particular Rite of the Old Testament more particularly spoken of in the New Testament by the Apostle towards its Exclusion from the Christian Church than Circumcision yet there is no express Command against it that I know of And I assert that let him bring what Argument he can from these Epistles against it I will produce the same against the Seventh-day-Sabbath and so they must either stand or fall upon the same Ground and so must the other Ceremonies that are not so much as mentioned in the Books of the New Testament Again here he recurs to the Danger and Presumption of Indulging to Conjectures and Humane Fancies in the things of God without any warrant from Scripture or against the Commands thereof under a pretence of honouring God and Christ thereby and unworthily applies all this to the Assertors of the Lords-day But to this we have answered already and doubt not but to be as Innocent in this Respect as himself and this is the summ of all his answer to this Argument for the First-day-Sabbath But we must not so leave it but speak what I hope God will direct to the Vindication of it And here we must know that this Argument is not the solitary Proof that we bring for the Lords-day's Holy Observation for then it might seem to carry no great weight with it But First We undertake to prove an Abolition of the Seventh day from the Word and then propose the First day as bidding fairest of all the other Week-days for it because we acknowledge one day of the Seven to be the substance of the Fourth Commandment and to be positively and secondarily Moral in it and that therefore there lies still an Obligation upon all the Churches unto the end of the World to keep one day in seven Holy unto the Lord at least all who may have the Commands intirely conveyed to them and duly taught them for there may be a case of Exemption in this particular as we may see in the progress and we say the Seventh day being cashiered the first day ought to be its successor and that because of the glorious Privileges of this day above all others of the Week whereof this of our Lords Resurrection from the Dead is chief because this was the day of God the Redeemer's entring into his Rest And our Argument for the Lords day is both a Pari a Majori from Equality and Eminence Equality with and Eminency to the Rest of God the Creator upon the Seventh day for as the Creators having finished the Sixth days work and rested the Seventh was made a positive Motive for the Observance of that day for a religious Rest during all the time that Jehovah rested from no other more eminent work of his So we say in like manner the Rest of God the Redeemer from that his greater work of Redemption on the first day may be as good a Motive for the Consecrating thereof to a religious Rest for here we suppose the Seventh day excluded Yea we argue a fortiori and say it may much more upon this account challenges its Holy Observation Because 1. The Rest of Jehovah after the works of the Creation was no proper Rest as has been proved but now his Rest after the work of Redemption was a real and proper one from the Labours Sufferings and Humiliation of his humane Nature 2. The Work of Creation cost God but six words of his Mouth but the work of Redemption cost him his Incarnation and in his Manhood his mean and contemptible Birth his poor obscure laborious Life for thirty Years together in his reputed Fathers House and probably at his Trade too and after that his itinerant wearisom tempted reproached persecuted and sad Life for 3 or 4 Years before his Sufferings and his compleat voluntary and sinless Obedience to his Fathers Will all his days and his fearful Sufferings and most dreadful shameful painful lingring and accursed Death 3. By the work of Creation God brought all things out of nothing and so could not possibly meet with any opposition thereto but in the work of our Redemption he waded through and overcame all Opposition all the Temptations of Men and Devils all the Rage and Malice the Revilings horrible Reproaches false Accusations unjust Condemnations of Men all the Rage Fury and Cruelty of Earth and Hell of Men and Devils Yea all the Wrath and Vengeance of his Father which was infinitely worse than all the former and at last Death and the Grave 4. By the Creation God brought our Nature out of nothing but by Redemption from Satan from Sin from Death from Hell from the Wrath of God and from the Grave 5. By the Creation God made us perfectly Holy and Happy planted Paradise for us gave us an Immortality and Abilities and Inclinations and infinite Obligations so to remain for ever but not the effectual Grace for we speedily fell and an animal Life for we were to eat and drink and sleep in Innocency to recruit the Decays of Nature but by Redemption God brings us again into a perfect and more glorious State of Holiness and Happiness conveys us into the third Heaven gives us an eternal Security there and makes us like the Angels for ever and ever and doubtless our Condition in the third Heaven where Redemption conveys and lodges us will be as far more Noble Glorious Blessed and Happy than our Condition in Paradise where Creation made and stated us as that is in Situation above this 6. God glorified his Power Wisdom and Goodness in the work of Creation but much more all these in the work of Redemption as might easily be displayed to the Reader and withall his Pity his Grace his Justice his Holiness his Truth his Jealousie for his own Glory more of Gods Glory shining forth in one Line of the Redeemers Face than in all the Creation both visible and invisible Wherefore seeing this work of Redemption does so unconceivably surpass that of Creation both as to Excellency as wrought out by God and as to its Vtility to us as wrought out for us we say with Reverence and without Offence that the first day hath more to shew upon this account for its Holy Separation from and Exaltation above the rest of the Week-days than ever the Seventh had or can pretend unto And we say withall that it is very Congruous that God the Redeemer should have one day of the Week consecrated to his Rest for 2000 Years in the latter days of the World as well as God the Creator have a day throughout 4000 Years consecrated to his Rest Especially seeing that the Honour and Glory of the Redeemer herein is the Glory and Honour of God the Creator for both are the same Jehovah whereas the Glory of the Creator herein is not the Glory of the Redeemer for the Redeemer was not when the Creation was produced neither should ever have been had the Creation stood in that Estate wherein God created it and
rested in his works So that 't is clear from hence that 't is not a Pretence to honour the Lord Christ that is pleaded for the first day but 't is really an Honour a great Honour to the Redeemer that it should be dedicated to a holy Commemoration of his Rest That the First-day-Sabbath hath the same Argument and Motive in this particular that the Seventh hath even God's Resting from his work and herein a stronger as far as the Glory and Profit of Redemption excels that of Creation I have been somewhat long here and the Subject is very Glorious Delightful and Profitable and the Argument with others weighty and convincing and ought not to be slightly passed over how little soever is said against it the Author seeming to fancy he could blow it out of door with a puff SECT XIII HE proposes Page 49. our Argument from our Saviour's appearing to his Disciples on the first day of the Week for its being the day of Christian and solemn Worship from John 20. to 26. To which he answers all this amounts not to an Institution but with other Arguments it bids fairly for it and shews the Honour our Saviour put upon this day beyond all others As to his other 't is replied that 't is probable that first day spoken of in v. 19. here may be the same with that spoken of Luke 24.13 c. and 't is probable 't is not so for our Lord appeared to his Disciples on several Lord-days But fairly to grant what he cannot get Suppose it were so could the two Disciples travelling to Emaus and our Saviour's coming to them walking and conversing with them any way disparage this day or weaken this Argument Not at all For 1. These Disciples were yet Unbelievers of Christ's Resurrection and so could have no thoughts of keeping a First-day-Sabbath to the Commemoration thereof 2. Their Journey to Emaus might be but a Sabbath-days Journey It might be for religious Ends and we know many among us do go and ride or have gone or rid several Miles to hear Sermons and receive Sacraments and yet not be adjudged as Profaners of the Lords day And our Lord by several Discourses of his about and Actions of his upon the Sabbath might well take them off from too scrupulous and nice Observation of the Lords day 3. The Journey seems not to be so great nor the distance between Emaus and Jerusalem so many Miles as Geographers relate And therefore Beza saith as Mr. Warren informs me that they were mistaken And there seems a great probability thereof because 't is said Luke 24.33 That they rose up the same hour and went to Jerusalem and came to the Congregation of the Eleven and the other Disciples before ever they were dismissed And therefore 't is very improbable that it should be seven Miles and a half from that City and much more probable that it was but a Sabbath-days Journey 4. Our Saviour being risen and entred into his Glory at least the first degree thereof was now no longer subject to Sabbath Observance neither could he be a Profaner thereof whatever he did thereon And beside having a glorified Body he might be with them in an instant upon the way and so in a very small particle of time return to Jerusalem and all his Discourse to them was most proper for the Holy Sabbath opening to them the Scriptures reproving them for their Unbelief and making their Hearts to burn within them So that our Saviour's Discourses and walking with them do rather serve to confirm the First-days-Sabbath and their going to Emaus no way to infringe it As to that which is produced Page 50. from John 20.26 he replies that they might not be gathered together for religious Worship For what else then For fear of the Jews A very probable Conjecture indeed For if it had been only for fear it had been safer to have been divided and every one have hid and concealed himself in some Friends House or unsuspected and safe place or other But to be all assembled together in a suspected House for the Text plainly hints that was either in a Disciples House or some other usual meeting place would be rather to expose themselves and to do this without any design of religious Worship would argue them very indiscreet But now 't was their duty to meet together to worship God though with hazard and this they did and shut the doors upon them that they might not be disturbed by the Jews His denial of this second Appearing to be on the Lords day is taken from a Criticism about a Greek Preposition which we translate after Now all that know any thing of that Language know that their Prepositions are very Polysemous and admit of divers Interpretations or include many of ours and that two joyned to one Case of the following Noun as this Meta does for it might be rendred before the Accusative in within as well as after and it might have been so translated here but they would render it by after well knowing that even so rendred it would no way alter the Sense of the Holy Ghost but according to Scripture Phrase still intend the first day of the week following according to the Expression in Mark 8.31 After three days the Son of Man shall rise again Three days after he was killed he should rise again for so the Text says expresly where the meaning must needs be upon the third day and the English Translation of Queen Elizabeth render this place within three days he shall rise again And thought it well rendred according to the purport of Meta which the Criticks tell us is usually written and spoken by the Grecians in the meaning of in or upon Other Translation render Meta by an Adverb and not by a Preposition as afterward in three days and so in John afterward in eight days in which eight days are comprised the first Lords day and the second as compleating the number and so this second meeting of Christ and his Disciples was on the first day as his Circumcision was on the eighth day which the Scripture expresses by another such like Phrase as this When eight days were accomplished for the Circumcision of the Child Luke 2.21 As for his Evasion of that passage in Mark by telling us the same Expositors think that Mark reckons the time from his first being betrayed and apprehended This no way helps him for suppose he do so yet his after must signifie upon or on the third day for 't is clear that he was betrayed in the Evening late of the sixth day for St. John tells us chap. 18.3 that they came with Lanthorns and Torches to take him and 't is very probable that that young Man who followed him with only a Linnen Cloth upon his Body as he was immediately upon his Apprehension led to the High Priests Palace Mark 14.51 was one startled out of his Sleep and Bed by the rude Violence of the Souldiers
for the first part of the Command the Substance and unquestionably moral Part thereof 2. We have the Explication of that Part of the Command in its following Words Six Days shalt thou labour and do all thy Work and the Day the Seventh a Sabbath to the Lord thy God is or shall be or both a Sabbath to the Lord that is dedicted to the Worship and Service of Him Thou shalt do no Work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter c. Where we have one Day in Seven or of Seven declared and signified to be that Day of Rest or Holy Sabbath which was commnded in the Beginning And here our Authors contend and worthily that this Seventh Day in this Peace is not an Ordinal Seventh Day that is the next Day after the former Six Days But rather a Proportional If I may so express it Day or a distributed part of the Seven that is that of Seven days God will have one entire day to be sanctified to him and his Service without specifying what day of the Seven it should be And I am sure he has no reason nor ground from the Command hitherto to except against this understanding of the Seventh day In this Explication of the Command we have two things 1. The Portion of Time or the Part of the days that God will have sanctified to an Holy Rest the Seventh 2. How he will have the Rest observed By an Abstinence of all sorts of Persons from earthly and worldly Employments except such as do not interfere with its due Sanctification that they may be wholly in Body and Soul busied in his Service as is clearly enjoyned in that word in the Substance of the Command to Sanctifie it As to this Seventh part of time so sanctified and separated to Divine Service this is not Primarily and Purely Moral though we acknowledge it to be Secondarily and Positively so Not such a measure of Time as the Wisdom of Man in Innocency would have precisely separated to Divine Worship and not one day more nor one day less of all the Week-days I think I have shewn before that the light of Nature would have separated and dedicated all to the solemn Service of God all the time that it could spare from the due Recruits of Nature Which I doubt not but in an Estate of Innocency would have been a greater Measure and part of Time than the Seventh For now we find by Experience that even after the Fall since that the Earth is cursed for our Sins and requires a great deal more Labour and Time to be lain out upon it for the Production of our necessary Sustinence than before the Fall Now that our weak crasie and distempered Bodies call for a great deal more Care and Time for their Sustentation their Recruits and Reparation than when they had a perfect Temperature were compleatly Healthy Strong and Immortal in Innocency and many other Civil Domestick Affairs take up and must have a great deal of our time which would have exacted none of it in Innocencency And yet we experience I say that six in seven allotted us for these things are sufficient enough and we can very well spare a Seventh day for the solemn Service of God without any Detriment to our Bodies or our civil Concerns Yea and have many other Seasons and good Opportunities given us to serve God in And doubtless had God seen fit to have required the sixth part of our time it would have been so also Wherefore I conclude that the seventh part of the Week or one day of the Seven is not primarily Moral because the light of Nature could not have precisely dictated it to us Which methinks I could demonstrate by this Supposition Suppose a Person that is against the Morality of the Sabbath that judgeth no day of the week more Holy than another should by Providence be thrown among Mahonietans or Heathens and preaching the Gospel to them should be Instrumental to convert any of them to the Christian Faith I assert that in such a case and he would certainly be horribly uncharitable that should judge the contrary if they did keep all the rest of the Moral Precepts with a sound Faith in Christ they would infallibly be saved though they never separated one day of the week intirely to Gods Worship and Service But now if they did allowedly live in any Breaches of the other Commands yea supposing some of them should never have been expresly taught them by their Converter as if they did not acknowledge the only true God in their Souls if they did worship Idols if they did Swear Falsly or Vainly if they were Rebellious and Undutiful to Parents and Magistrates if they lived in Hatred and were Cruel if in Wantonness and were Lascivious in Theft and Couzenage or were Oppressing in Lying Slandering and False Witnessing or in an inward Love and Delight in any of these Sins they should certainly Perish And why But because all the other Commands are primarily Moral and this of the seventh part of time is not so Yea in keeping the other Commands they keep the Morality of this also Commands they must separate time to the performance of that Divine Service which is the prime Morality of the fourth Precept Thus I think 't is clear that the Sanctification of one Seventh day of the week is not absolutely and primarily Moral but yet it may also be concluded to be secondarily and positively so that is that upon the Revelation of the Will of the Legislator and his Injunction the rational Creature closes with it as that which is Holy Just and Good as that which is infinitely reasonable for what can be more so than that is seventh part of time should be devoted to his Service whose all our time is especially when it is also for the Creature 's chief good 3. We have the Reasons to inculcate its Observation 1. The Legislator's own Example because he was six days in creating the World and ceased from those works on the Seventh day rested on the Seventh day and 't is hence only in all this Command that they can have any shew or ground to plead for the last day or the Seventh day of the week to be the Sabbath or Rest that God did command which is no way cogent because it may be meant a Seventh day by way of part or portion and not the Seventh day of order nor in number of the week And it may be thus understood Because I was six dyas in making the World and then rested so shall you be six days busie in your common lawful Imployments and then a Seventh you shall consecrate to me and my Worship So that in this Sense it doth not injoyn the last day the Seventh day of the week in order but a Seventh day in proportion of time For which we have this to lead That seeing Gods Example is made the great Fundamental Argument of the Seven-day-Rest it should hence follow that if Adam
had exactly followed the Pattern then the Sixth day of the week would bid fairest for the day of Rest of all the Seven because then Adam must have worked six days before his Holy Rest as God did and then being created as we may suppose about the latter end of the sixth day of the Creation he must have wrought the day following which is the Seventh and so the five other days following and rested upon the Sixth day as his first Sabbath for that would have been the day after his six days Labour or Work For 't is clear that the Seventh day after the beginning of the Creation though it were so with respect to Gods Works yet 't was the very next day after Adam was and could not but be within a very few hours if hours after his Creation seeing it begun in the Evening And so Adam and Eve were so far from an exact Imitation of God in the Observance of the first Sabbath that in his particular they were contrary thereto for God wrought six days first and then rested the Seventh but Adam rested his first day and then wrought the six days following God's Rest was in the Conclusion of his Work and Man's Rest was in the beginning of his Work in his first seven days which I think somewhat enervates this solitary Plea they have here for the last Week-day-Sabbath But yet we will Suppose that in this Clause God did there injoyn the last day of the Creation-week to be the Sabbath but then we say this is purely Positive and no way Moral at all neither Primarily nor Secondarily for it is were so the Morality thereof must arise from the Reason that is given for it viz. Gods Example even because he made his work of Creation in six days and rested on the Seventh But this is no way cogent or rather Moral not such a thing as the light of Nature would engaged us to For 1. God is not to be imitated by us in all that he does neither could the rational Creature conclude upon Gods Revelation of his having ended his work on the Seventh day that therefore he must work six and rest the Seventh without an express Injunction which therefore God gave here 2. If we could suppose that such a Collection of imitating God could have been apprehended by Man without Relevation then the Sixth day of the week would by him be pitched upon for his own Sabbath of Rest because the Sixth day of the following week would have been his Seventh day after his Six days working as before 3. Gods making of the World in six days was a pure Revelation for Man could never have known it of himself no not in the Estate of his pure Knowledge Because for ought he could know God might have made the World simultaneously all at once or by one word speaking for he knew he might so have done if he had pleased he could not know that God did gradually or progressively make the Creatures much less that he took up six days for it neither more nor less Indeed the Order and Method the Time and Duration of the work of Creation must be by Revelation to Man seeing he was created the last of all the Creatures So that in this respect 't is not Moral neither could it ever be the Dictate of Man's Mind 4. God cannot properly Rest because he cannot be said properly to Labour Rest properly is a Refreshment after Weariness Isa 40.28 The everlasting God the Creator of the Ends of the Earth fainteth not neither is weary Consequently neither resteth for he does all he does with an infinite Facility and perfect Immobility and takes no more pains in creating the World than in creating a Fly that is none at all And besides as before God works still in his works of Preservation and Providence which are altogether as Great and Glorious and some of them more Great Glorious than were the works of Creation So that in this respect this Argument is not Moral not such a Motive as could have been found out by the Mind of Man Lastly If this were such a cogent Reason in it self or a Moral Motive for the Sanctification of the Seventh day in the Repetition of the Fourth Command why is it not so much as mentioned For Deut. 5 13-15 there is not a word concerning it but whereas in the other Commands all the Motives that were used and adjoyned to them in their first Edition are here again repeated yet this is quite and clean left out in this second Edition of the Fourth Command and in lieu thereof their mighty and wonderful Deliverance out of the Land of Egypt is inserted that 't was therefore because he saved them that he commanded them to keep the Sabbath-day What this should signifie I cannot well see unless God would hereby teach us that the Salvation of his Church is a far more great and glorious work in it self and far more beneficial and happy to us than that of the Creation for the Deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses was a Type of the Deliverance of the universal Church from the Devil from Sin from Hell from the Curse from Death and the Grave by our Lord Jesus Christ and that when this shall be compleated as we know 't was at our Savour's Resurrection it being the Conclusion of his Estate of Humiliation by which he purchased our Salvation and an entrance into his Glorification where he would procure it apply and effect it then the Reason annexed to the Fourth Command from the ceasing the Works of Creation should in a sense be lain by and that of the Redemption of the Church be substituted in its place And so consequently as the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed in Commemoration of the works of Creation until a more admirable work of God should be accomplished so the first day ever after should be the Holy Rest when that Supream of all the works of God our Redemption should be rested from on that day I do verily believe Gods neglecting the works of Creation and substituting that of the Churches Redemption as the gread Foundation and Reason of keeping the Holy Rest here in Deut. declares this unto us But I refer it to wiser Heads Only from what has been here spoken I will conclude that this part is purely Positive both the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath and this Motive upon which 't is grounded God's working six days and resting the Seventh which is a Motive to us to observe it as well as it seems a Reason in God to require it Wherefore here I would fain demand of this Gentleman why he should be so exceedingly Zealous for the Perpetuity of the Seventh-day-Sabbath when 't is both a Ceremonial and Positive Precept Ceremonial as it signifies Gods own Rest from his Works past and as it signifies our future Rest in Heaven from all our Labours in this present Life And purely Positive seeing all the former Ceremonial and Positive Precepts
The Lords day Vinaicated OR The First day of the WEEK THE Christian Sabbath In Answer to Mr. Bampfields Plea for the Seventh day in his Enquiry Whether Jesus Christ be Jehovah and gave the Moral Law And whether the Fourth Command be Repealed or Altered BY G. T. a Well-wisher to Truth and Concord Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him LONDON Printed for Samuel Clement at the White Swan in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. TO THE READER THo' there be many Books already written on this Subject the following Preface will justify the Seasonableness of this Modest and Judicious Reply to Mr. B. especially among serious Professors in the West of England But it cannot be unfit upon other Considerations that such a Discourse be now Publish'd when the Doctrinal Truth in the Controversie of a Weekly Sabbath is opposed by so many and the Practical Sanctification of it neglected by so many more It has been generally observed that the Power of Godliness hath Flourished or Abated in every Age and in every part of Christendom as the strict and consciencious Observation of a weekly-Weekly-Day of Holy Rest did obtain or not And particularly in our own Country no outward Means can be assigned that hath more availed to help the Preservation of Pure Reformed Christianity among us On which account it concerns all Christians to enquire what is our Warrant for the Observation of One day in Seven and likewise whether the Seventh or the First day of the Week which according to a true Account may also be called the Seventh ought to be observed as the Christian Sabbath What is said on this Argument in the following Reply to Mr. B. discovers so much the Candor and Moderation of the Author as will recommend it to every Impartial Reader His Distance from London and nothing else occasions or needs this Epistle as will doubtless be thought even by such as have some different Conceptions from him in some lesser Matters of this Controversie That it may advance the Honour of Christ and help to satisfy the Minds of some Wavering and less Established Christians and promote the real Interest of Practical Godliness upon which the Doctrin of the Weekly Sabbath will have a great Influence as it will answer the Authors Design so our Desires and Prayers John Howe John Shower The PREFACE IT may afford cause of Wonder to considering and serious Persons what should be the Inducements of the Author of the Enquiry whether the Lord Jesus c. to Print and divulge it at such a time and under such circumstances as we are brought into And though he hath proposed no Preface to his Book to plead for it's Emission yet I think there has scarce been a Piece sent into the World these many Years that more required and needed it For 1. He well knows that the whole Christian World is engaged against him herein and that they have Sciptural grounds and the practice of the most ancient Churches the Doctrin and Testimonies of the must Orthodox and Learned Fathers derived immediately from the Apostles with an uninterrupted Succession through several Centuries and their own Education Custom and Practice received down from many Generations with their own blessed Experiences of the Light of Gods countenance the operations of his Spirit the activity and growth of their own Graces on that blessed Day c. for their consecrating of the first day of the Week to Divine Service and their Religious and Devout appropriating it to and imploying it in those Duties which immediately concern the Glory of God and the Spiritual and Eternal Weal of their own Souls Which things are not easily overcome and laid aside with as great and Rooted Prejudices against his opinion of the Seventh-day-Sabbath as that 't is Judaical Fanciful and Singular such at least as has had but very few Favourers and Abetters either in the ancient Churches and these branded for Heresie or else in the modern some three or four starting up of late years among our selves daring by Writing and Printing to endeavour the Introduction of this Novelty into the belief and practice of Vniversal Church All which and other Prejudices against this Opinion cannot slightly be eradicated out of the minds of Men and therefore he could hardly imagin any great success to this undertaking unless he could have produced undeniable demonstrations to our Reason or irrefragable Testimonies of Scripture to our Faith Which I hope we shall see he has been far enough from 2. He should also have considered and concluded that these Arguments which have been produced heretofore by those of his perswasion are not likely now to convince and convert the whole Christian World to his thoughts and practice Seeing they have been so often and by so many worthy Learned Orthodox and Pious Divines answered and in the judgment of Wise and gracious Persons fully confuted and satisfactorily baffled to the deeper Rooting and more firm Establishment of the Churches of Christ in their constant Observance of the Lords day Wherefore if he would have effected any thing by this attempt he should have offered some new Inventions of his own that have never yet encountered with any opposition But in all his Book to the best of my Remembrance I have not met with any one place of Scripture nor argument drawn therefrom nor Improvement thereof for his own Sentiments Nor yet any Text of Gods word or Topick against ours no nor any one solution of our Authoritative or Rational proofs for the confirmation of our Contrary Belief and Practice to his which has not been already produced by others and as largely and strenuously managed as by himself and that too in the same manner 'T is no great Prudence in a Combatant to make use of the same Weapons Modes and Arts against his Antagonists which have been frequently Baffled Defeated Broken and retorted into his own Bowels Wherefore 't is strange to me if any Victory over any considerate studious Person could be hoped for by such a casting of the Gantlet 3. But suppose he could have expected to have proselited some to his Opinion as who has not though the Doctrin be never so absurd Heterodox and Impious yet sure it could not be thought a sufficient means to prevail upon all the Churches no nor upon the universality of the National Church of that Collection of so many millions of counterminded Christians and Protestants whereof he is He could not certainly presume that all the Authority of these Nations both Ecclesiastical and Civil would follow his Dictates or receive new Light from his Torch and acknowledg themselves to have been in gross Error and in a sinful Practice ever since and always before the Reformation since they Professed Faith in the Lord Christ And that they should alter all their Acts and Statutes all their Canons and Articles in this particular And herein acknowledg him to be the infallible Apostle
all the Degrees of his Abasement and begun his Exaltation and so in his Blessed and Glorious Estate delighting himself in his Conquest of the Devil the World Death and the Grave and his having perfectly satisfied Justice and purchased Grace and Glory for Lost Sinners which could not be till the Resurrection of his Body Can the State of Death with any probability be thought the Mediator's Rest Or his lying in the Grave be deemed the end of all his Abasements when Death was the worst thing his Enemies could bring upon him in their Rage and Fury when they triumphed over him in the Grave and concluded that now they had compleatly vanquished him and proved him to be a Grand Deceiver Matt. 27.62 64. when it was that which was especially required as the utmost of his Sufferings for the Expiation of our Sins being that which was denounced at first against Sin Gen. 2.17 and as the consummate Punishment thereof and is the proper Wages of Sin Rom. 6.23 and therefore so to be undergone and lain under by the Sinners Surety standing in his stead and bearing his Punishment and being made that Curse for him Gal. 3.13 which was the lowest Descent of his Humiliation which saddened the Hearts of his Disciples and filled them with fear whose hopes almost expired at his Death and were buried in his Grave in which Estate if he had abode the Devil and his Enemies would have gotten a compleat Victory over him and we could never have been justified nor saved Moreover our Saviour's Body and Soul rested as much upon the Cross after his Death as they did in the Grave after his Burial And so the Muchammedists have as fair a Plea for their Sixth-day-Sabbath because on that day the Dead Body of our Saviour felt no pain on the Tree and his Soul enjoyed all Bliss in Heaven And so in this sense rested on their day of Worship How unreasonable and unscriptural to call this the Rest of our Redeemer Besides it was impossible that as Redeemer he should rest in the State of Death and in the Grave for the Redeemer must be God-man his Deity could not declaratively rest till it had raised its own Humanity out of the Grave and rent in sunder the Bonds of Death And his Humanity could not really do so because it was not during that Condition for we know that Death is the Separation of the Soul from the Body Now the Soul separated from the Body is a Spirit and not a Man the Body separated from the Soul is a Corps not a Man both Soul and Body separated are not Man but essentially conjoyned they make the Man Wherefore though both Body and Soul in their mutual Separation were united to the Deity and so he was always God and had the essential parts of Man yet being divided he was not Man for by Death they being dissolved his Humanity was destroyed and continued so as long as Death had power over him So that 't is against all Reason and common Sense to assert that the Mediator who must be God-man rested in the Grave seeing in this true sense he could not be Man there No no This was no part of his Rest but his Resurrection from the Grave the re-uniting of his Body and Soul was the first entrance into it For as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Jehovah is not said to rest till he had fully compleated his six days work of Creation and then with infinite Complacency viewed all he had compleated on the Seventh So Jesus Christ God-man cannot be said to rest from the Work of our Redemption till he had fully compleated and ended all his Humiliation till he had conquered all his and our Enemies which could not possibly be while he lay in the Grave on the Seventh day but it was when he rose from thence on the First when indeed he had a glorious and Blessed satisfaction in himself when he reflected upon all he had done and all the Sufferings he waded through and all the Humiliation he was sunk into and had happily and triumphingly concluded with all those inestimable Blessings that should accrue to the Church and that infinite Glory that would redound to God thereby And therefore as God's Resting on the Seventh day from his work of Creation was proposed as the Example and Motive to the Old Church before Christ's coming for the keeping the Seventh for their Sabbath So likewise our Saviour's Resting from his work of our Redemption on the First day of the Week may worthily be and we say really is proposed as a Motive and Example to the Churches since his coming for their consecrating of that day for their Weekly Sabbath I am sorry that such Passages of the Author should occasion so much Tediousness to the Reader and inforce such Enlargedness from the Writer As to that place Mat. 24.20 which he tells us he will improve hereafter to his own Advantage we shall attend his Motions and meet him there To his Query Page 41. we grant that the Jewish Believers did keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath while our Saviours Body was in the Grave and that they ought to do so because as yet the First day by our Lords Resurrection was not Consecrated to be observed as the day of the Redeemers Rest And withal that they were obliged during this time to observe the unleavened Bread-Feast and supposing it to be the Eighth day from their Birth to Circumcise their Children yet I hope this is no Plea for the everlasting Permanency of these So neither can it be for that of the Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT X. WE have his Conjecture Page 43. about the Week-day of our Lord's Ascension which he would fain suppose to be on the Seventh But if we may believe St. Luke Act. 1.3 that he tarried on Earth Forty Days and so was visible to his Disciples all that time and conversed with them as oft as he saw fit and about what was most necessary and profitable for their Knowledge and then ascended into Heaven If we look on this as an Historical Account of his Abode on Earth after his Resurrection as it lays a fairer Foundation for it than all Human Conjectures can be then if we reckon from the First day of the Week to the Fortieth day and both the First and Last inclusively then the day of his Ascension was upon the Fifth day of the Week which is our Thursday as the Church of England observes it If we exclude either the First or Last day only 't will be upon the Sixth day of the Week our Fryday if I mistake not but if we exclude both the First and Last Days I mean the day of his Resurrection and the day of his Ascension from the number of Forty days then 't will fall out upon the Seventh day of the Week our Saturday which he conjectures to be the day of the Week of our Saviours Ascension But here we must consider that we have two to one against him
superadded Precept 2. Between that which is Purely Naturally and Absolutely Moral in it self and that which is Secondarily Respectively and Positively Moral The former is that spoken of above the latter is that which though the rational Creature could not of it self have judged a Duty yet when 't is once imposed by Command and so revealed to be the Legislator's Pleasure there is discerned in the thing it self a very great Equity Goodness and Suitableness to Gods Glory or the Creatures Good or both As in the case of Tithes or the Tenth of every Mans Estate to be devoted to Pious Uses for the Maintenance of the Worship of God and of those that are by him called thereto and imployed therein Though the Light of Nature could not primarily and from it self have discovered and devoted this very precise proportion to the immediate Service of God as absolutely necessary Yet when God does once require it it must needs close with it as very reasonable and just that God who gives all and whose all is should have the Tenth part devoted and separated to his own Service So that the Goodness of this does not only arise from the Will of the Legislator but also from the Nature of what is required when 't is once discerned to be the Legislator's Pleasure So that it is neither purely positive nor yet primarily Moral discovered only by the Promulgation of the Legislator and then embraced at and acknowledged to be most just and good by the Creature from whom 't is required Whereas what is purely positive has nothing just or good in it self nor discernable after its Imposition 3. In the Fourth Command we must distinguish between 1. The Duty commanded 2. the Explication of the Duty and 3. the Arguments and Motives thereto And so without any more nice Distinctions we proceed by God's Assistance to our Apprehensions about this Matter 1. The Duty Commanded or the Substance of the Fourth Command which is in the first Words of that Command Remember the sabbath-Sabbath-day or the Day of the Sabbath to keep it holy or to sanctify it Where we acknowledge the Rest or the holy Rest to be primarily and absolutely Moral which this right Judgment of the rational Creature dictates directs to as that which it ows to its Creatour Preserver and Benefactor even a set and solemn Time separated and devoted to the immediate Service Praises and Adoration of God who because of his own Infinite and Incomparable Excellencies deserves all their Praises and Adoration and because of their own innumerable and inestimable Benefits received from him merits all their Love and Observance Which Imployment the rational Creature would acknowledge to be the most noble and excellent the most happy and blessed that it can be imployed in being the Imploying of the most noble Faculties of the Soul in their most excellent Acts about the most raised and glorious Object This I say the true Light of Nature would direct unto and so is purely moral But whether it would have directed to a Separation of a whole intire Day thereto I cannot resolve Though this also may be most probable being a Time so limited measured and distinguished by the antecedent and subsequent Darkness or by the Presence Light and Motion of the Sun in the Hemisphere But here I believe we may take for granted that the rational Creature in its Rectitude would have actually consecrated to so divine Worship and imployed in divine Worship all that Time that could have been duly and conveniently spared from the Refreshment of the Body and those due Preparations which must be made for his decaying outward Man so that Adam would have subserviated had he stood in his Innocence all his tilling of the Garden all his eating drinking and sleeping all the Recruits of his Body to the solemn Manner as that which was the End of his being the due of his God from him and the highest and most blessed Imployment of himself This I say would have been had he beenleft to the Dictates of his own Knowledge which was given him of God of himself and of his Ingagements to the Author of his being and well-being and not been prescribed by a Precept from his Lord and Sovereign But however this all must acknowledge that a Time of Rest For that 's the english of Sabbath to be set apart and sanctified to the immediate Service of the most high and munisicent God is purely moral And it may be also thought that an intire Day may bid fairly for it And this I say is the Substance of this Precept and really moral But here before I proceed I must obviate a little Criticism which the Author here seems to lay a great Stress upon and that is about ה hè in the Original which he would fain have to be very emphatical and to signifie That by way of Eminency here in this Verse the beginning of the Command the Words are Remember the Day of Rest Eth Jom Hasshabbath I would enquire of him whether this rendring of these Words be not as proper as any he can render it by Whether the Day of Rest be not so proper as the Day of a Rest or the Day of that Rest For every one that hath but peeped into the Hebrew Bible very well knows that that Letter ה serves many times if not most times only for a Letter and Ornament of writing without any Signification whatever And whether I render it by an English Particle or no he cannot blame me if I will he hath no Reason to quarrel me if I render it A or The nor I much to quarrel him though he chuses to translate it That For neither A nor The nor That are found in the Original but are only English Particles And I would fain know what Emphasis the same Hebrew Particle hath before Shamajim Aretz and I am Heaven Earth and Sea and whether the Translation either without a Particle or with that which carries no Emphasis be not far better than the Translation with an Emphatical one As for Example the Lord made Heaven and Earth and Sea or the Lord made the Heaven the Earth and the Sea are not better than the Lord made that Heaven that Earth and that Sea for if we take this Particle That Emphatically it seems to signifie that there are more Heavens for we suppose the visible Heaven or inferiour one is here meant and Earths and Seas than One and that 't is Emphatically and Eminently meant of those in the in Command beyond the others whereas there is no other Heaven Earth or Sea but what is meant in the Command and therefore would be very impertinently rendred by an Emphatical That From whence I would ask this Gentleman what reason there is why ה before Sabbath and Shebigni should be more Emphatical than before those other Words in the same Command Sure that Opinion wants solid and deep Foundations that must be upheld by such superficial and weak ones Thus much
Martyr An. 250. Athanasius An. 326. Hilary 355. Ambrose 374. Hierome 385. Chrysostom 398. Augustine in their Time Eusebius saith my Author testifies 't was observed all the World over And Bp. Andrews as I have read him in his Speech against Thrask a Sabbatarian in the Star-Chamber avows it on his Credit that there is not any Ecclesiastical Writer in whom 't is not found Viz. The sacred Observance of the Lord's Day that is the First Day of the Week Which Testimonies of so many excellent Doctors yea saith Bp. Andrews of all eminent Doctors of so many great and flourishing Churches carry much more Weight with them than all his Collections can pretend to do against them As touching Easter and it's Observance that is no Part of this Controversy therefore I shall only say that I am no Zelot for it's Observance and am perswaded it has less Grounds for it's Celebration than any other of those Festivals which are appropriated to our Lord and in Commemoration of his Birth of his Manifestation of his Ascension of his Mission of the Holy Ghost because the Lord's Day is a constant Memorial of that Resurrection being that Day of the Week whereon he rested from all the Work of his Redemption wherefore seeing there is a weekly religious and solemn Commemoration thereof there must needs be the less Cause for an Annual As for the other Festivals which are appropriated to meer Men and dedicated to their Remembrance and Praise as I have nothing to say for them so I think it neither prudent nor seasonable to say any thing against them But let him that keepeth a Day keep it to the Lord and he that keepeth not a Day unto the Lord let him not keep it And let both maintain the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Here I hoped to have annexed my Epilogue but some Passages in the Discourse of Easter do require a little Animadversion As when He tells us Page 134. which he had done several Times before that the Change of the Seventh Day to the First was introduced by the Bp. of Rome and so imposed by him upon the other Churches which he thinks evidenced by his former Collection But 1. We have seen it observed before there was a Bp. of Rome and he received it from the Assemblies of the Disciples and Christians just upon our Saviour's Resurrection and in the Apostles Days 2. We have seen it observed by very great Churches in the Purity of the Roman Faith and the Moderation of the Roman Ecclesiastical Government when either the Roman Bishop did not pretend to any Authority over them or if he did they rightly and stoutly resisted and refused it And therefore 't was rather an universal Reception of all the Churches conjunctly as from the Apostles and scriptural Authority than any Imposition of Rome upon them He has a strange Notion Page 130. as it appears to me which is that first Rome endeavoured to introduce the Observation of the Passover upon the Lords-day and so the weekly Holy Rest upon that day which to my Apprehension implies that Rome her self observed the Passover Lords-day before she did the weekly Whereas 't is clear that Rome observed the first day of the week because 't was the Dominical day the day of our Lord's Resurrection whereas the proper Paschal-day was two or three days before the Lords day And therefore in Honour to that day did the Bishop of Rome require Easter to be kept and not ordained Easter First-day as a Shooe-horn to bring in the weekly first day after Moreover in those Churches wherein they dissented from Rome as to the day of Easter they concurred with her in the weekly Lords-day So that the Lords-day was weekly observed by them before Easter was kept upon that day and therefore the yearly first day could not be an usherer in of that week-day which was before it SECT XXI AS the Conclusion and Result of all this Discourse I think I have shewn that the Lord Christ did not make the World that Jehovah was not Christ before the World that he never instituted the Seventh day nor rested on it till his Incarnation nor being Christ really till then that he gave not the Commands on Mount Sinai Neither were they there given to the Gentiles but to the Jews only and those mixed People that came out of Egypt That the Ten Commands were confirmed by our Lord Christ in his Sermons and Discourses but the Seventh-day-Sabbath never so much as mentioned by him in them all as that which was no part at all of the Moral Law but purely positive both in it self and in its Grounds and Motive upon which 't is founded and imposed upon its Observers in the Old Testament and therefore was liable to be changed with the other positive and ceremonial Precepts of the Law of God that our Lord Christ indeed observed it in his own Person in the Flesh because he was made under the antecedent Law of all the Ceremonies and Mosaical Administration and observed them all as well as the Sabbath but yet he then spake and did such things as declared its approach to Dissolution and its Non-Morality that he rested no more in the Grave on the Seventh day than he did on the Cross on the Sixth when he hung dead thereon but the day of his Rest from the work of Redemption was the first day of the week which day he supreamly honoured above all the days of the week by his Resurrection thereon from the Dead by his several Appearances thereon to his Disciples after his Death by his most gracious Discourses thereon unto them which he never did nor made on the Seventh day after his Resarrection and by the Mission of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples thereon Upon which account St. John calls it the Lords day and by all the Churches ever since that Lords day has been taken to be the first day of the Week That the Apostles and Believers kept the Lords day or the first day of the week as their religious Rest and met together on that day as the day of their publick Assemblies and we never read of any Assemblies on the Seventh day save those of the Jews our Lords Enemies in their Synagogues to whom Paul went to preach the Gospel then and there but when he experienced their desperate Obstinacy left that time and those Synagogues and we never read that ever on that day he joyned with any religious Society after that at Troas he preached and administred the Sacrament to the Believers on the first day the Lords day and that the Holy Ghost does call the first day of the week the Lords day being the day of the Redeemer's Rest from a far more glorious laborious gracious and beneficial Work than that of the Creation And that there is an express Prohibition of the Seventh-day-Sabbath in St. Paul's Epistles and consequently seeing the positive Morality of one day in Seven in the Fourth
should have applied that of the Apostle Rom. 14.21 22. to have deter'd him there-from Wherefore seeing this Piece is so dangerous and may do and already has done so much hurt it s very Expedient if not morally Necessary to endeavour a prevention of its evil Consequences and there especially where the Author is resident and it may most infect and it may well be deemed a Duty of some one of the Dressers of that part of the Vineyard of the Lord Christ where this Weed or Thorn is sprung up to endeavour it's eradication before it spreads any farther or wounds any deeper That Province therefore which I most unable for and Naturally altogether averse from Polemical Disputes shall undertake and with the best skill and faithfulness that God shall afford perform shall only be with all possible Brevity and Perspicuity to weaken all the Arguments the Author manages for his Notion and to confirm and Ratifie all these which he endeavours to weaken and evacuate for the ancient general Scriptural Doctrin of the Lords-day-Sabbath or Sacred Rest and herein to follow his own method Giving some transient Glances upon things that may occur some what Excentrical or Alien from the Great design of this Book Which I shall study to do with all Candor and due Deference to the Gentility Gravity and I hope real Piety of the Author THE CONTENTS Sect. I. SOme general Observations premised whether the World were made by Christ as Jesus Christ God-man page 4 Sect. II. Of Christ's being Jehovah and in what sense the Law was given by him p. 8 Sect. III. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh-day and so Sanctified and Instituted it and did himself observe it as that even Adam in a State of Innocence was bound by it and all Mankind without distinction before the Fall p. 12 Sect. IV. Whether the Ten Commandments were given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles p. 21 Sect. V. Whether Christ in the Flesh did confirm all the Ten Commandments and every tittle of the Fourth And whether Christ and his Apostles did enjoyn or did not rather speak against the Observation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 24 Sect. VI. Of the Word Seventh in the Fourth Commandment the Sabbath not recommended by Christ to his Disciples Of Commenius's desire of Reformation c. p. 30 Sect. VII Of the Ceremonial Law and what is Moral and Positive what is truly Moral that the Saturday Seventh-day-Sabbath is not more may be pleaded for Circumcision p. 35 Sect. VIII Whether Christ in his own Person Observed the Seventh-Week-day-Sabbath and no other and what may be gathered from it The Arguments for the Seventh-day-Sabbath equally hold for all the Jewish Ceremonies Of the Pre-Antiquity of that Day and the falsity of that Argument p. 41 Sect. IX Whether Christ Rested on the Seventh-day-Sabbath while he lay in the Grave And what may be Argued from it p. 44 Sect. X. Vpon what day of the Week Christ ascended into Heaven whether the Seventh-day or Saturday p. 48 Sect. XI Whether after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed by the Apostles and First Christians How long the Apostles met the Jews in their Synagogues on the Seventh-day and for what Reason p. 51 Sect. XII The Argument from Christ's Resurrection for the First-day of the Week to be the Christian Sabbath Vindicated Circumcision not more abolisht than the Seventh-day-Sabbath That abolisht the First succeeds on the Account of Our Lord's Resurrection since that Time with equal or stronger Reason than the former continued till he Rose from the dead p. 57 Sect. XIII Other Arguments for the First-day-Sabbath Vindicated from the Objections of Mr. B. Of a Sabbath-days Journey After three Days may be understood on the third Day he rose again John 8.56 Psalm 118.22 Psalm 2.7 Acts 20.7 cleared and Vindicated Of the beginning of the Christian Sabbath p. 61. Sect. XIV More Texts cleared Rev. 1.9 10. of being in the Spirit on the Lords-day Math. 12.8 Mark 2.27 Jesus Christ Lord of the Sabbath Of the Lord Supper Christs Resurrection commemorated on the First-day of the Week by Institution p. 79 Sect. XV. Gal. 4.9 10. Explained What days excluded from binding Christians Col. 2.16 What Sabbaths meant as Shadows to vanish when Christ came Math. 24.20 no Argument for the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 92 Sect. XVI Of the Morality of the Fourth Command The difference between Moral and Positive Between Naturally or Absolutely Moral and positively or secondarily Moral What the Fourth Commandment requires as Moral and Perpetual p. 101 Sect. XVII When to begin the Christian Sabbath and of the fit Time for Publick Worship on that day p. 116 Sect. XVIII The Argument of Tradition considered p. 118 Sect. XIX How far the Decalogue is in Force as to us Gentiles p. 125 Sect. XX. The Tradition of the lords-Lords-day's Rest or First-day of the Week from the Apostles time to the end of the Fourth Century Of Easter and its Observation The change from the Seventh to the First-day not introduced by the Bishop of Rome p. 127 Sect. XXI The Conclusion of the whole with a Summary of what hath been Proved for the Observation of the First-day of the Week as the Christian Sabbath p. 130 A REPLY TO Mr. Bampfield's PLEA FOR THE Seventh-day-Sabbath THE very Title of the Book is justly lyable to Exception as that which does not fairly state the Question the second Enquiry being whether the fourth Command be repealed or altered for he very well knows that these against whom he Disputes even those who acknowledge the Morality of a Sabbath-day do neither pretend to the Repealing of the Command nor yet to the Alteration of it as such for they strenuously assert the Ratification of the preceptive part of it though they allow a practical Mutation of a single Clause therein which was at its first Injunction added as a Motive for the observance of the Seventh Weekly-day And therefore he should rather have stated the Enquiry after such a manner as this Whether every Clause in the Fourth Commandment be Moral or whether every Clause of it be absolutely Immutable or so imposed from the beginning as to be so 'T is not Ingenuous nor Candid so to propose the Controversie as though the Dissenters from him were either Repealers or Alterers of the Fourth Command Moreover the Annexion of this Query to the former and the Subservience of the former to this For 't is very evident that that weighty fundamental Enquiry is made to serve this Hypothesis by his Connexion thereof Page 5. thereto as though the Immutability of every Tittle to this Command was founded upon the Deity of our Lord Christ his creating the World and giving the Moral Law and the Denial of the one were vertually and consequentially the Denial of the other and so those that are for the observance of the Lords day for so I take leave now to call it are really and consequentially Ebionites
Jehovah and the Maker of all things as such yet the same Lord Christ is also the Son of Man and made by Jehovah as such And therefore as Christ as God-man he neither created the World nor rested from that Creation Though in the Body of the Question the Efficient of the Creation be only stiled Lord by which may be equally understood the Son of God before and after the Incarnation yet in the Margin he interprets this by the word Christ and therefore we have given a proper a direct and sufficient answer to that part thereof And here it will be worth our observing that in a proper and strict Sense Jehovah the Creator of the World cannot be said to rest because it is impossible that he should either admit of any Weariness or Pain in himself yea or of any the least new motion in himself God being an Infinite Perfect Immutable Act and Life cannot possibly admit of any such thing and all the Changes that he makes either substantially of nothing into Being or Alteration of the Qualities and Conditions of Being c. without himself are and must be without the least Mutation and Alteration within himself And this the very Light of Nature and Metaphysicks will teach us as well as the light of Scripture and Theology as Mal. 3.6 Jam. 1.17 So that though God may properly be said to conclude or end his work of Creation yet cannot he properly be said to rest from it or after it because this in its formal Notion implies Motion Activity and exerting of Power and Ability with a Weariness thereby which the Deity is infinitely free from Which I desire may be heeded because I perceive the Author would fain have every Clause in the Fourth Command to be Moral and of necessary and perpetual Observance and especially this of Gods resting on the Seventh day Now that which is Moral as to Motive and Obligation to the Humane Nature is that which the light of Nature right Reason or to go higher the perfectly irradiated Mind of our first Parents would have of its self discerned and closed with as a Motive and Engagement to Piety or Charity or any Duty Which I think Gods resting on the Seventh day may well be asserted not to be because 1. Reason or the illuminated Mind of Man could never suppose God to take after his work any real Rest or Refreshment in himself which he had not before And Secondly God's working in the maintaining of the Creation in its Being Order and Operation is altogether as great and as much as it was in the Production of it and therefore the School-men say That Preservation is a continual Act of Creation because the same Word and Power is exerted in the one as in the other Yea if we respect the Work it self or the Term of it without God we may well say that the Preservation of the World is a greater work than the Creation of it Though as to the Act it self in God all is the same being the Act of the same infinite Power Wisdom and Godhead because of the contrary Qualities of the Creatures mutually tending to each others Destruction but especially because of the Malice of Devils and the sinful wretched Depravity of Fallen Man which without an infinite Wisdom and Power exerted to the contrary would soon bring all to Ruin at least it would do so by the Humane Nature for which all other things of this World were made and are continued And therefore this Motive to a Seventh-day-Sabbath cannot be in and of it self Moral And this our Saviour clearly shews John 5.17 My Father worketh hitherto and I work Which he gives by way of Reply to those who in the former Context taxed and condemned him for a Breach of the Sabbath Grounding it seems tacitely at least their Accusation from that Passage in the Fourth Command of God's resting on that day as though it had been of a Moral and Perpetual Obligation And therefore our Saviour here tells them It was not so for both he and his Father did work on the Seventh day as well as on any other day of the week from which 't is clear this Clause in the Command is not Moral but Positive As to the Second Part of the Question whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was Sanctifyed and so Instituted by him and was observed by him who made the World We answer 't was Sanctified and Instituted by the Lord as Jehovah but not as Jesus Christ And then that 't was observed by Jesus Christ Incarnated but not as Jehovah because the Observation of it seems to import some dutiful Obligation upon its Observer which cannot be supposed with respect to the God-head but may be so with respect to the Lord Christ as Mediator in his Human Nature But then this Observance makes no more for the keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath than for the Observance of Pentecost the Passover the Feast of Tabernacles and other Ceremonial and Judicial Laws under which our Lord Christ was and which he observed in the days of his Flesh the Mosaical and the Ceremonial Administration being in force all the while he lived and expired with his Death and were buried in his Grave as to their Vertue and Obligation And so we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath did also which I hope we may evince in the progress of this Discourse By what has been said we have a sufficient Reply to his Three Proofs which follow his Querly for it 's Affirmative and how they may be orthodoxly admitted or else as Heterodox rejected And here we may take notice that all the former Particulars which the Author makes use of as Foundations to build his beloved Notion upon do as equally militate and plead for the Observance of all the Ceremonial and Judicial Laws as for the Seventh-day-Sabbath for the Creator of the World enjoyned them as well as this The great Jehovah imposed them as well as this The Law-giver gave those Laws as well as this And our Lord Instituted and Sanctifyed those as well as this as he was God and observed those as well as this as Christ Jesus as God-man 'T is as Prejudice sufficient against all those supposed Achillean Arguments that if they prove what they are pleaded for We must all turn Jews But before I leave this Query I must reflect upon one Paragraph or two under it Page 23. wherein we have him laying down all his former great Postulata's that the Lord Christ made the World rested on the Seventh day observed blessed and sanctifyed it By which Repetition we may see how much he depends upon these for the carrying off his Design But withal we have formerly seen how little yea how not at all they conduce thereto But to these he superadds another grand Postulatum as though 't were a Particular which either he had undeniably demonstrated before or were granted by his Adversaries Which is that the Lord instituted this Seventh-day-Sabbath for and imposed it upon Adam and in
did not foresee a more convenient Opportunity for it hereafter Only let us here consider what he himself here grants viz. That the Moral Law was written upon Man's Heart that it did consist in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness wherefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part of it because it was not written upon Man's Heart at first 1. Because God revealed it to Man after his Creation which needed not if it had been in him before 2. Because there are obscure Remains of the Moral Law in the Humane and Rational Creature with respect to all the other Commands as might be easily manifested by an Induction but none as to the Seventh-day-Sabbath It is true as to the Moral Substance of the Law that is found in Mankind even a Separation of time and proper Seasons for the Worship of God but this is not Nay it is so rare that not one among Ten thousand does dream of it or scarce one in an Age does so much as fancy it 3. Because by his own Orthodox Assertion in this very place the Moral Law is reingraven that is more fully clearly and distinctly and in its Spiritual Sense and Latitude upon the Hearts of those that are revived by the Spirit of God which is the Image of God reinstamped upon the Regenerate and Converted as St. Paul saith Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 Now it is as clear as the Sun that the Generality of the Called inlightned and sanctified have not the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath written in their Hearts Nay they have an Aversion from it Of all truly Religious ones that ever I knew Mr. B is the Solitary Person of this Perswasion whence it must necessarily follow that it is no part of the Moral Law or of that Image of God which was instamped upon Man plainly and fully at first and remains imperfectly and obscurely in all Men and is restored to the Saints in their Regeneration and is increased in them in their progressive Sanctification Whence it is also clear that this Command thus stated was not given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles in the Creation And his proof for it is very weak and invalid which is taken from those express Commands given by God to the Jews of causing them that were either their Substance Slaves bought with their own Mony or Proselytes Strangers by Nation but yet joyning themselves to them and dwelling among them and so were of their Body who were bound as he himself there acknowledges and proves to be Circumcised to observe the Passover c. And now what Tendency hath this to prove that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was given to Jews and Gentiles When this proves only that those Gentiles were bound to keep it who were within the Gates and of their Body Politick But has no reference to nor does at all concern other Gentiles some of which might never hear of the Name of Israel or of any of their Laws and Sabbaths It pities me to see such weak and invalid Arguments which if they have any force it is to Judaize all the Christian World As to the second part of the Question whether the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath were observed ever after during the Old Church We acknowledge it was so still among the Jewish Nation and he needed not to have produced any proofs for it But withall we say never among any other Nations nor any Footstep of it which is a sure Proof against its proper Morality As to that Observation Page 28. That the Seventh Day throughout the Old and New Testament was called the Sabbath day It was fit it should be so all along till our Saviour's Resurrection because it was the Sabbath day till then And afterward if it be so called it was in compliance with the Jews who still held it so to continue or to use the Expression which was in most common use whereby the day might be known they spake of as we do of Sunday Monday c. only to declare what day of the Week we mean or else to declare the Abolition thereof And if we remember it we may make some use of that Assertion that the Seventh day and Sabbath are Synonimous in the Language of the Old and New Testament SECT V. THis Question he endeavours to prove Assirmatively Page 29. That Christ did in the Flesh confirm the Ten Commands without any Exception of the Fourth Commandment or any part or tittle thereof Which if we should fully grant without the least Exception it would make nothing for his Cause nor against ours for as long as Christ was in the World so long we all agree that the Seventh day of the Week was the injoyed Sabbath and therefore ought to be observed and so might have been commanded by Christ to be kept And so we know he ratified the Ceremonial Law by commanding the cleansed Lepers to go and shew themselves to the Priest and offer the Gift which Moses commanded for their cleansing Matt. 8.4 And so also the Judicial Law by injoyning them to pay Tithe of all even of Mint Annis and Cummin Matt. 23.23 which I think few or none do hold to be purely Moral and so the Brother 's taking of his Childless Brother's Wife he seems to confirm by a Tacit Approbation to the Sadducees objecting that to him to baffle and puzzle him about the Resurrection Matt. 22.23 30. Yet nevertheless those Laws were not permanent but expired the Ceremonial with himself and the Judicial with the Judicial State and Polity Withall we add that our Saviour did for ever confirm the Moral Law which is contained in the Ten Commandments And so the Fourth as far as Moral and in all that it commands as such But withall we say that some Passages of the Fourth Command are neither Moral nor yet commanded therein as such or of the Substance thereof Whereof the mentioning of the last the Seventh Day of the Week to be the Sacred Rest is one which here is but nakedly asserted but we defer the Proof and such as was to expire at his Resurrection Wherefore we say that that Passage Matt. 5.17 Till Heaven and Earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away must refer only to the Moral Law Quatenus Moral and as it refers to and obliges all Nations which several Passages belonging to the Ten Commands do not whereof this is one about the Seventh day and I think th is may be cleared by this Argument That which neither our Saviour himself nor any of his Apostles did command or enjoyn to be followed by his or their Disciples and Followers cannot be Moral But neither he nor they did ever enjoyn the Seventh-day-Sabbath therefore it 's not Moral Our Saviour in none of his Discourses that I remember did ever expresly or particularly command the Observance of the Sabbath-day but spake and did things which seem to declare the Abolition of the Seventh day neither do any of his Apostles in any of their Writings impose it upon or command
haling him through the Streets Therefore this must be the former part of the sixth day in the latter part whereof he was Crucified and laid in the Grave in which he continued throughout the seventh and out of which he rose very early in the Morning of the first day And so it could not be after as he would fain have it but upon the third day And therefore without any danger of shaking the third days Resurrection our Expositors according to the use of Scripture do thus interpret this Passage and this Preposition See another express place for this where after three days is said to be upon the third day 2 Chron. 3.5 12. And because it was our Saviour's use to appear to them upon that day even the first day 'T is strange that he should herein go against all the Criticks of that Language and against all the Sense of all the Expositors that I can see to serve his own Hypothesis 'T is without doubt that it was not upon the Seventh day that our Lord did now appear to his Disciples unless we will understand it thus after four or five days after the eighth day he appeared to them And thus he slily evades this other Argument for the Lords days Observance even his Appearance to his Disciples when gathered together for religious Worship which as I have shewed formerly was not once only but several times after his Resurrection And 't is the only day of the Week which is named by all the four Evangelists upon which our Saviour appeared to them and graciously discoursed with them no other day so much as mentioned nor the Seventh so much as hinted to be the day of his Personal Manifestation of himself unto them which is another high Honour and Prerogative our Lord and the King of the Church has bestowed upon this first day of the Week and seems to be a practical and exemplary laying aside of the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath-day and substituting the first day to be that day consecrated to the publick and solemn Worship of God and an Assurance that he will be in the midst of his People assembling themselves upon this his day and will come and Bless them which has been and is according to the Experiences of his People in their religious Devotions and publick Congregations for there have they met and do they still meet him in those his Galleries Then he brings them into his Wine-Cellar and his Banner over them is Love Then he gives them the ravishing Kisses of his Mouth Then they behold his Beauty in his Sanctuary apprehend his Glory Experience his gracious Power in and upon their Souls Then they are abundantly satisfied with the Fatness of his House and drink delicious Draughts of the Rivers of Spiritual Pleasures that flow therein Then they experience that that first day of the Week in Gods House is inconceivably better to them than all the days of the Week any where else or about any other Imployment whatever Wherefore we have just cause to hope that our People will not and persuade them that they do not neglect the Sanctification of the first day of the week and their Assembling themselves together on that Holy day Seeing herein they follow the Examples of the Apostles themselves and the other Christians in their days and experience the Gracious Spiritual Presence of our Lord in the midst of them as they did both his Carnal and Spiritual Presence then and turn aside after the novel and singular Opinion of this Author being also poorly grounded as we have seen He proceeds Page 51. against that which some bring from John 8.56 Abraham saw my day c. as the day of Christ's Resurrection and so the First day of the Week He says some would have it meant of his Birth-day for the Observance of Christmas others all the days of his Flesh and the things which he did speak and suffered and our Redemption thereby which I think to be a true Notion But then to be sure he must foresee his Resurrection and so a day thereof and this was the great Cause of his Joy and Gladness Because without this there could be no cause of Gladness in all the rest For his Birth Life and Death could have brought no Glory to him if he had still layen in the Grave nor Good nor Profit to us if he had not rose out of it but he would have been conquered by his Enemies and we forever undone But now his Resurrection is for his own greatest Glory his Enemies Confusion and our Comfort and Triumph This was properly our Lords day He calls the day and time of his Sufferings Luk. 22.53 the hour of his Enemies and the power of Darkness Because then they insulted over him and he was delivered into their Hands But the time of his Resurrection was his own day because he therein Triumphed over all his Enemies and had perfectly vanquished them and therefore this day must chiefly be intended by Abraham because 't was the chief day of his and all Believers Joy and Gladness Though Mr. B. does not so much as once mention it in all those Particulars he reckons up under this Head Moreover Page 52.53 he mentions those Texts Psal 118.22 24. and Heb. 4.1 11. where the day the Psalmist speaks of which God hath made some do interpret of the Resurrection-day and that therefore upon that day of the Week Christians or the Churches should go into the Houses of Worship and there praise the Lord and adore him And Psal 2.7 where the day of God's begetting his Son is interpreted the day of Resurrection And there is very good reason nay there is Divine Authority for it for it 's applyed and appropiated to that very day Act. 13.33 So that the Text in the Hebrews which speaks of a Sabbath besides the Seventh day from the Creation and that Sabbath or Rest which Jehovah brought Israel into in the Land of Canaan which was to succeed and as it were to antiquate and exclude the others is by good and excellent Authors understood of the Lords day the Sabbath of the First day Who bring many excellent Arguments for this their Interpretation and Opinion Which Mr. B. should have Produced Answered and Invalidated and not put them off only by a bare Denial or Calling them Shifts and Wind-laces As though his only Rejection of these Passages were enough to Counterballance all the Arguments and rational and scriptural Discourses which many good Scholars Divines and Holy Men do draw from them and give us upon them And therefore seeing he saith nothing to Confute what they have said and I desire to study Brevity I shall speak nothing more here but only refer the Reader to these Orthodox Authors themselves and Particularly to Mr. Warren in whom he shall find very good Improvement of these Passages for the Lords day Page 54. He mentions Act. 20.7 as an Objection against the Authority of the Seventh day and
the Fourth Command but only to alter a Circumstance and Motive therein the whole Substance thereof continuing in its full Vigour and Authority Once he saith occasioned by Paul's being to depart to Morrow Which very Circumstance seems to me to be of some Moment against the Seventh or for the First day For we may well suppose that St. Paul had determined some days before the very day of his Departure and therefore seeing he intended the Second day of the Week to be it he might with much more Conveniency have Met and Preached and Administred the Lords Supper to the Disciples on the Seventh day If that had been now the Consecrated day of the Week and so have had more Time and Leisure with them for his Work and not have so straitned himself or incommoded them throughout a whole Night But becaust the Lords day was the sacred day of the Week to be observed and kept therefore he would defer it till then though to his own and their greater Inconvenience Here we have a Conjecture somewhat strange viz. that the Apostle kept the Seventh day at Troas What was it alone by himself and without any other with him as a private Person and not as an Apostle and then would keep the First day of the Week as an Apostle and with the Assembly of Believers Doubtless St. Paul was no such Dissembler on one hand nor Supersticious Bigot on the other to observe Two Sabbaths in the Week one by himself and another with the Church when God commands but one only But he seems to do all he can to turn the First day into the Seventh and to persuade us that the Assembly of the Disciples was begun on the last day of the Week and continued some time of the First Whereas the Text expresly tells us they came together on the First day and so continued together the First day till its Conclusion in the Second days Morning Here he takes no notice at all or to no purpose that the Holy Ghost tells us expresly that Paul abode Seven days at Troas of which one must necessarily be the last day the Seventh day in order of the Week And yet never tells us that the Disciples met on that day or Paul with them but only on the First day And why should this be if for any reason but to shew us that the Lords day was the day of their Religious Conventions and the Seventh day antiquated and no more to be mentioned and observed among Christians as such a day What follows has been if I mistake not satisfactorily answered already 'T is well he recedes from and stands not much upon the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be interpeted one for he knows that in both the Sacred Languages the Numerical word is frequently used for the Ordinal and if we should render this word here one it would make the Language of the Scripture very Impertinent and Uncertain It would be Impertinent and Superfluous because if it were upon any day it must be upon one day of the Week for there is no day that is not one of the Week and what need the Holy Ghost to tell us that was which we are sure could not but be And it would be uncertain and dubious for according to this meaning we could never know what day of the Week this religious Congregation met whether on the first or second or third or fourth c. and the Expression seems to hint that the Holy Ghost would acquaint us with the particular day thereof But such an uncertain Translation would greatly befriend this Author for then he might more confidently suppose it to be the Seventh day Seeing that now when the Spirit clearly asserts it was upon the First day he does perswade himself and would perswade us that it was upon the Seventh What follows after being Conjectures and Consequences drawn from his former weak Premises I shall say nothing more to them SECT XIV HE next proposes Page 58. the Objection against his Sabbath and Argument for our Lords day which is in 1 Cor. 16.1 2. which is taken as we say from the Collections for the Poor made in the publick Congregations on the first day of the Week and does what he can to enervate it Let us see how successfully 1. He tells us he knows not what the order to the Church of Galatia was But St. Paul tells him plainly that in this particular it was to collect Mony for the Poor on the Lords-day 2. That he does not find written that this order to that Church should oblige all others The like may be said of all the other Orders and Directions given in Scripture to all particular Churches therein mentioned and written to For 't is not there said that they are intended for all other Churches to the end of the World Yet I hope he looks upon the Doctrins taught them the Ordinance and Discipline established amongst them to be Obligatory upon the Churches now And we may well suppose the Apostles being inspired by the Holy Ghost in these Matters in all their Constitutions of their prime Primitive Churches to lay the Platform for all succeeding ones except there may be some particular Circumstance which may necessitate or allow a Deviation therefrom which in this matter of Collection cannot well be pretended 3. That it was a general order for a charitable Seposition but no order to observe the first day True indeed but it does imply the Observance of that day else why should it be enjoyned on that day more than on another but because thereon publick Assemblies met 4. 'T is an Order he tells us for a profane Employment as to cast up their Accounts on that day and to tell their Mony they have got and to reckon up how much their Stock is increased for he here supposes a Man must on this day look over all his Stock cast up all his Charges c. But certainly this is a pretty far fetch'd Invention for they are commanded only to lay up by them on the Lords-day what God had graciously enabled them to give to the Poor by his Success on their Labours and his providential Blessing on them as to Earthly things which they might very well enquire into the day before even the Seventh and having then discovered how God had succeeded them the next day even the Lords-day to separate that charitable Portion from the rest and carry it unto the publick Assembly and so cast it into the Poors Box. And I think 't is clear that the Text necessarily implies a former Inquisition into their Stock before this Seposition but where it implies it must be done on that day no Man can see Wherefore we say that a former Examination being had of these Matters this day that consecrated part was taken carried to the Congregation and put into the common Stock that so the Apostle when he came amongst them might not be forced to go from House to House to
their Annual Monthly and Weekly Festivals their Annual by Holy days their Monthly by New Moons and so their Weekly by Sabbaths And there was no Weekly Festival but the Seventh-day-Sabbath Or if by Holydays we apprehend the Generality of Jewish Festivals because they were all Holydays as long as their First Institution lasted yet then he condescends to some Particulars of them as the Monthly and Weekly which then must necessarily include the Sabbath because that was a Jewish Holy-day Yet again If we should grant that under the last word Sabbaths any other Festivals may be included or meant Yet certainly the Weekly-Sabbath cannot be excluded being the most famous Analogate comprehended under it and therefore in such an Expression cannot be excepted though sometimes the most famous Analogate be only meant and excludes all others yet never is it it self not intended in such Propositions Withal as we said before of the Galatian Church so we do of the Colossian 't was infected by false Teachers that would make a Mixture of the Jewis and Christian Religion and would have Moses's Rites to be kept with Christ's Ordinances And they know well enough that by Sabbaths was meant the Seventh day seeing 't is always so accepted Whence we may well conclude that here is an express exiling the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of the Church of Church Heretofore we were called upon to shew one Text in which the Seventh-day-Sabbath was abrogated and now we bring an express literal one yet it will not do but many Objections are brought in against it Which we shall successively consider and traverse 1. Some think it must be understood of Ceremonial Sabbaths only because else 't would reach the First-day-Sabbath as well as the Seventh But there is no fear of that for the First day is never called Sabbath in the Scripture and therefore cannot be meant and wee say the Seventh-day-Sabbath was both positive and ceremonial for he himself allows it to signify the eternal Rest above 2. He Objects that one place names no Sabbath but only Days the other indeed names Sabbaths which he would have interpreted Weeks for which I can see no Reason but much against it and therefore shall say nothing till he produce his Reasons for it And all the weight of this Argument is but a silly Conjecture of the meaning of the word Sabbaths But we have seen before that this is not a silly Conjecture but grounded upon the very usual Acceptation of the Word upon the Connection of the adjoyned things upon the State of the Churches unto whom he writ and upon the design of his Epistles to them But I am sure what follows is not so much as a Conjecture but a very great Oversight for he tells us that he finds the word Sabbaths in the Plural Number no where in the New Testament ascribed to the Seventh day It was then because he would not be at the pains to sind it for 't is in all these places Mat. 12.5 10 12. Mark 3.4 Luke 4.31 and 6.2 9. In all these places he will find it so and in the Original Greek the word is Sabbaths without a Verbal Superaddition of days which he himself must be inforced to acknowledge spoke of this day 3. The Seventh day he faith was never in Question in any of these Epistles and if there be no such Question about altering it how can such a Sense be imposed c. Just so I may say the New-Moon Observation and the Annual Festivals are no where questioned in these Epistles nor any where else that I remember expresly to be lain aside How therefore can such a Meaning be put upon Years and Months as to include the Judaical seeing Sabbaths are as plain and clear for the Seventh days as any of the former for what they are understood here We have still the Thred-beaten Plea of the Moral Law introduced and improved when I assert that neither he nor all the World can ever prove the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be part of the Moral Law Quatenus Moral His Fourth Answer plainly confounds Sabbaths with Years and New-Moons which the Apostle clearly distinguishes and of all the rest I may truly say they are but meer ungrounded Conjectures to baffle an express Text of Scripture But here he has a very strange Fancy That by Days may be meant the First day because the Heathen worshiped the Sun on that day And so then every day because the Heathen worshiped distinct Idols every day And so we should have no Consecrated day at all neither First nor Seventh nor any other All the rest that follows here are but as he expresses his own Thoughts and as well grounded as that Thought of his That the First day was not observed by Christians When yet we have found them several times associated on that day and Christ appearing several times in the midst of them and at Troas Assembled on that day and St. Paul Preaching and Administring the Lords Supper to them and therein to Harmonize with the Church of Galatia which I suppose proved against Objections neither of which can be said concerning the Seventh day Only there were Assemblies of the Jews on that day and St. Paul took the Advantage on these days to Preach to them But what is this to Christs Disciples and Followers We may therefore according to his own Rule That which appears not is not at all conclude that the Seventh day was never observed by the Disciples and Followers of Christ after his Resurrection as a day consecrated to Publick Worship because we never read in the Scripture that they did so meet Whereas the contrary is seen by the First day So I dismiss this Thought and the others as no more likely 5. He farther saith that 't is uncertain and therefore as such I or'e look it 6. He saith from Paul's constant keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath that he cannot be supposed to condemn his own constant Practice But how he did this we have already seen and therefore shall not stop here 7. That St. Paul commends the Whole Moral Law as Just Holy and Good and therefore can never be thought to condemn it here Here we have anew theatrized the Moral Law which we acknowledge the Apostle doth strenuously urge and never opposed any one Tittle thereof But yet he here decries the Seventh-day-Sabbath as very consistent with and agreeing to all his Zeal for the Moral Law because that was never of the Substance of it Neither is it either Holy or Just or Good I mean not in and of it self as all that is truly and naturally Moral is but by Gods commanding it We acknowledge it to be positively Moral 8. The last Answer is from Math. 24.20 Pray you that your Flight be not in the Winter nor on the Sabbath-day Upon which place he lays so great a Stress as to suppose it a sufficient Proof for the Observation of the Seventh day as our bounden Duty For here he takes for granted that this Sabbath
here spoken of is the Seventh day that the Flight here spoken of is that at nearest of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple about Forty Years after Christ And therefore our Saviour knowing what a great Trouble of Spirit 't would be to gracious and devout Souls to be forced to flee for their Lives on that day whereon they should have been Glorifying their God and Refreshing their own Souls in Religious Duties and Holy Communion with the Father and the Son He exhorts them to Pray against such an Evil thereby implying as he would have it the Continuance of that Sabbath and his own Confirmation thereof till then and so forever Wherein I think I have I am sure I intended to have given all the strength of what he hath written from hence and not concealed or lessened any whit of it Unto which I proceed to answer that 1. Some understand this to be a proverbial kind of Speech to express the Difficulty and Irksomness of a thing that 't will be as tedious as a Journy in a Cold Snowy Dirty Winter or as a Flight to a superstitious Jew upon a Sabbath-day 2. Others apprehend it to be spoken to the Disciples in this Sense Pray that your Flight may not be on the Seventh-day-Sabbath Because thereby you will greatly offend the superstitious Jews who will deem you as Profaners of that day hereby and so will be so far from Pitying and Relieving you that they will hate and michief you all they can As we know the Jews were great Enemies to them because they were so to their Ceremonial Worship as they deemed them and to their Sabbaths too and hence were so far from sheltring them from that they betrayed them to and delivered them up into the Hands of Heathenish Persecutors 3. It may well be interpreted specifically of a Sabbath and not numerically of the Seventh day only And so 't is as if our Lord had said pray that on what ever day your Solemn Rest for Religious Worship and Divine Service shall be that on that day your Flight may not be for 't will then be very grievous and more intolerable than on any day of the Week And so includes yea primarily intends the First day the Dominical day But 4. To be as fair as we can with him and to grant all that he does desire we will suppose that our Saviour did mean by his words what they 't is most probable did understand by them even the Seventh day to be that Sabbath on which they were to deprecate their Flight Yet this will be also far enough from so clear a Proof for him as he imagines For we know 't is usual in the Holy Writers to speak of Evangelical days and of the Worship of God in them under Legal Metaphors to wit by Sacrifices by erecting of Altars by coming up to the Temple c. as all that know the Stile of the Prophets cannot but be acquainted with because these were then the Services which that People performed and they knew no other and probably would not have endured the mentioning of any other So here our Saviour speaks indeed literally of the Seventh-day-Sabbath because the Jews and his Disciples who were Jews knew yet of no other neither were prepared to hear of the future substituting of another day in its place Yet this does no more confirm the Seventh day to be the future Sabbath than those other Scriptural Sayings do the Ceremonial Rites to be the Evangelical Worship or the external Modes of serving God in the times of Reformation and when the Body and Substance of these Signs and Figures were exhibited Besides we say our Saviour did very well foresee that many of his Disciples as we know the Churches of Galatia and Colosse and those of Jerusalem with James did would many years after his Decease dote upon the judaical Ceremonies and would reverence them out of Conscience to God their Author and Imposer And so also on the judaical day And therefore our Lord fore-apprehending this bids them to deprecate their Flight on such a day which their own Conceits and false Apphrehensions of things would make more grievous and burdensom to themselves not his Injunctions or the real Obligation of the day And there is nothing more common than this way of speaking according to Mens Apprehension of things without any the least Approbation of that Apprehension So we find our Saviour speaking in his Discourses of the Jews Circumcision very commendably and honourably yet I hope this did not confirm it for the future But here it may be objected But he did not Prophesie of its future Observance or require any thing of them upon a Supposition of its Continuance afterwards and therefore this is nothing to the purpose But we know he could not but foresee that they would observe it and keep it up in the Churches after his Departure from them and its Abrogation and so these Speeches of his would then be upon Record and probably made a Plea for its Use especially seeing he never did as I remember speak any thing against it or expresly of its future Extrusion out of the Churches Which Speeches of his cannot Authorize their future Practice Neither can our Saviours foresight of their superstitions and mistaken Observance of the Seventh day and his Command for their Ease-sake upon that Prevision authorize the Continuance thereof Therefore seeing there are so many Solutions given to this Plea against the Apostles meaning of the Seventh day when he condemns them for their Observance of Days and Sabbaths whereof some one may be deemed sufficient but much more all together It cannot by any impartial judicious Person be thought of any Prevalency to evade an express Prohibition of the Apostle of the Observance of that day which we contend his Prohibition of Sabbaths to be the Seventh being the most famous of all Sabbaths Being that which is mostly if not only intended by that Expression in Scripture and in that very word whereby the Holy Ghost in the New Testament intends and means the Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XVI HE begins Page 75. to betake himself to the Command it self and would from thence collect an absolute Necessity of the perpetual Observance of the last day of the Week asserting the Morality of the whole Command and endeavouring from some Passages and Letters of that Law to ratify his own Opinion herein Therefore I shall take leave with as much Brevity and Plainness as I can to give my weak Thoughts about it and leave it to the Learned and Judicious to determine Here we must premise a Distinction or two 1. Between Moral and Positive between that which is Good Just and Holy in it self which emerges from the right Constitution of the rational Creature and so would be a Duty if 't were never externally injoyned by God And that which has no such innate Goodness neither would have been performed as a Duty by Man were it not imposed by a
concerning Worship are abolished by the coming of Christ Why should this then solitarily be excluded and stand in its Strength and Vigour when all its other Companions are thrown to the Ground and vanish I know no reason but because this was written by the singer of God upon stone But this altereth not the nature of the Command it self neither can it from hence plead a greater Privilege for all the former had God for their Author as well as this and God's Mouth is as Authoritative as his Finger Wherefore we may well conclude that seeing there is no reason can be given why the Seventh-day-Sabbath should not recede and give place as well as all other Ceremonial and Positive Precepts to our Lord Christ at his coming and his new and more glorious Administrations that it is and ought to be excluded with them and give place to a more glorious day in Commemoration of a more glorious work and Gods resting from it Even the first day our Lords glorious triumphing day The other two reasons of this Fourth Command follow which are Gods Blessing the Sabbath day and Hallowing it Where 't is worthy our Observance though this Author deems it a Triffe that 't is the Sabbath day not the Seventh day of the Week that is here blessed and hallowed As if God would hint that the Sabbath upon what day soever of his own Appointment should be Blessed even the first as well as the Seventh day of the Week when in the latter days his Sons glorious Rest should Authorize that day and as it should alter all other Ceremonial and positive Ordinances of his own Appointment so also this Ceremonial and Positive day into that other which with all the other Ordinances and Institutions of the Blessed Redeemer should last to the end of the World From which Discourse concerning the Nature of the Fourth Command all that follows in his third or fourth Pages after is sufficiently answered and so his next answer to another Objection against his Opinion P. 82. SECT XVII THUS by God's Help and I hope his Guidance I have considered all his Arguments that he urges for his Sabbatarian Opinion and have shewen their Invalidity and Weakness And all the Solutions that he brings to disannul all our Proofs for the Dominical Tenet and suppose that I have vindicated ours from all his Attempts and shewen how they remain solid and substantial Other things which follow being but Appendixes to this Discourse and not of so great Moment I shall but touch upon them As Page 83. about the Beginning of the Sabbath He would have it to begin at Even and we willingly grant him that the Seventh-day-Sabbath did so for it began when God had ended his Works of Creation which was the Evening before the Sun-rising of the Seventh Day But I judge that now the best Time to begin our Lord's Day with is in the Morning because 1. 'T was on that Time of the Day early in the Morning about Break of day that our Lord Jesus rested from his Work of Redemption Wherefore if the foregoing Evening of the Old Testament-Sabbath was its most convenient Beginning because then God ended his Work of Creation and rested then So he Morning-Light of the First Day is the most convenient Time for its Beginning because then God rested from his much more Glorious and really in his Humanity Laborious Work of our Redemption 2. Because the Holy Scripture expresly begins it thus placing the Conclusion of the Seventh Day at the beginning of the Morning of the First Day Mat. 28.1 In the End of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the First Day of the Week and consequently then that Day began 3. Because 't is the most convenient Time because most observable less lyable to Prophanations upon the account of Mistakes and so to turbulent Spirits less obnoxious c. but this is not so substantial a Dispute Let every Person give up and consecrate the whole Lords-day to the Service of God I mean the whole Artificial Day or rather the whole lightsome Part thereof and then let him begin either at Even or Morning I doubt not but if it be conscientiously done in the Name of Christ God will accept him But there he must not scandalize others by doing Common or Mechanick Works upon the following Evening of that Day which the Generality of Christians among whom he lives account as Sacred He seems Page 84. to imply that there should be Morning and Evening religious Service every Day in publick But there is scarcely any preaching Minister can have so much Leisure beside his own personal and domestical Devotions And beside our People will not attend it every day and then the proper publick Duty of the Sabbath to be but once and begin about Noon I for my Part believe the Times of publick Worship on the Lord's-day are most conveniently ordered already Twice once in the Morning about Nine and so in the Evening about Two An Interval being for the Refreshment of the outward Man and Recruits of the Spirit for a more vigorous and enlarged serving of God in the Evening Beside we know in the Country 't is convenient to keep some Persons at home or one Person when Houses are solitary and lyable to Injury by those who should know them totally destitute of an Inhabitant and in Country and City Families that have Children which must be kept at home either through Weakness or such as would disturb the Congregation by their Presence must have some one or other to take care of them Now in such Cases one Servant or Person may be at home in the Morning and another in the Evening and so all partake of the publick Worship every Lord's-day which could not so conveniently be done by one single assembling the Congregation But however to meddle herein would be very impertinent and would rather savour of a restless Fancy to say no worse than of a peaceable and prudent Spirit The other Pages home to the 90th I overlook because in them I find either such things as do not belong to the Sabbath nor to this Controversy at all Or if they do they are such as are written already at least the Substance and answered SECT XVIII HE produces Page 90. the Argument of Tradition from the Apostles in the universal Church these 1600 Years for the Observance of the Lord's-day Whereto his Answer is that no Tradition can add to take from lay aside or alter any Word of Christ or Duty of Man But yet such a perpetualand epidemical Tradition may serve for a good subservient Proof for that which is founded upon and deduced from Scripture as the case is here for we have proved by many Arguments from Scripture the Abolition of the Seventh-Day-Sabbath and the ratification of the Lord's-Day He answers to such a general and lasting Tradition for the Sanctification of the Lord's-day That he has already proved that the Seventh Day is the Lord's-day
spoken of Rev. 1.10 But I think I have disproved that Proof Page 91 He himself recurs to Tradition and undertakes to prove that throughout several Centuries there have been Churches who assembled themselves themselves for religious Worship on the Seventh Day And so this is set as a Bar against and a Counterplea to that Prime Primitive and universal Tradition for the Lords-day To which I answer in general 1. That a few Exceptions against a general Rule do rather confirm than weaken it 2. Every Antiquity or Tradition will not cannot serve to prove either Practice or Doctrin to be commendable or orthodox nor derogate from what is so For the Denyal of the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ is as ancient as the Apostles Days in which Corinthus was such an Heretick and the Ebionites Photinians and Arains have handed down that damning Doctrin to our Socinians 3. Scarce any Church since the Apostles Days have been without out their Flaws in Doctrin or Worship or both and we doubt not but this hath been one of them if it can be proved to be practised 4. In many Churches where they did observe the Seventh-day as a Day of publick Assemblies yet in them the Lord's-day was also kept and observed and that too as the chief Day For on the Lord's-day all in general were ingaged to wait upon God's publick Worship not so on Saturdays On the Lord's-day all the Ordinances of the Gospel were administred not so on Saturdays And so still the Lords-day had the Preheminence even in those very Churches Which general Answers may be enough to stop the Mouths of all his ancient Witnesses Yet I will take a little Pains and imploy a little Time to inquire into the Particulars for I think they neither deserve nor require much of either As to his first Instance if all the following be such I am sure they are stark naught yea they are not at all For he asserts that in the Apostles times the Seventh Day was observed as the publick Day of divine Worship Here he must meau by Christins or else he trifles But he can never find in all the Scripture that in the Apostles Days there was ever one Society of Christians gathered on the Seventh Day Indeed St. Paul did go on that Day into the Assemblies of the Jews to preach the Gospel to many of them which he could not conveniently do on any other Day But never did he invite any to keep that Day never did he assemble afterward on that Day when he was separated from their Synagogues finding them imperswasible and obstinate But now we can produce several Christian-Assemblies on the First day the Lords day after our Saviours Resurrection in which our Lord appeared to them And 't was then their Custom to Assemble and bring their Publick Alms to the Publick Treasure wherefore I cannot but marvel at this bold Assertion The Basis of traditionary Structue being so visibily sunk and come to nought makes me suspect that the erected Stories thereof will tumble and fall So that 't is clear we have the Apostle Examples the Churches Use in their days and their Commands against the Seventh day and for the Lords day as a sufficient Demurr to all his future Tradition Into which I now descend and must say that I have searched the Magdeburgenses for his Quotations but cannot find them where he quotes them and therefore believe that the Author used either another Edition or another that is various either in the Bulk or in the Pages I found in them the Eliberine Council but there he Twenty Third Canon hath nothing of a Fast upon a Sabbath day As to the other Authors I have them not and know not where to get them that I might peruse them neither is it needful for the matter of these Quotations makes very little for his Cause For whoever considers them will find 1. That very many if not most of them declare the Establishment and Separation of the Dominical day for Divine Service 2. That another great part of them prove the Observation or keeping both of the Dominical day and the Sabbath in very many of the Churches 3. These tell us that the Sabbath was kept as a Fast by the most if not by all of the Churches that kept it and the Lords-day as a Festival which all our Ecclesiastical Writers acknowledge as before And so evince that it was not kept with so equal Authority as the Lords day So does Dr. Young at large which also shews that they never observed it as the ancient Sabbath or 't was enjoyned in the Fourth Command But upon a new Account or for a new Reason even because our Lord Christ lay dead in the Grave on that day Therefore they would Fast and Humble themselves because their Lord and Saviour was on that day in his lowest Humiliation So far were they from this Gentleman's Opinion that his State of Death was his Rest after his Work of Redemption and they would observe the First day with Praises and Holy Rejoycings as the Christian Festival because 't was the Lords day of Triumph over his Enemies even of his Resurrection These include the greatest part by far of his Historical Examples and a very few are left which do not expresly acknowledge these things And they that do not express them may well be thought to include them I mean though some of these Quotations do not verbally tell us that when they kept this Sabbath they also kept the Lords day yet it may well be presumed they did so seeing 't was the common Practice of such Churches to observe both of them in the foresaid manner Such an one for Example is that of Socrates Scholasticus who tells us for I have examined him and find he does verbatim tell us in a manner all the Churches in the World do Celebrate and Receive the Holy Mysteries every Sabbath day after other Yet the People inhabiting Alexandria and Rome of an old Tradition do not use it Yet doubtless they also observed the Lords-day seeing 't was that which Constantine had before by Edict enjoyned the Churches to do And he saith in the very next Page and in the same Chapter of this Quotation that at Caesarea in Cappadocia and at Cyprus the Priests and Bishops do Preach and Expound Holy Scripture at Evening-Prayer on the Saturdays and Sundays by Candle-Light and therefore we may well presume that the other Churches did which before he spake of These being some of these all As for his Historical Account when the Lord's day was brought into Scotland viz. An. 1208. It may be very well answered that the initiating or bringing in of the Dominical day does not refer to the day it self but only to the Authority that introduced it even that in that Year it began to be Established by the Authority of a Council which before it had not been Or if it refer to the day it self it may not simply be understood as if that
day were never taken notice of at all in Scotland as a Sanctified day For who ca believe this seeing 't was all along observed by the rest of the Churches as his own Quotations acknowledge But respectively as now 't was by Authority enjoyned to be strictly kept and sanctified and to be solitarily separated to Divine Service Whereas before they were Loose and Profane in their Carriages upon it All which is most probable and very well concurrs with the truth of the History And therefore this History does not nor that of Englands late due Observance of the Lords day or their keeping Markets on that day c. till the same Century or any other evacuate the Series of an Universal and Constant Tradition for the Lord's day For even in these Nations the Lords day might be then acknowledged to be the day of Divine Worship though not so strictly and duly kept as we know in this very last Century among our Selves Plays Interludes all manner of Sports selling of things in our very Streets have been permitted and practised Yet still the Lords day acknowledged in the Church to be the day of Divine Worship And it cannot well be supposed that those Christian Churches as England and Scotland who observed the Seventh day because on it our Saviour lay in the Grave not because 't was commanded in the Fourth Precept nor because 't was the Creator's Rest after his Work should alltogether neglect and disregard the First day seeing 't was the day of his Conquest and the Entrance into his Glorious Exaltation This I thought convenient to say to those Historical Collections of his and must leave a more particular and exact Answer of them to those who have better Helps and more Leisure to examine them He gives us Page 102. Thomas Aquinas's Opinion concerning the Fourth Command whom I suppose to be the same Thomas before quoted for the same that some part of it is Moral and some Ceremonial c. Which Opinion of his how heterodox soever the Author deems it I doubt not but it is very Orthodox and the Truth of God clearly evinced by the Light of Nature And that no Person shall ever be Condemned for not observing a Seventh day of the Week much less for not observing the Last day of the Week intirely to God's Worship and Service without the Revelation of the Fourth Command to him no more than he shall be Condemned for not believing in the Lord Jesus without the Revelation of the Gospel SECT XIX BUt enough of this before which invites me to reflect upon one Particular which I intended to have replyed to in its proper place But I know not how 't was then neglected which is Page 79. An Answer to another Objection against the Morality of the Seventh-day-Sabbath viz. That the Decalogue in not at all in force to the Gentiles Which Objection methinks should not be so crudely produced nor in such an unlimited and unqualified manner for I dare to assert That that One whoever he was that this Author intends does hold that the Decalogue in one respect does and in another does not oblige the Gentiles That it does oblige them as to the Morality and Substance of every one of the Ten Commands the Fourth not excepted That it does not oblige them as those Ten words were Engraven on Tables of Stone as they were delivered to the Israelites upon the Mount in such a dreadful and formidable manner as Moses was the Receiver of them from God's Hand and their Conveyer to the People Which to be his Sense his very Production of the Preface for his Argument sufficiently proves Which we doubt not is a most Orthodox Opinion and not only the Judgment of One but of almost if not altogether all our learned and solid Divines For how can that oblige the Getiles which they never heard nor were in a Possibility to know As Millions of them never were and Millions more may never be Who never heard of a Deliverance from Egypt nor of a Moses nor of a burning Mountain nor of horrible Thundrings and Lightnings nor of such a Deliverance of that Law And the Gentiles who have by Gods gracious and blessed Providence these things brought to their Cognizance are not obliged to them as given by Moses but as given by God not to them as delivered out of the Land of Egypt and out of the House of Bondage which was peculiar only to the Israelites and those that came out with them not to them as having a share and Possession in the Land of Canaan the Motive to the Fifth Command for that was only peculiar to the Israelites So then the Decalogue does not oblige all Man-kind as 't was given to the Israelites and as urged upon them with their singular and peculiar Obligations but as 't was engraven upon the Humane Nature in our first Creation as the moral Perfection of the rational Creature so it obliges all the Gentiles as well as the Jews His Argument of the Deliverance of the then whole visible Church is a Mistake for there were some of the visible Church who were not among them as Jethro Moses's Father-in-Law and we believe more with him seeing he was a great Man or a Priest of Midian Exod. 3.1 whose Faith in and Worship of the True God are clearly seen Exod. 18.8 12. Wherefore this Deliverance of the Jews could not so effect them or appertain to them But suppose that these Motives could have a typical and remote Influence and lay some kind of moral Obligations upon the Heathens that may have the Tydings thereof sent among them it cannot be well imagined how it could ever affect or be a Motive to those Nations that never had the least Notice thereof and consequently the Decalogue thus given by Moses is not in force toward the Gentiles as such for so 't would equally oblige them all SECT XX. AND thus I have passed through all his Book that concerns the Sabbath and have done what God hath enabled me to shew the Weakness and Non-Conclusion of all his Arguments having endeavoured to look into the Depth and find out the Strength of every one of them And on the other hand to confirm and establish ours against all his Endeavours to undermine and bassle them And might here have concluded but shall not 'till I have shewen him the Tradition of the Lords-days-Rest down along from the Apostles Time home to the Conclusion of the Fourth Century which is the purest Antiquity and enough for our purpose being found in the most ancient orthodox Fathers and spoken of as the Practice of the Church of God in their Days whom I shall but name and set down the Time of their flourishing in the Church referring the Reader to Dr. Young and Mr. Warren to find out their Quotations thus Ignatius Co-temporary with the Apostles Justin Martyr in the Year 160. Dionisius Bp. of Corinth near the same time Tertullian Anno. 200. Origen 226. Cyprian
Command is of perpetual Obligation to the Churches therefore the first day must be that day and the Sabbath was excluded that the Lords day might succeed and that the Promises made to the Rest of one day in Seven in the Command are made to and entail'd upon the first day of those Seven now as they were upon the last of them before its Expiration and that a due Observation thereof shall have a gracious Acceptation with a bountiful Remuneration from our God and our Saviour according to all the Blessed Experiences of the strict and consciencious Observers thereof That there is a more express and peremptory Abolition of this Sabbath in the Scriptures of that Apostle than there is or can be found in them for the Cessation of many other particular positive and ceremonial Institutions which yet Christians in general and this Gentleman in particular disregard as dissolved and vanished And I profess if I could see but half so much in the Second Command to prove a Form of Prayer to be the Pesel there forbidden or at least included therein I should utterly deny all Forms as Idolatrous which now I dare not do but in some cases hold them not only lawful but necessary and Praise-worthy or but half so much in any Line or Sentence of the New Testament against the use of the Lords Prayer in the publick Congregation I would never so use it more but to my due power would endeavour its Banishment thence If I say but half so much as I find expressed for the Seventh days Deposal well may we wonder that in such things a Man sees what scarce no Man else ever did in the word of God and yet in this that he should not see what almost every Man else can plainly discover Wherefore I question not but all our Divines and Ministers of Congregations are sufficiently satisfied that they serve God duly as to the Circumstance of time on Lords days and may and do in Faith associate on the Lords day as the only Sacred day of the Week with all other Christians in the Apostles days since our Saviours Resurrection home to this very Generation And I cannot but hope that this piece how specious soever it be and with what confidence soever recommended however back'd with the Pretences of Divine Authority of Jehovah's Will c. with pathetical Inculcations of those in multitudes of its Pages for the Observance of the Seventh day will find but very few if any Proselites among our common Professors and I am confident none among our Wise Stade experienced Christians or if any be in danger of Infection I pray to God that this Reply intended for this end may be an Antidote to secure them Lastly it will be good Advice to this Gentleman who hath caused the Expence of so much time in this Controversie to bethink himself how his Opinion leads us to Judaize and this work of his tends only to divide the Church to stumble the Weak to imploy and please the Silly Fantastical and Giddy in matters of Religion to encourage the Profaners of the first day or rather of the Lords day to scandalize and grieve all and therefore to cease from farther Attempts of this kind And all I desire is that the Reader would impartially compare what he has written for his Seventh day against the Lords day and what I have written for the Lords day against his Seventh day and beg Wisdom and Understanding from God to have a due Insight into and draw a right Conclusion from both FINIS Books Printed for Samuel Clement at the Swan in S. Paul's Church Yard GOD's Revenge against Murther and Adultery expressed in Thirty several Tragical Histories Wherein are lively delineated the Various Stratagems subtle Practices and deluding Oratory used by our Modern Gallants in order to the seducing young Ladies to their unlawful Pleasures To which are annexed the Triumphs of Friendship and Chastity in some Heroical Examples and Delightful Histories The whole illnstrated with about fifty Elegant Epistles relating to Love and Gallantry By Thomas Wright M. A. of S. Peter's Colledge in Cambridge A Compleat History of the Late Revolution from the first Rise of it to this present Time in Three Parts The English Grammar setting forth the Grounds of the English Tongue and particularly its Genius in making Compounds and Derivatives with many other Useful and curious Observations Wherein are also explained the usual Abbreviations the several hands used in Writing and Characters in Printing the Variety of Styles the Art of true Pointing and the Way to understand Books With a Prefatory Discourse about the Original and Excellency of the English Tongue and at the end an Alphabetick Collection of the Monosyllables being a Treatise of Orthography for Writers and of Rhymes for Poets A Necessary Work in general for all sorts of Persons desirous to understand the Ground and Genius of the English and very proper to prepare Young Men for the Latin Tongue By Guy Miege Gent. Cerevisiarii Comes Or the New and True Art of Brewing Illustrated by various Examples in making Beer Ale and other Liquors so that they may be most Durable Brisk and Fragrant and how they may be so ordered as to yield the greatest Quantity of Spirits in Distillation To which is added the right way to refine and bottle Beer and Cyder and a Cure for those that are Sick and Ropy so as to return them to their internal Sanity as also the true Method of manuring Lands and the Art of making Salt-Water fresh All proved by Demonstration and Sound Philosophy to be more agreeable to Man's Body than otherwise and so not only sit for English Constitutions but also for Transportation Published for the fake of Variety and therefore recommend to all that esteem demonstrated Truths before Notional Theory By W. Y. worth Medicin-Professor