should have applied that of the Apostle Rom. 14.21 22. to have deter'd him there-from Wherefore seeing this Piece is so dangerous and may do and already has done so much hurt it s very Expedient if not morally Necessary to endeavour a prevention of its evil Consequences and there especially where the Author is resident and it may most infect and it may well be deemed a Duty of some one of the Dressers of that part of the Vineyard of the Lord Christ where this Weed or Thorn is sprung up to endeavour it's eradication before it spreads any farther or wounds any deeper That Province therefore which I most unable for and Naturally altogether averse from Polemical Disputes shall undertake and with the best skill and faithfulness that God shall afford perform shall only be with all possible Brevity and Perspicuity to weaken all the Arguments the Author manages for his Notion and to confirm and Ratifie all these which he endeavours to weaken and evacuate for the ancient general Scriptural Doctrin of the Lords-day-Sabbath or Sacred Rest and herein to follow his own method Giving some transient Glances upon things that may occur some what Excentrical or Alien from the Great design of this Book Which I shall study to do with all Candor and due Deference to the Gentility Gravity and I hope real Piety of the Author THE CONTENTS Sect. I. SOme general Observations premised whether the World were made by Christ as Jesus Christ God-man page 4 Sect. II. Of Christ's being Jehovah and in what sense the Law was given by him p. 8 Sect. III. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh-day and so Sanctified and Instituted it and did himself observe it as that even Adam in a State of Innocence was bound by it and all Mankind without distinction before the Fall p. 12 Sect. IV. Whether the Ten Commandments were given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles p. 21 Sect. V. Whether Christ in the Flesh did confirm all the Ten Commandments and every tittle of the Fourth And whether Christ and his Apostles did enjoyn or did not rather speak against the Observation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 24 Sect. VI. Of the Word Seventh in the Fourth Commandment the Sabbath not recommended by Christ to his Disciples Of Commenius's desire of Reformation c. p. 30 Sect. VII Of the Ceremonial Law and what is Moral and Positive what is truly Moral that the Saturday Seventh-day-Sabbath is not more may be pleaded for Circumcision p. 35 Sect. VIII Whether Christ in his own Person Observed the Seventh-Week-day-Sabbath and no other and what may be gathered from it The Arguments for the Seventh-day-Sabbath equally hold for all the Jewish Ceremonies Of the Pre-Antiquity of that Day and the falsity of that Argument p. 41 Sect. IX Whether Christ Rested on the Seventh-day-Sabbath while he lay in the Grave And what may be Argued from it p. 44 Sect. X. Vpon what day of the Week Christ ascended into Heaven whether the seventh-Seventh-day or Saturday p. 48 Sect. XI Whether after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed by the Apostles and First Christians How long the Apostles met the Jews in their Synagogues on the Seventh-day and for what Reason p. 51 Sect. XII The Argument from Christ's Resurrection for the First-day of the Week to be the Christian Sabbath Vindicated Circumcision not more abolisht than the Seventh-day-Sabbath That abolisht the First succeeds on the Account of Our Lord's Resurrection since that Time with equal or stronger Reason than the former continued till he Rose from the dead p. 57 Sect. XIII Other Arguments for the First-day-Sabbath Vindicated from the Objections of Mr. B. Of a Sabbath-days Journey After three Days may be understood on the third Day he rose again John 8.56 Psalm 118.22 Psalm 2.7 Acts 20.7 cleared and Vindicated Of the beginning of the Christian Sabbath p. 61. Sect. XIV More Texts cleared Rev. 1.9 10. of being in the Spirit on the Lords-day Math. 12.8 Mark 2.27 Jesus Christ Lord of the Sabbath Of the Lord Supper Christs Resurrection commemorated on the First-day of the Week by Institution p. 79 Sect. XV. Gal. 4.9 10. Explained What days excluded from binding Christians Col. 2.16 What Sabbaths meant as Shadows to vanish when Christ came Math. 24.20 no Argument for the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 92 Sect. XVI Of the Morality of the Fourth Command The difference between Moral and Positive Between Naturally or Absolutely Moral and positively or secondarily Moral What the Fourth Commandment requires as Moral and Perpetual p. 101 Sect. XVII When to begin the Christian Sabbath and of the fit Time for Publick Worship on that day p. 116 Sect. XVIII The Argument of Tradition considered p. 118 Sect. XIX How far the Decalogue is in Force as to us Gentiles p. 125 Sect. XX. The Tradition of the Lords-day's Rest or First-day of the Week from the Apostles time to the end of the Fourth Century Of Easter and its Observation The change from the Seventh to the First-day not introduced by the Bishop of Rome p. 127 Sect. XXI The Conclusion of the whole with a Summary of what hath been Proved for the Observation of the First-day of the Week as the Christian Sabbath p. 130 A REPLY TO Mr. Bampfield's PLEA FOR THE Seventh-day-Sabbath THE very Title of the Book is justly lyable to Exception as that which does not fairly state the Question the second Enquiry being whether the fourth Command be repealed or altered for he very well knows that these against whom he Disputes even those who acknowledge the Morality of a Sabbath-day do neither pretend to the Repealing of the Command nor yet to the Alteration of it as such for they strenuously assert the Ratification of the preceptive part of it though they allow a practical Mutation of a single Clause therein which was at its first Injunction added as a Motive for the observance of the Seventh Weekly-day And therefore he should rather have stated the Enquiry after such a manner as this Whether every Clause in the Fourth Commandment be Moral or whether every Clause of it be absolutely Immutable or so imposed from the beginning as to be so 'T is not Ingenuous nor Candid so to propose the Controversie as though the Dissenters from him were either Repealers or Alterers of the Fourth Command Moreover the Annexion of this Query to the former and the Subservience of the former to this For 't is very evident that that weighty fundamental Enquiry is made to serve this Hypothesis by his Connexion thereof Page 5. thereto as though the Immutability of every Tittle to this Command was founded upon the Deity of our Lord Christ his creating the World and giving the Moral Law and the Denial of the one were vertually and consequentially the Denial of the other and so those that are for the observance of the Lords day for so I take leave now to call it are really and consequentially Ebionites
did not foresee a more convenient Opportunity for it hereafter Only let us here consider what he himself here grants viz. That the Moral Law was written upon Man's Heart that it did consist in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness wherefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part of it because it was not written upon Man's Heart at first 1. Because God revealed it to Man after his Creation which needed not if it had been in him before 2. Because there are obscure Remains of the Moral Law in the Humane and Rational Creature with respect to all the other Commands as might be easily manifested by an Induction but none as to the Seventh-day-Sabbath It is true as to the Moral Substance of the Law that is found in Mankind even a Separation of time and proper Seasons for the Worship of God but this is not Nay it is so rare that not one among Ten thousand does dream of it or scarce one in an Age does so much as fancy it 3. Because by his own Orthodox Assertion in this very place the Moral Law is reingraven that is more fully clearly and distinctly and in its Spiritual Sense and Latitude upon the Hearts of those that are revived by the Spirit of God which is the Image of God reinstamped upon the Regenerate and Converted as St. Paul saith Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 Now it is as clear as the Sun that the Generality of the Called inlightned and sanctified have not the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath written in their Hearts Nay they have an Aversion from it Of all truly Religious ones that ever I knew Mr. B is the Solitary Person of this Perswasion whence it must necessarily follow that it is no part of the Moral Law or of that Image of God which was instamped upon Man plainly and fully at first and remains imperfectly and obscurely in all Men and is restored to the Saints in their Regeneration and is increased in them in their progressive Sanctification Whence it is also clear that this Command thus stated was not given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles in the Creation And his proof for it is very weak and invalid which is taken from those express Commands given by God to the Jews of causing them that were either their Substance Slaves bought with their own Mony or Proselytes Strangers by Nation but yet joyning themselves to them and dwelling among them and so were of their Body who were bound as he himself there acknowledges and proves to be Circumcised to observe the Passover c. And now what Tendency hath this to prove that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was given to Jews and Gentiles When this proves only that those Gentiles were bound to keep it who were within the Gates and of their Body Politick But has no reference to nor does at all concern other Gentiles some of which might never hear of the Name of Israel or of any of their Laws and Sabbaths It pities me to see such weak and invalid Arguments which if they have any force it is to Judaize all the Christian World As to the second part of the Question whether the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath were observed ever after during the Old Church We acknowledge it was so still among the Jewish Nation and he needed not to have produced any proofs for it But withall we say never among any other Nations nor any Footstep of it which is a sure Proof against its proper Morality As to that Observation Page 28. That the Seventh Day throughout the Old and New Testament was called the Sabbath day It was fit it should be so all along till our Saviour's Resurrection because it was the Sabbath day till then And afterward if it be so called it was in compliance with the Jews who still held it so to continue or to use the Expression which was in most common use whereby the day might be known they spake of as we do of Sunday Monday c. only to declare what day of the Week we mean or else to declare the Abolition thereof And if we remember it we may make some use of that Assertion that the Seventh day and Sabbath are Synonimous in the Language of the Old and New Testament SECT V. THis Question he endeavours to prove Assirmatively Page 29. That Christ did in the Flesh confirm the Ten Commands without any Exception of the Fourth Commandment or any part or tittle thereof Which if we should fully grant without the least Exception it would make nothing for his Cause nor against ours for as long as Christ was in the World so long we all agree that the Seventh day of the Week was the injoyed Sabbath and therefore ought to be observed and so might have been commanded by Christ to be kept And so we know he ratified the Ceremonial Law by commanding the cleansed Lepers to go and shew themselves to the Priest and offer the Gift which Moses commanded for their cleansing Matt. 8.4 And so also the Judicial Law by injoyning them to pay Tithe of all even of Mint Annis and Cummin Matt. 23.23 which I think few or none do hold to be purely Moral and so the Brother 's taking of his Childless Brother's Wife he seems to confirm by a Tacit Approbation to the Sadducees objecting that to him to baffle and puzzle him about the Resurrection Matt. 22.23 30. Yet nevertheless those Laws were not permanent but expired the Ceremonial with himself and the Judicial with the Judicial State and Polity Withall we add that our Saviour did for ever confirm the Moral Law which is contained in the Ten Commandments And so the Fourth as far as Moral and in all that it commands as such But withall we say that some Passages of the Fourth Command are neither Moral nor yet commanded therein as such or of the Substance thereof Whereof the mentioning of the last the Seventh Day of the Week to be the Sacred Rest is one which here is but nakedly asserted but we defer the Proof and such as was to expire at his Resurrection Wherefore we say that that Passage Matt. 5.17 Till Heaven and Earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away must refer only to the Moral Law Quatenus Moral and as it refers to and obliges all Nations which several Passages belonging to the Ten Commands do not whereof this is one about the Seventh day and I think th is may be cleared by this Argument That which neither our Saviour himself nor any of his Apostles did command or enjoyn to be followed by his or their Disciples and Followers cannot be Moral But neither he nor they did ever enjoyn the Seventh-day-Sabbath therefore it 's not Moral Our Saviour in none of his Discourses that I remember did ever expresly or particularly command the Observance of the Sabbath-day but spake and did things which seem to declare the Abolition of the Seventh day neither do any of his Apostles in any of their Writings impose it upon or command
and not the seventh in order or the last day of the Week This we say is not expresly commanded therein and might be altered for another day of the Seven upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds as it is from it to the first In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue from Mat. 5.17 19. Luke 16.17 and then asks why those places confirm all the 10 Commands and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature which inclines us to be Gods c. when yet he knows that they that are for the change of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments which do amount in their Esteems to a divine Authority for that Change though they do not produce an express Command for it as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet what amounts thereto but it seems all these are not Reasons to him are not so much as Shews of Reasons But the only Reason is Man's Corruption Pride and Rebellion Whereas he cannot but know that many of those who in Doctrin and Practice admit of this Change are as free from these Vices and have as much mortifyed them as himself and are as Eminent for Holiness and Humility and Obedience to God as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be And their Earnestness for the First day does not spring from the Looseness of others thereon nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom But because they know 't is not Moral as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions with many other good and solid Grounds And here I shall ask him by way of requital if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral and by Christ confirmed as well as all the other Commands which are undeniably so Whence comes it to pass that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer either by way of Recommendation of it to them or commending of them for their Zeal for it and tthe strict Observance of it nor yet commanding of its Observance or teaching them how they should Keep and Sanctify it according to its first Institution seeing 't is clear that he in his Discourse doth particularize every other Duty of the Moral Law and Exhorts and Requires Obedience thereto In all his most copious and glorious Sermon upon the Mount where he Explains Enlarges upon and Injoyns the other Moral Duties we have not a Word about their Sabbath and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue he never mentions among them the Sabbath nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees and captions Jews in their condemning him and his Disciples as Profaners of the Sabbath c. to expound the Duty of the Sabbath and to shew them wherein the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto uttered by him only a Vindication of his own and his Disciples Practices from a Profanation thereof If I may judge at the Reasons I think they may be such as these 1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others not Moral as they nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already 3. Because neither they nor we neither Jews nor Gentiles should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day and its Conversion into the First day 5. Because as Place Priesthood Mode outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship which were before his coming into the Flesh were to be altered by his Authority as King of the Church so was Time also the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly observed into another day wherein his own Institutions were to be chiefly and generally practised by his Church And for these and such like Reasons he did not only particularly recommend and enjoyn but did also speak and do as has been formerly hinted and may be futurely evinced such words and things as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day but to a good Intention which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors Bloody Wars c. As though this general Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along since the days of our Lord Christ had no other Foundation but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots and not the least Footing for it in the Word of God An unworthy Suggestion and a most invidious Comparison and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading 'T is strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government Doctrin Worship and Practice of the Church according to the Word of God and the Patern in the Mount should mean as one if not the chiest of those Particulars the removal of the First-day-Sabbath and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu thereof When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox and his Adversaries in this Opinion prescribe the same rule for the Reformation and call upon those in Authority to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesiastial and Civil to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ And Commenius himself in his Practice and in his own Church was an Observer and Sanctifier of the first-day-First-day-Sabbath as he here acknowledgeth so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day And therefore questionless did not esteem the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule according to which he would have all Churches regulated But here we see what a strong fancy can do it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant if not directly contrary thereto SECT VII HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abrogating the Ceremonial Laws But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation as he requires us to do for not the Abrogation but only the Mutation of the Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another For I assert and can prove it that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ than his seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath I take leave to call it his because though 't was Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ yet now 't is not so but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions while they are rigorous towards others and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments In the same Page he gives us a
in this Conjecture And according to his Conjecture and the usual Phrase of Scripture our Saviour would have continued Forty Two days upon Earth For the Scripture in the number of Days does usually include both the First and Last day As in calling the last day of the Week the Seventh it takes into the Number both it and the First day of the Week for there are but Seven in all And so when it saith that our Saviour rose the Third day from the Dead it includes the First and Last days of the Three and therefore having the scriptural usual Phrase on our side and the Tradition of the Churches we have very good Ground to conclude that he ascended upon Thursday and he has no Ground but his own Conjecture for his Opinion of his Ascension upon Saturday But every little Surmise is made use of to exalt the Seventh above all the days of the Week and especially above the Lords day in this Controversie As to that Fancy of our Saviours coming to Judgment on the Seventh day I leave it as a Pure Fancy Here also he takes it for granted that our Saviour after his Resurrection appeared to his Disciples upon the Seventh day or at least he supposes it may well be granted because they were then assembled c. But he knows they met together on other days and particularly upon the First day on which our Lord appeared unto them And that Assembly in the First of the Acts if 't were on the Ascension day was according to Scripture numbering of days upon our Thursday But seeing he would make use of if we would grant our Lords appearing to his Disciples once on the Seventh day what an Advantage may we justly take for the First day from our Saviour's appearing so often unto them on the same so that there is no other day of the Week named whereon our Saviour manifested himself unto them after the Resurrection but this First day 'T is not said that he appeared unto them on the Second or Third nor at all on the Seventh and 't is very probable that all the Appearances of our Saviour which were not a few were on the First day Except only that on his Ascension day 'T is worth our serious Observance that as our Saviour would not grace the Seventh day with one particular express word of his Mouth about it during his Life-time so he would not honour it with one Appearance of his Human Nature to his Disciples throughout all the Forty days after his Resurrection Which to me seems plainly to signify that he would have a perpetual Silence thereof in his future Churches and that he had buried it in his Grave and would have it lye dormant there for ever SECT XI HAving done with this Conjecture we proceed to the Author's Question in the same Page Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ Whereof he thinks he demonstrates the Affirmative But is far enough from it by those Instances which he brings from the Apostles and especially and mostly from St. Paul yea only from him For though we take it for granted that many of the newly Proselyted Jews to the Doctrin and Faith of the Lord Jesus the ordinary and common sort of them did continue to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of an Erroneous Conscience toward God and a Persuasion of the perpetual Obligation of the Fourth Command as to this Seventh day as they did also Circumcision the Passover and other Mosaical Rites and Consecrated Times for all which St. Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians does clearly and severely reprove them Yet we say that the Apostles themselves never did so much less St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles and the great Vindicator of their Freedom from the Rites and Days of the Old Testament-Administration For they were otherwise and better taught by their Lord and instructed by the Holy Ghost for they went indeed I mean Paul and his Companions into the Synagogues on the Sabbath-day I mean here the Seventh-day though it deserves not now that Name But 't was not in any Observance of that day as more Holy than another as 't was not in any Observance or Deference to the Synagogue as a more Holy Place than another that he went into it But 't was because that then and there the Jews were assembled in great Numbers because that was the time and that the place of their Solemn and Numerous Associations for their Divine Worship And he could not find so fit an Opportunity any other day nor so convenient a Room in any other place to Converse with them to Preach the Gospel to them to prove the Lord Jesus to be Gods promised and their expected Messiah to Convince them hereof and to Exhort them to Believe on him and Embrace him as such which his Zeal for Christs Glory and his Love to their Souls strongly constrained him to And this we assert was the only cause of his so often and so unusal going into their Synagogue on the Seventh day without any Difference as to Time and Place as if it were more holy than any other We know how ardently he longed after the Conversion and Salvation of his own Countrymen and Kinsfolk according to the Flesh how fervently he panted after our Lord Christs being acknowledged by them as that which would be their greatest Good and his greatest Glory in the World For so his Enemies would become his Friends his Basphemers of him as the worst of Deceivers would be turned to be his Praisers Adorers and Relyers on him as the Son of God the King of Israel and Saviour of the World And therefore this constrained him to apply himself to them in every Place and at every Time where he might discourse with most of them and with greatest Freedom and Advantage And if the Jews had convened on other Days in other Places in as great Crowds he could doubtless then and there have applyed himself unto them And had they accustomed their Assemblies at any other time or in any other place he would have made it his Custom and usual Manner to have associated with them The Reason that the Holy Ghost gives us of Paul's going into the Jews Synagogues on the Seventh day and making it his usual Custom is no where said as I remember that he might Worship with them much less that he might observe the day with them but only that he might Preach the Gospel to them and prove the Lord Christ to be their Messiah Wherefore seeing the Holy Ghost tells us every where that this was his great Design and this his great Work in their Synagogue Therefore it hence follows That if he could not have had such Advantages for this Work among them he would never then nor there have accompanied with them So far was he from any Respect either to Time or Place in this his Custom that he only made use of them in a
Subserviency to his farther Design And therefore 't is very remarkable and worthy our most diligent Observance that when the Apostle Paul had sound the Jews given up so far to their cursed Blindness and Prejudice against the Lord Christ that all his Pains he took with them all the Affections he shewed he had for them all the undeniable Demonstrations from Scripture he produced before them could prevail nothing with them but rather they contradicted and blasphemed He forsook them and their Society and turned to the Gentiles Act. 13.45 46. and doubtless went into their Synagogues no more on the Seventh day In other Places he did go into the Jews Synagogues after this on the Seventh day as long as he had any hope of succeeding in his Preaching the Lord Christ to them but when he saw that they were generally hardned and took Advantage to speak Evil of the Lord Christ and his Doctrin before others the Gentiles he turned away quite from them and forsook their Synagogue and made the School of a Heathenish Philosopher one Tyrannus the common Meeting-place of his Auditors Act. 19.8 9. and so questionless altered the Time and Day as well as the Place of his Preaching and the Meeting of his Auditors For after this throughout all the remaining Book of the Acts throughout the remaining part of this Chapter and all the other Nine you find not the least Mention of Paul's Preaching or Praying or Associating with any others upon the Seventh day neither could this Author produce because he could not find any such Passage after this Eighth Verse of this Nineteenth Chapter Wherefore that Word of Mr. B. Pag. 45. Line 15. Continually might well be omitted for he did not continually go into the Jews Synogogue on the Seventh day but ceased from it when his great Design thereof was frustrated and never is said more to do it after this time No not at Rome where he lived Two whole Years in a hired House of his own and might have appointed what day he would for the Collection of his Disciples and Hearers Is he ever said to have called them together on the Seventh day which I assert to be a clear Proof that he never did it before out of any Regard to that day as more holy than other And therefore this Discourse of Two or Three Pages and the particular Remarks which he makes upon this Practice of St. Paul in some few of the Chapters of the Acts and the great Advantages he thinks he has for the Seventh day from them are dwindled and vanished into nothing If he would have gotten any thing for his Cause from this Practice of St. Paul he should have shewn these or such like Particulars 1. That St. Paul called his Auditors together upon that day which he cannot do for the Jews assembled themselves thereon 2. That he associated himself with the Gentiles and made their Religious Assemblies upon that day but this he never reads 3. That he did this perseveringly even when he turned from the Jews but this he can never shew and therefore all this shew is but a shew Besides we know St. Paul preached where-ever and whenever he found a convenient Auditory in the School of Tyrannus Acts 19.9 in the Market-place Acts 17.17 on Mars-hill v. 22. at the High Priests Bar and before Festus and Agrippa and as he made no distinction of places so none of days as to the preaching of the Gospel though as to the Churches solemn stated Worship he did though not the Seventh day and so these days and times have as much to plead for their Sanctity from the Apostles preaching on them as the Seventh hath But I suppose I have said enough of this to satisfie any unprejudiced considering Person Page 46. To his Question we grant that the Holy Scriptures do call no other day of the Week a Sabbath but the Seventh though Dr. Lightfoot shews that one day of the Year is called a Sabbath day whenever it falls out upon any other day of the Week viz. Pentecost and do not begrudge him all the Advantage he can take from hence Thus I hope by Gods Assistance and Guidance I have ran through all this Author's Arguments for his Sabbatarian Opinion and if I deceive not my self have proved them to be very weak and ineffectual as to the Edifying and Establishment of it And now I must proceed to try his Skill in plucking down and to see if he be more Dextrous and Successful in defeating our Arguments against the Seventh day and for the Sanctification of the First day which from henceforth I will take liberty to call the Lords day which he judges to be most weak and empty even the Conjectural Mistakes of the meaning of some Passages in Scripture let us see whether he can prove them to be such SECT XII THe first Objection against the Seventh day and Argument for the Lords day is Page 47. from the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that day c. Against which he has nothing directly and particularly but only hints the Differences of Opinions about the changing of the day but all save one do agree that it is changed and reason would judge that their universal concurrent Suffrages should weigh more for its Mutation than their Differences about the Circumstances thereof should against the Change of it He answers there is no express Alteration of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath And he expresses his meaning to be not by any express Precept but we say there are other ways of Abrogating and Establishing things in Scripture than by express Prohibitions or positive Injunctions even by genuine Consequences from Doctrins from Examples of those that are proposed to our Imitation c. And that the Sanctification of the Seventh day is as much abrogated in the Gospel and the Lords day established in its stead as any of the Ceremonies of the Old Administration are And I think we may challenge him to produce any one express Command for the Abolishing of any one of the Jewish Ceremonies or of all of them conjunctly which because we cannot find consequently we must still look upon them to be in force and keep them alive in the Christian Churches and these days of Reformation I do verily believe if my Judgment were sway'd with such Arguments against the Lords day and for the Seventh they would lead me back to all the Jewish Religious Worship because they were all as really commanded by the Second Command even all instituted Worship as the Seventh day is by the Fourth both which are in themselves positive though referred to and virtually contained in the Moral Commands yet he acknowledges the Abolition of these without an express Command and why not of this Let him bring his Arguments from Scripture for the Abrogation of any of them and I do verily believe we shall be able to use the very same for the Exclusion of the Seventh day I know not any one
gather but find it all ready in the publick Ecclesiastical Treasure I am sure he can bring no Demonstration from the Text for his or against my Interpretation But then I have the Testimony of the most ancient Fathers that on the first day they publickly assembled and then they made Collection for the Poor in these Assemblies Moreover If the Apostle here enjoyned such a profane or worldly Task as he supposes why does he enjoyn them to do it on the First days seeing it might have been done as well n every day of the Week and better on the Sixth day If the Seventh were then their Sabbath that so they might know at the end of the common days what they might well and gratefully spare of that weeks Gains and so lay it up against the ensuing Sabbath for the Poors Stock Whence we see that this supposed Solution to this Argument has no ground at all from the Text and to be sure from no other Topick And therefore conclude that the General Collections and so Associations of the Galatian Church being on the First day And the Appostle commanding the Church of Corinth to make the same Collections on that day in Imitation of them or as they did is with the former a very good Evidence that that day was the instituted day for Worship and so consequently the Seventh excluded Page 60. That Proof for the first-day-First-day-Sabbath in Rev. 1.9 10. where that day which St. John calls the Lords-day we say was that day of the week which we will by no means grant but tells us what the Opinions of some singular Persons were concerning it that it was Annual not a weekly day either the day of Christ's Birth or of his Resurrection either Christmas-day or Easter Others say 't is a great providential day to vindicate his Kingly Authority and others the last day of his coming but how this day whereon St. John was in the Spirit should be a future day can hardly be conjectured but every thing must be hinted that may seem to serve to an Undermining of the First day of the week from being the day of this glorious Vision But at length it is granted that some take this Lords-day to be a weekly day But then again these some are crumbled into a Sub-division and some of them assert it to be the First day and some the Seventh day thereof and this is written as though the Assertors of the First day were as small a some as those of the former annual Opinion of a future day to John's Vision and of the last day of the Week Whereas I dare to say put them all together they will not amount to the hundredth part of those solid and learned Authors which understand it of the First day of the week but withall these some for the Seventh day as inconsiderable for number as they are in comparison of the other yet they are far better founded and proceed upon more certain and undeniable Grounds than the First-day-Men do for they proceed upon Scripture but these have only Tradition if they have that for their Opinion Now the Tradition which is pleaded for the First day to be the Lords-day is constant uninterrupted and universal from the days of the Apostles The Generality of Christians acknowledging the Dominical day to be the First day whatever Opinion they had of the Sabbath till of late Years some Sabbatarians have thought fit to question it and virtually if not expresly to deny it Which is such a Tradition as upon which their very Scriptural Proofs are grounded for 't is from Tradition that they know the meaning of the very words of the Scripture Whether the Original Languages carry the Sense they are interpreted in and whether we have the genuine and proper Significations of the Originals can be known by nothing but Humane Tradition for either it must be had from Translations or Lexicons or oral Traditions Wherefore if the Sabbatarians will renounce here such a Tradition as is pleaded they must withall renounce their own Scriptural Authority which course will make wild work in the Church He very well denies it to be Christmas-day or any annual one but the great Query is What day of the Week this was and here in the entrance of his Discourse he endeavours to invalidate the universal Tradition of the Churches for 1600 Years by an Induction of other unlawful Traditions as that of Polygamy among the Patriarchs of whom the Scripture mentions but a few particulars and what is that to the Universality of Christians And which was condemned by our Saviour as alien from the first Institution of Marriage And how does this resemble the First days being the Lords-day which was never blamed by him The like he mentions in the Omission of the Feast of Booths and the Custom of the Profanation of the Seventh-days-Sabbath before the Captivity But these were against express Injunctions and Commands still in force and obliging which we deny the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be and avouch and may yet more prove its Abolition as of other positive and ceremonial Commands without any express or literal Prohibition of them in Scripture What therefore he saith in the following Paragraph would be very cogent and undeniable If he could prove the Seventh day of the week to be still enjoyned by the Fourth Command which he hath not yet done by his positive Proofs for his own Opinion as we have seen nor by his Negative in denying of ours as has been in some measure seen already and may be more hereafter At length he comes to give us his own Judgment concerning this Lords-day what day of the Week it was and if he had not told us we should have presumed that it determined for the Seventh-day which in all things till the end of the World must have the Preheminence according to his thoughts but withall 't is grounded upon Scripture which we will candidly and fairly weigh and examine 1. That the Lord Christ instituted the Seventh-day-Sabbath just after the Creation he means too before the Fall quoting Gen. 1. begin which we utterly deny because Jesus Christ then was not nor could be we speak of his Existence not Gods Foresight and Decree for then Man was Guiltless and Sinless and so needed no Jesus nor could have had one But in all these Old Testament Proofs he runs upon that former Fallacy of Ill Composition taking for granted that whatever Jehovah did the Lord Jesus Christ did Jehovah the Godhead of our Saviour did create and institute the Seventh-day-Sabbath but not Christ himself which necessarily includes both the Godhead and the Manhood And therefore the Premises being false the Conclusion cannot be true nor the consequential Discourse thereupon of any Moment His second and third Arguments laboring under the same Mistake admit of the same Answer Besides we know that the positive and ceremonial Precepts of Jehovah before his Incarnation were to be abolished by himself after his Incarnation that
is by our Lord Jesus and others more Easie Clear and Effectual introduced in their room whereof we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be which he can never prove to be Moral and so was to be excluded with them and a new Time as well as new Rites instituted by the King of the Church His next Argument to prove his Assertion is from those Passages wherein 't is said The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day Matt. 12.8 Mark 2.28 Luke 6.5 A Proof which we make use of to prove our Doctrin of the First-day-Sabbath and he thinks makes clearly and strongly for his Though there may be some ground for the Opinion of ordinary Men being meant by the Son of Man in these Texts because 't is the Appellation which the Holy Ghost usually gives them calling them Sons of Men and when he speaks to Ezekiel particularly his usual Expression is Son of Man And St. Mark relating the same History of the Disciples gathering Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day and the Pharisees being scandalized thereat and complaining to our Lord Christ that they did that which was not Lawful as the occasion of this saying of our Lord Jesus which the other Evangelists relate also and no other occasion of it is recorded in them neither do we find that he used it at any other time seems to carry it in this Sense for he saith Mark 2.27 28. that Christ said unto these Censurers The Sabbath was made for Man and not Man for the Sabbath And then immediately adds this Sentence with an Illative Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath I suppose no Man will deny but that the first Verse is meant of ordinary I mean meer Men for 't is brought by our Lord Christ as a Vindication of his Disciples action who were meer Men and not of any one of his own who was God as well as Man Withall I believe that we cannot find in all the Scripture that appellative Man thus abstractly and absolutely used without any distinction or Limitation antecedent or consequent to it understood of any but of meer Men which being granted the Illative therefore seems to carry the next Sentence for the same Subject and to declare that Man common Man is Lord of the Sabbath not an authoritative Lord to dispose of it as he pleases and do on it as he lists but so far a Lord as to be the end of the Sabbath for whose Profit and Comfort it was ordained As a Son may be said to be Lord of that House that is built for him and in which he dwells and uses for his Convenience and Delight though his Father obliges him not to sell or alienate it and the Laws of the Land not to burn it Though therefore this Interpretation of the Son of Man be no way Heterodox nor any way strained from this Text neither do we by this Interpretation give a meer Man a Lordship over the Moral Law as he supposes for his taking for granted that the Last-day-Sabbath is Moral I look upon as his Fundamental Error and the great cause of his Mistaken Confidence in all this Discourse We say that in no respect Man is Lord over any of the Moral Law not in this that we speak of for Man was made for the Moral Law that is to perform all the Duties thereof but now Man is Lord over the Sabbath as our Lord avouches in this respect viz. That the Sabbath was made for him and therefore cannot be Moral as before But yet I say let it be granted that 't is spoken precisely of our Lord Christ Likewise we grant that the Sabbath spoken of in these Texts was the Seventh-day-Sabbath and that our Lord Christ as the Son of Man that is such a Son of Man as is also the Son of God is Lord of the Sabbath we should have observed before to evacuate all his Proofs drawn from the Old Testament to prove the Seventh day of the Week to be the Lord's day here spoken of that he who is here called the Lord of the Sabbath is said to be the Son of Man which he was not then Wherefore being such an one it cannot be denied but that he is an Absolute Lord of the Sabbath without Limitation and so hath power to alter and change the day which is no way Moral I mean not the Seventh day at all and so to make that to be lawful on the Seventh day which before was not even all sorts of honest Imployments of our particular Callings as well as charitable Actions for when the day ceases to be Holy and another advanced to that Honour by his Authority then being a common day common works are proper for it which may seem to be the proper Intention of this Expression to the Jews for when they blamed him as a Tolerator of the Profanation of the Sabbath by his Disciples he takes a double Medium to refute their Slander the one as a Doctor and Prophet of the Church and so he teaches them that that charitable Action of theirs toward their own Nature was no Breach but an allowed work of that day and proves it by a Scriptural President and so vindicates his Disciples Action from Sin Wherefore supposing as this Author does that our Saviour had no other design but to vindicate his Disciples this had been abundantly enough and he needed not to recur to his own Anthority over that day which he does and so uses another Medium as a Lord and King of the Church and so of all the Institutions and particularly of the Seventh-day-Sabbath for which they were as Zealous as the Author as necessary and permanent and says he himself is Lord of the Sabbath and so had Authority to abrogate that day or establish it as he pleased which seems to imply this much You are ever and anon carping at my Disciples and especially at me as though their and mine Actions were Profanations of the Sabbath But I would have you to know that I have a Sovereignty over it and can dispose of it as I please and make things that are not Lawful on the Seventh to be Legitimate Which we look upon as a hint of its Abrogation shortly after Especially considering what Christ did or caused to be done on that day in another place viz. John 5.8 where having cured the impotent Man at the Pool of Bethesda he commands him to rise to take up his Bed and walk Now we know that bearing of Burdens on the Sabbath day is expresly forbid Jer. 17.21 22 24 27. and there are Promises made unto them that would obey that Command and bear no Burdens and Threats denounced against them that should contradict it serving to consirm the Defence of bearing Burdens on that day Accordingly Nebemiah was strict in its Observance Neh. 13.19 and the Jews themselves were very nice in this particular and very severe in their Punishment of such Bearers by Whipping and by Death as that great
their Annual Monthly and Weekly Festivals their Annual by Holy days their Monthly by New Moons and so their Weekly by Sabbaths And there was no Weekly Festival but the Seventh-day-Sabbath Or if by Holydays we apprehend the Generality of Jewish Festivals because they were all Holydays as long as their First Institution lasted yet then he condescends to some Particulars of them as the Monthly and Weekly which then must necessarily include the Sabbath because that was a Jewish Holy-day Yet again If we should grant that under the last word Sabbaths any other Festivals may be included or meant Yet certainly the Weekly-Sabbath cannot be excluded being the most famous Analogate comprehended under it and therefore in such an Expression cannot be excepted though sometimes the most famous Analogate be only meant and excludes all others yet never is it it self not intended in such Propositions Withal as we said before of the Galatian Church so we do of the Colossian 't was infected by false Teachers that would make a Mixture of the Jewis and Christian Religion and would have Moses's Rites to be kept with Christ's Ordinances And they know well enough that by Sabbaths was meant the Seventh day seeing 't is always so accepted Whence we may well conclude that here is an express exiling the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of the Church of Church Heretofore we were called upon to shew one Text in which the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath was abrogated and now we bring an express literal one yet it will not do but many Objections are brought in against it Which we shall successively consider and traverse 1. Some think it must be understood of Ceremonial Sabbaths only because else 't would reach the first-day-First-day-Sabbath as well as the Seventh But there is no fear of that for the First day is never called Sabbath in the Scripture and therefore cannot be meant and wee say the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath was both positive and ceremonial for he himself allows it to signify the eternal Rest above 2. He Objects that one place names no Sabbath but only Days the other indeed names Sabbaths which he would have interpreted Weeks for which I can see no Reason but much against it and therefore shall say nothing till he produce his Reasons for it And all the weight of this Argument is but a silly Conjecture of the meaning of the word Sabbaths But we have seen before that this is not a silly Conjecture but grounded upon the very usual Acceptation of the Word upon the Connection of the adjoyned things upon the State of the Churches unto whom he writ and upon the design of his Epistles to them But I am sure what follows is not so much as a Conjecture but a very great Oversight for he tells us that he finds the word Sabbaths in the Plural Number no where in the New Testament ascribed to the Seventh day It was then because he would not be at the pains to sind it for 't is in all these places Mat. 12.5 10 12. Mark 3.4 Luke 4.31 and 6.2 9. In all these places he will find it so and in the Original Greek the word is Sabbaths without a Verbal Superaddition of days which he himself must be inforced to acknowledge spoke of this day 3. The Seventh day he faith was never in Question in any of these Epistles and if there be no such Question about altering it how can such a Sense be imposed c. Just so I may say the New-Moon Observation and the Annual Festivals are no where questioned in these Epistles nor any where else that I remember expresly to be lain aside How therefore can such a Meaning be put upon Years and Months as to include the Judaical seeing Sabbaths are as plain and clear for the Seventh days as any of the former for what they are understood here We have still the Thred-beaten Plea of the Moral Law introduced and improved when I assert that neither he nor all the World can ever prove the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be part of the Moral Law Quatenus Moral His Fourth Answer plainly confounds Sabbaths with Years and New-Moons which the Apostle clearly distinguishes and of all the rest I may truly say they are but meer ungrounded Conjectures to baffle an express Text of Scripture But here he has a very strange Fancy That by Days may be meant the First day because the Heathen worshiped the Sun on that day And so then every day because the Heathen worshiped distinct Idols every day And so we should have no Consecrated day at all neither First nor Seventh nor any other All the rest that follows here are but as he expresses his own Thoughts and as well grounded as that Thought of his That the First day was not observed by Christians When yet we have found them several times associated on that day and Christ appearing several times in the midst of them and at Troas Assembled on that day and St. Paul Preaching and Administring the Lords Supper to them and therein to Harmonize with the Church of Galatia which I suppose proved against Objections neither of which can be said concerning the Seventh day Only there were Assemblies of the Jews on that day and St. Paul took the Advantage on these days to Preach to them But what is this to Christs Disciples and Followers We may therefore according to his own Rule That which appears not is not at all conclude that the Seventh day was never observed by the Disciples and Followers of Christ after his Resurrection as a day consecrated to Publick Worship because we never read in the Scripture that they did so meet Whereas the contrary is seen by the First day So I dismiss this Thought and the others as no more likely 5. He farther saith that 't is uncertain and therefore as such I or'e look it 6. He saith from Paul's constant keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath that he cannot be supposed to condemn his own constant Practice But how he did this we have already seen and therefore shall not stop here 7. That St. Paul commends the Whole Moral Law as Just Holy and Good and therefore can never be thought to condemn it here Here we have anew theatrized the Moral Law which we acknowledge the Apostle doth strenuously urge and never opposed any one Tittle thereof But yet he here decries the Seventh-day-Sabbath as very consistent with and agreeing to all his Zeal for the Moral Law because that was never of the Substance of it Neither is it either Holy or Just or Good I mean not in and of it self as all that is truly and naturally Moral is but by Gods commanding it We acknowledge it to be positively Moral 8. The last Answer is from Math. 24.20 Pray you that your Flight be not in the Winter nor on the Sabbath-day Upon which place he lays so great a Stress as to suppose it a sufficient Proof for the Observation of the Seventh day as our bounden Duty For here he takes for granted that this Sabbath
Martyr An. 250. Athanasius An. 326. Hilary 355. Ambrose 374. Hierome 385. Chrysostom 398. Augustine in their Time Eusebius saith my Author testifies 't was observed all the World over And Bp. Andrews as I have read him in his Speech against Thrask a Sabbatarian in the Star-Chamber avows it on his Credit that there is not any Ecclesiastical Writer in whom 't is not found Viz. The sacred Observance of the Lord's Day that is the First Day of the Week Which Testimonies of so many excellent Doctors yea saith Bp. Andrews of all eminent Doctors of so many great and flourishing Churches carry much more Weight with them than all his Collections can pretend to do against them As touching Easter and it's Observance that is no Part of this Controversy therefore I shall only say that I am no Zelot for it's Observance and am perswaded it has less Grounds for it's Celebration than any other of those Festivals which are appropriated to our Lord and in Commemoration of his Birth of his Manifestation of his Ascension of his Mission of the Holy Ghost because the Lord's Day is a constant Memorial of that Resurrection being that Day of the Week whereon he rested from all the Work of his Redemption wherefore seeing there is a weekly religious and solemn Commemoration thereof there must needs be the less Cause for an Annual As for the other Festivals which are appropriated to meer Men and dedicated to their Remembrance and Praise as I have nothing to say for them so I think it neither prudent nor seasonable to say any thing against them But let him that keepeth a Day keep it to the Lord and he that keepeth not a Day unto the Lord let him not keep it And let both maintain the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Here I hoped to have annexed my Epilogue but some Passages in the Discourse of Easter do require a little Animadversion As when He tells us Page 134. which he had done several Times before that the Change of the Seventh Day to the First was introduced by the Bp. of Rome and so imposed by him upon the other Churches which he thinks evidenced by his former Collection But 1. We have seen it observed before there was a Bp. of Rome and he received it from the Assemblies of the Disciples and Christians just upon our Saviour's Resurrection and in the Apostles Days 2. We have seen it observed by very great Churches in the Purity of the Roman Faith and the Moderation of the Roman Ecclesiastical Government when either the Roman Bishop did not pretend to any Authority over them or if he did they rightly and stoutly resisted and refused it And therefore 't was rather an universal Reception of all the Churches conjunctly as from the Apostles and scriptural Authority than any Imposition of Rome upon them He has a strange Notion Page 130. as it appears to me which is that first Rome endeavoured to introduce the Observation of the Passover upon the Lords-day and so the weekly Holy Rest upon that day which to my Apprehension implies that Rome her self observed the Passover Lords-day before she did the weekly Whereas 't is clear that Rome observed the first day of the week because 't was the Dominical day the day of our Lord's Resurrection whereas the proper Paschal-day was two or three days before the Lords day And therefore in Honour to that day did the Bishop of Rome require Easter to be kept and not ordained Easter First-day as a Shooe-horn to bring in the weekly first day after Moreover in those Churches wherein they dissented from Rome as to the day of Easter they concurred with her in the weekly Lords-day So that the Lords-day was weekly observed by them before Easter was kept upon that day and therefore the yearly first day could not be an usherer in of that week-day which was before it SECT XXI AS the Conclusion and Result of all this Discourse I think I have shewn that the Lord Christ did not make the World that Jehovah was not Christ before the World that he never instituted the Seventh day nor rested on it till his Incarnation nor being Christ really till then that he gave not the Commands on Mount Sinai Neither were they there given to the Gentiles but to the Jews only and those mixed People that came out of Egypt That the Ten Commands were confirmed by our Lord Christ in his Sermons and Discourses but the Seventh-day-Sabbath never so much as mentioned by him in them all as that which was no part at all of the Moral Law but purely positive both in it self and in its Grounds and Motive upon which 't is founded and imposed upon its Observers in the Old Testament and therefore was liable to be changed with the other positive and ceremonial Precepts of the Law of God that our Lord Christ indeed observed it in his own Person in the Flesh because he was made under the antecedent Law of all the Ceremonies and Mosaical Administration and observed them all as well as the Sabbath but yet he then spake and did such things as declared its approach to Dissolution and its Non-Morality that he rested no more in the Grave on the Seventh day than he did on the Cross on the Sixth when he hung dead thereon but the day of his Rest from the work of Redemption was the first day of the week which day he supreamly honoured above all the days of the week by his Resurrection thereon from the Dead by his several Appearances thereon to his Disciples after his Death by his most gracious Discourses thereon unto them which he never did nor made on the Seventh day after his Resarrection and by the Mission of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples thereon Upon which account St. John calls it the Lords day and by all the Churches ever since that Lords day has been taken to be the first day of the Week That the Apostles and Believers kept the Lords day or the first day of the week as their religious Rest and met together on that day as the day of their publick Assemblies and we never read of any Assemblies on the Seventh day save those of the Jews our Lords Enemies in their Synagogues to whom Paul went to preach the Gospel then and there but when he experienced their desperate Obstinacy left that time and those Synagogues and we never read that ever on that day he joyned with any religious Society after that at Troas he preached and administred the Sacrament to the Believers on the first day the Lords day and that the Holy Ghost does call the first day of the week the Lords day being the day of the Redeemer's Rest from a far more glorious laborious gracious and beneficial Work than that of the Creation And that there is an express Prohibition of the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath in St. Paul's Epistles and consequently seeing the positive Morality of one day in Seven in the Fourth
or at least the only happy Doctor of this great part of the Christian World no nor of the greatest or any considerable part thereof but only of a few here and there of unsetled Scruplous Superstitious minds No person could have a Rational and probable Prospect of a greater Return from such an Adventure or Crop from such a sowing And so wisely have judged that all his expectations would never quit his cost nor be worth his Risk Especially considering that 4. He should deeply have weighed the sad and sinful Consequences and scandalous Effects that his appearance in Print has a direct tendency to produce Though I trust such a tendency will be obstructed and frustrated by the good Spirit of God and by the Wise and setled Principles of our people The Natural Tendencies are such as these 1. An encouragement to the Profaners and deniers of the Lords-Day in their Principles and Practices They who have no Inclination to separate any Day as Holy to the Holy God in a performance of Holy Duties will take advantages from hence to decry the strict observance of the Lords-day and to fortifie themselves in their Idleness Recreations Worldliness and sinfulness thereon and withall slight and deride the Seventh-day-Sabbath as Judaical Fanatical and Singular and so being taken off from the First-day-Sabbath they will acknowledg none but give that and all the following days of the Week to their Interests and to their Lusts to Earth and to Hell And we have heard that this Book has already produced this fearful effect in our City 2. An Offence and Stumbling-Block to sincere and affectionate Saints who have their Hearts established in Grace and their Heads in the grand Fundamentals of Faith and Practice but are not acquainted with disputations about such remote things as these and therefore having very tender Consciences and dreading to offend God and to approach unto any moral evil hearing of such a piece as this from such an Author so known to some of them will be apt to be startled and excessively troubled with Fear lest they have hitherto lived in Sin and provoked God all their days by a Holy resting upon the Lords day and Working upon Saturday and so all their Services of God upon the one in the works of their General and the services of themselves their Families and the humane Society of which they are Members upon the other in the works of their particular Callings have been provocations and evils to be Repented of for we know what Aggravations scrupulous Consciences and a tempting Devil are apt to make of smallest things and to live in perpetual fears and doubts in their continuance in attendance upon Gods Ordinances on those days whereon they are only to be had in the most solemn manner and all of them at least in the professing Church of God And so they will be deprived of much of that Spiritual Comfort and saving profit thereby which they formely received in and by them And still would had not such an unhappy Scandal been laid in their way Which is no small Offence and Sin against Christ And this also we know to be another product thereof such Christians not daring to neglect the observance and Ordinances of the Lords-day because of their former Perswasion Practice and Experience and yet doing it with doubts and fears lest they should Sin thereby because of this Piece 2. A perverting and withdrawing of the more simple and unstable into this Opinion which we doubt not to assert and question not to evidence to be ill grounded and false and so will prove a scandal indeed even to lead into and to build up in Sin and an unwarrantable Practice And thus to Offend weak ones in Christ is a very great Evil 1 Cor. 8.11 12. But suppose the Authors notion be Orthodox and the contrary Heterodox yet another pernicious Tendencie of it is 4. By a Proselyting of some Persons or some Ministers so many as may make Assemblies and Congregations he will be the Author of a needless Schism and Separation and of inevitable Feuds Rancors and mutual Reproaches and Condemnations The Observers of the Lords day will decry and exclaim against the others as Jews and proud Schismaticks and the keepers of the Seventh day will censure and condemn the other as willful breakers of Gods express Command and profane compliers with the will and Traditions of Men. And he that has not the Gift of Prophesie may easily foretel what sinful and dismall fruits will grow upon such a Root of Bitterness Men should be cautious how they disturb the peace of the Church and rent our Saviours seamless Garment 5. He should seriously have pondered the Days and Times we are faln into the sad and deplorable Divisions of the Church of God among us and the dangerous and fearful Prejudices Rancours and Enmities begotten and fomented thereby with the uncharitable and inexcusable Effects they have produced already in Tongue Pen and Hand as the general Division between Conformists and Non-Conformists and the divers Opinions Parties and Separated Societies of the Latter Though blessed be God the most considerable and Orthodox of them the Independents and Presbyterians have coalesced in their Subscriptions to Articles of Agreement and how unseasonable and inconvenient 't is therefore to broach new Opinions among them and to increase their Divisions and Animosities and so also give an Advantange to their observers to encrease their prejudices and augment their Accusations against them and their Insultings over them as fickle inconstant and heady not knowing where to fix nor what to hold and Practise now that they have forsaken an universal and uninterrupted Conformity unto them Such a stout Non-Conformist to the Church of England ought to have used all caution not to have given the least occasion of weakning or vilifying his own Party 6 Lastly All these things laid together in the Ballance of a sound Judgment would have informed him that no such thing as he hath hereby attempted should have been undertaken unless it had been about the most weighty and necessary Truths of our Religion such as do necessarily concern the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls or very near bordering thereupon Which I hope he does not beleive the Controversie to be seeing 't is not not about the Substance of Duty or the very heart of a Command but only about the least Circumstance if I may so term it of it Not about what Proportion of time God shall have Consecrated to his service For that is agreed to be the Seventh But only what day of two of them must be that day of the Week And therefore he that observes the First-day gives and devotes to God the Seventh part of his time as well and as much as he that does the Seventh-day Wherefore though the Authors Integrity and Intent may not be questioned yet certainly his Prudence in this Work and the Work under such Circumstances are no way plausible And he
all the Degrees of his Abasement and begun his Exaltation and so in his Blessed and Glorious Estate delighting himself in his Conquest of the Devil the World Death and the Grave and his having perfectly satisfied Justice and purchased Grace and Glory for Lost Sinners which could not be till the Resurrection of his Body Can the State of Death with any probability be thought the Mediator's Rest Or his lying in the Grave be deemed the end of all his Abasements when Death was the worst thing his Enemies could bring upon him in their Rage and Fury when they triumphed over him in the Grave and concluded that now they had compleatly vanquished him and proved him to be a Grand Deceiver Matt. 27.62 64. when it was that which was especially required as the utmost of his Sufferings for the Expiation of our Sins being that which was denounced at first against Sin Gen. 2.17 and as the consummate Punishment thereof and is the proper Wages of Sin Rom. 6.23 and therefore so to be undergone and lain under by the Sinners Surety standing in his stead and bearing his Punishment and being made that Curse for him Gal. 3.13 which was the lowest Descent of his Humiliation which saddened the Hearts of his Disciples and filled them with fear whose hopes almost expired at his Death and were buried in his Grave in which Estate if he had abode the Devil and his Enemies would have gotten a compleat Victory over him and we could never have been justified nor saved Moreover our Saviour's Body and Soul rested as much upon the Cross after his Death as they did in the Grave after his Burial And so the Muchammedists have as fair a Plea for their Sixth-day-Sabbath because on that day the Dead Body of our Saviour felt no pain on the Tree and his Soul enjoyed all Bliss in Heaven And so in this sense rested on their day of Worship How unreasonable and unscriptural to call this the Rest of our Redeemer Besides it was impossible that as Redeemer he should rest in the State of Death and in the Grave for the Redeemer must be God-man his Deity could not declaratively rest till it had raised its own Humanity out of the Grave and rent in sunder the Bonds of Death And his Humanity could not really do so because it was not during that Condition for we know that Death is the Separation of the Soul from the Body Now the Soul separated from the Body is a Spirit and not a Man the Body separated from the Soul is a Corps not a Man both Soul and Body separated are not Man but essentially conjoyned they make the Man Wherefore though both Body and Soul in their mutual Separation were united to the Deity and so he was always God and had the essential parts of Man yet being divided he was not Man for by Death they being dissolved his Humanity was destroyed and continued so as long as Death had power over him So that 't is against all Reason and common Sense to assert that the Mediator who must be God-man rested in the Grave seeing in this true sense he could not be Man there No no This was no part of his Rest but his Resurrection from the Grave the re-uniting of his Body and Soul was the first entrance into it For as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Jehovah is not said to rest till he had fully compleated his six days work of Creation and then with infinite Complacency viewed all he had compleated on the Seventh So Jesus Christ God-man cannot be said to rest from the Work of our Redemption till he had fully compleated and ended all his Humiliation till he had conquered all his and our Enemies which could not possibly be while he lay in the Grave on the Seventh day but it was when he rose from thence on the First when indeed he had a glorious and Blessed satisfaction in himself when he reflected upon all he had done and all the Sufferings he waded through and all the Humiliation he was sunk into and had happily and triumphingly concluded with all those inestimable Blessings that should accrue to the Church and that infinite Glory that would redound to God thereby And therefore as God's Resting on the Seventh day from his work of Creation was proposed as the Example and Motive to the Old Church before Christ's coming for the keeping the Seventh for their Sabbath So likewise our Saviour's Resting from his work of our Redemption on the First day of the Week may worthily be and we say really is proposed as a Motive and Example to the Churches since his coming for their consecrating of that day for their Weekly Sabbath I am sorry that such Passages of the Author should occasion so much Tediousness to the Reader and inforce such Enlargedness from the Writer As to that place Mat. 24.20 which he tells us he will improve hereafter to his own Advantage we shall attend his Motions and meet him there To his Query Page 41. we grant that the Jewish Believers did keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath while our Saviours Body was in the Grave and that they ought to do so because as yet the First day by our Lords Resurrection was not Consecrated to be observed as the day of the Redeemers Rest And withal that they were obliged during this time to observe the unleavened Bread-Feast and supposing it to be the Eighth day from their Birth to Circumcise their Children yet I hope this is no Plea for the everlasting Permanency of these So neither can it be for that of the Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT X. WE have his Conjecture Page 43. about the Week-day of our Lord's Ascension which he would fain suppose to be on the Seventh But if we may believe St. Luke Act. 1.3 that he tarried on Earth Forty Days and so was visible to his Disciples all that time and conversed with them as oft as he saw fit and about what was most necessary and profitable for their Knowledge and then ascended into Heaven If we look on this as an Historical Account of his Abode on Earth after his Resurrection as it lays a fairer Foundation for it than all Human Conjectures can be then if we reckon from the First day of the Week to the Fortieth day and both the First and Last inclusively then the day of his Ascension was upon the Fifth day of the Week which is our Thursday as the Church of England observes it If we exclude either the First or Last day only 't will be upon the Sixth day of the Week our Fryday if I mistake not but if we exclude both the First and Last Days I mean the day of his Resurrection and the day of his Ascension from the number of Forty days then 't will fall out upon the Seventh day of the Week our Saturday which he conjectures to be the day of the Week of our Saviours Ascension But here we must consider that we have two to one against him
haling him through the Streets Therefore this must be the former part of the sixth day in the latter part whereof he was Crucified and laid in the Grave in which he continued throughout the seventh and out of which he rose very early in the Morning of the first day And so it could not be after as he would fain have it but upon the third day And therefore without any danger of shaking the third days Resurrection our Expositors according to the use of Scripture do thus interpret this Passage and this Preposition See another express place for this where after three days is said to be upon the third day 2 Chron. 3.5 12. And because it was our Saviour's use to appear to them upon that day even the first day 'T is strange that he should herein go against all the Criticks of that Language and against all the Sense of all the Expositors that I can see to serve his own Hypothesis 'T is without doubt that it was not upon the Seventh day that our Lord did now appear to his Disciples unless we will understand it thus after four or five days after the eighth day he appeared to them And thus he slily evades this other Argument for the Lords days Observance even his Appearance to his Disciples when gathered together for religious Worship which as I have shewed formerly was not once only but several times after his Resurrection And 't is the only day of the Week which is named by all the four Evangelists upon which our Saviour appeared to them and graciously discoursed with them no other day so much as mentioned nor the Seventh so much as hinted to be the day of his Personal Manifestation of himself unto them which is another high Honour and Prerogative our Lord and the King of the Church has bestowed upon this first day of the Week and seems to be a practical and exemplary laying aside of the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath-day and substituting the first day to be that day consecrated to the publick and solemn Worship of God and an Assurance that he will be in the midst of his People assembling themselves upon this his day and will come and Bless them which has been and is according to the Experiences of his People in their religious Devotions and publick Congregations for there have they met and do they still meet him in those his Galleries Then he brings them into his Wine-Cellar and his Banner over them is Love Then he gives them the ravishing Kisses of his Mouth Then they behold his Beauty in his Sanctuary apprehend his Glory Experience his gracious Power in and upon their Souls Then they are abundantly satisfied with the Fatness of his House and drink delicious Draughts of the Rivers of Spiritual Pleasures that flow therein Then they experience that that first day of the Week in Gods House is inconceivably better to them than all the days of the Week any where else or about any other Imployment whatever Wherefore we have just cause to hope that our People will not and persuade them that they do not neglect the Sanctification of the first day of the week and their Assembling themselves together on that Holy day Seeing herein they follow the Examples of the Apostles themselves and the other Christians in their days and experience the Gracious Spiritual Presence of our Lord in the midst of them as they did both his Carnal and Spiritual Presence then and turn aside after the novel and singular Opinion of this Author being also poorly grounded as we have seen He proceeds Page 51. against that which some bring from John 8.56 Abraham saw my day c. as the day of Christ's Resurrection and so the First day of the Week He says some would have it meant of his Birth-day for the Observance of Christmas others all the days of his Flesh and the things which he did speak and suffered and our Redemption thereby which I think to be a true Notion But then to be sure he must foresee his Resurrection and so a day thereof and this was the great Cause of his Joy and Gladness Because without this there could be no cause of Gladness in all the rest For his Birth Life and Death could have brought no Glory to him if he had still layen in the Grave nor Good nor Profit to us if he had not rose out of it but he would have been conquered by his Enemies and we forever undone But now his Resurrection is for his own greatest Glory his Enemies Confusion and our Comfort and Triumph This was properly our Lords day He calls the day and time of his Sufferings Luk. 22.53 the hour of his Enemies and the power of Darkness Because then they insulted over him and he was delivered into their Hands But the time of his Resurrection was his own day because he therein Triumphed over all his Enemies and had perfectly vanquished them and therefore this day must chiefly be intended by Abraham because 't was the chief day of his and all Believers Joy and Gladness Though Mr. B. does not so much as once mention it in all those Particulars he reckons up under this Head Moreover Page 52.53 he mentions those Texts Psal 118.22 24. and Heb. 4.1 11. where the day the Psalmist speaks of which God hath made some do interpret of the Resurrection-day and that therefore upon that day of the Week Christians or the Churches should go into the Houses of Worship and there praise the Lord and adore him And Psal 2.7 where the day of God's begetting his Son is interpreted the day of Resurrection And there is very good reason nay there is Divine Authority for it for it 's applyed and appropiated to that very day Act. 13.33 So that the Text in the Hebrews which speaks of a Sabbath besides the Seventh day from the Creation and that Sabbath or Rest which Jehovah brought Israel into in the Land of Canaan which was to succeed and as it were to antiquate and exclude the others is by good and excellent Authors understood of the Lords day the Sabbath of the First day Who bring many excellent Arguments for this their Interpretation and Opinion Which Mr. B. should have Produced Answered and Invalidated and not put them off only by a bare Denial or Calling them Shifts and Wind-laces As though his only Rejection of these Passages were enough to Counterballance all the Arguments and rational and scriptural Discourses which many good Scholars Divines and Holy Men do draw from them and give us upon them And therefore seeing he saith nothing to Confute what they have said and I desire to study Brevity I shall speak nothing more here but only refer the Reader to these Orthodox Authors themselves and Particularly to Mr. Warren in whom he shall find very good Improvement of these Passages for the Lords day Page 54. He mentions Act. 20.7 as an Objection against the Authority of the Seventh day and
for that of the First and well he may For 't is an eminent one and such an one as he will find very difficult to answer but yet we must expect the utmost of his Efforts to do it I shall track his Endeavours 1. He says we guess that he First day of the Week was that day we call Sunday as though this were but a bare Guess as a Blind Man shoots the Mark or catches the Hare as the other Three Guesses he says we make in the very next Paragraph But yet 't is such a Guess as he will not controvert and we think 't is because he cannot gain-say it But yet this great Condescension to us must be with a Grant from us to him that St. Paul was a Keeper of the Seventh day and an Observer of it as a Sabbath and so for his granting us what he cannot deny we must grant him what he can never prove Yea what we have denyed and still do viz. that Paul was a Keeper of the Old Sabbath-day We grant indeed as before that he Preached on that day usually to the Jews in their Synagogues because he could have no other such convenient Time and Place for it But that he kept that Sabbath we utterly deny For then he would have done it among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews which yet we never read he did Or if he saith he did let him prove it which we are sure from Scripture he can never do Nor after the former Chapter that ever he did go so much as to the Jewish Synagogue for this is all the Proof of his keeping it upon the Seventh day But here we find that the Disciples came together uon the First day and Paul came to them and associated with them in Religious Duties And why is the First day now named and the Seventh never after as the Solemn Dedicated Day to their Worship but because it was never so from that time But yet this is not all the Condition upon which he will be so exceedingly kind to us as to grant the First day of the Week to be Sunday or our Lords day but it must be bought with another Information even on what part of the Sunday 't was that this Assembly was and St. Pauls associating in them which he takes for granted and I am sure does but guess that his Opponents do that 't was in the Evening after the Seventh day Which he takes for the beginning of the First day and so Paul Preached till the Midnight and brake Bread and discoursed only till the Light of the First day but performed no Religious Duty upon the Morning of that day at all but as soon as ever the first Day-light began to dawn he betook himself to what was Profane and Travelled Which I think is a begging of the Question and in a scriptural Sense is to say that he performed no Religious Duties at all thereon for 't was the Light that God called day and the dakness he called night Gen. 1.5 and so to contradict the express words of the Text. Besides I would fain know of him which is the chiefest part of a natural Day either the dark part of it which we with Scripture call Night or the light part of it which with it we call Day If the light part as I think an unprejudiced Mind will grant why should he suppose that all the Religious Duties of that Day should be done in the Dark thereof and not in the Light Again we think that the Lords day did not begin at Even but rather in the Morning when our Lord rose out of the Grave that being the great occasion of its Sanctification to sacred Duties and its being imployed therein by those Disciples and Paul And for this we have express Scripture I mean for the First day of the Weeks beginning in the Morning as Mat. 28.1 in the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the First day of the Week where the Scripture determines the Sabbath to end with the Darkness of the Night before the First-day Morning and the Lords day to begin at the dawning of the Morning of the First day So far is it from Truth that the Evening and Night before the Morning of it were part of that day at least in this Scripture Phrase and hence we say that Paul began to Preach to them in the light part of that Day as the beginning thereof and continued with them till the following Midnight Yea throughout that Night and so the next Morning being the Second day on Monday took his Journy as a proper day for it And now we have another of our Guesses which is that the breaking of bread here spoken of was the Lords Supper and we would fain know what other breaking of Bread should be meant Can it be imagined that all the Disciples should come together to Feast it with Paul and that too in the Night-season as he would fain have it They had Houses of their own to Eat and Drink in and they would doubtless rather choose to receive the Consecrated Bread from the Apostle that day being the last he was to tarry with them having as 't is probable no other Apostle or Evangelist or Pastor with them at that time than to eat common Bread which they could do when they pleased in his Absence And the Sacrament is more suitable to the Society of Disciples as such to the Preaching of the Word of God by the Apostle than the feeding their Bodies Wherefore we say that seeing 't is clearly here implied that the Disciples gathered themselves together uon this day as upon the usual time and the Apostle ministerially served them then 't is very probable and more than a bare Guess that this day was the usual day and so to be the future day of their Solemn and Religious Devotions Dedicated thereunto As to what follows in the other Paragraph about Preaching and Reasoning we may with good reason pass it over seeing we can see in it but little to the present Case Next by way of Concession he tells us that though this were a Religious Assembly and the breaking of Bread was the Lords Supper yet then all this is but once But this is such an once as leaves the Seventh day for ever out of mention from being the day of Association Such an once as clearly seems to imply the Custom of the Disciples to be their Convention on the First day Such an once as the Holy Ghost is pleased here so particularly to mention after he had shewed us before that 't was the usual day of the Disciples Religious Association and our Saviours personal Presence with them and his gracious Discourse to them Such an once indeed now as no Meeting can be but once at a time as with the former makes more than once and such an once as with what hath been said and what may be said will be of force enough not to repeal a Law or
Hebraick Critick Dr. Lightfoot informs us Yet here our Lord expresly commands the Healed Person to take up his Bed and walk that is to carry it either to his own House or to some other convenient place for so he did in obedience to this Command v. 10. Whereat the Jews were very highly offended and condemned it as an unlawful Act and sought to persecute and kill Christ for enjoyning of it v. 16. Now we would enquire to what end our Lord Christ did enjoyn this Person to carry such a Burden on the Sabbath If it be said it was to try his Faith and Obedience or clearly to evince the Perfection of his miraculous Cure or both of these 'T is replied that these things could be as well done without the carriage of his Bed He might have gone every where and proclaimed his Cure and his Restorer he might have done it by leaping dancing and praising God as the Cripple in Acts 3. Wherefore 't is probably apprehended by learned Men that it was a practical Proof of his being Supream Lord of the Sabbath and of his Authority to change the old day into another of his own appointment and this was a real blow begun to be given to it Besides all that was said against these his Arguments for the Seventh day to be the Lords day meant in the Revelation 'T is observable that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used but once more in the New Testament and that is 1 Cor. 11.20 where the Sacrament of our Saviours Body and Blood is called the Lords Supper in which it is clear it signifies both his Authoritative Institution thereof and that his own Death is signified thereby The Lord is both the Institutor thereof and his Death the thing commemorated thereby And therefore Reason and comparing Scripture with Scripture would require that it should be so understood here also even as a day of his own Institution as the Son of Man For so he appeared to John to be in the Vision And so St. John calls him Rev. 1.13 and so a day for his own Commemoration even of his Resurrection viz. the First day of the Week which none deny to be that day And 't was on that day whereon the Author of the Revelations saw the Lord Jesus walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks with the Seven Stars in his Right Hand that is with his Orthodox and Zealous Ministers receiving their Light and Heat from him the Sun of Righteousness And then diffusing it abroad in the Churches or in the midst of the Congregations which we know the Orthodox Fathers throughout all Ages of the Church have principally done upon the First day of the Week the day of the Resurrection And so the future Practice of the Church proves the Lords day to be the First day of the Week Again St. John calls this the Lords day after his Resurrection and our Saviour tells him Verse 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live forevermore Implying that as after his Incarnation Obedience Death Resurrection Ascension Session on the Right Hand of God and Mission of the Holy Ghost all the former carnal and ceremonial Administrations vanished and a new Government new external Modes of Worship were introduced which were properly the Lords and bear the Stamp of his Authority as Mediator as God-Man over the Church and all her Ordinances So this was also the Day of his own Institution after his Humiliation and Exaltation for the Celebration of his new Institutions the other being excluded with the former Appendixes thereto What follows under this Head being what has been spoken to before and is frequently inculcated as of great Moment for him as the Moral Law as the now changing of the Sabbath meer Pretences of the other party c. as being but a little better than the begging the Question and taking that for granted which we utterly deny These I tacitly pass by and leave the Judicious Reader to judge if after all has been said it be not far more probable that the Lords day spoken of in the Revelations is the First day of the Week as all Schollars and Churches almost have hitherto believed than the Seventh day thereof which a very few scarce deserving the Title of Number have pitched upon as a Prop to their tottering Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XV. THere are other Texts which he produces Page 69.70 as Rom. 14.5 6. Gal. 4.9 10 11. Col. 2.16 17. from whence we hold and contend the Seventh day to be everlastingly excluded from the Christian future Sabbath the chief being the Two latter of these We say in Gal. by Days are meant the Jewish Seventh day because the Apostle mentions their Months that is their Observance of the New-Moon Festivals Times Which some apply to Easter Pentecost Feast of Tabernacles c. and Years which some think is meant of the yearly Feast of Atonement and Expiation Or it may be understood of the year of Jubilee if not the Great Jubilee every Fiftieth year yet the less of every Seventh year which St. Paul probably observed them very Superstitious in But whatever the Difference may be in the particular Applications of these Terms yet they generally hold the more rare or seldom Jewish Festivals to be meant and by Days then what other Festival of the Jews can be understood but the Seventh day If he do not mean their Weekly Sabbath by Days it cannot well be conceived what it should be We doubt not but by the latter Three Expressions Months Times and Years are meant Jewish Festivals And why Days should not signify the same cannot well be imagined Besides we find that these Galatians were greatly infected with the false Leven of Judaical Doctors who taught them to observe Circumcision c. as is seen clearly by the Epistle and seems to be the chief occasion of Writing it to turn them from and sortify them against such false Doctrins and dangerous Observances And therefore hence we conclude St. Paul condemns the Galatian Church for keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath as well as other Judaical Rites and Festivals and tells them he is afraid he had bestowed his labour in vain upon them In that Text to the Colossians we have the Observance of Sabbaths expresly spken of and thereby St. Paul discarded from their Observance as Shadows which were to vanish when Christ the Body was come By which we contend is meant the Weekly-Sabbath because that in the Scripture is Chiefly Mostly if not Solitarily the Acceptation thereof And we have heard him again and again asserting that 't is the Intent of this Word every where And I believe so whenever it stands absolutely as here without some Annexion or other to alter its Signification And what Reason can be given why here it should not so be understood that only here and no place else in the Bible it should not be taken for the Weekly-Seventh-day Moreover here the Apostle seems plainly to intend
spoken of Rev. 1.10 But I think I have disproved that Proof Page 91 He himself recurs to Tradition and undertakes to prove that throughout several Centuries there have been Churches who assembled themselves themselves for religious Worship on the Seventh Day And so this is set as a Bar against and a Counterplea to that Prime Primitive and universal Tradition for the Lords-day To which I answer in general 1. That a few Exceptions against a general Rule do rather confirm than weaken it 2. Every Antiquity or Tradition will not cannot serve to prove either Practice or Doctrin to be commendable or orthodox nor derogate from what is so For the Denyal of the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ is as ancient as the Apostles Days in which Corinthus was such an Heretick and the Ebionites Photinians and Arains have handed down that damning Doctrin to our Socinians 3. Scarce any Church since the Apostles Days have been without out their Flaws in Doctrin or Worship or both and we doubt not but this hath been one of them if it can be proved to be practised 4. In many Churches where they did observe the seventh-Seventh-day as a Day of publick Assemblies yet in them the lord's-Lord's-day was also kept and observed and that too as the chief Day For on the lord's-Lord's-day all in general were ingaged to wait upon God's publick Worship not so on Saturdays On the lord's-Lord's-day all the Ordinances of the Gospel were administred not so on Saturdays And so still the Lords-day had the Preheminence even in those very Churches Which general Answers may be enough to stop the Mouths of all his ancient Witnesses Yet I will take a little Pains and imploy a little Time to inquire into the Particulars for I think they neither deserve nor require much of either As to his first Instance if all the following be such I am sure they are stark naught yea they are not at all For he asserts that in the Apostles times the Seventh Day was observed as the publick Day of divine Worship Here he must meau by Christins or else he trifles But he can never find in all the Scripture that in the Apostles Days there was ever one Society of Christians gathered on the Seventh Day Indeed St. Paul did go on that Day into the Assemblies of the Jews to preach the Gospel to many of them which he could not conveniently do on any other Day But never did he invite any to keep that Day never did he assemble afterward on that Day when he was separated from their Synagogues finding them imperswasible and obstinate But now we can produce several Christian-Assemblies on the First day the Lords day after our Saviours Resurrection in which our Lord appeared to them And 't was then their Custom to Assemble and bring their Publick Alms to the Publick Treasure wherefore I cannot but marvel at this bold Assertion The Basis of traditionary Structue being so visibily sunk and come to nought makes me suspect that the erected Stories thereof will tumble and fall So that 't is clear we have the Apostle Examples the Churches Use in their days and their Commands against the Seventh day and for the Lords day as a sufficient Demurr to all his future Tradition Into which I now descend and must say that I have searched the Magdeburgenses for his Quotations but cannot find them where he quotes them and therefore believe that the Author used either another Edition or another that is various either in the Bulk or in the Pages I found in them the Eliberine Council but there he Twenty Third Canon hath nothing of a Fast upon a Sabbath day As to the other Authors I have them not and know not where to get them that I might peruse them neither is it needful for the matter of these Quotations makes very little for his Cause For whoever considers them will find 1. That very many if not most of them declare the Establishment and Separation of the Dominical day for Divine Service 2. That another great part of them prove the Observation or keeping both of the Dominical day and the Sabbath in very many of the Churches 3. These tell us that the Sabbath was kept as a Fast by the most if not by all of the Churches that kept it and the Lords-day as a Festival which all our Ecclesiastical Writers acknowledge as before And so evince that it was not kept with so equal Authority as the Lords day So does Dr. Young at large which also shews that they never observed it as the ancient Sabbath or 't was enjoyned in the Fourth Command But upon a new Account or for a new Reason even because our Lord Christ lay dead in the Grave on that day Therefore they would Fast and Humble themselves because their Lord and Saviour was on that day in his lowest Humiliation So far were they from this Gentleman's Opinion that his State of Death was his Rest after his Work of Redemption and they would observe the First day with Praises and Holy Rejoycings as the Christian Festival because 't was the Lords day of Triumph over his Enemies even of his Resurrection These include the greatest part by far of his Historical Examples and a very few are left which do not expresly acknowledge these things And they that do not express them may well be thought to include them I mean though some of these Quotations do not verbally tell us that when they kept this Sabbath they also kept the Lords day yet it may well be presumed they did so seeing 't was the common Practice of such Churches to observe both of them in the foresaid manner Such an one for Example is that of Socrates Scholasticus who tells us for I have examined him and find he does verbatim tell us in a manner all the Churches in the World do Celebrate and Receive the Holy Mysteries every Sabbath day after other Yet the People inhabiting Alexandria and Rome of an old Tradition do not use it Yet doubtless they also observed the Lords-day seeing 't was that which Constantine had before by Edict enjoyned the Churches to do And he saith in the very next Page and in the same Chapter of this Quotation that at Caesarea in Cappadocia and at Cyprus the Priests and Bishops do Preach and Expound Holy Scripture at Evening-Prayer on the Saturdays and Sundays by Candle-Light and therefore we may well presume that the other Churches did which before he spake of These being some of these all As for his Historical Account when the Lord's day was brought into Scotland viz. An. 1208. It may be very well answered that the initiating or bringing in of the Dominical day does not refer to the day it self but only to the Authority that introduced it even that in that Year it began to be Established by the Authority of a Council which before it had not been Or if it refer to the day it self it may not simply be understood as if that
Command is of perpetual Obligation to the Churches therefore the first day must be that day and the Sabbath was excluded that the Lords day might succeed and that the Promises made to the Rest of one day in Seven in the Command are made to and entail'd upon the first day of those Seven now as they were upon the last of them before its Expiration and that a due Observation thereof shall have a gracious Acceptation with a bountiful Remuneration from our God and our Saviour according to all the Blessed Experiences of the strict and consciencious Observers thereof That there is a more express and peremptory Abolition of this Sabbath in the Scriptures of that Apostle than there is or can be found in them for the Cessation of many other particular positive and ceremonial Institutions which yet Christians in general and this Gentleman in particular disregard as dissolved and vanished And I profess if I could see but half so much in the Second Command to prove a Form of Prayer to be the Pesel there forbidden or at least included therein I should utterly deny all Forms as Idolatrous which now I dare not do but in some cases hold them not only lawful but necessary and Praise-worthy or but half so much in any Line or Sentence of the New Testament against the use of the Lords Prayer in the publick Congregation I would never so use it more but to my due power would endeavour its Banishment thence If I say but half so much as I find expressed for the Seventh days Deposal well may we wonder that in such things a Man sees what scarce no Man else ever did in the word of God and yet in this that he should not see what almost every Man else can plainly discover Wherefore I question not but all our Divines and Ministers of Congregations are sufficiently satisfied that they serve God duly as to the Circumstance of time on Lords days and may and do in Faith associate on the Lords day as the only Sacred day of the Week with all other Christians in the Apostles days since our Saviours Resurrection home to this very Generation And I cannot but hope that this piece how specious soever it be and with what confidence soever recommended however back'd with the Pretences of Divine Authority of Jehovah's Will c. with pathetical Inculcations of those in multitudes of its Pages for the Observance of the Seventh day will find but very few if any Proselites among our common Professors and I am confident none among our Wise Stade experienced Christians or if any be in danger of Infection I pray to God that this Reply intended for this end may be an Antidote to secure them Lastly it will be good Advice to this Gentleman who hath caused the Expence of so much time in this Controversie to bethink himself how his Opinion leads us to Judaize and this work of his tends only to divide the Church to stumble the Weak to imploy and please the Silly Fantastical and Giddy in matters of Religion to encourage the Profaners of the first day or rather of the Lords day to scandalize and grieve all and therefore to cease from farther Attempts of this kind And all I desire is that the Reader would impartially compare what he has written for his Seventh day against the Lords day and what I have written for the Lords day against his Seventh day and beg Wisdom and Understanding from God to have a due Insight into and draw a right Conclusion from both FINIS Books Printed for Samuel Clement at the Swan in S. Paul's Church Yard GOD's Revenge against Murther and Adultery expressed in Thirty several Tragical Histories Wherein are lively delineated the Various Stratagems subtle Practices and deluding Oratory used by our Modern Gallants in order to the seducing young Ladies to their unlawful Pleasures To which are annexed the Triumphs of Friendship and Chastity in some Heroical Examples and Delightful Histories The whole illnstrated with about fifty Elegant Epistles relating to Love and Gallantry By Thomas Wright M. A. of S. Peter's Colledge in Cambridge A Compleat History of the Late Revolution from the first Rise of it to this present Time in Three Parts The English Grammar setting forth the Grounds of the English Tongue and particularly its Genius in making Compounds and Derivatives with many other Useful and curious Observations Wherein are also explained the usual Abbreviations the several hands used in Writing and Characters in Printing the Variety of Styles the Art of true Pointing and the Way to understand Books With a Prefatory Discourse about the Original and Excellency of the English Tongue and at the end an Alphabetick Collection of the Monosyllables being a Treatise of Orthography for Writers and of Rhymes for Poets A Necessary Work in general for all sorts of Persons desirous to understand the Ground and Genius of the English and very proper to prepare Young Men for the Latin Tongue By Guy Miege Gent. Cerevisiarii Comes Or the New and True Art of Brewing Illustrated by various Examples in making Beer Ale and other Liquors so that they may be most Durable Brisk and Fragrant and how they may be so ordered as to yield the greatest Quantity of Spirits in Distillation To which is added the right way to refine and bottle Beer and Cyder and a Cure for those that are Sick and Ropy so as to return them to their internal Sanity as also the true Method of manuring Lands and the Art of making Salt-Water fresh All proved by Demonstration and Sound Philosophy to be more agreeable to Man's Body than otherwise and so not only sit for English Constitutions but also for Transportation Published for the fake of Variety and therefore recommend to all that esteem demonstrated Truths before Notional Theory By W. Y. worth Medicin-Professor