at all take those places of Scripture which so severely prohibit all work upon the Sabbath as if they did no lesse belong to us now then heretofore to the Iewes and by this meanes those precepts threatnings and promises which concerned the observation of the Sabbath are pressed upon us point blanck Whereas indeed they concerne us onely indirectly and cannot without fetching a compasse be alledged at all for our Sunday Now the Scripture being so expresse as it is apprehended for the strict observance of our Sunday under the name of the Sabbath no marvell if men have made it a prime Case of Conscience and that so many scruples are dayly raised and so many traditions broached about the beginning and ending of the Sabbath about the works of a mans particular Calling what they are and how farre lawfull on that Day what are the proper duties of the Day and the like For the cleare resolution therefore of this Question Whether the use of Recreations may stand with the due observation of the Lords Day it is convenient that I have some recourse to the Sabbath Where because I love not Cramben saepiùs coctam apponere or to stuffe my discourse with a tedious explanation of those things which are commonly known and every where to be found I will with as much brevity as the cause will suffer inquire into these 4. particulars 1. Whether and how farre forth the fourth Commandement concerning the Sabbath is moral and perpetuall and so belonging to Christians 2. When and by whom the Lords day was instituted 3. What workes the lews might doe on their Sabbath 4. Whether and what liberty Christians now have on the Sunday more then they had and how farre that liberty is to be extended To begin with the first The law which God gave unto his people the Iewes according to the three-fold variety of the object or things prescribed is three-fold Morall Ceremoniall and Iudiciall The Morall is that which concernes the manners of men and belongs to them as men and this commands those things which are in themselves acceptable and well-pleasing to God and those which hee will have all men every where and at all times to observe as the perpetuall and unchangeable rule of living being the expresse image of the minde of God according to which hee who is the Law-giver judges it meete and right that the reasonable creatures should order their lives The Ceremoniall belongs to men as joyned together in that Society which is called the Church and this containes those precepts which concerne the externall worship of God and were given by him to the Iewish Church in accommodation to the times in which the Church was under age and under the promise and therefore instituted for the signifying prefiguring and sealing of the truth of the promises made to them to be fulfilled in the exhibition of our Saviour and withall for the preservation of order and decencie in their Ecclesiasticall meetings and performances The judiciall belongs to men as joyned in a civill Society or Cōmon-wealth contayning the forme of civill government to be used by them tending to their good as they were a Society and to the preservation and exacting of the eutward worship of God and the discipline thereof as it was commanded in the Morall and Ceremoniall Lawes So that the Ceremoniall Law determined the Morall in order to God the Politicall or judiciall in order to men in a civill society and both in accommodation to that state of the Church And these though they have in them something which is juris moralis and so farre forth are contained under the Morall precepts yet being fitted to serve that state of the Church which was to be held in expectation of the Messias when the time came that he was actually exhibited and so the promise fulfilled the shadowes were then of no longer use the body being come and therefore at the time of the death of Christ they were abrogated de jure so that they became unnecessary and unprofitable and had their power of obligation taken away And afterward when by the Apostles doctrine Christians came to understand that Christ was the end of the Law and when the Temple the seate of their religion and the place destined to the use of those ceremonies was destroyed they were de facto actually and fully taken away and those things which before the death of Christ were commanded and in that interim betweene his death and the destruction of the Temple which was the space allotted for the solemne funeralls of the Iewish Synagogue were tolerable though already dead became from that time forward deadly and intolerable So that onely the Morall Law remaines now in force for the practise of Christians The ceremoniall and judiciall excepting in that wherein they are reducible to this are antiquated and out of date Now the precepts of the Morall Law are summarily comprehended in the Decalogue or ten Commandements which had this prerogative peculiar to them that they were delivered not by Moses but by God himselfe and by him written in tables of stone and preserved in the Arke to shew their dignity above others and to note out the perpetuity of observance which was due unto them Where before wee apply these things to our present purpose two things are to be noted First That howsoever all the precepts of the Morall law belong to the Law of Nature as being agreeable to reason which is the rule of Humane actions and are in that respect of perpetuall observance yet all of them are not of the same ranke nor belong in the same degree and manner to the law of Nature There are some things which by the instinct of nature and naturall light of the understanding wee presently see to be good or bad and which are so plaine that without any great consideration they may by the first principles or common notions implanted in us be either approved or rejected and these are absolutely of the law of nature Others there are that require more consideration of circumstances and the use of Discourse to apprehend and judge of them and these are so of the law of nature that notwithstanding they require the helpe of discipline by which those which are ignorant and not able by diligent consideration or discourse to attaine to the knowledge of them may be instructed by the wise and learned And lastly there are some to the knowledge whereof humane reason stands in neede of Divine Instruction And these two latter sorts especially the last though they in some sort belong to the Law of Nature and were haply at our first Creation written in the tables of mans heart in more plaine Characters and more easie to be read then now since the fall they are may in respect of the other be termed morall non ratione naturae sed disciplinae not in regard of nature dictating but in regard of Discipline informing nature Secondly that
were yet weake in faith or hinder others of that Nation from beleeving in Him Besides be it that Christians did hold themselves freed from the observance of the Sabbath yet being among those who still made conscience of it even to superstition as did the unconverted Jewes it could not but prove very incommodious to their speedy and farre flight which the greatnesse and suddennesse of the danger required in as much as thereby they should expose themselves to the fury of those who were no lesse zealous in compelling others then superstitious in observing it themselves In these respects our Saviour might well admonish his Disciples to pray that their flight might not bee on the Sabbath day and yet not teach them to observe the Sabbath after his death or that while the observation of it lasted they should thinke themselves so tied in conscience of it that they might not on that day flie farre to save their lives and much lesse to establish the Morality of the Lords Day which neither He nor his Apostles nor the following ages of the Church till within these few yeares ever designed by the name of the Sabbath without some difference added to distinguish it from that of the Jewes For though we finde it sometimes called our Sabbath or the Sabbath of Christians in regard that in the maine end of it it succeeded that yet generally the Sabbath simply put and without addition notes the Iewish Sabbath or the Day on which it was celebrated which is our Saturday and the day before that which we keepe which is therefore called by the Evangelists and S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one or the first day from the Sabbath and by S. Iohn in the Revelation the Lords Day by which name or that which the same day had among the Gentiles viz. the Sunday it hath ever since been knowne in the Christian world But I will leave these and now returne thither whence for the answering of these objections I have digressed And having seene the nature and severall degrees of Morall Precepts and in generall that the fourth Commandement hath in it somewhat not moral That I may apply these things to our present purpose and manifest the truth thereof I will more particularly inquire into the nature of that Commandement and in it distinctly consider these 4. things First A Day or time set apart for Gods service Secondly the seventh day or one in the revolution of seven Thirdly the particular seventh there mentioned namely the seventh from the Creation Fourthly the strict surcease or rest from ordinary labours on that day For the first of these It cannot be denied but that the very Law of Nature it selfe to use the words of a Worthy of our Church requireth no lesse the sanctification of times then of places persons and things For which cause it hath pleased God heretofore as of the rest so of times likewise to exact some parts by way of perpetuall homage And that as Aquinas it is morall that man should depute some time of his life for the service of God For there is in man a kind of naturall inclination that to every thing necessary there bee a time assigned as to our bodily refection sleepe and the like Whence also to the spiritnall refection of the soule whereby the soule is refreshed in God by the dictate of naturall reason a man deputes some time And so to have some times for holy Offices comes under the Morall Law and is absolutely of the Law of Nature written in the heart of every man being involved in that principle which even depraved nature hath ever acknowledged viz. that God is to be worshipped And therefore Amesius hath well observed that thus farre the time of Gods worship falls under that precept which exacts the worship it selfe and as God when he created the world is said to have concreated time with it so when he ordained religious actions he appointed also to the same a time for them as a necessary circumstance without which they could not be performed And as the time in which such actions are done so that some Day or Dayes should be destinated and set apart for the more solemne performance of those actions may seeme to be a dictate of the same Law of nature in as much as the Heathens who had no other guide but the law of Nature had their solemne Feasts and set Dayes in all ages consecrated to the worship of their Gods whereby they manifested though not the knowledge of the true God yet their acknowledgement of that Principle That God is to be worshipped and the conveniencie of assigning some Dayes peculiarly to that end For the second That one day in the revolution of seaven should be thus set a part this cannot be said to be absolutely of the Law of nature Nature being ignorant of this without the instruction of the written Law in which God hath revealed his pleasure concerning the Quota pars or how much of our time hee requires to be consecrated to Him And this will easily appeare to any that doth without prejudice consider it For it is an easie thing to give an estimate of what Principles are naturall and written in the hearts of all men and what are gotten by instruction discipline and information Now men may by the light of Nature from the creature climbe up to the knowledge of the Creator and from the nature of God conclude his worship and from the nature of his Worship conclude a time as to all other things to be due to it But to goe further and to determine what part of our time wee cannot For it will not follow that because some time is due therefore the seaventh day more then the eighth of every moneth which was observed by the Graecians in honour of Neptune or any other day above or under that number And for this cause it is saith Saint Chrysostome that in the giving of this Commandement concerning the Sabbath which hee calls a Precept not made knowne to us by our conscience God added a reason as because Ged rested the seventh day from all his worke and againe because thou wast a servant in Egypt c. Whereas in those Precepts that are purely morall as when he saith Thou shalt doe no murther hee onely gives the precept without giving any reason at all Why so saith that Father because our conscience had taught us this before so that God speakes as to those that knew and understood reason sufficient for the Prohibition Neither doth Eusebius though alledged by some to that purpose any way contradict this when he saith That not onely the Hebrewes but all almost both Philosophers and Poets acknowledged the seaventh day to be sacred For here it is not questioned whether the Gentiles which wanted the law of God to informe them did hold the seaventh day as hallowed but whether they were induced by the instinct of nature so to account it
that were vnder the law that wee might receive the adoption of sonnes Secondly the Iews by reason of their long abode in a place of continuall servile toyle could not suddainely be weaned and drawne unto contrary offices without some impression of terror whence the severity with which this duty was enjoyned and the violation thereof punished was to them most necessary And besides we know that there is nothing more needfull then to punish with extremity the first transgressors of those Lawes that require a more exact observation for many ages to come These considerations then being peculiar unto them that strict rest which was thereupon exacted being but accidentally annexed to the principall sanctification of the Sabbath cannot belong unto us by vertue of that command by which it was enjoyned them And this is confessed even by those that stand most for the observation of the Sabbath who grant that the strictnesse of the rest on the Sabbath was Ceremoniall and did belong to the Iewes onely and is abrogated by the death of Christ So Elton And Amesius It may be granted that there was somewhat a more strict observation of the Sabbath commanded in those times as fitted to the pedagogy and time of servitade which obteynes not in all ages So he and generally the most of those which propugne the Doctrine of the Sabbath To give a briefe and full resolution to the first question propounded viz. whether and how farre forth the fourth Commandement concerning the Sabbath is morall and perpetuall and so belonging to us Christians To the former part I say the fourth Commandement is partly morall and partly Ceremoniall To the latter I say First it is morall and perpetuall that some time be dedicated to the solemne publique worship and service of God Secondly that one day in the revolution of seaven be consecrated to this end is not morall yet very convenient and fitly observed and retayned by the Church of Christ Thirdly that the particular seaventh day which the Iewes observed is neither morall nor sit to bee observed being altogether abrogated and out of date ever since the death of Christ Lastly the resting from ordinary labours as it is connected with the dutyes of Gods worship and a means without which they cannot be performed is no lesse necessary on the dayes consecrated to that end now then heretofore but as it concerned the Iewish Sabbath it is together with the Sabbath abrogated So that Christians are not bound either to rest on that day which the Iewes did or to rest on their owne Sabbaths or dayes consecrated to Gods service with the same strictnesse which was enjoyned the Iewes on theirs Thus much shall serve to have spoken of the first generall question Having explained the nature of the fourth Commandement touching the Iewish Sabbath I come now to speake of the Lords Day in which that which was Morall in that Commandement is and ever hath beene observed by Christians The institution of which when and by whom it was being the second generall part of our inquirie And here all Divines are not of one opinion Some ground this no lesse then the Iewish Sabbath upon the fourth Commandement which say they includes both the Sabbath of the Iewes and of the Christians Because the Lord doth not say Remember that thou keepe holy the seventh Day but Remember that thou keepe holy the Sabbath Day that is the Day of rest which before the comming of Christ was the seventh from the Creation but afterward the first day of the weeke or Lords Day But these men while they over greedily seeke after a divine foundation for the Lords Day doe not consider that they stretch the Precept beyond the intent of the Lawgiver For though it bee granted that the Lord doth not say Remember to keepe holy the seventh day but the day of ceasing indeterminately yet seeing in the following explication which God added it is determined unto that particular seventh which was the seventh from the Creation to which it expresly is referred as to the speciall reason of the Institution the Sabbath there cannot without forcing and manifest absurdity bee said to bee as the Genus to the Iewish and Christian Sabbath and to include both For is it not manifestly absurd and unbeseeming a rationall man and much more the wisdome of the Supreame Law-giver to say God in sixe dayes made heaven and earth and rested the seventh and for that cause sanctified the seventh Day Ergo Hee will have men in imitation of him to rest sometime viz. before the comming of Christ on that day whereon hee rested and sometime viz. after Christs comming to rest on the day in which hee began to worke Neither can this absurdity bee salved as some have endeavoured to doe by saying there is alwayes more meant in the Precepts and prohibitions then in words are expressed for those things which are so meant without particular expression must either be necessarily connected with or some way subordinat to that which is expressed that so it may be included in it Sure I am it ought no way to be excluded as we see this is by Gods owne exposition of himselfe and the reason which hee alledgeth which can no way agree both to the Jewish Sabbath and the Lords Day Again others urge the Institution of the Lords Day as founded upon Gods sanctification of the seventh Day at the Creation which being before all Ceremonies must say they needes binde Christians as well as the Jewes But this labours of the same weaknesse and absurdity which the other did For what day did God sanctifie there Surely not the first day of the Weeke but the seventh from the Creation which they must with the Jewes cry up againe if they will have their argument hold good But besides this the weaknesse of this foundation appeares in that as hath beene shewed they cannot prove that God instituted the Sabbath and commanded it to bee observed from that time forward but onely that Moses there relating the story of the Creation intimates the reason of Gods after Commanding his people to rest upon that Day And lastly granting that to be the Institution which cannot be proved and that not the seaventh day from the Creation as the words expresly say but a seaventh or one in seaven were thereby intended to be perpetuall to belong to us Christians If all this be granted here will yet be but a partiall foundatiō and no compleat institution of that particular day which we observe for all this notwithstanding why might not the second third fourth or any other have beene observed and yet that institution of one in seaven no way violated Others therefore no doubt espying the weaknesse of it forsake this hold and seeke for authority to prove it to be of Divine Institution out of the New Testament And among these Amesius will have it to bee done by Christ himselfe laying this for a ground worke that
and that not in a common banke but every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by himselfe Againe grant that S. Paul as he did not had enjoyned Christians to meete on that day and at their meeting to make a Collection for the poore yet could not this serve for a sufficient institution of that Day to succeede the Jewes Sabbath unlesse such collections did involve in them all the service of God on that day to be done or were so connected with them that they could not bee separated which no man I suppose will affirme To leave these therefore who out of an over-weening conceit of the day are willing to catch at any shadow that may seeme to countenance it and gaine to it the reputation of Divine institution Let us pitch upon that which is certaine which though it rise not so high as an immediately-divine authority yet is sufficient to ground our practise upon and to exact the due observation of the Day First then it is most certaine that our Blessed Saviour did honour this day with his most glorious resurrection and by his often apparitions upon it to his Disciples and thereby as it were pointed out this day to his Disciples as worthy to be made choice of to be celebrated in honour of him who on that day began his glorious exaltation after his triumph over Principalities and powers upon his Crosse whom he there spoyled having nayled to it and thereby cancelled the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us that is the obligation to observe the Jewish rites and ceremonies and among these their Sabbath which from that time forward the Apostle would have no man to judge Christians in who as they were freed from it by the death of Christ so by his resurrection they had ground sufficient ministred to direct them to the observation of a new Festivall Whence S. Augustine saith The Lords Day was declared to Christians by the resurrection of our Lord and from that time began to be celebrated So that for ought that appeares our Saviour did not command the first day of the weeke to be observed Hee did to use the words of the same Father Vouchsafe to demonstrate and consecrate it or as he else-where speakes The raising againe of our Lord promised us an everlasting Day and consecrated for us the Lords Day Secondly it is no lesse certaine that the Apostles upon this ground no doubt did observe this Day and had thereon their holy assemblies as Acts 20. 7. And that for the same cause the Apostle designed it for the storing up of their almes that the memory of the benefits which on that day they obtained might make them more readily contribute to the necessities of their brethren as S. Chrysostome hath observed upon 1. Cor. 16. 1. And lastly that in the time of the Apostles it obtained the name of the Lords Day as appeares Revel 1. 10. Thirdly that the ages of the Church immediately after the Apostles whether by constitution or onely in imitation of them is not knowne nor much materiall did observe this Day as the Christians Festivall stiling it the Lords Day and conveighed the same practise by continuall succession even to this day as the late learned Bishop of Winchester shewes avowing it on his credit That there is not an Ecclesiasticall Writer in whom it is not to be found Wee finde thus much then without contradiction That it hath been the practise of the Christian Church to observe the Sunday or Lords Day and that ever since yea in the very Apostles times a practise warranted by the example of the Apostles and the honour vouchsafed to that day by our Blessed Saviour himselfe Whence we may conclude with a late learned Divine That the Christian Church did not erre when in stead of the Sabbath it appointed the Lords Day to bee observed of which there is mention made in the Scripture though there be no Precept for the observation of it In which words of his I will observe three things First that he saith the Church not the Apostles or Apostolicall men for though that be most probable and hath for it the authority of S. Augustine and for that it hath beene ever observed by the Church it may justly be ascribed to them yet because if they did it they did it not as therein reporting the immediate Precept of Christ nor by any power that was properly Apostolicall but by vertue of their Pastorall power and office which was common to them with their Successours it may be termed an Ordinance of the Church and it little concernes us to know whether it were delivered by the Apostles themselves or their next after-commers Secondly The Church appointed this Day but whether at the first by expresse constitution it were commanded or by custome onely observed it appeares not Aquinas attributes it to both and how ever thus much is out of question that this Custome or Constitution was afterward by many Canons of the Church and Constitutions of Christian Emperours ratified and approved and many things ordained tending to the right due observance of it Thirdly That the Christian Church did not herein erre as having sufficient to warrant it out of Scripture though there be no Precept for it Yea and if the Scripture did yeeld no example of this practise or other ground for it in particular yet had not the Church erred in ordaining it For things pertaining to order decencie in the Church such as is among others the particular determination of the set times of Gods worship being undetermined in the word of God are in the power of the Church to be ordered so as they be done according to the generall Lawes of nature and without contradiction to any positive Law in Scripture Neither is it derogatorie to the word of God or any whit detracting from the perfection of it to affirme that though it sufficiently and abundantly containe in it all things necessary to salvation yet it hath left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church And as to take from the Scripture the sufficient determination of things necessary to salvation were an injurie and an impairing of that honour which God challengeth to his word and the Church of God hath ever deservedly yeelded to it so it were no lesse injurie to the Church of Christ to abridge it of the power of determining of this and such like things which being not of absolute necessity are yet convenient and profitable For this prerogative power the Church of God hath ever obtained and enjoyed even when it was most obliged to hold to the letter of the Law prescribing the Ceremonies belonging to the service of God that it might without imputation of adding to or altering the law of God from time to time appoint sundry rites and observances not any where prescribed in the Law Such were the appointment of the