SABBATUM The Mystery of the Sabbath DISCOVERED Wherein The Doctrine of the Sabbath according to the Scriptures and the Primitive Church is declared The Sabbath Moral and Ceremonial are described and differenced What the Rest of God signified and wherein it consisted The fourth Commandment expounded What part of the fourth Commandment is Moral and what therein is Ceremonial Something occasionally concerning the Christian Sunday By EDM. PORTER B. D. Somtime fellow of St John's Colledge in Cambridge and Prebend of Norwich Aug. Cont. Adimant c. 2. Tom 6. Sabbatum non repudiatum est sed intellectum à Christianis Epiphan Haer. 30. Christus est magnum illud Sabbatum perpetuum Cuius figura erat parvum Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsus adventum Prudent in Apotheosi En tibi Christum Infelix Judaea deum qui Sabbata solvens Terrea Mortales aeterna in Sabbata sumpsit Origen in Math. Tract 29. Venient autem Dominus noster Sabbatum nostam requies nostra attulit nobis requiem Sabbati sui c. London Printed for Charles Webb and are to be sold at the Bore's Head in St Paul's Church-yard To the Right Honourable THOMAS Lord Richardson Baron of Cramond AND To the truly Noble and Vertuous Lady the Lady ANNE Richardson his right worthy Consort PEACE and TRUTH RIGHT HONOURABLE OF all the mistakes and misunderstandings of men in the grand Mysteries of our Religion there is none that may more deservedly be put into the catalogue of popular and almost universall errors then the erroneous conceivings and misapprehensions of the doctrine of the Sabbath wherein not onely the Antient and Modern Jews but also many Christians both learned and lewd did and do alike erre Insomuch that now of late the old saying is come to passe Communis error facit jus for we have lived to see Sabbatarian errors to be grown up into a Law and to be confirmed And the very appllation of Sabbath which in the Moral part of the fourth Commandment signifies Christ our Redeemer and in the latter or Ceremonial part of the said Commandment signifies the seventh day from the Creation or last day of the week to be applied to our Sunday which is the first day of the week and the eighth from the Creation And this even by many Preachers some of them being very learned whereby the lesse learned sort of Christians are misled into the same error with the Jews who would see no further into the great mystery of the Sabbath than onely the consecrating of the seventh day as ours at this time do the eighth day And neither of them will be as yet perswaded to look more deeply into that most divine and gracious Law of the Sabbath The principall misleader into these errours in our daies is I conceive that otherwise pious and learned Book entituled The Practise of Piety the right Author whereof I think is concealed A late a Advice to a Son Writer thinketh that it hath been too oft printed because as he saith it is contrary to the Church Protestant in the doctrine of the Sacrament b pag. 513. 515. Edit 32. I think it far more contraâ—y to â—he Church Catholick in the Doctrine of the Sabbath which word Sabbath this Writer not onely applies to our Sunday but also labours vehemently with multitudes of Arguments unnecessary uncogent and also untrue to prove it the Sabbath meant in the fourth Commandment Seneca saiâ—h c Sen. lib 3 Cont. 22. Suspectus est judici qui plus quam se defendit Verily his over-many vain prooss and superfluous pleadings may to a judicious Reader make his cause to be suspected the more either of error or which is worse of designe and collusion For some of our own learned Writers have long ago declared in their printed Books that the late or yesterday use of calling our Sunday The Sabbath was set on foot by that sort of men who have made it their trade to asperse both the Doctrine and the Discipliâ—e of this Church on purpose to please and accommodate those turbulent spirits that have for a long time waited for an opportunity to make a prey thereof And these their instruments may justly be suspected to carp at this Church for their own designes as Politian saith of one of his opposits d Polit. l. 7 Epist 2. Non ideò me carpit ut carpat sed ut victum quaerat And indeed our Zelot Sabbatarians by such practises have of late well feathered their nests though with the ruine of the most renowned Church in the world but alitèr non fiunt Floralia And they have moreover abused the present State with this word Sabbath whereby our Sunday is of late re-baptized or Turkened into a Sabbath which our former Parliaments in their Statutes in the daies of our fore-fathers and untill the reign of our late gracious King Charls of blessed memory and inclusively and the Church of England also for weighty reasons called by none other name but Sunday But such things need not seem strange when the Nobles and Worthies of David and also the Sage and Reverend Aaronites and their Learned Levites are excluded from the Sanedrim As for the appellation of Sabbath so misapplied to our Sunday no authority of Scripture can with any colour of right reason be alledged either directly or derivatively from thence The Jews that were converted and made up a Body of the Primitive Church and first began the celebration of this day did never call it Sabbath nor did any Apostle so call it nor indeed any of the antient Fathers nor was this day meant by * Sabbatum Christianum Origen who is untruly said to have called it The Christian Sabbath as will appear in this a Chap. 4. Book As for the other late and new name of Lord's Day which they would derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalyps Rev. 1. 10. because our English Translation doth so render those words which yet they will not bear the right reddition whereof is not The Lord's Day but The Dominicall day as our Englishmen generally ever did before and yet do call the Sunday-Letter not The Lord's day Letter but The Dominicall Letter And the Western Church in all Ages called this day either Dies Solis or Dominica For in Scriptures the Lord's Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and are often used by St. Paul and St. Peter and are 1 Cor. 5. 5 Phil. 1 10. 2 Pet. 3. 10. rightly rendred The Day of the Lord and The Day of Christ but in a far different signification from that which these men now call the Lord's Day for those words signifie The Great Day of Universall Judgment Besides a judicious Reader will consider how harshly and uncouthly this appellation sounds for when they speak of many Sundayes they call them Two Three or Four Lord's Dayes as if we had more Lord's daies than
one If they wil needs use the name of the Lord in calling that day 't were far more consonant with the phrase of Scripâ—ure and Euphony to call iâ— The Day of the Lord which yet will not come home to their purpose Therefore those prudent Sâ—atesmen and learned Prelates which were interessed both in composing our Statutes and also in compiling and authorising our Leiturgie did with great caution decline this appellation and call'd it Sunday as some of the most antient Fathers did before both in the Greek and a Iustin. Mart. Tertul. Latine Church and this in likelyhood before the appellation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Dominica was generally received although the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in some particular Churches used before those Fathers wrote as may appear by that authentick Epistle of b Ignat. Epist 3. Edit Plant. Ignatius ad Magnesianos Neither did those Primitive Christians before mentioned who first began this solemnity nor the Apostles who approved thereof long before the Revelation was written ever call this day so as it is now called We find it recorded under the title of The first day of the week or first day after the Sabbath Act. 20. 7. and 1 Cor. 16. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we find no mention of Sabbath Lord's day or Resurrection day nor did they then call it Sunday because the naming of the seven week-dayes by the seven Planets was never before or at that time used by the Jews nor by the Romans their then Magistrates Whereby it is evident enough that the assigning of the first day of the week for holy assemblies was not originally upon consideration of Christ's Resurrection on that day Notwithstanding the succeeding Church did conform unto that day because their Predecessors had fixed thereon And they further alledged new reasons for the retaining of it They considered That Christ did indeed rise that day from the dead That the descending of the holy Ghost at Pentecost That the creation of Heaven and Earth and Light That Manna rained from Heaven first and all these on this first day of the week Bellarmine addeth if you will believe him b Bel. de Cultu Sanct. l. 3. c. 11. To. 2. That by his and other learned mens calculations the Nativity of Christ fell on this first day of the week These were the reasons for retaining this day though not of instit uting it But in succeeding times the Jewish appellation of dayes by First Second Third c. of the Sabbath or Week was disused Therefore the Church affixed a new name to that day according to the Custom of their Country or Ordinance of the Church and hence came the denomination of Dominica and Sunday respectively We cannot with reason account this appellation Sunday to be any disparagement to the solemnity of the festivall in regard that our Saviour himselfe for whose Honour we sanctifie this Day is called by his Prophets The Sun which shall no more Isa 60. 20 Mal. 4. 2. Matth. 17 2. Matth. 13 43. Rev. 1. 16. 10. 1. 12. 1. go down And the Sun of Righteousnesse his glorious Transfiguration is resembled to the Sun his Saints are promised at their glorification To shine as the Sun his owne Countenance and his mighty Angell and his Spouse are described by the glory of the Sun so that this Name is high and glorious The disusing of this word Sunday and Dominica of late among us is upon some reason of State as of some other good old words also as The word Kingdome and Three Kingdomes and Bishop and Common Prayer Leiturgy and Letanie are now left And instead of them We have Common-wealth Three Nations Presbyters Independents Directory Sabbath Lords-day c. but oâ—d words may return again and new words may grow obsolete when the State seeth it needfull as one saith Multa renascentur quae jam cecidêre Horace cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula Si volet usus As for the warrant and authority for hallowing and assembling thereon We say That it is not grounded on the fourth Commandement which doth not in the least mention or meddle therewith Neither did Christ or any Apostle command it as Chemnitius a Learned Protestant granteth Exam. Conc. Trid. But we keep it rather by vertue of the fifth Commandement which requireth us to Honour our Parents wherein lawfull Magistrates are included and their just lawes authorized Our reasons are these 1. The institution of the Church Primitive 2. The Apostolicall approbation thereof 3. The Imperiall decrees and also the Regall lawes of this Realm 4. The constant practise of the Church Catholick in all ages thereof 5. The scripturall authority for it which is derived as is said before from the fifth Commandement although not directly or expressely and down-right but secondarily consequently and collaterally in these and the like passages Submit your 1 Pet. 2. 13 selves to eveâ—y Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake And Obey them that Heb. 13. 17 have rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Christ also said If be neglect the Church Matth. 18 17. let him be as an Heathen man and a Publican For these and such like reasons we adhere to it and esteem them so ponderous that we account it an high insolency and pride either to abrogate or but to alter the day as some have attempted Thus far we agree in the thing but we dissent from the name Sabbath and Lords day and also from all superstition therein practised As touching the Mysterious Apocalyps from which the late appellation of Lord's day is taken by a Translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not rendred exactly to the Originall Letter as is shewed before Although this Scripture be still confessed both by the Church Protestant and Roman to be Theopneust and Canonicall yet it cannot be denied that many Learned men both Anciently and Lately have doubted concerning the Writer thereof and also have been anxiously perplexed with the obscurities therein First for the Writer That he was named John the Book often declareth But whether he were St. John the Apostle the Text doth not declare nor do the Ancients agree therein in so much that in consideration of former disputes concerning the Writer and also of the style phrase form or manner of speech therein used a Prolegom in Apoc. Beza is inclined to conjecture that if it were not written by St. John the Apostle yet that it was written by St. Mark the Evangelist who was also named John because we read of John surnamed Mark Act. 12. 12. and Act. 15. 37. But Beza's conjecture disagreeth with the History of St. Mark who is recorded by b Hier. in Marco St. Jerome to have suffered death in the eighth year of Nero c Origines Alexand. p. 38. Mr. Selden's Eutychius saith he died in the first year
first Heaven then Earth When the Heaven of Angels was made That their Heaven was intended principally for mankind Why Heaven and Earth are mentioned together Why the making of Hell is not mentioned although it was prepared within the first six daies Why the Creation is mentioned in this fourth Commandment and not in any of the other nine That the Morall Sabbath doth signifie the Creator which is God the Son That he is called the Beginning the Word and the Wisdom of God and is therefore here commanded to be sanctified CHAP. XX. The Exposition continued That all the divine persons co-operated and joyned in Creating Resting Blessing and Sanctifying How the Second Person or Son of God is the Rest or Sabbath of the same Son of God How he resteth in himself Of the divers considerations of God the Son in respect of his Godhead and Manhood Of his severall Appellations respectively Why the seventh day was preferred above the former six That the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath was instituted for a memoriall of the Resting and 〈…〉 of God CHAP. XXI The Exposition concluded The meaning of blessing and hallowing the Sabbath day The difference of hallowing God's Name and hallowing of Creatures The differences of Holinesse When the seventh day was first hallowed How and when it was dis-hallowed Something of Sacriledge How the Prophets spake truly of things to come although they spake as if they had been past Of the Propheticall figure called Anticipation The directions of the Fathers and Scripturall examples thereof applied to this Sabbath CHAP. XXII Reasons why God having conferred honours on the seventh day did also lay some slurs upon it as 1. That this day-Day-Sabbath was not made known till Moses time nor at all mentioned by zealous David nor this Sabbath-Law by Christ 2. In that God expresly commanded some works on that day 3. That no Manna fell on it 4. That Christ lay dead on that whole day 5. That God called it but a signe and that it was nothing else 6. That it is said to be made for man 7. That it was impossible to be generally kept and also inconvenient occasionally to the Jews The Conclusion That the impossibility both of the seventh-day-Sabbath and also of the Morall Law was designed by God on purpose to drive man to seek for Rest and Salvation onely in the Lord Jesus Christ Errata PAg. 5. line 8. read force and necessity p. 8. l. 3. tell us p. 13. l. 27. Judaical p. 25. l. 6. Onera p. 26. l. 23. Judaical p. 32. l. 31. We are p. 34. l. 16. Judaico p. 37. l. 6. Speaketh p. 41. l. 23. Pharisaical p. 46. l. 34. killing law p. 48. l. 5. Law of God p. 65. l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 89. l. 17. intermundium l. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 107. l. 6. God added p. 134. l. ult And in him p. 166. l. 16. judicial l. 20. judicial p. 168. l. 1. 10 act a part p. 227. l. 1. Jeremie In the Margin p. 13. l. 1. Ignatius p. 125. l. 3. Laertius in Diog. De minutioribus viderit lector The Mystery of the Sabbath Discovered The Sabbath Morall CHAP. I. The Church disturbed about the Doctrine of the Sabbath Of Sunday-Sabbatism Of works practised therein and Recreations forbidden That the celebration of Sunday is pious although not commanded by the Fourth Commandment How the Antient Patriarks did Sabbatize yet kept not a Seventh day That the ten Commandements are still in force A passage in St. Austin and Isychius explained and an abuse of the Commandements in the Roman Catechism shewed THE various opinions of men in the Doctrine of the Sabbath as it is delivered in the Fourth Commandment of the Morall Law hath more disturbed the Christian Church in these latter times then they did the Fathers the Zealous Christians in the Church Primitive yet then was the Doctrin of the Sabbath mistaken and perverted by Ebion who taught that Christians should necessarily keep the Jewish Hebdomarie or seventh-day Sabbath as some among us have done and is therefore by a Epiph. haer 30. Epiphanius and b Theod. haer fab Lib. 2. Theodoret branded with the mark of a Judaizing Heretick And now although the rejection of the Jewish Seventh-day-Sabbath is almost generally agreed among us yet a new Sabbath is set up on the Eighth day or first day of the week to be observed with as great strictnesse as the old Sabbath was on the Seventh day by the Pharisees for now not only labouâ—s are forbidden but also honest recreations such as we do not find to have been forbidden by those very Jewish zelots Which late strictnesse hath given an occasion or pretence to some to think it to be required rather in opposition to former permissions then for any new light or religious zeal because they have observed that by order of the same Superiors who forbad Recreations Souldiers have been commanded to march and the utensils and luggage of War Carts Wagons Artillary have been drawn out and most cruell bloody battells fought on that very new Sabbath-day and all this upon pretence of either private personall necessity or necessity publik which is now called Reason of State whereupon some of the approved Preachers of these times have openly in the Pulpit declared their dislike and said that now the State Civil is become like a Ship and the Church like a Cock-boat which must follow the motions and turnings of that Ship of State intimating hereby that our Religion must be reformed so as to be subservient to the interest and accommodations of the Civill governors which is quite contrary to the desires of those men who hoped and expected that their Kyrk should have bin made the Ship and the State should have bin the Cock-boat Mose and Aaron were brethren and agreed that Moses might be directed by Aaron in Spiritualls and Aaron Supported by the Brachium temporale or civill authority of Moses for stablishing true Doctrine and godly Discipline which formerly was the happy and peaceable usance of this kingdome wherein the state civill was supreme because as Optatus truly said against the disturbing Donatists c Optat. lib. 3. p. 83. Non est Respublica in ecclesia sed ecclesia in Republica est i. e. The Commonwealth is not included in the Church but the Church is in the Commonwealth And yet the civil power will not excuse those governors before God which authorise the breaking of the Commandments and Moral law of God For if the Seventh-day Sabbath practised in the Jewish Commonwealth or the Eighth among Christians which some yet call the Sabbath were indeed one of the ten Commandments of God which certainly are moral and perpetual then did the Jewes sin in performing the works of Warr and of Circumcision and Midwifery and Sacrificing at the Tabernacle and Temple on their Sabbath day And if our Sunday be really commanded by this morall law of
Sunday-Sabbath because Origen's authority is invalid having bin condemned by the Church as erronious and his Sectaries are put into the Catalogue of Hereticks by d Epiph. Haer. 64. Epiphanius under the title of Origianistae and yet that book of Origen is now not extant in that Language wherein he wrote it but was translated into Latin by Ruffinus who is generally noted to Deteriorare as St. Ambrose speaketh i. e. to be a depraver of all books that he took in hand to translate or reform Notwithstanding I have Intituled this book Sabbatum By which word I mean that Sabbath which is Moral and natural and is commanded in the fourth Commandement which is still in force and binding both Jewes and Christians and all men in the world and so it was before any Law was written and should have so continued although it had never bin written in stone or although no Day-Sabbath had bin commanded For this fourth Commandment injoyneth and obligeth us to a more noble and needfull Sabbath than ever any seaventh-day Sabbath was or could be which surely the holy Patriarks did apprehend before the dayes of Moses but the Scribes and Pharisees and vulgar Jewes after Moses did not nor yet do to this day The true substantial and moral Sabbath intended in that Law is their Mâ—ssiah our Christ who is the Jesus i. e the Saviour and therefore the perfect and only and everlasting Sabbath or Rest of all believers Which truth I trust will hereafter clearly appear But if our Brethren do indeed believe that our Sunday is that Sabbath which is literally or but equitably as they say commanded in the Moral Law then verily they should perform all those duties and services which the Law giver commanded to be done on the Sabbath day then they must offer bloody Sacrifices two Lambs for the Sabbath besides the two which were for every week-day and Bâ—ke 12 great loaves or cakes of Shew-bread which was to be done on the Sabbath and in order heerunto they should joyn 1 Chron. 9. 32. with the Jewes and help them to build their Temple once more at Jerusalem where these duties are to be performed and with them set up the Fifth Monarchy or Earthly Kingdome of Saints If it be said that the Sunday-Sabbath differs from the Jewish in that theirs was on the last day of the week but this on the first This will not help because other festivals of the Jewes were Sabbaths and all required sacrifices and might fall on any day of the week as the Passover and Pentecost and the rest for they were moveable feasts depending on the Moon But the performance of such shadowie ceremonies now would be a real denyal of Christ as if he were not come and were not the grand Sacrifice of which the former were but meer Figures which figures now are but Cyphers All good and prudent Christians do believe and confess that the Jewish Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath is now quite gone expired and vanished and that since the true body of them and the true light is come the Jewish figures and shadowes are not to be any longer used by us among which shadowes the Sabbath was one and the most principal of all Surely we ought to abstain from applying the appellation of Sabbath to our Sunday lest therein we should seem to Judaize Justin Martyr saith a just Dialog cum Tryph. Gentes Christiani non observant Sabbata ne Judaei putarentur i. e. The Gentiles or Nations which are Christians do now abstain ftom observing the Sabbath lest they might thereby be thought to be of the Jewish infidelity and seeing that the thing it self is gone there is no cause why we should retain the name For the very word Sabbath applyed to our Sunday is not only a sign of our ignorance in Religion but it is moreover Scandalous in that it hudwinketh the people with a Mosaical Jewish vaile as the Apostle sepaketh 2 Cor. 3. 15. And thereby hindereth them from discerning the true Sabbath which is Christ and leadeth them into the Jewish error so as to think that the whole duty required in the fourth Commandment consisteth in keeping holy one day of the week as if that were the only or principal and ultimate duty thereof which is not only untrue but dangerous also And this error of Sabbatarians mixed with their too hot and ignorant zeal therein and in some other Judaizing practises hath given our adversaries occasion to detest our Persons and also to blaspheme our Religion and as a Luther an once did some Calvinists to call us Baptized Jewes For this reason it was in all probability that the Ancient-fathers most learned Christians in the very primitive times of the Church did so warily cautiously abstain from putting the appellation of Sabbath upon the Christian Sunday lest they should be thought to Judaize And the same reason also moved the Church to alter the Jewish day of the old Passover for the solemnity of our Easter is the remembrance and confession of the Easter that is the Rising or Râ—surection of Christ from the precise fourteenth day of the Moon to the Sunday and this lest Christians should be thought to celebrate only a Typicall Passover as the Jewes did as if Christ the true Passover were not come and therefore Tessares-cae-de catitae the Church adjudged and condemned those that held to the fourtenth day for Hereticks under the appellation of Tessares-cae-decatitae or Quarâ— adecimani as we find in b Epiph. H ar 50 Epiphanius The same reason also moved the holy Apostles themselves to meet in Council on purpose against the errors of some Pharisees and Judaizing Christians in their dayes who said that the Converted Gentiles ought to be Circumcised and to be commanded to keep Moses law they meant the law Ceremonial as we read Act. 15. 5. So early did they decree against the danger of Judaizing This is not said by me as in dislike or in the least to disparage the Christians godly and zealous care in Sanctifying the Sunday devoutly and seriously to the service of our God and by joyning in our holy assemblies in praying and praising God and hearing his Word readd and opened to us and also privately meditating theron Far be it from me so to â—ilipend the godly usance of the Church in all ages thereof and the sacred lawes and decrees of Christian Princes upon which as on two pillars the Authoritative sanctification of our Sunday standeth and not otherwise Onely in all humility I offer this caution to the less learned and more credulous Brethren Rem tene linguam corrige Good Christian keep the Sunday or as now it is in England called of late though not by the Church of England the Lords-day and keep it holy in the name of God but abstain from calling it a Sabbath day Because the Sabbath was but a figure and is gon and because neither the old Jewish Sabbath nor the Christian Sunday are that
of that Emperour whereas the Apocalyps was first shewed long after in the Reign of Domitian by whom St. John the Apostle was sentenced to death in a vessell of flaming oile as Tertullian and Jerome and Euseb Emis report and that he came out of that vessell unhurt And because that sentence was executed near the Latin gate at Rome as other Writers say therefore the Church Kalender recordeth this Porta Latina on the sixth of May and in memory thereof a feast is held yearly on that day or for it in St. John's Colledge in Cambridge After this St. John was exiled to the I le of Patmos where this Revelation was â—â—ewed and after the death of Domitian he was recalled from banishment and retired to Ephesus and there lived and died in the Reign of Trajan and was there buried and his Sepulcher remained there in the dayes of St. Jerome Now because there was another named John of that time who was also buried at Ephesus and that two Monuments were there shewed and both superscribed with the Name or Title of John and both remained there untill the dayes of the said a Hier. de Script in Joanne St. Jerome as himselfe saith and so also saith b Hist l. 3. c. 39. Eusebius who further addeth Fortassis secundus hic erit Joannes sub cujus nomine Revelatio habetur And Dionysius the Famous and Learned Bishop of Alexandria although he was Confident that it was written by inspiration of the divine spirit yet saith he c Euseb Hist l. 7. â—ap 23. Non liquidò videtur quodillius Joannis sit qui Evangelium scripsit And addeth Fieri potuit in illis temporibus fuisse alium aliquem Joannem ex sanctis cui haec revelaverit Deus i. e. That it did not clearly appear that St. John the Evangelist was the Writer of the Apocalyps but possibly that some other holy man in those times named John was he to whom God revealed those things thus he Neither need it seem strange that this Revelation should be unduly attributed to St. John the Apostle seeing we find other Revelations as Early as this which went abroad untruly under the name of St. Peter and also of St. Paul as d Hist l. 3. c. 3. Eusebius and e in Joan. Tract 98. Austin and f lib. 7. cap. 19. Sozomen report Secondly for the obscurity of this â— book it is confessed on all sides and particularly by a Proleg in Apocal. Beza who acknowledgeth himselfe to be one of those Cui haec mysteria valâ—è obscura videntur And both Mr. Selden and Mr. I. Gregory of Oxford two Learned men have affirmed from the Testimony of Bodinus the Learned French-Writer that Calvin acknowledged that He knew not what this obscure Writer meant So our late Reverend Diocesan Bishop Hall called this Apocalyps A Revelation unrevealed and this he said particularly in respect of the Mystery of the Thousand years of Martyrs reigning here with Christ Revel 20. 4. The like he reporteth of the most Learned and Reverend Bishop Andrews that he profess'd that he had not proceeded so far as to understand it much lesse can we Pygmy-Theoiogues It is now fifteen hundred years old and not yet understood Mr. Brightman hath not cleared it nor hath Mr. Mede's Key unlockt it Nor will it ever I suppose be perfectly understood untill such a Commentary be made thereon as Divines say of other obscure Prophecies viz. b Irenaeus l. 4. cap. 43. Prophetiae priùs aenigmata sunt sed peractae intelliguntur And c Aug de Civit l. 18. c. 31. Prophetiae obscurae sunt antequam fiunt sed factas quis non agnoscit And d Euseb Emiss hom de Nat. Martyr Prophetiarum adimpletio est earum expositio i. e. Prophecies are Riddles the onely or best Expositor of them is their fulfilling Amongst the many obscurities of this Apocalyps this may go for one viz. What day of the week or year the Writer meant by Dominica dies That he meant our Sunday or anniversary Easter which is so called from the Rising of Christ will be hard to prove It may possibly signifie the day of the Nativity or of the Ascension of our Lord or the day of Pentecost for ought can appear for none of these are inferior to his Resurrection either in mystery or value or benefit to man Or he might mean the day of the Passion of our Lord of which possibly Christ spake when he said Your father Abraham rejoyced to see my day For indeed the Joh. 8. â— Passion of the Redeemer was shewed to Abraham in a mysterious Scene or dumb-shew as when he acted the resemblance of Christ's Passion with his son Isaac laying first the wood on him Gen. 22. then him upon the wood just as was afterwards really done to Christ As for his rejoycing it is no marvell if he rejoyced for his own and his Abrahamites Redemption Nor is it strange that Christ should call the Passion-day His day it was indeed the day of the Jews of which it is said Haec est hora vestra Luk. 22. 53 but it was also the day of the Lord. We find both Tradidit Judas and Tradidit Deus Rom. 8. 32. And Filius Dei tradidit seipsum Gal. 2. 20. Ephes 5. 2. Judas for mony but Christ gave himself for us The day of his Passion was a day of sorrow and also a day of joy in severall respects We know that the Primitive Church solemnized the Natalitia so they called the passion dayes of Martyrs with joy and feasting and so they did also the Parasceue or day of Christ's Passion in St. Austin's time as himself saith in one of his Passion-Sermons a Aug. de Temp. Ser. 130. Propter hanc crucem Diem festum agimus Epulamur So St. Paul gloried in the Crosse of Christ Gal. 4. 16. And seemeth to appoint a Festivall for the Passion of Christ when he said 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ our passeover is sacrificed Therefore let us keep the Feast Which St. Jerom reads Itaque Epulemur So it is no novelty to apply the word Dominica to the Passion for we know that there is another Dominica which hath been called by the Church more than twelve hundred years together Dominica Passionis as we find in St. b Ambr. To. 5. Ser. 44. Ambrose and in c Aug. de Temp. Ser. 107. St. Austin and ever since in the middle-age Writers and later Postillers And even in our time and at this day it is called passion-Passion-Sunday which is the fifth Sunday in Lent and is so called onely in a memoriall of the attempt of the Jews to stone Christ in the Temple recorded Joh. 8. 58. which passage formerly was and now is appointed to be read in the Gospell for that day Therefore it may reasonably seem questionable whether the Dominica in the Revelation may not possibly relate to the grand Passion of our Lord.
Lastly This Dominica might possibly point at the old Sabbath-day which was really a day of the Lord 's appointing which yet the Writer abstained from calling it Sabbath 〈◊〉 the Day-Sabbath was then utterly dissolved with the City and Temple and long before this Revelation was written And if there were not something of greater concernment to be considered in the Sabbath-Law than Hallowing of a day there can be no sufficient cause alleaged why the antient sabbath-Sabbath-day was not still retained which yet ought not to be in any wise albeit some Sabbatarians would have it and others would have our Sunday to be the Sabbath These two disagreeing in the day yet agree in misunderstanding and abusing those words of Christ Pray that your flight Matth. 24. 20. be not in Winter neither on the Sabbath day By which words each party would have their severall Sabbaths confirmed and continued To this we answer First This was said to the Apostles when as yet they were but Disciples and they were all dead except only St. John before the time he spake of came Therefore this monition was intended as to be declared to the Jews whom Christ knew to be intangled in Sabbaticall superstition and that they would so persist as that people do to this day for it had been no sin to fly for life on that day even when it was a Sabbath really in force much lesse afterward when it was abrogated 2. It is said Pray that it be not in the Winter surely no Jew would think it a sin to fly for life in winter onely because 't was winter But Winter and Sabbath are here joyned to shew the reason of both to be the same and that not to be sin but onely danger trouble and inconvenience First for Winter Because the daies would be short the waies foul the season cold and dangerous to themselves and their little ones especially to abide in desolate Mountains unto which vers 16. they are directed to flye Secondly for the Sabbaâ—h Because their fellow Jews being involv'd in that superstition would account them enemies to their Religion and so neither joyne with them nor afford them any succour and moreover kill them as they did many upon pretence that they were flying to the Romans 3. â—â—is monition was meant onely to the Jewishly-affected Sabbatarians because as it is remarkably observed by Eusebius * Hist l. 3. c. 5 de Dem. l. 8. at the time of begiâ—â—ing Jerusalem not one Christian was left in that great City they were all departed before to Pella beyond Jordan to which they were warned by that Divine Oracle Migremus hinc as Eusebius thought 4. It is observable that Christ upon the same occasion then said Woe be to them that are with child and give suck in 〈◊〉 19. those daies he woe must signifie temporall woe of affliction and not eternall woe for no man will say that child-bearing or giving of suck are sins because in Scripture both are accounted blessings So that praying against this Sabbath-Hight or Winter-flight is but to pray against temporall calamities 5. If to fly on the Sabbath-day at that time had been a sin Christ would not have said Pray that it may not be but he would absolutely have forbidden it as he did all transgressions of the Morall Law 6. The meaning of Christ was to forewarn the Jews to dâ—sist from their vain Sabbatizing as if he had said The Jews who so much dote on their Sabbaâ—h day and hate me and seek my life for dissolving it as Joh. 5. 18. What will they do when their enemies invade them on the Sabbath day for then they must either break their Sabbath by flight or else die in their sloath and superstition Therefore they have need to pray that this pressure come not on them upon their Sabbath day 7. They that urge â—his place for a now-now-Sabbath should first agree which day they will insist on whether Saturday or Sunday 1. If Saturday we ask Why themselves do not keep it 2. If Sunday we say This place will appear miserably invalid to prove because Christ never at all mentioned it nor did any Apostle command it as is shewed before nor did any of the Sabbatizing Jews then apprehend it or to this day believe it For these or for better reasons the late Learned and Reverend Bishop of Worcester my most dear Country when he was Professor of Theology in Oxford doubted not to conclude publickly upon this very place That it is ridiculous for any to argue for a confirmation of a Sabbath Dr. Prideaux de Sab. Orat. An. 1622. from these words which Christ foretold but onely as an inconvenience which would arise from the Judaicall superstition I find also another pretty argument used of late to prove our Sunday to be a Sabbath for The word Sabbath signifieth Rest therefore Sunday being a day of Rest ought to be called Sabbath If this will hold VVhy should not our late frequent fasting-Fasting-dayes and Thanks-givings be called Sabbaths which were enforced by watch-men and under penalties with as great caution as our Sundayes from working and travelling Or why should not Nights the time of generall Rest and our Beds the place thereof and even our Graves be called Sabbaths But if the Inventer of this Argument had considered that the Fourth Commandment or Scripturall Sabbath doth not signifie onely the corporall Rest of man but onely his spirituall Rest and moreover and most principally the mystesterious Rest of God as it is said God Heb. 4. 4. Rested he might easily have answered his own argument with a better For the true Sabbaticall Rest cannot otherwise be rightly understood but onely of the Rest both of God and Man and this Rest can no where be found but onely in Christ the Saviour There is yet another scruple occasioned by our translation of the fourth Commandment which either haâ—h or may divert men from the right understanding thereof for thus our English read it Remember to keep holy the Sabbath c. Hence some imagine that to keep holy relateth onely to a Day and not to Christ But the more clear and true and unscrupulous Translation might have been by our old English word Hallow or by the word Sanctifie borrowed from the Latine thus Remember that thou Hallow or Sanctifie the Sabbath day This doubt will be plenâ—ifully cleared by the perusall of the Chap. 9. ninth Chapter of this Book Notwithstanding all this it may be granted that Christ giving that monition to pray did fore-see and relate to some kind of Law whereby the Jews of that time would be girt and obliged to keep the old Sabbath But if we enquire by what Law we shall find it to be neither the Moral nor the Ceremonial Law of God but onely a popular Club-Law or Law of Arms which was indeed the tyrannicall and superstitious Law of those grand Zelots and Rebells which cruelly insulted over their Country-men the Jews as
they are not fit to be imposed on Christians CHAP. III. Of Ceremonial Laws Why God expressed a dislike of them before they were abrogated Of the dissolving of them and particularly of the Sabbath by Christ Why Christ dissolved the Sabbath The judgment of the Fathers therein That it is now pernicious to Sabbatize as the Jews did and yet do That Christ appointed no new Sabbath-day instead of the old CHAP. IV. Of Laws Moral and why they are so called More of Sunday-Sabbatizing Of Origen and of his Christian Sabbath That Saturday was a church-Church-day for Sermons Sacraments and Scripture-Lessons and a Fasting-day long after Origen's time That Christians did more reverently keep Saturday then the Jews did that Sabbath That Sunday is not to be called Sabbath Why easter-Easter-day was altered from the Jewish paschal-Paschal-day The Author 's reverent esteem of the christian-Christian-Sunday CHAP. V. Of the fourth Commandment what part of it is Morall and what is Ceremonial Why a Ceremonial is taken into the ten Commandments Of the Memento and some other prerogatives proper to this fourth Commandment The excellent benefit of this Sabbath-Law Why it is placed in the midst of the Commandments How the whole Law by it is performable by men CHAP. VI. That Christ is the true Morall Sabbath Why he is concealed under the word Sabbath That the Scriptures do declare him to be the Sabbath The difference of the Lord of Sabbâ—oth and the Lord of the Sabbath Of that Sabbatism mentioned Heb. 4. 9. A passage of Isaiah and another of St. Paul applied to Christ's Sabbathship That Sabbath-breaking is not called a sin in the New Testament CHAP. VII The doctrine of the Primitive Church concerning the Sabbath shewed out of Tertullian and other Father How the Patriarks kept the Sabbath before the daies of Moses The doctrine of the Church herein The meaning of the Prayers at the rehear sing of the ten Commandments How the Law may be written in our hearts and how it is so performable CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the world is described without mention of evening and morning The Sabbath described by Philo the Jew That the Sabbath and Melchisedech were parallel types of Christ CHAP. IX The sanctifying of the Sabbath How thâ— Godhead is said to be sanctified How the human nature of Christ is sanctified Of the name of God That it signifies God himself That the name Jesus signifies the Person of Jesus How God sanctifieth us and how we sanctifie God How Christ being the Sabbath is to be sanctified or kept holy CHAP. X. Of God's Resting That it is not acessation from working Nor meant of his ending the Creation Nor of layiâ—â— aside his care and providence in Government That his Rest and Working do consist together Something concerning the Originall of human Souls Of Universalls what they are and where to be found A Question discoursed Whether God created any new kinds of Creatures since the first seventh day Two Queries propounded CHAP. XI That the Rest of God is fixed on the seventh day onely although he did intermit Creation for some time in every former day That his Rest did not consist in any meer creature Of the Rest of God before the Creation That God performed part of the Creation on the seventh day and what that was Jewish Fables concerning the creation of Adam and Eve CHAP. XII Why the Rest of God is not mentioned untill the seventh day Why it is fixed on the Creation of mankind rather than of any other of the Creatures Answers to certain Enquiries That the consideration of Christ to be propagated from the man and the woman was the onely cause of this expression of the Rest of God CHAP. XIII That the Rest of God consisted in his purpose of producing Christ is proved by Scripture and Reason Of the Image of God Why the Woman was taken out of the Man Of the union of Christ with Mankind That this union was shewed by Christ in the Sacramentall Bread and Wine That the Soul of Christ was derived or propagated from the first man Something concerning Universall Redemption CHAP. XIV Of Adam's solitude and something concerning Monastick life with the reasons thereof That the help by the Woman consisted not in respect of Society nor of Child-bearing simply considered but onely in respect of the propagation of Christ Of Child-bearing and that it is not salvificall without faith in Christ Of Good and Evill occasioned by the Woman Why she was called Vita or Life Why God permitted the Woman to occasion the Fall CHAP. XV. An Answer to the Question How God can be said to Rest That the Rest of God is onely in Christ and Why That the Tabernacle and Temple are called God's Resting place onely as they were figures of Christ That the Ark is called God's strength in the same respect That God's Rest in Sion is also meant of Christ That the union of God and Man in Christ was ordained onely in order to man's Salvation and everlasting Rest That man's Rest is called God's Rest Certain Conclusion concerning this Rest of God CHAP. XVI That the Rest of Man is called God's Rest is shewed by other like passages of Scripture That Christ is called the Rest of God Onely because he is the Rest of Mankind An Answer to the second Querie above mentioned viz. Why God is said to Rest onely on the first seventh day and not before The Conclusion of the Doctrine of God's Rest and St. Austin's judgement therein CHAP. XVII An exposition of the Ceremoniall part of the fourth Commandement begun That the six dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the seventh day is called a Sabbath onely because it was a figure of the true Sabbath That the seventh-day-Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the eighth day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the daies of Moses St. Jerom's translation and our English examined The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of works on the Jewish Sabbath That their corporall Rest was but a figure of our spirituall Rest in Christ CHAP. XVIII The Exposition continued Why the Woman is not here mentioned That sons or servants sinned not by working upon command The miseries of servants Why Cattle might not be wrought on Sabbath daies That strangers were not obliged to Sabbatize except they resided within the Jewish pale Why cattle are mentioned before strangers Why servants cattle and strangers are not mentioned at the beginning of this Law with the Memento That by these circumstances the seventh-day-Sabbath is proved to be meerly Ceremonial and Judaical CHAP. XIX The Exposition continued How God is said to have made all in six daies and yet that he ended not his work untill the seventh day Why the Creation was prolonged six daies Of the order of Creatures
God or grounded thereon by a moral equity as some have untruly affirmed then neither private necessities nor publick reason of State can quit us from the guilt of Transgression thereof The Rule of Divines is which I firmly beleeve to be true Non licet in quavis necessitate leges Dei morales seu naturales violare i. e. It is not lawfull in any case of necessity to violate the moral or naturall lawes of God For example In the times of Persecution the ordinary commands of Persecutors were a Optat. lib. 3. Nega Deum Incende Testamentum Thus pone i. e. Deny thy God Burn the Book of God Worship the idol And these were injoyned upon pain of present torment and death And what greater necessity can be imagined then these and yet the Martyrs refused life upon such unlawfull conditions Joseph would not yield to adultry with his lady though he knew the consequence of imprisonment nor the 3 Hebrews Gen. 39. Dan. 3. worship the golden imâ—ge though they were assured of the fiery furnace All inconveniences dangers and necessities must submit to the moral law of God better it is to buâ—n or die then to deny Christ or blaspheme God and bear false witnesse There is a necessity to obey God but no necessity of continuing our naturall life by ungodly means In times of Persecution the Martyrs might have escaped torment if Necessity might have excused them But it is far otherwise in lawes meerly Ceremonial whether Jewish or Christian the transgression of this sort of lawes is excusable by necessity if it be a true real and pressing necessity in this case the Proverb will take place Aug. in Soliloq c. 2. To. 9. Necessitas non habet legem i. e. Necessity hath no law and Inter arma silent leges Lawes humane are dumb in time of Warr. Therefore because the Seaventh day Sabbath of the Jewes was meerly a law Ceremonial it might without sin upon necessity be slighted Upon this reason it was that Mattathias the wise and zealous Macchabean priest with his associates decreed and first taught the Jewes that they might upon necessity fight and repell their enemies on the Sabbath day as we read both in b Ios Antiq l. 12. cap. 9. 1 Mac. 2. 41. Josephus 1 Maccab. 2. 41. So likewise the Jewes of Antioch when they were by force of necessity compelled refused not to Work on their Sabbath day as the same Josephus reporteth And our Saviour excuseth his disciples for plucking eares of corne and causeth c Jos de Bello lib. 7 Mat. 12. Iohn 5. the impotent man to cary his bed and declareth that the priests who by their great labours about sacrifices in the Temple do profane the Sabbath yet are blamelesse Thus David did in necessity of hunger eat the holy Shewbread and the people of Israell for 40 yeares together in the wildernesse abstained from Circumcision as being very dangerous in their marches although it was imposed on them with great 2. Chron. 30. 2. Ex. 12. charge And in the dayes of Good Hezekiah the Passeover was celebrated in the second month which was otherwise then the law prescribed Ex. 12. All these things were done upon necessity or some usefull convenience without any offence to God * because the Sabbath day and Circumcision and Shewbread Num. 9. 11. and Passeover were but Ceremonialls and not morall lawes I doubt not but aged Eleazar the 7 brethren mentioned both by h Josephus d Iosep de Maccab. 2 Mac. c. 6. 7. and in 2 Macchab. cap. 6. 7. who were put to cruel tortures and death for refusing to eat Swines-flesh offered to Idols might have eaten thereof in that necessity and have saved their lives without offence to God because that law was but Ceremonial Only they knew their eating might have given Scandal or offence to their brethren the Jewes and therefore they abstained just as St. Paul saith in the like case 1 Cor. 10. 27. 28. Whatsoever is seâ— before you eaâ—e asking no question for conscience sake But 1 Cor. 10. 27. if any say unto you This is offered in sacrifice unto Idols eat not for his sake that shewed it Just so it is with our Christian Ceremonies whereof Sundâ—y is one and therefore the Solemnity and celebration therof in case of pressing dangers and necessities may be omitted But let us be sure that the said necessities be so indeed and not sinfull or contracted by our own faults or only pretended and then God will excuse us though some men will not Thus some Christians in time of Persecutions were condemned to the mines and listed under the title Metallicae Condemnationis and were forced there to sore work every day Sunday all as we read in Eusibius Hilarie Chrysostome â— Eus Hist l. 8. c. 13. Hil. cont Constant lib. â— Chrys de laudibus Martyrum hom 70. So at this day those Christians who are in Slavish captivity under the Turks are compelled to undergo hard labours even on Sundays and yet thereby neither the former Christian Confessors nor these do offend God which yet they would if our Sunday were a branch of the moral law of God There is not I think any good and prudent christian that doth not approve of most willingly submit to an holy celebration of our Christian Sunday although they do not think it to be enforced by virtue of the 4th CoÌ„mandment of the moral law or any equity thereof but upon another reason and ground because the equity pretended must be derived not from the Moral Sabbath but from the Jewish Ceremoniall Seaventh-day-Sabbath the equity whereof is only this That as God under the law required one day in seaven to be Sanctified as a figure and shadow of his people's rest in their Messiah to come So the Christian Church hath ordained one day in Seaven to be a memoriall of our rest in the same Messiah our Saviour who is come and our Sunday may also be called a kind of shadow as the Jewish Seaventh day was only their shadow went before the body as shadows somtimes do and our shadow followeth after the body for the body of both is Christ The Sabbath which is truly Moral and perpetual and which is intended meant and injoyn'd in the 4th Commandment is another manner of Sabbath much differing from the Jewish seventh day Sabbath or the Christians Sunday and is not such a sabbath as is by many now adayes supposed neither is the vigor and force of that Sabbath-Commandment as yet antiquated or expired but standeth in as full strength and in an obliging power as much or rather more then it had during the Jewish Synagogue or before the incarnation of our Lord. And I trust I shall make it appear that this Sabbath-law is written in our hearts evidently and convincingly as much or rather more than any other of those Moral Lawes and that this Sabbath was to be kept
his Sermon on the Paralytick c Chrys Serm. 7. Tom. 5 Christus quando solvebat Sabbatum maximum aliquod meraculum edebat ut sic Sabbatismum auferret When Christ dissolved the Jewish Sabbath he did withall perform some great miracle that it might appeare that Sabbatizing was dissolved by Divine authority The ancient and grand Heretick Marcion upon this truth of Christs dissolving the Saturday Sabbath took occasion to ground his false heresie denying Christ to be the Son of that God who made the World and Ordained the Law supposing that the true son of the Creator would not null the law of the same Creator By this it appeares that even this Heretick so farr agreed with the Catholick Church as to acknowledg the dissolution of that Sabbath by Christ as Tertullian also doth in his writings against that Heretick whereof he gives this reason d Tert. Cont. Mar. Lib. 4. Quia Deus est Dominus Sabbati ergo destruere potuit i. e. Because our Lord Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath therefore he might dissolve it The same Father saith again in another book c De Idololatria c. 4. Nobis Christianis Sabbata extranea sunt sicut Neomen ia To us Christians Sabbatizing is a stranger as much as New-Moon dayes are This he wrote because he knew that Sabbath-keeping was a fading and temporary Ceremony as much as the feasts of New-Moons In some Epistles yet extant which passed between St. Austin and St. Jerome concerning their differing opinions in some Judiciall ceremonies St. Austin thus writeth and faith a Hier. Epist 97. Tom. 2. That after the death Resurrection of Christ â—hose Ceremonies also dyed but that they were to be allowed some convenient time for buriall and an honourable funerall And indeed the publick Preaching up of Christianity was their Funerall Oration and the Burning of the Temple was their Funerall pile But when these Sepulture-offices were once performed then those Typicall Ceremonies became not only dead but deadly pernicious and mortiferous To this St. Hierome addeth this aggravation b August In Barathrum Diaboli devolvunt eum qui observat to which St. Austin also consenteth To use those Ceremonies now is the ready way to drive men into Hell So St. Chrysostom having in his Sermons often forbidden the people under his charge to use Sabbatizing as the Jewes then did at Antioch where Chrysostome then was a preacher he adds c Chrys Homil Antioch 34. That after his admonition if any did Sabbatize himselfe was innocent of their blood So deadly did he think it And before him Origen had both affirmed and preached d Orig. in Jeremi Hom. 9. That now to observe Sabbaths is to return to those beggerly Elements of Ceremonies-Quasi nondum descenderat Christus That the Sabbatizer thereby declareth that he doth not beleeve that Christ is come who is the true Sabbath which now is to be kept For this cause it may reasonably be thought that our Lord Jesus neither at the dissolution of the Old Jewish Sabbath day nor at any time after did command or so much as intimate any new Sabbath day for Christians lest Christians also like the Jewes should erroneously think that the Moral precept for Sanctifying the Sabbath confisted only in the strict observation of a day and thereby utterly neglect the most holy most necessary and Grand Sabbath which is Christ who is the Only Sabbath that wee Christians can or ought to have For at this day we see that the Sabbath which is Commanded in the Fourth precept of the law Moral is by the greater number of people thought to be meant only of Sanctifying a day for so they are now taught by the greater number of our Preachers But herein the People deceive themselves and the Preachers deceive others for that Commandment hath a more noble excellent and beneficiall meaning then so as I trust will appear anone To the judgment of the Ancients before mentioned I crave thy patience good Reader that I may add one more of a late Writer the learned Mr. Mede which I esteem ponderous who in one of his books thus writeth a Mede Diatrib 15 We may not now keep the Jewish Sabbath lest we should thereby seem not to acknowledg our Vbi Bene Nemo meliùs Cassiâ—d de Orig. Redemption performed but expect still Their Sabbath was but a shadow Thus he most truly and correspondently with the Primitive Church It was indeed but a Shaddow of our Redemption by our Redeemer which being performed as the Psalmist speaketh it is passed away like a Shaddow By what hath bin said I trust the Reader Psal 144. 4. apprehends that the weekly Jewish Sabbath is no more but a branch of the Ceremoniall Law now Antiquated and by the authority of Christ himself totally abrogated So that I may for certain conclude that neither the Jewish seaventh-day nor any morall equity deduced from it can be that Sabbath which is injoyned to be Sanctified by the Moral Law of God Of which we are next to Consider CHAP. IV. Of Lawes Moral and why so called Of Sunday-Sabbatizing Of Origen and his Christian Sabbath That Saturday was a church-Church-day for Sermons Sacraments and Scripture-lessons and then also a fasting day long after Origens time Christians did more reverently keep Saturday then the Jewes themselves did that Sabbath Sunday not to be called Sabbath Easter day why altered from the Jewes Paschall day The author's reverend esteem of the Christian Sunday 3 The Morall Law THe third Sort of lawes recorded in the Scripture and imposed upon Gods People are the laws of the Decalogue the Ten Commandments Which Divines commonly call though improperly The law Moral So called because they were ordained as rules to guide and direct us in our demeanours or Manners for therin we find precepts Ethicall for our private persons against Murther Adultrey Theft Coveting And Oeconomicall for our deportment in a family as honouring of Parents Mercifullnesse to servants and poor Cattle And Political against Idolatry and for Reverencing superiors as Magistrates and especially Kings who are the Publick Parents of Subjects All these Ten Commandments are lawes Moral And more also they are lawes Naturall they are written in our hearts And more yet they were lawes and binding too before they were written in stone and so would be to the end of the World although they never had binne written therefore they are perpetuall all and every one of those Ten never to be abrogated or antiquated I say there are Ten of them although I do not beleeve or affirm that all the words in the fourth Commandment are so viz. the words which mention the seaventh day Sabbath of which I shall give an account anon for we shall find Ten without them The reason why I said that these Ten lawes are but Improperly called Moral is Because if we speak critically and Logically All laws whatsoever are Moral for all are but Rules for
mens manners and demeanours So are the lawes Judiciall and Ceremoniall before handled So are the Evangelicall precepts And all Politik both Imperiall and Municipall lawes So are the Edicts of Supream Magistrates So were anciently the Roman Senatus-consulta Plebâ—scita Consular Tribunitial and Praeterian Edicts and even the Canons and Constitutions of Councells and Synods were Moral but with his difference The Ten Commandements are Moral 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. by nature though they never had binne openly Commanded either by Word or Wrting The other Morals most of them are so Only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. by Constitution Nor could they have the appellation or the force and power of lawes except they had binne inacted Of the Ten Commandements Nine are confessedly still in full force and vigour whereof no doubt or question is made among prudent and sober Christians but only by another gang of those that are Leavened with the Antinomian dotage Only the fourth Commandement concerning the Sabbath is that which many good men stumble at which hath occasioned much distraction and trouble and bitterness and also many unprofitable written books by some that would have the Seaventh day kept literally on our Saturday as the Jewes did And by others who would ground the Christian Sunday upon this fourth Commandement and thereupon press the Jewish and Pharisaical strictness of Sabbatizing on the Sunday as if all the Scriptural admonitions for keeping of the Jewish seaventh day did by a kind of moral equity as they say require the same to be performed on our Sunday and therefore both themselves and their proselytes call Sunday The Sabbay day Nimiùm patienter as one saith too tamely and unadvisedly For in Horace all the New Testament they cannot find that our Sunday which is the first day of the week is ever called Sabbath unless they will call every day a Sabbath because the Gospels do in their account reckon several week-dayes by the Sabbath For they call our Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the first day from the Sabbaths we translate it The first day of the week Mat. 28. 1. And so it is Joh. 20. 1. 1 Cor 16. 2. Act. 20. 7. again Mar. 16. 2. So the Pharisee is brought in boasting that he fasted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Twice in a Sabbath we translate it Twice in the week so that any week-day might be named Sabbath as well as the first day or Sunday But this is so weak an argument for their Sabbath that the Learned Sabbatarians do not vouchsafe so much as to mention it Neither can they find that our Sunday or first day of the week was ever called the Sabbath day by any of the Ancient Fathers but only by Origen as is pretended by him but once that I could find His words are these â— Sabbatum Christianum observare est desinere ab operibus secularibus ad ecclesiam convenire lectionibus tractatibus aures praebere c. i. e. The observation of the Christian Sabbath is by laying aside our worldly business to assemble in the Church and there to give attention to what is readd out of the Scriptures and to what is delivered by the Preacher This is pretended to be spoken of our Sunday but it is not certain whether he said it of the old seaventh day of the Jewes or of the eighth day of the Christians for it is affirmed by our greatest Sabbatarians That Christians did assemble in Churches on the Jewish saturday-Saturday-Sabbath long after Origen's time And the Fathers do also acknowledg that Saturday and Sunday were for a long time Church dayes and so they were with us in England in mine own remembrance in Citties Corporations so had continued until this day if the Long-Parliament had not disturbed us yet even that Parliament dated their Saturday-Orders under the title of Die Sabbati That Christians did so assemble are we assured by Sozomen And â—even in the dayes Soz. Hist lib. 7 c. 19. of Theodosius the Elder long after Origen was dead for he thus writeth Sabbato Postridie Sabbati Constantinopoli Conventus Ecclesiasticus erat In multis civitatibus Aegypti lib. 7. c. 9 vespere in Sabbato mysteriorum participes fiâ—nt Just so saith Socrates also in the reign of the same Theodosius e Soc. Hist lib. 5 cap. 21. Licet omnes ubique Ecclesiae singulis septimanis die sabbati mysteria celebrent tamen Alexandrini Romani id facere â—enuunt Aegyptii finitimi Alexandriae synaxin sabbato exequuntur i. e. On the Sabbath or Saturday at Constantinople and in many Cities of Aegypt the Church assembled and communicated in the holy Sacrament in the Evening and Although all other Churches do weekly on the Sabbath celebrate the holy Communion as also those Aegyptians which border upon Alexandria do notwithstanding the Alexandrians and Romans refuse to observe that Order Sâ— Austin also mentioneth the Custome of Preaching on the old Sabbath-day even there and then when that day was made a fasting day d Aug. de verb. Dom. Ser. 43. Sermo in die Sabbat non erattum prandium eo die venâ—ebant maxime qui esuriebant verbum D there was preaching on the Sabbath day wherin no dinner was on that day came most of all those who hungred after the word of God This he said of the Saturday Besides it is very likely that Origen in using those words of christian Sabbath did only compare the holy practises of Châ—istians with the evil customes of the Jewes which lived in his time shewing that christians did more reverently use the Jewish Sabbath then the Jews themselves did for christians did on that day go to Church hear Scriptures Sermons Communicate But the Jews spent that day a Aug Ps 91. luxurioso ocio i. e in idleness luxury as Austin saith and in dancing also The Jewes of Alexandria spent their sabbath in Theaters or Play-houses in beholding Stage-playes and Pageantry as b Soc. Hist lib. 7. Cap. 12. Socrates affirmeth So Christians were better Sabbath-keepers than the Jewes were This doth not in the least prove that Christians called their own Sunday a Sabbath 〈◊〉 that Origen did so mean For the same Origen had before called our Sunday Diem Dominicum i. e. The Dominical or Lords day and quite distinguished it from the Sabbath day as c Orig in Ex. Hom. 7. Manna non descendebat in Sabbato sed primùm in Dominico die In Nostrà Dominica Dominus semper pluit Manna Intelligant Iudaei etiam tum praelatam esse nostram Dominicam Iudiaco Sabbato i. e. Manna never came down on the Sabbath day but God first rained it on our Sunday The Jewes may hereby take notice that our Sunday was even then so early preferred before their Sabbath And though we should grant that those words Christian Sabbath do there signify our Sunday yet this will not amount to any solid proof of the
Sabbath or Rest in Christ He tels us also that Ebâ—on the Ancient Judaizing Heretick raised a report d Id Haer. 30. That Saint Paul had desired the Jewish High-preist's dâ—ughter to be given to him in mariage but being denied in revenge he wrote against their Sâ—bbath anâ— Circumcision But the true cause of the Apostle's decrying the Jewish Sabbath was this e Id. iâ—iâ— Christus est magnum Sabbatum quietos nos faciens à peccatis nostris -Ejus figura erat parvâ—m Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsius adventum Christ is the grand Sabbath for he setteth us at rest from the troubles of our soules by reason of our sins the Jewish little weekly Sabbath was but a figure of Christ our great Sabbath and was to last but until his comming To this doctrine the learned Romanist's do assent as Bishop White hath observed out of Pet. Damianus Bishop of Ostia above 500 years since who thus writeth f Pet. Damiani lib. 2 Eph. 5. Quid per Sabbatum intelligere debemus nisi Christum in Illo siquidem Sabbato requiescâ—mus- spem ponimus i. e. What should we understand by the Sabbath but Christ for in him is our rest and hope St. Aâ—stin is most plentiful in asserting this doctrine for besides what I have observed before out of him he further saith of Circumcision and Sabbath a Aug. Cont Admantum c. 16. To. 6. Circumcisionem approbamus spiritualem- Sabbatum nam ad aeternam requiem intendimus We Christians approve of Circumcision but it is Circumcision spiritual mentioned Rom. 2. 29. Circumcision in the heart not in the letter but in the spirit and Colos 2. 11. Circumcision made without hands we approve of that Sabbath by which we intend and trust to obtain everlasting Rest Of this Sabbath he saith again b Id. Cont Adiman c 2. To. 6. Sabbatum non est repudiatum a nobis Christianis sed intellectum We Christians do not utterly reject the Sabbath but we understand it more truly than the Jews do Of the same mysterious Sabbath he saith again c Id de Gen. ad lit lib. 4 c 13. A fidel bus perpetuum Sabbatum observatur They that believe in Christ do keep a Sabbath perpetual What he meanes by this Sabbath is declared by these words d Id. Cont Faâ—stum lib. 19. c. 9. In Christo Sabbatum habemus nam ait Ego faciam ut requiescatis Our Sabbath is in Christ for he it is that saith I will give you rest Mat. 11. 28. And to shew the difference between the Typical and the Substantial Sabbaths and to what Purpose that Jewish Saturday-Sabbath was ordained He saith The Jews were offended because Christ commanded the infirm man to carry his bed on their Sabbath day Jo. 5. 10. But Christ might have answered them e Aug. in Joan. Tract 17. SacramentuÌ„ Sabbati signum observandi unius diei ad tempus datum Judaeis impletionem verò Sacramenti illius in illo venisse Sabbatum ad significationem meam vobis praeceptum est The Sacramental Sabbath or sign of keeping that day was imposed on the Jews but for a time because the fullfilling of it was performed by the comming of Christ for that Sabbath was given onely to signify Christ To this of Austin Calvin seemeth to me to subscribe where he saith f Calv. instit 2. 8. 31. Christus est verum Sabbati Complementum The keeping of a seaventh-day-Sabbath is but a vain and empty shadow except it be filled with the apprehension of Christ So that as all Typical and Ceremonial shadows were to cease when the thing was come which they signified the Sabbath being but such a sign must also so cease as Justin Martyr long ago taught g Just Dialog cum Triph. Sabbata finem habuêre nato Christo When Christ came Sabbaths went away Lastly it would be inquired what the Church of Englands doctrine is concerning that Sabbath in the fourth Commandment which Church I firmly believe to be in her doctrine and discipline the most truly Catholick Church in the world This we may discover by considering that prayer or suffrage which this Church hath required to be by us said at the rehearsing of this Sabbath-Commandment as at each other of them in these words Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law This prayer hath much troubled the minds of some of our Religious and well-meaning Countrymen because their teachers did not aright inform them in the true meaning of that Sabbath for both in their pulpits and also in their pâ—inted Catechisms they expound it to be meant only of sanctifying a day as the Jews did But if they so mean this prayer would be not only vain but also an impious mocking of God seeing the Commandment mentions onely the seaventh day and that precisely and none other and that is our Saturday which both we and all other Christian-Churches have utterly rejected but if they thereby understand our Sunday that is not so much as mentioned much less intended there nor may it be called a Sabbath day nor is the celebration of our Sunday to be enforced by vertue of that Commandment but otherwise as is before shewed But those Judicious Leanred and Godly men and also heroical Martyrs who were the compilers of our English Liturgy as Cranmer Ridley and others did rightly understand that Sabbath to signify Christ who onely is our Christian Sabbath and in this sence only we ought to understand it and then this Prayer must needs be confessed to be pious and necessary and not otherwise for the keeping of Christ by faith in him and sanctifying him that is considering his worth and benefits and demeaning our selves towards him so reverendly as becometh us and belongeth to his super-eminent hollness is the only way to procure an everlasting tranquillity Rest and Sabbath to our Consciences For without this Sabbath all our care will prove vain and the very Godhead will be but a terrour to us But if by God's merciful assistance we keep our selves fast in faith and so in Union with this blessed Sabbath we may then with comfort apply Ps 42. 5. that expostulation of the Psalmist to our own souls Why art thou cast down O my soul And why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance Now because the prayer above mentioned though it were granted to us is not full enough to supply and satisfy our defects and necessities for neither a good inclination readiness or willingness nor yet our earnest desires no nor our laborious endeavours to perform the Law do amount to the real and perfect keeping thereof without which we cannot enter into life as Christ hath said Mat. 19 17. Therefore the Church hath added another prayer at the end of these Commandements which is full and perfect In these words Write all
the name of the thing signified so the thing signified hath the name of the sign for Christ is not only here called the Sabbath day because he is the thing signified by that day but he is also called by the names of other typical festivals as the Passover as is 1 Cor. 5. before said and by the name of the great festival Sabbath of Propitiation or Atonement described Levit. 16. And this because he only is that Lamb of God that causeth the destroying Angel to Passover us untouched and he only is as the Apostle cals him 2 Joh. 2. 2. The Propitiation for our sins It was full four and twenty hundred yeares by our English account after the Creation when God first appointed any Seventh day to be celebrated as a Sabbath or Rest yet the very first seventh day of the world is so described by Moses Gen. 2. 2. as to signifie Christ as may reasonably be conceived for that day is there set down without any mention of its Evening or Morning And this is the observation of St. Austin on the 92. a Aug. in Psal 92. 7 In Sabbato non invenitur vesper c. 1. In that Sabbath day described Gen 2. where the first mention is of Gods Rest the Reader shall not find any limitation of it by Evening or Morning although in every other of the former six dayes it is expresly said The Evening and the Morning were the 1 2 3 4 5 6th day b Pbilo lib de festis Philo the Jew and his fellow Jews called the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. without Mother I know not what this Jew's meaning was to call this day so more then other dayes possibly God might extort a truth from him without this Jew 's right understanding thereof Christ our true Sabbath was indeed without Mother in respect of his Divine Nature as also without an earthly father in respect of his humane Generation and therefore Melchisedech being the figure of Christ is for the same reason described without father and without mother Heb. 7. 3. Yet as we are well assured that Melchisedech had both a father and a mother so are we as certain that the first Seventh day had both an evening and a morning But as Melchisedech is said to be without father and mother for this reason only because there is no mention of his parents in holy Writ and this also was that thereby he might be a fit representative of Christ So the first Seventh day is set down without any mention of Evening and Morning that so it might be a fit figure of Christ who had no beginning in respect of his Godhead nor ending in respect of his Manhood and Godhead also The Prophet saith of Christ Mich. 5. 2. His goings forth have been from everlasting So the Gospel saith of him Heb. 1. 8 out of Psalm 45. 6. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever The very Jews confessed John 12. 34 We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever Christ therefore is not only a Sabbath but a day also and an everlasting day without any evening or morning The holy Priest Zacharias Luke 1. 78. cals Christ The Day-spring from on high And the Prophet Zechariah cals him Orientem i. e. the East which is all one with Day-spring Zech. 3. 8. Adducam servum meum Orientem And Chap. 6. 12. Ecce vir Oriens nomen ejus i. e. Beheld I will bring forth my servant the East And Behold the man whose name is East Our late Translators have for East rendred Branch I know not why except they were out-voted by some that are faln out with the East but how unfitly hath been lately unanswerably shewed by that learned Writer Mr. J. Gregorie of Oxford Christ calleth himself John 8. 12. The light of the Joh. 8. 12. world Old Simeon cals him Luke 2. 32. A light to lighten the Gentiles Christ is so much a Day that the Prophet styles him Dan. 7. 9. The Ancient of Dayes which the Hebrews affirm to be said of Ben-David that is of Christ the Son of David as Mr. Broughton hath told us for he indeed is the Creator of all dayes because he is our only God as the very Heathens God is by them called a Horace Diespiter i. e. the Father of Dayes Whether the Psalmist meant Christ when he said Psal 118 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made Or whether Christ meant himself and his own humane nativity when he said Joh. 8. 56. Your father Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it Let those that list examine But St. Austin upon these and such like passages in Scripture doubteth not to affirm b Aug. in Psal 54. Christus est dies aeternus i. e. Christ is an everlasting day This I trust is enough to shew that Christ is called both our Sabbath and also a Day and therefore he only is this Sabbath day which we are required to keep holy or sanctifie which is next to be considered CHAP. IX Of Sanctifying the Sabbath How the Godhead is said to be sanctified How the humane nature of Christ is Sanctified Of the name of God and that it signifies God himself That the name of Jesus signifies the Person of Jesus How God sanctifieth us and how we sanctify God How Christ is to be kept holy THere is yet another scruple in the words of this Moral part of the fourth Commandement to be examined and that is How we can truly affirm that the Sabbath-day there mentioned doth signifie Christ seeing that whatsoever is meant by those words the same is required also to be Sanctified or kept holy Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy And Deut. 5. 12. Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctifie it It may therefore be demanded how Christ can be said to be Sanctified or kept holy for the word sanctifie seemeth to signifie to be made holy no man will say that Christ can be by us made holy especially more holy than he is already for both the Godhead Manhood of Christ are called Holy As Holy Holy Holy is said of all the Divine persons And Holy is his name And Thy holy Child Jesus And the Holy one of Israel And Be ye holy as I am holy To this our Answer is that it needs not to seeme strange or uncouth that our Lord Jesus Christ is required to be by us sanctified or kept holy especially in respect of his assumed humanity by which onely he is our Sabbath and not otherwise seeing the pure Godhead considered without Incarnation is also required to be Sanctified as the great Prophet tels us Isa 5. 16. God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness and Christ so teacheth us to pray Hallowed or sanctified be thy name Let it not be thought that this word Name doth signifie no more but an appellation of God as if the only meaning were That whensoever we
Church-prayer both in behalf of my self and others Lord Incline our hearts to keep this Law Amen Amen Thus much concerning the Sabbath Moral Next of the Sabbath Ceremonial Macrobius Saturnaliorum lib. 6. cap. 9. Quia seculum nostrum ab omni Bibliothecâ vetere descivit Multa ignoramus quae non laterent si Veterum lectio nobis esset familiaris A Discourse of the Jewish Hebdomarie or Ceremonial Sabbath wherein is contained an Exposition of the Later and Ceremoniall Part of the 4th Commandment CHAP. XVII An Exposition of the Ceremonial Part of the 4th Commandment begun That the 6 dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the 7th day is called a Sabbath onely because it is a figure of the true Sabbath That the 7th day Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the 8th day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the dayes of Moses St. Jerom 's Translation and our English compared The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of VVorks on the Jewish Sabbath That Corporall Rest was but the figure of our Rest in Christ HAving thus far proceeded in the search of the Sabbath Morall which is commanded in the fourth Precept of the Morall Law of God in these words Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it In the next place we are to consider the other words of that Law which we have declared to be meerly Typicall Ceremoniall and Temporall and obliging the Jews onely and not other Nations and to be now antiquated ever since the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh Which ceremoniall part taketh up all the words of this Law except onely those few above mentioned the severall branches whereof we will now endeavour to expound as they are in order laid down Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work 1. These words are no Command so as to require our labour all the other six dayes but they are onely a Permission by which the Jews were invited to a diligent and cheerfull celebration of their Sabbath in regard God had given them six dayes for their own occasions and reserved but one in the seven to himself when he might have left them but one in the seven which yet was not for any need that God had of it but onely for the benefit of his people just as be permitted all the Trees of Paradice to Adam except onely one Thus far Calvin and other Divines generally agree 2. For if these words were a Command to work all the other six dayes they would contradict other Laws whereby the Jews were commanded to Rest as at the Feast of the Passeover 〈◊〉 12. 16. and at Pentecost Levit. 23. 21. and at the Atonement Levit. 23. 28. at the Feast of Trumpets Levit. 23. 25. and at the feast of Tabernacles Levit. 23. 35. These Feasts did all depend upon the Moon and therefore might and did fall on any and every one of the other six dayes respectively 3. If this Law were Morall how could we Christians lawfully abstain from working on our Sundayes and fasting-Fasting-daies and daies of Thanksgiving and other Festivalls commanded by lawfull Authority It followeth But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God These words as I conceive are not rightly rendred by our English Translators of which we will enquire anon and for present take them as they are presented In what sense the seventh day is here said to be the Sabbath of the Lord our God we have shewed before namely That it is therefore called the Sabbath because it was appointed to be a ceremony and figure to represent to the Israelites the true and reall Sabbath or Rest in the Messiah So that it is called a Sabbath just as we call Pictures by the names of those things which they represent as the Painter in Aelian wrote over his pictures * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 10 c. 10 This is an Ox this is an Horse this is a Tree So in Scripture the Ark is often called JEHOVA as †Catech. part 2. p. 45. Beza observeth the Altar is also so called Exod. 17. 15. and the Dove is called the Spirit Joh 1. 33. the seven Kin◠are seven years Gen. 41. and the Rock i◠Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. For if the seventh day were the onely Sabbath intended in this Commandment we Christians should at this day be bound to keep it as much as the Jews were That Christ or the Apostles changed the seventh day to the eighth or Saturday to Sunday is often too boldly affirmed by our Sabbatarian Writers and too tamely swallowed by their followers which as yet they never have or ever can solidly prove But to say that Christ utterly dissolved the Ceremoniall or seventh-seventh-day Sabbath and yet left the true Sabbath unaltered to us which is our firm Rest in himself and that the Church first then Christian Magistrates also assumed another day even our Sunday instead of the Jewish seventh day for their holy Assemblies is true and easily proved although they never called this Sunday a Sabbath Nor can the Jewish seventh day possibly be that Morall Sabbath which is meant and intended in this fourth Commandment because it is here said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God For we are well assured that the seventh day is not so to be accounted the Rest of God as if God ceased from his operation on every or on any one seventh day but his Rest was onely in consideration of the Saviour of Mankind because on the first seventh day of the world he formed the Woman as is before shewed and even then on that seventh day and ever since upon every seventh day he hath been operative in governing the world and co-operating with every creature therein without any intermission at all But he is said to rest on that seventh day because then our first parents were compleatly and fully finished and in them was laid the foundation of the future Church that is Christ who together with his holy Members was to be propagated joyntly from the Man and the Woman So that Christ onely was and is the Sabbath or Rest of God and men Upon this reason it was that the seventh day was long after sanctified or set apart for a day of bodily rest that thereby it might be a type figure and ceremoniall remembrance or commemoration of Christ the great and mysterious Sabbath Therefore the Seventh day and the Sabbath day are two distinct and severall things and differ as much as the shadow and the body or as Christ and the Lamb that is as much as Type and Anti-type For as the Lamb literally was not Christ but his figure so the seventh day literally considered was not the Sabbath here meant but typically the shadow or representation thereof Just so the Apostle saith of this seventh-day-Sabbath and of other such like ceremonies that they are a shadow of things to come but the body is Col. 2.
In a word he that understands in what particular thing the Rest of God consisteth may by the same easily apprehend why it is fixed on this seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed c. That which our English readeth Wherefore St. Jerom and the Latines generally read Therefore idcircò From which word we observe that the Judaicall or Ceremoniall Sabbath was not appointed in consideration of the work of Creation or that men should on that day contemplate and meditate onely on the creatures of the world although those wonderfull works are also right worthy of our serious consideration and should be a great motive to incite us to glorisie the Almighty Creator but it was principally ordained to put both the Jews and us Christians also in mind of the Rest of God and to move us all to consider in what this Rest consisteth which doth far more concern us and our happinesse than all the world without it because otherwise neither the world nor any creatures therein nor the perfect knowledge by our Studies and Arts of all the excellencies and secrets thereof can bring us to that everlasting Rest which was but typically figured by this Ceremoniall Sabbath For What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul Mat. 16. 26. Now that this Wherefore or Therefore relateth to the Rest of God and not to his creating of the world we are expresly taught by Moses who tells us That God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his works So that the Gen. 2. 3. Rest of man on that day was afterwards enacted by a Law for a memoriall of the Resting and not of the Working of God Concerning the blessing and sanctifying whereof we are next to enquire CHAP. XXI The Exposition concluded The meaning of blessing and hallowing the Sabbath day The difference of hallowing God's Name and hallowing of Creatures and of the differences of Holiness When the Seventh day was first hallowed and how it was dis-hallowed Something of Sacrilege How the Prophets spake truly of things to come as if they had been past Of the Prophetical figure called Anticipation with Rules and Examples thereof applied to this Sabbath The Lord blessed the Sabbath day or Seventh day THe Leiturgie of the Church of England readeth the Seventh day but the Original hath the Sabbath day Both are read indifferently as Gen. 2. 3. hath the Seventh day and so have some of the other languages in this Commandement as appeareth in the late incomparable and renowned work of our new Great Bible Indeed both are one in this place For the Sabbath Ceremonial is but the Seventh day and the Seventh day only is that Sabbath which is here meant it being but a Sabbath Typical Blessed the Sabbath day To blesse Benedicere is to speak some good of it as in the Leiturgie of St Basil this Prayer is found a Basil n. 2 Domine loquere bonum in cor Regis pro Ecclesia tua When God blesseth he conferreth some favour or special priviledge as here on the Sabbath day such as it was capable of and in order to that purpose for which it was blessed which was to signifie Man's Rest in Christ The blessing of a Day is not like his blessing of a Man on whom by blessing he doth effectually conferre something that is beneficial to him as spirituall Graces or temporal Favours as in Children Lands Cattel Basket and Store mentioned Deut. 28. and as Isaac blessed his Sons with the dew of Heaven and fatnesse of the Earth But the Sabbath being uncapable of such benedictions the blessing of it must consist in such respects as these 1. God chose that day for his own Mysterious Rest 2. He appointed that day only and not any of the other six to be for a memorial to his people of the grand blessing of their Rest in Christ 3. He ordained it for a corporal rest both for Men and Cattel 4. He gave most strict command upon pain of capital punishment for the keeping thereof 5. He appointed larger Sacrifices on that day than on the former dayes 6. He appointed a larger portion of Manna on the Parasceue as a provision for the Sabbath 7. He appointed this holy day to be weekly that is two and fifty times in the year whereas other Festivals except new-Moons were but once These or such like are the blessings thereof And hallowed it Hallowed is holied or sanctified The meaning is that God designed it to be an holy or hallowed day To be an hallowed or sanctified day is to be divided separated or distinguished from other common dayes by way of preferment honour and preheminence and to be set apart so as that work which might lawfully have been done on that day before it was hallowed might not be done on it after the hallowing thereof We read of hallowed or holy oyl holy vessels holy vestments and holy places which might not be used or applied to any other service but that only for which they were hallowed and destinated So this hallowed day was not to be imployed in common works as other unhallowed dayes were for that would have been a profanation thereof but it was wholly to be bestowed and spent in the service of God the Sanctifier by the serious and thankful consideration of that blessed Rest which he had procured and designed for Man And this hallowed use was to continue from the first institution thereof untill the period and repealing of it by the same God who hallowed it Which was performed evidently by Jesus Christ who is the same God which did sanctifie it and this he did not untill God had actually and visibly exhibited in the â—lesh the reall and substantial accomplishment of that Typical Ceremonial and Temporary Sabbath in the Person of the said Lord Jesus But yet during the vigour and continuance of this hallowing the Sabbath day was not altogether and absolutely quitted from all manner of working We know the Priests did then work hard and Souldiers marched and other works were lawfully done the reason was because this Sabbatical Hallowing was but meerly figurative and ceremonial and therefore dispensable in case of pressing necessity and charitable accommodation toward our brethren and in duty to God and also because such workings are commanded by a Superiour Law even the Moral Law of God whereby we are required To love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbour as our self This Law hath been in force ever since the Creation was finished and so shall continue until the end of the World but the hallowing of the Seventh day was neither from the beginning nor was it to last to the end of the World being but Ceremonial and Temporary and therefore ought to give place to the Law Moral We find Hallowing or Holiness applied diversly to several things and for divers considerations First There is an Holiness Essential which is only
Simon John and Eleazer of whom we read much in a Jos de Bello lib. 8. Josephus who then rebelled against Caesar their Lawfull Prince at that time though Nero and thereby caused the utter and finall ruine of their Ciâ—y and Country If we now examine the Jewish superstitions and compare them with the practises or commands of some sabbatizing Christians we shall find them running parallel Buxdo f. as they are recorded boâ—h by our own and by forrain Writers as 1. If a Jew fell History of the Sab. short of home on a Sabbath-Eve he must stay there in wood wildernesse or high-way till the Sabbath were past 2. A blind Jew might not carry a staffe 3. A wounded man might not wear a plaister nor a woman a fan 4. A Jew might not carry mony in his purse nor knock at a door with an Hammer or Ringle nor wear Clogs or Pattens nor a Taylor his Needle nor milk Kine nor lift a beast out of a ditch nor kill a flea on that day So some Christian Sabbatarians have Mr. Tho. Roger's Preface on the 39 Artic taught publickly 1. To work on Sunday Lord's day they call it or throw a boule is a sin as great as to kill a man or commit adultery 2. To kill a cock as bad as to kill a servant 3. To make a Feast or dresse a Wedding-dinner as bad as for a father to cut his own child's throat 4. To ring more Bells then one as to commit murder They say one may not carry provender to an Horse a Maid-servant would not sweep her Kitchin nor wash her Dishes a zealous sonne would not ride for a Bone-setter when his Father's bones were broken Some school-men among the Romanist's have bin as eager in this superstition as ours They taught that it is as great a sinne to stitch a poor Man's broken shoe on Sunday as to kill a Thousand men a Advers Concil Trident as Doctor Tuppius reporteth Besides all this some of our own Sabbatarians have laboured to revive and bring in the old Jewish saturday-Sabbath Thus hath this Sabbaticall Law and our Christian Sunday been abused by schismaticall Demagogues who notwithstanding have bin of late both permitted and encouraged for such politick ends as we see are now fully effected The consideration whereof moved me to endeavour a right understanding and vindication of the Divine Sabbath Law I have also addressed this discourse to you My most Honoured Lord and Lady for an acknowledgement of your many favours to my self and to my more dear Consort in these hard times and for a Testimony of my most thankfull apprehension thereof And also for that I am well assured that you My Lord in your love to Truth and Piety have taken pains to inform your selfe in this very Mystery by carefull attention in hearing and by your more private readings and conferences besides your secret Meditations best known to your self Of which Christian imployments because I was in some part Conscious it stirred me the more to hasten this Work wherein I trust you will find satisfaction when your leisure will permit you to read it through I beg both your pardons for my tediousnesse in this addresse being not so much Epistolar as Isagogical which I so designed to be instead of an Introduction needfull for the more easie and unscrupulous perusall of the ensuing Treatise which I have cloathed with ordinary and coorse Apparrel in a low and vulgar style as to be the more fitly accommodated to the ordinary or middle sort of Christians just so as the Books of our Sabbatarians are whereby they have gained too much upon the easinesse and credulity of their adherents This book is therefore of the like alay with theirs as one saith b Mart. l. 7. ep 89. Aequales scribit libros Calvinus Umber In old time Writers were thought to procure a kind of immortality to them whose Names they recorded in their Books therefore a Plin. l. 7. ep 33. Plinius the younger a man of singular worth who procured a stay and mollifying of the persecution under Trajan desired Tacitus his contemporary to record his Name in his History because he thought that so it might continue as long as the World And before him Ovid by the same way promised the like to himselfe and to his Wife b Ovid. Met Trist l. 5 eleg 15. Nomenque erit indelebile nostrum And Perpetui fructum donavi nominis So when Picus Mirandula wrote a book and dedicated it to Politian he returned this answer c P lit lib. 12. Epist 5. Ago tibi gratias ob immortalitatem Just so did d â—ips cent ep 65. Lipsius to another But I may not promise or hope for any such production or issue by these papers to you or to my Lady though I wish I could yet I am well assured that the Doctrine herein delivered being of the greatest concernment and comfort for Christians is such as ought to continue in the Church as long as it is Militant Neither do either of you need any such immortalizing Pharmacum or paper-charm for that which your owne eminent and shining vertues may by themselves procure your piety to God your sincerity and constancy in true Religion your mercifullnesse and charitable compassion and bountifull reliefe of the poor Members of Christ your generall goodnâ—sse toward all sorts of people and particularly to the now oppressed Church-men in these â—ad times will be your Testimonialls or Epistles as the Apostle speaketh a 2 Cor. 3. 2. and Comforts to your Consciences whil'st you live here and Monuments or Trophies to posterity when both of you in a full and good old age shall follow those Prayers and Almes which are gone up before you for a Memoriall before God Act. 10. 4. with whom I trust you will find your names recorded with an everlasting Character in the blessed Registry of the Book of Life In the mâ—an time whil'st my now aged life shall last I will not forget to recommend you and yours in my Prayers to the Mercifull protection of our Lord Jesus and remain My Noble Lord and Lady Your devoted and obliged Servant EDM. PORTER Marsham in Norf. Octob. 1. 1658. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE Church disturbed about the doctrine of the Sabbath Of Sunday Sabbatism Of works practised therein and Recreations forbidden That the celebration of Sunday is pious although not commanded by the fourth Commandment How the antient Patriarks did Sabbatize yet kept not a seventh day That all the ten Commandments are still in force A passage in St. Austin and another in Isychius explained An abuse of the Commandments in the Roman-Catechisms shewed CHAP. II. That the word Sabbath signifieth Rest Of the Rest of God and the Rest of Man Of our Rest Corporall and Spirituall The differences of Sabbaths The severall sorts of Jewish Laws which commanded or enforced the Sabbath Of the Judiciall Laws of the Jews and that
Ter. And we often read of Alter tu and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Ille ego and Ego ille as if a man were another and not himself Just so the forenamed Father speaketh of God * Aug. in Joh. Tract 27. Domine repellis nos à te da nobis alterum te So we may often observe Pâ—eachers in their Prayers appealing from God to God when they mean from God as considered onely in his Court of Justice to the same God as sitting in his Temple of mercy which is onely Christ In like manner the great Apostle speaketh of God and of Christ severally as of two 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and this is usuall in Scripture †Act. 4. 2â— Rom. 1. 7. 1 Cor. 1. 3 Although we know that the Lord Jesus is that very same God But the Second Person in the Trinity is described in holy Writ as if he were distinct and different from himself and this is in regard of a two fold consideration of his Person First If we look on him and consider him onely in his pure Divinity then according to the Scriptures we call him The mighty Isa 9. 6. God the everlasting Father The Creator by whom all creatures were made God the Word God the Son And the eternall Son of the eternall Father And the Lord JEHOVA Of him it is said Thy throne O God is for ever and ever Secondly When we consider him together with his assumed Human Nature then we call him Messiah Christ God's Annointed Emmanuel The Word made fleâ—h God incâ—rnate God manifested in the flesh God in the likenesse of sinfull flesh In the form of a servant Made of a woman and The Son of man Which appellations cannot appertain to this Second â—erson but onely in respect of his Incarnation The Premises being acknowledg'd and granted these Mysteries will be discover'd 1. How God the Son is both the Creator of all creatures and also the Rest or Sabbath of the God head 2. How the Son of God may be truly said to Rest in himself 3. How the Rest it self is said to Rest in it self and the Sabbath in the Sabbath All which the Reader will understand by considering these few Aphorisms following which are deducible from those two Considerations of the Person of Jesus just now mentioned 1. The Son of God considered onely in his pure Divinity is the Lord and the Creator who is here said to Rest 2. The Son of God considered in respect onely of his Godhead cannot be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of God and Men. The reason is because the Sabbathship of this Son of God conâ—steth not in his pure Divinity for if so then this Sabbath which is fixed onely on the first seventh day must have been before and also from eternity But it consisteth in consideration of the human Nature assumed into personall union with the Divine Nature 3. The Son of God considered onely as incarnate or as the Son of man or as Christ cannot be called the Creator of the world The reason is because the Creation was performed by this Son of God before the foundation of his Incarnation was wholly laid as is shewed before or before he could be called the Son of man 4. The Son of God is and may be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of the same Son of God This Proposition is thus to be understood That God the Son or Word who is the onely eternall God did and still doth rest in himself so as is said in this Commandment but his so resting is onely in consideration of his Incarnation and as he is Emmanuel and not otherwise So that he is not to be called the Sabbath or Rest either of himself or of us men as he is onely the Son of the Father but as he is also the Son of his mother for in this consideration onely he is styled in his Types the Rest of the Godhead and the Resting place the Habitation the Temple the Delight and the well-beloved Son in whom God is well pleased or as Beza most judiciously rendreth those words in whom the Godhead doth acquiess as is before noted This is that Sabbath or Sabbatism of which the Apostle speaketh Heb. 4. 9. that there remaineth a Rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the people of God The sum and conclusion is 1. The Son of God is the Creator even of the Son of man and of all the world 2. The Son of man is the Rest or Sabbath of the Son of God and of all holy men Rested the Seventh day In the whole History of the Creation we find mention but of seven daies and no more for all succeâ—ding daies are but the re-iteration of the first seven Of these seven the last onely is blessed and graced with the Rest of God and therefore preferred before the first day wherein Heaven was made and also before the sixth day wherein Man was created And this without any injury or slur to any of the former daies When the noble Generall The mistocles was twitted and repined at by some succeeding and inferiour Commanders because he only had the name glory of those Victories which had been obtained by their joynt-labours and valour the Generall answered them with this Apologue Once said he the working-working-day contended with the Holy-day for preheminence upon this reason that the Working-day by labours and molestations prepared all things ready for the solemnity but the Holy-day without labour onely rested in quietnesse and enjoyment of those labours The Holy-day replyed * Plut. Quaest Rom. Sed eâ—o nisi fuissem in nunquam esses i. e. Had it not been for the Holy-day Working-daies had not been at all His meaning was that without his wisdom and policy whom they accounted but as an idle Holy-day they had all been defeated captivated and utterly lost So is it here The seventh-day is therefore preferred before all other the former daies because it represented the great Creator of all daies and the Redeemer of the Man and the Woman and of all their posterity without whom no daies had been at all or if any had been yet without this Sabbath they had been to us but daies of misery and but wofull Parasceues against the day of wrath Whereas this mysterious Rom. 2. 5 Rom. 5. 9. Sabbath is he by whom we shall be saved from wrath Wherefore as all the elder sons of Jesse passed before the Prophet and not one of them was chosen to the honour of Unction that it might be reserved for the youngest even David so not one of the elder dayes is graced with the honour of God's Resting but that preferment is deservedly reserved for the last or youngest day which day did indeed signifie David yet not the literal or typical David but Christ the Son of David who is very often in Scripture expresly called David as Jer. 30. 9. Ezek. 34. 23. Hos 3. 5.
Sabbath which in the fourth Commandment is so strictly required and that with a Memento also more than any other Commandment as being indeed the greatest of them all and most nearly concerning our everlasting Rest and Happiness as hereafter will appear CHAP. V. Of the Fourth Commandment what part of it is moral and what Ceremonial Why a Ceremonial is taken into the Ten Commandments Of the Memento and some other Prerogatives proper to this fourth Commandment The Excellent benefit of this Sabbath-law Why it is placed in the middle of the Commandments How the whole law is performable by men FOr the right understanding of this great mysterious Sabbath we must first diligently examin the words of the fourth Commandment which I here set down fully as I find them recorded Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work But the seaventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the stranger that is within thy Gates For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is and rested the seaventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it All our learned Divines generally agree thus farr that this Commandment is partly Moral so that the Moral part thereof is to be obeyed and kept at this day and also during the continuance of the world They also agree that part of it is Ceremonial appertaining only to the Jewes and binding them to the observation thereof until their Mâ—ssiah came in the flesh and was made known unto that people or during the Pedagogie of them or at most during the Judaical state and politie All this I conceive to be very true But the main difficulty consisteth onely in the right dividing this Commandment by seperating the Moral and everlasting part from that part which is but Ceremonial and temporal and typical Which that I may truely and Christianly perform I here most earnestly implore the assistance and illumination of thy Divine spirit O gratious Lord Jesus that in this needfull and concerning mystery I may appeare to thee and to thy Church as thy servant Paul exhorted Timothie a workman rightly dividing the word of truth For the understanding whereof I here present â— Tim. 2. 15. to the Consideration of the pious and learned Reader What after much labour of mind and long deliberation and after diligent and serious Consulation with the Ancient Fathers I have conceived to be the true and most necessary meaning of this Commandment and what is the right Division or Seperation of the Moral Mysterious and Perpetuall part thereof from that which is only Typicall Ceremoniall and Temporall And what part of that precept bindeth us Christians to observe it as it did also the Ancient Israelites and the Patriarks and Prophets and even Adam himselfe and all his posterity And also what part thereof was proper to and concerned only the Mosaicall or Judaical people and doth not at all concern the Christians or Gentiles nor did in the least oblige the Patriarks which lived and died before the dayes of Moses The want or neglect of a right distinction of these differing parts of this Commandment in our later Theological Writers hath occasioned much trouble heart-burnings and Schisms among Christians and also many Phraisaicall curiosities in the observation of an eighth day Sabbath Which was never intended to be put upon the people of God by this 4th Commandement And moreover it hath also obscured the most needfull most holy and Mysterious Sabbath Spirituall by which we only can expect an eternall and heavenly Sabbath and salvation of our Souls and bodies For many good pious and well-meaning Christians are hereby mislead into the same arror and mistake that the Jews were in by thinking that the whole and ultimate duty commanded and intended in this 4th Comandement consisteth only in keeping holy One day of Seaven Which is but a very mean and low conceipt and far short of the High and Weighty intendment of that Precept and is also a very stumbling Block in the way to retard men from apprehending the true Sabbath therein secretly and mysteriously Veiled Which is Christ Who only is the everlasting Sabbath or Rest both of the Godhead and also of us Men. It is now time that I set down plainly what I conceive to be the Moral part of this Commandment and in what words it is contained that so it may appear how much of that long Precept concerneth us at this day and is an everlasting Law and a law Naturall and Written in Mans heart and binding not only Christians and Jews but Heathens and even all Nations as also it did all the Patriarchs before Moses was born and before it was written in stone These are the words Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy In these few words is contained the whole Morality of that Law So that no more of the words are to be accounted Moral or binding us for all the following words are but a branch of the Ceremoniall law And although they are here joyned with the truly Moral Sabbath and also by the same God written in the same Tables of Stone Notwithstanding this will not make them to be a Moral law because they are so annexed for this reason only to serve as a Type and figure of the Grand Sabbath To keep the Israelites mindfull by a weekly Sabbath or rest of that everlasting Rest which they were to expect in their Messiah and not otherwise For now we see that all learned Divines have rejected and the whool Christian world have long since disused the old Jewish Typical or Seaventh-day Sabbath These later words which are so annexed to the fourth Morall Law are to be considered by themselves in their proper place but for present we must insist only on the former words which I have affirmed to be truly moral and an everlasting law For the understanding whereof the Reader may observe divers things Considerable and some of them proper and peculiar to this Commandment so as not to be found in any other of the Nine 1. In those words recited There is no mention of the Seaventh day for that was meerly Typical and Ceremonial but the Sabbath-day Therefore surely there must be understood some other Sabbath day besides the Seventh day Sabbath for otherwise it had bin enough to have said Remember the Seaventh day to keep it holy But the Seaventh day is one thing and the Sabbath day is another They differ as much as Shadow and Substance as Type and Antitype as Signum Signatum i. e. as the bare signe from that which is signified thereby for the Jewish Seaventh-day-Sabbath which was but only a signe and shadow of the Substantial Mysticall and Spiritual Sabbath which is Christ 2. To this
these thy Lawes in ouâ— hearts we beseech thee This prayer is grounded on the promise of God recorded both in the Prophets and also in the Gospel Jer. 31. 33. Heb. 18. 10. I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts If we enquire what that Law is and how God doth write it in our hearts and to what intent it is done The Answer is That this Law is Christ The putting or writing of it in our hearts is the mission of the Spirit of Jesus into us The intent or purpose thereof is that by a spiritual union of Christ with us we may fulfill the Law For because Christ and his Members are united by this Spirit and so become one mystical body therefore what Christ hath done in obedience to the Law must be accounted as our obedience and so imputed to us that because he hath performed the Law we also in him have performed it The Apostle tels us a 2 Cor. 13. 5. Jesus Christ is in you and b Gal. 2. 20. Christ liveth in me and c Eph. 3. 17. Christ may dwell in our hearts And Christ himself saith d Matth. 28 20. I am with you alway even unto the end of the world And the Apostle again e Gal. 3. 28. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus And that we may know that when we have the Spirit of Jesus in us then we have also the Lord Jesus himself in us Another Apostle tels us f 1 John 4. 13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit But how shall it appear That the putting of Christ into us is the putting of the Law of God into our hearts The Answer is That Christ is the Law there meant and he is called the Law and is really the Law * Moses is called by Phâ—lo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more is Christ so and not only so but he is moreover The Law with all advantages to us for he is the Law fulfilled That Christ is called the Law the Psalmist tels us a Psal 2. 7. Rom. 8. 2. I will preach the Law whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art mâ— Son Here the Son is called the Law or Precept of the Lord. Then that Christ is the Law fulfilled or the fufilling of the Law Of him it is said in another Psalm b Psal 40 10. Heb. 10. 7 In the volume of thy Book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy will O my God I am content to do it yea thy Law is within my heart And this Christ himself professed c Mat. 5. 17. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill the Law This also was signified by his Type the Ark wherein d Heb 9. 4 the Law was put for the Ark represented Christ and the Law in it signified that Christ should keep that Law and this he did perform only to our behoof that his obedience might be accounted ours Upon this reason only it is that the Apostle so confidently saith e Phil. 4. 13. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me If he can do all things then he can do all the works of the Law But we are well assured that he could not in his own proper person alone considered perform the Law but it must needs be thus only performed by him in and through Christ And in this consideration only Christ is our Rest and Sabbath For this reason our Church prayeth that God would incline our hearts to keep this Sabbath-law which is Christ That by keeping him the whole Law of God may be kept by us through and in him so as is here expressed by having the Law thus written in our hearts Thus this Moral Law which as Divines acknowledge is altogether impossible to the Natural man especially as it is exegetically aggravated and heightened in the Gospel is by this Sabbath made possible and easie to the Matth. 5. Spiritual man so the Apostle tels us a Rom. 10 4. Christ is the end or perfect on of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth that is He that believeth in Christ hath the benefit of performance of the Law brought home to him So St. Ambrose tels us b Ambr. in loc Perfectionem leg is habet qui credit in Christum CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first Institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the World is described without Evening and Morning The Sabbath described by Philo Parallel'd with Melchisedech and both Types of Christ IF Jesus Christ be the only Sabbath which is mysteriously covered and spiritually meant and really and ultimately intended in the Moral part of this fourth Commandement as certainly he is because he only is our Redeemer our Mediator and the Peace-maker of God with man We must next enquire how this Sabbath if it be so understood can be called a Day as here it is Remember the Sabbath day for by this word Day a man may reasonably-imagine that the principal intendment of this Precept was only for the Celebration or Sanctifying of a day as the Jewes do yet think and many good Christians among us do still though erroneously believe although they agree not in the self same day with the Jews Their reason is because not only in this former part of the fourth Commandement which I have shewed to be a Morall Natural and an everlasting Law but also in the latter words annexed which are a part of the Law ceremonial and therefore but temporal and transient it is also said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God by which words a man at first hearing would think that the Sabbath in both parts of this Law is nothing else but a day for if the seventh day be a Sabbath why may not the Sabbath be thought to be a Seventh day 1. Our Answer is That the seventh day is called a Sabbath because it was a type and figure of our true Sabbath and Rest which is Christ as the Jews corporal rest was but a figure of our spiritual rest in Christ And because it was so appointed for a figure or sign therefore it hath the name of the thing figured or signified thereby as other signs and types have for so the Paschal Lamb is called the Passover yet we know Christ only is the true Passover as the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 5. 7. So the Rock is called Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. So of the Eucharistical bread it is said This is my body though it was but a Sacrament or holy sign of the body of Christ And the seven Eares are seven Yeares Gen. 41. 26. Just so the seventh day is the Sabbath that is the sign type and figure of the mysterious Sabbath which is Christ 2. As the sign hath