not to be spoken of because it could not be concealed from those who lived most retiredly If either the Lord Primate or Sirmondus the Jesuite could infer from hence that the word Sabbatum was used by Apollinaris to signifie or denote our Christian Festivities much less the Sunday or Lords day I shall miss my mark They say it is a sign of ill luck for a man to stumble at the threshold and never was such a stumble made by a man of learning in the first beginning of a work for clearly Sabbatarius luxus relates not to the Lords day nor the other Festivals but is there used proverbially to signifie that excess and riot which that King used at his Table on the dayes aforesaid The proverb borrowed from the Jewes and the riotous feastings on the Sabbath It s true the Jews did commonly fast till noon upon their Sabbath till the devotions of the morning were complete and ended on which account they tax the Disciples of our Saviour for eating a few ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Matth. 12. 2. but then it is as true withal that they spent all the rest of the day in their riotous feastings not onely with plenty of good cheer but excess of wine In which regard whereas all other marketing was unlawful on the Sabbath dayes there never was restraint of selling Wine the Jews believing that therein they brake no Commandment Hebraei faciunt aliquid speciale in vino viz. quòd cùm in Sabbato suo à caeteris venditionibus emptionibus cessent solum vinum vendunt credentes se non solvere Sabbatum as Tostatus hath it And for the rest of their excesses Saint Augustine telleth us that they kept the Sabbath onely ad luxuriam ebrietatem in rioting and drunkenness and that they rested onely ad nugas luxurias suas to luxury and wantonness they consumed the day languido luxurioso otio in an effeminate slothful ease and finally did abuse the same not onely deliâ—iis Judaicis in Jewish follies but ad nequitiam even to sin and naughtiness Put altogether and we have luxury and drunkenness and sports and pleasures enough to manifest that they spared not any dainties to set forth their Sabbath Tertullian hath observed the same but in fewer words according to his wonted manner who speaking of the Jewes in his Apologeticum adversus Gentes Cap. 16. hath told us of them that they did Diem Saturni otio victui decernere devote the Saturday or Sabbath unto Ease and Luxury But before either of them this was noted by Plutarch also an Heathen but a great and grave Philosopher who layes it to their charge that they did feast it on their Sabbath with no small excess but of wine especially and thereupon conjectureth that the name of Sabbath had its original from the Orgies or feasts of Bacchus whose Priest used often to ingeminate the word Sabbi Sabbi in their drunken ceremonies From whence we have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to triumph dance or make glad the countenance And from hence also came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sirname of Bacchus or at the least some Son of his mentioned in Coelius Rhodiginus as is observed by Dr. Prideaux in his Tract De Sabbato This said the meaning of Apollinaris will be onely this that though Theoderick kept a spare Table on the other dayes yet on the Festivals of the Church he indulged unto himself a kind of Sabbatarian luxury that is to say such riotous feasting and excess as the Iewes used upon their Sabbath Nothing in this to prove that the word Sabbatum was used by any approved Writer for the space of a thousand years and upward to signifie either the Lords day or any of the Christian Festivities as the Lord Primate would sain have had it which notwithstanding partly by the diligence of our Sabbatarians and their active Emissaries and partly by the ignorance of some and the easiness of the rest of the people the Sunday or Lords day is generally called by no other name then by that of the Sabbath he who shall call it otherwise then the vulgar do being branded commonly with profaneness or singularity And yet if any of these fine fellows should be asked the English of the Latine word Sabbatum they could not chuse but answer that it signified the seventh day of the week or the Saturday onely Or if they should every Clerk Notary and Register in the Courts of Judicature would deride them for it who in drawing up their Processes Declarations Entries Judgements and Commissions never used other Latine word for Saturday but Dies Sabbati as long as any of those forms were written in the Latine tongue And they continued in that tongue till toward the later end of the late long Parliament in which it was ordered that all Writs Declarations and other legal instruments of what kind soever should be made in English the readiest way to make all Clerks Atturnies Registers c. more ignorant of Grammar learning then they were before SECT II. The Lord Primates judgement of the Sabbath delivered in two Propositions His first Proposition for setting apart some whole day for Gods solemn worship by the Law of Nature found both uncertain and unsafe no such whole day kept or required to be kept by the Jewes or Gentiles His second Proposition neither agreeable to the School-men or the Sabbatarians nor grounded upon Text of Scripture He reconciles himself with the Sabbatarians by ascribing an immutability to a Positive Law but contrary therein to the first Reformers and other learned men of the Protestant and Reformed Churches He founds the Institution of the Sabbath on Genesis 2. An Anticipation or Prolepsis in that place of Gen. maintained explicitly by Josephus and many of the most learned of the Jewish Rabbins as also by Tostatus and his followers amongst the Christians implicitly by those who maintained that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first beginning The like Anticipations frequent in the holy Scripture and justified by many of the Ancient Fathers and not a few learned men of the later times The Sabbath not a part of the Law of Nature BUt now before we can proceed to such other passages which the Lord Primate hath excepted against in History of the Sabbath either by name or on the by it will be necessary that we know his own Judgement and Opinion in the ground of this Controversie as well concerning the morality of the fourth Commandment as the true ground and institution of the Sabbath And to find that we must consult his Letter to Mr. Ley in which he telleth us That for his own part he never yet doubted but took it for granted that as the setting of some whole day apart for Gods solemn worship was juris Divini naturalis so that this solemn day he means the Sabbath should be one in seven was juris Divini positivi
Which though it may be true enough in the Proposition yet I cannot think that it agrees with the Authors meaning in the Application Nor am I better edified with the criticism of Gothofredus on this place who thinketh it to lie under some great corruption qui locus haectenus in foedissimo mendo cubat leaves in worse case then he found it by his pretended Emendation And therefore I conceive Tertullians meaning to be briefly this that the Jewes then living had so disused and estranged themselves by their riotous feastings on the Sabbath from that sobriety and moderation wherewith their Ancestors had used to observe that day that they seemed ignorant in a manner of the ancient custome of their own Nation in that case These passages of Tertullian being thus explained the Answer to the rest of the Lord Primates Authors will find less difficulty Tibullus in a verse of his Saturni sacrâ me tenuisse die bestowes the Epithet of Sacrâ upon the Saturday or day of Saturn But this I say and so sayes the Lord Primate too is not so properly to be understood of the Gentiles who made not the seventh day a festival or an holy-day as the Jewes did p. 83. but of the very Jewes themselves who kept it for a festival or an holy-day And then Tibullus sayes no more then what Ovid hath affirmed in the verse formerly cited in which he calleth the seventh day by the name of septima sacra dies with reference to the Jewes and to them alone That which comes next from Lucian in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touch the Boyes getting leave to play 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the seventh day or Saturday p. 86. is of little consequence Lucian then lived in the East Countries where the Gentiles Jewes and Christians lived promiscuously with one another And it is probable enough that the School-masters observing that the Saturday was held in great veneration by the Christians and kept for a Festival by the Jewes the better to comply with both or to send home their Children if they had any such in their Schools in convenient time might rather chuse to gratifie the Boyes with a play day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the seventh day or Sabbath then on any other And as for the Emperor Alexander Severus and his using to go unto the Capitol and other Temples on the Saturday or seventh day as Aelius Lampridius hath informed us of him it is of less consequence then the former it being well known to all which have read the Stories of that age and time that being trained up under the wing of his Mother who was inclinable enough to the Christian Faith he had not onely somewhat in him of a Christian but a smack also of the Jew And therefore if he more frequented the Capitol and other Temples on the seventh day or Saturday then on any other it is not to be attributed to any Authority which the Lord Primates Tradition might have gained upon him but unto education or imitation no great matter which For that many of the Gentiles who lived within the verge of the Roman Empire had taken up divers of the customes and ceremonies of the Iewes who lived scattered and disperst amongst them is affirmed positively by Iosephus Quin etiam populi jam olim saith he multam nostram pietatem aemulantur nèque Civitas Graecorum ulla usquam aut Barbarorum nec ulla gens ad quam septimanae in qua vacamus consuetud◠minimè pervenerit c. that is to say that the Gentiles long since shewed themselves inclinable to the religion of the Jews and that there was no City of the Greeks or barbarous people or any Nation whatsoever in which their custome in observing the seventh day for a day of rest as also of their games and fasts was not taken up In which respect Philo hath told us more then once that the Sabbath was become a general Festival which in his Treatise De Dec alogo may be easily found And it was very agreeable to the ancient custom of the Romans that it should be so who used when they had conquered any Country not onely to carry away their gods and set them up amongst their own but to take from them some part of their religion thinking thereby to enlarge the bounds of their Empire and bring all the Nations of the World under their command Sic eorum Potestas Authoritas totius Orbis Ambitus occupavit sic imperium suum ultra solis vias ipsius Oceani limites propagavit sic dum Vniversarum gentium sacra suscipiunt etiam regnare meruerunt as Cecilius pleads the cause for them in Minutius Foelix SECT IV. The Historian charged by name for saying that the ancient Gentiles knew not the distinction of weeks and sent to be taught his lesson better of Dector Ryvet and Salmasius His Arguments to prove the point laid down at large and not refelled by the Lord Primate The Lord Primates opinion to the contrary not proved by any ancient Author either Greek or Latine The practice of the Sclavonians related by Helmoldus an obscure Writer and a Postnatus too doth not prove the point Nothing affirmed by Theophilus Antiochenus or Johannes Philoponus to prove that the distinction of weeks was anciently known amongst the Gentiles The Historians Application justified WE are now come at last to the first of those Charges in which the Author of the History is concerned by name touching the division of time into weeks whether observed or not observed by the ancient Gentiles in which the Lord Primate thus declares The Gentiles saith he both Civil and Barbarous both ancient and of later dayes as it were by an universal kind of Tradition retain the distinction of the seven dayes of the week which if Dr. Heylyn had read so well proved as it is by Rivetus and Salmasius he would not have made such a conclusion as he doth that because the Heathen of the four great Monarchies at least had no distinction of Weeks therefore they could observe no Sabbath p. 79. The Historian is here sent to School to learn of Ryvet and Salmasius that the Gentiles both civil and barbarous both ancient and of later dayes as it were by an universal kind of Tradition retained the distinction of the seven dayes of the week of Ryvet he must learn for one because he was of the same opinion with the Lord Primate in the point of the Sabbath and of Salmasius for the other because he was of the same judgement with him in the point of Episcopacy But the Historian will not learn of any such Masters but onely of the Lord Primate himselfe But first it will be necessary to know what the Historian saith to the point in hand and yet not onely what he saith as if he could carry it out on his own Authority but what he proves by witnesses of unquestioned credit The passage is not long and therefore without any
violate the Law of Moses in keeping the feast of Pentecost on any day of the week whatsoever as it chanced to fall And on the other side the Samaritans being lookt upon by the Jewes as Schismaticks as Hereticks also by Epiphanius and divers other Christian Authors can make no president in this case nor ought to have their practice used for an Argument to consute the practise of the Jewes the more regular people and more observâ—â—â— of the Law and the punctualities or nicities of it then the others were Much like to this was the point in difference between the old Hereticks called Quartodecimani and the Orthodox Christians about the time of keeping Easter which the Quartodecimani kept alwayes on the fourteenth day of the month on what day soever it should happen on which day the Jewes also kept their Passeover the Orthodox Christians keeping it on the Sunday after in memory of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour for which the feast of Easter was first ordained He that shall justifie the Samaritans against the Jewes in the case of Pentecost may as well justifie the Quartodecimani against the Orthodox Christians in the case of Easter And yet to justifie the Samaritans it is after added that they produce the Letter of the Law Levit. 23. 15 16. where the feast of the first fruits otherwise called Pentecost or the feast of Weeks is prescribed to be kept the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which they interpret to be the first day of the week p. 87 88. As if the Jewes did not or could not keep themselves to the Letter of the Law in keeping Pentecost at the end of fifty dayes on what day soever it might fall because the Samaritans pretend to have the Law on their side in that particular Assuredly the Lord Primate did not consider of the absurdities he hath fallen into by thus advocating for the Samaritans and fixing the feast of Pentecost on the morrow after the seventh weekly Sabbath for by this means in stead of a feast of Pentecost to be observed on the fiftieth day from the first account we shall have a feast by what name soever we shall call it to be observed on the forty ninth forty eighth and forty seventh which though they may be called the feasts of Weeks or the feasts of the Law cannot by any means be called the feast of Pentecost For if the sixteenth of Nisan or the feast of first fruits fall upon the Monday the feast of Pentecost improperly so called must be kept upon the forty ninth if on Tuesday on the forty eighth day after and so abating of the number till we come to Saturday on which day if the sixteenth of Nisan should chance to fall as sometimes it must the next day after the seventh Sabbath would be but the forty fourth day and so by the Lord Primates Rule we shall have a feast of Pentecost but once in seven years that is to say when the sixteenth of Nisan did fall upon the first day of the week which is now our Sunday a feast of Weeks or of giving of the Law on the other six Adeo Argumenta ex absurdo petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius truely The second proof is borrowed from the testimony of Isychius an old Christian Writer who lived about the year 600. interpreting the morrow after the seventh Sabbath as the Samaritans also do to be the first day of the Week And true it is that Isychius doth so expound it and more then so makes it to be the first intention of the Law-giver that the day from which the fifty dayes were to be reckoned should be the first day of the week which is now our Sunday Planiùs laith he legislator intentionem suam demonstrare volens ab altero die Sabbati memorari praecepit quinquaginta dies dominicum diem proculdubio volens intelligi In which as the Lord Primate dares not justifie his Author for straining the signification of altera dies Sabbati to signifie the Lords day beyond that true meaning of the word which in Moses denoteth no more then the morrow after the Sabbath though produced by him to no other purpose then to prove that point so dare not I justifie the Lord Primate in straining the words of his Author beyond their meaning and telling us that he made no scruple to call the day of Christs resurrection another Sabbath day For if we look upon it well we shall not find that Isychius calls the day of the Resurrection by the name of another Sabbath day but onely telleth us that the Lords day the day on which our Saviour rose was altera dies Sabbati that is to say the first day of the Week or the morrow after the Sabbath understand by Sabbath in this place the feast of unleavened bread from whence the fifty dayes which ended in the feast of Pentecost were to take beginning as will appear by comparing these words with those before viz. ab altero die Sabbati memorari praecepit quinquaginta dies If the Lord Primate can find no better comfort from the Council of Friuli cap. 13. for calling the day of Christs Resurrection by the name of another Sabbath day he will finde but little if not less from those words of Saint Ambrose to which the said Council of Friuli is supposed to allude The Fathers words on which the Lord Primate doth rely to prove that the Lords day was then called a Sabbath as both Isychius and the said Council of Friuli are presumed to do are these that follow viz. Vbi Dominica dies coepit praecellere quâ Dominus resurrexit Sabbatum quod primum erat secundum haberi coepit à primo In which passage he would have us think that the Lords day is called primum Sabbatum or the first Sabbath and the Saturday Sabbatum secundum or the second Sabbath Whereas indeed the meaning of the Father is no more then this that after the Lords day had grown into estimation and got the better as it were of the Jewish Sabbath ubi Dominica dies coepit praecellere c. the Sabbath of the Jewes which was before the first in honour and account began to be lookt upon in the second place the first being given unto the day of the Resurrection And as for the Council of Friuli the Lord Primate doth not say for certain that the Lords day is there called Sabbatum primum and the Jewish Sabbath Sabbatum ultimum but that they are so called if he be not mistaken but if he be mistaken in it why not as well in this as in all the rest the Council of Friuli will conclude no more then Saint Ambrose did to whom it is said to have alluded And on the contrary if the Testimonies here alledged from Isychius the Council and Saint Ambrose may be properly used to prove that the Lords day was then called by the name of the Sabbath the Lord Primate must
precept of the Moral Law or the Law of Natures are not to be dispenst withal upon any occasion or necessity whatsoever it be and much less to be changed and abrogated at the will of man which explanation not to dispute the mutability or immutability of a positive Law will find as many Adversaries as the proposition as that which crosseth with the Doctrine of some of the first Martyrs in the Church of England and with the first Reformers and other leading men of the Protestant and Reformed Churches And first it is resolved thus by Mr. Tyndal a man sufficiently famous for his great pains in translating the Bible into English who suffered Martyrdom in the year 1536. As for the Sabbath saith he we be Lords over the Sabbath and may yet change it into Monday or into any other day as we see need or may make every tenth day a holy day onely if we see cause why Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday but to put a difference between us and the Jewes neither need we any holy day at all if the people might be taught without it And somewhat to this purpose though not in terms so fully significant and express we find affirmed by John Frith a man of much learning for his age who suffered Martyrdom in the year 1533. Our fore-fathers saith he which were in the beginning of the Church did abrogate the Sabbath to the intent that men might have an example of Christian liberty c. Howbeit because it was necessary that a day should be reserved in which the people should come together to hear the word of God they ordained in stead of the Sabbath which was Saturday the next day following which is Sunday And although they might have kept the Saturday with the Jew as a thing indifferent yet they did much better Which words of his if they seem rather to demonstrate the Churches power in altering the time of worship from one day to another then the mutability of the precept on the which it was founded I am sure that Zuinglius the first Reformer of the Church among the Switzers will speak more fully to the purpose Hearken now Valentine saith he by what wayes and means the Sabbath may be made a ceremony if either we observe that day which the Jewes once did or think the Lords day so affixed unto any time Vt nefas sit illum in aliud tempus transferre that we conceive it an impiety it should be changed unto another on which as well as upon that we may not rest from labour and hearken to the word of God if perhaps such necessity should be this would indeed make it become a ceremony But Calvin speaks more plain then he when he professeth that he regarded not so much the number of seven Vt ejus servituti Ecclesias astringeret as to enthral the Church unto it And this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as can be comprehended in so narrow a compass More largely Vrsine the Divinity Reader in the University of Heidelberg and a great follower of Calvin in all his writings who makes this difference between the Lords day and the Sabbath That it was utterly unlawful to the Jewes either to neglect or change the Sabbath without express Commandment from God himself as being a ceremonial part of Divine Worship but for the Christian Church that that may design the first or second or any other day to Gods publick service so that our Christian Liberty be not thereby infringed or any opinion of necessity or holiness affixt unto them Ecclesia verò Christiana primum vel alium diem tribuit ministerio salva sua libertate sine opinions cultus vel necessitatis as his own words are Chemnitius yet more plainly for the Lutheran Churches who frequently affirms that it is libera observatio a voluntary observation that it is an especial part of our Christian liberty not to be tied to dayes and times in matters which concern Gods service and that the Apostles made it manifest by their example singulis diebus vel quocunque die that every day or any day may by the Church be set apart for religious exercises And finally as Bullinger Bucer Brentius cited by Dr. Prideaux in his Tract De Sabbato è nostri◠non pauci besides many others of the Reformed Churches by telling us that the Church hath still a power to change the time of worship from one day to another do tacitly infer that the Church hath power to change that time from the seventh day to the tenth or twelfth as well as from the first day of the week to the third or fourth so they which teach us that the sanctifying of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment do imply no less Of which opinion beside Tostatus and the Schoolmen before remembred we find also Calvin to have been Lib. Instit 2. c. 8. 11. 34. besides Simler in Exod. 20. Aretius in his common places Loco 55. Franciscus Gomarus in his Book De origine Institutione Sabbati Ryvet in Exod. 20. p. 190. to whom Chemnitius may be added for the Lutheran Churches In one of which it is affirmed that the sanctifying of a seventh day rather then of the eighth or ninth juris est Divini sed ceremonialis And if it be ceremonial only though of Gods appointment it must be subject unto change and mutability as well as Circumcision and the Passover or any other of the legal or Mosaical Ordinances And by another it is said that it can neither be made good by the Law of Nature or Text of Scripture or any solid Argument drawn from thence Vnum è septem diebus ex vi praecepti quarti ad cultum Dei necessariò observandum that by the fourth commandment one day in seven is of necessity to be dedicated to Gods service which does as plainly contradict the Lord Primates second Proposition as the Explication of it is found contrary to the rest before The second way whereby the Lord Primate doth strengthen and support his positive Law and makes it to come more near to the Sabbatarians of these later times is by his fixing the first Institution of it on the second of Genesis which makes it equal in a manner to the Law of Nature if not part thereof For that the institution of it in the first beginning is the very same with making it a part or branch of the Law of Nature may be inferred first from these words of Tostatus in Gen. 2. Num Sabbatum cùm à Deo sanctificatum fuerit in primordio rerum c. whether the Sabbath being sanctified by God in the infancy of the World had been observed by men by the Law of Nature And secondly it may be inferred from Dr. Prideaux in his Tract De Sabbato Sect. 2. Some saith he fetch the Original of the Sabbath from the beginning of the World
onely that some time should be set apart for the worship of God of which we have so many evident examples in the Greeks and Romans that no man can make question of it but that in all the Acts of worship a man should totally abstract himself from all worldly thoughts which might divert him from the business he was then about Orantis est nihil nisi coelestia cogitare as we learned when School-boyes But that this time should rather be the seventh day then any other is not a part or branch of the Law of Nature never accounted so by the Ancient Writers nor reckoned so by some of those of note and eminency who otherwise are great friends to the Lords day Sabbath Certain I am that Theodoret doth not so account it who telleth us that the observation of the Sabbath came not in by nature but by Moses ' s Law Sabbati observandi non natura magistra sed latio legis which is short but full Nor is it so accounted by Sedulius another of the ancient Writers who ranks it amongst the legal ceremonies not amongst those things quae legi naturali congruunt which are directed meerly by the Law of Nature nor by Damascen amongst the Greeks who doth assure us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say that when there was no Law enacted no◠no Scripture inspired by God that then there was no Sabbath neither nor finally by our venerable Beda who lived about the same time with Damascen and was of the same judgement with him in this particular for he assures us That to the Fathers before the Law all dayes were equal the seventh day having no prerogative before the others which he calls naturalis Sabbati libertatem the liberty of the natural Sabbath and by that liberty if I rightly understand his meaning men were no more restrained to one day then unto another no more unto the seventh then the fourth or eighth Tostatus to the same effect for the middle times who telleth us That howsoever the Hebrew people or any other before the giving of the Law were bound to set a part some time for religious duties Non tamen magis in Sabbato quà m in quolibet aliorum dierum yet were they no more bound to the Sabbath day then to any other For this last age though I could help my selfe by many good Authors yet I shall rest content with two that is to say the Lord Primate himselfe and Doctor Ryvet before named who build the institution of the Sabbath on a positive Law and not upon the Law of Nature And therefore if the instituting of the Sabbath in the first beginning be in effect to make it all one with the Law of Nature as was inferred from Dr. Prideaux and Tostatus it must needs follow thereupon that the Sabbath not being lookt on as a part of the Law of Nature could not be instituted as the Lord Primate saies it was in the first beginning SECT III. The sanctifying of the Sabbath in the first beginning imports a Commandment given to Adam for the keeping of it No such Commandment given to Adam in his own personal capacity nor as the common root of mankind The Patriarchs before the flood did not keep the Sabbath The Sabbath not observed by the Patriarchs of the line of Sem nor by the Israelites in Egypt That the Commandment of the Sabbath was peculiar onely to the Jewes proved by the testimony of the Fathers and the Jewes themselves That the seventh day of every week was not kept holy by the Gentiles affirmed by some of their own best Authors and some late Divines The Jewes derided by the Gentiles for their seventh day Sabbath The Lord Primates Antithesis viz. that the seventh day was more honoured by the Gentiles then the other six not proved by any ancient Author either Greek or Latine The three Greek Poets whom he cites do not serve his turn and how they came to know that the Creation of the World was finished in seven dayes which is all they say The passage of Tertullian in his Tract Ad Nationes as little to his purpose as the three Greek Poets The meaning of that Author in his Apologeticum cap. 16. not rightly understood by the Lord Primate whose Arguments from Tibullus Lucian and Lampridius conclude as little as the rest The observation of the Sabbath and other Jewish Ceremonies taken up by the later Gentiles not upon any old Tradition but by Imitation The custome of the Romans in incorporating all Religions into their own and the reason of it BUt there is one Conclusion more which follows on the instituting of the Sabbath in the first beginning and is like to afford us more work then the other did For if it be all one to bless and sanctifie the seventh day in the beginning of the World as to impose it then on Adam to be kept and sanctified as some say it is it may be very well concluded that if no such commandment was then given to Adam the Sabbath was not blessed and sanctified in the first beginning Nor can it stand with Piety Reason that it should be otherwise For to suppose that God did set apart and sanctifie the seventh day for a day of worship and yet that no Commandment should be given for the keeping of it what is it but to call in question the most infinite wisedom of Almighty God which never did any thing in vain unless perhaps we may conceive with Tornelius that the Angels solemnized this first Sabbath with joyful shouts and acclamations as he gathereth from Iob 38. 4 6. Or that the WORD the second person in the Syntax of the blessed Trinity did take our humane shape upon him and came down to Adam and spent the whole day with him in spiritual exercises as is affirmed by Zanchius with an ego non dubito as a matter which no man need make doubt of but he that listed For if any such Commandment was given to Adam it must be either given him in his own personal capacity or as he was the common root of all mankind which was then virtually in his loyns as Levi is said by the Apostle to have paid Tithes unto Melchisedeck because he was then virtually in the Loyns of his Father Abraham when those Tithes were paid But no such precept or command was given to Adam in his own personal capacity for then the Sabbath must have died and been buried in the same grave with him nor was it given to him as the common root of all mankind for then all the Nations of the World had been bound to keep it the contrary whereof we shall see anon In the mean time let us take with us the Authority of the Ancient Writers by some of which it is affirmed that no commandment was given by God to our Father Adam but that he should abstain from eating of the fruit of the Tree
abbreviation I shall here subjoyn it Whereas it is conceived by some that the Gentiles by the light of nature had their weeks which is supposed to be an argument that they kept the Sabbath a week being onely of seven dayes and commonly so called both in Greek and Latine we on the other side affirm that by this very rule the Gentiles many of them if not the most could observe no Sabbath because they did observe no weeks For first the Chaldees and the Persians had no weeks at all but to the several dayes of each several month appropriated a particular name of some King or other as the Peruvians do at this present time Et nomina diebus Mensis indunt ut prisci Persae as Scaliger hath noted of them The Grecians also did the like in the times of old there being an old Attick Calendar to be seen in Scaliger wherein is no division of the month into weeks at all As for the Romans they divided their account into eights and eights as the Jewes did by sevens and sevens the one reflecting on their Nundinae as the other did upon their Sabbath Ogdoas Romanorum in tributione dierum servabatur propter Nundinas ut hebdomas apud Judaeos propter sabbatum For proof of which there are some ancient Roman Calenders to be seen as yet one in the aforesaid Scaliger the other in the Roman Antiquities of John Rossinus wherein the dayes are noted from A to H. as in our common Almanacks from A. to G. The Mexicans go a little further and they have thirteen dayes to the Week as the same Scaliger hath observed of them Nay even the Jewes themselves were ignorant of this division of the year into weeks as Tostatus thâ—nks till Moses learnt it of the Lord in the fall of Mannah Nor were the Greeks and Romans destitute of this account onely when they were a rude and untrained people as the Peruvians and Mexicans at this present time but when they were in their greatest flourish for Arts and Empire Dion affirmes for the ancient Greeks that they knew it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ought he could learn and Seneca more punctually that first they learnt the motions of the Planets of Eudoxus who brought that knowledge out of Egypt and consequently could not know the week before And for the Romans though they were well enough acquainted with the Planets in their later times yet they divided not their Calendars into weeks as now they do till near about the time of Dionysius Exiguus who lived about the year of Christ 520. Nor had they then received it in all probability had they not long before admitted Christianity throughout their Empire and therewithal the knowledg of the holy Scriptures where the account by weeks was exceeding obvious Such are the Arguments and such the Authors by which the Historian proved or endevoured to prove that the division of the year into weeks was not known anciently amongst the Gentiles And against these the Lord Primate takes not any exception but thinks that he hath done his work if he can find out two or three witnesses to affirm the contrary It might have been expected that a man so verst and studied in Antiquities would have prest the Historian with the weight of such proofs and evidences as had been digged out of the rock extracted out of the Monuments and Records of the elder times But on the contrary we have not so much as one single testimony produc'd from any Latine Authors Historians Orators Poets or Philosophers which lived between the first foundation of the Roman greatness and the declining of the same nor from the writings of those famous men amongst the Grecians who made their country as renowned for Arts and Eloquence as otherwise it had been innobled for Arms and Victories For the first Author we are sent to who though he liv'd far off in respect of place yet liv'd not very far off in regard of time is one Helmondus or Helmandus who wrote the History of the Sclaves or Sclavonian Nations Nations not known or heard of by that name in Europe till the year 600 converted to the Christian Faith by Cyril and Methodius between the years 860. 890. So that if the distinction of weeks did reach etiam ad ipsos usque Sauromatas and was known to the Sclavonians themselves while they continued in their ancient Paganism as the Lord Primate saies it was p. 79. I trow this can be no sufficient argument that the distinction of weeks was anciently known amongst the Gentiles which was the matter to be proved The Sclavonians having conquered Dalmatia and those other Provinces which bordered on Macedon and Thrace two hundred years at the least before they received the Gospel might take up the distinction of time into weeks from the Nations whom they had subdued whilest they were yet in the state of paganism and no harm done to the Historian in the present business and therefore granting all that hath been said by Helmoldus though a post-natus living about the year 1180. the Historians Proposition still holds good and unconfuted unless this Argument be of force viz. The Sclavonians when they were in the state of Paganism betwixt the year 600. 860. used to assemble on the second day of the week to determine Controversies as Helmoldus tells us therefore the distinction into weeks was anciently known amongst the Gentiles in their several Countries above 2000. years before them But if the same order of the dayes of the week be retained by them which The ophilus the old Bishop of Antioch noteth to have been observed by all mankind all is well enough and the Sclavonians though a Nation of later standing may well be made an instance for that observation which all mankind had generally been accustomed to in all times foregoing But certainly Theophilus Antiochenus tells us no such matter The place here cited as it stands translated in the Bibliotheca Patrum is as followeth Praeterea de die septimo qui inter omnes Mortales celebris est magna apud plerosque ignoratia est Hic enim dies qui ab Hâ—braeis Sabbatum vocatur Graecè si quis nomen interpretetur septimus dicitur hoc nomine mortales omnes diem istum appellant nominis causam nesciunt plâ—rique Where clearly Theophilus speaks nothing with reference to the Gentiles of the elder times but tells us in the present tense what estimation there was had of the seventh day which the Jewes called the Sabbath in the present times I mean the times in which he lived which was about the latter end of the second Century Anno 174. And therefore if all mankind in his time by reason of the observation of the seventh day amongst the Jewes retained the same order of the dayes of the week which the Sclavonians after did this cannot be conceived a sufficient Argument that the same order was
observed by the ancient Gentiles whom that old Bishop of Antioch had no reference to in this citation Johannes Philoponus the Grammarian speaks more plainly then Theophilus did but he speaks nothing to the point which we have in hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which Balthazar Corderius thus translateth Illud certè omnes homines consentiunt septem soles esse dies qui in seipsos revoluti totum tempus constituunt And so it was no question in that Authors time which was about the year 600. and somewhat after the distinction of time into weeks being then generally received by all civil Nations who either had received the Gospel or had been under the command of the Roman Empire That which comes after touching Moses Solus itaque magnus Moles septenarii dierum numeri rationem divina inspâ—ratione hominibus tradidit shewes rather the original of the distinction then the general practice it being more then a thousand years from the death of Moses before that distinction of time was received by the Gâ—eeks and Râ—mâ—ns and therefore not to be hoped nor look't for in the barbarous Nations And this is that which Petavius the Jesuite a right learned man hath thus delivered Anni divisio posterior est in Hebdomadas ea dividendi ratio prorsus à Iudaeis o iginem traxit Romani etiam ac Gentiles ante Tertulliani aevum adscivâ—sse videntur The last division of the year saith he is into weeks derived originally from the Hebrewes and seems to have been taken up by the Romans and other Gentiles before the time of Tertullian who takes notice of it By which it seems that this distinction was of no great standing in the Roman Empire till first their acquaintance with the Jewes and afterwards their receiving of the Christian faith had brought it into use and esteem amongst them The Proposition of the Histoâ—ian being thus made good I doubt not but the Application wil hold accordingly For hereupon it is inferred Hist of Sab. Part. 1. c. 4. n. 11. That the Chaldees Persians Greeks and Romans all the four great Monarchies did observe no Sabbaths because they did observe no weeks But the poor Historian must not pass with this truth neither which necessarily doth arise upon the proof of the Proposition And therefore he is told That if he had read how well the contrary is proved by Rivetus and Salmasius he would not have made such a Conclusion as he doth That because the Heathen of the four great Monarchies at least had no distinction of weeks therefore they could observe no Sabbath And I concur fully with the Lord Primate in this particular The Historian was not so irrational as to infer that the Heathen of the four great Monarchies could observe no Sabbath because they did observe no weeks in case it had been proved to his hand or that any sufficient Argument had been offered to him to demonstrate this that the very Gentiles both Civil and Barbarous both Ancient and of later dayes as it were by an universal kind of Tradition retained the distinction of the seven dayes of the week which is the point that Rivet and Salmasius are affirmed to have proved so well p. 79. But on the contrary the Historian having proved that there was no such distinction of the seven dayes of the week retained by the ancient Gentiles either Civil or Barbarous and so well proved it that the Lord Primate hath not any thing to except against him the Application will hold good against all opposition and I shall rest my selfe upon it that the Heathen which observed no Weeks could observe no Sabbath SECT V. The Historian taxt for saying that the falling of the first Pentecost after Christs Ascension upon the first day of the week was meerly casual The Lord Primates stating the Question and his inference on it Exceptions against the state of the Question as by him laid down viz. in making the Feast of First fruits to be otherwise called the feast of Pentecost or the feast of Weeks c. and that he did not rightly understand the meaning of the word Sabbath Levit. 23. 16. The Pentecost affixt by Moses to a certain day of the month as well as the Passover or any other Annual Feast made by the Primate to fall alwayes on the first day of the week and God brought into act a miracle every year that it might be so An Answer to the Lord Primates Argument from the practice of the Samaritans in their keeping of Pentecost The Quartodecimani and the Samaritans Schismaticks at the least if not Hereticks also The Lord Primate puts a wrong sense upon Isychius and Saint Ambrose to prove that they gave to the Lords day the name of Sabbath and his ill luck in it The inference of the Lord Primate examined and rejected The first day of the week not called the Lords day immediately after the first Pentecost as is collected from Waldensis nor in a long time after The Lord Primates great mistake in Tertullians meaning about the Pentecost Each of the fifty dayes which made up the Pentecost esteemed as holy by the Primitive Christians as the Lords day was The mystery of the First fruits not first opened by the Lord Primate as is conceived by Dr. Twisse who applauds him for it THe second charge which the Lord Primate layes upon the Historian relates unto the holding of the great feast of Pentecost upon which day the Holy Ghost came down and sate upon the heads of the Apostles in the shape of cloven fiery tongues and added by Saint Peters preaching no fewer then three thousand soules to the Church of Christ It was saith the Historian a casual thing that Pentecost should fall that year upon the Sunday It was a moveable feast as unto the day such as did change and shift it selfe according to the position of the feast of Passover the rule being this that that on what day soever the second of the Passover did fall upon that also fell the great feast of Pentecost Nam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semper eadem est feria quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Scaliger hath rightly noted So that as often as the Passover did fall upon the Saturday or Sabbath as this year it did then Pentecost fell upon the Sunday but when the Passover did chance to fall upon the Tuesday the Pentecost fell that year upon the Wednesday sic de caeteris And if the Rule be true as I think it is that no sufficient Argument can be drawn from a casual fact and that the falling of the Pentecost that year upon the first day of the week be meerly casual the coming of the Holy Ghost upon that day will be no Argument nor Authority to state the first day of the week in the place and honour of the Iewish Sabbath But the Lord Primate will by no means allow of this and therefore having framed a discourse concerning the feast of Pentecost
and the day on which it was to be holden he lets us see by a marginal Note p. 90. against whom it is that he bends his forces viz. against Dr. Heylyn Part 2. c. 1. pag. 14. Let us see therefore what he hath to say against Dr. Heylyn in this particular and into what inconveniencies he runs himselfe by the contradiction In order whereunto he must first observe how he states the question and then consider whether his proofs and arguments will come up to it The Israelites saith he by the Law of Moses were not onely to observe their weekly Sabbath every seventh day but also their feasts of weeks once in the year which although by the vulgar use of the Jewish Nation it may now fall upon any day of the week yet doe the Samaritans untill this day constantly observe it on the first day of the week which is our Sunday for which they produce the Letter of the Law Leviticus 23. 15 16. where the feast of the first fruits otherwise called Pentecost or the feast of weeks is prescribed to be kept the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which not they onely but also amongst our Christian Interpreters Isychius and Rupertus do interpret to be the first day of the week p. 87 88. This ground thus laid and some proofs offered quite beside the point in question to shew that the Lords day was called by the name of Sabbath in some ancient Writers he builds this superstructure on it and makes this following Descant on the former Plain song viz. But touching the old Pentecost it is very considerable that it is no where in Moses affixed unto any one certain day of the month as all the rest of the feasts are which is a very great presumption that it was a moveable Feast and so varied that it might alwayes fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbath And if God so order the matter that in the celebration of the feast of weeks the seventh day should purposely be passed over and that solemnity should be kept on the first what other thing may we imagine could be presignified thereby but that under the state of the Gospel the solemnity of the weekly service should be celebrated upon that day p. 90. Such is the state of the Question and such the inference which ariseth from that stating of it both which are now to be examined as they lie before us And first the feast of first fruits was not otherwise called Pentecost or the feast of weeks as the Lord Primate sayes it was For though two loves in the name of the first fruits of the second or wheat Harvest were to be offered to the Lord on the feast of weeks which being celebrated on the fiftieth day from the sixteenth of Nisan had the name of Pentecost yet was the name of the feast of first fruits appropriated more especially to the second day after the Passover or the sixteenth of Nisan on which the people offered the first fruits of their Barley which in that country was first ripe and from which the Computation of the said fifty dayes was to take beginning And it was thus appropriated for these reasons following 1. Because the sixteenth of Nisan was the first day of their Harvest on which the people were to offer the very first fruits of the increase of the earth which in that Country was their Barley before which time they were not to eat either bread or parched corn or the green ears of it this offering to be made in the Sheafe or Gripe before the Corn was thresht out v. 10. to the end that all the subsequent Harvest by the offering of these first fruits might be blest unto them whereas the offering of the two loves in the name of the first fruits of their Wheat was not until the end of Harvest above seven weeks after when the Wheat was hous'd and threshed and made into bread And secondly the name of the feast of first fruits was appropriated to the sixteenth of Nisan because it had no other name by which it might be dignified above the rest of the fifty and distinguished from them whereas the day on which the two loves were to be offered was eminently known by the name of the feast of weeks and the feast of Pentecost and sometimes also called the feast of the Law because the Law was given that day by the hand of Moses In the next place the Lord Primate either did not understand the meaning of the word Sabbath Levit. 23. 15 16. or if he did he would not seem to understand it the better to carry on some design for the Sabbatarians for by the tenour of his discourse it appeareth most evidently that in both places he understands the word Sabbath in no other sense but as it signifies the weekly Sabbath of the fourth Commandment and thereupon concludes that the computation of the fifty dayes beginning on the morrow after the Sabbath and continuing till seven Sabbaths should be complete even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath the feast of Pentecost must of necessity fall upon the first day of the week which is now our Sunday If so the Sabbatarian Brethren are in the right in making the falling of the first Christian Pentecost on which the Holy Ghost came down and sat on the heads of the Apostles three thousand souls being that day added to the Church of Christ to be an argument of some weight for their Lords-day Sabbath and Dr. Heylyn is in the wrong for making the falling of that Pentecost upon the first day of the week to be a matter of casualty the feast of Pentecost not being tyed to a certain day but falling on any day of the week as the year did vary But by his leave by Sabbath in verse 15. And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath we are to understand the feast of unleavened bread which with all other of the Annual feasts had the name of Sabbath as appears plainly by many several passages in this very Chapter And this is that which is observed by some of the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Chrysostom Hom. in Matth. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidore Epist 110. l. 3. And secondly by Sabbath in the rest of those two verses viz. Seven Sabbaths shall be complete even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath c. we are not to understand the weekly Sabbath but the week it selfe the whole seven dayes which from the last in order but the first in dignity took the name of Sabbath For so we read it in Chap. 18. of Saint Luke where the Pharisee boasted of himself that he fasted twice a week verse 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek original Jejuno bis in Sabbato saith the vulgar Latine Thus also in Matth. 28. Luke 24. we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prima una Sabbati as the vulgar hath it to denote
have very ill luck in finding no other testimony but that of luxus Sabbatarius in Apollinaris p. 75. to evidence that the Latine word Sabbatum used to denote our Christian Festivities of which in our first Section we have spoken suffiâ—iently Nor is the Lord Primate less zealous to entitle the Lords day to some Divinity then to gratifie the Sabbatarian Brethren by giving it the name of the Sabbath day For this is that which is chiefly aimed at in the inference wherein I would very cheerfully concur in opinion with him but that I am unsatisfied in the grounds of it For if I were satisfied in this that God so ordered the matter that in the celebration of the feast of Weeks the seventh day should purposely be passed over and that solemnity should be kept upon the first I should as easily grant as he that nothing was more likely to be presignified thereby then that under the state of the Gospel the solemnity of the weekly service should be celebrated upon that day p. 90. But being I cannot grant the first for the reasons formerly delivered I cannot on the like or for better reasons admit the second I grant that under the state of the Gospel the solemnities of the weekly service were celebrated on that day and yet I can neither agree with him nor with Thomas Waldensis whom he cites to that purpose that the Lords day did presently succeed Tunc intrasse Dominicam loco ejus in the place thereof as Baptism presently as he saith succeeded in the place of Circumcision For though Saint John Apocal. 1. call the first day of the week by the name of the Lords day as most Christian Writers think he did yet doth it not follow thereupon that it was so called statim post missionem spiritus Sancti as Waldensis would have it immediately on the comming down of the Holy Ghost For not onely in the eighteenth of the Acts which was some yeares after the first Christian Pentecost but in Saint Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians it is given us by no other name then that of the first day of the Week nor did Saint John write the Revelation in which the name of the Lords day is first given unto it till the ninty fourth or ninty fifth year from our Saviours birth which was sixty years or thereabouts from the coming down of the Holy Ghost the first Christian Pentecost And though I am not willing to derogate from the honour of so great a day yet I cannot agree with the Lord Primate That it is in a manner generally acknowledged by all that on that day viz. the first day of the week the famous Pentecost in the second of the Acts was observed For Lorinus in his Commentary on the second of the Acts tells us of some who hold that at the time of our Saviours suffering the Passover fell upon the Thursday and then the Pentecost must of necessity fall upon the Saturday or Jewish Sabbath But seeing it is said to be agreed on generally in a manner onely let it pass for once All which considered I shall and will adhere to my former vote viz. that if the rule be true as I think it is that no sufficient argument can be drawn from a casual fact and that the falling of the Pentecost that year upon the first day of the week be meerly casual the comming of the Holy Ghost upon that day will be no Argument nor Authority to state the first day of the week in the place and honour of the Jewish Sabbath And now before I shut up this Dispute about the Pentecost I shall crave leave to put the Lord Primate in mind of a great mistake which he hath fallen into by putting another sense on Tertullians words about the first Pentecost as observed by the Christians than was intended by that Author For telling us p. 85. That the Gentiles did not celebrate their Saturdays with that solemnity wherewith themselves did their Annual Festivities or the Jews their weekly Sabbaths he bringeth for a proof thereof a passage cited out of the fourteenth Chapter of Tertullian De Idololatria by which it may appear saith be that Tertullian thus speaks unto the Christians who observed 52. Lords days every year whereas all the Annual festivals of the Pagans put together did come short of fifty Ethnicis semel annuus dies quisque festus est tibi octavo quoque die Excerpe singulas solemnitates nationum in ordinem tâ—xe Pentecosten implere non poterunt But clearly Tertullian in thâ—t place neither relates to the 52 Lords dayes nor the number of 50. but onely to the Christian Pentecost which in his time was solemnized 50. dayes together and took up the whole space of time betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide And this appears plainly by the drift of the Author in that place in which he first taxeth the Christians with keeping many of the feasts of the Gentiles whereas the Gentiles kept not any of the feasts of the Christians non Dominicam non Pentecosten no not so much as the Lords day or the feast of Pentecost And then he addes that if they did it onâ—â—y to refresh their spirits or indulge something to the flesh they had more festivals of their own then the Gentiles had The number of the feasts observed by the Gentiles being so short of those which were kept by the Christians of his time ut Pentecosten non potuerint they could not equal the festival of the Pentecost onely much less the Pentecost and the Lords day together And so it is observed by Pamelius in his Notes upon that place where first he telleth us that the Author in that place understands not onely the feast of Pentecost it selfe or the last day of fifty sed etiam tempus illud integrum à die Paschae in Pentecosten but the whole space of time betwixt it and the Passeover taking the word Passover in the largest sense as it comprehends also the feast of unleavened bread But what need Pamelius come in place when it is commonly avowed by the ancient Writers that all the fifty dayes which made up the Pentecost were generally esteemed as holy and kept with as great reverence and solemnity as the Lords day was No fasting upon the one nor upon the other Die dominico jejunium nefas ducimus vel de geniculis adorare eadem immunitate à die Paschae in Pentecosten gaudemus as Tertullian hath it Saint Ambrose more expresly tells us Sermon 61. that every one of those fifty dayes was instar Dominicae and qualis est Dominica in all respects nothing inferiour to the Lords day and in his Comment on Saint Luke c. 17. l. 8. that omnes dies that is to say all those fifty dayes sunt tanquam Dominica Adde hereunto Saint Jeroms testimony Ad Lucinum and then I hope Tertullians words in his Book De Idololatria c. 14. will find another sense and meaning then that which the Lord
Primate hath ascribed unto it To shut up this Dispute in which we have encountred so many errors the Lord Primate tells us very rightly that on the day of the Passeover Christ our Passeover was slain for us that he rested in the grave the whole Sabbath following commonly called the feast of unleavened bread the next day after that the first fruits of the first or Barley Harvest was offered unto God and that from thence the count was taken of the seven Sabbaths and that upon the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which was our Lords day was celebrated the feast of weeks c. Upon which offering of the sheaf of the first fruits of the first or Barley Harvest which hapned at the time of our Saviours suffering on the first day of the Week he gives this note that Christ rose from the dead upon that day and became the first fruits of them that slept many bodies of the Saints that slept arising likewise after him p 91. And for this note he receives great thanks from Dr. Twisse signifying in a letter to him the great satisfaction which he received from him in opening the mystery of the feasts of first fruits to the singular advantage of the Lords day in the time of the Gospel p. 103. But herein Dr. Twisse may be said to be like those men of whom Tully speaks Qui non tantùm ornarent aliquem suis laudibus sed honorarent alienis For without derogating in the least from the honour due to the Lord Primate I cannot say that the honour of the first opening of this mystery doth belong to him it being an observation which I had both read in Books and heard in Sermons many years before 1640. in which or but the year before the Lord Primate wrote this present Letter to Doctor Twisse But because I have but few Books by me and cannot readily call to mind in what Books I read it I shall content my selfe at this present with the gloss of Deodati on the twentieth verse of the fifteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to those of Corinth where it is said that Christ was risen again and was become the first fruits of them that slept premising onely by the way that Diodati began those Annotations in the Italian tongue about the year 1606. to give his Country-men an insight of the darkness wherin they lived which afterwards he polished and perfected in such manner as they are now come into our hands Now Diodati his note is this viz. that Christ is called the first fruits of them that slept not onely because he was the first in the order of the Resurrection which is in Believers as it were a wakening from sleep but also in the quality of a Chief the cause and pledge of it in all his members inseparably united to him by communion of Spirit Rom. 8. 11. even as under the Law in the first fruits offered to God the people had an assurance of Gods blessing upon all their Harvest In a word as some things are defined or to speak more properly described amongst Philosophers rather by what they are not then by what they are so it is easier to declare to whom the first opening of this Mystery of the first fruits if there be any mystery in it doth not of right belong then to whom it doth SECT VI. The Historian charged for following the Greek Editions of Ignatius in his Epistle to the Magnesians An old Latine Translation of Ignatius preferred by the Lord Primate before any of the Greek Editions and the reason why Proofs from the best of the Greek Fathers that the Sabbath was kept as an holy day by the Primitive Christians The contrary not proved by these two testimonies which are alledged from the Council of Laodicea and the words of Gregory the Great The Council of Laodicea prohibits not the keeping of the Sabbath day but the keeping of it after the manner of the Jews by abstaining from all kind of work The Sabbatarians by imposing a restraint from all manner of work on the Lords day are by Pope Gregory the Great made the Preachers of Antichrist The Lord Primate picks a needless quarrel with the Bishop of Ely THe third charge laid by name on the Historian relates unto a passage cited out of the Epistle of Ignatius Ad Magnesianos in which he doth not stand accused either for falsifying the words of his Author or putting a wrong sense upon them but onely for not consulting with an old Latine copy of Ignatius which he never heard of The Historian had then by him no fewer then four Editions of that Father one published by Mastreus the Jesuite both in Greek and Latine another in both languages published by Vedelius a Genevian with his notes upon it a third more ancient then either of them printed at Paris in both languages also but the year I remember not and a fourth in Latine onely but of a very old Print subjoyned unto the works of Dionysius the Areopagite Out of all which compared together he cited that passage out of the Epistle to the Magnesians against which the Lord Primate hath excepted and is this that followeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us not keep the Sabbath in a Jewish manner in sloth and idleness for it is written that he that will not labour shall not eat and in the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread But let us keep it after a spiritual fashion not in bodily ease but in the study of the Law not eating meat dressed yesterday or drinking luke-warm drinks or walking out a limited space or setling our delights as they did on dancing but in the contemplation of the works of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And after we have so kept the Sabbath let every one that loveth Christ keep the Lords day festival the Resurrection day the Queen and Empress of all dayes in which our life was raised again and death was overcome by our Lord and Saviour So that we see he would have both dayes observed the Sabbath first though not as would the Ebionites in a Jewish sort and after that the Lords day which he so much magnifieth the better to abate that high esteem which some had cast upon the Sabbath Against this passage and the inference which is raised upon it the Lord Primate first objecteth saying that there is no such thing to be found in an old Latine copy of the works of Ignatius which is to be seen in the Library of Caius Colledge in Cambridge which for many respects he doth prefer before any Greek Edition then extant And in that old Latine copy saith he there is nothing to be found in the Epistle to the Magnesians touching the Sabbath and the Lords day but these words onely viz. Non amplius Sabbatizantes sed secundum Dominicam viventes in qua vita nostra orta est And thereupon he doth infer that all those other words alledged by
Doctor Heylyn Part 2. page 43. to prove that Ignatius would have both the Sabbath and the Lords day observed were afterwards added by some later Grecian who was afraid that the custome of keeping both dayes observed in his time should appear otherwise to be directly opposite to the sentence of Ignatius p. 95 96. This is the easiest charge that may be and if there were nothing else intended but to shew that the Historian was not the Master of so much good fortune as to have seen the old Latine Copy in Caius Library before he undertook that work we might here end this Section without more ado But the main matter aim'd at in it is to disprove that which the Historian hath delivered concerning the observing of both dayes as well the old Sabbath as the new Lords day by the Primitive Christians That which the Lord Primate cites out of the third Book of Eusebius to shew that the main intention of Ignatius was to oppose the Ebionites of his own time is no more then what he might have found in the same Part and Page of the History of the Sabbath which himselfe hath cited and therefore might have here been spared were it not used by him as an Argument to prove that which no body doth deny viz. That by their imitation of the Church herein the antiquity of the observation of the Lords day might be further confirmed p. 96. Nor is it to much better purpose that he proves the universality of the observance of the Lords day out of another passage of the same Eusebius in his Book De laudibus Constantini in which he doth but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no other Adversary that I know of to contend withal The Author of that History had said so much of the Antiquity of the Lords day and the Universality of the observance of the same with many other things conducing to the honour of that sacred day that he received thanks for it sent to him in the name of divers Ministers living in Buckinghamshire and Surrey though of a different perswasion from him in other points about that day whom he never saw But that the Saturday or old Sabbath was not kept holy at the first by the Primitive Christians by those especially who lived in the Eastern parts of the Roman Empire neither the antiquity nor the universality of keeping the Lords day can evince at all For on the contrary that the old Sabbath was kept holy by the Primitive Christians is proved first by the Constitutions of the Apostles ascribed to Clement of good Authority in the Church though not made by them where it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which it evidently appears that both dayes were ordered to be kept holy the one in memorial of the Creation the other of the Resurrection Which Constitutions being not thought to be of weight enough to make good the point though of so great antiquity and estimation as to be mentioned and made use of by Epiphanius a right learned man are somewhat backt by the Authority of Theophilus Antiochenus an old Eastern Bishop who lived not long time after Ignatius Anno 174. by whom we are told of that great honour which the seventh day or Jewish Sabbath had attained unto qui apud omnes mortales celebris est as before we had it in our fourth Section on another occasion with all sorts of people But if this be not plain enough as I think it is they are secondly most strongly countenanced by the Authority of the Synod held in Laodicea a Town of Phrygia Anno 314. where there passed a Canon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touching the reading of the Gospels with the other Scriptures upon the Saturday or Sabbath that in the time of Lent there should be no oblation made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but on the Saturday and the Lords day onely neither that any festival should then be observed in memory of any Martyrs but that their names onely should be commemorated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Lords day and the Sabbaths Which Canons were not made as may appear plainly by the Histories of these elder times for the introduction of any new observance never used before but for the Declaration and Confirmation of the ancient usage Thirdly we find in Gregory Nyssen that some of the people who had neglected to observe the Saturday were reproved by him on the Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. With what face saith the Father wilt thou look upon the Lords day which hast dishonoured the Sabbath knowest thou not that these dayes are Sisters and that whosoever doth despise the one doth affront the other Fourthly by Saint Basil the Saturday or Sabbath is reckoned for one of those four dayes on which the Christians of his time used weekly to participate of the blessed Eucharist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords day Wednesday and Friday being the other three And though it cannot be denied but that the observation of the Saturday began to lessen and decay in divers places towards the latter end of the fourth Century and in some other places as namely the Isle of Cyprus and the great City of Alexandria following therein the Custom of the Church of Rome had never been observed at all Yet fifthly Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis in the Isle of Cyprus could not but acknowledge that in other places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they used to celebrate the holy Sacrament and hold their publick meetings on the Sabbath day And sixthly the Homily De Semonte ascribed to Athanasius doth affirm as much as to the publick Assemblies of the Christians on the Sabbath day and so doth Socrates the Historian who accounts both dayes for weekly festivals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that on them both the Congregation used to be assembled and the whole Liturgy performed By which account besides Socrates and the Author of the Constitutions against whom some objections have been pretended we have the Testimonies of Theophilus Antiochenus Gregory Nyssen Basil Epiphanius and the Author of the Homily De Semente ascribed to Athanasius most plain and positive in this point that both the Sabbath and the Lords day were observed for days of publick meeting by the Eastern Christians as was affirmed before out of the Epistle of Ignatius ad Magnes And I conceive that the Lord Primate did not or could not think or if he did cannot be justified for so thinking that men of such an eminent sanctity as those Fathers were would falsifie that Epistle of Ignatius to serve their turns or adde any thing to that Epistle which they found not in it out of a fear that the custome of keeping both dayes observed in their times should appear otherwise to be directly opposite to the sentence of Ignatius p. 96. And therefore Doctor Heylyn taking the words of Ignatius as he found them in the
several Greek Editions above mentioned and finding them so well backt and countenanced by those holy Fathers which succeeded in their several times need not be troubled at the starting out of an old Latine Manuscript so different from the Greek Editions as it seems to be nor to recede from any thing which he hath cited out of those Editions because the Lord Primate findes it not in his Latine Manuscript The passage of Ignatius Ad Magnesianos cited by the Historian being justified by so many good Authors all living and writing except Socrates onely in the four first Centuries we must next see what the Lord Primate hath to object against it or any thing therein delivered or rather to confirm his correction of it out of the old Latine Copy in the Library of Caius Colledge The old Latine Copy hath it thus Non amplius Sabbatizantes sed secundum Dominicam viventes in qua vita nostra orta est And this he thinks to be a sufficient Argument to prove that the Lords day was observed as a weekly holy day by the Christians in the room of the abrogated Sabbath of the Jewes p. 93. Though no such thing can be collected either as to the weekly celebrating of the Lords day or the abrogating of the Jewish Sabbath from his Authors words But then as well to justifie the reading of this old Latine Copy as to refel that which the Historian had observed from the Greek Editions he gives us two Authorities and no more but two The first is the Authority of the Fathers in the Council of Laodicea touching the time whereof whether he or the Lord Bishop of Ely be in the right we dispute not now By whom it was declared quod non oportet Christianos Judaizare in Sabbat o otiari sed ipsos eo die operari diem autem Dominicam praeferentes otiari si modo possint ut christianos p. 98. But unto this it may be answered that this Canon it is the 29 in number relates not to the meetings of the Christians on the Sabbath or Saturday for Gods publick service but to the usage of some men who did seem to Judaize upon it by giving themselves to ease and idleness and to rest from labour when the service of the day was ended And that the Canon meant no more then to reprove such men as observed the Saturday or Sabbath after the manner of the Jewes and to take order for the conttary in the time to come appears most evidently by the great care they took touching the solemnizing of that day and the Divine Offices to be done upon it declared in three several Canons the summe whereof we have seen already in this Section So that this first part of that Canon aimed at no other end but by ordaining that the people should work on the Sabbath or Saturday suppose it still after the publick service of the day was ended thereby to distinguish them from the Jewes who would not work at all upon it And then that this distinction between them and the Jewes might appear more evidently it was ordered in the later part of that Canon that preferring the Lords day before it they should as Christians rest from labour on that day if their occasions would permit them For if we mark it as we should we shall not find that the Fathers absolutely prescribed any such cessation from all or any work for which purpose it is chiefly cited but onely with a si modo possint if neither Masters Parents or other Superiors should command them otherwise or that the conveniency of their own affairs or the doing of good offices to their neighbour did not occasion them to dispose of it or some part thereof on some bodily labour The Canon must be thus expounded or else it must run cross to those which before were mentioned which were ridiculous to imagine in so grave a meeting The next Authority is taken from Gregory the Great who telleth us that it is the Doctrine of the Preachers of Antichrist qui veniens diem Dominicum Sabbatum ab omni opere faeciet custodiri who at his coming shall cause both the Lords day and the Sabbath to be kept or celebrated without doing any manner of work A passage very strangely cited and such as I conceive the Lord Primate will neither stand to nor be ruled by upon second thoughts For if it be the Doctrine of the Preachers of Antichrist that no manner of work is to be done upon the Saturday or Sabbath it is the Doctrine of the same Preachers of Antichrist that no manner of work be done on the Lords day neither And if it be the Doctrine of the Preachers of Antichrist that no manner of work should be done on the Lords day what will become of all our English Sabbatarians and their Abetrers who impose as many restraints of this kind upon Christian people as ever were imposed on the Jewes by the Scribes and Pharisees What will become of those who framed the Articles of Ireland or have since subscribed them or preacht or writ according to the tenour of them in one of which it is decreed that the first day of the week which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and that therefore we are bound therein to rest from all common and daily business The Lord Primate did not well consider of these inconveniencies when he brought in Gregory the Great to bear witness for him And in that want of consideration he falls on Doctor Francis White Lord Bishop of Ely a right learned man for rendring Pope Gregories words by a strange kind of mistake in turning this word and the Copulative into or the Disjunctive But possibly this may be a fault of the Printers or a slip of the Pen without any purpose or design of altering the least word or true intention of that Father And secondly whether it be rendered by the Copulative and or the Disjunctive or is not much material for if it be the Doctrine of the Preachers of Antichrist to teach men to abstain from all manner of work both on the Saturday and the Sunday it is no doubt the Doctrine of the same preachers of Antichrist to teach men to abstaine from all manner of work upon the Saturday or the Sunday So that the Lord Primate might have spared that exception against a man of his own order and of so great Abilities in the Schools of Learning but he held a contrary opinion to the Sabbatarians and therefore was to fare no better then the Author of the History had fared before him And herein the Lord Primate seems to be of the same mind with the famous Orator who held it very just and equitable ut qui in eadem causa sint in eadem item essent fortuna And so much for that SECT VII The Historian charged for crossing with the Doctrine of the Church of England and in what particulars
followeth in that Statute Be it enacted c. that all the dayes hereafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy dayes and none other that is to say all Sundayes in the year the feasts of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Epiphany of the Purification with all the rest now kept and there named particularly The like ennumeration we have also in the Book of Common-prayer the publick Liturgy of this Church by Law established where we shall find it thus expressed That these shall be accounted holy dayes and none other that is to say all Sundayes in the year the feast of the Circumcision the Epiphany with all the rest before specified in the Act of Parliament Nor doth the Church onely rank the Lords day with other holy dayes in that enumeration of them but hath appointed the same Divine offices the Letany excepted onely to be performed upon the Saints days other festivals as upon the Sundays each of them having his proper Lesson Collect Epistle and Gospel as the Sunday hath and some of them their proper Psalms also which the Sunday hath not And as for the attendance of the people it is required with as much diligence upon the Saints dayes and other Festivals as upon the Lords day by the Laws of this land For so it is enacted in the Statute of the first of Queen Elizabeth viz. That all and every Person and Persons inhabiting within this Realm c. shall diligently and faithfully endeavour themselves to resort to their Parish Church or Chappel c. upon every Sunday and other dayes ordained and used to be kept as holy dayes then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of common prayer preaching or other service of God Nor was it only enacted that men should diligently repair to their Church or Chappel as well upon the other holy dayes as upon the Sunday but that the same penalty was imposed on such as without any reasonable let did absent themselves as well upon the one as upon the other For so it follows in that Statute viz. That every person so offending shall not alone be subject unto the censures of the Church but shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence to be levied to the use of the poor of the same parish by the Church-wardens of the same c. Which grounds thus laid the Lord Primates Argument from the Book of Homilies will be easily answered For if the weight of his argument lie in the first words cited out of the Homily that in the fourth Commandment God hath given express charge to all men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday c. and therefore that the Sunday or Lords day may be called a Sabbath this will prove nothing but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a contention about words and not within the compass of the Homily neither it being declared in the former words of the same Homily that we keep now the first day which is our Sunday and make that our Sabbath that is our day of rest So that the destinating of the Sunday or first day of the week for the day of rest makes it at the most but a tanquam to the Sabbath neither entituling it to the name nor prerogatives of it But if the weight of the Argument lie in these words viz. That men upon the Sunday or Lords day should cease from all weekly and work-day labour c. and also give themselves wholly to Heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service For the first part thereof touching the forbearing of all weekly and work-day labour is no otherwise to be understood but of such labours as are prohibited by the Laws of the Realm or otherwise may prove an avocation from Gods publick service at the times appointed for the same And as for the last words touching mens giving of themselves wholly to heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service they are of a far differing meaning from the Article of the Church of Ireland for which the Lord Primate chiefly stickleth in which it is declared that the first day of the week which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God For certainly there is a great difference between the dedicating of a day wholly to the service of God as in the Articles of Ireland and the giving of our selves wholly to heavenly exercises as in the Homilies of England the one implying that no part of the day is to be otherwise spent then in the service of God no place being left either for necessary business or for lawful pleasure the other that in the Acts and times of publick worship we should give our selves wholly that is our whole selves souls and bodies to the performance of those heavenly exercises which are then required It had before been told us in this very Homily that nothing in the fourth Commandment was to be retained but what was found appertaining to the Law of Nature but it appertaineth not to the Law of Nature either that one day in seven should be set apart for Religious worship or that this one day wholly be so imployed vel quod per totam diem abstineatur ab operibus servilibus as Tostatus hath it or that there be an absolute cessation during the whole day from all servile works By consequence there is no more required of us by the Law of Nature in this case but that at the times appointed for Gods publick worship we wholly sequester our selves yea our very thoughts from all worldly business fixing our souls and all the faculties thereof upon that great and weighty business which we are in hand with That does indeed appertain to the Law of Nature Naturale est quod dum Deum colimus ab aliis abstineamus as Tostatus hath it and to this point we have been trained in the Schools of Piety Orantis est nihil nisi coelestia cogitare as was said before So that the meaning of the Homily in that place will be onely this that for those times which are appointed by the Church for the assembly of Gods people we should lay by our daily business and all worldly thoughts and wholly give our selves to the heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service as in the Homily we are willed And that this only was the meaning of the Homily in that place may be convincingly concluded from the reasons following First from the improbability that the Authors of that Homily should propound a Doctrine so evidently contrary to the Declaration of the Act of Parliament in the 5 6. of Edw. 6. which was then in force and unto which not onely the Commons and the Lords Temporal but even the Lords Spiritual and the King himselfe did most unanimously concur or that the Queen should authorize a Doctrin in the Book of Homilies as by ratifying the 39. Articles she must be supposed to have done
Bishops of his party should at an Ordination take the subscription of the party ordained to both Articles the Articles of England not being received instead but with those of Ireland p. 120 121. A sorry shift but such as was conceived to be better then none though as good as nothing But leaving this Dispute to another place as before was intimated we now proceed to the Examination of some other passages in the Lord Primates Letter unto his Honourable Friend in which he first chargeth the Historian for speaking inconsiderately in saying that before that time viz. Anno 1615. The Lords day had never attained such credit as to be thought an Article of the Faith though of some mens fancies And why was this so inconsiderately spoken Because saith he he that would confound the ten Commandments whereof this must he accounted for one unless he will leave us but nine with the Articles of Faith had need be put to learn his Catechisme again But this I look on as a flourish or a fansie onely For I hope the Lord Primate doth not think the Historian so extremely ignorant as to mean there a justifying and salvifical faith but that he takes faith there in the general notion as it importeth a firm perswasion and beliefe that those things are undoubtedly true which are commended to him by the Church in which he liveth or found in any creditable and unquestioned Author And in this notion of the word the matter of a Commandment being made a Doctrine may be called an Article of the Faith without any such scorn as to be put to learn the Catechism again The Articles of England by such as write of them in Latine are called Confessio Ecclesiae Anglicanae praeter Confessionem Anglicanam quam mihi ut modestam praedicabant c. saith the Arch-Bishop of Spalato In like manner and in the same sense and signification as the Articles of the Belgick Churches and the Kirk of Scotland are called confessio fidei Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio fidei Scoticana sit de caeteris that is to say the confession of the Faith of those several Churches By which name the Articles of Ireland being also called by a most eminent learned and judicious person as Doctor Bernard sets him out p. 121. and the new Doctrine of the Sabbath being made a part of that Confession it may be said without any absurdity or being put to School again to learn the Catechisme that till that time viz. 1615. the Lords day never had attained that credit as to be thought an Article of the Faith But to make the matter sure and beyond exception I must put Dr. Bernard in mind of a Book entituled The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines assembled at Westminster by the Authority of Parliament concerning a Confession of Faith In which Confession of the Faith it is said expresly that As it is in the Law of Nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God so in his word by a positive moral and perpetual Commandment binding all men in all ages he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him which from the beginning of the world to the Resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week and from the Resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week which in Scripture is called the Lords day and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath The institution and keeping of the Lords day here is made an Article of the Faith an Article of that Confession of the Faith which by the Assembly of Divines whereof the Lord Primate was nominated to be one was recommended to the two Houses of Parliament and yet I trow the Lord Primate wil not send the whole Assembly to learn their Catechism again unless it were one of the Catechisms of their own making either the larger or the lesser 't is no matter which But the Lord Primate stayes not here he goes on and saith That he that would have every thing which is put into the Articles of Religion to be held for an Article of Faith should do well to tell us whether he hath as yet admitted the Book of the ordination of Bishops and the two volumes of Homilies into his Creed both which he shall find received in the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the Synod held at London Anno 1562. But unto this it may be answered that the Book of the Ordination of Bishops and the two Volumes of Homilies may be so far taken into the Historians Creed as to believe as much of either as is required of him in the Book of Articles For he may very warrantably and safely say that he does verily believe that the second Book of Homilies doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for those times that is to say the times in which they were first publisht and that the Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and ordering and that it hath nothing that of it self is superstitious or ungodly All this the Historian doth and may believe without making it an Article of his Faith except it be in that general notion of the word which before we spake of and in which notion of the word the Article of the Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. may as well finde a place in the Confession of the Faith of the Church of England as that Article of the Parity of Ministers hath found admittance in the Confessions of the Belgick Scotish and other Reformed Churches For in the Belgick Confession Art 31. it is thus declared quantum vero attinet Divini verbi Ministros ubicunque locorum sint eandem illi Potestatem Authoritatem habent ut qui omnes sint Christi unici illius Episcopi universalis unicique Capitis Ecclesiae Ministri The French Confession bearing this Title Gallicarum Ecclesiarum Confessio fidei that is to say The Confession of the Faith of the French or Gallick Churches as the Scotish Confession is called Confessio fidei Scoticana doth affirm as much viz. Credimus omnes veros Pastores ubicunque locorum collocati fuerint eadem aequali inter se potestate esse praeditos sub unico illo capite summoque solo universali Episcopo Jesu Christo And so no question in the rest The Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops may as well be an Article of the Faith amongst us in England as the Parity of Ministers amongst those of France or the Low-Countries These Interlocutories being thus passed over the Lord Primate comes at last to his final and definitive sentence for what remaineth after the Verdict is once given but that Judgment in the Case be pronounced accordingly And the Judgment is given us in these Words viz. By the
of those five there is but one material and of any consequence in the main concernments of the Cause the other four being either extrinsecal or of less importance more then to shew that nothing in that History which was found liable to exception should escape uncensured Assuredly it had been a work more proper for so great an Antiquary a man so verst and studied in all parts of Learning to have returned a full and complete Answer to that History had he found it answerable then to except against some few passages in it of no greater moment and by so doing to justifie and confirm the Author in all the rest Exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis is a good old rule and which I might crave leave to use to my best advantage but that I am resolved to try my fortune and make good those passages against which the Lord Primate hath excepted To the defence whereof with all due reverence to his Name and Memory I shall now proceed Noster duorum eventus ostendat utra gens sit melior And first the Lord Primate tells us this that when he gave himselfe to the reading of the Fathers he took no heed unto any thing that concerned this Argument as little dreaming that any such Controversie would have arisen amongst us p. 74. And I concur with him in words though perhaps not in meaning also there being none who reads the Fathers with care and caution who can suppose that any Controversie should arise about the Sabbath against the morality whereof the Fathers generally declare upon all occasions The Lord Primate tells us of Saint Augustin pag. 75. That purposely selecting those things which appertained unto us Christians he doth wholly pretermit that Precept in the recital of the Commandments of the Decalogue To which Testimony though this alone may seem sufficient to confirme the point I shall adde some more And first the said Saint Augustine tells us that it is no part of the Moral Law for he divides the Law of Moses into these two parts viz. Sacraments and Moral Duties accounting Circumcision the New Moons Sabbaths and the Sacrifices to appertain unto the first ad mores autem Non occides c. and these Commandments Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not commit Adultery and the rest to be contained within the second The like saith Chrysostom that this Commandment is not any of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which naturally were implanted in us or made known unto our conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that it was temporary and occasional and such as was to have an end where all the rest were necessary and perpetual Tertullian also in his Treatise against the Jewes saith that it was not Spirituale aeternum Mandatum sed temporale quod quandoque cessaret not a spiritual and eternal institution but a temporal onely Finally to ascend no higher Justine Martyr more expresly in his Dispute with Trypho a learned Jew maintains the Sabbath to be onely a Mosaical Ordinance and that it was imposed upon the Israelites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their hard-heartedness and irregularity And as for the Lords day which succeeded in the place thereof the Fathers generally think no otherwise of it then as an Ecclesiastical Institution not founded upon any precept either of Christ or his Apostles but built perhaps upon some Apostolical practice which gave the Church authority to change the day and to translate it from the Seventh on which God rested to the First day of the week the day of our Saviours Resurrection And though the Lord Primate to gain unto the Lords day the Reputation of having somewhat in it of Divine Institution ascribes the alteration of the day to our Lord and Saviour page 76. yet neither the Author whom he cites nor the Authority by him cited will evince the point And first the Author will not do it the Homily De Semente out of which the following proof is taken being supposed by the Learned not to have been writ by Athanasius but put into his Works as his by some that had a mind to entitle him to it as generally all the Works of the Ancient Fathers have many supposititious writings intermingled with them Secondly the Authority or Words cited will not do it neither though at first sight they seem to come home to make proof thereof The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the Lord translated the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the Lords day or first day of the week Which words are to be understood not as if done by his Commandment but on his occasion the Resurrection of our Lord upon that day being the principal motive which did induce his Church to make choice thereof for a day of Worship For otherwise the false Athanasius whosoever he was must cross and contradict the true who having told us that it was commanded at the first that the Sabbath should be observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are in memory of the accomplishment of the worlds Creation ascribes the institution of the Lords day to the voluntary usage of the Church of God without any Commandment from our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We celebrate saith he the Lords day as a memorial of the beginning of a new Creation which is plain enough In the next place it is acknowledged by the Lord Primate That generally the word Sabbatum in the writings of the Fathers doth denote our Saturday p. 74. Which notwithstanding either because it was affirmed by the Historian History of the Sabbath Part 2. Chap. 2. Num. 12. that the word Sabbatum was not used to signifie the Lords day by any approved Writer for the space of a thousand years and upward or not to leave the Sabbatarian Brethren at so great a loss in that particular he would fain find out one though but one of a thousand who hath used it to denote our Christian Festivities also Where not that the Lord Primate doth not say as indeed he could not that the word Sabbatum was used to signifie the Lords day but onely to signifie the other Festivals of the Church the Christian Festivities as he calls them in which how much he is mistaken we shall see anon That one here meant and mentioned is Sidonius Apollinaris Bishop of Auvergne in France who describing the moderation of the Table of Theoderick King of the Goths upon the Eves and the excess on the Holy-day following he writeth of the one that his Convivium diebus profestis simile privato est that his Table on the working-dayes was furnished like the Table of private men but of the other dayes or Festivals he telleth us this De luxu autem illo Sabbatario narrationi mâ—ae supersedendum est qui nec latentes potest latere personas that is to say that his excess or Sabbatarian luxury required
which grew in the middle of the Garden as namely by Tertullian adversus Iudaeos Basil de jejunio Ambrose Lib. de Elia jejunio c. 3. Chrysostom Hom 14. 16. on the Book of Genesis Austin de Civitate l. 14. c. 12. As also by many other Christian Doctors of all times and ages who from hence aggravate the offence of Adam in that he had but one Commandment imposed on him and yet kept it not By others it is said expresly that Adam never kept the Sabbath as certainly he would have done at some time or other if any such Commandment had been given him by the Lord his God as namely by Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Iew Tertullian in his Book adversus Iudaeos which may be gathered also in the way of a necessary consequence from the words of Eusebius De Praep. Evang. l. 7. c. 8. and those of Epiphanius adversus Haereses l. 1. n. 5. Whose words we have laid down at large Hist of Sub. p. 1. c. 1. n. 5. This is enough to prove that no command for keeping of the Sabbath day was given to Adam in his own personal capacity and no more then so besides the necessary expiring of the Sabbath with him had it been so given And that it was not given to him as the common Root of Mankind will appear as plainly by the not keeping of that day by any which descended from him till it was declared unto the Israelites in the fall of Mannah and afterwards imposed upon them by the fourth Commandment for if it had been kept by any it must have been by those of the godly Line from whom our Saviour was to derive his Humane nature and yet it hath been proved out of very good Authors that it was never kept by Abel Seth Enos Enoch or Methusalem nor finally by Noah himselfe though called in Scripture by the name of a Preacher of Righteousness the proofs whereof may be found at large in the History of the Sabbath Part 1. Chap. 2. Num. 6 7 8 9. And if it were not kept by those of the godly Line we have no hope to find any thing for the keeping of it in the house of Cain or in the families of any of the other Sons of Adam whose extreme wickedness grew so abominable in the sight of God that he was forced to wash away the filth thereof by a general Deluge After the Flood we find the world repeopled by the Sons of Noah the godly Line being as ignorant of the Sabbath as the rest of the Nations for it hath been sufficiently proved out of very good Authors that neither Sem nor Melchisedech if a different person from him nor Heber nor Lot ever kept the Sabbath and that it was not kept by Abraham or any of his Sons as neither by Iacob Ioseph Moses or any of the House of Israel as long as they remained in Egypt in the House of Bondage for which see Hist of Sab. Part. 1. c. 3. n. 4 5 7 8 9. And if we find no such observance in the House of Sem who were more careful of their wayes and walked agreeably to the declared will and pleasure of Almighty God it were in vain to look for it in the House of Iaphet or in that of the accursed Cain the founders of the Europaean and African Nations or amongst any others which descended from the Sons of Sem who pass together with the rest by the name of Gentiles Now that the Gentiles were not bound to observe the Sabbath is proved by divers of the Fathers and many of the greatest Clerks among the Iewes whom affirm expresly that the Commandment of the Sabbath was given to none but those of the House of Israel Of this mind was St. Austin Epist 119. De Gen. ad lit l. 4. c. 11 13. Epist 86. Ad Casalanum in all which places he appropriates this Commandment to the Iewes or Hebrews St. Cyril in Ezek. h. 20. Theodoret in Ezek. 20. Procopius Gazaeus in Gen. 21. And for the Iews it was a common opinion received amongst them that the Sabbath was given to them onely and not to the Gentiles as Petrus Galatinus proves from the best of their Authors who thereupon inferreth Quod Gentes non obligantur ad Sabbatum that the Gentiles were not bound to observe the Sabbath The like may be gathered from Iosephus who in many places calls the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a national custome Antiq. lib. 4. cap 8. de bello lib. 2. cap. 16. to whom I shall now adde another of later date of my Lord Primates own commending that is to say Manasses Ben Israel who telleth in his Book De Creatione that the observation of the Sabbath was commanded onely unto the Israelites and that all the Duties which the Heathen were tied unto were comprised in the precepts given to the sons of Noah as is affirmed in the Letter to Dr. Twisse p. 78. And that the Sabbath was not kept by the Gentiles as well as not imposed upon them by any Commandment the Historian hath made good by two several Mediums whereof the first is taken from the writings of the Gentiles themselves by which it doth appear that they gave no greater respect to the Saturday then to any other day whatever and that though they celebrate the seventh day as a festival day yet was it not the seventh day of the weeek but the seventh day onely of every month which might happen as well upon any of the six dayes as upon the Saturday And so it is observed by Philo a right learned Jew who puts this difference between the Gentiles and the Jews that divers Cities of the Gentiles did solemnize the seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once a month beginning their account with the new Moon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the Jewes did keep every seventh day constantly Nor was the seventh day of the month on which they sacrificed to Apollo esteemed more holy by the Gentiles then their other Festivals on which they tendered their Devotions to their other Gods and in particular was not accounted more holy then the first or fourth which Hesiod placeth in the same parallel with the seventh in this following verse viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which if any should take notice that the attribute of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or holy is affixt unto the seventh day onely the Scholiast on that Author shall remove that scruple A novilunio exorsus tres laudat omnes sacras dicens septimam etiam ut Apollinis natalem celebrans and tells us that all three are accounted holy and that the seventh was also celebrated as Apollo's birth-day As for the first day of the month as is observed by Alexander ab Alexandro it was consecrated by the Greeks to Apollo also the fourth to Mercury the eighth to Theseus because he was derived from Neptune to whom as Plutarch saith they
offered sacrifice on the same day also So was the second day of the month consecrated to the Bonus Genius the third and fifteenth to Minerva the last to Pluto and every twentieth day by the Epicures to their God the Belly Thus also had the Romans their several Festivals in every month some in one month and some in another the ninth day onely of every month being solemnly observed by them and from thence called Nundinae because devoted unto Iupiter the most supreme Deity But what need more be said in this when we have confitentem reum For Dr. Bound the first that set on foot these new Sabbath-Doctrines doth confess ingeniously That the memory of Weeks and Sabbaths was altogether suppressed and buried amongst the Gentiles to whom I shall subjoyn de novo the Lord Primate himself who though he stick hard to prove that the Saturday was held in greater estimation by the Gentiles then all the rest yet he acknowledgeth at the last that they did not celebrate their Saturdayes with that solemnity wherewith themselves did their Annual Festivities or the Jews their weekly Sabbaths p. 85. therefore not kept by them as a Sabbath there 's no doubt of that which was by the first of the two Mediums to be clearly proved The second Medium by which it is proved by the Historian that the Gentiles did not keep the Sabbath is gathered from those bitter scoffs and Satyrical jeers which the Gentiles put upon the Jewes and such of their own people as did Judaize for the observation of the same Of this we have an evâ—dent proof in the Prophet Ieremiah who telleth us in his book of Lamentations how the adversaries of the Jewes did mock at their Sabbath c. 1. v. 7. And adversaries they had of all sorts and of different Countreyes who did mock at them for their observation of the Sabbath day The name derived by Apion from Sabbo an Egyptian word signifying an inflammation in the privy parts from which by resting on the seventh day they received some ease then which what greater scorn could be put upon it by a wretched Sycophant But others with more modesty but as little truth from Sabbo signifying the Spleen with which the Jews were miserably tormented till on the seventh day released from it for which consult Giraldus in his Book De Annis Mensibus By Persius in his fifth Satyre called recutita Sabbata in which their Circumcision and their Sabbaths were both jeered together by Ovid Peregrina Sabbata in his first Book De Remedio Amoris because not known or commonly observed amongst the Romans the men themselves by Martial in his Epigram to Bassa reprochfully nick-named Sabbatarii Accused for spending the seventh part of their lives in sloth and idleness by Seneca apud August de Civit. Dei l. 6. c. 11. Iuvenal Sat. 14. Tacitus Hist l. 5. and therefore fitted with a day of equal dulness the Saturday or dies Saturni as the Latines call it being thought unfit for any business rebus minus apta gerendis as it is in Ovid whose words I shall produce at large because I am to relate to them on another accasion Quaque die redeunt rebus minus apta gerendis Culta Palaestino septima sacra viro The seventh day comes for business most unfit Held sacred by the Jew who halloweth it A fansie not so strange in Ovid as it seems in Philo a Jew by birth and a great stickler in behalf of the Jewish Ceremonies who telleth us that the seventh day was chosen for a day of rest because the seventh number in it selfe was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the most peaceable number the most free from trouble war and all kind of contention Yet not more strange in Philo then it is in Aretius a Writer of the Reformed Churches who thinks that day to have been chosen before any other Quod putaretur civilibus actionibus ineptum esse c Because that day was thought by reason of the dulness of the Planet Saturn more fit for contemplation then it was for action Adde more to end as I began with an Etymology that Plutarch derives the name of Sabbath from Sabbi Sabbi ingeminated by the Priests of Bacchus in his drunken Orgies as others do from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to celebrate those Orgies both with reproch enough to the Jewish Nation who by their riotous feastings and excesses on the Sabbath day gave such a scandal to the Gentiles that luxus Sabbatarius became at last to be a by-word as in that passage of Apollinaris spoken of before Out of all which it may be probably inferred that they that did so scornfully deride the Jewish Sabbaths did keep no Sabbath of their own by consequence that no command for the keeping of it was given to Adam as the common Root of all mankind and therefore no such institution in the second of Genesis as the Lord Primate would fain have it Against these passages proofs the L. Primate makes not any Exceptions and therefore it may be took for granted that the Gentileâ— neither were commanded to keep the Sabbath nor did keep the Sabbath which were the matters to be proved But for an Answer thereunto he sets upon Antithesis a contrary proposition of his own of purpose to run cross to that which is maintained by the Historian l. 4 c 1. n 8. For wheras it was there affirmed by the Historian that the 7th day was not more honoured by the Gentiles then the eighth or ninth the Lord Primate on the other side hath resolved the contrary affirming that the Heathens did attribute some holiness to the Seventh day and gave it a peculiar honour above the other dayes of the week p. 83. For proof of this he first supposeth a Tradition among the Jewes and Gentiles that the seventh day was not of Moses but the Fathers and did not begin with the Commonwealth of Israel but was derived to all Nations by lineal descent from the Sons of Noah p. 82. But where to find and how to prove this Tradition we are yet to seek the Lord Primate vouching no more ancient Author for it then Tertullian who lived almost two hundred years after Christ our Saviour and relates onely to his own times not to those of old No evidence produced to prove the Proposition or the Supposition out of any of those famous Writers Philosophers Historians Poets Orators who flourished in the heroick times of Learning amongst the Grecians nor from any of the like condition amongst the Romanâ— who lived and flourished before or after the triumphant Empire of Augustus Caesar one passage out of Tibullus excepted onely till we come to Aelius Lampridius an Historian who lived after Tertullian It 's true the Lord Primate cites three Greek verses from as many of the old Greek Poets but they make nothing to his purpose as himselfe confesseth The verses alledged as he telleth us
the first day of the week as our English reads it And then the meaning of the Text will be briefly this that the feast of Pentecost reckoning the computation from the morrow after the Sabbath that is to say the feast of unleavened bread was to be kept precisely on the morrow after the end of the seventh week from the sixteenth of Nisan on what day soever it should happen and not on the morrow after the seventh weekly Sabbath as the Lord Primate would fain have it And therefore thirdly if the Samaritans observing it until this day upon the first day of the week which is our Sunday produce the letter of the Law Levit. 23. 15 16. by keeping it upon that day they transgress the Law because they take not along with them the true meaning of it and the intent of him that gave it for a Law to the House of Israel And this is just the case of Origen in the Primitive times who by following the letter of the Gospel made himself an Eunuch contrary to the mind and meaning of Christ our Saviour and therefore sinned against God and his own body Fourthly and finally if Ruportus speak no otherwise then Isychius doth he must be reprehended by the Lord Primate as Isychius is for straining the signification of altera dies Sabbati to express thereby the Lords day though both produced in this place to no other purpose then to prove that the morrow after the seventh Sabbath was the first day of the week which is now our Sunday Let us next see what Superstructures have been made by the Lord Primate on the former grounds what descant he hath made on the plain-song which before we toucht at And first he telleth us how considerable it is thâ—t the old Pentecost is no where in Moses affixed unto any one certain day of the month as all the rest of the feasts are p. 90. But this is gratis dictum also the feast of Pentecost being as precisely tied to a certain day as either the Passover the feast of Expiation or the feast of Tabernacles for being the Passover is sixt on the fourteenth of Nisan the feast of unleavened bread on the fifteenth the offering of the first fruits on the sixteenth and that the feast of Pentecost was to be kept on the fiftieth day after that it must-needs fall expresly and of course allowing thirty dayes to the month as the Jewes computed it on the fifth of Sivan which makes it evident that the old Pentecost was affixt by Moses to one certain day of the month as well as any of the rest He telleth us next that the old Pentecost may be presumed to have been a moveable feast but varied so that it might alwayes fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbath Which were it so it must needs be a movable immovable feast though being constantly reckoned from the sixteenth of Nisan and kept as constantly on the morrow after the end of the seven weeks from thence computed seems to have nothing moveable in it but all fixt and firm Thirdly whereas it is took for granted and affirmed expresly that the Pentecost did alwayes fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbâ—th there is not any thing more different from the truth it self nor less agreeable to right reason The Passovâ—r though it was fixt on the fourteenth of Nisan as to the day of the month did â—all in course as the fâ—ast of Christmas the Epiphany the Annuntiation and all the rest of the Festivals which depend not on the keeping of Easter do with us in England on every day of the week successively in their turns and courses So that if the fourteenth of Nisan full upon the second day of the week the feast of Pentecost must fall that year upon the Wednesday and if the fourteenth of Nisan fell upon the Tuesday then the Pentecost must fall that year upon the Thursday sic de caeteris Besides the year was so unequal amongst the Jewes that it was impossible the feast of Pentecost should be kept always on the first day of the week or the morrow after the ordinary Sabbath as the Lord Primate would fain have it For the Jewes measuring their months by the course of the Moon they made their year fall shorter by eleven dayes than those who measured their year by the course of the Sun and therefore were necessitated at the end of every 2d or 3d. year to insert a month which they commonly called Veadar or the second Adar because it followed after the 12th month which they called Adar By reason whereof it was altogether impossible in the course of nature or in the ordinary revolution of times and seasons that the Pentecost should always fall on the first day of the week and therfore God himself is brought upon the Stage and must work a miracle every year to make up the matter for so it followeth viz God saith he so ordered the matter that in the celebration of the feast of Weeks the seventh day should purposely be passed over and that solemnity should be kept upon the first p. 90 And this I needs must look on as an high presumption in another man absit reverentia vero in the Poets language that God should be entitled to the maintenance of our private fancies and brought to act his part without any necessity in the abetting of mens quarrels The Heathen Poet was a better Divine then so who would not have God made an Actor in the common Enterâ—udes Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit as his own words are unless some great and weighty difficulty not otherwise to be resolved did require the same But I am sure there is no such difficulty in the case which we have before us as to make God a party in it to bring him down once in every year to act a miracle in ordering the matter so that howsoever the course of the year did change and vary the Pentecost or feast of weeks should alwayes fall upon the first day of the week which is now our Sunday Now though I should proceed to the examination of the inference which ariseth from the former premises yet I shall first consider of the proofs and testimonies which the Lord Primate hath produced in this particular And the first Argument which he brings is from the practice of the Samaritans of whom he tells us that the Samaritans do constantly observe the Pentecost on the first day of the week which is now our Sunday p. 87. their practise in it being preferred before the vulgar use of the Jewish Nation by whose account it may now fall on any day of the week as is there affirmed Assuredly the Jews who so tenaciously adhere to their Circumcision and their Sabbaths and so religiously observe the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of Purim according to the times appointed in the holy Scripture cannot be thought to
Mr. Ley accused by the Lord Primate for being too cold and waterish in the point of the Sabbath That by the Declaration of the three Estates convened in Parliament 5. 6. of Edw. 6. the times of publick worship are left to the liberty of the Church and that by the Doctrine of the Homilies the keeping of the Lords day hath no other ground then the consent of godly Christian people in the Primitive times No more of the fourth commandment to be now retained by the Book of Homilies then what belongs to the Law of Nature Working in Harvest and doing other necessary business permitted on the Lords day both by that Act of Parliament and the Queens Iniunctions No restraint made from Recreations on the Lords day till the first of King James The Sundaies and other Festivals made equal in a manner by the publick Liturgy and equal altogether by two Acts of Parliament The Answer to the Lord Primates Obiection from the Book of Homilies with reference to the grounds before laid down The difference between the Homilies of England and the Articles of Ireland in the present case Several strong Arguments to prove the Homily to mean no otherwise then as laid down in the said Answer Doctor Bounds Sabbath Doctrines lookt on as a general grievance and the care taken to suppress them WE are now come unto the third most material charge of all the rest by which the Historian stands accused for opposing the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Book of Homilies to which he had formerly subscribed and that too in so gross a manner that all the Sophistry he had could neither save him harmless for it nor defend him in it This is an heavy charge indeed and that it may appear the greater the Lord Primate layes it down with all those aggravations which might render the Historian the less able either to traverse the Indictment or plead not guilty to the Bill I wonder saith he in his Letter to an Honourable Person pag. 110. how Doctor Heylyn having himself subscribed to the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the Synod held at London Anno 1562. can oppose the conclusion which he findeth directly laid down in the Homily of the time and place of Prayer viz. God hath given express charge to all men in the fourth Commandment that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday they shall cease from all weekly and week-day labour to the intent that like as God himself wrought six dayes and rested the seventh and blessed and consecrated it to quietness and rest from labour even so Gods obedient people should use the Sunday holily and rest from their common and dayly business and also give themselves wholly to the heavenly exercise of Gods true Religion and service This is the charge which the Historian suffers under wherewith the Lord Primate as it seems did so please himself that like a crambe his cocta it is served in again in his Letter unto Mr. Ley but ushered in with greater preparation then before it was For whereas Mr. Ley had hammered a Discourse about the Sabbath which he communicated to the Lord Primate to the end it might be approved by him the Lord Primate finds some fault with the modesty of the man as if he came not home enough in his Propositions to the point in hand Your second Proposition saith he p. 105. is too waterish viz. That this Doctrine rather then the contrary is to be held the Doctrine of the Church of England and may well be gathered out of her publick Liturgy and the first part of the Homily concerning the place and time of prayer Whereas you should have said that this is to be held undoubtedly the Doctrine of the Church of England For if there could be any reasonable doubt made of the meaning of the Church of England in her Liturgy who should better declare her meaning then her self in her Homily where she peremptorily declareth her mind That in the fourth Commandment God hath given express charge to all men c. as before we had it Assuredly a man that reads these passages cannot chuse but think that the Lord Primate was a very zealous Champion for the Doctrine of the Church of England but upon better consideration we shall find it otherwise that he only advocateth for the Sabbatarians not onely contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England but the practise also which that we may the better see I shall lay down plainly and without any sophistry at all upon what grounds the Lords day stood in the Church of England at the time of the making of this Homily both absolutely in it self and relatively in respect of the other Holy dayes And first we are to understand that by the joint Declaration of the Lords Spiritual Temporal and the Commons assembled in Parliament in the 5. 6. years of King Edw. 6. the Lords day stands on no other ground then the Authority of the Church not as enjoyned by Christ or ordained by any of his Apostles For in that Parliament to the honour of Almighty God it was thus declared viz. Forasmuch as men be not at all times so mindful to laud and praise God so ready to resort to hear Gods holy word and to come to the holy Communion c. as their bounden duty doth require therefore to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmities it hath been wholsomly provided that there should be some certain times and dayes appointed wherein Christians should cease from all kind of labour and apply themselves onely and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly pertaining to true Religion c. which works as they may well be called Gods service so the times especially appointed for the same are called holy dayes Not for the matter or the nature either of the time or day c. for so all dayes and times are of like holiness but for the nature and condition of such holy works c. whereunto such dayes and times are sanctified and hallowed that is to say separated from all profane uses and dedicated not unto any Saint or Creature but onely unto God and his service dayesâ—rescribed â—rescribed in holy Scripture but the appointment both of the time and also of the number of dayes is left by the Authority of Gods word unto the liberty of Christs Church to be determined and assigned orderly in every Country by the discretion of the Rulers and Ministers thereof as they shall judge most expedient to the setting forth of Gods glory and edification of their people Which Statute being repealed in the Reign of Queen Mary was revived again in the first year of Queen Elizabeth and did not stand in force at the time of the making of this Homily which the Lord Primate so much builds on but at such time also as he wrote his Letter to Mr. Ley and to that Honourable Person whosoever he was
that the first day of the Week which is the Lords day was wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore that men should be bound to rest therein from their common and daily business which is the Doctrine of the Articles of the Church of Ireland Next let us look upon the Protestant Lutheran Churches amongst whom though restraints from labour formerly imposed by many Canons Laws and Imperial Edicts do remain in force yet they indulge unto themselves all honest and lawful recreations and spare not to travel on that day as well as upon any other as their necessities or pleasures give occasion for it If they repair unto the Church and give their diligent attendance on Gods publick service there is no more expected of them they may dispose of all the rest of the day in their own affairs and follow all such businesses from which they are not barred by the Laws of the several Countries in which they live without being called to an account or censured for it And as for the Reformed or Calvinian Churches they give themselves more liberty on that day then the Lutherans doe few of them having any Divine offices until now of late in the Afternoons as neither had the Primitive Christians till toward the later end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth Century In those of the Palatinate the Gentlemen betake themselves in the Afternoon of the Lords day to Hawking and Hunting according as the season of the year is fit for either or spend it in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them as doth the Husbandman in looking over his grounds ordering his cattel or following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his nature and education And so it stood in the year 1612. at what time the Lady Elizabeth daughter to King James and wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every afternoon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England might give some hint to the Prince her Husband to cause the like religious offices to be performed in some part of the Afternoon in the City of Heidelberg and after by degrees in other the Cities and towns of his Dominions In the Netherlands they have not onely practice but a Canon for it it being thus decreed by the Synod of Dort Anno 1574. Publicae vespertinae preces non sunt introducendae ubi non sunt introductae ubi sunt tollantur that is to say That in such Churches where publick Evening prayer had not been admitted it should continue as it was and where they were admitted they should be put down And if they had no Evening Prayers there is no question to be made but that they had their Evening Pastimes and that the Afternoon was spent in such employments as were most suitable to the condition of each several man And so it stood till the last Synod of Dort Anno 1618. in which it was ordained that Catechism-Lectures should be read in their Churches on Sundayes in the Afternoon the Minister not to be deterred from doing his duty propter Auditorum infrequentiam though possibly at the first he might have few Auditors and that the Civil Magistrate should be implored ut omnia opera servilia quotidiana c. That all servile works and other prophanations of that day might be restrained quibus tempus pomeridianum maxime in pagis plerumque transique soleret wherewith the Afternoon chiefly in smaller Towns and Villages had before been spent that so they might repair to the Catechizing For both before that time and since they held their Fairs and Markets their Kirk-masses as they used to call them as well upon the Lords day as on any other and those as well frequented in the Afternoon as were the Churches in the forenoon France and even in Geneva it self the New Rome of the Calvinian party all honest Exercises shooting in peeces long-bows cross-bows c. are used on the Sunday and that in the morning both before and after Sermon neither do the Ministers find fault therewith so they hinder not from hearing of the Word at the time appointed And as for the Churches of the Switzers Zuinglius avoweth it to be lawful Die dominico peractis sacris laboribus incumbere On the Lords day after the end of Divine Service for any man to follow and pursue his labours as commonly we do saith he in the time of Harvest And possible enough it is that the pure Kirk of Scotland might have thought so too the Ministers thereof being very inclinable to the Doctrine of Zuinglius and the practise of the Helvetian Churches which they had readily taken into their Confession Anno 1561 but that they were resolved not to keep those holy dayes which in those Churches are allowed of all Holy dayes but the Lords day onely having been formerly put down by their Book of Discipline Nor could I ever learn from any of my Acquaintance of that Kingdom but that men followed their necessary businesses and honest recreations on the Lords day till by commerce and correspondence with the Puritan or Presbyterian party here in England the Sabbatarian Doctrines began by little and little to get ground amongst them On all which premises I conclude that the Authors of that Homily had neither any mind or meaning to contradict the Ancient Fathers the usages and customes of the Primitive times in the general practice of the Protestant and Reformed Churches and therefore that the words of the Homily are not to be understood in any such sense as he puts upon them The Doctrine of the Church of England is clear and uniform every way consonant to it self not to be bowed to a compliance with the Irish Articles of the year 1615. and much less with the judgement and opinion of one single person in 640. No Sophistry in all this but good Topical Arguments and such as may be more easily contemned then answered And so much toward the exonerating of the fourth charge the most material of them all in which the Historian stands accused for opposing the Doctrine of this Church in the Book of Homilies to which he had formerly subscribed SECT IX The Historian charged for mistaking the affairs of Ireland in two particulars which he ingenuously confesseth The great cunning of the Puritan faction in effecting their desires in the Convocation of Dublin Anno 1615. which they could not compass here in England The Historian accused for shamelesness c. for the second mistake though onely in a point of Circumstance the Articles of Ireland being called in and those of England received in the place thereof by the Convocation though not by Parliament The Lord Primates narrative of this business he finds himself surprized in passing the Canon and makes use of a sorry shift to salve
before the Congregation according to the custome of other Reformed Churches of which care there had been no need if the publick Liturgy had been read as it ought to be as well the Commandments as the Creed being appointed to be read publickly in the Course thereof But being it is said with reference to the Reformed Churches I want reason to believe that the often publick reading of the Commandments and the Creed supplied the place of the Publick Liturgy on the dayes of Preaching according to the Custome of some of the Reformed Churches which were therein imitated Secondly it is appointed by the Liturgy or Common-prayer-Book of Both Churches what dayes should be accounted holy and observed as Festivals each of them having their several Lessons Collects Epistles and Gospels as well the Sunday or Lords day it selfe or as the greater Festivals of Easter and Whitsuntide or those of the Ascension and Nativity of our Lord and Saviour No difference made between them except it be the addition of some proper Psalmes to some special Festivals in the intent and purpose of the publick Liturgies But whether the Lord Primate observed all these several Holy dayes which the Church allows of and in such manner as is prescribed by the Church may be very well doubted It s true that Doctor Bernard tells us that it was the Lord Primates judgement and opinion That the Annual Commemorations of the Articles of the Faith such as the Nativity Passion Resurrection of our Saviour c. were still to be observed which Saint Austin saith in his time were in use through the whole Catholick Church of Christ and is now in other Reformed Churches as a means to keep them in the memory of the vulgar according to the pattern of Gods injunction to the Israelites in the Old Testament for the types of them as appeared by his then constant preaching on those Subjects p. 152. But then it is as true withal that Doctor Bernard tells us nothing of the Lord Primates observation of the other Holy dayes as certainly he would have done had there been ground for it And therefore if the Lord Primate were so punctual in keeping the Anniversaries of the Nativity Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord and Saviour and of the coming down of the Holy Ghost as Doctor Bernard saith he was it may be probably conceived that this was done rather in compliance with some of the forraign Reformed Churches which observe those dayes and those dayes onely than in obedience to the prescripts of the Churches of England and Ireland Thirdly the day of the Passion of our Saviour commonly called Goodfriday is by both Churches reckoned for jejunium statum a standing though but an Annual Fast as well as Lent the Ember dayes and Rogation week and hath its proper and distinct office that is to say its proper Lessons Collect Epistle and Gospel accommodated to the day and every way instructive in the story of our Saviours passion And it is ordered by the thirteenth Canon of the year 1603. That all Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in Administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of preaching or in any other respect or adding any thing in the matter and form thereof But on the contrary Doctor Bernard telleth us that the Friday before Easter Good Friday by no means take heed of that appointed for the remembrance of the Passion of our Saviour was by the Lord Primate at Droghedah in Ireland observed duly as a solemn fast inclining the rather to that choice that is to say of making it a solemn not a standing fast out of prudence and the security from censure by the then custome of having Sermons beyond their ordinary limit in England and that when the publick prayers were ended that is to say so much of the publick prayers as might be no hindrance to his preaching be preached upon that subject extending himself in Prayer and Sermon beyond his ordinary time which being known to be his constant custom some from Dublin as other parts came to partake of it p. 154. Fourthly by the 55. Canon of the year 1603. there is a form of Prayer prescribed to be used by Preachers before their Sermons the beginning of which Canon is as followeth viz. Before all Sermons Lectures and Homilies Preachers and Ministers shall move the people to joyn with them in prayer in this Form or to this effect as briefly as conveniently they may Ye shall pray for Christs holy Catholick Church c. But on the contrary Doctor Bernard tells us of the Lord Primate that he did not onely spin out his own Prayers to a more then ordinary length as appeareth by the former passage but that he was also much for the Ministers improving of their gifts and abilities in prayer before Sermon and after according to his own practice p. 150. and that he required the like extemporary and unpremeditated prayers of his houshold Chaplains in his Family-prayers at six of the clock in the morning and at eight at night Fifthly it is appointed by the eighteenth Canon of the year 1603. That as often as in the Divine Service the Lord JESUS shall be mentioned due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present as it hath been accustomed testifying by these outward Ceremonies Gestures their inward Humility Christian Resolution and due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ the true and eternal Son of God is the onely Saviour of the World in whom alone all Mercies Graces and Promises of God to mankind for this life and the life to come are fully and wholly comprised But on the contrary Doctor Bernard tells us of the Lord Primate p. 147. That as for bowing at the name of Jesus though he censured not those that did either in our or other Reformed Churches according to the custome of each which we of England must needs take for a special favour yet he did not conceive the injunction of it could be founded upon that of the Apostle Phil. 2. 10. and wondered at some learned mens assertions that it was the exposition of all the Fathers upon it a touch for Doctor Andrews the late learned and most renowned Bishop of Winchester and as the wise composers of the Liturgy gave no direct injunction for it there so in Ireland he withstood the putting of it into the Canon Anno 1634. Sixthly it is appointed by the said eighteenth Canon of the year 1603. That no man shall cover his head in the Church or Chappel in the time of Divine Service whereof I hope the Sermon did deserve to be accounted part except he have some infirmity in which case let him wear a night-Cap or Coif and in the seventh Canon of the year 1640. that all good and well-affected people members of this Church be ready to tender their acknowledgement