the last and best day of the Week to take my sweet repose in him who formed all these things and who had brought forth such a world somewhat for me vile unworthy sinful me But that which was and is through the Grace of God an Holy Rest to me has been and is like further to be through the corruptions of men a troublesom Controversie from them Must I now be made a man of contention who have so much desired and endeavoured to be a man of Peace My LORD is going forth in his comely Honour riding upon the word of his Truth and he will prosper His Truth is victorious for this must I be valiant and earnestly contend in his strength For this end was he born and for this cause came he into the world that he should bear witness unto the Truth Every one that is of the Truth heareth his voice Happy is he who has a good report of the Truth it self In the Order of my pursuit after the refining and raising of useful Arts and profitable Knowledges I am now led to that day the Seventh which is the last day in the week wherein Aelohim the Creator himself did Sabbatize on this day he rested to contemplate his own Works For having now framed and disposed the glorious Fabrick and the goodly structure of the whole Universe and having put it into its beauteous ceconomy and regular Polity he closeth the week with a day blessed above all the other foregoing days of the Week The righteous cause of which sanctified Day I am now to plead against the many Contenders against it Having thus in a former Treatise attended followed and walked with Aelohim in some of his great Works on the several distinct six foregoing days of this created World I am now brought to Sabbatize and rest with and in Him on his Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath There are divers profitable Disquisitions that might be made with respect to the Seventh which is the last Day of every Week For the advancement of this Holy Art and for the Improvement of this Spiritual Science which would be a great promoting to this useful Learning As Q. Whether every Day of the week be of equal length Particularly whether the seventh-Seventh-day which is the last day in every week be not longer in time and have more minutes in it than the First day of the week If the seventh-Seventh-day be found longer in time it has a concreated Excellency in nature unchangeable dignoscible to Sense Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be from Shabath or from Jachab If from Shabath there are many Truths and Duties which that word would clear up and also demonstrate the Observation of the weekly-seventh-day-weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath before the Promulgation of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do point out the daily and weekly seasons of created instituted time for daily-evening-and-morning-Worship and for weekly-Sabbath-Worship Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not in divers Scriptures set out the Seventh the last day of the Week and this in some places before Aelohims proclaiming of the Ten words at Horeb Q. Whether the LORD Jesus Christ having risen again the Third day according to the Scriptures that Third day be the Full complete Third day from the time of his burial and what that particular large day of the week was and what the certain hour of that particular large day was in which He did actually arise and what Scripture-evidence there is of this which is queried not at all in the least to question the Truth of his Resurrection which we firmly believe but rather to strengthen our Faith therein and to promote Scripture-knowledg of the Doctrine of Christs Resurrection upon which the whole of the Christian Religion doth so much depend and for some other good ends For the present there are some weighty reasons why I do not interpose my own Apprehensions about these Quaeries but leave them to those who are of studious inquiring Spirits who by a deeper search into the word of Truth in the Supplies of the Holy Spirit may make those Discoveries that will at once both convince and shame the ignorant-mistaking-World Whilst for the better satisfaction of serious seekers after Christs mind about the weekly-Sabbath I shall in a Word-way through the whole Scripture where this Case is spoken to and of treat of this one Enquiry returning a plain and as I judge a full Answer thereunto Q. Whether the Seventh Day which is the last Day in and of the Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the old-Testament-administration of Grace through and be so under the New Testament Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-Sabbath-day A. The Seventh-day which is the last day in and of the week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the Old-Testament-Administration of Grace through and is so under the New-Testament-Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-sabbath-weekly-Sabbath-day The whole Scripture is profitable for this Doctrine and for this Duty This closing part of the History of the Creation is express for it When Jehovah Aelohim had finished all his Works relating unto the six foregoing days of this one week The LORD Christ now on the Seventh-day actually perfected and will continue actually perfect in the whole and in every part of it His delegated-work which he had made adornedly-really to exist preparedly perfected and He did then Sabbatize and his will was is and will be that from thence his people shall Sabbatize ceasing resting from other motion and work of the fore-mentioned creating kind In a Day that Seventh from all his Work the which he had made and he did and will bless in word and in deed in a continued way in the weekly revolutions of it as long as weeks shall last in this world That day That Seventh and he did and will sanctifie by severing it from a common use and destinating it to an Holy Use accomodating it to instituted Ordinances of solemn Worship the same because in it he hath sabbatized and will Sabbatize from all his work the which he had created pure without spot or blemish of corruptness or uncomeliness for to make This Seventh is a Number completely perfecting the Week For when such a number of days hath filled up the week then we begin again with one second third fourth fifth and sixth till it comes to another seventh And there the Week in the continued revolutions thereof doth still receive a perfective end The Greek Interpreters here as in a many of other Scriptures else where are Corrupters of the Hebrew Text who do translate in the sixth day for the Seventh and
were shut out of that Rest which the Psalmist doth speak of was not their not entring into the Observation and Rest of the First Day which was none either of their Duty or Privilege They had no Law for the keeping of any other Day but only the Seventh and of what there is no Law there is no Transgression for Sin is the Transgression of the Law but their Sin was hardening of their Heart through unbelief and unperswadeableness and disobedience contrary to Christ's Mind and Will in His Word and by His messengers These in David's time had no Ground to expect to enjoy the Rest of a pretended New day of Weekly Sabbath under the New Testament Dispensation It is therefore from Day to Day in a continued Succession of Days Christ's Command to hearken to His Voice is an Actual Command given forth by Him to His People every Day which would more set this out if it were rendred Participially in the Present Tenses as it is in several Scriptures It doth deoote the Continuedness of the Command as the Successiveness of the Day As the Day is mistaken by the Objector so also is the Rest The Rest spoken of in this Epistle brought thither out of that Psalm is not meant either there or here of the Weekly-Sabbath-Rest As to the First Day of the Week in opposition to the Seventh let the following Arguments be exactly weighed in the Scripture ballance One is because the People in David's time were not bound to make out after the First-Day-Rest not being under any obligation to keep the First Day of the Week as their Weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath The Law of the Seventh-Day Sabbath was upon them as was shewed but a few lines before Further The Rest mentioned in both these places in that Psalm and in this Epistle was such a Rest as the people to whom David and the Author of this Epistle did write this had not as yet Then entred into they were not possessed of it whilst they remained in a State of unbelief neither ever would if they passed into the other World in that State of Unbelief impenitence disobedience and unperswadableness What Rest can then be named for the People of David's Time as is proved in the fore cited place of this Epistle in the Margin to enter into but only that Spiritual Eternal Rest of with and in Jehovah the Messiah As for the Rest of the Weekly-Sabbath That was from the Foundation of the World when God Rested from All His Works on the Seventh Day and accordingly blessed and sanctified that Particular Day as the Day of the Weekly Sabbath The Syriack and the Aethiopick Languages do express the Seventh Day by the word Sabbath in the fourth Verse of this fourth Chapter And this Rest at least as to the outward part of it was Entred upon by the Israelites in David's time and by their Forefathers long before The Rest mentioned in the forecited places of this Epistle is such a Rest as he and others had a Probability as well as Possibility though with difficulty and studiousness to enter yet into unless by their own unbelief and hardening of their Heart they did fall short of it Let Vs fear Vs He includes Himself Whereas if the First-day-rest pretended from hence to be the Christians Weekly-Sabbath had been the Rest here meant what difficulty or studiousness was there as to their entring upon this so far at least as to the External Duty and Privilege and especially as to the particular Case of the Author of this Epistle and of other of the Believing among those Hebrews in his Day who are supposed by these Objecters to have already entred upon the First-Day-Rest that is pretended which Author so earnestly exhorted the Hebrews to Enter upon the same Rest For we are to observe that he joyneth himself with the Hebrews to quicken up himself as well as them unto an Holy Fear lest he and they otherwise fell short of the Promised Rest through want of due diligence and through careless negligence though he himself reckon himself among the Believers He inforceth his exhortation by this Argument amongst others in the fourteenth Verse of the third Chapter drawn from a very profitable effect of it even from the consortship and society and fellowship that such will have with Christ in that heavenly inheritance if they retain firm even unto the end that beginning of confidence or subsistence by which Faith is described in this Epistle As for any partakership of Christ in a way of conformity to him with respect to the observation of weekly Sabbath-day it could have no relation to the First Day of the Week which Day Christ observed not as a Sabbath but through the whole of his life kept the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day The great Design of this Epistle the same thing which doth run all the Scripture through where occasion is given and taken to speak of this matter is to prove that a state of unbelief lived layn and dyed in will shut the guilty of it out of the sweet satisfying injoyment of the True Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest For to this particular purpose is it that he fetcheth his proof out of that Psalm confirming what he had said by the Testimony of David shewing that the Psaimist by that Rest could mean nothing else and nothing less but the Spiritual Eternal heavenly Rest there being no other Rest left out of which the unbelieving were threatned to be shut in that Psalm called so great a Salvation in the third Verse of the second Chapter of this Epistle The Rest of the weekly Sabbath had been entred upon already and as for the Canaan Rest that was some ages before David's Time entred upon and into by the surviving Israelites under the leading of Joshuah or Jesus or if you will of Jeshuang or Jesus by Joshuah Whereas the Rest promised here in the first verse of the fourth Chapter was such a Rest as Joshuah did not bring the Israelites into in the eighth Verse though he led them into Canaan the Type of it as the causal conjunction doth evidently prove which is an Answer to a tacit Objection if any did say that Joshua had placed the Fathers in that Rest As for that Canaan Rest it was actually possest by David and the Israelites of his Day This Land of Canaan is called the Land of Immanuel Isai 8. 8. that is of Christ because it was a sign of the Heavenly Inheritance obtained by Christ Heb. 11. 9 11. The Rest therefore that David speaks of must be a Rest yet to come The other Rests particularly mentioned having been already then entred into a Rest which they should fear they might be shut out from a Rest not past but yet to come This Epistle speaks of Believers entring into this promised Rest after their working season is at an end appears by comparing some Verses in
Instruments Meats and to other things It is also applyed to the Seventh-day Sabbath which Aelohim did sanctifie for holy Uses and to no other day of the whole week as such at the first Creation according to the Nature of its Essence in the order of its being before those after superadded Ceremonies and Shadows So that in this sense Right Reason would inform all reasonable men and women in the World that the Seventh the last day in every week has a concreated adaptness to be a day of holy Rest for the worship of their Maker and that they themselves should be an holy people separated to the service of the holy God Though his Church and People are thus sanctified and severed from other people by Jehovah in a peculiar especial manner his Elect yet more especially As for the Law of the ten Words if we look upon it in its superadded Ceremonies and some such other intermixed Annexes so it had somewhat peculiarly belonging to the Israelitish Church and people in Moses's time and to those of other Nations who were prosâ—lited to that Ceremonial Typical way under that Administration Whereas we under the New Testament have another manner of Dispensation of the same Grace in a more spiritual heavenly glorious way Although this Typical Figuring part made no real change even of old upon the Law of the ten Words If this be considered as it is an absolute and perfect Rule of Life comprehending all duties whatsoever and being that Image and Samplar unto which all mankind at the beginning in their representative Head were created in Wisdom in Holiness and in Righteousness which was afterwards promulgated and proclaimed by Jehovah Christ with a Covenant of Grace intermingled so it is that Law of Nature which inlightned Intellect or right Reason doth teach some notions whereof are still retained even now in man's fallen corrupted estate There are some Seeds of those Eternal Truths and Things some common principles of good and of evil both for the knowledge of God and of his Service and for those Duties which we owe unto our selves and unto our Neighbours This is born and bred with reasonable man every one doth carry it about with him every one coming into this World is inlightned therewithal which Remnants of this Law do serve for many good uses and purposes in civil converse amongst men and for some other ends In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath is given to the whole World All mankind had it in their common representative the first Adam clearly fully perfectly and have still some Relicks of it left within them by the Law of Nature in the Light of Reason demonstrated by concreated Principles the foundations and grounds of which are knowable by Humane Intellect In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh day Sabbath is given to the whole World all mankind had it in their common representative and have still some indwelling Notions of it left within them This Law in some parts of the natural Duties of it may yet by the Institution of Jehovah Aelohim be a sign of some mystical thing signified which doth make any real change in the natural Duty it self this standing still in its due force as before but it may have something further significant in it by the LORD 's special appointment As the State Duty and Priviledge of Marriage in the fifth and seventh Words Instituted in Paradise doth figure the great Mystery of that Mystical Union which is between Christ and his Church People come next to be considered People are sometimes in some Scriptures more especially taken for the Israelites and the Jews These are sometimes in the plural Number called Peoples This People had some peculiar Priviledges beyond other Peoples particularly as to the kingly manner of proclaiming and revealing the Law of the ten Words more in their sight and hearing at Mount Horeb and as to some things afterwards annexed to it which was the Pattern in the Mount Thus Jehovah's holy Sabbath was made known unto the Israelites after another manner than to other Nations Whilst they walked by this Rule of Life they were a wise and prudent people But when they transgressed greatly they were a rebellious people The Israelitish people so constituted as it then was are called The people of God The people of the God of Abraham These had some distinguishing favours in that day People in some other Scriptures are some times taken for all Nations besides Israel and besides those other Lands who were brought over to the true Religion Thus the Uncircumcised Nations strangers from the Covenant of God Indels profane and ungodly they also are called People and the People of the Earth and the abominable People Though these whilst such did not share in choice special Church-Priviledges yet some ways they had the Law of the ten words and amongst others the Law of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath particularly As this Law of the Decalogue is the natural concreated Law There are divers Records in Humane Authors for those to search after who are curious in such Disquisitions which do evidence that the Seventh-day Sabbath was generally observed by the Pagans as the weekly Holy Day The remaining Relicks of their Natural Life and Right Reason dictating the equity of this Law which also might be traditioned down to them The Pagan Idolaters so far conforming to the Laws and Practice of the Church of God They acknowledged the Seventh-day as more holy and owned its Rest from labour And the Ethnick Doctors in this way of teaching would Philosophize only on the Seventh-day Sabbath Then did they frequent their Temples and then some of them sung their Hymns to their Idol God These Precepts of the Decalogue were the Law of our Creation they are the natural Dictates of the Humane Essence in its rational Exercise ingraft Notions concreated Characters wrought into the essential composition of our natural Being the Sanction whereof has more or less a living impression in the Humane Existence The very order of the Days in the first created Week did teach the observation in the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and made it a part of the Law of Nature Aelobim's Method in the Creatures Production which did so dispose of his Works and of his Rest hath confirmed this Order in laying its foundation in created Beings And this is a very forcible way of right arguing used by the LORD himself in his Word in divers cases The six forgoing Days of the Week for Work and the seventh the last Day of the Week for Rest These were from the beginning of the Creation Designed they were thus originally appointed by the Creator himself and so laid as a standing Law upon the Rational Creatures The natural equity whereof man's Representative in Adam readily submitted and subjected and conformed to there being both
ground and evidence enough in the things themselves thus made and Light and Reason enough in the Humane Intellect of Rational Beings to discern and to improve this to the very same ends Both these had Primitive concreated self-evidence however sin now have darkned and defaced things The indication of these Duties were at the first true real sufficient Some worn Letters of which original Ingraving are yet still remaining to be read These Laws resulting from the Humane Nature and from that Relation which created Man doth stand in to his creating Maker The Obligation which doth arise from hence must continue as long as the Humane Nature doth continue For it is Essential to our Formation and constitution as we are reasonable men and women and so is unchangeably binding And he that would make any one Law of pure primitive Nature alterable doth thereby though it may be not designedly yet eventually heave at the overturning of all the Laws of Nature This Primigenial Holiness and Righteousness in created Man bearing exact conformity to the holy Righteous Nature of creating Aelobim And Christ's coming was not to dissolve any one Law of the Decalogue or any thing of the Obligation to any Law therein but to maintain these Laws and their obliging All mankind brought under convincing demonstrations from distinguishing taste of the difference of good and of evil should acknowledge all and every of those holy just and good Laws to have a clear congruity to their Natures Who of all mankind that has the due exercise of rational abilities but must acknowledge that we ought to love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves On which two Commandments hang all the Laws and the Prophets For which we have the Authority of the LORD Jesus Christ himself He being the Law-giver and Law-Interpreter too Further yet People in some Scriptures are the Elect and Believers Whether of Jews or of Gentiles Who are also absolutely called People The Nations which shall be converted to the Faith of the Gospel renouncing Antichrist and his corrupt principles and practices are some of this people These both under the Old and New Testament Administration had this Law of the ten Words written not only in the Scripture Revelation but also on the two Tables of the Mind and Heart by the holy Spirit Thus is the Law of the ten Words specially and distinguishingly given to new Creatures and thus it will be renewed in the purer Churches in the later Days In this sense the Rule and Direction for renewed Holiness and for the Works and Duties of Grace and of Sanctification is called The new Law or Commandment the same with the Old only renewed Next of Ceremonials These are sometimes called The Law of Degrees placed in external Rites and by some such other Expressions These Rites were used about outward fleshie things such as Meats Drinks Washings and the like These so far as they were Typical Figuring and Representative of a Christ who was then to come to be born of a Virgin and to shed his blood were perfected and accomplished in Christ when he was so born and had so suffered was risen and had ascended And they did peculiarly belong to the People under the former dispensation Of this nature were some Ceremonies annexed to the Weekly-seventh-day Sabbath By these holy rites the Church and People of God under that administration were differenced and discerned as a People holy to God distinct from other prophane Nations An Old Testament Ceremonie is set out in Scripture by Flesh a carnal Ordinance an hand-writing of death an Element of the World weak and egene an Exemplar of Heavenly things unstable An Intolerable Yoak A shadow and such like Which are not properly applicable to the Seventh-day-Sabbath as such If any say it is an Exemplar of the Sabbatism in Heaven and so a Ceremonious Type Let then the Type stand as I have said till we can come at the Antitype Ceremonies sometimes do set out the inward spiritual things Graces Duties Priviledges which they did signify and teach A Ceremonie has been and is a Sign of somewhat that is natural and so they have been annexed to natural Spiritual Duties As Evening and Morning worshipping of God had divers Ceremonial Observances So the weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath Thus for Parents to give up themselves their Sons and Daughters to God is a natural dutie Yet this duty has Baptism even now under the new Testament-Ministration annexed to it Those things which are still of a concreated Spiritual Nature Were are and will be a duty The Epistle to the Hebrews is a Gospel-Exposition hereupon Though Multitudes of these Ceremonies were superadded to the Law of the ten Words as an Evangelical Explanation and Interpretation of them yet this doth not alter the true real nature of any of these ten words which are always a standing unalterable Rule of holy Righteous living As for the giving of this Law of the Ten words If this Law be considered As promulgated and proclaimed at Mount Sinai by Jehovah Aelohim thus there was somewhat in it which was a peculiar gift to the Israelitish Church and those who were proselyted to it beyond any other People As for the time when he brought them out of Egyptian bondage so for the place the Desert Jehovah gave them this in their Wildernesses condition At Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai in an Enemies Land that of the Amorites and of the Moabites Thus also For the persons They were those of that age who were then alive at that place who understood the Hebrew to whom He gave this Law So for the subservient Administrator by whose hand Jehovah Christ gave this Law to them Who was Moses there was Moses's a Ministery used in it Hence it is called the Law of Moses Moses wrote this Law in a Book Also for the manner of proclaiming With Trumpet Thunder Fire Audible Immediate voice of Aebolim himself and such like And thus too for the solemn imbodying of an whole nation into a Church-state These and some such other like were the peculiar Circumstances of that Promulgation in that day Yet is the Law still the same now The LORD Jesus Christ doth speak unto us even now in this Law of the ten Words What God did speak unto Moses He spake unto others in the days of Christs flesh when born of the Virgin Mary which was hundreds of Years after And these ten Words were written unto us If this Law be considered as the Law of nature so it was given to all mankind in Representative Adam As I have declared If it be looked on as Inwritten in the mind and Heart of the Regenerate by the Holy Spirit Thus it is peculiarly given to new Creatures As also I have manifested Thus I have laboured to clear and to
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΣΑΒΒΑΤΙΚΗ ΗΜΕΡΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septima dies Dies Desiderabilis SABBATUM JEHOVAE The Seventh-Day-Sabbath the Desirable-Day The closing completing DAY of that FIRST Created Week WHICH Was is and will be the just Measure of all succeeding Weeks in their successive Courses BOTH For Working in the six foregoing DAYS and for Rest in the Seventh which is the Last Day by an unchangeable LAW of well-established Order Both in the REVEALED WORD AND IN CREATED NATURE The SECOND PART By FRANCIS BAMPFIELD Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE Second Part OF THIS TREATISE ATransition from the First to the Second Part Page 1 2 3 Of the Seventh-Day p. 3 4 Q. Whether the Seventh-day which is the last Day in every Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof have been from the Beginning and so continued to be all the Old Testament-administration of Grace thorow and be so under the New Testament dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the End of the World the weekly Sabbath day 4 The Answer at large given to this Inquiry is in the Affirmative that it is so from 4 to 149 Vnder this Answer are divers particular useful Truths and Duties opened As that the Seventh-day was Created for to be the weekly Sabbath the last day of the week being that Seventh and no other day of the week so Thus it was in the Primitive Creation 4 5 6 7 Which matter is resolved into a Scripture Determination 4 5 6 7 That all the Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim doth give for the due Observation of a weekly Sabbath do belong to to the Seventh which is the last day in every week and to no other day of the week as such 7 8 9 10 That Aelohim rested from his Works of the foregoing six days of the week on the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day Which Seventh day Sabbath righteousness in Christ is that Righteousness which a Believer is to apply himself to cover his Sabbath-unrighteousness 7 8 That Aelohim Blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath day 8 9 That Aelohim sanctified the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 9 10 That all the Scriptures thorow where the Holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath-day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly Revolutions and successive Courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly Sabbath-day Page 10 11 That no Command is given for the observation of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 11 to 15 Where is also further discovered that pretended unwritten Institutions for a First-day weekly Sabbath are a false deceitful wrong cooked rule which we may neither measure nor walk by 12 13 That Christ as Mediator had it not in Commission from his Father to change the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First 13 14 15 That there is no Promise made to the observing of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh-day which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 15 16 That there is no threatning all the Scriptures thorow either denounced against or executed upon any that shall not observe any other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week 16 to 19 That Aelohim bath put this weekly Seventh-day Sabbath into Created Nature by a standing unchangeable Law 19 20 21 22 Here is declared what is meant by Nature in Scripture 20 21 22 Where also seeing it is called for by some as an argument to men is disoovered That this particular Seventh-day which we now count to be the last day of the week is the Seventh-day by the Judgement and Tradition of such Historical Records as many are so fond of although we do bottom our judgment and practice upon Scripture Revelation and created Nature 22 23 24 25 Objections against this Seventh-day Sabbath are answered from 25 to 147 Here is proved that it was not a seventh part of weekly time or a seventh day But the Seventh-day the last day in every week this and this only is the weekly Sabbath-day having a special honour put upon it by Aelohim himself by notes of Demonstration by particles by pronouns by praepositions all significant in their places to point out the Seventh-day to be the only certain known determinate fixed particular unchangeable day of the weekly Sabbath where the emphatickness of the Hebrew Ha is asserted 25 to 33 It is further evidenced that what is in the English Transsation in seven places of the New Testament the first day of the week is in every one of them in the Greek one of the Sabbaths in propriety of speech and so its colourable pretence for a First day weekly Sabbath is convincingly reprehended as Scriptureless from 33 to 45 That five of these seven places mentioned in the four Evangelists relate to the Paschal Sabbaths and not to the weekly Sabbath 33 to 41 That Believers in the times of Christ and of his Apostles before the New Testament was written could find nothing in all their Scriptures of the Old Testament for a pretended First day Sabbath 32 33 That in one place where it is The first of the Sabbath this speaks nothing to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day but has a quite another meaning both in the significancy and in the intendment of that phrase 35 36. 37 38 That the weekly Sabbath under the New Testament is not barely or no more than an half-holy-day between Sun rising and Sun set but that it is an whole Seventh-day from Evening to Evening 38 That Christ's Redemption Work as well as his Creation Work has established the Seventh-day to be still the weekly Sabbath day 39 40 That Acts 20. 7. is no firm ground to bottom the pretended First day Sabbath upon 41 42 43 Neither is 1 Cor. 16. 2. 43 44 That the eleven Disciples did not meet on Christs Resurrection Day as a newweekly Sabbath day in memory of that Rising 45 That the weekly Sabbath under the new Dispensation is not left so much in the dark and deep as some pretend but is clearly the Seventh-day in the plain Precept as of old 46 47 That the true stating of the Matter of right in this Question about the weekly Sabbath doth not depend upon Ecclesiastical History Page 47 to p. 62 That mens cause of
erring of their great erring about this Controversie as in many other weighty Cases is because they know not the Scriptures nor the Power of God put forth in a word-way 48 That the cause of mens erring is not therefore because they do not know and acknowledge and own either the Magistral dictates of Humane Rabbies 48 Or the Ancient Records of Vncanonical Church-Histories and Traditions of men 48 49 Or the Councils of the Sanhedrim and the sayings of the ancient Fathers 49 50 Or unwritten verities to be as Scripture Supplements to be received by the people from their Leaders upon trust without tryal 50 Or the judgement opinion and practice of of those who are reputed the Learned and the Godly in the present Age 50 Or the Natio-al Establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of Worship in their humanely invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Leiturgies 50 51 Or man-invented-Arts and Sciences of Philosophical Knowledges and of university humane Learning 51 52 Or the innate or acquired powers of mens own rational Intellect and Will 52 Or Natural Experiments and fleshy sensations 52 53 Or the unscriptural Impulses of Speculative Enthusiasts 53 Or the doubtful questioning of unsettled Scepticks 54 55 That our Faith is not to be resolved into the Authority of fallible men but into the infallible veracity of the truthful Aelohim 54 to 62 That the Old Testament Types and Figures did contain New Testament Institutions as to particular Churches Seals of the Covenant Presbyters Deacons Diaconesses 58 59 60 That Revel 1. 10. Doth not prove any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day of the week 62 to 65 Neither doth Psalm 118. 22-26 65 66 67 Neither doth Act 2. 1 2 c. 67 Nor Ezek. 43 25 26 27. 68 Nor Heb. 4. 9 10 68 to 145 Here the plain meaning and scope of this passage in the Epislle to the Hebrews is given 68. 69 70 Here is further shewn that the Day expressed in the ninety fifth Psalm and referred unto by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not to be understood of the First day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 70 71 72 That the rest spoken of in this is not meant of the Weekly Sabbath Rest 72 73 74 to 77 Where is opened the significancy of the Word Sabbatism in the Graek 〈◊〉 towed from Hebrew Origination as many other Greek words are 74 to 77 That the He mentioned in one passage of this part of this Epistle is meant of the Believer 75 76 77 That the parallel between Workers Works and Rest doth not hold in some things and where in it doth hold is discovered 77 78 79 80 Here is shewn what are the works which Believers do rest from when they enter into this Sabbatism 79 80 The force of the conjunction For is shewn 80 81 As also what the import of the change of of the number from the plural to the singular is 81 82 And how this Rest is both God's Rest and the Believers Rest too 82 83 Here is further manifested that it is a mistake to go about to found a pretended First day Sabbath upon the New Creation as if it precisely began on the Day of Christ's Resurrection 83 to 145 It is Premised that it is a choice Priviledge and a special Liberty which Believers do injoy under the New Testament Administration of Grace 84 85 Where also some objections that do wrest Galat. 4. 9 10. and Colos 2. 8 16 17. are answered 85 86 87 And that the LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under the Old as well as New Testament Dispensation of Grace 87 88 The particulars are here instanced in What the old things are which pass away and what the things are which do become new 88 89 to 92 The renewing of the Covenant in the latter days is spoken to 92. 93 That there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament Administration is asserted and evidenced from the Scriptures Page 93 to pag. 101 And that the whole of the Christian Religion for Doctrines Graces Duties Priviledges and such like parts of that Religion is one and the same under both the Old and New Testament 101 to 108 And in what sense the Seventh-day Sabbath is some ways a sign of this 108 to 116 The new Worship was Typically signified in the Figuring pattern of the Old This is also demonstrated 116 to 120 And that the Law of Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation 120 to 123 And that it is an errour to affirm that the Decalogue has less in it than the Law of Nature At also that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature 123 Vnder this is discovered That to this Decalogue it doth belong to believe that the Soul is 124 And to love our selves with a just and necessary Love 124 125 And to take greatest care to save our souls above our bodies 125 And to tame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation 125 126 And to deny all bodily pleasure profits honour liberty and life for the securing of our Salvation 126 The Old Law of the Ten Words is proved in the Word of Truth to be still the same both to Jew and Gentile It was the Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the new Difference of Horizons and of Climates makes no change of the Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath 126 to 147 The Ingenuous Reader is earnestly desired to correct the Errours in Printing especially those that do much disturb the sense and quite alter the meaning Errours in the Margin are thus to be corrected in the Second Part. For g Gen. page 5. line 1. read g Gen. 2. 2. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 6. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 1 Cor. 15. 3 14. p. 6. l. 17 18. r. 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. f. 17 19. p. 7 l. 11. r. 17. 10. f. Acts 13 24. p. 11. l. 11. r. Acts 13. 14. f. 58. 13. p. 15. l. 16. r. 58. 12. f. Cor. 1. 16. p. 21. l. 35. r. Col. 1. 16. f. Gen. 28. p. 21. l. 40. r. Gen. 1. 28. f. Heb. 7 8. p. 21. l. 41. r. Heb. 2. 7 8. f. Aclum p. 27. l. 25. r. Atrium f. 3. 12. p. 30 l 34. r. 3. 12. 〈◊〉 f. 33 34. p. 31. l. 28. r. 32 33. f. 12 19 p. 31. l. 43. r. 13 19 f. Gnatrereth p. 35. l. 16. r. Gnetzereth f. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 14. r. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 37. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. pag. 110. to pag. 120. of this Treatise p. 38. l. 11 12 13. r. pag. 91. to page 103. of the first Part of
their pretended reason is frivolous lest the Heathen should think mistaking the phrase that Aelohim did work upon the Seventh-day-Sabbath Whereas he had finished the whole and every part of his creating work upon the several six foregoing days of this one week of the created world Only he did that on the seventh-Seventh-day which was proper Sabbath-Work As the making of the seventh-Seventh-day the resting from other Functions upon it to institute and observe sabbath-Sabbath-duties employments and priviledges the blessing of it the sanctifying of it together with his preserving of the Creatures which he had made on the six foregoing days and with his and his Fathers providential working to the upholding of them in their Being Those who do call the First day the Seventh day and the Seventh day the sixth day making the First day to be both the First and the Seventh day and so do alter the names of the number of all the rest do invert the Order of nature in the First Creation For although in consistent quantity such as Extension of parts one beyond another there is not one second third fourth and so on or not one first and another last put into the nature of that created Being because these are not really in the confistent Nature thereof it being consistent altogether and so the first part may be the last part or the last part the first part according to mens common notion and reckoning and appointing of it to be so the LORD not having instituted herein any such Order of Numbring where we are to begin and how to go on and where to end yet in quantity successive as in duration and in time this is of a different consideration both in the nature of the thing and in Aelohims institution For this is really such in existence truly subsisting whether we imagine it or not neither is it left in our power to our disposal to put them into any other Order than the creating Messaiah hath so far as doth respect his established times and his instituted Seasons There is one day a second day a third day a fourth day a fifth day a sixth day and a seventh day in the several successive natures and durations of every one of them Here is part after part by temporary succession in a most direct line and in its proper Partitions and terminating points by an unchangeable Law and well-setled-order of the standing Creation The Work of the six foregoing Days Aelohim did rest from leaving man an example to follow him herein on the Seventh-day-Sabbath The Seventh-day is to be remitted unto Workers who laboured in their several lawful Functions on every day of the week before and therefore Aelohim blessed this Seventh-day because he himself rested on it and sanctified it unto Adam the Sabbath was made for Adam for all mankind in him He hath made he doth he will make it a blessed day in its weekly returns unto the due diligent observers thereof in obedience to his Command in obsequiousness to his Will in Conformity to his Example in Faith on his Truth Power and Promise For this Day hath he severed unto his own service along That Expression For-tomake or to-do doth not so appear to belong unto he had created as to relate unto he will sabbatize or ceasingly rest The preceding Hebrew accent doth somewhat teach this which doth often distinguish so that it signifies that Adam and his posterity ought to do this to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath as holy and consecrated to Jehovah Aelohim it is their bounden duty to do the same The like phrase we find elsewhere in the Hebrew to make or to do the Day of Sabbath or the Sabbath Which is to observe to keep or to celebrate it The expression is full noting that that Instituted-Seventh-day-Sabbath-work may not be left undone for that time or put off to any other season either before or after Having thus somewhat explained and applyed the Expressions concerning the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath in its primitive Creation and unchanged Institution I am now to make a little way for the giving the Reader a more particular distinct full Account according to the Scriptures of Truth why I do judge that the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week in the weekly Returns of it is alone that particular peculiar day in every Week which is the Weekly Sabbath-day to be kept Holy unto Jehovah Aelohim in obedience to his command as such that is to say as the alone weekly Sabbath-day If any man hereafter will engage by Writing or Printing in this Controversie against me whereby to endeavour to build up if he could his first day on the ruines of the Seventh-day-Sabbath let him take notice and remember that I mention my Judgment on this as in other cases Subject-matter to be according to the Scriptures of Truth and that I expect both he and I should submit our Judgment and Practise unto the Autoritative decisive Judgment of the Spirit of Christ in the word of Truth Those that do resolve such cases of Conscience about Duty or Sin into other Authorities do judge but according to appearance That judgment which is righteous judgment is such as is according to the Scriptures Words of Rightness O how powerful are they As for other arguing it hath not that Efficacy of convincing Pauls way of reasoning was out of the Scriptures and his Method of proving was from the Scriptures and Apollos took the same course to convince the erroneous They are the Scriptures that we are to search which those of Berea did daily even when a Paul was the Speaker to them which did evidence them to be a good kind of Christians and Believers These Holy Scriptures are the Scriptures of Truth The Word of Christ is the Word of Truth It is The Truth If any bring a Doctrine or a Reproof or a Correction or an Instruction they should have whatsoever things were written aforetime to be written for these the whole Scripture must be shewn to be profitable for these it was given for such an end That the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good Works We may not add unto the Word which Jehovah doth command us neither are we to diminish ought from it that we may keep his Commandments who is the God of his people which he doth command us These Holy Scriptures are they which are able to make us wise to Salvation Though eminent Apostles or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto us than we have received we should carry our selves towards him as towards one excommunicate If any let him be what he will though he have never so great a name for Learning and for Religion do teach otherwise and come not up to wholesom Words the Words of our LORD Jesus Christ these are nourishing healthy food other words not agreeing with these are empty Chass and to the Doctrine which is according to right Worship we
in the Wilderness Hallow my Sabbaths Notwithstanding the Children rebelled against me they polluted my Sabbaths Then I said observe he takes notice a second time of this time of the Provocation was given him by them this way I would pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the Wilderness The like we have in another place of the same Prophet her Priests speaking of Jerusalem have violated my Law and have profaned my Holy things They have put no difference between the Holy and Profane neither have they shewed between the unclean and the Clean and have hid their Eyes from my Sabbaths even administrators about Holy things do some times hide their Eyes from Jehovahs Sabbaths and I am profaned among them Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them I have Consumed them with the Fire of my wrath their own way have I recompenced upon their heads saith Adonai Jehovah Such a passage we also find in the Prophecie by Amos hear this O ye who saying when will the Sabbath be gone they thought the seventh day the longest day in the Week that we may set forth wheat making the Ephah Small and the Shekel great and perverting the Balances of deceit Jehovah hath sworn by the Excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works Shall not the Land tremble for this and every one mourn that dwelleth therein I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your Songs into Lamentation I will send a Famine of hearing the words of Jehovah Thus after that the People of God had returned from Babylonish captivity in Nehemiahs time when the Sabbath was profaned he as a Magistrate reproves and threatens those in Judah whom he saw treading Winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and lading Asses as also Wine Grapes and Figs and all Burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day And I testified in the day wherein they sold victuals there dwelt men of Tyre also therein which brought Fish and all manner of ware and sold on the Sabbath unto the Children of Judah and in Jerusalem Then I saith he contended with the Nobles of Judah and said unto them what Evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath-day Did not your Fathers thus and did not our God bring all this Evil upon us and upon this City Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath Upon this he commands that there should no Burden be brought in on the Sabbath day And when the Merchants and the Sellers of all kind of Ware lodged within Jerusalem once or twice then he testified against them and said unto them why lodge ye before the Wall If ye do again I will lay hands on you From that time forth came they not on the Sabbath And he Commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should come to keep the Gates to Sanctifie the Sabbath-day For an improvement of this kind of Learning let the Studious search the Scriptures whether both the First and the second Temple were not burnt and the People captived in the one and fleeing into the other both these on the seventh-day-Sabbath And whether the First great Ejection and unchurching of the Jews were not also on the seventh-day-Sabbath and the Gospel more carried over to the Gentiles Having thus carried this Doctrine and Duty concerning the weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath through the whole Scripture with that arguing convincingness which is clear and evident to plain unprejudiced Judgments and understandings though so full a Testimony should suffice yet that I may the better make way for the answering of somewhat that may look a little like Objection I shall add this to the rest for a further Confirmation that Aelohim hath put this Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath into Created Nature The Human nature in the First Adam was made and framed to the Perfection of Holiness and of Righteousness in the Ten words which Ten words I take to be the only certain vniversal perfect summary and Comprehensive of that which is the Law of Nature in Mankind A full exact Copie draught and Transcript of the Law of Creation in the heart of Adam the Proclaimed and now Written word the same for sum and for substance which had a living Concreated impression on that Heart and mind of his As the true unchangeable Original-Law being not only the declared will but also agreeing with the Holy nature or Essence and being of the Creator himself an Holy just and good Law no waies differing from the Law which was given to and put into the Humane nature in the uprightness and integrity The purity and perfection of that Humane Nature This Law particularly of the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath and the due observation thereof was a part of this Law of Nature as it lay evidently in that Established order of Aelohims Creating the foregoing six daies of that one week the rule and pattern of all after-weeks being the working days and the seventh the last day of that Week being the weekly-Sabbath-day Such being the method which Aelohim used in the production of his Creatures on the several six daies and the disposal of his and of Mans Rest on the Seventh day Thus standeth the Relation in the weekly succession of daies which Aelohim made to be in the true nature of these Created existences really whilst the World stands to be instructive unto all mankind of what is his natural will and mans natural Duty There was in this Primitive Ordination a full evidence and a convincing Demonstration of Aelohims pleasure herein by his appointing a sufficiencie of light about this matter both in the Created nature of daies and of works and Rest respectively in those daies to give Adam to see and know what he ought to do what daies to work in and what day to rest on and also Innate in Adam himself for his instruction thereby discerningly to understand and Faithfully to improve this for the designed end true use and proper purposes Some notions of this Law as well as of the others of the Ten words are still retained and kept in man even though now fallen and in his corrupt state and renewing Grace doth restore in part to the first Created Holiness and Righteousness Aelohim Created Adam in his own Image In the Image of Aelohim Created he him And we are to put on the New man which according to God is Created in Righteousness and Holiness of Truth which is renewed unto knowledge according to the Image of him that Created him And the whole of this is still in being carefully faithfully unalterably preserved not only by Revelation in the Scriptures of Truth but also by Primitive Creation and Providential Continuation in the true Nature and in the real Existence of the things themselves All and every of the daies and Weeks that have been are and will be since the first Created Week in their ordinary revolutions and
third and sourth Chapters to exhort the Christianized professing Hebrews to take great heed lest they were shut out of it by their unbelief unperswadableness and disobedience as the unbelieving unperswadable and disobedient of old amongst the Israelities did not enter into the Land of Canaan which was a Type of this Rest The parallel of the As the Believers resting from his Works as God Christ God man rested from his Works holds here exactly enough in the sense of this Objector himself For he affirms that in the tenth Verse of the fourth Chapter of this Epistle and in his expression upon it that the Works which Christ did rest from were all that he did and suffered from his Incarnation to his Resurrection as the Mediator of the Covenant with all the Fruits Effects and Consequents of what he so did and suffered as belong to these Works And so shall Believers Rest when they shall pass into Glory from what they did and suffered for Christ here As Christ shall suffer no more and dye no more so Believers shall suffer no more dye no more when once raised as Christ is risen As Christ so ceased from Working as yet to continue the Work of his Grace in the preservation of the New Creature and orderly increase and propagation of it by the Spirit so shall Believers so cease from this working here as yet to continue in the full supplies of the holy Spirit for ever in the acting of Grace perfected in Glory in the freest largest exercising and putting forth thereof according to the capacities and powers of the New Creature when thus growing up to it s well proportioned measure of a perfect man keeping the New Creature by a Power received from Christ in its due order and putting it forth to the Glory of Jehovah Aelohim As Christ so Rested from his Works as to take Refreshment in his Works to have satisfaction and complacency in them as those which did set forth his praise and did satisfie his glorious design Thus Believers so far are delighted with what they have done and suffered for Christ as the Father is delighted and pleased in what his holy Spirit through Christ has in wrought in them and inabled them to Work for the setting forth of his Praise and for the promoting of his Glorious Design in the World whilst they were in it and so far they were conformed here to Christ in their doing and suffering here for Christ who will be their Eternal Righteousness even in Glory though they own nothing in any or in all their own Works as Meritorious of Reward or satisfactory to Divine Justice these being the Works of Christ the Mediator by his alone All-suffering Sacrifice So that here is a fair apt resemblance as to Works and as to Rest They do answer each other so far as Believers have a capacity in a way of similitude And this kind of doing and of suffering doth last as long as a Believers life doth last even upon the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath in their weekly Returns according to the Duties of those Days as Christ's doing and suffering did last as long as his life did last even upon the Seventh-day Sabbath There is a Sabbath-service which a Believer is to do for Christ in Obedience to his Command and men of persecuting spirits will be laying on of crosses upon the Believer for his thus keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath holy to Jehovah though a Believer will rejoyce in such sufferings for Christ Only here the Reader may take notice that this Objector doth lay the foundation of his Sabbatizing on the Morning of the First Day of the Week when he supposeth that Christ by his then first rising from the dead did lay and perfect the Foundation of the New Creation I desire that this may be considered How can a serious inquiring spirit be satisfied from the Objectors arguing concerning a Weekly-day of Rest or Sabbath from Sun-rising to Sun-set of that First Day by an Argument drawn from Christs ceasing from his Works of Redemption on that Morning as he affirms when withal he doth acknowledge that Christ works did continue from his Inearnation to his Resurrection without any interruption never ceasing from it all the First Days of his Life Can a weekly half-day of resting from work be demonstratively inforced upon a rational intellect from three and thirty years continued working without any cessation from that working For that is the shortest time assigned to Christ's abode here on Earth though some do reckon more years than three and thirty The Creation of the World was finished in six Days which did lay the foundation of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath both in Word and Nature to continue every Week As a Law Rule and Pattern for man's working the six foregoing Days and for his resting on the Seventh which is the last Day of the Week Whereas now this Objector would urge upon our consciences a weekly observing of half a Day as a weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath from a continued Work thirty years out-right if not more The Conjunction For in the tenth verse of the fourth Chapter comes next to be searthed into This word doth set out a further Reason of the Conclusion which the Author of this Epistle had drawn from that Psalm and the Parallels which I mentioned before which was in the Sixth and Ninth Verses of the fourth Chapter that there was yet remaining a Sabbatism for the people of God For as God did work and then Rested from His Labors so must Believers work here which when they have finished they also shall Rest from their Labors For is a word which hath such a Syllogistical sense by which often the Reason of a thing is rendred by a Causal Rationality As also in other Languages There are such Conjunctions Rational Sometimes it sets out such a Probation as is by way of Special Declaration of that which before was spoken of in a more general position other times it is a rational transition of another Member of two or of more things propounded Sometimes it is a rational repeating of a Sentence begun a little before and it doth absolve and complete it though by another manner of Speech to mention no more Still it is a Rational All which do well agree here The Believing Israelites had their Work and Labour and then their Rest ensued thereupon when they entred into the Typical Land of Promised Rest and quietly enjoyed it when they had subdued their Enemies And so shall Believers after their Working-Labouring-Season is over here enter into that Promised Rest of which the other was a Type So did Believers who died in the Faith under the Old Testament-dispensation of Grace So do Believers now who so live and so die And so will Believers in the Ages after us As for the Import of the change of the Number from the Plural to the Singular which the Objector would fetch about to his own purpose thus The
so a rule unto us under the New And then let me be discharged from this Scholastick War Let this be one premise which is several times in short expressions here and there in this Treatise That it is a choice priviledge and a special liberty which Believers do enjoy under the New Testament Administration of Grace Christ profiteth them nothing by his coming in the Flesh born of the Virgin Mary to accomplish and to perfect the Types of old which did so set out his thus coming who keep themselves still under the former dispensation of Types Shadows and Figures We thankfully acknowledge to the Honour of our LORD that gracious administration especially now towards the latter-latter-day glory of it that we are brought under which if compared with the former under the Old Testament as to the different manner of dispensing For otherwise we are to discover in it's place that the Christian Religion is one and the same for Doctrines Duties Gifts Graces Priviledges under both has excelling advantages such as these for the measures and for the degrees of them It has more lively efficaciousness more quick sensible Fellowship It has more clear convincing Light and more abounding spreading knowledge And blessed be Jehovah who is in this providential day clearing up and reviving some too long neglected Truths and Duties amongst some others this about the weekly Seventh day Sabbath It has more manifested Grace It has a more spiritual way of Worship It has a more excelling Holiness refined purity and shining Glory having through the Spirit who is the LORD more power to transform into this those who with unveiled Face do look into this Glass It has more enlarged liberty of heart in the way and service of the LORD It has more of self evidencingly revealed mysteries It has more Royal privileges set out therefore by a Kingdom of God and of Heaven And the things of it are called Heavenly things This is meant of a Church State here on Earth For above in the Heavenly glory there are no unfruitful ones no Tares no Scandals no Doers of Iniquity no bad Fish no foolish ones This New Testament Church State has the name of a Kingdom of Heaven as it doth much resemble that glorious Kingdom which is above in Heaven in its way of Government In its order of subjection in its sights of Faith in its enjoyments of Communion in its service of Delight and in its conformity of Holiness Here these are in growingness of measure There they are in fulness of Perfection This new Church State has much brought down from Heaven to it Such as are gracious visits from Jehovah-Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirit Angelical Ministry like-affectionedness of the perfectly sanctified spirits of just Men and Heavenly Messengers with the Everlasting Gospel This new Church State is drawn up to be much in the Spirit in Heaven above by joynt unions By mutual Fellowships and it doth believe and expect a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new City where they shall be all the Saints and Believers both of Old and New Testament together with one another and with the elect Angels and with their LORD to hidden Age ever as yet Thus it grows up into a Spiritual Kingdom How large and delightful a Field is here for Heavenly Meditation The manner of administring is not now by obscure Types and by darkish shadows as of old but without a veil and open faced yet Christ is the substance of both the Old and the New Testament the same promises and rewards of Life everlasting were in this Christ and purchased by him and there was one way and the same mean of receiving of this under both which was Faith in the Messiah The difference that is between the Old and the New doth discover it self in the Form of dispensation which had a diversity for the manner of it in the Old from the New But this made no real specifick difference or change in the essentials of the Christian Religion Under the Old Believers had an eye towards a Messiah who was then to come in the Flesh to be born of a Virgin and so they eyed the Pattern and Propheties and Promises looking for the coming Christ What were all the Figures and Types the Rites and Shadows but confirmers of their Faith in and encouragers of their hope of Christ's coming In the New we have it revealed that Christ is now actually already come to accomplish those Types and to perfect Salvation by his personal Sacrifice The Reader may therefore be well satisfied in this that our pleading of the cause of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath as it hath no tendency in it self so no design in me To cast any back or to hold any under the Old Testament Administration as to the Types Shadows and Figures of it much less to draw off or to thrust back any from coming into and enjoying of New Testament priviledges I shall not say that it was the Objectors intended aim but it is evidently consequential from his manner of discourse that his Lines about this would secretly insinuate into the Reader of them as if the Assertors and Observers of the weekly Seventh day Sabbath did Apostatize into Judaic ceremonies I have here another opportunity to wipe off a slanderous charge which some have brought in against us as if we stood guilty according to those two Scriptures in the Margin of catching at the shadow and letting go the body Let it be granted that the Elements Rudiments or first beginnings mentioned in that place of the Epistle to the Galatians are the Mosaical Rites ceremonial Laws and shadows of a Christ who under that dispensation was then to come to be born of a Virgin but is now already come so born This then doth shew that the Apostle condemneth their superstitions observing or their keeping besides Right and Equity as that word which they tranflate ye observe doth signifie when taken in an ill sense Especially when it was with an opinion of acceptance and justification in the sight of God thereby such either un-Scriptural days as were never instituted by Jehovah Christ or Scriptural days in an un-Scriptural manner This were a foul matter of sinful Fact sharply to be reprehended As when either the right object a God in Christ is not worshipped or when for the matter of observing it is not New Testament Worship Or when for the Form of observing of Times and of Worship there was not an orderly address unto Jehovah Aelohim To the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit in a word way not in a spiritual manner not from inward principles of new Nature of Faith of Love and of Obedience or when the ends of observing of Days and Times were not right ends when the Gospel designs of humbling emptying and abasing of Man and of exalting and glorifying of a God in Christ were not promoted thereby when there was a
Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the New In my entrance upon this I must express my aâ—horrence of that bold daringness in some who charge the LORD Jesus Christ himself with being in his life-time a counâ—enancer of some breaches of the Seventh-day Sabbath Thus flying in the face not only of this holy Law but also of the Supreme Lawgiver They give two Instances one in the twelfth of Matthew and the beginning of that Chapter the other in the fifth Chapter of John the ninth tenth and so on to the sixteenth Verse As to the the former concerning Christ's Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn and eating on the Seventh-day and Christ's pleading their Cause Consider well their Case in all the Circumstances of it They did what was lawful on the Seventh day it being a needful refreshing of their outer man thereby to strengthen for Sabbath-worship and Service where other provision was wanting a work of Mercy as Christ shewed it to be an action tending towards the Sanctification of the Sabbath and not bringing any Duty thereof It was according to what the Law of Jehovah did allow in the two last Verses of the twenty third Chapter of Deuteronomy which had foundation in right Nature and in just Equity amongst all Mankind who did allow this in a case of present necessity And this Christ's doth further exemplifie in a like case of David Concerning the later Where Christ healed the man diseased and bid him To take up his bed and walk And this on the Sabbath-day The diseased man was there on his bed in the way of his cure a cure was lawful on the Sabbath-day a doing good on such a day a work of necessity and of mercy and so lawful This was a Work that the diseased man could not foresee or prevent before the Sabbath came nor being healed was he to delay it till the Sabbath was over left he had lost that of his goods which his duty was so to preserve the Creator on the Seventh-day Sabbath preserved his Creatutes which he had made on the six foregoing days of the same week It was a publick Testimony of the truth of the Cure and of the power of the Healer who as God-man spake the cure It was an act of Faith and of Obedience in him who was whole and did not hinder any Sabbath-worship For you may find him in the Temple in the fourteenth Verse Having already proved that the LORD Jesus Christ was Admininistrator under the Old Testament and that he was the Promulgator of the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai who was to be believed and obeyed in that Day as well as now and that the end of the Law also the great design drift purport and meaning of it was Christ for Righteousness to every one that believeth That which is now upon my hand to defend and maintain is that it is still a Rule of Obedience now unto the New Testament for the confutation of Anomy or Antinomianism This Law of the ten Words was confirmed by the express Doctrine of our LORD Jesus Christ when he took to his God-head the Humane Nature born of the Virgin Mary and dwelt here on Earth and conversed with men for some years particularly in his Sermon at the Mount So that as he was the Proclaimer of them at Mount Sinai Thus also was he here again at the Mount the Preacher and Confirmer of them in the faithful discharge of his Kingly Prophetick Office He would not have any Disciple of his so much as to give way unto any one thought that he came to dissolve any of the least commands of this Law of the ten Words the least Consonant or Vowel or Point whatsoever it was that was originally this of Christ's own giving and writing from his Father by his Spirit in his Word Nothing not the least part of it was in any wise to pass from it Who-ever he were that did loose or dissolve one of these least Commandments more especial too if he did further teach men so such an one was not in a fiâ—â—edness for the New Testament Church-state which is set out by the Kingdom of Heaven He was neither to be admitted into this State where it was known or if he unawares crept in yet being discovered he was not to continue in that state without the exercise of Church Discipline And that Christ doth speak of this Law of the Ten Words is manifest for he doth give particular instances of particular Commands in the Decalogue Of the Sixth Word or Command in the one and twentieth Verses of that fifth Chapter of the Second or Fourth Words or Commands though set out after the manner of the Old Testament Dispensation which at that time was not so fully perfected and accomplished as I have shewed else where in the twenty third and twenty fourth Verses of that fifth Chapter where the manner of Worship and the times and seasons of Worship are spoken to and of Of the Seventh Word in the twenty seventh Verse and onwards to the end of the thirty second Verse Of the Third Word in the thirty third Verse and so forward to the thirty seventh Verse Of the First Word in the nineteenth Verse and further even to the end of the sixth Chapter If thou be a discerning unprejudiced Reader it is but open thy Bible and read those three Chapters and thou wilt conclude with me that this Sermon is Christ's reviving of and Commentary upon the Law of the Ten Words making this to be the Doctrinal Foundation upon which wise Believers are to bottom and to build The same Truth and Duties which are here taught and commanded by Christ are the same which the Prophets of old did commend to the people and which Moses also did deliver as may be seen in the Citations in the margin It was by this Law of the Decalogue that Christ doth prove the truth of his Doctrines and the equity of his Commands It is Christ's obedience unto the Law of the Ten Words wherein he propoundeth and setteth himself as a Pattern and Example for Believers to imitate and to follow him This Law of the Ten Words is affirmed in the New Testament to be in its own nature an Holy Just Good Spiritual Law a Perfect Law commanding all good and forbidding all evil All and every sin is a transgression of one or other of the Ten Words which are still the Believer's light to guide his steps aright in those straight ways wherein he is to walk The Apostles in the History of their Acts and in the Epistles which they sent to the Christian Churches are full of this Doctrine which doth constantly attend their preaching of that great Truth of Justification by faith in Christ particularly even as to the Laws of the Second Table The Prophesies
the Week as a Weekly-Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the seventh day which is the last day in every Week In the Book of Moses before the Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Israelites were to gather Manna on the six foregoing daies of the Week and on the sixth day that sixth the day immediately before the Seventh that there could be no mistake of the day the bread of two daies one part whereof being kept for Food on the seventh day Sabbath did neither melt nor stink neither was any Worm therein yet notwithstanding this wonderful appearance of Jehovah for the sustenance and Food of his people who but a little before had murmured and complained for want of Bread there were of the People who went out on the Seventh day for to gather Manna and they found none Upon this Jehovah steps in with his prohibition and threatning and said unto Moses how long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws See for that Jehova hath given you the Sabbath this Sabbath this noted day therefore he giveth you on that sixth day the Bread of two daies abide ye every Man in his place let no man not a Man of you if you dare to transgress it will be to your hurt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Particle of Dehorting and of Deprecating go out of his place on this seventh day And that this seventh-day Sabbath might have the more confirming Sanction Jehovah Aelohim continues this miraculous way of seeding of his people for about Fourty years and takes order for the preserving of a Pot of this Manna to be laid up to the Faces of Jehovah to be kept for their generations for the better establishing of the Doctrine of Weeks and of the certainty and duty of observing the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath which admirable appearing if we reckon it seven times over for every Week six times for the fall of Manna on the six foregoing daies of each Week and a seventh time for the preserving of that part of the double portion on the Seventh day which was gathered on the Sixth day the Number amounts to above fourteen Thousand times At the Promulgation of the Law there was a threatning in the Prohibition six daies thou shalt Labour but the seventh day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any Work So in Moses's repeating of this Law the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy Aelohim in it thou shalt not do any work if thou wilt boldly transgress it will be at thine own Peril After the solemn reviving and publishing of this Law every one that defiâ—eth the Sabbath shall surely be put to death For whosoever doth any Work therein that Soul shall be cutt off from amongst his people Six daies shall work be done but in the seventh the Sabbath of Rest or a Sabbath of Sabbatism Holiness to Jehovah who doing a work in the day of that Sabbath to die he shall die whosoever doth work on the seventh-day-Sabbath shall be put to death Thus saith Jehovah if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these my Commandments particularly if ye will not keep my Sabbaths I also will do this unto you And then followeth Threatning upon Threatning Curse upon Curse Thus f when Jehovah had by a judicial Law declared against wilful transgressors a Soul that would sin with an high hand whereby such an one did Reproach Jehovah for which that Soul was to be cut off from among his People because he had despised the word of Jehovah and had broken his Commandment that Soul was utterly to be cut off his Iniquity was to be upon him And notwithstanding this Denunciation one of the Children of Israel would be gathering of Wood upon the Sabbath-day when those that found him thus Transgressing this Law and contemning this threatning had brought him unto Moses and Aaron and unto all the Congregation and they had put him in ward because it was not declared as to the particular kind of Death for the judicial Law was declared before as was but now mentioned should be done to him Hereupon Jehovah said to Moses that man shall surely be put to death All the Congregation shall stone him with Stones without the Camp And all the Congregation brought him without the Camp and stoned him with Stones and he died as Jehovah commanded Moses In the Book of the Prophets there is also a denouncing of Judgments against Profaners of the seventh-day-Sabbath Hear what Jehovah spake by the mouth of his servant Jeremiah thus said Jehovah unto me go and stand in the gate of the Children of the People whereby the Kings of Judah come in and by the which they go out and in all the Gates of Jerusalem and say unto them hear ye the word of Jehovah ye Kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that enter in by these Gates Thus saith Jehovah take heed to your selves and bear no Burden on the Sabbath-day nor bring in by the Gates of Jerusalem neither carry forth a Burden out of your Houses on the Sabbath-day neither do ye any work but Hallow the Sabbath-day as I commanded your Fathers but they obeyed not neither inclined their Ear but made their Neck stiff that they might not hear nor receive instruction And if you will not hearken unto me to Hallow the Sabbath day and not to bear a Burden even entring in at the Gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day then will I kindle a Fire in the Gates thereof and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and it shall not be quenched Let Ezekiel now speak from the LORD I saith Jehovah caused my people to go forth out of the Land of Egypt and brought them into the Wilderness and I gave them my statutes and shewed them my Judgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I Jehovah who Sanctifie them But the House of Israel rebelled against me in the Wilderness they walked not in my statutes and they despised my Judgments which if a Man do he shall even live in them This promise mentioned twice here implyeth the contrary death even death upon death death unto death threatned against not-doers particularly against not-doers not-Hallowers of the seventh-day-Sabbath and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted Then observe the LORD catched at this season of their provoking of him I said I would pour out my fury upon them in the Wilderness to consume them Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the Wilderness that I would not bring them into the Land which I had given them Flowing with Milk and Hony which are the Glory of all Lands Because they despised my Judgments and walked not in my Statutes but polluted my Sabbaths But I said unto their Children
some particular known day Do not Commissions to Judges and to other Officers meet with this sense by their Dates Do not Charters to Corporations express some special day of Grants Are not Fairs and Markets held upon certain days of the week agreeing with the present Accompt as the reckoning now is Search the records of Marriages Nativities Deaths Burials in Ecclesiastical Register-books and is not the memory of Days preserved there Do not Compacts Covenants Agreements between party and party Wills and Testaments speak the certain knowledg of Days Do not Day-labourers keep to this Accompt Do not Ephemeries Diaries Hemerologies Calendars Almanacks Astronomies assent and consent to this same What further Evidence is now needful in this case of a matter of Fact for the satisfying of them who will keep a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy unto Jehovah As an act of Faith with an eye to his Promise as an Act of Fear with an eye to his Threatning Sandys in his Travels being a narrow inquirer into the state of other Nations and Kingdoms doth relate this concerning the matters of Religion in the Eastern parts that there is a Christian Empire of the Aethiopians that did still in his time Celebrate Saturday as well as the Sunday as he useth the old Ethnick Phrases and Purchas writes of the Abyssines as Subject to Peter and Paul and especially to Christ that they observed the Saturday Sabbath The Melchites or Syrians are said to Celebrate Divine Service as solemnly on the Sabbath day as on the Dominical day as they call the First day Some Christian Churches have forbid Fasting on both these days Many more Historical records of this may an Ingenious Industrious Reader of such books Collect that would further Inform himself about this Sufficient to me is Scripture Authority warranted in created Nature Having now gone thorow my great Task and undertaking in asserting and proving thorow the whole Scriptures by Aelohim's own assigned Reasons by other Scripture Arguments and by Created Nature and Established Order the Seventh-day which is the last day of the week to be the Weekly Sabbath-day should not every Mouth be stopped from gain-saying of it Yet the plainests clearest Truths have been opposed and so is this Some rise up against it and object that no special Honour is put by the LORD and by his Word upon the seventh day more than upon any other day of the week and that it is but A seventh not The seventh And that that part of time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven and that one day in seven hath and must have a natural priority unto the seventh-day because say such the seventh day is one of the seven Whereas such should have more deliberately considered that one day of seven was not before the seventh day in order of time It could not be truly affirmed of any one day that it was one of seven before the seventh day was Created For when the one day was so named there was but that one day so but two on the second day but three on the third day but four on the fourth but five on the fifth but six on the sixth day till the seventh had its natural Existence and it s created being and untill then no one of the fore-going days of the Week could be called one in seven For till then there were not seven and the seventh day is the last number of days and the only seventh in the days of the Week So that here is a stop made and we go no further forward As to the natural created Order and accompt of a Week and therefore that exception and objection which some do bring in against this from ten Lambs any of which may be the tenth according as they may run out is nothing pertinent and applicable to the present matter For the days of every week do not run voluntarily at their pleasure which can be before or behind as they will to go backward or forward when they list but they keep their created order in this successive continued weekly course by a well-established natural unalterable Law although in the exception and objection this should be noted that when the ten Lambs were run out they had each distinct names and the last was the only tenth and no other but the last That particular day of the week is the Weekly Sabbath-day which alone As to this of the weekly-Sabbath has proper marks of Note and of Honour put upon it As Jehovah's own peculiar day which he has culled out from all the rest of the days of the week for his created ends and instituted purposes There is not any one Insignificant word or letter in the whole Book of God All that he has spoken and given to his people is of good use The LORD Jesus Christ has confirmed his Law of the Ten Words to a Letter a Consonant a Vowel a Particle a Point These things amongst others I have commended to their serious Observation who do understand the Original or will take so much pains as to learn the notes of Demonstration and their Significancy which may the LORD blessing it be gotten with a little Industry one is to observe well the first place in the Scriptures where the Doctrine and Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is taught here is a Note of Demonstration importing The This or That and it is three times joyned to the word Seventh which particular day of the Week the Last day Aelohim Rested on Blessed and Sanctifyed as the weekly-sabbath-Weekly-Sabbath-day The seventh and a second time The Seventh and a third time The seventh and three times there is a Letter an Inseparable joyned Preposition signifying In Which would carry the discerning obedient Observer of the weekly-sabbath-Weekly-Sabbath-day into the Possession and enjoyment the Duties and Priviledges of that set Seventh-day Besides another Particle there which doth here put a great force upon the signification as That day That Seventh The Note of Demonstration in this Place doth point out a certain known Determinate Fixed Particular Unchangeable day in every Week in that First Created Week and in the after Successive Returns of that last day in every Week as the Weekly Sabbath-day Because this is the First place in the Holy Scriptures where this Note of Demonstration is put to this word Seventh And this was an Eminent Remarkable thing pointed at this seventh day as the day of Weekly Rest And all and every of the foregoing daies of the Week of this Created World have a distinct observable put upon them and therefore so has this also Especially the Seventh day being the most remarkable day in divers respects that was in all the Week Here was a thing certain to be known and to be taken special notice of that was thus Demonstrated and Notificated The Subject matter compared with that which doth go before doth eminently point out as it
were with a Finger the Seventh day to be the Remarkable day of the whole Week a day to be Sabbatized and rested in distinct and separated from all and every of the other foregoing daies in the same Week All these Scripture-reasons are strong and might be enlarged upon This Note of Demonstration doth come from a word which doth signifie Lo Behold So that it doth set out the Gesture Posture and carriage of one who doth plainly and particularly point out a day to be specially observed by the Beholders and Hearers It doth significantly note a certain day and doth restrain and confine it to that and to that only It doth plainly Import an Emphatical Certitude Whence the Greeks have taken their Significant Article this being the Initial Letter of a Demonstrative Article And this the Hebrew Grammarians do generally acknowledge that It doth denote an Emphasis and is used to a Certain and known thing so distinctly and expresly is the Excellency of this Seventh day indigitated as its being the only day of the whole Week for the weekly Sabbath day to prevent any the least doubt or question about the matter For which end also there is this Emphatic-Article prefixed before the Sixth day in order of time which doth in that place Demonstrate that as the work of that Sixth day was somewhat more remarkable and that Aelohim has perfected all the Works which he propounded and purposed to Create in the foregoing Six daies of this one week of the Created World shewing a thing known and Signally illustrious and commendable So also that that day only was the Sixth day in the Weekly revolution and no other day and that the Weekly Sabbath must be reckoned in order of Created time the immediately next succeeding after that Sixth which was the seventh day the last day in the week Thus also in another place before the Promulgation of this Law of Mount Sinai these Emphatic Articles are Remarkable where it is once before the Sixth day to fix that to a certainty Which is the Immediate preceding day once before the Sabbath day and four times before the Seventh day that there might be not the least Colour or pretence for any mistake in that forementioned place in the History of the Creation There is a Particle which is not only a Note of the accusative Case but it doth also signifie the very self-same-substance of a thing Which together with this Notificative doth point out the seventh day Sabbath to be the most Glorious Renowned day of the hebdomadal revolution or weekly return of dayes not only Grammatically in the signification of these Prefixes but also Physically in the nature of the thing it self as the Seventh day the last day in the week That Particle is significant of a Person or thing which cometh from a word that doth denote a coming with speed It denoteth this Created day passive upon which the Creator Acted signifying the substance of the seventh day made being a note of an Article and also of Demonstration This Seventh-day besides its being thus notedly expressed is also set out by a Primitive Noun signifying him or it and also by an Affix contracted of another word which doth obtain the Nature and significancy of a Pronoun For Affixes are Demonstrative Pronouns signifying in him or in it The proper significancy of a Pronoun is to set out a certain and a Finite substance it signifyes somewhat more certain and more First than a Noun or a proper Name As if thou say this is my Father he is my Brother pointing but both the one and the other with the Finger to some by-stander it is better known than if thou shouldst say John is my Father Thomas is my Brother because there may be and are more Johns and more Thomas ' s. I Thou and he do more set out an Individuality than the Name of Caesar for neither when I say I canst thou understand another or communicate it with another Whereas when I say Caesar my understanding also may transmit it to another as from Augustus Caesar to Tiberius Caesar Hence the Hebrews call the Pronoun by a word which doth signifie Cognames because they are another kind of Cogname of the Principal name or Nown Nouns do properly signifie things and Cognames are Accessions to Names from some vertue or vice or event or such like in the things In the present Case the Seventh-day-Sabbath is an Hereditary Cogname received all down along in Scripture from the first Week of the Created World and is Inherent in its own excellency of Created Nature As a Noun doth Enuntiate what a Person or a thing is all the Affixes are Demonstrative To question the Emphaticalness of this Notificative besides that it is contrary to the Judgment of the exactest of Hebrew Lexicographers and Grammarians is also chiefly opposite to the true genuine Proper Signification and usage of the Letter in the Scriptures whoever doth assert that it doth not at all limit specifie or determine doth speak too hastily and unadvisedly It is Emphatically discretive that by which one thing is differenced and distinguished from another even where some other Hebrew Letters Consonants do exclude this Emphatick Note yet there the excluding Letter doth receive the point of the Excluded For Twelve times it is prefixed before those Letters which doth manifestly shew that this Letter will have some signifying place in the word It being a prefix of use and of some notable meaning where it is and will some way or other maintain its title and have a Compensation It s Primary signification is to hold forth what is joyned to it and to make its significate the more known A late learned Writer should therefore a little look over what he hath Written about this and somewhat further Consider and not conclude that the discerning inquirer in this age of growing Light will be so imposed upon by any mans bare say of Magisterial dictate without any probation at all to assert that this prefix to Sabbath in the Fourth word is Redundant and doth tend nothing to the Determination of a Certain day but only denotes one of seven Which doth now lead me to another cogent Reason for the Demonstrativeness and Notificativeness of this Prefix because the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath in the Ten words being much in the same words and expressions with the forementioned place in the History of the Creation has not only a special Note of Remembrance set before it remember thou or rather to remember and it doth set out one Main great End of Mans being Created even to remember the Seventh-day-Sabbath Man is bound for ever for it is infinitive indefinit to keep this in mind for himself and to mention and to speak of it to others It is the Duty of Created Man to look well to this that the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath be not forgotten by him but duly remembred in
man above and beyond the Fool. The Hebrews and Chaldees do set out an especial part of wisdom in Circumspection when the eyes in the Head are deligently used As Folly doth notably manifest it self in heedless walking The last instance is in Leviticus where there is the notificative prefix put before Adam which as the English Reader may find the Dutch Annotations in English do express that man which doth the same shall live by them It doth signally set out a singular excelling Adam or Man If other Scriptures be Collated that do speak of the same thing they have all and every one of them the emphatick Article The Pronoun Relative also doth directly with a strait foot lead to that same man Thus also the Greek has the prepositive Article in two several places of the New Testament where this Scripture is cited out of the Old Testament Let therefore those marks of Honour by Notes of Demonstration which the LORD hath put upon it still be worn as an Hereditary Crown set and established upon the head of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath That day of the Sabbath that day of this Sabbath As it is expressed in another Scripture It should further be considered here in a way of conâ—utation of those who would leave the appointing of Sabbath-times to the Church or State besides what has been already mentioned that the weekly Sabbath-day must be a particular known determinate Fixed standing day for all men to take notice of unchangeable in the weekly returns of it distinct from all other daies of the same week How else should there be a coming together for Jehova's solemn Instituted worship It must be such a stated constant day as that the Governours of Families might carefully and watchfully see to it that both they and their Children and Servants and the stranger within their Parts might remember to observe it That the freed Beasts might take some Natural Perception of it in whose custody soever he were kept whoever were the owner and possessor of it None but Jehovah Aelohim hath Authority to determine and to appoint this weekly Sabbath-day Christ the Creator and Redeemer is LORD of the Sabbath and he has fixed it on the seventh the last day of the week The work of a Commanded day must be done in the day thereof on which Jehovah hath appointed it If men would expect from him acceptance of their work the word or thing we should have a word for every thing of a day must be done in his day How express are the Scriptures in this with respect to the Seventh-day-Sabbath In the Sabbath-day the seventh day-Sabbath in the weekly returns thereof there was to be the Ascension or Ascending Sacrifice of the Sabbath in his Sabbath Sabbath worship must be done on the proper day and time of it on the seventh day the last day of every week and not a day before in the same week nor a day after in another week They that will change a day from what Jehovah hath appointed do devise a day of their own Heart Jehovahs time and Law should not be Changed Sabbath-worship must be from the time of the Sabbath in his Sabbath One of the great opposers of the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath doth yet grant that Rest in the first notion of it doth include a respect to an Antecedent work or labour And that it is so every where declared And that it is vain to imagine the World was made in Six daies and those closed with a day of Rest without an especiall respect unto the obedience of rational Creatures Hereby then man in general was taught obedience and working before he entered into rest For being Created in the Image of God he was to conform himself to God As God wrought before he rested so was he to work before his Rest Thus he How then can the first day of the week be now the Resting day of that week where the Rest is made to go before the work and labour This being contrary to Greated Nature And it being a part of mans natural Created Image of Aelohim to conform unto him in working before Resting in the same week Meditation on the works as well as on the word of Christ and on Christ himself is a necessary useful duty And how can this be performed in its right proper place where the Sabbath is carried from the seventh to any other day of the week as for instance to the First day For this Computation would put the Seventh day back to the sixth day the Sixth to the Fifth day the Fifth to the Fourth day the Fourth to the Third day the third to the Second day the Second to the First day and it would set the First day forward to the Seventh quite inverting the order of the Creation and so would engage a man on the First day which was and is a working day to meditate on a Sabbath-days priviledge and on the Creators Resting and mans Resting which was upon another day the seventh which is the last day of the week and on the Seventh day which by this wrong account is misreckoned the Sixth It would put a man upon meditating on the work of the Sixth day whereas it was Created and appointed the Resting-day Thus every day would be set out of its due place And hence it is that such multitudes of namers of the Name of Christ do so little understand what the particular Created works of every day in the week are and so seldom meditate upon the peculiar works of their proper day Whereas when the seventh day closeth the week with a Sabbath day a day of Rest which is most natural then Meditation passeth naturally into Created order as to working and as to Resting To speak in propriety of speech there is but one only day in a week that is the Seventh day in the same week in orderly reckoning according to Created beings which is and must be and can be no other than the last day of the week every day has its own Peculiar proper Name And apt and â—it names are to be kept close unto especially when given by Jehovah Aelohim himself setting out the true nature and property of things This being one Testimony of his Sovereign LORDship to call persons and things by their own proper Names How else can there be a Peculiar Distinct Certain Knowledge of them Hence the Name is sometimes taken for the Person or thing thus the Name of God is put for God himself And thus the Name of Christ is put for the LORD Jesus Christ himself And what is observable the Law of Christ is by Christ himself expounded to be his Name Thus also with reference to a day the Name of the Number is sometimes inclusive of the day too It were of very profitable use if the daies of the Week were every one called by their own proper Names Is it not high time to throw
it Disciples and believers at Christian-assemblies were not to come empty on the first day of the week but were on that day to deposite what they brought in to the Treasury of the Church And this has been the practice of all the Christian Churches in the World since the Apostles daies For which there is the Evidence of Church-history in this matter of Fact into which Humane Authority this must be resolved For this evidence of this Churches Vniversal constant usage is a full and sufficient proof of the matter of Fact That the First day was set apart by the Apostles for Holy worship especially in the publick Church assemblies They that will deny the Validity of this Historical evidence do by consequence betray the Christian Faith or give away or deny the necessary means of proving the truth of it and of many great particulars of Religion For without this Historical evidence we cannot make good the Authority of any one single verse or text of Scripture which we shall alledg because we are not certain of that particular Text or words whether it have been altered or added or corrupted by the Fraud of the Hereticks or the partiality of some Christians or the oversight of Scribes c. thus these objecters The Spirit of these Objecters is now to be tryed whether it be according to Christ and the word of Christ or not Which shall be done by a strict examination of the two Comprehensive particulars more especially whether the Scriptures alledged be truly Translated and rightly Interpreted and meetly applyed as to the present Case in hand either for matter of Fact or for matter of Right And whether Human Church Histories be of such Authority with reference to the certainty and verity of Scripture and of the Christian Faith and Religion conteined therein As for those expressions in our last English Translation of the First day of the week in the places cited I have shewn before that the words in the propriety of speech according to the truth of Grammar-etymology in their proper significancy and regimen of syntax are one of the Sabbaths the Notation of which Phrase in its plain meaning exactly agreeing with the real Nature of the thing punctually set out by it it has been discovered and proved that as to those places in the Evangelists it was one of the Paschal Sabbaths which doth speak nothing as to any substituting of the First day of the week in the room of the Seventh day as the Weekly Sabbath now which is the pretence of our Opposers As neither do the other Scriptures cited where that Expression is used once in the Acts of the Apostles and another time in the first Epistle to the Corinthians for one of the Sabbaths In that place of the Acts was one of those Seven Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost as will be evident to an unprejudiced diligent Comparer of the Scriptures cited in the Margin which is quite another thing from what the adversaries do urge it for And as for the evidence of this there is express mention made both of the feast of unleavened Bread which was the Passover-Feast in the verse immediately going before the place cited and also of Pentecost in nine verses after relating to that season in the same year within the compass of which two Feasts inclusively were seven Sabbaths upon one of which that meeting was of Paul with the Disciples Which doth hold forth a clear Truth contrary to what it is alledged for As for what Paul did more after that Sabbath day was over at the going in of the Sun when another day came on which was meerly occasional he being in a preparedness to depart on the next day after the Sabbath Such as his continuing of his speech till midnight his raising up Eutychus his eating of Brèad his talking with them a long while even till break of day then departing So long Preaching and conference all the Night long is not to be enforced as a necessary sabbath-Sabbath-duty the Scriptures no where so enjoyning it and if this objector would assert it so far at least as till the midnight according to his account of an whole day in England from midnight to midnight which I have shewn in this treatise to be no right reckoning but contrary to the word of truth Let him and the other learned man whom I answered but a little before who shuts out the night-part from being any part of the weekly-Sabbath-day let them I say if they can find no better work for their time contend about that matter This Night-part belonging to the after day-part as making up the whole next day after the Sabbath was not observed by Paul as the weekly-Sabbath for you may there Read how some of the Disciples went before to ship and sayled to Assos there intending to take in Paul For so had he appointed minding himself to go afoot And when he met with them at Assos they took him in and came to Mytilene this was no Weekly-Sabbath-work no necessity nor mercy enforcing or warranting them thereunto As for the breaking of Bread whether that expressed in the seventh or the other in the eleventh verse if it were admitted to be used in the Administration and participation of the LORD's Supper yet this objector himself doth affirm that it was often done by Apostles and Disciples on other daies of the week than on that which he so earnestly contends for And whereas he doth assert that no day else but only the First day of the Week was peculiarly appointed for breaking of Bread in that ordinance Whither shall we go for a warrant and proof of this We find no such appointment by our LORD in the Scriptures and the Objector cannot but acknowledg that our LORD Jesus Christ did institute and administer it at the first appointing and dispensing of that New-Testament ordinance of the supper on another day of the Week than the first day For the Objector affirms elsewhere that the passover day in that year was the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath and Paul doth expresly say that it was the same Night in which he was betrayed then it was that he took the Bread and the Cup in this LORDly Supper And this did Paul receive from the LORD and so did deliver it unto that Corinthian-Church of Saints as that word-Rule by which they were to reform their abuses which had crept in amongst them as to that ordinance particularly and according unto which they were exactly to measure all their Administrations If this Objector do urge humane Authorities without Scripture-evidence we shall shew the vanity and weakness the incogency and unconvincingness of that empty Plea after a while Reader exercise thy discerning here Is there any thing in this place that speaks at all of any change of the weekly-Sabbath from the Seventh to the first day of the Week do either the significancy of the words or the intendment of the place or the force of
Histories where private interest and particular partyship do incline them to write over favourably of themselves and of their own Facts and how hatred of and prejudice against others who are of contrary Principles and practises do put them upon hard misconstruings and wrong misreportings of the Actions of their Adversaries So that it is a rare Ingenuity in an Historian to give a true Narrative of the matter of Fact in the several Circumstances of it under the opposition of an Enemy Especially if some Ages have passed away since the matter of Fact there is the less certainty and credibility And more especially yet if there have been such ages coming between which were Ages of thick darkness of prevailing Ignorance and of gross imposture and when in such cases as wherein Antichrist has imposed much upon the Churches by his Humane Additions Supplements and Traditions thereby to obscure or to corrupt or to thrust out to take from or to add to what is Christ's mind in his Word which is the present case And he who reads the story of Eustathius the Popes Legat in Roger Hoveden by what counterfeit Artifices and false Pretences and forged Visions feigned Voices and lying Wonders he introduced the observation of the first Day of the Week here into England no longer ago than in the Reign of King John may unless he very much dote on such humane fallible Testimonies see cause enough to give little credit to such Church-Histories as would so report the matter of Fact as thereby to determine the matter of right which those who go this way generally do whilst they place the first day in the Week in the room of the seventh day as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day under the New Testament ministration So that I am the less fond or rather not at all fond of Humane Histories in these matters relating to sin or duty from cited Church Authorities in matters of Fact having my esteem heightned from Scripture Records and word-commands chiefly in such cases where the whole Scripture doth contain such Reasons of the LORD 's own assigning founded in the very Nature of Created Existences such names and things such Precepts and Prohibitions such Promises and Threatnings such suitable Examples and such like as these which do uniformly throughout speak a quite contrary thing and go a quite different way from those sayings which Church-Registers do wrong tell me and from that By-path into which Humane Histories would mislead me as they would in this case when they would take me off from the due observation of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath to drag me along to keep the first day as a separated day for holy Worship I am bound to believe Scripture History as a true report from the infallible veracity of a truthful Aelohim it is necessary this Faith to my Salvation But I am not under such an obligation neither is it so necessary for me to believe Humane History so many hundreds of years ago especially such circumstances as have been mentioned before in such matters of fact as are but pretended to be transacted in Scripture times chiefly to whom they are so argued against the whole of other Scripture How can this objector prove to me that those Ecclesiastical Histories whose certainty and credibility of reporting this he so much cryeth up were directed and dictated thereunto by the Spirit of Truth in this matter And if not how can my Faith be swayed by their Authorities Jehovah Aelohim himself appointed Scripture Histories to be written by the Prophets and Priests these Historiographers were ocular Witnesses in much of that which they wrote and registred and in this as also in the rest they were God inspired So were those Evangelists and Apostles also who wrote the New Testament History As for Tradition we receive what is scriptural Believers are delivered from Patro-traditional conversation such as is unscriptural we receive the commandments which Christ hath delivered but we reject Humane Traditions which are not according to Christ and his Word If the case were so that all the Men and Speakers and Writers and Printers and Books and what other humane Authorities did tell me what I know evidently is expresly otherwise in Christ and in the Word of Christ it were of no validity with me The Prophets and the LORD Jesus Christ the sender of his Prophets did refer the Jews not to the Traditions of Rabbines especially when they were such Traditions as would have UNLORDED him and his Word of his and of its due Authority but to the Law to the Scriptures Scripture Traditions which are allowed of in the Word of Christ we approve of about sound Doctrine and Faith of the Truth and holy conversation and about observing of a naturally comly decent order in Church-assemblies But we reject what is of mens own and in their own name It is an Observand in Scripture that the Scriptures do refer to Scriptures often may we meet with such expressions it is written and as it is written and for it is written and according to that which is written This is under the LORD the Judging Rule and the Lawful Determiner in all cases By this were Truths confirmed and by this were errours confuted Even whilst the Apostles were alive there were false supposititious writings thrust upon some as if they had been the Apostles own true Writing and therefore the Apostles subscribed their Epistles with their own hands they used some peculiar subscription such a subsigning as was well known to the Churches How much more was the World like to be imposed upon when they were dead and gone by the writings of men who would be fathering of their own unscriptural brats of false tenets upon the Apostles there being many Antichrists gone forth even in John's time Paul whilst living to confute the falshood yet was strongly charged with saying and asserting of that which he utterly denies though others would affirm it to be so he was evil-spoken of and wrongfully accused as if he had expresly taught a damnable Doctrine which he wholly disowneth And if they were so bold in his days how can we be so over confident of a matter of fact reported by a mere humane traditionary Knowledge above sixteen hundred years ago without any God-inspired Scripture Revelation or Natural Demonstration How can any man to his own or others satisfaction affirm that by Humane History he certainly knows that all the Christian Churches have constantly set apart and observed the first day for holy Worship when he cannot certainly know that he hath read all humane Histories that have recorded that particular matter of fact Or that no humane History hath recorded a quite different both Principle Judgement and Practice in some particular Church or Churches and when the matter of fact for any evidence he hath to the contrary may have been quite otherwise in some Church or Churches which yet is not recorded in any humane History This
the New Testament Administration of Grace Of this I give these Reasons grounded upon Scripture because that Day which is spoken of in that Psalm and made use of in this Epistle is such a Day as doth take in every Day in the Week as the Author himself doth interpret in the same Epistle speaking of the same Day in this very ease and instance now under debate where he puts the Christian Hebrews upon the faithful discharge of that gospel-fellowship-Gospel-fellowship-duty of mutually exhorting one another daily or according to every Day as the Duty of every Day was when they had occasion and opportunity so to do whilst it is called to Day this Day and the next and still the next after that every Day whilst Grace is offered and whilst your time doth last whilst Christ's Voice from his Father doth speak unto you and whilst the Spirit of Christ in the Word and Ministry thereof doth call upon you That Hodiernal Day of which the Holy Spirit doth make mention in this Exhortation has its duration full home to this our Day and it appertaineth no less unto us than it did unto in David's time For the Illative Conjunction Therefore in the beginning of the seventh Verse of the third Chapter doth properly belong to Take heed in the beginning of the twelfth Verse as went before and so must be here understood Therefore as the holy Spirit exhorted your Fathers to obedience under pain of exclusion from the Rest of God so see ye well unto it that you yield obedience lest otherwise you also be shut out of the same Holy Heavenly Rest The Seventh-day is in this place mentioned with a double mark of Honour put upon it that Day that Seventh The Law concerning the Seventh-day Rest or Sabbath was given to Adam from the beginning and put into Created Being in the first Week of the Created World and is therefore unchangeable still standing in its due Force and in its full Authority Whereas in all this passage of this Epistle there is no mention made of the First Day either in express words or by any necessary consequence So that I may use the force of Christ's Reason and the strength of his Argument here which he did in another case bearing yet a very clear like date from the founding of the World from the beginning the First Day of the Week was not the Sabbath whereas the Seventh day was made Instituted and appointed for the Day of weekly Rest the same Week of the Creation when the foundations of the World were laid and when the Glorious Creator did set up his great Works The Day thereof prefixed by David must in this case be some other kind of Day even the determinate day of Grace and of Life and of Christ's speaking Voice during this Day and of the present time That expression in the Psalm to day or this day was spoken and written by David to the Priests and People in History if it refer to that special occasion of the transferring of the Ark when David called upon them to come unto that place of solemn convention for Publick Worship to the Faces of Aelohim the Ark being a sign of this he threatens those of that Day and Age to be shut out of God's Rest of Eternal Life as their Forefathers were shut out of Canaan in case that they did harden their hearts through unbelief as those had done before them which therefore cannot be understood of the First Day oi the Week as a New Sabbath-day take it as in part Historical though it be further Prophetical also which the Objectors would set up in the room of the Seventh day Sabbath For then according to this arguing the people in David's time were bound to alter the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First Day of the Week It is evident by divers particular passages as well as by the whole drift of that Psalm that is was somewhat fitted for David's Day and time and for the people of his age although withal there is a Spirit of Prophesie in it For those Hebrews in the days of the Author of that Epistle to them and we in the present Generation are concerned in that Scripture as others also will be in the Ages after us Whatsoever is written in the Holy Scriptures is written unto all of us calling us unto Faith in and Obedience to the LORD Jesus Christ What God spake unto Moses in his time was spoken by God unto them in Christ's time when he conversed for some years visibly openly here on Earth in the Flesh and it is still spoken unto us and in this place to the Hebrews that Day did reach to the time of this Epistle and continueth to this Day and will preach to after times That expression in that Psalm to day or this day is that Day wherein the Voice of Christ by his Spirit from his Father in his Word and the Ministery thereof may and ought to be harkned unto believed and obeyed that is as long as this Call of Grace doth continue and the time of ones life doth last the whole season of Grace is this Day It is a Day taken largely For so a Day is sometimes taken for the whole time of conversation here on Earth For Time consisting of Days Months and Years For the Time of Life The Day of the Israelites was a long Day A Day of about forty Years with some of them in the Wilderness wherein they tempted and provoked God as is declared in that Psalm and elsewhere The Gospel the glad-tidings of Salvation by Faith in the Messiah was preached and the Doctrine of Redemption work revealed to the Israelites in Moses's time and long before that in Abraham's time and further back also and in David's time afterwards though unbelievers did not savingly profit by it To day or this day is every present Day whatever Day of the Week that Day be as it passeth along in order several Scriptures do lead to this sense and for every present Day of the time of the New Testament ministration of Grace There needs no further evidence of this than the diligent comparing of the Scriptures in hand That limited determinate Day is that Time which the Sovereign LORD over all hath set unto his speaking to particular persons and to their Life-time of hearing and it doth much refer unto that term of Years which he did set and fix in Moses his time to the unbelieving murmuring rebellious Israelites and is referred unto in another Psalm If To Day were meant of the First Day as the Weekly Resting Day then the Israelites had not been the same Example not so proper so resembling an Example of Admonition for the Prosessing Hebrews to take warning by lest running into their Sin they fell into their Judgments For the Israelites Sin and Judgments for the which they
former dispensation which some way or other had not some Figures and shadows annexed to it There was blood of a Bull sprinkled on the Altar Christ and the Book of the Covenant it self and what shall we therefore lay aside Christ and his Book The particular commands of the ten words had some Types and Figures annexed to them Doctrines Duties Graces and Priviledges relating to the first and second words were set out by the Ark the Altars the Burnt offerings the Incense the Fire on the Altar and such like as any spiritual discerner may discover by comparing the Epistle to the Hebrews with the pattern in the Mount The third word or command in several duties of it had annexed Ceremonials as particularly about an Oath about a Vow Thus also about the sixth word or command as in a case of Murther about the seventh command as in a case of Jealousie about the eight word or command as in a case of Restitution and generally when a Soul did sin in omitting of some duty or in committing of a Trespass when it was ignorantly or in some other cases there were peculiar offerings that were appointed So that if this carnal reasoning did hold it would lay aside all and every of the other ten words This Epistle to the Colossians doth establish the Law of the ten words in the several particulars of it and the first word by forbidding the worshipping of Angels the second by condemning of Will-worship The third by taxing of Balsphemy especially when against the Holy Name of God The fourth word by shewing the accomplishment of the Ceremonials annexed to Sabbaths if it were admitted that the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath were here included The fifth word by pressing to a discharge of relation-Relation-duties The sixth by declaring against Anger Wrath and Malice The seventh by threatning of Fornicators and unclean Persons with the Wrath of God The eight by for bidding of wrong and commending of Justness and Equality in dealing The ninth by prohibiting of lying and evil speaking The tenth by charging of inordinate lusting to be Idolatry Which is also a breach of the first command Thus is the Decalogue confirmed in this Epistle The next premise is that the LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under the Old as well as New Testament dispensation of Grace I take it to be one great occasion of many misapprehensions not only in the common sort of professing Christians but even in many who have gotten a name for Learning and for Godliness that they eye Christ as Christ and Redeemer only under the New Testament and God as Creator only under the Old Whereas Christ says of himself that he was anointed from the beginning before the Earth was as yet made and the Father speaks of this his Son under the Old Testament that he had anointed him Aelohim anointed him by pouring out of the Oyl of his Spirit upon him with an effusion of a fulness of Gifts and of Graces and of Joys mentioning it expresly as a matter of Fact done Mashiach or Christ or Anointed is one of the Mediators names often used in the Old Testament This is attributed to his substance The Father had ordained him to his Mediatoral Office of Priest King and Prophet even then It was Christ who was tempted by the unbelieving Israelites of old It was by Christ that all things were created Christ was the same under all Dispensations of Grace The Fathers purpose and election concerning his people was in Christ The whole Word is the Word of Christ Believers were reproached for Christ in Moses's time It was the Spirit of Christ who was in the Prophets and the Jews and Samaritans acknowledged the Messias before they knew who was the very person and this Christ acted as Mediator under the Old as well as under the New Testament Though his being born of a Virgin and so taking the Humane Nature to his Godhead were a great part of the New Testament Dispensation when in the days of his flesh here on earth he familiarly conversed with men For he had a way of appearing as Man to several Believers upon several occasions under the Old Testament as a forerunning discovery of this latter It was the Messiah or Christ who made himself known by open manifestation visibly audibly to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Moses and to several of the Prophets and to some others It was he who proclaimed the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai and who afterwards upon the same Mount gave the typical pattern for that Dispensation privately to Moses It was he who was with the Israelitish Church in the Wilderness he was the Mediator between God and Man even then he was the Reconciler even in those Ages This and more to this purpose I have already proved from the Scripture in this Book and therefore if the Reader would be further informed and inlightned in it I refer him to the Pages cited in the Margin This is he to whom all observe all It was the received and delivered Doctrine of them all the Prophets do give Witness that through the Name of the LORD Jesus Christ whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins A great full word this But a remark and observand a special one upon it It is acknowledged by this learned Man that it was the Son who from the Foundation of the World immediately in his own person transacted the Affairs of God with Men yet he opposeth the Seventh day Sabbath whereas it was a Law of Christ's giving to Mankind from the beginning Come we now unto the proofs of the several particulars forementioned whereof this is one that this New Heaven and this New Earth spoken of in prophetical Scripture this Renovation by a New Creation is not finished and completed but that it is yet to come in the large fufilling and accomplishing of it There will be New Heavens and a New Earth This we believe because the Scriptures have foretold it and we rejoyce in Hope of their Appearing For they are not as yet come These glorious Creatures are antedated by such Objectors by many hundreds of years For although there were some beginnings of a New Creation in the Days of Christ's Flesh here on Earth and after Christ's Ascension in the Apostle's time in Regenerations and Conversions as there were also in the Old For even there we may read of the creating of a clean Heart and of the renewing of a right constant Spirit Christ's name was filiated even under that Dispensation and there were Sons and Daughters new createdly born unto him even then and Believers were instated in the Messiah then As for that place in the second Epistle to the Corinthians If any man be in Christ he is a new creature Old things pass away beheld all things become new It doth speak a wonderful change in the New Creature The old carnal State the
good is it to be here But I must come down to this Mount and do further work yet for my LORD and Master I am now to evidence from the Scriptures of Truth that there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament Administration This Doctrine of Grace is that which must lay the foundation for an after assertion of mine about a Law of faith under the Old Testament For Grace and Faith are companions Rich Grace abounding Mercy free Love from the Father in and through his Son Christ revealed to and in his people doth by his Spirit in his Word Inwork the Grace of Faith in them and calls forth acts of Faith from them that Christ may be made to them Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption that no flesh might glory in his Presence but that those who glory mighty glory in the LORD and saving justifying Faith doth bottom upon the Power and Truth of God manifesting his unchangeable free Grace to Believers giving them this Grace of Faith whereby they apply Christ and his Righteousness unto themselves for their justification in the fight of God making them to acknowledge that they are justified accepted and saved not of Works neither of themselves but by Grace through and for Christ In Order to the Augmentation of this Holy Science I would propound these Questions to further Disquisition Q. Whether where ever in the Old Testament he that appeared as a Man or as an Angel and withal is called Jehovah be not always Christ manifesting himself under that Dispensation of Grace Q. Whether if all the Hebrew Words which in the Old Testament do set out Grace Mercy Sweet Savour Acceptance free Favour Covenanting Atonement Reconciliation Propitiation Pardon and such like withal Synonyms and Phrases relating thercunto If all these were put together it would not bring great Light to this Doctrine of a Covenant of Grace Q. Whether there be clear Scripture-Evidences that ever there were any Covenant made between God and Man of Salvation by Works only without Free Grace in a Mediator on God's part and without Faith in a Messiah on Man's part So that Man's Justification and Eternal Life was solely and merely upon this one only condition of mans perfect perpetual absolute personal obedience to the whole Law of God to all and every of his Commands Before I pass more thorowly into the Proof of a Covenant of Grace under the old Dispensation it may be of some use to open that expression of a New or a Renewed Covenant in the Prophesie of Jeremiah and in the Epistle to the Hebrews The Hebrew word for New is several times rendred Renewed by the English Translators themselves as the Reader may see in the Scriptures cited in the Margin the Hebrew often signifying not New for the Kind but another of the same thing for Kind The same word which is in Jeremiah A Covenant Renewed as New Days and New Mercies are Renewed Days and Renewed Mercies Thus a new Commandment of Love is a Renewed Commandment of the good old duty of Love Thus also in the Greek Language in that forementioned Instance it was an old Command renewed and revived So it is also in the Verb. Hence the Renewing of our Mind and the Renewnig of the Holy Spirit That it has this sense in the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews will yet more clearly appear when I shall discover that all and every of the particulars expressed in that Covenant are such as have been as were in their nature real Existence and actual Being under the Old Testament dispensation In this as in other great Undertakings in this Treatise my Calls are more vocal than others from the LORD to commit my soul by well doing unto this Faithful Creator and loving Redeemer Jehovah Christ Considering the much opposition I have met with heretofore about this and other such Enquiries and may yet further be exercised with But he who made all things is also the Head of the Body of his Body the Church that in all he might hold the Chief For so it pleased the Father who in and through and by his Son has in all Ages of the world manifested and dispensed much of the freeness of this Love and of the Riches of his Grace which that it might be made firm unto his people he hath put into a Promise made sure with his Oath That Covenant which Aelobim in Christ made with his people was a Covenant of Grace one and the same both in the Old and New Testament differing only in the manner of dispensing As also is the whole of the Christian Religion one and the same in both for Doctrines and Duties for Graces and Privileges and such like parts of this Religion which doth vary only in the several ways of Administration By a Covenant of Grace I mean the LORD' 's free promising of Life of Wisdome of Righteousness of Sanctification of Redemption of all good things to his people believing in Christ who are thus specally favoured by him The Instances which I shall particularize in will be those after Adam's Fall Such a Gracious Covenant the LORD made with his people who were under the Old Testament-dispensation How much of Grace was there put into that one comprehensive Promise The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's head I shall gather a little out of that full store of this which is to be found and put it together Noah was one that found grace in the eyes of Jehovah a just man perfect in his Generations he walked with Aelohim It is one of Jehovah's Names that he is gracious And it is the special privilege of his people that he has a peculiar favour for them This Grace doth Paul in what he wrote to the Church of Rome oppose unto Works and unto Debt It was the free meroy of God in Christ Noah did not deserve it And it was by faith that Noah pleased God and served him with acceptance With this Noah did Aelohim establish his Covenant that Noah should enter into the Ark he and his Sons and his Wife and his Sons wives with him where they should be saved from the common drawning Noah in faith and in abedience prepares the Ark to the saving of his houshold through the which be condemned the World and was heir of the righteousness which is by faith as is mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews Peter calleth him A Preacher of Righteousness That this was typical and had some further spiritual meaning in it the same Peter doth declare by shewing that Baptism under the New Testament was an Anti-type to this an answerable Figure saving of Believers by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ This Doctrine of the Free Covenant of Mercy of Righteousness and of Salvatiou by Faith in Christ did Noah commend to his hearers and it was sealed up towards the Faithful in that wonderful deliverance in the Ark which
the Sign of Circumcision as a Seal of this Righteousness of Faith which was thus imputed to him Is not Abraham propounded as an Example to after-Believers in this being called the Father of all that believe in the Foot steps of whose Faith after-Believers are to walk For what was so counted to him for Righteousness was written not for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for the sake of Paul and of others in Paul's time and so still for our sakes in the present day to whom it shall be imputed namely to them that do believe in him what Moses doth speak of the Duties of the Law Paul doth interpret of the Faith of the Gospel It would fill up much paper to inlarge in all the other instances of the old Testament-Believers recorded in the new particularly in that eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews There is one Faith one and the same Doctrine of Faith to be believed and one and the same Grace of Faith by which men do believe for Justification and Salvation both under the Old and New Testament It was the open confession of Peter's Faith in one of the first Councils or Synods held in the New Testament when the Apostles and Elders were assembled together to debate some weighty Question of the Christian Religion We believe saith he by the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ to be saved in such manner as they also as the believing Fore-fathers under the Old Testament were merely through free Grace by Faith in Grace by Faith in Christ in his righteousness They by Faith in Christ who was then to come to be in due time born of the Virgin which was held forth in Types of old to this end We in Christ as the perfect Anti-type thus already come The Analogy of Faith in both Testaments should be attended unto by a diligent discerning Reader of the Word a due proportional collating of them between and to each other would discover the uniformness and well-agreingness of the Will of our LORD in them both by a particular right application and limitation of their Analogy the orderly regulation whereof must be made according to that measure and number of proportion which the different manner of dispensing doth call for and no further is it to be admitted as to any substantial and essential part of the Christian Religion there is a likeness of Word a sameness of Sense a oneness of intendment on them both unto which Analogy he must keep close who would give forth a true explication of sound Doctrine That Faith which is required and promised in the Covenant of Grace is for the substance of it one and the same Grace which is commanded in the Law of the ten Words and let it be further researched into by the ingenuous for the augment of this Spiritual Science Whether the Faith of Adam in his innocence I do not put here into this inquiry as to the special use and the proper object of it were not for the substance of the Grace one and the same with the New Covenant Grace of Faith Was not Adam in all things to give confident credence to all as to every Truth which Aelohim his Creator had revealed or should further reveal was he not bound to believe in the promised Messiah by the Law of Creation and of Nature as soon as ever Jehovah should reveal this to him The whole Scripture is profitable for this doctrine of the oneness and sameness of old and New Testament Faith and I am perswaded after some years research into the word of Truth about this matter and long experience suited thereunto that one great occasion at least if not cause of the Apostasies and Backslidings of some of the loose ungospel-like and ill-principled-conversation of others and of the practical Atheism and Infidelity of some others and of the doubts and fears and unprofitable walking of other some has been men's unscriptural unwarrantable setting up of so many different Religions in the Old and New Testament and the urging of some one or a few misunderstood misinterpreted Scriptures wrested and wryed to some particular purpose contrary to the drift and intent and scope of the whole Scripture besides which doth write about that Case Whereas the whole Scripture is uniform and harmonious speaking with one mouth one and the same thing The only difference between the Old and the New being in the mode of Administration as has been opened once and again Let me here further add seeing this Objector doth call this a New Law of Faith as a part of the the New Creation brought in and perfected particularly and only upon the first day of the Week and upon no other day as he pretends that this Grace of Faith was put into a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation for besides that if there had been no Law for this Faith under that Dispensation it had been no sin no transgression not to have believed with that Faith for sin is the transgression of some Law and I have shewn it was Christ manifesting himself to Moses in Egypt and in the wilderness whom the Israelites did so often tempt grieve provoke and not not believe But further Faith in that Jehovah Aelohim who proclaimed the ten words at Mount Sinai was a plain duty injoyned in the first word or command and that Promulgator I have proved to be the Messiah or Christ So that it was a duty actually to believe him to believe in him Faith in the Lawgiver is one of the ways and commandments of this Jehovah I had here given a dismiss unto this that I might hasten to the last particular but that I called to mind how another adversary of and objector against the Seventh-day Sabbath had affirmed that the Decalogue had less in it than the Law of Nature and that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature Although if he had improved his own concession he might have seen how he tacitely gave an answer to his own Objection for he says That the chief Heads of Natutes Law are contained in the Decalogue He gives instances in divers particulars some of the chief of them in which he seems much to glory I shall examine In which he judgeth the Decalogue is defective such as the belief of the Soul to love our selves with a just and necessary Love to fame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation to deny all bodily Pleasure Profit Honour Liberty and Life for the securing of our Salvation Let the considerate Reader now spiritually according to the Word of Truth discern in these matters If the Scripture-rules of interpreting these ten Words Laws or Commands be observed allowed and applyed it will be manifest That they are a comprehensive as for other things so for the particulars specified so far as doth concern the discharge of Duty and the avoiding of Sin These general Laws do take