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

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Sabbath at the beginning by God's Precept to Adam and in him to his whole Posterity to the end of the World and therefore extending to all Ages and all Mankind And this being assigned to the Jews only for that short time wherein the Law-giver was pleased to dispense with that Nation as to this Law given to all Nations and that for Reasons sufficiently palpable 5. This Hypothesis enervates the Arguments brought against the Divine Institution of the Lord's-Day and furnisheth Conscience with a solid ground of bearing a due religious Respect to it without danger of Judaizing in the manner of the Celebration thereof 1. To instance in their Herculean Argument drawn from the Gloss they put upon that Text Gen. 2. 3. as being spoke by Moses by way of Anticipation If that Day that God rested on was not Saturday but Sunday his sanctifying the Day he rested on could not have respect to the after-Institution of another Day for what Consequence can be in this because God at first rested on Sunday therefore he appointed Moses above two thousand Years after the Creation to command Saturday to be sanctified comparable to what is in this because God rested on Sunday the Seventh Day in the order of the Creation he therefore blessed it and sanctified it that is separated it by his Precept to Adam to be the weekly Sabbath Indeed the dream of a Prolepsis in this Text chargeth Moses with most gross Equivocation in the use of these words and God blessed except we fancy an Anticipation in those other Places of his Text where these words occur as Gen. 1. 22. where speaking of Fish and Fowl he saith And God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and vers 28. speaking of Adam and Eve he saith And God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply 2. That this Hypothesis yields a solid Ground for the consciencious observing the Lord's-Day so as there needs not any new Constitution be made by Christ or his Apostles for the observing of it is manifest of it self For if Sunday be the Day that God separated at first to be the weekly Sabbath to the Patriarchs and was accordingly celebrated by them before the giving of the Law by Moses the standing part of the Fourth Command obliging all Mankind must necessarily refer to that and that there is a standing part of that Precept for the Breach whereof we are taught to say Lord have Mercy upon us and for the better observing whereof we are taught to pray Incline our Hearts to keep this Law is the declared Judgment of our Church And then the Temporary and Ceremonial Part both as to the Day and Mode of keeping it peculiar to the Jews being part of those carnal Ordinances that were imposed upon them until the time of Reformation Heb. 9. 10. vanish of themselves as being antiquated by Christ's Cross and give way to the Antient Patriarchal Sabbath And here now our Saviour's Rising from the Dead his frequent Appearing to his Disciples on Sunday the Practice of the Apostles and Primitive Church come in seasonably with their Auxiliary Force to strengthen my Hypothesis and to support the Divine Institution of the Lord's-Day For though as to the first Consecration therof these Examples signify nothing nor are able to stand upon that old Ground against the joynt Assaults of God's express Precept and Example for sanctifying Saturday Yet upon the Ground that I have laid they are substantial and strenuous Seconds to prove the Restauration of the antient Patriarchal Sunday-Sabbath by the Antiquation of the Jewish Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath though they are not of Authority to appoint a new Lord's-Day yet they are safe Guides to point us to that old Patriarchal Lord's-Day whereon the Lord rested and therefore commanded the Patriarchal Church-Catholick to sanctify it as their weekly Sabbath in Conformity to and in Communion with which Church extending to all Places and Ages Our Saviour after the rending of the Vail rose upon that Day and upon that Day celebrated religious weekly Assemblies with his Apostles and taught them to do the like during those forty Days wherein he convers'd with them betwixt his Resurrection and Ascension speaking to them of the things appertaining to the Kingdom of God 3. Lastly this secures us from falling into Jewish Superstition in the manner of celebrating our Christian Sabbath for with the Jewish Day the Jewish manner of keeping that Day vanisheth So that the Christian Church is not obliged to sanctify the Lord's-Day in those strict Formalities of bodily Rest and other carnal Observances imposed upon the Jews but in the more generous and man-becoming Exercises of contemplating the Glory of God in the Creation compleated by the new Creation of believing acquiescing and triumphing in God through Christ of attending on Gospel-Ordinances publick private and secret of visiting the Sick relieving the Indigent and eating our Bread with Gladness of Heart on that day above others that being the Christian weekly Festival and the Day which God hath made for us to be glad and rejoyce in neither need we macerate our selves with studying when to begin when to end the Christian Sabbath at Even Midnight or Morning For he who having set his Secular Affairs in such order as they give no Interruption to his Sunday-Devotion goes to bed with God on Saturday-Night and riseth with God on Sunday-Morning and spends the Day in such like Exercises as have been mentioned may after he has commended himself and his Family if he have one to God go to his Rest on Sunday Night without danger of prophaning the Sabbath at his usual time Briefly the usefulness of this Hypothesis is so great and apparent both as to putting an end to all Strife even amongst the most Litigious and setling inward Peace in the truly Consciencious as I was something jealous lest the prospect thereof might make the Arguments I bring for proof of the Hypothesis seem to have more weight than indeed they have till I had communicated my Papers to several Persons of more quick Understanding in the fear of the Lord with this humble Request That they would weigh their Contents in the Ballance of their impartial Judgments which I heartily thank them they did and thereby gave me occasion to rectify some Passages and Encouragement to commit this Tract as it now stands corrected to publick view If it shall please the divine Goodness to make use of so mean a Person as my self towards the setling the Consciences of Christians upon a safe Ground and the binding up of those Wounds which the Church hath received in the House of her Friends as the poor tattard Captive Democedes cured Darius after that the Egyptian Physicians had for seven Days and Nights by violent handling of his dis-joynted Foot kept him without Sleep Let God have the Praise who chooseth the weak and foolish things of this World to confound the mighty and wise And let him have your Prayers Christian Reader whose utmost
Septuagint which renders it The Seventh Day altho our last Translation of the Bible follows the Hebrew Altho the Puritans as they were called have called long and loud to our Church to rectify the Reading and conform it to the Hebrew as knowing that their opinion of the fourth Precept commandeth a Seventh not the Seventh Day is utterly overthrown by rendring it Wherefore the Lord Blessed the Seventh-day And altho our Church hath gratified their Clamours in conforming the Epistles and Gospels to our last Translation yet in the forenamed versions of the fourth Precept she adheres still to the Septuagint and persisteth in teaching her Children young and old that the Sabbath of the fourth Precept in the plain literal sense of it is the Seventh day wherein God rested and therefore sanctified and separated to be observed by us Christians in obedience to that Precept and in conformity to God's Example Or to give her sense of this Precept thus translated in her own words Homilie of the time and place of Prayer God expresly in the fourth Precept commandeth the observation of the Sabbath which is our Sunday And not only commandeth it but also by his own example doth stir and provoke us to diligent keeping of the same And a little after this Example and Command of God the Godly Christian People began to follow immediately after the Ascension of our Lord Christ It was you see in obedience to this Command urged by this Example that the Christians began to celebrate Sunday in our Churche's Judgment In Obedience I say to this Precept in the plain literal sense of it For sure the Church of England is a more indulgent Mother than to teach her Babes by Tropes and Figures and far-fetch'd Consequences what that holy Will of God is to the keeping whereof their Baptismal Vow obligeth them or to oblige them to say Lord have Mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law after the pronouncing of the fourth Precept at the Lord's Table if that did not stand intirely in every tittle of it according to its plain and primitive sense in as full force now under the Gospel as any of the rest Moses was faithful in God's House and therefore at his repeating of the Decalogue and applying it to the Israelites he lets them know that they were not concerned in that Reason for sanctifying of that Sabbath which God published on the Mount to wit because God rested on the Seventh-day but urgeth the keeping of their Sabbath by another Reason peculiar to themselves to wit their resting from Egyptian Bondage Deut. 5. which very Reason is an Argument that their Saturday-Sabbath was not the day on which God rested but local and temporary And God's urging the sanctifying of the Sabbath of the fourth Precept from his own Example argues the day therein commanded to be the day whereon God rested and to concern all Ages and Nations The reason of it being common to all and therefore to be our Sunday And this speaks the faithfulness of our Church viz. her informing her Children that the whole and intire both Precept and Reason appertains to us Christians and therefore we are bound to beg pardon for the breach thereof and Grace to observe it I had never much Artificial yet have so much Natural Logick as to think this a very strange Inference God rested the Seventh-day that is Saturday wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day that is Sunday and the common Opinion to be void of Reason viz. That the day commanded in this Precept is gon but the Precept remains seeing all that 's commanded is the sanctifying of the day whereon God rested It may with every whit as much reason be said the honouring of Father and Mother is gone but the Law commanding that Honour is still in force as that the day whereon the Command bids us rest is gone but the Precept commanding that Day of Rest remains as if that day injoyned belonged to the Jews and the Precept enjoyning to us My resentment of such horrible absurdities unavoidably issuing from the common Opinion that Saturday is the Day whereon God rested and that Day which he commanded the Jews to sanctifie in the fourth Precept And yet that the Precept is still in force to us Christians obliging us to sanctifie another day Sunday in Conjunction with the reverence I bear to the sounder Doctrine of the Church of England viz. That the fourth Precept commands us to celebrate Sunday upon the Account of God's resting on that day first put me upon that enquiry whereof my Treatise of the Sabbath is the result viz. whether that Hypothesis could be proved from Scripture and Reason and if proved whether it would secure unto us our Sunday-Sabbath without any new Institution by Christ's Precept upon better grounds than can be laid by the vulgar opinion and such as free our Necks from the yoak of those carnal austerities which attend the Jewish Temporary and Ceremonial Saturday-Sabbath This Design I confess affronts the whole World of private modern Writers but I have standing on my side the Church of England which carried on the Reformation of Christian Religion from Papal Innovations more pecately regularly cautiously and with a greater respect to Catholick Antiquity than any other Reformed Church did And that which inclined me the rather to follow her Conduct through my whole Tract of the Sabbath was this because I observed that the Writers upon the fourth Precept have fallen into inextricable perplexities meerly through this one mistake That the Sabbath injoyned in that Precept is Saturday and not as our Church teacheth Sunday And that if they had followed our Churches Clew they would have found the way out of those Labyrinths wherein they have lost themselves For if Sunday be the Day whereon God rested and therefore commanded in that Precept to be sanctified after God's Example and unless it be that day wereon God rested that Precept does not command the sanctification of it how naturally will these Consequences follow 1. That Adam and the Patriarchs could not be ignorant of that Example of God which was laid down in the Precept as the Reason why we are to sanctifie it for if that reason oblige us who only hear it It must much more oblige Adam who after a sort saw it 2. That the Law of the Saturday-Sabbath is not expresly commanded in that Precept but only reducible to it in regard of its equity and proportion of time viz. one of seven And therefore Saturday-Sabbath may depart and the Precept continue in full force Nay that Sabbath together with the Ceremonial Precepts concerning it must as the rest of Mosaick Ceremonies depart at the rending of the Vail and give way to the Sunday-Sabbath And thus the Christian Church is disburdened of those Austerities about which there hath been so much wrangling amongst Modern Writers 3. That there was no need of a new Gospel-Precept for the first Institution of Sunday-Sabbath and that