aeternum diem consecravit nobis Dominicum Domini Qui vocatur Dominicus ipse propriè videtur ad Dominum pertinere quia eo die Dominus resurrexit Aug. de verbis Apost Serm. 15. Dominicum ergò diem Apostoli Apostolici viri ideò religiosâ— solennitate habeâ—dum sanxerunt quia in eodem Redemptor noster â— mortuis resurrexit Serm. de temp 251. The Lords Resurrection hath promised us an eternall day and hath consecrated to us the Dominicall day of the Lord. The day which is called the Lords day it seemeth properly to pertaine to the Lord because that day the Lord rose againe The same Father tells us that in this resurrection of Christ the Apostles and Apostolicall men saw as much he saith the Lords day the Apostles and Apostolicall men have ordained with religious solemnity to be kept because in the same our Redeemer rose from the dead Ignatius r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Magnâ—s giveth this for the onely Reason binding every one to keepe this day saying Let every one that loveth Christ celebrate the Lords day the day pertaining to the Resurrection the Queene and Prince of all dayes Athanasius Å¿ Athanas de Sabbat circumcis Psal 118. 124. calls the Lords day in which Christ renewed the old Man the beginning of the new Creature and therefore hee saith when hee had renewed the Creature which was made within sixe dayes he would have that day consecrated to this instauration which the Spirit foretells in the Psalme This is the day which the Lord hath made Iunius t Tempus ad conventus sacros semper est dies octavus quem inde à resurrectione Christi Ecclesia vocavit Dominicum quod Christus suaresurrectione sacto sacris coetibus dicavit quem Apostoli observarunt coetibus dicatum esse docâ—erunt quem Christiana Ecclesia dictis corum obsequens facta imitans concelebrat Eccles lib. 1. cap. 4. sub sinem speaking of the time necessary to publike worship saith It is the eighth day for ever which the Church from the resurrection of Christ hath called the Lords day which Christ by his resurrection and deed hath dedicated to holy assemblies which the Apostles have observed and have taught that it is dedicated thereto and which the Christian Church obedient to their words and imitating their deeds doth joyntly celebrate In the Preface to the Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Perth Anno 1618. the question being moved how the particular and materiall day may bee knowne that the Christian Church should observe the answer is that the particular day was demonstrated by our Saviours Resurrection and his apparitions made thereon by the Apostolicall practice and the perpetuall observation of the Church ever since that time of the day which in Scripture is called the Lords day as that which the Iewes observed was called the Lords Sabbath because as the one was appointed by the Lord for a memoriall of his rest after the Creation so the other was instituted by the Lord for a memoriall of his Resurrection after the Redemption For this we must hold as a sure ground whatever the Catholike Church hath observed in all Ages and is found in Scripture expressely to have been practised by Christ and the Apostles such as is the sanctification of the Lords day the same most certainely was instituted by the Lord to bee observed and his practice in Word of the Lord and of equall worth as if the Lord by voice from heaven had spoken it and more sure for us than such a voice 1 Pet. 1. 12 25. and 2 Pet. 1. 19 20 21. Whence it is cleare that the Gospell preached by the Apostles with the holy Ghost sent downe from heaven is the Word of the Lord that endureth for ever Secondly it was enjoyned by the Apostles precept and observed by them enjoyned and the worke of the day in part prescribed 1 Cor. 16. 2. observed Act. 20. 7. Thirdly the Apostle saith that which you have seene and heard in me that doe and the God of peace shall be with you Phil. 4. 9. But this was seene and heard of to bee done by him Act. 20. 7. Therefore do it Perkins on Gal. 4. vers 10. Fourthly if the same reason grounded on Gods Word be as well for the first day of the weeke as it was once for the Sabbath of the Iewes then we are as certainely tyed by the Lord to the observation of this day as they were for their Sabbath for the same reason is of the same force But there is the same reason therefore wee are bound by the Lord. That there is the same reason is apparant by those three places laid together Exod. 20. 10. Mat. 12. 8. Ioh. 5. 23. The maine reason of the Iewes Sabbath is because it was the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner ours is the Sabbath of the Lord Christ when hee had finished the worke of our redemption for which cause hee taketh this name the son of man is even Lord of the Sabbath as if in more words he should say when God the Father had once ended the making of the world hee rested and published himselfe to be the Lord of that rest and dedicated it to himselfe giving it the name of the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner when I shall have finished the worke of mans Redemption I will rest have the day of my rest dedicated unto my selfe for which cause I say that the sonne of man is even Lord of the Sabbath also it shall be called the Lords day And thus the will of the Father shall be fulfilled which is that as they honoured the Father in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the Creation and Redemption so they should honour the Sonne in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the redemption and consummation of the world Fifthly the judgments of God fearefully and to miracles lighting on the contemners and prophaners of this day by worldlinesse the opposition of godlesse and most evill men the Conscience working on men for the observation and against the neglect thereof the errors of Familists Anabaptists Papists and such loose pleaders as you and others have shewed themselves to be are strong and impregnable arguments for the Divine Authority of it together with the contradictions and the grosse opinions you are forced to runne into which argue that you rebell against the light in you and your prophane Atheisticall hearts would have that true which yet your owne light disproveth in the truths that are forced thereby to drop from you Sixthly yea I shall through Gods grace evince this that it is of the Lords owne institution for besides that his resurrection institutes it as I sayd before First it is called the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. Which cannot bee for any reason but because it is of the Lords institution for so first the phrase his day not by creation for so all daies are his not by destinatioÌ„ for that
was past therefore of a third rest hee must needs speake Lastly the Prophet gathered a perpetuall Rule and Law for marriage from the first example in the creation of married persons Mal. 2. 15. Made hee not one And wherefore one Because hee sought a godly seed So here did not God rest the seventh day but why the seventh that wee should sanctifie to God the seventh Yea but the Prophet made no such collection Yes such a one though not that very one And a greater than that Prophet God himselfe puts into us that very collection when he saith that he Rested and that he blessed and sanctified this his resting day Fourthly you would make good your conceite by shewing the needlesnesse of such a command when there was no toyle to the body nor distraction to the mind that called for Rest or sanctification one day in seven There was labour in Paradise Gen. 2. 15. And therefore there might bee need of a Rest There was danger of sinne in Paradise and therefore need of some speciall time by Gods ordinance and that time blessed of him to uphold the sanctification of the soule If you reply there was no such toyle in labour I answer it was no toyle to God to worke the sixe dayes and yet God rested the seventh Besides God that knew mans estate knew reasons for his commandement and therefore it is ill divining against the light of Gods truth And if it had beene but a commandement of triall man ought to have obeyed Fifthly hitherto of the eversion of your Tenet now for the Text in Gen. 2. 2 3. That the true sense of the words is this The Lord blessed the seventh day that is hee appointed it to be a Fountaine of blessing to the observers of that day and sanctified it That is Commanded it to be set apart by men from common businesses and applied to holy uses That this I say is the true sense not only the Hebrew and Greeke words do both give but the universall opinion of Divines ancient and moderne Cyprian writes thus e Cyprian de Spiritu Sancto sc edition Pamelianam Antuerp 1589. This sacred number of seven obtained authority from the creation of the World because the first workes of God were made in sixe daies and the seventh day was consecrated to rest as holy hallowing honored with the solemnity of abidding and entitled to the Spirit the Sanctifier Epiphanius speaketh thus of those words in the Gospell of Saint Luke It came to passe on the second first Sabbath f Epiphan advers Haeres lib. 2. tom 1. contra Hares Anoetâ—n Haeres 51. that the first Sabbath is that which was defined from the beginning and called so of the Lord in the Creation of the world which returneth by circuit according to the revolution of seven dayes from that time untill now but the second Sabbath is that which is described by the Law Origen answereth Celsus objecting against the History of the Creation that God like some Artificer that were wearied should need a resting and vacation in this manner g Origen contra Celsum lib. 6. fol. 81. Truely this man seeth not after the creation of the world as soone as the world was made what a one the day of the Sabbath and of God resting was in which both men rest to God and keep this day a festivall unto him which have dispatched their workes on the sixt day and because they let passe nothing that is urgent they ascend by contemplation to the feast day of the just and blessed men Chrysostome unfolds the Text in Genesis thus h Chrysost tomâ— in Gen. serm 10. sc edit Savilianam What is this and hee sanctified it he separated it Then the Divine Scripture teaching us the cause also for which it is said hee sanctified it addeth because in it he rested from all his workes which hee began to make Now hence God giveth to us darkely i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this instruction that we set apart and separate one day in the circuit of every weeke to the use of spirituall things for for this cause did the Lord finish all the fabricke of the world in six daies and honouring the seventh with his blessing sanctified it Hierome was of the mind that the k Hieron tradit Hebr. in Genes Sabbath was instituted in the beginning who reprehends the Iewes idlenesse on their Sabbath and empty rest in which yet they gloried from the example of God who in the beginning wrought on the day which he blessed and so brake the Sabbath in the Iewes sense Learned Mercerus upon this place following the choise and greatest Lights saith I doubt not but by the first fathers before the Law this day was solemne and sacred God himselfe being their teacher c. That the people of God might know that the Fathers observed it not of themselves but as taught of God to reteine them in the exercise of Gods worship Athanasius l Athanas de Sabbat circumcis also giveth his voice Who sheweth that that seventh day had its observation among all men of those generations from the creation to the resurrection of our Saviour Augustine was of this mind When God saith he m August ad Casul epist 86. sanctified the seventh day because in it he rested from all his works he expressed not any thing concerning the fast or dinner of the Sabbath The Fathers alledged by Gomarus that plead the Sabbath was not kept by the Fathers before Moses as Iustin Martyr Tertullian Irenaeus and Eusebius are to bee understood of the Ceremoniall observation thereof and so the Fathers were no observers of the Sabbath as those ancients rightly maintained against the Iewes and wee readily subscribe unto it and that they thus meant is apparent by some passages in their foresaid bookes Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Iew saith Neither thinke ye it grievous that we drinke some warme thing on the Sabbath seeing God also governeth the world on this day in like manner as he doth on other dayes And Tertullian in his booke against the Iewes saith That the temporall observation of the Sabbath ceaseth as it is a type Irenaeus also affirmeth in his booke against Heresies lib. 4. c. 3. That the precepts spoken by Gods owne voice receive not diminution but increase by our Saviours comming which precepts he saith were naturall liberall and common to all And in his 30. chap. of the same booke he saith That the godly Fathers had the substance of the Decalogue written in their hearts and soules and had in themselves the righteousnesse of the Law Beda therefore upon the sixt chapter of Luke maketh a distinction betweene the observation of the legall Sabbath and the liberty of the Naturall Sabbath which till Moses time was like other dayes See hee acknowledgeth a Naturall Sabbath under those first times of liberty Annexe to these the Iewish Doctors Philo thus openeth the Text
15. God doth prescribe which hath not the reason and nature of a benefit simply but of a duty and office that is from the Empire of God And afterwards explaining himselfe he addeth I say simply a benefit for God requires no duty of his creature which is not in the thing it selfe a benefit but that is simply a benefit in which no nature of a duty towards God doth shew it selfe Now follow this Rule and who sees not that this precept Thy servant shall doe no worke on the Sabbath hath in it chiefly the nature of office and duty the servant oweth to God as well as the master even the observation of the Sabbath to God though in a second place here is a matter of fatherly indulgence God graciously tendring the servants as he doth also the very bruite beast for whose ease he mercifully provides that day Now Master Publisher if you have any mind to put questions you shall have leave if you please to aske as many more CHAP. 4. Breerwood Pag. 7. NOw that that clause of the Commandement touching servants was not given to the sevants themselves but to their masters in whose power and disposition they are the text and tenour of the commandement doth clearly import for marke it well and answere me to whom is this speech directed Neither thy sonne nor thy daughter shall doe any worke on the Sabaoth day is it not to the Parents For can this manner of speech thy sonne thy daughter be rightly directed to any other than the parent and is not by the same reason the clause that next followeth neither shall thy man servant nor thy maid-servant doe any worke on the Sabaoth day directed to the Masters of such servants Seeing that phrase of speech thy man-servant thy maidservant cannot rightly bee used to any other It is therefore as cleare as the Sunne even to meane understandings if they will give but meane attendance to the tenour of Gods commandements rather than the fond interpretations and depravations of men that that clause of the commandement touching servants cessation from working on the Sabaoth is not given to servants themselves but to their masters concerning them Answer First this proofe is sufficiently overthrowne by all the former arguments yet I adde This precept is directed to the parents restraining the use of their power to interrupt and injoyning the use of their power to preserve the sanctification of the day and to the sonne and daughter also not to worke at the houshold worke for saith God g Levit. 23. 3. The seventh day is the Sabbath of rest and holy convocation yee shall doe no worke therein it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Who are these charged in the word yee Who but yee that stand bound to come to the holy convocations yee that constitute families therefore yee children as well as yee parents Secondly and to free all that subscribe to this truth from feare of so much as any private interpretation and to cast it bee commanded nor intreated licence would serve their turne but to the masters whose desire of gaine by the servants labour might stand betwixt the Sabaoth and the servants rest and to make an end with the Text with the last words of it what is it that the Lord for these reasons commanded was it barely to keepe and observe the Sabaoth as it is in the vulgar English Latine and Greeke translations No they are all short it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to make a day of rest Deut. 5. 15. Now to make it to bee so importeth not onely to observe it himselfe but to cause others also to observe it which is evidently the property of masters and governours wherefore seeing both the commandement touching servants rest from labour on the Sabaoth day and reasons added by Moses to perswade that point and draw their mindes to obsequiousnesse are evidently directed to the Masters and not neither of both to the servants themselves I take it out of all question as cleare as the Sunshine at midday that if servants by their masters command doe any worke on the Sabaoth the sinne is not theirs who as touching their bodily labour are meerely subject to their Masters power but it is their masters sinne For their sinne it is that transgresse the law they transgresse the law who are obliged by it they are obliged by it to whom it was given and imposed and given it was as I have plentifully proved onely to Masters Answer First your first way of confirming your exposition was by instance then you goe on to proofes from texts whereof the first taken out of the commandement was taken off in the former Chapter this is your second proofe built on the text in Deu. 5. And here because you flaunt it out in many words and in many of them glance at things as if they made to your purpose besides the maine of your argument I thus reply first to your reason drawne from the text secondly to some chiefe passages in the venting of it The substance of the reasoning is this in briefe Moses applyeth the precept of servants rest to the masters that were slaves in Egypt but now ransomed and set in the estate of freemen that they should allow their servants rest and make the Sabbath a resting day therefore the commandement thou shalt not doe any worke is given onely to the masters It is applyed to the masters therefore given to them were a right consequence but therefore to them onely is fallacious for more is in the consequent than was in the Antecedent and if you put the word only into the Antecedent then both the propositions are false For in Levit. 19. 3. as above was specified Moses applyeth it to children And the argument is yet unsolid for it stands thus Moses applieth it in his expositions onely to masters therefore it was given onely to masters for applications are according to severall occasions but not alwaies extended to the utmost breadth of the precept and yet in all this Moses fidelitie no way impeached inasmuch as he faithfully applieth where it most needeth as occasion serveth keeping the bounds of truth These consequents from this place as you expound it may be gathered therefore that reason binds not servants or this therefore the master sinnes most ungratefully that will disturbe his servants rest or this therefore it is given chiefly to the masters as those that must not onely keepe but make a Sabbath all which wee yeeld but the mind that once is big of a new fancy maketh all that it feedeth upon nourish that fancy Secondly the truth is the Lord by Moses pleades in those words the reason of the right that hee hath to command thy servant rest who is his freeman by vertue of that redemption the servant as well as the master called into the liberty of his holy people as appeareth in the Preface to the Decalogue Exod. 20. and in Exod.
19. 4 5 6. bond and free indifferently entertained into the priviledge and honour of the Covenant and into the band of it and the reason the master hath both to obey and yeeld up his servant for that day to Gods commanding and appointing and also to use his authoritie for God in seeing that his servant keepe the Sabbath but in other respects both master and servant to rejoyce alike in the great worke of their redemption Thirdly but let us examine more narrowly some of the speciall passages Moses addeth in vers 14. that thy manservant and maid-servant may rest as well as thou it is to this Thou therefore to whom this charge is directed c. Which thou that in those words thou and thy sonne That makes nothing to the exemption of the servant as thy servant from the obligation of the first thou which is this thou shalt doe no manner of worke for thy servant is one contained under this thou as well as thou art that art the master Or if it bee meant of this first thou that were absonant from the very context It being meant of the latter thou we must ask what you meane when you say it is to this thou to whom this charge is directed Mean you by charge the charge to make the servants rest That you say afterwards were needlesse they need but licence and neither command nor intreat Or meane you the charge to give them leave to rest nay that is against your owne reading the master is to make a day of rest and your owne interpretation to make it to be so importeth not onely to observe it himselfe but to cause others also to observe it Or by charge meane you the command Thy servant shall doe manner of worke and this is directed to this thou namely the master of the servant Well bee it so And what will follow thence Why surely this Thou master must know that God commands thy servant to rest and thee to make him keepe the Sabbath day but not this Thou art commanded to rest but thy servant is not commanded to rest but may worke if thou biddest him the sinne and perill is thine only What new Divinitie and Logick is this We see then here is some motion in but no promotion of your cause Nay because the command is given that the servant may rest as well as the master and that all might be free to attend on Gods service that day alike therefore it cannot be that the servant should remaine bound to the commands of the master for servile worke on that day For as master Calvin well observes i Calvin in quartum praeceptum Tenendum est propriè spectatum fuisse unum Dei cultum Scimus enim totum Abrahae genus sic fuisse Deo sacrum ut serviessent quaedam accessio unde circumcisio illis communis fuit We must hold this that the alone worship of God was properly looked unto but wee know saith hee the whole off-spring of Abraham was so sacred to God that this that they were servants was a certaine accession whence also circumcision was common to them all If the commandement of rest had been directly and immediately given to servants Doth your owne conscience know and force out this acknowledgement that it is given to them though not directly and immediately Would not servants overset wearied with six daies toile be of themselves glad to rest on the seventh These interrogations are brought in to set on the proofe that the commandement of rest was not given at all to servants but how ill they conclude may bee seene by these certaine truths That the servant if not religious which God lookes not to find but by his word to make us such had rather oft times worke for his master than bee imployed in the duties of sanctification for a part much more for all the day for they are more irkesome to flesh and blood than handy worke True that question might take more place if it were rest alone that were aymed at and not rest for an higher end That the master if covetous and prophane will not stand upon pleasing or displeasing God in requiring such unlawfull worke but respect his gaine more than all and to the utmost call for the servants worke that day when the servant in the Court of God and man can have no redresse yea out of irreligious petulancy he will most exact worke then Againe that the toyled servant will be oft ready to worke for himselfe as in mending his clothes or the like now the master is charged to remember the condition of his slavery that hee may not dare to overset his sâ—rvant with worke in the sixe dayes but every way make a Sabbath day Hath it any other but to declare c. Yes it declares Gods just title over their servants to command them that day and their unequall and wicked carriage if they should offer to plead their covenant to evert Gods covenant Which reason could not bee intended nor directed to them that still remained in servitude No not at all intended nor could be This redemption prooved them Gods servants and not theirs nor any mans to use them as slaves to use them as servants on the Sabbaths as we read in Levit 25. vers 39 41 42. Thou shalt not compell him to serve as a bond-servant he shall returne in the yeere of Iubile for they are my servants which I brought out of the Land of Egypt And in vers 53. 55. The stranger meaning to whom the poore Iew was sold shall not rule with rigour over him he shall goe out in the yeere of Iubile for unto me the children of Israel are servants they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the Land of Egypt I am the Lord your God Here the servant saw that God put no difference betweene bond and free and that the Sabbath made master and servant equall in respect of freedome for attendance on God k Cessatiâ—nem indixit ut fulgeret ubique Sabbathi Sanctitas at que ita ad ejus observantiam terrae conspectu magis animarentur filii Israël Calvin com in 4. praeceptum in Lev. c. 25. Those Sabbaths of yeeres had all respect to engrave on them the respect of this Sabbath Heere no slavery but liberty for Gods service which is perfect freedome may passe upon the redeemed and therefore their servitude did not make the Redemption void to them But such an Expositor as you are would leave them slaves because servants and slaves without intermission even on the Lords Sabbath to drudgerie and not the Lords servants when yet they were the Redeemed of the Lord equally as their masters were Thus you derogate from the breadth of the coÌ„mandement and the reasons and clip the wings of Scripture while you take that precept to belong onely to masters and the master enjoyed no further than to make a rest for his servant when the text saith Hee shall make a
Sabbath day And the whole reason applied to the Sabbaths rest for servants sounds no lesse than this Remember when thou wast in Egypt the Egyptians made thee a slave and mard the Sabbath day now I have set thee free thou shalt free thy servant that day and make the Sabbath day Moses reasons are evidently directed to the masters not to the servants therefore the servant working at the masters command sinneth not What reasoning is this the master is by arguments peâ—swaded to make a day of rest therefore the servant must worke if the master bid him or therefore hee is not commanded to make a holy rest to his servant Who as touching bodily labour are meerely subject to their masters power This meerely in this place must needes exclude Gods power over the servant that he may not lawfully command him in any thing that respects the use of bodily labour but onely his master which wicked ground laid it will follow that the Lord may not command the master to let his servant rest but onely intreat or perswade but the Lord speakes pro imperio as a Lord and Emperor thy servant shall rest This meerely takes in all time so that the master may require their worke and not allow them any time for solemne worship now it is certaine that no man hath power to sell himselfe to any in such a manner no more than he hath to sell himselfe from God and to the divell for take away time from solemne worship and that falls to the ground nothing can bee done in an instant take away solemne worship and you are without God Ier. 10. 25 and without him under the power of Satan Act. 26. 18. This meerely in a word taketh away all bounds maketh the servants bondage and the masters power infinite Now Plato saith well l Servitus libertas infinita nullisque cancellis circumscripta summum est malum quod si modo quodaÌ„modo definiatur summum bonum Optimo illa modo constat servitus quae Deo paret Plat. tom 3. Epist 8. Servitude and liberty that is infinite and circumscribed with nolimitte is the chiefest evill but if some way it be defined by measure it is a chief good that servitude stands in the best forme which obeyeth God And Doct. Ames m Ames de conscientia lib. 5. c. 23. worthily in his Cases of Conscience it is the generall office of masters neither to exercise nor to imagine it is permitted them any absolute empire over their servants but a limited dominion the account whereof they must render to God as the common master of themselves and their servants Ephes 6. 9. Col. 4. 1. CHAP. VI. Breerwood Pag 11. OR if notwithstanding all these evidences you will still contend that the prohibition touching bodily labour on the Sabaoth is directly imposed on the servants themselves see whether you bring not the Oxe and the Asse and other cattle also under the obligation of this commandement whose worke is immediatly after that of servants prohibited and precisely under the same forme of words whose labours yet on the Sabaoth I hope you will not say to be in them sins and transgressions of Gods law Answer First No we doe not it is imposed on servants yet not on oxe or asse for the servant is forbidden labour because hee can labour without thee and so hee is capable properly of commandement to rest but the Oxe is not forbidden labour but to bee laboured and wrought for hee cannot worke without thee and is not capable of the commandement The servant is therefore forbidden labour even in his masters worke that hee might bee vacant to holy duties n Otio non otioso Zanch. in 4. praecep not so the Oxe The servant is forbidden to bee wrought by his master because now hee must acknowledge another master in whose service he is this day commanded to worke with whom there is no respect of persons and this end the servants obedience to his masters unlawfull commandement of worke that day would crosse no man can serve two masters Moreover doth God take care for Oxen No doubt it was written for the servants sake that he might not attend to guide the Oxes labour and that mercy due to the Oxe might call for more to man Zanchy is expresse that the commandement was given to the servant hee saith o Neminem vult excludi a sanctificatione Sabbati quia tam servi quam domini tam silii quà m parentes tam advenae quám indigenae obstricti Deo sunt natique â—d ejâ—s cultum De jumentis alia est ratio non enim jubentur quiâ—scere à laboribus ut possint vacare cultui divino sicut homines Id. ibid. God would have no man excluded from the sanctification of the Sabbath because aswell servants as masters sonnes as parents strangers as home-borne are bound to God and borne to his worship touching beasts there is another reason c. Secondly the Oxe is forbidden to bee wrought that they might have no snare to draw them to worke and may a servant worke at his masters command how great a snare would this bee to the master who naturally and such a master as will require his servant to worke on that day is not far from his pure naturals loveth profit more than his soule and feares a penny losse where he thinks it might bee gained more than the breach of a precept that God threatens with the curse and hell Hee will bee ready not onely to say with Rebecca p Gen. 27. 13. On me be the curse my sonne only doe as Ibid but in another tone Sirrah the sinne and curse is mine go you about your worke you shall not answer for my faults how comes on you this new religion now therefore I conclude against you thus he that forbade the strangers worke and the cattels that all examples and occasions might be remooved that might entise to evill it cannot bee that hee would leave sonne daughter man and maid in the family free to the master that they should and must obey him in his unlawfull commands Thirdly and to requite you out of the Text. In the same forme of words that the Oxe and Asse is prohibited the stranger within the gate of another is also forbidden work and is it not given to the stranger q It is partly understood of the strangers within the Covenant those saith Zanchy without controversie were commanded so to sanctifie the Sabbath even as other Iewes Zanch. in â— praecep aswell as of yet I hope you wil not say it is given to the oxe If you say it is not given to the stranger I vrge you thus The stranger is there meant partly of the stranger which being a Iew is with thee for the time as a guest r Dr. Williams of the Church l. 2 c. 8. and can this that he is a guest free him from the bond of this Law or if the Iew within whose
commandement from being a Law of Nature according to your exposition of a thing that hath in it native ilnesse for to make an image setting aside the circumstance to bow to it is no more evil than for a servant to worke setting aside this circumstance on the Sabbath This your slye arguing savours of Popery which hath thrust out the second Commandement as a positive and ceremoniall Law upon the same grounds And when you say that the prohibition of other things is caused by their native illnesse if you meane their illnesse was before the Law not understanding by Law the promulgation thereof but the Law of Nature written in the heart of man inasmuch as this Law is the expresse righteousnesse of God it is a blasphemous Tenet for hereby transgression shall bee where there is no Law and a chiefe evill a summum malum as well as a chiefe good or an absolute goodnesse out of God which this illnesse swerveth from For my part I cannot tell how any thing should bee evill natively but evill because it is defective of good which good perfecting man is the Law of righteousnesse If by prohibition you meane the promulgation of the Law then I say that this maketh not the thing prohibited unlawfull but onely makes the sinne the greater in them that yet offend after God by lively voyce hath renewed those obliterated precepts offuscated with sinne in the heart of man Thirdly the Commandement it selfe in these five things you say is meerely Ceremoniall brought in by positive Law and is not of the Law of Nature first to observe one day in seven secondly to observe a certaine day of that number thirdly to observe the seventh in the ranke fourthly to observe a whole day by the revolution of the Sunne fifthly to observe it with severe exactnesse of restraining all worke This you essay to prove first by a place of Scripture secondly by the example of the Patriarchs and thirdly by the absurditie that else will follow This matter shall bee more largely discussed because it will much cleare the Doctrine of the Sabbath for now you strike at the roote of it and would lay Religion on the ground but your owne staffe will breake your backe which you give by the handle into our hands This you yeeld that the secret instinct of nature hath taught all men even the prophanest Gentiles that some time is to be set apart and dedicated to the solemne worship of God as set times to be spent in sacrifice and devotion Now goe on this instinct is the Law written in their hearts therefore the Sabbath is a Law of Nature But did this instinct of Nature guide them to your former five particulars about the time of worship If it did and that the sheards hereof are found among the Gentiles you cannot nor any other for you conclude unlesse you will play the mad-men with reason that every of them hath lesse than moralitie and perpetuitie in it It is true the Gentiles a thousand wayes depraved the use of the Sabbath by keeping holyday to their Idols saith Aretius y Aret. problem loc 55. de Sabb. obser they also wrested the name to a wanton and ridiculous signification in which notwithstanding there hath remained some footsteps of the ancient originall to which serò tandem Gentes redire debuerunt at length the Gentiles though late ought to returne To omit their depravations see in them the footsteps of every particular First the Gentiles set apart certaine and constant dayes not moveable and wandring Macrobius saith there are foure kinds of publike holydayes Feriarum that is dayes vacant from pleading and labour Stative Conceptive Imperative and nundinative and the Stative are common to all the people on certaine and set dayes and moneths and noted with standing observations in their Calendars Secondly they observed a certaine day of seven and particularly the seventh Hesiod saith z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesiod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the seventh day is a holyday Lampridius telleth of Alexander Severus that on the seventh day when he was in the City he went up to the Capitoll and frequented the Temple Homer saith the seventh day is holy and was the day in which all things were perfected and on which we depart from the bankes of Hell Callimachus saith the like and that it is the birth-day chiefe and perfect a Clemens Alexandr stromat l. 5. Clemens Alexandrinus sheweth b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. l. 5. strom that not onely the Hebrewes but the Greekes also knew the seventh day holy And Eusebius c Euseb de prepar Evang. l. 13. c. 7. affirmeth that almost all as well Philosophers as Poets knew that the seventh day was more sacred And Philo d Philo. lib. 2. de vita Mosis the Iew saith Who doth not honour that sacred day which returneth every weeke The seventh day holydayes were wont to be granted to children in Schooles among them e Lucianus in Pseudo logista Certaine of the Ethnicke Doctors were wont onely to dispute on the Sabbaths f Aul Gell. l. 13. c. 2. Sueton. Lib. 3. Seneca g Senec. ep 95. in his 95. Epistle shewing that exhortations are not enough but wee need obliging precepts yea the decrees of wisedome bee reckoneth up the Sabbath as the festivall day for Religion but condemneth their manner of observing it when he saith Let us forbid any one to light a candle on the Sabbaths for neither doe the gods want light and men themselves are not delighted with smoke he worshippeth God who knoweth him h Macrob. Saturn l. 1. c. 7. Macrobius sheweth that Saturne of whom is the name of Saturday was honoured with Candles lighted at his Altars and wax-Tapers offered on his dayes Aretius hath these words i Aret. problem loc de Sabbathi observ The Greekes and Latines call the Sabbath The day of rest which the Gentiles But before I passe over this point I would take off the exceptions of one Franciscus Gomarus ſ Gomarus de Investigat sententiae originis sabbati cap. 4. pag. 42. a Germane who pleades that these allegations for the seventh dayes celebrity observed among the Gentiles are insufficient and the consequence thence drawne to proove this to have ought of the Law of Nature in it infirme The insufficiency of allegations out of the Poets hee would evince from this that those Poets talke as the proverbe is of Garlike but we speak of Onions and though Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius alledge them yet for this cause they deserve little credit because they speake of the seventh but the Poets only of a seventh I answere that they must needs availe and be of force to any that hath reason for be it they spake not of that seventh from the Creation yet that they speake of the celebrity of a seventh maketh wholly and sufficiently to proove that they were guided to a seventh and if they knew
not the seventh through iniquity and vanity that can no more disproove the festivity of the seventh to bee from the beginning and reach to all than the failings in many specialties of the first and second and third and other commandements can disproove their ingraving on the heart of man as Lawes of Nature and on the other side it prooveth as sufficiently that this commandement is a Law of Nature so farre as it is expressed in the Decalogue as the reliques of the other precepts in the hearts of Gentiles proove them to be Lawes of Nature and therefore his exception in speciall against that authority out of Hesiod if it should bee understood of every seventh day taking the calculation from the first day of the month doth no way supplant our intended purpose Well hath a learned Bishop t Patterne of Catech. Doctr. pag. 124. of our Church observed that sufficient is found in the heart of the Gentiles to their condemnation for breaking the Law of the fourth commandement they knew that numerus septenarius est Deo gratissimus and it was numerus quietis and thence they might have gathered that God would have his rest that day and so the seventh day after birth they kept exequiae and the seventh day after death the Funerall Note also that Gomarus passeth over those sayings brought by Clemens and Eusebius out of Homer and Callimachus untouched because they are not found in their writings now extant which proveth the weakenesse of this cause That quotation out of Philo Iudaeus he thinketh he hath taken off by that place of the same Author in his booke of the Decalogue whereby hee saith it is evident that Philo spake not properly but only by similitude of the number of seven because hee thus expounds himselfe in that place The fourth commandement saith he commands the seventh day commanding it to be spent holily and godly This certaine cities celebrate every month as a Festivall beginning their reckoning from the New Moone but to the Iewes every seventh day is holy I answer First it is a meere presumption of his to say that here Philo expounds his meaning in the other place for this is in his booke of the decalogue that in another booke viz. The second of the life of Moses nor doth he make the least intimation of reference thither Then this quotation that he maketh the exposition of his meaning in the former place cannot be for here he speaketh only of some few cities there in generall termes who honoureth not that holy day Moreover in another place u Philo de mundi opisicio hee calleth that very seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a generall Festivall to be observed of all people for ever Lastly if hee had but perused Philo or not perverted him willfully hee might have seene his plaine meaning whose words both for this purpose and for the rest of servants about which our dispute is I set downe not mangled but entire and they are these It admonisheth saith hee meaning the Divine Law it admonisheth all of dutie Barbarians Graecians inhabitants of maine continents aswell as of Ilands the Westerlings the Easterlings the Europeans and the Asians the whole habitable World even to the uttermost coasts For who doth not honor that holy day returning every weeke bringing remission of labour and holy vacations to the master of the familie with his houshold not onely to freemen but also to servants yea moreover to the beasts vnder the yoke and so forth Againe hee helpeth us to another authoritie out of losephus in his second booke against Appain who saith Neither is there any city of the Grecians or Barbarians nor any Nation to whom the custome of the seventh day in which wee rest hath not come A pregnant proofe But Gomarus saith there are words foregoing which doe end the controversie namely these Moreover the people doe now much emulate our piety Which words saith he do only shew that the observation of the Sabbath among the Gentiles was only an imitation of the Iewes by Proselites and perchance many others What were all the Gentiles East and West become Proselytes or would all of them admit a meere ceremony Some Nations besides Proselytes admitted Circumcision but did all the cities of Greeks and Barbarians admit thereof And if they imitated their piety could it bee thought that they imitated it as theirs and not rather as that which their naturall light glimmeringly guided them unto especially seeing the Iewes were naturally hated of all people For his quotation out of Theodoret upon the 20. chap. of Ezekiel to testifie to his tenet who saith That in the observation of the Sabbath the Iewes seemed to obtaine a certaine proper commonwealth for no other Nation did observe this rest and neither did Circumcision so distinguish them from others as did the Sabbath I answer This cannot bee understood of any kind of observation of the Sabbath for then Theodoret must speake directly against all received testimonies of antiquity which may not bee thought but of the true observing thereof in the solemne rituall worship of God which being all publike and solemnely used on that day as the sanctification thereof did asmuch more lively distinguish the Iewes Gods people from the Heathen Idolaters than did circumcision as the whole Law doth more than any one part thereof Thus wee have made good the sufficiency of the quotations excepted against wee leave them therefore with the rest fore-alleaged to be cavilled at by the next that dares to attempt it The infirmenesse of the consequence saith Gomarus is this that if the observation of the Sabbath had prevailed among the Gontiles yet from thence no such antiquity of the Sabbath may bee evinced but only thence appeareth the imitation of the Iewes by the Gentiles as by Proselytes and others perhaps I answer the consequent is firme for the former Heathen Authors have no reference to the Iewes and the Gentiles derided the Iewish Sabbathes Lament 1. 7. But suppose it came up among the Gentiles by imitation of the Iewes yet this spreading of it farre and wide prooveth the goodnes of the consequence that it is of the moral Law For hence it sufficiently appeares that the institution of a set seventh day in the weeke is immutable and not ceremoniall and temporall not proper to the Iewes onely but common to all seeing nature apprehends it meet and necessary that we often exercise the worship of God and cannot but acknowledge as we see in the inclination of the whole universe of men that this weekely determination of a day is most convenient and altogether absolute Hitherto of the answer to your position determining what is ceremoniall in the fourth commandement Your proofe for the ceremony of it in those respects is first taken from Texts of Scripture in Exod. 31. 13. and Ezek. 20. 12 20. Hence you reason thus That forme of keeping Sabbath was given to the Iewes as a speciall marke of their
the Jewes not the first day of the weeke the Sabaoth of Christians that was so strictly by Gods commandement destined to rest Therefore the workes done on the Sabaoth day are no transgressions of Gods commandements Object But you will say the old Sabaoth is abolished and the celebration of it translated to the first day of the weeke Translated by whom By any commandement of God Where is it The holy Scripture we know to be sufficient it containeth all the commandements of God whether of things to be done or to be avoided or to be beleeved Sol. Let me heare either one precept one Word of God out of the old Testament that it should be translated or one precept one word of the Sonne of God out of the new Testament commanding it to bee translated I say one word of any of his Apostles intimating that by Christs commandement it was translated It is certaine that there is none Therfore it is evident that the solemnitie of the Lords day was not established Iure divino Not by any commandement of God and consequently that to worke on that day is certainely no breach of any Divine commandement Answer You proceed and would prove this wicked assertion That it is no breach of any Divine commandement for a servant at the commandement of his master nay for any one on his owne head to worke on our Sabbath which is the Lords day the first day of the weeke First the commandement say you cannot be understood of the Lords day Why I pray you can you understand it of any other day save the Sabbath day Doth not the tenor of the precept sound thus Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it You yeeld in the next breath that the Lords day is the Christians Sabbath You must then yeeld that the commandement is understood of it You would bee thus understood and take it very hainously that you should be said to oppose Gods Sabbath do you No you doe not nor ever did Farre bee it from you to thinke it were to wrong you to write it were to calumniate you thus you pleade for your selfe in the first section of your Reply pag. 61 62. Yet lo now the commandement cannot be understood of the Lords day Why then say man the Lords day is not the Sabbath for of the Sabbath is the commandement Secondly but to your reasoning for it is not reason nor religion What day was it of which the charge was so strictly given was it not of the seventh day of the weeke say you Yes indeed of the seventh as the precept was first applied to man But aske againe Why of the seventh more than the sixth And the Lord answereth Because it was the Sabbath of the Lord for wheÌ„ it ceaseth to be the Lords Sabbath the commandement is not of it as you also acknowledge or else why keepe you it not Yet the commandement standeth in full vigor viz. of sanctifying and resting on the Sabbath To the Iewes the seventh from the Creation was the Sabbath the commandement stood in vigor to them for that day to the Christian the seventh even the first day of the weeke is the Sabbath the commandement stands in vigor to them also for that day Therefore he saith not Remember thou sanctifie the seventh day and keep it Sabbath nor thou shalt doe no worke on the Sabbath day for it is the seventh but he saith Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it and Thou shalt do no worke on the seventh for it is the Sabbath This Reason you leape and yet you aske a Why And why the seventh Because God rested thereon and sanctified the seventh day Here you violate first the words of the commandement written with Gods owne finger and then the sense for it is thus read o Exod. 20. 11. Therefore hee sanctified the Sabbath day or resting day and so hee sanctified our Sabbath day as well as theirs for the Sabbath he sanctified be it what day hee shall be pleased to nominate a matter of infinite comfort to us that desire to doe the duties of the day with faith in Gods both blessing and acceptation And hereby your conclusion is utterly weakened Thirdly this reason is given both as a reason of the rest on that day and as a plaine declaration of the institution of that Sabbath day and of this day in the precept now Hee rested the seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it When did hee so Gen. 2. 3. In the beginning Yea he did sanctifie the seventh Yea then he sanctified the Sabbath it was instituted when he blessed and sanctified it and this was in the Creation But how was this done The very worke of the day instituted the day which was this the Lords resting blessing and sanctifying it Now this teacheth us that the institution of the Sabbath in respect of the determination of the time is to bee looked for in the worke of God Gods resting blessing and sanctifying the seventh day made it the Sabbath day therefore in the commandement it is said The seventh is the Sabbath and the following words shew how it was made the Sabbath and what day he blesseth and sanctifieth is the Sabbath Now Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath by whom the worlds were made Col. 1. 16. by whom also they are renewed looke in his worke and find undoubtedly the making and institution of the day to the world renewed the seventh day he lay in the grave here was no worke of blessing and sanctifying but the first day of the weeke very early he arose and appeared to his Disciples and unfolded the Scriptures and opened their understandings to understand them The fourth commandement to speake all clearely stands in p Nomine Sabbathi nobis significatur quòd in nostris debeamus nos Sabbathiê â—â— Hoc est quiescere ab illis operibus à quibus Iudaei quiescere jubebantur Zanch. de red l. 1. c. 19. force to us and the Lords resurrection resting from the worke of our redemption and rejoycing in it blessing it with that worke with divers apparitions that very day and sanctifying it with spending it among his Disciples in his presence bodily now glorified in heavenly expositions and operations upon their hearts and in the returne of the day many times and in speciall upon the returne of it at Whitsontide with the mission of the Holy Ghost This I say applieth and determineth it to this day we now observe And as the Iewes are sent to seeke the precise day in the Lords resting from the workes of Creation so we are sent to the rest from the worke of redemption The institution of this day is clearely in the very worke of the Resurrection as the institution of the seventh day was in the worke of finishing the Creation This hath been anciently taught and still is sparsed in the writings of the godly learned S. Augustine saith q Domini resuscitatio promisit nobis
ceremoniall you alledge the place in Col. 2. 16. but that the Apost speaketh not there of the fourth Commandement is evident First because hee treateth expresly of those Sabbaths which were of the same ranke with the New-Moones and were ceremoniall shadowes of things to come in Christ but the Sabbath prescribed in the Decalogue is altogether of another nature as hath beene and shall be further shewed Secondly he speaketh as the Apostles doth to the Galatians cap. 4. 10. but the place there treates only of the observation of the dayes moneths and yeeres which pertained to the servitude and bondage of weake and beggerly rudiments as in vers 9. appeareth Now that any precept of the Decalogue should bee so accounted and reckoned as a weake and beggerly rudiment was farre from the Apostle to thinke and is abhorred to Christian eares and religion Whatsoever also was Ceremoniall in the Sabbath if it bee granted according to the opinion of many Divines that some ceremony was in the day in respect of that precise day that is by constitution annexed to it extrinsecally and not of the nature of the Sabbath and first institution therof which nothing hinders the morality of the seventh dayes institution for so in the Authority of Fathers and first borne which pertaines to the fifth commandement there was annexed a Ceremoniall reason of a type namely the shadowing out of Christ the first borne among many brethren yet by this annexed typical figure the fifth commandement nor the priviledge of the first borne in respect of the first nature of it is not ceremoniall Nevertheles by Scripture there appeareth not unto me of certainty any ceremony or type in the observation of the seventh day properly so called for the mention of a spirituall Sabbatisme in Heb 4. 9. presignified in some type foregoing under the nature of a type if referred only to the rest in Canaan and by comparison of the like to the rest of God but by no meanes in the least signification is it referred to the rest commanded in the fourth precept as to a type and shadow And whereas the Fathers and many others include the Iewish Sabbath within the former text they must in my judgement bee understood of that day as it was the day in which the ceremoniall worship which was then the worship of God was the sanctification of the Sabbath and as that precise day was till Christ came apt and fit but now after Christs resurrection not fit for the new world but swallowed up of the greater namely the Lords day fit for the memoriall of the workes of Creation and Redemption For to observe the Sabbath with Moses Rites were to deny Christ come in the flesh whose Kingdome is not meat and drinke but righteousnesse peace and joy in the holy Ghost and to this the old Sabbatarian Heretikes had an aime and to observe the Iewish seventh for Sabbath now deserves worthily the Anathema of ancient Councels and Saint Austins sharpe sentence who saith thus t Quisque illum diem observat ut litera sonat carnaliter sapit Despir lit c. 14. Whosoever shall keepe that day as the letter soundeth savoureth of the flesh And lastly to observe the Sabbath in the devised assumed superstitious strictnesse Iewish which was never commanded but taken up of their owne heads or in the luxurious heathenish sports that others of them used is deservedly condemned by the Ancients and is against or Christian liberty or Christian sanctity Fourthly but to returne grant it to bee ceremoniall yet your arguing will not hold that the Sabbath in the Commandement is utterly vanished for all that place ceremony in that rest do hold that the rest in heaven was that which was chiefely aymed at Now this maketh against you for then a Sabbaths rest must remaine till that eternall rest bee come for though it bee assured yet it is not come And if the assurance by word and pledge would have cut off the necessity of a Sabbath rest to shadow it then might all the shadowes of the ceremoniall Law have been spared for they had the Word Oath and Spirit of God to assume Christs comming and from that place in Heb. 4. Doctor Willet u D. Willet on Gen. 2. his places of doctrine saw enough to prove the divine institution of the Lords day as a Sabbath rest he thus reasoneth Every simbole significative or representing signe mentioned in Scripture had a divine institution but so is the Sabbath a simbole or type of our everlasting rest Heb. 4. 9. there remaineth therefore Sabbatismus a Sabbath rest to the people of God Which words doe conclude that both the type remaineth that is a Sabbatisme and the signification of the type everlasting rest CHAP. XXIV Breerwood Pag. 39. BVt might not the celebration of the Sabaoth which thus ceased bee justly translated by the Church to the first day of the weeke Yes certainely both might and was iustly For I consider that the generality was of the morall law of the law of nature namely that men should sequester sometime from worldly affaires which they might dedicate to the honour of God onely the speciality that is the limitation and designement of that time was the churches ordinance appointing first one certaine day and that in relation of Christian assemblies namely that they might meete and pray and and praise God together with one voyce in the congregation And secondly designing that one day to the first day of the weeke for some speciall reasons and remembrances For first it was the day of Christs resurrection from the dead Secondly it was the day of the holy Ghosts descention from Heauen to powre infinite graces vpon Christians The first of them for our iustification as the Apostle speaketh The second for the sanctification and edification of the whole Church to omit some other reasons of lesse importance iustly therefore was the consecration of the Sabaoth translated to that day Answer First Yea a shadow Of which we have the substance in Christ Out of Date and expired of it selfe Part of the partition wall And yet the celebration and consecration of the Sabbath translated justly Then the Church by your Doctrine may revive the ceremoniall law and put life into the dead carcase thereof the Church may not alone embrace the shadow of which Christ is the body but also appoint it to bee embraced the Church may translate part of the ceremonial Law which yet Moses the typicall mediator would not might not order a tittle of it to a loope lace or placing of either but keepe to the patterne shewed him in the Mount and so by the same reason translate priesthood and all Heb. 6. The Church then is Lord of the Sabbath and can consecrate and not only celebrate the Sabbath all full of blasphemy against Christ and blemish to his chast spouse Secondly and for your distinction of generality and speciality of the commandement besides what hath been said before if you
yeeld not the speciality to bee morall you turne out one commandement of the ten from being morall for all your generality for to say that this is the morality of the commandment no more that some time shuld be sequestred to divine worship maketh this commandment no more morall then the building of the Tabernacle or Temple is morall for therein this perpetuall will of God was shewed that some place must bee assigned for Church assemblies and publike worship By this also it will follow that the Papists that in their Catechismes render the fourth commandement thus keepe holy the festivall dayes doe render the full sâ—nse of it Which being yeelded this also will follow that you may aswell put it downe thus frequent the assemblies Moreover all the feast daies of the Iewes conteined this generall equity Lastly then God should in this command nothing to particular men because it is not in their power to institute these daies and so nothing shal be commanded to them further than what publike persons shall injoyne be it but one day in the yeere and for them neither is there any thing commanded in speciall and they sinne not if they appoint but one day in a Moone or if they appoint but one in a quarter then also the Feasts of Christs Nativity of Easter of Whitsontide c. are of equall authority with the Lords day which thing what eares can heare with patience These also are constitutions of the ancient primitive Church CHAP. XXV Breerwood Pag. 39 40 41. BVt what of that What if the consecration of the Sabaoth was by the Church translated to the first day of the weeke Was therefore the commandement of God translated also That that day ought to be observed under the same obligation with the Sabaoth For if the commandement of God were not translated by the Church together with the celebration from the seventh day to the first day then is working on the first no violation of Gods commandement Was the commandement of God then translated from the Sabaoth to the Lords day by the decree of the Church No the Church did it not let mee see the act The Church could not doe it let me see the authority the Church could not translate the commandement to the first day which God himselfe had namely limited to the seventh For could the Church make that Gods commandement which was not his commandement Gods commandment was to rest on the seventh day and worke on the first therefore to rest on the first and worke on the seventh was not his commandement For doth the same commandement of God enioyne both labour and rest on the same day is there fast and lose in the same commandement â—â—th God Thou shalt work on the first day saith that and worke â—â— the seventh saith this Can the Church make these the same commandement But say the Church hath this incredible and uncoâ—ceivable power Say it may forbid to worke on the first day by the vertue of the very same precept That doth neither expresly command or license to worke on that day Say that the Church of God may translate the commandement of God from one day to another at their pleasure did they it therefore I spake before of their authority whether they might doe it I enquire now of the act whether they did it did the Church I say ever constitute that the same obligation of Gods commandement which lay on the Iewes for keeping of the Sabaoth day should be translated and laid upon the Christians for keeping of the Lords day Did the Church this no no they did it not all the wit and learning in the World will not prove it Answer First this reasoning is on false grounds supposed as hath beene proved and therefore fals to the ground Secondly yet take their owne grounds If the Church have powre to translate the day and consecrate it a Sabbath they may have power and had so to translate the Commandement for the Commandement is but the consecration of the Sabbath and determination thereof to a certaine day And if they doe not translate the Commandement yet the Commandement stands in force for that day to which by just power they have translated the Sabbath For the Commandement is in force as a law of nature you confesse for the celebration of a Sabbath or else you deny a moralitie in any part of that Commandement but if that your moralitie stand as without doubt it doth then is working on that day equally a violation of the Commandement of God as working on the seventh from the creation for then it was sinfull because that day was then Sabbath and now it is so because this is now Sabbath Thirdly and for those quaeres let me see the Act Let me see the Authoritie as they may bee retorted to your conceite of their translating the seventh day and consecrating it a Sabbath so in the true sense of consecrating that day you have seen before the Act and Authority and may now see if you winke not that the Commandement is not translated but remaines the same it was namely to keepe holy the Sabbath day Neither is there a making of that Gods Commandement which was not his nor yet doth the commandment containe any impossibilities and contradictions Distingue tempora tolle dubia Distinguish the times and the doubts vanish the Commandement enjoyneth rest and holinesse Sabbath-like on the Lords Sabbath then that seventh day now this seventh day and of both is it true the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God Then the seventh day was it and so enjoyned thereon Now the first day of the weeke and so enjoyned thereon Hence this reasoning is easily answered First God commanded to worke on the first and rest on the seventh therefore to rest on the first and work on the seventh was not his Commandement it was not then it is now moreover sixe dayes thou shalt worke doth not point out which sixe daies and the seventh day will containe both ours and theirs and their seventh they knew then by the worke of Creation as our seventh we know by the worke of Redemption For the authoritie and Act of the Church we need it not the Scripture as before hath saved the labour But that the act of this power was put forth the Church hath acknowledged and your selfe doe while you yeeld the first day consecrated Sabbath CHAP. XXVI Breerwood Pag. 41 42 43. Object BVt you may object if the old Sabaoth vanished and the commandement of God was limited and fixed to that day only then is one of Gods commandements perished Sol. I answere that the generality of that commandement to keepe a Sabaoth wherein God might be honoured was morall But the speciality of it namely to keepe 1 one day of seven 2 the seventh 3 one whole day 4 with precise vacancy from all worke were meerely ceremoniall the specialitie then of the commandements are vanished But for the generality of it it
us both from dishonour and from death Are we not bound to keepe it singular and inviolable well contenting our selves with so liberall a grant of the rest and not incroaching upon that one which God hath chosen to his honour Were it not wretchlesse neglect of Religion to make that very day common and to thinke we may doe with it as with the rest The title of this Constitution is this u Iustin tom 3. p. 459. Leon. Iraper constit 54. Vt Dominicis diebus omnes ab operibus vacent That all men should cease from workes on the Lords dayes This Constitution of Leo is approved by Master Hooker x Hooker eccles polit l. 5. sect 71. pag. 385. and that of Constantine called an over-great facility under pretence of the miscarriage of the fruits of the earth by unseasonable weather Yet this may bee said for that renowned Emperour hee gave that as a concâ—ssory Law which proves nothing unlesse it bee the hardnesse of mens hearts So Moses permitted men to put away their wives and Aaron agreed to it and yet none can reason thence that they were not of Christs mind in that matter Say the same for Constantine The Councell of Laodicâ—a is abused by you in your Allegation thereof for the Canon of that Councell according to the Greeke is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Christians y Concil Laod. Can. 29. ought not to Iudaize and to rest on the Sabbath as they are Christians but if they be found to Iudaize let them be Anathema from Christ or with Christ The Annotation upon it is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deest Of this Originall I find three Latine Translations The first Quod non oportet Christianâ—s Iudaïzare ociari in Sabbato sed operarieos in eodem die preferentes autem in veneratione diem Dominicum si vacare voluerint ut Christiani hoc faciant quod si reperti fuerint Iudaïzare Anathe ma sint à Christo Thus in English z Translat Dionysâ—i exigui That Christians ought not to judaize and rest on the Sabbath but worke on that day and preferring the Lords day in reverence if they will bee vacant as Christians doe this thing but if they bee found to Iudaize let them be Anathema from Christ The second Non oportet Christianos Iudaïzare in Sabbatho vacare sed operari eos in eadem die Dominicam preponendo eidem diei si hoc eis placet vacent tanquam Christiani quod si inventi fuerint Iudaïzare Anathema sit In English a Translat Isidori Mercatoris Christians ought not to Iudaize and to surcease labour on the Sabbath but worke on that day preferring the Lords day before that day if this please them they may be vacant as Christians but if they be found to Iudaize let him be Anathema The third Quod non oportet Christianos Iudaïzare in Sabbato ociari sedipso eo die operari diem autem Dominicum preferentes ociari si modo possint ut Christiâ—â—os quod si inventi fuerint ut Iudaïzantes sint Anathema apud ChristuÌ„ b Gentianus Hervetus That Christians ought not to Iudaize and rest on the Sabbath but worke that day but preferring the Lords day they ought to rest as Christians if so be they can and if they bee found as Iudaizing let them be Anathema with Christ Here note three things first that the Sabbath here spoken of is Saturday which was the Iewes Sabbath Secondly that the last is by all acknowledged for the worst translation indeed they are all rather paraphrases and glosses than translations Thirdly the two first plainely carry this sense that provided they preferre the Lords day in honour and reverence above the Iewes Sabbath and that they doe not Iudaize if this please them they may rest the Saturday too And the last translation in my opinion and according to the pointing thereof as I find it in the Author foundeth thus preferring the Lords day they must rest if so be they can do it as Christians not as Iudaizers Now how the Iewes did rest on their Sabbath in those primitive times is cleare in Ignatius and others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In English as followeth Therefore saith that blessed Martyr c Ignat. epist ad Magnes let us not Sabbatize after the Iewish manner as rejoycing in idlenesse for he that doth not labour let him not eare for in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eate thy bread say the Oracles but let every of us keepe Sabbath spiritually rejoycing in the meditation of the Law not in the remission of the body admiring the workmanship of God not eating things of the day before nor drinking things lukewarme nor walking measured spaces nor rejoycing in dancings and mad shoutings and clappings of the hands and feet Now was it not needfull to say if they can they should rest the Lords day like Christians and not like Iewes in an idle wanton luxurious and lascivious rest which was rather idlenesse and sloth than rest rather madnesse like those that kept Bacchus Feast than rest But this Alleager taketh to the worst Translation and fasteneth upon that clause which by no meanes will bee admitted to your Tenet is no breach of any divine commandement What by freely May he doe it so he doe it with reluctancy What by every man Are some priviledged As the Tempter said to Eve Yea hath God said Ye shall not eate of every Tree of the Garden Some need no priviledge for some will not labour any day these need no such liberty to worke extraordinarily the Lords day your liberty were their bondage on any day or may some freely prophane it though not every man Or ordinary labour in none will prophane it Or will ordinarily labour in some prophane it but only extraordinary labour in other How too shall one know this ordinary and extraordinary labour apart What meane you to say Would I set at liberty because in your opinion there is no command of God to bind therfore can you bind and loose Secondly it is meet say you that all worldly affaires be abandoned that day and that it be dedicated wholly to the honor of God What meet to doe that which no Law of God of Apostles of universall Synods did ever require as you spake but now What is it meet for a present purpose To distill your poyson closely which shall runne like oyle into the bones of Church and Common-wealth and none stay it while the devout heart shall be put off with this flappe It is meet indeed It is meete that Christians should bee as devout in rest and sanctity on the Lords day as the Iewes on their Sabbath That is all one as to say according to what you have taught before that a man should be as devout in the commands of his owne heart as in Gods command for so you make it and in the precepts of men as in Gods what deifying is here of men
and vilifying of God Thirdly but what an argument is here The obligation of our thankefulnesse is more than theirs though the obligation of his commandement be lesse herein therefore the Christian should be more devout than the Iew. I had thought the commandement had bound to Devotion and the greater the more I had thought the Greatnesse of benefits whence the debt of thankfulnesse is greatned had increased the obligation of the commandement and our obedience to it But now you yeeld his commandement some what obligeth on our Sabbath though lesse when before you utterly denyed any breach of any divine commandement in laboring that day and so any obligation To strengthen this argument you expresse your wish that most religiously with all abstinence and all attendance it were kept Doe you wish this with all your heart and yet bend all your might to overthrow the commandement of God Would you or could you thinke that your wish should prevaile more than Apostolike truth Fourthly have wee in one breath these contradictory sentences No constitution of the Church obliging to the strict desisting from labour And the constitutions of some ancient Councels restraining that prophanation Fifthly you come in with the Edicts of Princes as one that would have the observation of the Lords day depend upon constitutions of the Church and Edicts of Princes only and so not to differ from another holy day Most wicked Popish worse than Popish and against all the famous lights ancient and moderne Or doe you mention Princes Edicts and Churches constitutions to glose with ours Ours detest your Tenet and you seeke herein to wound Church and Prince for how they hold of the Lords day that it is directly grounded on the fourth commandement appeareth in the Liturgie in the booke of Homilies and in the Statutes and godly Provisions for redresse of prophanations This is the Doctrine of our Church d Homil. of the place and time of prayer part 1. pag. 125. By this commandement speaking of the fourth wee ought to have a time as one day in the weeke wherein we ought to rest yea from our lawfull and needfull workes For like as it appeareth by this commandement that no man in the sixe daies ought to bee slothfull or idle but diligently to labour in that state wherein God hath set him even so God hath given expresse charge to all men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday they should cease from all weekely and worke-day labour of these lawes to reject their commandements touching matter of worke or service on the Sabaoth or any other day Answer First I might put off all this still because it is upon this false ground that the Commandement of God doth not enjoyne our Sabbath with the like But I willingly goe on with you to see if there bee one true stitch through your whole Discourse And here before wee come to particulars h Though the Lawes of men should not take hold of servants in this case yet the Lawes of God doe let all note that that odious terme and calumniating phrase of Servants rebellion against their masters is your owne and commeth from an evill heart and crafty head We teach that Princes unlawfull commands are not to bee executed yet we teach not that any so commanded must rebell but not obey and be so farre from rebellion if it should be urged that hee suffer even to blood patiently without so much as reviling judging or the like but onely committing his cause to him that judgeth righteously But to come to your matter you hold First That the Churches Constitutions and the Edicts of Princes never intended to forbid light and labourlesse worke nor doe their censures take hold on men therefore Secondly against this what the Doctrine of our Church is you heard before which taught that God condemned all weekely and worke-day labour all common businesse and to give themselves wholly to heavenly exercises c. The doctrine of the Church of Ireland i Articles of Religion in a Synod at Dublin 1615. is consonant hereunto which teacheth thus The first day of the weeke which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore wee are bound therein to rest from our common and daily businesse and to bestow that leasure upon holy exercises both publike and private In a Councell k Concilium Matiscon 2. c. 1. in the yeare 588. it was decreed that no worke on the Lords day bee done but the eyes and hands stretched out to God that whole day and that if a Countrey man or servant should neglect this wholesome Law he should bee beaten with more grievous strokes of Clubbes For these things saith that Councell pacifie God and remoove the judgements of diseases and barrennesse And againe understanding while they sate in the Councell l C. 4. that some absented themselves from the Assemblies they decreed under paine of Anathema that on all Lords dayes all both men and women received the Communion In another General Synod there was made this decree m Sancitum est ut domini in suis ditionibus diebus dominicis prohibeant nundiâ—as annuas sâ—ptimanales item conventicula in Tabernis compotationes alearum chartarum similes varios lusus concentus musicorum instrumentorum usum atque choreas Synod general Petricoviensis Anno 1578. It is ordained that the Lords in their severall dominions doe prohibit on the Lords dayes the yearely and weekely Faires also meetings in Tavernes Compotations or Gossipings Dice Cards and divers the like sports singing in Concents as now many in merry meetings have their singing of Catches and their roarings as they are called the use of musicall Instruments and Dancing In a Councell at Nice it was ordered that those who either kept Court bought or sold or otherwise prophaned the Sabbath should bee prohibited the Communion because that whole day we ought onely to rest and spread abroad our hands-in prayer to God n Toto hoc die tantummodò vacandum quia toto hoc die manus Deo expandendae Canutus o Canutus lege 14. 15. a King in this Land before the Conquest enacted in a Councell at Winchester that Sunday should be kept holy and Faires Courts Huntings and worldly workes on that day should be forborne Guntramnus p Praeceptio Guntramni ad Episcop dat in Concil Matiscon 2. King of France commanded that on the Lords day no bodily worke should be done besides what was prepared to eate to maintaine life conveniently Secondly you affirme that neither constitution of the Church nor edict of Princes doe free servants from their Masters power to command them to worke or their obedience to worke at their Masters command that day more than others Thirdly what the Doctrine of our Church is in this point is cleare in the Homily of the place and time of prayer delivered in these words Sithence which time meaning the time of our
Those that hold against the antiquity of the Commandement of the Sabbath that it was not given to Adam yet give no such interpretation of those words God sanctified the seventh day Not Master Broad not Doctor Prideaâ—x not Gomarus not Tostatus and Pererius nor any that I have met withall but they make it an institution by anticipation of which afterwards your selfe perceived it was too bold an assertion to say that the ever blessed Creator laid downe a Law for himself with apromise of blessednesse annexed and therefore confesse that both Gods resting and sanctifying of that day were exemplary to men though you would not they should bee obligatory till the commandement in Sin and Sinai But what then have you done If the Sabbath bee instituted in Paradise as you acknowledge from that place in Gen. 2. and this be exemplary to men as likewise you confesse how can it bee lesse than obligatory to men though it bee not delivered in a forme of words expresly mandatory Gods action which he would have exemplary cannot be lesse than obligatory Secondly but you say this sanctification might be in destination ordained then to holines but not to be applied till the time of the Law Was it ordained then to holinesse It was not then at mans liberty to spend it to other imployment than that to which it was ordained Gods preparation of a time to sanctification 2000. yeares before it should be sanctified is without example intimation in any Text or solid reason Had he ordained it then to holinesse What God hath sanctified why call you it common or how can you thinke that Adam and the Patriarchs would make it common The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say you signifieth a preparation as well as an actuall application to holinesse I could tell you that the word is used both in way of praise and dispraise as Rabbi David Kinchi observeth is it therefore to bee taken in dispraise here But to close with you the word signifieth to prepare apply it now to the seventh day and it noteth that God blessed and prepared the seventh day above other daies of the weeke to bee set apart to rest and the memory of the great worke of the Creation that so piety and religion for ever among posterity Gentiles aswell as Iewes might be nourished Had this beene driven out of use among the Holy Seed as it was among the Gentiles Satan had soone thrust on them also as hee did on the Gentiles the fiction of the worlds eternity and had blowne away as all memory of the Creation so also all faith and true piety out of the minds of men Now such a preparation which is the actuall separation of a thing to use is not of destination but present readinesse and such is the preparation this word signifieth as may bee seene in Rabbi Mardochai Nathans concordance When this word concernes holinesse for sometimes it signifieth preparation in generall as in Micah 3. 5. to prepare warre it signifieth to make holy Lev. 21. 23. to declare holinesse Ezek. 39. 27. to set a part to an holy use Ioel 1. 14. to command that it bee sanctified Exod. 13. 2. But to destinate aforehand without present and actuall separation of the thing so soone as it doth exist and is capable of that to which it is separated which must needs be your meaning hath no warrant of Scripture or Author that I know of For those places in Exo. 19. 10. Iosh 3. 5. and 7. 13. As they all meane by sanctifying to sanctifie by command that they bee sanctified so they speake not of a Destination of them to sanctity or a preparation without actuall application to holinesse but a present sanctifying themselves that day that they might be the fitter for attendance on the Lord it is not read thus in Exo. 19. 10 11. Sanctifie them against the third day but sanctifie them to day and to morrow and be ready against the third day So true is it also of the Sabbath sanctifie this Sabbath and the next Sabbath and every Sabbath It is senselesse to talke of a preparatory sanctification without application that were to separate to holines and yet to let it lye common Kades in Galilee Ioh. 20. was sanctified that is separated for a City of refuge was it only destinated and not actually set apart to that use Besides all those sanctifications are of persons not of times was there ever a set time sanctified and the time not separated to sanctity actually But what do I fighting with suppositions you say it might so signifie not it doth so How many interpreters ancient and moderne do say it doth signifie to command that it bee sanctified Thirdly you go on to a third evasion and say it might be a command and institution by anticipation shewing why not when God instituted the Sabbath That cannot be because Moses makes an Historicall narration of the creation according to seven daies time and in every day distinguisheth it by its proper worke and comming to the seventh he saith that was Gods resting day which was not inferiour to any of the sixe because God wrought no eminent worke of Creation thereon but extolled above them because it was not a day of empty rest but inriched above the other and advanced by Gods blessing and sanctifying of it that is he ordained it a time of greater and more holy workes and crowned those workes with richer fruit Esa 58. 14. and did chuse it above the rest to an holy use And that hee then sanctified that day both the connexion of the words sheweth and the words of the fouâ—th commandement in sixe daies hee made all hee rested the seventh and therefore blessed it This Anticipation never came into any mans mind who was not first anticipated with some prejudice about the observation of the Lords day the Iewes never dreamt of it and in the new Testament no such thing is taught or intimated The Authors of that opinion yeeld it is probable that the seventh day was observed froÌ„ the beginning Zuar de dieb festis Moreover there can be produced out of Scripture no example of such an Anticipation there is an Anticipation of the names of some places with the like but not an anticipation of an institution Besides the perfection of the creation on that day is twice joyned with the Sanctification of it in the same manner and phrase in which the creation both of man and of other living Creatures is joyned with the blessing of them Gen. 2. 2 3. with Gen. 1. 21 22 27 28. The new Testament confirmes our Text which teacheth that the people of God partake in the Old Testament of d Heb. 4. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. a twofold rest in this life the rest of the Sabbath and the rest in Canaan but David speaking in the 45. Psal of a rest speaketh not of the Sabbath rest for that was from the beginning of the world nor of that in Canaan for that
o Philo de mundi opificio After that this Vniverse was perfected according to the perfect nature of the number of sixe the Father added honour to the following seventh day which when he had praised presently he vouchsafed to call it holy For it is the feast not of one people or Region but of all universally which alone is worthy to be called a popular festivity and the birth-day of the world Broughton in his consent of Scriptures alleageth Ramban upon Gen. 26. fol. 46. And Aben Ezra upon Exodus the twentieth to prove that the Lord appointed the seventh day from creating to bee an holy rest and that the fathers observed it before Moses Peter Matyr alleadgeth p Pet. Mart. â—oâ— in Genes Rabbi Agnon for that same point Thomas Aquinas interpreteth it on this wise q he sanctified it that is he deputed it to sanctitie for he willeth that the Lords day be kept holy of us therefore that especially we be also vacant to Gods holy worship and in it and the memoriall therof we call to mind the continuall benefit of our creation and therefore in the old law it is commanded that on that day we cease from servile workes that we may intend more freely God and his divine worship whence that day is called Sabbath which is the same that rest it Selneccerus saith that r Nicol selnecceri Com. in Genes God would by this very sanctifying of the Sabbath institute a certaine worship in which mankind even in innocencie that is although Adam had not falled should publish the goodnesse of God and celebrate worship acceptable to God when as other things on other dayes were to be looked unto And then he giveth foure causes or ends of the institution of the Sabbath It was instituted First for rest Secondly for the excellencie of man Thirdly for the upholding of a certaine worship Fourthly and for the testimonie of immortalitie And here saith he Children may learne the answer of that Schoole argument the Apostle in Col. 2. bids that none judge in respect of the Sabbath dayes therefore we are not to keepe a Sabbath Answer the antecedent Paul speaketh of the ceremonie and the observation of externall circumstances he speaketh not of the generall or the principall meaning of the precept and the finall cause thereof which is naturall and unchangeable This Author calleth our Sabbath the Sabbath of Redemption Marius is full in this thing Å¿ Marius in Gen. 2. He blessed that is hee consecrated it to his blessing to bee kept of men and sanctified it not as if he estamped holinesse on it but because hee appointed it to his sanctification and praise and to the holy conversation of men Because with the Hebrewes to sanctifie is the same as to separate from pollution a day is said to be sanctified in which we ought to be separated from pollution It was made presently from that very day of the World as the letter sheweth a positive precept given to our first Parents concerning this thing which they passed over to posteritie by tradition as in the Church the celebration of the first or eight day is passed over for since it is of the Law of Nature that some time be peculiarly insinuated for the worship of God it was meete that that should be determined in the very beginning by a positive law whence even among the Gentiles the Religion on the Seventh day was famous Beza affirmeth t Beza paraph. in Iob 1. 5. of Iob That as oft as his children had made an end of feasting one another in their severall houses he sanctified them and offered burnt offerings according to their number but notwithstanding there is no doubt but that the dayly worship of God was diligently observed besides in this most holy family at least every seventh day was carefully sanctified as God from the beginning of the world had appointed This blessing saith reverend Calvin was nothing else but Calvin Com. in Gen. ca. 2. a solemne consecration whereby God claimes to himselfe the studies and imployments of men on the seventh day First God rested then hee blessed this rest that in all ages amongst men it might bee holy or he dedicated every seventh day to rest that his example might be a perpetuall rule Moreover we must know this exercise is not peculiar to one either age or people onely but common to all mankinde Wherefore when wee heare that by Christs comming the Sabbath was abrogated this distinction must be taken too What appertaines to the perpetuall ordering of humane life and what peculiarly agreeth to the old figures that the Sabbath figured the mortification of the flesh I say was temporall but that from the beginning it was commanded men that they should exercise themselves in the worship of God deservedly it ought to endure even to the end of the world Hereunto agree Zuinglius Iunius and Tremellius Vatablus Vrsin Catech. Bulling in Rom. 4 5. Decad. Danaeaeth Chri. l. 2 c. 10. Bertram pol. Iudaic. c. 2. Vrsinus Bullinger Danaeus Aretius Piscator Bertramus Hospinian Chemnitius and Zanchy who after this sense given upon the words of the Text in Genesis delivers his opinion of the manner of keeping the first Sabbath I doubt not saith he but that the Sonne of God Hospin de orig templ li. 2. c. 14. Chemnit loc Theo. de lege Dei Zanch. de hominis creat l. 1. c. 1 sub finem libri taking on him the shape of man was busied that whole seventh day in most holy colloquies with Adam and that he did also fully make himselfe knowne to Adam and Eve and did reveale the manner and order which hee had used in creating of all things and did exhort them both to meditate on these workes and in them to acknowledge their Creator and to prayse him and that by his owne example he did admonish them to imploy themselves in this exercise of godlinesse setting all other businesse aside and also that they would so instruct and teach their children To be short I doubtnot but that in that seventh day he taught them all Divinitie and did hold them busied in hearing of him and in praysing God their Creator for so many and so great benefits To this interpretation I am led by these two reasons The first taken from the Sanctification of the Sabbath which God hath prescribed in the Law the second because Adam ought to understand this sanctification of such a day therefore it is probable that the Sonne of God did open this unto Adam and Eve both in plaine words and by his owne example For even God also is said to rest upon that day and in Exodus hee doth exhort to the sanctification of the Sabbath by his owne example therefore he did sanctifie it with Adam and Eve Of this the Son of God gave us a shew for having finished the workes of our re-creating or Redemption being raised from the dead he conversed with his
Disciples appearing to them through forty dayes space and speaking the things that concerned the Kingdome of God and fully instructing them and teaching profound Theologie not so much with words as with the efficacie of the Spirit He so rested from both workes that hee ceased not yet to teach men and instruct them in the true worship The time would faile me to tell of our English worthies famous Westerne Lights that teach all this Truth as Willet Perkins Greenham Babington Bownd Gibbens Dod Scharpy Esty Williams with many more Behold what a cloude of witnesses doe compasse us about For further confirmation consider that place in Exod. 16. For first before all mention of Moses Law concerning the Sabbath it is storied that the People gathered on the sixt day twice as much bread two Omers for one man which Vers 22. 23. thing was observed by the Rulers of the Congregation who came and told Moses of it To what end was this but that they might apply themselves wholy to the observation of the Sabbath the day following Secondly the very phrase and words of Moses in giving admonition about the Sabbath in vers 23 is such as clearly sheweth that Moses spake not of the Sabbath as some new thing unheard of but cals to minde the ancient sanctimonie of that day which they had beene compelled to neglect of late in Egypt through Phâ—raohs cruell taske-masters This is that which the Lord hath said Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Thirdly the very command of Moses appointing them for after times to gather twice as much every sixth day as they did other dayes and giving this reason on the seventh day which is the Sabbath in it there shall bee none Vers 26. 29. sheweth that Moses himselfe was mindefull of the Law of the Sabbath delivered from Adam to the Fathers Out of this Text then it is evident that the Sabbath was from the beginning The third Section answered Vnto the Argument of Master Byfield for the mortalitie of the Sabbath taken from the manner of giving this Law by lively voyce on Sinai and by divine ingraving in Tables of stone by the finger of God and therefore differenced by the Lord from a ceremoniall Law which were all given mediately by Moses and from Gods owne testimonie by Moses that it is one of the Tenne words or Tenne Commandements you make here such an answer as doth not once come neare the force of the argument It became say you one of the Tenne perpetuall words then when it was given on Mount Sinai for the morall part perpetuall Thou shalt sanctifie the Sabbath for the ceremoniall part not perpetuall Thou shalt sanctifie the seventh day for the Sabbath If it became so because ingraven by the finger of God in Tables of stone then that part thou shalt sanctifie the seventh day for Sabbath is so because so ingraven If it became so but then that sufficeth us that have lived ever since and those that shall arise after us to the end of the world But this that you affirme that then when it was delivered on Sinai it became one of the perpetuall words hath no warrant in Scripture alledge the place nor in reason for as the other nine Commandements became not then first perpetuall though then first delivered in forme of lawes no more did this Were they perpetuall because written in Tables of stone and not rather because perpetuall so written This also is strange that you say that the morall part of the commandement Thou shalt sanctifie the Sabbath as you will have it became but then on Sinaia perpetuall word Was not obliging from the beginning and written in the heart that there should bee a vacant time for the worship of God If you deny it See your owne confession in pag. 24. of the Treatise The fourth Section answered That place in the fifty sixth Chapter of Esay vers 4 5. Vers 2. affords a strong argument against you for there the Christian Sabbath is prophesied of as that which every mortall man every sonne of Adam that would bee blessed must keepe in obedience to God It is therefore an ordinance of God charged in the fourth Commandement and no Command of men The strangers and Eunuchs there spoken of were not such as became proselytes under the law but Christians under the Gospell You object that the priviledge of Sonnes and Daughters was not tendered to strangers and so Master Byfield mistooke the Text. This is but a cavill the intent of the Prophet is to shew that the legall rules about strangers and Eunuchs shall not in Christs Kingdome where they are abolished hinder their election and choise into the number of his people but any of all sorts are accepted with God that thus take hold of his Covenant The Prophet expresly pronounceth them blessed v. 2. therefore it can be no wresting of the Text to say the stranger shall be a Sonne and the Eunuch made joyfull in the house of prayer nay if you take the Promise applyed in v. 5. to the Eunuchs exclusively shutting out the stranger how doth it answer so well the strangers objection who said The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people vers 3. You object further that the burnt offerings and sacrifices mentioned in vers 7. have no place in the New Testament therefore the Text must bee understood of the time of the Old Testament You might as well say that that place in Malach. 1. 11. is not spoken of the New Testament though it bee said Gods Name shall bee great among the Gentiles from the rising of the Sunne to the going downe thereof Because it is added In every place incense shall be offered and a pure offering Christians have their burnt offerings and sacrifices Rom. 12. 1. Heb. 13. But you say that then all the chapter must be understood in a mysticall sense and so of a mysticall Sabbath This consequence is utterly infirme as may be seene by that Text in Malachi forecited and that conceit of a mysticall Sabboth cannot have place here for these are made distinct to keepe the Sabbath from polluting it and to keepe the hand from doing any evill verse 2. To speake fully there is no one word in Scripture that speaketh of a mysticall Sabbath for what is spoken of a * Heb. 4. Spirituall Sabbatisme concernes our rest in Heaven and not a Spirituall Sabbath on earth and to say that servile workes condemned in the fourth Commandement are no other than sinnes or sinnes at all is nothing but an Allegoricall sporting with Gods Word for sinnes are not unlawfull on the Sabbath onely but alwayes and in all places nor doth the fourth Commandement intend to give a prohibition of all sinnes though it is true that in some sense sinnes receive an high aggravation when they are committed on so holy a day Esai 58. 4. Now how this mysticall and spirituall Sabbath of yours should serve to this
precedent words of the administration of the Lords Supper But we after those things for the remainder of the time doe ever remember one another of these things and those of us which have any thing helpe every one that wants and are alwayes together one with another A little after hee saith that the assemblies on that day were frequented of all in Citie and Countrie prayer preaching and the Sacrament was administred Collections for the poore which was after the assemblies distributed to the needy imprisoned stranger with the like whom they visited Tertullian in that 16 chapter of his Apologie against the Gentiles gives this as one cause of their conjecture that Christians worshipped the Sunne because they kept the Sunday Holy Wee give our selves to joy saith hee the Sunday for another farre wide reason than in honour of Diem solis laetitiae indulgemus the Sunne are we in the second place from them which appoint Saturday to idlenesse and feeding themselves also wandring from the Iewish custome which they know not What meaneth he hereby but that such a solemnitie is kept and ought to bee by Christians as should exceede in that kinde the feasts of the nations and Heathen as in his booke of Idolatrie chap. 14. he speaketh Ignatius speaketh enough to any man not prepossessed for he saith let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords day as festivall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek word signifieth a solemne festivall free from worke and workeday labour That others also of the ancients did understand this celebration to be with exact vacation is evident Saint Austin saith come ye to the Church every Lords day for if the unhappy Iewes doe celebrate the Sabbath with such devotion that in it no earthly workes were done how much more ought Christians to bee vacant to God alone on the Lords day and come together for the Salvation of their soules Againe Apostles and Apostolike men have therefore ordained that the Lords day be kept with religious solemnitie because in it our Redeemer arose from the Dead and which is therefore called the Lords day that in it abstaining from earthly affaires and the enticements of the world we may serve onely in divine worship That of Saint Clement is also worthy note neither on the Lords dayes which are dayes of joyfulnesse doe we grant any thing may be said or done besides holinesse Austin also in the sixt booke de Civitate Dei chap. 11. speaking of Seneca's scoffing at the Iewes Sabbath that they lost the seventh part of their time in vacancie addeth this Notwithstanding he durst not speake of the Christians even then most contrarie to the Iewes on either part lest either hee should praise them against the old custome of his owne Countrey or reprove them perhaps against his owne will Saint Austine likewise reproveth their telling of tales their slanders playing at dice and such unprofitable sports as if one part of the day were set apart for dutie to God and the rest of the day together with the night to their owne pleasures In the same place also he condemnes walking about the fields and woods when they should bee at Serm. 251. De Temp. Divine Service with clamour and laughter and saith the day must be sequestred a rurali opere ab omni negotio from countrey worke and all businesse that wee may give our selves wholly to the worship of God Saint Chrysostome speaking of the fitnesse of the Lords day for almes saith it is a convenient time to practise liberalitie with a ready and willing minde not onely in this regard but also because it hath rest remission freedome and vacation from labours Saint Ambrose q Ambros tom 3. Serm. 1. de granosinapis p. 225. reproving the peoples neglect of Church on the Lords dayes saith Whatsoever brother is not present at the Lords Sacraments of necessity he is with God a forsaker of the Divine truth For how can he excuse himselfe who preparing his dinner at home on the day of the Sacraments contemneth that heavenly Banket and taking care of the belly neglecteth the physicke of his soule The same Father in another place r Id. Serm. 33. pag. 259. tom 3. saith Let us all the day bee conversant in prayer or reading hee that cannot reade let him aske of some holy man that he may bee fed with his conference let no secular acts hinder divine acts let no Table-play carry away the mind let no pleasure of Dogs call away the senses let no dispatch of a businesse pervert the mind with covetousnesse True this Father in this place speaketh of a Fast but we know that a Fast and Sabbath are alike for the point of rest Saint ſ Hieron ad Rustich Dominicos dies orationi tantum lectionibus vacant Hierom also On the Lords day saith he they onely give themselves to prayer and reading Secondly now for your contrary evidences what if they also make for us You alleage a constitution of Constantines Iurge First the same Emperours Constitutions found in Ecclesiasticall Writers Eusebius in his life saith Wherefore he ordained that all that obeyed the Romane Empire should rest from all labour on the dayes that are called from our Saviours Name Further hee saith of this Christian Emperour He taught all his hoste to honour this day diligently those that partooke of the Divine Faith hee gave them leasure to frequent the Assemblies that no impediment should hinder their attendance on prayer but others that had no savor of Divine Doctrine hee gave charge of them by another Law that they should goe into the open fields of the Suburbs on the Lords day and that there altogether should use the same forme of prayer to God when asigne was given of some one of them for said he we ought not to use speares and place the hope of our affaires in weapons and bodily strength Sozomen in his tripartite history testifieth thus That day which is called the Lords day which the Hebrewes call the first day which the Grecians attribute to the Sunne and which is before the seventh day he ordained that all should cease from suites and other businesses and should onely bee occupied in prayers upon it t Sozom Hist Eccles tripert l. 1. c. 10. Behold Constantine against Constantine Secondly your Constitution is read Cod. l. 3. tit 12 l. 3. This Constitution was reversed by Leo the Emperour and another made in these words We ordaine according to the true meaning of the holy Ghost and of the Apostles thereby directed that on the sacred day wherein our integrity was restored all doe rest and surcease labour that neither husbandmen nor other on that day put their hands to forbidden workes for if the Iewes did so much reverence their Sabbath which was but a shadow of ours are not we which inhabit the light and truth of grace bound to honour that day which the Lord himselfe hath honoured and hath therein delivered