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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A33397 A serious and brief discourse touching the Sabbath-Day intended to decide and determine all controversies respecting that subject / by Thomas Cleadon ... Cleadon, Thomas. 1674 (1674) Wing C4624; ESTC R35646 8,024 12

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A Serious and Brief DISCOURSE Touching the Sabbath-Day Intended to decide and determine all CONTROVERSIES Respecting that SUBJECT BY THOMAS CLEADON Rector of Radwinter in the County of Essex LONDON Printed by A. M. for Edward Brewster at the sign of the Crane in St. Paul's Church-yard 1674. OF THE SABBATH THAT we may be truly and clearly informed of the Doctrine of the Sabbath we must consider and receive these following Truths First That Adam so long as he continued in the estate of Innocency in which he was created of God nor was nor could be under the obligation of the ten Commandments and so not under the obedience of the fourth Commandment for can it rationally be supposed that Adam being created perfectly holy Gen. 1. 26 27 made after the Image of God which was perfect in Adam his Understanding was as full of concreated light of the knowledg of God and of his works as was necessary to his present happiness and he was suitably perfect in his will and affections and therefore while he continued in this perfect holy estate what need had he of the Ten Commandments or of what use could they be unto him He knew not what it was to worship an Image or to take Gods Name in vain nor could he know any of the sins forbidden nor any of the duties commanded in the second Table of the Law nor was of it any use to him who was perfectly holy nor did he know that God would set apart one day in seven to be more holy than the rest for had he continued in the estate of Innocency more days than that in which he was created the eight day and the ninth and the tenth day and every had been alike holy to him and as much a Sabbath to him as the Seventh day for he would have been still perfectly holy and therefore not subject to bodily weariness and so needed not bodily rest nor would he then have needed any of those outward duties and ordinances of worship required of us in the second or fourth Commandments for our spiritual edification and comfort for he needed not either spiritual information or spiritual comfort or spiritual growth as we do since the fall a perfect estate of grace and holiness hath no need of any of these spiritual helps and means no more than the holy Saints in Heaven have now need or use of them And hence two things must necessarily be inferred 1. That man was fallen from his Innocency before he was commanded to observe the seventh day as the time of the Sabbath or holy Rest as it was afterwards expressed in the fourth Commandment and it is evident that Gods great design in creating man was not his continuance in the estate of innocency for one day and therefore as soon as man was created and put into Paradise God made a Covenant with him for himself and all his posterity That if he did eat first of the fruit of the tree of knowledg of good and evil he and all his posterity should presently dye that is a spiritual death by being stript of that holy image of God in which he was created but if he did eat first of the tree of Life which stood next to the other then he and all his posterity should continue for ever in their present holy and happy estate Now the Devil hearing and knowing that God had made this Covenant with him and fearing lest Adam should eat first of the tree of Life and so he and all his posterity should live for ever he being full of envy and malice and subtilty he presently entred into the Serpent and in and by the Serpent perswaded and prevailed with Eve and by Eve perswades and prevailed with Adam to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree and so they both and all their posterity were deprived of that innocent and holy estate in which they were created therefore Gods great design in creating man was that by his fall he might take occasion to glorifie both his Mercy and Justice in sending his Son into the world to be a Redeemer and Saviour which he did in promise immediately upon mans fall Gen. 3. 15 and by actual exhibition when the fulness of time was come Gal. 4. 4 And therefore Adam's continuance in the estate of innocency for so short a time was most sutable to Gods great design in man's creation 2. This also must necessarily be inferred That Adam being created perfectly innocent and holy could not fall from that holy and happy estate by any other way but only by doing some outward act in its own nature lawful which God should forbid him to do and God forbad him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledg of good and evil which was in it self lawful but became unlawful for him to eat of that fruit by a positive negative precept from God Gen. 2. 17. For God never made with man but two Covenants essentially differing one from the other the first was made with man in the estate of innocency before his fall expressed in Gen. 2. 16 17 and this if you will you may call a Covenant of Works and this Covenant he brake Gen. 3. 6. And the second Covenant God made with man in his lapsed or fallen estate being devoid of all spiritual good overspread with original sin and under the guilt of eternal death and this was a Covenant of Grace touching the redemption and salvation of man a sinner by the death and sufferings of Christ both God and Man and this Covenant of Grace God did reveal and express to Adam immediately upon his fall in Gen. 3. 15. and what God hath revealed to be his will in reference to man a sinner ever since he made that promise hath been but an explication and amplification of that Covenant-promise made in Christ Now this Covenant of Grace since that first promise made to man in his lapsed estate God hath revealed to man a sinner or rather to his Church and people by such degrees and means as he pleased for as for the first two thousand years after that promise God revealed his will and mind to his people not by writing but either by visions or dreams or by audible voice and the like but at the end of two thousand years when God brought his people out of Egypt they being grown to a great Nation in their passage through the Wilderness God established the Covenant of Grace with them in a more publick way and after a more solemn manner upon Mount Sinai and then and not before he spake the Ten Commandments to them with his own mouth and also he wrote them in two Tables of stone with his own hand to be unto them and to all succeeding Churches in covenant with him a rule to walk by Exod. 31. 18. Now these Ten Words or Ten Commandments are no where in the Scripture called the Moral Law but by Divine Writers they are so called a morando because they