Sabbath which in the fourth Commandment is so strictly required and that with a Memento also more than any other Commandment as being indeed the greatest of them all and most nearly concerning our everlasting Rest and Happiness as hereafter will appear CHAP. V. Of the Fourth Commandment what part of it is moral and what Ceremonial Why a Ceremonial is taken into the Ten Commandments Of the Memento and some other Prerogatives proper to this fourth Commandment The Excellent benefit of this Sabbath-law Why it is placed in the middle of the Commandments How the whole law is performable by men FOr the right understanding of this great mysterious Sabbath we must first diligently examin the words of the fourth Commandment which I here set down fully as I find them recorded Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work But the seaventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the stranger that is within thy Gates For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is and rested the seaventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it All our learned Divines generally agree thus farr that this Commandment is partly Moral so that the Moral part thereof is to be obeyed and kept at this day and also during the continuance of the world They also agree that part of it is Ceremonial appertaining only to the Jewes and binding them to the observation thereof until their Mâ—ssiah came in the flesh and was made known unto that people or during the Pedagogie of them or at most during the Judaical state and politie All this I conceive to be very true But the main difficulty consisteth onely in the right dividing this Commandment by seperating the Moral and everlasting part from that part which is but Ceremonial and temporal and typical Which that I may truely and Christianly perform I here most earnestly implore the assistance and illumination of thy Divine spirit O gratious Lord Jesus that in this needfull and concerning mystery I may appeare to thee and to thy Church as thy servant Paul exhorted Timothie a workman rightly dividing the word of truth For the understanding whereof I here present â— Tim. 2. 15. to the Consideration of the pious and learned Reader What after much labour of mind and long deliberation and after diligent and serious Consulation with the Ancient Fathers I have conceived to be the true and most necessary meaning of this Commandment and what is the right Division or Seperation of the Moral Mysterious and Perpetuall part thereof from that which is only Typicall Ceremoniall and Temporall And what part of that precept bindeth us Christians to observe it as it did also the Ancient Israelites and the Patriarks and Prophets and even Adam himselfe and all his posterity And also what part thereof was proper to and concerned only the Mosaicall or Judaical people and doth not at all concern the Christians or Gentiles nor did in the least oblige the Patriarks which lived and died before the dayes of Moses The want or neglect of a right distinction of these differing parts of this Commandment in our later Theological Writers hath occasioned much trouble heart-burnings and Schisms among Christians and also many Phraisaicall curiosities in the observation of an eighth day Sabbath Which was never intended to be put upon the people of God by this 4th Commandement And moreover it hath also obscured the most needfull most holy and Mysterious Sabbath Spirituall by which we only can expect an eternall and heavenly Sabbath and salvation of our Souls and bodies For many good pious and well-meaning Christians are hereby mislead into the same arror and mistake that the Jews were in by thinking that the whole and ultimate duty commanded and intended in this 4th Comandement consisteth only in keeping holy One day of Seaven Which is but a very mean and low conceipt and far short of the High and Weighty intendment of that Precept and is also a very stumbling Block in the way to retard men from apprehending the true Sabbath therein secretly and mysteriously Veiled Which is Christ Who only is the everlasting Sabbath or Rest both of the Godhead and also of us Men. It is now time that I set down plainly what I conceive to be the Moral part of this Commandment and in what words it is contained that so it may appear how much of that long Precept concerneth us at this day and is an everlasting Law and a law Naturall and Written in Mans heart and binding not only Christians and Jews but Heathens and even all Nations as also it did all the Patriarchs before Moses was born and before it was written in stone These are the words Ex. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy In these few words is contained the whole Morality of that Law So that no more of the words are to be accounted Moral or binding us for all the following words are but a branch of the Ceremoniall law And although they are here joyned with the truly Moral Sabbath and also by the same God written in the same Tables of Stone Notwithstanding this will not make them to be a Moral law because they are so annexed for this reason only to serve as a Type and figure of the Grand Sabbath To keep the Israelites mindfull by a weekly Sabbath or rest of that everlasting Rest which they were to expect in their Messiah and not otherwise For now we see that all learned Divines have rejected and the whool Christian world have long since disused the old Jewish Typical or Seaventh-day Sabbath These later words which are so annexed to the fourth Morall Law are to be considered by themselves in their proper place but for present we must insist only on the former words which I have affirmed to be truly moral and an everlasting law For the understanding whereof the Reader may observe divers things Considerable and some of them proper and peculiar to this Commandment so as not to be found in any other of the Nine 1. In those words recited There is no mention of the Seaventh day for that was meerly Typical and Ceremonial but the Sabbath-day Therefore surely there must be understood some other Sabbath day besides the Seventh day Sabbath for otherwise it had bin enough to have said Remember the Seaventh day to keep it holy But the Seaventh day is one thing and the Sabbath day is another They differ as much as Shadow and Substance as Type and Antitype as Signum Signatum i. e. as the bare signe from that which is signified thereby for the Jewish Seaventh-day-Sabbath which was but only a signe and shadow of the Substantial Mysticall and Spiritual Sabbath which is Christ 2. To this
17. Christ The Reader may further observe that it is not here said The seventh day was the Sabbath but Is in the present tense and this because God never declared that the seventh day should be observed untill the daies of Moses although the Godhead did ever from the first seventh day acquiesce in Christ and not onely upon the seventh day but every day and every minute and so will do to eternity when no distinction of daies shall be any more but one everlasting day Therefore they are mistaken that think the seventh day to have been appointed to be observed on the first seventh day of the world as a Sabbath for in all the Histories of the Patriarks before the Flood and also after the Flood in the Mosaicall History of Noah Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Reader will never find the word Sabbath so much as once mentioned untill Moses wrote the History of his own time which was about 24 hundred years after the creation of the world We observe also that in St. Jerom according to the Originall and generally in all the Latin Writers Calvin and all these words are otherwise read than our English Translation hath rendred them for we read them thus The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God but they Septimo die Sabbatum Domini Dei tui est i. e. On the seventh day the Sabboth of the Lord thy God is By these words it may appear that the seventh day was not the true and reall Sabbath here meant but that the celebration and memoriall of the Morall Sabbath was to be performed on the seventh day so that the Sabbath and the seventh day are two distinct things and differ as much as substance and shadow For the Rest of God in Christ is the true Sabbath both of God and men and the corporall rest of men was no more but onely the memoriall and celebration thereof Just so the Fathers spake concerning the great Christian Festivall of the Nativity of Christ on the 8th of the Kalends of January or 25th of December a Cyp. n. 99 Adest Christi Nativitas And b Orig. n. 46. Hieron n. 41. Hodie verus Sol mundo ortus est And c Chrys n. 61. Deus hodie factus est homo And d Aug. de Temp. Ser. 16. Hodie natus est Christus i. e. Now is the Nativity of Christ come This day the true Sun is risen This day was God made Man To day was Christ born In all which passages every one knows that these Fathers meant not that Christ was really born on that very particular day wherein they spake or wrote these words but onely that the celebration of his Nativity was performed on that day So it is here the seventh day was not the true reall and morall Sabbath but onely the day appointed for the memoriall and celebration of that Sabbath for the true Sabbath was the rest of God and men in Christ and the seventh day was the time appointed for the celebration thereof Nazianzen saith of Christian Festivalls e Naz. O. rat 39. Festi celebratio est memoria Dei i. e. Christian Festivals are but memorials of God So God himself said of the Sabbath-Feast Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it is a signe between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord JEHOVA that doth sanctifie you In it thou shalt not do any work First this branch doubtlesse belongeth onely to the Ceremoniall Jewish or seventh-day Sabbath but not at all to the true substantiall Sabbath and therefore it doth not in the least concern us Christians by vertue of this Law because the seventh day or Saturday-Sabbath is antiquated and quite gon 2. If this branch did belong to the Morall Sabbath or if the sanctifying of the seventh day were the onely Sabbath meant in this Commandment surely it would be a great sin to do any of the prohibited works on that day in any case of necessity or inconvenience because the Morall Law of God is indispensable and so may not be transgressed upon any pretence whatsoever as is before shewed 3. If this branch were Morall it must needs be in force at this day and then No fire must be kindled Exod. 35. 3. No sticks gathered Numb 15. 32. Nor Manna Exod. 16. 26. No burden carried Neh. 13. 19. Jer. 17. 21. No journeying or going out of our place Exod. 16. 29. No harvest-work Exod. 34. 21. In a word we might not feed our Cattle or milk our Kine or draw a Beast out of a pit nor perform the works of Surgery of Midwifery or quench a burning house But if we can shew that such works were done on the seventh day and also that they are sufficiently warranted to be inoffensive to God then I trust the Reader will perceive that this prohibition of works doth not at all belong to the keeping of the true morall and everlasting Sabbath but onely to the Jewish sanctifying of their ceremoniall and temporall Sabbath And therefore this Law was dispensable in case of necessity or of charitable convenience as may thus appear 1. The Israelites performed the works of Journeying and War in their marching about â—ericho seven daies together one of them must be the Sabbath day This was done by God's expresse command in the Old Testament And in the New Testament there is also expresse mention of a Sabbath day's journey Act. 1. 12. 2. The Priests in the Temple carried fuell and kindled fires offered Sacrifices and baked bread and so as Christ said they profaned Mat. 12. 5. the Sabbath that is the seventh day or ceremoniall Sabbath and yet were blamelesse And this because there was a necessity laid on them even the commandment of God who yet would not have so commanded against his own morall Law 3. As for carrying burdens we know Christ commanded the impotent man to take Joh. 5. 8. take up his bed And for Cures himself performed many on the Sabbath day on set purpose to undeceive the Jews in their Sabbaticall and Pharisaicall superstitions And also excused his own Disciples for gathering corn on the Sabbath 4 As for the works of mercy and charity towards our brethren and even to our poor cattle how many generall precepts have we A righteous man regardeth the life of his Prov. 12. 10. Mat. 12. 11 beast It is Christ's own orgument If a sheep may be lifted out of a pit on the Sabbath day much more may a man in danger be holpen This he grounded on the Word of God by his Prophet Hos 67. I will have mercy and not sacrifice That is God will rather dispense with his own due for a while then thereby retard the works of mercy and compassion The Psalmist saith O Lord thou preservest â—sal 36. 6. man and beast Thus As Moses cast the two Tables of the Law out of his hands and brake them and yet Exod 32. 19. thereby brake
SABBATUM The Mystery of the Sabbath DISCOVERED Wherein The Doctrine of the Sabbath according to the Scriptures and the Primitive Church is declared The Sabbath Moral and Ceremonial are described and differenced What the Rest of God signified and wherein it consisted The fourth Commandment expounded What part of the fourth Commandment is Moral and what therein is Ceremonial Something occasionally concerning the Christian Sunday By EDM. PORTER B. D. Somtime fellow of St John's Colledge in Cambridge and Prebend of Norwich Aug. Cont. Adimant c. 2. Tom 6. Sabbatum non repudiatum est sed intellectum à Christianis Epiphan Haer. 30. Christus est magnum illud Sabbatum perpetuum Cuius figura erat parvum Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsus adventum Prudent in Apotheosi En tibi Christum Infelix Judaea deum qui Sabbata solvens Terrea Mortales aeterna in Sabbata sumpsit Origen in Math. Tract 29. Venient autem Dominus noster Sabbatum nostam requies nostra attulit nobis requiem Sabbati sui c. London Printed for Charles Webb and are to be sold at the Bore's Head in St Paul's Church-yard To the Right Honourable THOMAS Lord Richardson Baron of Cramond AND To the truly Noble and Vertuous Lady the Lady ANNE Richardson his right worthy Consort PEACE and TRUTH RIGHT HONOURABLE OF all the mistakes and misunderstandings of men in the grand Mysteries of our Religion there is none that may more deservedly be put into the catalogue of popular and almost universall errors then the erroneous conceivings and misapprehensions of the doctrine of the Sabbath wherein not onely the Antient and Modern Jews but also many Christians both learned and lewd did and do alike erre Insomuch that now of late the old saying is come to passe Communis error facit jus for we have lived to see Sabbatarian errors to be grown up into a Law and to be confirmed And the very appllation of Sabbath which in the Moral part of the fourth Commandment signifies Christ our Redeemer and in the latter or Ceremonial part of the said Commandment signifies the seventh day from the Creation or last day of the week to be applied to our Sunday which is the first day of the week and the eighth from the Creation And this even by many Preachers some of them being very learned whereby the lesse learned sort of Christians are misled into the same error with the Jews who would see no further into the great mystery of the Sabbath than onely the consecrating of the seventh day as ours at this time do the eighth day And neither of them will be as yet perswaded to look more deeply into that most divine and gracious Law of the Sabbath The principall misleader into these errours in our daies is I conceive that otherwise pious and learned Book entituled The Practise of Piety the right Author whereof I think is concealed A late a Advice to a Son Writer thinketh that it hath been too oft printed because as he saith it is contrary to the Church Protestant in the doctrine of the Sacrament b pag. 513. 515. Edit 32. I think it far more contraâ—y to â—he Church Catholick in the Doctrine of the Sabbath which word Sabbath this Writer not onely applies to our Sunday but also labours vehemently with multitudes of Arguments unnecessary uncogent and also untrue to prove it the Sabbath meant in the fourth Commandment Seneca saiâ—h c Sen. lib 3 Cont. 22. Suspectus est judici qui plus quam se defendit Verily his over-many vain prooss and superfluous pleadings may to a judicious Reader make his cause to be suspected the more either of error or which is worse of designe and collusion For some of our own learned Writers have long ago declared in their printed Books that the late or yesterday use of calling our Sunday The Sabbath was set on foot by that sort of men who have made it their trade to asperse both the Doctrine and the Discipliâ—e of this Church on purpose to please and accommodate those turbulent spirits that have for a long time waited for an opportunity to make a prey thereof And these their instruments may justly be suspected to carp at this Church for their own designes as Politian saith of one of his opposits d Polit. l. 7 Epist 2. Non ideò me carpit ut carpat sed ut victum quaerat And indeed our Zelot Sabbatarians by such practises have of late well feathered their nests though with the ruine of the most renowned Church in the world but alitèr non fiunt Floralia And they have moreover abused the present State with this word Sabbath whereby our Sunday is of late re-baptized or Turkened into a Sabbath which our former Parliaments in their Statutes in the daies of our fore-fathers and untill the reign of our late gracious King Charls of blessed memory and inclusively and the Church of England also for weighty reasons called by none other name but Sunday But such things need not seem strange when the Nobles and Worthies of David and also the Sage and Reverend Aaronites and their Learned Levites are excluded from the Sanedrim As for the appellation of Sabbath so misapplied to our Sunday no authority of Scripture can with any colour of right reason be alledged either directly or derivatively from thence The Jews that were converted and made up a Body of the Primitive Church and first began the celebration of this day did never call it Sabbath nor did any Apostle so call it nor indeed any of the antient Fathers nor was this day meant by * Sabbatum Christianum Origen who is untruly said to have called it The Christian Sabbath as will appear in this a Chap. 4. Book As for the other late and new name of Lord's Day which they would derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalyps Rev. 1. 10. because our English Translation doth so render those words which yet they will not bear the right reddition whereof is not The Lord's Day but The Dominicall day as our Englishmen generally ever did before and yet do call the Sunday-Letter not The Lord's day Letter but The Dominicall Letter And the Western Church in all Ages called this day either Dies Solis or Dominica For in Scriptures the Lord's Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and are often used by St. Paul and St. Peter and are 1 Cor. 5. 5 Phil. 1 10. 2 Pet. 3. 10. rightly rendred The Day of the Lord and The Day of Christ but in a far different signification from that which these men now call the Lord's Day for those words signifie The Great Day of Universall Judgment Besides a judicious Reader will consider how harshly and uncouthly this appellation sounds for when they speak of many Sundayes they call them Two Three or Four Lord's Dayes as if we had more Lord's daies than
they are not fit to be imposed on Christians CHAP. III. Of Ceremonial Laws Why God expressed a dislike of them before they were abrogated Of the dissolving of them and particularly of the Sabbath by Christ Why Christ dissolved the Sabbath The judgment of the Fathers therein That it is now pernicious to Sabbatize as the Jews did and yet do That Christ appointed no new Sabbath-day instead of the old CHAP. IV. Of Laws Moral and why they are so called More of Sunday-Sabbatizing Of Origen and of his Christian Sabbath That Saturday was a Church-day for Sermons Sacraments and Scripture-Lessons and a Fasting-day long after Origen's time That Christians did more reverently keep Saturday then the Jews did that Sabbath That Sunday is not to be called Sabbath Why Easter-day was altered from the Jewish Paschal-day The Author 's reverent esteem of the Christian-Sunday CHAP. V. Of the fourth Commandment what part of it is Morall and what is Ceremonial Why a Ceremonial is taken into the ten Commandments Of the Memento and some other prerogatives proper to this fourth Commandment The excellent benefit of this Sabbath-Law Why it is placed in the midst of the Commandments How the whole Law by it is performable by men CHAP. VI. That Christ is the true Morall Sabbath Why he is concealed under the word Sabbath That the Scriptures do declare him to be the Sabbath The difference of the Lord of Sabbâ—oth and the Lord of the Sabbath Of that Sabbatism mentioned Heb. 4. 9. A passage of Isaiah and another of St. Paul applied to Christ's Sabbathship That Sabbath-breaking is not called a sin in the New Testament CHAP. VII The doctrine of the Primitive Church concerning the Sabbath shewed out of Tertullian and other Father How the Patriarks kept the Sabbath before the daies of Moses The doctrine of the Church herein The meaning of the Prayers at the rehear sing of the ten Commandments How the Law may be written in our hearts and how it is so performable CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the world is described without mention of evening and morning The Sabbath described by Philo the Jew That the Sabbath and Melchisedech were parallel types of Christ CHAP. IX The sanctifying of the Sabbath How thâ— Godhead is said to be sanctified How the human nature of Christ is sanctified Of the name of God That it signifies God himself That the name Jesus signifies the Person of Jesus How God sanctifieth us and how we sanctifie God How Christ being the Sabbath is to be sanctified or kept holy CHAP. X. Of God's Resting That it is not acessation from working Nor meant of his ending the Creation Nor of layiâ—â— aside his care and providence in Government That his Rest and Working do consist together Something concerning the Originall of human Souls Of Universalls what they are and where to be found A Question discoursed Whether God created any new kinds of Creatures since the first seventh day Two Queries propounded CHAP. XI That the Rest of God is fixed on the seventh day onely although he did intermit Creation for some time in every former day That his Rest did not consist in any meer creature Of the Rest of God before the Creation That God performed part of the Creation on the seventh day and what that was Jewish Fables concerning the creation of Adam and Eve CHAP. XII Why the Rest of God is not mentioned untill the seventh day Why it is fixed on the Creation of mankind rather than of any other of the Creatures Answers to certain Enquiries That the consideration of Christ to be propagated from the man and the woman was the onely cause of this expression of the Rest of God CHAP. XIII That the Rest of God consisted in his purpose of producing Christ is proved by Scripture and Reason Of the Image of God Why the Woman was taken out of the Man Of the union of Christ with Mankind That this union was shewed by Christ in the Sacramentall Bread and Wine That the Soul of Christ was derived or propagated from the first man Something concerning Universall Redemption CHAP. XIV Of Adam's solitude and something concerning Monastick life with the reasons thereof That the help by the Woman consisted not in respect of Society nor of Child-bearing simply considered but onely in respect of the propagation of Christ Of Child-bearing and that it is not salvificall without faith in Christ Of Good and Evill occasioned by the Woman Why she was called Vita or Life Why God permitted the Woman to occasion the Fall CHAP. XV. An Answer to the Question How God can be said to Rest That the Rest of God is onely in Christ and Why That the Tabernacle and Temple are called God's Resting place onely as they were figures of Christ That the Ark is called God's strength in the same respect That God's Rest in Sion is also meant of Christ That the union of God and Man in Christ was ordained onely in order to man's Salvation and everlasting Rest That man's Rest is called God's Rest Certain Conclusion concerning this Rest of God CHAP. XVI That the Rest of Man is called God's Rest is shewed by other like passages of Scripture That Christ is called the Rest of God Onely because he is the Rest of Mankind An Answer to the second Querie above mentioned viz. Why God is said to Rest onely on the first seventh day and not before The Conclusion of the Doctrine of God's Rest and St. Austin's judgement therein CHAP. XVII An exposition of the Ceremoniall part of the fourth Commandement begun That the six dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the seventh day is called a Sabbath onely because it was a figure of the true Sabbath That the seventh-day-Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the eighth day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the daies of Moses St. Jerom's translation and our English examined The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of works on the Jewish Sabbath That their corporall Rest was but a figure of our spirituall Rest in Christ CHAP. XVIII The Exposition continued Why the Woman is not here mentioned That sons or servants sinned not by working upon command The miseries of servants Why Cattle might not be wrought on Sabbath daies That strangers were not obliged to Sabbatize except they resided within the Jewish pale Why cattle are mentioned before strangers Why servants cattle and strangers are not mentioned at the beginning of this Law with the Memento That by these circumstances the seventh-day-Sabbath is proved to be meerly Ceremonial and Judaical CHAP. XIX The Exposition continued How God is said to have made all in six daies and yet that he ended not his work untill the seventh day Why the Creation was prolonged six daies Of the order of Creatures
from the very Creation of man or from that very time when God commanded man to abstain from the Tree of knowledg And yet in this Assertion I shall not in the least gainsay the Doctrine of those Ancient and most learned Fathers as a Iust dial cum Tryph. Tert. Adv. Iudaeos Euseb de Demonst lib 1. c. 6. Justin Martyr and Tertallian and Eusebius who tells us that neither Adam nor Enoch nor Noah nor Melchisdeck did ever Sabbatize And b Athanas in Synopst Athanasius also who affirmed very truely That the observation of the 7th day sabbath be an not untill the dayes of Moses All which I firmly beleeve to be true provided that we understand their Assertion in the same sense that they meant it viz of the hebdomary weekly or 7th day Sabbath which verily is not that Sabbath which is meant mysteriously implied in the fourth Commandment For the Sabbath which in the fourth commandment is required to be Sanctified is the true substantiall mysticall and eternall Sabbath which is the Son of God the Messiah the great Peace-maker even the Lord Jesus Christ of which true Sabbath the Jewish Leviticall Ceremoniall or seaventh-day Sabbath was but a meer shadow type or figure which shadow is now vanished as other legal shadows are such as Circumcision and Sacrifices both which were farr more ancient then the weekly Sabbath was whereas the Sabbath meant and intended commanded in this 4th commandement was in force and kept by all the holy Patriarks before Moses was born and before it was written in stone it was written in man's heart as all other Moral lawes were and it was and is to last untill the end of this world and in the next world also and not to be Antiquated at all as the seaventh-day Sabbath was and is For the Moral law which was written by the finger of God consisteth of ten Commandments just so many no more nor lesse which number the holy Scripture mentioneth Ex. Ex. 34. 2◠34. 28. Ten commandments or Decem verba Foederis Tenn words And so again Deut. 4. 13. Tenn words or Commandments And God wrote them on two Tables of Stone to signifie the durablenesse of them all and therefore the Moral Sabbath there meant must continue as long and as firmly as any of the other nine We must still have Ten Commandments which is the reason that St. Austin and generally all our Divines to this day call this Moral law Decalogum as consisting of Ten words or Commandments The same Father in his book intituled a Aug. Tom 3. Speculum reciting the Moral law out of Ex. 20. doth quite omit the fourth commandment which is of the Sabbath and this he did because 1. He knew that the Seaventh-day Sabbath was none of the Moral laws of God but that it is totally antiquated and expired 2. Because he perceived that men did mistake the meaning of the true Moral Sabbath by fixing the duety thereby required only on the keeping holy of a day whereas they should have known that the Sabbath there meant is only Christ So that by this misconceit men slighted the Substance and magnified the Shadow for the same Father had said before b Aug. epist 86. Judaeus si sabbatum observando Dominum negat c. i. e. If the Jew by observing his Sabbath day doth thereby deny that his Lord Messiah is come how can the Christian safely observe the Sabbath day And again in his 119. Epistle to c Epist 119. cap. 12. Januarius cap. 12. he thus writeth c. Praeceptum de Sabbato solùm figuratè praecipitur de requie quae in solo Deo certa invenitur-ergo non ad literam jubemur observare diemillum nam nisi aliam Spiritualem requiem significet lex ridenda judicatur i. e. The law of the Sabbath day is only figurative signifying that Sabbath or rest which is no where to be found sure and certain but only in our God Therefore we are not hereby to observe a day as it is literally set down for unlesse some other Spiritual rest be thereby meant that Sabbath law might seem ridiculous Thus he Upon the same reason Isychius of Jerusalem affirmeth That the sabbath day which the Jewes observe is none of the Ten Commandements although it was written among them for the Sabbath there meant signifies d Isych in Levit. lib. 7. c. 26. Requiem intelligibilem saith he i. e. not a Corporal but a spiritual or intelligible Rest which rest is only in our God He added that if we will take the words going before viz I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Aegypt for one of the commandments we shall still have Tenn Indeed The mysterious Sabbath which is really meant and intended in the morality of the 4th Commandement is only that God which delivereth us out of not only Egyptian but also Hellish Slavery which deliverance is implied and couched in this word Sabbath so that we need not put out one of the commandments and in the room of it take in a new for preserving the number of of Ten for that number will be found therein without such chopping and we are offended with the Romanists for such practises about these commandments who to hide the second commandement which forbiddeth image-worship have in their Catechisms quite omitted it although it continueth perfectly in their Bibles and to supply the defect they have obtruded the fallacy of Composition in making but one Commandment of the two first And the fallacy of Division in making two of the last as is apparent in their books and particularly in Ledesma's dial p. 81. Ferus libell precat p. 59. 60. the Catechism of Jacobus Ledesma a Jesuite and also of Ferus CHAP. II. The word Sabbath That it signifieth Rest Of the Rest of God and the Rest of man Of our rest Corporal and Spirituall The diffferences of Sabbaths The severall sorts of Jewish lawes which command or enforce the Sabbath The Judicial lawes of the Jewes not fit to be imposed on Christian WHat this word Sabbath signifieth we are certified by two learned Jewes first a Philo. de cherubin Philo saith Sabbatum interpretatur Quies i. e. The interpretation of Sabbath is Rest With him b Ioseph Antiq. l. 1. c. 2. Josephus agreeth Sabbatum significatrequiem i. e. that it signifieth quiet or Rest With them our Christian writers generally consent as Eusebius Nazianzen Epiphanius Jerome Austin The Rest which is signified by this word Sabbath is 1 The Rest of God mentioned Gen. 2. 2. God rested on the 7th day from all his works And so again Ex. 20. 11. How the most blessed Godhead can be said to rest which never laboured or was weary we shall inquire hereafter Secondly The Rest of man and this Rest is of two Sorts First Rest Corporal by ceasing from worldly servile labours on the 7th day both himself his family and his poor beasts
also Secondly Rest Spirituall which consisteth in the quiet and tranquillity of our minds and consciences when we are freed and quitted from the disturbing perturbations of our Consciences and turbulent horrors of our Souls upon consideration of our sinns and fear of divine vengeance This Spirituall rest is not confined to a Seaventh day only but is a continuall Rest or Sabbath to every holy Christian St. Austin saith a Aug. de Genesi ad lit l. 4. c 13. Fidelium perpetuum Sabbatum observatur i. e. The faithfull keep a continuall Sabbath And again he saith b Ibid. in Psal 91. Nostrum Sabbatum est in tranquillitate conscientiae est gaudium spei nostrae-intus est in corde Sabbatum nostrum i. e. The Christian mans Sabbath consisteth in the quietnesse and tranquillity of his conscience-It is the joyfulnesse of our hope Our Sabbath is inward residing in our heart We are also taught by St. Jerom that the Jewish Seventh day Rest was but a meer figure of the Christians Rest c Hieron Tom. 9. 11. n. 40. Judaeis Sabbatum in ocio corporali significabat sanctificationem in requie Spiritâ—s sancti i. e. The Sabbath which the Jews observed by a corporal rest did signify a Sanctification of the rest wrought by the Holy-ghost And Origen tells us d Orig. in Math. â—ract 29. Qui vivit in Christo semper sabbatizat a peccato i. e. He that doth live or abide in Christ doth alwayes Rest from sin His meaning is not that a Christian is alwaies without sin but that the infirmities of holy men do not discontinue or extinguish their resting in the mercies of God through Christ that they are freed from the dispairing terror of Damnation This is the true real and spirituall Sabbath or rest in Christ to which we are exhorted by old Ignatius e Inat ep ad Magnesianos Non Sabbatizemus Judaico mâ—râ—-sed Sabbatizemus spiritualiter i. e. That we should not deceive our selves by keeping a Sabbath day only as the Jewes did but to apprehend thereby a more excellent spirituall Sabbath viz. the true rest of our souls in Christ So bâ— these pâ—ssâ—ges we learn that there is not only a day Sabbath of externall and corporall rest to be considered in the Scriptural doctrine of Sabbaâ—hs but moreover principally a secret mysterious and spiritual Rest or Sabbath which is the Grand Sabbath whereof the other Sabbaths are but meer figures and shadows For the more clear understanding of the difference of these two sorts of Sabbaths we must inquire of the Originall of them as when and by what law they were inacted And this we cannot with plainness set forth but by examining the severall kinds of lawes imposed upon the Jewes whereby the Sabbath was both established in the judiciall commonwealth and is also binding to us Christians Wherein I shall not need to meddle with the Sabbath of years which was every Seaventh year wherein the whole land rested from husbandry Nor with the Jubilean Sabbath which was every fiftieth yeare when old owners returned to their ancient inheritances But our inquiry must must only be for the authority of the Saturday weekly or 7th-day Sabbath with the signification meaning and mystery thereof and what that true reall substantiall and spirituall Sabbath is which was but only typified by the Seventh-day Sabbath For the Jewish lawes we find 3 several diferent sorts of them viz. 1 Morâ—l 2. Ceremonial 3. Judiciall by all which the Sabbath is established all which lawes are distinctly mentioned as Expositors say by those words of Moses Deut. 6. 1. Now these are the Commandments the Statutes and the Judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you The ancient Latine Translation thus renders them 1. Praecepta to signifie the ten commandments 2. Ceremoniae to signifie the ceremoniall or Leviticall lawes 3. Judicia to signify the lawes Judiciall My designe of discoursing of them requires that I begin with the lawes Judiciall 1 The judicial Law 1. The Judicial law of the Jewes is such as we now call the law Politick Civill Common or Statute-law ordained for the ordering and governing of the commonwealth by this law punishments were enacted to be inflicted on the transgressors both of these judicial laws and also upon them that transgressed other lawes for by it Sabbath-breakers were punished with death Ex. 31. 14. And Ex. 35. 2. The gatherer of sticks on the Sabbath day is stoned to death Num. 15. 35. Idolaters are adjudged to be utterly destroyed Ex. 22. 20. To curse Father or Mother was death Levit. 20. 10. Bearing false witnes in matters capital was death Deut. 19. 18. 19. This judiciall I say appointed punishments for the transgressors of the other sorts of lawes when in those other lawes no punishment was mentioned for transgressours As in the ten commandments we find no visible nor temporal penalty mentioned for the sins of Idolatry Sabbath-breaking Dishonorers of Parents adulterers or falsewitnesses the punishment being either reserved to God or referred to the laws Judiciall or Politick There are some that have thought fit that these judicial laws of Moses should with some additions be made the laws Politick of Christians But I conceave that those laws are now most unfit for any Christian kingdome or State nor can they now have any binding power over us by vertue of that authority which they had from Moses or through him from God for these resons 1. Because they were ordained only for the Jewes commonwealth whilest it stood without any intention to continue them any longer 2. Many of them were enacted purposely to serve for the discovery of the Messiah to be an evidence of the fulfilling of some Prophecies which concerned the Tribe genealogy of Christ before his actuall manifestation in the flesh 3. Many of them are but Typicall therefore not to be used now since the Types are fullfiled by Christ the Antitype so that now they must needs be antiquated and quite out of date as well as all the other Leviticalls or ceremonialls which are typicall lawes are and ought to be disused such as Circumcision Sacrifices and New-moons c. 4. These judicialls would not be convenient for the very Jewes themselves now since the Death of Christ although they had to this day continued a People and State in their owne Country and City because the practise of these lawes would still harden them in their infidelity against the true Messiah as we see their Sabbatizing and Circumcising yet do Much lesse can they be fit for us Christians because of many and great inconveniences which would ensue thereupon Such as these 1. If the Jewish 7th year-Sabbath were in force with us wherein the whole land was to rest from Tillage and Husbandry as is commanded Ex. 23 11. and Levit. 25. 4. how many thousands of poor people would be famished and the richer people undone Indeed God did extraordinarily provide in such years
Commandment the Word Remember is prefixed as a John Baptist or fore runner of Christ which Memento we find not in any of the other Nine Surely there is something in this Commandement of most weighty concernment and more than is in any other of the nine for if in this Commandment God had only intended the keeping of the Seaventh day which we know was but temporary and to be left in its due time he would not have said Remember Because all those lawes which are truly Moral are also unexpirable and undispensable and to be kept at least to the end of the world and this Sabbaticall law especially so long and longer also even to Eternity therefore it deserves a Remember From this Memento Some doe argue that the Seaventh day Sabbath was observed before the dayes of Moses as if Remember related only to former usances If that were true it will make against their Seaventh day Sabbath and for our truly Morall Sabbath i. e. Christ because they may see that the Memento is prefixed to the Sabbath day but not to the Seaventh Day for that was not alwaies to be remembred 3. In this Sabbatical Commandment we finde not only a Memento going before but also another remembrance following after it as a type and shadow of the grand Sabbath for direction of God's people as the Pillar of â—ire and Cloud sometimes before and sometimes behind the Israelites Ex. 14. 19. For so it pleased God to ordain a weekly Shaddowy Sabbath to keep them in a continuall remembrance and expectation of their Messiah in whom only true certain eternall Rest was to be found Indeed Joshuah was to lead them into the Earthly Rest of the land of Canaan the land of Promise but he was but a type of the Messiah and is therefore called Jesus Acts 7. 45. Heb. 4. 8. and Canaan but a shadow of heaven and the weekly Sabbath but a figure of the Substantiall Sabbath Only their Messiah our Jesus was to lead his people into the blessed and everlasting Sabbath or Rest in heaven Now the adding an annexion of a ceremonial type to this Sabbaticall and Moral law which is not found in any other of the Nine doth cleerly shew that the Grand Sabbath here intended is of the most weighty and Considerable concernment of all and is therefore most principally to be Remembred For if it were possible for us men precisely to keep all the other Nine Commandments such a performance would not be Sufficient for our Eternall Rest without the keeping of this For this Sabbath is Christ in whom alone resideth all our hope and confidence of heaven there is none other name whereby we must be saved Acts. 4. 12. And moreover although we have transgressed and broken all the other Nine yet if we shall afterwards constantly and faithfully keep this Sabbath we shall find therein an help and remedy to preserve us from the dangerous consequences that otherwise will follow us upon such disobedience The consideration of that terrible sentence in the Law Deut. 27. 29. Cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to do them and of that in the Gospel Jam. 2. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offead in one point is guilty of all may drive Christians to restlesness of conscience and dispaire if this Sabbath or Rest in Christ be not apprehended which is principally that One point in which we must be most cautelous Christ himself hath said Mat 10. 32. Whosoever shall confess me before men him will I confess But whosoever shall deny me totally finally him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven The two Tables of this moral law would Plut. in vit Soloâ— in Moral be to us most uncomfortable and formidable and like those cruel Graecian laws of Draco and Lycurgus which are said to be written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a in blood and death because all transgressions were by them Capitally punished These divine lawes would be far more severe in everlasting punishments if they were not mollified by a gracious Sabbath law Aust saith he disrellished that famous book of Cicero called Hortensius b Aug. conf l. 2. 4. Quod nomen Christi non erat ibi i. e. Because the name of Christ was not there and so should we these two tables if Christ were not included therein But blessed be our gracious Law giver there we find Christ under the name and appellation of Sabbath just as in the Gospel he is called Mat. 11. 30. The Lord of the Sabbath this sweet name only maketh this yoke easie and burden light If there were nothing but the bare letter in this Moral Law woe unto us it would be but a kling law and as the Apostle sairh A killing letter if Christ were not in it But there is also in those sacred Tables as the same Apostle saith 2 Cor. 3. 6. a spirit that giveth life that is there is a secret mysterious and spiritual meaning not openly or plainly expressed but implyed and covertly intimated and that spirit is Christ who onely giveth life and he is that mysterious and spiritual Sabbath which is here intended By vertue of this secret spirit this Law which of it self considered in the bare letter doth only as the Apostle saith of it Rom 4. 15. The law worketh wrath becommeth good and vital and bringeth healing in it's wings * viperae cineres medentur morsui lact deira cap. 13. p. 716. There are some venemous and mortiferous creatures which as learned men say have in them an Antidote or remedy to preserve men from the danger of their poyson as we read in Plinie of a Plin. lib. 29. c. 4 Theriaci pastilli i. e. cakes or pills of Treacle made of the venemous viper So in a night-vision a Dragon presented an hearb to Great Alexander which cured his friend Ptolomy of a mortal wound by a poysoned arrow as b Diod. sic lib. 17. Diodorus writeth Antiochus had a Theriaca or Treacle that preserved him against all poysons as the forenamed c Plin. lib. 20. cl 24. Plinie reporteth such as Homer phanfied of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d Homer Odyss lib. 20. Verily this Law which in the letter and outward appearance of it seemeth so deadly and impossible hath in it a pretious and sure Antidote with being faithfully apprehended and piously applied will preserve us from the killing quality thereof and moreover it will shew us how the whole law may by us be perfectly performed And this Antidote is wrapped up and covered in this Sabbath law For the Sabbath is Christ and Christ hath performed the whole law and we that are united to him as members of his mystical body have also in him by him performed the whole law God because we are one with him as the Apostle saith We are members of his body Eph 5. 3. And
Ye are all one in Christ Jesus Gal 3. 28 The Jâ—wes placed this fourth Commandment of the Sabbath not in the last but in the penultimate place of the first table supposing the fifth Commandment of Honouring parents to belong thereunto and therefore they make it the last Commandment of the b jos Antiq l. 3. cap. 4. said first Table as we find both in a Philo. de Haere Divinorum Philo also in Josephus And this they did because they understood not the right meaning â—mportance of this Sabbath-precept But our Christian writers generally present this Sabbath commandment as the last of the first table as standing in the mid'st and confines of both Tables And this they did as may probably be conjectured because they understood that this Sabbath-Law sheweth us the only way and meanes whereby the whole law of both Tables may be by men performed and that is By keeping or sanctifying this mysterious Sabbath which is Christ If it were not for this Sabbath God had herein made such a law for man as never would have bin kept and obeyed and so his laws must have bin like the lawes which * Theod. de Cur. Grae. affect lib. 9. Plato phansied for his imaginarie Common-wealth which were never executed But as one saith of the invention of Poets c Plautus in Pseâ—d Act. 1. sc 4. Poeta cùm tabâ—las cepit sibi Quaerit quod nusquam est gentium reperit tamen As the Poet when he takes his pen seekes that which is no where extant and yet finds it so our Legistaâ—or writes a law requires obedience which was not possible to be found in any of his Leige people and yet finds it in his own Sonne who thereby becomes the Sabbath or Rest both of God and Man For we well know That the Transgression of the law is sin 1 Ioh. 3. 4. That the wages of sin is death Rom. 6 23. That all men are sinners the Psalmist saith There is none that doth good no not on Ps 14. 3. which the Fathers thus read usque ad unum i. e. none but one And yet Christ saith If thou wiâ—t enter into lâ—fe keep the Commandments Math. 19. 17. These words of Christ are most certainly true No entring into life without keeping these Commandments If we enquire How sinful man can be saved and how we have kâ—pt the law The answer can be none other but this That the law is performed by man but that man is Christ That the due sentence of Death is executed on man but that man is Christ And with all that all faithfull men and true members of Christ have both performed the law and suffered the punishment due for transgression because that which Christ hath done and suffered must be really and justly accounted their's in regard that Christ and they are One. For they are really united with Christ in one body by the cement of the Spirit for the same Spirit which is in the Lord Jesus is given and communicated to them wherby Christ dwellâ—th in thâ—m thâ—y in Christ So that the keeping of Christ faithfully is keeping of the Commandments And keeping this Sabbath is the keeping of Christ for Christ only is thiâ— Sabbath all evangelical exhortations for beleeving in Christ are but precepts for keâ—ping this Sabbath As he that believeth and is baptised Mar. 16. 16. Joh 3. 15. Act. 16. 31. shal be saved That whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish And Beleeve on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved These are the productions and gracious effects of our union with Christ who thereby and not otherwise becomes our Rest and everlasting Sabbath CHAP. VI. That Christ is the true Moral Sabbath Why he is concealed under this word Sabhath That the Scriptures do declare him to be the Sabbath The difference between the Lord of Sabaoth the Lord of Sabbath Of the Sabbatism mentioned Heb. 4. 9. A passage of Isaiah Another of St. Paul applied to Christ's Sabbath-ship Sabbath-day-breaking is not called a sin in the New Testament THis Sabbath as is said doth signify Christ whereof I nothing doubt But under the law both Christ and his gracious intentions towards man-kind were covered as Moses himself was with a vail and as yet not to be made publick Thus the Grand mystery of Christ's union with his members was vailed under the Typicall eating of the Paschal lamb his Cross under the shadow of an Altar His Passion and blood-shedding under the figures of sacrificeâ— beasts And that everlasting Rest and Blessednesse which he purposed to procure for his people is here covered under the vail of Sabbatical rest This Secrecie of Christ and of his benefits was signified by the Ark and Vail of the Temple the meaning whereof was that Christ would be concealed as shut up in a Chest or hidden behind a Curtain until he had actually performed his mercifull purpose especially by his Cross and Passion and Death for after them was the vail rent immediatly and not before And therefore he had formerly charged his Diciples to tell no man that he was the Christ Mat 16. 20. Luk 9. 21. left the certain knowledg of him should hinder his passion for so the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 2. 8. Had they known they would not have Crucified the Lord of glory And after him Tertullian renders the same reason a Tert. Cont. Mar. lib. 3. Nisi ignoratus paâ—â— nâ—n poteraâ— i. e. If Christ had not bin unknown he could not have suffered And upon those words Joh. 8. 28. When ye have lift up the Son of man then shall ye know hat I am he Austin saith b Aug. in Joh. â—ract 40. Differo cognitionem vestram ut â—mpleam passionem meam i. e. he suffered his own Disciples as yet to be ignorant of his purpose that so he might accomplish his Passion And again he saith c Idem de Temp. serm 174. Si Christus man festus venisset quis au leret judicare i. e. If Christ had bin publickly manifested who he was who durst have judged him These are the reasons as may be thought why Christ is so vailed under this word Sabbath for otherwise the Law giver might and would have written this Sabbath-law in plainer words such as these Remembâ—r tâ— sanctify Messiah And in memory faith and expectation of Him thou shalt keep hoâ—â— the 7th day of every week until his comming and therein do no manner of work Verily I firmly beleeve this to be the meaning and main importance of this fourth Commandment But yet for our better satisfaction we must further inquire Whether the holy Scriptures and also the Christian Church do declare Christ to be that Sabbath which in the Moral part of this Commandment is intended and whether Christ be thereupon called the Sabbaâ—h For if so then I trust this Doctrine will be assented to by the Christian Reader To this we say That the Scriptures do clearly
put the appellation of Sabbath upon Christ for as the Son of God considered in his pure Divinity and without and before his incarnation is called The Lord of hosts Isa 1. 9. Jer. 11. 20. which in the New Testament is rendered The Lord of Sabaoth Rom. 9. 29 Jam. 5. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word Sabaoth is by some Divines a Polan p. 140. affirmed to be one of the names of God So the Church of England accounteth it and ascribeth it to every one of the Three Persons in the Hymn singing Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoâ—h And so it was heretofore esteemed in this Kingdome as we perceive by an odd story of one of the Bishops of London reported by Bâ—shop Godwin out of Matthew Paris thus As this Bishop lay musing in his Bed he heard an unknown voyce saing to him O Gilberte Foliot Dumrevolvis tot tot Deus tuus est Astarot The Bishop presently and undantedly replyed Menâ—â—ris Daemon Deus meus est Deus Sabaoth If therfore the Lord of Sabaoth were the name of the Son of God before his commng in the flesh which name signifieth the Lord of Armies as if by this name it were signified that the Godhead was at defiance and warr with mankind before our Peace-maker appeared for us Then why should we doubt to affirm that The Lord of the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 12. 8. Mar. 2. 28. Lu. 6. 5. is the name of the same Son of God since he is become The Son of man and God incarnate and Emmanuel And this in order to be a person fitly prepared and qualified to perform the law for us and to suffer for our Transgressions as a Redeemer a Saviour and procurer of an everlasting Sabbath and Rest to our otherwise unquiet restless and troubled souls and consciences As also himself professeth Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest And ye shall find Rest unto your souls Surely every good Christian will find that to be true which one said to the same purpose a Aug. confess Inquietum est Domine cor meum doneâ— requiescat in te i. e. My heart is unquiet O Lord until it may find rest in thee Now if that Sabbath mentioned in this Commandment be not meant of Christ then there is no precept in all the Decalogue of faith in Christ without which the Law is to us impossible we should be Restless And further also If that Sabbath do not signify Christ then have we Christians no Sabbath at all and if so what will become of us But we are assured by the great Apostle that although the Jewish Ceremonial Seaventh-day-Sabbath be quite gon yet Heb. 4. 9. There remaineth a Rest to the people of God This rest is there called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a Sabbath or Sabbatism And that it may appear to what people of God this Sabbath appertaineth he tels us before Vers 3. We which have believed do enter into Rest Therefore this Sabbath or Rest belongeth to us Christians He further addeth vers 6 They to whom it was first preached entred not in because of unbeleif The Rest or Sabbath here mentioned must needs signify Christ The Jews are they to whom this rest was first preached that is to whom the Gospel of Christ was preached as Christ commanded Luk. 24. 47. to begin at Jeâ—usalem The Jews entred not into this Rest because of their unbelief i. e. they could not be received into the body mystical of Christ as members thereof because they did not believe in him but rejected him But the Apostles other faithfull Chrisians do enter into this Rest through faith as it is said We which have believed do enter that is they enter into Christ they are united with him thereby obtain this Râ—st so partake in the benefits which Christ merited by his most holy life and precious death And those benefits are indeâ—d our everlasting Sabbath For what can be so truly called a Rest and Sabbath as our repose resting in the Lord which leadeth us to an everlasting Sabbath in heaven For all our restings or Sabbatizings which are Earthly are but as dreams in respect of our Rest in Christ for he is that Sabbath whose Rest is called Blessedness and his after this mortal life is ended as we read Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the dead which dy in the Lord-that they may rest from their labours The Apostle in that place Heb. 4. useth two several words for Rest 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Rest and Sabbath This he did because he was to speak of two several Rests 1. The Earthly Rest of the Israelites after they were put into quiet possession of Canaan by Joshuah who is there called Jesus 2. The everlasting Rest of Gods People by entring into Christ through Faith and this Rest is called Sabbatism so that Sabbath and Sabbatism do plainly signifie Christ and our Rest in him For confirmation hereof it is worth our observation That the great Prophet Isaiah c. 58. v. 12. speaketh of the Sabbath as of a Person If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy-day and shalt honour him He calls the Sabbath Him which must signifie a Person and cannot be said of a meer Day Who is meant by this Him is declared in the next verse to be the Loâ—d for so it followeth Then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord. So that the Sabbath here meant is the Lord even the same Lord who in the Gospel calls himself The Lord of the Sabbath whereas other typical Sabbaths whether weekly or annual were but signs of this grand Sabbath as we are taught by another great Prophet Ezek. 20. 12. I gaâ—e them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifie them St. Paul to me seemeth to make this Doctrine evident and past exception when he saith Col. 2. 16. Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the new-moon or of the Sabbath-days which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ What can be more plainly said then this to shew That Christ is the true real and substantial Sabbath And that all other Sabbaths are but signs types figures and meer shadows of Christ who is the Body that projecteth these shadows for God himself had so said before concerning the seventh day Sabbath which only is that type which is mentioned in this fourth Commandment Exod. 31. 13. Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it is a sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord So this which was the principal and most frequent Sabbath of all was no more but a sign and what the signatum i. e. the signification of it was is shewed to
Sabbath or Rest in Christ He tels us also that Ebâ—on the Ancient Judaizing Heretick raised a report d Id Haer. 30. That Saint Paul had desired the Jewish High-preist's dâ—ughter to be given to him in mariage but being denied in revenge he wrote against their Sâ—bbath anâ— Circumcision But the true cause of the Apostle's decrying the Jewish Sabbath was this e Id. iâ—iâ— Christus est magnum Sabbatum quietos nos faciens à peccatis nostris -Ejus figura erat parvâ—m Sabbatum quod inserviebat usque ad ipsius adventum Christ is the grand Sabbath for he setteth us at rest from the troubles of our soules by reason of our sins the Jewish little weekly Sabbath was but a figure of Christ our great Sabbath and was to last but until his comming To this doctrine the learned Romanist's do assent as Bishop White hath observed out of Pet. Damianus Bishop of Ostia above 500 years since who thus writeth f Pet. Damiani lib. 2 Eph. 5. Quid per Sabbatum intelligere debemus nisi Christum in Illo siquidem Sabbato requiescâ—mus- spem ponimus i. e. What should we understand by the Sabbath but Christ for in him is our rest and hope St. Aâ—stin is most plentiful in asserting this doctrine for besides what I have observed before out of him he further saith of Circumcision and Sabbath a Aug. Cont Admantum c. 16. To. 6. Circumcisionem approbamus spiritualem- Sabbatum nam ad aeternam requiem intendimus We Christians approve of Circumcision but it is Circumcision spiritual mentioned Rom. 2. 29. Circumcision in the heart not in the letter but in the spirit and Colos 2. 11. Circumcision made without hands we approve of that Sabbath by which we intend and trust to obtain everlasting Rest Of this Sabbath he saith again b Id. Cont Adiman c 2. To. 6. Sabbatum non est repudiatum a nobis Christianis sed intellectum We Christians do not utterly reject the Sabbath but we understand it more truly than the Jews do Of the same mysterious Sabbath he saith again c Id de Gen. ad lit lib. 4 c 13. A fidel bus perpetuum Sabbatum observatur They that believe in Christ do keep a Sabbath perpetual What he meanes by this Sabbath is declared by these words d Id. Cont Faâ—stum lib. 19. c. 9. In Christo Sabbatum habemus nam ait Ego faciam ut requiescatis Our Sabbath is in Christ for he it is that saith I will give you rest Mat. 11. 28. And to shew the difference between the Typical and the Substantial Sabbaths and to what Purpose that Jewish Saturday-Sabbath was ordained He saith The Jews were offended because Christ commanded the infirm man to carry his bed on their Sabbath day Jo. 5. 10. But Christ might have answered them e Aug. in Joan. Tract 17. SacramentuÌ„ Sabbati signum observandi unius diei ad tempus datum Judaeis impletionem verò Sacramenti illius in illo venisse Sabbatum ad significationem meam vobis praeceptum est The Sacramental Sabbath or sign of keeping that day was imposed on the Jews but for a time because the fullfilling of it was performed by the comming of Christ for that Sabbath was given onely to signify Christ To this of Austin Calvin seemeth to me to subscribe where he saith f Calv. instit 2. 8. 31. Christus est verum Sabbati Complementum The keeping of a seaventh-day-Sabbath is but a vain and empty shadow except it be filled with the apprehension of Christ So that as all Typical and Ceremonial shadows were to cease when the thing was come which they signified the Sabbath being but such a sign must also so cease as Justin Martyr long ago taught g Just Dialog cum Triph. Sabbata finem habuêre nato Christo When Christ came Sabbaths went away Lastly it would be inquired what the Church of Englands doctrine is concerning that Sabbath in the fourth Commandment which Church I firmly believe to be in her doctrine and discipline the most truly Catholick Church in the world This we may discover by considering that prayer or suffrage which this Church hath required to be by us said at the rehearsing of this Sabbath-Commandment as at each other of them in these words Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law This prayer hath much troubled the minds of some of our Religious and well-meaning Countrymen because their teachers did not aright inform them in the true meaning of that Sabbath for both in their pulpits and also in their pâ—inted Catechisms they expound it to be meant only of sanctifying a day as the Jews did But if they so mean this prayer would be not only vain but also an impious mocking of God seeing the Commandment mentions onely the seaventh day and that precisely and none other and that is our Saturday which both we and all other Christian-Churches have utterly rejected but if they thereby understand our Sunday that is not so much as mentioned much less intended there nor may it be called a Sabbath day nor is the celebration of our Sunday to be enforced by vertue of that Commandment but otherwise as is before shewed But those Judicious Leanred and Godly men and also heroical Martyrs who were the compilers of our English Liturgy as Cranmer Ridley and others did rightly understand that Sabbath to signify Christ who onely is our Christian Sabbath and in this sence only we ought to understand it and then this Prayer must needs be confessed to be pious and necessary and not otherwise for the keeping of Christ by faith in him and sanctifying him that is considering his worth and benefits and demeaning our selves towards him so reverendly as becometh us and belongeth to his super-eminent hollness is the only way to procure an everlasting tranquillity Rest and Sabbath to our Consciences For without this Sabbath all our care will prove vain and the very Godhead will be but a terrour to us But if by God's merciful assistance we keep our selves fast in faith and so in Union with this blessed Sabbath we may then with comfort apply Ps 42. 5. that expostulation of the Psalmist to our own souls Why art thou cast down O my soul And why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance Now because the prayer above mentioned though it were granted to us is not full enough to supply and satisfy our defects and necessities for neither a good inclination readiness or willingness nor yet our earnest desires no nor our laborious endeavours to perform the Law do amount to the real and perfect keeping thereof without which we cannot enter into life as Christ hath said Mat. 19 17. Therefore the Church hath added another prayer at the end of these Commandements which is full and perfect In these words Write all
these thy Lawes in ouâ— hearts we beseech thee This prayer is grounded on the promise of God recorded both in the Prophets and also in the Gospel Jer. 31. 33. Heb. 18. 10. I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts If we enquire what that Law is and how God doth write it in our hearts and to what intent it is done The Answer is That this Law is Christ The putting or writing of it in our hearts is the mission of the Spirit of Jesus into us The intent or purpose thereof is that by a spiritual union of Christ with us we may fulfill the Law For because Christ and his Members are united by this Spirit and so become one mystical body therefore what Christ hath done in obedience to the Law must be accounted as our obedience and so imputed to us that because he hath performed the Law we also in him have performed it The Apostle tels us a 2 Cor. 13. 5. Jesus Christ is in you and b Gal. 2. 20. Christ liveth in me and c Eph. 3. 17. Christ may dwell in our hearts And Christ himself saith d Matth. 28 20. I am with you alway even unto the end of the world And the Apostle again e Gal. 3. 28. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus And that we may know that when we have the Spirit of Jesus in us then we have also the Lord Jesus himself in us Another Apostle tels us f 1 John 4. 13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit But how shall it appear That the putting of Christ into us is the putting of the Law of God into our hearts The Answer is That Christ is the Law there meant and he is called the Law and is really the Law * Moses is called by Phâ—lo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more is Christ so and not only so but he is moreover The Law with all advantages to us for he is the Law fulfilled That Christ is called the Law the Psalmist tels us a Psal 2. 7. Rom. 8. 2. I will preach the Law whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art mâ— Son Here the Son is called the Law or Precept of the Lord. Then that Christ is the Law fulfilled or the fufilling of the Law Of him it is said in another Psalm b Psal 40 10. Heb. 10. 7 In the volume of thy Book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy will O my God I am content to do it yea thy Law is within my heart And this Christ himself professed c Mat. 5. 17. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill the Law This also was signified by his Type the Ark wherein d Heb 9. 4 the Law was put for the Ark represented Christ and the Law in it signified that Christ should keep that Law and this he did perform only to our behoof that his obedience might be accounted ours Upon this reason only it is that the Apostle so confidently saith e Phil. 4. 13. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me If he can do all things then he can do all the works of the Law But we are well assured that he could not in his own proper person alone considered perform the Law but it must needs be thus only performed by him in and through Christ And in this consideration only Christ is our Rest and Sabbath For this reason our Church prayeth that God would incline our hearts to keep this Sabbath-law which is Christ That by keeping him the whole Law of God may be kept by us through and in him so as is here expressed by having the Law thus written in our hearts Thus this Moral Law which as Divines acknowledge is altogether impossible to the Natural man especially as it is exegetically aggravated and heightened in the Gospel is by this Sabbath made possible and easie to the Matth. 5. Spiritual man so the Apostle tels us a Rom. 10 4. Christ is the end or perfect on of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth that is He that believeth in Christ hath the benefit of performance of the Law brought home to him So St. Ambrose tels us b Ambr. in loc Perfectionem leg is habet qui credit in Christum CHAP. VIII That Christ is called a Day Why Christ and the seventh day are both called Sabbath The first Institution for keeping holy the seventh day Why the first seventh day of the World is described without Evening and Morning The Sabbath described by Philo Parallel'd with Melchisedech and both Types of Christ IF Jesus Christ be the only Sabbath which is mysteriously covered and spiritually meant and really and ultimately intended in the Moral part of this fourth Commandement as certainly he is because he only is our Redeemer our Mediator and the Peace-maker of God with man We must next enquire how this Sabbath if it be so understood can be called a Day as here it is Remember the Sabbath day for by this word Day a man may reasonably-imagine that the principal intendment of this Precept was only for the Celebration or Sanctifying of a day as the Jewes do yet think and many good Christians among us do still though erroneously believe although they agree not in the self same day with the Jews Their reason is because not only in this former part of the fourth Commandement which I have shewed to be a Morall Natural and an everlasting Law but also in the latter words annexed which are a part of the Law ceremonial and therefore but temporal and transient it is also said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God by which words a man at first hearing would think that the Sabbath in both parts of this Law is nothing else but a day for if the seventh day be a Sabbath why may not the Sabbath be thought to be a Seventh day 1. Our Answer is That the seventh day is called a Sabbath because it was a type and figure of our true Sabbath and Rest which is Christ as the Jews corporal rest was but a figure of our spiritual rest in Christ And because it was so appointed for a figure or sign therefore it hath the name of the thing figured or signified thereby as other signs and types have for so the Paschal Lamb is called the Passover yet we know Christ only is the true Passover as the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 5. 7. So the Rock is called Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. So of the Eucharistical bread it is said This is my body though it was but a Sacrament or holy sign of the body of Christ And the seven Eares are seven Yeares Gen. 41. 26. Just so the seventh day is the Sabbath that is the sign type and figure of the mysterious Sabbath which is Christ 2. As the sign hath
use this word God we should do it with great awefull reverence which yet we ought to do but the name of God doth herâ— signifie God himself as we are well taught by St. Austin a Aug. in Joh. Tract 29. Non est Deus duae syllabae duas syllabas colimus manet aliquod magnum quod est Deus sono non manente i. e. When we mention God or Godhead think not that we mean a word a sound a syllable or two as if we worshipped sounds words or syllables for that great thing which is God remaineth when no sound or syllable is heard Just so he saith of Christ upon those words Joh. 14. 13. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name b Id. lib. Tract 102. Non est intelligendus Dominus de sono syllabis qui hoc sentit de Filio non petit in ejus nomine etiamsi non taceat literis syllabis Christum i. e. When we ask in the name of the Lord Name doth not signifie only that word Christ as if it were a Charme he that thinks so doth not pray in the name of the Son of God though the word Christ be in his mouth Thus he The Son of God is by St. John called â—oh 1. 1. The word yet he that shall think that The Word in that place signifieth only a Grammatical or vocal word and sound doth err dangerously for it followeth The word was God so it signifieth the real and substantial Son of God It is therefore a very slander that someof late have put upon this Church for requiring an adoration of our Lord Jesus when that name is mentioned They say we worship only a name But we worship only the Lord Jesus himself as the Apostle meaneth in whom the name Jesus signifieth the Person Jesus as the name of God signifieth God himself Those phrases of Blessing and Magnifying and Glorifying and Justifying and Sanctifying God and The name of God which we find in the Scripture are all to be understood in the same sense For when it is said Job 1. 21. Blessed be the name of the Lord it is all one with that of Luk. 1. 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel so Mal. 2. 2. Give glory to my name is all one with that of Josh 7. 19. My Son give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel That of Ezech. 36. 23. I will sanctifie my great name is all one with that of 1 Pet. 3. 15. Sanctifie the Lord God Where for those words Lord God both the Syriac and old Latine read The Lord Christ as a Beza in Loc. Beza notes There is also mention of Justifying God Ps 51. 4. yet neither Justifying Blessing Gloryfying or Sanctifying can make any addition by any of these Attributes to the plenitude of God These are but the expressions of man not to make God holy but to declare him to be so and to shew that he is so accounted and esteemed by us indeed God doth sanctify us Really Effectually and Actually by induing us with sanctifying Graces but we cannot sanctifie God otherwise than affectionately declaratively and verbally and also by conforming our selves to his Commandments And so Christ our Sabbath is to be sanctified by us by an holy imitation of his Vertues as the Apostle saith 1 Pet. 1. 16. Be ye holy as I am holy and to keep this Sabbath is to be wary and mindful alwayes to keep Christ by a firm faith to be fixed to him never to deny or reject him And to keep him holy is to purifie ouâ— hearts so as to be clean and prepared Mansions fit for so holy a Guest and to walk worthy of so holy and so merciful a Saviour in our private demeanour and outward conversation As the Godhead did really magnifie the Lord Jesus by uniting it self in a Personal union with that man and thereby made him the Christ or the Anointed One in which consideration only he is our Sabbath and being so anointed he was thereby really sanctified by the Godhead and also as that word signifies he was seperated distinguished differenced and preferred above all others as it is said of him Psalm 45. 7. God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows that is above all other Kings Priests and Prophets And Philip. 2. 9. That God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name So we ought to sanctifie the same Lord Jesus our Sabbath in a way of preheminence distinguishing him by the reverence and honour which we perform to him from all other persons and honours in a word we must sanctifie honour and worship him farre more then any one or then all the Creatures of Heaven and Earth God hath many holy Ones but none so holy as our Lord Jesus He is said to be sanctified by the Father John 10. 36. so are others but Christ super-eminently and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Angel cals him The most Holy Dan. 9. 24. And the same Angel again cals him That holy Thing Luke 1. 35. And even Satan confessed him to be The holy One of God Mar. 1. 24. Therefore Christ our Sabbath being thus by way of excellency declared to be the holy One and the most Holy of all Holies surely he ought to be so esteemed and also to be so declaratively sanctified by us in the most humble and reverential manner that possibly we can according to his infinite holiness This I firmly believe to be the Spirit and meaning of this Moral Sabbath and the sanctifying thereof We find many sanctifyings of Creatures as of Prophets and Priests and of Places as the Tabernacle Temple and Vessels of Dayes and Times as Sabbaths Festivals but none to be so highly sanctified as Christ our Sabbath for the Sanctifying of him is a Separating of him in a preferment above all other hallowings or sanctifyings which are performed to Creatures forasmuch as we find that his very humane Nature was by the Godhead produced in an extraordinary way distinct and separate from other men as it is said Heb 7. 25. Our High-Priest is holy seperate from sinners for he was born of a Virgin and this to seperate him from the common contagron of Original pollution It is also declared Heb. 10. 29. to be an heinous sin worthy of sore punishment to count the blood of the Covenant which is the blood of Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. common which is to esteem his blood no better then the blood of another man or indeed of all men in the world and so not to seperate or preferre or sanctifie it above all others This is the grand Sin there intended because neither all men in the world nor all the Angels of Heaven if they could and would suffer in mans stead yet they would not be sound of sufficient value to Redeem us and to procure our everlasting Rest as Christ hath done whom we
the finger of God by the Prophets by Christ and by the Apostles were they at first created I suppose No. The blind man when he received sight told the Pharisees to their face which they could not deny John 9. 32. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind 6. What can be said against the newness of Monsters or of mixt Creatures such as Leopards and Mules c. which now are extant but were not so at first created 7. It is said Jer. 31. 22. The Lord Movi coeli terra extractio Movi Adami generatio miracula morbi novi non sunt opera primae extractionis Mart. Borrhai in Gen. 2. in verbum Requievit hath created a new thing on the Earth a VVoman shall compasse a Man Which is meant of Christ to be conceived in the Womb of the Virgin-Mother which was a new thing indeed and a peculiar Signal mark to know the Messiah by 8. The same Creator professeth Isaiah 65. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth If you say it is meant but of a new State or condition of the Church under the Gospel I say so too But this new State or condition is not nothing it is not such as it was before and is new So is the creating of a clean or new heart Psalm 51. 10. it is a work of Regeneration or re-Creation and better to us than the Creation thereof 9. The same Creator professeth Isaiah 57. 19. I create the fruit of the lips therefore the holy Apostolical Eloquence with all the excellencies of Rhetorick and Languages and Arts are the Works of God which are not reckoned among the Works of the first Creation and this is confirmed by Christ himself when he said Matth. 10. 19. Dabitur in illa hora And by that which others said of him John 7. 46. Never man spake like this man And all those new Languages at Babel were of Gods creating Gen. 11. Our Answer to this first Querie for present shall be but only Negative because our Discourse is not yet ripe for a full positive Answer viz. That this Rest of God doth not signifie only his cessation from creating the World And moreover we affirm That although God had made more such Worlds as a Diog. Laert. in Epicuro Epicurus thought or if he had made innumerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worlds of meer Creatures as b Plut. de Placitiâ— Philos l. 2. c. 1. Democritus in Plutarch said yet all such Worlds would not be of value and worth sufficient to procure this Mysterious Rest and complacency of the Almighty Creator But I proceed to the second Querie CHAP. XI That the Rest of God is fixed on the Seventh day only although he intermitted creation for some time in every former day That his Rest did not consist in any meer Creature Of the Rest of God before the Creation That God performed part of the Creation on the Seventh day and what that was Jewish fables concerning the creation of Adam and Eve A short Answer to the second Querie OUr second Querie is Why God is said to Rest on the Seventh day and not on any of 2 Querie the former six dayes There is surely something more then ordinary implied in this Rest of the Godhead more then the bare Letter expresseth and more then a meer cessation from the work of Creation because this Rest is fixed and appropriated to the Seventh day only and not said at all of any of the former six dayes wherein God did both create and also cease by some pause or respite from creation which interval is by us Mortals called a Rest as the labouring-man at Mid-day is permitted to take some small time for sleep or rest and therein intermitteth his work Doubtless God did not bestow the whole compass of each several day with its evening and morning in a continual creation or forming of his several Creatures for each of them were created by the Will or Word of God which might be in a moment The Psalmist saith By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens Ps 39. 6 9 made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth for he spake and it was done It is not likely that this word or breath of God was produced to the length of each whole day but that there was some respite and some time of cessation between the Acts of creating the several Creatures each several day yet this respite of God is never called his Rest until the Seventh day That there was a respite we read that Adam was first formed 1 Tim. 2. 13. then Eve It is also very considerable That although it is said Exod. 20. 11. In six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is Whereby it appeareth that all the Creatures were made as the Angels of Heaven the Fowls of the Air and Man Beasts Plants Fishes of the Earth and Sea Notwithstanding God is not yet said to Rest on this sixth day Surely this Rest of God consisteth in something else besides these it seems he rested not in any or all these meer Creatures but in something that was more noble and worthy of this great honour of being the Acquiescence or Rest of the Godhead But what shall we say of the pre-existence of God before the Creation and the infiniteness and eternity thereof before all times when nothing was in being but only the pure Godhead in the three eternal Persons when neither Heaven nor Earth nor Man nor Angels were created We cannot say or imagine that God was then without Rest for besides that He with-held himself from creating and from all external working we know that he was at Rest in himself in his own blessed contentment and all-sufficiencie needing nothing which Rest of God could not then be interrupted by any business or outward operation What the immanent or internal Actions of the Godhead were then we know but little and that only which the holy Apostles have taught us in whom we read of the eternal purpose of God to oâ—dain Christ before the foundation of 1 Pet. 1. 20. Eph. 1. 4 2 Tim. 1. 9. Tit. 1. 2. the world and of chusing us in him But we find no mention of any transient or external Works of the Godhead such as Divines call Operationes Dei ad extra and such as Creation is Yet in all that infinite and incomprehensible duration from Eternity it is never said that God Rested nor until this Seventh day Therefore this Rest of God consisteth in something else besides a cessation or suspension of working and also besides that blessed quiet and tranquillity which for ever was and is in the Godhead of which the heathen Philosophers rule is true h Nisi Quietum nihil Beaâ—um est i. e. God could not be happy if â— Tull de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. he were
the maker of Peace or Atonement or Reconciliation of Man with God He is called Messiah or Christ that is anointed fitted and prepared for the great Work of Mans Redemption Then he is properly named Jesus and this in order to the benefit of Man for so the holy Angel said Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his People from their sins Mat. 1. 21 And that it may appear that this Person Jesus is qualified and endowed with sufficient power to effect that great and merciful purpose of the Godhead toward Mankind the same Prophet cals him Wonderful Counseller The Mighty God The Everlasting Father This I trust is enough to shew the meaning of Gods Rest Now to the second Querie above mentioned 2. Querie Answered viz. Why God is said to Rest on the Seventh day precisely and not before Our Answer is 1. Because on the Seventh day and not before the Creation of Mankind was completed for on that day was the Woman taken and built out of the Man and not before as is above shewed 2. God is not said to Rest until he had actually begun the Work of Mans Rest which was not done untill the Man and the Woman were both of them finished for then and not before was the Saviour of Mankind really and actually laid as the foundation of Mans Rest in which Rest or Sabbath of Man the Rest or Sabbath of the Godhead consisteth and in nothing else What God in his Divine and Secret Counsel had determined before all times to be done that did he now on this Seventh day begin which was the building of his Church for now the first stone was laid even Christ who only is the foundaâ—ion and the Rock and the chief corner-stone thereof The house built upon a Rock Matth. 7. 24. signifieth the Church when Peter had said Thou art Mat. 16 16 Christ the Son of the living God Christ presently replied Upon this Rock will I build my Church The Apostle tels us Christ was 1 Cor. 10 4. the spiritual Rock And Other foundation can no man lay then that is laid which is Jesus 1 Cor. 3 11 Christ Now this foundation of Rest must needs be made known unto the Man for otherwise it could not be his Rest and consequently it could not be the Rest of God until Man did so know it that he might relie and trust and set up his Rest upon it that is upon Christ Therefore the holy Scripture doth by divers intimations signifie that this great Mystery was then revealed to Adam for he was illuminated with prophetical Wisdom He knew as well as Moses that he was made in the 〈◊〉 of God that is in the same shape which God his Redeemer would one day assume as is before shewed He knew the Woman was taken and built out of him on purpose to produce a Redeemer in that only way which might fitly serve for that Work when no other way could for upon the forming of her he said This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh This speech doth shew that the Man was not ignorant in the great Mystery of the Union of Himself and the Woman and their future progenie with Christ also in one lump which union was contrived by the Godhead only in order and necessity to the Redemption of Adam and his off-spring and nothing else And it is the same which by the great Apostle is applied to the mysterious union of Christ and his Church They two shall be one flesh This Eph. 5. 31 32 is a great Mystery but I speak concerning Christ and his Church After the Fall of Man it pleased the merciful Godhead to give a more open and evident notice by an express promise of this Rest than was before when it was said The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpents head for after this the Man named the Woman Vita i. e. Life as is before shewed whereby he declared his Faith and expectation of a new and better life to come by the fruitfulness of the Woman than that Life which he forfeited by his fall as may reasonably be thought All these intimations and overtures being but descriptions of the great Saviour to proceed from the Man and the Woman in whom they might set up their Rest as surely they did And God having now actually begun that great Work of Redemption and laid the foundation thereof in the Earth of ouâ— first Parents and made it known unto them Therefore he doth now and not before call this blessed Rest of Man His own Best For the Church of God which consisteth of Christ and his Members united not only in the nature of our first Parents but also cemented by one and the same Spirit of God residing both in Christ the Head and also in all holy Men as inferiour Members under that Head This Church I say is very often in Scripture represented as a building even from the beginning of the World and so continued in the Gospel The Woman is said to be builded of the Rib aedificavit costam in Gen. 2. 22 Multierem Rachel and Leah are said to build the house of Israel The natural Body of Ruth 4 11 Christ is called a building by King Solomon Wisdome hath built her an house So is his mystical Body also Ye are Gods building Prov. 9. 1 1 Cor. 3. 9 And Acts 9. 31. The Churches had rest and were edified The Word of God and preaching and brotherly exhortation are resembled to buildings The Word is able to Act. 20. 32 build you up St. Paul calleth preaching there where Christ was named before building on another mans foundation and Rom. 15 20 exhorteth the Thessalonians to edifie one another 1 Thes 5 11 The prime foundation of this building is Christ upon Him the Prophets and Apostles are laid as Super-structures or second Foundations Of Christ the Prophet saith Behold Isa 28. 16 I lay in Sion for a foundation a Stone a tried Stone a precious corner-Stone a sure foundation And this is so applied to Christ by St. Peter who also calleth the Members of Christ Lively stones built up a spiritual 1 Pet. 2 5 6 house And Sion is mentioned because as the same Prophet foretold Out of Sion shall Isai 2. 3 go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem For so indeed the Law of Christ and the preaching thereof began there as Christ appointed Lukâ— 24. 7. And of Apostles and Prophets and Christ St. Paul telleth the Ephesians That they are built upon Eph. 2. 20 the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone It hath been an ancient Custome amongst Men to express a joy and delight both at the laying of the foundation and also at the raising and dedication of magnificent or holy Edifices So did the Jews at the laying of the foundation of the second Temple praising the
Lord with Trumpets and Cymbals and Ezra 3 10 11 Songs So they did before at the Dedication of Solomon's Temple The Levites aâ—ayed in 2 Chron. 5. 12 13 white linnen singing with Cymbals Psalteries and Harpâ— and an hundred and twenty Priests sounding with Trumpets and saying For his Mercy endureth for ever This custome was also continued by the Christians in their Encaenia or Dedication of their holy Edifices as the Fathers and Church-Histories do very often report The most noble and most holy Edifice in the World is the Church Whereof God himself is the Builder The Materials of it are the Son of God together with all his holy Members Therefore when Christ who is the first stone and foundation of this Church was first laid in the Earth that is in our first Parents just then it pleased the Divine Founder to express a joy and complacencie therein under the notion of Rest as it is said God Rested And in another place Exod. 31. 39. He was refreshed And this was done only to signifie the Love and Goodness of God to Man for whom he had now actually begun a certain Rest Ease and Refreshment which the Godhead for it self needed not Then again at the Nativity of Christ when this building was raised for that gracious purpose of Mans Salvation it pleased the Godhead to send a whole Quire of Heavenly Levites to sing Glory to God on high And at the Dedication thereof at his Baptism God the Father by a voice from Heaven declared Mat. 3. 17 his complacencie therein so that the joy of Angels and the Rest complacencie or acquiescence of the Godhead consisted only in Christ and in him for none other reason or respect but only because he brought Peace on Earth to men of good-will This is enough to the second Query The Conclusion of the Moral Sabbath THe summe of this Doctrine concerning the Rest or Sabbath of God consisteth in these two Propositions following 1. The Rest of God is only in consideration of Christ 2. Christ is called the Rest of God for none other reason but only because the merciful Godhead intended by him to procure and effect the everlasting Sabbath and Rest of of Man This Doctrine concerning the Sabbath which I have here delivered is not New nor of mine own invention I utterly disclaim all novellism and that which is now adayes but falsly called new light especially in so concerning and weighty matters of Religion for I have shewed before by many testimonies of the Fathers that this Doctrine is the same which by them was taught and believed in the Ancient Church and now again for a close I will sub joyn only the Testimony of St. Austin who surely was the most profound Theologue of them all who thus writeth upon those words Psal 132. 14. This is my Rest for ever a Aug. in Psal 131 Haec verba Dei sunt Requies mea ibi requiesco Fratres Quantum nos ana Deus ut quia nos requiestimus se dicat requiescere non enim ille aliquando turbatur aut sic requiescit sed ibi se dicit requiescere quia nos in illo requiem habebimus i. e. These words of God This is my Rest for ever are my Rest therein do I rest Brethren so great is the Love of God to us that because we rest in Christ God saith that he resteth for God is not at all disturbed nor can so rest yet he saith that he resteth there only because there in Christ we shall have our Rest The same Father upon those words God Resteth saith b De Gen. cont Man lib. 1 c. 22. Tom. 1 Significat Requiem nostram post bona opera And again c Epist 119. c. 10 Significat se daturum nobis requiem aeterndm And again God resteth d De Gen. ad lit lib. 4. c. 9. To. 3 Quia nos quiescere facit And again upon the same words Requievit Deus e De Civit. lib. 11. cap. 8 Deus fit Requies eorum qui in eo requiescunt per fidem That is When God is said to rest it signifieth only our Rest after our labour And That he will give us everlasting Rest And because he maketh us to Rest And because He is the Rest of all them that repose their trust in him Thus doth this learned Father most judiciously and truly expound this Sabbath or Rest of God This Doctrine which declareth the Lord Jesus to be the true and substantial Sabbath which is intended in the fourth Commandement because he only is the Rest both of the Godhead and also the only perfect and solid Rest of us Men if it be again re-admitted into the present Church as it was received and believed by the Fathers and the Church Primitive as is before shewed it will quit us from many doubts waverings and quarrels and will quench those Pen-Polemicks about Sabbatism which have of late disturbed the minds of many good Christians For by this Exposition we shall easily discern that Sabbath-Law to be still in force as much or rather more than any or all the other Nine And so we shall have still Ten Commandements and not only Nine as some have objected And that this Law is truly a Law Moral and Natural and written in our hearts For I beseech the Reader to consider what precept can possibly be imagined to be more naturally imprinted in mans heart than to sanctifie and reverence him who is our â—ll Of him the Psalmist saith Whom Psa 37. 25 have I in heaven but Thee and there is none upon eaâ—th that I desire besides Thee He is our God our Creator Preserver and Maintainer from whom we have our very being our life and motion And more than all this our Lord Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath or the Lâ—rd Sabbath is He that hath redeemed us from everlasting perdition and more also He only hath prepared for us and tendered to us if we will accept his offer the everlasting and unspeakable Sabbath Rest and joyes of Heaven This is that Sabbath which himself included in those general words representing the summe of the first Table of the Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all Lu. 10. 27 thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind This multiplicity of words argues a weighty and most concerning Charge In this Faith I conclude and thus confidently proâ—ess That the Lord Jesus Christ is my only Sabbath In his Bosome do I repose my self All my hope and expectation of everlasting Rest is treasured up in him only And I trust I shall with faith and comfort on my death-bed say with the holy Psalmist I will lay me down in peace and take my rest for Psal 4. 6 it is thou Lord only that makest me dwell in safety Thus having as I trust retrived the most true and most ancient Sabbath I now close up this discourse with our
Church-prayer both in behalf of my self and others Lord Incline our hearts to keep this Law Amen Amen Thus much concerning the Sabbath Moral Next of the Sabbath Ceremonial Macrobius Saturnaliorum lib. 6. cap. 9. Quia seculum nostrum ab omni Bibliothecâ vetere descivit Multa ignoramus quae non laterent si Veterum lectio nobis esset familiaris A Discourse of the Jewish Hebdomarie or Ceremonial Sabbath wherein is contained an Exposition of the Later and Ceremoniall Part of the 4th Commandment CHAP. XVII An Exposition of the Ceremonial Part of the 4th Commandment begun That the 6 dayes labour is not a Precept but onely a Permission That the 7th day is called a Sabbath onely because it is a figure of the true Sabbath That the 7th day Sabbath was not changed by Christ to the 8th day but utterly dissolved That it was never instituted till the dayes of Moses St. Jerom 's Translation and our English compared The Jewish Sabbath and Christian Festivalls compared Of VVorks on the Jewish Sabbath That Corporall Rest was but the figure of our Rest in Christ HAving thus far proceeded in the search of the Sabbath Morall which is commanded in the fourth Precept of the Morall Law of God in these words Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it In the next place we are to consider the other words of that Law which we have declared to be meerly Typicall Ceremoniall and Temporall and obliging the Jews onely and not other Nations and to be now antiquated ever since the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh Which ceremoniall part taketh up all the words of this Law except onely those few above mentioned the severall branches whereof we will now endeavour to expound as they are in order laid down Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work 1. These words are no Command so as to require our labour all the other six dayes but they are onely a Permission by which the Jews were invited to a diligent and cheerfull celebration of their Sabbath in regard God had given them six dayes for their own occasions and reserved but one in the seven to himself when he might have left them but one in the seven which yet was not for any need that God had of it but onely for the benefit of his people just as be permitted all the Trees of Paradice to Adam except onely one Thus far Calvin and other Divines generally agree 2. For if these words were a Command to work all the other six dayes they would contradict other Laws whereby the Jews were commanded to Rest as at the Feast of the Passeover 〈◊〉 12. 16. and at Pentecost Levit. 23. 21. and at the Atonement Levit. 23. 28. at the Feast of Trumpets Levit. 23. 25. and at the feast of Tabernacles Levit. 23. 35. These Feasts did all depend upon the Moon and therefore might and did fall on any and every one of the other six dayes respectively 3. If this Law were Morall how could we Christians lawfully abstain from working on our Sundayes and Fasting-daies and daies of Thanksgiving and other Festivalls commanded by lawfull Authority It followeth But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God These words as I conceive are not rightly rendred by our English Translators of which we will enquire anon and for present take them as they are presented In what sense the seventh day is here said to be the Sabbath of the Lord our God we have shewed before namely That it is therefore called the Sabbath because it was appointed to be a ceremony and figure to represent to the Israelites the true and reall Sabbath or Rest in the Messiah So that it is called a Sabbath just as we call Pictures by the names of those things which they represent as the Painter in Aelian wrote over his pictures * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 10 c. 10 This is an Ox this is an Horse this is a Tree So in Scripture the Ark is often called JEHOVA as †Catech. part 2. p. 45. Beza observeth the Altar is also so called Exod. 17. 15. and the Dove is called the Spirit Joh 1. 33. the seven Kin◠are seven years Gen. 41. and the Rock i◠Christ 1 Cor. 10. 4. For if the seventh day were the onely Sabbath intended in this Commandment we Christians should at this day be bound to keep it as much as the Jews were That Christ or the Apostles changed the seventh day to the eighth or Saturday to Sunday is often too boldly affirmed by our Sabbatarian Writers and too tamely swallowed by their followers which as yet they never have or ever can solidly prove But to say that Christ utterly dissolved the Ceremoniall or seventh-day Sabbath and yet left the true Sabbath unaltered to us which is our firm Rest in himself and that the Church first then Christian Magistrates also assumed another day even our Sunday instead of the Jewish seventh day for their holy Assemblies is true and easily proved although they never called this Sunday a Sabbath Nor can the Jewish seventh day possibly be that Morall Sabbath which is meant and intended in this fourth Commandment because it is here said The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God For we are well assured that the seventh day is not so to be accounted the Rest of God as if God ceased from his operation on every or on any one seventh day but his Rest was onely in consideration of the Saviour of Mankind because on the first seventh day of the world he formed the Woman as is before shewed and even then on that seventh day and ever since upon every seventh day he hath been operative in governing the world and co-operating with every creature therein without any intermission at all But he is said to rest on that seventh day because then our first parents were compleatly and fully finished and in them was laid the foundation of the future Church that is Christ who together with his holy Members was to be propagated joyntly from the Man and the Woman So that Christ onely was and is the Sabbath or Rest of God and men Upon this reason it was that the seventh day was long after sanctified or set apart for a day of bodily rest that thereby it might be a type figure and ceremoniall remembrance or commemoration of Christ the great and mysterious Sabbath Therefore the Seventh day and the Sabbath day are two distinct and severall things and differ as much as the shadow and the body or as Christ and the Lamb that is as much as Type and Anti-type For as the Lamb literally was not Christ but his figure so the seventh day literally considered was not the Sabbath here meant but typically the shadow or representation thereof Just so the Apostle saith of this seventh-day-Sabbath and of other such like ceremonies that they are a shadow of things to come but the body is Col. 2.
prolonged six dayes The order of Creatures first Heaven then Earth When the Heaven of Angels was made and that it was intended principally for Mankind Why Heaven and Earth are mentioned together Why the making of Hell is not mentioned though it was prepared within the first six dayes Why the Creation is mentioned in this fourth Commandement and not in any of the other Nine That the Moral Sabbath doth signifie the Creator which is God the Son who is called The Beginning the Word and the Wisdome of God and is therefore commanded to be sanctified For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in in them is and rested the Sevenâ—h day IT is here said That the World was made in six dayes and before Gen. 2. 1. that the Heavens and Earth were finished and all the host of them And yet it follows immediatly That on the seventh â—â—y God ended his work which he had made How both these Propositions are true we have shewed before namely That although the Woman was not extracted and separated nor builded or formed out of the Man until the seventh day yet it is truly said that the Creation was finished in six dayes because the Woman was included in the Man Materially Substantially and Originally although as yet Informiter as the Glosse saith that is not formed fashioned or compleated which work was respited until the seventh day and thereupon it is said that on it he ended his Work and not before In six dayes Although God could have made the World in one minute yet he prolonged the work for six dayes whereof St. Austin and other Writers attempt to render some account as 1. To intimate that after the toylings and labours of the six dayes or Ages of this World his Servants should have rest with Him 2. To teach us that we should not expect that God will do all that he can do for us on a sudden either in conferring Mercies temporal or Graces spiritual but orderly and by degrees as calling justifying glorifying and in his good time The promised Seed of Abraham was not born till the old age of his Parents nor the Egyptian deliverance performed nor the Land of Canaan possessed till four hundred yeares after the Promise Heaven and Earth The order of these Creatures is observable First Heaven then Earth The blessing of Jacob was The dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth But Esau's was The fatness of earth and the dew of heaven A true Character of Worldlings and Epicures who preferre earthly things before heavenly as one in the a Claud. de Rapt Pros lib. 1. Poet saith Salve gratissima tellus Quam nos praetulimus coelo So the Epicure in Nazianzen professed Da mihâ— praesens i. e. give me my portion in this World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let God reserve the future to himself Which is but the same that some among us profess even by their own words and others farre more wickedly practise by bloody deeds prosecuting earthly profits pleasures and honours with the manifest neglect and disclaiming of heaven and trafficking for hell as Witches do and all this at a much lower rate than Satan offered Mat. 4 8. to Christ Heaven Gen. 1. 1. It is said In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth The Heaven there meant I take to be that which St. Paul cals The third Heaven which to us is invisible 2 Cor. 12. 2. that it might be the Paradise or habitation of Angels as both a Aug. de Civit. lib. 11. Austin and other Divines have thought because as God ordained the earthly Paradise for Man at or before his creation so he prepared the Paradise of Heaven at or before their creation and this because it is said Gen. 2. 1. The Heavens and the Earth were finiâ—hed and all the host of them The word Heaven alone implieth the creation of Angels as Austin saith in the place before cited or if not these words all the host of heaven will include them And here it is said The Lord made heaven and earth and all that therein is By which words we conceive that not only the house of Heaven but also the Inhabitants thereof were finished So the Heaven which is said to have been created in the beginning must signifie the Empyreal or highest Heaven because the Creation of this lower heaven which is visible is said to have been done in the second day's work and it is called The Firmament Gen. 1. 7. And this Firmament is also called Heaven vers 8. To pâ—t a difference or distinction between the former and later or the highest and lower Heavens and this to me seemeth to be confirmed by the words of Christ Come ye blessed Mat. 25. 38. inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World By which words surely he meant that Heaven which was created in the beginning for blessed Angels and Men. Now although this highest Heaven was made and also inhabited by Angels yet God is not said to rest in that Work nor untill he had finished the Man and the Woman and in them had laid their Saviour to conduct them to that Heaven which was not intended only for Angels but principally for Mankind as Christ said prepared for You. In order whereunto the Angels were to be instrumental as we are taught by the Apostle Are Heb. 1. 14 they not all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of salvation By which most gracious provision our God hath declared himself to be a true Philanthropus And also a lover of Mankind rather more than a lover of Angels For out of this heavenly Paradise the apostate-Angels were soon cast and so left without a Redeemer or any hope of return One of them it was that deceived Eve therefore the fall of Angels was before the fall of Man Indeed Man also was sent out of the earthly Paradise for sin but yet he was not left without a possibility of Reconciliation and return to a better Paradise which was to be effected by the Seed of the Woman even the Messiah who is therefore the true and reall Sabbath of Man And herein also is the love of God to Man highly expressed in that he rested only in consideration of Mankind and the Saviour of us and not in the creation either of Heaven or of Angels Heaven and Earth See how our merciful Creator in the very beginning joyneth Earth with Heaven although the Earth was then invisible clouded in darkness and in an abysse of waters between it and Heaven yet they are here joyned as to intimate so early that notwithstanding the powers of darkness and the worldly insultations of proud Oppressors God would in time bring together and unite Earth with Heaven which he performed by and in Christ Even the first Adam was composed of an heavenly Soul and an earthly Body as a resemblance of the second Adam who
consisted of his Heavenly Godhead and his Earthly Manhood He was that prophesied Starr as being heavenly but out of Jacob as to his humane generation Which was also signified by his appellation Numb 24 17. Isa 7. 14. Emmanuel by whom this merciful intention was to be effected for which consideration only He is that Sabbath wherein the Godhead is said to Rest The Sea and all that in them is Here we find Heaven Earth and Sea and all the Creatures in them mentioned which words include both Men and Angels also But we find not any mention of Hell or its inhabitants which yet doubtlesse was ordained within the compasse of the first six daies and also inhabited by those apostate Angels mentioned by St. Jude as Reserved in everlastâ—ng chains under darkness Jude 6. They that imagine Hell to be implied in the word Earth may change their opinion when they consider that Hell and its fire are said to be everlasting but the Earth is a Matth. 25 â—1 Matth. 24 35. 2 Pet. 3. 10. very cold Element as yet but it must be burnt up and also passe away as both St. Matthew and St. Peter tell us but so shall not Hell which is everlasting That Hell was ordained at the beginning of the World is not to be doubted The Prophet speaketh of it under the figure of â—ophet Isa 30. 33. which in the Gospel is called Gehenna or Mat. 5. 22. Hell That it is ordained of old ab heri as it is in the Original and is so acknowledged by our Translators in the Margin thaâ— is â—ophet is ordained from yesterday What yesterday this Prophet meant we are told by the Expositor probably and ingeniously at least if not solidly a Lyranus in loc That it signifieth the first day of the world because that day was the first that ever could be called yesterday And That as God on that day made Heaven for his Elect so he made Hell for the Reprobate and the Gospel teacheth us That the everlasting fire was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For when the Angels fell they became Devils and their fall was very early as is before said If now it be enquired Why no mention is made of Hell in all the history of the Creation We may suppose the reason is because the punishments designed or inflicted by God on his Enemies are of that sort of Works which Divines out of Isai 28. 21. call Isa 28. 21 Alienum opus Dei that is the extorted forced unvoluntary or strange Works of God unto which he is drawn by the iniquities of his Creatures and the strictness of his Justice with which he cannot dispense To this purpose Tertullian saith a Tert. de Resur p. 44 Deus est Optimus de suo Justus de nostro nisi homo deliquisset Optimum solummodo Deum nôsset And again b Ibid. Cont. Marc. l. 2. p. 178 Bonitas Dei est secundum naturam Severitas secundum causam Just so Clemens saith c Deus est bonus per seâ—psum justus propter nos And this even Philo the Jew perceived and said c Philo. Quod Deus immutab p. 309. Boniâ—as Dei est Antiquissima Gratiarum Their meaning is That the Acts of Mercy Grace and Goodness flow from God naturally of himself and of his own meer motion but his Acts of Severity and Justice are not executed but only upon external provocation by sin We often read that God was greâ—ved with his People for their sins as Psal 78. 40. 95. 10. which is but an expression of unwillingness to punish Austâ—n saith in one place if that Book be his d Aug. de Spiritu An. c 6. To. 3. Plus crucâ—at Deum Pâ—ssio Miseri quam ipsum i. e. God is more greived in punishing then the patient is in suffering The Heathens said the like both of their Princes and of their Idol-gods as not punishing but with greif and not at all without external provocation Even Neâ—o himself when he was to subscribe a Warrant for Execution said Quam vellem nescire literas as e Suet. in Neâ— c. 10. Suetonius writeth Another saith of Augustus f Ovid. de Pont. Sed pâ—ger ad poenas Princeps ad praemia velox Qui que dolet quoties Cogitur esse ferox And of the Heathen-Gods another saith g Horat. Od. 3. Neque Per nostâ—um patinâ—ur scelus â—â—acunda Jovem ponere fulmâ—nâ— The Jewish Talmâ—d saith That God at certain times weepeth for that People in consideration of his wrath and their calamities Indeed God did once weep for them when Christ wept over Jerusalem Which h Orig. in Lu. Hom. 38. Origen cals The tears of God And before the Deluge the Scripture telleth us That either for the siâ—s or for the ensuing punishment of the World it gâ—eived God at the heart In the Gen. 6. 6. Prophet God professeth I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth And Christ Ezek. 18. 32. in the Gospel declareth It is not the will of Matth. 18 14. your heavenly Father that one of these little ones should perish But the Heathen-gods have a character of cruelty fastened on them by some other of their own Idolaters for indeed they were but Devils as the Psalmist saith One thus Daemonia Psal 69. 5 writeth of them a Tacit. Hist l. 1. Approâ—atum est Non esse Deis curae securitatem nostram Esse Ultionem And another before him b Lucâ—â— lib. 4. Faelix Roma quidem Silibertatis Superis tam cura fuisset Quà m vindâ—cta placet By which we see that confessed which Moses said of the false and the true God Their Rock Deut. 3â— 31. is not as our Rock our enemies themselves being judges It is right worthy of our serious consideration That God hath annexed to this Sabbatical Commandement divers great and peculiar priviledges which are not to be found in any of the other Nine As 1. The Memento or Remember 2. The Ceremonial Type of the Seventh-day Sabbath of both these we have taken notice before But 3. Here is another special property farre greater than the other two or than is expressed in any of the other Commandments contained in these words For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth c. which is a strong argument to provoke us to obedience The Heathens it seems thought all such motives to be needless in Laws One of them saith a Sence Epist 94. Lex-jubeat non disputet And Nihil mihi videtur frigidius nihil ineptius quà m lex cum prologo He would have Lawâ— to command only and not to perswade It seemed otherwise to our Merciful Law-giver who to his Laws hath added both a Prologue and an Epilogue also by which he not only commandeth but disputeth his Leiges into obedience as being most expedient and profitable to themselves for it should strongly induce Man to
obedience of that Law which is imposed on him by the mighty Creator of Heaven and Earth In the first of these Laws which a man would imagine to be the greatest God useth only this motive I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was to move them by way of gratitude to adhere only to him their Deliverer and not to acknowledge any other God But the motive used in this fourth Commandement of sanctifying the Sabbath is far stronger because the deliverance of his people out of bondage might possibly have been performed either by Treaty or by the Arme of flesh without those plagues of Egypt and wonders at the Red Sea for the Israelites were numerous enough to have fought the Egyptians and to subdue them they wanted only Arms and Utensils of Warr which yet might reasonably have either been forced from the Egyptians or supplied by a forrain power we well know â—gypt was not invincible having been so often subdued Now the motive used in this Sabbath Law is proper only to the Almighty and absolutely incommunicable to any Creatures for none but God did or could make heaven and earth which is generally confessed by Heathens Jews and Christians Plato called God a Plut. in Symp. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So by Philo the Jew he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by Dyonis Areop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by Nâ—z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by St. Paul b 2 Cor. 6. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is but The Almighty Father and Maker of the World Among the wise Sentences of old Pythagoras this is recorded for one If any man come and boast that he is God let him create another World and we will believe him And in the holy Scripture This making of Heaven and Earth is often mentioned as a peculiar character of the true God As In the beginning Gen. 1. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth And Psa 146. 5 Happy is the man whose hope is in the Lord his God which made Heaven and Earth So it is in the New Testament Acts 14. 15. and 17. 24. And by this the true God is differenced from false Gods as The gods that have not made Heaven and Earth shall perish And All the Jer. 10. 11 gods of the Nations are Idols but the Lord made the Heavens And this character of God is put into the very front of our Creed First As a strong motive to incline us to believe and trust in him Secondly To inform the weaker sort of Christians who cannot appreâ—â—end what God is or what to make the object of their faith That it shall be requisite and sufficient for them at first Tâ—â— believe in God under this notion thus Whatsoever he is that made Heaven and Earth in him do I believe for so the Psalmist declareth My help Psa 121. 2 cometh from the Lord which made Heaven and Earth This great motive here used to incline us to sanctifie the Sabbath doth evidently shew that this Sabbath-Law is of greater concernment to us than the first Law is The reason whereof we have declared before * Chap. 5. And moreover That the Sabbath which is here principally meant doth not consist in keeping of a day whether the last day of the week which God imposed upon the people of Israel only and that but for a certain time Or the first day of the week which God never at all commanded But another kind of Sabbath is here commanded to be sanctified which Sabbath being rightly and deeply considered will prove and appear to be that very same Lord God that made Heaven and Earth For we have proved before First That the Sabbath day mentioned in the Moral part of this Commandement doth signifie God the Son because in him only the Godhead can be truly said to Rest and not otherwise Secondly We have proved That the Jewish Seventh day Sabbath was appointed only to be for a type figure and memorial or commemoration of that true and grand Sabbath which is Christ From these premises we here inferre That the making of Heaven and Earth is mentioned in this Commandment on purpose for a motive to incite us to a serious and most reverentiall sanctification of this true reall and substantiall Sabbath because he that is here called the Sabbath day is the great Day-spring from on high and is really He that made heaven and earth So that if we will acknowledge that the Creator of heaven and earth is to be worshipped and sanctified by us then must we also confesse that this Sabbath which is the Son of God is so to be sanctified No learned or prudent Christian I suppose will deny that this Son of God was the Creator of Heaven and Earth or if any do the Scriptures and primitive Church will gainsay them The Fathers expound these words Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created to signifie God the Father in God the Son And Joh. 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word that is the Word or Son was in the Godhead even that Word by which all things were made For the Word Principium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Tert. Advers Herm. Tertullian observeth doth not signify onely Ordinativum i. e. a Beginning in respect of the order of time but Potestativum i. e. a Primacy in power and authority For from this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Princes Potentates and Magistrates on earth are by him called * Id. Advers Iâ—daeos Archontes and by others Demarchi i. e. Powers Princes and Rulers of People One of the sayings of Pittacus the Philosopher was b Laert. in Pittac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Magistracy or power will show the disposition of a man Hence also are the words Archangelus in St. Paul Archiepiscopus in Chrysostome and Epiphanius and Archipresbyter and Archidiaconus in St. * Hieron Epist 4. Jerom. As to the appellation Word The Psalmist saith By the Word of the Lord the heavens Psal 33. 6 were made just so the Evangelist tells us All things were made by him That this Word was Joh. 1 3. God the Son every one knowes The Psalmist saith again vers 9. Let all the Earth and all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of of him for he spake the Word and it was done The Word by which the world was made and of which Moses thus wrote God said Let there be light and Let there be a firmament is not to be thought a transient or vocall word as Austin saith c De Civ lib. 11. c. 8. Non sonabili verbo sed intelligibili And by such a word as d In Ioh. Tract 37. Manebat non sonando transibat i. e. The world was made by that internall and substantiall Word which did not passe away from God as our words do from us but by his Word permanent of which St.
John saith The Word was with God and The Word Joh. 1. 1. was God Psal 104. 24. O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all Who this Wisdom and Beginning and Word is by which all things were made the Gospell hath taught us that it is Christ who is not onely the Beginning and the Word as it is said but is also called The Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 24. And All things were made by him Joh. 1. 3. and All things by him were created that are in heaven and that are in earth Col. 1. 16. The Jews in disparagement of Christ Maâ— 6. 3. Matth. 13 55. called him both a Carpenter and the son of a Carpenter so did Celsus in a Cont. Cels lib. 6. Origen and b Theod. hist. lib. 3. cap. 23. Julian the impious and apostate Emperour Justin Martyr doth indeed affirm that Christ on earth was literally a Carpenter and did make ploughs and yokes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iustin Dial. cum Tryph. Ambr. Ser. 10. but withall both St. Ambrose and St. Austin tell us That he was also that Carpenter that built Heaven and this mighty fabrick of the world Finally because this Son of God Aug. de Temp. Ser. 3â— was both the Creator and also the Sabbath both of God and Men therefore for the sanctifying of him this Motive is here mentioned of making heaven and earth And rested the seventh day Touching this Rest of God what it was and why it is fixed on the seventh day we have said much a Chapter 10 11 12 13 15 1â— before and something more must be added which will be more fit to be discoursed in the next that this Chapter may not swell too big CHAP. XX. The Exposition continued That all the Divine Persons concurred in Creating Resting Blessing and Sanctifying How the Son of God or Second Person is the Rest and Sabbath of the same Son of God How he resteth in himself Of the divers considerations of God the Son in respect of Godhead and Manhood and his severall Appellations respectfully Why the seventh day was preferred above the former six That the Ceremoniall Sabbath was for the memoriall of the Resting and not of the Working of God And Rested the seventh day THe more literall and exact reading of these words is And rested on the seventh day for thus St. Jerom renders them Requievit die septimo and the Clementine-Edition In die septimo For it was not the day that was considered by the Godhead but something that was performed on that day that occasioned this Rest which if it had been so done on any other of the former six daies certainly it would have been said of that day as it is of this that God rested on it What that thing was we have shewed before at large namely that it was in consideration of the Messiah or Christ It would now be enquired what is meant by The Lord who is here said to have made heaven and earth and to blesse and sanctifie the Sabbath day whether it be meant of the Person of the Father onely or of the Person of the Son or of the Person of the Holy Spirit or of all of them because all and every one of them is the Lord and the Creator and the Sanctifier Of the Father no man doubteth and of the Son we have proved before and of the holy Ghost holy Job saith By Job 26. 13 his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens and the Psalmist also Thou sendest forth thy Spirit Ps 104 30 and they are created and the Church at the opening of Councils used to sing that Hymn in St. Ambrose which beginneth a Inter Hymnos Ambros To. 5. Veni Creator Spiritus For when our Vulgar Catechisms ascribe Creation to the Father and Redemption to the Son and Sanctification to the holy Ghost we are not so to understand them as if these actions were of each severall person or as if the Father had no interest in our Redemption or Sanctification nor the Son or Spirit in Creation far be it from us to think so But we believe that the whole Godhead and every Person therein did joyntly co-operate in all these acts Indeed the Father created but it was in and by the Son and both by the holy Ghost So the Son Redeemed but it was from the Father and by the Spirit So the holy Ghost Sanctifieth but he doth it from the Father and the Son So also in this place the Rest of God is not to be accounted the Rest of one single Person onely but of the whole Godhead and of every one of the Three most holy Persons therein If it be now granted that the Son of God is this Lord and Creator that made heaven and eaâ—th and He that is here said to Rest and also He that is the onely Rest and Sabbath both of God and of us Men which we have proved before then it must follow that the Rest it self is here said to Rest and the Sabbath it self to rest in the Sabbath and the Son of God must be the Sabbath of the same Son of God Which at our first hearing may seem to be a violent Exposition which yet is not so as will presently appear The Reader may easily apprehend that although God is entirely One yet he is often represented to us under diverse and severall notions and capacities as if he were not the One and the same God for so this Son of God who is the onely God is set forth in Scripture and is so by us to be apprehended and believed as Immortaâ—l and yet mortall as the Mâ—ker of all things and yet made that he was from Eternity and yet born in time the Father of all men and yet the Son of man the Creator of his Mother and yet her Son All these speeches are true of this Son of God considered in his severall and respective capacities neither ought they to seem incredible or strange because we find the like diversities in one and the same Man One in Plutarch said openly to a King sitting in judicature a Plâ—t in Apoph Provoco à Philippo ad Philâ—ppum I appeal from King Philip to King Philip but in another temper So Nazianzen representeth the same person both as a Judge and as one arraigned b Naz. Eâ—ist 79. Te accuso apud te justum judicem So doth St. Ambrose to one as if he were both Client and Counsellor c Ambr. Ser. 64. Stulto consiliario usus es teipso Upon these words Psal 140. 1. Deliver me O Lord from the evill man St. Austin saith d Aug. Hom 29. de Temp. Ser. 233. à te â—e liberat i. e. God doth deliver a man from himself And upon those words Deliver us from evill he saith Deus te liberat à teipso malo We have a Proverb that a man is his own neighbour c Proximus egomet mihi
Ter. And we often read of Alter tu and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Ille ego and Ego ille as if a man were another and not himself Just so the forenamed Father speaketh of God * Aug. in Joh. Tract 27. Domine repellis nos à te da nobis alterum te So we may often observe Pâ—eachers in their Prayers appealing from God to God when they mean from God as considered onely in his Court of Justice to the same God as sitting in his Temple of mercy which is onely Christ In like manner the great Apostle speaketh of God and of Christ severally as of two 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and this is usuall in Scripture †Act. 4. 2â— Rom. 1. 7. 1 Cor. 1. 3 Although we know that the Lord Jesus is that very same God But the Second Person in the Trinity is described in holy Writ as if he were distinct and different from himself and this is in regard of a two fold consideration of his Person First If we look on him and consider him onely in his pure Divinity then according to the Scriptures we call him The mighty Isa 9. 6. God the everlasting Father The Creator by whom all creatures were made God the Word God the Son And the eternall Son of the eternall Father And the Lord JEHOVA Of him it is said Thy throne O God is for ever and ever Secondly When we consider him together with his assumed Human Nature then we call him Messiah Christ God's Annointed Emmanuel The Word made fleâ—h God incâ—rnate God manifested in the flesh God in the likenesse of sinfull flesh In the form of a servant Made of a woman and The Son of man Which appellations cannot appertain to this Second â—erson but onely in respect of his Incarnation The Premises being acknowledg'd and granted these Mysteries will be discover'd 1. How God the Son is both the Creator of all creatures and also the Rest or Sabbath of the God head 2. How the Son of God may be truly said to Rest in himself 3. How the Rest it self is said to Rest in it self and the Sabbath in the Sabbath All which the Reader will understand by considering these few Aphorisms following which are deducible from those two Considerations of the Person of Jesus just now mentioned 1. The Son of God considered onely in his pure Divinity is the Lord and the Creator who is here said to Rest 2. The Son of God considered in respect onely of his Godhead cannot be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of God and Men. The reason is because the Sabbathship of this Son of God conâ—steth not in his pure Divinity for if so then this Sabbath which is fixed onely on the first seventh day must have been before and also from eternity But it consisteth in consideration of the human Nature assumed into personall union with the Divine Nature 3. The Son of God considered onely as incarnate or as the Son of man or as Christ cannot be called the Creator of the world The reason is because the Creation was performed by this Son of God before the foundation of his Incarnation was wholly laid as is shewed before or before he could be called the Son of man 4. The Son of God is and may be truly called the Rest or Sabbath of the same Son of God This Proposition is thus to be understood That God the Son or Word who is the onely eternall God did and still doth rest in himself so as is said in this Commandment but his so resting is onely in consideration of his Incarnation and as he is Emmanuel and not otherwise So that he is not to be called the Sabbath or Rest either of himself or of us men as he is onely the Son of the Father but as he is also the Son of his mother for in this consideration onely he is styled in his Types the Rest of the Godhead and the Resting place the Habitation the Temple the Delight and the well-beloved Son in whom God is well pleased or as Beza most judiciously rendreth those words in whom the Godhead doth acquiess as is before noted This is that Sabbath or Sabbatism of which the Apostle speaketh Heb. 4. 9. that there remaineth a Rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the people of God The sum and conclusion is 1. The Son of God is the Creator even of the Son of man and of all the world 2. The Son of man is the Rest or Sabbath of the Son of God and of all holy men Rested the Seventh day In the whole History of the Creation we find mention but of seven daies and no more for all succeâ—ding daies are but the re-iteration of the first seven Of these seven the last onely is blessed and graced with the Rest of God and therefore preferred before the first day wherein Heaven was made and also before the sixth day wherein Man was created And this without any injury or slur to any of the former daies When the noble Generall The mistocles was twitted and repined at by some succeeding and inferiour Commanders because he only had the name glory of those Victories which had been obtained by their joynt-labours and valour the Generall answered them with this Apologue Once said he the working-day contended with the Holy-day for preheminence upon this reason that the Working-day by labours and molestations prepared all things ready for the solemnity but the Holy-day without labour onely rested in quietnesse and enjoyment of those labours The Holy-day replyed * Plut. Quaest Rom. Sed eâ—o nisi fuissem in nunquam esses i. e. Had it not been for the Holy-day Working-daies had not been at all His meaning was that without his wisdom and policy whom they accounted but as an idle Holy-day they had all been defeated captivated and utterly lost So is it here The seventh-day is therefore preferred before all other the former daies because it represented the great Creator of all daies and the Redeemer of the Man and the Woman and of all their posterity without whom no daies had been at all or if any had been yet without this Sabbath they had been to us but daies of misery and but wofull Parasceues against the day of wrath Whereas this mysterious Rom. 2. 5 Rom. 5. 9. Sabbath is he by whom we shall be saved from wrath Wherefore as all the elder sons of Jesse passed before the Prophet and not one of them was chosen to the honour of Unction that it might be reserved for the youngest even David so not one of the elder dayes is graced with the honour of God's Resting but that preferment is deservedly reserved for the last or youngest day which day did indeed signifie David yet not the literal or typical David but Christ the Son of David who is very often in Scripture expresly called David as Jer. 30. 9. Ezek. 34. 23. Hos 3. 5.
In a word he that understands in what particular thing the Rest of God consisteth may by the same easily apprehend why it is fixed on this seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed c. That which our English readeth Wherefore St. Jerom and the Latines generally read Therefore idcircò From which word we observe that the Judaicall or Ceremoniall Sabbath was not appointed in consideration of the work of Creation or that men should on that day contemplate and meditate onely on the creatures of the world although those wonderfull works are also right worthy of our serious consideration and should be a great motive to incite us to glorisie the Almighty Creator but it was principally ordained to put both the Jews and us Christians also in mind of the Rest of God and to move us all to consider in what this Rest consisteth which doth far more concern us and our happinesse than all the world without it because otherwise neither the world nor any creatures therein nor the perfect knowledge by our Studies and Arts of all the excellencies and secrets thereof can bring us to that everlasting Rest which was but typically figured by this Ceremoniall Sabbath For What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul Mat. 16. 26. Now that this Wherefore or Therefore relateth to the Rest of God and not to his creating of the world we are expresly taught by Moses who tells us That God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his works So that the Gen. 2. 3. Rest of man on that day was afterwards enacted by a Law for a memoriall of the Resting and not of the Working of God Concerning the blessing and sanctifying whereof we are next to enquire CHAP. XXI The Exposition concluded The meaning of blessing and hallowing the Sabbath day The difference of hallowing God's Name and hallowing of Creatures and of the differences of Holiness When the Seventh day was first hallowed and how it was dis-hallowed Something of Sacrilege How the Prophets spake truly of things to come as if they had been past Of the Prophetical figure called Anticipation with Rules and Examples thereof applied to this Sabbath The Lord blessed the Sabbath day or Seventh day THe Leiturgie of the Church of England readeth the Seventh day but the Original hath the Sabbath day Both are read indifferently as Gen. 2. 3. hath the Seventh day and so have some of the other languages in this Commandement as appeareth in the late incomparable and renowned work of our new Great Bible Indeed both are one in this place For the Sabbath Ceremonial is but the Seventh day and the Seventh day only is that Sabbath which is here meant it being but a Sabbath Typical Blessed the Sabbath day To blesse Benedicere is to speak some good of it as in the Leiturgie of St Basil this Prayer is found a Basil n. 2 Domine loquere bonum in cor Regis pro Ecclesia tua When God blesseth he conferreth some favour or special priviledge as here on the Sabbath day such as it was capable of and in order to that purpose for which it was blessed which was to signifie Man's Rest in Christ The blessing of a Day is not like his blessing of a Man on whom by blessing he doth effectually conferre something that is beneficial to him as spirituall Graces or temporal Favours as in Children Lands Cattel Basket and Store mentioned Deut. 28. and as Isaac blessed his Sons with the dew of Heaven and fatnesse of the Earth But the Sabbath being uncapable of such benedictions the blessing of it must consist in such respects as these 1. God chose that day for his own Mysterious Rest 2. He appointed that day only and not any of the other six to be for a memorial to his people of the grand blessing of their Rest in Christ 3. He ordained it for a corporal rest both for Men and Cattel 4. He gave most strict command upon pain of capital punishment for the keeping thereof 5. He appointed larger Sacrifices on that day than on the former dayes 6. He appointed a larger portion of Manna on the Parasceue as a provision for the Sabbath 7. He appointed this holy day to be weekly that is two and fifty times in the year whereas other Festivals except new-Moons were but once These or such like are the blessings thereof And hallowed it Hallowed is holied or sanctified The meaning is that God designed it to be an holy or hallowed day To be an hallowed or sanctified day is to be divided separated or distinguished from other common dayes by way of preferment honour and preheminence and to be set apart so as that work which might lawfully have been done on that day before it was hallowed might not be done on it after the hallowing thereof We read of hallowed or holy oyl holy vessels holy vestments and holy places which might not be used or applied to any other service but that only for which they were hallowed and destinated So this hallowed day was not to be imployed in common works as other unhallowed dayes were for that would have been a profanation thereof but it was wholly to be bestowed and spent in the service of God the Sanctifier by the serious and thankful consideration of that blessed Rest which he had procured and designed for Man And this hallowed use was to continue from the first institution thereof untill the period and repealing of it by the same God who hallowed it Which was performed evidently by Jesus Christ who is the same God which did sanctifie it and this he did not untill God had actually and visibly exhibited in the â—lesh the reall and substantial accomplishment of that Typical Ceremonial and Temporary Sabbath in the Person of the said Lord Jesus But yet during the vigour and continuance of this hallowing the Sabbath day was not altogether and absolutely quitted from all manner of working We know the Priests did then work hard and Souldiers marched and other works were lawfully done the reason was because this Sabbatical Hallowing was but meerly figurative and ceremonial and therefore dispensable in case of pressing necessity and charitable accommodation toward our brethren and in duty to God and also because such workings are commanded by a Superiour Law even the Moral Law of God whereby we are required To love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbour as our self This Law hath been in force ever since the Creation was finished and so shall continue until the end of the World but the hallowing of the Seventh day was neither from the beginning nor was it to last to the end of the World being but Ceremonial and Temporary and therefore ought to give place to the Law Moral We find Hallowing or Holiness applied diversly to several things and for divers considerations First There is an Holiness Essential which is only
in God who is the Fountain of all inherent Holiness and is Holiness it self which we are to acknowledge and which we do confesse when we pray Hallowed be thy Name Secondly There is an Holinesse Moral or of Qualities derived from God the Fountain thereof such is in holy Men as Piety Righteousness Justice Truth Sincerity â—ear and love of God Faith Hope Charity This is that which Divines call Inherent Holiness Thirdly There is an Holinesse by Dedication or Assignment as of Places Vessels Vestments Men and other Creatures and of Times as this Hallowed Sabbath day is Hence we say holy Temple holy Church holy Day holy Eâ—charist for the Bread and Wine to be used therein are of themselves but Elements but after Dedication or Consecration of them or Hallowing which our fore-fathers called Howseling them to that Mysterious use we Fox in Hen. 8. call them Sacraments Divines call this Holinesse Relative It is but a srivolous cavil or excuse of Sacrilegers who make no scruple of abusing or demolishing hallowed places as Churches and Chappels or robbing them of their vessels goods lands and Revenues which were consecrated because they say such things have no holinessâ— or holy qualities inherent in them as no pieâ—y no faith or hope c. I wish such to consider also what inherent holinesse the Jewish Sabbath had or Achan's Wedge of Num. 15. 35. gold or Ananias his money except only the Josh 7. 25. Act. 5. 5. holinesse or hallowing of dedication or destination Yet the profaning and subducing of these was punished by stoning burning and by sudden death and all this by the Sentence of God himself although the hallowing in the case of Ananias was not by God but voluntarily only by himself It may reasonably be feared that the strict injunctions and commands of some such Sacrilegers for observing the Christian Sunday which was not hallowed by any Command of God but only of Men will one day condemn their abuses of other things which were also â—hallowed by Men as Christ said Ex ore tuo serve nequam c. But then the Sabbath-day having been thus hallowed or sanctified by God How comes it to be unhallowed and laid common with other dayes Would God revoke that which himself had constituted Or durst Man presume so to do This seemeth to thwart that heavenly Voice which said to Peter in a like case What God hath cleansed call not thou Act. 10. 15 common To this our Answer is First Man might not presume to alter or null any of Gods Ordinances without Divine warrant But the dissolution of this Sabbath-day was done by the grand Warrant of the Son of God and by him then when he was the Great Son of Man Secondly We say That God never unhallowed or revoked any Sanctions which Himself ordained during the time and purposes that were by him intended for them to continue in force and use For some Divine Constitutions were inacted to continue but for a set-time as the Types were Sacrifices Circumcision Passover Tabernacle and this Sabbath all which and many such were but Ceremonial Sanctions But others were ordained by him to continue to the end of the World as all the ten Commandements which are Sanctions Moral These God never yet revoked nor never will But the other sort which were but Ceremonials and intended to last but during the Pedagogie of his People and so for a certain limited time viz. untill the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh Which being accomplished those temporary Ordinances were to cease and this without any Mutability on Gods part or Sacrilege of Men. Just as when a Man gives a pension or rent to a pious use for a limited time of ten twenty or thirty yeares and no longer when that time is expired the Pension may cease without any Sacrilege of the Doner Hallowed The principal Question in this hallowing which hath most perplexed the minds of many good Christians is concerning the Time when God did actually hallow or set apart the Seventh day whether on the first Seventh day of the World or whether not before the dayes of Moses and the Egyptian deliverance To this we answer confidently and resolutely That although it is most certain that God did rest on the first Seventh day of the World but so as hath been at large shewed before yet he never appointed or hallowed a weekly Seventh day for Man's rest untill the dayes of Moses Our Reasons for this Assertion are these First If the weekly Seventh day had been hallowed at the beginning as a Law it must have been either written in Mans heart as all Moral Lawes of God were ever since Man was made or else it must have been openly declared as a Law positive But the Seventh-day Sabbath was not written in Man's heart For if so then it must have bound all Nations in all Ages which as yet it never did Neither was iâ— then declared overtly as a Law positive for if so then certainly we should have found some mention or footsteps of it in the History of the Patriarks which lived before Moses But we â—ind nothing of it in all that long time and we are well assured that neither Adam nor any of his posterity did ever so Sabbatize untill the dayes of Moses This is the Doctrine of the Fathers generally and of the Church Primitive Secondly The Preface before the ten Moral Laws which containeth the date or time of their Promulgation by writing to me seemeth to be annexed to them on purpose to prove this Assertion concerning the fiâ—st establishment and original of the Seventh-day Sabbath For thus we read I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Thou shaâ—t c. By which it may appear that the publication of the Laws was after the deliverance out of Egypt Just so the Prophets date their Prophesies at the beginnings of them as The vision of Isaiah in the dayes of Uzziah c. And To Jeremiah the Isai 1. 1. Jer. 1. 1 2 word of the Lord came in the dayes of Josiah And In the first year of Jehoiakim's captivity the word of the Lord came expresly to Ezekiel Eze. 1. 2 3. the Priest The like we find in Daniel Amos Micha Zephani Haggi Zechari And in the Gospel also In the dayes of Herod And Caesar Augustus And Tiberius Luke 1. 5. 2. 1 3. 1. Caesar Here I desire the learned Reader to consider with me why it pleased the Divine Wisdom to put so late and low a date to the whole Decalogue of the Law Moral which we are well assured was in force from the creation of the first Man If not for this reason only bâ—cause there was something inserted and added to these Laws which was new and was not written in Man's heart nor ever imposed on the People of God untill they had been delivered out of Egypt And That new thing was this Ceremonial Precept of