Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the New In my entrance upon this I must express my aâ—horrence of that bold daringness in some who charge the LORD Jesus Christ himself with being in his life-time a counâ—enancer of some breaches of the Seventh-day Sabbath Thus flying in the face not only of this holy Law but also of the Supreme Lawgiver They give two Instances one in the twelfth of Matthew and the beginning of that Chapter the other in the fifth Chapter of John the ninth tenth and so on to the sixteenth Verse As to the the former concerning Christ's Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn and eating on the Seventh-day and Christ's pleading their Cause Consider well their Case in all the Circumstances of it They did what was lawful on the Seventh day it being a needful refreshing of their outer man thereby to strengthen for Sabbath-worship and Service where other provision was wanting a work of Mercy as Christ shewed it to be an action tending towards the Sanctification of the Sabbath and not bringing any Duty thereof It was according to what the Law of Jehovah did allow in the two last Verses of the twenty third Chapter of Deuteronomy which had foundation in right Nature and in just Equity amongst all Mankind who did allow this in a case of present necessity And this Christ's doth further exemplifie in a like case of David Concerning the later Where Christ healed the man diseased and bid him To take up his bed and walk And this on the Sabbath-day The diseased man was there on his bed in the way of his cure a cure was lawful on the Sabbath-day a doing good on such a day a work of necessity and of mercy and so lawful This was a Work that the diseased man could not foresee or prevent before the Sabbath came nor being healed was he to delay it till the Sabbath was over left he had lost that of his goods which his duty was so to preserve the Creator on the Seventh-day Sabbath preserved his Creatutes which he had made on the six foregoing days of the same week It was a publick Testimony of the truth of the Cure and of the power of the Healer who as God-man spake the cure It was an act of Faith and of Obedience in him who was whole and did not hinder any Sabbath-worship For you may find him in the Temple in the fourteenth Verse Having already proved that the LORD Jesus Christ was Admininistrator under the Old Testament and that he was the Promulgator of the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai who was to be believed and obeyed in that Day as well as now and that the end of the Law also the great design drift purport and meaning of it was Christ for Righteousness to every one that believeth That which is now upon my hand to defend and maintain is that it is still a Rule of Obedience now unto the New Testament for the confutation of Anomy or Antinomianism This Law of the ten Words was confirmed by the express Doctrine of our LORD Jesus Christ when he took to his God-head the Humane Nature born of the Virgin Mary and dwelt here on Earth and conversed with men for some years particularly in his Sermon at the Mount So that as he was the Proclaimer of them at Mount Sinai Thus also was he here again at the Mount the Preacher and Confirmer of them in the faithful discharge of his Kingly Prophetick Office He would not have any Disciple of his so much as to give way unto any one thought that he came to dissolve any of the least commands of this Law of the ten Words the least Consonant or Vowel or Point whatsoever it was that was originally this of Christ's own giving and writing from his Father by his Spirit in his Word Nothing not the least part of it was in any wise to pass from it Who-ever he were that did loose or dissolve one of these least Commandments more especial too if he did further teach men so such an one was not in a fiâ—â—edness for the New Testament Church-state which is set out by the Kingdom of Heaven He was neither to be admitted into this State where it was known or if he unawares crept in yet being discovered he was not to continue in that state without the exercise of Church Discipline And that Christ doth speak of this Law of the Ten Words is manifest for he doth give particular instances of particular Commands in the Decalogue Of the Sixth Word or Command in the one and twentieth Verses of that fifth Chapter of the Second or Fourth Words or Commands though set out after the manner of the Old Testament Dispensation which at that time was not so fully perfected and accomplished as I have shewed else where in the twenty third and twenty fourth Verses of that fifth Chapter where the manner of Worship and the times and seasons of Worship are spoken to and of Of the Seventh Word in the twenty seventh Verse and onwards to the end of the thirty second Verse Of the Third Word in the thirty third Verse and so forward to the thirty seventh Verse Of the First Word in the nineteenth Verse and further even to the end of the sixth Chapter If thou be a discerning unprejudiced Reader it is but open thy Bible and read those three Chapters and thou wilt conclude with me that this Sermon is Christ's reviving of and Commentary upon the Law of the Ten Words making this to be the Doctrinal Foundation upon which wise Believers are to bottom and to build The same Truth and Duties which are here taught and commanded by Christ are the same which the Prophets of old did commend to the people and which Moses also did deliver as may be seen in the Citations in the margin It was by this Law of the Decalogue that Christ doth prove the truth of his Doctrines and the equity of his Commands It is Christ's obedience unto the Law of the Ten Words wherein he propoundeth and setteth himself as a Pattern and Example for Believers to imitate and to follow him This Law of the Ten Words is affirmed in the New Testament to be in its own nature an Holy Just Good Spiritual Law a Perfect Law commanding all good and forbidding all evil All and every sin is a transgression of one or other of the Ten Words which are still the Believer's light to guide his steps aright in those straight ways wherein he is to walk The Apostles in the History of their Acts and in the Epistles which they sent to the Christian Churches are full of this Doctrine which doth constantly attend their preaching of that great Truth of Justification by faith in Christ particularly even as to the Laws of the Second Table The Prophesies
World made known in every Nation to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews all Mankind being concerned therein as to their Eternal Estate so that if as Adversaries have confessed it were the Gentiles Duty to observe the Law of the ten Words as soon as these were made known unto them which have so much of self-evidence in them commending themselves to every man's conscience at first view we take then their own concession and would improve what they grant for their own conviction that seeing besides what was made manifest to Gentile Nations of these Laws before Moses's time there were many present at the very time of Promulgation of the Decalogue of Mount Sinai and who knows how many more might hear the sound of Christ's Voice at that time and there was one and the same Law to Israelite and to Gentile and seeing in the after-dispersions of the Israelites and Jews unto the several Nations into all Nations these Laws were published abroad among the Gentiles that therefore the Gentiles also who had or at least might have had the knowledge of these Laws were under the obligatory power of them Come we now to the New Testament This doth not run in the stile nor carry the form of enacting new Laws which were never before but as to the Matter in hand it doth confirm and established the Old Law of the ten Word This was the constant Doctrine of Christ when he spake to this subject This Decalogical Doctrine and Rule of Life was not at all disanulled or any way dissolved by this Lawgiver but he made it to stand firmly in his place and to preach the good old Gospel of Reconciliation through his Name he being that very Messiah who was foretold of should come in the flesh born of a Virgin and to declare the sound old Doctrine of Faith for the comfort of such converted Souls as turned from sin to a Saviour and so obtained Justification and Salvation by Faith in Christ which was the same in all ages of the Church under the several dispensations of Grace unto all and upon all that believe which Truth hath Testimony from the Law and from the Prophets This Law of the ten Words the Apostles by Commission from the LORD Jesus Christ commend and command to all rational Creature as a Rule of Life in their Preaching and Uniting to the Gentile Nations not as by way of new constituting and re-enacting of Laws as if they had been no Laws to them before but reviving and re-inforcing of these old Laws upon their Conscience and this they often bring in especially Paul sometimes to prove a Doctrine othertimes convincingly to reprove for a sin or reformingly to correct some Error or Vice or chastizingly to instruct some Duty of Holiness and Righteousness according as the particular occasions for these were taking it for granted that they were a Directory for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews The Apostles when they preached to Jew or Gentile before the New Testament was written were it a Doctrine or a Duty or what else which they pressed upon the hearers still they proved what they taught out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament as that which did and doth bind I speak of the Law of the ten Words both Jew and Gentile this was a part of that word-foundation on which all the Jewish and Gentile Churches were built Examine we some passages in the Epistles to this end There were Gentiles in the Church at Rome and Paul in his writing to them doth evidently declare That they were under the Obligation of those Commandments which were delivered from God by Moses giving particular instances in several of the Laws of the ten Words as the Marginal references will inform And commending of this Law in the general at large There were Gentiles in the Church at Corinth and Paul in his first Epistle to them doth convince them both of sin and duty from what was written in the Law of Moses There were Gentiles in the Church of Galatia yet Paul doth convince them of their guilt and cursedness whilst they were in their sinful state from those things which were written in the Book of the Law and sheweth them the necessity of Faith as to Justification which he proveth out of the writings of an Old Testament Prophet and as for Love he declares unto them that all the Law is fulfilled in one Word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self which was the same Doctrine with that of Moses and of Christ There were Gentiles in the Church at Ephesus yet was that Church built upon the foundation of the Prophets of the Old Testament whose writings were much of them a Commentary upon the Law of the ten Words as well as under the Apostles of the New he urgeth upon them obedience to the Decalogical Law and particularly doth single one out of the Ten about honouring of the Father and the Mother which was the first Commandment of the second Table with promise An industrious Reader and a diligent observer may quickly carry this through the New Testament and spare me the further labour by his own unprejudiced ingenuity The Gentiles as well as the Jews are in their natural corrupt state in Sin and under the Curse which sin is a Transgression of this Law The Light of Nature in the Gentiles especially when rightly and throughly informed by the Word of God approves of every one of the Laws of the ten Words There is but one only Lawgiver who has mere and direct Empire over the consciences of all Mankind even Jehovah Aelohim who is able to save and to destroy according as men obey him or not And there is one only perfect Rule of Life to which all thoughts words and actions should be conformed and by which we shall be judged at that last Great Day even the Word of God the ten Words summarily this is the chief the principle the supreme Directory Whatsoever is written in the heart of the Pagans so far as it is right is concordant unto this Law The Will of the LORD concerning what is or is not to be done which way soever he has revealed it to all or to any of Mankind is still the same with this holy righteous Law when ever he has signified to man what his requirements from man in these matters are Unto his Will must the will of all Mankind be conformed all Mankind is always bound to will that which God would have them to will all Mankind who have the use and the exercise of right Reason cannot but acknowledge that the two great comprehensive Summaries of the ten Words do bind them all which are To love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves all are reduced to this bipartite Universal Law Though the LORD variously reveal his Will and his Word for
should withdraw our selves from such It has been great encouragement and sweet satisfaction unto me for divers years that I have Christ and his Word his Will and his Law for me in this Holy Contest His ten Words or Commandments how perfect and complete how standing and unchangeable a Rule of life are they in all and every of the matters of Duty to be performed and of Sin to be avoided It was Jehovah Christ himself who by his Spirit from his Father wrote upon the two Tables the Words of the Covenant the ten Words or Precepts This Scripture more especially I undervalue not any of the rest though this have its signal remark cannot be broken This is a perfect Law These words Jehovah spake and he added no more Christ would not have us so much as think that he came to destroy to dissolve the Law he came not to dissolve but to fulfill He confirms it by an high Asseveration that till Heaven and Earth do pass one Jod or Chirek one either Consonant or Vowel or any thing else originally belonging thereunto shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments and such do the most of men compt the weekly Sabbath though misjudgingly and will teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whosoever shall do and teach men the same shall be called Great in the Kingdom of Heaven This Law is established This Law or Testimony is sure or faithful or firm or constant it endures for ever it is standing-abiding continuing firm yet and perpetually This is the Rule of the New Creature by this must we walk This is to be bound up and sealed among Christs Disciples To the Law and to the Testimony must we refer all our Controversies in Religion for Determination and Resolution If any speak not according to this Word it is because No morning-light is as yet in them Here is the full comprehensive of what is our Duty to do Where or for what no Law is there is no Transgression or neither a Transgression Sin is not imputed where is no Law for Sin is a Transgression of the Law Then a Soul is guilty when it sinneth against any of the Commandments of Jehova in what ought not to be done and shall do against any of them This Law of the Ten words was put into the Ark and this alone and nothing else but this put there in which it was so closed as that it was not to be taken out or changed having a Crown of gold by Jehovah's own appointment put round about it This particular Law of the weekly-seventh day-Sabbath has a special mark of remembrance fixt unto it at the very entrance into it This must not be forgotten to be kept Holy and the Works of our particular Functions are expresly prohibited to be done on it This Seventh-day must be sanctified as the weekly Sabbath of Jehovah our God because all and every of those weighty Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim the Law-maker the Law-giver himself hath assigned and rendred and no Reasons can be so demonstrative and convincing as those which he doth give who is only wise from whence to inforce and perswade Obedience to his Command in observing of a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy to him do properly belong and are applicable to the Seventh which is the last day in every Week in Order of time in the weekly returns of it As the weekly Sabbath-day and to no other day of the Week as such neither to the first second third fourth fifth or sixth day Six daies in the week we are to labour and the Seventh day in the same week is the Sabbath The Seventh-day the seventh-day has its peculiar Note of Honour put upon it There can be but one Seventh day in one Week in the weekly Order and Succession of the Seven days though each of the other foregoing six days in the week are one of seven or one of the seven daily parts of weekly time Every one of the other days of the week have another name as one the second the third the fourth the fifth the sixth Only the last day of the week is called the Seventh day and the Sabbath day Weeks will be to the worlds end concluded within the compass of Seven days One of Aelohims Reasons is because he rested upon the seventh day upon that and that only which is the last day in the week and upon no other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day This History of the Creation doth go this day over three times on or in the Seventh-day the Seventh-day the Seventh-day Aelohim rested and again a second time He rested Afterwards in Moses time a little before Christ's Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Seventh-day and the rest or Sabbath on it are several times mentioned the Seventh-day the Seventh-day the Seventh-day and a fourth time the Seventh-day The Rest of the Holy Sabbath or a Resting of Holy Rest for Sabbath signifies a Rest a Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath the People rested on it At the Promulgation of this Law this same Reason is resumed again For in six days Jehovah made the Heavens and the Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh-day and therefore His people ought to rest on the same day as the Holy-Sabbath-day The Scriptures do carry this further along after the Promulgation of it Six days shall men work but on the Seventh-day the Seventh-day a Sabbath a Sabbath of rest a Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath Jehovab rested on this day and refreshed himself Six days thou shalt work but on the seventh-day thou shalt rest thou shalt rest Six days shall work be done but on the Seventh-day there shall be to you an Holy-day a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah the seventh-day is the Sabbath of rest the Sabbath the seventh day is the Sabbath to Jehovah Thus also in the After-Prophets in Jeremiah's days Bear no burden on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day sanctifie the Sabbath-day to do no Work therein The Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day Thus in Nehemiah's time that zealous Reformer would not suffer Ware or any Victuals to be brought to be sold on the Sabbath-day on the Sabbath-day on the Holy-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath No burden shall be brought in on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day The New Testament also doth take special notice of this The Seventh-day has the name of Sabbath or of Rest given it there above threeâ—â—ore times They rested Christs followers were silent from the Works of their particular Functions the seventh-day The Seventh-day God did rest the seventh-day from all his Works None of all this is said of any other day of the week Particularly not of the first and therein the LORD Jesus
were shut out of that Rest which the Psalmist doth speak of was not their not entring into the Observation and Rest of the First Day which was none either of their Duty or Privilege They had no Law for the keeping of any other Day but only the Seventh and of what there is no Law there is no Transgression for Sin is the Transgression of the Law but their Sin was hardening of their Heart through unbelief and unperswadeableness and disobedience contrary to Christ's Mind and Will in His Word and by His messengers These in David's time had no Ground to expect to enjoy the Rest of a pretended New day of Weekly Sabbath under the New Testament Dispensation It is therefore from Day to Day in a continued Succession of Days Christ's Command to hearken to His Voice is an Actual Command given forth by Him to His People every Day which would more set this out if it were rendred Participially in the Present Tenses as it is in several Scriptures It doth deoote the Continuedness of the Command as the Successiveness of the Day As the Day is mistaken by the Objector so also is the Rest The Rest spoken of in this Epistle brought thither out of that Psalm is not meant either there or here of the Weekly-Sabbath-Rest As to the First Day of the Week in opposition to the Seventh let the following Arguments be exactly weighed in the Scripture ballance One is because the People in David's time were not bound to make out after the First-Day-Rest not being under any obligation to keep the First Day of the Week as their Weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath The Law of the Seventh-Day Sabbath was upon them as was shewed but a few lines before Further The Rest mentioned in both these places in that Psalm and in this Epistle was such a Rest as the people to whom David and the Author of this Epistle did write this had not as yet Then entred into they were not possessed of it whilst they remained in a State of unbelief neither ever would if they passed into the other World in that State of Unbelief impenitence disobedience and unperswadableness What Rest can then be named for the People of David's Time as is proved in the fore cited place of this Epistle in the Margin to enter into but only that Spiritual Eternal Rest of with and in Jehovah the Messiah As for the Rest of the Weekly-Sabbath That was from the Foundation of the World when God Rested from All His Works on the Seventh Day and accordingly blessed and sanctified that Particular Day as the Day of the Weekly Sabbath The Syriack and the Aethiopick Languages do express the Seventh Day by the word Sabbath in the fourth Verse of this fourth Chapter And this Rest at least as to the outward part of it was Entred upon by the Israelites in David's time and by their Forefathers long before The Rest mentioned in the forecited places of this Epistle is such a Rest as he and others had a Probability as well as Possibility though with difficulty and studiousness to enter yet into unless by their own unbelief and hardening of their Heart they did fall short of it Let Vs fear Vs He includes Himself Whereas if the First-day-rest pretended from hence to be the Christians Weekly-Sabbath had been the Rest here meant what difficulty or studiousness was there as to their entring upon this so far at least as to the External Duty and Privilege and especially as to the particular Case of the Author of this Epistle and of other of the Believing among those Hebrews in his Day who are supposed by these Objecters to have already entred upon the First-Day-Rest that is pretended which Author so earnestly exhorted the Hebrews to Enter upon the same Rest For we are to observe that he joyneth himself with the Hebrews to quicken up himself as well as them unto an Holy Fear lest he and they otherwise fell short of the Promised Rest through want of due diligence and through careless negligence though he himself reckon himself among the Believers He inforceth his exhortation by this Argument amongst others in the fourteenth Verse of the third Chapter drawn from a very profitable effect of it even from the consortship and society and fellowship that such will have with Christ in that heavenly inheritance if they retain firm even unto the end that beginning of confidence or subsistence by which Faith is described in this Epistle As for any partakership of Christ in a way of conformity to him with respect to the observation of weekly Sabbath-day it could have no relation to the First Day of the Week which Day Christ observed not as a Sabbath but through the whole of his life kept the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day The great Design of this Epistle the same thing which doth run all the Scripture through where occasion is given and taken to speak of this matter is to prove that a state of unbelief lived layn and dyed in will shut the guilty of it out of the sweet satisfying injoyment of the True Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest For to this particular purpose is it that he fetcheth his proof out of that Psalm confirming what he had said by the Testimony of David shewing that the Psaimist by that Rest could mean nothing else and nothing less but the Spiritual Eternal heavenly Rest there being no other Rest left out of which the unbelieving were threatned to be shut in that Psalm called so great a Salvation in the third Verse of the second Chapter of this Epistle The Rest of the weekly Sabbath had been entred upon already and as for the Canaan Rest that was some ages before David's Time entred upon and into by the surviving Israelites under the leading of Joshuah or Jesus or if you will of Jeshuang or Jesus by Joshuah Whereas the Rest promised here in the first verse of the fourth Chapter was such a Rest as Joshuah did not bring the Israelites into in the eighth Verse though he led them into Canaan the Type of it as the causal conjunction doth evidently prove which is an Answer to a tacit Objection if any did say that Joshua had placed the Fathers in that Rest As for that Canaan Rest it was actually possest by David and the Israelites of his Day This Land of Canaan is called the Land of Immanuel Isai 8. 8. that is of Christ because it was a sign of the Heavenly Inheritance obtained by Christ Heb. 11. 9 11. The Rest therefore that David speaks of must be a Rest yet to come The other Rests particularly mentioned having been already then entred into a Rest which they should fear they might be shut out from a Rest not past but yet to come This Epistle speaks of Believers entring into this promised Rest after their working season is at an end appears by comparing some Verses in
the Sign of Circumcision as a Seal of this Righteousness of Faith which was thus imputed to him Is not Abraham propounded as an Example to after-Believers in this being called the Father of all that believe in the Foot steps of whose Faith after-Believers are to walk For what was so counted to him for Righteousness was written not for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for the sake of Paul and of others in Paul's time and so still for our sakes in the present day to whom it shall be imputed namely to them that do believe in him what Moses doth speak of the Duties of the Law Paul doth interpret of the Faith of the Gospel It would fill up much paper to inlarge in all the other instances of the old Testament-Believers recorded in the new particularly in that eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews There is one Faith one and the same Doctrine of Faith to be believed and one and the same Grace of Faith by which men do believe for Justification and Salvation both under the Old and New Testament It was the open confession of Peter's Faith in one of the first Councils or Synods held in the New Testament when the Apostles and Elders were assembled together to debate some weighty Question of the Christian Religion We believe saith he by the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ to be saved in such manner as they also as the believing Fore-fathers under the Old Testament were merely through free Grace by Faith in Grace by Faith in Christ in his righteousness They by Faith in Christ who was then to come to be in due time born of the Virgin which was held forth in Types of old to this end We in Christ as the perfect Anti-type thus already come The Analogy of Faith in both Testaments should be attended unto by a diligent discerning Reader of the Word a due proportional collating of them between and to each other would discover the uniformness and well-agreingness of the Will of our LORD in them both by a particular right application and limitation of their Analogy the orderly regulation whereof must be made according to that measure and number of proportion which the different manner of dispensing doth call for and no further is it to be admitted as to any substantial and essential part of the Christian Religion there is a likeness of Word a sameness of Sense a oneness of intendment on them both unto which Analogy he must keep close who would give forth a true explication of sound Doctrine That Faith which is required and promised in the Covenant of Grace is for the substance of it one and the same Grace which is commanded in the Law of the ten Words and let it be further researched into by the ingenuous for the augment of this Spiritual Science Whether the Faith of Adam in his innocence I do not put here into this inquiry as to the special use and the proper object of it were not for the substance of the Grace one and the same with the New Covenant Grace of Faith Was not Adam in all things to give confident credence to all as to every Truth which Aelohim his Creator had revealed or should further reveal was he not bound to believe in the promised Messiah by the Law of Creation and of Nature as soon as ever Jehovah should reveal this to him The whole Scripture is profitable for this doctrine of the oneness and sameness of old and New Testament Faith and I am perswaded after some years research into the word of Truth about this matter and long experience suited thereunto that one great occasion at least if not cause of the Apostasies and Backslidings of some of the loose ungospel-like and ill-principled-conversation of others and of the practical Atheism and Infidelity of some others and of the doubts and fears and unprofitable walking of other some has been men's unscriptural unwarrantable setting up of so many different Religions in the Old and New Testament and the urging of some one or a few misunderstood misinterpreted Scriptures wrested and wryed to some particular purpose contrary to the drift and intent and scope of the whole Scripture besides which doth write about that Case Whereas the whole Scripture is uniform and harmonious speaking with one mouth one and the same thing The only difference between the Old and the New being in the mode of Administration as has been opened once and again Let me here further add seeing this Objector doth call this a New Law of Faith as a part of the the New Creation brought in and perfected particularly and only upon the first day of the Week and upon no other day as he pretends that this Grace of Faith was put into a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation for besides that if there had been no Law for this Faith under that Dispensation it had been no sin no transgression not to have believed with that Faith for sin is the transgression of some Law and I have shewn it was Christ manifesting himself to Moses in Egypt and in the wilderness whom the Israelites did so often tempt grieve provoke and not not believe But further Faith in that Jehovah Aelohim who proclaimed the ten words at Mount Sinai was a plain duty injoyned in the first word or command and that Promulgator I have proved to be the Messiah or Christ So that it was a duty actually to believe him to believe in him Faith in the Lawgiver is one of the ways and commandments of this Jehovah I had here given a dismiss unto this that I might hasten to the last particular but that I called to mind how another adversary of and objector against the Seventh-day Sabbath had affirmed that the Decalogue had less in it than the Law of Nature and that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature Although if he had improved his own concession he might have seen how he tacitely gave an answer to his own Objection for he says That the chief Heads of Natutes Law are contained in the Decalogue He gives instances in divers particulars some of the chief of them in which he seems much to glory I shall examine In which he judgeth the Decalogue is defective such as the belief of the Soul to love our selves with a just and necessary Love to fame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation to deny all bodily Pleasure Profit Honour Liberty and Life for the securing of our Salvation Let the considerate Reader now spiritually according to the Word of Truth discern in these matters If the Scripture-rules of interpreting these ten Words Laws or Commands be observed allowed and applyed it will be manifest That they are a comprehensive as for other things so for the particulars specified so far as doth concern the discharge of Duty and the avoiding of Sin These general Laws do take
particular subject especially by one that is acquainted with the Original Hebrew and the several words and phrases under that dispensation that do speak to this case The Churches of Aelohim had in all ages such as were gifted graced called by Office to preach the Word and to Administer Signs and Seals Before Moses's time the Ordinary Ministers were the first born of Families into whose place afterwards the Priests and the Levites succeeded Enoch was a Prophet Noah was a Preacher Abraham was a Prophet The Priests and the Levites were the Pastors and the Teachers And Paul under the New Testament doth set out the Ministerial Office now by such expressions as were borrowed from the Ministerial Office under the Old Publick Officers in the Work of the Ministery now are such as perform the holy Office of the New Testament Priesthood Ministerial Workmen if they would not be ashamed should rightly divide the Word of Truth The cutting of the Burnt-offering into its pieces did Figure the Work of the Ministery in the New Testament Church It might not be a confused or disordered mangling it must be done into the Natural pieces The Prophesies concerning the Ministery of the New Testament are set out by the Ministery of the Old The Levites did serve the Priests about Tabernacle and Temple worship but were not to come near the Sanctuary nor the Altar The Elders laid their hands upon the Levites in setting them apart for the Ministery and Service How aptly is this applicable in a New Testament Church If you consider Deacons under this Dispensation as having this to be a part of their Office to provide for and to distribute to the poor Thus also were some of the Levites imployed in such Ordinary Ministeries of distrubution of the Church-Treasure overseeing the holy things and the Work of Jehovah too Neither was the Old Testament without its Diaconesses its ministring Women whose Ministery and Service was used by the Church These are the particular instances of this Objector to every one of which I have brought some Testimonies out of the Old Testament As for Rules about Church-Offices under the New Dispensation a discerning eye may see now the New Testament is written that Christ and his Apostles did in their teaching much refer their hearers unto the Analogy of Faith under the Old Testament The stile of the New doth not carry along with it a form of enacting such new Laws and new Rules of which there was not any thing at all under the Old Administration But we find Christ confirming the old Laws of the ten Words accomplishing the old Types and fulfilling the foregoing Prophesies concerning himself Interpreting the meaning of the Types and setting up the Anti-types in the room of them And where he doth bring in Laws it is occasionally either to open their meaning or to prove somewhat thereby or from thence to exhort correct instruct some way or other to apply it to the present case declaring himself to be one and the same Law-giver that was of Old Whereby he doth demonstrate that the Old Testament is still to be a Rule under the New The difference between them being only in the divers form and manner of dispensing as will be more shewn hereafter The regulation now is to be made according to that proportion which the new Administration doth call for and the old Rules must be new applyed which as to the matter now here under Question have a clearer Revelation and a more spiritual Dispensing So that the New Testament Word is much the Old Testament Scripture gone over again in more clearness fulness perfection spirituality glory and heavenliness The Old and the New Testament-Will of God are not contrary Wills but one and the same Will diversified only in some particulars of the manner of administring the new Will is the old Will revived and cleared and confirmed and so put into a more heavenly form There is a well measured equality between the Old and the New a well agreeing sameness of word and there should be a true proportioned collation of both Testaments each with other All and every of Christ's Institutions had ever a word of his to warrant them even in the times of the Apostles a word written about such Institutions in the Old Testament in Type Prophesie or some such like way and a Word spoken by Christ before the New Testament was written referring to the foregoing Patterns of them in the Old which word afterwards also was put into the New Testament Scripture whereas we know no word from Christ either in the Old Testament or New for the first day being a weekly day separated and appointed for a day of Holy Worship in the room of the Seventh day Sabbath Thus far this Author himself doth acknowledge that the first day was not instituted by Scripture all the Old Testament through which did not contain its Institution so that the Believers of that age in Christ's time had no written word at for any such observance of the first day any where all their Bible through Let this concession be improved by the wise and discerning the serious and the considering Reader However therefore the matter of fact may have been afterwards reported in Humane Histories we expect that the matter of Right be proved from God-inspired Scriptures Whatever this Author do say that this being the common usage of so observing the first day in the Apostles times by them and by the Churches of their Plantation and that therefore there was no such need of putting this pretended matter of fact into Scripture History it appears hereby how broken this Reed of his Assertion is which he would have all the Christian World to lean upon After several years serious diligent search I cannot find any such common usage no not so much as one particular instance that either any one of the Apostles themselves or any one of the Churches of their planting did ever so much as once so observe the first day as the weekly Sabbath-day Although if that could be proved it doth not yet determine this case upon our hearts who do expect Scripture Institutions Commands Prophecies Promises and such like appointments as have harmonious consent of the whole Scripture besides that speaks of that matter if there had been any such great change of the weekly Sabbath-day as is pretended If the force of this Authors arguing do lye there how evident is it that there was great need of writing such a Matter of Fact that had so weighty a case of so great consequence in it It is the common practice of all the wise part of mankind to take along with them sufficient credible witnesses of it such whose Testimony will upon occasion stand firm in Law when they first take actual possession of some great Estate of a rich Inheritance settled upon them and upon theirs that shall come after them and to set it down in
generation observed the Sabbath on the seventh day by that Generation he speaketh of the whole time from the beginning of the world full home to Christ which is a Testimony that the seventh day was not changed in Moses's time from what it was before Moses one of the Authors cited in the Margin doth acknowledge that the Pagan gentils observed the seventh day every where this custom prevailed to observe the same seventh day which the Jews used to keep holy so common was it grown Pleaders for the Dominical day do lay the foundation of their observing of it upon Christs Resurrection which they assert to be on the first day of the week on this day saith one of them speaking of the Dominical day the world received its beginning The first day of the week because of Christs resurrection saith another is the birth-day of the whole humane nature Why did the Heathen the Pagans scoff at the Jews for observing the seventh day as Sabbath if they both kept one and the same day before Moses and a different day after Moses and after Christ which the Pagans called the seventh day why do they name the seventh day which was kept festival in Palestine if another day were the seventh and why do they call the Jews seventh days by the name of Sabbaths if they did not judge them so to be and why do they give unto the Jews the name of Sabbatarians several of the Pagans do deride all Sabbaths one of them says that the Sabbaths of the Jews were dedicated to sloth or idleness Another calleth the observation of the Sabbath an evil solemnity and Foolishness and says that to observe the Sabbath was ridiculous because that in so doing they lose the seventh part of their life one of the First day-men writeth that the Gentiles and all the Heathen did not keep the seventh day which the Patriarchs did according to Institution they did altogether hate the only true holy day and would not observe it themselves but they erected other days to an holy and Religious use the Romans he saith further anciently instituted every ninth day and the Graecians every eighth day and neither of them the seventh the Romans dedicated their ninth day to Jupiter the Graecians consecrated the eighth unto Neptune but neither of them consecrated the seventh unto the LORD and these two were the chief of the Heathen Philosophers we saith he speaking of Christians that are for the First-day keep not the same day which was from the beginning So that the Reader may by this discern how much men will be at a loss who resolve this case into humane Authorities and Histories which are many of them so quite cross and contrary to Scripture-truth and which do so contradict one another satisfaction and settlement such as is sound and demonstrative can never come in that way Another Advocate for the first-day doth declare that Cyprian Tertullian and Hilary do call the Dominical-day the eighth from the Creation the Enemies derided the Christian-sabbath saith Ruffinus Athanasius saith that he observed the Sabbath day not as it was in the first age in the beginning of the world Philo the Apostles contemporary asserteth the seventh day-sabbath's observation to be according to the Law of nature constituted by God at the Creation of Nature Athanasius acknowledgeth that the seventh-day-sabbath was observed from the Creation till Christ The seventh day of every week in order from the Creation was Sacred not only to the Hebrews but Gentiles thus the Author cited in the Margin with much more if it were needful which might be added to discover the invalidity of the objectors arguing who doth bring many humane Authorities against himself and his own assertion and against whose way of arguing many contradicting humane authorities are and may further be brought so widely will men wander whilst they go astray from the word-way of the LORD's Precepts One of the learnedest in this Century doth affirm the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the express Letter of it as it is written and read in its obvious meaning of the fourth Commandment pointeth at the Sabbath as it was in the first Institution the Seventh day from the Creation The very Gentiles both Civil and Barbarous both ancient and of later days as it were by an universal kind of Tradition retained the distinction of the Seven Days of the VVeek notwithstanding that great variety of differences which is betwixt them in the ordering of their Years and Months Every where they attributed some Holiness to the Seventh-day they were not ignorant that the VVorks of the Creation were finished on the Seventh But whither have these Objectors diverted me I now return O what a many peculiar honours hath the LORD put upon this Law in his Word The Ark in which was nothing else put but only these ten Words had many Dignities conferred upon it It was made of durable Wood not so subject to putrefaction this Wood was overlaid within and without with pure Gold It had a Crown of Gold round about The Pot of Manna was before it by which Jehovah Aelohim confirmed the Seventh-day Sabbath Out of this Ark Jehovah spake by Oracle This was an assurance of Aelohims gracious presence amongst his people and that he did dwell there There must they worship before him with a proomise of acceptance The Propitiatory covered it There between the Cherubims the LORD himself sat I could fill up much more paper upon this one Argument The Lawgiver himself was the Writer of this Law The Law is one of Christ's Names The Name of Aelohim was given to the Ark of the Covenant It being an illustrious Symbol of his presence All the prefiguring prophetical Scriptures in the Old Testament relating to this Law have a New Testament significancy and sense What a multitude of Scriptures might here be heaped together in commendation of this Law It has an invincible firmness There Precepts are true and certain The Church is governed by this Law as its Rule Christ himself submits his Doctrine to be examined by it There is Perspicuity in this Law It is perfect in its Nature and Doctrine When the Spirit of the LORD doth bring it on with living Efficacy and with saving Power O how wonderful are its effects It begets Faith its Regenerates it nourisheth it makes to be growing it inlightens it gives heavenly saving Wisdom it restores and strengthens the Soul it exciteth a lively firm Consolation it joyeth and refresheth the Heart it kindleâ—h a love to God in the Heart it furnisheth with Armour aginst temptations and assaults It doth guard against captious Sophistry and Treachery It leadeth to Life and to eternal Salvation Nothing may be added to it or taken from it Moses leads to Christ and Christ sends to Moses They appeared together at the Mount of Transfiguration The characteristical Notes and the distinguishing Marks that do difference an Evangelical Reformed Christian Church and