never since the Fall entered into a Covenant with any People but he gave a Sign or Token of it 1. When he entered into a Covenant with Noah and all the World in him that he would no more destroy the World by Water he gave a Sign viz. a Rainbow this was a Covenant of external Favour without any Restipulation 2. When God entered into Covenant with Abraham and with all his fleshly Seed as such he gave them a Sign of that Covenant namely Circumcision this is that which we call the Covenant of Peculiarity tho we deny not but God entered into a Spiritual or Gospel-Covenant with Abraham and with all his true spiritual Seed also which contained only a free promise of Grace in Christ but that Covenant with his natural Seed as such is called the Covenant of Circumcision Acts 7. because Circumcision was the Sign thereof Moreover they that can't see a twofold Covenant was made with Abraham are strangely blinded 3. And that there was a renewal of the Covenant of Works with the whole House of Israel given by Moses contained in the 20th Chapter of Exodus is most evident tho not given for Life but for other Reasons which I have mentioned and this Covenant contained Ten Commandments with the promise of Life upon the condition of universal Obedience thereunto And to this all the People consented and joined in with God by mutual Restipulation Exod. 24. 3. And all the People answered with one voice and said All that the Lord hath said we will do And now I say their Seventh-day Sabbath was given as a sign of this Ministration of the old Covenant of Works and hence also as Circumcision the sign of that Legal Typical Covenant made with Abraham and his fleshly Seed as such is God's Covenant so the Seventh-day Sabbath is call'd also God's Covenant Wherefore the Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe it throughout their Generations for a perpetual Covenant Exod. 31. 16. and this because it was a Sign or a Pledg to them of that Obligation they lay under to keep the whole Law I might here add that the Lord's-Supper is a sign of the Gospel-Covenant and it is also call'd the New Testament or Covenant in Christ's Blood And thus as Circumcision bound all to keep the whole Law that conformed to it that being a sign of that part of the legal Covenant to Abraham and his natural Seed throughout their Generations so the Seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of the same legal Covenant in that Ministration with the House of Israel Exod. 20. and obliged all that observe it to keep the whole Law also And that this is not my Judgment alone take what Dr. Owen has said on this account Whereas the Covenant which Man originally was taken into Dr. Owen â—n the Sab. p. 148 â—19 was a Covenant of Works wherein Rest with God depended absolutely on his doing all the Works he had to do by way of Legal Obedience he was during the Dispensation of that Covenant tied up precisely to the observation of the seventh Day or that which follow'd the whole work of Creation And the seventh Day as such is a Token of the Rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other And those who would advance that day again into a necessary observation do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works and are become Debtors to the whole Law For the Works of God which precede the seventh Day precisely were those whereby Man was initiated into and instructed in the Covenant of Works and the Day it self was a Token and Pledg of the Righteousness thereof or a moral and natural sign of it and of God's Rest therein and of Man's with God thereby And it is no Service to the Church of God nor hath any tendency to the Honour of Christ in the Gospel to endeavour a Reduction of us to the Covenant of Works What is now become of Mr. Tillam's Flourish who insults over such as call the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath a sign The Sabbath is indeed saith he a sign of good things formerly produced Tillam on the Sabb. p. 18. as the Creation or else of good things at present enjoy'd as God's sanctifying Grace but never was set up for a sign of good things to come like the Ceremonial Sabbaths I might here retort the vaunting Language of the Preacher of Peter's of cutting off Goliah's Head with his own Sword for if the Morality of the Sabbath cease by being a sign to the Jews in their Generations upon the same account must the whole Law cease to be moral since God's Spirit hath set it also for a sign Answ 1. Tho the Marks of true Grace are call'd Signs yet there is a great difference between them and the Signs of Covenants Miracles also are call'd Signs and God's People are set as Signs and Wonders but what of this 2. He mistakes greatly when he affirms that God saith the Sabbath was a sign of his sanctifying the whole House of Israel with his sanctifying Grace Did God so sanctify them or were they spiritually sanctified No no it signified that God took the whole Nation of Israel into an external federal and legal Relation to himself or set them apart as so considered from all People in the World to be his own People and in that Covenant-relation he was married to them as he says elsewhere 3. To sanctify What is meant by God's sanctifying the whole Nation of Israel often in the Old Testament only refers to God's setting apart a Thing a Person c. for himself or to some holy legal Use or Service Thus the seventh Day was sanctified and the Priests and Vessels of the Sanctuary c. were sanctified And their Sabbath was a sign that they became God's People in that legal and typical Covenant or upon the terms of the Covenant of Works they promising that all the Lord commanded them they would do Exod. 24. 2 3. which confirms what we said before 4. Let none suppose that God took the whole House of Israel into a special Relation with himself according to the tenor of the new Covenant or Covenant of Grace or that that Covenant Exod. 20. was the Covenant of Grace Let them read what the Prophet Jeremiah saith Jer. 31. 31 32 33. Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt which my Covenant they broke altho I was a Husband to them saith the Lord. But this shall be my Covenant that I will make After those days saith the Lord I will put my Law into their inward parts and write it in their Hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my People 1. Had the former Covenant been the
to these the most judicious pious and zealous Ministers and Martyrs of Christ who have liv'd and dy'd within the compass of these sixteen hundred years and most if not all of them will tell you that they never owned your Saturday Sabbath they liv'd without it dy'd without it and are I doubt not gone to Heaven without it Besides how many faithful Witnesses of late years has the Lord raised up to bear Testimony against it of whom I suppose the greatest part are yet alive tho some are fallen asleep In a word how many precious and gracious and pious Christians are yet upon the Earth Men and Women redeem'd from the Earth and crucified to the World of whom the World is not worthy who look upon your Sabbath as a Cypher can freely labor and travel upon it buy and sell upon it and this after accurate Inquiry about it and to this day their Consciences never reproach them their Hearts never smote them for it What will you say Are all these Hypocrites unrenewed unsanctified ones this were to condemn the Generation of God's Children and canonize your self with your few misled Associates for the only Saints in Christendom which I would hope you dare not do tho I know * Meaning Tillam you dare as much as another Well the Adversary is brought to this Dilemma either God has no People in the World but such as are of his Perswasion or his moral and immutable Laws are not written in their Hearts or the Saturday Sabbath is none of those Laws Thus this Author If the Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath be written in the Hearts of Believers some one Man or another can produce some one Believer that was by the Law written in his Heart convinc'd of it without reading Moses's Law or any Book or Books compiled by Men about the Sabbath But no Man can produce any such Believer that will or can say this therefore it is not written in the Hearts of Believers Thus it appears that it is not the Duty of Gentile Believers to keep the seventh Day from the Law of God written in the Hearts of God's new Covenant Children which was the sixth and last part of the general Argument first proposed The last thing in speaking to the Seventh-day Sabbath I promised to do The dangerous Consequences of the Sabbatarian Principles was to shew you that as some hold and maintain it it is a dangerous Error 1. Is not that dangerous which caused Paul to fear he had bestowed on the Persons he speaks of Labor in vain Was it not because they observ'd Jewish Days laying stress on those things 2. Is not that a dangerous Error that leads Men to ratify or sign the Covenant of Works which binds them to keep the whole Law This I have proved is the natural tendency of this Practice Owen on the Sabb. p. 149. and the same thing Dr. Owen you have heard positively affirms also 3. Is not that dangerous that magnifies the first Creation Work above Redemption It magnifies Creation-work above Redemption or the new Creation Work when God began to create the new Heavens and new Earth which refers to the Gospel or new Creation What saith the Lord the old Heavens and old Earth shall be remembered no more that is in a day kept to that end for otherwise sure the great Works of the first Creation ought not to be forgot but the new Creation excelling the old the new Day must be kept in remembrance thereof and not the old day 4. Is not that a dangerous Error that tends It eclipses the Glory of Christ as the necessary Consequence of it to eclipse the Glory of Christ as the only Lord Head and Lawgiver to his Church and that gives part of this Honour to Moses 5. Is not that dangerous that tends to intangle and bring into Bondage and under legal Terror poor weak Christians as some who have kept the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath have confessed till God open'd their Eyes they fearing they broke the Sabbath in some way or another for indeed no Man can perfectly keep it any more than he can keep the whole Law as has been hinted I was always in a trembling state saith one so long as I kept it c. or to that purpose Brethren it is not to be thought what Bondage it brought the zealous Jews under they not knowing when they had answered the strict observance of that day and if they brake it they must die without Mercy as the poor Man that gathered Sticks on that day they were not to speak their own words c. How should they know when they did this On Mat. 12. 2. p. 361. Nay live and sin not They would not Mr. Trap saith spit nor ease themselves on that day which is hard to believe tho some were superstitiously zealous 't is true yet others who were piously zealous by means of the strictness of the Precept continually were in fear and bondage And sad it is for any to be entangled again thereby 6. Is not that a dangerous thing Jewish Sabbath genders to Bondage that by the necessary consequence of it leads men to observe other Legal Rites and Ceremonies as not to eat Swines-flesh nor wear a Garment of Linen and Woolen nor mar the corner of their Beards Nay some of the chief of them formerly were led to Circumcision and to worse than that also I saw a Book published many years ago by two of them in which they called themselves the Ministers of the Circumcision That these things are the necessary Consequences of their Notion about their Sabbath appears because they go to Moses for it as the Law was in his hand and believe many other things that were meer Judicial Laws to be in force now They are for Moses's Law with the Statutes and Judgments and have declared that that Law is in force to stone to death such as break the Sabbath And no marvel for if that Sabbath be in force the Punishment is in force also Nay they believe I hear that a rebellious Son ought to be put to death 7. Is not that Error dangerous It renders all that keep it not guilty of horrid Immorality and of an evil Nature the necessary Consequence whereof renders all that keep not that precise Seventh-day as the Sabbath nor can be convinced 't is their Duty to observe it to be guilty of Immorality i. e. in breaking a moral Precept in the very Letter of it nay one of the Precepts of the first Table For it must be thus if the morality of the fourth Commandment lies in the observation of the precise Seventh-day Sabbath and it must be as great an Evil to violate it as 't is to have another God or to bow down to a graven Image or to swear or profane the holy Name of God or commit actual Adultery Murder c. and thus their Doctrin renders all true Christians to be guilty of a most
Pentecost Acts 2. 1. It was call'd the Feast of Weeks or of sevens because from the waving of the Sheaf they reckoned as many weeks to this Feast as there be days in seven weeks which evidently shadowed out some weekly Festiyal under the Gospel the day whereof was noted by that Pentecost Acts 2. 1 2. 2. It was call'd the Feast of First-fruits and of Harvest because as they began their Harvest upon the first of the fifty days when they offered the Sheaf of First-fruits so they ended it upon the fiftieth day which was properly the Feast-day Upon which they offered the Wave-loaves And these fifty days or seven weeks were the appointed weeks of their Harvest and by the offering of the Sheaf at the beginning of their Harvest there their after-Fruits were sanctified And the offering of the â—oaves on the fiftieth day was not only an Euâ—haristical Oblation but also a token of the Harvest being finished 3. It is called the Feast of Pentecost Deut. 16. 9. because it was ever kept the fiftieth day the fiftieth â—ow reckoned from the morrow after the â—abbath that is the first day of the week â—ut what mark had they to know their morrow 〈◊〉 Moses tells them when you shall reap the Harvest of your Land or when you begin to â—eap it for so 't is expounded in Deut. 16. 9. Begin to number the seven Weeks from such a â—ime as thou beginnest to put the Sickle to the â—orn So that when they began their Harvest they must begin their account of fifty â—ays And the first of the fifty was the morrow of the Sabbath or the day following the Sabbath namely the first day of the week Dr. Usher in his Letter to Dr. Twiss p. 91 92. and as they began so they must end their account on the same day as the first so the fiftieth day or day of Pentecost must be on the morrow of the last Sabbath Levit. 23. 15 16. And this is injoin'd by the express Command of God to be observ'd as a Statute for ever throughout their Generations This is the plain Scripture-account and who can but observe the Wisdom of God in ordering the matter thus viz. That this Feast of Weeks should never fall upon the seventh-day but always upon the first day of the week the morrow after the Sabbath or the day immediately following it if at least his Statute-Law had always been observ'd And what else could this presignify as Dr. Vsher speaks but that under the state of the Gospel the Solemnity of the weekly Service should be celebrated upon that day Now I hope that famous Pentecost Act. 2. 1. will be no Parable tho we state it according to the Divine Oracle upon the first day of the week the morrow after the Jews Sabbath We need no Almanack to help us here the Bible is sufficient Nor say I do we need the Traditions of the blind doting Rabbins But to proceed because the Sabbatariaâ— stand so much upon supposed Mysteries in the Feast of Pentecost See Dr. Usher's printed Letter according to their Traditional Account I shall acquaint them with the real Mysteries of Christ accomplished exactly according to this Scriptural Account where they may see the Type and the Truth admirably concurring For as at the time of the Passover 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us and lay in his Grave the whole Jewish Sabbath following So on the morrow after the Sabbath when the Sheaf of the first Fruits was offered to God Jesus Christ rose from the dead 1 Cor. 15. 20. and became the First-fruits of them that slept and many of the Saints that slept rose likewise after him Mat. 37. 52 53. From hence was the Account taken of the seven Sabbaths or fifty Days and upon the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which was our Lord's Day was that famous Feast of Weeks that day of Pentecost Acts 2. 1. Upon which day the Apostles having themselves received the first Fruits of the Spirit begat three thousand Souls with the Word of Truth and presented them as the first Fruits of the Christian Church to God and to the Lamb. Here was the Feast of Loaves in the Antitype that feasted some thousands of Souls And from that time forward do the Waldenses note that the Lord's Day was observed in the Christian Church in the place of the Jewish Sabbath Thus Dr. Vsher that Library of Learning Object If it be objected That in this Discourse he states Christ suffering at the Feast of the Passover and so falls in with the vulgar Opinion which takes the morrow after the Sabbath Levit. 23. for the morrow after the Passover Sabbath I answer That cannot be for he had declared before that the Sabbath there intended is the weekly Sabbath and the morrow after it is the first day of the Week And he cites Isychius and Ruportius in interpreting it so before him to whom I shall be bold saith * Mr. Warren Nazianzeâ— Orat. 44. he to add Nazianzen who was before them all who speaking of the Feast of Pentecost says This Nation meaning the Jewish Nation uses to consecrate to God not only the first of their Fruits and first born but the first Fruits of their Days and Years also Thus the illustrious number of Seven has carried the honour of Pentecost for Seven being composed upon it self makes fifty wanting but one day which we have taken from this future Age being both the eighth and the first Day His Argument is clearly this that the Jewish Pentecost was fain to be beholden to the Christians eighth day or first day of the Week to make up the compleat number of fifty days And the like he says a little before concerning their Jubilee every fiftieth year for seven times seven makes but forty nine to perfect the number they borrowed the first day of the Week and so consecrated to God the first of their Days as well as of their Land So that this computation of the fifty days to Pentecost from the morrow of the Sabbath wants no Authority to back it either divine or humane But the Word of God is our best Warrant and we may be satisfied that Dr. Twiss was no Child at Argument nor one that would be perswaded on slight grounds but upon Bishop Vsher's discovery of this Truth by the forementioned Scripture-evidence he professed he received great satisfaction and acknowledges that the mystery of the Feast of first Fruits was opened to the singular advantage and honour of the Lord's Day Object The only Objection against this Interpretation is the Judgment of Mr. Ainsworth and our English Annotators who take the Sabbath Levit. 23. for the Feast of the Passover Sabbath Answ 1. Herein they are led by the common Opinion of the Hebrew Doctors who indeed are excellent Guides when they keep the beaten Road of Scripture but in many things made void the Commandments of God by their Traditions Let this
that Justin Martyr gives of the Practice of all Churches in the next Age i. e. on the day called Sunday there is an Assembly of all Christians whether living in the City or Country and because of their constant breaking of Bread on that day it was called Dies Panis August Epist 118. And Athanasius proved that he brake not a Chalice at such a time Socrat. lib. 5. cap. 22. because it was not the first day of the week when it was used And whosoever reads this Passage without prejudice will grant that it is a marvellous adrupt and uncouth Expression if it do not signify that it was the common observance among all the Disciples of Christ which could have no other Foundation but that only laid down before of the Authority of the Lord Christ requiring it of them And saith he I doubt not but Paul preach'd his farewel Sermon after all the ordinary Service of the Church was perform'd which continued till midnight And all the Objections I have met with against this Instance amounts to no more than this i. e. that the Scripture says that the Disciples met together to break Bread yet indeed they did not so And this by what the Doctor says vanishes into Smoak 1. From the whole I may argue If the Apostles and Primitive Christians did observe the first day of the week as their prime and chief time for solemn Worship in season and passed over the old seventh Day then is the first day of the week and not the seventh that precise Day Christ has appointed to be observ'd in his solemn Worship under the Gospel But this was the prime and chief time for solemn Worship in season c. Ergo. 2. And if those meetings on the first day were not such as used to be formerly on the seventh day I desire to know a reason 1. Why their Meetings on the first day should be particularly recorded rather than their Meetings on the seventh 2. And why also the one is so oft mentioned i. e. their Meetings on the first day and no mention at all that they met on the seventh day in the New Testament from the Resurrection of Christ as a Church-assembly to worship God or discharge any part of Religious Duties nor of their meeting on the second third fourth c. Object But it seems as if they came not together till the evening of this day tho it was the first day of the week and so it proves not that this whole day ought to be kept in solemn Worship Answ For this there is not the least shadow of Proof What tho Paul continued his Speech till midnight might not some other Ministers spend the former part of the day in Preaching Exhortation or in Prayer Or might not Paul as some of us do preach twice himself on that day and they refresh themselves about the middle of the day I find one Author speaking thus Durham on the Ten Command p. 264. Paul spending this whole day in that Service and continuing his Sermon till midnight yet accounting it still one day in solemn meeting doth confirm this Day to be more than an ordinary day or than other days of the week as being specially dedicated to these Services and Exercises and totally spent in them It is said that they came together on the first day of the week and no doubt but it was in the morning of that day for so we find they did on the same day of the week Acts 2. 1 2. for when Peter began to preach it was but the third hour which is our nine of the Clock in the morning Sixthly The Lord's day the first day of the week Rev. 1. 10. My sixth Argument to prove that the first day of the week ought to be observed as a day of Rest and solemn Worship under the Gospel shall be taken from that Appellation given to this day Rev. 1. 10. where it is called the lord's-Lord's-day I was in the Spirit on the lord's-Lord's-day Surely this Royal Name or Title adds no small honour to this illustrious Day as it was the first day of Time mentioned in the beginning of the first Book of the Bible so it is the last day of Fame noted in the beginning of the last Book of the Bible to the Praise of him who is our Alpha and Omega The very Name speaks the Lord Christ to be the Author of it Mr. Warren p. 191. who upon the day of his Resurrection was declared both Lord and Christ I find saith my Author an elegant and pious Poem written by Sedulius an Antient Christian * Vid. Sixti Senensis Biblioth Sanct. p. 308. Jerom's Junior being by him translated to this effect After sad Sabbaths th' happy Day did dawn Whose lofty Name from Lord of Lords is drawn A blessed Day that first was grac'd to see Christ's rising and the World's Nativity I shall endeavour to prove that after Christ's Resurrection and Ascension there was a peculiar Day belonging to the Lord above any other day of the week and that this Day was not the old Jewish Sabbath-day but the first day of the week 1. That there was a peculiar Day or one precise Day of the week observed to the Lord in which the Churches assembled together for the Worship of God none will deny God lays claim to one day in seven as his Day 2. And now that this was not the seventh day of the week appears because we no where read that any one Gospel-Church ever assembled together on that day from the Resurrection of Christ Now if that had been the Day the Lord Christ had appointed as Mediator and Lawgiver besure we should have had it mentioned in some place as the very day in which the Churches or at least some one Church did meet together but this we do not find therefore that is not cannot be the day 3. We read of their meeting together no less than four or five times from our Lord's Resurrection and after his Ascension on the first day of the week Joh. 20. 19. and ver 26. Acts 2. 1 2. ch 20. 7. to which I might add 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. 4. No doubt the Apostle John when he says on the Lord's-day refers to a certain particular Day well known to all the Churches to whom he was to write nay known to all Believers and Saints of that time 5. And evident it is that the Jewish Sabbath-day is no where either in the Old or New Testament Isa 58. 3. called the Lord's Day tho it is called the Lord's Sabbath and the Sabbath of the Lord thy God Lord in the Old Testament as one observes is the usual name of God indefinitely Dr. Walls p. 46. without particularizing this or that of the three Persons And the Sabbath of the Lord thy God doth not appropriate it to the second Person more than to the first or third And tho the second Person or Christ considered as God made the
a Lawgiver abode no longer than till Christ put an end to his Ministration See Isa 33. 22 and Christ as Mediator is our only Lawgiver under the Gospel yet hath not commanded us to observe the Seventh-day Sabbath then 't is not our duty to observe it but Moses as a Lawgiver abode no longer c. Ergo. Arg. 9. If all Sabbaths given to the Jews without exception were shadows of things to come whereof the Body is Christ then was their weekly Sabbath a shadow but all their Sabbaths without exception were shadows c. Ergo. Arg. 10. Whatsoever Practice it be that opens a door to Judaism and genders to Bondage can be no Truth of Christ but the observation of the old Seventh-day Sabbath opens a door to Judaism c. Ergo * They plead for the Law as given in Horeb with the Statutes and Judgments Arg. 11. Whatsoever Principle and Practice reflects upon the Honour of Christ as Mediator King and Lawgiver to his Church who was more faithful than Moses can be no Truth of Christ but the Principle and Practice of the old Jewish Sabbath reflects c. Ergo. evident 't is Christ hath nowhere taught or commanded it so that if it be our duty we must go to Moses's Law for it and 't is foolish to say Christ as Mediator gave the Law of the Decalogue tho as God he gave not that only but the whole Ceremonial Law also Arg. 12. That Principle and Practice that has many evil and dangerous Consequents attending it is no Truth of God but the Principle and Practice of some who keep the seventh Day is so attended c. Ergo. To conclude Let no Christian any more doubt that the Lord's Day is that day we ought to observe to him in all Sacred Devotion and Piety Consider 1. God hath built all things upon Jesus Christ and so this Day of Rest wherefore it stands as fast as its Foundation 2. God the Father declared Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee that is from the dead and this was on the First-day of the Week 3. This was the First-day of Christ's Kingdom 4. This Day Christ rested from his Work therefore this day remains as a day of Rest to us 5. This Day our Redemption was finished and Christ received our discharge from Sin and Wrath for ever 6. On this Day the Typical Sabbath was ceased and all Shadows of the Law vanquished 7. In him whom the old Sabbath shadowed forth must we seek our Rest and a day of Rest we in him being freed from all legal Labour servile Fear and from the burden of all Sin and Misery 8. On this Day the Disciples met and Christ preached Peace to them and on this day millions of Souls have been converted 9. On this Day John saw Jesus Christ walking in the midst of the seven Churches in Asia 10. This Day was confirmed by the miraculous effusion of the Spirit 11. On this Day the Gospel-Churches met together to break Bread and to discharge all parts of Gospel-Worship 12. This is the Day when preaching the Word is in season 13. On this day Collections were made for the Poor in all the Churches of the Saints 14. This is the Lord's Day all other days he allows us to do work upon but this is wholly his own Day he lays claim to this only O give it wholly up to him 15. This Day all the Godly have observed in every Age of the Church to these present Times 16. For profaning this Day God hath inflicted many sore and fearful Judgments And thus I shall close what I shall say at present for the observation of the First-day of the Week as a Day of Rest and solemn Worship When the Lord's Day begins 1. Some think we ought to begin it at the time when the Jews began their Sabbath When the Lord's Day begins others from Midnight to Midnight others from Morning to Evening Take what Dr. Owen saith to this which I think is very full and clear Some Owen on the Sabb. p. 323. saith he contend that it is a natural Day consisting of 24 hours beginning with the evening of the preceding day and ending with the same of its own and accordingly so was the Church of Israel directed Levit. 23. 32. Altho that doth not seem to be a general direction for the observation of the weekly Sabbath but to regard only that particular extraordinary Sabbath which was thus instituted namely the day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month vers 27. However suppose it to belong also to the weekly Sabbath it is evidently an addition to the Command particularly suted unto the Mosaical Pedagogy that the Day might comprize the Sacrifice of the proceeding Evening in the Service of it from an Obedience whereunto we are freed by the Gospel Neither can I subscribe to this Opinion and that because in the Description and Limitation of the original Seven Days it is said of each of the Six that it was constituted of an Evening and a Morning but of the Day of Rest there is no such description it is only called the Seventh-day without any assignation of the preceding Evening unto it 2. A Day of Rest according to Rules of natural Equity ought to be proportioned to a day of Work or Labour which God hath granted unto us for our own use Now this is to be reckoned from Morning to Evening Psal 104. 20 21 22 23. Thou makest darkness and it is night c. Man goeth forth to his labour until the evening The day of Labour is from the removal of darkness and the night by the light of the Sun until the return of them again which allowing for the alterations of the day in the several seasons of the year seems to be the just measure of our Day of Rest 3. Our Lord Jesus Christ who in his Resurrection gave beginning and being to this especial Day of holy Rest under the Gospel rose not until the Morning of the First-day of the Week when the beamings of the light of the Sun began to expel the darkness of the Night or when it dawned towards Day as is variously expressed by the Evangelists This with me determines this whole matter 4. Meer cessation from Labour in the Night seems to have no place in the spiritual Rest of the Gospel to be expressed on this Day nor to be by any thing distinguished from the Night of any other day in the Week 5. Supposing Christians under the Obligation of the direction given by Moses before-mentioned it may intangel them in the anxious scrupulous Intrigues which the Jews are subject unto about the beginning of the Evening it self about which their great Masters are at variance which things belong not to the Oeconomy of the Gospel Upon the whole matter I am inclinable to judg and do so that the observation of the Day is to be commensurate to the use of our natural