority or vertue of the Judicial law of Moses CHAP. III. Of the Ceremoniall laws Why God expressed a dislike of them before they were abrogated The Dissolving of them and particularly the Sabbath by Christ And why Christ did dissolve it The judgment of the Fathers herein That it is now pernicious to Sabbatize as the Jewes did and doe yet That Christ appointed no new Sabbathday in-stead of the old 2 The Ceremonial Lawes THere is another sort of lawes imposed on the Ancient people of God which are called the Ceremoniall Lawes such as concerned the Covenant and the worship of God consisting of Ceremonies and Rites to be used by the Abrahamicall or Mosaicall or Jsraeliticall people untill the ending of the Leviticall Preisthood and no longer as Circumcision far more ancient then the seventh day Sabbath having bin imposed on the Abrahamits long before Levi or Moses were born and afterwards it was also inacted as a law by Moses Ex. 12. 49. Levit. 12. 3. So the Pascall feast and Sacrifices of certain beasts and birds to be offered only at the Tabernacle or Temple So Feastivalls are appointed of new Moons of At-onements or Expiation and other Festivalls besides the 7th day sabbath which are recorded Levit. 23. and are also called Sabbaths as the At-onement Levit. 16. 31. And the 7th year Lev. 25. 4. And the feast of Trumpets Lev. 23. 24 and of Tabernacles Levit. 23. 39. All which were but Types Shadows and Figures Which are now expired because the Substance and Antitype of them is come which is Christ who was but onely prefigured and represented by those Ceremonies Now because those Ceremonialls were of none other use but onely to prefigure Christ with his benefits And because the Jewes did not rightly use them to that purpose and intent for which they were appointed God himselfe who Ordained them did neverthelesse reject them even whilest they were in force and to be performed by Command of the Ceremoniall law And this was because the Jews did not rightly understand their Significations and therefore did misuse them Hence it is that God expostulateth with the Jewes Isa 1. 12 13 14. To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices bring no more vain oblations-the Newmoons and Sabbaths I cannot away with them-your appointed feasts my Soul hateth they are a trouble to me I am weary to beare them The same rejection of these Ceremonies we find againe Jâ—r 6. 20. And particularly of their feasts he saith Amoâ— 5. 21 I hate and despise your feast-dayes And before these prophets the holy Psalmist had said Psal 40. 6 Sacrifices and offerings thou diddest not desire All these reprehensions were only because the Israelites of those times did erre from the true meaning and intent for which those Sabbaths and Sacrifices were set up for they supposed that the Opus Operatum or bare outward work and literall performance without any faith or consideration of the Messiah thereby signified was all that God required of them But afterward when Messiah was come and by preaching published those Ceremonies ended so that not only the abuse of them but the very use of them was utterly rejected and became sinfull For St. Paul tels us of the grand ceremony Circumcision Gal. 5. 2. If ye be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing And of Sabbaths and other ceremonies he saith Col. 2. 16. Let no man judg you in meat or drink or in respect of an Holy-day or New-moon or of Sabbath dayes which are a Shadow of things to come but the Body is Christ By which we are fully
his Sermon on the Paralytick c Chrys Serm. 7. Tom. 5 Christus quando solvebat Sabbatum maximum aliquod meraculum edebat ut sic Sabbatismum auferret When Christ dissolved the Jewish Sabbath he did withall perform some great miracle that it might appeare that Sabbatizing was dissolved by Divine authority The ancient and grand Heretick Marcion upon this truth of Christs dissolving the Saturday Sabbath took occasion to ground his false heresie denying Christ to be the Son of that God who made the World and Ordained the Law supposing that the true son of the Creator would not null the law of the same Creator By this it appeares that even this Heretick so farr agreed with the Catholick Church as to acknowledg the dissolution of that Sabbath by Christ as Tertullian also doth in his writings against that Heretick whereof he gives this reason d Tert. Cont. Mar. Lib. 4. Quia Deus est Dominus Sabbati ergo destruere potuit i. e. Because our Lord Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath therefore he might dissolve it The same Father saith again in another book c De Idololatria c. 4. Nobis Christianis Sabbata extranea sunt sicut Neomen ia To us Christians Sabbatizing is a stranger as much as New-Moon dayes are This he wrote because he knew that Sabbath-keeping was a fading and temporary Ceremony as much as the feasts of New-Moons In some Epistles yet extant which passed between St. Austin and St. Jerome concerning their differing opinions in some Judiciall ceremonies St. Austin thus writeth and faith a Hier. Epist 97. Tom. 2. That after the death Resurrection of Christ â—hose Ceremonies also dyed but that they were to be allowed some convenient time for buriall and an honourable funerall And indeed the publick Preaching up of Christianity was their Funerall Oration and the Burning of the Temple was their Funerall pile But when these Sepulture-offices were once performed then those Typicall Ceremonies became not only dead but deadly pernicious and mortiferous To this St. Hierome addeth this aggravation b August In Barathrum Diaboli devolvunt eum qui observat to which St. Austin also consenteth To use those Ceremonies now is the ready way to drive men into Hell So St. Chrysostom having in his Sermons often forbidden the people under his charge to use Sabbatizing as the Jewes then did at Antioch where Chrysostome then was a preacher he adds c Chrys Homil Antioch 34. That after his admonition if any did Sabbatize himselfe was innocent of their blood So deadly did he think it And before him Origen had both affirmed and preached d Orig. in Jeremi Hom. 9. That now to observe Sabbaths is to return to those beggerly Elements of Ceremonies-Quasi nondum descenderat Christus That the Sabbatizer thereby declareth that he doth not beleeve that Christ is come who is the true Sabbath which now is to be kept For this cause it may reasonably be thought that our Lord Jesus neither at the dissolution of the Old Jewish Sabbath day nor at any time after did command or so much as intimate any new Sabbath day for Christians lest Christians also like the Jewes should erroneously think that the Moral precept for Sanctifying the Sabbath confisted only in the strict observation of a day and thereby utterly neglect the most holy most necessary and Grand Sabbath which is Christ who is the Only Sabbath that wee Christians can or ought to have For at this day we see that the Sabbath which is Commanded in the Fourth precept of the law Moral is by the greater number of people thought to be meant only of Sanctifying a day for so they are now taught by the greater number of our Preachers But herein the People deceive themselves and the Preachers deceive others for that Commandment hath a more noble excellent and beneficiall meaning then so as I trust will appear anone To the judgment of the Ancients before mentioned I crave thy patience good Reader that I may add one more of a late Writer the learned Mr. Mede which I esteem ponderous who in one of his books thus writeth a Mede Diatrib 15 We may not now keep the Jewish Sabbath lest we should thereby seem not to acknowledg our Vbi Bene Nemo meliùs Cassiâ—d de Orig. Redemption performed but expect still Their Sabbath was but a shadow Thus he most truly and correspondently with the Primitive Church It was indeed but a Shaddow of our Redemption by our Redeemer which being performed as the Psalmist speaketh it is passed away like a Shaddow By what hath bin said I trust the Reader Psal 144. 4. apprehends that the weekly Jewish Sabbath is no more but a branch of the Ceremoniall Law now Antiquated and by the authority of Christ himself totally abrogated So that I may for certain conclude that neither the Jewish seaventh-seaventh-day nor any morall equity deduced from it can be that Sabbath which is injoyned to be Sanctified by the Moral Law of God Of which we are next to Consider CHAP. IV. Of Lawes Moral and why so called Of Sunday-Sabbatizing Of Origen and his Christian Sabbath That Saturday was a church-Church-day for Sermons Sacraments and Scripture-lessons and then also a fasting day long after Origens time Christians did more reverently keep Saturday then the Jewes themselves did that Sabbath Sunday not to be called Sabbath Easter day why altered from the Jewes Paschall day The author's reverend esteem of the Christian Sunday 3 The Morall Law THe third Sort of lawes recorded in the Scripture and imposed upon Gods People are the laws of the Decalogue the Ten Commandments Which Divines commonly call though improperly The law Moral So called because they were ordained as rules to guide and direct us in our demeanours or Manners for therin we find precepts Ethicall for our private persons against Murther Adultrey Theft Coveting And Oeconomicall for our deportment in a family as honouring of Parents Mercifullnesse to servants and poor Cattle And Political against Idolatry and for Reverencing superiors as Magistrates and especially Kings who are the Publick Parents of Subjects All these Ten Commandments are lawes Moral And more also they are lawes Naturall they are written in our hearts And more yet they were lawes and binding too before they were written in stone and so would be to the end of the World although they never had binne written therefore they are perpetuall all and every one of those Ten never to be abrogated or antiquated I say there are Ten of them although I do not beleeve or affirm that all the words in the fourth Commandment are so viz. the words which mention the seaventh day Sabbath of which I shall give an account anon for we shall find Ten without them The reason why I said that these Ten lawes are but Improperly called Moral is Because if we speak critically and Logically All laws whatsoever are Moral for all are but Rules for
mens manners and demeanours So are the lawes Judiciall and Ceremoniall before handled So are the Evangelicall precepts And all Politik both Imperiall and Municipall lawes So are the Edicts of Supream Magistrates So were anciently the Roman Senatus-consulta Plebâ—scita Consular Tribunitial and Praeterian Edicts and even the Canons and Constitutions of Councells and Synods were Moral but with his difference The Ten Commandements are Moral 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. by nature though they never had binne openly Commanded either by Word or Wrting The other Morals most of them are so Only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. by Constitution Nor could they have the appellation or the force and power of lawes except they had binne inacted Of the Ten Commandements Nine are confessedly still in full force and vigour whereof no doubt or question is made among prudent and sober Christians but only by another gang of those that are Leavened with the Antinomian dotage Only the fourth Commandement concerning the Sabbath is that which many good men stumble at which hath occasioned much distraction and trouble and bitterness and also many unprofitable written books by some that would have the Seaventh day kept literally on our Saturday as the Jewes did And by others who would ground the Christian Sunday upon this fourth Commandement and thereupon press the Jewish and Pharisaical strictness of Sabbatizing on the Sunday as if all the Scriptural admonitions for keeping of the Jewish seaventh day did by a kind of moral equity as they say require the same to be performed on our Sunday and therefore both themselves and their proselytes call Sunday The Sabbay day Nimiùm patienter as one saith too tamely and unadvisedly For in Horace all the New Testament they cannot find that our Sunday which is the first day of the week is ever called Sabbath unless they will call every day a Sabbath because the Gospels do in their account reckon several week-dayes by the Sabbath For they call our Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the first day from the Sabbaths we translate it The first day of the week Mat. 28. 1. And so it is Joh. 20. 1. 1 Cor 16. 2. Act. 20. 7. again Mar. 16. 2. So the Pharisee is brought in boasting that he fasted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Twice in a Sabbath we translate it Twice in the week so that any week-day might be named Sabbath as well as the first day or Sunday But this is so weak an argument for their Sabbath that the Learned Sabbatarians do not vouchsafe so much as to mention it Neither can they find that our Sunday or first day of the week was ever called the Sabbath day by any of the Ancient Fathers but only by Origen as is pretended by him but once that I could find His words are these â— Sabbatum Christianum observare est desinere ab operibus secularibus ad ecclesiam convenire lectionibus tractatibus aures praebere c. i. e. The observation of the Christian Sabbath is by laying aside our worldly business to assemble in the Church and there to give attention to what is readd out of the Scriptures and to what is delivered by the Preacher This is pretended to be spoken of our Sunday but it is not certain whether he said it of the old seaventh day of the Jewes or of the eighth day of the Christians for it is affirmed by our greatest Sabbatarians That Christians did assemble in Churches on the Jewish saturday-Saturday-Sabbath long after Origen's time And the Fathers do also acknowledg that Saturday and Sunday were for a long time Church dayes and so they were with us in England in mine own remembrance in Citties Corporations so had continued until this day if the Long-Parliament had not disturbed us yet even that Parliament dated their Saturday-Orders under the title of Die Sabbati That Christians did so assemble are we assured by Sozomen And â—even in the dayes Soz. Hist lib. 7 c. 19. of Theodosius the Elder long after Origen was dead for he thus writeth Sabbato Postridie Sabbati Constantinopoli Conventus Ecclesiasticus erat In multis civitatibus Aegypti lib. 7. c. 9 vespere in Sabbato mysteriorum participes fiâ—nt Just so saith Socrates also in the reign of the same Theodosius e Soc. Hist lib. 5 cap. 21. Licet omnes ubique Ecclesiae singulis septimanis die sabbati mysteria celebrent tamen Alexandrini Romani id facere â—enuunt Aegyptii finitimi Alexandriae synaxin sabbato exequuntur i. e. On the Sabbath or Saturday at Constantinople and in many Cities of Aegypt the Church assembled and communicated in the holy Sacrament in the Evening and Although all other Churches do weekly on the Sabbath celebrate the holy Communion as also those Aegyptians which border upon Alexandria do notwithstanding the Alexandrians and Romans refuse to observe that Order Sâ— Austin also mentioneth the Custome of Preaching on the old Sabbath-day even there and then when that day was made a fasting day d Aug. de verb. Dom. Ser. 43. Sermo in die Sabbat non erattum prandium eo die venâ—ebant maxime qui esuriebant verbum D there was preaching on the Sabbath day wherin no dinner was on that day came most of all those who hungred after the word of God This he said of the Saturday Besides it is very likely that Origen in using those words of christian Sabbath did only compare the holy practises of Châ—istians with the evil customes of the Jewes which lived in his time shewing that christians did more reverently use the Jewish Sabbath then the Jews themselves did for christians did on that day go to Church hear Scriptures Sermons Communicate But the Jews spent that day a Aug Ps 91. luxurioso ocio i. e in idleness luxury as Austin saith and in dancing also The Jewes of Alexandria spent their sabbath in Theaters or Play-houses in beholding Stage-playes and Pageantry as b Soc. Hist lib. 7. Cap. 12. Socrates affirmeth So Christians were better Sabbath-keepers than the Jewes were This doth not in the least prove that Christians called their own Sunday a Sabbath 〈◊〉 that Origen did so mean For the same Origen had before called our Sunday Diem Dominicum i. e. The Dominical or Lords day and quite distinguished it from the Sabbath day as c Orig in Ex. Hom. 7. Manna non descendebat in Sabbato sed primùm in Dominico die In Nostrà Dominica Dominus semper pluit Manna Intelligant Iudaei etiam tum praelatam esse nostram Dominicam Iudiaco Sabbato i. e. Manna never came down on the Sabbath day but God first rained it on our Sunday The Jewes may hereby take notice that our Sunday was even then so early preferred before their Sabbath And though we should grant that those words Christian Sabbath do there signify our Sunday yet this will not amount to any solid proof of the
Sabbath or Rest in Christ He tels us also that Ebâ—on the Ancient Judaizing Heretick raised a report d Id Haer. 30. That Saint Paul had desired the Jewish High-preist's dâ—ughter to be given to him in mariage but being denied in revenge he wrote against their Sâ—bbath anâ— Circumcision But the true cause of the Apostle's decrying the Jewish Sabbath was this e Id. iâ—iâ— Christus est magnum Sabbatum quietos nos faciens à peccatis nostris -Ejus figura erat parvâ—m Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsius adventum Christ is the grand Sabbath for he setteth us at rest from the troubles of our soules by reason of our sins the Jewish little weekly Sabbath was but a figure of Christ our great Sabbath and was to last but until his comming To this doctrine the learned Romanist's do assent as Bishop White hath observed out of Pet. Damianus Bishop of Ostia above 500 years since who thus writeth f Pet. Damiani lib. 2 Eph. 5. Quid per Sabbatum intelligere debemus nisi Christum in Illo siquidem Sabbato requiescâ—mus- spem ponimus i. e. What should we understand by the Sabbath but Christ for in him is our rest and hope St. Aâ—stin is most plentiful in asserting this doctrine for besides what I have observed before out of him he further saith of Circumcision and Sabbath a Aug. Cont Admantum c. 16. To. 6. Circumcisionem approbamus spiritualem- Sabbatum nam ad aeternam requiem intendimus We Christians approve of Circumcision but it is Circumcision spiritual mentioned Rom. 2. 29. Circumcision in the heart not in the letter but in the spirit and Colos 2. 11. Circumcision made without hands we approve of that Sabbath by which we intend and trust to obtain everlasting Rest Of this Sabbath he saith again b Id. Cont Adiman c 2. To. 6. Sabbatum non est repudiatum a nobis Christianis sed intellectum We Christians do not utterly reject the Sabbath but we understand it more truly than the Jews do Of the same mysterious Sabbath he saith again c Id de Gen. ad lit lib. 4 c 13. A fidel bus perpetuum Sabbatum observatur They that believe in Christ do keep a Sabbath perpetual What he meanes by this Sabbath is declared by these words d Id. Cont Faâ—stum lib. 19. c. 9. In Christo Sabbatum habemus nam ait Ego faciam ut requiescatis Our Sabbath is in Christ for he it is that saith I will give you rest Mat. 11. 28. And to shew the difference between the Typical and the Substantial Sabbaths and to what Purpose that Jewish Saturday-Sabbath was ordained He saith The Jews were offended because Christ commanded the infirm man to carry his bed on their Sabbath day Jo. 5. 10. But Christ might have answered them e Aug. in Joan. Tract 17. SacramentuÌ„ Sabbati signum observandi unius diei ad tempus datum Judaeis impletionem verò Sacramenti illius in illo venisse Sabbatum ad significationem meam vobis praeceptum est The Sacramental Sabbath or sign of keeping that day was imposed on the Jews but for a time because the fullfilling of it was performed by the comming of Christ for that Sabbath was given onely to signify Christ To this of Austin Calvin seemeth to me to subscribe where he saith f Calv. instit 2. 8. 31. Christus est verum Sabbati Complementum The keeping of a seaventh-day-Sabbath is but a vain and empty shadow except it be filled with the apprehension of Christ So that as all Typical and Ceremonial shadows were to cease when the thing was come which they signified the Sabbath being but such a sign must also so cease as Justin Martyr long ago taught g Just Dialog cum Triph. Sabbata finem habuêre nato Christo When Christ came Sabbaths went away Lastly it would be inquired what the Church of Englands doctrine is concerning that Sabbath in the fourth Commandment which Church I firmly believe to be in her doctrine and discipline the most truly Catholick Church in the world This we may discover by considering that prayer or suffrage which this Church hath required to be by us said at the rehearsing of this Sabbath-Commandment as at each other of them in these words Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law This prayer hath much troubled the minds of some of our Religious and well-meaning Countrymen because their teachers did not aright inform them in the true meaning of that Sabbath for both in their pulpits and also in their pâ—inted Catechisms they expound it to be meant only of sanctifying a day as the Jews did But if they so mean this prayer would be not only vain but also an impious mocking of God seeing the Commandment mentions onely the seaventh day and that precisely and none other and that is our Saturday which both we and all other Christian-Churches have utterly rejected but if they thereby understand our Sunday that is not so much as mentioned much less intended there nor may it be called a Sabbath day nor is the celebration of our Sunday to be enforced by vertue of that Commandment but otherwise as is before shewed But those Judicious Leanred and Godly men and also heroical Martyrs who were the compilers of our English Liturgy as Cranmer Ridley and others did rightly understand that Sabbath to signify Christ who onely is our Christian Sabbath and in this sence only we ought to understand it and then this Prayer must needs be confessed to be pious and necessary and not otherwise for the keeping of Christ by faith in him and sanctifying him that is considering his worth and benefits and demeaning our selves towards him so reverendly as becometh us and belongeth to his super-eminent hollness is the only way to procure an everlasting tranquillity Rest and Sabbath to our Consciences For without this Sabbath all our care will prove vain and the very Godhead will be but a terrour to us But if by God's merciful assistance we keep our selves fast in faith and so in Union with this blessed Sabbath we may then with comfort apply Ps 42. 5. that expostulation of the Psalmist to our own souls Why art thou cast down O my soul And why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance Now because the prayer above mentioned though it were granted to us is not full enough to supply and satisfy our defects and necessities for neither a good inclination readiness or willingness nor yet our earnest desires no nor our laborious endeavours to perform the Law do amount to the real and perfect keeping thereof without which we cannot enter into life as Christ hath said Mat. 19 17. Therefore the Church hath added another prayer at the end of these Commandements which is full and perfect In these words Write all
Church-prayer both in behalf of my self and others Lord Incline our hearts to keep this Law Amen Amen Thus much concerning the Sabbath Moral Next of the Sabbath Ceremonial Macrobius Saturnaliorum lib. 6. cap. 9. Quia seculum nostrum ab omni Bibliothecâ vetere descivit Multa ignoramus quae non laterent si Veterum lectio nobis esset familiaris A Discourse of the Jewish Hebdomarie or Ceremonial Sabbath wherein is contained an Exposition of the Later and Ceremoniall Part of the 4th Commandment CHAP. XVII An Exposition of the Ceremonial Part of the 4th Commandment begun That the 6 dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the 7th day is called a Sabbath onely because it is a figure of the true Sabbath That the 7th day Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the 8th day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the dayes of Moses St. Jerom 's Translation and our English compared The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of VVorks on the Jewish Sabbath That Corporall Rest was but the figure of our Rest in Christ HAving thus far proceeded in the search of the Sabbath Morall which is commanded in the fourth Precept of the Morall Law of God in these words Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it In the next place we are to consider the other words of that Law which we have declared to be meerly Typicall Ceremoniall and Temporall and obliging the Jews onely and not other Nations and to be now antiquated ever since the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh Which ceremoniall part taketh up all the words of this Law except onely those few above mentioned the severall branches whereof we will now endeavour to expound as they are in order laid down Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work 1. These words are no Command so as to require our labour all the other six dayes but they are onely a Permission by which the Jews were invited to a diligent and cheerfull celebration of their Sabbath in regard God had given them six dayes for their own occasions and reserved but one in the seven to himself when he might have left them but one in the seven which yet was not for any need that God had of it but onely for the benefit of his people just as be permitted all the Trees of Paradice to Adam except onely one Thus far Calvin and other Divines generally agree 2. For if these words were a Command to work all the other six dayes they would contradict other Laws whereby the Jews were commanded to Rest as at the Feast of the Passeover 〈◊〉 12. 16. and at Pentecost Levit. 23. 21. and at the Atonement Levit. 23. 28. at the Feast of Trumpets Levit. 23. 25. and at the feast of Tabernacles Levit. 23. 35. These Feasts did all depend upon the Moon and therefore might and did fall on any and every one of the other six dayes respectively 3. If this Law were Morall how could we Christians lawfully abstain from working on our Sundayes and Fasting-daies and daies of Thanksgiving and other Festivalls commanded by lawfull Authority It followeth But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God These words as I conceive are not rightly rendred by our English Translators of which we will enquire anon and for present take them as they are presented In what sense the seventh day is here said to be the Sabbath of the Lord our God we have shewed before namely That it is therefore called the Sabbath because it was appointed to be a ceremony and figure to represent to the Israelites the true and reall Sabbath or Rest in the Messiah So that it is called a Sabbath just as we call Pictures by the names of those things which they represent as the Painter in Aelian wrote over his pictures * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 10 c. 10 This is an Ox this is an Horse this is a Tree So in Scripture the Ark is often called JEHOVA as †Catech. part 2. p. 45. Beza observeth the Altar is also so called Exod. 17. 15. and the Dove is called the Spirit Joh 1. 33. the seven Kin◠are seven years Gen. 41. and the Rock i◠Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. For if the seventh day were the onely Sabbath intended in this Commandment we Christians should at this day be bound to keep it as much as the Jews were That Christ or the Apostles changed the seventh day to the eighth or Saturday to Sunday is often too boldly affirmed by our Sabbatarian Writers and too tamely swallowed by their followers which as yet they never have or ever can solidly prove But to say that Christ utterly dissolved the Ceremoniall or seventh-seventh-day Sabbath and yet left the true Sabbath unaltered to us which is our firm Rest in himself and that the Church first then Christian Magistrates also assumed another day even our Sunday instead of the Jewish seventh day for their holy Assemblies is true and easily proved although they never called this Sunday a Sabbath Nor can the Jewish seventh day possibly be that Morall Sabbath which is meant and intended in this fourth Commandment because it is here said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God For we are well assured that the seventh day is not so to be accounted the Rest of God as if God ceased from his operation on every or on any one seventh day but his Rest was onely in consideration of the Saviour of Mankind because on the first seventh day of the world he formed the Woman as is before shewed and even then on that seventh day and ever since upon every seventh day he hath been operative in governing the world and co-operating with every creature therein without any intermission at all But he is said to rest on that seventh day because then our first parents were compleatly and fully finished and in them was laid the foundation of the future Church that is Christ who together with his holy Members was to be propagated joyntly from the Man and the Woman So that Christ onely was and is the Sabbath or Rest of God and men Upon this reason it was that the seventh day was long after sanctified or set apart for a day of bodily rest that thereby it might be a type figure and ceremoniall remembrance or commemoration of Christ the great and mysterious Sabbath Therefore the Seventh day and the Sabbath day are two distinct and severall things and differ as much as the shadow and the body or as Christ and the Lamb that is as much as Type and Anti-type For as the Lamb literally was not Christ but his figure so the seventh day literally considered was not the Sabbath here meant but typically the shadow or representation thereof Just so the Apostle saith of this seventh-day-Sabbath and of other such like ceremonies that they are a shadow of things to come but the body is Col. 2.
be of things indifferent onely or though against some Laws of God which are but meerly ceremoniall as working on the Jewish Sabbath was then servants must obey actively but if their commands be against the Morall Law of God the servant must in no wise perform his master's command nor obey him therein otherwise than passively by bearing his punishment patiently In this case we have Christ's own direction concerning parents He that loveth father or mother more Mat. 10. 37. Luk. 14. 26. than me is not worthy of me And If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple For although it is not lawfull in any case to hate the persons of our parents otherwise than we must hate or sleight our own lives or souls yet in obedience to God we may and must hate and detest their pernitious commands 4. If this seventh-day Sabbath had been in force from the first seventh day of the world as some have too hotly and unadvisedly affirmed and if the Israelites in their Aegyptian bondage had been thereby obliged to Sabbatize as they must have been if it had been a Morall Law they must have obeyed God rather than men notwithstanding the Aegyptian rigour towards them But surely they had never heard of such Sabbatizing untill they were delivered out of Aegypt For when they petitioned Pharaoh by Moses to have leave to go into the desart three daies journey to sacrifice Exod. 5. 3. it seemed but a pretence for idlenesse and much more would their weekly Sabbatizing have been accounted by him who never had heard of any such thing For surely neither Jacob nor Joseph nor any of those other Patriarks Sabbatized while they continued in Aegypt which they might have done at their first comming and also during the great authority of Joseph and also would if any such morall Law had been imposed on them Therefore if they had neglected their Exod. 5. 4. Bricks upon an allegation of Sabbatizing not onely the inferiour Israelites but even Moses himself and Aaron also had been relegated as one saith Plaut in Asin Apud Fustitudinas Ferri-crepinas insulas Ubi v. vos homines mortu◠incursant boves But in the Babylonish Captivity when this seventh day-Sabbath was actually in force although no doubt the captive Jews were commanded and forced and therefore did work on this seventh day yet they did not offend God thereby because that Law was but ceremoniall and so must give place to necessity and to the great inconvenience of force and stripes In that book intituled Quaestiones Vet. Novi Testamenti which goes under the name of St. Austin The Author very judiciously thus writeth a Aug. parte 2. quaest 23. To. 4. Quod semper non licet non habet excusationem Sabbatum non observare quand que excusationem habet sed Adulterium c. nunquam i. e. That which to do is alwayes unlawful cannot be excused from sin upon any colour whatsoever but the breaking of the Jewish Sabbath-day in some cases is excusable whereas the transgression of the Moral Lawes of God as by Idolatry Perjury Murder Adultery c. is not at all to be excused in any case Thus this Writer evidently sheweth that the Jewish Seventh-day Sabbath was none of the Moral Lawes of God 5. Finally Let it be considered that these words Thou thy Son Servant Cattel and Stranger are not placed at the beginning of this fourth Commandement as Remember is nor mentioned until the Moral part of this Law was described and finished But they are with great wisdome warily reserved to be put into the Ceremonial part thereof because they do not belong to the Moral Sabbath which commandeth the keeping holy or the sanctifying of the Messiah for Cattel cannot sanctifie this Moral Sabbath Nor was there any need of requiring Parents or Masters to cause their Sons or Servants so to do because the Son and Servant were by themselves bound to it and if they did not the sin was in themselves and not in the Parent or Master For the Moral Sabbath which is Christ the Messiah might be kept holy or sanctified by Servants even in the midst of their sorest labours As our Christian Martyrs did keep this Sabbath even in the time when they laboured in the Mettal-mines and also in the midst of flames and other agonies Whereas the Ceremonial or Seventh-day-Sabbath is here appointed to be kept by resting from ordinary works without any mention of any other kind of sanctification which not only Servants and the most ignorant Ideots but Cattel also might keep For so the Heathen Romans had a Festival which they called a Ovid. Fast l. 2. Festum Stultorum And at Syracusa in Sicilie there was a Festival called b Plut. in Nicia Dies Asinarius And among the Greeks a Ovid. Fast l. 2. Feast which they called c Athaeneus l. 3. Porcalia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And another they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i e. The Feasts of Fools Asses Swine and Dogs So indeed the Jewish seventh-Seventh-day Rest or Sabbath was not only for Masters and Servants but also for Cattel as requiring only bodily Rest which therefore Bishop Andrews doubted not to call d B. Andr. Cat. on the 4th Com. Sabbatum Boum Asinorum In a word the Ceremonial Sabbath belonged not only to Men but to Cattel also who had their interest therein Therefore those words Servants and Cattel are joyntly placed in the ceremonial part of this Commandement and not in the morall part thereof with the Memento But the true Moral and Mysterious Sabbath which is Christ belongeth only to Mankind which the great Prophet doth therefore thus describe e Isa 58. 13. Si vocaveris Sabbatum Delicatum Sanctum Domini gloriosum glorificaveris eum i. e. If thou call the Sabbath a Delight the holy of the Lord Honourable and shalt honour him Here the Sabbath is described as a Person and not as only a day as is before observed And these Titles of Delight and Holy of the Lord and Honourable belong only to Christ who is indeed the only true reall and substantiall Sabbath both of God and Man The Stranger or Gentile includeth all other Nations besides the Jews even us Christians also and so the Jews at this day account us but as Gentiles and Strangers although the wall of partition between them and us is broken Eph. 2. 14. down But we Gentiles do at this day keep the true Moral Sabbath which is Christ so do not the Jews And the Jews keep the Saturday shadowie and ceremonial-ceremonial-Sabbath unseasonably now when it is out of date but so do not we Christians except there be any left among us that judaize CHAP. XIX The Exposition continued How God is said to have made all in six dayes and yet that he ended his Work on the Seventh day Why the Creation was
SABBATUM The Mystery of the Sabbath DISCOVERED Wherein The Doctrine of the Sabbath according to the Scriptures and the Primitive Church is declared The Sabbath Moral and Ceremonial are described and differenced What the Rest of God signified and wherein it consisted The fourth Commandment expounded What part of the fourth Commandment is Moral and what therein is Ceremonial Something occasionally concerning the Christian Sunday By EDM. PORTER B. D. Somtime fellow of St John's Colledge in Cambridge and Prebend of Norwich Aug. Cont. Adimant c. 2. Tom 6. Sabbatum non repudiatum est sed intellectum à Christianis Epiphan Haer. 30. Christus est magnum illud Sabbatum perpetuum Cuius figura erat parvum Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsus adventum Prudent in Apotheosi En tibi Christum Infelix Judaea deum qui Sabbata solvens Terrea Mortales aeterna in Sabbata sumpsit Origen in Math. Tract 29. Venient autem Dominus noster Sabbatum nostam requies nostra attulit nobis requiem Sabbati sui c. London Printed for Charles Webb and are to be sold at the Bore's Head in St Paul's Church-yard To the Right Honourable THOMAS Lord Richardson Baron of Cramond AND To the truly Noble and Vertuous Lady the Lady ANNE Richardson his right worthy Consort PEACE and TRUTH RIGHT HONOURABLE OF all the mistakes and misunderstandings of men in the grand Mysteries of our Religion there is none that may more deservedly be put into the catalogue of popular and almost universall errors then the erroneous conceivings and misapprehensions of the doctrine of the Sabbath wherein not onely the Antient and Modern Jews but also many Christians both learned and lewd did and do alike erre Insomuch that now of late the old saying is come to passe Communis error facit jus for we have lived to see Sabbatarian errors to be grown up into a Law and to be confirmed And the very appllation of Sabbath which in the Moral part of the fourth Commandment signifies Christ our Redeemer and in the latter or Ceremonial part of the said Commandment signifies the seventh day from the Creation or last day of the week to be applied to our Sunday which is the first day of the week and the eighth from the Creation And this even by many Preachers some of them being very learned whereby the lesse learned sort of Christians are misled into the same error with the Jews who would see no further into the great mystery of the Sabbath than onely the consecrating of the seventh day as ours at this time do the eighth day And neither of them will be as yet perswaded to look more deeply into that most divine and gracious Law of the Sabbath The principall misleader into these errours in our daies is I conceive that otherwise pious and learned Book entituled The Practise of Piety the right Author whereof I think is concealed A late a Advice to a Son Writer thinketh that it hath been too oft printed because as he saith it is contrary to the Church Protestant in the doctrine of the Sacrament b pag. 513. 515. Edit 32. I think it far more contraâ—y to â—he Church Catholick in the Doctrine of the Sabbath which word Sabbath this Writer not onely applies to our Sunday but also labours vehemently with multitudes of Arguments unnecessary uncogent and also untrue to prove it the Sabbath meant in the fourth Commandment Seneca saiâ—h c Sen. lib 3 Cont. 22. Suspectus est judici qui plus quam se defendit Verily his over-many vain prooss and superfluous pleadings may to a judicious Reader make his cause to be suspected the more either of error or which is worse of designe and collusion For some of our own learned Writers have long ago declared in their printed Books that the late or yesterday use of calling our Sunday The Sabbath was set on foot by that sort of men who have made it their trade to asperse both the Doctrine and the Discipliâ—e of this Church on purpose to please and accommodate those turbulent spirits that have for a long time waited for an opportunity to make a prey thereof And these their instruments may justly be suspected to carp at this Church for their own designes as Politian saith of one of his opposits d Polit. l. 7 Epist 2. Non ideò me carpit ut carpat sed ut victum quaerat And indeed our Zelot Sabbatarians by such practises have of late well feathered their nests though with the ruine of the most renowned Church in the world but alitèr non fiunt Floralia And they have moreover abused the present State with this word Sabbath whereby our Sunday is of late re-baptized or Turkened into a Sabbath which our former Parliaments in their Statutes in the daies of our fore-fathers and untill the reign of our late gracious King Charls of blessed memory and inclusively and the Church of England also for weighty reasons called by none other name but Sunday But such things need not seem strange when the Nobles and Worthies of David and also the Sage and Reverend Aaronites and their Learned Levites are excluded from the Sanedrim As for the appellation of Sabbath so misapplied to our Sunday no authority of Scripture can with any colour of right reason be alledged either directly or derivatively from thence The Jews that were converted and made up a Body of the Primitive Church and first began the celebration of this day did never call it Sabbath nor did any Apostle so call it nor indeed any of the antient Fathers nor was this day meant by * Sabbatum Christianum Origen who is untruly said to have called it The Christian Sabbath as will appear in this a Chap. 4. Book As for the other late and new name of Lord's Day which they would derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalyps Rev. 1. 10. because our English Translation doth so render those words which yet they will not bear the right reddition whereof is not The Lord's Day but The Dominicall day as our Englishmen generally ever did before and yet do call the Sunday-Letter not The Lord's day Letter but The Dominicall Letter And the Western Church in all Ages called this day either Dies Solis or Dominica For in Scriptures the Lord's Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and are often used by St. Paul and St. Peter and are 1 Cor. 5. 5 Phil. 1 10. 2 Pet. 3. 10. rightly rendred The Day of the Lord and The Day of Christ but in a far different signification from that which these men now call the Lord's Day for those words signifie The Great Day of Universall Judgment Besides a judicious Reader will consider how harshly and uncouthly this appellation sounds for when they speak of many Sundayes they call them Two Three or Four Lord's Dayes as if we had more Lord's daies than
one If they wil needs use the name of the Lord in calling that day 't were far more consonant with the phrase of Scripâ—ure and Euphony to call iâ— The Day of the Lord which yet will not come home to their purpose Therefore those prudent Sâ—atesmen and learned Prelates which were interessed both in composing our Statutes and also in compiling and authorising our Leiturgie did with great caution decline this appellation and call'd it Sunday as some of the most antient Fathers did before both in the Greek and a Iustin. Mart. Tertul. Latine Church and this in likelyhood before the appellation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Dominica was generally received although the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in some particular Churches used before those Fathers wrote as may appear by that authentick Epistle of b Ignat. Epist 3. Edit Plant. Ignatius ad Magnesianos Neither did those Primitive Christians before mentioned who first began this solemnity nor the Apostles who approved thereof long before the Revelation was written ever call this day so as it is now called We find it recorded under the title of The first day of the week or first day after the Sabbath Act. 20. 7. and 1 Cor. 16. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we find no mention of Sabbath Lord's day or Resurrection day nor did they then call it Sunday because the naming of the seven week-dayes by the seven Planets was never before or at that time used by the Jews nor by the Romans their then Magistrates Whereby it is evident enough that the assigning of the first day of the week for holy assemblies was not originally upon consideration of Christ's Resurrection on that day Notwithstanding the succeeding Church did conform unto that day because their Predecessors had fixed thereon And they further alledged new reasons for the retaining of it They considered That Christ did indeed rise that day from the dead That the descending of the holy Ghost at Pentecost That the creation of Heaven and Earth and Light That Manna rained from Heaven first and all these on this first day of the week Bellarmine addeth if you will believe him b Bel. de Cultu Sanct. l. 3. c. 11. To. 2. That by his and other learned mens calculations the Nativity of Christ fell on this first day of the week These were the reasons for retaining this day though not of instit uting it But in succeeding times the Jewish appellation of dayes by First Second Third c. of the Sabbath or Week was disused Therefore the Church affixed a new name to that day according to the Custom of their Country or Ordinance of the Church and hence came the denomination of Dominica and Sunday respectively We cannot with reason account this appellation Sunday to be any disparagement to the solemnity of the festivall in regard that our Saviour himselfe for whose Honour we sanctifie this Day is called by his Prophets The Sun which shall no more Isa 60. 20 Mal. 4. 2. Matth. 17 2. Matth. 13 43. Rev. 1. 16. 10. 1. 12. 1. go down And the Sun of Righteousnesse his glorious Transfiguration is resembled to the Sun his Saints are promised at their glorification To shine as the Sun his owne Countenance and his mighty Angell and his Spouse are described by the glory of the Sun so that this Name is high and glorious The disusing of this word Sunday and Dominica of late among us is upon some reason of State as of some other good old words also as The word Kingdome and Three Kingdomes and Bishop and Common Prayer Leiturgy and Letanie are now left And instead of them We have Common-wealth Three Nations Presbyters Independents Directory Sabbath Lords-day c. but oâ—d words may return again and new words may grow obsolete when the State seeth it needfull as one saith Multa renascentur quae jam cecidêre Horace cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula Si volet usus As for the warrant and authority for hallowing and assembling thereon We say That it is not grounded on the fourth Commandement which doth not in the least mention or meddle therewith Neither did Christ or any Apostle command it as Chemnitius a Learned Protestant granteth Exam. Conc. Trid. But we keep it rather by vertue of the fifth Commandement which requireth us to Honour our Parents wherein lawfull Magistrates are included and their just lawes authorized Our reasons are these 1. The institution of the Church Primitive 2. The Apostolicall approbation thereof 3. The Imperiall decrees and also the Regall lawes of this Realm 4. The constant practise of the Church Catholick in all ages thereof 5. The scripturall authority for it which is derived as is said before from the fifth Commandement although not directly or expressely and down-right but secondarily consequently and collaterally in these and the like passages Submit your 1 Pet. 2. 13 selves to eveâ—y Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake And Obey them that Heb. 13. 17 have rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Christ also said If be neglect the Church Matth. 18 17. let him be as an Heathen man and a Publican For these and such like reasons we adhere to it and esteem them so ponderous that we account it an high insolency and pride either to abrogate or but to alter the day as some have attempted Thus far we agree in the thing but we dissent from the name Sabbath and Lords day and also from all superstition therein practised As touching the Mysterious Apocalyps from which the late appellation of Lord's day is taken by a Translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not rendred exactly to the Originall Letter as is shewed before Although this Scripture be still confessed both by the Church Protestant and Roman to be Theopneust and Canonicall yet it cannot be denied that many Learned men both Anciently and Lately have doubted concerning the Writer thereof and also have been anxiously perplexed with the obscurities therein First for the Writer That he was named John the Book often declareth But whether he were St. John the Apostle the Text doth not declare nor do the Ancients agree therein in so much that in consideration of former disputes concerning the Writer and also of the style phrase form or manner of speech therein used a Prolegom in Apoc. Beza is inclined to conjecture that if it were not written by St. John the Apostle yet that it was written by St. Mark the Evangelist who was also named John because we read of John surnamed Mark Act. 12. 12. and Act. 15. 37. But Beza's conjecture disagreeth with the History of St. Mark who is recorded by b Hier. in Marco St. Jerome to have suffered death in the eighth year of Nero c Origines Alexand. p. 38. Mr. Selden's Eutychius saith he died in the first year
first Heaven then Earth When the Heaven of Angels was made That their Heaven was intended principally for mankind Why Heaven and Earth are mentioned together Why the making of Hell is not mentioned although it was prepared within the first six daies Why the Creation is mentioned in this fourth Commandment and not in any of the other nine That the Morall Sabbath doth signifie the Creator which is God the Son That he is called the Beginning the Word and the Wisdom of God and is therefore here commanded to be sanctified CHAP. XX. The Exposition continued That all the divine persons co-operated and joyned in Creating Resting Blessing and Sanctifying How the Second Person or Son of God is the Rest or Sabbath of the same Son of God How he resteth in himself Of the divers considerations of God the Son in respect of his Godhead and Manhood Of his severall Appellations respectively Why the seventh day was preferred above the former six That the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath was instituted for a memoriall of the Resting and 〈…〉 of God CHAP. XXI The Exposition concluded The meaning of blessing and hallowing the Sabbath day The difference of hallowing God's Name and hallowing of Creatures The differences of Holinesse When the seventh day was first hallowed How and when it was dis-hallowed Something of Sacriledge How the Prophets spake truly of things to come although they spake as if they had been past Of the Propheticall figure called Anticipation The directions of the Fathers and Scripturall examples thereof applied to this Sabbath CHAP. XXII Reasons why God having conferred honours on the seventh day did also lay some slurs upon it as 1. That this day-Day-Sabbath was not made known till Moses time nor at all mentioned by zealous David nor this Sabbath-Law by Christ 2. In that God expresly commanded some works on that day 3. That no Manna fell on it 4. That Christ lay dead on that whole day 5. That God called it but a signe and that it was nothing else 6. That it is said to be made for man 7. That it was impossible to be generally kept and also inconvenient occasionally to the Jews The Conclusion That the impossibility both of the seventh-day-Sabbath and also of the Morall Law was designed by God on purpose to drive man to seek for Rest and Salvation onely in the Lord Jesus Christ Errata PAg. 5. line 8. read force and necessity p. 8. l. 3. tell us p. 13. l. 27. Judaical p. 25. l. 6. Onera p. 26. l. 23. Judaical p. 32. l. 31. We are p. 34. l. 16. Judaico p. 37. l. 6. Speaketh p. 41. l. 23. Pharisaical p. 46. l. 34. killing law p. 48. l. 5. Law of God p. 65. l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 89. l. 17. intermundium l. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 107. l. 6. God added p. 134. l. ult And in him p. 166. l. 16. judicial l. 20. judicial p. 168. l. 1. 10 act a part p. 227. l. 1. Jeremie In the Margin p. 13. l. 1. Ignatius p. 125. l. 3. Laertius in Diog. De minutioribus viderit lector The Mystery of the Sabbath Discovered The Sabbath Morall CHAP. I. The Church disturbed about the Doctrine of the Sabbath Of Sunday-Sabbatism Of works practised therein and Recreations forbidden That the celebration of Sunday is pious although not commanded by the Fourth Commandment How the Antient Patriarks did Sabbatize yet kept not a Seventh day That the ten Commandements are still in force A passage in St. Austin and Isychius explained and an abuse of the Commandements in the Roman Catechism shewed THE various opinions of men in the Doctrine of the Sabbath as it is delivered in the Fourth Commandment of the Morall Law hath more disturbed the Christian Church in these latter times then they did the Fathers the Zealous Christians in the Church Primitive yet then was the Doctrin of the Sabbath mistaken and perverted by Ebion who taught that Christians should necessarily keep the Jewish Hebdomarie or seventh-day Sabbath as some among us have done and is therefore by a Epiph. haer 30. Epiphanius and b Theod. haer fab Lib. 2. Theodoret branded with the mark of a Judaizing Heretick And now although the rejection of the Jewish Seventh-day-Sabbath is almost generally agreed among us yet a new Sabbath is set up on the Eighth day or first day of the week to be observed with as great strictnesse as the old Sabbath was on the Seventh day by the Pharisees for now not only labouâ—s are forbidden but also honest recreations such as we do not find to have been forbidden by those very Jewish zelots Which late strictnesse hath given an occasion or pretence to some to think it to be required rather in opposition to former permissions then for any new light or religious zeal because they have observed that by order of the same Superiors who forbad Recreations Souldiers have been commanded to march and the utensils and luggage of War Carts Wagons Artillary have been drawn out and most cruell bloody battells fought on that very new Sabbath-day and all this upon pretence of either private personall necessity or necessity publik which is now called Reason of State whereupon some of the approved Preachers of these times have openly in the Pulpit declared their dislike and said that now the State Civil is become like a Ship and the Church like a Cock-boat which must follow the motions and turnings of that Ship of State intimating hereby that our Religion must be reformed so as to be subservient to the interest and accommodations of the Civill governors which is quite contrary to the desires of those men who hoped and expected that their Kyrk should have bin made the Ship and the State should have bin the Cock-boat Mose and Aaron were brethren and agreed that Moses might be directed by Aaron in Spiritualls and Aaron Supported by the Brachium temporale or civill authority of Moses for stablishing true Doctrine and godly Discipline which formerly was the happy and peaceable usance of this kingdome wherein the state civill was supreme because as Optatus truly said against the disturbing Donatists c Optat. lib. 3. p. 83. Non est Respublica in ecclesia sed ecclesia in Republica est i. e. The Commonwealth is not included in the Church but the Church is in the Commonwealth And yet the civil power will not excuse those governors before God which authorise the breaking of the Commandments and Moral law of God For if the Seventh-day Sabbath practised in the Jewish Commonwealth or the Eighth among Christians which some yet call the Sabbath were indeed one of the ten Commandments of God which certainly are moral and perpetual then did the Jewes sin in performing the works of Warr and of Circumcision and Midwifery and Sacrificing at the Tabernacle and Temple on their Sabbath day And if our Sunday be really commanded by this morall law of
God or grounded thereon by a moral equity as some have untruly affirmed then neither private necessities nor publick reason of State can quit us from the guilt of Transgression thereof The Rule of Divines is which I firmly beleeve to be true Non licet in quavis necessitate leges Dei morales seu naturales violare i. e. It is not lawfull in any case of necessity to violate the moral or naturall lawes of God For example In the times of Persecution the ordinary commands of Persecutors were a Optat. lib. 3. Nega Deum Incende Testamentum Thus pone i. e. Deny thy God Burn the Book of God Worship the idol And these were injoyned upon pain of present torment and death And what greater necessity can be imagined then these and yet the Martyrs refused life upon such unlawfull conditions Joseph would not yield to adultry with his lady though he knew the consequence of imprisonment nor the 3 Hebrews Gen. 39. Dan. 3. worship the golden imâ—ge though they were assured of the fiery furnace All inconveniences dangers and necessities must submit to the moral law of God better it is to buâ—n or die then to deny Christ or blaspheme God and bear false witnesse There is a necessity to obey God but no necessity of continuing our naturall life by ungodly means In times of Persecution the Martyrs might have escaped torment if Necessity might have excused them But it is far otherwise in lawes meerly Ceremonial whether Jewish or Christian the transgression of this sort of lawes is excusable by necessity if it be a true real and pressing necessity in this case the Proverb will take place Aug. in Soliloq c. 2. To. 9. Necessitas non habet legem i. e. Necessity hath no law and Inter arma silent leges Lawes humane are dumb in time of Warr. Therefore because the Seaventh day Sabbath of the Jewes was meerly a law Ceremonial it might without sin upon necessity be slighted Upon this reason it was that Mattathias the wise and zealous Macchabean priest with his associates decreed and first taught the Jewes that they might upon necessity fight and repell their enemies on the Sabbath day as we read both in b Ios Antiq l. 12. cap. 9. 1 Mac. 2. 41. Josephus 1 Maccab. 2. 41. So likewise the Jewes of Antioch when they were by force of necessity compelled refused not to Work on their Sabbath day as the same Josephus reporteth And our Saviour excuseth his disciples for plucking eares of corne and causeth c Jos de Bello lib. 7 Mat. 12. Iohn 5. the impotent man to cary his bed and declareth that the priests who by their great labours about sacrifices in the Temple do profane the Sabbath yet are blamelesse Thus David did in necessity of hunger eat the holy Shewbread and the people of Israell for 40 yeares together in the wildernesse abstained from Circumcision as being very dangerous in their marches although it was imposed on them with great 2. Chron. 30. 2. Ex. 12. charge And in the dayes of Good Hezekiah the Passeover was celebrated in the second month which was otherwise then the law prescribed Ex. 12. All these things were done upon necessity or some usefull convenience without any offence to God * because the Sabbath day and Circumcision and Shewbread Num. 9. 11. and Passeover were but Ceremonialls and not morall lawes I doubt not but aged Eleazar the 7 brethren mentioned both by h Josephus d Iosep de Maccab. 2 Mac. c. 6. 7. and in 2 Macchab. cap. 6. 7. who were put to cruel tortures and death for refusing to eat Swines-flesh offered to Idols might have eaten thereof in that necessity and have saved their lives without offence to God because that law was but Ceremonial Only they knew their eating might have given Scandal or offence to their brethren the Jewes and therefore they abstained just as St. Paul saith in the like case 1 Cor. 10. 27. 28. Whatsoever is seâ— before you eaâ—e asking no question for conscience sake But 1 Cor. 10. 27. if any say unto you This is offered in sacrifice unto Idols eat not for his sake that shewed it Just so it is with our Christian Ceremonies whereof Sundâ—y is one and therefore the Solemnity and celebration therof in case of pressing dangers and necessities may be omitted But let us be sure that the said necessities be so indeed and not sinfull or contracted by our own faults or only pretended and then God will excuse us though some men will not Thus some Christians in time of Persecutions were condemned to the mines and listed under the title Metallicae Condemnationis and were forced there to sore work every day Sunday all as we read in Eusibius Hilarie Chrysostome â— Eus Hist l. 8. c. 13. Hil. cont Constant lib. â— Chrys de laudibus Martyrum hom 70. So at this day those Christians who are in Slavish captivity under the Turks are compelled to undergo hard labours even on Sundays and yet thereby neither the former Christian Confessors nor these do offend God which yet they would if our Sunday were a branch of the moral law of God There is not I think any good and prudent christian that doth not approve of most willingly submit to an holy celebration of our Christian Sunday although they do not think it to be enforced by virtue of the 4th CoÌ„mandment of the moral law or any equity thereof but upon another reason and ground because the equity pretended must be derived not from the Moral Sabbath but from the Jewish Ceremoniall Seaventh-day-Sabbath the equity whereof is only this That as God under the law required one day in seaven to be Sanctified as a figure and shadow of his people's rest in their Messiah to come So the Christian Church hath ordained one day in Seaven to be a memoriall of our rest in the same Messiah our Saviour who is come and our Sunday may also be called a kind of shadow as the Jewish Seaventh day was only their shadow went before the body as shadows somtimes do and our shadow followeth after the body for the body of both is Christ The Sabbath which is truly Moral and perpetual and which is intended meant and injoyn'd in the 4th Commandment is another manner of Sabbath much differing from the Jewish seventh day Sabbath or the Christians Sunday and is not such a sabbath as is by many now adayes supposed neither is the vigor and force of that Sabbath-Commandment as yet antiquated or expired but standeth in as full strength and in an obliging power as much or rather more then it had during the Jewish Synagogue or before the incarnation of our Lord. And I trust I shall make it appear that this Sabbath-law is written in our hearts evidently and convincingly as much or rather more than any other of those Moral Lawes and that this Sabbath was to be kept
from the very Creation of man or from that very time when God commanded man to abstain from the Tree of knowledg And yet in this Assertion I shall not in the least gainsay the Doctrine of those Ancient and most learned Fathers as a Iust dial cum Tryph. Tert. Adv. Iudaeos Euseb de Demonst lib 1. c. 6. Justin Martyr and Tertallian and Eusebius who tells us that neither Adam nor Enoch nor Noah nor Melchisdeck did ever Sabbatize And b Athanas in Synopst Athanasius also who affirmed very truely That the observation of the 7th day sabbath be an not untill the dayes of Moses All which I firmly beleeve to be true provided that we understand their Assertion in the same sense that they meant it viz of the hebdomary weekly or 7th day Sabbath which verily is not that Sabbath which is meant mysteriously implied in the fourth Commandment For the Sabbath which in the fourth commandment is required to be Sanctified is the true substantiall mysticall and eternall Sabbath which is the Son of God the Messiah the great Peace-maker even the Lord Jesus Christ of which true Sabbath the Jewish Leviticall Ceremoniall or seaventh-day Sabbath was but a meer shadow type or figure which shadow is now vanished as other legal shadows are such as Circumcision and Sacrifices both which were farr more ancient then the weekly Sabbath was whereas the Sabbath meant and intended commanded in this 4th commandement was in force and kept by all the holy Patriarks before Moses was born and before it was written in stone it was written in man's heart as all other Moral lawes were and it was and is to last untill the end of this world and in the next world also and not to be Antiquated at all as the seaventh-day Sabbath was and is For the Moral law which was written by the finger of God consisteth of ten Commandments just so many no more nor lesse which number the holy Scripture mentioneth Ex. Ex. 34. 2◠34. 28. Ten commandments or Decem verba Foederis Tenn words And so again Deut. 4. 13. Tenn words or Commandments And God wrote them on two Tables of Stone to signifie the durablenesse of them all and therefore the Moral Sabbath there meant must continue as long and as firmly as any of the other nine We must still have Ten Commandments which is the reason that St. Austin and generally all our Divines to this day call this Moral law Decalogum as consisting of Ten words or Commandments The same Father in his book intituled a Aug. Tom 3. Speculum reciting the Moral law out of Ex. 20. doth quite omit the fourth commandment which is of the Sabbath and this he did because 1. He knew that the seaventh-Seaventh-day Sabbath was none of the Moral laws of God but that it is totally antiquated and expired 2. Because he perceived that men did mistake the meaning of the true Moral Sabbath by fixing the duety thereby required only on the keeping holy of a day whereas they should have known that the Sabbath there meant is only Christ So that by this misconceit men slighted the Substance and magnified the Shadow for the same Father had said before b Aug. epist 86. Judaeus si sabbatum observando Dominum negat c. i. e. If the Jew by observing his Sabbath day doth thereby deny that his Lord Messiah is come how can the Christian safely observe the Sabbath day And again in his 119. Epistle to c Epist 119. cap. 12. Januarius cap. 12. he thus writeth c. Praeceptum de Sabbato solùm figuratè praecipitur de requie quae in solo Deo certa invenitur-ergo non ad literam jubemur observare diemillum nam nisi aliam Spiritualem requiem significet lex ridenda judicatur i. e. The law of the Sabbath day is only figurative signifying that Sabbath or rest which is no where to be found sure and certain but only in our God Therefore we are not hereby to observe a day as it is literally set down for unlesse some other Spiritual rest be thereby meant that Sabbath law might seem ridiculous Thus he Upon the same reason Isychius of Jerusalem affirmeth That the sabbath day which the Jewes observe is none of the Ten Commandements although it was written among them for the Sabbath there meant signifies d Isych in Levit. lib. 7. c. 26. Requiem intelligibilem saith he i. e. not a Corporal but a spiritual or intelligible Rest which rest is only in our God He added that if we will take the words going before viz I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Aegypt for one of the commandments we shall still have Tenn Indeed The mysterious Sabbath which is really meant and intended in the morality of the 4th Commandement is only that God which delivereth us out of not only Egyptian but also Hellish Slavery which deliverance is implied and couched in this word Sabbath so that we need not put out one of the commandments and in the room of it take in a new for preserving the number of of Ten for that number will be found therein without such chopping and we are offended with the Romanists for such practises about these commandments who to hide the second commandement which forbiddeth image-worship have in their Catechisms quite omitted it although it continueth perfectly in their Bibles and to supply the defect they have obtruded the fallacy of Composition in making but one Commandment of the two first And the fallacy of Division in making two of the last as is apparent in their books and particularly in Ledesma's dial p. 81. Ferus libell precat p. 59. 60. the Catechism of Jacobus Ledesma a Jesuite and also of Ferus CHAP. II. The word Sabbath That it signifieth Rest Of the Rest of God and the Rest of man Of our rest Corporal and Spirituall The diffferences of Sabbaths The severall sorts of Jewish lawes which command or enforce the Sabbath The Judicial lawes of the Jewes not fit to be imposed on Christian WHat this word Sabbath signifieth we are certified by two learned Jewes first a Philo. de cherubin Philo saith Sabbatum interpretatur Quies i. e. The interpretation of Sabbath is Rest With him b Ioseph Antiq. l. 1. c. 2. Josephus agreeth Sabbatum significatrequiem i. e. that it signifieth quiet or Rest With them our Christian writers generally consent as Eusebius Nazianzen Epiphanius Jerome Austin The Rest which is signified by this word Sabbath is 1 The Rest of God mentioned Gen. 2. 2. God rested on the 7th day from all his works And so again Ex. 20. 11. How the most blessed Godhead can be said to rest which never laboured or was weary we shall inquire hereafter Secondly The Rest of man and this Rest is of two Sorts First Rest Corporal by ceasing from worldly servile labours on the 7th day both himself his family and his poor beasts
Sunday-Sabbath because Origen's authority is invalid having bin condemned by the Church as erronious and his Sectaries are put into the Catalogue of Hereticks by d Epiph. Haer. 64. Epiphanius under the title of Origianistae and yet that book of Origen is now not extant in that Language wherein he wrote it but was translated into Latin by Ruffinus who is generally noted to Deteriorare as St. Ambrose speaketh i. e. to be a depraver of all books that he took in hand to translate or reform Notwithstanding I have Intituled this book Sabbatum By which word I mean that Sabbath which is Moral and natural and is commanded in the fourth Commandement which is still in force and binding both Jewes and Christians and all men in the world and so it was before any Law was written and should have so continued although it had never bin written in stone or although no Day-Sabbath had bin commanded For this fourth Commandment injoyneth and obligeth us to a more noble and needfull Sabbath than ever any seaventh-day Sabbath was or could be which surely the holy Patriarks did apprehend before the dayes of Moses but the Scribes and Pharisees and vulgar Jewes after Moses did not nor yet do to this day The true substantial and moral Sabbath intended in that Law is their Mâ—ssiah our Christ who is the Jesus i. e the Saviour and therefore the perfect and only and everlasting Sabbath or Rest of all believers Which truth I trust will hereafter clearly appear But if our Brethren do indeed believe that our Sunday is that Sabbath which is literally or but equitably as they say commanded in the Moral Law then verily they should perform all those duties and services which the Law giver commanded to be done on the Sabbath day then they must offer bloody Sacrifices two Lambs for the Sabbath besides the two which were for every week-day and Bâ—ke 12 great loaves or cakes of Shew-bread which was to be done on the Sabbath and in order heerunto they should joyn 1 Chron. 9. 32. with the Jewes and help them to build their Temple once more at Jerusalem where these duties are to be performed and with them set up the Fifth Monarchy or Earthly Kingdome of Saints If it be said that the Sunday-Sabbath differs from the Jewish in that theirs was on the last day of the week but this on the first This will not help because other festivals of the Jewes were Sabbaths and all required sacrifices and might fall on any day of the week as the Passover and Pentecost and the rest for they were moveable feasts depending on the Moon But the performance of such shadowie ceremonies now would be a real denyal of Christ as if he were not come and were not the grand Sacrifice of which the former were but meer Figures which figures now are but Cyphers All good and prudent Christians do believe and confess that the Jewish Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath is now quite gone expired and vanished and that since the true body of them and the true light is come the Jewish figures and shadowes are not to be any longer used by us among which shadowes the Sabbath was one and the most principal of all Surely we ought to abstain from applying the appellation of Sabbath to our Sunday lest therein we should seem to Judaize Justin Martyr saith a just Dialog cum Tryph. Gentes Christiani non observant Sabbata ne Judaei putarentur i. e. The Gentiles or Nations which are Christians do now abstain ftom observing the Sabbath lest they might thereby be thought to be of the Jewish infidelity and seeing that the thing it self is gone there is no cause why we should retain the name For the very word Sabbath applyed to our Sunday is not only a sign of our ignorance in Religion but it is moreover Scandalous in that it hudwinketh the people with a Mosaical Jewish vaile as the Apostle sepaketh 2 Cor. 3. 15. And thereby hindereth them from discerning the true Sabbath which is Christ and leadeth them into the Jewish error so as to think that the whole duty required in the fourth Commandment consisteth in keeping holy one day of the week as if that were the only or principal and ultimate duty thereof which is not only untrue but dangerous also And this error of Sabbatarians mixed with their too hot and ignorant zeal therein and in some other Judaizing practises hath given our adversaries occasion to detest our Persons and also to blaspheme our Religion and as a Luther an once did some Calvinists to call us Baptized Jewes For this reason it was in all probability that the Ancient-fathers most learned Christians in the very primitive times of the Church did so warily cautiously abstain from putting the appellation of Sabbath upon the Christian Sunday lest they should be thought to Judaize And the same reason also moved the Church to alter the Jewish day of the old Passover for the solemnity of our Easter is the remembrance and confession of the Easter that is the Rising or Râ—surection of Christ from the precise fourteenth day of the Moon to the Sunday and this lest Christians should be thought to celebrate only a Typicall Passover as the Jewes did as if Christ the true Passover were not come and therefore Tessares-cae-de catitae the Church adjudged and condemned those that held to the fourtenth day for Hereticks under the appellation of Tessares-cae-decatitae or Quarâ— adecimani as we find in b Epiph. H ar 50 Epiphanius The same reason also moved the holy Apostles themselves to meet in Council on purpose against the errors of some Pharisees and Judaizing Christians in their dayes who said that the Converted Gentiles ought to be Circumcised and to be commanded to keep Moses law they meant the law Ceremonial as we read Act. 15. 5. So early did they decree against the danger of Judaizing This is not said by me as in dislike or in the least to disparage the Christians godly and zealous care in Sanctifying the Sunday devoutly and seriously to the service of our God and by joyning in our holy assemblies in praying and praising God and hearing his Word readd and opened to us and also privately meditating theron Far be it from me so to â—ilipend the godly usance of the Church in all ages thereof and the sacred lawes and decrees of Christian Princes upon which as on two pillars the Authoritative sanctification of our Sunday standeth and not otherwise Onely in all humility I offer this caution to the less learned and more credulous Brethren Rem tene linguam corrige Good Christian keep the Sunday or as now it is in England called of late though not by the Church of England the Lords-day and keep it holy in the name of God but abstain from calling it a Sabbath day Because the Sabbath was but a figure and is gon and because neither the old Jewish Sabbath nor the Christian Sunday are that
put the appellation of Sabbath upon Christ for as the Son of God considered in his pure Divinity and without and before his incarnation is called The Lord of hosts Isa 1. 9. Jer. 11. 20. which in the New Testament is rendered The Lord of Sabaoth Rom. 9. 29 Jam. 5. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word Sabaoth is by some Divines a Polan p. 140. affirmed to be one of the names of God So the Church of England accounteth it and ascribeth it to every one of the Three Persons in the Hymn singing Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoâ—h And so it was heretofore esteemed in this Kingdome as we perceive by an odd story of one of the Bishops of London reported by Bâ—shop Godwin out of Matthew Paris thus As this Bishop lay musing in his Bed he heard an unknown voyce saing to him O Gilberte Foliot Dumrevolvis tot tot Deus tuus est Astarot The Bishop presently and undantedly replyed Menâ—â—ris Daemon Deus meus est Deus Sabaoth If therfore the Lord of Sabaoth were the name of the Son of God before his commng in the flesh which name signifieth the Lord of Armies as if by this name it were signified that the Godhead was at defiance and warr with mankind before our Peace-maker appeared for us Then why should we doubt to affirm that The Lord of the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 12. 8. Mar. 2. 28. Lu. 6. 5. is the name of the same Son of God since he is become The Son of man and God incarnate and Emmanuel And this in order to be a person fitly prepared and qualified to perform the law for us and to suffer for our Transgressions as a Redeemer a Saviour and procurer of an everlasting Sabbath and Rest to our otherwise unquiet restless and troubled souls and consciences As also himself professeth Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest And ye shall find Rest unto your souls Surely every good Christian will find that to be true which one said to the same purpose a Aug. confess Inquietum est Domine cor meum doneâ— requiescat in te i. e. My heart is unquiet O Lord until it may find rest in thee Now if that Sabbath mentioned in this Commandment be not meant of Christ then there is no precept in all the Decalogue of faith in Christ without which the Law is to us impossible we should be Restless And further also If that Sabbath do not signify Christ then have we Christians no Sabbath at all and if so what will become of us But we are assured by the great Apostle that although the Jewish Ceremonial Seaventh-day-Sabbath be quite gon yet Heb. 4. 9. There remaineth a Rest to the people of God This rest is there called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a Sabbath or Sabbatism And that it may appear to what people of God this Sabbath appertaineth he tels us before Vers 3. We which have believed do enter into Rest Therefore this Sabbath or Rest belongeth to us Christians He further addeth vers 6 They to whom it was first preached entred not in because of unbeleif The Rest or Sabbath here mentioned must needs signify Christ The Jews are they to whom this rest was first preached that is to whom the Gospel of Christ was preached as Christ commanded Luk. 24. 47. to begin at Jeâ—usalem The Jews entred not into this Rest because of their unbelief i. e. they could not be received into the body mystical of Christ as members thereof because they did not believe in him but rejected him But the Apostles other faithfull Chrisians do enter into this Rest through faith as it is said We which have believed do enter that is they enter into Christ they are united with him thereby obtain this Râ—st so partake in the benefits which Christ merited by his most holy life and precious death And those benefits are indeâ—d our everlasting Sabbath For what can be so truly called a Rest and Sabbath as our repose resting in the Lord which leadeth us to an everlasting Sabbath in heaven For all our restings or Sabbatizings which are Earthly are but as dreams in respect of our Rest in Christ for he is that Sabbath whose Rest is called Blessedness and his after this mortal life is ended as we read Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the dead which dy in the Lord-that they may rest from their labours The Apostle in that place Heb. 4. useth two several words for Rest 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Rest and Sabbath This he did because he was to speak of two several Rests 1. The Earthly Rest of the Israelites after they were put into quiet possession of Canaan by Joshuah who is there called Jesus 2. The everlasting Rest of Gods People by entring into Christ through Faith and this Rest is called Sabbatism so that Sabbath and Sabbatism do plainly signifie Christ and our Rest in him For confirmation hereof it is worth our observation That the great Prophet Isaiah c. 58. v. 12. speaketh of the Sabbath as of a Person If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy-day and shalt honour him He calls the Sabbath Him which must signifie a Person and cannot be said of a meer Day Who is meant by this Him is declared in the next verse to be the Loâ—d for so it followeth Then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord. So that the Sabbath here meant is the Lord even the same Lord who in the Gospel calls himself The Lord of the Sabbath whereas other typical Sabbaths whether weekly or annual were but signs of this grand Sabbath as we are taught by another great Prophet Ezek. 20. 12. I gaâ—e them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifie them St. Paul to me seemeth to make this Doctrine evident and past exception when he saith Col. 2. 16. Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the new-moon or of the Sabbath-days which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ What can be more plainly said then this to shew That Christ is the true real and substantial Sabbath And that all other Sabbaths are but signs types figures and meer shadows of Christ who is the Body that projecteth these shadows for God himself had so said before concerning the seventh day Sabbath which only is that type which is mentioned in this fourth Commandment Exod. 31. 13. Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it is a sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord So this which was the principal and most frequent Sabbath of all was no more but a sign and what the signatum i. e. the signification of it was is shewed to
these thy Lawes in ouâ— hearts we beseech thee This prayer is grounded on the promise of God recorded both in the Prophets and also in the Gospel Jer. 31. 33. Heb. 18. 10. I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts If we enquire what that Law is and how God doth write it in our hearts and to what intent it is done The Answer is That this Law is Christ The putting or writing of it in our hearts is the mission of the Spirit of Jesus into us The intent or purpose thereof is that by a spiritual union of Christ with us we may fulfill the Law For because Christ and his Members are united by this Spirit and so become one mystical body therefore what Christ hath done in obedience to the Law must be accounted as our obedience and so imputed to us that because he hath performed the Law we also in him have performed it The Apostle tels us a 2 Cor. 13. 5. Jesus Christ is in you and b Gal. 2. 20. Christ liveth in me and c Eph. 3. 17. Christ may dwell in our hearts And Christ himself saith d Matth. 28 20. I am with you alway even unto the end of the world And the Apostle again e Gal. 3. 28. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus And that we may know that when we have the Spirit of Jesus in us then we have also the Lord Jesus himself in us Another Apostle tels us f 1 John 4. 13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit But how shall it appear That the putting of Christ into us is the putting of the Law of God into our hearts The Answer is That Christ is the Law there meant and he is called the Law and is really the Law * Moses is called by Phâ—lo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more is Christ so and not only so but he is moreover The Law with all advantages to us for he is the Law fulfilled That Christ is called the Law the Psalmist tels us a Psal 2. 7. Rom. 8. 2. I will preach the Law whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art mâ— Son Here the Son is called the Law or Precept of the Lord. Then that Christ is the Law fulfilled or the fufilling of the Law Of him it is said in another Psalm b Psal 40 10. Heb. 10. 7 In the volume of thy Book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy will O my God I am content to do it yea thy Law is within my heart And this Christ himself professed c Mat. 5. 17. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill the Law This also was signified by his Type the Ark wherein d Heb 9. 4 the Law was put for the Ark represented Christ and the Law in it signified that Christ should keep that Law and this he did perform only to our behoof that his obedience might be accounted ours Upon this reason only it is that the Apostle so confidently saith e Phil. 4. 13. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me If he can do all things then he can do all the works of the Law But we are well assured that he could not in his own proper person alone considered perform the Law but it must needs be thus only performed by him in and through Christ And in this consideration only Christ is our Rest and Sabbath For this reason our Church prayeth that God would incline our hearts to keep this Sabbath-law which is Christ That by keeping him the whole Law of God may be kept by us through and in him so as is here expressed by having the Law thus written in our hearts Thus this Moral Law which as Divines acknowledge is altogether impossible to the Natural man especially as it is exegetically aggravated and heightened in the Gospel is by this Sabbath made possible and easie to the Matth. 5. Spiritual man so the Apostle tels us a Rom. 10 4. Christ is the end or perfect on of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth that is He that believeth in Christ hath the benefit of performance of the Law brought home to him So St. Ambrose tels us b Ambr. in loc Perfectionem leg is habet qui credit in Christum CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first Institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the World is described without Evening and Morning The Sabbath described by Philo Parallel'd with Melchisedech and both Types of Christ IF Jesus Christ be the only Sabbath which is mysteriously covered and spiritually meant and really and ultimately intended in the Moral part of this fourth Commandement as certainly he is because he only is our Redeemer our Mediator and the Peace-maker of God with man We must next enquire how this Sabbath if it be so understood can be called a Day as here it is Remember the Sabbath day for by this word Day a man may reasonably-imagine that the principal intendment of this Precept was only for the Celebration or Sanctifying of a day as the Jewes do yet think and many good Christians among us do still though erroneously believe although they agree not in the self same day with the Jews Their reason is because not only in this former part of the fourth Commandement which I have shewed to be a Morall Natural and an everlasting Law but also in the latter words annexed which are a part of the Law ceremonial and therefore but temporal and transient it is also said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God by which words a man at first hearing would think that the Sabbath in both parts of this Law is nothing else but a day for if the seventh day be a Sabbath why may not the Sabbath be thought to be a Seventh day 1. Our Answer is That the seventh day is called a Sabbath because it was a type and figure of our true Sabbath and Rest which is Christ as the Jews corporal rest was but a figure of our spiritual rest in Christ And because it was so appointed for a figure or sign therefore it hath the name of the thing figured or signified thereby as other signs and types have for so the Paschal Lamb is called the Passover yet we know Christ only is the true Passover as the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 5. 7. So the Rock is called Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. So of the Eucharistical bread it is said This is my body though it was but a Sacrament or holy sign of the body of Christ And the seven Eares are seven Yeares Gen. 41. 26. Just so the seventh day is the Sabbath that is the sign type and figure of the mysterious Sabbath which is Christ 2. As the sign hath
the name of the thing signified so the thing signified hath the name of the sign for Christ is not only here called the Sabbath day because he is the thing signified by that day but he is also called by the names of other typical festivals as the Passover as is 1 Cor. 5. before said and by the name of the great festival Sabbath of Propitiation or Atonement described Levit. 16. And this because he only is that Lamb of God that causeth the destroying Angel to Passover us untouched and he only is as the Apostle cals him 2 Joh. 2. 2. The Propitiation for our sins It was full four and twenty hundred yeares by our English account after the Creation when God first appointed any Seventh day to be celebrated as a Sabbath or Rest yet the very first seventh day of the world is so described by Moses Gen. 2. 2. as to signifie Christ as may reasonably be conceived for that day is there set down without any mention of its Evening or Morning And this is the observation of St. Austin on the 92. a Aug. in Psal 92. 7 In Sabbato non invenitur vesper c. 1. In that Sabbath day described Gen 2. where the first mention is of Gods Rest the Reader shall not find any limitation of it by Evening or Morning although in every other of the former six dayes it is expresly said The Evening and the Morning were the 1 2 3 4 5 6th day b Pbilo lib de festis Philo the Jew and his fellow Jews called the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. without Mother I know not what this Jew's meaning was to call this day so more then other dayes possibly God might extort a truth from him without this Jew 's right understanding thereof Christ our true Sabbath was indeed without Mother in respect of his Divine Nature as also without an earthly father in respect of his humane Generation and therefore Melchisedech being the figure of Christ is for the same reason described without father and without mother Heb. 7. 3. Yet as we are well assured that Melchisedech had both a father and a mother so are we as certain that the first Seventh day had both an evening and a morning But as Melchisedech is said to be without father and mother for this reason only because there is no mention of his parents in holy Writ and this also was that thereby he might be a fit representative of Christ So the first Seventh day is set down without any mention of Evening and Morning that so it might be a fit figure of Christ who had no beginning in respect of his Godhead nor ending in respect of his Manhood and Godhead also The Prophet saith of Christ Mich. 5. 2. His goings forth have been from everlasting So the Gospel saith of him Heb. 1. 8 out of Psalm 45. 6. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever The very Jews confessed John 12. 34 We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever Christ therefore is not only a Sabbath but a day also and an everlasting day without any evening or morning The holy Priest Zacharias Luke 1. 78. cals Christ The Day-spring from on high And the Prophet Zechariah cals him Orientem i. e. the East which is all one with Day-spring Zech. 3. 8. Adducam servum meum Orientem And Chap. 6. 12. Ecce vir Oriens nomen ejus i. e. Beheld I will bring forth my servant the East And Behold the man whose name is East Our late Translators have for East rendred Branch I know not why except they were out-voted by some that are faln out with the East but how unfitly hath been lately unanswerably shewed by that learned Writer Mr. J. Gregorie of Oxford Christ calleth himself John 8. 12. The light of the Joh. 8. 12. world Old Simeon cals him Luke 2. 32. A light to lighten the Gentiles Christ is so much a Day that the Prophet styles him Dan. 7. 9. The Ancient of Dayes which the Hebrews affirm to be said of Ben-David that is of Christ the Son of David as Mr. Broughton hath told us for he indeed is the Creator of all dayes because he is our only God as the very Heathens God is by them called a Horace Diespiter i. e. the Father of Dayes Whether the Psalmist meant Christ when he said Psal 118 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made Or whether Christ meant himself and his own humane nativity when he said Joh. 8. 56. Your father Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it Let those that list examine But St. Austin upon these and such like passages in Scripture doubteth not to affirm b Aug. in Psal 54. Christus est dies aeternus i. e. Christ is an everlasting day This I trust is enough to shew that Christ is called both our Sabbath and also a Day and therefore he only is this Sabbath day which we are required to keep holy or sanctifie which is next to be considered CHAP. IX Of Sanctifying the Sabbath How the Godhead is said to be sanctified How the humane nature of Christ is Sanctified Of the name of God and that it signifies God himself That the name of Jesus signifies the Person of Jesus How God sanctifieth us and how we sanctify God How Christ is to be kept holy THere is yet another scruple in the words of this Moral part of the fourth Commandement to be examined and that is How we can truly affirm that the Sabbath-day there mentioned doth signifie Christ seeing that whatsoever is meant by those words the same is required also to be Sanctified or kept holy Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy And Deut. 5. 12. Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctifie it It may therefore be demanded how Christ can be said to be Sanctified or kept holy for the word sanctifie seemeth to signifie to be made holy no man will say that Christ can be by us made holy especially more holy than he is already for both the Godhead Manhood of Christ are called Holy As Holy Holy Holy is said of all the Divine persons And Holy is his name And Thy holy Child Jesus And the Holy one of Israel And Be ye holy as I am holy To this our Answer is that it needs not to seeme strange or uncouth that our Lord Jesus Christ is required to be by us sanctified or kept holy especially in respect of his assumed humanity by which onely he is our Sabbath and not otherwise seeing the pure Godhead considered without Incarnation is also required to be Sanctified as the great Prophet tels us Isa 5. 16. God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness and Christ so teacheth us to pray Hallowed or sanctified be thy name Let it not be thought that this word Name doth signifie no more but an appellation of God as if the only meaning were That whensoever we
therefore most worthily account and call our Sabbath Yet this is not all for we shall find that Christ is not only the Rest of men but that he is also the Rest of God which is next to be considered CHAP. X. Of Gods Resting That it is not a cessation from working Nor meant of his ending the Creation Nor his laying aside his care and Providence in Government This Rest and Working doe consist together Something concerning the Creation of Humane Souls Of Vniversals what they are and where to be found A Question discoursed Whether God hath created any new kinds of Creatures since the first Seventh day CHrist is our Christian Sabbath we know none other Sabbath besides him for none but he can give sure and lasting Rest to our Souls he only hath wrought our peace with God and appeased the just displeasure of the Godhead he hath effected our Reconciliation and he is that Atonement by which God and man are reunited or set at one By his mediation it is that a Quietus est or Acquittance of our debts is signed by God so that if we can keep this Sabbath holy and persevere therein we may with true comfort and cheerfulness say with the great Apostle Who shall Rom. 8. 33. lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth it is Christ that died Those that teach others or that do imagine That the only duty required by this Sabbath-precept is the sanctifying of a day whether the last day of the week as the Jews do or the first day as some Christians think and therefore presume to call it not only the Lords day which is but a novelty with us in England as is said before but also the Sabbath day They are farre short and beneath the great purpose and intendment of this fourth Commandement and conceive too meanly and lowly of that most high and mysterious Sabbath which signifieth not only the Rest of man from bodily labours but also our rest from labours and terrors of our Conscience and moreover it representeth to us the Rest of God as it is said both in this Commandement and before also Gen. 2. 2. He rested on the Seventh day For to say that God laboured in these six dayes of Creation is a weak and heathenish conceit such as we read in that Epicurean Dispute in Tully a Tull. de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. Si in mundo Deus inest aliquis qui regat qui gubernet qui cursus astrorum muta ionesque temporum rerum vicissitudines or dinesque conservet terrasque maria contemplans hominum commoda vitasque tâ—eatur nae ille est implicatus molestis negotiis operosis If there be a God in this World ruling and ordering it and continuing the motions of the starres and seasons of the years and the various order and changes of times and taking cognisance of the Land and Sea for support of mans life and welfare surely he is a God incumbred with many troublesome and stirring businesses As if the Almighty Demiurgus could not both create and govern this World except he took great pains and labour therein And yet those Christians which say that Gods resting on the Seventh day signifieth only his cessation from that great Work do in a manner affirm the same But the resting of God hath a more high and more noble signification than so as I trust we shall anon make evident In order whereunto these two Queries are to be discoursed 1. What is here meant by Gods resting 2. Why he is said to rest on the Seventh day and not on any of the former six dayes To the first Querie VVhat is meant by 1. Querie Gods resting We say this resting doth not at all signifie or intend any cessation of the Godhead or any suspension or intermission of his operation or working for although it be said He ended his work which he had made and also That he rested from all his works which God had created Gen. 2. 2. yet it is not said that he ceased resting and ceasing are not all one Nor can this Rest be meant of any ease or refreshment of God as after some motion or stirring work or labour for such a rest was needless to him who never laboured at all Nor can it be meant of any weariness of God that were impossible St. Austin saith truly b Aug. de Civit. lib. 12. c. â—â—â— In opere Dei non est labor nec in quiete desidia quiescens agit agens quiescit And again Deus nec creando defessus nec cessando refectus i. e. In Gods working there is no labour nor in his resting any cessation he resteth working and working resteth he was neither weary in creating nor refreshed by ending it Nor can this Rest of God be so understood as if he then laid aside and cast off all care and providence for his Creatures which he had newly made This cannot be imagined by us for all Christians and Heathens also do acknowledge Gods perpetual management and government of the World for he did even that very Seventh day and all other dayes since co-operate with his Creatures by his assistance it is that these great wheels of Heaven are continually turning Nazianzen saith God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his perpetual operation Both Divines and Philosophers call God Actum Purum and the Schoolmen call him Natur am natur antem i. e. God is purely Active and he that continually supplieth his Creatures with the ability of Operation which we call Nature for in him we live and move and have our being Of him Act. 17. 28. it is said in St. Austin c De Civ l. 4. c. 12. Deus est anima mundi Mundus est corpus Dei e. i. God is operative in the World so as our souls are in our bodies And the Poet saith of the divine Spirit Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Virg. Aeâ— 6. Mens agitat molem magno se corpare miscet All which is signed for a Scriptural-truth by St. Paul 2 Cor. 12. 6. God worketh all in all So then this Rest cannot signifie Gods cessation from working nor the withdrawing his Providence from his Creatures But our Neoterick Theologs have found out another Answer and do generally expound this Rest of God to signifie only a cessation from the work of Creation for they say that although God doth continually work or operate or co-operate with his Creatures which are already made yet he doth not create or produce any new Creatures indeed he daily maketh individual or particular Creatures as Men Beasts Fishes Plants and Hearbs hut all these new productions are of the same Species i. e. sort and kind that God made at the first 1. In this Answer we observe two things First It is confessed that this Rest of God is not an absolute cessation from Work but only a cessation
prolonged six dayes The order of Creatures first Heaven then Earth When the Heaven of Angels was made and that it was intended principally for Mankind Why Heaven and Earth are mentioned together Why the making of Hell is not mentioned though it was prepared within the first six dayes Why the Creation is mentioned in this fourth Commandement and not in any of the other Nine That the Moral Sabbath doth signifie the Creator which is God the Son who is called The Beginning the Word and the Wisdome of God and is therefore commanded to be sanctified For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in in them is and rested the Sevenâ—h day IT is here said That the World was made in six dayes and before Gen. 2. 1. that the Heavens and Earth were finished and all the host of them And yet it follows immediatly That on the seventh â—â—y God ended his work which he had made How both these Propositions are true we have shewed before namely That although the Woman was not extracted and separated nor builded or formed out of the Man until the seventh day yet it is truly said that the Creation was finished in six dayes because the Woman was included in the Man Materially Substantially and Originally although as yet Informiter as the Glosse saith that is not formed fashioned or compleated which work was respited until the seventh day and thereupon it is said that on it he ended his Work and not before In six dayes Although God could have made the World in one minute yet he prolonged the work for six dayes whereof St. Austin and other Writers attempt to render some account as 1. To intimate that after the toylings and labours of the six dayes or Ages of this World his Servants should have rest with Him 2. To teach us that we should not expect that God will do all that he can do for us on a sudden either in conferring Mercies temporal or Graces spiritual but orderly and by degrees as calling justifying glorifying and in his good time The promised Seed of Abraham was not born till the old age of his Parents nor the Egyptian deliverance performed nor the Land of Canaan possessed till four hundred yeares after the Promise Heaven and Earth The order of these Creatures is observable First Heaven then Earth The blessing of Jacob was The dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth But Esau's was The fatness of earth and the dew of heaven A true Character of Worldlings and Epicures who preferre earthly things before heavenly as one in the a Claud. de Rapt Pros lib. 1. Poet saith Salve gratissima tellus Quam nos praetulimus coelo So the Epicure in Nazianzen professed Da mihâ— praesens i. e. give me my portion in this World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let God reserve the future to himself Which is but the same that some among us profess even by their own words and others farre more wickedly practise by bloody deeds prosecuting earthly profits pleasures and honours with the manifest neglect and disclaiming of heaven and trafficking for hell as Witches do and all this at a much lower rate than Satan offered Mat. 4 8. to Christ Heaven Gen. 1. 1. It is said In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth The Heaven there meant I take to be that which St. Paul cals The third Heaven which to us is invisible 2 Cor. 12. 2. that it might be the Paradise or habitation of Angels as both a Aug. de Civit. lib. 11. Austin and other Divines have thought because as God ordained the earthly Paradise for Man at or before his creation so he prepared the Paradise of Heaven at or before their creation and this because it is said Gen. 2. 1. The Heavens and the Earth were finiâ—hed and all the host of them The word Heaven alone implieth the creation of Angels as Austin saith in the place before cited or if not these words all the host of heaven will include them And here it is said The Lord made heaven and earth and all that therein is By which words we conceive that not only the house of Heaven but also the Inhabitants thereof were finished So the Heaven which is said to have been created in the beginning must signifie the Empyreal or highest Heaven because the Creation of this lower heaven which is visible is said to have been done in the second day's work and it is called The Firmament Gen. 1. 7. And this Firmament is also called Heaven vers 8. To pâ—t a difference or distinction between the former and later or the highest and lower Heavens and this to me seemeth to be confirmed by the words of Christ Come ye blessed Mat. 25. 38. inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World By which words surely he meant that Heaven which was created in the beginning for blessed Angels and Men. Now although this highest Heaven was made and also inhabited by Angels yet God is not said to rest in that Work nor untill he had finished the Man and the Woman and in them had laid their Saviour to conduct them to that Heaven which was not intended only for Angels but principally for Mankind as Christ said prepared for You. In order whereunto the Angels were to be instrumental as we are taught by the Apostle Are Heb. 1. 14 they not all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of salvation By which most gracious provision our God hath declared himself to be a true Philanthropus And also a lover of Mankind rather more than a lover of Angels For out of this heavenly Paradise the apostate-Angels were soon cast and so left without a Redeemer or any hope of return One of them it was that deceived Eve therefore the fall of Angels was before the fall of Man Indeed Man also was sent out of the earthly Paradise for sin but yet he was not left without a possibility of Reconciliation and return to a better Paradise which was to be effected by the Seed of the Woman even the Messiah who is therefore the true and reall Sabbath of Man And herein also is the love of God to Man highly expressed in that he rested only in consideration of Mankind and the Saviour of us and not in the creation either of Heaven or of Angels Heaven and Earth See how our merciful Creator in the very beginning joyneth Earth with Heaven although the Earth was then invisible clouded in darkness and in an abysse of waters between it and Heaven yet they are here joyned as to intimate so early that notwithstanding the powers of darkness and the worldly insultations of proud Oppressors God would in time bring together and unite Earth with Heaven which he performed by and in Christ Even the first Adam was composed of an heavenly Soul and an earthly Body as a resemblance of the second Adam who
obedience of that Law which is imposed on him by the mighty Creator of Heaven and Earth In the first of these Laws which a man would imagine to be the greatest God useth only this motive I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was to move them by way of gratitude to adhere only to him their Deliverer and not to acknowledge any other God But the motive used in this fourth Commandement of sanctifying the Sabbath is far stronger because the deliverance of his people out of bondage might possibly have been performed either by Treaty or by the Arme of flesh without those plagues of Egypt and wonders at the Red Sea for the Israelites were numerous enough to have fought the Egyptians and to subdue them they wanted only Arms and Utensils of Warr which yet might reasonably have either been forced from the Egyptians or supplied by a forrain power we well know â—gypt was not invincible having been so often subdued Now the motive used in this Sabbath Law is proper only to the Almighty and absolutely incommunicable to any Creatures for none but God did or could make heaven and earth which is generally confessed by Heathens Jews and Christians Plato called God a Plut. in Symp. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So by Philo the Jew he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by Dyonis Areop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by Nâ—z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by St. Paul b 2 Cor. 6. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is but The Almighty Father and Maker of the World Among the wise Sentences of old Pythagoras this is recorded for one If any man come and boast that he is God let him create another World and we will believe him And in the holy Scripture This making of Heaven and Earth is often mentioned as a peculiar character of the true God As In the beginning Gen. 1. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth And Psa 146. 5 Happy is the man whose hope is in the Lord his God which made Heaven and Earth So it is in the New Testament Acts 14. 15. and 17. 24. And by this the true God is differenced from false Gods as The gods that have not made Heaven and Earth shall perish And All the Jer. 10. 11 gods of the Nations are Idols but the Lord made the Heavens And this character of God is put into the very front of our Creed First As a strong motive to incline us to believe and trust in him Secondly To inform the weaker sort of Christians who cannot appreâ—â—end what God is or what to make the object of their faith That it shall be requisite and sufficient for them at first Tâ—â— believe in God under this notion thus Whatsoever he is that made Heaven and Earth in him do I believe for so the Psalmist declareth My help Psa 121. 2 cometh from the Lord which made Heaven and Earth This great motive here used to incline us to sanctifie the Sabbath doth evidently shew that this Sabbath-Law is of greater concernment to us than the first Law is The reason whereof we have declared before * Chap. 5. And moreover That the Sabbath which is here principally meant doth not consist in keeping of a day whether the last day of the week which God imposed upon the people of Israel only and that but for a certain time Or the first day of the week which God never at all commanded But another kind of Sabbath is here commanded to be sanctified which Sabbath being rightly and deeply considered will prove and appear to be that very same Lord God that made Heaven and Earth For we have proved before First That the Sabbath day mentioned in the Moral part of this Commandement doth signifie God the Son because in him only the Godhead can be truly said to Rest and not otherwise Secondly We have proved That the Jewish Seventh day Sabbath was appointed only to be for a type figure and memorial or commemoration of that true and grand Sabbath which is Christ From these premises we here inferre That the making of Heaven and Earth is mentioned in this Commandment on purpose for a motive to incite us to a serious and most reverentiall sanctification of this true reall and substantiall Sabbath because he that is here called the Sabbath day is the great Day-spring from on high and is really He that made heaven and earth So that if we will acknowledge that the Creator of heaven and earth is to be worshipped and sanctified by us then must we also confesse that this Sabbath which is the Son of God is so to be sanctified No learned or prudent Christian I suppose will deny that this Son of God was the Creator of Heaven and Earth or if any do the Scriptures and primitive Church will gainsay them The Fathers expound these words Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created to signifie God the Father in God the Son And Joh. 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word that is the Word or Son was in the Godhead even that Word by which all things were made For the Word Principium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Tert. Advers Herm. Tertullian observeth doth not signify onely Ordinativum i. e. a Beginning in respect of the order of time but Potestativum i. e. a Primacy in power and authority For from this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Princes Potentates and Magistrates on earth are by him called * Id. Advers Iâ—daeos Archontes and by others Demarchi i. e. Powers Princes and Rulers of People One of the sayings of Pittacus the Philosopher was b Laert. in Pittac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Magistracy or power will show the disposition of a man Hence also are the words Archangelus in St. Paul Archiepiscopus in Chrysostome and Epiphanius and Archipresbyter and Archidiaconus in St. * Hieron Epist 4. Jerom. As to the appellation Word The Psalmist saith By the Word of the Lord the heavens Psal 33. 6 were made just so the Evangelist tells us All things were made by him That this Word was Joh. 1 3. God the Son every one knowes The Psalmist saith again vers 9. Let all the Earth and all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of of him for he spake the Word and it was done The Word by which the world was made and of which Moses thus wrote God said Let there be light and Let there be a firmament is not to be thought a transient or vocall word as Austin saith c De Civ lib. 11. c. 8. Non sonabili verbo sed intelligibili And by such a word as d In Ioh. Tract 37. Manebat non sonando transibat i. e. The world was made by that internall and substantiall Word which did not passe away from God as our words do from us but by his Word permanent of which St.
Ter. And we often read of Alter tu and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Ille ego and Ego ille as if a man were another and not himself Just so the forenamed Father speaketh of God * Aug. in Joh. Tract 27. Domine repellis nos à te da nobis alterum te So we may often observe Pâ—eachers in their Prayers appealing from God to God when they mean from God as considered onely in his Court of Justice to the same God as sitting in his Temple of mercy which is onely Christ In like manner the great Apostle speaketh of God and of Christ severally as of two 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and this is usuall in Scripture †Act. 4. 2â— Rom. 1. 7. 1 Cor. 1. 3 Although we know that the Lord Jesus is that very same God But the Second Person in the Trinity is described in holy Writ as if he were distinct and different from himself and this is in regard of a two fold consideration of his Person First If we look on him and consider him onely in his pure Divinity then according to the Scriptures we call him The mighty Isa 9. 6. God the everlasting Father The Creator by whom all creatures were made God the Word God the Son And the eternall Son of the eternall Father And the Lord JEHOVA Of him it is said Thy throne O God is for ever and ever Secondly When we consider him together with his assumed Human Nature then we call him Messiah Christ God's Annointed Emmanuel The Word made fleâ—h God incâ—rnate God manifested in the flesh God in the likenesse of sinfull flesh In the form of a servant Made of a woman and The Son of man Which appellations cannot appertain to this Second â—erson but onely in respect of his Incarnation The Premises being acknowledg'd and granted these Mysteries will be discover'd 1. How God the Son is both the Creator of all creatures and also the Rest or Sabbath of the God head 2. How the Son of God may be truly said to Rest in himself 3. How the Rest it self is said to Rest in it self and the Sabbath in the Sabbath All which the Reader will understand by considering these few Aphorisms following which are deducible from those two Considerations of the Person of Jesus just now mentioned 1. The Son of God considered onely in his pure Divinity is the Lord and the Creator who is here said to Rest 2. The Son of God considered in respect onely of his Godhead cannot be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of God and Men. The reason is because the Sabbathship of this Son of God conâ—steth not in his pure Divinity for if so then this Sabbath which is fixed onely on the first seventh day must have been before and also from eternity But it consisteth in consideration of the human Nature assumed into personall union with the Divine Nature 3. The Son of God considered onely as incarnate or as the Son of man or as Christ cannot be called the Creator of the world The reason is because the Creation was performed by this Son of God before the foundation of his Incarnation was wholly laid as is shewed before or before he could be called the Son of man 4. The Son of God is and may be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of the same Son of God This Proposition is thus to be understood That God the Son or Word who is the onely eternall God did and still doth rest in himself so as is said in this Commandment but his so resting is onely in consideration of his Incarnation and as he is Emmanuel and not otherwise So that he is not to be called the Sabbath or Rest either of himself or of us men as he is onely the Son of the Father but as he is also the Son of his mother for in this consideration onely he is styled in his Types the Rest of the Godhead and the Resting place the Habitation the Temple the Delight and the well-beloved Son in whom God is well pleased or as Beza most judiciously rendreth those words in whom the Godhead doth acquiess as is before noted This is that Sabbath or Sabbatism of which the Apostle speaketh Heb. 4. 9. that there remaineth a Rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the people of God The sum and conclusion is 1. The Son of God is the Creator even of the Son of man and of all the world 2. The Son of man is the Rest or Sabbath of the Son of God and of all holy men Rested the Seventh day In the whole History of the Creation we find mention but of seven daies and no more for all succeâ—ding daies are but the re-iteration of the first seven Of these seven the last onely is blessed and graced with the Rest of God and therefore preferred before the first day wherein Heaven was made and also before the sixth day wherein Man was created And this without any injury or slur to any of the former daies When the noble Generall The mistocles was twitted and repined at by some succeeding and inferiour Commanders because he only had the name glory of those Victories which had been obtained by their joynt-labours and valour the Generall answered them with this Apologue Once said he the working-day contended with the Holy-day for preheminence upon this reason that the Working-day by labours and molestations prepared all things ready for the solemnity but the Holy-day without labour onely rested in quietnesse and enjoyment of those labours The Holy-day replyed * Plut. Quaest Rom. Sed eâ—o nisi fuissem in nunquam esses i. e. Had it not been for the Holy-day Working-daies had not been at all His meaning was that without his wisdom and policy whom they accounted but as an idle Holy-day they had all been defeated captivated and utterly lost So is it here The seventh-day is therefore preferred before all other the former daies because it represented the great Creator of all daies and the Redeemer of the Man and the Woman and of all their posterity without whom no daies had been at all or if any had been yet without this Sabbath they had been to us but daies of misery and but wofull Parasceues against the day of wrath Whereas this mysterious Rom. 2. 5 Rom. 5. 9. Sabbath is he by whom we shall be saved from wrath Wherefore as all the elder sons of Jesse passed before the Prophet and not one of them was chosen to the honour of Unction that it might be reserved for the youngest even David so not one of the elder dayes is graced with the honour of God's Resting but that preferment is deservedly reserved for the last or youngest day which day did indeed signifie David yet not the literal or typical David but Christ the Son of David who is very often in Scripture expresly called David as Jer. 30. 9. Ezek. 34. 23. Hos 3. 5.
In a word he that understands in what particular thing the Rest of God consisteth may by the same easily apprehend why it is fixed on this seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed c. That which our English readeth Wherefore St. Jerom and the Latines generally read Therefore idcircò From which word we observe that the Judaicall or Ceremoniall Sabbath was not appointed in consideration of the work of Creation or that men should on that day contemplate and meditate onely on the creatures of the world although those wonderfull works are also right worthy of our serious consideration and should be a great motive to incite us to glorisie the Almighty Creator but it was principally ordained to put both the Jews and us Christians also in mind of the Rest of God and to move us all to consider in what this Rest consisteth which doth far more concern us and our happinesse than all the world without it because otherwise neither the world nor any creatures therein nor the perfect knowledge by our Studies and Arts of all the excellencies and secrets thereof can bring us to that everlasting Rest which was but typically figured by this Ceremoniall Sabbath For What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul Mat. 16. 26. Now that this Wherefore or Therefore relateth to the Rest of God and not to his creating of the world we are expresly taught by Moses who tells us That God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his works So that the Gen. 2. 3. Rest of man on that day was afterwards enacted by a Law for a memoriall of the Resting and not of the Working of God Concerning the blessing and sanctifying whereof we are next to enquire CHAP. XXI The Exposition concluded The meaning of blessing and hallowing the Sabbath day The difference of hallowing God's Name and hallowing of Creatures and of the differences of Holiness When the Seventh day was first hallowed and how it was dis-hallowed Something of Sacrilege How the Prophets spake truly of things to come as if they had been past Of the Prophetical figure called Anticipation with Rules and Examples thereof applied to this Sabbath The Lord blessed the Sabbath day or Seventh day THe Leiturgie of the Church of England readeth the Seventh day but the Original hath the Sabbath day Both are read indifferently as Gen. 2. 3. hath the Seventh day and so have some of the other languages in this Commandement as appeareth in the late incomparable and renowned work of our new Great Bible Indeed both are one in this place For the Sabbath Ceremonial is but the Seventh day and the Seventh day only is that Sabbath which is here meant it being but a Sabbath Typical Blessed the Sabbath day To blesse Benedicere is to speak some good of it as in the Leiturgie of St Basil this Prayer is found a Basil n. 2 Domine loquere bonum in cor Regis pro Ecclesia tua When God blesseth he conferreth some favour or special priviledge as here on the Sabbath day such as it was capable of and in order to that purpose for which it was blessed which was to signifie Man's Rest in Christ The blessing of a Day is not like his blessing of a Man on whom by blessing he doth effectually conferre something that is beneficial to him as spirituall Graces or temporal Favours as in Children Lands Cattel Basket and Store mentioned Deut. 28. and as Isaac blessed his Sons with the dew of Heaven and fatnesse of the Earth But the Sabbath being uncapable of such benedictions the blessing of it must consist in such respects as these 1. God chose that day for his own Mysterious Rest 2. He appointed that day only and not any of the other six to be for a memorial to his people of the grand blessing of their Rest in Christ 3. He ordained it for a corporal rest both for Men and Cattel 4. He gave most strict command upon pain of capital punishment for the keeping thereof 5. He appointed larger Sacrifices on that day than on the former dayes 6. He appointed a larger portion of Manna on the Parasceue as a provision for the Sabbath 7. He appointed this holy day to be weekly that is two and fifty times in the year whereas other Festivals except new-Moons were but once These or such like are the blessings thereof And hallowed it Hallowed is holied or sanctified The meaning is that God designed it to be an holy or hallowed day To be an hallowed or sanctified day is to be divided separated or distinguished from other common dayes by way of preferment honour and preheminence and to be set apart so as that work which might lawfully have been done on that day before it was hallowed might not be done on it after the hallowing thereof We read of hallowed or holy oyl holy vessels holy vestments and holy places which might not be used or applied to any other service but that only for which they were hallowed and destinated So this hallowed day was not to be imployed in common works as other unhallowed dayes were for that would have been a profanation thereof but it was wholly to be bestowed and spent in the service of God the Sanctifier by the serious and thankful consideration of that blessed Rest which he had procured and designed for Man And this hallowed use was to continue from the first institution thereof untill the period and repealing of it by the same God who hallowed it Which was performed evidently by Jesus Christ who is the same God which did sanctifie it and this he did not untill God had actually and visibly exhibited in the â—lesh the reall and substantial accomplishment of that Typical Ceremonial and Temporary Sabbath in the Person of the said Lord Jesus But yet during the vigour and continuance of this hallowing the Sabbath day was not altogether and absolutely quitted from all manner of working We know the Priests did then work hard and Souldiers marched and other works were lawfully done the reason was because this Sabbatical Hallowing was but meerly figurative and ceremonial and therefore dispensable in case of pressing necessity and charitable accommodation toward our brethren and in duty to God and also because such workings are commanded by a Superiour Law even the Moral Law of God whereby we are required To love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbour as our self This Law hath been in force ever since the Creation was finished and so shall continue until the end of the World but the hallowing of the Seventh day was neither from the beginning nor was it to last to the end of the World being but Ceremonial and Temporary and therefore ought to give place to the Law Moral We find Hallowing or Holiness applied diversly to several things and for divers considerations First There is an Holiness Essential which is only
in God who is the Fountain of all inherent Holiness and is Holiness it self which we are to acknowledge and which we do confesse when we pray Hallowed be thy Name Secondly There is an Holinesse Moral or of Qualities derived from God the Fountain thereof such is in holy Men as Piety Righteousness Justice Truth Sincerity â—ear and love of God Faith Hope Charity This is that which Divines call Inherent Holiness Thirdly There is an Holinesse by Dedication or Assignment as of Places Vessels Vestments Men and other Creatures and of Times as this Hallowed Sabbath day is Hence we say holy Temple holy Church holy Day holy Eâ—charist for the Bread and Wine to be used therein are of themselves but Elements but after Dedication or Consecration of them or Hallowing which our fore-fathers called Howseling them to that Mysterious use we Fox in Hen. 8. call them Sacraments Divines call this Holinesse Relative It is but a srivolous cavil or excuse of Sacrilegers who make no scruple of abusing or demolishing hallowed places as Churches and Chappels or robbing them of their vessels goods lands and Revenues which were consecrated because they say such things have no holinessâ— or holy qualities inherent in them as no pieâ—y no faith or hope c. I wish such to consider also what inherent holinesse the Jewish Sabbath had or Achan's Wedge of Num. 15. 35. gold or Ananias his money except only the Josh 7. 25. Act. 5. 5. holinesse or hallowing of dedication or destination Yet the profaning and subducing of these was punished by stoning burning and by sudden death and all this by the Sentence of God himself although the hallowing in the case of Ananias was not by God but voluntarily only by himself It may reasonably be feared that the strict injunctions and commands of some such Sacrilegers for observing the Christian Sunday which was not hallowed by any Command of God but only of Men will one day condemn their abuses of other things which were also â—hallowed by Men as Christ said Ex ore tuo serve nequam c. But then the Sabbath-day having been thus hallowed or sanctified by God How comes it to be unhallowed and laid common with other dayes Would God revoke that which himself had constituted Or durst Man presume so to do This seemeth to thwart that heavenly Voice which said to Peter in a like case What God hath cleansed call not thou Act. 10. 15 common To this our Answer is First Man might not presume to alter or null any of Gods Ordinances without Divine warrant But the dissolution of this sabbath-Sabbath-day was done by the grand Warrant of the Son of God and by him then when he was the Great Son of Man Secondly We say That God never unhallowed or revoked any Sanctions which Himself ordained during the time and purposes that were by him intended for them to continue in force and use For some Divine Constitutions were inacted to continue but for a set-time as the Types were Sacrifices Circumcision Passover Tabernacle and this Sabbath all which and many such were but Ceremonial Sanctions But others were ordained by him to continue to the end of the World as all the ten Commandements which are Sanctions Moral These God never yet revoked nor never will But the other sort which were but Ceremonials and intended to last but during the Pedagogie of his People and so for a certain limited time viz. untill the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh Which being accomplished those temporary Ordinances were to cease and this without any Mutability on Gods part or Sacrilege of Men. Just as when a Man gives a pension or rent to a pious use for a limited time of ten twenty or thirty yeares and no longer when that time is expired the Pension may cease without any Sacrilege of the Doner Hallowed The principal Question in this hallowing which hath most perplexed the minds of many good Christians is concerning the Time when God did actually hallow or set apart the Seventh day whether on the first Seventh day of the World or whether not before the dayes of Moses and the Egyptian deliverance To this we answer confidently and resolutely That although it is most certain that God did rest on the first Seventh day of the World but so as hath been at large shewed before yet he never appointed or hallowed a weekly Seventh day for Man's rest untill the dayes of Moses Our Reasons for this Assertion are these First If the weekly Seventh day had been hallowed at the beginning as a Law it must have been either written in Mans heart as all Moral Lawes of God were ever since Man was made or else it must have been openly declared as a Law positive But the Seventh-day Sabbath was not written in Man's heart For if so then it must have bound all Nations in all Ages which as yet it never did Neither was iâ— then declared overtly as a Law positive for if so then certainly we should have found some mention or footsteps of it in the History of the Patriarks which lived before Moses But we â—ind nothing of it in all that long time and we are well assured that neither Adam nor any of his posterity did ever so Sabbatize untill the dayes of Moses This is the Doctrine of the Fathers generally and of the Church Primitive Secondly The Preface before the ten Moral Laws which containeth the date or time of their Promulgation by writing to me seemeth to be annexed to them on purpose to prove this Assertion concerning the fiâ—st establishment and original of the Seventh-day Sabbath For thus we read I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Thou shaâ—t c. By which it may appear that the publication of the Laws was after the deliverance out of Egypt Just so the Prophets date their Prophesies at the beginnings of them as The vision of Isaiah in the dayes of Uzziah c. And To Jeremiah the Isai 1. 1. Jer. 1. 1 2 word of the Lord came in the dayes of Josiah And In the first year of Jehoiakim's captivity the word of the Lord came expresly to Ezekiel Eze. 1. 2 3. the Priest The like we find in Daniel Amos Micha Zephani Haggi Zechari And in the Gospel also In the dayes of Herod And Caesar Augustus And Tiberius Luke 1. 5. 2. 1 3. 1. Caesar Here I desire the learned Reader to consider with me why it pleased the Divine Wisdom to put so late and low a date to the whole Decalogue of the Law Moral which we are well assured was in force from the creation of the first Man If not for this reason only bâ—cause there was something inserted and added to these Laws which was new and was not written in Man's heart nor ever imposed on the People of God untill they had been delivered out of Egypt And That new thing was this Ceremonial Precept of
〈◊〉 or anticiâ—â—tion as St. Augustine calls it without Aug. lib. locut in Nu. To. 3. which Figure the truth and actuall performance of their prophecies cannot appear And for our right understanding of those proleptiâ—al Prophecies the Fathers have left us many rules and instances such as these Tertullian saith a Tert. de Trin. Scriptura Quae futura suâ—t proâ—factis annuntiat After him Eusebius observeth b Euseb-Demonst l. 4. c. Prophetica consuetudo est Quod futurum est quasi praeâ—â—ritum enuntiare St. Rasil saith c Bas in â—â—a c. 1. â— Naz. Orâ—t 35. Prophetae ennarrant futura quasi praeterita And Nazianzen d In Scriptura sepè â—empora invertuntur The same is observed by Cyril Chrysostom Ambrose and very often by St. Austin The great Apostle hath also taught us that â—o 4. 17. God calleth those things which be not as though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon which words the Glosse saith e â—los in â—oc Apud â—um jam sâ—nt quae futura sunt With God those things are present which to us are to come And Habet electos suos quos creaturus est quos habet apud semetipsum non in naturâ— suâ sed in praesentia sua i. e. God hath his Elect which yet are not born he hath them in himself and present with him though not existent in nature All this we find to be confirmed by the writings of the Prophets in whom God spake Isaiah saith of Christ Unto us a châ—ld is born and unto us a son is given yet Isa 9. 6. this Prophet died about 600 years before the birth of Christ He saith again of the Passion of Christ He was wounded for our transgressions Isa 53. 5 7 he was bruised for our iniquities He was oppressed afflicted brought as a lamb to the slaughter c. Just so the Psalmist spake long before They pierced my hands and Psal â—2 〈◊〉 18. Psal 69. â—1 my feet They cast lots upon my vesture They gave me gall and vinegar All these and many more such prophecies are meant of things not then past but to come and yet were true because as St. Austin saith f Aug. cont Max. lib. 3. â— â—6 To. 6. Pradestinatione â—am faclum eâ—at quod suo â—empore futurum eâ—at i. e. These things were actually decâ—eed in heaven though not acted on earth As Herod and Rilate are said to have done â— 4. 28. whâ—t the hand and counsell of God determined before So we read He predestâ—nated called justified glorified Ro. 8. 30. as if all these were already performed yet many are to be called justified and glorified who then were and as yet are unborn So Christ is called The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world All Rev. 13. 8. these Futures are spoken as if they had been past because to the All-seeing Godhead they were as evident and present as if they had been performed and this in respect of the Divâ—ne Providence and Eternall Decreâ— Upon the same ground Moses might truly assert the Hallowing of the seventh day at the beginning of the world although it was not so declared untill the daies of the said Moses Thus much may serve for Exposition of the Ceremoniall part of this Sabbaticall Commandment CHAP. XXII The Reasons why God conferred honours on the seventh day and why he also laâ—d some sâ—urs upon it as 1. That the Sabbath day was not made known till Moses time nor at all mentioned by David nor the Sabbath-Law by Christ 2. That God commanded some works on that day 3. That no Mana fell on it 4. That Christ lay dead on that whole day 5. That God called it but a signe and that it was nothing else 6. That it is said to be made â—or man 7. That it is impâ—ssible to be kept generally and also inconvenient occasionally to the Jews That the impossibility both of the seventh-day-Sabâ—ath and also of the Morall Law was designed by God to drive Man to seek for Râ—st and Salvation onely in Christ THe Jews greatly erred in misunderstanding the fourth Commandment as if the hallowing of the seventh day had been the onely scope and purporâ— thereof whereas indeâ—d that day was but a meer figure of the true Sabbath which is Christ for he onely is the Sabbath or Rest both of the Godhead and of us men as hath been at large shewed before Yet because the seventh day was a figure of so great a mystery and blessing therefore God did hallow and honour it with many priviledges such as are before rehearsed But withall he clogged it with many incumbrances and inconveniences and some disparagements and sâ—â—rs also and disgraces more than any other day as an allay or abatement of honour like the Boy 's Memento to King Philip who every morning call'd â—pon him with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so did God with this Aelian l. â— c. 15. Sabbath day And at length when the period of the use thereof was accomplished he cast iâ— quite away And this he did on purpose to withdraw his people from doting on the shadow to the apprehension of the true reall and substantiall Sabbath When Princes confer honours or estates upon their subjects they usually Onerate their Patents with some reservations of fealty homage or service for an acknowledgment of their minoration and subjâ—ction to their Soveraign Upon such divine Policy it pleased the Godhead so to reserve the supream honour to himself in the whole oeconomy of his instrumentall Types and Servants and therefore he chose things which in themselves were but of low condition and base esteem amongst men that so the principall honour and efficacy of their service might be ascribed to himself Thus he appointed those poor creatures Sheep and Neat and Goats as sacrifices to represent the grand Sacrifice and mystery of the death of Christ Then by the brazen image Num. 21. 8. Joh. 3. 14. of a Serpent lifted up upon a pole he represented Christ as crucified although a Serpent is of all creatures esteemed most vile and cursed The great Sacrament of taking away sins called Circumcision was to be performed on that part of man's body which is called uncomely and pudendum Indeed the Temple was a splendid and glorious type but even this and the other were sleighted when they had served their due time All this was to instruct his people not to adhere and rest on the figures but principally to regard and consider the signification and substance of them For when they conâ—ided in and boasted too much of their Templum Domini God suffered Jer. 7. 4. it soon after to be destroyed and when they magnified the brazen Serpent with offering 2 King 18. 4. incense to it the good King Hezekiah brake it in pieces The like policy was used by the Divine Wisdom in the New Testament by choosing contemptible men to administer the Gospell as Fishermen Ideots unlearned
d Prosper de Provid Prosper in one of his Poems thus Nam quis tantarum evolvat miracula rerum Mannae imbrem cunctos in coeli pane sapores And we in our daies have perceived some Sabbatarian innovators misapplying the Manna of the Word and the sacred doctrine of the Sabbath to their own gusts or wicked designes Bishop Montague observed e Act. Mon. c. 7. s 27. that the Jewes in their last times were not charged with the grand roaring sins of their fore-father's idolatries but with superstitious traditions too strict sabbatizings and hypocrisie and yet they were then worst of all and committed that horrid sin which Christ called The filling up the measure of their fathers Mat. 23. 32. and that was their killing God's Annoynted How near some Sabbatarians have approached to that sin I take not upon me to judge but leave it at their own conscience where they will surely find it one day 4. Christ the Saviour lay dead in his grave on the whole Jewish Sabbath day This surely was intended as a disparagement of that Sabâ—ath because he did not so on any other whole day from his death to his resurrection And this may be well conceived to intimate the death of that Sabbath and also the deadnesse of the Jewish misapprehension thereof For Christ was the life and spirit both of the Sabbath-day and of his people so that without the apprehension of him the Sabbath-Law was but a dead letter and no better then a morticine or dead carcase which if the people under the Law had but touched it made Numb 19. 11. them legally unclean His lying dead might moreover have taught them that he inspired not or breathed any vitall graces into such vain and empty Sabbatizers Christ we know is often called Life as Joh. 4. 6. 5. 12. Col. 3. 4. Gal. 2. 20. I am the way the truth and the life And Hâ— that hath the Son hath life The Apostle saith Christ is our life and Christ lâ—veth in me All this is said in respect of the union of Christ and his servants who apprehend him by faith love But to those Jewish and faithless Sabbatizers he was as one dead in respect of their neglect of the living substance and doting on a dead sabbatarian shadow as it were upon the fallacious apparitions of dead men which are not really the things which they seem to be and therefore our old Wrâ—ters call them Umbras i. â— Shadows When Tremelius a learned man and well deserving of the Church lay on his death-bed and perceived that some suspected him to retain in his heart the Jewish Religion because he was of Jewish parentage the good man to put them out of that suspition cried out a I. W. Exercit Vivat Christus pereat Barabbas So we professe of the shadowie Jewish Sabbath Let it die and vanish whilst the true Sabbath Christ our Lord shall continue for ever 7. Another discountenance of the seventh-seventh-day Sabbath is That even in the Oâ—d Testament whilst this Ceremony was in force God called it but a Sign Exod. 31. 17. Ezek. 20. 12. and the Apostle afterwards call'd it but a Shadow Col 2. 17. And moreover God professed that he could not away with or endure their Sabbaths Isa 1. 13. And Christ in the New Testament in his own person dissolved it by cures clay-tempering and causing a bed or couch to be carried c. None of these things would have been said or done if the seventh day had been the onely Sabbath intended in this fourth Commandment The Reader may further observe that the same God who did so much slight the Sabbath sometimes and also at length quite nulled it yet at other times he exceedingly magnified the Sabbath and gave most strict and frequent commands to keep it to hallow and to sanctifie it as Exod. 31. 16. Jer. 27. 22. Ezek. 20. 20. 44. 24. and promised great favours blessings to his people that kept it unpolluted These passages at first sight appearing so contrary might justly seem Riddles to us but that we assuredly know that there is included in this Commandement a twofold Sabbath the one Ceremonial and but temporary the other Moral and eternal The Ceremâ—niaâ— consisted only in the Typical hallowing of the Seventh day And this day-Sâ—bbâ—â—h is it that God so much slighted because his people would not understand the true signification meaning and intention thereof The Moral Spiritual and Mysterious Sabbath is Christ the Saviour and He only is meant and only He it is which God did so much magnifie under the Appellaâ—ion of Sabbath of whom the Seventh-day Sabbath was but a sign or shadow and was to vanish in its due time whereas the Moral Sabbath was to continue everlastingly This twofold Sabbath to me seemeth to be signified by the words of God in the place before cited â—xod 31. 16. Where the word Sabbath is doubled without any other cause Exod. 31. 16. appearing when we thus read The Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations Here is a Sabbath and a Sabbath First the Ceremonial to be kept weekly that by it they might be â—nduced to apprehend the Second even their Messiah throughout their generations Of this Moral and everlasting Sabbath I take the words following to be meant although Ibid. I know that some expound them otherwise Israel shall keep the Sabbath for a perpeâ—ual covenant it is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever These words for ever and perpeâ—ual do indeed sometimes signifie but a finite and limited time which Divines call Perpetuitaâ—em periodicam or â—mitatam as Deut. 15. 17. He shall be thy servant for ever So again of Samuel's Ministery 1 Sam. 1. 2. called for ever Which Jeâ—ome more fitly renders Jâ—gitèr that is continually or perpetually for the word Perpetual doth signifie any time though but short so it be without discontinuance or interruption for so Grammaâ—ians teach us a Perot Perpetuum dicimus integrum non interruptum As in Plauâ—us b Plaâ—t in Rud. in Stich. Perpetua nox signifies but one whole night and he also cals ten years Decem perpetâ—osâ—annos But sometimes also these words signifie sempiternity and absolute everlastingness as they do in that place above-said Which way soever we take them they must relate to the Moral Sabbath because that Sabbath was is to be kept câ—nâ—inually perpetually for ever without any vacaâ—ion or interruption at all but so were not the Ceremonials or seventh-Seventh-day Sabbaths between which there was weekly six days intermission The Covenant which is there said to be perpetual and for ever signifieth Christ and is the same which in Jermâ—e is called a new Covenant of which that Prophet thus writeth This shall be the Covenant I will put Jer. 31. 31 33. my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts That
of that Emperour whereas the Apocalyps was first shewed long after in the Reign of Domitian by whom St. John the Apostle was sentenced to death in a vessell of flaming oile as Tertullian and Jerome and Euseb Emis report and that he came out of that vessell unhurt And because that sentence was executed near the Latin gate at Rome as other Writers say therefore the Church Kalender recordeth this Porta Latina on the sixth of May and in memory thereof a feast is held yearly on that day or for it in St. John's Colledge in Cambridge After this St. John was exiled to the I le of Patmos where this Revelation was â—â—ewed and after the death of Domitian he was recalled from banishment and retired to Ephesus and there lived and died in the Reign of Trajan and was there buried and his Sepulcher remained there in the dayes of St. Jerome Now because there was another named John of that time who was also buried at Ephesus and that two Monuments were there shewed and both superscribed with the Name or Title of John and both remained there untill the dayes of the said a Hier. de Script in Joanne St. Jerome as himselfe saith and so also saith b Hist l. 3. c. 39. Eusebius who further addeth Fortassis secundus hic erit Joannes sub cujus nomine Revelatio habetur And Dionysius the Famous and Learned Bishop of Alexandria although he was Confident that it was written by inspiration of the divine spirit yet saith he c Euseb Hist l. 7. â—ap 23. Non liquidò videtur quodillius Joannis sit qui Evangelium scripsit And addeth Fieri potuit in illis temporibus fuisse alium aliquem Joannem ex sanctis cui haec revelaverit Deus i. e. That it did not clearly appear that St. John the Evangelist was the Writer of the Apocalyps but possibly that some other holy man in those times named John was he to whom God revealed those things thus he Neither need it seem strange that this Revelation should be unduly attributed to St. John the Apostle seeing we find other Revelations as Early as this which went abroad untruly under the name of St. Peter and also of St. Paul as d Hist l. 3. c. 3. Eusebius and e in Joan. Tract 98. Austin and f lib. 7. cap. 19. Sozomen report Secondly for the obscurity of this â— book it is confessed on all sides and particularly by a Proleg in Apocal. Beza who acknowledgeth himselfe to be one of those Cui haec mysteria valâ—è obscura videntur And both Mr. Selden and Mr. I. Gregory of Oxford two Learned men have affirmed from the Testimony of Bodinus the Learned French-Writer that Calvin acknowledged that He knew not what this obscure Writer meant So our late Reverend Diocesan Bishop Hall called this Apocalyps A Revelation unrevealed and this he said particularly in respect of the Mystery of the Thousand years of Martyrs reigning here with Christ Revel 20. 4. The like he reporteth of the most Learned and Reverend Bishop Andrews that he profess'd that he had not proceeded so far as to understand it much lesse can we Pygmy-Theoiogues It is now fifteen hundred years old and not yet understood Mr. Brightman hath not cleared it nor hath Mr. Mede's Key unlockt it Nor will it ever I suppose be perfectly understood untill such a Commentary be made thereon as Divines say of other obscure Prophecies viz. b Irenaeus l. 4. cap. 43. Prophetiae priùs aenigmata sunt sed peractae intelliguntur And c Aug de Civit l. 18. c. 31. Prophetiae obscurae sunt antequam fiunt sed factas quis non agnoscit And d Euseb Emiss hom de Nat. Martyr Prophetiarum adimpletio est earum expositio i. e. Prophecies are Riddles the onely or best Expositor of them is their fulfilling Amongst the many obscurities of this Apocalyps this may go for one viz. What day of the week or year the Writer meant by Dominica dies That he meant our Sunday or anniversary Easter which is so called from the Rising of Christ will be hard to prove It may possibly signifie the day of the Nativity or of the Ascension of our Lord or the day of Pentecost for ought can appear for none of these are inferior to his Resurrection either in mystery or value or benefit to man Or he might mean the day of the Passion of our Lord of which possibly Christ spake when he said Your father Abraham rejoyced to see my day For indeed the Joh. 8. â— Passion of the Redeemer was shewed to Abraham in a mysterious Scene or dumb-shew as when he acted the resemblance of Christ's Passion with his son Isaac laying first the wood on him Gen. 22. then him upon the wood just as was afterwards really done to Christ As for his rejoycing it is no marvell if he rejoyced for his own and his Abrahamites Redemption Nor is it strange that Christ should call the passion-Passion-day His day it was indeed the day of the Jews of which it is said Haec est hora vestra Luk. 22. 53 but it was also the day of the Lord. We find both Tradidit Judas and Tradidit Deus Rom. 8. 32. And Filius Dei tradidit seipsum Gal. 2. 20. Ephes 5. 2. Judas for mony but Christ gave himself for us The day of his Passion was a day of sorrow and also a day of joy in severall respects We know that the Primitive Church solemnized the Natalitia so they called the passion dayes of Martyrs with joy and feasting and so they did also the Parasceue or day of Christ's Passion in St. Austin's time as himself saith in one of his Passion-Sermons a Aug. de Temp. Ser. 130. Propter hanc crucem Diem festum agimus Epulamur So St. Paul gloried in the Crosse of Christ Gal. 4. 16. And seemeth to appoint a Festivall for the Passion of Christ when he said 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ our passeover is sacrificed Therefore let us keep the Feast Which St. Jerom reads Itaque Epulemur So it is no novelty to apply the word Dominica to the Passion for we know that there is another Dominica which hath been called by the Church more than twelve hundred years together Dominica Passionis as we find in St. b Ambr. To. 5. Ser. 44. Ambrose and in c Aug. de Temp. Ser. 107. St. Austin and ever since in the middle-age Writers and later Postillers And even in our time and at this day it is called Passion-Sunday which is the fifth Sunday in Lent and is so called onely in a memoriall of the attempt of the Jews to stone Christ in the Temple recorded Joh. 8. 58. which passage formerly was and now is appointed to be read in the Gospell for that day Therefore it may reasonably seem questionable whether the Dominica in the Revelation may not possibly relate to the grand Passion of our Lord.
from one particular Work viz. from making any new species or kinds of Creatures Secondly It is confessed that this Rest of God may consist together with his working for indeed the working or operation of God is as vigorous and stirring now and ever since the Creation as it was then God did never intermit or lay aside his working St. Austin saith of himself a Aug Epist 110. Meum ocium magnum habet negotium It is most true of God whose Rest here meant is not without great working Christ saith My Fatheâ— Ioh. 5. 1 â—oh 15 worketh hitherto and I work And again Mâ— Father is the Husbandman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so his Work is without any intermission as the Georgick-works are circular as one saith Redit Agricolis labor actus in orbem Virg. Georg. lib. 2. God doth work unto this day as he did also on that first 7th day wherein he is said to rest so he hath done on every 7th day ever since so he will do till the end of the World And moreover although it should please God still to make new Creatures of new kinds such as were not created at first yet such a new Creation would not in the least hinder or disturb this blessed Rest Therefore this Answer will in no wise satisfie us Besides all this Those Writers that tell us Gods Resting signifieth only his finishing or ending the Creation yet themselves affirm that God doth yet daily create new Souls and this because they do not believe that our Souls are propagated from our Progenitors as our Bodies are so that even by their own confession the Creation did not end on the first sixth or seventh day Now although I do not assent to their opinion of the daily creation of humane Souls because I do not understand how that doctrine can consist with the doctrine of Redemption if our Souls and Christs Soul be not derived from Adam yet it is evident that their opinion maketh against them whether it be true or false for by saying that our Souls are daily created they must confess that the Creation is not yet ended To that which they say That God doth not create any new kinds of Creatures such as in Schools are called Genera and Species and Universals although he doth still make particular Creatures as Men Beasts Fishes Fowles and Plants We answer That God doth make Creatures now so as he did before and not otherwise except only the manner of making immediately by himself and by way of creation As he then made particulars only Adam and Eve so now he makes Man and Woman God did not otherwise make Universals or Species then than he doth now for then he made only particular Creaâ—ures and not universals but only by creating particulars The universal is but the common nature of each particular and these universals are no where to be found but only in particulars though we should seek them in Plato's Region of Idea's or in that a Tull. de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. Diog. Laert. in Epic. Intermundum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Epicurus dreamed of for who can shew me Man except he shew me some particular person For although it be granted that these universals are realities having an essence or being yet they have no existence or subsistence nor are any where to be found but only in particulars and we know that our Acutest Schoolmen have much contended about these universals some said they are realities others that they are but words and others that they are but meer notions and conceptions of mans brain and therefore those dissenting Sects are severally called Reales Nominales Conceptuales In a word as God made Man and Woman at first so he doth still his Resting is not to be understood of ceasing from making his Creatures for he doth it to this day and thereby declareth his Omnipotencie now as much as at the first The Psalmist saith It is God that Ps 100. 3. made us and not we our selves And again I am fearfully and wonderfully made in the Psal 139. 14. lowest parts of the earth that is in the Womb In our vulgar Catechisms the first Question is Who made you 'T is answered God and the Answer is true It is all one with God to make Man of Earth or in the VVomb or of a Rib or of Nothing for all these wayes of making are Acts of his Almightinesse Finally If it may appear unto us That God hath indeed made new Creatures and such as were not created in the six or seven first dayes of the World but since then I trust the Reader will perceive that this Mysterious Rest of the Godhead implieth a farre greater matter then only a cessation from making new sorts or kinds of Creatures For manifestation whereof I offer these considerations following to the learned Reader 1. That after the fall of Man God inflicted sorrow upon Eve and all other Women in Child-bearing Gen. 3. 16. which Sorrow was not at first made yet that sorrow is something as our good Matrons know it is not nothing 2. The Earth was cursed for Mans sin Thorns and Thistles are ordained Adam is condemned to sorrow and sweating labour vers 16 17 18. All which are Realties yet not made at first 3. We are assured by our Divines That b Buc. p. 56. 58. Mors Morbi ordinata sunt a Deo i. e. Mortality and Sicknesses were ordained by God and also that hurtful Creatures such as Vipers Toads Spiders Hornets Waspes Caterpillers Gnats such like Non pertinent ad opera primae Creationis i. e. that these were no part of the first Creation therefore they must be ordained since If it be said that these and other hurtful Creatures such as Lions Beares Wolves were at first but yet without their noxious malignity and hurtful qualities this Answer will not satisfie us because even those qualities are realties So Earthquakes Famines Pestilences were not at first created nor any Sicknesses or Diseases which came into the World later as the Heathens acknowledged Post ignem Aetheriâ domo Subductum Macies Nova febrium Hor. Cor. 1. Od. 3. Terris incubuit cohors 4. What can be said against the newness of the Egyptian Plagues The burning of Sodom The last Destruction of Jerusalem and the tribulation brought upon that People of which Christ said That it should be such as was not from the beginning of the world to Matth. 24 21. that time Now that God is the Author of such kinds of evils viz. evils of punishment the Prophet hath taught us Amos 3. 6. Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it And Moses declareth that all those evils which are threatened Deut. 28. and are now come to passe to be from the Lord which yet are but new in respect of the Creation 5. What can be said against the newness of those Wonders or Miracles wrought by
the finger of God by the Prophets by Christ and by the Apostles were they at first created I suppose No. The blind man when he received sight told the Pharisees to their face which they could not deny John 9. 32. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind 6. What can be said against the newness of Monsters or of mixt Creatures such as Leopards and Mules c. which now are extant but were not so at first created 7. It is said Jer. 31. 22. The Lord Movi coeli terra extractio Movi Adami generatio miracula morbi novi non sunt opera primae extractionis Mart. Borrhai in Gen. 2. in verbum Requievit hath created a new thing on the Earth a VVoman shall compasse a Man Which is meant of Christ to be conceived in the Womb of the Virgin-Mother which was a new thing indeed and a peculiar Signal mark to know the Messiah by 8. The same Creator professeth Isaiah 65. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth If you say it is meant but of a new State or condition of the Church under the Gospel I say so too But this new State or condition is not nothing it is not such as it was before and is new So is the creating of a clean or new heart Psalm 51. 10. it is a work of Regeneration or re-Creation and better to us than the Creation thereof 9. The same Creator professeth Isaiah 57. 19. I create the fruit of the lips therefore the holy Apostolical Eloquence with all the excellencies of Rhetorick and Languages and Arts are the Works of God which are not reckoned among the Works of the first Creation and this is confirmed by Christ himself when he said Matth. 10. 19. Dabitur in illa hora And by that which others said of him John 7. 46. Never man spake like this man And all those new Languages at Babel were of Gods creating Gen. 11. Our Answer to this first Querie for present shall be but only Negative because our Discourse is not yet ripe for a full positive Answer viz. That this Rest of God doth not signifie only his cessation from creating the World And moreover we affirm That although God had made more such Worlds as a Diog. Laert. in Epicuro Epicurus thought or if he had made innumerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worlds of meer Creatures as b Plut. de Placitiâ— Philos l. 2. c. 1. Democritus in Plutarch said yet all such Worlds would not be of value and worth sufficient to procure this Mysterious Rest and complacency of the Almighty Creator But I proceed to the second Querie CHAP. XI That the Rest of God is fixed on the Seventh day only although he intermitted creation for some time in every former day That his Rest did not consist in any meer Creature Of the Rest of God before the Creation That God performed part of the Creation on the Seventh day and what that was Jewish fables concerning the creation of Adam and Eve A short Answer to the second Querie OUr second Querie is Why God is said to Rest on the Seventh day and not on any of 2 Querie the former six dayes There is surely something more then ordinary implied in this Rest of the Godhead more then the bare Letter expresseth and more then a meer cessation from the work of Creation because this Rest is fixed and appropriated to the Seventh day only and not said at all of any of the former six dayes wherein God did both create and also cease by some pause or respite from creation which interval is by us Mortals called a Rest as the labouring-man at Mid-day is permitted to take some small time for sleep or rest and therein intermitteth his work Doubtless God did not bestow the whole compass of each several day with its evening and morning in a continual creation or forming of his several Creatures for each of them were created by the Will or Word of God which might be in a moment The Psalmist saith By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens Ps 39. 6 9 made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth for he spake and it was done It is not likely that this word or breath of God was produced to the length of each whole day but that there was some respite and some time of cessation between the Acts of creating the several Creatures each several day yet this respite of God is never called his Rest until the Seventh day That there was a respite we read that Adam was first formed 1 Tim. 2. 13. then Eve It is also very considerable That although it is said Exod. 20. 11. In six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is Whereby it appeareth that all the Creatures were made as the Angels of Heaven the Fowls of the Air and Man Beasts Plants Fishes of the Earth and Sea Notwithstanding God is not yet said to Rest on this sixth day Surely this Rest of God consisteth in something else besides these it seems he rested not in any or all these meer Creatures but in something that was more noble and worthy of this great honour of being the Acquiescence or Rest of the Godhead But what shall we say of the pre-existence of God before the Creation and the infiniteness and eternity thereof before all times when nothing was in being but only the pure Godhead in the three eternal Persons when neither Heaven nor Earth nor Man nor Angels were created We cannot say or imagine that God was then without Rest for besides that He with-held himself from creating and from all external working we know that he was at Rest in himself in his own blessed contentment and all-sufficiencie needing nothing which Rest of God could not then be interrupted by any business or outward operation What the immanent or internal Actions of the Godhead were then we know but little and that only which the holy Apostles have taught us in whom we read of the eternal purpose of God to oâ—dain Christ before the foundation of 1 Pet. 1. 20. Eph. 1. 4 2 Tim. 1. 9. Tit. 1. 2. the world and of chusing us in him But we find no mention of any transient or external Works of the Godhead such as Divines call Operationes Dei ad extra and such as Creation is Yet in all that infinite and incomprehensible duration from Eternity it is never said that God Rested nor until this Seventh day Therefore this Rest of God consisteth in something else besides a cessation or suspension of working and also besides that blessed quiet and tranquillity which for ever was and is in the Godhead of which the heathen Philosophers rule is true h Nisi Quietum nihil Beaâ—um est i. e. God could not be happy if â— Tull de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. he were
firm estate upon his Children he will say that now he is at rest and quiet although he neither intermit his work nor personally enjoy that estate yet calleth his Childrens good his own even as God doth here call the rest of his Creatures his own Rest Of which more in the next Chapter CHAP. XVI That the Rest of Man is called Gods Rest shewed by other like passages in Scripture That Christ is called the Rest of God only because he is the Rest of Mankind An answer to the second Query above mentioned shewing Why God is said to Rest on the first Seventh day only and not before The Conclusion and St. Austin 's Judgment in this Doctrine of Gods Rest THere are many passages in Scripture concerning God which can in no wise be verified except we acknowledge this Doctrine That the properties of Man are there transferred and assumed by God and called his actions passions or dispositions as may thus appear Gen. 22. 12. It is said by God in the person of his Angel Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not with-held thy Son from me This God did know before but because by this grand trial God made both Abraham and others know it therefore it is said Now I know a Aug. de Gen. l. 4 c. 9 Quia nos cognoscere facit saith the Expositor i. e. God is said to know only because he now made man to know It is said of one Sabinus in Seneca b Sen. Ep. 27 Putabat se scire quod quisquam in domo suâ sciret so God accounteth the apprehension of his People to be his own knowledge Deut. 13. 3. The Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God Not as if God did not know before and without trial but because hereby Man might perceive whether he doth really love God Gen. 18. 21. God saith of Sodome I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it if not I will know What need was there of this going down to see and know when God knew what was before and what would be after But only to convince the Sodomites by making them see and know their own wickedness in attempting that Sodomitical sin In the like sense also even Nescience or Ignorance is transferred on the Son of God as Mark 13. 32. But of that day knoweth no Mat. 24 36 man no not the Angels neither the Son but the Father only It were blasphemy to say absolutely that God the Son did not know it who is the same only God with the Father and is also called by the great Prophet The mighty God and The everlasting Father for every Person is the Father in respect of Isai 9. 6 all Creatures although only the first Person is the Father of the Son But when it is said Neither the Son the meaning is as St. Austin and other Expositors with him generally agree a Lib. 83 quaest quaest 60 Nescire filii est cum non prodit hominibus quod inutilitèr scirent And b De Gen. Cont. Manichae'os l. 1. c. 22 Quia discipulos nescientes reliquit Because Christ would not reveal the day of Judgment to his Disciples therefore he is said not to know it In this sense only it is that St. Hilary saith c Hil. de Trin. lib. 9. Luke 13 27 Mat 7. 23 Habemus nescientem Deum our God professeth to some I know you not For otherwise we say with Austin d Aug. Psal 10 1 Cor. 1. 24 Domine quid ignorabas Lord how is it possible that the Wisdome of God should not know all things so that God the Son is said not to know that day only because Men do not know it Isai 1. 24. God is represented by this Prophet as being disturbed of his Rest and Ease and saying Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries So the Psalmist speaketh Psalm 2. 4. and 37. 13. The Lord shall have them in derision The Lord shall laugh at him So Rom. 8. 26. The Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings And Ephes 4. 30. Greive not the holy Spirit of God And 1 Thes 5. 19. Quench not the Spirit These sayings must needs be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as relating only to Man for God cannot In himself be eased Nor can the holy Spirit make intercession or be Mediator nor groan nor be greived nor quenched nor doth God deride or laugh Men to scorn But because holy Men in whom the Spirit of God dwelleth are disturbed and persecuted and greived and quenched therefore Gods Spirit is said to be so The groanings of the Spirit are the doleful Ejaculations of holy Men. The easing of God is the removing of Adversaries Oppressors and Persecutors of his People Gods laughing is the exposing of proud Tyrants to the scorn and derision of them over whom they have domineer'd just as the hunger and thirst and nakedness and imprisonment and persecution of the Members of Christ are said to be of Christ himself Mat 25. Acts 9. So the Rest or Sabbath of the Godhead must be meant only of that everlasting Sabbath which God in Christ hath ordained for his Servants The Psalmist saith The Lords Psal 147. 17 delight is in them that fear him Now because no delights or pleasures can possibly be added or new to the unspeakable blessedness of God therefore this delight must be understood of Men That Mans delight in God and his well-being in a course of godliness leading to the everlasting delights and joyes of Heaven is here called God's delight just so as mans Rest is called the Rest of God For we may not think that the Rest of God is confined limited or circumscribed in the single person of Christ for indeed Christ is not otherwise the Rest of God but only in consideration of us Men and in regard that in Christ the Sabbath or Rest of Men is included so that Christ cannot be the Rest of the Godhead but as he is looked on and considered as a Jesus or Saviour of Mankind and in this respect only it was said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased The Reader may observe that it is not said With Whom as if the complacencie or acquiescence of God were only with the particular person of Christ but it is said In Whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To signifie that in by and through him God would be at peace and well pleased with others even with all the Members of the most holy Jesus And indeed the whole Oeconomy and design of the Godhead in preparing the Messiah was only in the behalf of Mankind so the Prophet hath taught us Unto us a Child is born and unto us a Son is given Here is both Isai 9. 6 the Nativity and the Death of the Messiah given to us Then he is called The Prince of Peace This signifies that he was to be
the maker of Peace or Atonement or Reconciliation of Man with God He is called Messiah or Christ that is anointed fitted and prepared for the great Work of Mans Redemption Then he is properly named Jesus and this in order to the benefit of Man for so the holy Angel said Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his People from their sins Mat. 1. 21 And that it may appear that this Person Jesus is qualified and endowed with sufficient power to effect that great and merciful purpose of the Godhead toward Mankind the same Prophet cals him Wonderful Counseller The Mighty God The Everlasting Father This I trust is enough to shew the meaning of Gods Rest Now to the second Querie above mentioned 2. Querie Answered viz. Why God is said to Rest on the Seventh day precisely and not before Our Answer is 1. Because on the Seventh day and not before the Creation of Mankind was completed for on that day was the Woman taken and built out of the Man and not before as is above shewed 2. God is not said to Rest until he had actually begun the Work of Mans Rest which was not done untill the Man and the Woman were both of them finished for then and not before was the Saviour of Mankind really and actually laid as the foundation of Mans Rest in which Rest or Sabbath of Man the Rest or Sabbath of the Godhead consisteth and in nothing else What God in his Divine and Secret Counsel had determined before all times to be done that did he now on this Seventh day begin which was the building of his Church for now the first stone was laid even Christ who only is the foundaâ—ion and the Rock and the chief corner-stone thereof The house built upon a Rock Matth. 7. 24. signifieth the Church when Peter had said Thou art Mat. 16 16 Christ the Son of the living God Christ presently replied Upon this Rock will I build my Church The Apostle tels us Christ was 1 Cor. 10 4. the spiritual Rock And Other foundation can no man lay then that is laid which is Jesus 1 Cor. 3 11 Christ Now this foundation of Rest must needs be made known unto the Man for otherwise it could not be his Rest and consequently it could not be the Rest of God until Man did so know it that he might relie and trust and set up his Rest upon it that is upon Christ Therefore the holy Scripture doth by divers intimations signifie that this great Mystery was then revealed to Adam for he was illuminated with prophetical Wisdom He knew as well as Moses that he was made in the 〈◊〉 of God that is in the same shape which God his Redeemer would one day assume as is before shewed He knew the Woman was taken and built out of him on purpose to produce a Redeemer in that only way which might fitly serve for that Work when no other way could for upon the forming of her he said This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh This speech doth shew that the Man was not ignorant in the great Mystery of the Union of Himself and the Woman and their future progenie with Christ also in one lump which union was contrived by the Godhead only in order and necessity to the Redemption of Adam and his off-spring and nothing else And it is the same which by the great Apostle is applied to the mysterious union of Christ and his Church They two shall be one flesh This Eph. 5. 31 32 is a great Mystery but I speak concerning Christ and his Church After the Fall of Man it pleased the merciful Godhead to give a more open and evident notice by an express promise of this Rest than was before when it was said The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpents head for after this the Man named the Woman Vita i. e. Life as is before shewed whereby he declared his Faith and expectation of a new and better life to come by the fruitfulness of the Woman than that Life which he forfeited by his fall as may reasonably be thought All these intimations and overtures being but descriptions of the great Saviour to proceed from the Man and the Woman in whom they might set up their Rest as surely they did And God having now actually begun that great Work of Redemption and laid the foundation thereof in the Earth of ouâ— first Parents and made it known unto them Therefore he doth now and not before call this blessed Rest of Man His own Best For the Church of God which consisteth of Christ and his Members united not only in the nature of our first Parents but also cemented by one and the same Spirit of God residing both in Christ the Head and also in all holy Men as inferiour Members under that Head This Church I say is very often in Scripture represented as a building even from the beginning of the World and so continued in the Gospel The Woman is said to be builded of the Rib aedificavit costam in Gen. 2. 22 Multierem Rachel and Leah are said to build the house of Israel The natural Body of Ruth 4 11 Christ is called a building by King Solomon Wisdome hath built her an house So is his mystical Body also Ye are Gods building Prov. 9. 1 1 Cor. 3. 9 And Acts 9. 31. The Churches had rest and were edified The Word of God and preaching and brotherly exhortation are resembled to buildings The Word is able to Act. 20. 32 build you up St. Paul calleth preaching there where Christ was named before building on another mans foundation and Rom. 15 20 exhorteth the Thessalonians to edifie one another 1 Thes 5 11 The prime foundation of this building is Christ upon Him the Prophets and Apostles are laid as Super-structures or second Foundations Of Christ the Prophet saith Behold Isa 28. 16 I lay in Sion for a foundation a Stone a tried Stone a precious corner-Stone a sure foundation And this is so applied to Christ by St. Peter who also calleth the Members of Christ Lively stones built up a spiritual 1 Pet. 2 5 6 house And Sion is mentioned because as the same Prophet foretold Out of Sion shall Isai 2. 3 go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem For so indeed the Law of Christ and the preaching thereof began there as Christ appointed Lukâ— 24. 7. And of Apostles and Prophets and Christ St. Paul telleth the Ephesians That they are built upon Eph. 2. 20 the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone It hath been an ancient Custome amongst Men to express a joy and delight both at the laying of the foundation and also at the raising and dedication of magnificent or holy Edifices So did the Jews at the laying of the foundation of the second Temple praising the
consisted of his Heavenly Godhead and his Earthly Manhood He was that prophesied Starr as being heavenly but out of Jacob as to his humane generation Which was also signified by his appellation Numb 24 17. Isa 7. 14. Emmanuel by whom this merciful intention was to be effected for which consideration only He is that Sabbath wherein the Godhead is said to Rest The Sea and all that in them is Here we find Heaven Earth and Sea and all the Creatures in them mentioned which words include both Men and Angels also But we find not any mention of Hell or its inhabitants which yet doubtlesse was ordained within the compasse of the first six daies and also inhabited by those apostate Angels mentioned by St. Jude as Reserved in everlastâ—ng chains under darkness Jude 6. They that imagine Hell to be implied in the word Earth may change their opinion when they consider that Hell and its fire are said to be everlasting but the Earth is a Matth. 25 â—1 Matth. 24 35. 2 Pet. 3. 10. very cold Element as yet but it must be burnt up and also passe away as both St. Matthew and St. Peter tell us but so shall not Hell which is everlasting That Hell was ordained at the beginning of the World is not to be doubted The Prophet speaketh of it under the figure of â—ophet Isa 30. 33. which in the Gospel is called Gehenna or Mat. 5. 22. Hell That it is ordained of old ab heri as it is in the Original and is so acknowledged by our Translators in the Margin thaâ— is â—ophet is ordained from yesterday What yesterday this Prophet meant we are told by the Expositor probably and ingeniously at least if not solidly a Lyranus in loc That it signifieth the first day of the world because that day was the first that ever could be called yesterday And That as God on that day made Heaven for his Elect so he made Hell for the Reprobate and the Gospel teacheth us That the everlasting fire was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For when the Angels fell they became Devils and their fall was very early as is before said If now it be enquired Why no mention is made of Hell in all the history of the Creation We may suppose the reason is because the punishments designed or inflicted by God on his Enemies are of that sort of Works which Divines out of Isai 28. 21. call Isa 28. 21 Alienum opus Dei that is the extorted forced unvoluntary or strange Works of God unto which he is drawn by the iniquities of his Creatures and the strictness of his Justice with which he cannot dispense To this purpose Tertullian saith a Tert. de Resur p. 44 Deus est Optimus de suo Justus de nostro nisi homo deliquisset Optimum solummodo Deum nôsset And again b Ibid. Cont. Marc. l. 2. p. 178 Bonitas Dei est secundum naturam Severitas secundum causam Just so Clemens saith c Deus est bonus per seâ—psum justus propter nos And this even Philo the Jew perceived and said c Philo. Quod Deus immutab p. 309. Boniâ—as Dei est Antiquissima Gratiarum Their meaning is That the Acts of Mercy Grace and Goodness flow from God naturally of himself and of his own meer motion but his Acts of Severity and Justice are not executed but only upon external provocation by sin We often read that God was greâ—ved with his People for their sins as Psal 78. 40. 95. 10. which is but an expression of unwillingness to punish Austâ—n saith in one place if that Book be his d Aug. de Spiritu An. c 6. To. 3. Plus crucâ—at Deum Pâ—ssio Miseri quam ipsum i. e. God is more greived in punishing then the patient is in suffering The Heathens said the like both of their Princes and of their Idol-gods as not punishing but with greif and not at all without external provocation Even Neâ—o himself when he was to subscribe a Warrant for Execution said Quam vellem nescire literas as e Suet. in Neâ— c. 10. Suetonius writeth Another saith of Augustus f Ovid. de Pont. Sed pâ—ger ad poenas Princeps ad praemia velox Qui que dolet quoties Cogitur esse ferox And of the Heathen-Gods another saith g Horat. Od. 3. Neque Per nostâ—um patinâ—ur scelus â—â—acunda Jovem ponere fulmâ—nâ— The Jewish Talmâ—d saith That God at certain times weepeth for that People in consideration of his wrath and their calamities Indeed God did once weep for them when Christ wept over Jerusalem Which h Orig. in Lu. Hom. 38. Origen cals The tears of God And before the Deluge the Scripture telleth us That either for the siâ—s or for the ensuing punishment of the World it gâ—eived God at the heart In the Gen. 6. 6. Prophet God professeth I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth And Christ Ezek. 18. 32. in the Gospel declareth It is not the will of Matth. 18 14. your heavenly Father that one of these little ones should perish But the Heathen-gods have a character of cruelty fastened on them by some other of their own Idolaters for indeed they were but Devils as the Psalmist saith One thus Daemonia Psal 69. 5 writeth of them a Tacit. Hist l. 1. Approâ—atum est Non esse Deis curae securitatem nostram Esse Ultionem And another before him b Lucâ—â— lib. 4. Faelix Roma quidem Silibertatis Superis tam cura fuisset Quà m vindâ—cta placet By which we see that confessed which Moses said of the false and the true God Their Rock Deut. 3â— 31. is not as our Rock our enemies themselves being judges It is right worthy of our serious consideration That God hath annexed to this Sabbatical Commandement divers great and peculiar priviledges which are not to be found in any of the other Nine As 1. The Memento or Remember 2. The Ceremonial Type of the Seventh-day Sabbath of both these we have taken notice before But 3. Here is another special property farre greater than the other two or than is expressed in any of the other Commandments contained in these words For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth c. which is a strong argument to provoke us to obedience The Heathens it seems thought all such motives to be needless in Laws One of them saith a Sence Epist 94. Lex-jubeat non disputet And Nihil mihi videtur frigidius nihil ineptius quà m lex cum prologo He would have Lawâ— to command only and not to perswade It seemed otherwise to our Merciful Law-giver who to his Laws hath added both a Prologue and an Epilogue also by which he not only commandeth but disputeth his Leiges into obedience as being most expedient and profitable to themselves for it should strongly induce Man to