all the Degrees of his Abasement and begun his Exaltation and so in his Blessed and Glorious Estate delighting himself in his Conquest of the Devil the World Death and the Grave and his having perfectly satisfied Justice and purchased Grace and Glory for Lost Sinners which could not be till the Resurrection of his Body Can the State of Death with any probability be thought the Mediator's Rest Or his lying in the Grave be deemed the end of all his Abasements when Death was the worst thing his Enemies could bring upon him in their Rage and Fury when they triumphed over him in the Grave and concluded that now they had compleatly vanquished him and proved him to be a Grand Deceiver Matt. 27.62 64. when it was that which was especially required as the utmost of his Sufferings for the Expiation of our Sins being that which was denounced at first against Sin Gen. 2.17 and as the consummate Punishment thereof and is the proper Wages of Sin Rom. 6.23 and therefore so to be undergone and lain under by the Sinners Surety standing in his stead and bearing his Punishment and being made that Curse for him Gal. 3.13 which was the lowest Descent of his Humiliation which saddened the Hearts of his Disciples and filled them with fear whose hopes almost expired at his Death and were buried in his Grave in which Estate if he had abode the Devil and his Enemies would have gotten a compleat Victory over him and we could never have been justified nor saved Moreover our Saviour's Body and Soul rested as much upon the Cross after his Death as they did in the Grave after his Burial And so the Muchammedists have as fair a Plea for their Sixth-day-Sabbath because on that day the Dead Body of our Saviour felt no pain on the Tree and his Soul enjoyed all Bliss in Heaven And so in this sense rested on their day of Worship How unreasonable and unscriptural to call this the Rest of our Redeemer Besides it was impossible that as Redeemer he should rest in the State of Death and in the Grave for the Redeemer must be God-man his Deity could not declaratively rest till it had raised its own Humanity out of the Grave and rent in sunder the Bonds of Death And his Humanity could not really do so because it was not during that Condition for we know that Death is the Separation of the Soul from the Body Now the Soul separated from the Body is a Spirit and not a Man the Body separated from the Soul is a Corps not a Man both Soul and Body separated are not Man but essentially conjoyned they make the Man Wherefore though both Body and Soul in their mutual Separation were united to the Deity and so he was always God and had the essential parts of Man yet being divided he was not Man for by Death they being dissolved his Humanity was destroyed and continued so as long as Death had power over him So that 't is against all Reason and common Sense to assert that the Mediator who must be God-man rested in the Grave seeing in this true sense he could not be Man there No no This was no part of his Rest but his Resurrection from the Grave the re-uniting of his Body and Soul was the first entrance into it For as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Jehovah is not said to rest till he had fully compleated his six days work of Creation and then with infinite Complacency viewed all he had compleated on the Seventh So Jesus Christ God-man cannot be said to rest from the Work of our Redemption till he had fully compleated and ended all his Humiliation till he had conquered all his and our Enemies which could not possibly be while he lay in the Grave on the Seventh day but it was when he rose from thence on the First when indeed he had a glorious and Blessed satisfaction in himself when he reflected upon all he had done and all the Sufferings he waded through and all the Humiliation he was sunk into and had happily and triumphingly concluded with all those inestimable Blessings that should accrue to the Church and that infinite Glory that would redound to God thereby And therefore as God's Resting on the Seventh day from his work of Creation was proposed as the Example and Motive to the Old Church before Christ's coming for the keeping the Seventh for their Sabbath So likewise our Saviour's Resting from his work of our Redemption on the First day of the Week may worthily be and we say really is proposed as a Motive and Example to the Churches since his coming for their consecrating of that day for their Weekly Sabbath I am sorry that such Passages of the Author should occasion so much Tediousness to the Reader and inforce such Enlargedness from the Writer As to that place Mat. 24.20 which he tells us he will improve hereafter to his own Advantage we shall attend his Motions and meet him there To his Query Page 41. we grant that the Jewish Believers did keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath while our Saviours Body was in the Grave and that they ought to do so because as yet the First day by our Lords Resurrection was not Consecrated to be observed as the day of the Redeemers Rest And withal that they were obliged during this time to observe the unleavened Bread-Feast and supposing it to be the Eighth day from their Birth to Circumcise their Children yet I hope this is no Plea for the everlasting Permanency of these So neither can it be for that of the Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT X. WE have his Conjecture Page 43. about the Week-day of our Lord's Ascension which he would fain suppose to be on the Seventh But if we may believe St. Luke Act. 1.3 that he tarried on Earth Forty Days and so was visible to his Disciples all that time and conversed with them as oft as he saw fit and about what was most necessary and profitable for their Knowledge and then ascended into Heaven If we look on this as an Historical Account of his Abode on Earth after his Resurrection as it lays a fairer Foundation for it than all Human Conjectures can be then if we reckon from the First day of the Week to the Fortieth day and both the First and Last inclusively then the day of his Ascension was upon the Fifth day of the Week which is our Thursday as the Church of England observes it If we exclude either the First or Last day only 't will be upon the Sixth day of the Week our Fryday if I mistake not but if we exclude both the First and Last Days I mean the day of his Resurrection and the day of his Ascension from the number of Forty days then 't will fall out upon the Seventh day of the Week our Saturday which he conjectures to be the day of the Week of our Saviours Ascension But here we must consider that we have two to one against him
cannot So that we have granted him his desire in shewing him what Law Christ meant in such Passages even the Ceremonial as well as the Moral for they were the Object of the Superstitious Jews greatest Zeal and they persecuted him and his Disciples as the Overthrowers of the Ceremonial Laws and therefore Christ tells them He came not to destroy but to fulfil them c. By all that hath been already said is fully shewn the Impertinency of those Quotations Page 35. 38. where our Saviour makes use of an confirms the Moral Law For there is not one word of his Sabbath in them all In our Saviour's Carriage and Language he vindicates the Sanctity of the Temple John 2.13 17. so he does Circumcision and Authorizes its Administrations upon the Sabbath day and derives it from a more August Antiquity than Moses John 7.22 23. If our Author had any such Expression from our Saviour's Mouth concerning the Sabbath how would he have triumphed therein and have fetch'd its everlasting Establishment therefrom But there is not one such Syllable concerning it These have a greater shew for their Authority from our Saviour's Discourses than the Seventh-day-Sabbath yet I doubt not but he looks on them as no longer in Force and of no Obligation in these latter and Evangelical days Page 37. He produces the Church of England Articles the Presbyterian Confession the Independants Declaration of Faith for the Ratification of the Moral Law who yet are all for the Exclusion of the last day of the Week from being the Christian Sabbath and thereby declare their Rejection of it from being any part thereof And thus all the Authority both Divine and Humane that he produceth makes nothing at all for him but very much rather against him With which this question is concluded SECT VIII HE proposes the Question Page 38. Whether Christ in his own Person did not observe the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath and no other during his Life To which we answer affirmatively with him that he did so that he was bound to do it that it was part of his Righteousness which he was to fulfil for he was born under the Authority and Obligation of the Old Testament Administrations even of the Ceremonial ones and therefore was Circumcised the eighth day went up to Jereusalem with his Mother in his Childhood to keep the Annual Feasts and in his Manhood was a Constant Conscientious and obedient Attender upon and observer of the Passover as we read in the History of his Life after his Baptism and manifesting himself to the World home to his Death or just before his Sufferings and so doubtless did by all the other Ceremonial Laws according to Gods Injunction of them and was an Observer of all other positive Divine Laws and so consequently must he be of this for neither all the former nor this particular were to be abrogated and lain aside as to their Authority till he himself was lain aside and buried in the Grave Without doubt he also dutifully kept and practised all the Judicial Laws being born a Member of their State as well as of their Church as far as their Roman Lords would permit for the Authority of these Laws lasted as long as the Judicial Polity and with it declined and perfectly expired Will this Pleader for the Seventh day contend for the Authority of all those Ceremonial and Judicial Laws home to our days because our Blessed Lord observed and kept them He must do so if this Argument be of any weight And it has been the Fate of all his Arguments hitherto to militate as much for all the Ceremonies except that of the Sabbaths being given in Innnocency of the Jews as for the Seventh day Enough for their own Confutation Just another such Medium is cunningly insinuated Page 39. to prove the Goodness of the Observation of this Sabbath viz. Its Antiquity having been the Sabbath of the Church for four thousand Years which will introduce Sacrifices into the Worship of God a Bloody Offering up of Beasts for they are as ancient within a day or two as 't is probable for God taught Adam to offer up such Sacrifices as the Types of the Seed of the Woman who was to have his Heel bruised by the Serpent his Humane Nature murthered by the Devil and his Agents but then sacrificed and offered up to God as the Expiratory Victim for the sins of Fallen Man And 't is probable that those Skins which God made Coats of for Adam might be of such sacrificed Beasts And Adam taught his Sons to Sacrifice to God And we read Gen. 4.4 That Abel brought to God the Firstlings of his Flock and the Fat thereof Will he therefore plead that their venerable Antiquity must still give them a place in the Evangelical Dispensation now that that Grand and All-sufficient Sacrifice the substance of those Shadows is offered up I trow not So neither can the Antiquity of the former Sabbath till our Saviour's days and through his days be any Argument for its Admission and Authority now seeing by our Saviours coming we have the new Heaven and the new Earth which the Prophets foretold Isa 65.17 66.22 and a more glorious and blessed Work accomplished than that of the Creation which doth much more deserve a Sanctification and Separation of that day whereon its Compleater rested from all his former Labours and a new external Administration was introduced and a new day and consecrated time suitably also instituted SECT IX IT is demanded Page 40. Whether Christ did rest the Seventh-day-Sabbath when he was in the Grave And it is affirmatively resolved that his Soul rested in Heaven and his Body rested in the Grave that day All as a Proof that our Lord Christ himself did in his state of Death confirm that Seventh-day-Sabbath as well as by his Practice and Doctrin in Life and so recommended it to the Observance of all the future Churches Which Notion if it could be proved would do more for the Seventh-day-Sabbath than all the Arguments he hath yet brought If he could rationally demonstrate that the blessed Redeemer did rest on the Seventh day from all his Humiliation and Sufferings he would then defeat the great ground on which all the Churches since our Lords coming and consummating the work of Redemption have built upon for the Change of the Seventh day into the First-day-Sabbath For they say they do it because on the first day our Lord Jesus God-man rested from that more Wonderful Glorious Gracious Profitable and Ravishing Work than that of the Creation and more laborious and difficult work to himself being really and dreadfully so to his Humane Nature But indeed this Notion is a very strange and an uncouth one because the Rest of the Mediator in this Sense cannot be thought to be any other than a happy and Complacential Reflection upon the work of our Redemption merited by all his Active and Passive Obedience which could not be until he had waded through
Caution of not incurring the Threats of infringing the Laws of Christ even the least of them and by way of a charitable Requital we warn him to be cautious lest he build again that which Christ hath destroyed and repair the rased Synagogue Here we have also his Notion of what is Moral telling us that many call the Ten Commandments the Moral Law I think all slid Divines do call them so but none that I know do say that every Clause and Word in them or belonging to them by this last Expression I mean part of the Preface to them is Moral and particularly not the Seventh-day-Sabbath or that Clause appertaining thereto in the Fourth Commandment no nor yet the Seventh Part of Time therein expresly commanded and perpetually too that is not primarily nor absolutely and of its self so As to his Notion of what is Moral I cannot call it either a Definition or a Description of the thing but only an Interpretation of the Word Moral viz. pertaining to Manners We usually in such Discourses put Moral in opposition to what is positive whether it be Ceremonial or Judicial But this is such a Notion as includes all Laws whatever even Human as well as Divine and of Divine all of them of what sort or kind soever for they all apertain to Manners Yea to Thoughts Words and Actions yea and are included in the Love of God because whoever loves God truely will and must yield Obedience to all his Laws of what sort soever whether Moral or Positive But such a lax Interpretation of the Moral Law served to the Design of the Seventh Day because it includes it will all other positive Laws but had he given us a true Notion of what is Moral in its self or in its own Nature it would necessarily have been exclued As may be evinced by some Properties of what is truly Moral 1. The Moral Law is inward and was consecrated with the rational Creature and does need no external Revelation or Divine Institution especially in the State of human Integrity before the Fall but such was not the Seventh day For 't was Instituted by God after Mans Creation 2. The Moral Law yet remains in some Footsteps and Degrees thereof in the Human Nature and so in the generality of Mankind the Heathens themselves not excepted as might be easily proved by their Laws and Writings but the Notion of the Seventh day is Universally excluded and the Generality of Mankind totally destitute thereof If it be here objected That the Heathen did separate a Seventh-day to their Religious Service To this may be applyed That 't was but some of them and but for some time not Universally and Perpetually That they did it by Tradition from the Jews or by Satans Institution and Injunction who in his cursed Pride affects to have his Votaries serve him as the Acknowledgers of Jehovah do him 3. All Moral Laws are clearly and distinctly ingraven upon the Minds and Hearts of those that are enlightned and sanctifyed by the Spirit of God But not a Tittle or punctum of his Seventh-day is seen in the Generality of them 4. Man was made for Moral Duty that is to Glorify and Honour God in all Acts of Internal and External Piety to profit and comfort his Neighbour by all Acts of Charity to possess his own Vessel in Sanctification and Honour And by so doing he lives up to the end for which he was made But now Man was not made for the Sabbath and for its Observance but the Sabbath was made for Man and for his Good Mark 2.27 5. Moral Duties are such as a Man cannot change them or neglect them or do any thing beside them without dishonouring and sinning against God But now it is certain That as to the Nature of the thing its self separated form a positive Institution that a Man may as fully Glorify and Honour God and as compleatly serve him by appropriating and imploying another day of the Week to and in his Workship and Service as the Seventh provided he do dedicate another day in Seven to that Service the Worship is the same and the proportion of time the same and so God as much and as long served as upon the last day of the Week Let him denominate any other Propriety of what is Moral and I will undertake to evince That it belongs not to his Seventh-day-Sabbath To what purpose then to urge and insist so much and so long upon the Moral Law when the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part at all of the Morality thereof Those Passages before mentioned That Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law that the Breaker of the least of Gods Commands shall be least in the Kingdom of God c. And these Page 35. He that will enter into Life must keep the Commandments It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than one tittle of the Law to fail do not only concern the Moral Law though if they did we have sufficiently shewn that the Sabbath is not concerned in them but also the Positive even the Ceremonial Law For while they were in Force as they all were throughout the days of our Saviour's Animal Life which I so call to distinguish it from the Glorious Life of his Humanity upon Earth after his Resurrection They that would enter into Life at least of the Jews and their Proselytes to whom only they were Laws and Obligatory were bound to keep them And if they did willfully and perseveringly disobey them they would as certainly be Damned as if they had lived in a Contradiction to any of the Moral Laws Because such a Refusal to observe and keep the Ceremonial Laws is directly and ultimately a Disobedience to the Moral and that too to the very Soul and Foundation of all the Commandments Even the First Command by being a Renunciation of Gods Authority in refusing a Conformity to his revealed Will. Again it was a direct and immediate Sin against the Second Command by being a refusal to worship him according to his own instituted Worship So Christ came not to destroy the Ceremonial Law but to fulfil it Which he did by being the End and Consummation thereof by being the Substance of those Figures and the Body of those Shadows and no Law is destroyed which continues in its Force as long as the Legislator intended and produces all those Ends for which he designed it Now the Ceremonial was intended by God to be no longer a Law than till our Lords Death or Resurrection or Mission of the Holy Ghost and it was designed only to typisie the Lord Christ and to lead Believers to him as to the End and Substance thereof which our Lord being he was so far from destroying it that he perfectly fulfilled it though he abrogated its future legal Authority And so not one tittle of the Ceremonial Law did fail for all had its Accomplishment on Christ no more than a tittle of the Moral Law
Hebraick Critick Dr. Lightfoot informs us Yet here our Lord expresly commands the Healed Person to take up his Bed and walk that is to carry it either to his own House or to some other convenient place for so he did in obedience to this Command v. 10. Whereat the Jews were very highly offended and condemned it as an unlawful Act and sought to persecute and kill Christ for enjoyning of it v. 16. Now we would enquire to what end our Lord Christ did enjoyn this Person to carry such a Burden on the Sabbath If it be said it was to try his Faith and Obedience or clearly to evince the Perfection of his miraculous Cure or both of these 'T is replied that these things could be as well done without the carriage of his Bed He might have gone every where and proclaimed his Cure and his Restorer he might have done it by leaping dancing and praising God as the Cripple in Acts 3. Wherefore 't is probably apprehended by learned Men that it was a practical Proof of his being Supream Lord of the Sabbath and of his Authority to change the old day into another of his own appointment and this was a real blow begun to be given to it Besides all that was said against these his Arguments for the Seventh day to be the Lords day meant in the Revelation 'T is observable that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used but once more in the New Testament and that is 1 Cor. 11.20 where the Sacrament of our Saviours Body and Blood is called the Lords Supper in which it is clear it signifies both his Authoritative Institution thereof and that his own Death is signified thereby The Lord is both the Institutor thereof and his Death the thing commemorated thereby And therefore Reason and comparing Scripture with Scripture would require that it should be so understood here also even as a day of his own Institution as the Son of Man For so he appeared to John to be in the Vision And so St. John calls him Rev. 1.13 and so a day for his own Commemoration even of his Resurrection viz. the First day of the Week which none deny to be that day And 't was on that day whereon the Author of the Revelations saw the Lord Jesus walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks with the Seven Stars in his Right Hand that is with his Orthodox and Zealous Ministers receiving their Light and Heat from him the Sun of Righteousness And then diffusing it abroad in the Churches or in the midst of the Congregations which we know the Orthodox Fathers throughout all Ages of the Church have principally done upon the First day of the Week the day of the Resurrection And so the future Practice of the Church proves the Lords day to be the First day of the Week Again St. John calls this the Lords day after his Resurrection and our Saviour tells him Verse 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live forevermore Implying that as after his Incarnation Obedience Death Resurrection Ascension Session on the Right Hand of God and Mission of the Holy Ghost all the former carnal and ceremonial Administrations vanished and a new Government new external Modes of Worship were introduced which were properly the Lords and bear the Stamp of his Authority as Mediator as God-Man over the Church and all her Ordinances So this was also the Day of his own Institution after his Humiliation and Exaltation for the Celebration of his new Institutions the other being excluded with the former Appendixes thereto What follows under this Head being what has been spoken to before and is frequently inculcated as of great Moment for him as the Moral Law as the now changing of the Sabbath meer Pretences of the other party c. as being but a little better than the begging the Question and taking that for granted which we utterly deny These I tacitly pass by and leave the Judicious Reader to judge if after all has been said it be not far more probable that the Lords day spoken of in the Revelations is the First day of the Week as all Schollars and Churches almost have hitherto believed than the Seventh day thereof which a very few scarce deserving the Title of Number have pitched upon as a Prop to their tottering Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XV. THere are other Texts which he produces Page 69.70 as Rom. 14.5 6. Gal. 4.9 10 11. Col. 2.16 17. from whence we hold and contend the Seventh day to be everlastingly excluded from the Christian future Sabbath the chief being the Two latter of these We say in Gal. by Days are meant the Jewish Seventh day because the Apostle mentions their Months that is their Observance of the New-Moon Festivals Times Which some apply to Easter Pentecost Feast of Tabernacles c. and Years which some think is meant of the yearly Feast of Atonement and Expiation Or it may be understood of the year of Jubilee if not the Great Jubilee every Fiftieth year yet the less of every Seventh year which St. Paul probably observed them very Superstitious in But whatever the Difference may be in the particular Applications of these Terms yet they generally hold the more rare or seldom Jewish Festivals to be meant and by Days then what other Festival of the Jews can be understood but the Seventh day If he do not mean their Weekly Sabbath by Days it cannot well be conceived what it should be We doubt not but by the latter Three Expressions Months Times and Years are meant Jewish Festivals And why Days should not signify the same cannot well be imagined Besides we find that these Galatians were greatly infected with the false Leven of Judaical Doctors who taught them to observe Circumcision c. as is seen clearly by the Epistle and seems to be the chief occasion of Writing it to turn them from and sortify them against such false Doctrins and dangerous Observances And therefore hence we conclude St. Paul condemns the Galatian Church for keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath as well as other Judaical Rites and Festivals and tells them he is afraid he had bestowed his labour in vain upon them In that Text to the Colossians we have the Observance of Sabbaths expresly spken of and thereby St. Paul discarded from their Observance as Shadows which were to vanish when Christ the Body was come By which we contend is meant the Weekly-Sabbath because that in the Scripture is Chiefly Mostly if not Solitarily the Acceptation thereof And we have heard him again and again asserting that 't is the Intent of this Word every where And I believe so whenever it stands absolutely as here without some Annexion or other to alter its Signification And what Reason can be given why here it should not so be understood that only here and no place else in the Bible it should not be taken for the Weekly-Seventh-day Moreover here the Apostle seems plainly to intend