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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96264	A sermon touching the divine right and due observation of the Lords day Preached before the Lord Deputy, and the Lords Spiritual & Temporal of the kingdom of Ireland; in time of Parliament. At Christ-Church Dublin. On Sunday the 6th. of October, 1695. With a preface humbly address'd to the whole body of English Protestants: especially those inhabiting the kingdom of Ireland. By Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1697 (1697)	Wing W1520A; ESTC R229732	26,838	68

mean the eldest Records of our Christianity I must for that brevity's sake which use has made necessary wave the deductions I had prepared at length from the Law of Nature as to this matter and say in few words summarily Sect. IV Nature teaches God is publickly to be worshipped Publick Worship cannot Natural reason for a Sabbath be without times publickly ascertained for it If such times be either too short or too seldom returning the impressions of God of Holyness and of an Unseen World which such Publick Worship is designed to make on the Worshippers will either be very slight or by infrequency defaced beyond recovery In either of which cases the worship is rendred unprofitable Further since 't is impossible for us intirely to attend two things at once therefore on such days as this Publick Worship is to be paid common business is to be laid aside There must then through all Bodies or Societies of People be frequent vacations from ordinary Employments for the Publick Worship of God That is a Sabbath or fixt and certain time of holy rest for the publick Offices of Religion is from Nature Sect. V For such reasons as these to come briefly to Law positive we may The first institution of a Sabbath in Paradise with humble reverence conceive it was that the most holy and wise God has provided there should be extant a very early Revelation and most ancient Record of his resting immediately upon the finishing of the Creation Gen. ii v. 1 2 3. Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them and on the Seventh day God ended his work which he had made and rested the Seventh day from all his works which he had made and God blessed the Seventh day and sanctified it because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made By these words there must be designed either a direct Command given or at least a precedent in the Oeconomy of God's actions proposed which might be instead of a Command for keeping a Seventh day from the begining Holy unto God For mine own part I am of the mind with the * Rivet alledges 30 of the Reformed Divines beyond Sea Besides diverse of the Fathers and even of the Romanists Dissert de Orig. Sabbat cap. 1 generality of Interpreters both antient and modern It is a Command For what less can be meant by Gods blessing the Seventh day and sanctifying it Let blessing it signifie what it can sanctifying it in the very primary sense of the word signifies separating it namely to Religious purposes Now how could it be thus separated without a Command Sect. VI The conceit of a Prolepsis here or that this was spoken and recorded Objections answered out of time only as a kind of antedating the Fourth Commandment besides that it is forced if not rash and with all likelihood in that great person who first advanced the Notion due meerely to an excess of zeal against Judaism is no better than a bold begging of the Question without any ground in the Text or Context rather indeed against the manifest import and scope of both For 't is plain thence that the Six days and the works thereof being ended God did then or on that first Seventh day of time actualy rest that is as St. Austin expounds it cease from making other kinds of Creatures But how incongruous is it to refer things spoken continuedly and connected as done in one and the same instant to refer such things I say to so distant parts of time viz. Gods resting to the first Seventh day of time and his blessing and sanctifying the Seventh day to another like Seventh day above two thousand-years after This is forcing wide asunder what God joined Who can digest this Paraphrase on the Text God having finisht his Six days work then Rested the Seventh day and two thousand five hundred and fourteen years after he Sanctified the like day of the Week or appointed it to be kept Holy If so I say here are two Seventh days spoken of in one and the same word the Seventh day whereon God rested and the Seventh day which recurred in the weekly course so long after which I think all men of sense must acknowledge to be as great a violence as was ever used to a word and never allowed in interpreting any other place of Scripture wherefore not to be admitted here Add hereto that when this Institution came to be reinforced at Sinai the observation of the Sabbath having been discontinued by the Israelites during their travel and perhaps during their bondage too the very wording of the Command bespeaks the thing commanded to have been of elder use For Remembring is of things formerly known Now Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy is the very letter of the Text On which the Jews tell us as Tertullian hinself reports it that God sanctifyed the Seventh day from the beginning by resting thereon from all his works and therefore Moses said Remember the Sabbath day If it be objected the sanctifying a Seventh day could be no Command from the beginning for then we should have had it amongst the Precepts of the Sons of Noah I answer to say nothing of the uncertainty of the Tradition of those Precepts any otherwise than as they are grounded in Moses's writings Neither have we in these Precepts any mention of Sacrifices of Prayer of a Priesthood c. Yet are we sure that Adam had Command or which is much the same Directions or Revelations from God touching all these And that they were practised by him and his posterity before the Law If it be said these were included in the Precept Gnal Birkath Hashshem touching Divine Worship or against profaning the Name of God for I think the words may be rendred either way I say so may this of the Sabbath well be too and the rather in as much as it being impossible to perform an outward act without time the same Law which commands that Act must be understood to command time for the doing it Sect VII But supposing not granting no proper command then given yet Gods Example Obligatory can it not be denyed that God by declaring and causing to be recorded this his Procedure of gradually finishing all his works in Six days and resting the Seventh did propose his practice as a precedent to our first Parents for their Ordinary passing their time God was under no necessity to take up Six days in making the World He could have done it had he pleased in Six hours Nay in Six minutes Nor was he under any fatigue by working so that he needed to talk of resting therefore his proceeding thus and not wraping up his procedure in darkness and silence but making all matter of Revelation and a standing Record plainly shews he design'd thereby to teach Adam and in him all mankind they were neither to live Idle any of their days for God

are returned Examining and Instructing our Children and Servants causing them to attend Reading and Family-prayers and Psalms for some reasonable time and restraining them all the day long from many Liberties usual on common dayes all these can have of themselves no sin in them but are pious and commendable and will turn to our own and our Families account one day if not at present Herein let the forced Concessions of some of the keenest disputants in behalf of Sunday Sports be heard 1. Whatever may hinder either the worship of God it self or our profiting therein should be forborn and avoided For all such things whatsoever Ironsides 7 Questions Cap. 24. p. 224. p. 269. as keep us from or hinder us in the Publik Worship are altogether unlawful on the Lords Day 2. It is not unlawful to observe the Lords Day with as great strictness as the Jews did the Sabbath provided we have no opinion that such rest is of necessity to be observed under pain of sin putting Religion therein p. 227. And that we censure not others who use their liberty nor out of a superstitious fear decline the doing any work of Necessity or Charity the benefit whereof would be utterly lost were the present opportunity neglected 3. Those who can and will spend the vacant time of the Lords Day in the private Exercises of piety ought not to be discountenanced or disheartened but encouraged rather p. 268. In a word let all follow thus what their own consciences when they are serious cannot what the very learned defenders of such Liberties as they are fond of when they consulted their own consciences could not but confess and there is little question but the whole Lords Day will be generally spent as in this discourse is pressed It may be observed I have not pressed such severities as exclude due refreshments and keeping the spirits in vigour and cheerfulness Nor do I suppose those expressions giving the whole day to God and the like which I have produced out of holy mens writings use to be taken in such a rigorous sense that the private and publick duties having been conscientiously performed and secured any should conclude it unlawful for people to walk abroad awhile in fresh air and Contemplate the works of God and enjoy themselves in beholding and moderately using them No nor for them sitting at home to let drop at their Meals or otherwise out of the times of their Devotions something of innocent cheerful discourse or as occasion offers to speak touching matters of concernment to them or of the common Occurrents in Human affairs though the less of this the better In a word That which I insist on as required is that All this day Christians take care not to disorder their hearts for the worship of God but that after their several refreshments they may return again with composed minds to the thoughts of God and Heaven and their duties and in the Evening sweetly commit their Souls and Bodys their family and substance to the Divine protection reposing themselves comfortably in Gods favour and in the good hopes of his acceptance in Christ Jesus If thus the day be spent it is as much given to God as our present condition will suffer us But will some say if this be all you contend for who denies the Divine obligation of the Lords Day or its observation thus stated I answer many have done and still do deny it Onely it comes to pass in this particular case what does more generally when men write in defence of such Doctrines which their Interest rather than their Conscience approves that by their own concessions in conscience they sometimes contradict what they have said for Interest And hence it is that we may easily pick out of our very Adversaries writings sundry memorable passages which favour us and so sometimes they deny what we contend for and sometimes they grant it In the mean time what is the effect which these Learned mens denying flatly and directly sometimes in their writings sometimes in ordinary discourse and it were to be wished they did it not in their most sacred discourses too what I say is the effect which their denying the morality of the fourth command has in the World Truely nothing but the growth of Licentiousness and Irreligion I know they pretend onely to Innocent Liberty and easing peoples Consciences of endless Scruples But is not Conscience easy enough by asserting such a Morality and Observation of a Christian Sabbath as above They would be understood to deny meerly such a Natural Morality of the letter of the fourth Command as there is in the first Thou shalt have no other Gods but me That is thou shall worship the Lord thy God and him alone shalt thou serve The Justness and Obligation whereof the very light of Nature or reflecting upon the very Terms doth dictate to us They would be content they 'l say to allow unto the fourth Command a kind of Equitahle morality and own the command too in some regard as positively Moral Nor do I deny but that when they thus speak they speak what if strictly taken and well understood is reason and as farr forth as there is reason and truth in it I have owned it But the People in the mean time understand not the Nice and distinct degrees of Morality And when they read or here learned men deny the Morality of the fourth Commandment they take all at Random and think themselves at liberty They say with themselves If indeed we keep the Lords Day t is true we do well but if we see fit to travel or if we take our pleasure or bodily ease all that day we sin not For the fourth command is not moral And the Lords Day is onely a Church Holy day All dayes under the Gospel are equal as our most learned Doctors teach us Now is it not evident that by these Terms such learned men have betrayed poor plain people into Licentiousness Prophaness and Irreligion And were it not better to be more cautious and allow all the Decalogue to be moral as indeed it is in one degree or other though one command or one duty may sometimes give place to another as Sacrifice to Mercy and onely to teach that the fourth command had one sense to the Jews and another to us Christians as had the Preface to all the commands Thy God that brought thee out of the Land c and divers passages in other Commands And finally to press the Evangelical sense of all which none question to be moral enough were not this I say much better than by our Learning and exactness by terms unknown to Scripture and distinctions not understood by common people to become Authors of their sins I leave this to the conscience and consideration of all prudent and serious Christians and pass on to another point in the following discourse which some haply may censure Amongst the constant publick Duties of the Lords day I