{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to preach to pray to break bread on this day and B. White averreth as much And as to that Text of Acts 2. vers. 46. whether the margent of our English Testament transmitteth us I say that it is not inevitably not evidently to be understood of common food For f Humbertus taketh it for the Eucharist Behold the true Evangelist testifieth that the faithfull in the Apostolicall times assembled every day in Prayer and breaking of bread what are you then who say that full Masse that is the celebrating of the Eucharist ought to be performed onely twice a week And though the words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} may seem to boulster out the contrary opinion yet if you take them as they are both by the Syriack and Arabick and our own margent rendered for At home the meaning may very consonant to truth be as my learned * Tutour conceiveth That when they had performed their dayly devotions in the Temple at the accustomed times of Prayer there they used to resort to this Coenaculum immediately and there having celebrated the mysticall banquet of the holy Eucharist afterward took their ordinary repast with gladnesse and singlenesse of heart In which interpretation there is enough to reconcile both parts something for illustration being super-added For the holy Ghost doth here so I take it regard the practice of the Christians in their Love-feasts g and happily from hence they took their commencement which consisting of divers viands provided by a common purse and collation their fashion was to take so much thereof as they thought sufficient for the Communicants and so to celebrate the Lords Supper together which done they presently fell to their spare and slender chear entertaining and solacing themselves with spirituall and divine colloquies So that the fraction of bread here might have reference to their mysticall repast in the blessed Eucharist which was the first course or part of their Agape and the latter part of the verse might look at the other part thereof viz. corporall refection Their next cavill is that this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} denoteth not the first but some one day of the week wherein as they are become Separatists from our Church in her most absolute Translation so them and her I leave to end the quarrel We meet with it also 1. Cor. 16.1 and there an ordinance of the Apostles that their oblations should be upon that day Now I would gladly learn why this day rather then any other should be appointed for an Almes-day had it not been observed Holy in those times Lastly we meet with it Apoc. 1.10 but not now as formerly styled the First day of the week but apparelled in a Christian name and called the Lords-day which certainly the holy Ghost would not have done had it not passed for currant amongst Christians by that name and how could it obtain that name had it not been destined then to religious actions as a weekly holy-day Laying all these premised evidences of Apostolick practice together do they not clearly demonstrate the translation of the Sabbath into the Lords day For why should the Christian Church even in those times when every day was sanctified with devout exercises and seemed an holy Sabbath select any one distinct and peculiar day to be kept holy and why one in a week rather then in a moneth or yeare and why not in the weekly circuit the old Sabbath rather then the Lords day had not God some way made known his will to them that he would still have a Sabbath exempted from the common condition of other dayes that Sabbath to be weekly and that weekly not the old Jewish but the new Christian to be the first of the week as dignified by the Resurrection of our Saviour and the Anabaptisme of the Apostles Vtrumque mysterium nostrum utrumque utilitas nostrae as Hierome a in another case Dispensers both of inestimable benefits upon his Church the one of her justification the other of her sanctification and so this day a fit memoriall of both But here it will be demanded By whom this translation was made and to clear this doubt Hic labor hoc opus est Athanasius the great hath resolutely affirmed that Christ was the authour thereof {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Lord translated the Sabbath into the Lords day But some have found as they think an evasion for this viz. That Christ was not the authour by any mandate of his but onely the occasion of the translation which unparalleled glosse suggests to my memory that of Augustine b It is easie with every man to reply who can not hold his tongue But let us look upon the colour or fucus wherewith this interpretation as false as new is dawbed over and see if it will not with great facility wash off If Christ himself translated it then the Father thwarteth what he said before c where he tells us that the Lords day was taken up as a voluntary usage {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} we honour the Lords day he mentions no command whereas of the Sabbath he saith {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} he commanded it to be kept This indeed were something to decline our objection out of the Father if we were not assured otherwise of his mind for apparent it is that the Father neither regarded in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} voluntary usage nor in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} imposed command for do we not meet in him the same in effect counter-changed Doth he not elswhere say as much of the Sabbath as here of the Lords day That when God had finished the prime creation he rested and therefore men did OBSERVE the Sabbath in those dayes while the first creation was especially in force d He mentions here no command was therefore their observation of the Sabbath a voluntary usage Nay saith he not as much of the Lords day as of the Sabbath e When God had renewed and restored man by finishing the work of redemption he willed that the same day should be dedicated to that Restauration which the holy Ghost foreshewed by the Prophet saying This is the day which the Lord hath made And again f Gods will was that the Lords day should be manifest and declared that thou mayest know the end of the first generation to be accomplished What say you now Sir will your ingenuity descend to recant or your pregnant invention afford you another refuge Now there be many wayes by which Christ may be said to be the Translatour of the Sabbath Either by immediate institution and example as Junius a or by ratifying and approving the Translation already made by the Apostles as Maldonate b or by giving them direct and expresse commission to do it or lastly by revealing his
GODS SABBATH Before the LAW Under the LAW and Under the GOSPEL Briefly vindicated from novell and heterodox assertions By HAMON L' ESTRANGE Gent. Nemo nostrûm dicat jam se invenisse veritatem sic eam quaeramus quasi ab utrisque nesciatur Aug. cont. Epist. Manichaei CAMBRIDGE Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Universitie 1641. And are to be sold at the Angel in Lumbardstreet 20. Maii 1641. At a Committee appointed by the Honourable House of Commons for the examination of the licensing and suppressing of books c. It is ordered that this Treatise be published in print at Cambridge unlesse the Vice-Chancellour do shew just cause to the contrary within convenient time EDWARD DERING I have read over this Treatise and am so farre from pretending any thing against the printing of it that I must needs professe it to be a work both Learned and Orthodox and highly meriting both the best care of the Printer now and the best attendance of any Reader afterwards RICH. HOLDSWORTH Procan To the most Honourable The Court Paramount within this Realm The High Court of Parliament or Assembly of the three Estates August Senate Mightie Sovereigne of Courts WHen I call to mind that of Aristides That the Gods are to be honoured with the consecration of Temples but eminent men with the dedication of Books I could not represent to my consideration a fitter Patrone for these my weak labours then the glorious Assembly and bright Constellation of the chief and prime lights of the kingdome I invoke not your aid to boulster out mischievous doctrine the main scope of too many late Dedications but to vindicate the Truth to maintain that Truth which contrary to the Proverb hath fled to corners hath lived in blind recesse and like a needy bankrupt dareth not yet walk confidently abroad without a Parliament Protection But you being now the Lord be praised upon the great work of Reformation your wisdomes will I doubt not make narrow inquiry not onely into State but Church-Monopolists those Gnosticks I mean which seemed to have ingrost all knowledge to themselves and under that pretence have in stead of Truth obtruded upon us their own pernicious errours Amongst those truths which these Projectours have laboured to suppresse none have been more furiously persued then those which relate to the Lords Day and which maketh the prodigie none have stickled therein more then they who have with so much clamour cried up Tithes and the Episcopacy things innocent yea commendable enough onely I wish with the Athenian in Gellius they had been defended by other men Whence we may collect that if this unhappy day could any thing have promoved their greedy or ambitious desires it had surely escaped the late indignities which these mens liberall malice hath profusely shed upon it it had still continued in the esteem of a day Divinely instituted immutable and totally to be sanctified three essentiall properties thereof which they have much endeavoured to evert I in this my work as much to uphold At the first instant of its manumission it hath a strong ambition great Councel to live under the influence of your favour a boldnesse on which it durst never have adventured had it not been assured the Truth which it professeth will gain it some measure of acceptance with so profest a Patriot of Truth The God of Truth prosper you and in you us he direct all your consultations that their issue may be his glory in the peace and safetie both of this Church and State with all true English Christians so fervently prayeth Illustrious Assembly In the highest degree of the lowest obedience Your L' ESTRANGE To the right worshipfull his highly honoured Father Sr. HAMON l' ESTRANGE knight of Hunstanton in Norfolk Most honoured Sr. TO this worthlesse Tract having meditated a double dedication not then purposing to prefix both or that I thought one not enough which of these two should preponderate my equall inclination to either I could not though with long debate determine at length therefore that I might dwell no longer in this suspence I resolved to issue out both and the rather because their errands were so difform so divers for This Treatise is the first fruits of my studies therefore of common right sacred to God and the rather because the main subject thereof is His Day His by institution His by denomination and it being the first fruits of dayes as Saint Basill elegantly calleth it of right his Now seeing all offerings were according to Gods prescript First to be brought to the high Priest who was to examine them whether they were such as God would accept and then to present them before the Lord To whom sooner then to your self Sir should I bring this my petty oblation It is said that Cain and Abel brought their offerings that is as most learned men conceive to Adam their Father that he might present them why then may not I mine to you If he was their Priest why may not you be mine Fathers of Families you know were anciently all such And though Consecration and Ordination hath somewhat dimmed their wonted splendour yet I hold for certain that their Priestly office neither is nor shall be utterly extinguished To you therefore Sir I hope not impertinently I bring this my poore oblation I know too well how strong frailty is in me to say it is without blemish or not lame yet if your judgement shall conceive it a work acceptable to God and beneficiall to his Church I most humbly crave you would be pleased to present it to him for me And this is the first cause of this addresse to you The other this Sir you are my Parent second in honour to God so the wisdome of the Ancients styleth you and certainly if any Parent may challenge honour from a Son you may from me To which honour you have a double title One wherein all Fathers intercommon by Generation the other almost peculiar to your self by Education I had almost said Regeneration perhaps not altogether unfitly for good nurture is a kind of morall Regeneration and usually a preparative to the Spirituall I call the Education you have bestowed upon me almost peculiar to your self because that whereas most Parents are either sordid in their allowance or negligent in instructing or become lewd patterns to their children you have in breeding me failed neither in purse nor in precept nor in example I write not this to flatter you but to manifest that I set a due and just value upon this your Fatherly care and that though there were no Divine Law to constrain me to it yet this alone were sufficient reason for me to honour you And if every the meanest part of my education obligeth me to this acknowledgement sure your training me up to letters much more especially in this age when to know even Fundamentalls and necessary Truths is accounted at least pedanticall if not as Saint Paul
c. That some Gentiles were thereto bound the pellucid fountain of verity sheweth plainly Let not the sonne of the stranger that hath joyned himself to the Lord speak saying God hath utterly separated me from his people If you say that these were Israelites by covenant though not by seed then why may not the Christian Gentiles who are covenantees as well as the Jews who are also the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise and united in Christ Jesus why may not they observe it also will you say because the day is abrogated and annulled and can you demonstratively prove it so The Jewish Sabbath was questionlesse indeed abolished but was the Sabbath of the fourth commandment so If you say Yea for they were both one I reply it is with greater facility said then proved And now we arive at the last circumstance considerable in the precept Quid. Of this it is controverted what day the precept enjoyneth whether the Jewish Sabbath the Saturday or any other particular and expresse day Most hold the Jewish seventh from the creation to be the day directly prescribed there but I think it no hard task to beat them or from that hold or in it For first I would gladly know where in expresse terms the Saturday-Sabbath or seventh from the creation is commanded in this precept examine and dissect it throughly Remember thou sanctifie the Sabbath day The Sabbath day it is you see not the seventh from the creation Therfore a Zanchie hath set a nota bene upon it That God not without cause said not Remember thou sanctifie the seventh day but the day of rest that is saith he b The day consecrated to rest by God either immediately by himself or mediately by the Church directed by the holy Ghost whatsoever day it be Thus he more circumspectly then what he delivered three columnes before where he saith that the word Sabbath here comprehendeth all the Jewish festivalls What hath moved him and other learned men to this fantasie it much amuseth me God telleth us distinctly what Sabbath he here meaneth the weekly of any other there is altum silentium not a word He saith Sanctifie the Sabbath in the singular not Sabbaths in the plurall number c The observation not of many festivals but of one onely is there enjoyned And what necessity of bringing these feasts within the compasse and obligation of this precept which have commands proper and peculiar to themselves As therefore ancient Canons d said to pragmaticall Bishops which invaded their jurisdiction so I to these Jewish feasts Let them keep their own home their own stations they have nothing to do here Well the Sabbath must be sanctified but what day that should be is not yet explained in the subsequent words indeed there is some hint of it six dayes shalt thou labour there is one character by which we may know it Six dayes are at our own dispose but we must not hold over our term The seventh is the Sabbath it is as Philosophers say Terminus minimus quod sic the least proposition of time we must allow God in a narrower limitation his worship will not subsist a seventh day he will have The seventh is the Sabbath The seventh what seventh he saith not the seventh from the creation he nameth no day if he had it would have restrained the Law to that day but because he meant the day should change and yet the Law continue he saith onely the seventh that is the seventh after six or one in a week e For f To depute one day in a week is formally to depute the seventh day though materially one and the same day be not alwayes deputed Well but will one in a week serve the turn is there nothing else required is the determination of this one in seven in our power No there is a proviso for that it must be the Sabbath of the Lord thy God that is which he hath already or should declare to his Church to be his Sabbath and this is another character of the Sabbath It must be of Gods own choice But still not one word of the Jewish Sabbath no discovery of it yet but we have not done with the precept perhaps we shall find it in what remaineth It followeth then For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth and all that therein is and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it Here I confesse the precept seemeth very apposite very full so full as we are accused for no lesse then high treason against the holy Ghost in daring to affirm the contrary f These Dogmatists saith one are not affraid to make the holy Ghost a liar who teacheth in most clear and expresse terms That God Almightie blessed the very seventh day on which himself rested An heavie charge did we not plead not guiltie That God blessed the very seventh day whereon he rested we not deny but whether he did expresly command the observation of that day by this or any other member of the fourth precept that is the thing whereof we demand clear demonstration Nor yet should we call this into dispute had we not just cause to appeal from the old Translation which hath herein imbraced a strange singularitie for where it readeth God blessed the seventh day the Geneva Spanish that of Hierome all that I have perused the Septuagint onely excepted render it God blessed the Sabbath day as our most correct and new translation hath it indeed the very fountain it self the Hebrew giveth it so which being true can what we have said deserve so loud an outcry as hath been made let any neutrally affected judge Secondly the defect of direct and expresse command is not the onely the principall motive it is I grant which allureth us to think the Jewish Sabbath in especiall manner not injoyned here another argument there is accessory to it For if God had here expresly commanded the observation of the seventh from the Creation or Jewish Sabbath the fourth precept would have been in relation to that particular ceremoniall and by consequent changeable but I think it was and is in all parts intirely morall and perpetuall and my opinion is founded upon two not very defeasable reasons First it is marshalled in the Decalogue amongst the morall and immutable laws which were notably distinguished from the ceremoniall by many circumstances The Morall uttered by God himself proved page 39. in the presence of the whole multitude written by Gods own finger given without restraint to time how long or place where Contrarywise the Ceremoniall given to Moses onely and by him declared to the people called Ceremonies Judgements Ordinances and limited onely to the land of g Jury Now it could not be agreeable to the wisdome of the God of Order to shuffle and misplace a Ceremoniall amongst his Morall laws Secondly if you cast your eye upon the Sabbath of
take a full effect untill the Church should attain her land of Canaan a settled and flourishing peace And the event seemeth to prove the ordinance for no sooner did Constantine a second Joshuah or Josiah sit sure in his throne then Gods externall worship began to be magnificently solemnized and as an especiall badge thereof his day superlatively honoured both by Imperiall edict and example and that with strict vacation from all worldly avocations ab omni opere from all work so his Histriographer m reporteth Elsewhere I grant there occurreth a constitution of this Religious Emperour tolerating labour on this day but it was in countrey villages onely and that too but in case of necessitie n lest pretermitting the opportunitie offered by the divine providence it might not occurre again o This dispensation is much urged by the Anti-sabbatarians but it hath no great force with us For first it may be well controverted whether Constantine ever made any such indulgence or no because if he had is it credible it could have escaped Eusebius who was not onely contemporary but in a manner companion with this Emperour who took speciall notice of all his actions having in designe the compiling of the Historie of his life and who over lived him yet this Bishop hath not one word of it But be it Constantine's sure we are it was after rescinded by Leo with a We ordain that all men cease from labour on the Lords day that neither husbandmen nor any other take in handwork unlawfull on that day And before Leo divers of the Fathers in their popular tracts or sermons pressed this vacation upon the people On the festivall day all handy-work is prohibited to the end that men may more intirely exercise themselves in sacred matters So Cyril o Chrysostome p calleth it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an immoveable law {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that this first day of the week be holly set apart for sacred exercâ—sâ—s But there are also fathers you will say that seem to incline to the contrary First Hierome he relateth of a religious woman governesse of the Nunnes at Bethlehem how she every Lords day resorted to the Church and after service she and her company fell to their ordinary work of making garments for themselves or others To this I answer consider Paula as a subject and then tell me how can you acquit her of the breach I will not say of the fourth but of the fifth precept if Bethlehem was within the latitude of Constantine's decree and certainly it was for that reached Omnes Romano Imperio parentes all men subject to the Romane Empire And if this Lady was not within the verge of the dispensation for that was for husbandmen onely was not then this her act a disobedience to her Princes law and therefore her example no rule of those times it being it self irregular Besides S. Hierome telleth us of religious persons of the other sex Monks that they did orationi tantùm lectionibus vacare busie themselves in prayer and reading on the Lords day Now consider Paula and her Nunnes as women and compare their practice with that of these Monks and then if the masculine practice be not more worthy then the feminine let Grammar scholars judge Out of Gregory they tell us that he giveth it as one cognizance of Antichrist q That he shall enjoyn the Lords Day and the Sabbath to be oâ—served with abstinence from all work To which I answer There are two things which Gregorie here reproveth in the observation of the Dominicall Day first a Jewish not a moderate and sober restraint and this is certain for in the very same epistle he saith r On the Lords day we must cease from labour and by all means attend our prayers secondly the celebrating it together with the Sabbath for it is Diem Dominicum Sabbatum the Lords Day and Sabbath both which was the errour of the Ebionites And therefore Gregorie for ought I see standeth their friend no more then Hierome This Gregory was a man of the sixth Centurie an age wherein themselves acknowledge this restraint took deep root and so it continued successively downward even to the times of Reformation nor did the first Reformers those of our Church especially exercise themselves in varying any thing at all in this point from the received practice as may appear both in the statute and canon laws both of this and other countreys But hitherto I have onely insisted upon restraint from labour and servile work there is yet another question concerning restraint not from work but play and from recreations viz. Whether recreations such as are at other times lawfull are tolerable and lawfull on the Lords day To this I answer in short All recreations at other times lawfull are interdicted on this day but such whereby the mind is better disposed towards the sanctification of the day or such as are no impediments to that sanctification For the day is appointed to be sanctified that is to be an holy not a playday and it is a rule in the decalogue and all other divine laws that where any thing is commanded to be done all things subservient to the performance of it are consequently enjoyned as also all lets and hinderances prohibited Besides Gods house hath been ever thought profaned and polluted by sports and meetings of good fellowship why also not his day Nor is it enough that these recreations be not an hindrance to publick exercises in the Church but they must not disturb even private duties at home as meditation prayer holy conference c. For God commandeth not the sanctification of some few houres but of a day that is an hole day allowing sufficient time for repose and repast to the body And so our Church a interpreteth the command Gods obedient people saith she should use the Sunday holily and rest from their common and dayly businesse and give themselves wholly to heavenly exercises And consonant to her her sister the Church b of Ireland The Lords Day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God If holly to Gods service where have recreations a room These articles are it seemeth called in for what reason I not dispute sure I am the nulling of them was very acceptable to the disciples and followers of Arminius Men too bold and frequent in these Dominions c whose accursed tenets were there damned As an appendix to this discourse of recreations if now my opinion be demanded concerning his Majesties book I shall say of that onely this His Princely intentions were therein I doubt not pious enough not so I fear theirs who first suggested the convenience and fitnesse of that liberty unto him But in regard the foundation thereof seemeth especially to be the preserving in observation Encaenia or Church dedications of them I shall say somewhat perhaps not known to all Of their
instruct the Israelites that Gods resting from his works on the seventh day was the reason why he had selected and appointed by his commandment given to them that day rather then any other to be sanctified for his Sabbath Indeed if the fourth commandment had onely mentioned the seventh day to be the Sabbath without more ado and had supprest the reason Moses had had fit occasion to give them here this observation But seeing that Reason was fully and with indeleble characters ingraven in the Decalogue it had been mere supervacaneous and impertinent tautologie to recite it here especially considering it is the most received opinion that Moses compiled the history of Genesis after the Law was promulgated on mount Sinai and so this reason was no news to them If any notwithstanding these grosse and palpable absurdities seemeth desperately enamoured of this forlorn and despicable Prolepsis enjoy her he shall without me his rival I envy him not Come we now to survey that little which the Divine remembrancer hath afforded us of the actual observation of the Sabbath before the Law whereof two onely examples are extant the one for the observation notable the other for the violation For the observation we reade Exod. 16.22 when the Israelites had on the sixth day gathered twice as much Manna as on any other day before the Rulers of the Congregation came and told Moses and he said to them This is that which the Lord hath said To morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord We do not find here that the Israelites were amused at the word Sabbath that they expostulated with themselves as before concerning Manna what it should be no they knew well enough what it was with the Rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord they had been long acquainted it was no novelty to them the new attendance and long train of strict observances that now waited on it were the things so puzzled so possest them with wonder of a How is it changed from what it was Their old wont was to dresse their necessary viands upon the Sabbath and being now interrupted now disturbed in their accustomed practice by an uncouth innovation of Bake that which you will bake to day and seethe that which you will seethe and that which remaineth over lay up to be kept untill the morning well might they be in a study well demand a reason of this change And whereas it is by some stiffly affirmed that the Jews did bake their Manna on the Sabbath day an opinion ascribed to Theophilus Brabourn the first as my Authour telleth me that looked so near into Moses his meaning he must know that in Opticks amongst other requisites to perfect discerning justa distantia a a fit distance is one and Mr Brabourn might perhaps by looking too near see to little where the fault was whether in this or in some defect of the organe his understanding or through what other cause I not dispute sure I am that an hallucination an errour of the sight there was and that a grosse one The paraphrase they give of this Text Bake that which you will bake to day c. is this As much as you conceive will be sufficient for this present day that bake or boyl as you use to do and for the rest lay it up to be baked or boyled to morrow and to this interpretation they the rather betake them because the Israelites laid it up as Moses bad and it did not stink now say they it had been no wonder at all that it did neither breed worm nor stink had it been baked the day before Things of that nature so preserved are farre enough from putrifying in so short a space Not to dwell long in discussing this point They have mistaken both Gods miracle and Moses his meaning Gods miracle for the baking or boyling excludeth not the miracle of its not putrifying things so dressed are indeed the lesse disposed to corrupt therefore the putrefaction which Manna contracted by procrastination on other dayes notwithstanding the same order taken for preservation of it by baking and boyling was the greater miracle and because it tainted against nature and miraculously reserved upon other dayes Gods ceasing to work the same miracle upon the Sabbath might it self seem a miracle The mind of Moses they have not reacht whose words resolve themselves into this construction What you mean to bake bake to day what to seethe seethe to day and what remaineth not unbaked or unboyled but of that which you have baked or boyled more then sufficient for this dayes food lay up for you to eat to morrow and therefore Hierome hath rendred it Quodcunque operandum est facite Whatsoever belongeth to the dressing of the Manna dispatch it now But to put it out of all doubt that this errour may never readvance God himself vers. 5. commanded Moses that the people should Prepare that which they bring in and it should be twice as much as they gathered daily what was this Preparing but dressing but cooking of it so the English will bear and by a word of the same energy and signification it is rendred in I am sure most Translations so the Septuagint so Hierome so the Spanish so the French a thing so manifest as the very Friday was thence denominated {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the Preparation to the Sabbath For the violation of the Sabbath we have it recorded vers 27. that there went out some of the people on the seventh day to gather and they found none this I conceive most likely to have reference to the chap. 18. v. 12. Now because it is held by some that the primum esse and first dawning of the Sabbath began at this fall of Manna though I hope I have already sufficiently proved the contrary I would further know why it should begin then and but then was it to chalk out to the Israelites the precise seventh day from the Creation whereof they were at that time ignorant It could not be for of the seventh day whereon God rested they were not they could not be ignorant in some profane and irreligious houses it might perhaps have been lost but in others more piously affected it was certainly preserved For it is most undeniable and irrefragably true what Sr. Walter Raleigh a hath delivered and it is in substance affirmed by many others That if the story of the Creation had not been written by divine inspiration yet it is manifest that the knowledge thereof might by Tradition then used be delivered unto Moses by a more certain presumption then any or all the testimonies which profane Antiquitie had preserved and left to their successours And this he proveth by the light which Moses might have either by Cabala or letters For that the most notable occurrents of every severall age were transmitted downwards by tradition and heare-say is without all controversie a and for letters it is so clear
they had the benefit of them as some have not set down content to believe that the prophesie of Enoch mentioned by S. Jude was written and that what Josephus relateth of the Pillars errected by the posterity of Seth is true but they conceive also that Adam and all the succeeding Patriarchs compiled the histories of their own times But how Moses attained his knowledge I leave to the disquisition of them who affect curiosities yet this give me leave to note as received amongst the best Divines That the holy Ghost was not so much an intelligencer as a directer and guide to Moses in the framing the history of Genesis For the omniscient Wisdome foreseeing that it would not be alwayes safe to make Tradition the perpetuall depositary of so rare choice a jewel as the story of his Primitive Church which might either through carelesnesse loose part of what was betrusted to her or under colour of sole possessing the Truth vend counterfeit and sophisticate stuff thought it necessary for the good of his Church that a set and certain story of the first times should be compiled to which purpose he selected Moses as his Amanuensis and Register aiding him extraordinarily with his holy Spirit by whose assistance he was enabled to distinguish truth from fables which had by surreption intruded exactly to describe many minute circumstances of time place persons names c. which memory was not able to comprehend and to digest it into that perfect order wherein we now see it So that one way or other either by tradition or letters or both the precise seventh day could not at that time have been lost or forgot and consequently that no cause for the Sabbath to begin at the fall of Manna And was there any other what To be a preamble and preparation to the subsequent Sabbath this would be proved A preparation to the after strictnesse of the Sabbath it was that I confesse not to the Sabbath it self this I deny an introduction it might be to the solemnity of the Sabbath which began after not so to the Sabbath it self which was long before For though it was but in its minority but magni nominis umbra a very shadow of the after celebrity yet a Sabbath it was and the seventh day Sabbath too and this not my singular assertion but the consent of the most profound Doctours as well ancient as modern So the Fathers Origen a What was afterward commanded in the Law concerning the Sabbath the same Job both observed himself and taught his children to do the like Cyprian b This septenary number gained Authority from the creation of the world because the first works of God were made in six dayes and the seventh was dedicated to rest as sacred it being honoured with the solemnity of a command and entitled to the sanctifying Spirit Basil c The Sabbath which was the seventh day from the first creation is a type of our perfect Rest in the remission of our sinnes Nazianzen d The Creation began on the Lords day as is evident because the seventh from it is made the Sabbath bringing rest from labours Athanasius e As long as the first age or Creation was inforce so long the Sabbath was observed Epiphanius f mentioneth a twofold Sabbath under the old Law the Naturall or Weekly which was defined from the Creation the Legall or Ceremoniall which was enjoyned by the law of Moses At the heels of the Fathers follow the Schoolmen who busying themselves about nicer subtilties have left us little of their opinions concerning the Sabbath Alexander Halensis a the irrefragable Doctour though he thinketh the Sabbath was not observed by virtue of any precept before the Law yet he granteth that it was inspired as a thing meet and fit to be observed All these before Ambrose Catharine b he then not the first that understood Moses according to the letter nor yet the last no not of his own Partie Genebrard c The Sabbath was sanctified in Paradise which was also observed all the time till the Law promulgated as the Hebrews and Lyranus upon Gen. 7. deliver And in another place he telleth us out of Rabbi Abraham that Job did observe it Cornelius à lapide d It is manifest that the Sabbath was instituted and established not first by Moses Exod. 20. but long before to wit from the beginning of the world Salianus also in his Ecclesiasticall Annals doth at large refute the Prolepsis as absurd As for Protestant writers whether they be Lutheranes Calvinists or our own English we dare vie it with the Anticiparians and give them oddes two for one at least and bate the preciser sort too Luther e himself shall lead the van The Sabbath was destined from the beginning of the world to religious worship Baldwin f The Sabbath was observed from the Creation Calvin in Exod. apud a Prideaux Gualter b Doubtlesse the Fathers before the Law diligently observed the Sabbath P. Martyr c That people rest from labour one day in the week did not onely appertain to Moses Law but had beginning from Gen. 2. Zanchy d I doubt not mine own I relate without prejudice to others opinions I doubt not I say but the Sonne of God in humane shape was all this seventh day busied in most holy colloquies with Adam but he fully revealed himself to him and Eve shewed him how and in what order he created all things wisht him to meditate upon these works and in them to praise and acknowledge the True God his Creatour taught him that after his example every seventh day all labour set aside he should spend in this exercise of Pietie c. What could modesty her self more modestly assever he doth not imperiously obtrude for truth what he saith he onely telleth you his own conceit and it hath ever been permitted for men in such cases as this both to think what they will and speak what they think as the Historian saith Can any therefore but wonder that the bare delivery of a private opinion so soberly without incrochment upon others liberties should gain the Authour no better esteem then to be reckoned amongst lying Legendaries and fabulous Rabbines What Zanchy was his works speak him a learned and good man in that repute he lived in that he died I never heard him defamed for a Palephatus or Tale-coyner till now and I hope never shall again a Ursin The Sabbath was commanded from the beginning of the world by God unto all men b Bullinger The Sabbath was observed from the beginning of the world by a law naturall and divine c Beza The Precept of the Sabbath was established in the very Creation of the world even before mans fall and elsewhere he saith that Job did sanctifie at least every seventh day A saucy fellow to controul Justin Martyr his better and therefore is taught manners by my Authour
understood by this Law No it is not all Expositours take it for the hole five books and yet for this there may be some colour because the 70. render it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hierome Deuteronomium legis hujus But to return to the first text of Moses we need no other Expositour then himself what Law he appointed then to be reâ—d he telleth us in the immediate precedent verse it was that Law which he delivered to the Levites that Law which he commanded them to put in the side of the Ark Now if they can prove that onely Deuteronomy was delivered to the Levites and laid up there they shall gain my subscription Having thus proceeded as farre as my first intendment bounded me lest this discourse should jut too farre into that insuing of the Sabbath under the Gospel now no more Gods Sabbath under the Gospel WE have at last shaked off those remora's which retarded our arrivall at the Christian Sabbath at Gods Sabbath under the Gospel For a Sabbath God hath still but not the Jewish not the seventh from the creation No a The seventh day is vanisht our Lord is buried the first now dawneth our Lord is risen and his Resurrection hath consecrated to us a new Sabbath for a Sabbath God must have by the immutable Law of the fourth precept Remember thou sanctifie the Sabbath day that is that day which for the time being God hath marked out and appointed for his own {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} For if this Commandment injoyneth now no particular and set time under the Gospel then is the Law an Ennealogue not a Decalogue and so God hath lost one of his ten words but he payeth no tithe out of his Commandments his full Denary he must and will have If you say the Morall equitie viz. to yield God a competent and convenient time for his worship remaineth still and so the Commandment is not lost I answer This Fundamentall Law is tacitly implyed in this precept but so it was also in the institution of all other ceremoniall festivals the Passeover Pentecost c. to which we may as well resort as to the fourth precept for it And if this morall or naturall Law be the onely reliques of that Commandment I would fain learn what was in the Sabbath extraordinary more then in other Feasts which might intitle it to a roome amongst the morall Laws of the Decalogue when as the other Feasts were excluded Besides if this morall law of Festos dies coles maketh a distinct precept by it self I see no reason but there should be another for going to Church another for allowing God a convenient portion of our substance for these are also morall equities and so there will be an even dozen Lastly how cometh this morall equitie to be a peculiar of the Gospel onely God had from the Creation to the Law from the Law to Christ a day appropriated and that by himself to his worship what hath he lesse reason to require it under the Gospel hath he left the Christian Church to that liberty that every man may serve him as the toy taketh him and so God stand to our courtesie to be worshipped when we list You will say Nay we are not left at that libertie The observation of the Holy dayes appointed by the Church is reduced to the fourth Commandment as a speciall to a generall viz. Gods people must observe holy times because the equitie of the fourth Commandment obligeth thereunto But Easter and Christmasse day and Sunday c. are holy dayes lawfully appointed by the Governours of the Church and subordinate to the equitie of the fourth Commandment therefore Christian people are bound to observe these Holy dayes in obedience to the equitie of the fourth Commandment I answer The Church hath a power indeed to ordain festivals but is the observation of her constitutions concerning them a fulfilling the disobedience a breach of the fourth Commandment How can this be First what needs an Obligation be derived from the last precept of the first Table when the first of the latter is alsufficient Secondly is it not a mere non sequitur The fourth Commandment bindeth us to yield God a convenient time for his worship Ergò It obligeth us to observe the festivals of the Church Where learned you this Logick Suppose I pray the Church should injoyn but one day in a moneth doth he I pray who observeth her order that one day and not once more in the interim serve God perform his dutie which God in this Commandment requireth or doth he who plieth God with frequent addresses who strictly observeth canonicall houres yet onely perhaps faileth that one day which the Church injoyneth doth he I say violate the morall law of this precept which saith not Set apart such times for pious exercises as thy Governours prescribe but such as thou thy self thinkest meet In short to make this more evident Every Law positive is built upon some morall as upon a foundation now it is manifest that the foundation may stand and yet the superstructure fall as may be demonstrated in an example familiar to us The equitie of State requireth that particular persons be not inriched any way which reflecteth to the damage of a communitie upon this sociable equitie there is a positive a Statute law b inacted that None shall buy or contract for any victualls or wares before they come to the Market Fair or Port. But in some parts of this Realm especially in Norfolk such plentie of corn there is growing in most Towns as maketh every of them a kind of Market so as few men need go out of their own Villages to be supplied with materialls either for bread or beer yea the superfluitie is such as many Towns vend a thousand quarters of grain over and besides what supplieth their families and lands by reason of which great plenty little or none is sold in many Markets and the usuall practice hath been and is for Merchants to buy not in open Market but at the Barn doore great quantity thereof and export it into other parts of the kingdome where scarcitie is This act of theirs some Merchants have by smart experience lately found to be illegall but yet no violation of the foresaid equity for who complaineth that they are damnified thereby Not the Norfolcians they are eased not the Shires deficient they are relieved either part desireth it one ut impleatur that it may be stored the other ut depleatur that it may be disburthened Nor doth the fourth Commandment onely inferre out of these words Remember thou sanctifie the Sabbath that God must have a Sabbath in a speciall manner but it declareth also his will concerning the quotient and limitation thereof Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do but the Seventh is the Sabbath so that one in a week he must have If you say the limitation
given shall abide Therefore we may conclude this point with Leo h The shadows being dispelled by the presence of the verity those things which tending either to morality or the pure worship of God for piety sake were instituted do still continue in the same form with us wherein they were at first framed and what was agreeable to both Testaments is by no change altered They i to whom positive-immulable seemeth so prodigious a thing may now spare their wonder at Amesius and bestow it upon their own ignorance what he taught in this point he might and did learn no doubt in England and not onely of the Puritanes For what say you To Whitgift k No man doubteth the meaning of these words Six dayes shalt thou labour c. to be this That seeing God hath permitted to us six dayes to do our own works in we ought in the seventh wholly to serve him To Hooker l We are to account the sanctification of one day in a week a duty which Gods immutable Law doth exact for ever To Donne m God seposed a seventh of our time for his exteriour worship To Andrews n The numbers of seven and ten are not without their weight the seventh the Sabbath the tenth Gods part the Sabbath and Tenth both sacred to God To Bacon o God demandeth a tenth of our substance and which is more strict a seventh of our time What say you to these But what if Amesius had been born and lived an alien to this Kingdome had he then escaped the contagion of this errour Is England in this assertion divided from the continent of other Christian Churches assuredly no Those two lights of the reforming age Bucer and his Achates P. Martyr as in other things their judgements concurred with a rare and happy identity a so in this they differed not Our God hath sanctified one day in seven for the promoving of our faith and consequently of eternall life Bucer b That someone day in a week men attend Divine worship is no humane device Martyr c It is a morall precept as it biddeth us dedicate one day in a week for the externall service of God so Zanchie d God therefore sanctified the seventh day that man might know that in the weekly circuit one day is to be bestowed upon the publick worship of God Pareus e It is a naturall law that every seventh day be sacred to God Junius f That enemy of God g Arminius h It is morall to set apart one day of seven for Gods service The Lutherane Churches dissent not Conradus Dietericus as my Authour i informeth me Baldwin k It is morall to sanctifie one day of seven And to make up the harmony complete the Papists themselves are in this reconciled with us God would have at least one day in a week to be allowed him saith Fenus l To depute every seventh day in a week is formally to depute the seventh day though materially the same day be not alwayes deputed so Suarez m The Divine Law required that one day in a week should be sequestred for holy worship so Bellarmine n Nor is the opinion an upstart I appeal to Chrysostome o who calleth it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an immoveable Law {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to sepose one day in a week for religious actions And thus I have proved that one day in seven he must have by the perpetuall ordinance of the fourth Commandment Nor will the allowance of one in seven satisfie him unlesse he have the designation and determination of that one p It must be the day consecrated by God either immediately by himself or mediately by his Church directed by the holy Ghost whatsoever the Day be as I told you before out of Zanchy so that the Day must be of Divine Institution And this is evident First de Jure Christ calleth himself Lord of the Sabbath his dominion was not onely over the old Sabbath to abrogate that but over the new also to surrogate that as succenturiate to the other Secondly de Facto For Gods own act is the best interpreter of his will and if he had meant the Church should have had her libertie her Conge d' Eslier leave to chuse he would not have anticipated her with his own act of instituting the Evangelicall Sabbath whereof as well as of the Legall he was not onely the efficient but the exemplary cause by finishing the work of our redemption on that day But here it is demanded p Is the old Sabbath translated into the Lords day If yea by whom By any commandment of Christ where is it Produce one precept or one word of God out of the old Testament that it should be translated or out of the new commanding it to be translated or intimating that by Christs commandment it was translated Take both or which you will either the old or new Covenant and withall the best and ancientest Interpreters thereof and then I dare presume you will soon discry a Translation For the first it was adumbrated in their Circumcision on the eight day It was a type of that eight day whereon our Lord rose again for our justification So saith Cyprian q and with him Augustine r The Lords day could not but be known to the holy Prophets for there is a Psalme entituled FOR THE EIGHT DAY and on the Eight day Children were circumcised and the like elsewhere It was Prophecied in the title of the Psalmes the sixth and eleventh In finem pro octavo So Ignatius s Nazianzene t Augustine Prophecied in the * 101. Psalme Scribatur illa in generationem novam This shall be written for the Generation to come vers. 18. so Athanasius In the * 109. for so Basil understandeth diem virtutis the day of Power but above all prophecied in the 118. vers. 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made So all the Fathers who have saluted and cited that place For the second or new Covenant we need search no higher then to the practice of our Saviour and his Apostles from the Resurrection downwards to warrant and assure us of this Translation I say from the Resurrection for this their practice did not as some suppose begin in long wast of time There was no interregnum no vacancy at all no cessation of a Sabbath No not the first week No sooner was the old Sabbath abolished then the new established and installed The Jewish Sabbath that slept we all know its last in the grave with our Saviour Its ghost according to Countrey dialect or the shadow of that shadow walked indeed a while after but it self the old Sabbath expired then and immediately entered the Lords day Immediately when Christ himself was but newly up from that very day whereon he arose doth S. Augustine u derive the
primum esse of the Lords day The Lords Day was by the Resurrection of Christ declared to be the Christians Day and from that very time of Christs Resurrection it began to be celebrated as the Christian mans Festivall So hath a profound a Bishop rendered him and truly unlesse ex illo relateth to Christ which I believe you will difficultly grant though it be lesse monstrous then to marry it with Resurrectione in despight of Priscian Nor is Augustines opinion utterly of truth abandoned For though we reade not of any Sabbath-duties expresly performed on that very day of Christs Resurrection by the Apostles yet this we find that when Christ appeared to them on that day they were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Assembled on that day and the place is thought by learned men to be the coenaculum in which Christ celebrated the last Passeover and from thence derived a perpetuall consecration nor is it likely that he would inspire them in an ordinary place If then they were assembled and in a Church we may safely collect they were busied in sacred exercises The first day of our Saviours appearing to his Disciples this and the first Christian Sabbath he honoured with his beatificall presence The next was the next {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} saith S. John What on some indefinite time after eight dayes as you b would have it A word with you Sir Saint Mark telleth us that our Saviour should * {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} will you therefore have our Lords Resurrection to be on some one day after three expired you will not sure nay though I think you dare as much as another yet this you dare not No by after eight dayes is meant the eighth day after which was the next Sunday So the * Fathers agree It is necessary that that day should be the Lords day saith Cyrill c and he thence deriveth the equity of Assemblies upon that day Nay more this very day is so farre honoured by Nazianzene d as he made an Homily on purpose for it as he hath entitled it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Nova Dominica because the first Lords day solemnized in the weekly revolution after the Resurrection or rather because it was the encenium of the Resurrection for betwixt the day of the Resurrection and this he thus distinguisheth That was saith he salutifera this salutis natale That the day that brought forth salvation into the world this the commemorative Festivall of that day Though this be the last first day mentioned in holy writ which our Saviour hallowed in his assembling with the Apostles yet probable it is that he practiced the same even till his Apoge and Ascension But conjecturall arguments we will not urge when demonstrative are so hardly obtained Well our Saviour is ascended Let us now behold what honour the Spirit of Comfort which in his late valediction he promised to send his Apostles hath conferred on this Day Our Saviour is ascended and the holy Ghost descendeth but on what day the first of the week Not expresly yet consequently and by deduction yes for it was when Pentecost was arrived and this fell that yeare on the Sunday The Allwise God so disposing that the Gospel should every way parallel the Law The one given on mount Sinai on the day of Pentecost the then Legall Sabbath the other on mount Sion on the day of Pentecost the then Evangelicall Sabbath But some are of opinion the Lords day need not brag of this honour it being more then was meant it for it was say they a casuall thing that Pentecost should fall on the Sunday which I confesse seemeth to me a prodigy in Divinitie For those things onely are casuall which happen praeter intentionem operantis contrary to the expectation of the agent But here God was the agent whose omniscience nothing could escape who is privie to all events as the disposer of them True it is that necessarium and contingens necessary and contingent are terms which Theology can endure well enough when they are spoken with regard to intermediate and second causes For those Effects which are the emanations of such Causes as can in nature produce no other are said to be necessary and those which proceed from such as are in their own nature not determined to certain and definite effects are called contingent but when they are referred to the supreme and paramount Cause of all they are then and must be called Necessary Nor could the falling of Pentecost on the Sunday be a contingent thing in respect of the second Causes which were all no doubt thereof is made necessary For Scaliger hath informed you right that the Pentecost's terminus à quo was {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or the morrow after the Passeover so ever no contingency there and the Passeover it self ever as certain alwayes upon the fifteenth day or the full Moon following upon or next after the vernall Aequinox and so none there There were certainly other reasons which induced the holy Ghost to make choice of this day and time yet seeing all Antiquitie hath accounted his descent upon the Apostles amongst those titles of honour which have been dispensed upon this day I see no reason why it should be now denied it And though no glory at all the thing by some over eagerly desired should accrue to it thereby yet this is most legible that on this day the Apostles were solemnly though closely assembled in prayer and holy duties But so you will say they were on other dayes which I grant with this distinction of aequè and aequaliter for some dayes amongst them were doubtlesse dignified with a more solemn observancy then others in respect whereof they were especially reputed if not denominated Holy-dayes For how else can our Church e be understood where she saith that The Christian people immediately after the Ascension began to chuse them a standing day of the week to come together in so that both the preferring one day before another and the time of that choice viz. immediately after the Ascension she indigitateth to us The next mention of Apostolicall observation of this day occurreth Acts 20. vers. 7. The first day of the week the Disciples being come together to break bread Paul preached unto them Against this Text two exceptions lie First that by Breaking of bread is onely meant their ordinary repast no sacred Duties or celebration of the Eucharist and this they seem to make good by Saint Chrysostome and Lyra as also by the English Bible which paralleleth this place with Acts 2. verse 46. I answer some have indeed interpreted this Text of bodily repast yet the major part take it for the mysticall breaking of bread in the Communion And for our Church B. Andrews out of this very place affirmeth positively that the Apostles were assembled {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
will to them by the holy Ghost after his Ascension To render mine own opinion and beyond opinion I will not adventure Furiosares est in tenebris impetus it is madnesse to run too boldly in the dark where the Scripture is silent it is never safe dogmatically to determine any thing to render I say mine own opinion the first way seems to me the more probable considering our Saviours apparition the assembling of the Apostles upon that day whilest he abode with them and the testimony of Athanasius Nazianzene and Augustine but especially because Clemens a contemporary of the Apostles in his genuine epistle to the Corinthians saith g Our Saviours pleasure was that oblations and publick service of the Church should not be inordinately and uncertainly performed but at times appointed Which if it were true we need not then doubt but that Christ himself made the Lords day a weekly holyday it being the principall day we reade of destined to sacred duties in the Apostolicall age But the matter is not much by which so we be able to prove that at least by one of these waies he did it And this is a thing very feasable For to take a short and speeding course the most embraced and popular opinion is that the Apostles instituted and translated the Sabbath into the Lords-day this is agreed upon by all ancient and modern Augustine a The Apostles and Apostolick men ordained the Lords day to be celebrated with religious solemnity The Authour b of that Tract or at least of that Chapter falsely ascribed to Basil affirmeth the station and custome of standing upon the Lords day to be an Apostolicall Tradition if so then the day it self much more Isichius c We following the Tradition of them that is the Apostles sequestre the Lords day for holy meetings Epiphanius d saith that the Apostles ordained the Synaxes to be held {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} on the Wednesday Friday and Lords day I keep the originall word Synaxes because of the diverse sense whereof it is capable e The same is affirmed by Zanchy in quartum praeceptum pag. 669. Melancth. tom. 2. fol. 363. Bucer Ratio Can. Examin Mercer in Gen. Beza in Apoc. Pareus also ascribeth the Translation of the day Apostolicae Ecclesiae to the Apostolick Church onely of the time when they translated it he leaveth as he findeth doubtfull Quando autem facta sit haec mutatio in sacris literis non apparet And so 〈◊〉 his words in two severall editions I have perused that in quarto and the other in folio which I note the rather to whisper to you D. Heilens fidelity who in his also two severall editions hath by a new transsubstantiation converted Quando into Quomodo and to make it apparent he did it de industria he descants on it and renders it How by what authority Ursin Catech. p. 3. in Decalogum is of the same mind and so Junius in Gen. Baldwin Cas. pag. 474. Alsted catech. in praecept 4. Bellarm. De cultu Sanctor l. 3. c. 11. and infinite others indeed what needs more it is confest by our very Antagonists themselves Brerewood a B. White b Heilen c who all {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} with one mind acknowledge the Apostles to be the instituters of the Lords day This foundation of Apostolicall institution being thus laid I advance forward to enquire whether this act of the Apostles did flow onely from the generall authority delegated to them by Christ or some definite and expresse command to that effect or rather in clear terms I proceed to discusse that great question Whether the Lords day be established Jure Divino Great I call it not for any abstruse and perplexed intricacy in it no Learned and eminent maintainers it hath got and therefore great but it is not her great Patronage shall advantage errour Magna est veritas praevalebit Truth is great and will prevail yea but that is the question whose Truth is It is so and come then for the decision of this question d To that truth which is neither mine nor thine but the equall object of us both let us give attention our clear and 〈◊〉 judgements not beclouded with peevish stubbornnesse To entitle a command Divine it is not onely required saith that thus farre judiciously learned Brerewood that the Authority be so whereby it is originally warranted for there may be Divine authority for humane decrees but that the Authour also by whom it is established be Divine Because Divine commandments are not so much evidences of Gods authority as they are declarations of his will and pleasure Which being without controversie true that which we are to make good is That this Act of the Apostles was but the execution of a particular and severall command to that purpose which can no sooner render it self manifest then by surveying the Apostolicall both Mission and Commission As for their Mission it was with all the grace and honour that might be nothing wanting that might any way enhance it As my Father sent me so send I you John 20.21 He that heareth you heareth me Luke 10.16 where our Saviour maketh them a kind of letter of Atturney to receive what obedience himself might claim And having dignified their embassage with these previous expressions Go saith he Matth. 28.19 there is their Mission and Legation and teach there is their Commission But what to teach what themselves think fit no there is a limitation a restriction it must be onely the observation of what thinâ—s I have commanded you and lest through frailty of their memories any thing should perish which was essentiall to their message Christ himself will have an eye to them I am with you alway even to the end of the world saith he With them how in corporeall presence that could not be for he was now ready to leave them No he was with them in Spirit by the Comforter whom he promised to send them John 15.26 And this Comforter had his Commission too To bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever Christ had formerly said to them John 14. â—6 And though this Comforter is called the Spirit of Truth and so impossible it is that he should inspire any thing lesse then truth yet when Christ telleth his Apostles that this Comforter should guide them into all truth he presently saith withall That he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall heare that he shall speak He shall receive of mine and shew it to you which denoteth to us that the doctrine of the Gospel is in a more especiall manner to be ascribed to Christ then to the holy Ghost who was but our Saviours delegate and Committee therefore S. Paul saith that Christ spake in him 2. Cor. 13.3 It being then indisputably clear that the Apostles were inspired by the holy Ghost and that that Divine enthusiasme was
Church as appeareth by the Rubrick of her book of Ordination of B. P. and Deacons b So that your assurance as sure as you take yourself to be may in this for ought I see deceive you But be it as you would that such an election is not to be found expresly written yet will it neither follow that it being an unwritten Tradition Apostolicall it is not Divine or that Cyprian in that place thought so What his opinion there was I have already told you and sure I am his words as well agree with your new-fangled distinction as if he and you had been at crosse purposes As for Traditions Apostolicall the greatest Papists hold them for divine So Bellarmine c and his reason is Quòd non sine spiritu Dei eas Apostoli instituerint Because the Apostles did not institute them without the direction of the holy Ghost And for the same cause Roffensis d calleth Consecration by which Transubstantiation is effected a divine Tradition Licèt nullis possit Scripturis comprobari Though it cannot be proved by any written Word But none more home then Gerson e It is not in the power of the Pope Counsel or Church to alter Traditions delivered either by the Evangelists or Saint Paul as some blunderers think Thus you see your self deserted by them whom you took to be the greatest fautours of your opinion Let me advise you Sir if you have any more distinctions of the same stuff with those former habitent tecum sint pectore in isto suppresse them for they will never credit you Though I have by main force of this invincible argument of Apostolicall Institution and Tradition reinvested the Lords Day into a possession of Jus divinum assured and confirmed enough against all machinations of her greatest oppugners yet wanteth she not other should need so require auxiliary to her For that Evangelicall day which was prophecied of and prefigured in and under the old Law could not certainly be an humane device But the Lords Day was shadowed under Circūcision on the eighth day prophecied in many Psalmes both proved by sufficient Testimony of the Fathers Ergò the Lords Day is no humane ordinance Lastly as the Eucharist is called the Lords Supper because he instituted it for the same reason is the Sunday denominated the Lords Day For these two the Day and the Supper have the epithete of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Scripture to shew that Dominicum is alike to be taken in both saith B. Andrews Before I take cognizance of other questions pertinent to the Lords Day lest I be thought over partiall to mine own assertion painting it as Apelles did one-eyed Antigonus who presented him half faced and lest our adversaries should upbraid us that they have not been allowed to object the negative arguments shall have audience and as they lie in order their refutation Whatsoever is of Divine Institution is to be found either in the naturall or positive Law of God But that the First day of the week should be the Christian mans Sabbath is not so found Ergò the Lords Day no divine Ordinance It is found in the positive Law of God delivered by his Apostles and founded upon the moralitie of the fourth Commandment as I formerly shewed But saith one You onely shewed what the Apostles observed themselves that they imposed the keeping of the Lords Day as necessary upon the conscience of Gods people by any law or precept whatsoever that we reade not and so it will become a Tradition which though Apostolicall is no Commandment Is not this fine stuff assuredly an argument rather that they have not left speech then that they are returned to their right senses for to omit Augustine's sanxerunt Bucer Junius Beza and others who make it the Institution of the Apostles doth not Brerewood himself confesse it to be the ordinance of the Apostles and B. White b the same also what I pray is an Ordinance but a Law and was this a Law that bound themselves onely and not at all the succeeding Church is it like they would constitute a Law to expire with themselves And whereas we are now taught a distinction betwixt Tradition and Command we will for quiet sake though it biddeth defiance to all antiquity admit it in the same sense you impose upon it and accept it for a mere leaving of the observation of this day to the Church without any expresse command to observe it yet I say you shall find Command so implicitly complicated with Apostolicall Tradition as all your waters of separation all your chymicall extracts of School-distinctions shall never be able to sever them For are you able to unmake Tradition to make that no Tradition which is Tradition If you be not so long as it is Tradition it hath expresse command affixt to it Tenete Traditiones Hold the Traditions 2. Thess. 2.15 So that if Tradition were it self no command yet hath it here command annext to it And though I grant that our Expositours understand this place especially of the written word yet extend they it to Traditions unwritten also such as are clearly held to be Apostolicall and have if not mention yet foundation in Scripture amongst which the observation of the Lords Day is worthily accounted a It hath the approbation of the Scriptures and therefore cannot be numbred amongst unwritten Traditions saith the Reverend Salisbury with others b And for the Church succeeding the Apostles it is most evident she held her self obliged to the same observation For even in times of persecution before any either imperiall Edict or Canon of Councel enjoned it the observation of this Day was so taken notice of by the Heathen that it became a constant Interrogatory to the Christians in their examining Dominicum servasti Have you kept the Lords Day To which their answer was ever ready c I cannot intermit it for I am a Christian and the Law of God prompteth me to it Here we see these holy Saints had a Law for the celebrating of this day and have we none Perhaps you will say It may be questioned whether Dominicum here signifieth the Lords Day because Baronius d and Bellarmine e apply it to the Masse and it may also well be understood of the Eucharist which is often in antiquity called Dominicum I answer It cannot properly and distinctly be understood of either Not of the Masse for though Papists inform their disciples of I know not what pro-sekenique antiquitie it hath yet sure we are that as now stated it was not in being above a thousand years after our Saviour and so it could not be meant in this place Besides the question was propounded as well to the Lay as Clergy-Christians of whom it had been absurd to expostulate Num Dominicum egissent whether they had said Masse which is onely done by the Priest Nor can it respect the
Eucharist otherwise then by implication as it was then an usuall work of that day because it is said that they might not intermittere which especially relateth to time as interpose to place and inferreth the not doing of a dutie in its proper quando which cannot be well interpreted of the celebration of the Eucharist it being not restrained by any positive Law of God to a certain time And indeed it was more proper to examine them whether they held their Christian assembly whether they met on the Lords Day considering it consequently inferred the performance of all sacred duties then to inquire whether they had celebrated the Eucharist which according to the custome of those times was often performed at home being reserved for the same purpose If Christ had either here on earth or after by revelation from Heaven given his Apostles any such charge of Instituting a new Sabbath sure Christs Apostles would not have concealed Christs command Besides the Apostles holding their first Synod would doubtlesse have exprest as much to the Gentiles First Christs Apostles did not conceal Christs command for what if perhaps it be not extant in their writings They were indeed our Saviours executours performers of his will but was his hole will exemplified in Scripture certainly no Some part thereof was declared in ima Cera as Civilians say and by Tradition For Tradition which is clearly known to be Apostolicall is as perfect evidence of Christs will as the Canonicall Scripture it self For the Scripture before it was Scripture was but a part of Tradition and became Scripture that it might be of more ready use and better preserved from perishing but mainly because it was the fundamentall Canon of our Religion Secondly The Apostles in their Synodicall Epistle had onely respect to the Judaicall not to Evangelicall observances Moreover the solemnity of the Lords Day was made known to them by former practice equivalent with precept at least if not by precept it self for according to our Church a The Christian people immediately after the Ascension began to chuse them a standing day of the week to come together in My learned Authour biddeth us here observe that the day was chosen by Christian people and if chosen by them then not injoyned by the Apostles I see a man may learn something every day for I professe ingeniously till this instant I took the Apostles to be Christians Lastly the precept was in the negative not in the affirmative If you say True and hence we may inferre that the first Christians were tied to no affirmatives but such as were expresly commanded by Evangelicall precept I answer then it must follow that women did not communicate children were not baptised Ministers not ordained incorrigible persons not excommunicated these being not expresly commanded by any Evangelicall Law Whatsoever is of divine Institution and by necessitie of precept laid upon the whole Church is a necessary dutie without which if it may possibly be observed no salvation can be had But no man will affirm so of the Lords Day Ergò c. The major is false for positive precepts omitted do not inevitably damne any man but where there is a malicious contempt or wilfull neglect of the ordinance The Sacrament of Baptisme shall be mine instance It was in the Primitive Church procrastinated by some many years by most in their usuall practice some moneths and is even in our own Church some dayes In all this delay no inevitable impossibility debarreth the competent or person to be baptized from this Sacrament will you then say that Heaven gates are precluded against all those whom hasty death cutteth off in this delay Heare the most uncharitable of all the Ancients in this point d S. Augustine The Sacrament of Baptisme is invisibly accomplished as long as the fault proceedeth from absolute necessitie not from contempt of the ordinance The Gospel commandeth onely such observations which are either means of grace as the Word and Sacraments or wherein the exercise and use of grace doth consist as the duties of love towards God and Man But the observation of the Lords Day is neither a means of grace nor exercise of grace Ergò c. That which is a part of divine worship is a means of grace But the observation of the Lords Day is so Ergò c. The minor I prove thus That is a part of divine worship whose Institution is divine But the Institution of the Lords Day is divine as I have made evident Ergò c. If you say that Junius * Amesius and others who hold the Day to be Jure divino make it yet onely an adjunct to not a part of divine worship I answer that as it is a time set apart for holy worship it is an adjunct to it but as it is a time determined by God himself the very observation thereof is a part of divine worship which is nothing but a religious observance of the true God according to the prescript of his own will Besides it is a means to stirre up our souls to the exercise of grace in pious meditations when we consider it in all its prerogatives superlative above other dayes as that which was the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and in all probability shall be the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of dayes and therefore aptly dedicated to him who calleth himself {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the day of our Saviours resurrection by which we are justified as the day of the holy spirits descension by whom we are sanctified as the day which mystically prefigureth our eternall rest when we shall be glorified And therefore it is worthily and truly called by * Ignatius The sublimest and primate of all dayes That day which cannot be kept universally throughout the whole world was never commanded the whole Church of Christ by an Evangelicall Law For the Gospel is given to all Nations But the Lords day cannot thus be universally observed considering the diversitie of meridians and unequall rising and setting of the sunne in divers Regions in some whereof time is not distinguished into weeks or dayes by morning and evening as in Groinland Finmark Lapland c. The positive Laws of God do not alwayes imply a possibility in them upon whom they are imposed The Jews were injoyned many observances of sacrifices feasts c. which could not alwayes be performed by them as in case of captivity or durance So the Christians are commanded the celebration of the Eucharist and yet the condition of some Countreys is such as they have not bread a of others as they have not wine b The truth is Gods commandment may impose but never oblige unto things sometimes impossible where there is an utter impossibility of observation as in this or the like case that
impossibility is a necessity with which the Law dispenseth And this is the reason to speak to the point in question why the Sabbath being given to Adam and in him to all mankind Gen. 2. was not described as the other six dayes by evening and morning as also why the Sabbath of the fourth Commandment of like latitude with the former is not set out by expresse bounds of from Eve to Eve as that in the Leviticall Law which onely concerned the Jews to intimate that the journall or dayly round of the Sunne should be no precise rule or character of his Sabbath in such places where time is not so distinguished but that there his people are to give him a seventh of their time as it is with them distinguished And though the Regions abovesaid have not naturall dayes described by the circulation of the Sun from East to West yet times they have holding so near correspondence with such naturall dayes that in some parts they are denominated dayes and for Island if my intelligence misleadeth me not their dayes are homonymall with ours in England an argument of their not different either Planters or Conquerours as derived from the same idoles in Planetary computation whereof the learned Selden and Verstegan can inform you There is the same reason of keeping a determinate set Sabbath under the Gospel that there is of preaching praying administering the Sacraments c. But these are not determined how often they shall be done Ergò It is not limited what time shall be a set Sabbath Every of these though they be not absolutely restrained yet their proper time is this very Sabbath whereof those duties were a finall cause to speak in particular It is a Day of Preaching and so ever was in the Primitive Church Origen alluding to the first fall of Manna in the wildernesse saith The Lord ever raineth down Manna from Heaven on our Lords day and so in the Apostolicall age Acts 20.7 It is a Day of Prayer We must by all means intend our Prayers on the Lords Day that by them on that Day we may expiate for all our negligences and escapes in the week-dayes So Acts 2.1 the Christians were assembled {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} with one accord on this Day and how they were wont then to be imployed the Historian telleth you c. 1. v. 14. it was {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Prayer It is a * Day proper for the Eucharist and therefore anciently called Dies panis and in some places as in Alexandria the onely Day and Time for it So Acts 20. vers. 7. the Disciples came together to break bread that is to communicate of the Eucharist It is a day proper for the Sacrament of Baptisme and therefore anciently called Dies lucis the Day of illumination This Sacrament not usually being conferred unlesse in case of eminent necessity but upon this Day So Acts 2.41 the most notorious president extant no lesse then {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} very near three thousand were this Day baptized Lastly it was a day of almes Pro arbitrio quisque suo quod visum est contribuunt quod ità colligitur apud praepositum deponitur saith Justin Martyr And so 1. Cor. 16.1 Saint Paul ordained it should the First of the week be a day of collection for the poore That which is expresly against Christian libertie was never commanded by Christ or his Apostles But to have the Conscience burdened with any outward observations putting religion in them as being parts of Gods worship is directly against Christian libertie for how is he free that is thus bound to times and dayes What you understand by Christian libertie I know not sure I am that Christ onely delivered us from the observation of the old ceremoniall Laws and from the sting of punishment due to the breach of the Morall but that he exempted us from all outward observations whatsoever is a fancy of your own without warrant from the Scripture For would he then have imposed the outward observation of Sacraments if we had not been obliged to them and you are in this implunged in errour beyond the Anabaptists for they cry up Christian libertie to free them from the constitutions of men onely but you will have it reach to the very ordinations of God There is no dutie essentiall in Religion ordained by Christ or his Apostles of which we find not either exhortations in respect of performance or reprehensions in regard of their neglect either in the Gospel Epistles or Acts But the keeping of the first Day of the week Sabbath is no where pressed or exhorted unto the neglect thereof no where reproved in all the new Testament Ergò c. Paedobaptisme the communicating of women is I hope essentiall in Religion secundùm esse perfectum but where do you find any exhortation to the observation any reproof for the neglect of these duties Besides I see nothing to the contrary but it may be included in Saint Pauls admonition of Tenete Traditiones whereof before Had the observation of the Lords Day been of Divine Institution it is very probable that the Apostle reproving the Corinthians for going to law would not have omitted the advantage of this circumstance For plain it is that their pleadings were ordinarily upon the Lords Day But he omitteth c. That which you make so probable was I affirm considering the Spirit which alwayes assisted him utterly impossible in the Apostle for how could he who knew his Lord and Master had often determined the contrary in very like cases opposing Pharisaicall strictnesse how could he nay how durst he prevaricate or swerve from Christs rule he knew it lawfull to cure a crazie body and was it sinne to consolidate a crackt estate upon the Sabbath it was justifiable to drag a beast out of the ditch why not also land out of the oppressours claws on that day when it could not be done on another If Christ had appointed this day as the day of his Resurrection then the Eastern Churches which followed S. John transgressed this ordinance of Christ when they kept their Easter on another day But they sinned not in it Ergò c. Christ nor his Apostles for ought we know gave no commandment concerning Easter neither is it necessary that the anniversary and weekly memoriall of one and the same benefit should alwayes jump together Gods own precept in almost the same case we know was otherwise The Jewish Sabbath and Passeover were both commemoratives of their redemption out of Egypt yet one was fixed to the day of the week the other to the full of the moon so as they seldome met together Had it been a Divine Institution doubtlesse those Fathers and Synods which have spoken so much in praise of the Day displaying the prerogatives thereof would never have omitted this
which is the greatest of all But none ever affirmed a Divine Institution Ergò c. They do not indeed mention it sub terminis because it was not questioned in their dayes but if they make it instituted by Christ as some or by his Apostles as almost all and if they tell us * Whatsoever the Apostles delivered by the dictate of the holy Ghost is as firm and indefeasable as what Christ himself then I hope by necessary consequence they make it of Divine Institution That which the orthodox condemne for popery should not be consented to by us But that the Lords day is a part of Gods worship and more holy then other dayes as from Divine authoritie is condemned by Reformists in the Papists Therefore we ought not to symbolize with them No reformed Writers condemne this in the Papists because they hold the Lords Day more holy then others but onely such and those very few as think the Day to be of Ecclesiasticall not of Divine Institution The orthodox Thesis is this * Festivall dayes cannot by humane constitution be made more holy then others as Amesius to whom you appeal could have informed you Lastly Socrates affirmeth that the Apostles never intended to establish laws concerning Holydayes S. Augustine also maketh it will-worship or idolatry to observe any day as commanded of God S. Hierome likewise saith we have no dayes having any holinesse in them and necessitie from Divine institution The book of Homilies affirmeth that Christian men of themselves without any Divine precepts did take upon them the observation of the Lords Day All reformed Churches consent with us and many Martyrs in the Marian dayes as Tindall Frith Barnes Lastly Master Perkins speaketh doubtfully herein yet he was one of the first that took up this tenet Socrates must have a candid Reader or be argued of overbold singularitie against all Antiquitie who affirmed the contrary Augustine saith that the Christians in his time did not observe so much the festivals themselves as what was signified by them and therefore he saith that the Apostle did blame the Galatians in this because they did observe appointed times servilely not knowing the mystery to which they tended he speaketh nothing of their institution not one word Hierome indeed I grant was inclining to your opinion but his single judgement is not equivalent to the many reasons and authorities urged on the contrary The book of Homilies affirmeth no such thing as you say these words of themselves without any Divine precept are yours not the Churches not expresly not interpretatively so not hers as she is positive in the direct contrary For there being two things wherein the Divine right of the Lords Day is founded upon legall Institution in the fourth Commandment and Evangelicall by either Christ or his Apostles for the first she saith that God expresly in that precept commandeth the observation of the Sabbath which is our Sunday and not onely commandeth it but also by his own example doth stirre and provoke us to diligent keeping of the same For the second having a while after declared it to be Gods Will and Commandment to have a solemn time and standing day in the week consecrated to him she presently addeth This example and Commandment of God the godly Christian people began to follow immediately after the ascension of our Lord Christ and began to chuse them a standing day in the week to come together in Now where she speaketh of Godly Christian people she doubtlesse meaneth the Apostles for who else durst at that time take upon them to begin such a custome and so as touching the Institution of the day as a weekly day she reduceth it to the fourth precept and as the first of the week she foundeth it upon Apostolick practice What some other reformed Churches think in this point of the Lords Day may plausibly enough against us be urged on your parts I confesse and it is your Drusian your keenest objection and yet we can oppose many things to turn the edge of it For first they are onely positive in setting down their own opinions but the reasons inducing them thereto they suppresse and seeing they are not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} we must not be governed by their bare Thesis Secondly those confessions are not generall but particular to some Churches Thirdly were they the Canons of a generall Councel yet must they not predominate over Truth a Nationall and Provinciall councels ought to give place to the authoritie of Vniversall and Oecumenicall and these have been oftentimes amended when experience hath cleared some truth which before lay hid saith Augustine Lastly though some will think it b periculosa praesumptio judicare de caeteris ipsum ab omnibus judicandum to speak the truth yet to speak it with all terms of venerable regard to those famous Churches I dare pronounce they are not right in this point not so full reformed but they stand yet in need of further reformation Nor ought we to wonder at their mistake herein For first the precept of the Lords Day is not so legible in sacred Scripture as the rest which concern matters of faith thereby to instruct us to put a difference betwixt fundamentalls and ceremonies it is written in a finer character in a smaller Print and therefore might well escape the eyes of those Churches at the first break of day of Reformation when the light shone somewhat dimme Secondly the question was never on foot in their times and so the evidences demonstrating Divine Right were never laid open to them and having inquiries concerning sacrifice of the Altar Adoration c. more proper for those times to imploy them they were not like to inform themselves better upon accident What I have said concerning the Reformed Churches may also be applyed to those holy and blessed Martyrs you cite and partly to master Perkins who had he lived now would I dare say have been as positive and resolute as any other And whereas you make him the prime inventer of this tenet though what I have urged out of the book of Homilies is your sufficient confutation yet will I produce one Testimony more and that no lesse then Royall and as Reformation it self ancient The Sabbath Day was used and ordained but for mans use and therefore ought to give place to the necessity and behoof of the same whensoever that shall occur much rather any other holy day instituted by man What say you now Sir if Perkins was the first that took up this tenet who I pray laid it down and down it was laid for certain if he took it up for up it was you see in Henry the eighths time Having thus waded through all the objections and discovered their frame to consist of very loose and defeasable stuff wherein truth is no ingredient I step forward to other questions incident and pertinent to this discourse And first
it is to be examined the Lords day being an Apostolicall Tradition whether it be immutable whether the Church hath power to alter the day and substitute another in liew thereof I answer Nay the Church hath not such a power the sphere of her activitie extendeth not so farre she cannot null and rescind the act of God If the Sunday be established and established so I have proved it Jure divino it is without all dispute unchangeable for Immutable is one ingredient into the definition of Jus divinum as the Canonists compound it who make it which is comprehended in the Law and Gospel and remaineth perpetuall a True it is I grant that many positive divine Laws are changeable by the same authority which first imposed them but that a divine Law can be abrogated yea or displaced by humane authority that no sober man will yield to And I hope though many have of late set her on her tip-toes and advanced her to a tickle point the Churches power and authority reacheth not Divine Besides there is an especiall and peculiar reason of the inalterability of the Lords Day more then is usuall in other constitutions though Divine for God hath a propriety therein Six dayes in the week he hath bestowed upon us but the seventh he reserved for himself wherein he hath as good nay better freehold estate then any man in his possessions and then the rule of the Law is b What is ours without our assent cannot be transferred to another So that the Church hath no power to make that a work-day which God himself hath consecrated to his holy worship Nor mattereth it whether this designation were performed by Christ immediately or by the mediation of his Spirit assisting and infallibly directing the Apostles and so it becometh an Apostolicall Tradition for even this though the lowest degree of Divine appointment doth conferre exemption enough upon this day to secure it from any jurisdiction the Church can claim over it I will not dissemble it some learned men have I confesse ascribed to the Church an authoritie over this day so as she may if it please her transferre it to another But you must know withall that not one of these do repute it as an Apostolicall Tradition which is the hinge upon which the hole question moveth nor if they did are we to give absolute credit to their dictates Men they were of excellent endowments great both for their piety and learning and amongst them I honour none more then that famous Bishop c of Geneva Mr Calvin yet in some things as this for one I may say of him as Augustine of Cyprian d As there were many things which learned Calvin taught others so were there some things which he might learn of others If you can produce any one who hath affirmed it to be an Apostolicall institution or tradition and withall an alterable ordinance and I will promise you to affoard you two at least for him who have resolved the contrary But here perhaps you will demand What are all Apostolicall Traditions immutable That restriction from eating bloud or things offered to idoles that of collections for the poore every Lords Day c. I answer let it be first agreed what Apostolicall Traditions are under which name many upstart and recent customes intruded themselves into the Church a Every Province accounteth the constitutions of its Forefathers Apostolick Traditions saith Hierome Apostolicall Traditions then I say were of two sorts the one particular the other generall Particular were such as were framed by the Apostles either joyntly or severally but restrained to some especiall circumstance of time place persons or the like and so having onely reference and regard to such circumstance the removall of that circumstance made the observation of the Law to cease Such are those Traditions above named in the objection such are supposed to be the different rites of the East and West b one observing both the Sabbath and Lords Day the other the Lords Day onely and fasting on the Sabbath one celebrating the Festivall of Easter on the fourteenth day of the Moon the other upon the Sunday after Generall were such as neither regarding any circumstance of time place c. nor any moveable occasion were universally agreed upon to be received and so prescribed to the Christian Church by all the Apostles such were the Creed the books of the Canonicall Scripture the observation of the Lords Day Paedobaptisme c. whereof that golden rule of S. Augustine b is a character What the Catholick and Vniversall Church holdeth not decreed by Councels but ever observed we may safely believe it proceeded from no lesse then Apostolick authoritie Now these generall Traditions I averre to be immutable and such as must ever be observed in the Church not onely because they have or mention or foundation in the Scripture for so the particular have also and they which have not are not by us owned for Traditions Apostolicall but because they were at first made without limitation and restriction and herein I have the suffrage of Zanchy c Pareus d and other learned men As for particular Traditions they being at first framed for speciall occasions are now those occasions being ceased but as laws dormant untill the emergency of the like occasion awakeneth them again Dormant I said not dead Life vigour and force they have still and should the same occasion arise again God would expect from the Church the same observation For they being Apostolicall and so evidences of the Divine will upon severall occasions we must not think that one and the same cause can operate in the Immutable Essence a diverse will seeing in Philosophy The same agent whilest he is the same effecteth the same thing Dead therefore they cannot be so long as there remaineth a possibilitie for the same occasion to set them on work again and so that School-rule may fit them well e They oblige alwayes but not upon all occasions Well be the Lords Day Divine be it Immutable what then are we obliged to observe it with that severe and rigid vacation which the Jewish Sabbath required I answer Yes f He which succedeth into anothers jurisdiction is invested in his predecessours right The same strictnesse of observation belongeth to the Lords Day that anciently did to the Sabbath I say by the fourth Commandment for that Commandment hath not lost under the Gospel the least scruple or atome of obligation which it injoyed during the Law but bindeth still without abbreviation of time or alleviation of restraint during that time As for the duration of time though I cannot discern such distinct abbuttalls thereof in this Commandment as some seem to perswade yet am I of opinion that the word Day comprehendeth {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a hole naturall Day And as touching restraint from negotiation and toil on that Day the words are
very direct Thou shalt do no manner of work What not quench an house of fire not water a beast not provide necessary food yes works of necessitie works of mercy thou mayest do the precept onely interdicteth servile work ordinary work of our vocation All Doctours whatsoever so understand it which being granted the fourth precept for ought I see little exceedeth in rigour touching the Sabbath the Canon and Statute Law of this land concerning the meanest holy Day Differ I do herein from my sacred mother the Church of England it cannot be denied she hath expressed her self otherwise viz. That this Commandment of God doth not bind Christian people so straitly to observe the utter ceremonies of the Sabbath Day as touching the forbearing of work and labour in times of great necessitie But seeing in the substance viz. That we are not bound to observe the Lords Day with that extreme severitie which once belonged to the Jewish Sabbath we consent I hope a difference in the manner of expression is at most but a peccadillo but a veniall fault our dissent is onely this That strictnesse which she reduceth to the fourth Commandment I rather lodge and settle in those accessory and occasionall laws which are quite of another parish and have nothing to do here If it be here objected That this precept bindeth not to the observation of the Lords Day and therefore no matter what it injoyneth I answer it doth oblige to the observation of this day for no other day can properly be called Gods Sabbath then this because no other day is weekly solemnized in the Church and thereto destined by Divine appointment which are the certain characters of the Sabbath of that Commandment Besides all Expositours interpret this precept of this day especially and some of none other and above all our Church it self is so full as nothing can be desired more apposite to our purpose then what she hath delivered Like as it appeareth by this Commandment saith she that no man in the six dayes ought to be slothfull and idle but diligently labour in that estate wherein God hath set him even so God hath given expresse charge to all men that upon the Sabbath Day which is now our Sunday they should cease from all weekly and work-day labour and give themselves wholly to divine exercises of Gods true Religion and Service And a few lines after she saith That to keep the Christian Sabbath which is the Sunday is Gods expresse commandment These are lowd and clear demonstrations of what our Church then thought wherein two things are remarkable First that she reduceth the observation of the Lords Day to the fourth Commandment and secondly that without any scruple she very broadly calleth it our Sabbath yea and The Sabbath A word whereat much offence hath lately been taken and all that use it are checkt by our great Schoolman who good man in a tender care of us adviseth that we follow the language of the holy Ghost as also of the Primitive Church that we vary not from other reformed Churches that we gratifie not the Jews in their obstinacy against Christ that we offend not our weak brethren and lastly that we use that name which doth most edifie viz. the LORDS DAY As concerning the style Lords Day we quarrell not at it we are no enemies of it we use it for ought I know more frequently then Sabbath yet were it truly sensed and according to right sense duly observed it would contract not onely the title but nature of a Sabbath for what is our Lords Day but the Evangelicall Sabbath as the Legall Sabbath was the Jewish Lords Day Be the Lords Day thus stated call it then by that name ever if you please it not at all offendeth us but when it becometh from the Sabbath an ordinary holy day or rather playday from the Lords Day the Churches Day we have then just cause to rouse the world by shrill expressions and lowd manifestations that it is both the Sabbath of the fourth Commandment and also the Lords Day that is of his Institution But to persue this not without wonder behold the strange condition of these men who inveigh so bitterly against the word Sabbath which hath notwithstanding warrant both from our book of Homilies the Canons Ecclesiasticall and Edicts of our Princes behold their perversitie The words Altar Priest Sacrifice Holy of Holies will down with them so easily as now they begin to rellish nothing else It is rare very rare a great novelty to heare the course and homely terms of Table Minister Lords Supper or Chancel in their mouths Now I say and aver the word Sabbath hath not in it any semblance of danger to Gods Church comparable to that of Altar Priest c. For first the Lords Day is a Sabbath The Sabbath {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} properly and directly whereas these words Altar Priest c. are used {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} but figuratively and symbolically Besides the word Sabbath giveth no offence for if any incline to Judaisme it is in the strictnesse not now in the day But the other words stumble many especially in these times wherein we have cause and just cause to fear they are meant and intended of things other then metaphoricall And are not our fears just when Transsubstantiation beginneth not to be instilled in some subtile and Paracelsian spirit of School distinction but according to the Galenists to be exhibited in the grosse masse of corporeall presence in a corporeall sense so as the most unprepared and unbelieving receiver eateth his part thereof as well as the faithfull But admit this to be the tenet of some few extravagants yet are not our fears just when that uncouth and apish bowing toward if not to the Altar is not onely warranted and defended but commended to our observation by the chief of our Church which whosoever shall dive into it and search antiquitie will find it one of the Parents Elevation or Ostension being the other which begot adoration of the Host which begot Impanation or Transsubstantiation Let not any think here that by Antiquitie I understand the very Primitive Church with whom we challenge so near alliance in matters of Doctrine for certain it is that the first Church was utterly ignorant of this novel device you shall indeed many times very often find in the Fathers a that they bowed or worshipped towards the East and this they did onely at their entrance into the Church according to the Poet Vt Templi tetigere gradus procumbit uterque Pronus humi But of bowing for what some urge of Nazianzen's Gorgonia was geniculation not genuflection as will appear to any that duly peruseth the place towards the Altar as you call it or ducking as often as they approched unto or departed from it you shall not find mention anywhere till you arrive at Chrysostome's Liturgy which requireth {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} adorations to be made {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} towards the holy Table and this we all know is a piece of yesterday the Authour whereof was in being not full six hundred years past which we are also as certain was the very time about which the Incarnation of Bread or Transsubstantiation began first to be whispered I should not have dwelt so long upon this but that I find it pressed as a necessary dutie yea a dutie of necessity adequate to the observation of the Lords Day a Tenet which deserveth rather to be hist at then answered But to return from whence I have digressed Let whatsoever is positive in the fourth Commandment stand for a cipher is the Lords Day to be observed one jot the more remisse doth not Apostolicall Institution imply an equall Obligation both concerning the continuance of time and restraint from labour what did they ordain what institute was it not That the first day of the week should be consecrated to God and spirituall negotiations you cannot yield us lesse If then it was the first day of what is it meant of a naturall day from sun to sun or of an artificiall from the sun-rise to his set I answer of the first for these reasons If all the other dayes of the week contained both night and day why should not the Lords Day have as large a proportion of time as the rest do not all the dayes in the week hold by Gavelkind and if it contained onely daylight then there was a night to spare whereof I would gladly know what should become Should the Saturday have it all If so then this would by sesquialter proportion exceed all the rest should it passe by way of dividend amongst the other six then there would be two houres in every day more then the suns revolution maketh Moreover when God requireth any thing dedicated to him his constant caveat and proviso is that it be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not defective and without blemish not lame or imperfect Now that which wanteth one minute of its full time cannot properly be called a day regularly I say and de jure of right it cannot where the day is seposed by divine designation And this is the more evident by observing what God required under the law it being no lesse then a full and complete naturall day from eve to eve which was not as a learned Doctour conceiveth and I think aright to set out the beginning and end the boundaries of a naturall day but to declare his own claim of a naturall day to be dedicated to him which should begin at evening If then the day must be understood of a naturall day of 24 houres it will then necessarily follow that vacation from labour during that time must be concomitant with it For vacation from worldly affairs which may impeach the worship of God is so inseparable from times consecrated to that worship as it is by Brerewood rightly accounted part of the moralitie and substance of the fourth Commandment and so in the Christian Church perpetually to be observed If any shall now object that this vacation is onely necessary and required during the time of publick assembling in the Church and that no more is exacted of us then that we attend such assemblies I answer that God will admit no sharer in any thing consecrated to him and though the cardinall and chief end of the Sabbath is that God be publickly honoured yet doth he not leave the remainder thereof so at our dispose that we may dispend it either in carnall pleasures or terrene negotiations Those oratories which from their dedication to the Lord are in English denominated Churches do from their destination to publick and solemn addresse contract the name and repute of sacred and though they be superlatively and above all venerable while employed to their destinate end yet alwayes even at times of Cultustitium as I may so say or vacation from publick worship there remaineth in them an indeleble impression of awfull regard which ought to preserve them from all profanation inviolable Mistake me not I place no inherent sanctitie I immure not God in them I approve not of their decoring even to effeminate curiositie nor allow them an honour as some of late too close followers of Nazianzene a even to ridiculousnesse superstititious yet this I hold Gods houses they are places where his honour dwelleth for which cause such a relative veneration is due to them as alwayes dignifieth and ennobleth them above any other house whatsoever and secureth them from common use and in this men both learned and moderate have led me the way as Zanchy b Hospinian c c. Now * Places and Times consecrated to Gods name are to be sanctified with equall religion and so the Rituall of the old Testament coupleth them together Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Sanctuaries And then I say that the Lords house may as well be impropriated to a ware-house as his day to a work-work-day when the congregation is dismissed And this priviledge it as well deriveth from Evangelicall as Legall institution Therefore Leo d when he made that edict of generall restraint on the Lords day pleadeth conformitie wth the evangelicall constitution We ordain as it seemed good to the holy Spirit to them whom he instructed But it will be here opposed that neither the Apostles themselves nor the Primitive Church observed this day with any such strictnesse untill Constantine's decree and therefore it is like they enjoyned it not I answer as touching the practice of the Apostles there is I confesse nothing either the one way or other clearly evident nor much of that of the Primitive Church during the time limited Onely Justin Martyr e if I be not mistaken hath something reflecting that way for in his description of the custome of publick assembling in those times upon the Lords day after he hath insisted awhile upon the duties performed in the Church he setteth down what the Christians did postea after their dismission as their visiting relieving the poore their consorting together and their repeating to one another what they had learned that day in the Church Of the remainder of time the solemn assembly being ended I understand this postea probably enough yet will not warrant it with over much pertinacitie if any other construction can vouch better reason in its defence let that obtain But though we should find no evidence of the Primitive practice of cessation from labour on this day yet will it not follow that they did not forbare it if possibly they could for we meet with exhortation to it by Origen f On the Christian Sabbath day we ought not to do any worldly businesse if therefore thou dost surcease from all secular affairs and dost nothing but employ thy self in spirituall negotiations this is
first Institution innocent enough I will not speak nor trouble my self and you in shewing by what gradations they ceased to be what they ought and became what they ought not of their corrupt and degenerate estate I purpose onely to give you some small hint collected from what I have read and partly from what I have seen First therefore you must understand there were in the late times of superstition and blindnesse in our Church in our Church I say for in other Countreys I confesse they were united two feasts Maenechmi very near resembling one the other one called the Feast of Dedication the other the Feast of the Patrone or Church Holiday the impious and profane fooleries were almost the same and common to both onely the Feast of the Patrone had this peculiar to it The idol or image of the Patrone richly deckt and drest was set forth upon a table near the Church doore to the view of the People quod quia mutum est Aut nondum populi linguam or áque barbara novit Assidet interpres quidam clamánsque rogánsque Intrantes atque ingredientes munera praestent Patrono nummis redimant indulta Paparum which because 't is dumb And kennes not yet the Peoples Idiome Its spokesman's by who begs of all that come Toll for his Patrone and sits there to sell Pardons for sins but men must pay him well But the first spark of light which shone in the beginning of Reformation soon quitted the world of this grosse abuse King Henry the eighth anno 1536 amongst other things enjoyning that this Feast of the Patrone of every Church commonly called the Church Holiday should be no more observed within the Realm The Feasts of Dedication indeed continued still yet much eclipsed in their former wicked and abominable solemnity for whereas before the custome was for divers vicine Parishes to assemble themselves together there where the Feast of Dedication was to be held to feast and riot in the very Churches to erect stalls for pedlars in the Churchyard to spend the hole day in swinish swill lascivious wantonnesse in cudgellplay-matches and in the true service of Satan and because every Parochiall Church had its proper Sunday whereon the Feast was kept and it was rare by reason thereof to have a Lords Day observed especially in summer time wherein these Feasts are most frequent with any tolerable devotion and exercise of Piety it was therefore by the same Prince strictly injoyned That the Feasts of Dedication of Churches should in all places of the Realm be celebrated upon the first Sunday in October for ever and upon none other day The scope of this King was doubtlesse to restrain the disordered licentiousnesse of the people on this day being occasioned by their joynt resort to other Parishes where these Feasts were observed and in this I cannot but commend that Declaration of his sacred Majesty which restrained and prohibited that disorder so far as in it lay Had there been due inquiry made into the violation of his Majesties will in this and punishment inflicted upon the offendours great I dare say had been the good it would have produced but through generall impunity and the perverse corruption of humane nature chusing in every thing that which serveth its own though never so inordinate ends and neglecting the rest his Majesties godly purpose was I know much abused and Gods sacred Day not lesse dishonoured And for proof thereof I will give you a Relation of mine own autopsie of what these eyes saw It was some few years since my fortune to visit a kinsman seated in a countrey where these Feasts are frequent upon a saturday and though I purposed to depart that day yet he importuned and prevailed with me to repose my self with him the ensuing Lords Day I did so and as dutie required in the morning I accompanied him to Church A full assembly there was service being read the preacher a man of no mean note or degree maketh a sermon lest such profanation should want its due ceremony upon this Text There is nothing better for a man then that he should eat and drink and that he should make his soul to enjoy good in his labour he insisted his hole time upon the lawfulnesse of Feasting and of Christian liberty in the use of the creatures and to give him his due nothing did he deliver amisse something I grant he might nay ought to have added as in setting down the properties of a Christian Feast and in opening to the people his Majesties will and pleasure concerning these Feasts which certainly gave them not so free a scope as they took Well the sermon ended and congregation dismissed in our return home I inquired of my kinsman the occasion of that Text he told me it was the Feast of dedication of their Church Home we went took a moderate repast and scarce had we dined before the bells summoned us to Church whither with all convenient speed we hasted and being come behold the congregation which in the morning amounted to about nine or ten score could not except the family we brought with us make up now so many single persons as the congregation was thinne so was the service suitable being posted over in great haste After this service I was much requested by my kinsman to accompany him to the place of rendez-vous where the Feast was kept many denials had I given him as fearing to be a spectatour of Gods dishonour and did partly expresse as much but he assured me I should find nothing but honest and innocent disport at length I confesse not without much inward conflict I yielded to him and the rather out of a desire to inform my self of the manner of those Feasts whereof I had heard much talk So I accompanied him to the green which was the scene of their pastime where loe we beheld a multitude of people the muster whereof could not be lesse then a thousand The main pretence of that assembly was to give testimony of their manhood by wrestling cudgel-play c. there being to that end a confederacy league and siding of the neighbour towns so many against so many which exercises imployed the body and greater part of that multitude but they who listed not to be either spectacles or spectatours wanted not wherewith to entertain themselves there being an ale-house by The disorders of that meeting by drunkennesse swearing malicious reviling one the other which may easily be conceived I purpose not to relate that which I offer to consideration is whether there was not by this assembly a great affront to his Majesties royall Declaration which prohibited all concourse of people out of their own parish yea or in their own parish untill Evening Prayer were ended when as I dare say there were near a thousand of this meeting which were not of the parish wherein it was held and of those not fourtie I verily believe had been present at
Evening service for how could they in regard some of them came foure or five most two or three and all at least a mile off which abuse of our Princes pleasure is I think condignly meritorious of severe punishment the execution whereof I leave to those whom it concerneth Having thus stated the Dominicall Day having proved it to be a Day divinely instituted a Day immutable a Day holly to be appropriated to sacred duties I have finished my last part and in that my imperfect way perfected what I first intended Which done my earnest sute is that my Christian perusers would fervently pray that this work undertaken for the honour of my Lord and blessed Saviours Day may through his merits So much to speak with devout Salvian avail the Authour with God as he seriously desires it may profit all men To which onely wise God our Saviour be glory and majestie dominion and power now and for ever Amen FINIS Lib. 18. c. 3. Hexam. Phocylides * At Christmas laâ—â— * Unus alio plura invemre potest nemo omniâ— Ausonius * B. Whiâ—e Dr. Prid. Mr. Brerewood Si cui displiceo non â—tatun 〈◊〉 opponat Tu solus sapis c. Per asinam enim quandoque locutus est Dâ—us quod Prophetam câ—lavit Samuâ—li puero ostendit quod â—li sacerdoti non revâ—lâ—vâ—â— Tom. 1 Resâ—l super Propos. Lipsie 〈◊〉 conclus 1. De me existima ut libet tantùm de ipsa veritate cave quid sentias Aug. cont. Mâ—nich lib. unus a Virgil b Orig. Prâ—oem Hâ— in Cant. Hieron. â—pist ad Paul in bibl. Hier. Naz. orat 7. 1. Reason B. White pag. 46. 2. Reason Brerew p. 65. 3. Reason B. White ubi suprá 4. Reason D. Heilen p. 9. 5. Reason B. White ubi suprá 6. Reason 7. Reason Dialog. cum Tryphone a adv. Judaeos b l. 4. c. 30. c Hist. Eccles. l. 1. c. 4. d Fid. Orth. l 4. c. 24. Solut. of the 1. Reas. a 2 2 ae qu. 22· aâ—t 4. â—â—la dicuntur in Lege sanctificari quae divino cultui applicantur b Athanas. de Sabb. circum Genebrard Chronol. l. 1. Zanch. de Ser. Bell. de v. Dei l. 4. c. 4. Paâ—aeus Com. in Gen. 4. v. 3. Mercer praelect. in Gen. Rawly Hist. l. 2. c. 4. S. 8. a 1.2 ae q 103. act 1. Musculus in Gen. c. 4. v. 3. De Incarn. Verbi Solut. of the 2. Reason Exod. 19.10 Virg. Aen. 2. Tibul. l. 2· El. 1. cap. 1. v. 5. Solut. of the 3. Reas. Tost in Exod. 20. qu. 11. Solut. of the 4. Reas. Gen. 2.1 a Hexaem Hom. 11. b Mercer in loc. c Ex antecedentibus consequentibus colligitur verus Scripturae sensus Aug. De doct. Christ c. 31. a Seld. Marm. Arundell a In motu continuo quamdiu aliquid potest moverâ— ulteriùs non dicitur motus perfectus Aquin. p. 1. qu. 73 art 1. c Scal. Exerc. a In loc. b Ubi primùm dies septimus advenisset verum erat de Deo dicere quòd jam complesset opus suam Merc. in loc. c Rabbi Abraham autor libri Zeror Hammor vel fasciculus myrrhae apud Buxdors in Gen. a De Praestigiis lib. 1. c. 6. Sol. of the 5. Reason b De Gen. ad lit. l. 8. c. 8. c Aqu. 1.2 ae qu. 90. Solut. of the 6. Reas. Exod. 5. v. 1. Solut. of the last Reason Veteres interdum coguntur loqui non quod sentiunt sed quod necesse esse ducunt adversùs ea quae dicunt Gentiles Veteres dum unum errorem omnium virium conatu destruere adnituntur saepe in alterum deciderunt a Praefat. l. 3. Bibliothec. b Quivis vel doctissimus vir aliter habendus est cùm salurat quaestionem perstringit leviter aliter cùm in manus sumit atque excuâ—it Winton Opusc. posth de usuris a Tacitus Quò plures eunt omnes sequuntur Humanum est errare b Epist. l. 2. Epist. ad Bez. Demeloquor deque meo ingenio A communi Patrum consensu nullâ cogente necessitate dissentire mihi summa est religio c Epist. 19. a Nihil faciliùs est quà m dicere Tropus est Figura est Modus quidam dicendi est Aug. de Doctr. Christ l. 3. c. 10. o b Oratio figurata est quae proptiè intellecta nec ad fidem nec ad dilectionem nec ad ullam aedificationem accommodari potest ibid. c Oportet Scripturam intelligere secundâ—m verborâ—m proptietatem ubi non cogimur evidenti absurdo De Bapt. l. 1. c. 4. d Nisi cogamur ab aliqua alia Scriptura vel ab aliquo articulo fidei aut certè à communi totius Ecclesiae explicatione De Euch. lib. 1. c. 9. 1. Absurditie a Habet venerationem â— justam quicquid excellit Cic. De Nat. Deor. l. 1. b Aqu. 2.2 ae q. 122. art 4. Gen. 7. â— c De Civ. Dei l. 15. c. 7. d Part. 2. p. 67. a Omnis actio Dei nobis pietatis virtutis est regula Basil. Ascet. 2. Absurdity Medul Theol. lib. 2. cap. 15. D. Heilen part 1. cap 1. p. 10. Quicquid totius est idem partis a In Exod. Last Absurdity Brerew p. 66. Quantum mutatus ab illo Heilen p. 1. pag. 108. a Bacon Persp Dist. 8. a Hist. lib. 1. p. 1. c. 8. s. 6. a Basil Schol. in Psal. 77.2 a Quae in Lege post hac praecepta sunt de sabbato haec nimirum anticipans Job ipse implevit filios implere docuit Hom. sup Job c. 1. v. 5 b Septenarius hic numerus à conditione mundi autoritatem obtinuit c. De Spiritu sancto c Perâ—ectae quâ—eâ—s remissioniâ— peccatorum signum est septimus à primoâ—ciis generationis dies Hexaem d Creatio principium à die Dominico accepit ideo liquet quòd septimus ab ea dies Sabbatum efficitur nimirum cessationem ab operibus ferens In Nov. Dom. e Quamdiu prior aetas crâ—atio vim suâ—m efficaciam obtinebat tam diu Sabbata suam observationem habuere De Sabb. Circum f Contra Ebionaos p. 73. Tò {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Part. 3. quaest. 32. memb. 3. art. 1. b Com. in 〈◊〉 c In Paradiso fuit Sabbati sanctificatio quod observatum toto Legis naturae tempore tradunt Hebraei Lyranus in Gen. 7. Chron. ad annum Mundi 1. d Patet Sabbatum institutum fuisse sancitum primitus non à Mose Exod. 20. sed longè anterâ—ùs puâ—à ab origine mundi e Sabbatum ab initio mundi destinatum est ad cultum Dei Com. in Gen. f Sabbatum ab initio mundi observatum est Cas. Conscien circa Fest. l. 2 c. 13. Cas. 2. a Praelect. de Sabb. b Non dubiuÌ„ quin Patres ante legem diligenter observarint Sabbatum in Matth. c In Gen. 2. d Ego quidem non dubito c.