end a more perfect establishment of Christianity which before was not rightly practised This was truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a time of rectification or direction for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly said of them who are directed immediately to their journeys end whereas before they were going the farthest way about and such indeed was the Jews way to heaven God leading them about through the wilderness into Canaan as well in the Mysterie as in the History as well in regard of the Coelestial as of the Terrestrial Hierusalem SECT VII A particular time appointed for rejoycing in Christ not by way of restriction but by way of Application The Christians Joy far above the Jews both for his Redemption and for his Adoption The priviledge of true Faith And how the Redemption by Christ is larger then the Adoption by him And the Adoption greater in his giving then in our receiving TO be glad in the Lord and to rejoyce in him makes Christmass last all the year yet is that no better reason why we should not keep christmass-Christmass-Day then our rest and contentation in God which we have or may have all the week is a reason why we should not keep the Sabbath or the Lords own day for it is very bad Logick and worse Divinity which argues from the position of the Duty to the eversion of the Day wherein we ought to exercise it for if the Duty must be exercised how can we reasonably deny the time of its exercise Yet do I not think that a particular time is to be allotted to rejoyce in Christ by way of restriction or limitation as if we should not rejoyce in him at other times for that is the malignant gloss which some of late have put upon the fourth Commandement confining Gods solemn publick worship only to the Sabbath not considering that the Jews had other grand festivals not prescribed in the Law and yet were more strictly bound to the letter of that Commandment then we Christians but I say that a particular Time ought to be allotted to rejoyce in Christ by way of application or of specification that we may more eminently and notoriously rejoyce in him at some time though our joy in him is to be confined to no time For the spiritual joy of the Jew was unconfined and much more the spiritual joy of the Christian who in a larger proportion hath received the Spirit of joy And therefore its observable that though in the Old Testament we are earnestly called upon to rejoyce in God yet are we not called upon for so much joy as in the New Testament let this one instance serve for all Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart so the Prophet concludeth the 32. Psalm and in the same strain beginneth the 33. saying Rejoyce in the Lord O ye righteous for praise is comely for the upright calling for a very great proportion of Joy from the Jew but yet the Apostle in saying Rejoyce in the Lord alway again I say rejoyce Phil. 4. 4. hath called for a far greater proportion of joy from the Christian For here is not only the same joy that was before to wit joy in the Lord but here is the same joy in a greater degree of extension for he saith rejoyce in the Lord alway and in a greater degree of intension for he saith again I say rejoyce And if we further consider who are called the just and righteous and upon what terms they are called so we shall find also a greater degree of extension for that where is the greatest measure and diffusion of righteousness there must needs be the greatest measure and diffusion of joy And it is evident that they who trust in the Lord not in themselves are by the Psalmist called the just and the righteous or the upright For it is the priviledge of true faith not only to make us just but also to make us upright not only to justifie us but also to rectifie us it justifies us in that it absolves from sin it rectifies us in that it directs in righteousness and therefore the disobedient as well as the unbelieving heart the stubborn as well as the faithless generation is said not to trust in God Psal 78. 7 8 and the faithless generation is there known as well by this Character that set not their heart aright as by this whose spirit was not stedfast with God For true faith hath the priviledge first to set the heart to God then to settle it in God first to make the spirit right then to make it stedfast The heart is made right when it points directly towards God moving as a line from the circumference to the Center and the heart is thus made right or set towards God by the same faith that it is made stedfast or settled in God Wherefore since true faith at the same time both Rectifies and Justifies the soul of man it is no wonder if it cause its unspeakable as well as its unmoveable joy And where shall we look for this true faith if not in Christians for though the act of faith is as expresly set down in the Old Testament as in the New yet the object of faith is much more plainly declared in the New Testament So that Christians having a more perfect faith in Christ then had the Jews must needs have a greater joy in Christ then they could have And indeed what joy like the joy of the Redeemed by Christ or rather what joy like the joy of the adopted in Christ Since the joy of the Redemption is not to be had without the joy of the Adoption For many more have been Redeemed by Christ then do truly rejoyce in him because many more have been Redeemed then are adopted For the Redemption which man hath by Christ is of a greater latitude then is the Adoption because the Redemption concerns all mankind in general but the Adoption is restrained to some particular persons sc to those only within the Pale of the Church and that not only in their number and outward profession but also in their merit or inward affection as Aquinas hath laid the ground of that distinction 22◠qu. 1. art 9. ad tertium in these words Talis enim fides sc formata invenitur in omnibus illis qui sunt numero merito de Ecclesia A true and lively faith is found in all those who are meritoriously as well as numerically members of the Church And where the true faith is found there and there only is the true joy in Christ or the joy of adoption And these two may very well agree that the Redemption it selfe should be universal and concern the whole nature of man which Christ assumed and therefore redeemed but yet the benefit thereof in the adoption of sons should be onely particular that is concerne those alone to whom God doth give special grace to make a right
Iew he would have been zealous to have proved his Sabbath before Moses could he have made good his proof and that these words seem to be spoken by way of anticipation to continue the history like that of the Saints rising at our Saviours death Saint Mat. 27. 52. which yet was not so till after his resurrection for Christ was to be the first that should rise from the dead Act. 26. 23. The reason of the name Sabbath depends upon the creation of which God repented soon after as saith Moses it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart Gen. 6. 6. when as the reason of the name Lords day depends upon the Redemption of which he cannot repent For Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not death from henceforth hath no power upon him for in that he died he died but once to put away sin but in that he liveth he liveth unto God Rom. 6. 9 10. And as Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more so neither can this Festival die which is consecrated to the memory of his resurrection but as long as the first day of the week shall last so long it must be our Lords day and not our own As is the mercy immortal so is the duty that recordeth it and as is the duty so is the day on which it is recorded As is the Lord himself so is his day as much as a day can be the same yesterday and to day and for ever The same in all ages and successions of the Church Not changeable now by the Authority of his present Catholick Church because that hath a power for edification not for destruction 1 Cor. 10. 8. and in this change the Church that is now would but pull down what the Church when it was under the master-builders hands did set up Not changeable by the Authority of Angeis for they in so doing would in effect preach another Gospel another Christ delivered for our offences and risen again for our Iustification and so being themselves under Saint Pauls anathema Gal. 1. 9. I dare further say and I hope it is no presumption sure it is intended with reverence not changeable by Christ himself according to his power of excellency whereby he is head of the Church and founder of all Christian Institutions because though the change be Metaphysically possible that is in its own nature for that all daies are alike in themselves as to Gods worship yet it is not morrally possible that is in the end and reason of the change because Christ cannot rise again from the dead and consequently there cannot be another day as a memorial of his resurrection More daies then this may be set apart for the honour of Christ by the example and from the reason or end of this for the duty is of extent large enough to employ many daies and God having consecrated time to his own service hath made it lawful or rather necessary for the Church to do so too and we find the Jews did ordain the feasts of Purim and Dedication without any peculiar precept from the text and yet are justified for so doing But this day must be set apart by the example of Christ himself who made it his free-will-offering to God by making on it the first ordination of the ministers of his Gospel Other daies are authorized by vertue of this but this day is authorized by vertue of Christ who chose it for the day whereon to ordain his Apostles the Teachers and Governors of his Church and also to give unto them the power of ordaining others So that both the circumstances of time and person the day and the Ministers of Gods publick worshp have no less then the chief corner stone for their foundation For they both are grounded upon the practise of Christ on the day of his resurrection though builded upon the practise and precepts of his Apostles So we read John 20. 19. The same day at evening being the first day of the week came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them Peace be unto you the same day at evening the evening follows the morning in the Christian but went before it in the Iewish account of daies The evening and the morning made the first Sabbath but the morning and the evening made the first Lords day what other reason can we give of the change but because the Lord rose from death in the morning Being the first day of the week Why is the first day of the week so punctually named Surely not to tell the Apostles what day it was but to tell us that should be after them that we might know the very day on which Christ had purchased for and bestowed on his Church such unvaluable mercies and so know it as to keep it as it followeth ver 21. Theu said Jesus unto them again Peace be unto you Now it is more then an ordinary salutation it is certainly a most solemn benediction Peace be unto you as my Father hath sent me even so send I you and when he had said this he breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost We have here the practise and example of Christ for solemnizing the day of his resurrection and for the ordaining of his Ministers We have his example for the observation of the Lords day which as he made holy by his own rising so he kept holy by his blessing and ordaining the Apostles on it And we have his example for the ordination of the Lords Ministers and there is little reason why we should easily and much less slightly pass by the former since we are sure that the latter is to continue till the worlds end for this is the full meaning of the words As my Father sent me and endued me with the Holy Ghost or with spiritual authority to be the teacher and governor of his universal Church So I send you and endue you with the Holy Ghost or with spiritual authority and power to be teachers and governors of the Church after me And as the Father sent me with power and authority of sending others and of giving them the Holy Ghost or my spiritual power So do I send you with the power of sending others and giving unto them the Holy Ghost or this spiritual authority and power of sending others still after them even to the worlds end This is the full meaning of those words and therefore the antient Fathers particularly Saint Cyprian and Firmilian did rightly apply this Text to prove by it the authority of the Church in their daies and we may as rightly alledge it now to justifie the same authority For the Bishops are obliged by this Text to ordain a succession of Ministers even to the worlds end One must be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection saith Saint Peter Acts 1. 22. If God say One must be ordained it is not for
should not dishonour Gods Name when they met to honour it For that were doubly to take his Name in vain not only as men but also as Christians not only as sinners but also as Saints Not only as offenders but also as worshippers Therefore the Church thought her self bound in duty and conscience to provide such a form of prayer as she was sure had no blemish in it but had holy expressions exactly agreeable with holy affections and holy apprehensions that Gods holy name might be certainly glorified and her own Trust carefully discharged For it neerly concerned the Church to take great care there should be no blaspheming instead of publick praying when she was like to answer for all those blasphemies which through her default should be vented in publick prayers SECT V. The Church hath God the Sons precedent and precept for making set forms of prayer and is accordingly obliged both to make and to use them IT was an unsufferable malice in the Jews to cry out upon the Christians as Hereticks when they proved their Religion by the holy Scriptures But it was an unpardonable madness in them to cry out upon the Christians as Atheists when they practised their Religion by continual and incessant prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Heresie of the Christians was a calumny but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heresie of the Atheistical Christians was a meer Phrensie for there could be no greater confutation of Atheism then that which was constantly used by the Christians even daily and lowly addresses to God by prayer and supplication And it were to be wished that we who can easily clear our selves from Heresie by proving our Religion did as zealously seek to clear our selves from Atheism by practising it For without doubt it well becometh Christians to follow the example of Christ and if we will so do we must above all things seek to follow his example in praying Justine Martyr in Quest Resp ad Orthodoxos qu. 105. hath this excellent contemplation Since prayer is a necessary help or remedy against the infirmities of our humane nature and our blessed Saviour as Lord of all had from himself power against those infirmities what is the reason that he is recorded to have been so often at his prayers even oftner then any of his Apostles Surely for this reason saith he because in after-ages some would doubt of the truth of his being a Man whereas none would make that doubt about his Apostles therefore is he so often described at his prayers to remove or answer all doubts concerning the truth of his humane nature For if some Hereticks have questioned the truth of Christs being made man notwithstanding he took upon him all our infirmities how would they not have thought they might have turned that question into a demonstration if they had never read of his making prayers to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often praying was an irrefragable proof that Christ was the Son of Man often praying is an irrefragable proof that Christians are the Sons of God This was the reason the Apostles were so desirous to imitate him in his praying and desired him to teach them how to pray that they might not be mistaken in their imitation Luke 11. 1. And it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased one of his Disciples said unto him Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his Disciples And he said unto them when ye pray say Our Father c. Where we have both the precedent and the precept of God the Son for making set forms of Prayer His precedent in that he made this form Our Father which art in Heaven His precept in that he commanded his Disciples to use it When ye pray say Our Father from whence naturally flow these three dogmatical conclusions 1. That the people are bound to desire the Church to teach them to pray unless they will profess themselves not Disciples but Masters so far ought they to be from scoffing or rejecting thier Churches prayers 2. That the Church is bound to teach the people to pray after a set form for so our Saviour Christ taught his Disciples 3. That the Church is bound to command the people to use that set form for so our Saviour Christ commanded his Disciples to use his Prayer When ye pray say Our Father c. If any man shall make light of these deductions concerning praying in a set form he may with as great a pretence of reason but must with as great a scorn of piety make light of praying on a set day and so by consequence either undervalue or overthrow the whole publick exercise of Religion For from this place alone may as much be pleaded for the Duty of publick worship as from all other places of the New Testament for the day of it Ex. gr Vpon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break bread Acts 20. 7. is alledged as a pregnant place for our solemn meetings on the Lords day and the like to this is that of 1 Cor. 16. 2. yet that proof concerning the day is not so full and clear as this concerning the duty for that may seem to be short in the precedent because there is mention made in the second of the Acts of meetingâ—…y â—…y and breaking bread from house to house Act. 2. 40. Whereby it is evident that if breaking bread were confined to the holy Eucharist yet the holy Eucharist was not confined to a set day But sure it is short in the Precept for it hath no command annexed which bids us assemble more on the first day of the week then another But this proof concerning the duty is not short in the precedent for the Disciples desired to be taught to pray as Johns were that is by a set form and Christ accordingly so teacheth them Nor is it short in the precept for our blessed Saviour commands them to use the set form which he had taught them If you will further alledge that other Text I was in the spirit on the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. you will thence righly plead for the day of publick worship because those words plainly infer that particular day to have been consecrated to the Lord since no better reason can be given why it should be called the Lords Day But yet still this our Text of Saint Luke will be a stronger proof for the duty of publick worship All to use a set form of Prayer then that Text of Saint John for the day of it all to meet on a set day because this hath precedent as well as that and moreover hath precept which that hath not And it is not to be imagined that any can easily come to that depth of sottishness or height of impudence and impiety as to say the Lords day is a means to put him in the Spirit but the Lords prayer is a means to put him out of it Or that a
wil-worship and superstition That the general equity of the Levtical Law as far as it was not Typical is still in force concerning the solemnities of Religion and that approves Anniversary as well as weekly Festivals Sect. 4. Of the antient contention about the observation of Easter That the Apostles zeal more about duties then about days doth not overthrow the observing of particular days in the service of God And that those days ought to be observed by Preaching Praying Administring the Sacraments and also by Alms-deeds so that false administration sc of the Holy Eucharist in one kind and false devotions and false doctrine and sordid illiberality in not relieving the poor are all alike profanations of a Festival Sect. 5. The practice of the Primitive Christians in observing the Feast of Easter and that there was no superstition in that practice Sect. 6. That the Lords day which is observed weekly is to be observed in memory of our Saviours Resurrection And hath a double sanctification one by relation to its duty which is publickly to serve God and to give him thanks for our redemption by Christ and is the Principal The other by institution as consecrated to this duty and is the less principal That the Antisabbatarian Doctrine which advanceth duties above days is not only of Christs but also of Moses his own teaching and makes most for the true observation of the Sabbath which yet is more properly called the Lords day then the Sabbath Sect. 7. That Sunday hath a better Title to holiness and unchangeableness as the Lords Day then as the Sabbath And that the Lords Day and the Lords labourers or Ministers are both to continue to the worlds end by virtue of Gods command in general and of Christs determination and institution in particular Sect. 8. That Sunday as the Lords Day is most truly a Christian Festival and ought to be most religiously observed and so ought also other Festivals instituted in honour of Christ as being likewise our Christian Sabbaths Sect. 9. The fourth Commandment was not given to limit the First and therefore excludes not other Festivals shewing our true love of Christ but rather commands them The true manner of observing any Christian Festival particularly Easter is to account and make it a day of observations by observing our selves and our Saviour Our selves what we have been what we are what we desire to be Our Saviour what he was in his humiliation what he is in his exaltation what he will be in his Retribution Sect. 10. That the end of this and of all other Christian Festivals is our spiritual Communion with Christ and therefore they ought to be celebrated more with spiritual then with carnal joys that though our carnal joys are greater in their proportion yet our spiritual joys are greater in their foundation Sect. 11. A zealous observation of this Christian Festival proceedeth from the true love of our Redeemer and thankfulness for our redemption A set form of praise fittest to express that thankfulness CAA. 2. That God is to be adored only in Christ Hath four Sections Sect. 1. THat no man whilst he is in the state of sin cares to come neer God and that Adam after his sin could not have adored God rightly if Christ had not been revealed to him as the propitiation for his sins Sect. 2. That no Religion adoreth God rightly which adoreth him not in Christ and of the excellencies of the Christian Religion That no other Religion teacheth such conformable truths to right reason declareth an expiation for sin promiseth so great a reward sheweth so pure a worship or so innocent a conversation Sect. 3. The reason why God cannot be rightly adored but only by Christians is because he cannot be truly known and loved but only by those who know and love him in Christ The true way to gain that knowledge and to shew and keep that love is universal obedience both to his affirmative and negative precepts without which there can be no saving knowledge of God That the Christians do know and worship God in Christ cleerly and substantially and that the Jews did so know and worship him in Types and Figures so that the Jewish and the Christian Religion differ not in substance but only in degrees of perfection Sect. 4. That those Christians who adore God by any other Mediator then by Christ alone do not rightly adore him And that those who do rightly adore him ought not to be discouraged in their Religion and much less be deterred from it Christ glorified in his Ascension Hath a Prooem and three Chapters The Proeem That our blessed Saviours Ascension is not so truly observed by our Commemoration as by our imitation and the manner how to consider the history of his Ascension The first Chapter is Christ considered before his Ascension The second Chapter is Christ considered whilst he was Ascending The third Chapter is Christ considered after he was Ascended CAP. 1. Christ considered before his Ascension Hath three Sections Sect. 1. Christ considered in his Apparitions before he ascended as to Mary Magdalen and to Saint Peter c. The wrong use that hath been made the right use that may be made of those Apparitions Sect. 2. The Apparition to above five hundred at once cleared And Christ considered in his instructions before he Ascended That those instructions are more particularly to be observed as more directly conducing to the Constitution and the conservation of his Church Those instructions briefly explained as they are set down Mat. 28. 19 20. Sect. 3. That the words which our Saviour Christ spake to his Apostles before he ascended may be reduced to these three heads Words of instruction consolation benediction That the effect of them all is registred in the Text not left to unwritten Tradition That the Apostles though thus instructed comforted and blessed yet preached not the Gospel till the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them whereby they had not only ability but also authority or Mission and Commission in a full degree CAP. 2. Christ considered whilst he was ascending Hath three Sections Sect. 1. THat the words used to express Christs ascension did manifest his twofold claim or title to heaven the one by inheritance as God the other by merit or purchase as man And that Christ in his ascension wrought a twofold miracle one in the conquest of Earth the other in the conquest of Heaven and what comfort and benefit redounds to us Christians from these Titles and these Miracles Sect. 2. The time of Christs ascension particularly named in the Text and the observation of that Day is founded upon the practise of the Apostles which in the exercise of Religion is to be embraced as precept why the Apostles left not many precepts concerning circumstances of worship to the Christian Church The place of the ascension was Bethany in Mount Olivet and what considerations arise from thence Sect. 3. The persons before whom our Saviour Christ ascended
love and then in the gift of Christ Gal. 2. 20. I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me First he gave me his love then he gave me himself for even himself had been no gift to me without his love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Chrysostom What dost thou say blessed Apostle did he love thee only did he give himself only for thee no he loved the whole nature of man all the world besides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I think my self as much bound to my Saviour as if he had only loved me and given himself only for me I think my self as much bound to live to him as if he had died only for me and to give my self as entirely to him as if he had given himself onely for me A large soul which can readily comprehend much more which doth willingly embrace and entertain the obligation of the whole world and yet there is no Christians soul but must be thus enlarged For Gods love in Christ though universal in the diffusion yet is it particular in the obligation obliging every particular man to love the Lamb of God as if he had been slain only for his sake as if in him alone he had taken away the sins of the world For indeed in him alone be he never so righteous hath he taken away both the sin of the world and a world of sin the sin of the world that is the original corruption contracted in his nature and a world of sin that is a numberless number of actual transgressions committed in his person SECT III. Gods love to man in Christ was the ground of his consultation with himself how to bring us to eternal life WE have seen Gods eternal love given us in Christ the main reason of our Christian joy and we must now endeavour to see the fruits and effects of that love that we may accordingly rejoyce in him even in our blessed Saviour And truly Saint Paul makes eternal life to spring from no other root but only from this root of Jesse when he saith in his Epistle to Titus cap. 1. v. 2. That God promised eternal life before the world began I ask to whom did he promise it Saint Hierom thinks to the Angels but they not having been before the world it was impossible a promise made before the world began should be made to them It is much safer to say That this promise of eternal life was made to our blessed Saviour in our stead and that God the Father promised to God the Son before the world began That as many as should live according to the Faith of Gods Elect and the acknowledgment of the Truth which is after Godliness should in him have eternal life For thus the same Saint Paul makes a dialogue betwixt God the Father and God the Son in the Love and Communion of God the Holy Ghost to which the Angels were not admitted Heb. 1. 13. To which of the Angels said he at any time Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool And the Psalmist tells us plainly the persons that were in this Dialogue saying The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand c. Psal 110. v. 1. whence we may safely conclude that there was a great consultation betwixt God the Father Son and Holy Ghost concerning the Redemption of mankind from the vassalage of sin and Satan and what can we think was the ground of this Consultation but only Gods everlasting love to us in our Redeemer SECT IV. Gods love to man in Christ was not in vain or without success though his Churches love to us in praying for us and teaching us to pray for our selves often proves unsuccessful And yet our best proof that God hath loved us in Christ is that we love him again both in his Authority and in his Ordinances and in his Members GOD will have love for love and never casts away his love in vain Man may love where he may be hated for his pains it fared so of old with the best of men the Church of God among the Iews whose sad complaint is registred Psal 109. 3. 4. for the love that I had unto them lo they take now my contrary part but I give my self unto prayer Thus have they rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my good will we may be sure this complaint was made by the Church for none else could say but I give my self unto Prayer or as it is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I am Prayer save onely the Church which being more peculiarly consecrated to the service of God knew Her self bound more then any other to Pray Continually Thus it is said of the singers chief of the Fathers of the Levites who remaining in the chambers were free for they were imployed in that work day and night 1 Chron. 9. 33. that is to say in the work of singing Gods praises according to that of the 134. Psalm ver 1. Behold now Praise the Lord all ye servants of the Lord ye which by night stand in the house of the Lord. But least we should think that these words they were imployed in that work day and night did only shew the continual obligation of the Levites duty not their continued actual discharge thereof we are told the particular times of the day and night wherein they did actually discharge the same 1 Chron. 23. 28 30. Their office was to wait for the service of the house of the Lord and to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord and likewise at even It was their office every morning and evening to sing Gods praises publickly in Gods house and not to content themselves only with and much less to confine themselves only to their Sabbath as if God by claiming or challenging that day had thereby denyed and rejected all the rest Had this practice of praising God daily in the Temple been superstition or will-worship in the Jewish Church we should have found it not commanded and commended but reproved and reformed by their Pious Kings and Prophets for their Kings did not reform without the advice of their Prophets but not finding this Practise Reproved or Reformed by them how comes it among some Christians to be accounted as a main Piece of their Reformation to shut up the doors of Gods house all the week daies and to open them only upon Sundaies and then in truth to open them for such a worship of God as is publick rather for its accidents then for its substance rather for its time and place then for its matter and form rather for its notice and for its noise then for its Communion For though a man may go to Church as a Judge wherein he chiefly serves himself and pleases his curiosity upon unknown and uncertain terms yet he can scarce go to Church as a Communicant wherein alone he serves his God and
and therefore sought after the very day of the moneth on which the Paschal Lamb had been slain and our Saviour had been crucified But the Gentile Converts kept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Passeover in remembrance of Christs resurrection and therefore deferred their feast till the first day of the week that followed next after that day of the moneth So we see that both Churches agreed about the feast it self and thought themselves bound to observe a Passeover once a year and that they agreed also about the time of the year wherein it was to be observed their disagreement was only about the very day For the Churches of Asia had mistaken Saint Johns condescention to the Jew for an approbation to themselves as if because he had allowed this manner of celebrating the feast of the Passeover according to the known and received custom among the Iews he had also approved and by consequent established the same among the Christians The like mistake whereunto might also have been in other Eastern Churches concerning the Iewish Sabbath had they retained the observation of it with the same opinion of necessity For that the Sabbath was at first jointly observed with the Lords day by the Christian Churches appears from antient canons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement cap. 33. And Scaliger takes it for granted that those Churches were converted betimes which retained that old custom Quod Ethiopes sabbatum â—que ac Dominicum ab opere immune habent id non est argumentum Judaismi sed veteris Christianismi saith he lib. 7. de emend That the Churches of Aethiopia do keep Saturday a Holy-day as well as Sunday is not a proof that they are new Iews but that they have been old Christians The truth is the Apostles zeal busied and spent it self wholly upon duties not upon daies and so should ours They continued daily in the Temple Acts 2. 46. and again daily in the Temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Iesus Christ Acts 5 42. This daily preaching shewed their chief zeal was for duties not for daies and yet their every day doth not forbid their particular choice of one principal day for those holy purposes and performances at the same time for so we read Acts 20. 7. Vpon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them Here 's a particular day culled out from the rest of the week both for preaching the word and consequently for praying and for administring the holy Communion for so we may well expound the breaking of bread with some antient Interpreters though it be an ill inference that some of late have made from thence that they may lawfully leave out the other part of that blessed Sacrament By the same reason they might tell us that the Church hath authority to change the very form instituted in Baptism because we read in the Acts of the Apostles that many men were baptized in the name of the Lord Iesus Acts 8. 16. 19. 5. For without doubt if Christs institution may be dispensed withal in the one it may also in the other Sacrament and if not in the one then not in the other Wherefore it is ill arguing from a Synechdoche partis in dicto to a Synechdoche partis in facto from a part for the whole in speaking to a part for the whole in doing The bread may be named without the wine but it follows not therefore it may be given without it We may admit of half speeches but we must be sure of whole Sacraments For though words are not sacrilegious in putting a part for the whole because that is a right way of speaking yet works may be guilty of sacriledge by doing but a part for the whole because that is not a right way of working for in speaking we may follow the custome or practice of men but in doing we must follow the precept and prescription of God Nor can a man that wilfully transgresseth the institution of Christ be excused from infidelity if we will embrace as we cannot justly reject Aquinas his distinction Infidelis non ut habeus malam voluntatem circa finem Sc. Christum sed tamen ut deficiens in Electione mediorum quia non eligit quae sunt à Christo tradita a Christian may be an infidel not as erring about the end for he aims at Christ but yet as erring in the choice of the means when he followeth not those ways which Christ hath prescribed him And thus have they erred about the administration of the holy Eucharist who would be accounted very strict observers of the grand Christian Festivals although in truth they cannot keep a Festival in honour of Christ who falsely administer the Eucharist no more then they who Preach false Doctrine or use false devotions For it is evident from this practice of the Apostles that Christian Festivals ought to be celebrated by preaching the word and administring the holy Eucharist and much more by holy and religious prayers which may not be left out either in preaching of the word or in administring of the Sacrament unless we will not regard Gods blessing on the one nor his presence in the other Nay indeed holy and religious Prayers do in effect partake both of the word and of the Sacrament of the word as they are professions of our faith of the Sacrament as they are remembrances of our Saviour And it is accordingly observable that in all the collects of the Church there is in the first part of them a recognition or profession of some heavenly Doctrine which we are bound to believe as in the latter part there is a special remembrance of our blessed Saviour whom we are bound to honour alwayes concluding Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum through Jesus Christ our Lord so that false devotions that is not true in themselves or not true in his certain knowledge who useth them False Doctrine and false administration do all alike profane a Festival Nay Saint Paul thinks the Lords Day not sufficiently celebrated by words and Sacraments and prayers but he requires also the giving of alms Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store 1 Cor. 16. 2. And Saint Chrysostome tels us he chose such a day for it as could not but very much advance the duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He argues from the day to the duty bidding them consider what great mercies the Lord hath bestowed on them that very day for that alone would make them willingly and liberally shew mercy to his distressed members This was the antient practice of the primitive Christians to offer up their alms as well as their prayers to God upon those Festivals which they celebrated in a thankful remembrance of his mercies conveyed unto them by his Son and therefore they might beseech him mercifully to accept their alms as well as to receive
the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it The Sabbath in respect of its duty is without doubt of Divine right in respect of its day may without derogation to the fourth commandment in the Judgement of many good Divines be said to be of Ecclesiastical right For the duty is matter of Religion which God hath reserved wholly to himself the day is matter of order which God hath in part left unto his Church even in this very case for though he hath determined a set day for his publike worship yet he hath not confined his Church to that day as he hath to the worship it self by his determination Therefore we may not deny Gods Church that liberty which he hath given her though we are willing to say he hath given it with this limitation or restriction that where the Apostolical Church hath positively determined any thing in the practice of Religion as in the weekly festival for the honour of Christ 〈…〉 Church after it may not lawfully alter the determination And where the Catholick Church hath determined to the same purpose as in the yearly Festivals for the honour of Christ particular national Churches may not with sobriety or with safety determine against it For though neither of these in it self is against the substance of Religion yet both are against the order and exercise of it and therefore against God who is the God of order and hath commanded the exercise of Religion We conclude then that though the Sabbath in special is abolished that is to say that determinate set day no less then that Temple and that Priesthood yet not others instead of them which having been since determinately pointed out and appointed by the authority of Christ and his Apostles have as much real holiness in them as the other ever had and that by virtue of the same Commandment which requires as a holy a publike worship now as it did then since the same God who said to the Jews in the old hath said to the Christian in the new Testament be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. Wherefore the name Sabbath cannot add to the Religion of the worship but it may add to the superstition of the worshippers And t is safest for us now to look upon it as a name of the old use though it signifie a thing of the new use wherein it is not amiss to take notice of Eustathius his Criticism upon the third of the Iliads concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words that are still of the old usage as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still signifies a head-peice though now it be not made of a sea doggs skin for which cause it was first called so And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Arms though now they are not made of brass but of yron So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is still used for to write though now our writing be not by ingraving or making any hollow impressions many other of the like kind may be observed both in the Greek and Latine tongue wherein the same word is still retained though the thing be quite out of use And by this rule we may still retain the words Priest Altar Temple Sacrifice as well as sabbath viz. all of them by way of custom but none of them all by way of contestation And God himself calling the day of Attonement a sabbath Lev. 16. 31. though it came but once a year hath licenced us to give the name Sabbath as well to our Aniversary as to our weekly Festivals But indeed the question is not about Sunday a Sabbath as if Caesar-like it would admit of no Superiour but of Sunday the Sabbath which Pompey-like will admit of no Equal and I answer That to call Sunday the Sabbath by way of eminency though it were lawful yet it is not laudable and is therefore better omitted then practised for besides that every language in the Christian world takes the Sabbath day for Saturday save only our late new English and God himself hath taken the seventh day and the Sabbath for terms convertible and all the wit of man cannot take the first day for the seventh day it is neither safe for us nor for our festival to seek to derive its holiness from the Jewish Sabbath not safe for us because it will make us Judaize at least in other mens judgements if not in our own which is a thing that Saint Paul if he were amongst us would be much afraid of for our sakes Gal. 4. 10 11. and therefore much more should we be afraid of it for our own sakes Not safe for our festival which by that means will be made rely upon a broken reed for the broken reeds are more now in Judaea then in Egypt and so be subject to a downfall For the Sabbath is as alterable to the Christian as to the Jew but the Lords day is eternal And if we have such a Sabbath as is subject to alteration we must have such a Sabbath as is subject to annihilation for the one is naturally not only a fore-runner of but also a preparation to the other Wherefore let my soul look after such a Sabbath as may lead me not to an outward and temporal but to an inward and eternal rest of which the Apostle speaketh Heb. 4. 9. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the keeping of a Sabbath but it is such a Sabbath as hypocrites cannot keep nor Atheists hinder good men from keeping whereas this outward Sabbath may be most observed by hypocrites and altogether opposed by Atheists But this is such a Sabbath as Hypocrites cannot keep for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only for the people of God And such as Atheists cannot hinder good men from keeping for the text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relinquitur They that can take away all other things cannot take away this Sabbath from us they must still leave that behind them though they have plaied at sweep-stakes with all the rest This is a Relique that I must highly prize because they cannot plunder according to that admirable gloss of Epiphanius adver Her Manich. upon these very words of Saint Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord Iesus Christ himself is our Sabbath and our rest and in this sense we had need both labour and pray that we may be Sabbatarians SECT VII That Sunday hath a better title to holiness and unchangeableness as the Lords day then as the Sabbath And that the Lords day and the Lords Labourers or Ministers are both to continue to the worlds end by vertue of Gods command in general and of Christs determination and institution in particular WILL you plead for a Sabbath in Paradise from Gen. 2. 2 you will not from thence be able to advantage our weekly Festival For besides that the Fathers are of another mind particularly Justine Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho who quarrels not with him about that Tenent though being a
boisterous men to say ye shall nor ordain nor for timerous men to say we dare not They that are enemies to the ordination to the witnesses can scare be friends to the Doctrine of the resurrection The Lords daies and the Lords Ministers will stand or fall both together and there is no opposing the one without opposing the other and no opposing either without opposing Gods command For indeed they are both alike in general commanded by the fourth Commandment though only one be named even as uncleanness and fornication are both forbidden in the seventh though only adultery be mentioned and they are both alike in special determined by the example of Christ and of his Apostles and the constant and universal practise of the Christian Church As there is an order from the Holy Ghost that concerns the time or the day proved from the first of the Corinthians 16 2. As I have given order to the Churches of Galatia even so do ye that is the same order that I gave to them concerning the first day of the week I give also to you and in you to all other Churches which order was accordingly speedily and generally obeyed because there was an irresistible reason for that obedience so also there is an order from the Holy Ghost concerning the persons proved from Acts 20. 8. The Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers or Biships and Titus 1. 5. That thou shouldst ordain Elders or Presbyters whence it must needs follow that to disturb the persons ordained to be in the Church of God is equally sacrilegious as to disturb the day that was settled by the same order For the determination of the persons appointed to be the Lords Ministers is full as plain to speak but sparingly both in the prescript of the Text and in the practice of the Catholick Church as is the determination of the Lords day and those men are equally inexcusable who make bold to alter Gods determination in the one as those who make bold to alter it in the other for both being established by the same authority are alike unalterable An universal obligation bindeth equally all persons at all times and in all places and therefore only moral and eternal duties of the Text can immediately and from themselves have such an obligation as the duties of faith hope and charity But yet a determination of the Text though by way of example only concerning the publick exercise of those duties which is without controversie in the Gospel of Christ given to us Christians may also immediately and by vertue of the said duties have an universal obligation because to occasion the disturbance or disesteem of the true and laudable exercise of Religion whether by profaness or perversness whether by throwing aside or pulling down the time place or persons appointed for that purpose is certainly ungodly and irreligious and it is at no time lawful to do an act of ungodliness or irreligion SECT VIII That Sunday as the Lords day is most truly a Christian Festival and ought to be most Religiously observed and so ought also other Festivals instituted in honour of Christ as being likewise our Christian Sabbaths NO Christian festival whatsoever but must be wholly Christian both in its foundation Christian Verity and in its institution Christian authority and in its observation Christian service or duty For the day is holy for the duty not the duty for the day and they who teach or practise otherwise are like those Priests of Spain mentioned and reproved in the fourth Toletane Council can 9. who would not say the Lords Prayer but only on the Lords day Orationem Dominicam tantum die Dominico dicere voluerunt as if Religion were an adjunct of time and not rather time an adjunct of Religion Christian Verity Christian Authority Christian Duty no man can willfully go against either of these principles but he must profess himself either Unchristian or Antichristian And behold our weekly festival in honour of our Saviour Christ is justifiable by all these three and consequently being truly Christian in all these respects that is to say in its foundation in its institution and in its observation must needs be an universal feast for all Christians to be partakers of for that it is annexed to the Christian Religion as necessary by the necessity of Justice from the duty and thankfulness we all owe to our Saviour Christ and therefore may not be carelesly neglected much less irreverently profaned without the Imputation of injustice and unthankfulness The Casuists speak louder and say not without the imputation of Sacriledge So Cajetane in his summulae Festos dies in honorem Dei sanctificatâ—s violare peccatum est Sacrilegii quia injuria fit tempori sacro quantum ad illud ad quod sanctificatum est To profane a Holy day that is made and kept holy in honour of God is a sin of Sacriledge because the profanation of time that is sanctified is an affront and defiance of its sanctification so that in effect it is a double Sacriledge for it robs time of that holiness which belongs to it and it robs God of that time which belongs to him This great Sacriledge is yet further accompanied with one of the seven deadly sins commonly so called and that sin is spiritual slothfulness So saith Alensis Accidia opponitur praecepto de sanctificatione Sabbathi In peccato enim Accidiae Tristitia est de spirituali laborioso cum amore quietis carnalis è contra vero in illo praecepto est Amor sanctae quietis quae est cum gaudio in bono spirituali par 2 qu. 140. m. 10. The sin of slothfulness is opposed to that precept of the sanctification of the Sabbath for in the sin of slothfulness there is sorrow for spiritual labour and love of carnal rest But in the precept concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath is commanded the love of a Holy Rest or Joy in our spiritual good which as it is not obtained without great labour so it is not enjoyed without great rest even the sweet and most comfortable rest of the soul in God for his everlasting mercies in Iesus Christ so that all those Festivals which commemorate to us the mercies of God in Christ are to be accounted as our Christian sabbaths and we shall be little less then enemies to our own souls if not to be our blessed Saviour unless we seriously endeavour to make them so Surely if men did truly believe and earnestly desire the life everlasting they would be as carefull not to defraud their souls of due nourishment as they are not do defraud their bodies and would no more begrutch the time for the one then for the other but would rather be more industrious to save their souls then they are to preserve their bodies and consequently more solicitous how to lay in provision for a supply against their spiritual then for a supply against their corporal necessities alwaies remembring that Motto Ex hoc
's the strength of perswasion And to speak of all thy works in the gates of the daughter of Sion there 's the strength of affection first in the exercise of devotion to speak Secondly in the extent of it of all thy works Thirdly in the profession of it in the gates Fourthly in the integrity or purity of it in the gates of the daughter of Sion What pitty is it that we who out-pass others in the purity of our devotions should come far short of them in the profession extension and exercise of the same That we who are in the daughter of Sion should come short of those who we say are under the Whore of Babylon For this second miracle in Christs ascension The conquest over heaven in his Soul must needs make us conclude concerning our selves that we cannot possess heaven till we have first conquered it Man in his composition is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little world but in his affection he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great world A conqueror over heaven and earth over neither by himself but over both by his Saviour In all these things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us Rom. 8. 37. and we may see who it was that loved us from ver 35. who shall seperate us from the love of Christ It was he that loved us it is by him that we are more then Conquerours Let me fight the good fight of faith that I may have my Saviours love and though all the Nimrods and mischiefs of this wicked world prevail against me yet none of them shall conquer me SECT II. The time of Christs ascention is particularly named in the Text and the observation of that day is founded upon the practice of the Apostles which in the exercise of Religion is to be embraced as Precept And why the Apostles left not many precepts concerning the circumstances of worship to the Christian Church The place of the Ascention was Bethany in Mount Olivet and what considerations arise from thence LOgicians do tell us that it is the property of verbs to be adsignificant as saith the great scholler of nature and greater master of Art Aristotle in his book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verbum est quod adsignificat tempus It is the property of a verb not only to express the thing it self which is to be significant but also to declare the chief circumstances of time and place and person which is to be adsignificant And for this reason it will not be improper to consider in these three verbs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He went he was carried he was received up not only the substance or act of our Saviours Ascention but also the chief circumstances of it to wit the time in which the place from which and the persons before whom he was pleased to ascend into heaven As for the time in which it was exactly the fourtieth day after his resurrection being seen of them fourty dayes saith the Text Acts 1. 3. which doubtless is not set down superfluously and therefore ought to be observed carefully I may justly add conscientiously For though duties and not dayes yet duties upon their own dayes call for a most religious observation God himself having said in express terms to the Jews and consequently by the rule of general equity to the Christians since the reason of his saying is rather moral then typical The man that is clean and is not in a journey and forbeareth to keep the Passeover even the same soul shall be cut off from his people because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season that man shall bear his sins Num. 9. 13. Whence we may safely conclude not as Jews but as Christians that t is not safe but sinfull meerly out of peevishness or willfullness to neglect the appointed seasons of serving God for such a grievous punishment as being cut off from Gods people would not be threatned but for a grieveous sin such as begins in the contempt of God and ends in the scandal of men Therefore duties are to be most strictly observed upon their own dayes Thus the resurrection is most solemnly to be celebrated on its own day the first day of the week and the Ascention on its own day the fift day of the week for the fourtieth day after a Sunday can be no other then thirsday So that either the fourtieth day after the resurrection of Christ is lawfully consecrated to celebrate his ascention and by consequent is the day appointed for that duty or this particular circumstance was unnecessarily set down in the text and as unlawfully observed by the Apostles who turning from the mount Olivet came into Jerusalem and went up into their upper room when they durst not assemble together in the Temple and prayed there immediately upon their return even on the very same day of Christs Ascension and did not think fit to put off their solemn meeting till the next Sabbath or till the next Lords day after it Wherefore it is reasonably concluded by Judicious men that Apostolical practice is to us Christians what Mosaical precept was to the Jews concerning the observation of dayes places and persons for religious assemblies and therefore our Lords day is as indispensable as was their Sabbath our Churches as inviolable as their Temple and Synagogues our orders of Ministers as unchangeable as their orders of Priests for Apostolical Practice in these circumstances or adjuncts of Religion doth oblige us Christians to conformity as Mosaical precept did the Jewes to obedience I say Comformity because time place person were all essential parts of their ceremonial and typical but cannot be so of our moral worship and therefore obedience was necessary for them but comformity is enough for us So that a willfull neglect and much more a scornfull contempt of any rite observed by the Apostles cannot but be impious in it self dangerous to us and scandalous to our brethren And as this is judiciously concluded by some learned men so it must be couragiously resolved by all good men not to fear superstition in that which the Apostles practised when their practice is declared in the text since all circumstances adjuncts of Religion are derived to us Christians rather by practice then by precept as not being of the Substance of our Religion And indeed they could not well be derived otherwise because types and ceremonies were utterly to be abolished to the Jews and therefore ceremonies though without types could not but with offence to the Jews be particularly prescribed to the Christians consequently were to be left unto them only in example and practice as matter of decency and order which are capable of dispensation not set down in the text by way of command or imposition as matter of Substance which hath alwayes a rigour of Justice and should alwayes have a readiness of obedience both alike indispensable Nay yet more
enjoyning duties shewing us that we cannot take any of either but we must take all And this is most evident in the present case for the fourth Commandment plâ—inly presupposeth all that is enjoyned in the three former commandments concerning holy duties or the whole substance of Religion both internal and external and then also farther addeth an obligation of consecrating time and other adjuncts for the publick exercise thereof that God may be the more solemnly glorified and men the more truely edified whilst the duties of Religion are all practised together in a full communion of Saints the Church Militant being obliged in this to imitate the Church Triumphant that it invite men on earth to glorifie God with one accord as the Angels do glorifie him in heaven And in this respect we may easily believe and readily confess the first Sabbath to have been both instituted and kept in Paradise for the Church was there founded and the Communion of Saints there first established That is the communion of holy men with the holy Angels and with themselves joyning together to sing Halleluiahs to God their blessed Creator which was indeed the principal end of their creation And accordingly men were at first enabled to the discharge of this great duty as well as the Angels having the right and acceptable forms of praising God imprinted in their hearts and when through transgression they had disabled themselves it pleased God of his infinite goodness to grant them as it were a new impression and to give them a second edition of those praises in his holy Scriptures which before had been written in their own hearts but were now very much slurred and defaced if not quite obliterated and blotted out This great and undeserved mercy of God those men either shamefully forget or ineffectually remember who cry up the Sabbath day but beat down the Sabbath Duty making little or no use of the written Word of God in their publick worship and making little or no account of those forms of praâ—er and praise which are either contained therein or agreeable thereto but setting up their own private gifts against that publick communion which should be in Gods house and service by virtue of this fourth Commandment discountenancing the exercise of Religion in known forms of heavenly prayers able to establish the heart and encouraging new-fangled devices which are only fit to busie and tickle the phansie By which ungodly practice for so it must be called though it pretend to the greatest measure of godliness they in effect throw the fourth Commandment out of the Church whilst they pretend to set it up over the Altar since not sitting still or keeping an outward rest but comming together that we may all labour inwardly in Hallowing the name of our Father which is in heaven is the cheif moral duty of the Sabbath For as in the promise of the fifth so in the precept of the fourth Commandment the Lawgivers expression containeth the least part of his intention and we may no more confine this precept in the duty then we may that promise in the reward Therefore as we would be loth to look no farther then the Land of Canaan for our inheritance so we should be wary how we assert that God looks no farther then the Sabbath day for our obedience Truth is it pleased God to train up the Jews in his fear by types and figures and as it were to wrap up heaven in earth spirituals in temporals morals in ceremonials substances in circumstances to them as well in his precepts as in his promises particularly in that precept which concerned his publick worship because that amongst the Jews was for the most part Ceremonial and figurative Wherefore if we desire rightly and fully to understand the fourth Commandment we must conceive it in so great a latitude as to comprize all those Commissions injunctions invitations and exhortations which we find in the Old and New Testament given either to Kings or Ministers or People concerning the ordering establishing reforming practicing professing or promoting the solemn publick worship of Almighty God which is in truth the principal end thereof unless we will say that all those moral duties are reducible to none of the ten commandments in the decalogue and consequently that all they were will-worshippers who either professed or promoted or practised them For as such duties of Religion are to be done publickly and solemnly by many together in one communion they are not reducible to any of the three first commandments which speak to single persons but only to the fourth which alone speaketh to whole families or to many persons joyned together in one community And therefore it is not amiss to say that Hallowed be thy name is that Petition which most directly prayes for Grace to perform the duty of the fourth Commandment since all other things are hallowed for his names sake God sanctifying times places persons and forms of prayers and praise unto us that he may sanctifie us unto himself nor is it amiss to say that the holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints is that Article of faith which most directly professeth to believe the truth of the fourth Commandment for it is only the Catholick Church the Communion of Saints which doth rightly hallow and praise Gods holy name The Hallowing of Gods most holy name belonging equally to the decalogue and to the Creed and to the Lords most holy prayer belonging to the decalogue as it is a duty to be performed belonging to the Creed as it is a truth to be believed and belonging to the Lords Prayer as it is a good to be desired as we are all bound to pray that we may perform this duty and believe this truth For Faith Hope and Charity are not to be separated from one another but do alike belong to supernatural Truths and to religious or moral duties because both truths and duties do equally call for our faith to know and believe them and for our hope to crave and desire them and for our Charity to love and embrace them But if we take the outward sanctification of a day for the principal morality of the Sabbath we shall scarce find a Petition in the Lords most holy and most perfect prayer relating to such a Duty nor an Article in the Apostles Creed relating to such a Truth and so we shall phansie to our selves such a morality as is without a good to be desired and without a truth to be believed for without doubt The Lords Prayer briefly containeth all the good we are bound to desire and the Apostles Creed briefly containeth all the Truths we are bound to believe as well as the Decalogue briefly containeth all the Duties we are bound to practise and perform Whereas on the other side if we look upon hallowing the name of God in our publick worship as upon the principal moral duty that is enjoyned in the fourth Commandment we shall find the Decalogue and the Creed and
Thus hath holy Zachary taught us to sing Blessed be the Lord God of Israel and hath given this reason of that song For he hath visited and redeemed his people Luke 1. 68. That we may assure our selves it is not superstition but good Religion agreeable with the end of the fourth Commandment which teacheth us to celebrate the memorials both of his Visitation that he came to visit us in great humility and of his redemption that he hath redeemed us in great mercy and will consummate that Redemption in greater glory nor may we think that the letter of this Commandment was to restrain the end of it or the Sabbath was to confine the publike worship of Christ no more then we may think that God gave the Law to restrain the Gospel or set up the practice of Judaism for a time to confine the practice of Christianity for ever we may not so put our necks under the yoke of Jewish bondage in the Circumstances and much less in the substance of our Religion The proportion of time allotted the Jew for his publike worship may admonish the Christian to give no less must not regulate him to give no more to God For Religion first brings men to God then binds them to God and that Religion which brings them neerest binds them fastest The Jews Religion brought and bound him to God as to the author of nature and called for much praise The Christians Religion brings and binds him to God as to the Author of Grace and calleth for more praise The Angels Religion brings and binds them to God as the author of glory and calleth for all Praises The Christians Religion though betwixt that of the Jews and that of the Angels yet comes neerer to that of the Angels and therefore may not look backwards to Nature but must look forwards to glory The Author of nature did bid the Jews first number dayes saying For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it There the day called for the duty But the Author of Grace hath bid the Christian first number Duties teaching him to say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 7. 25. Here the Duty calleth for the Day and bidding us think God will not let us be stiâ—ted to one day in seven for our thanksgivings For though nature be under the measure and government of Time yet Grace is only under the measure and government of Eternity Wherefore any day that tells me of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God in him shall tell me also of the Communion of the Holy Ghost to give thanks to God the Son for his Grace and to God the Father for his love nor dare I so undervalue the duty of thankfullness which I owe to my blessed Saviour for my redemption from sin and death as to tarry till the next Sabbath before I say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord And this I am sure though men may deny me thus to keep the Sabbath on earth yet God will not deny me thus to keep the Sabbath in Heaven and the more they may hinder me thus to keep it in earth the more should my soul be filled with desires and longings to keep it so in Heaven SECT IV. The sincerity of Christian communion may be broken either causally by a false Religion or formally by an unjust separation Both breaches are abominable The care which the Primitive Christians used to avoid both by cleaving to the ancient Creeds and the Gloria Patri and also by their communicatory letters The reason of that care was that both Priest and People laboured only to serve Christ not to serve themselves of him The Touchstone to try all Churches is from advancing the glory of Christ both in their Religion and in their communion AS the Communion of Saints is commanded in the fourth Commandment which requires all men to communicate in those doctrines of faith and duties of life which God hath called them to profess and practise in and by his Church So the Religion of Saints is commanded in the three first Commandments which do teach the Doctrines and Duties of that communion For as God hath not left his people to make their own communion so neither hath he left his Church to make her own Religion He first saith Let all things be done then let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14. 40. He first provides the doctrines then regulates the Prophets or the Preachers first takes care for the order of Religion then takes care for the order of Communion He first taught his Church how to invocate and implore his mercy how to reverence and adore his Majesty how to acknowledge his Authority and glorifie his holy name in worship in word in Sacraments and after that how to order assemblies and publick meetings for these Invocations for these adorations for these acknowledgements or glorifications And hence it is that Christian Religion bids all men first look after Gods authority in his word then after Gods authority in his Church So that no Church can be obliged by the obedience which she oweth to the Christian Faith to communicate with that Church which absolutely refuseth to have the doctrines and duties of its communion regulated and ordered by the known and undoubted written word of God because every man ought first to choose his Religion whereby to have communion with Christ then the Profession or exercise of it whereby to have communion with Christs Church And by consequent for any company of men to advance themselves against the word is to incurre Saint Pauls censure If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to Godliness he is proud knowing nothing but dâ—ating about questions and strifes of words And those men which have incurred Saint Pauls censure cannot be acquitted from Saint Pauls sentence From such withdraw thy self 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. In such a case the breach of Christian communion is to be imputed to those who consent not to the words of Christ for if they break off from Christ it is no sin can be no shame in others to break off from them For the Apostle saith expresly from such withdraw thy self So that it is evident the breach of Christian Communion may be causal in a false Religion as well as formal in an unjust separation And all the world is not able to excuse the formal unless it be from the causal breach since no man can have a pretence to leave the Church unless it be to cleave to Christ to forsake the Christian communion unless it be to follow the Christian Religion Therefore where Religion is most sincerely kept there communion is most sinfully and most shamefully broken For if the Church hath indeed taught us the right Invocation
that Christian joy The first part is Christ Preached The second part is Christ Practised The third part must be your own that is Christ Purchased which from the bottom of his heart and in the bowels of Christian Charity he wisheth unto you who is Your Brother and Servant in Christ E. H. A Prayer in honour of Christs Nativity OBlessed Jesus thou Lover and Redeemer of souls God manifest in the flesh who camest unto men and didst become man to bring true light into the world from the Father of Lights grant we beseech thee unto us miserable sinners so to glorifie thee for thy coming to us and being in us and reigning over us that though of our selves we are in darkness and in the shadow of death yet in thee we may come to see the true light of Grace and by thee may come to enjoy the true light of Glory to glorifie thee eternally who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God eternal world without end Amen A short Scheme of the whole Christ welcomed in his Nativity Hath three Chapters The first sheweth the Motives of that welcome The second sheweth the Reasons of that welcome The third sheweth the joyful manner of that welcome CAP. 1. Shewing the Motives of Christs welcome from God and from Gods Church both Triumphant and Militant Hath fifteen Sections Sect. 1. CHrists image repairs the loss of Gods image in man The Churches desire tâ—… Christ should be formed in us Christs humiliation is the Christians exaltation Sect. 2. Christs humiliation was in the fulness of time Sect. 3. The fulness of time in which Christ came to humble himself was the perfection of time Sect. 4. God observed the fulness of time for the sending of Christ to fill our souls with Patience and with Piety which two make up the true Christians fulness Sect. 5. The authority of God and of his Church for a solemn Festival to celebrate the coming of Christ and that the Church did no more then her Duty in appointing that Festival and an Advent Sunday to prepare for it and that we cannot justly or safely gainsay that Appointment Sect. 6. Christmass no superstitious word and christmass-Christmass-day observed not for it self but for its duty takes off all controversies and can fall under no just exceptions and may not fall under any unjust cavils much less calumnies Sect. 7. The difference betwixt a Iewish and a Christian observation of daies This latter is a moral part of Gods service and may not be neglected without scandal Sect 8. To oppose the celebration of Christs Nativity is a scandal to Christians and a stumbling block to Iews keeping them from Christianity Sect. 9. The Iews equally scandalized by Idolatry and by Profaneness especially that profaneness or irreligion which immediately dishonoureth our Saviour Christ Sect. 10. That those Christians who oppose Christmass-day do give occasion to other good Christians to suspect them as not well grounded in the Christian Religion Sect. 11. The first Christmass-day was kept by the holy Angels therefore no will-worship in keeping Christmass but rather a necessity to keep it from Heb. 1. 6. The Kingdom of Christ as Creator and as Redeemer Sect. 12. We must embrace all opportunities of glorifying Christ that we may not be thought to desert either our Saviour or our selves whiles we are defective in our Devotions either for want of Preparation before them which hath hitherto made us so bad Christians in so good a Churâ—â— or of Affection in them which will keep us from being good Christians or of Thankfulness after them which will keep us from worthily magnifying the name of Christ Sect. 13. A new song for the coming of Christ God the Father Son and Holy Ghost carefully observed the time of our Saviours coming into the world therefore it can be no true piece of Reformation for men not to observe it Sect. 14. Everlasting thankfulness is due to God for this everlasting mercy Sect. 15. Time not perfect in Gods account from our Creation but from our Redemption The Iews not destroyed and Time not untimed meerly in relation to the coming of Christ Time still continued for the world to make a right use of his coming No other time perfect in Gods account but that wherein he gives his Son And no other should be perfect in our account but that wherein we receive him CAP. 2. Shewing the Reasons of Christs welcome because of the infinite love of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost bestowed on man in his Redemption Hath nine Sections Sect. 1. GOds first gift to man was his love in Christ his second Gift was Christ in our nature No Gift can prove a blessing unless God give it in love Not Government not the Gospel though the one be the best temporal the other the best Spiritual Gift Sect. 2. Gods love in Christ though it be Universal in the diffusion yet is it particular in the Obligation Sect. 3. Gods love to man in Christ was the ground of his Consultation with himself how to bring us to eternal life Sect. 4. Gods love to man in Christ was not in vain or without Success though his Churches love to us in daily Praying for us and teaching us to pray for our selves often proves unsuccessful And yet our best proof that God hath loved us in Christ is That we love him again both in his Authority and in his Ordinances and in his Members Sect. 5. Gods love to us in Christ was not in vain or without a cause for as much as Christ was the ground of our Election as well as the Author of our Reconciliation More men Reconciled by Christ to God then Recommended to Him Or more men reconciled Potentially then Actually Sect. 6. Gods love in Christ is not a fond love therefore he scourgeth whom he loveth The Christian Church not taught in the New Testament to expostulate for being scourged though she be crucified as Christ was between two thieves Sect. 7. Christs love to us that he would come from the bosom of his Father to teach and to redeem us The title of the chief corner-stone blasphemously applyed to his pretended Vicar Christ was not an Apostle one sent from God but an Ex-apostle one sent out of God Sect. 8. Tht mother of Christ so a Woman as still a Virgin The Prayer of the seventy Interpreters Christs love to us that he would be made the Son of a woman whereby he hath exalted men above Angels A mercy not to be forgotten till there be no man to remember it That the Iews corrupted not the Text proved from the Prophecies concerning Christ Sect. 9. Christs love to us that he would be made under the Law That man is a Son of Belial not a Member of Christ who will not be under the Law All good Christians follow Christ both in Active and in Passive obedience CAP. 3. Shewing the joyful manner of Christs welcome as proceeding from joy in the Holy-Ghost
of the fourth Commandment who cryes up the Day but beats down the other adjuncts and also the very Duty of the Sabbath That Duty being to glorifie God in Christ by Publick worship for the Redemption of the world whereas they discountenance Liturgie and Festivals though both instituted in honour of our Redeemer Sect. 4. The sincerity of Christian Communion may be violated either Causally by a false Religion or Formally by an unjust separation Both violations are abominable The care which the primitive Christians used to avoid both by cleaving to the antient Creeds and Gloria Patri and also by their Communicatory Letters The reason of that care was that both Priest and People laboured only to serve Christ not to serve themselves of him The Touchstone to try all Churches is the Advancing Christ both in their Religion and in their Communion The Iustification of the Church of England Consisteth of three Chapters The first Chapter sheweth That the Church of England is Gods Trustee for the Christian Religion as to the people of this Nation The secend Chapter sheweth That the same Church of England hath carefully discharged her Trust concerning Religion as a most Christian or most Catholick Church The third Chapter sheweth That the Communion of the said Church of England is conscionably embraced and reteined by All the people of this Nation and not rejected much less renounced by any of them but against the Rules of Conscience CAP. 1. That the Church of England is Gods Trustee for the Christian Religion as to the People of this Nation Sect. 1. CHrist delivered the Trust of his Word and Sacraments to his Apostles They delivered the same to Bishops and Presbyters their successors But the Apostles had an illimited their successors have a limited Trust The necessity of the succession of these Trustees to the worlds end yet is the succession of Doctrine more necessary then the succession of Persons Sect. 2. The Trust and nature of the Catholick Church best gathered from particular Churches The first part of their Trust is concerning the word of God Sect. 3. The second part of the Trust of particular Churches is concerning the people of God What that Trust is and how it comes to be derived to them is shewed from Saint Pauls speech Acts 20. to the particular Church of Ephesus and from Saint Pauls Epistles to Timothy and Titus and from other several Epistles of his to particular Churches Sect. 4. The third part of the Trust of particular Churches is concerning the worship of God The written Word of God is the Rule whereby they are to manage that Trust the readyest way to beget a Christian Communion among all Churches and a Christian Peace in each particular Church Sect. 5. The Prince as the Supreme Governor of the particular Church in his own dominions is Gods Trustee concerning the outward exercise of Religion not to manage or perform but to propagate and to protect it The antient Divines acknowledged this Trust and the antient Princes discharged it and Princes now are bound so to do because it is their right by the Law of nature and because without the discharge of this Trust there can neither be the face nor the due order of Religion among any People Sect. 6. The limitation both of the Princes and of the Priests Trust in matters of Religion That neither may deviate from the Law of God And that the Authority of the Churches Laws is most enfeebled by them who make least esteem of the Law of God casting the aspersions of obscurity and of uncertainty upon the Holy Scriptures Sect. 7. The Trust of each particular Church is sufficient for the Peoples salvation if she take heed to her self and to the Doctrine God hath given her in his written Word and in the antient Creeds of the Catholick Church Sect. 8. The Trust of particular Churches is immediately from God himself both in regard of the Magistrate and of the Minister That trust much stood upon in the Primitive times and ought to be so still because it is founded in the Holy Scriptures And that this Doctrine concerning the trust of particular Churches doth not Canton or dis-joynt the Catholick Church Sect. 9. What Trust is given to other particular Churches in the Holy Scriptures is also given to our particular Church of England from God the Father Son and Holy Ghost That our Church is accordingly bound to magnifie her Trust and therefore we bound not to vilifie it And that it is both rational and religious to maintain the Trust and Authority of our own particular Church CAP. 2. That the Church of England hath most carefully discharged her Trust concerning Religion as a most Christian or most Catholick Church Sect. 1. GODS intent in Trusting the Church with Religion was her Honour and Happiness which should cause our thankfulness to God and our reverent esteem of his Church Sect. 2. The Churches Trust concerning Religion is to see there be right Preaching Praying and Administring the Holy Sacraments Preaching belongs rather to the knowledge then to the worship of God and ought not to thrust out Praying which is the chiefest act of Gods worship and most regarded by him especially when many Pray in one Communion Sect. 3. Preaching is twofold either by Translating or by Expounding the Holy Scriptures The great excellency and necessity of both And that our Church is entrusted with both and cannot justly be charged as defective in either Sect. 4. Praying a greater part of the Churches Trust then Preaching The Church hath God the Fathers Precedent and Precept for making set forms of Prayer and shall answer for all the blemishes that may be in publick Prayers for want of a set form Sect. 5. The Church hath God the Sons Precedent and Precept for making set forms of Prayer and is accordingly obliged both to make and to use them Sect. 6. The Church hath God the Holy Ghosts Precedent and Precept for making and using set forms of Prayer Sect. 7. The Church hath Gods Promise for his blessing upon set forms of Prayer Sect. 8. The Church is obliged to make set forms of Prayer according to the Pattern of the Lords most holy Prayer that there be no Peccancy neither concerning the Object nor the Matter nor the Manner of publick Prayer and that our Church hath exactly followed that Pattern in hers and that other Churches ought to follow the same in their Liturgies A short Historical Narration concerning our Common-Prayer Book and the Anti-prayer book set up against it Sect. 9. Reformation not to be pretended against Religion The abolishing of Liturgie no part of a true Reformation That God hath not given any Church power to abolish Liturgie And that no Church ought to assume that power because Liturgie directly tends to the keeping of the third and of the fourth Commandments Sect. 10. Certainty is more to be regarded in the publick exercise of Religion then Variety Hence the Creed the Lords Prayer
Auhority of Christ The Authority of the Church under the Authority of Scripture the word of Christ But where the Apostle doth indeed follow Christ there to run away from the Apostle is in effect to run away from Christ even as to follow him is indeed to follow Christ The like must be said of the Authority of the Church which succeeds the Authority of the Apostles unless we will suppose all the promises of Christ to his Apostles and all the Precepts of the Apostles to the People to have been meerly momentary and temporal and not to have been written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come 1 Cor. 10. 11. A supposition so far from true godliness that you see it is directly against the express Word of God Wherefore we may not doubt to follow the Church in those things wherein the Church follows Christ And the Church follows Christ in all those things for which she can alledge either Precept or Precedent from the Word of Christ or can give a reason agreeable with his Word And we cannot deny but that in this case the Church hath both Precedent and Precept and Reason drawn from the Word of Christ The Precedent is in general from the Jews appointing the Feast of Dedication without any peculiar command of the Old yet not without the approbation of the New Testament John 10. 22. In special from the Angels of God who most zealously kept this Festival The Precept is from the general equity of the Levitical Law which still obligeth Christians as it is subservient to Moral and Religious though not to Typical and Ceremonious worship and that plainly calls for Annual Festivals in honour of Christ unless we will say that less honour is due to him since he is come in the flesh then was due to him before his coming The Reason is clearly from the very institution of the Church for God gave Pastors and Teachers for the edifying of the body of Christ Ephes 4. 12. but the right way of edifying is to lay the foundation upon the chief corner-stone And doubtless this was the reason why the Church first appointed an Advent Sunday which must needs be very antient or else all the Order of the service could not depend upon it because she observed that all the Documents of the Old Testament did aim only at this To fit and prepare men for the coming of Christ and therefore was desirous That we might so prepare our selves to receive Christ at his first coming to save us that we might not tremble at his second coming to Judge us Accordingly the Greek Church began their preparatory Feast for the Nativity of Christ on the 20. of December that is five compleat daies before the Feast it self as appears by their Chronologie where the 20. of Decem. is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of the Preparatory feasts of the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour Lord make me so to celebrate thy coming to us in our flesh that I may daily find and feel thy coming to me in my soul God observed a time so may we in that he teacheth us by his example God observed a time for his Son so will we if he doth also teach us by his Communion Saint Peter intimates both kinds of Gods teaching man 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. But as he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written Be ye holy for I am holy As if he had said ye ought to be holy not only for the example but also from the Communion of my Holiness It is not for Christians to be guilty of prophaness when Christ by his communion calleth them to holiness SECT VI. Christmas no superstitions word And Christmas day observed not for it self but for its duty takes off all controversies and can fall under no just exceptions and may not fall under any unjust cavils much less calumnies GOD observed not time for it self but for his Son so must we observe no Festival for it self but only for our Saviour no day for it self but for the Lord. Were Christmas-Day for that word is no more Popishly superstitious to me then the spirit of Python Acts 16. 16. or the signs of Castor and Pollux Acts 28. 11. were Paganly superstitious to Saint Luke I say were Christmas-Day to be observed for it self as the 25. Day of December we had need to go not only to the Roman Archives for a moral assurance but also to the Christian Archives the word of God for a Theological assurance That Christ was born on that very Day or we could not Religiously observe it in the assurance of Faith But since christmas-Christmas-Day is to be observed for its Duty which is to give God thanks for the blessed Nativity of his eternal Son who took our nature upon him and was born of a pure Virgin to Redeem us from Sin Death and the Devil a moral assurance is more then enough for the Day which indeed is the best assurance we can have of any day since we have a full Theological assurance for the Duty And here I cannot but say in zeal to my Saviour and to the salvation of their souls of whom Saint Peter prophesied when he said That there shall come in the last daies scoffers walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. 3. 3. what Saint Paul once said to the Iews at Antioch Acts 13. 40 41. Beware therefore least that come upon you which is spoken of in the Prophets Behold ye Despisers and wonder and perish yea behold that ye may wonder and wonder that ye may not perish in your despisings of God and of his Church For whosoever shall scoff and mock at the keeping of christmas-Christmas-day in relation to the 25. Day of December is guilty of Ignorance Immodesty and Indiscretion because he mocks at the Practice of millions of men much wiser then himself But he that shall mock at keeping it in relation to the Duty must also be guilty of Impiety Infidelity and Irreligion because he mocks at the profession of an Article of the Christian Faith and of that Article which is indeed the Ground and Foundation of all the Rest For if Christ had not been born he could not have suffered nor have risen again So that upon this one Article of Christs Nativity are indeed grounded all the other Articles of our Christian Faith So nearly doth it concern us to maintain our publick profession of this Article least we should be thought to have forgotten or to have forsaken all the rest And this is reason enough why amongst other daies we should still observe this day of Christs Nativity not for it self for so happily it may not be safe to observe any day but for the Lord so shall we not impeach our Christian liberty and we shall improve our Christian Piety SECT VII The difference betwixt a Jewish and a Christian observation of daies This latter a moral part
of Gods service and may not be neglected without scandal THE Apostle establishing our Christian liberty doth much more establish our Christian Piety Rom. 14. He establisheth our liberty ver 6. placing daies and meats in the same rank of indifferency neither of them in it self ought to be reputed a matter of Religion But withal he doth much more establish our Christian Piety ver 7. 8. That both daies and meats daies wherein and meats whereby we live are to be observed or not observed as shall most conduce to his Glory by whom we do and to whom we should all live He overthrows a legal or Iewish observation of daies for themselves because that was a typical worship But he establisheth an evangelical or Christian observation of daies for duties because that is a real and moral part of Gods service For he that so regardeth a day regardeth not it but the Lord And he that so regardeth it not being thereunto called by that authority which God hath set over him were best take heed lest it be thought that he regardeth not the Lord He was best take heed lest he give occasion of scandal or spiritual ruine to his brother whilst he gives him occasion to think that God is not worth the regarding or that those are given to superstition who do most zealously regard him For he that doth this may chance have the milstone in his heart to harden him but sure he must have the milstone about his neck to drown him SECT VIII To oppose the celebration of Christs Nativity is a scandal to Christians and a stumbling block to the Jews keeping them from Christianity PER scandalum laeditur proximus in mente ut per homicidium in corpore per furtum in possessione saith the School-man Alensis par 2. qu. ibi m. 1. Scandal wrongs my neighbour in his mind as murder wrongs him in his body and theft wrongs him in his possession and therefore I have great reason to take heed of being scandalous as to take heed of being a murderer or a thief And truly I cannot see but that our Saviours determination concerning scandal reacheth this very case Mat. 18. 6. Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better a mill-stone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea For tell me do they not believe in Christ who set apart a time of purpose to make Profession of their Belief in him And if they do believe in him how will you answer your scandalizing and offending them whiles they are professing or rather indeed practising that their belief or your scandalizing others whiles you keep them from the same Christian Practice and Profession Wherefore it can hardly be denyed but this is really a scandal or an offence to Christians because it is a way to cause some of them to forget or to forsake our Saviour Christ But surely it is a down-right stumbling-block to the Jews to keep them from embracing the Christian Religion For the main thing needful to their conversion is to prove the Messiah is already come in the flesh which the Jews will take for granted is denyed if not disproved by them who will not allow themselves nor others to celebrate the memorial of his coming for the whole course of their Religion taught them to acknowledge the receipt of far lesser blessings with much more solemn memorials as the receipt of the Law with the celebration of Pentecost So that whatsoever may be urged for serving God in Spirit in Truth to make Christians become sincere worshippers yet we had need keep up an outward solemn service and worship of Christ to make Jews become Christians For it is not imaginable they should leave the outward decency and order that they are bound to use in their own Synagogues according to the whole purport of their own Law to come to the slovenliness and Indecency that may be found in some Christian Churches under the pretence of the purity of our Gospel SECT IX The Jews equally scandalized by Idolatry and by Profaness especially that Profaness or Irreligion which immediately dishonoureth our Saviour Christ IT is much to be lamented that Christians who are bound to do what is in them to convert the Jews should so far scandalize them either by Idolatry or by Profaness as to hinder their conversion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Jew in his Disputation with the Christian in the second Nicen Council in the sift Action I am scandalized at you O ye Christians that you worship Images And is it not as great a scandal if they shall be able to say I am scandalized at you O ye Christians that you do not worship God or at least do not worship him with fear and reverence as God Or That you refuse to worship Christ whom you would have me believe to be the Son of God For is it not an act of Religious worship in Moses his Law to dedicate daies to the worship of God If then we deny the Dedication of daies to the worship of Christ How shall we perswade the Jews that we do indeed worship him as our God It is to be feared if we shall do so they will rather think us turning Jews then that themselves will think of turning Christians SECT X. That those Christians who oppose Christmas-Day do give occasion to other Good Christians to suspect them as not well grounded in the Christian Religion SInce it is the ground of our Christian Religion That all Gods gifts and mercies to mankind do concenter together in Christ it is scarce possible those Christians should be thought truly religious who make it their work to oppose the publick worship of Christ on that very day wherein as Christ he was first capable of being publickly worshipped They that are Jews may think well of this for they denying him to be the Son of God will easily deny that he is to be worshipped But sure good Christians cannot think well of it who are taught to glorifie God in Christ and much more for Christ To glorifie God in Christ is our Religion To glorifie God for Christ is our salvation Religio est motus creaturae rationalis ad Deum ut ad primum principium ultimum finem Christus autem ut Homo est via per quam fit hic motus saith Aquinas 22â— qu. 81. Religion is a motion of the reasonable creature to God as to its first beginning and to its last end But Christ as man is the way wheâ—ein the reasonable creature thus moveth so that once forget Christ as man and you shall soon forget all religion Saint Bernard tells us of a threefold coming of Christ the first was in the infirmity of his flesh to redeem us the second in the power of his spirit to sanctifie us the third in the glory of his majesty to judge us I will thankfully receive him as my Redeemer that I may securely
too much of our time in those Christian Duties and Devotions which tend immediatly to the Honour of our Saviour Christ that so we may not be defective either in our preparation before them or in our Affections in them or in our Thanksgivings after them First That we be not defective in our preparation before our Christian devotions for this is a main cause of our great shame and greater sin that we have been hitherto so bad Christians in so good a state of Christianity that whereas Christ hath been so long and so powerfully applyed unto us both in Prayers and Word and Sacraments yet we have been so little benefited by that Application as scarce to perceive the loss of it or at least scarce to grieve for that loss A shrewd sign of Edomites rather then of Israelites to be content to lose our Prayers our true spiritual Birth-right that we might keep our Pottage our Temporal interests of which we may now truly say as he did Gen. 25. 30. Feed me with that Red with that Red for the just vengeance of God hath lately made it so with our own Blood or at least a shrewd sign of Ephraimites if not of Edomites for they being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle Psalm 78. 9. The reason is given in the verse before they were a generation that prepared not their heart and whose spirit was not stedfast with God They did not set their heart right by preparation and therefore could not keep their spirit stedfast by perseverance and it is to be feared this is our case For it had scarce been possible for so admirable a form of publike Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments which had in it the most pithy Devotions both of Greek and Latine Churches and the superstitions of neither to have been so long amongst us to so little advantage of our souls had there been good things found in us and had we prepared our hearts to seek our God as that good King did 2 Chron. 19. 3. and hath left his example as a mandate for us so to do since no Scripture is of private Interpretation and much less of private Jurisdiction The old Testament in all precepts and precedents of morality no less commanding the Christian then it did the Jew but if any be contentious touching the Old Testament though we have no such custome nor the Churches of God yet we have both a Precept and a Precedent in the New Testament to reprove and to reproach his contention and the fittest that can be alledged for this Argument even that of Saint John Baptist the forerunner of Christ For he came preaching saith the Text and his Sermon consisted so much of this doctrine of Preparation that he was chiefly to be known by this character The Voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord Mat. 3. Secondly We need imploy our time readily and carefully in those Christian duties which immediately concern the honour of Christ that we be not defective in our Affections whiles we are at our Christian Devotions actually conversing with our blessed Saviour For our Affections have been so long standing on the lees and dregs of the earth that they are not to be refined and much less to be elevated and lifted up to Heaven without multiplied Essays of most holy meditations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Priest to the people in the Greek Liturgie And they answer him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us lift up our hearts we lift them up unto the Lord so we in our Liturgy from theirs But it is observable that neither Greek Church nor ours used these words till after many prayers were past in which the Communicants had poured out their souls before God to be sanctified by his Grace And so likewise the Apostle requiring us to seek those things which are above doth as it were pass through all the Creed to the Article of the Resurrection before he hopes throughly to raise our Affections Col. 3. 1 2. If ye be then risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right Hand of God set your Affection on things above c. He doth not only say Christ is risen but also if ye be risen with Christ he is fain to presuppose and as it were to antedate the day of the Resurrection of the bodies that so he may perswade them to a Resurrection of their souls O God work in us this great miracle of thy Grace to raise our souls that we may all rejoyce in that great miracle of thy power which thou wilt at the last day work on us in the raising of our bodies Thirdly and lastly we need imploy our time readily and carefully in those Christian Duties which immediately concern the honour of Christ that we be not defective in our thankfulness after our Devotions after we have had the honour and the happiness to converse with our blessed Saviour For if I may not give mine alms without a full purpose of my heart 2 Cor. 9. 7. Shall I think that I may give my self without it or doth God indeed love a cheerful giver of the hand and not much rather a cheerful giver of the Heart To what purpose is ihis wast Mat. 26. 8 9. seems in it self a question of Piety and in its reason For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor a question of charity yet St. John brands him that made it That for his Piety he was a Traytor ready to betray Christ And for his Charity he was a Thief not ready to relieve but to pillage his poor members John 12. 4 6. so dangerous a thing is it for men to begrutch any expence either of Time or of Pains or of Patrimony that is bestowed upon Christ and much more to disturb the woman the Church that bestoweth it For wheresoever this Gospel of the great condescention and greater goodness of the Son of God shall be Preached in the whole world there also shall this be told for a memorial of her Duty that wrought the good work upon her Saviour but of their undutifulness who opposed her in working it Mat. 26. 10 13. Gods mercies in our Saviour Christ are too many and great to come all Ex tempore to us so should our Devotions be to thank him for their coming since it is every jot as good Divinity for our Prayers and Sermons which we offer up for the parts of Gods publick worship as it was for Davids sacrifice Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing 2 Sam. 24. 24. For what can I profess by the unworthiness of my offering but either That I have a less worthy esteem of God then David had to whom I offer that which he would not offer or that I have a more worthy esteem of my self then he had as if forsooth God would at
shearers so opened he not his mouth Act. 8. 34. Yet the Israelites did all so generally know the meaning of this phrase that Saint John the Baptist used no other title to proclaim the Messias but this Behold the lamb of God John 1. 29. which was so well understood that two of his own Disciples presently left him and followed Jesus ver 36 37. And Saint Philip acknowledgeth the person typified and foretold to agree exactly with the Type and prediction when he saith ver 45. we have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write as if he had said All that the Law and Prophets had promised was now fulfilled Grace in the conjunction mercy in the propitiation and truth in the prediction All met together in Christ our Passeover therefore Jubilemus let us keep our Jubile or in Saints Pauls language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us keep our holyday or yet farther if you please let us keep this Holyday that is the feast of the Passover called by the Council of Antioch c 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy feast of the soul-saving Passeover For Aerius his objection against keeping of Easter from this very text saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we ought not to keep the the Passover for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us though it overthrow the Jewish Passeover which was a type of Christ yet it rather establisheth a Christian Passeover which is a memorial of him unless we will say that Christ was therefore our Passeover and sacrificed for us of purpose that we should for get him and his sacrifice For as we may not now retain any types of Christ because that were in effect to deny that he is come in the flesh so we may not let go the memorials of Christ because that in effect is to be unthankfull for his coming And our Saviour himself by saying do this in remembrance of me hath shewed that he will look upon those Festivals which should be appointed for memorials of him as upon so many religious and Christian like Institutions since he that hath prescribed to do this hath also prescribed or rather presupposed a set and solemn time of doing it For though the Christians joy in Christ is not to be limited or confined to a day yet that is no reason why a day should not be limited and confined to that joy Let spiritual joyes be eternal in themselves but for that very cause let our time be subservient to their eternity that they may likewise be so to us For God appointing a set time for a spiritual duty hath not thereby debased the duty but exalted the time even as our blessed Saviour appointing a set form of prayer hath not thereby confined the spirit of prayer but rather enlarged it And the Holy-Ghost having given us so many set formes of prayer and praise in the Psalmes and the rest of the ible Bhath not therefore taught the duty of prayer to be the less spiritual but hath taught us to be the less carnal that we should not in pouring out our souls to God rely upon our own phansies or inventions but upon his holy dictates and directions For there is the same reason both of hic and of nunc in matters of Divinity the same reason of these words and of this time God having consecrated words to his service as belonging to the substance of it and having consecrated times places and persons only as accidents and circumstances belonging to the solemnity thereof And therefore it is strange to see those men who are most zealous for the set times and Dayes of serving God every week to be so impetuous against the set forms of serving him as thinking the set time to help devotion but the set form to hinder it whereas it is evident that setting a time to the spirit must needs be a confinement of him as well as setting of words And to say to the Spirit of prayer Pray now is as great an intrusion and encrochement upon him as to say to him Pray this But in truth nither are confinements to Gods spirit and both alike are intended for the enlargements of our spirits Set times and Set words that we pray in the greater assurance of faith knowing we cannot be willworshippers whiles we conform our selves to his will whom we worship SECT III. The memorials instituted by God are chiefly of his justice and of his mercy There is but one terrible memorial of Gods justice against those who invaded the Priesthood but many memorials of his mercy and that it is a vain fear which possesseth some men as if the anniversary memorial of Christs Resurrection was not instituted and cannot be observed without willworship or superstition that the general equity of the Levitical Law as far as it was not Typical is still in force concerning the Solemnities of Religion and that approves Anniversary as well as weekly Festivals AMong all Gods Attributes none are so remarkeable in our lives and deaths as his mercy and his Justice His mercy in our preservation his justice in our destruction And accordingly God himself requires us most especially to take notice of the great effects of his justice and of his mercy Hence is it that we find him instituting few or no memorials of his wisdom or of his Power but very many of his Justice and of his Mercy though not so many of his justice as of his mercy we find but one memorial of his Iustice more particularly recommended to the care of his Church and that is against those men who had said to Moses and to Aaron to their Civil and Ecclesiastical Governours Ye take too much upon you seeing all the congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them Numb 16. 3. These men because they had invaded the Priests office in burning incense had their censers nailed upon the altar of incense and the Text saith to be a memorial unto the children of Israel that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord that he be not as Corah and his Company ver 40. Te miror Antoni quorum facta imitare eorum exitus non perhorrescere said the Orator most pathetically I much wonder that since you do follow their sins you do not fear their punishment And how can any Christian Minister say less since it is evident that the Gospel in this case still retains the sentence and consequently revives the severity of the Law For so saith the Apostle No man taketh this honour unto himself that is not called of God as was Aaron Heb. 5. 4. as if he had said no man rightly taketh the office of a Priest upon him but he that is externally and publickly called of God as was Aaron so as all the Congregation may take notice of his calling And if he do take Aarons office that is not called as Aaron was he hath great reason to
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pascha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 herba amara 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Azymus Their Annuntiation belonging to the Passeover was how God passed their Fathers over that night wherein he destroyed the first born of the Egyptians Their annuntiation belonging to the bitter herbs was of their Fathers grievous servitude and bondage in Egypt which made even their lives bitter unto them And their annuntiation belonging to the unleavened bread was their happy and sudden deliverance from that bondage for the Egyptians were so urgent upon the people that they took their dough before it was leavened their kneading troughs being bound up in their cloathes upon their shoulders Exod. 12. 24. We had at the same time a much greater deliverance and why should we have a less Annuntiation For where the mercy it self is much greater why should the memorial thereof be so much less God gives a signal intimation to the Jew Exod. 12. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Haec ista non illa This is that very night as if there were not demonstrative pronouns enough to shew that this mercy was to be as particular in their thankful commemoration as it had been in Almighty Gods free donation And Saint Paul seems to speak as signally to the Christian when he saith The same night that he was betrayed 1 Cor. 11. 23. as if he would not have us forget the particular time when he cometh so near the very words of Moses This is that very night to be observed to the Lord And indeed why should not we keep a Christian Passeover as well as a Christian Sabbath were they not both alike feasts of the Jews and as so are they not both alike abolished by the Apostle Gal. 4. 10. saying ye observe daies and moneths and times and years I am afraid of you least I have bestowed upon you labour in vain A Jewish observation of daies which observes daies for themselves is without doubt destructive of Christianity for it places Religion in things meerly ceremonial Not so a Christian observation of daies for duties for that places Religion only in morals Again why hath not the Christian Church as good Authority if not as justifiable warrant to observe an Anniversary as it hath to observe a Weekly festival as well the feast of the Christian Passeover once a year as the feast of the Christian Sabbath once a week for both are alike recommended in the Law and neither is directly commanded in the Gospel and we may not add to Gods commands no more then we may take from them nor may we think the New Testament defective in any necessary command or doctrine unless we will advance Judaism above Christianity Therefore since it will pose the best Divine in Christendom to shew that Text in the New Testament which commandeth the observation of a Sabbath and we cannot run to the letter of the fourth Commandment to keep the first day in stead of the seventh we must be contented in this case with the general equity of the Law and that gives the Church power to consecrate Annual as well as Weekly Festivals to the honour of God and condemneth our profaness in neglecting our perversness in despising the one as well as the other Besides it is evident we cannot or if we can sure the Apostles could not keep a Lords day all the year but as a repetition of Easter-day which was the first Lords day even the very day of his resurrection wherefore we must either say it is a Jewish not a Christian Sabbath or say it is a Lords day from the great Lords day the day of our Lords resurrection For though Saint John telling us He was in the Spirit on the Lords day pointeth clearly at our Sunday the weekly remembrance of Christs resurrection and not at Easter-day the annual remembrance of it because in those Churches of Asia to which he writ Easter-day was not yet confined to the first but might be kept on any other day of the week yet without doubt he called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords day for that it was a weekly repetition of that very day which our Lord had consecrated to himself by rising from the dead called for that reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Lords day by the primitive Christians And shal we then not think it worth our notice that our blessed Saviour himself chose such a time for his Passion and Resurrection as by the unerring Characters of heaven might be exactly observed all the world over to the worlds end were it so that our Civil year were made agreeable with the Tropical or that the Catholick Church of Christ in its first and purest age would have been so careful to find out and so zealous to settle the time of this Festival if the Fathers of these blessed ages which were less quarrelsom but more pious then any have been since had not thought it highly concerned the honour of Christ and the propagation and justification of the Christian Religion Surely we cannot easily more gratifie the Jews then by putting down the memory of that time wherein they crucified Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh nor can we more easily scandalize good Christians then by putting down the memorial of that time wherein he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead Rom. 1. 3 4. And God deliver his Church from such practises as are fit to gratifie Jews but to scandalize good Christians SECT IV. Of the antient contention about the observation of Easter That the Apostles zeal more about Duties then about Daies doth not overthrow the observing of particular daies in the service of God And that those daies ought to be observed by Preaching Praying Administring of the Sacrament and also by Almes-deeds So that false administration sc of the Holy Eucharist in one kind and false Devotions and false Doctrine and sordid illiberality in not relieving the poor are allâ— alike Profanations of a Festival FAmous was the controversie betwixt Policrates and Victor the one Bishop of Ephesus the other Bishop of Rome concerning the celebrating of Easter-day For the Churches of Asia would needs keep the very day of the first full moon in Spring conceiving the Apostles condescention to the Iew to have been a dogmatical sanction to the Christian but the Western Churches who had no conversation with the Iews and therefore were not moved through compliance with them at first to forsake their Christian liberty and at last the Christian truth for the Quartadeciâ—… were in proâ—ess of time declared Hereticks would not keep the very day of that full Moon but the Sunday after it for their Easter-day the learned Scaliger gives this reason for their difference The Jewish Converts following their old custom kept still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Passeover in remembrance of Christs Passion
their prayers which they offered to his Divine Majesty But our charity and our devotion are both grown cold and our charity so cold that it hath quite chilled our devotion we are loth to be at the charges to honour Christ with set anniversary Festivals for fear of continuing or reviving the formerly accustomed alms to his poor members for we cannot deny but giving something to the poor is a most fitting Concomitant or proper adjunct of a Festival being so taught John 13. 29. where our Saviours words to Judas That thou dost do quickly being spoken against the feast arâ— thus interpreted that he should give something to the poor And indeed they are so rightly interpreted For since our Saviour hath suffered so much for us we connot do enough for him and our doings for him must needs then be most seasonable when we record his sufferings for us And as he was so willing to suffer for our sakes that he called upon the Traytor to dispatch quickly so we should be as willing to do for his sake and in all matters of charity that may be helpful unto our brethren every man say to himself what thou dost do quickly Wherefore let me seriously and constantly pour out my soul to God in unquestionable devotion meditate on Gods holy word hunger after his body thirst after his blood and willingly and frequently releive and refresh his poor members and though I may be able to keep nothing else yet I shall be sure to keep a good conscience which will be to me a continual Feast yea though all the Holy Dayes that are instituted in the remembrance of Christ should be forbidden and forgotten by others yet the performance of these holy duties will never let me want my Christian Festivals SECT V. The practice of the Primitive Christians in observing the Feast of Easter and that there was no superstition in that practice THE Primitive Christians did exceedingly rejoyce at the Anniversary Feast of our Saviours Resurrection and did long continue that their rejoycing even till the day of his Ascension or rather till the day of his descending again in the gift of the Holy-Ghost so saith Balsamon of some in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they accounted the whole time from Easter to Whitsontide but a one continual Lords day And it is evident that the first Council of Nice which hath but twenty Canons in the whole hath bestowed one of them and that is the last meerly upon the manner of celebrating this solemnity requiring all people to say their prayers standing on every day of the week betwixt Easter and Whitsontide no less then on the Lords days all the year after to proclaim their joy for as well as to profess their faith in their Saviours Resurrection Nor were they acquainted with any other salutation at that time of the year but only this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord is risen and the party thus saluted made answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true he is risen indeed they thought they could not wish one another any joy like the joy of Christ nor any joy of Christ like the joy of his Resurrection The like salutation was in the Latine Church Resurrexit Dominus the Lord is risen said he who saluted his neighbour and the other answered Deo gratias the Lord be thanked or Apparuit Simoni he hath appeared unto Simon This was all their Good morrow Good even one to the other in the more antient and more innocent times of the Church Nay yet more on every Sunday from the Resurrection to the Ascention did the Latine Church repeat the collect for Easter day Deus qui per Vnigenitum tuum aeternitatis nobis aditum reserâsti Almighty God which by thy only begotten Son hast opened unto us the gate of everlasting life leaving out only hodiernâ die on this day because they could not make one day hold out to forty And as they did so long continue the same prayer so did they as long continue the same praise singing three several Alleluiahs on every one of these Sundays for this infinite mercy and eternal consolation in our Saviour Christ for a heavenly comfort expressing a heavenly joy as if they had already passed from the Church militant to be of the Church triumphant would have no more to do with the earth since our Saviour was risen from it and going into Heaven Surely Saint Augustine cals the whole three days of our blessed Saviours passion death and Resurrection sacratissimum triduum the three most holy days in the circle of the whole year and the cheif of the three was that of his Resurrection which was therefore antiently accounted not only the first day of the week for so is any other Sunday but also the first day of the year that is to say the first in dignity as well as in order Veteris anni Ecclesiastici initium à Pascha Pascha dicebatur annus novus saith Scaliger lib. 1. de em tem The beginning of the Ecclesiastical year was antiently at Easter and that was called the new year And in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 new years week was the same with Easter week and how this account came afterwards to be altered in the Church and the new year translated from Easter to Christmass the same Scaliger sheweth lib. 6. de emend temp in these words Institutum vetus in Ecclesiâ fuit in natali Domini Pascha proximum ejusque diem indiculis aut breviculis notare Ab hoc more fluxit ut à natali Domini anni passionis ejus numeraâ—entur hoc est ut annum passionis inciperent putare à natali Domini qui tamen putandus erat à sequenti Paschâ— Because at Christmas they did antiently give out the Calender for the ensuing Easter thence it came to pass that some began the account of the year of Christ at Christmas which they should not have begun till the Easter after But for a long time in the account of the Church Easter day was the first day and Easter week was the first week in the whole year which was the occasion that the common dayes of all the other weeks were by the Latine Church called feriae that is holy-dayes as feria secunda tertia quarta the second third and fourth holy-day instead of Munday Tuesday Wednesday because they followed the account of Easter week whereof every day was a holy-day So the same Scaliger lib. 7. de emend temp Quare prima secunda tertia quarta quinta Septimane dictae sunt feriae quum in omnibus hebdomadibus feriandi necessitas nulle incumbat haec ratio est quod annus Ecclesiasticus incipiat à Pascha septimana autem Paschatis erat immunis ab opere faciendo feriata unde quum sex illi dies post Pascha feriati esseâ—… ea esset prima anni hebdomas inde factum ut omnes diâ—s septimanae vocarentur feriae Lex
soul a Sabbath or make it truly to rest in God And indeed iâ— our Sabbath be grounded on this foundation the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it because on it our Lord and Saviour prevailed against the gates of hell And all Christians will see cause enough to observe it not only religiously but also joyfully because as many as are in the communion of the blessing ought also to be in the communion of the Joy and thanksgiving and wholly devote themselves to the publike profession and acknowledgement of Gods infinite and undeserved mercies and as undeserved as infinite mercies conveyed unto us in and by our blessed Saviours Resurrection If we keep the Sunday or Sabbath upon this ground we shall find a double reason of strictly keeping it one from the duty which is to serve God and to praise him for our Redemption by his Son the other from the day it self which by his own Apostles if not by his own Son htah been consecrated to this duty But we must be sure to take the duty for the principal the day for the less principal unless we will prefer accidents before substances For the worship of God belongs to the substance of Religion but the time of worshipping is meerly an accident of it though being consecrated thereunto by God himself we may well admit it for an inseparable accident Wherefore men had need take heed of that Sabbatarian Doctrine which seeks to advance the day above the duty as if the publike exercise of Religion had been appointed for the Sabbath and not rather the Sabbath for the publick exercise of Religion for this is not in truth to alledge the fourth Commandment but to mistake it For the moral or substantial and eternal part of the fourth Commandment consists of these two particulars 1. That there be a publike solemn worship of God or exercise of Religion for our souls to rest in God And this is morale naturae moral by the Law of Nature that man should desire and declare his rest to be only in God 2. That some certain dayes and consequently other requisites or adjuncts be consecrated or made holy for that publike worship and in relation thereto be esteemed holy and religious as set apart to serve our God not to serve our selves And this is Morale Disciplinae as saith Halensis or ex instituto moral by way of Discipline or by way of institution and is also a substantial part of the fourth Commandment belonging not only to the Jew but also to the Christian But the determination of those dayes to the seventh was meerly ceremonial as a sign to the Jew and to a seventh cannot be moral as a duty to Christians by virtue of this commandment save only according to the rule of general equity that Gods proportion is the best proportion and that if one of seven were apportioned for the lesser how much more for the greater blessing Yet still in asserting thus much we must take heed that the institution of the day which belongs to the letter be not alledged to confine the obligation of the duty which belongs to the end of this commandment for that were to set up the second and lesser against the first and greater morality of the Sabbath In which respect t is probable that Damascene so plainly averreth That whiles there was no Law no Scriptures there was no Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dan. lib. 4 de orth fide cap. 24. But after the holy Scripture was given by inspiration from God to Moses then was the sabbath consecrated to God for men to exercise themselves in his holy Scriptures So that according to Gods own example if this author say true we are first to provide for the duty then for the solemnity of Religion And we may the better believe him because his saying is according to Gods command For the fourth commandment being the commandment of consecrations yet first requires a worship intrisically and essentially holy before it requires the adjuncts of that worship to be made extrinsically or accidentally holy So that clearly by the fourth commandment it self rightly understood the duty is above the day and the exercise of Religion is to be preferred above the Solemnities of time and place wherein it is exercised and consequently if the publike exercise of Religon that is in use doth not truly glorifie God a man may better keep the sabbath in his own then in Gods house supposing he worship God better in his own house then he can in the Church So neerly doth it concern us all to be sure of the substance of our worship before we can pretend to be true keepers of the sabbath for if the Prayers or Administrations wherein we communicate do not in very deed rightly glorifie God t is not going to Church can make us keep the sabbath for infidels and heriticks may do that as well as the best Christians and the best Christians may be kept from doing it because what we get of the day we lose of the duty â—â—t is not possible that any thing of superstition or of irreligion should afford the soul of man any true rest in God which is the end of the sabbath And this seems to be our Saviour own doctrine at that same time when he reproved the blindness of the Pharisees about the observation of the sabbath by scripture by reason and by a miracle Mathew 12. three such arguments as were sure to leave none of them unconfuted for if they had judgement reason would be their confutation If they had Faith the Scriptures But though they had neither judgement nor faith yet a miracle was able to do the work and we may well suppose the error was very dangerous which our blessed Saviour did confute with so much industry and so many arguments as he did scarce any other in all the Gospel In this case he said to the ruler of the Synagogue Thon Hypocrite Luke 13. 15. In this case he looked round about on the Pharisees with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts Mar. 3. 5. He imployed his tongue his eyes his heart his head all to beat down this Heresie or rather this Hypocrisie which under pretence of being zealous for Gods commandments did in truth not only secretly undermine but also openly oppose them Accordingly our blessed Saviour and Master hath in one chapter Mat. 12. fortified us with no less then four limitations of this or any other positive or Ceremonial Law wherein it doth not bind and oblige or at least four interpretations to mitigate the rigour of its obligation The first is Lex naturae or necessitatis it must give place to the Law of nature or of necessity as in the case of Davids Hunger ver 3 4. The Second is Lex cultus it must give place to the Law of Religion as in the case of the Priests working about the sacrifices on the Sabbath and yet they were blameless ver 5.
The third is Lex charitatis it must give place to the Law of charity as is proved from the saying of Hosea I will have mercy and not sacrifice ver 7. The fourth is Authoritas legislatoris the authority of the law-giver for he that made it may abrogate it an argument not used in the Text concerning any intrinsically moral law or duty The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath ver 8. We may add a fifth from the repetition of the same story and that is Intentio legislatoris it must give place to the intent of the Law-giver which is the good not the mischief of those to whom he gives his Law And this Limitation or Interpretation we find Mar. 2. 27. in these words the sabbath was made for man that is for mans good to wit the outward rest of his body and the inward rest of his soul and therefore it is not his intent who made the Sabbath for mans good both in corporal and spiritual rest that it should bind him to any real mischief either in his body or in his soul wherefore it is evident by our blessed Saviours own determination That though great is the obligation of those ceremonies which are of Gods own immediate appointment yet greater is the obligation of the least moral duty then of any of those ceremonies when that Moral duty concerns either our selves or our neighbours and not only when it concerns our God For ceremonials are appointed for Morals but Morals are appointed for themselvs Positive constitutions are for the inforcement of natural institutions but natural institutions are for the God of nature Wherefore since Gods worship is not ceremonial but moral not positive but natural the Sabbath is both positive and ceremonial it must follow that the worship was not ordained for the Sabbath but the Sabbath for the worship and consequently the worship is cleerly above the Sabbath And this same Antisabbatarian doctrine is not only of Christs but also of Moses his own teaching if we may believe the Jewish Doctors themselves upon those words of Exod. 12. 16. And in the first day and in the Seventh day shall be an holy convocation For there this is Aben Ezzra's gloss in the first day because that was the day of their going out of Egypt and in the seventh day because that was the day of Pharaohs being drowned therefore those two dayes were more strictly observed then any of the rest that came in betwixt them And yet if we look narrrowly into the matter not the dayes themselves but the duties performed on them made the holy convocations for it is evident from the Text that the first day was sanctified by eating of the Passeover and the Seventh day was sanctified by the heavenly Songs and thanksgivings of Moses and Miriam so it was the Passeover and the thanksgiving not the first and the seventh day that is Holy duties not holy dayes which made the Gathering of the people to be an holy convocation and shewed it to be so We ask no more of Christians but this That they will allow Duties to be above dayes in making of holy convocations and consequently the publike worship of God to be above the Sabbath the day wherein he is to be so worshipped And this being granted which cannot well be denied it must needs follow that they best keep the sabbath who have the best publike worship of God which is the duty not they who are strictest in observing of the day which is the ceremony who talke much of the Sabbath but follow such a service or worship of God as is more agreeable with mans humors or with humane invention then with Gods word or divine institution A Service or worship which though it may be solemn and publike in regard of the Convention yet not in regard of the Communion since no man can câ—me as a Communicant to that worship concerning the which he is not well assured that it is according to the analogy of Faith For he may neither give up his conscience in a blind obedience nor may he retain it upon uncertainties the one being against the evidence the other against the assurance of faith and whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom 14. 23. Whether it be not of faith for want of evidence or for want of assurance Nor doth this divinity whereby we â—ollow the best Divine that ever was in preferring substances above accidents morals above ceremonials Duties above dayes any whit diminish the true Santification of the Sabbath but rather improve advantage it For it is an undeniable rule of reason and much more of religion That all moral duties must have moral antecedents concomitants and consequents which if we will apply to this moral duty of Gods publike worship we shall find any day consecrated there to whether weekly or yearly little enough either for our preparation before we go to worship or for our attention whiles we are worshipping or for our meditation and thankfulness after we have worshipped In a word a Sabbath in general is doubtless moral by the fourth commandment which requires a day to be set apart or made holy for Gods publike worship requires that the day so set apart be esteemed holy and religious though not so much for its own sake as for its works sake according to St. Pauls command concerning the Ministers that are set apart for the same worship 1. Thes 5. 12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you And to esteem them very highly in love for their works sake which text plainly convinceth those men to be the greatest sabbath-breakers and contemners of the fourth commandment who will not know those which labour among them in the Lord unless it be to contemn and to revile and to oppress them and are so far from acknowledging those labourers to be over them in the Lord that they strive both to bring the labour under their girdles and to tread the labourers under their feet for the Apostle saith expresly they are to be esteemed highly if not for their own yet surely for their works sake in saying so teacheth us to say the same of the time and place that are consecrated to the publike worship of God For by the rule of proportion what is commanded concerning one adjunct of Religion is commanded concerning the rest and we may not think we have dicharged our duties to the fourth commandment by honouring the time but pillaging and defying both the Places and the Persons that are consecrated to Gods service or to speak yet more plainly by crying up the Sabbath but beating down both Churches and Ministers And indeed the fourth commandment it self hints no less which deriveth the reason of the Sabbaths being sanctified above other dayes not from any holiness in the day it self or any set number of dayes but only from the holiness that is in God Wherefore
momento aeternitas as we spend our time here so we shall find our eternity hereafter For God who hath given us time only to prepare and provide for eternity will certainly call us to a strict account for all our time but to the strictest account for that time which he hath more immediately allotted and consigned us to make that preparation SECT IX The fourth commandment was not given to limit the first and therefore excludes not other Festivals shewing our true love of Christ but rather commands them The true manner of ob serving any Christian festival particularly Easter is to account and make it a day of Observations by observing our selves and our Saviour our selves what we have been what we are what we desire to be Our Saviour what he was in his humiliation what he is in his exaltation what he will in his retribution CHristian Feasts were not ordained not so much for the outward as for the inward man Hence excellently the divine Nazianzen or at 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No beauty doth so much enamour and delight the most affectionate lover of beauties as our spiritual keeping of publike assemblies doth delight a Christian lover of Festivals We will therefore enquire how a good Christian may best keep a spiritual feast unto the Lord and we hope thereby not to overthrow but rather to establish our set temporal Festivals And indeed we cannot better keep a spiritual feast unto the Lord then by accounting it a day of observations as Moses said of the feast of the Passeover that it was a night of observations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salomon Jarchi gives this gloss upon the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the Lord observed himself that night and watched that he might deliver Israel according to his promise And sure we are that our blessed Saviour thus observed and watched himself that he might deliver us from sin and death and as sure that this day of our deliverance ought be a day for every good Christian most especially to observe himself and yet much more to observe his Saviour That sabbath day was an high day to the Jew whereon was celebrated the Passeover John 19. 31 And since there is much greater reason it should be so to the Christian t is not possible there should be greater supestition in it For reason and superstition could never yet agree so well together that what was truly Rational could by the wit of man be proved superstitious We must then account this day an high day and not confine our devotions so to our weekly Festival as if that alone were within the compass of the fourth commandment For we may not limit the first commandment by the fourth since the first is the great commandment to which all the rest in that Table are to be reduced according to our blessed Saviours own determination Mat. 22. 37 38. Jesus said unto him Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind this is the first and great commandment By which his determination our infallible Doctor hath concluded the fourth commandment to be moral in that he maketh it reducible to the first but withall to have its chiefest morality meerly by vertue of that reduction And in this respect we may pray in faith Incline our hearts to keep this law as well as any of the rest in the Decalogue looking on the duty as moral for it self on the day as moral for its duty for the duty is clearly reducible to the love of God and consequently to be most religiously observed for it self by vertue of that comes in the day with its other adjuncts to be most religiously observed for the duty We have a Theological certainty concerning the duty which is the rest of our souls in God we can have but a moral certainty concerning the day as set apart for that rest yet we need not fear a mistake in the day being sure of no mistake in the duty and consequently observing the day for the duty we cannot but pray in faith for mercy because we have transgressed for who did ever rest in God as he was bound to do and for grace that we may not transgress but may still more and more rest in him till we come to our eternal rest Therefore we may not limit or restrain the end of the fourth Commandment by the letter of it advancing the day above the duty for that is the way not to pray in faith that we may keep this Law much less may we limit and restrain the first Commandment by the fourth for that is the way not to be able to pray in faith that we may keep any other Law since it is evident that the love of God is the foundation of faith in all our prayers and that Love is required in the first Commandment so that to restrain that Commandment is to restrain our love of God and to restrain our love of God is to restrain our faith in God Again we may not limit the first Commandment by the fourth for that were to limit the greater by the lesser and t is evident the fourth was given to establish the exercise of the first not to enfeeble its obligation since then the first commands us to love God with all our hearts and with all our souls we may not think that the fourth was given to confine this love in any one particular member of Christ much less in his whole mystical body as if Christians were bound to make use of their hearts and souls in the publike exercise and profession of their love to God only upon Sunday or upon one day in seven Accordingly we must account every Christian Festival that is truly in honour and for love of Christ and particularly this of the Passover An high day and to shew that we account it so our best way is to endeavour to make it so by making it a day of observations Now observations cannot be less then two and that two may indeed serve our turns one of these observations must be of our selves another of our Saviour The observation of our selves must be three-fold what we have been what we are what we resolve to be First what we have been miserable sinners Thus the Psalmist observed himself when he said for innumerable troubles are come about me my sins have taken such hold upon me that I am not able to look up yea they are more in number then the hairs of my head and my heart hath failed me O Lord let it be thy pleasure to deliver me make haste O Lord to help me Psalm 40 I have been hitherto a miserable sinner but I beseech thee to deliver me both from my misery and from my sin Secondly what we are penitent sinners Thus holy Job observed himself when he said wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes Job 42. 6. T is in the Origin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and an affirmative Precept which betwixt them do comprize the obligation of the whole Law There 's a negative Precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that he saith You may not do your own pleasure nor speak your own words And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an affirmative Precept in that he saith you must call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and must accordingly honour him therein Nor can we reasonably think our selves unconcerned in this Precept unless we will think or make our selves unconcerned in the promise that is annexed to it of delighting our selves in the Lord and being fed with he heritage of Jacob v. 14. so that this text was without doubt written also for our instruction though not as Iews yet as Christians And therefore as the Apostle hath said We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle Heb. 13. 10. So may we say we have a Sabbath whereof they have no right to be observers who serve the Tabernacle And this text of the Prophet will as much concern our Sabbaths as it did theirs For we must turn away our feet that is our affections from these Sabbaths not seeking on them any rest or delight in our selves but only in our God Thus did the primitive Christians keep their feasts as is affirmed by Nazianzene orat 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We also keep holy day but as it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost either saying or doing something of our duty So that our keeping of a Feast is nothing else but laying up treasure for our souls or laying in provision upon which we may live in another world Wherefore it shall be my labour and my prayer so to keep all the Feasts which are kept truly in honour of my Saviour That I may at last be a guest at his own wedding Feast and be numbred among those of whom it is written Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage Supper of the Lamb Rev. 19. 9. And though I cannot deserve it by my service yet I will hope by being his constant and faithful servant That he who maketh the marriage Supper will bestow on me the wedding garment and clothe me with his own righteousness that I may be a guest prepared to come to and set at his heavenly table to keep one everlasting Feast with him and his world without end Amen CAP. II. That God is to be adored only in Christ SECT I. That no man whiles he is in the state of sin cares to come near God and that Adam after his sin could not have adored God rightly if Christ had not been revealed to him as the propitiation for his sins IT is the property of a sinner to run from God and therefore no man that is a sinner and looketh upon God as angry for his sins can truly worship him For he that will worship God must come unto him but he that looks upon God as angry will be sure to flie from him And it is much to be observed that after Saul knew God had rejected him for his disobedience he desired to worship him only in shew not in reality 1 Sam. 15. 30. Then he said I have sinned yet honour me now I pray thee before the Elders of my people and before Israel and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God Here was a worshipper but such an one as worshipped more to honour himself then to honour his Maker Honour me now I pray thee before my people not a word of honouring God by his worship which is still the practise of such wicked miscreants and will be to the worlds end to make a shew of Religion not for Gods sake but for their own not to serve him but to serve themselves For where is much of sin there must be little of Religion little in truth though perhaps not in shew it being the property of sin to drive us from God but of Religion to draw us to him And accordingly Saul being in the state of sin professeth in effect that he was desirous to keep at a distance from God saying unto Samuel Turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God He durst not say the Lord my God for he had too much provoked him by his sin and too little sought to be reconciled to him by repentance to claim any interest in his mercy Sin wilfully committed drives a man from God sin carelesly unrepented keeps a man from him so that whiles the man is in sin whether it be willfully or carelesly he cannot come near God but is either driven or at least kept from him yea let him come never so near to God yet by his sin he is sure to be kept far from him for he so draweth near him with his lips as to be far from him with his heart It is not to be doubted but David made many a fair shew of worshipping God during that year that he continued in the guiltiness of his murder and of his adultery And yet it is not to be thought much less believed that during that guiltiness he was a true worshipper for it is plain from his own mouth that sin had shut up his lips because he prayed God to open them and as plain that sin shutteth not up the lips but where it hath first shut up the heart since the heart is the first mover in the order of Religion and consequently the first stander-still in the neglect of that order No wonder then if the Text saith God heareth not sinners John 9. 31. for how can he hear those that do not speak or if they do speak yet they do not pray because they have only Verbum oris non verbum mentis because they speak only with their lips not with their hearts God is not as man to be approached unto by outward addresses and applications if the tongue move without the heart the man sits still and doth not at all draw near in Gods account whatever he may do in his own Therefore the Apostle ascribeth it to one and the same faith that we please God and that we come unto him Heb. 11. 6. Without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe The words will afford this Syllogism He that doth come to God doth alone please God he that hath not faith doth not come unto God Therefore he that hath not faith doth not or cannot please God And this Syllogism will afford us this Doctrine That we must come to God if we will please him and must have faith if he will come unto him For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him That he is God the fountain of all goodness and that they who thirst after shall drink deep of this fountain Nay yet more as the words are alledged to prove Enoch had faith they must have this
Apostolical practice recorded in the Text was therefore imbraced by the Catholike Church as if it had been Precept for the time and place and persons of Religious worship because that Practice in all these respects was founded upon the precepts of the old Testament not as they were typical and figurative but as they were solemn and positive and did no less concern the Christian in the publike exercise of his moral then they did concern the Jew in the publike exercise of his ceremonial Worship For publike worship requires the same publike adjuncts of time place and person no less in the Christians then it did in the Jews Religion And therefore we cannot deny but all those precepts in the old Testament that were given about those publike adjuncts do still remain in force as to that intent of the publike exercise of Religion unless we will deny that Christians are obliged to the exercise of Gods publike worship we must then still have our set dayes as Sabbaths our set places as Churches our set Persons as Ministers for the solemn publike worship of God And consequently they who go about to abolish any of these adjuncts or circumstances of publike worship do in effect go about to expunge the fourth commandment out of the Decalogue which was written with Gods own finger as well as the rest commandeth the solemn benediction consecration and conservation of all those adjuncts of time place person as conducing to the Publike service of God and exercise of Religion And as for times and persons they have been since in many respects determined by Apostolical Practice and particularly the Day of our Saviours Ascension seems to have been Annually observed by them as the day of his Resurrection was observed weekly since we find that Festival universally received by the Catholike Church and the Fathers made many admirable Sermons or Homilies upon it long before superstition had infected or Popery had invaded the Church of Christ in so much as Saint Augustine tells us plainly that the feast of the Ascension was observed in the Catholike Church even from the Apostles times Sure we are those primitive Christians well understood that God did not intend to confine but to enlarge his own worship by the fourth Commandment to wit to make that exercise of Religion solemn and publike in the fourth which was private in the other three Commandments not to make that to be only on one day which was before commanded to be all the week For he that saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart supposeth that as no day thou canst be without thy heart so no day thy heart may be without his love And therefore when we have a publike day set apart to make this our love publikely known if we do wilfully neglect the same we are grievous transgressors and downright plain Sabbath-breakers though not on the Sabbath day and consequently twice sinners in one contempt or profanation for omitting the substance of the duty and for contemning the circumstance of the day Another circumstance in our blessed Saviours Ascension is the place from which he was received up and that was not Hierusalem but Bethany For although the Apostles had been with him in Galilee many dayes where he conversed with them after the first day of his Resurrection yet now they were again returned back to Hierusalem waiting there for the promise of the Father as they had been commanded Act. 1. 4. And he led them out from thence as far as Bethany Luk 24. 50. before he was pleased to ascend into heaven partly because he would not have the people see but rather believe the Mysterie of his Ascension and partly because he would not expose his Apostles to the outrages of those who though they had seen it yet were resolved not to believe but to persecute the true believers And yet in that he led his Apostles out to Bethany he shewed them what was the right use they were to make of this worlds afflictions or persecutions even to have their conversation with him in heaven For Bethany is by interpretation the house of sorrow or affliction and our blessed Saviour Ascending to heaven from thence hath shewed us that then do we make a right use of of our afflictions on earth when they do make our souls ascend up to heaven This is to turn Bethany into Bethel the house of sorrow into the house of God But the place from which our blessed Saviour ascended into heaven is called Mount Olivet Act. 1. 12. And indeed these two were but one and the same place for Bethany stood upon Mount Olivet Christ ascended from a Mount and from this Mount Olivet He ascended from a Mount to shew it was not an easie step from earth to heaven there must be three ladders joyned together to accomplish this ascent scala mentis scala voluntatis scala vitae one ladder of the mind by contemplation another ladder of the will by affection a third ladder of the life by action All three have several rongs or degrees as Jacobs ladder had and God is only at the top Again he ascended from this Mount Olivet where he begun his passion by sweating blood Luk. 22. to shew us the necessity of passive obedience if we desire to go to heaven Moses his Mount Sinai which teacheth the rule of active obedience will not serve the turn we must also go up to Christs Mount Olivet and there learn his passive obedience that by suffering with him we may also reign with him for he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross and therefore God highly exalted him Phil. 2. Can you drink of his cup without fear it may overcome your weak Stomack since the fear of it made him offer up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears Heb. 5. 7. If you can then may you find some pretence though little cause to take that for granted to you which the sons of Zebedee only requested for themselves to sit with him in his Kingdom But if your frailty and humility bid you fear you may stick at the dregs in drinking of his cup much more should your frailty and modesty bid you blush that you are so exceeding unworthy of comming to his Kingdom and of sitting in it together with him that so you may not turn your own Churchwarden to appoint your own place in heaven but may wholly relie upon him for your place upon whom you must relie for your worthiness SECT III. The persons before whom our Saviour Christ ascended were 1. Angels 2. Men yet men only not Angels appointed by him as witnesses of his ascension though not all men And that the disturbers of these witnesses that is of the orders of Christs Ministers in his Church do sin against this article of Christs ascension which however is it self and puts all true believers above all disturbances THE persons before whom or in whose
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That in all things he might be first or that in all things he might have the preheminence Col. 1. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith his most faithful interpreter Saint Chrysostom The first in heaven as the beginning the first in earth as Head of the Church the first under the earth as the first born from the dead Thus hath God ordained that our Saviour Christ should have the preheminence in all things and in all places from whence we must conclude that the same is the duty and ought to be the work of all that profess godliness even to give all honour and glory to this Son of man whom the King of Kings is pleased to honour And in this respect those Christians like Mary have chosen the better part though the other like Martha trouble themselves and all the world besides about many unnecessary things who carefully observe all those anniversary Festivals which have been instituted entirely for the honour of Christ and consequently observe our weekly festival rather as a Lords day then as a Sabbath For these sit quietly and orderly at Jesus his feet hearing his Word and place him at their head promoting his honour according to the Apostles example and advice To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Rom. 16. 27. They look upon this festival as instituted for Gods glory and think it neither safe nor fit for Christians to glorifie God through Moses but through Christ And therefore desire to honour him not by a Sabbath but by a Lords day for that the Sabbath was a type of Christs rest in the grave who rested there only that whole day as it were to bury it with himself but the Lords day is an undoubted memorial of his resurrection So that the one carries in its name if not in its nature a false protestation concerning the Christian faith and may possibly in time make us turn Jews The other carries in its name and nature a true profession of our faith and can only help to make and to keep us good Christians as immediately directing our thoughts and our thankfulness to our Saviour Christ which alone is the way to make us true Evangelical professors this being the summe of the whole Gospel That he was delivered for our offences and rose again for our Iustification Rom. 4 26. And it is plain that the whole Gospel doth so directly tend to the Article of Christs resurrection that Saint Paul saith expresly it can neither be rightly preached nor professed without it If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith also is vain 1 Cor. 15. 14. It nearly concerns all Christian Ministers to abandon those tenents which may either directly or indirectly make vain their own preaching or the peoples faith And it is to be feared the Sabbatarian Doctrine may tend to this for it is to be avowed that the turning those solemn festivals out of the Church which peculiarly commemorate the Incarnation Nativity Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and teach us to bless God for the same that the Sabbath may be set up as Lady paramount and Queen Regent to controule and confine all our publick worship can in no case make for the honour of Christ and therefore not for the truth of Christianity For Saint Paul saith expresly that in all things he must have the preheminence and if in all things then surely both in duties and in daies and if in duties then much more in daies for if the worship be not acceptable to God but in him then sure the day cannot be acceptable but for him T is proper for the Jew to keep a Sabbath who thinks himself still bound to worship God through Moses but t is proper for the Christian to keep a Lords day who knows himself bound to worship and glorifie God only through Christ Jesus the Lord of glory And Saint Paul readeth this Lecture to the Jews themselves and much more to us Christians in those words to the Hebrews Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen Heb. 13. 20 21. Where he briefly declares the summe not only of that whole Epistle but also of the whole Christian Faith and that by way of benediction to shew we cannot have the blessing of Christians unless we have the faith of Christians And that faith teacheth us to believe and confess 1. That God is reconciled to us Now the God of peace 2. That our Saviour Christ alone hath wrought for us and offereth to us this reconciliation as our King our Lord Jesus as our Prophet the great Shepherd and as our Priest through the blood of the everlasting Covenant 3. That he hath given us sufficient proof of his great work that he is brought again from the dead 4. That he is ready to give us the superabundant fruits of all by making us perfect in every good work to do his will working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight In all these inestimable and undeserved mercies it is Christ alone that is all in all wherefore it follows in the next words through Christ Jesus and consequently he in himself and the Father in him is to be glorified for all as it is said To whom be glory for ever and ever Amen God is the God of peace to us men in that he brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus so that we cannot rightly glorifie him for the reconciliation unless we glorifie him for the resurrection And for this cause happily it was that the Church did antiently interpose Halleluiah in the midst of those sentences of the Text which she chose for her publick service in celebrating the memory of Christs resurrection not to interrupt the words or sense of the Scriptures but rather to explain them teaching us that good Christians should not read or hear any part of the Text without thinking of Christ and that they should not think of Christ without praising God in him and for him and that praising God in and for their Saviour Christ they can never be zealous enough in their praises nor rejoyce too much in his salvation Therefore they intermingled Hallelujah not only in the Hymns of the Text where it might be thought a natural appendix but also in the Doctrines of it where at first sight it might seem altogether an unnecessary addition As for example thus they recite that Hymn of the Psalmist He brought forth his people with joy Halleluiah and his chosen with gladness Psalm 105. ver 42. And thus also that doctrine of Saint Peter As new born babes Halleluiah desire the sincere milk of the Word 1 Pet. 2. 2. Where
of Religion to be true doth require my assent by the authority of the first truth and whatsoever appears to me to be good doth require my love and obedience by the authority of the cheifest good So that if I cannot but confess my Churches sincerity woe will be unto me if I deny much more if I withstand her authority For if I cannot justly find fault with her Religion I must be irreligious if I forsake her communion God have mercy upon those Christians who on the one side are so zealous for their Church as not to be scrupulous about their Religion or who on the other side are so scrupulous about their religion as not to be zealous for their Church the one sinning against the verity the other against the unity of faith and therefore neither but hath a spice of infidelity in their sin and since God hath made me a Christian why should I make my self an Infidel either by superstition sinning against my God or by faction sinning against his Church I will therefore take the best care I can both about my Religion and about my communion though I will first take care of my Religion and then of my communion SECT III. The sincerity of Christian communion comprehendeth both the purity and the solemnity of Religion And is the whole duty of the first table The purity and substance of Religion being enjoynd in the three first commandments The solemnity and publick exercise of it with the adjuncts thereto belonging being enjoyned in the Fourth the one from the end the other from the letter of the Law The Sabbatarian the greatest opposer of the fourth Commandment who cryes up the day but beats down the other adjuncts and also the very duty of the Sabbath That duty being to glorifie God in Christ by publick worship for the Redemption of the world whereas they discountenance Liturgie and Festivals though both instituted in honour of our Redeemer EVery man is born an enemy to the true Christian communion because his corrupt nature filleth him with vain fears to make him superstitious and with outragious malice to make him factious And the true Christian communion is equally opposed by superstition which corrupts the sincerity and by faction which destroys the solemnity of Gods publick worship Wherefore God hath given us a Law which taketh care not only for the Religion of his Church against superstition but also for the Communion of his Church against faction though it first take care for the Religion and after that for the communion For Religion knits and unites us immediately to God But communion knits and unites us one to the other Religion is the very knowledge and worship of God communion is only the agreement in that knowledge and worship Religion makes the Saints communion only shews and declares them Religion makes true worship communion makes publick worship Accordingly God first provided for the duty then for the solemnity first for the Religion then for the communion Thus in the three first precepts of the decalogue he requires the true knowledge and worship of God which constitute our Religion and in the fourth he requires the publick profession of that knowledge and exercise of that worship which constitute our communion For the first commandment requires us to have right apprehensions and affections concerning God by the internal acts of our souls in trusting believing loving him above all things The second and third require us to testifie those our inward apprehensions and affections concerning him by our outward adoration or reverence and by our outward confessing or glorifying his holy name Then follows the fourth requiring us to muster up our apprehensions and affections adorations and glorifications altogether in one publick entire and holy communion So that the fourth Commandment is little other then a new ratification or establishment of the three first all in one to be observed or performed solemnly and publickly enjoyning us to do those holy duties on some set dayes openly and joyntly in one communion which were before enjoyned every day severally and privately in one Religion And consequent the 4th Commandment is in effect an establishment of the Church as the three first are an establishment of Religion For the consecration of times places persons maintenance and forms of worship is here commanded though time only be named and all for this end that God may be publickly glorified and our souls edified in the communion of Saint Wherefore those that prophane the places oppose the persons rob the maintenance and reproach the forms consecrated to the publick worship of God are as great Sabbath-breakers as those that prophane the time nor is there in truth a greater enemy to the Sabbath then the Sabbatarian as not a greater enemy to faith then the Solifidean the one crying up the Sabbath in the day but beating it down in the duty advancing the circumstance of time but depressing and debasing not only other circumstances but also the very substance of worship The other making a noise of faith which fils the phansie with strong perswasions but neglecting the work of faith which fils the soul with holy affections What do we think our Saviour Christ said in vain Father glorifie thy name or that God himself answered in vain by a voyce from heaven saying I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again John 12. 28. If not let us acknowledge this to be the main end of our Christian Religion to glorifie the name of God and then we shall be afraid to oppose any thing directly conducing to his praise and glory For certainly those words are never to grow out of date This voice came not because of me but for your sakes John 12. 30. We know it was the whole work of Christ to glorifie God and what else can we think is the work of the Christian Religion Let this then I mean the glory of God be taken for the ballance of the Sanctuary wherein to weigh all our Tenents and all our practices and we shall never put a parsimonious much less an envious gloss upon the fourth Commandment as if it had taken care only for one circumstance of publick worship but neglected all the rest that 's a parsimonious gloss or as if it had provided for the circumstances alone and not much more for the substance of Gods publick worship and service that 's an envious irreligious gloss For in truth as in the Creed every subsequent Article of faith presupposeth the belief of all before it that it self may be rightly believed the same truth being first in the order of nature which is there put first in the order of Revelation So also in the decalogue especially in the first table every subsequent commandment presupposeth the obedience of all before it that it self may be rightly obeyed the same duty being first in the order of nature which is there put first in the order of injunction God in his very Method of revealing truths and
Roman Souldiers would not do but also his body raising factions and schisms in the Church not only against the decency and order which are as it were the coat or cloathing but also against the very substance of worship which is in some sort the body of Christ So then the Church may still in this regard claim and continue the power of Exorcism saying with Saint Paul I exhort or command you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ or we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth And if the evil spirit of Schism being thus adjured shall answer Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are yâ— making no more account of the Ministers of Christ then if they were indeed so many vagabond Jews it will shew it self not only a factious but also a lying spirit saying It knows Christ when it doth not know him They profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. Such a lying spirit deserves not to be confuted by the spirit of Truth which saith Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 5. shewing that the societies or corporations of Christians may no more take their spiritual food together without their ministers then other Corporations do usually take their corporal food without their Stewards I say such a lying spirit as this which pretends to know both Jesus and Paul but indeed knows neither deserves not to be confuted by the spirit of Truth but by the spirit errour and indeed hath found such a confutation For Satan in this foul affront of Christ is devided against himself and one of his own most false and wicked spirits could not but say of Gods Stewards or Ministers These men are the Servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation Acts 16. 17. This truth when some men did gainsay after the father of lyes himself durst not deny could not dissemble it they gave occasion to Luther of falling into these bitter expressions As hitherto men have seemed possessed with Devils even so now the Devils themselves do seem to be possessed of far worse Devils and so rage above the fury of Devils and again For who ever heard to pass over the abominations of the Pope so many monsters to burst out at once in the world as we see at this day in the Anabaptists alone in whom Satan breatheth out as it were the last blast of his kingdom through horrible uproars as if he would by them suddenly not only destroy the whole world with Seditions but also by innumerable Sects swallow up and devour Christ wholly with his Church Prefat in Gal. So Luther in his zeal to Christ and his Church for he saw the one could not be devoured without the other he saw the Church could be thrown down but Christ would also be involved in the downfall Without doubt it is a most horrid sin for men to cry up the shadow that they may beat down the substance of the Law and yet this is the sin of many men who cry up the Sabbath in the Day that they may throw it down in the Duty making it their business to discountenance the solemn exercise of Religion in common Prayer to disadvantage Gods publike worship and service to disgrace his Ministers to defile his ordinances to revile and contemn and pollute his Sanctuaries whereas in truth these are all alike sanctified to the hallowing of Gods name by vertue of the fourth Commandment and if we will needs make a separation betwixt the letter and the end or reason of that commandment where God hath made a most strict conjunction we must give the pre-eminence and superiority not to the circumstances or adjuncts but to the substance of Religion The Jew in his typical worship was first to look after the Time the Place the Person as the Sabbath the Temple the Priest which were the adjuncts of his worship and then to offer his sacrifice which was the substance of it But the Christian in his moral worship is first to look after substance then after circumstances though he hath commission to neglect neither but rather hath express command to look after both Nay indeed the Jew himself was to do this in his moral worship even to prefer the Substance before the circumstance for we find that Ezra did read in the book of the Law and blessed the Lord the great God and all the people answered Amen Amen with lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground Ezra 8. 5 6. All these were acts of moral worship and accordingly we find them not confined to the Temple for its evident They were all performed before the Street that was before the water-gate verse 3. And it is as evident that the duties of Preaching and Praying were exercised by the Jews in their Synagogues whereas their sacrifices were offered only in the Temple The reason we may conceive was this Because their Typical worship was to continue but for a time and to shew it deserved not to continue for ever there was in it this kind of absurdity that the accessory did draw the Principal the Temple the Sacrifice the Circumstance the Substance But their moral worship was to continue for ever and therefore in that the Principall was to draw the accessories the substance the circumstances blessing the Lord the great God bowing the head and worshipping the Lord reading the Law and giving the sense of it that the People might understand the reading these being all duties of moral worship were unconfinable either to place or time either to the Temple or Sabbath to shew they were above them both and were to remain after them as they had been before them This was the main subject of Saint Stephens Sermon Acts 7. That Abraham and the Fathers worshipped God rightly long before Moses was born to give them any Laws either about the Tabernacle or the Temple and consequently about the Sabbath and that all those outward ceremonies which were afterwards ordained by Moses were to last but for a time but till the coming of Christ And the Jews themselves who call the Sabbath the foundation of the Decalogue because the precept of the sabbath was given before the rest for that was certainly given in the wilderness of Zin Exod. 16. where as the rest were not given till they came to Mount Sinai Exod. 20. yet do ingenuously confess that Abraham did not keep the Sabbath so saith Hospinian who yet was very zealous for the Sabbath Judaei ipsi in minori expositione in Genesin arbitrantur Abrahamum non observasse Sabbatum The Jews themselves in the lesser exposition upon Genesis do think that Abraham did not keep the Sabbath Nay the Fathers do plainly say they know he did not For Tertullian proves against the Jews that
the Sabbath was temporary and to be abrogated because their Antientest and first fathers Adam Enoch Noah and Abraham did not keep the Sabbath And lest we should mince the matter by a distinction and say that he denied not Abraham to have kept the Sabbath but only to have kept it so rigidly and severely as the Jews did which is Hospinians opinion Justine Martyr makes it his business in a great part of his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew wherein he excellently asserts the Truth of the Christian Religion To prove that neither circumcision was before Abraham nor the Sabbath before Moses and so refutes Trypho's objection That the Christians did slight the commandments of God in the Old Testament concerning the Sabbath and Circumcision and other outward observations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If before Abraham there was no need of circumcision nor before Moses of the Sabbath and Festivals and Oblations neither now is there any need of them Nor is it easie for any man to answer the force of this argument which he useth amongst many others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To say that any of these outward ordinances is righteous in and for it self were in effect to calumniate God as if he had not at all times taught one and the same Righteousness which must follow if there be granted any intrinsecal or inherent holiness either in the Jewish or in the Christian Sabbath since we cannot prove that the one was established before Moses and we are sure the other was not established till after Christ So that by confequent there was one moral Righteousness before the Law another under the Law a third under the Gospel and we whose salvation it is to sit in Abrahams bosome shall be saved by a righteousness unknown to Abraham which cannot be allowed without setting up two several distinct communions of Saints and two several distinct Religions that made them so and how can we acknowledge two Religions and acknowledge but one God We must therefore put a distinction between circumstances and substances in Religion for though both are to go hand in hand to do their homage to Almighty God yet substances are to have the upper hand And this appears plainly by our Saviours own determination in the like case even concerning Tithes for Tithes and the Sabbath are alike moral if what is numeral be moral in the one how can it be less then moral in the other Nay Abraham paying Tythes before Moses is undisputable not so his keeping the Sabbath whence it appears God took care for the Priest before the Sabbath for the person before the day of his worship I say this appears plainly by our Saviours own determination concerning Tythes Mat. 23. 23. which he will not have put in the ballance against Mercy and Judgement calling in effect these and the like ceremonial institutions the lighter whiles he plainly calleth those moral duties the weightier matters of the Law And denouncing a woe against those as Hypocrites who magnified the one that they might vilifie the other Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites For ye pay tithe of mint and annise and cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law Judgement Mercy and Faith This woe was denounced against them not for what they payed but for what they omitted not for paying Tythe of mint and annise and cummin but for omitting Judgement mercy and faith whiles they were over zealous and over scrupulous about those payments for so it follows These ought ye to have done that is the moral duties and not to leave the other undone that is the ceremonial institutions To prefer circumstances above substances and consequently to be more zealous and scrupulous about the day or other adjuncts then about the duty of publike worship is to incur this woe and it is too too plain that since tything of mint and annise and cummin have been much in fashion in regard of God for in regard of his poor Ministers Tythes were never less in fashion Mercy and Judgement and Faith have been quite out of request Since we have been so scrupulous about the Rue and all manner of herbs we have quite passed over judgement and the love of God Luke 11. 42. since the Sabbath day hath been so much cryed up the Sabbath Duty hath been quite beaten down In the name of God let us set up both together and know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tempori Servientes Applying our selves to the Time is not good Divinity if it exclude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Domino Servientes Applying our selves to the Lord Though Erasmus hath given us that interpretation on Rom. 12. 11. and our Church in the Epistle for the second Sunday after Epiphany hath followed him and Vorstius would fain justifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the truer lection against the authority of the Text commonly received both in Greek and Latine Churches This may seem a dangerous assertion in him to make the letter of the Text come under our Disputes which God hath set over our Obedience But yet the other assertion would be more dangerous in us to make the end and reason of the Text come under the letter of it We all know this is the end of the Text That God may be glorified in Christ and we saved by him Let us gloss the fourth commandment according to this end and we shall neither be Hereticks nor Schismaticks by our gloss neither sin against Religion by having a corrupt Liturgie nor sin against communion by having no Liturgie which are both peccancies against the end of this commandment And consequently we shall neither Idolize nor prophane much less rob either Times or Places or Persons consecrated to Gods publick worship which are both peccancies against the letter of this Commandment Christ is the end of the Law saith Saint Paul Rom. 10. 4. shewing that the letter of the Law was to look to the end and the end of the Law was to look to Christ let us say so too and we shall not easily sin against the principal end of this Commandment which is the glory of God in Christ we shall not sin against the Christian Religion by having a corrupt Liturgie Again the same Saint Paul saith the end of the commandment is charity 1 Tim. 1. 5. not excluding what he had said before of Christ but including it Let us say so too and we shall not easily sin against the subordinate end of this Commandment which is the salvation of man by Christ we shall not sin against Christian communion by having no Liturgie For what Saint Paul hath said of the Law or Commandment in general that must we say of this Law of this Commandment in particular The end of it is Christ and the end of it is charity For the end of it is twofold First the exercise of the true Christian Religion that God may be glorified in Christ for our redemption Secondly the establishment of
was performed by Ezra the Scribe And we find our blessed Saviour and his Disciples sometimes upon extraordinary occasions preaching and praying publickly neither in the Synagogues nor on the Sabbaths that is neither in consecrated places nor on consecrated Days to shew the work it self had a holiness incommensurable with and therefore unconfinable to either but still we find only them who were without doubt consecrated persons publickly preaching and praying we find no unholy or unconsecrated persons in all the Book of God either authorized or allowed to do this Work of God which immediately concerneth his publick worship But on the contrary it is said expresly The Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to Minister unto him and to bless in his name unto this day Deut. 10. 8 Those whom the Lord had not separated durst not meddle with the Ark of his Covenant nor stand before the Lord to Minister unto him and to bless in his name One Vzzah that was not of this separated tribe was struck dead for taking hold of Gods Ark though it were with a good intent to sustain it when the Oxen shook it 2 Sam. 6 7. And we cannot say that this was not written for our learning unless we will twice contradict Saint Paul not only in the general Thesis when he saith Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition 1 Cor. 10. 11. but also in this very particular hypothesis when he saith No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an High Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son Heb. 5. 4 5. In which words though he confine not the Priesthood to the tribe of Levi of which Aaron was for he saith that Christ was an high Priest who was of the tribe of Judah yet he confines it to the calling of God for he saith Christ glorified not himself to be made an High Priest but he that said unto him thou art my Son If Christ would not glorifie himself by taking the Priesthood till he was called of God then surely no Christian can do the office of a Priest without being called but he must disobey God and dishonour Christ and to countenance any man that doth so must needs be both ungodly and unchristian much more to discountenance those whom God hath called and who do not their own but his work Ministring indeed unto him exactly according as himself hath prescribed both in Worship and Word and Sacraments and blessing in his name and by his authority If we will needs expel these Ministers what do we else but expel our own Blessing Sure we cannot deny but our Saviour Christ hath given unto his Ministers the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven for the Keys which he promised only to Saint Peter Mat. 16. 19. He gave to all his Apostles John 20. 23. Nay also the Keys of the Kingdom of Hell for so those whom he had sent out return with joy saying Lord even the Devils are subject unto us through thy name Luke 10. 17. And how then can we disturb those Ministers whom he hath sent without grievously sinning against his authority and dangerously sinning against our own souls For what is this in effect but to shut up Heaven and to open Hell but to keep out God and to let in Devils Tell me if you can why men are not now so frequently possessed with Devils as they were before the coming of Christ but only because Christ hath given his Church power over them And if we will needs beat down his Church why should not the Devils again recover their former power of possessing men This we have found true by sad experience that since we have forsaken our Church which prayed God to beat down Satan under our feet God hath let Satan get up even over our heads Angelis malis duplex poenalis convenit locus Infernus pro ipsorum culpa in quem omnes post diem judicii detrudentur Aer autem ista caliginosus usque ad diem Judicii ad bonorum exercitium ne totaliter sc ab utilitate naturalis ordinis exciderent saith Aqu. par 1. qu 64. art 4. God hath allotted the Devils two places of torment Hell in regard of their own sin and they shall be all thrown down thither at the day of Judgement And also the region of the Air. till that day comes for the exercise of good men lest otherwise those evil Spirits should quite have fallen from the order of nature and been out of all capacity of doing good God hath set the Devils over our Heads in respect of Place But t is only our contempt of God can set the Devils over our heads in respect of power And the contempt of Gods Ministers comes very neer the contempt of God for so himself hath taught us He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Luk 10. 16. What is it then I will take heed of sinning against the letter but much more against the end of the fourth Commandment I will take heed of sinning against the circumstances but much more against the substance that is required in the exercise of Religion I will glorifie God in the Sabbath Day that is in all the adjuncts or solemnity but I will much more glorifie him in the Sabbath Duty that is in the substance or form of his publick worship I will first make sure of my Religion then of my Communion first of my Liturgie then of my Company first of Essentials then of Ceremonials I know they are blessed that dwel in thy house Psalm 84. 4. But withal that this is the reason of their blessing They will be alwayes praising thee Great is the blessing of Christian Communion whereby men dwell in Gods house but greater is the blessing of Christian Religion whereby men are alwayes praising God I will not willingly sin against thy house but above all I will not sin against thy praise I will not cast them out of thine house whom thou hast commanded to dwell in it that they may be always praising thee Psalm 134. 2. much less will I cast thee out of thine own house by disturbing thy praises If others will not forsake their false Churches to come to the true worship of God what shall I answer at the last day if I forsake a true Church to set up a false worship If they so highly prize a Religion that is in part against thee a Communion that is in part without thee for which they can produce only some few specious pretence what will become of me if I regard neither thy Religion nor thy Communion for which I have so many unquestionable arguments or rather so many irresistable Demonstrations I will then be very zealous for that Christian Communion wherein
I am sure I have the true Christian Religion for I cannot oppose such a Communion because of its authority but I shall be guilty of faction nor because of its excellency but I shall be guilty of Blasphemy nor because of its sincerity but I shall be guilty of Irreligion And I cannot be either Factious or Blasphemous or Irreligious much less all three together but I shall sin grievously against the glory of my God scandalously against the good of my neighbour dangerously against the salvation of mine own soul In a word since God of his infinite goodness which I could not deserve may not abuse hath made me an Israelite I will not strive to make my self an Idumaean a Babylonian or an Aegyptian Saint Bernard finds all these three in one persecutor or opposer of that Church which professeth and practiceth the true Christian Religion saying thus Herodiana malitia Babylonica crudelitas est nascentem extinguere velle Religionem allidere parvulos Israel Si quid enim ad salutem pertinens si quid Religionis oritur quicunque resistit quicunque repugnat planè cum Aegyptiis parvulos Israelitici germinis necare conatur imo cum Herode nascentem persequitur salvatorem It is the malice of a Herod who was an Idumaean and no less then Babylonian cruelty to labour to suppress Religion and to dash the children of Israel against the stones For if indeed what is brought forth doth conduce to salvation or belong to true piety who ever resisteth or opposeth it doth plainly endeavour with the Aegyptians to slay the young children of Israel nay with Herod he doth seek out his new born Saviour to destroy him And he that doth this forgets all the curses denounced against Edom in the Prophets for persecuting his brother Jacob particularly that of Obadiah v. 10. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut off for ever A Text the fittest that can be alledged in this case because the Jews tell us that this Obadiah from being Ahabs Steward was made a Prophet of the Lord for the kindness which he had shewed to the Lords Prophets when they were persecuted by Jezebel Hic igitur quia centum Prophetas paverat accepit gratiam Prophetalem de duce exercitus fit dux Ecclesiae Tunc in Samaria parvum gregem paverat nunc in toto orbe Christi pascit Ecclesias saith Saint Hierom prol in Abdian Proph. This man because he fed an hundred Prophets received the Grace of Prophecy and from being a Captain under Ahab was made a Captain under Christ Then he fed but a small number in Samaria now he feedeth many millions in all the world and I doubt not but God hath still reserved the same blessing for all those who have hitherto sustained his persecuted Prophets not to give them the Spirit of Prophecy for he will not violate his own orders and institutions but to give them the Spirit of Grace in this ungracious the Spirit of perseverance in this backsliding age of ours So that we may be truly say The reason why they have not lost their faith as well as others is because they would not lose their Charity whereas many that were of an other temper as at first they lost their charity so now at last they have lost their faith and know not whither to go to seek it but may truly say with Mary Magdalen and so much the more truly by how much the less sorrowfully for they would with her have more tears in their eyes if they had grace in their hearts They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him John 20. 13. They who were among the head-men of Tekoa Amos 1. 1. and taught to keep cattell from their youth Zach. 13. 5. and so made themselves Prophets without the Lord Nay they who were among Sauls messengers sent to take David 1 Sam. 1. 20. and so made themselves Prophets against the Lord They have taken away my Lord my Saviour from me and I know not where they have laid him A very sad complaint which they now least make who have most reason who from their Sedition and privy conspiracy have fallen into false doctrine and heresie and from their hardness of heart towards men have fallen into contempt of Gods word and commandments from which we pray God to deliver them and to keep us For since his mercy hath made us Christians we may not let our own Unthankfulness make us Antichristian and such are all they who will needs be of a Religion fitter to serve themselves then to serve their God It is Musculus his observation upon Ps 52. Saul hic typum gerit â—ntichristi qui habet in regno suo Sacerdotes tabernaculum cultum Dei verum haec omnia vult sui Juris esse sib ministrare Vult Sacerdotes Domini esse iniquitatis suae Ministres Non indicastis mihi inquit quod David venerit ad vos Saul was the very type of Antcâ—hrist who had indeed Priests and Tabernacle and the worship of God in his kingdom but would have them all under his command and would make them all serve his designs He would have the Priests of the Lord become Ministers of his wickedness and destroyed them because they had not been so Turn and slay the Priests of the Lord saith he because their hand also is with David and because they knew when he fled and did not shew it to me 1 Sam. 22. 17. This Sin of Antichrist in striving to make Religion stoop to Interest that is in effect to make God serve Mammon to make Christ serve Belial being most directly against the end of the fourth Commandment plainly shews that the end of that Commandment is chiefly to set up the honour of Christ the eternal Son of God All the Jews service did all the Christians service should tend only to this end Do this in remembrance of me concerned their Sacrifices no less then our Sacraments Their Sabbaths no less then our Lords dayes their weekly on less then our weekly their anniversary no less then our anniversary festivals and all by vertue of the fourth commandment Do this in remembrance of me concerned the Jews in the general reason of it no less then it concerneth us Christians only it concerned them in types and shadows it concerneth us in body and substance So saith Saint Paul of their Sabbaths which are a shaddow of things to come but the body is of Christ Col. 2. 17. They were to look after the shaddow but we are to look after the Body they were to look after the types but we are to look after Christ They were to be zealous for the Sabbath Day but we are to be most zealous for the Sabbath Duty which is to do all in remembrance of Christ to magnifie our Redeemer in the first place and for his sake to magnifie the memorials of our Redemption
and Adoration of God and a right profession to glorifie his most holy name according to the three first Commandments How doth it not bind us to its communion in all these according to the fourth If we cannot deny the purity how dare we deny the publike exercise of our Religion For surely he that will one day say Depart from me ye cursed to those who have carelesly neglected their duty towards their neighbours will never say Come ye blessed to us if we wilfully neglect our duty towards our God but our peevishness now saying unto him in effect Depart from us Thou blessed will then most certainly be recompenced with his Justice saying unto us Depart from me ye cursed Our departure from him is now voluntary it will then be necessary it is now our sin it will then be our punishment For if we shall be condemned for our omissions towards our brethren much more shall we be condemned for our omissions or rather for our contempts towards our Saviour And those Jehu's which drive furiously not to throw down the worship of Baal but of the true everliving God shall without doubt answer at the last day not only for their furiousness as guilty of Schism but also for their contempt as guilty of profaness not only for their breaking the Christian communion but also for their opposing the Christian Religion they cannot set up the abomination of desolation in the Holy place and pull down holiness from thence but themselves will be in Gods account abominable and desolate So saith Junius in his Parallel upon Saint Mat. 24 15. Appellatur exercitus omnis infidelium ad subversionem desolationemque populi Dei comparatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Abominatio desolationis Abominatio quidem propter naturam constitutionem ipsius quia totus ex hominibus abominandis infidelibus conflatus est Desolationis vero ab effectu quia horridam desolalationem fuerat importaturus loco in quem irruerit Christ calleth those Roman Armies which were to lay waste Jerusalem The Abomination of desolations Abomination from their persons because they were abominable men desolation from their work because they were to make Hierusalem waste and desolate If those men were the abomination of desolation who laid waste the City of God what are they who lay waste the worship of God Therefore saith the Spirit of God in Psalm 68. that such men are Gods enemies and must expect to be scattered and either speedily to vanish like smoak after they have a little troubled our eyes or at least to melt like wax that they may not stay so long as to harden our hearts For he is the God that maketh men to be of one mind in an house verse 6. and most loves they should be of one mind in his own House 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the 70. Inhabitare facit unius moris in domo He makes those of the same fashion to be of the same family He makes men to be of one disposition and of one conversation that they may be of one communion And he accounts them but runnagates that are not so But letteth the runnagates continue in scarceness Nay the Hebrew calls them Rebels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the rebellious The Greek translations do render this one word four several ways 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the 70. Qui exasperant they that are contentious ready to exasperate and to provoke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Symmachus Incruduli They that are incredulous and hard to believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aquila Abscedentes They that are exceptious or ready to depart from the known way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theodotius Declinantes They are erroneous and actually declining into false wayes for so is that word used Psalm 124. v. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Declinantes autem ad tortuosas vias such as turn aside unto their crooked ways All which sins are combined together in this one of wilful schism which makes men Runnagates for their inconstancy Rebels for their disobedience contentious for their bitterness incredulous for their blindness exceptious for their apostasie and erroneous for their pertinacy Such men are commonly Hot-headed and Hard-hearted in their sin and they are accordingly tormented with Heat and Hardness in their punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitabunt aestus siccitatem saith Symmachus They shall dwell among burning drought that shews their punishment from heat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitaverent rupem saith Aquila they do dwel among rocks that shews their punishment from Hardness And what is the reason of all but because they are enemies to God in being enemies to the communion which he hath established for so it is said ver 26 Give thanks O Israel unto God the Lord in the congregations but they neither regard Israel nor the God of Israel nor the giving of thanks nor the congregations And therefore these words Rise up Lord and let thine enemies be scattered and let them that hate thee flee before thee which were used by Moses when the Ark set forward Num. 10. 35. are here by David formed into a perfect Psalm which was sung afterwards saith Musculus before that same Ark when David and all the house of Israel brought it up to Zion with shouting and with dancing and with the sound of the trumpet 2 Sam. 6. 15. The Ark was a Type of the Church and therefore this Psalm which once concerned the Ark and its enemies doth now concern the Church and her enemies and Saint Paul in effect assured us as much in that he hath applied the 18 verse of this Psalm to our Saviour Christs Ascension wherein he gave such gifts to men by which the Christian Church was first founded and doth still subsist So that it is evident that this Psalm is a prayer for defence and propagation of the Catholick Church and consequently these and the like expressions that are found in it are so many imprecations and curses from the Spirit of God against his Churches enemies The like is often to be observed in the whole book of Psalms which is very full of expostulations with and imprecations against the enemies of the Church and that being a book of devotions of Gods own making may neither be neglected by his servants nor yet securely used by his enemies for they will but curse themselves by using it and more mischief themselves by not using it A sad condition which the Churches enemies most unavoidably bring upon themselves either not to use those devotions which were of Gods own composing or to use them against their own prosperity in this world and salvation in the next I will make but one instance more and that shall be out of Psalm 129. one of the Psalms of degrees or Ascensions which were so called saith Kimchi from Rabbi Sudia because the Levites in singing those Psalms were bound to exalt their voices and as it were to ascend higher and higher in every Psalm so
Christians in their protestations There is a great distance betwixt superstition and Atheism False-Liturgy is Superstitious but no Liturgy is Atheistical For it must bring Religion to uncertainties may bring it to impieties Uncertainties are as nothing Impieties are worse then nothing Uncertainties cannot honour God as God Impieties must dishonour him may defie him tell me what can Atheism do more No Liturgy in effect bids Christians do like the Mariners in Jonah Cry every man unto his God nay it leaves every man to make his God for it leaves every man to make his Religion and he that hath a Religion of his own making must also have a God of his own making For the true God cannot be worshipped as men please to phansie him but as he hath revealed himself And therefore it is the high way to Atheism for men to be left to their own phansies in the exercise of Religion which must needs be where the exercise of Religion is not under a set form that so it may be compared with the word of God and accordingly not embraced till it be found agreeable with his word Will you think to convert a Papist by inviting him to no Liturgy you may as well think to convert him by inviting him to no Religion for with him t is No Liturgy no Religion Will you think to confirm a Protestant by inviting him to no Liturgy you may as well think to confirm him by inviting him to no Communion for with him it must be No Liturgy no Communion since he did not depart from a corrupt Liturgy to have none but to have a better and justifies his departure from the Church of Rome that leaving her he might come to the Catholick Church so his business was not only to protest against a false but also to protest for a true publick worship unless you will say he was only careful not to be a Schismatick in having good grounds of his separation but not careful not to be a Heretick in not having as good grounds of his Communion Some things were in the Church of Rome as a local or national Church some things were in it as a member of the Catholick Church There is no wilfull receding from these without being Anti-Catholick and that is all one with being Anti Christian Liturgy was one of these so truly and undoubtedly Christian that Hâ—ppolytus an antient Bishop and Martyr saith of Antichrist In those days shall be no Liturgy In diebus illis Liturgia extinguetur Orat de consummatione mundi ac de Antichristo in Bibliotheca Patrum Tom. 2. And sure we are that there was never yet any Christian Church in the world either national or provincial which had not its Liturgy which Cassanders Liturgicks doth sufficiently manifest without any other tedious way of proof the whole business whereof is to shew the several forms and rites of administring in several Churches So that to deny Liturgy to be Christian is in effect to deny the Catholick Church to be Christian and to blot a whole article of faith out of the Apostles Creed as also to affirm that there is will-worship in having Liturgy is in effect to affirm that the whole Catholick Church hath for 1500. years together been guilty of wil-worship and consequently hath not had the true Religion such a negative must needs be dangerous which thrusts the Catholick Church out of the Creed But such an affirmative must needs be damnable which thrusts the Christian Religion out of the Catholick Church For the whole Church having placed the publick practice of Religion in Liturgy if that be indeed wil-worship t is palpable Religion as to its publick practice or exercise hath been hitherto out of the Church unless we will allow wil-worship to be Religion However sure we are that God hath not given any Church power to abolish Liturgy because the power God hath given his Church is for edification and not for destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. But the abolishing of Liturgy is nothing at all for edification but wholly for destruction T is nothing at all for edification neither in regard of the weak for it helps not their infirmities but takes away those helps God in mercy hath afforded them neither in regard of the strong for it must put them upon uncertainties may put them upon impieties And t is altogether for destruction because it destroyes Religion because it destroyes Communion It destroyes Religion in the learned making a way for them to run into any heresies in the unlearned not making a way for them to come out of Ignorance It destroyes Communion in the most setled times of the Church by disturbing it but in unsetled times by distracting it teaching men when they are at best not to be of one Communion but when they are at worst to be of many divisions of as many divisions as of interests of as many interests as of minds and of as many minds as men This is proof enough that God hath not given any Church power to abolish Liturgy It remains in the next place to be proved that no Church ought to assume that power For it is not for any Christian Church to assume such a power as directly tends to the destruction either of Christian Religion or of Christian Communion and abolishing of Liturgy directly tends to both these as hath been said Again It is not for any Christian Church to assume such a power as to abolish any thing which directly tends to the fulfilling of any of Gods Commandments for our Saviour Christ hath said If ye love me keep my Commandments John 14. 15. But a true laudable form of prayer directly tends to the fulfilling of two of Gods Commandments to wit the third and the fourth It directly tends to the fulfilling of the third Commandment in that it keeps some from taking Gods name in vain and teaches others truly to glorifie his name And it directly tends to the fulfilling of the fourth Commandment in that it provides for the duty of the Sabbath to wit the service of the Sanctuary the publick worship of God which is the end of the fourth Commandment and therefore the fittest rule by which to expound and observe the letter of it For the letter of the Law being subservient to the end of the Law we cannot rightly observe the day according to the letter unless we rightly observe the duty according to the end of this Commandment For by the reason of our blessed Saviours own Logick Mat. 23. If the Altar sanctifie the gift then much more the service sanctifies the Altar If the Temple sanctifie the Gold then much more the Glory of God sanctifies the Temple If the Day was appointed for the sanctification of man much more was the Duty appointed for the sanctification of the Day The Jews were commanded to keep the Sabbath that they might remember God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr to Trypho so that the end wherefore the Sabbath was
give an ear to the holy Prophets Exhortation O Praise the Lord with me and let us magnifie his name together Psal 34. 3. For where God is praised and magnified in the Religion I am very strictly bound to joyn my self in the Communion Nay more Let me alwaies give my heart to the holy Prophets resolution I was glad when they said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord Psal 122. 1. where God calleth to the practice of godliness t is not for another to say to me You shall not go nor for me to say to my self I will not For I must be glad of the Call and much more of the Practice Now Christ the eternal Son of God calleth us to the practice of the true Christian Religion three several waies By his Word by his Example and by his Communion By his Word for he commandeth us to perform all the duties of Religion By his Example for himself whiles he was upon earth did perform them And by his Communion for now he is in heaven he recommendeth to his Father all our Religious performances so making intercession to God for us as also with us How shall I answer him at the last day if I neglect his Word if I reject his Example if I renounce his Communion His Word pierceth mine Ear his Example pierceth mine Eye but his Communion pierceth my Heart His Word and his Example pierce my sense but his Communion pierceth my soul For if it were said of Sauls Messengers nay of Saul himself when they saw the company of the Prophets prophecying and Samuel standing as appointed over them that the Spirit of God was upon them and they also prophesied 1 Sam. 19. 20. Then surely when I see a company of Christians praying and Christ himself standing as appointed over them for so himself hath avowed where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them Mat. 18. 20. if the Spirit of God be in me I will also pray with them and it must be some evil Spirit in me that makes me either reject or renounce their prayers For if there be indeed The Communion of Saints saying unto me We will go into the house of the Lord I am bound to have the affection which is due to that Communion and say I was glad when they said unto me we will go for this indefinite Particle When not defining one set time will suffer me to exclude no time T is like a general Commission which not prescribing what day to do the business leaves it to be done any day and to neglect no opportunity of doing it Indefinitum in materià necessarià aequipollet universali when the duty it self is absolutely necessary though it be set down as indifinite yet we must look upon it as universal for though the Casuists do tell us concerning affirmative precepts Ligant semper sed non ad semper That they bind us at all times but not to all times yet we must understand their meaning only of our actual exercise and performance of those duties not of our habitual disposition and desire to perform them For there is not one minute of our life wherein we are not bound to be in a disposition and desire of serving God And thus doth Solomon Jarchi expound the Prophets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shamacti Laetatus sum I was glad I did hear saith he the sons of men saying When will this David die that his son Solomon may succeed and build the Temple that so we may go to the house of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vaani Shomeach And I was very glad to hear them say so Thus saith he David preferred Gods service before his life And so will every man who knoweth he hath such a Religion as if he rightly follow it will bring him to salvation Aben Ezra goes further in his gloss and saith That All the people of Israel was of Davids mind and that every one of them did say as well as he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the Lord Why should we Christians have a worse Zeal upon better Hopes For he that will not be glad when others say unto him We will go into the house of the Lord may live to be sorry That there is not a house of God for him to go to But O Thou who camest to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death Remove not the Candlestick away from us because we have neglected and abused the light of Grace But let the Priests of the Lord still serve the Lord between the Porch and the Altar weeping and saying Be favourable O Lord be favourable unto thy People Let not thine heritage be brought to such confusion lest the Heathen be Lords thereof Wherefore should they say among the Heathen where is now their God And let us thy undutiful unthankful unworthy people still enjoy the inestimable freedom of thy Gospel Publick Communions in thy Church and Publick Prayers and Praises in thy Name Heal our back-slidings and repair those great and wide breaches which we have lately made in our Piety in our Fidelity and in our Charity And amidst the many inconstancies and many more impieties of this wicked world make thine own sheep still hear thy voice and thine own people still secure and glad in thee That notwithstanding all obstacles and oppositions they shall yet more and more worthily praise and adore thy most holy and Reverend name among the faithful in this life and in the great Congregation of Saints and Angels in the life to come being all of us joyned now in affection hereafter in possession with that heavenly consort and holy Communion which is alwaies saying Hallelujah Salvation and glory and honour and power unto the Lord our God Father Son and Holy Ghost world without end Amen Una est in trepida mihi re medicina Jehovae Cor patrium Os verax omnipotensque manus FINIS Deo Trinuni Gloria in aeternum