and not the seventh in order or the last day of the Week This we say is not expresly commanded therein and might be altered for another day of the Seven upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds as it is from it to the first In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue from Mat. 5.17 19. Luke 16.17 and then asks why those places confirm all the 10 Commands and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature which inclines us to be Gods c. when yet he knows that they that are for the change of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments which do amount in their Esteems to a divine Authority for that Change though they do not produce an express Command for it as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet what amounts thereto but it seems all these are not Reasons to him are not so much as Shews of Reasons But the only Reason is Man's Corruption Pride and Rebellion Whereas he cannot but know that many of those who in Doctrin and Practice admit of this Change are as free from these Vices and have as much mortifyed them as himself and are as Eminent for Holiness and Humility and Obedience to God as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be And their Earnestness for the First day does not spring from the Looseness of others thereon nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom But because they know 't is not Moral as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions with many other good and solid Grounds And here I shall ask him by way of requital if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral and by Christ confirmed as well as all the other Commands which are undeniably so Whence comes it to pass that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer either by way of Recommendation of it to them or commending of them for their Zeal for it and tthe strict Observance of it nor yet commanding of its Observance or teaching them how they should Keep and Sanctify it according to its first Institution seeing 't is clear that he in his Discourse doth particularize every other Duty of the Moral Law and Exhorts and Requires Obedience thereto In all his most copious and glorious Sermon upon the Mount where he Explains Enlarges upon and Injoyns the other Moral Duties we have not a Word about their Sabbath and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue he never mentions among them the Sabbath nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees and captions Jews in their condemning him and his Disciples as Profaners of the Sabbath c. to expound the Duty of the Sabbath and to shew them wherein the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto uttered by him only a Vindication of his own and his Disciples Practices from a Profanation thereof If I may judge at the Reasons I think they may be such as these 1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others not Moral as they nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already 3. Because neither they nor we neither Jews nor Gentiles should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day and its Conversion into the First day 5. Because as Place Priesthood Mode outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship which were before his coming into the Flesh were to be altered by his Authority as King of the Church so was Time also the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly observed into another day wherein his own Institutions were to be chiefly and generally practised by his Church And for these and such like Reasons he did not only particularly recommend and enjoyn but did also speak and do as has been formerly hinted and may be futurely evinced such words and things as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day but to a good Intention which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors Bloody Wars c. As though this general Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along since the days of our Lord Christ had no other Foundation but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots and not the least Footing for it in the Word of God An unworthy Suggestion and a most invidious Comparison and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading 'T is strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government Doctrin Worship and Practice of the Church according to the Word of God and the Patern in the Mount should mean as one if not the chiest of those Particulars the removal of the First-day-Sabbath and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu thereof When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox and his Adversaries in this Opinion prescribe the same rule for the Reformation and call upon those in Authority to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesiastial and Civil to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ And Commenius himself in his Practice and in his own Church was an Observer and Sanctifier of the First-day-Sabbath as he here acknowledgeth so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day And therefore questionless did not esteem the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule according to which he would have all Churches regulated But here we see what a strong fancy can do it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant if not directly contrary thereto SECT VII HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abrogating the Ceremonial Laws But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation as he requires us to do for not the Abrogation but only the Mutation of the Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another For I assert and can prove it that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ than his Seventh-day-Sabbath I take leave to call it his because though 't was Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ yet now 't is not so but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions while they are rigorous towards others and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments In the same Page he gives us a
superadded Precept 2. Between that which is Purely Naturally and Absolutely Moral in it self and that which is Secondarily Respectively and Positively Moral The former is that spoken of above the latter is that which though the rational Creature could not of it self have judged a Duty yet when 't is once imposed by Command and so revealed to be the Legislator's Pleasure there is discerned in the thing it self a very great Equity Goodness and Suitableness to Gods Glory or the Creatures Good or both As in the case of Tithes or the Tenth of every Mans Estate to be devoted to Pious Uses for the Maintenance of the Worship of God and of those that are by him called thereto and imployed therein Though the Light of Nature could not primarily and from it self have discovered and devoted this very precise proportion to the immediate Service of God as absolutely necessary Yet when God does once require it it must needs close with it as very reasonable and just that God who gives all and whose all is should have the Tenth part devoted and separated to his own Service So that the Goodness of this does not only arise from the Will of the Legislator but also from the Nature of what is required when 't is once discerned to be the Legislator's Pleasure So that it is neither purely positive nor yet primarily Moral discovered only by the Promulgation of the Legislator and then embraced at and acknowledged to be most just and good by the Creature from whom 't is required Whereas what is purely positive has nothing just or good in it self nor discernable after its Imposition 3. In the Fourth Command we must distinguish between 1. The Duty commanded 2. the Explication of the Duty and 3. the Arguments and Motives thereto And so without any more nice Distinctions we proceed by God's Assistance to our Apprehensions about this Matter 1. The Duty Commanded or the Substance of the Fourth Command which is in the first Words of that Command Remember the Sabbath-day or the Day of the Sabbath to keep it holy or to sanctify it Where we acknowledge the Rest or the holy Rest to be primarily and absolutely Moral which this right Judgment of the rational Creature dictates directs to as that which it ows to its Creatour Preserver and Benefactor even a set and solemn Time separated and devoted to the immediate Service Praises and Adoration of God who because of his own Infinite and Incomparable Excellencies deserves all their Praises and Adoration and because of their own innumerable and inestimable Benefits received from him merits all their Love and Observance Which Imployment the rational Creature would acknowledge to be the most noble and excellent the most happy and blessed that it can be imployed in being the Imploying of the most noble Faculties of the Soul in their most excellent Acts about the most raised and glorious Object This I say the true Light of Nature would direct unto and so is purely moral But whether it would have directed to a Separation of a whole intire Day thereto I cannot resolve Though this also may be most probable being a Time so limited measured and distinguished by the antecedent and subsequent Darkness or by the Presence Light and Motion of the Sun in the Hemisphere But here I believe we may take for granted that the rational Creature in its Rectitude would have actually consecrated to so divine Worship and imployed in divine Worship all that Time that could have been duly and conveniently spared from the Refreshment of the Body and those due Preparations which must be made for his decaying outward Man so that Adam would have subserviated had he stood in his Innocence all his tilling of the Garden all his eating drinking and sleeping all the Recruits of his Body to the solemn Manner as that which was the End of his being the due of his God from him and the highest and most blessed Imployment of himself This I say would have been had he beenleft to the Dictates of his own Knowledge which was given him of God of himself and of his Ingagements to the Author of his being and well-being and not been prescribed by a Precept from his Lord and Sovereign But however this all must acknowledge that a Time of Rest For that 's the english of Sabbath to be set apart and sanctified to the immediate Service of the most high and munisicent God is purely moral And it may be also thought that an intire Day may bid fairly for it And this I say is the Substance of this Precept and really moral But here before I proceed I must obviate a little Criticism which the Author here seems to lay a great Stress upon and that is about ה hè in the Original which he would fain have to be very emphatical and to signifie That by way of Eminency here in this Verse the beginning of the Command the Words are Remember the Day of Rest Eth Jom Hasshabbath I would enquire of him whether this rendring of these Words be not as proper as any he can render it by Whether the Day of Rest be not so proper as the Day of a Rest or the Day of that Rest For every one that hath but peeped into the Hebrew Bible very well knows that that Letter ה serves many times if not most times only for a Letter and Ornament of writing without any Signification whatever And whether I render it by an English Particle or no he cannot blame me if I will he hath no Reason to quarrel me if I render it A or The nor I much to quarrel him though he chuses to translate it That For neither A nor The nor That are found in the Original but are only English Particles And I would fain know what Emphasis the same Hebrew Particle hath before Shamajim Aretz and I am Heaven Earth and Sea and whether the Translation either without a Particle or with that which carries no Emphasis be not far better than the Translation with an Emphatical one As for Example the Lord made Heaven and Earth and Sea or the Lord made the Heaven the Earth and the Sea are not better than the Lord made that Heaven that Earth and that Sea for if we take this Particle That Emphatically it seems to signifie that there are more Heavens for we suppose the visible Heaven or inferiour one is here meant and Earths and Seas than One and that 't is Emphatically and Eminently meant of those in the in Command beyond the others whereas there is no other Heaven Earth or Sea but what is meant in the Command and therefore would be very impertinently rendred by an Emphatical That From whence I would ask this Gentleman what reason there is why ה before Sabbath and Shebigni should be more Emphatical than before those other Words in the same Command Sure that Opinion wants solid and deep Foundations that must be upheld by such superficial and weak ones Thus much
him to all Mankind without distinction and that before the Sin and Fall of Adam And hence concludes that 't is a Moral Law incumbent upon Adam and all his Posterity which is a Conclusion either from rotten Premises or from such as will never logically infer the Conclusion Which we shall shew as briefly as we can and what is spoken here may lessen some of our Work hereafter 1. Hereby is implyed that this Command of the Seventh-day-Sabbath was given to Man in the State of Innocency which he can never prove For though the Institution thereof be inserted in the beginning of the 2. of Genesis yet 't is clear the Scripture doth not always keep a Chronical Order We must not expect in our Bible a constant Prius and Posterius as they say but the sacred History admits of many hysterons proterons of many Misplacings with respect to the order of time relating those thigns before which were done after and Vice Versa And 't is most clear that 't is so in this very place For here the Sabbath is recorded before the Plantation of Paradice v. 8. which was not spoken of before yet was Paradice part of the Works of the Creation and consequently created before the Seventh day though spoken of afterward which proves that the order of the relation of the Sabbath is no infallible proof that it was instituted before the Fall but might be after it though antecedently mentioned And Mr. Warren brings many probable Arguments to prove that Adam fell before the Sabbath-day and consequently before the giving or declaring of that Precept because therein God's resting on the Seventh-day is proposed as an Example and Motive to his keeping of it which could not be done before the Seventh-day came And so the Command must be given after the Fall Which Arguments of his ought to have been fairly debated their Moment considered and a due Answer and Solution given to them before this had been so peremptorily asserted But 2ly This seems to imply that whatever Injunction God gave to Adam before the Fall was of things that are purely Moral or so in themselves or else it can never regularly be drawn from this Medium that therefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath was so But this we know was not so for God prohibited him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which was purely positive and a Duty only resulting from the Will of the Legislator Again if we should take it for granted that the Institution and Injunction of the Seventh-day was antecedent to the Fall yet this would rather prove the Negative than the Affirmative of its pure Morality For whatever was purely Moral and a Duty of its self resulting from the Nature Qualifications and Obligations of the rational Creature Adam in the perfect Knowledge of that Nature must know and discern in and of himself and consequently would have known the Seventh-day to be so And if he knew it there needed no Institution thereof by God at all Besides 't is very observable that from the Creation of our first Parents till their Fall we do not read of one Moral Duty enjoyned them either of the First or Second Table unless this be supposed to be so and what reason can be given for it but this that it needed not because they were all fully and distinctly implanted in Mans Soul If therefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath had been so Moral 't would not have needed a singular Institution much less such Arguments to inforce its Observance upon perfectly wise and holy Adam From whence in my Apprehension a good Argument may be drawn against its Morality 3. It implies that all the Commands that were given to Adam in Innocency are authoritatively incumbent upon all his Posterity The contrary whereto is clear in the prohibition of the Tree in the midst of the Garden for that ceased both to himself and all his Posterity upon his Fall By all which we see the weak reasonings of this Author In the following Paragraph he tells us that all those things were recorded for the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ where as none of them do at all concern Jesus Christ For all those things in the foregoing Paragraph by his own Doctrin and according to his own Sentiments were effected and agitated before the Fall of Man In which time there could not be so much as any need or use of a Jesus or a Christ Nor was there so much as the least Hint of him given by either Prophesie or Promise much less was he himself in being And consequently none of these things could conduce to his glory for there can nothing appertain to that which is not And thus these supposed unmoveable Foundations of this Tenent are found not to be so much as Sandy For they are found to be nothing at all as he would have them refer to our Lord Christ We acknowledge therefore that all these Particulars which he named are for the Glory of Jehovah and that the Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath home to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Dead was to his Praise as Creator and Legislator But withal we hope to prove that the Change of it and dedicating another day of the Week to our Lord Jesus Christ the same Jehovah and spotless Son of the Virgin does highly conduce to his Honour as Lord and Glorious Redeemer as Conqueror of Hell and Death as Accomplisher of that Great and Glorious Work of our merited Salvation A Work unconceivably more glorious in it self and insinitely more advantageous to us and really laborious and grievous to himself and as he entred into his real Rest on that day even the first day out of the Depths of his Humilitation Here in the next Paragraph he quotes Mat. 12.8 The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath with that Gloss or Interpretation which he puts upon it which I doubt not is very false and has been already proved to be so But because he refers it to another Place we shall attend him there and then endeavour to give its true meaning About the Fourhth Question Page 23. I shall not contend for I verily believe the antient Patriarchs did Observe and Sanctify the Seventh-day SECT IV. THE fifth Question Whether the Ten Commands were given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles Page 24. He thinks he hath proved the Legislation of Christ from the Beginning But how this is to be understood and wherein he has taken false Measures has been before shewn Whether he gave them to Jews and Gentiles that is to all Mankind he takes this for granted also Which we also assert even that all the Moral Law was given to the Humane Nature and so to all Mankind in Adam But withall that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was no part of the Moral Law no nor yet a seventh part of time to be Consecrated and Sanctified to Divine Worship I mean not Primarily and in it self Moral which I should endeavour here to prove if I
is by our Lord Jesus and others more Easie Clear and Effectual introduced in their room whereof we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be which he can never prove to be Moral and so was to be excluded with them and a new Time as well as new Rites instituted by the King of the Church His next Argument to prove his Assertion is from those Passages wherein 't is said The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day Matt. 12.8 Mark 2.28 Luke 6.5 A Proof which we make use of to prove our Doctrin of the First-day-Sabbath and he thinks makes clearly and strongly for his Though there may be some ground for the Opinion of ordinary Men being meant by the Son of Man in these Texts because 't is the Appellation which the Holy Ghost usually gives them calling them Sons of Men and when he speaks to Ezekiel particularly his usual Expression is Son of Man And St. Mark relating the same History of the Disciples gathering Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day and the Pharisees being scandalized thereat and complaining to our Lord Christ that they did that which was not Lawful as the occasion of this saying of our Lord Jesus which the other Evangelists relate also and no other occasion of it is recorded in them neither do we find that he used it at any other time seems to carry it in this Sense for he saith Mark 2.27 28. that Christ said unto these Censurers The Sabbath was made for Man and not Man for the Sabbath And then immediately adds this Sentence with an Illative Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath I suppose no Man will deny but that the first Verse is meant of ordinary I mean meer Men for 't is brought by our Lord Christ as a Vindication of his Disciples action who were meer Men and not of any one of his own who was God as well as Man Withall I believe that we cannot find in all the Scripture that appellative Man thus abstractly and absolutely used without any distinction or Limitation antecedent or consequent to it understood of any but of meer Men which being granted the Illative therefore seems to carry the next Sentence for the same Subject and to declare that Man common Man is Lord of the Sabbath not an authoritative Lord to dispose of it as he pleases and do on it as he lists but so far a Lord as to be the end of the Sabbath for whose Profit and Comfort it was ordained As a Son may be said to be Lord of that House that is built for him and in which he dwells and uses for his Convenience and Delight though his Father obliges him not to sell or alienate it and the Laws of the Land not to burn it Though therefore this Interpretation of the Son of Man be no way Heterodox nor any way strained from this Text neither do we by this Interpretation give a meer Man a Lordship over the Moral Law as he supposes for his taking for granted that the Last-day-Sabbath is Moral I look upon as his Fundamental Error and the great cause of his Mistaken Confidence in all this Discourse We say that in no respect Man is Lord over any of the Moral Law not in this that we speak of for Man was made for the Moral Law that is to perform all the Duties thereof but now Man is Lord over the Sabbath as our Lord avouches in this respect viz. That the Sabbath was made for him and therefore cannot be Moral as before But yet I say let it be granted that 't is spoken precisely of our Lord Christ Likewise we grant that the Sabbath spoken of in these Texts was the Seventh-day-Sabbath and that our Lord Christ as the Son of Man that is such a Son of Man as is also the Son of God is Lord of the Sabbath we should have observed before to evacuate all his Proofs drawn from the Old Testament to prove the Seventh day of the Week to be the Lord's day here spoken of that he who is here called the Lord of the Sabbath is said to be the Son of Man which he was not then Wherefore being such an one it cannot be denied but that he is an Absolute Lord of the Sabbath without Limitation and so hath power to alter and change the day which is no way Moral I mean not the Seventh day at all and so to make that to be lawful on the Seventh day which before was not even all sorts of honest Imployments of our particular Callings as well as charitable Actions for when the day ceases to be Holy and another advanced to that Honour by his Authority then being a common day common works are proper for it which may seem to be the proper Intention of this Expression to the Jews for when they blamed him as a Tolerator of the Profanation of the Sabbath by his Disciples he takes a double Medium to refute their Slander the one as a Doctor and Prophet of the Church and so he teaches them that that charitable Action of theirs toward their own Nature was no Breach but an allowed work of that day and proves it by a Scriptural President and so vindicates his Disciples Action from Sin Wherefore supposing as this Author does that our Saviour had no other design but to vindicate his Disciples this had been abundantly enough and he needed not to recur to his own Anthority over that day which he does and so uses another Medium as a Lord and King of the Church and so of all the Institutions and particularly of the Seventh-day-Sabbath for which they were as Zealous as the Author as necessary and permanent and says he himself is Lord of the Sabbath and so had Authority to abrogate that day or establish it as he pleased which seems to imply this much You are ever and anon carping at my Disciples and especially at me as though their and mine Actions were Profanations of the Sabbath But I would have you to know that I have a Sovereignty over it and can dispose of it as I please and make things that are not Lawful on the Seventh to be Legitimate Which we look upon as a hint of its Abrogation shortly after Especially considering what Christ did or caused to be done on that day in another place viz. John 5.8 where having cured the impotent Man at the Pool of Bethesda he commands him to rise to take up his Bed and walk Now we know that bearing of Burdens on the Sabbath day is expresly forbid Jer. 17.21 22 24 27. and there are Promises made unto them that would obey that Command and bear no Burdens and Threats denounced against them that should contradict it serving to consirm the Defence of bearing Burdens on that day Accordingly Nebemiah was strict in its Observance Neh. 13.19 and the Jews themselves were very nice in this particular and very severe in their Punishment of such Bearers by Whipping and by Death as that great
here spoken of is the Seventh day that the Flight here spoken of is that at nearest of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple about Forty Years after Christ And therefore our Saviour knowing what a great Trouble of Spirit 't would be to gracious and devout Souls to be forced to flee for their Lives on that day whereon they should have been Glorifying their God and Refreshing their own Souls in Religious Duties and Holy Communion with the Father and the Son He exhorts them to Pray against such an Evil thereby implying as he would have it the Continuance of that Sabbath and his own Confirmation thereof till then and so forever Wherein I think I have I am sure I intended to have given all the strength of what he hath written from hence and not concealed or lessened any whit of it Unto which I proceed to answer that 1. Some understand this to be a proverbial kind of Speech to express the Difficulty and Irksomness of a thing that 't will be as tedious as a Journy in a Cold Snowy Dirty Winter or as a Flight to a superstitious Jew upon a Sabbath-day 2. Others apprehend it to be spoken to the Disciples in this Sense Pray that your Flight may not be on the Seventh-day-Sabbath Because thereby you will greatly offend the superstitious Jews who will deem you as Profaners of that day hereby and so will be so far from Pitying and Relieving you that they will hate and michief you all they can As we know the Jews were great Enemies to them because they were so to their Ceremonial Worship as they deemed them and to their Sabbaths too and hence were so far from sheltring them from that they betrayed them to and delivered them up into the Hands of Heathenish Persecutors 3. It may well be interpreted specifically of a Sabbath and not numerically of the Seventh day only And so 't is as if our Lord had said pray that on what ever day your Solemn Rest for Religious Worship and Divine Service shall be that on that day your Flight may not be for 't will then be very grievous and more intolerable than on any day of the Week And so includes yea primarily intends the First day the Dominical day But 4. To be as fair as we can with him and to grant all that he does desire we will suppose that our Saviour did mean by his words what they 't is most probable did understand by them even the Seventh day to be that Sabbath on which they were to deprecate their Flight Yet this will be also far enough from so clear a Proof for him as he imagines For we know 't is usual in the Holy Writers to speak of Evangelical days and of the Worship of God in them under Legal Metaphors to wit by Sacrifices by erecting of Altars by coming up to the Temple c. as all that know the Stile of the Prophets cannot but be acquainted with because these were then the Services which that People performed and they knew no other and probably would not have endured the mentioning of any other So here our Saviour speaks indeed literally of the Seventh-day-Sabbath because the Jews and his Disciples who were Jews knew yet of no other neither were prepared to hear of the future substituting of another day in its place Yet this does no more confirm the Seventh day to be the future Sabbath than those other Scriptural Sayings do the Ceremonial Rites to be the Evangelical Worship or the external Modes of serving God in the times of Reformation and when the Body and Substance of these Signs and Figures were exhibited Besides we say our Saviour did very well foresee that many of his Disciples as we know the Churches of Galatia and Colosse and those of Jerusalem with James did would many years after his Decease dote upon the judaical Ceremonies and would reverence them out of Conscience to God their Author and Imposer And so also on the judaical day And therefore our Lord fore-apprehending this bids them to deprecate their Flight on such a day which their own Conceits and false Apphrehensions of things would make more grievous and burdensom to themselves not his Injunctions or the real Obligation of the day And there is nothing more common than this way of speaking according to Mens Apprehension of things without any the least Approbation of that Apprehension So we find our Saviour speaking in his Discourses of the Jews Circumcision very commendably and honourably yet I hope this did not confirm it for the future But here it may be objected But he did not Prophesie of its future Observance or require any thing of them upon a Supposition of its Continuance afterwards and therefore this is nothing to the purpose But we know he could not but foresee that they would observe it and keep it up in the Churches after his Departure from them and its Abrogation and so these Speeches of his would then be upon Record and probably made a Plea for its Use especially seeing he never did as I remember speak any thing against it or expresly of its future Extrusion out of the Churches Which Speeches of his cannot Authorize their future Practice Neither can our Saviours foresight of their superstitions and mistaken Observance of the Seventh day and his Command for their Ease-sake upon that Prevision authorize the Continuance thereof Therefore seeing there are so many Solutions given to this Plea against the Apostles meaning of the Seventh day when he condemns them for their Observance of Days and Sabbaths whereof some one may be deemed sufficient but much more all together It cannot by any impartial judicious Person be thought of any Prevalency to evade an express Prohibition of the Apostle of the Observance of that day which we contend his Prohibition of Sabbaths to be the Seventh being the most famous of all Sabbaths Being that which is mostly if not only intended by that Expression in Scripture and in that very word whereby the Holy Ghost in the New Testament intends and means the Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XVI HE begins Page 75. to betake himself to the Command it self and would from thence collect an absolute Necessity of the perpetual Observance of the last day of the Week asserting the Morality of the whole Command and endeavouring from some Passages and Letters of that Law to ratify his own Opinion herein Therefore I shall take leave with as much Brevity and Plainness as I can to give my weak Thoughts about it and leave it to the Learned and Judicious to determine Here we must premise a Distinction or two 1. Between Moral and Positive between that which is Good Just and Holy in it self which emerges from the right Constitution of the rational Creature and so would be a Duty if 't were never externally injoyned by God And that which has no such innate Goodness neither would have been performed as a Duty by Man were it not imposed by a