Caution of not incurring the Threats of infringing the Laws of Christ even the least of them and by way of a charitable Requital we warn him to be cautious lest he build again that which Christ hath destroyed and repair the rased Synagogue Here we have also his Notion of what is Moral telling us that many call the Ten Commandments the Moral Law I think all slid Divines do call them so but none that I know do say that every Clause and Word in them or belonging to them by this last Expression I mean part of the Preface to them is Moral and particularly not the Seventh-day-Sabbath or that Clause appertaining thereto in the Fourth Commandment no nor yet the Seventh Part of Time therein expresly commanded and perpetually too that is not primarily nor absolutely and of its self so As to his Notion of what is Moral I cannot call it either a Definition or a Description of the thing but only an Interpretation of the Word Moral viz. pertaining to Manners We usually in such Discourses put Moral in opposition to what is positive whether it be Ceremonial or Judicial But this is such a Notion as includes all Laws whatever even Human as well as Divine and of Divine all of them of what sort or kind soever for they all apertain to Manners Yea to Thoughts Words and Actions yea and are included in the Love of God because whoever loves God truely will and must yield Obedience to all his Laws of what sort soever whether Moral or Positive But such a lax Interpretation of the Moral Law served to the Design of the Seventh Day because it includes it will all other positive Laws but had he given us a true Notion of what is Moral in its self or in its own Nature it would necessarily have been exclued As may be evinced by some Properties of what is truly Moral 1. The Moral Law is inward and was consecrated with the rational Creature and does need no external Revelation or Divine Institution especially in the State of human Integrity before the Fall but such was not the Seventh day For 't was Instituted by God after Mans Creation 2. The Moral Law yet remains in some Footsteps and Degrees thereof in the Human Nature and so in the generality of Mankind the Heathens themselves not excepted as might be easily proved by their Laws and Writings but the Notion of the Seventh day is Universally excluded and the Generality of Mankind totally destitute thereof If it be here objected That the Heathen did separate a Seventh-day to their Religious Service To this may be applyed That 't was but some of them and but for some time not Universally and Perpetually That they did it by Tradition from the Jews or by Satans Institution and Injunction who in his cursed Pride affects to have his Votaries serve him as the Acknowledgers of Jehovah do him 3. All Moral Laws are clearly and distinctly ingraven upon the Minds and Hearts of those that are enlightned and sanctifyed by the Spirit of God But not a Tittle or punctum of his Seventh-day is seen in the Generality of them 4. Man was made for Moral Duty that is to Glorify and Honour God in all Acts of Internal and External Piety to profit and comfort his Neighbour by all Acts of Charity to possess his own Vessel in Sanctification and Honour And by so doing he lives up to the end for which he was made But now Man was not made for the Sabbath and for its Observance but the Sabbath was made for Man and for his Good Mark 2.27 5. Moral Duties are such as a Man cannot change them or neglect them or do any thing beside them without dishonouring and sinning against God But now it is certain That as to the Nature of the thing its self separated form a positive Institution that a Man may as fully Glorify and Honour God and as compleatly serve him by appropriating and imploying another day of the Week to and in his Workship and Service as the Seventh provided he do dedicate another day in Seven to that Service the Worship is the same and the proportion of time the same and so God as much and as long served as upon the last day of the Week Let him denominate any other Propriety of what is Moral and I will undertake to evince That it belongs not to his Seventh-day-Sabbath To what purpose then to urge and insist so much and so long upon the Moral Law when the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part at all of the Morality thereof Those Passages before mentioned That Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law that the Breaker of the least of Gods Commands shall be least in the Kingdom of God c. And these Page 35. He that will enter into Life must keep the Commandments It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than one tittle of the Law to fail do not only concern the Moral Law though if they did we have sufficiently shewn that the Sabbath is not concerned in them but also the Positive even the Ceremonial Law For while they were in Force as they all were throughout the days of our Saviour's Animal Life which I so call to distinguish it from the Glorious Life of his Humanity upon Earth after his Resurrection They that would enter into Life at least of the Jews and their Proselytes to whom only they were Laws and Obligatory were bound to keep them And if they did willfully and perseveringly disobey them they would as certainly be Damned as if they had lived in a Contradiction to any of the Moral Laws Because such a Refusal to observe and keep the Ceremonial Laws is directly and ultimately a Disobedience to the Moral and that too to the very Soul and Foundation of all the Commandments Even the First Command by being a Renunciation of Gods Authority in refusing a Conformity to his revealed Will. Again it was a direct and immediate Sin against the Second Command by being a refusal to worship him according to his own instituted Worship So Christ came not to destroy the Ceremonial Law but to fulfil it Which he did by being the End and Consummation thereof by being the Substance of those Figures and the Body of those Shadows and no Law is destroyed which continues in its Force as long as the Legislator intended and produces all those Ends for which he designed it Now the Ceremonial was intended by God to be no longer a Law than till our Lords Death or Resurrection or Mission of the Holy Ghost and it was designed only to typisie the Lord Christ and to lead Believers to him as to the End and Substance thereof which our Lord being he was so far from destroying it that he perfectly fulfilled it though he abrogated its future legal Authority And so not one tittle of the Ceremonial Law did fail for all had its Accomplishment on Christ no more than a tittle of the Moral Law
he made them by Jesus Christ but Christ the Son of God spake to us in the last days he did it in and by his Humanity but so he created not the Creatures In the last Proof Eph. 3.9 'T is indeed expresly said That God created all things by Jesus Christ which if meant of the old and whole Creation must be meant as above and 't is as much as if he had said God the Father created all things by God the Son which Son is now Jesus Christ Wherefore we conclude our Reply to this Query by asserting that the God-head of the Lord Christ created the World but that Christ consisting of that God-head and the Humanity hypostatically united to it did not so SECT II. HE asserts Page 9. that Proposition which no Christian ever denyed or questioned and whoever does so deserves not the Name Christian viz. That the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah Which he proves at large home to Page 22. which in these days might have been very seasonable and commendable too had it not been made a progressive Step toward the supremely intended Doctrin of the necessary Obligation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath But yet I must say that our Lord Christs Deity or Jehovah-ship has been more fully prov'd and more methodically and from more Topicks and all these demonstrated and confirmed from Scripture than here it is and that by many Orthodox Divines We acknowledging his Thesis to be good and orthodox we hope he will acknowledge this to be so likewise viz. That Jehovah was not always Christ Christ is and must be everlastingly Jehovah But Jehovah was throughout a past Eternity before there was ever any other Being and in the beginning of time before there was a sinful Being And therefore necessarily before Christ Jesus had a Being For Christ Jesus in an orthodox Notion and according to Scriptural Revelations does pre-suppose a created and a faln sinful Being And so this orthodox Proposition will but contribute very little to that other which we deem heterodox I shall make no Reflections at all upon what he has written in all these Papers save only upon that Medium which he uses Page 12 and 13. which is Christs giving the Law for that 's his Expression where again we urge according to our former Interpretation that Christ properly apprehended did not give the Law before his Incarnation not being Christ before it He gave it not to Man before the Fall When the whole absolute and primary Moral Law was implanted by God on his Mind to know all the Duties he ought to perform towards his God according to his Excellencies and Attributes revealed unto him according to his Works and his Obligations laid upon him and all his Duties toward all his Fellow Creatures In his Will by a perfect and full Complyance with and active and exact Conformity to all these moral Dictates of his Understanding in all the Inferiour Affections Appetites Inclinations Motions Senses Organs and Members of the Body by a ready and compleat Subjection to the holy Will and a most harmonious Obedience thereto Which the Apostle calls Knowledge Righteousness and true Holiness Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 Neither did Christ Jesus give the Law just upon the Fall as I suppose the Moral Law must be supposed to be given to Adam seeing that by the Fall he had greatly defac'd and blotted the former clear and perfect Edition of it in his Heart and Soul Neither did he give it in the Third Edition when 't was brought and delivered by the Hand of Moses from the Finger and Mouth of God to the Israelites For all these were long before Jesus Christ came into and so was in the World And St. John himself tells us John 1.17 The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ So that the Law was given long before Jesus Christ came and preached and purchased the Grace and Truth of the Gospel But all this is made use of by this Author to insinuate that even Christ Jesus in the Flesh was the Author of all the Ten Commands as they are verbatim recorded in Moses's Books or were written upon the Tables of Stone and so particularly of that very Clause in the Fourth Command which is given as a reason of the Sanctification of the Seventh day to be the Sabbath home to his own Resurrection But this we shall prove in the Sequel to be a very great Mistake The only Proof that he brings for this which has not been sufficiently answered already or may not be so by what has been formerly said and proved is John 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commands And such other like Passages Here I would feign enquire in what Sense he understands the Commands to be Christ's Commands Either as he is Jehovah and so before his Incarnation If so then the Ceremonial and Judicial Commands were his as well and as much as the Moral for he gave the one as well as the other And so by this arguing and from this Topick we are bound to keep the one as well as the other If we would evince to our own Consciences or others Observations that we sincerely love Christ If he understands them to be his after his Incarnation as taught commanded and confirmed by his own blessed Mouth and Doctrin So we confess that all the Moral Law was his and that he taught it in the discharge of his Prophetical Office in the Flesh But then we affirm and doubt not to prove that in all his Doctrin Discourses and Commands there is not one word that teaches or enjoyns the Seventh-day-Sabbath but much to the contrary Or if there be only a perfect silence in this particular without any thing spoken or done by Christ contrary to it whilst he particularly enjoyns and presses all those other Precepts which are acknowledged by all to be Moral I suppose this very Exclusion of it out of all his Discourses carries more weight in it to cashire it from being any one of the Commands of Christ Jesus than all his former Endeavours to prove Christ to be the Maker of the World to be Jehovah and here to be the Giver of the Law have of moment to prove the Morality and so the necessary observance of the Seventh-day I have been here a little the more large because I find the Author Page 24. referring unto his having proved the Law to be given by Christ as to that which highly conduces to his grand Design but being duly weighed we see that 't is of little or no use at all thereto SECT III. WE have a third Interrogation proposed Page 22. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh day And Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was sanctified and so instituted by him and was observed by him who made the World To the first Clause whereof we have sufficiently answered That it was not the Lord Christ that created the World and rested but it was indeed Jehovah and though Christ be
and not the seventh in order or the last day of the Week This we say is not expresly commanded therein and might be altered for another day of the Seven upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds as it is from it to the first In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue from Mat. 5.17 19. Luke 16.17 and then asks why those places confirm all the 10 Commands and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature which inclines us to be Gods c. when yet he knows that they that are for the change of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments which do amount in their Esteems to a divine Authority for that Change though they do not produce an express Command for it as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet what amounts thereto but it seems all these are not Reasons to him are not so much as Shews of Reasons But the only Reason is Man's Corruption Pride and Rebellion Whereas he cannot but know that many of those who in Doctrin and Practice admit of this Change are as free from these Vices and have as much mortifyed them as himself and are as Eminent for Holiness and Humility and Obedience to God as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be And their Earnestness for the First day does not spring from the Looseness of others thereon nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom But because they know 't is not Moral as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions with many other good and solid Grounds And here I shall ask him by way of requital if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral and by Christ confirmed as well as all the other Commands which are undeniably so Whence comes it to pass that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer either by way of Recommendation of it to them or commending of them for their Zeal for it and tthe strict Observance of it nor yet commanding of its Observance or teaching them how they should Keep and Sanctify it according to its first Institution seeing 't is clear that he in his Discourse doth particularize every other Duty of the Moral Law and Exhorts and Requires Obedience thereto In all his most copious and glorious Sermon upon the Mount where he Explains Enlarges upon and Injoyns the other Moral Duties we have not a Word about their Sabbath and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue he never mentions among them the Sabbath nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees and captions Jews in their condemning him and his Disciples as Profaners of the Sabbath c. to expound the Duty of the Sabbath and to shew them wherein the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto uttered by him only a Vindication of his own and his Disciples Practices from a Profanation thereof If I may judge at the Reasons I think they may be such as these 1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others not Moral as they nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already 3. Because neither they nor we neither Jews nor Gentiles should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day and its Conversion into the First day 5. Because as Place Priesthood Mode outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship which were before his coming into the Flesh were to be altered by his Authority as King of the Church so was Time also the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly observed into another day wherein his own Institutions were to be chiefly and generally practised by his Church And for these and such like Reasons he did not only particularly recommend and enjoyn but did also speak and do as has been formerly hinted and may be futurely evinced such words and things as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day but to a good Intention which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors Bloody Wars c. As though this general Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along since the days of our Lord Christ had no other Foundation but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots and not the least Footing for it in the Word of God An unworthy Suggestion and a most invidious Comparison and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading 'T is strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government Doctrin Worship and Practice of the Church according to the Word of God and the Patern in the Mount should mean as one if not the chiest of those Particulars the removal of the First-day-Sabbath and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu thereof When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox and his Adversaries in this Opinion prescribe the same rule for the Reformation and call upon those in Authority to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesiastial and Civil to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ And Commenius himself in his Practice and in his own Church was an Observer and Sanctifier of the First-day-Sabbath as he here acknowledgeth so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day And therefore questionless did not esteem the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule according to which he would have all Churches regulated But here we see what a strong fancy can do it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant if not directly contrary thereto SECT VII HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abrogating the Ceremonial Laws But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation as he requires us to do for not the Abrogation but only the Mutation of the Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another For I assert and can prove it that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ than his Seventh-day-Sabbath I take leave to call it his because though 't was Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ yet now 't is not so but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions while they are rigorous towards others and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments In the same Page he gives us a
is by our Lord Jesus and others more Easie Clear and Effectual introduced in their room whereof we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be which he can never prove to be Moral and so was to be excluded with them and a new Time as well as new Rites instituted by the King of the Church His next Argument to prove his Assertion is from those Passages wherein 't is said The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day Matt. 12.8 Mark 2.28 Luke 6.5 A Proof which we make use of to prove our Doctrin of the First-day-Sabbath and he thinks makes clearly and strongly for his Though there may be some ground for the Opinion of ordinary Men being meant by the Son of Man in these Texts because 't is the Appellation which the Holy Ghost usually gives them calling them Sons of Men and when he speaks to Ezekiel particularly his usual Expression is Son of Man And St. Mark relating the same History of the Disciples gathering Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day and the Pharisees being scandalized thereat and complaining to our Lord Christ that they did that which was not Lawful as the occasion of this saying of our Lord Jesus which the other Evangelists relate also and no other occasion of it is recorded in them neither do we find that he used it at any other time seems to carry it in this Sense for he saith Mark 2.27 28. that Christ said unto these Censurers The Sabbath was made for Man and not Man for the Sabbath And then immediately adds this Sentence with an Illative Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath I suppose no Man will deny but that the first Verse is meant of ordinary I mean meer Men for 't is brought by our Lord Christ as a Vindication of his Disciples action who were meer Men and not of any one of his own who was God as well as Man Withall I believe that we cannot find in all the Scripture that appellative Man thus abstractly and absolutely used without any distinction or Limitation antecedent or consequent to it understood of any but of meer Men which being granted the Illative therefore seems to carry the next Sentence for the same Subject and to declare that Man common Man is Lord of the Sabbath not an authoritative Lord to dispose of it as he pleases and do on it as he lists but so far a Lord as to be the end of the Sabbath for whose Profit and Comfort it was ordained As a Son may be said to be Lord of that House that is built for him and in which he dwells and uses for his Convenience and Delight though his Father obliges him not to sell or alienate it and the Laws of the Land not to burn it Though therefore this Interpretation of the Son of Man be no way Heterodox nor any way strained from this Text neither do we by this Interpretation give a meer Man a Lordship over the Moral Law as he supposes for his taking for granted that the Last-day-Sabbath is Moral I look upon as his Fundamental Error and the great cause of his Mistaken Confidence in all this Discourse We say that in no respect Man is Lord over any of the Moral Law not in this that we speak of for Man was made for the Moral Law that is to perform all the Duties thereof but now Man is Lord over the Sabbath as our Lord avouches in this respect viz. That the Sabbath was made for him and therefore cannot be Moral as before But yet I say let it be granted that 't is spoken precisely of our Lord Christ Likewise we grant that the Sabbath spoken of in these Texts was the Seventh-day-Sabbath and that our Lord Christ as the Son of Man that is such a Son of Man as is also the Son of God is Lord of the Sabbath we should have observed before to evacuate all his Proofs drawn from the Old Testament to prove the Seventh day of the Week to be the Lord's day here spoken of that he who is here called the Lord of the Sabbath is said to be the Son of Man which he was not then Wherefore being such an one it cannot be denied but that he is an Absolute Lord of the Sabbath without Limitation and so hath power to alter and change the day which is no way Moral I mean not the Seventh day at all and so to make that to be lawful on the Seventh day which before was not even all sorts of honest Imployments of our particular Callings as well as charitable Actions for when the day ceases to be Holy and another advanced to that Honour by his Authority then being a common day common works are proper for it which may seem to be the proper Intention of this Expression to the Jews for when they blamed him as a Tolerator of the Profanation of the Sabbath by his Disciples he takes a double Medium to refute their Slander the one as a Doctor and Prophet of the Church and so he teaches them that that charitable Action of theirs toward their own Nature was no Breach but an allowed work of that day and proves it by a Scriptural President and so vindicates his Disciples Action from Sin Wherefore supposing as this Author does that our Saviour had no other design but to vindicate his Disciples this had been abundantly enough and he needed not to recur to his own Anthority over that day which he does and so uses another Medium as a Lord and King of the Church and so of all the Institutions and particularly of the Seventh-day-Sabbath for which they were as Zealous as the Author as necessary and permanent and says he himself is Lord of the Sabbath and so had Authority to abrogate that day or establish it as he pleased which seems to imply this much You are ever and anon carping at my Disciples and especially at me as though their and mine Actions were Profanations of the Sabbath But I would have you to know that I have a Sovereignty over it and can dispose of it as I please and make things that are not Lawful on the Seventh to be Legitimate Which we look upon as a hint of its Abrogation shortly after Especially considering what Christ did or caused to be done on that day in another place viz. John 5.8 where having cured the impotent Man at the Pool of Bethesda he commands him to rise to take up his Bed and walk Now we know that bearing of Burdens on the Sabbath day is expresly forbid Jer. 17.21 22 24 27. and there are Promises made unto them that would obey that Command and bear no Burdens and Threats denounced against them that should contradict it serving to consirm the Defence of bearing Burdens on that day Accordingly Nebemiah was strict in its Observance Neh. 13.19 and the Jews themselves were very nice in this particular and very severe in their Punishment of such Bearers by Whipping and by Death as that great