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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60480	The doctrine of the Church of England, concerning the Lord's Day, or Sunday-Sabbath as it is laid down in the liturgy, catechism, and book of homilies, vindicated from the vulgar errours of modern writers, and settled upon the only proper and sure basis of God's precept to Adam, and patriarchal practice, where an essay is laid down to prove, that the patriarchal Sabbath instituted, Gen. 2. 3. celebrated by the patriarchs before the Mosaick Law, and re-inforc'd in the fourth precept of the Decalogue, was the same day of the VVeek, viz. Sunday, which Christians celebrate in memory of the perfecting of the creation of the world by the redemption of mankind.	Smith, John, Rector of St. Mary's in Colchester.	1683 (1683)	Wing S4110; ESTC R3081	78,815	242

Sabbath at the beginning by God's Precept to Adam and in him to his whole Posterity to the end of the World and therefore extending to all Ages and all Mankind And this being assigned to the Jews only for that short time wherein the Law-giver was pleased to dispense with that Nation as to this Law given to all Nations and that for Reasons sufficiently palpable 5. This Hypothesis enervates the Arguments brought against the Divine Institution of the Lord's-Day and furnisheth Conscience with a solid ground of bearing a due religious Respect to it without danger of Judaizing in the manner of the Celebration thereof 1. To instance in their Herculean Argument drawn from the Gloss they put upon that Text Gen. 2. 3. as being spoke by Moses by way of Anticipation If that Day that God rested on was not Saturday but Sunday his sanctifying the Day he rested on could not have respect to the after-Institution of another Day for what Consequence can be in this because God at first rested on Sunday therefore he appointed Moses above two thousand Years after the Creation to command Saturday to be sanctified comparable to what is in this because God rested on Sunday the Seventh Day in the order of the Creation he therefore blessed it and sanctified it that is separated it by his Precept to Adam to be the weekly Sabbath Indeed the dream of a Prolepsis in this Text chargeth Moses with most gross Equivocation in the use of these words and God blessed except we fancy an Anticipation in those other Places of his Text where these words occur as Gen. 1. 22. where speaking of Fish and Fowl he saith And God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and vers 28. speaking of Adam and Eve he saith And God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply 2. That this Hypothesis yields a solid Ground for the consciencious observing the Lord's-Day so as there needs not any new Constitution be made by Christ or his Apostles for the observing of it is manifest of it self For if Sunday be the Day that God separated at first to be the weekly Sabbath to the Patriarchs and was accordingly celebrated by them before the giving of the Law by Moses the standing part of the Fourth Command obliging all Mankind must necessarily refer to that and that there is a standing part of that Precept for the Breach whereof we are taught to say Lord have Mercy upon us and for the better observing whereof we are taught to pray Incline our Hearts to keep this Law is the declared Judgment of our Church And then the Temporary and Ceremonial Part both as to the Day and Mode of keeping it peculiar to the Jews being part of those carnal Ordinances that were imposed upon them until the time of Reformation Heb. 9. 10. vanish of themselves as being antiquated by Christ's Cross and give way to the Antient Patriarchal Sabbath And here now our Saviour's Rising from the Dead his frequent Appearing to his Disciples on Sunday the Practice of the Apostles and Primitive Church come in seasonably with their Auxiliary Force to strengthen my Hypothesis and to support the Divine Institution of the Lord's-Day For though as to the first Consecration therof these Examples signify nothing nor are able to stand upon that old Ground against the joynt Assaults of God's express Precept and Example for sanctifying Saturday Yet upon the Ground that I have laid they are substantial and strenuous Seconds to prove the Restauration of the antient Patriarchal Sunday-Sabbath by the Antiquation of the Jewish Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath though they are not of Authority to appoint a new Lord's-Day yet they are safe Guides to point us to that old Patriarchal Lord's-Day whereon the Lord rested and therefore commanded the Patriarchal Church-Catholick to sanctify it as their weekly Sabbath in Conformity to and in Communion with which Church extending to all Places and Ages Our Saviour after the rending of the Vail rose upon that Day and upon that Day celebrated religious weekly Assemblies with his Apostles and taught them to do the like during those forty Days wherein he convers'd with them betwixt his Resurrection and Ascension speaking to them of the things appertaining to the Kingdom of God 3. Lastly this secures us from falling into Jewish Superstition in the manner of celebrating our Christian Sabbath for with the Jewish Day the Jewish manner of keeping that Day vanisheth So that the Christian Church is not obliged to sanctify the Lord's-Day in those strict Formalities of bodily Rest and other carnal Observances imposed upon the Jews but in the more generous and man-becoming Exercises of contemplating the Glory of God in the Creation compleated by the new Creation of believing acquiescing and triumphing in God through Christ of attending on Gospel-Ordinances publick private and secret of visiting the Sick relieving the Indigent and eating our Bread with Gladness of Heart on that day above others that being the Christian weekly Festival and the Day which God hath made for us to be glad and rejoyce in neither need we macerate our selves with studying when to begin when to end the Christian Sabbath at Even Midnight or Morning For he who having set his Secular Affairs in such order as they give no Interruption to his Sunday-Devotion goes to bed with God on Saturday-Night and riseth with God on Sunday-Morning and spends the Day in such like Exercises as have been mentioned may after he has commended himself and his Family if he have one to God go to his Rest on Sunday Night without danger of prophaning the Sabbath at his usual time Briefly the usefulness of this Hypothesis is so great and apparent both as to putting an end to all Strife even amongst the most Litigious and setling inward Peace in the truly Consciencious as I was something jealous lest the prospect thereof might make the Arguments I bring for proof of the Hypothesis seem to have more weight than indeed they have till I had communicated my Papers to several Persons of more quick Understanding in the fear of the Lord with this humble Request That they would weigh their Contents in the Ballance of their impartial Judgments which I heartily thank them they did and thereby gave me occasion to rectify some Passages and Encouragement to commit this Tract as it now stands corrected to publick view If it shall please the divine Goodness to make use of so mean a Person as my self towards the setling the Consciences of Christians upon a safe Ground and the binding up of those Wounds which the Church hath received in the House of her Friends as the poor tattard Captive Democedes cured Darius after that the Egyptian Physicians had for seven Days and Nights by violent handling of his dis-joynted Foot kept him without Sleep Let God have the Praise who chooseth the weak and foolish things of this World to confound the mighty and wise And let him have your Prayers Christian Reader whose utmost

Septuagint which renders it The Seventh Day altho our last Translation of the Bible follows the Hebrew Altho the Puritans as they were called have called long and loud to our Church to rectify the Reading and conform it to the Hebrew as knowing that their opinion of the fourth Precept commandeth a Seventh not the Seventh Day is utterly overthrown by rendring it Wherefore the Lord Blessed the Seventh-day And altho our Church hath gratified their Clamours in conforming the Epistles and Gospels to our last Translation yet in the forenamed versions of the fourth Precept she adheres still to the Septuagint and persisteth in teaching her Children young and old that the Sabbath of the fourth Precept in the plain literal sense of it is the Seventh day wherein God rested and therefore sanctified and separated to be observed by us Christians in obedience to that Precept and in conformity to God's Example Or to give her sense of this Precept thus translated in her own words Homilie of the time and place of Prayer God expresly in the fourth Precept commandeth the observation of the Sabbath which is our Sunday And not only commandeth it but also by his own example doth stir and provoke us to diligent keeping of the same And a little after this Example and Command of God the Godly Christian People began to follow immediately after the Ascension of our Lord Christ It was you see in obedience to this Command urged by this Example that the Christians began to celebrate Sunday in our Churche's Judgment In Obedience I say to this Precept in the plain literal sense of it For sure the Church of England is a more indulgent Mother than to teach her Babes by Tropes and Figures and far-fetch'd Consequences what that holy Will of God is to the keeping whereof their Baptismal Vow obligeth them or to oblige them to say Lord have Mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law after the pronouncing of the fourth Precept at the Lord's Table if that did not stand intirely in every tittle of it according to its plain and primitive sense in as full force now under the Gospel as any of the rest Moses was faithful in God's House and therefore at his repeating of the Decalogue and applying it to the Israelites he lets them know that they were not concerned in that Reason for sanctifying of that Sabbath which God published on the Mount to wit because God rested on the Seventh-day but urgeth the keeping of their Sabbath by another Reason peculiar to themselves to wit their resting from Egyptian Bondage Deut. 5. which very Reason is an Argument that their Saturday-Sabbath was not the day on which God rested but local and temporary And God's urging the sanctifying of the Sabbath of the fourth Precept from his own Example argues the day therein commanded to be the day whereon God rested and to concern all Ages and Nations The reason of it being common to all and therefore to be our Sunday And this speaks the faithfulness of our Church viz. her informing her Children that the whole and intire both Precept and Reason appertains to us Christians and therefore we are bound to beg pardon for the breach thereof and Grace to observe it I had never much Artificial yet have so much Natural Logick as to think this a very strange Inference God rested the Seventh-day that is Saturday wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day that is Sunday and the common Opinion to be void of Reason viz. That the day commanded in this Precept is gon but the Precept remains seeing all that 's commanded is the sanctifying of the day whereon God rested It may with every whit as much reason be said the honouring of Father and Mother is gone but the Law commanding that Honour is still in force as that the day whereon the Command bids us rest is gone but the Precept commanding that Day of Rest remains as if that day injoyned belonged to the Jews and the Precept enjoyning to us My resentment of such horrible absurdities unavoidably issuing from the common Opinion that Saturday is the Day whereon God rested and that Day which he commanded the Jews to sanctifie in the fourth Precept And yet that the Precept is still in force to us Christians obliging us to sanctifie another day Sunday in Conjunction with the reverence I bear to the sounder Doctrine of the Church of England viz. That the fourth Precept commands us to celebrate Sunday upon the Account of God's resting on that day first put me upon that enquiry whereof my Treatise of the Sabbath is the result viz. whether that Hypothesis could be proved from Scripture and Reason and if proved whether it would secure unto us our Sunday-Sabbath without any new Institution by Christ's Precept upon better grounds than can be laid by the vulgar opinion and such as free our Necks from the yoak of those carnal austerities which attend the Jewish Temporary and Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath This Design I confess affronts the whole World of private modern Writers but I have standing on my side the Church of England which carried on the Reformation of Christian Religion from Papal Innovations more pecately regularly cautiously and with a greater respect to Catholick Antiquity than any other Reformed Church did And that which inclined me the rather to follow her Conduct through my whole Tract of the Sabbath was this because I observed that the Writers upon the fourth Precept have fallen into inextricable perplexities meerly through this one mistake That the Sabbath injoyned in that Precept is Saturday and not as our Church teacheth Sunday And that if they had followed our Churches Clew they would have found the way out of those Labyrinths wherein they have lost themselves For if Sunday be the Day whereon God rested and therefore commanded in that Precept to be sanctified after God's Example and unless it be that day wereon God rested that Precept does not command the sanctification of it how naturally will these Consequences follow 1. That Adam and the Patriarchs could not be ignorant of that Example of God which was laid down in the Precept as the Reason why we are to sanctifie it for if that reason oblige us who only hear it It must much more oblige Adam who after a sort saw it 2. That the Law of the Saturday-Sabbath is not expresly commanded in that Precept but only reducible to it in regard of its equity and proportion of time viz. one of seven And therefore Saturday-Sabbath may depart and the Precept continue in full force Nay that Sabbath together with the Ceremonial Precepts concerning it must as the rest of Mosaick Ceremonies depart at the rending of the Vail and give way to the Sunday-Sabbath And thus the Christian Church is disburdened of those Austerities about which there hath been so much wrangling amongst Modern Writers 3. That there was no need of a new Gospel-Precept for the first Institution of Sunday-Sabbath and that

hos Arabie faelicis intima insedisse I am sure saith he in his Phaleg that these Colonies sate down in the very heart of Arabia felix for proof hereof he shew's that the Arabians say their first Founder was Joctan and produceth Memorials of the names of all his Sons retained in the names of Arabian Cities Rivers Hills or Inhabitants That of Jobab for Instance in Ptolomies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Scultetus corrects it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But perhaps Ptolomi's Text needs no Correction seeing that People of Arabia might be so called from Job the abbreviation of Jobab and he being the youngest his Brethren might abbreviate his Name 2. He is said to dwell in the East which if it be meant East from Judea it can be no other then Arabia Petrea which standeth East-ward of Judaea whereas Arabia Felix standeth full South But seeing the Jewes did not inhabit Palestine till above 500 years after Job his Countrie is here styled the East in respect of Arabia Felix which lies West of Arabia Petrea 3. According to this Situation of Vz it hath the Sabeans a People of Arabia Felix on one hand and the Chaldeans on the other hand The one whereof Drove away Jobs Oxen and Asses the other his Camels 4. Job was the greatest of all the men of the East that is the most Eastern part of Arabia which denotes Arabia Petrea and he being the greatest there must in reason be judged to have been the Captain of the Colonie there seated 5. Job or Jobab being the youngest brother his elder brethren might more then probablie seat themselves in the Richest part of Arabia famous for the plenty of Gold Frankincense c. and he be forc't to sit down in Arabia the Stony or perhaps chose that for his seat as fittest for the breed of Cattel wherein lay his wealth The Arabians saith Aristotle Hist 9. 50. have some of them 3000 Camels apiece and from them they compute their Wealth saith Leo Affrican Lib. 9. For when they would express their Riches they use to say He possesseth so many thousand Camels And this is another Argument that Job's Country Vz is Arabia where the thirteen Sons of Joctan seated their Families 3. That Job lived very early after the Flood is I think demonstrable from that Text Job 31. 26. If I beheld the Sun when it shined c. and my heart hath been secretly enticed or my Mouth hath kissed my hand this were an Iniquity to be punished by the Judge Whence it appears that Idolatry was in Job's time accounted by the Law of Man criminal and punishable in the Humane Court which in the Days of Terah was set up by a Law from the Effect whereof Terah fled saith Josephus from his Native Country Vz of the Caldees being condemned to be burnt for refusing to worship the Sun From the Premises we collect that Job was the most antient Practitioner of the Patriarchal Religion after the Flood that we read of except Noah and lived two hundred years before the death of Noah what then can be more incredible than that so pious a Person could so soon forget what the Patriarchal Church before the Flood meant by this Phrase the Sons of God SECT VII I have weighted all the Arguments produced for the Proof of the contrary opinion Viz. That Job lived not thus early in the New World as I affirm him to have done But there is not one of them worth answering but that drawn from Job 36. 14. They dye in Youth and their Life is amongst the Unclean the Sodomites according to the Marginal reading Innuit his Sodomites saith Grotius he means here the Sodomites and their Destruction intimating that Job's Friends had heard of Sodoms Destruction and therefore were younger than Abraham But if it had been Sodomites in the Text as it is not that would have been no Argument that Job had heard of Sodoms destruction For Sodom migh the infamous for its Uncleanness many Ages before its destruction seeing men do not arrive at such an height of impudent sinning but by degrees neither doth God inflict such strange and exemplary Judgments till his Long suffering be tired out Besides that their Luxury and beastly Lusts might bring the Sodomites one by one to an untimely Death might fall under the observation of their Neighbours long before Fire and Brimstone from Heaven sell upon them all together I have but one Note more to evince that the Text Gen. 6. 2. is the most proper Text to expound this of Job by Viz. That the best account I find given of the Penman of this Book of Job is that which is grounded upon Job 32. 15. they were amazed they left of speaking they answered no more When I had waited for they speak not but stood still and answered no more I said I will answer also my part I will shew mine Opinion Can any thing be more apparent than that Elihu doth not speak here to Job and his three Friends but of them Who then can he speak to but the Readers of this Book of Job It is certain the Dialogue is here interrupted For Jobs Words were ended Chap. 31. ult Causa perorata tacet he having said what he could in his own defence held his peace And Elihu here declares the Issue of his Reproof of Jobs three Friends to wit their being silent as well as Job to whom then doth he make this Declaration Not to Job that had been superfluous for he himself was both an Ear and Eye witness of their being silent by Elihu's precedent speech to them and besides he does not apply his speech to Job till c. 33. 11. Wherefore Job I pray thee hear my speeches c. not to Job's Friends for he saith they were amazed which is not the form of speech wherein we speak to men that are present It must be therefore to them that should read this Book that he here speaks Again it is in answer to Job's wish that he offers himself to him in God's stead Ch. 33. 6. it is probable therefore that in order to the gratifying of another as an earnest wish of Jobs he might write Job's words and by Consequence this whole Historie of his trial in a Book Job 19. 23. O that my Words were Written that they were Printed in a Book that they might remain for ever And such a wish as he had renewed with very passionate expostulations immediatly before Elihu began his speech to Job's friends and Job himself Chap. 31. 3 5. 10. That one would hear me behold my desire is that the Almighty would answer me and that mine Adversary had written or as it is in most Translations would write a Book surely I would take it upon my Shoulders and bind it as a Crown to me as a Prince would I go near unto him Well saith Elihu I am here in Gods stead according to thy wish Now if Elihu had onely discours'd with Job in God's stead as

could wish was the Rest of Redemption And the Jewish Saturday-Sabbath the rest of the Creation uncompleated on the sixth day before Man was capacitated by Faith in Christ to glorify God through his Redeemer Saturday and Sunday-Sabbath came into the World not like Esau and Jacob but like Phares and Zara. The Jewish Saturday-Sabbath was not born first and afterwards the Christian Sunday-Sabbath catching the Jewish by the Heel supplanted it and obtained the Blessing of Primogeniture But the Christian Sabbath like Zara first put out its Hand and upon Sunday's Wrist was tied the Thred the Bond of God's Injunction to sanctify that Day and the Scarlet-Thred the Bond of the Covenant of Grace sealed in the Blood of the promised Seed for by binding is signified the imposing of the Law of hallowing the Sunday-Sabbath whence God's Laws are called Bonds and Cords Let us break their Bonds asunder and cast their Cords from us that is the Laws of God and of his Christ Psal 2. 2 3. And a Bond or Cord of Scarlet Thred was to Rahab a sign of the Covenant confirmed by the Blood of Christ Josh 2. 18. compared with Heb. 11. 31. By Faith the Harlot Rahab perished not And the Patriarchal Church unto the Flood and all since the Flood who adhered to that Church in their Sunday-Sabbath Celebrities had an Eye of Faith upon that Scarlet-Thred bound to the Wrist of that Day But when the villanous Subtilty of such Politicians as designed to make themselves absolute Soveraigns over the Nations independent from God had perverted that custom of worshipping God in publick Assemblies on Sundays by inacting the Worship of the Sun on that day that bare the name of that Planet making that Hand which God had set at the end of the Volumn of his Book as the Index pointing to the chief Contents of that Volumn the eternal Word making Propitiation through his Blood to point the contrary way to the Worship of the Creature Then the Scarlet-Thred was drawn back out of the Jews sight till the fullness of time and now comes forth the Jewish Saturday-Sabbath more than 2400 Years after the Patriarchal Sunday-Sabbath which Saturday-Sabbath was not imposed upon any Nation but the Jews nor upon them in room of the Patriarcal but upon other accounts as will be shewed in the handling of the sixt and last Branch of our Discourse upon the Sabbath CHAP. VI. The Mosaical Saturday-Sabbath fixt on the sixth Day of the Week in the order of Creation was instituted upon other Grounds than that mentioned in the Decalogue and having no footing in the forth Precept but in the Ceremonial Law was to expire at Christ's Death and give place to the Patriarchal Sabbath SECT I. THat Saturday-Sabbath as well as the rest was appointed the Jews to be a Ceremonial Badg to difference them from all other Nations who celebrated Sunday as their weekly Sabbath is so frequently affirmed in Sacred Scripture in these or equivalent Terms It is a sign between me and you throughout your Generations that you may know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth you As all that is requisite for the proof hereof is to shew that in those places by God's sanctifying of them is meant his visible separating them from all other People for his own Inheritance by a Covenant of Peculiarity For evincing of which let it be considered that in Ezek. 20. God's giving them Statutes and Judgments that is Moral and Judicial Laws is not said to be to this end that they might know that he was the Lord that sanctified them as his giving them his Sabbaths to be a sign between him and them was vers 11 12. and vers 19 20. I am the Lord your God hallow my Sabbaths and they shall be a Sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord your God That is That I have taken you to be unto me a People and an Inheritance as ye are at this day Deut. 4. 20. Levit. 20. 24. And yet more plain Exod. 31. 13. it is affirmed of all the Sabbaths Indefinitely that the keeping of them is a sign between God and the Jews That he is the Lord their God c. and vers 16. The Children of Israel shall keep my Sabbaths throughout their Generations by an everlasting Ordinance It is a Sign betwixt me and the Children of Israel for ever 2. The reason why God would not have the Jews to celebrate the Sunday which the Patriarchs and themselves till the Institution of the Saturday-Sabbath celebrated as the weekly Sabbath but appointed them another day was to secure them from idolizing the Sun with the Heathens who had perverted Sunday-Sabbath from the Worship of God to the Worship of the Sun from the Guilt of which Idolatry in celebrating the Patriarchal Sabbath Job purgeth himself Job 31. 26 27 28. If I beheld the Sun when it shined and my Heart hath been secretly enticed or my Mouth hath kissed my Hand this also were an Iniquity to be punished by the Judg For I should have denied the God that is above That is if I had worship'd the the Sun secretly in my Heart it would have been a denying of God But if I had worship'd it openly by kissing my Hand at the sight of it I had become obnoxious to the sentence of the Judg where note that in Job's time who lived some Generations before Abram the World grew propense to this idolizing of the Sun but hitherto the Noachal Religion was so prevalent as the publick Law of the Nations opposed its Incroachment Mercer in locum Vnde videatur Jobi conterraneos tum non fuisse idolatras quia dicit se non clam id fecisse nedum palam non prodit statim in publicum ista temeritas nisi postquam cor plane occaecatum fuerit consensus favorque plurium accesserint Job's Contemporaries and Country-men were not Idolaters because he saith he did not worship the Sun either secretly or openly such Temerity as this doth not forthwith appear in publick but after that the Heart is altogether blinded and common Consent and Favour come to take its part However in Moses's time this idolizing of the Sun had universally prevail'd and even in Abraham's time was back't by the secular Law in Vr of the Chaldees for the Contempt whereof in his refusing to worship the Caldean Emblem of the Sun Abraham with his Father Terah found Vr of the Caldees too hot for them By the way observe that the word which in this place of Job is translated the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that from whence Vr of the Caldees deriv'd its Name and the Egyptians the Name they give the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Macrob. Saturnal 1. 21. Hence Moses so frequently reneweth this Caution that the Jews should take heed of making any Representations of the Sun or any of the Host of Heaven Deut. 4. 19. and Chap. 7. 3. in special to the Sun and Moon