preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles as if this had scarce been their duty though it were expresly put into their Commission from the mouth of Christ Till Peter was righter informed by a Vision from Heaven The written word of Christ has an Authority above and beyond the Authority and Testimony of the most eminent Apostles or Angels of Heaven If a Paul had brought his own word contrary to Christs word what were Pauls saying It must be rejected and in that the hearers were to carry themselves towards Paul as if he had been an excommunicate If a Prophet bring a word contradictory to the word of the LORD he should not be hearkened unto If an Angel from Heaven speak otherwise than the God of Angels and would teach disobedience against the word of Jehovah Fellowship should not be kept up with him It is one erroneous part of Antichristianism to set up the Testimony of men or the Authority of the Church in the seat of Christ and of his written word The The Antichrist is the Anomous one the Lawless one the Antinomian And Anomy or Lawlesness or Antinomianism is the great comprehensive sin of the Latter daies And they are Lawless ones that are the erring seducing ones Men as to their Church state have their foundation and bottom their existence and life under a God in Christ from the written word of Christ whereas these Scriptures of Truth have not their groundwork and being from any meer man or men Church or Churches A Church is made up of Believers as the prefaces of the Epistles to the Churches do shew and Believers must have a word to sound and to live upon All true doctrines are to be fetched hence and to be grounded and proved here The Conventions of Pagans and the Synagogues of Sutan are not owned as Churches of Christ because they are not according to Christ and the word of Christ Men though passing into never-so-noted-a-Church-way yet may actually be in process of time so Obstinate in Heresies so Idolatrous in Worship and so scandalous in profaneness as to cease to be a true-Scripture-Church and must be separated from The Christian Church at Rome in Pauls time has another manner of Character given of it in his Epistle to them than the Satanical Synagogue at Rome has by John in the Revelation who saw in a Vision the foul Apostasie thereof Separation in such Cases is holy and a duty The holy Scriptures of Truth do not give a Sovereign Authority to the Testimony of men they did not send us to humane Witness to Church History to unwritten Tradition to fetch Credibility to it It is the Glorious excellency of this Word of Christ to be the one and the only rule of Judging in all Cases both here now and at the Last Judgment day Which no Testimony of men is honoured withal The whole Scripture is God-inspired whose Testimony is the greatest and the most Credible so are not the after-humane-Testimonies Traditions Histories and Authorities The Books of Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy as commonly now called are more Antient than all other written printed bookes The true pure Word of God is of greatest Authority mens Writings are a Postscript The Grace of sound and of Saving Faith must have Almighty Power Infallible truthfulness unchangeable faithfulness and infinite Wisdom to bottom and to build firmly upon A Believers assent and consent to the Infallible Authority of the written word hath been is and may be brought forth without mens-Testimony History Tradition and Authority Many have been made to believe this before they came to any such Human helps and who neither knew read or considered such Church Histories and Traditions which therefore could not be the cause immediate Adequate and Efficient thereof Where the word it self doth work effectually and savingly in a believing heart there it is embraceingly recieved not the word of man but as it is in truth the word of God Saving Faith cannot bottom upon mens Testimonies which humane Writers will still be needing further Arguments and Testimonies to confirm it The Testimony of man can never of it self perswade and enable savingly to credit the infallible Authority of the written word till the Holy Spirit do infuse sound saving Faith and call and draw it forth into Act Though the other pretended cause of Humane Testimonies and Authorities be put into act yet this effect of sound believing doth not follow Many remain Infidels under the highest esteem and strongest perswasions of Church-Histories and of mens Testimonies and some tempted Saints yet cannot be cured of their unbelieving Fears and of their distrustful doubts by any humane Tradition History or Authority till the Spirit and word of Christ from the Father do come with Demonstration and with Power Saving Faith is Supernatural which mens Testimony from Extrascriptural Arguments is not they do each differ in their whole kind and one cannot be in another The best read Historians and other wise learned men of the World are not the soonest brought to assent and consent to the Authority of the word by the force of any or of all humane Arguments If this Faith which is greater in its self and in its Spiritual effects could be inwrought by mens Testimony then other particular objects of Faith or Truths or things to be beleived which are less Such as are the several Doctrines about Spiritual Eternals Invisibles but not these and therefore neither that also Even as to matters of Fact past besides knowing of them by Inspiration Voice or Visions and by natural causes arguing from them to the effects by humane Report which is called History or Tradition they may be known some other waies when they are needful to be known Matters of Fact past have been and still may be known by lots which where the Case and Cause do call for it is a way of natural appeal to the allknowing God Thus was Achans matter of past fact known and thus also was Jonathans past Fact discovered And thus also in the tryal of Jealousie past Facts of works of darkness in Adulterous Acts were brought to light by an Oath of Execration taken by the suspected party and a solemn address thereupon made to the Heart-searching all-knowing Aelohim And this also I would propound to the Ingenious and Studious for the advance and Augment of this best of Sciences Scripture-knowledges whether by lots and Oathes of Execration natural Appeals solemn-Addresses and by miracles other waies the truthfulness of Scripture-revelation would not yet under the present dispensation of Grace For I revive not any of the Old Testament Figures Types and shadows about any of these then used be thus still confirmed were a Spirit of Faith mingled with a word of Faith put into the prayer of Faith As for Humane report the experience that we have had of our own day and time doth inform us how partial men are in these
erring of their great erring about this Controversie as in many other weighty Cases is because they know not the Scriptures nor the Power of God put forth in a word-way 48 That the cause of mens erring is not therefore because they do not know and acknowledge and own either the Magistral dictates of Humane Rabbies 48 Or the Ancient Records of Vncanonical Church-Histories and Traditions of men 48 49 Or the Councils of the Sanhedrim and the sayings of the ancient Fathers 49 50 Or unwritten verities to be as Scripture Supplements to be received by the people from their Leaders upon trust without tryal 50 Or the judgement opinion and practice of of those who are reputed the Learned and the Godly in the present Age 50 Or the Natio-al Establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of Worship in their humanely invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Leiturgies 50 51 Or man-invented-Arts and Sciences of Philosophical Knowledges and of university humane Learning 51 52 Or the innate or acquired powers of mens own rational Intellect and Will 52 Or Natural Experiments and fleshy sensations 52 53 Or the unscriptural Impulses of Speculative Enthusiasts 53 Or the doubtful questioning of unsettled Scepticks 54 55 That our Faith is not to be resolved into the Authority of fallible men but into the infallible veracity of the truthful Aelohim 54 to 62 That the Old Testament Types and Figures did contain New Testament Institutions as to particular Churches Seals of the Covenant Presbyters Deacons Diaconesses 58 59 60 That Revel 1. 10. Doth not prove any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day of the week 62 to 65 Neither doth Psalm 118. 22-26 65 66 67 Neither doth Act 2. 1 2 c. 67 Nor Ezek. 43 25 26 27. 68 Nor Heb. 4. 9 10 68 to 145 Here the plain meaning and scope of this passage in the Epislle to the Hebrews is given 68. 69 70 Here is further shewn that the Day expressed in the ninety fifth Psalm and referred unto by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not to be understood of the First day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 70 71 72 That the rest spoken of in this is not meant of the Weekly Sabbath Rest 72 73 74 to 77 Where is opened the significancy of the Word Sabbatism in the Graek 〈◊〉 towed from Hebrew Origination as many other Greek words are 74 to 77 That the He mentioned in one passage of this part of this Epistle is meant of the Believer 75 76 77 That the parallel between Workers Works and Rest doth not hold in some things and where in it doth hold is discovered 77 78 79 80 Here is shewn what are the works which Believers do rest from when they enter into this Sabbatism 79 80 The force of the conjunction For is shewn 80 81 As also what the import of the change of of the number from the plural to the singular is 81 82 And how this Rest is both God's Rest and the Believers Rest too 82 83 Here is further manifested that it is a mistake to go about to found a pretended First day Sabbath upon the New Creation as if it precisely began on the Day of Christ's Resurrection 83 to 145 It is Premised that it is a choice Priviledge and a special Liberty which Believers do injoy under the New Testament Administration of Grace 84 85 Where also some objections that do wrest Galat. 4. 9 10. and Colos 2. 8 16 17. are answered 85 86 87 And that the LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under the Old as well as New Testament Dispensation of Grace 87 88 The particulars are here instanced in What the old things are which pass away and what the things are which do become new 88 89 to 92 The renewing of the Covenant in the latter days is spoken to 92. 93 That there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament Administration is asserted and evidenced from the Scriptures Page 93 to pag. 101 And that the whole of the Christian Religion for Doctrines Graces Duties Priviledges and such like parts of that Religion is one and the same under both the Old and New Testament 101 to 108 And in what sense the Seventh-day Sabbath is some ways a sign of this 108 to 116 The new Worship was Typically signified in the Figuring pattern of the Old This is also demonstrated 116 to 120 And that the Law of Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation 120 to 123 And that it is an errour to affirm that the Decalogue has less in it than the Law of Nature At also that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature 123 Vnder this is discovered That to this Decalogue it doth belong to believe that the Soul is 124 And to love our selves with a just and necessary Love 124 125 And to take greatest care to save our souls above our bodies 125 And to tame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation 125 126 And to deny all bodily pleasure profits honour liberty and life for the securing of our Salvation 126 The Old Law of the Ten Words is proved in the Word of Truth to be still the same both to Jew and Gentile It was the Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the new Difference of Horizons and of Climates makes no change of the Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath 126 to 147 The Ingenuous Reader is earnestly desired to correct the Errours in Printing especially those that do much disturb the sense and quite alter the meaning Errours in the Margin are thus to be corrected in the Second Part. For g Gen. page 5. line 1. read g Gen. 2. 2. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 6. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 1 Cor. 15. 3 14. p. 6. l. 17 18. r. 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. f. 17 19. p. 7 l. 11. r. 17. 10. f. Acts 13 24. p. 11. l. 11. r. Acts 13. 14. f. 58. 13. p. 15. l. 16. r. 58. 12. f. Cor. 1. 16. p. 21. l. 35. r. Col. 1. 16. f. Gen. 28. p. 21. l. 40. r. Gen. 1. 28. f. Heb. 7 8. p. 21. l. 41. r. Heb. 2. 7 8. f. Aclum p. 27. l. 25. r. Atrium f. 3. 12. p. 30 l 34. r. 3. 12. 〈◊〉 f. 33 34. p. 31. l. 28. r. 32 33. f. 12 19 p. 31. l. 43. r. 13 19 f. Gnatrereth p. 35. l. 16. r. Gnetzereth f. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 14. r. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 37. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. pag. 110. to pag. 120. of this Treatise p. 38. l. 11 12 13. r. pag. 91. to page 103. of the first Part of
the last and best day of the Week to take my sweet repose in him who formed all these things and who had brought forth such a world somewhat for me vile unworthy sinful me But that which was and is through the Grace of God an Holy Rest to me has been and is like further to be through the corruptions of men a troublesom Controversie from them Must I now be made a man of contention who have so much desired and endeavoured to be a man of Peace My LORD is going forth in his comely Honour riding upon the word of his Truth and he will prosper His Truth is victorious for this must I be valiant and earnestly contend in his strength For this end was he born and for this cause came he into the world that he should bear witness unto the Truth Every one that is of the Truth heareth his voice Happy is he who has a good report of the Truth it self In the Order of my pursuit after the refining and raising of useful Arts and profitable Knowledges I am now led to that day the Seventh which is the last day in the week wherein Aelohim the Creator himself did Sabbatize on this day he rested to contemplate his own Works For having now framed and disposed the glorious Fabrick and the goodly structure of the whole Universe and having put it into its beauteous ceconomy and regular Polity he closeth the week with a day blessed above all the other foregoing days of the Week The righteous cause of which sanctified Day I am now to plead against the many Contenders against it Having thus in a former Treatise attended followed and walked with Aelohim in some of his great Works on the several distinct six foregoing days of this created World I am now brought to Sabbatize and rest with and in Him on his Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath There are divers profitable Disquisitions that might be made with respect to the Seventh which is the last Day of every Week For the advancement of this Holy Art and for the Improvement of this Spiritual Science which would be a great promoting to this useful Learning As Q. Whether every Day of the week be of equal length Particularly whether the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week be not longer in time and have more minutes in it than the First day of the week If the Seventh-day be found longer in time it has a concreated Excellency in nature unchangeable dignoscible to Sense Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be from Shabath or from Jachab If from Shabath there are many Truths and Duties which that word would clear up and also demonstrate the Observation of the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath before the Promulgation of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do point out the daily and weekly seasons of created instituted time for daily-evening-and-morning-Worship and for weekly-Sabbath-Worship Q. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not in divers Scriptures set out the Seventh the last day of the Week and this in some places before Aelohims proclaiming of the Ten words at Horeb Q. Whether the LORD Jesus Christ having risen again the Third day according to the Scriptures that Third day be the Full complete Third day from the time of his burial and what that particular large day of the week was and what the certain hour of that particular large day was in which He did actually arise and what Scripture-evidence there is of this which is queried not at all in the least to question the Truth of his Resurrection which we firmly believe but rather to strengthen our Faith therein and to promote Scripture-knowledg of the Doctrine of Christs Resurrection upon which the whole of the Christian Religion doth so much depend and for some other good ends For the present there are some weighty reasons why I do not interpose my own Apprehensions about these Quaeries but leave them to those who are of studious inquiring Spirits who by a deeper search into the word of Truth in the Supplies of the Holy Spirit may make those Discoveries that will at once both convince and shame the ignorant-mistaking-World Whilst for the better satisfaction of serious seekers after Christs mind about the weekly-Sabbath I shall in a Word-way through the whole Scripture where this Case is spoken to and of treat of this one Enquiry returning a plain and as I judge a full Answer thereunto Q. Whether the Seventh Day which is the last Day in and of the Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the old-Testament-administration of Grace through and be so under the New Testament Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-Sabbath-day A. The Seventh-day which is the last day in and of the week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof has been from the beginning and so continued to be all the Old-Testament-Administration of Grace through and is so under the New-Testament-Dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the end of this World the weekly-Sabbath-day The whole Scripture is profitable for this Doctrine and for this Duty This closing part of the History of the Creation is express for it When Jehovah Aelohim had finished all his Works relating unto the six foregoing days of this one week The LORD Christ now on the Seventh-day actually perfected and will continue actually perfect in the whole and in every part of it His delegated-work which he had made adornedly-really to exist preparedly perfected and He did then Sabbatize and his will was is and will be that from thence his people shall Sabbatize ceasing resting from other motion and work of the fore-mentioned creating kind In a Day that Seventh from all his Work the which he had made and he did and will bless in word and in deed in a continued way in the weekly revolutions of it as long as weeks shall last in this world That day That Seventh and he did and will sanctifie by severing it from a common use and destinating it to an Holy Use accomodating it to instituted Ordinances of solemn Worship the same because in it he hath sabbatized and will Sabbatize from all his work the which he had created pure without spot or blemish of corruptness or uncomeliness for to make This Seventh is a Number completely perfecting the Week For when such a number of days hath filled up the week then we begin again with one second third fourth fifth and sixth till it comes to another seventh And there the Week in the continued revolutions thereof doth still receive a perfective end The Greek Interpreters here as in a many of other Scriptures else where are Corrupters of the Hebrew Text who do translate in the sixth day for the Seventh and
their pretended reason is frivolous lest the Heathen should think mistaking the phrase that Aelohim did work upon the Seventh-day-Sabbath Whereas he had finished the whole and every part of his creating work upon the several six foregoing days of this one week of the created world Only he did that on the Seventh-day which was proper Sabbath-Work As the making of the Seventh-day the resting from other Functions upon it to institute and observe Sabbath-duties employments and priviledges the blessing of it the sanctifying of it together with his preserving of the Creatures which he had made on the six foregoing days and with his and his Fathers providential working to the upholding of them in their Being Those who do call the First day the Seventh day and the Seventh day the sixth day making the First day to be both the First and the Seventh day and so do alter the names of the number of all the rest do invert the Order of nature in the First Creation For although in consistent quantity such as Extension of parts one beyond another there is not one second third fourth and so on or not one first and another last put into the nature of that created Being because these are not really in the confistent Nature thereof it being consistent altogether and so the first part may be the last part or the last part the first part according to mens common notion and reckoning and appointing of it to be so the LORD not having instituted herein any such Order of Numbring where we are to begin and how to go on and where to end yet in quantity successive as in duration and in time this is of a different consideration both in the nature of the thing and in Aelohims institution For this is really such in existence truly subsisting whether we imagine it or not neither is it left in our power to our disposal to put them into any other Order than the creating Messaiah hath so far as doth respect his established times and his instituted Seasons There is one day a second day a third day a fourth day a fifth day a sixth day and a seventh day in the several successive natures and durations of every one of them Here is part after part by temporary succession in a most direct line and in its proper Partitions and terminating points by an unchangeable Law and well-setled-order of the standing Creation The Work of the six foregoing Days Aelohim did rest from leaving man an example to follow him herein on the Seventh-day-Sabbath The Seventh-day is to be remitted unto Workers who laboured in their several lawful Functions on every day of the week before and therefore Aelohim blessed this Seventh-day because he himself rested on it and sanctified it unto Adam the Sabbath was made for Adam for all mankind in him He hath made he doth he will make it a blessed day in its weekly returns unto the due diligent observers thereof in obedience to his Command in obsequiousness to his Will in Conformity to his Example in Faith on his Truth Power and Promise For this Day hath he severed unto his own service along That Expression For-tomake or to-do doth not so appear to belong unto he had created as to relate unto he will sabbatize or ceasingly rest The preceding Hebrew accent doth somewhat teach this which doth often distinguish so that it signifies that Adam and his posterity ought to do this to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath as holy and consecrated to Jehovah Aelohim it is their bounden duty to do the same The like phrase we find elsewhere in the Hebrew to make or to do the Day of Sabbath or the Sabbath Which is to observe to keep or to celebrate it The expression is full noting that that Instituted-Seventh-day-Sabbath-work may not be left undone for that time or put off to any other season either before or after Having thus somewhat explained and applyed the Expressions concerning the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath in its primitive Creation and unchanged Institution I am now to make a little way for the giving the Reader a more particular distinct full Account according to the Scriptures of Truth why I do judge that the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week in the weekly Returns of it is alone that particular peculiar day in every Week which is the Weekly Sabbath-day to be kept Holy unto Jehovah Aelohim in obedience to his command as such that is to say as the alone weekly Sabbath-day If any man hereafter will engage by Writing or Printing in this Controversie against me whereby to endeavour to build up if he could his first day on the ruines of the Seventh-day-Sabbath let him take notice and remember that I mention my Judgment on this as in other cases Subject-matter to be according to the Scriptures of Truth and that I expect both he and I should submit our Judgment and Practise unto the Autoritative decisive Judgment of the Spirit of Christ in the word of Truth Those that do resolve such cases of Conscience about Duty or Sin into other Authorities do judge but according to appearance That judgment which is righteous judgment is such as is according to the Scriptures Words of Rightness O how powerful are they As for other arguing it hath not that Efficacy of convincing Pauls way of reasoning was out of the Scriptures and his Method of proving was from the Scriptures and Apollos took the same course to convince the erroneous They are the Scriptures that we are to search which those of Berea did daily even when a Paul was the Speaker to them which did evidence them to be a good kind of Christians and Believers These Holy Scriptures are the Scriptures of Truth The Word of Christ is the Word of Truth It is The Truth If any bring a Doctrine or a Reproof or a Correction or an Instruction they should have whatsoever things were written aforetime to be written for these the whole Scripture must be shewn to be profitable for these it was given for such an end That the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good Works We may not add unto the Word which Jehovah doth command us neither are we to diminish ought from it that we may keep his Commandments who is the God of his people which he doth command us These Holy Scriptures are they which are able to make us wise to Salvation Though eminent Apostles or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto us than we have received we should carry our selves towards him as towards one excommunicate If any let him be what he will though he have never so great a name for Learning and for Religion do teach otherwise and come not up to wholesom Words the Words of our LORD Jesus Christ these are nourishing healthy food other words not agreeing with these are empty Chass and to the Doctrine which is according to right Worship we
this not as I will but as thou Not what I will but what thou will Not my will but thine be done Lo I come to do thy will I utter thy truth and thy Salvation I do not conceal thy bountifulness and thy Faithfulness in the great Congregation Christ did not in the least go beyond or beside his Fathers will and word The New Testament is full of this The sitting at Christs right Hand and at his left was not in Christs Power to give but or except or if not to those for whom it is prepared of my Father so Christ told the Sons of Zebedee and their Mother It was his to give but only to such as were specified in the Fathers Grant to him Thus he elsewhere affirms of himself what the Son hath seen and heard that he testifieth no more no less no other than that he whom god hath sent that is Christ whom the Father hath sent speaketh the words of God My meat is that I do the will of him that sent me and Finish his work The Son can do nothing of him self except he see the father do it whatsoever he doth also doth the Son likewise I can of my self do nothing I seek not my will but the will of the Father that sent me The Father gave me works to finish The father himself hath sent me Iam come in my Fathers name I came down from Heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me my Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own Glory but he that seeketh his Glory that sent him the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him I am not come of my self but he that sent me is true I do nothing of my self but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things I do alwaies those things which he hath appointed I speak that which I have seen with my Father I came not of my self but he sent me I have not spoken of my self but the Father which sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say and what I should speak and I know that his Commandment is life everlasting Whatsoever I speak therefore even as the Father said unto me so I speak the words that I spake unto you I speak not of my self the word which you hear is not mine but the Fathers which sent me I have kept my Fathers Commandements all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Thus also the LORD Jesus Christ acknowledgeth in his Prayer to his Father Father thou hast given thy Son Power over all Flesh that he should give eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do I have manifested thy name unto the Men which thou gavest me out of the world Thine they were and thou gavest them me and they have kept thy word I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them An exact punctual just accompt of this great undertaking and Transacting will Christ give and deliver up to his Father in the latter day The discerning Reader may see how express Christ is in this matter he exerciseth his Power according to his Fathers will and word And the Father as also the Son from the Father hath not revealed any such thing in the word of truth as the Change of the Weekly Sabbath from the last to the first day of the Week There is no appearance of any such Institution or Command Christ came not to make a Change in any one of the Laws of the ten words where did the Father put any such words into Christs mouth and where did Christ ever speak any such words As Christ was to speak what words the Father put into his mouth So also the Holy Spirit of Truth whom the Father sent in Christs name he was not to speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear saith Christ to his Disciples that shall ye speak How much less should any meer Man or Men speak a word about a pretended Change of the Sabbath which is a saying of their own and not a word from the Father Son and Holy Spirit in this or in any other Case It was the LORDs charge and Promise to Moses I will be with thy mouth and with Aarons mouth and will teach you what ye shall do speak thou all that I say unto thee And Moses has a Scripture-testimonial that he was Faithful in all Gods House It is mentioned to his Praise above forty times that Moses did as Jehovah commanded him The same was in Jeremiahs commission which he confesseth Jehovah said unto me I have put my words in thy mouth and this Jehovah affirms of Jeremiah my words in thy mouth Thus saith Jehovah was the usual message that the Faithful Prophets brought to the People and it is expresly mentioned about one thousand and five hundred times in the Scriptures besides other such like words as thus saith Jehovah Aelohim of Israel and thus saith Jehovah of Hosts often Now who can say with any truth in his saying thus saith Jehovah The first day of the Week is the Sabbath Weekly in the Room of the Seventh the last day of the Week I am now to speak of the Promise There is no Promise made to the observing of any other day in the Week as the Weekly-Sabbath-day but only of the seventh-day which is the last day in the Week in the weekly returns of it Here all that might be resumed which is Written about Aelohims Blessing of the seventh day and that only as the Weekly Sabbath-day To which also might be added all those promises which more at large are made over to those that keep and obey all and every of the Commands of Jehovah Aelohim Whereof this of observing of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath is one But I would keep close to this Subject matter The seventh-day-Sabbath is a gift from Jehovah Aelohim to be a sign between him and between his People to the end they may know that he is Jehovah sanctifying them And that he is Jehovah their God How free is that Love how rich that Grace which is put in to this Covenant And this is annexed to the seventh day as the Sabbath of Rest Holiness to Jehovah What kind of sign this is may be spoken unto in another place Moses in his repeating of this Law of the Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath doth four several-times put this Covenant of Grace by Express terms into this Command whereby Hearts should be the more
away those Idolatrous Names of daies As Sunday c. of which Jebovah has prophesied that He will cut them off Having thus far attended the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath in its strait-footed walk in a plain path through the whole Scripture there thwarts the Reader now a straying company that would perswade him to get into another way along with them the way of the first day as the weekly-Sabbath as if this were now the New-Testament-Dispensation And for this they would have him to consider these Scriptures in the Margin as Translated out of the Greek into English Before I return an express direct Answer to the several particular Scriptures themselves I advise the Reader to ask these Transferrers of the Weekly-Sabbath-day from the seventh to the first day of the week when they judg it was that the first day of the week began to be the weekly Sabbath-day Most will say that it began on the particular day of Christ's Resurrection by Christ himself Some few will assert that it was a little after that Resurrection by the Apostles of Christ but all of them will acknowledge that it was before any part of the New-Testament was written It being so then let the Reader improve this last Concession and further demand of these men if one of the Apostles as Peter by name for Supposition had preached up this Doctrine that the Weekly Sabbath-day under the New-Testament-Administration of Grace was translated and changed from the Seventh which is the last day of Week to the first day of the week and that one of the Hearers had asked Peter upon what Scripture do you bottom this Doctrine How are whatsoever words of God were heretofore written Profitable and written for such a Doctrine What Answer do these Men imagine that Peter could have returned The New Testament was not then written and all the Scriptures which they then had were the Writings of the Old Testament Those of Moses and of the Prophets This Hearer searcheth these and can meet with no such thing in the Preceptive or Prophetical or Promissary part of that Word neither could any other refer him to clear-convincing-proofs of this How then could this Man be well satisfied that this was True Doctrine when he could not find it in his Bible but the quite contrary all the Old Testament through another day the Seventh in order of Created Time all along Commanded and commended And if this Hearer should further have asked Peter If I should work upon the seventh-day contrary to the Precept in the Law what Scriptures would bear me out in so doing when I appear before the righteous Judg who has in so many Words forbid this and so often in all the Scriptures that I have which speak of this thing and if I do not observe the first day as the Weekly-Sabbath-day but do work on that day having Aelohim's Command and Example for it what Scriptures have you by which to reprove me After this Arguing what could Peter have replyed to this from Old-Testament-Scripture I leave the Reader further to improve this in his Study and Meditation For the Christianized believers did search the Scriptures whether those things which the Apostles of Christ taught them were so or not even in the Case of Paul himself who was one of the most Eminent and most used of them all I shall now in the supplies of the Spirit of Holiness according to the word of Truth discover the deceitful colours of these Mens wrestings of some Scriptures and then shew the Reader the convincing reprehension of those Colours Which colours how fair soever to outward appearance for a while yet are a false Disguise a Paint that will melt away before the fire of the Word The Fallacies are soon detected and confuted before a discerning and judicious an unprejudiced and Impartial Reader There are some Scriptures in our English Bibles of the New-Testament say these Objectors which do speak of the first day of the week as the day of Christ's Resurrection when he rested from his work of Redemption which is now appointed and determined as the Weekly-Sabbath-day unto the Church in memory of Christ's Resurrection One of the Sabbaths doth frequently occur and is the same with the first day of the week One being often put for First the Numeral for the Cardinal The generality of the Antients both Greek and Latin agree whose Testimony about the sense of aWord is the best Dictionary and Evidence we can expect and this same phrase used of the day of Christ's Resurrection by the Evangelists proveth it Thus they say The Resurrection of Our LORD Jesus Christ from the Dead on the third day according to the Scriptures I thankfully acknowledg together with the many exceeding great and precious priviledges and benefits thereof and through Mercy and Grace I do firmly believe and particularly apply This true Doctrine is one main part of that solid Foundation on which we are to bottom our Hope and O how gladly could I here lay aside this Controversie and be taken up with sweet Delight and with Rapturing joy into an Heavenly Meditation on an arisen Saviour Here could I leave this unkind World and wrangling-generation and get up above that I might rise with Christ to be where he is to behold his Glory O how willingly could I here breath and long desire and pant that this arisen Redeemer whom my Soul loves would be with my Spirit that my spirit might be more with him O that I might more Experimentally sensibly satisfyingly Know and acknowledge that Power that Vertue of his Resurrection That I might more and better Evidence my being planted into it by walking in Newness of life Here could I bid this Fallacious Sophistry of Quarrellers with Christ's weekly seventh-day-Sabbath to stay behind whilst I find my heart with much Complacencie safely lodged in a full Christ and in his sull Word O the Savourie-nourishing-Meditations that this Subject-Matter would afford Here the admiring Soul may pass into a spiritual-Rest by silent-Thinkings secret Adorings Marvelling-loves Exalting-Praises and Filling-enjoyments But the Reader expects an Answer In all the places of the New Testament relating to the matter in hand where the last English Translation doth render it the first day of the week the Words do properly signify one of the Sabbaths except only in one place where it is the first day of the Sabbath The meaning whereof may be afterwards opened All the other places you may find cited in the Margin and the words in the Greek rightly done into English in every one of these are one of the Sabbaths not the first day of the week nor the first of Sabbaths nor the alone Day or only day or Sabbaths Not at all concluding the first day of the week to be now the Weekly Sabbath-day in the room of the seventh which the words do not mean either in their proper Significancie or intended sense as they stand in Syntax or Coherence
and Collated with other Scriptures For they wholly refer to another Matter and to other Sabbaths than the Flatterers of the first day do lay a wrong Claim to As for that word in the Feminin gender which they do translate First but signifieth One I have examined the Exactest * Concordances of the Greek New-Testament and I find it Seventy and nine times used there or about that number and upon a searche into all and every of the places the translation of one of the Learnedest who doth correct the Vulgar Latin Interpretation is One. I could mention more Translators if there were need only for the Information of such Readers as do understand only English the Dutch Annotators and Translators in five of those seven places forementioned in the Margin do acknowledge that the Greek word doth signifie One Only in two of the seven which yet do relate to the same Greek words they render it First without expresly mentioning the true proper significancy of the Greek word which is One which was in five other places done by them Whereby the discerning Reader may observe what their Judgment was in those other two places and no where else that I have yet found of all the rest of the Seventy and nine times do they translate it First but only in one place more I have taken care in going over every one of the particular places and I do not knowingly or willingly misreport any one Quotation The Masculin and Neuter gender of the same word whereof the sorementioned is the Feminin in their several Cases are used in the New Testament Two hundred and seventy or seventy one times As the forementioned Concordances do set them down in every one of which those words are rendred by one of the most Skilful-literal-Translators One In one place he leaves out one Clause in the Original wherein one of those words is and so he translates it not at all but leaves the Vulgar Latin Interpretation in the Margin where it is taken in and rendred One. And in another place he puts in one word for another and renders some One or a certain one for One. In all those Two hundred and seventy or seventy one places the Dutch Annotators and Translators do not in any one of all those Scriptures give this Word in either Masculin or Neuter Gender the significancy of First but always of One. No man that understands the Greek significancy of this Word can but confess if he will speak out the Truth that the Greek word is Properly Primitively One from a Verb which doth denote to be For a being is Unity As for the other word translated Sabbath Sabbaths Upon search I discover that It is used Sixty and eight times in the New Testament In every one of which places that Skilful-literal-Translator spoken of before doth render it Sabbath Sabbaths in the Singular or Plural according as the number is The Dutch Annotators and Translators do render it Sabbath Sabbaths in every one of the places according to the Greek though in Nine places they render it Week also Eight of which do relate to the matter under debate yet in every one of them acknowledging the Greek significancy in its propriety of speech to be Sabbath or Sabbaths All Lexicons and Languages that do derive it from the Hebrew do give this to be the true Genuine Primitive proper significancy of the word which the very sound of the Word doth prove to every Ear that hears it Let then the words be in the Translation as they truly really signify One of the Sabbaths Which if it were done and received as it ought to be what a Scriptureless thing would the first day of the week be discovered even by plain Understandings to be No Translation of Scripture is any further the Word of God than it doth exactly agree with the Original Those who do translate these words the first day of the week do borrow a Phrase which is meerly Talmudical and not Scriptural and it is Invented by Men not grounded upon the Word of God As the words themselves in their own sense are not at all either against the Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath or for the first day of the week as the weekly Sabbath now which is the Common pretence and the mistaken Plea So neither is the meaning of them in any of those places as they are Construed in Syntax standing in the coherence of the Text or as compared with other Scriptures Those places which are cited out of the Four Evangelists the other will be spoken to in their order do in all and in every one of them relate to the Passover-Sabbaths on one of which Christ arose from the Dead The Word of Truth doth here expresly call and name them Sabbaths and therefore we must own it that they were such to wit Sabbaths days of Holy Rest The Authority of the Scriptures should suffice upon which this Appellation doth strongly bottom All the Evangelists are express for the Passover at which time these seven Festival days were and other Scriptures in the Old Testament do agree hereto For under that former Dispensation there were other days in the year as the days of the Passover of Pentecost of Booths of the Fcast of Expiation which are called Sabbaths in express words Shadowie Figuring Typical Sabbaths they were The Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath is a natural Weekly-standing-Sabbath of a different nature from the other Consider further that the first and the last days of that Paschal-Festival are expresly called and named Holy Convocations or Convocations of Holiness So they were to be unto the Israelites They were not to do any Function of Servileneâ—s in them The same Command as to this that is given for the observation of the Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath in the Fourth Word Which doth shew that they were to be kept as Sabbaths The same thing for the Publick Worship and service they were to do To a day every one of those seven days of this Passover-Feast besides the Ascension the Burnt-Offering which was the Dayly-Sacrifice a Burnt-Offering of Continuation which was offered up every day without any intermitting The same thing also which was injoyned on the Seventh-day-Sabbath There were also all the offerings and oblations of the New Moon and somewhat more For it exceeded the sacrifices of the Feast by one Bull and a Ram. Every one of these seven days were Holy Assemblics Feasts to Jehovah and when performed aright they were the savour of his Rest The last day of this Paschal Festival is called in Hebrew a day of Restraint because though so many days together had been Sabbatized on before yet the people of God should not be weary of their priviledg but be willingly restrained one day longer from their servile Work and be retained together in the Publick Holy Assembly Thus deriving its significancy from a root that signities
the other do depend hanging on them as doors do upon their Cardins or Hinges as One two three four and soon In that first Instance that we have in the Scriptures of the Hebrew word for One One Day there was then no other Day in Being or in Order which might note any other Number It shews what that was and is which made and doth make up that one compleat full Day to wit Evening and Morning Darkness and Light Night and Day Numerals Cardinals do answer to a Question made by asking How many To which the Answer then must if rightly be made One Only one There being then in the nature of Day-Existences but only that One day a large compleat Full-Day In the Hebrew it is expresly in number One Day There is an Holy Harmony and a consenting Oneness between the Old Testament and the New all sweetly and joyntly Concurring in the same Heavenly Doctrine As for what they further Object that If it were one of the Sabbaths then the Greek word for One should be of the Neuter not of the Feminin Gender to agree with its Substantive Consider One is a Numeral Cardinal properly not Ordinal Noun Adjective and therefore it doth signify a thing in the Concrete In reason or signification it must have another word joyned with it which sometimes one Scripture doth add when another Scripture speaking of the same thing doth not express the particular Substantive that belonged to it to put us upon a diligent search and a due collating of Scriptures Compare those two Scriptures in the Margin for this Which do relate to the Passover-Festival What in one of the places is the First of the Unleavened is in the other the First Day of those unleavened Thus in the places under Debate a Greek word which doth signify Day is to be understood because these are Parallel places with another place where this is particularly expressed with respect to this self-same-thing and so is not my Excogitated Fancy but the plain Interpretation of the Holy Spirit Himself who dictated and inspired this word of truth The place should be examined where it is In a Day that One of those Sabbaths Here the word One has the word Day going before it and must again have that word Day brought and added to it to stand by it Where One being an Adjective partitive and being here taken Partitively doth rejoyce in a word of the Genitive Case The word for Day also in other Scriptures relating to other matters is also expresly added to this Adjective One and is so be rendred One day One of those days There needs no more about this For the Objectors themselves do acknowledg that Day is here understood though not expressed in these places Which now puts me upon examining of that place where it is the first of the Sabbath First here being an Adjective of the Feminin Gender and Governing Sabbath a Substantive which is of the Neuter Gender must necessarily be supplyed by some other word as all that know any thing of Grammar-significancy and Syntax do acknowledg Now what that word must be we are to enquire That word which I judg must supply it here must be some such word as doth signify an Hour or point or moment or minute or such like as doth point out some of the first part of the earliness of the morning of that Sabbath when Christ stood before Mary and appeared and manifested himself unto her to have been arisen before This being one of those particular Sabbaths which are mentioned in a former verse of the same Chapter in the Plural number and these Sabbaths were but a little before demonstrated to be the Sabbaths of the Paschal-Festival and therefore proves nothing as to a supposed pretended change of the Weekly-Sabbath-day from the seventh to the first day of the Week Further if we compare two Scriptures It is expresly said of another day referring to the same Passover-Feast which this day under Debate doth That it was the first day of that Feast Unleaveneds when they of that Dispensation were to meet to cat unleavened Bread throughout the Seven days of that Passover-festival Consider then Can this latter day which came after be the First day when there is another going before relating to the same matter the same Feast which is called or named the First-day There is somewhat much like this in another Scripture on the day of Christ's Crucifixion when he dyed on that day Jesus was led by Caiaphas to the Praetorium or Judgment-house and it was Early-morning or Morning-season or rather Morning-Early Hour or Watch For some word here must be understood Thus with respect to the matter in hand t is the Earliness of the Morning of that Sabbath as I said which is there pointed out as you may observe in the History by every one of the Evangelists that do mention it So that it is Rationally Scripturally inferred that First must be supplyed with Hour or some such word We read elswhere of a Third Sixth Ninth and Eleventh Hour of the day and of twelve hours of the Day and these do make up an whole day as distinguished from the Night-part And therefore there is a First Hour of the Day The beginning of numbring the Day part of a large Day is from the going forth of the Light and of the Sun The first Hour whereof is the first Twelfth part so numbred of the Day-part On the first hour of that Sabbath of that Day one of the Paschal-Sabbaths Christ appearing to be standing before Mary Christ having been arisen from the Dead sometime before that For there passed some time between Christ's Actual Arising and this appearing Mary had been at the Sepulchre before this while it was yet Dark and Christ was arisen then She found not her LORD there whereupon she ran and gave an accompt to Peter and came about again remaining a while at the Sepulchre having some conference with the Angels and with Christ himself a while before she knew Him Mary came very much in the Morning So that Christ's standing before Mary points out not his first Minute of arising but his time of appearing to her Sabbath here being in the Singular Number one particular distinct Sabbath-day of those Paschal-Sabbaths forespoken of and therefore cannot be a proper supply to First For then it must run thus The First day of the Sabbath Whereas This Sabbath was it self a Day Here in the Way how groundless and Scriptureless is the Conjecture of that Advocate for the First day-Sabbath who from hence to wit Christ's time of arising as he judgeth it would date the beginning of the First days pretended Holy Rest to be the Morning of the First day of the week and to last but from Morning till the Evening making the Night-part to be no part of the weekly-Sabbath and as having no place in the spiritual Rest
it Disciples and believers at Christian-assemblies were not to come empty on the first day of the week but were on that day to deposite what they brought in to the Treasury of the Church And this has been the practice of all the Christian Churches in the World since the Apostles daies For which there is the Evidence of Church-history in this matter of Fact into which Humane Authority this must be resolved For this evidence of this Churches Vniversal constant usage is a full and sufficient proof of the matter of Fact That the First day was set apart by the Apostles for Holy worship especially in the publick Church assemblies They that will deny the Validity of this Historical evidence do by consequence betray the Christian Faith or give away or deny the necessary means of proving the truth of it and of many great particulars of Religion For without this Historical evidence we cannot make good the Authority of any one single verse or text of Scripture which we shall alledg because we are not certain of that particular Text or words whether it have been altered or added or corrupted by the Fraud of the Hereticks or the partiality of some Christians or the oversight of Scribes c. thus these objecters The Spirit of these Objecters is now to be tryed whether it be according to Christ and the word of Christ or not Which shall be done by a strict examination of the two Comprehensive particulars more especially whether the Scriptures alledged be truly Translated and rightly Interpreted and meetly applyed as to the present Case in hand either for matter of Fact or for matter of Right And whether Human Church Histories be of such Authority with reference to the certainty and verity of Scripture and of the Christian Faith and Religion conteined therein As for those expressions in our last English Translation of the First day of the week in the places cited I have shewn before that the words in the propriety of speech according to the truth of Grammar-etymology in their proper significancy and regimen of syntax are one of the Sabbaths the Notation of which Phrase in its plain meaning exactly agreeing with the real Nature of the thing punctually set out by it it has been discovered and proved that as to those places in the Evangelists it was one of the Paschal Sabbaths which doth speak nothing as to any substituting of the First day of the week in the room of the Seventh day as the Weekly Sabbath now which is the pretence of our Opposers As neither do the other Scriptures cited where that Expression is used once in the Acts of the Apostles and another time in the first Epistle to the Corinthians for one of the Sabbaths In that place of the Acts was one of those Seven Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost as will be evident to an unprejudiced diligent Comparer of the Scriptures cited in the Margin which is quite another thing from what the adversaries do urge it for And as for the evidence of this there is express mention made both of the feast of unleavened Bread which was the Passover-Feast in the verse immediately going before the place cited and also of Pentecost in nine verses after relating to that season in the same year within the compass of which two Feasts inclusively were seven Sabbaths upon one of which that meeting was of Paul with the Disciples Which doth hold forth a clear Truth contrary to what it is alledged for As for what Paul did more after that Sabbath day was over at the going in of the Sun when another day came on which was meerly occasional he being in a preparedness to depart on the next day after the Sabbath Such as his continuing of his speech till midnight his raising up Eutychus his eating of Brèad his talking with them a long while even till break of day then departing So long Preaching and conference all the Night long is not to be enforced as a necessary Sabbath-duty the Scriptures no where so enjoyning it and if this objector would assert it so far at least as till the midnight according to his account of an whole day in England from midnight to midnight which I have shewn in this treatise to be no right reckoning but contrary to the word of truth Let him and the other learned man whom I answered but a little before who shuts out the night-part from being any part of the weekly-Sabbath-day let them I say if they can find no better work for their time contend about that matter This Night-part belonging to the after day-part as making up the whole next day after the Sabbath was not observed by Paul as the weekly-Sabbath for you may there Read how some of the Disciples went before to ship and sayled to Assos there intending to take in Paul For so had he appointed minding himself to go afoot And when he met with them at Assos they took him in and came to Mytilene this was no Weekly-Sabbath-work no necessity nor mercy enforcing or warranting them thereunto As for the breaking of Bread whether that expressed in the seventh or the other in the eleventh verse if it were admitted to be used in the Administration and participation of the LORD's Supper yet this objector himself doth affirm that it was often done by Apostles and Disciples on other daies of the week than on that which he so earnestly contends for And whereas he doth assert that no day else but only the First day of the Week was peculiarly appointed for breaking of Bread in that ordinance Whither shall we go for a warrant and proof of this We find no such appointment by our LORD in the Scriptures and the Objector cannot but acknowledg that our LORD Jesus Christ did institute and administer it at the first appointing and dispensing of that New-Testament ordinance of the supper on another day of the Week than the first day For the Objector affirms elsewhere that the passover day in that year was the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath and Paul doth expresly say that it was the same Night in which he was betrayed then it was that he took the Bread and the Cup in this LORDly Supper And this did Paul receive from the LORD and so did deliver it unto that Corinthian-Church of Saints as that word-Rule by which they were to reform their abuses which had crept in amongst them as to that ordinance particularly and according unto which they were exactly to measure all their Administrations If this Objector do urge humane Authorities without Scripture-evidence we shall shew the vanity and weakness the incogency and unconvincingness of that empty Plea after a while Reader exercise thy discerning here Is there any thing in this place that speaks at all of any change of the weekly-Sabbath from the Seventh to the first day of the Week do either the significancy of the words or the intendment of the place or the force of
of any other place through the Word of Truth The Words in their true proper significancy are according to one of the Sabbaths The Article being omitted here it doth signifie distributely according to one or other or each of those Sabbaths So that the day here specified doth relate to some one or other of those Sabbath-Festivals fore-mentioned There were Harvest-Seasons when the fruits of the earth came in and they could judge somewhat of their Increase in corn and gain That Word which is translated a Collection is such a Collect or Collation as is concluded by Reasoning an inferring from reckoning and casting up an account every one as it went well with him in his Voyage Journey and Trade at such seasons of the year when the profits came in whether at and from the Sea or the Land and so the Word signifies in propriety of Speech according as the LORD hath given a good Voyage or a prosperous way or Journey accordingly should they honour Aelohim with their substance and increase by setting apart a due proportion out of their Estates to relieve needy ones The charitable supplying of the poor with necessaries especially if poor Saints which was the Case here is a natural Religious Duty under all the Dispensations of Grace Old and New A Law of Mercy and of Love still in force and ever will be whilst there are such Objects of pity Some few such I do know who do practise suitably treasuring somewhat every year and at some quarterly Incomes and sometimes by shorter Returns out of their revenue and increase out of which to take as Cases do call for it being in a preparedness through Grace to part with the rest if necessity were such So that upon all such occasions they readily go and fetch out of that store which was laid up for such a purpose in a way of thankful acknowledgment of Gods blessing of them in their outward Estate Paul intended to come to Corinth about that season of the year when Ship-ladings at Sea or Harvest-gatherings at Land had been brought in and therefore it is that he thus Exhorts them Laws about Mercy and Charity are scattered up and down in many Scriptures and it were easie to gather several of them together if need were Which Laws ever had for the substance of them a natural equity binding all mankind but more especially those who were Church-Members in Fellowship I refer to some few in the Margin Pauls advice here was a prosecution of a further direction to pursue Love which he had so largely described and commended a little before Nothing appears in all this of any appointing or instituting of a new Weekly-Sabbath-day in the room of the old the Seventh-day which was so from the beginning There is another word further in the objected place which doth respect the Treasury of Alms near the Temple into which some sort of Tithes Gifts Gold Silver and such like were brought for the relief of the Levite Stranger Widow Poor Of this Treasury the Reader may consult the several Scriptures in the Margin Having opened the expression of one of the Sabbaths and shewn that it refers in all the places to another matter and purpose than that for which it is brought there is somewhat yet further to be spoken to about Christs appearing to his Disciples on the Day of his Resurrection Which was observed say the Objectors by them as the new Weekly-Sabbath-day in memory of his Resurrection as is pretended c. That the Disciples did not meet on that day as now the weekly-Sabbath-day in memory of Christs Resurrection is evident because they did not the most of them at that time believe that he was arisen For which their misbelief their LORD and Master doth check and rebuke them he having so often inculcated this thing upon them about his Suffering his Death and his Resurrection How often had he told them that he was to rise again from the dead on the third day That Word Third is mentioned Twelve times in the New Testament plainly pointing out the particular day of Christs Resurrection and in several of those places it is recorded that they with their own Ears heard Christ affirming of it again and again over and over upon several occasions In every one of the places the Article is added and prefixed and to one of them the Article is doubled All which put together do shew the Emphatical Significancy and Force the Demonstrativeness of it noting a certain determinate day to be known of all that would seriously consider it The same word for Significancy in another part of Speech is used four times in the new Testament Three times by Christ himself to point out the certain determinate Day of his Resurrection to be the Third Day VVhich also in one of those four times is expresly acknowledged by his Adversaries themselves who laboured to obscure the glory thereof In one of the places both the distinct parts of an whole natural large day are punctually set down with respect to every one of the several three days Three days and three nights used for the whole time of the darkness and light in one succeeding course and exemplified as to the matter of Fact in the Case of a particular person of Jonah the History of whom is one of the Books of the Scriptures of Truth who was herein a Type of Christ As to his being raised on the third day It is a day distinct from two complete fore-going Days In one of the places that Christ might make sure of clearing this matter to their understandings and fixing it the deeper in their memories so as it might not leak through their Vessel of Remembrance and also of having the three days and the three nights included he expresseth it by a Preposition signifying after after three For so is the meaning of it when it governs an Accusative Case and this Praeposition is confessed in one of the places by his open Enemies and if those thought on it and called it to mind the more excuseless were the Disciples who did not for a while so credit it Whereby it is manifest That they could not actually design this as the end of observing such a day which themselves did not yet believe so to be though it were declared to them by some to whom he had appeared So that this part of the Objection is Scriptureless and Reasonless and as for Christs appearing to the eleven in the places cited It is also clear by the Scripture-Accompt that that day on which Christ had conference with Cleopas and another Disciple in their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus was over-past and gone before that appearing of his to the Eleven For the day was upon closing when they went into that Village where Christ spent some time with them And those two Disciples had sixty Furlongs to travel afterwards back again from Emmaus to Jerusalem
and they were at that meeting where Christ appeared to the Eleven The Sun was gone in before that time So that if this pretended Historical Hint be mistaken by those Objectors so then is the next also which they alledg of a second appearing as to the particular day of it the place it self doth expresly confute their assertion For that appearing was after eight Days After observe which could not therefore be that very day which they name Not the first day by their own Computation Besides what cogency is there in this kind of arguing from Christ's appearing to the Disciples For he appeared often to them in the forty days between his Resurrection and Ascension and once when they were Fishing which is no weekly-Sabbath-days-work and employment at which time also Christ did eat somewhat of what Fish they had taken Upon a due long serious Consideration of the whole of this matter There appears nothing to me not the least shew or colour of any sound Scriptural reasoning in all these Allegations which men in Reputation have been by a Traditionary Religion in this so fond of What a great way about do they go quite out of any Scripture-path to fetch in something that might look like an Argument with those who take up such matters of humane invention upon Trust from their misguiders who in this teach them to Err in a Dark-walk where they see not how nor whither they go and then tell them that the mind of Christ in this is a great Deep and not so easie for plain Understandings presently to fathom Whereas we who are brought under the New Testament-Administration of Grace are put into a state of clearer Light than those were in who were under the former Dispensation Doctrines Duties Graces Priviledges do shine forth in more Glory before us as the Apostle doth argue in the second of his Epistles to the Church at Corinth the design of which passage is to shew the New-Testament-Glory to be excelling They of old had a veil on their Ministration by Figures Types and Shadows whereas we now do at least we may and should behold things with unveiled Face As for the Laws of the Ten words particularly this of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath they are clear as the Light And therefore the Holy Scriptures of Truth do give them that Name of Light of self-evidencing and clear-shining are they containing Commandments so right in all things so enlightening the eyes of mens understanding though otherwise they be but simple silly and weak the very opening entrance or door of which Word doth give light to make the silly ones to be understanding ones especially when the Commandment comes in the Demonstration of the Spirit and with Power and former pre-conceptions and prejudices are laid aside A Law so guiding the Obeyers of it to walk in such paths of Rightness a Law so true so holy so just so good so spiritual so perfect such a Law of Liberty setting a renewed enlarged heart so free to run in its Way A Law so comprehensive a Law so formed in right humane Nature being at the first concreated with it A Law so convincingly opening it self and its true mind and its proper meaning and so fully expounded throughout the whole Scripture which is a large exposition upon it insomuch as that all the rest of the Word so far as concerns Duties to be performed and sins to be avoided is but as it were Jehovah Aelohims Commentary upon and Interpretation of it So that here Those of an inquiring Spirit are led safely out of the Maze of those perplexing difficulties which the Objectors reasoning about the necessariness of human Histories to make up a full evidence of the Scriptures in the matter of the first day would hurry them into and such diligent re-searchers are brought into a plain way and the Good Old way or the way of hidden Ages or of Eternity The Words of this Law do carry a plain Evidence in them As all the rest so particularly the fourth Word or Command concerning the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath It has in it self a common and familiar understanding the sense and meaning whereof doth appear at the very first sight It is but hear or read and every man that is endued with Reason and will exercise it without any prepossession or imposings will forthwith conceive aright of it That the weekly-Sabbath-day is the Seventh-day That the Seventh-day is the weekly-Sabbath-day This Objector doth assert it That it is agreed on that the Passover that year when Christ was cruciâ—yed fell on the Sabbath-day It must here be his meaning the Seventh which is the last day of the week which he takes to be the First day of that Feast of unleavened bread On which the Paschal Lamb according to Institution was to be eaten which was not the First day of the Week but the Seventh Upon this Supposition I would thus questioningly argue either Christ that year kept the very day of Passover according to Institution or not if Christ kept the true Passover-day as I do not at all doubt but that he did for he was to fulfill all righteous Observances and accordingly he did It being the Work which his Father gave him to do and which he finished The Antitype directly answering in every thing with great exactness to the Type And the History in the written Word which doth report this matter of Fact in Christ doth expresly call that day on which he did with his Disciples eat the Paschal Lamb the Passover-day as the Scriptures in the Margin will undeniably prove and he dying the same day which was the Passover-day If this be granted by this Opposer to be the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath what then becomes of all the rest of his arguing and pleading for the First day which according unto this Supposition was not that particular day of the Week on which Christ arose from the dead For according to this that First day was the next immediate day after his death and could in no Sense be called the Third day on which he rose again If he say That the true Passover-day which not Christ but the Jews kept was the day next after the death of Christ we call for an Answer to the forecited Scriptures in the Margin and expect a Word-proof for what he asserts Although if that could be cleared yet has it no Rightness or Forcibleness of arguing in it to demonstrate what it is brought for as to a First-day-Sabbath But if those Scriptures do in so many express Words give the day of Christs being apprehended and condemned and crucified and killed the First day of unleavened bread and the Passover-day whilst we have the Scripture thus speaking we have no cause to be moved at what Humane Authorities and Church-Histories do record to the contrary And this has now brought me to an Examination of the validity or invalidity of Church-histories and of humane Authorities in these matters Though
several of the Ecclesiastical Historians have been examined by me upon this subject matter and I have some Collections by me about it enough to shew how little credit is to be given unto those kind of Authorities which are so fallible and sometimes so self-contradicting and so altogether unsatisfying when the matter of Right comes to be Inquired after and determined any further than they do speak the mind of Christ in his word For either in these Cases of Conscience they write and speak according to the word or not If they do let these Scriptures be particularly pointed to with which they accord If not they are not to be received or followed Yet in regard that my design is to bring all to the Scriptures of truth referring this and all else under Aelohim to their Judgment I shall therefore now debate the Principle with this objector So much of matters of fact as do relate to matters of right and as are necessary for us to believe in order unto Salvation is Recorded in the word of truth Whereunto the whole Scripture is profitable which is enough for us if no more were written by me concerning this particular question in hand For that Scripture referred to is proper and pertinent to this purpose about Christ and his Resurrection and his appearing to his Disciples and his Blessing of them and conference with them as is plain in the foregoing part of the same Chapter and other Scriptures collated and compared with this do evidently speak it But we have yet much more to say about this To assert the perfection of the Scriptures is one of the great truths of the present Age The forces of Earth and of Hell are now joyning together and putting forth their strength to assault and to attempt the overthrow of this useful Doctrine As it was in the daies of Christs Flesh when he was familiarly Conversant here on Earth the Roman Power the Grecian Wisdom the Jewish Traditions Ethnick Philosophers and Diabolical possessions all the humane and devilish Force and Art and invention was called together to War against Christ and against his word So in the latter daies the Worldly might Old and New Philosophy Institutions and Impositions Histories and Traditions Inventions and Authorities of men unwritten pretended necessary verities Generall Councils sayings of those whom they call Fathers Articles of Faith composed by men Confessions and practise of Protestant Reformed Churches the judgment and practice of Learned and Godly men these and such like Extra-scriptural places are the swaying Authority with many whereby Antichristianism and Antiscripturalism in a many of particulars are still held up and maintained against the LORD and against his word who in this Providential day is pouring contempt upon all Flesh upon men and upon their sayings bringing a Blast upon them so far as they are contrary to sound Doctrine and do oppose the mind of Christs Revealed in the written word and is putting a Crown on Christ and an Honour upon his word the Testimony of men may be and often is in Fact Erring and Fallible uncertain and lying self-contradicting and unsatisfying Into which therefore the Christian Doctrine Faith and Religion is not to be resolved either in whole or in part For the word of Jehovah is like himself who is the Author of it of invaluable veracity and of unchangeable truthfulness He truth it self and his word The Truth He a God that is true and that cannot lye and his word That which is truly purely such the word of truth His Law is the truth The asserters of the Seventh day to be the Weekly Sabbath for which we have the whole Scripture are charged with Errour because we will not be resolved by humane Authorities to own the First day in the Room of it Whereas if men do err greatly err it is therefore because they know not the Scriptures nor the Power of God put forth in a word-way To assign somewhat else for a cause of this which is not a cause is a by-way of paralogizing-deception of sophistical-arguing and of Fallacious disputing The LORD Jesus Christ doth not in his word and where else as from him shall we look for it assign this as a cause of mans erring that they do not know the magistral dictates of humane Rabbies It is the proud Arrogance of the Antichristian usurper to impose his own placits upon the Churches as if he were imperial Dictator to mens Souls and vniversal Monarch over their Consciences Neither is their Erring from hence that they know not the Antient Records of uncanonicall Church Histories which do sometimes write Contrary to themselves and to one another as those do understand who have been faithfull diligent comparers and collectors of such passages and this both in matters of Fact and in matters of Right and this Objector himself doth confess he Judgeth that some of the writings of these Antients are spurious and corrupt And how few are there of those to whom the Gospel is preached and upon whose Hearts that word of Grace and of Truth doth take most saving holds to which word the LORD himself doth bear witness are versed and read in this kind of Ecclesiastical History And which way shall they be ascertained that it has been all of it read over by others by their Guides and teachers particularly or that the report is faithfully brought to them or if that were whether they ought to be swayed by it Were Church-Histories unerringly inspired Who is so bold as downright to assert this Or if any were so daring how can he prove it Who of our plain Converted People had humane Histories in his thoughts when he was thorowly Regenerated and gratiously visited from Christ and from the Father of Christ by the Spirit of Christ in the word of Christ What a kind of Faith is that which doth ultimate it self into humane Church Histories He that would have judged of the state and Case of Jehovah's Church and people in the daies of Ezra by making search in the book of those Ecclesiastical Records and have judged according to what was Historifyed there would have brought in an hard Charge of Rebellion and of Sedition against them and have been ready to have irritated the powers that were over them against them as their Adversaries did Neither do men therefore err because they know not the Tradition of the Elders which has long obtained by common Custom and by little Controlled usage so as to plead prescription unscriptural Customes and Tradition is a part of that Redemption which our LORD has wrought out for his People And it is a choice Mercy to be throughly delivered from them For in the event and effect they would un LORD Christ and the word of Christ of his and of its due Autority For which he condemned those Scribes and Pharisees of his daies who would have obtruded these upon him and upon his Disciples but he confutes them by his
word and referreth all to this He who is of a diligent observing inquiring Spirit and is versed in this kind of the Historical part of human learning in Ecclesiastical Centuriators may meet with enough to take him off from doting on such fallible Authorities which are not a sure ground of judging in matters either of Doctrine or of Fact In the matter of Doctrine how common is it for one to affirm what another of them doth contradict as about the Millennium or the Thousand years Reign with many more instances that might be given as about Free Grace and about Free will about Bishops and Presbyters about the vision of God whether the Souls of departed Saints be Blessed with it till the Judgment of the great day or not with such like Which of those now shall carry away the state of the question In some Cases the Major party often went the wrong way as in the Rites and Ceremonies of Baptism and of Prayer and in many Feasts and Fasts and divers such humane inventions by which they added their own corrupt mixtures to Christs Pure institutions As for the Churches in the first centuries after the Apostles how shall we be ascertained that they were the most pure and perfect Churches seeing some of those that were of Apostolical plantation did so apostatize make such a sudden defection from the Gospel-purity and were so much corrupted in the Apostles own times as those particularly of Coriuth and Galatia and some of the Seven Churches of Asia And how is it possible for to come at a sure undoubtedness of knowing what was the universal Judgment and practise by uniform consent of those Churches in the first hundreds of years after the New-Testament canon or rule was Written Were there no learned and Godly men such as were counted Fathers in the Churches from whom we receive no Writings at all May not some of their Writings have been lost Are there not false copies of the writings of some of them Are they not supposititious and counterfeit and corrupt Do they not vary widely in their Interpretations of one and the same Scripture How can these uncertainties be a firm Ground and sure evidence of the Authenticall meaning of the word of God How unconcluding and unsatisfying also is their Testimony in the matters of fact when one of equal Antientness and Authority doth gainsay another or when some greater Authorities as some of them were esteemed would step in over rule and when they charge one another with misreports and mistakes how Sandy a foundation is there here for any Spiritual discerner to build upon take one or two instances some in the History of Christs life do expresly Record that he was near Fifty years old when he was put to death whereas others of them in their Chronologies do with equal confidence write that he was then but about thirty and three years of age So also about the particular Language wherein the New Testament was first spoken and written Nor is the Original of erring from hence that men know not the Counsels of the Sanhedrin or the sayings of the Antient Fathers The Scriptures do mention such decrees of Councils and such applauded sayings of the antients and those by such who counted themselves the only and the whole Church of God as were quite contrary to Christs mind in his word such as perverted and wronged his Word Such as made it a sufficient cause of unsynagoguing of excommunicating for any Man to confess that Jesus was the Christ which yet was one of the plainest and greatest truths and Duties such as passed into a Law and accordingly were commands given forth that the Apostles should not upon pain of Imprisonment or of worse than that speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus Shall we be determined by such humane Councils as these By such Councils as sometimes Clash one with another So it was a long while between the Councils of the Eastern and Western Churches By such Councils as sometimes reverse their own decrees and then make quite contrary Canons It is the Scripture-Canon to which we must resort This is the strait established unerring rule which we must measure our all by and in all things walk by and that our Hearts may be the more awed by the Authority of this it behoves us to eye Christ in his present providential goings with the Golden measuring-Reed or Line in his hand to trie and examine Churches and particular Disciples their states frames and Actings their principles Rules and ends their Constitutions Ordinances and Growth whether they be according to him and his Word or not Neither is this a spring of errour that we do not know nor own unwritten verities as Scripture-Supplements to be received by the People from their Leaders upon trust without tryal If a Doctrine be brought to us we must see whether what is written in the word of the LORD be for it or not and accordingly either receive or reject it What is written is that which doth call for our Faith We must not favour about that which hath been written So should the place in the Margin be read Paul would not say or speak one thing besides or without the word by Moses and the Prophets what was authorized and warranted by their writings Beleivers are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone of it How shall we know that That which is unwritten is Beleivable verity healthfull Doctrine wholesome sound truth How shall our Hearts get to be out of doubt that it is so Nor doth errour arise from hence that men do not know nor approve of the Judgment opinion and practise of those who are reputed the Learned and the Godly in the present Age held forth in their Commentaries Treatises and Actings Sound sincere beleivers do often Experience that Jehovah through his Commandments doth make them wiser than their Enemies they have more understanding than all their teachers because they Love his Law and make his Testimonies their meditation The LORD Christ has declared against those be they otherwise of never so great a Name and in never so much reputation amongst men who dissolve one of the least of his Commands in the Law of his Ten words and do teach men so And how much is it to be lamented that any of the teachers of others have their hands so deep in this Trespass as to preach or to print any thing against this Glorious perfect Law and the great Honourable things thereof God is making the wisdom of the wise to perish bringing to nought the understanding of the intelligent when it doth oppose Christ and his word and Law Whilst precepts of men are taught the People by their civil and Church-Guides and are made the rule of fearing and of Serving Jehovah he will proceed to deal Wonderfully with such a people and marvellously For the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their men of understanding shall hide it self though they hide their Counsels never so deep Where is the wise where is the Scribe Where is the Inquirer of this Age Hath not God made Foolish the wisdom of this world which doth measure and judge of the truths and things of God by unscriptural Rules How do such Arguers say then we are wise and the Law of Jehovah is with us Lo certainly in vain worketh the false pen of the Scribes There will be a time when such wise men will be ashamed affrighted and taken Behold they have rejected the word of Jehovah Wisdom-what to them They steal away the word from Aelohim's People which word would be Wheat wholsome nourishing Bread and Food to them and bring unscriptural empty Chaff in the room but these are not ready Scribes in the Law as Ezra was Even a Paul himself is no further to be hearkened unto and followed than he speaks according to the word and is a Follower of Christ Neither doth Errour arise from hence that men do not know or conform to National establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of worship in their humanely-invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Liturgies it has been one of the main Occasions of most of the persecutions that have been carryed on by Adversaries against the Church and People of God in all Ages the inventing Instituting and imposing of unscriptural modes and forms of Worship exclusive of all other which are Regular according to the word and then framing it into a Law with inflicted penalties upon all Non-Conformists And what strong Rationalists do some take themselves to be in pleading and arguing for this and producing many humane Authorities in Church-Histories for this and there want not flatterers at Court who perswade Governours that the main of their Authority and power doth consist in determining of such matters of Indifferency as they miscall them That the appointing of times and seasons and daies for publick worship is left wholly in the Hand and power of the Magistrate and that the way of maintaining peace and preserving Religion in the Land is to enforce uniformity in the service and worship of God according to such National Statutes by seeing mulcts to be inflicted on all Recusants and dissenters Whereas Christ tells us that it is vain worship such humane-traditionary-Worship teaching Doctrines the commandments of men And that every such Plantation in the matters of Corrupt both Doctrine and worship which is not of his Fathers Planting shall be rooted up The LORD reproves the People when they keep Idolatrous superstitious Statutes Too much advantage has been given by the Non-Conformists in their writings and conferences against the Formalists and ceremonialists in that they have not in downright express Terms condemned all humanely-invented-instituted-imposed forms and ceremonies in the matters of Worship as sinful and unlawful especially when they enjoyn them as exclusive of other worship where these are not conformed unto and when they impose them as necessary terms of Church Communion whereas they are expresly in the very letter and meaning of the second Commandment forbidden For we are not to make unto our selves all Form any Form every such Form which men of their own head and out of the device of their own brain do thus make unto themselves and so to others also is under a plain prohibition by this Holy righteous just and good law of the LORD How many have been brought into Courts and Condemned sentenced and fined and Imprisoned as Routers Rioters ill-behaviour'd Schismatical Seditious Turbulent ones for conforming to Christs Laws and for not conforming to the customes and Laws of the Land but doing contrary to mans decrees because they Worship God according to his institutions but not according to mens Ordinances Whereas we are expresly charged not to give our selves to such commandments of men as turn away the truth from us or would turn us away from the Truth And yet they urge a mis-translated Scripture as if we must submit to every Ordinance of man Whereas it is to every humane Creature There is an Honour due to all men as men to some more than to others to the King as superior as having Authority over and above others and to others in their Inferiour places It is because or for the word that Persecution ariseth For the Receiving of this word and a conforming unto it by the Disciples of Christ that they are hated of the World If National establishments were the Rule and measure of Truth and errour were to be judged of by a contrariety to that Then the same thing would be one while Truth and another while Errour when National establishments do upon turns of times and changes of Laws make contradictory Decrees So it was in the Reigns of the Kings of Judah One sets up Idolatry another pulls it down One commands Right Worship according to Institution Another brings in corrupt mixtures Such interchangeable vicissitudes there were in the daies of Abaz Hezekiah Manasseh and Josiah They are to be avoided who ever they be that do cause divisions and offences contrary to received-Scripture-doctrine Then do men err when they go astray from Jehovah's Commandments from his precepts from his statutes They are Humane lies that cause men to erre and to despise the Law of Aelohim Errour proceeds from not knowing and not observing all his Commandments then do a People err in their Hearts when they have not known his waies Unscriptural Establishments in the matters of worship are the work of Errours Further yet neither do men err therefore because they do not know man-invented-Arts and sciences of Philosophical knowledges and of University-humane-learning Nicodemus was a master of Arts and a Doctor of Sciences and yet he greatly erred in the necessary Doctrine of Regeneration Paul greatly erred from the great Truths of the Christian Religion whilst he sat at the feet of Gamaliel a Pharisee a Doctor of the Law held in esteem by all the People one of the Chief in the privy Council of the Jews This Grave tutor of Paul perfectly instructed his attentive diligent Pupil in that kind of Pharisaical Learning and way of Worship and he was a sharpwitted Disciple But when the LORD Christ Revealed himself to and in Paul now he saw how much he had erred from saving Truth and Paul a Convert differed much in his Apprehensions from Paul a Pharisee All other knowledge now in comparison with right Scripture-knowledge with the eminent Excellency of the knowledg of Jesus Christ and of him Crucifyed and of the way of Justification and of Salvation by Faith in him and in his Blood and in his Righteousness he Judgeth as nothing as Dung as Loss as Dogs meat And he saw the gross mistakes of the Learned-University-men at Athens endeavouring to convince them of their Infidel-Errours Antichristian mistakes and Philosophical-falsehoods Now he commends to
word and for this they pretend and plead the example and Spirit of Elias as if their case and Spirit had been of the same kind when it was hellish Fire of their own kindling and of the Devils blowing up which they should rather have endeavoured to quench and to put out We must not beleive every Spirit but ought to try the Spirits whether they are of God The Spirit of others and our own Spirit that we may know the Spirit of truth according to Christ and his word and may difference it from the Spirit of Errour which is against Christ and his word There was a time when persecuting Saul verily thought with himself that he ought to do many contrary things to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth which when he was preaching Paul he discerned were his great Errour and his gross Sin and he openly condemns himself for and doth write his confession and retractation The Spirit who is the truth and the word which is the truth do go together Once more men do not therefore erâ— because they know not the doubtful Questionings of unsettled Sceptick's and of Cosmical Suspecters The Doctrine of Probabilities So the word signifies in that place to the Colossians cited in the margin is a misleading Doctrine It would beguil men by doubtful disputations and by deceitful conclusions with such cunning perswasions as do carry a fair shew such as Logicians and Rhetoricians Philosophers and Orators do usually bring under the shadowie colour of probable Reasons and likely Arguments to make nothing of all things and any thing of every thing by their sophistical Quidlibets and Fallacious Quodlibets But Sound serious well discerning right Judging beleivers should not suffer themselves thus to be imposed upon and deluded A thorow wholesome Scripture-knowledge is one approved remedy against Heart-doubtings either to prevent them or to cure them This would bring in sound Truth upon and leave them with a renewed Heart with a no-doubt there of them God cannot lye at any time though men do so too often He is true Whilst men are so overcome of doubtings and waverings not in the way which is sometimes the case of sound Beleivers but about the way how can they go on with such conviction and comfort with such sweetness and satisfaction Let not the Reader misjudge this a Diversion and that too long a one also For besides that it contains a direct answer to the Objection which did call for it so doth it fully promote the grand designe of this Treatise All unscriptural Antiscriptural waies methods arguings and endeavourings to turn any from the Errour of their way to the Truth is no adapted means for the attaining of this end And therefore in the Demonstrating proofs that I have brought for the confirming and establishing of the Seventh day the last day of the Week to be still the weekly Sabbath they are such as are carried through the whole Scripture and have their Foundation in pure primitive created Nature I do not send and refer them to humane Authorities and Histories and Traditions as this Objector doth The Scripture-way is the only convincing converting way Other Mediums by self-excogitated and man-invented Artifices are like to leave Erring men but the more profound Atheists the more learned Infidels and the more subtil Hereticks Though arguments as to men may be drawn from their own Concessions assertions histories and other Authorities of mens sayings writings and printings which was somewhat of the way that Paul sometimes took with Ethnicks and Philosophers whereby to stop their Mouths and to convince them from thence As Christ also will one day by the same Medium condemn many from their own acknowledged principles not improved yet this will not convincingly convert a plain sound believer having Spiritual discerning in the truths and things of the Spirit of God and being well acquainted with the Scriptures is far better secured against dangerous damnable Errours than the most learned of vain affecters of humane wisdom The only summary of all sound truth for the confuting and condemning of all Errour is to be searched after in the Scriptures of truth where the Restauration Proficiency and advancement of all useful learning is When can a serious inquiring Spirit come to any firm settlement and sound satisfaction if he were to refer all to the extrascriptural Judgment and Histories of Churches Heresies and Schisms profanenesses and disorders quickly crept in into particular Churches that were of Apostolical plantation As Pauls Epistles to them do evidently declare And since that one particular Church doth sometimes contradict another particular Church in their confessions of Faith and the contention is so hot and so high as that they withdraw from one another and will not have mutual Communion with each other As for the universal Church how shall a particular beleiver be well groundedly ascertained what is the concurrent Judgement of the Universal Church How fruitless and vain have their attempts hitherto been who have endeavoured by conference and Writing and Cost and Labour and Pains and Travel to be Church-Reconciliators Church-peace-makers They dyed away and never lived to see their designe accomplished Still there are differences and divisions kept up amongst the Churches one great cause whereof has been that the Attempters and promoters of Church-union and peace have been setting up some confession of Faith and Articles of Religion of humane Composure which they would have all to joyn in and subscribe to Which course will never be able to accomplish that designe The whole Scripture of Truth is the one and the only rule of this Suppose yet further that I knew that the Concurrent Judgment of all the Churches of Christ all the inhabited Earth over were of one mind and of one way in some things yet neither could this alone or mainly secure me from fears of Erring For the whole Church has erred and may actually err Under the Old Testament the LORD himself appointed a special Sacrifice for Atonement and reconciliation in this particular Case when the whole Congregation or Church of Israel did err through ignorance in omitting some commanded duty or in Committing some forbidden Sin And that they actually did thus ignorantly err for some hundreds of years together we have it recorded in the word Thus under the New Testament in Christs time the Church of the Jews which at that season was the only Church of God generally those of them that were in Judea and the scattered of the tribes in other parts did greatly Err about Christs Reign on Earth whom they concluded would be as a Temporal Prince to come with outward pomp and power for the raising of Israel to high promotion in the world and to restore again the Kingdom to Israel And this Corrupt leaven still sowred and swelled their Spirits even after that some of them became Disciples of Christ who still were stiff to this wrong Tenet and the good Apostles themselves did long mistake about
Histories where private interest and particular partyship do incline them to write over favourably of themselves and of their own Facts and how hatred of and prejudice against others who are of contrary Principles and practises do put them upon hard misconstruings and wrong misreportings of the Actions of their Adversaries So that it is a rare Ingenuity in an Historian to give a true Narrative of the matter of Fact in the several Circumstances of it under the opposition of an Enemy Especially if some Ages have passed away since the matter of Fact there is the less certainty and credibility And more especially yet if there have been such ages coming between which were Ages of thick darkness of prevailing Ignorance and of gross imposture and when in such cases as wherein Antichrist has imposed much upon the Churches by his Humane Additions Supplements and Traditions thereby to obscure or to corrupt or to thrust out to take from or to add to what is Christ's mind in his Word which is the present case And he who reads the story of Eustathius the Popes Legat in Roger Hoveden by what counterfeit Artifices and false Pretences and forged Visions feigned Voices and lying Wonders he introduced the observation of the first Day of the Week here into England no longer ago than in the Reign of King John may unless he very much dote on such humane fallible Testimonies see cause enough to give little credit to such Church-Histories as would so report the matter of Fact as thereby to determine the matter of right which those who go this way generally do whilst they place the first day in the Week in the room of the seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day under the New Testament ministration So that I am the less fond or rather not at all fond of Humane Histories in these matters relating to sin or duty from cited Church Authorities in matters of Fact having my esteem heightned from Scripture Records and word-commands chiefly in such cases where the whole Scripture doth contain such Reasons of the LORD 's own assigning founded in the very Nature of Created Existences such names and things such Precepts and Prohibitions such Promises and Threatnings such suitable Examples and such like as these which do uniformly throughout speak a quite contrary thing and go a quite different way from those sayings which Church-Registers do wrong tell me and from that By-path into which Humane Histories would mislead me as they would in this case when they would take me off from the due observation of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath to drag me along to keep the first day as a separated day for holy Worship I am bound to believe Scripture History as a true report from the infallible veracity of a truthful Aelohim it is necessary this Faith to my Salvation But I am not under such an obligation neither is it so necessary for me to believe Humane History so many hundreds of years ago especially such circumstances as have been mentioned before in such matters of fact as are but pretended to be transacted in Scripture times chiefly to whom they are so argued against the whole of other Scripture How can this objector prove to me that those Ecclesiastical Histories whose certainty and credibility of reporting this he so much cryeth up were directed and dictated thereunto by the Spirit of Truth in this matter And if not how can my Faith be swayed by their Authorities Jehovah Aelohim himself appointed Scripture Histories to be written by the Prophets and Priests these Historiographers were ocular Witnesses in much of that which they wrote and registred and in this as also in the rest they were God inspired So were those Evangelists and Apostles also who wrote the New Testament History As for Tradition we receive what is scriptural Believers are delivered from Patro-traditional conversation such as is unscriptural we receive the commandments which Christ hath delivered but we reject Humane Traditions which are not according to Christ and his Word If the case were so that all the Men and Speakers and Writers and Printers and Books and what other humane Authorities did tell me what I know evidently is expresly otherwise in Christ and in the Word of Christ it were of no validity with me The Prophets and the LORD Jesus Christ the sender of his Prophets did refer the Jews not to the Traditions of Rabbines especially when they were such Traditions as would have UNLORDED him and his Word of his and of its due Authority but to the Law to the Scriptures Scripture Traditions which are allowed of in the Word of Christ we approve of about sound Doctrine and Faith of the Truth and holy conversation and about observing of a naturally comly decent order in Church-assemblies But we reject what is of mens own and in their own name It is an Observand in Scripture that the Scriptures do refer to Scriptures often may we meet with such expressions it is written and as it is written and for it is written and according to that which is written This is under the LORD the Judging Rule and the Lawful Determiner in all cases By this were Truths confirmed and by this were errours confuted Even whilst the Apostles were alive there were false supposititious writings thrust upon some as if they had been the Apostles own true Writing and therefore the Apostles subscribed their Epistles with their own hands they used some peculiar subscription such a subsigning as was well known to the Churches How much more was the World like to be imposed upon when they were dead and gone by the writings of men who would be fathering of their own unscriptural brats of false tenets upon the Apostles there being many Antichrists gone forth even in John's time Paul whilst living to confute the falshood yet was strongly charged with saying and asserting of that which he utterly denies though others would affirm it to be so he was evil-spoken of and wrongfully accused as if he had expresly taught a damnable Doctrine which he wholly disowneth And if they were so bold in his days how can we be so over confident of a matter of fact reported by a mere humane traditionary Knowledge above sixteen hundred years ago without any God-inspired Scripture Revelation or Natural Demonstration How can any man to his own or others satisfaction affirm that by Humane History he certainly knows that all the Christian Churches have constantly set apart and observed the first day for holy Worship when he cannot certainly know that he hath read all humane Histories that have recorded that particular matter of fact Or that no humane History hath recorded a quite different both Principle Judgement and Practice in some particular Church or Churches and when the matter of fact for any evidence he hath to the contrary may have been quite otherwise in some Church or Churches which yet is not recorded in any humane History This
particular subject especially by one that is acquainted with the Original Hebrew and the several words and phrases under that dispensation that do speak to this case The Churches of Aelohim had in all ages such as were gifted graced called by Office to preach the Word and to Administer Signs and Seals Before Moses's time the Ordinary Ministers were the first born of Families into whose place afterwards the Priests and the Levites succeeded Enoch was a Prophet Noah was a Preacher Abraham was a Prophet The Priests and the Levites were the Pastors and the Teachers And Paul under the New Testament doth set out the Ministerial Office now by such expressions as were borrowed from the Ministerial Office under the Old Publick Officers in the Work of the Ministery now are such as perform the holy Office of the New Testament Priesthood Ministerial Workmen if they would not be ashamed should rightly divide the Word of Truth The cutting of the Burnt-offering into its pieces did Figure the Work of the Ministery in the New Testament Church It might not be a confused or disordered mangling it must be done into the Natural pieces The Prophesies concerning the Ministery of the New Testament are set out by the Ministery of the Old The Levites did serve the Priests about Tabernacle and Temple worship but were not to come near the Sanctuary nor the Altar The Elders laid their hands upon the Levites in setting them apart for the Ministery and Service How aptly is this applicable in a New Testament Church If you consider Deacons under this Dispensation as having this to be a part of their Office to provide for and to distribute to the poor Thus also were some of the Levites imployed in such Ordinary Ministeries of distrubution of the Church-Treasure overseeing the holy things and the Work of Jehovah too Neither was the Old Testament without its Diaconesses its ministring Women whose Ministery and Service was used by the Church These are the particular instances of this Objector to every one of which I have brought some Testimonies out of the Old Testament As for Rules about Church-Offices under the New Dispensation a discerning eye may see now the New Testament is written that Christ and his Apostles did in their teaching much refer their hearers unto the Analogy of Faith under the Old Testament The stile of the New doth not carry along with it a form of enacting such new Laws and new Rules of which there was not any thing at all under the Old Administration But we find Christ confirming the old Laws of the ten Words accomplishing the old Types and fulfilling the foregoing Prophesies concerning himself Interpreting the meaning of the Types and setting up the Anti-types in the room of them And where he doth bring in Laws it is occasionally either to open their meaning or to prove somewhat thereby or from thence to exhort correct instruct some way or other to apply it to the present case declaring himself to be one and the same Law-giver that was of Old Whereby he doth demonstrate that the Old Testament is still to be a Rule under the New The difference between them being only in the divers form and manner of dispensing as will be more shewn hereafter The regulation now is to be made according to that proportion which the new Administration doth call for and the old Rules must be new applyed which as to the matter now here under Question have a clearer Revelation and a more spiritual Dispensing So that the New Testament Word is much the Old Testament Scripture gone over again in more clearness fulness perfection spirituality glory and heavenliness The Old and the New Testament-Will of God are not contrary Wills but one and the same Will diversified only in some particulars of the manner of administring the new Will is the old Will revived and cleared and confirmed and so put into a more heavenly form There is a well measured equality between the Old and the New a well agreeing sameness of word and there should be a true proportioned collation of both Testaments each with other All and every of Christ's Institutions had ever a word of his to warrant them even in the times of the Apostles a word written about such Institutions in the Old Testament in Type Prophesie or some such like way and a Word spoken by Christ before the New Testament was written referring to the foregoing Patterns of them in the Old which word afterwards also was put into the New Testament Scripture whereas we know no word from Christ either in the Old Testament or New for the first day being a weekly day separated and appointed for a day of Holy Worship in the room of the Seventh day Sabbath Thus far this Author himself doth acknowledge that the first day was not instituted by Scripture all the Old Testament through which did not contain its Institution so that the Believers of that age in Christ's time had no written word at for any such observance of the first day any where all their Bible through Let this concession be improved by the wise and discerning the serious and the considering Reader However therefore the matter of fact may have been afterwards reported in Humane Histories we expect that the matter of Right be proved from God-inspired Scriptures Whatever this Author do say that this being the common usage of so observing the first day in the Apostles times by them and by the Churches of their Plantation and that therefore there was no such need of putting this pretended matter of fact into Scripture History it appears hereby how broken this Reed of his Assertion is which he would have all the Christian World to lean upon After several years serious diligent search I cannot find any such common usage no not so much as one particular instance that either any one of the Apostles themselves or any one of the Churches of their planting did ever so much as once so observe the first day as the weekly Sabbath-day Although if that could be proved it doth not yet determine this case upon our hearts who do expect Scripture Institutions Commands Prophecies Promises and such like appointments as have harmonious consent of the whole Scripture besides that speaks of that matter if there had been any such great change of the weekly Sabbath-day as is pretended If the force of this Authors arguing do lye there how evident is it that there was great need of writing such a Matter of Fact that had so weighty a case of so great consequence in it It is the common practice of all the wise part of mankind to take along with them sufficient credible witnesses of it such whose Testimony will upon occasion stand firm in Law when they first take actual possession of some great Estate of a rich Inheritance settled upon them and upon theirs that shall come after them and to set it down in
old corrupt Principles the old crooked Rules the old selfish ends the old bad Frames the old uutoward Actings the erroneous mistakes the formality in Worship the old unscriptural Traditions the old Sins the old man's Conversion and such like These do pass away and all things contrary to these are become new A whole new man The Apostle speaks of what is peculiar to the New Creature in Christ as such For as for the old ceremonious Rites and their passing away even those that were not new Creatures but were carnal Professors of Christianity yet had these things passing away and they were put under a new Administation the new dispensation of Grace had Ordinances now in a more spiritual heavenly way and manner The passing away of old things here is of old things so far as they stand in opposition to the new Creature and unto that new life in and to Christ which now the converted person should live That as Christ so loved his people as to dye and rise again for them so should those in Christ thus evidence their Love to Christ by living no longer to themselves but unto him crucifying the old man mortifying the sins and lusts of that old man and vivifying or quickning the new man which was true in the Types and Figures before Christ was come born of the Virgin Mary and which is still true now after that Christ is come and ascended up into Glory But all this doth make nothing as to the passing away of the Law of the ten Words in all of them or in any one the least of them This is a distinct fort of Laws from the Typical Figuring Shadowy Institutions The Law of the ten Words as it always has been so is it now and still will be the Rule of the new Creature in Christ Jesus For what in one place is called the new Creatures Rule in another speaking to the same case is the keeping of the Commandments of God In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but a new Creature And as many as walk according to this Rule Peace be on them and Mercy and on the Israel of God The Israel of old had no saving benefit barely by the outward sign of Circumcision whereas God's Israel then who had the sign and the thing signified too they had the Mercy and Peace who were new Creatures united to the Messiah by Faith working by Love who had their hearts circumcised to love Jehovah their God who had sin subdued and lust mortified And the uncircumcision under the new Dispensation was not of any good avail without the new Birth without conjunction to and communion with it and if the Regenerate the new Born the new Created would evidence and approve themselves to be such and to be in Christ they must obey him and keep his Commandments But what is all this to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First Day of the Week To pass from one sort of Laws into another sort of Laws from the Law of figuring Types to the Law of the ten Words and to infer the passing away of any one of the Laws of the ten Words from the passing of Types into the Antitypes and of signifying Figures into their signified things is a transition from one kind to another a way of sophistical arguing of fallacious disputing captiously to over-reach the ignorant too credudulous vulgar and to defraud them of their right to the Truth As for that part of the Objection which doth speak of new Heavens and of new Earth pretended to be completed and finished on the Day of Christ's Resurrection from whence to conclude the passing away of the Seventh-day Sabbath to make room for a First-Day-weekly Sabbath it is so scriptureless so natureless so reasonless an inference that it should have been more preconsidered by this Arguer whether it do conclude and prove any thing but this that the Adversaries would fain have something or other that might carry a little colour and some shew with it if they know what For let it be pondered upon search and examination that all those places of Scripture which do speak of the new Heavens and the new Earth do relate to a further time for their full accomplishment than precisely to the Day of Christ's Resurrection That Prophesie in Isaiah hath an eye to the more large and spreading conversions of the two and ten Tribes in the latter days yet to come How was this then fulfilled on Christ's Resurrection-Day who of them was then converted what eminent new Creatorship was there then brought forth which might put any such signal remark upon the First Day of the Week as from thence to become the new weekly Sabbath When the most of the Disciples themselves did scarce believe him to be raised till after that Day was over And two Disciples with whom he had walked some Miles that Day had little belief of his Resurrection and little knowledge of him till he disappeared from them How few in comparison were brought in unto Christ and made new Creatures in all Christ's life time at his Death and Resurrection and forty Days after that till after his Ascension and after the pourings out of the Holy Spirit That forementioned Prophesie doth foretel that Nations shall be brought under the Jews Dominions when those new Heavens and new Earth shall appear This was not at the time of Christ's Resurrection-day nor ever since and they were then and have been since for sixteen hundred years or more so far Ruling over the Nations that they have been a scattered despised broken people without so much as any Political Kingly Government amongst themselves It foretels that those of Judah and of Israel should be gathered out of all Quarters East West North and South This also is behind yet unfulfilled That Euphrates would be dry Was this on Christ's Resurrection Day Or has it been since Is not this also yet to come upon their return to their own Land in the latter Days Will not their grand Enemy the Turk be then overthrown who has so long wrongfully possessed their Inheritance which when it is will be so great a work for the inhabited Earth to take notice of where the ear-report shall come or the eye-witnessing be that it will obscure the memory of former Acts. Another Prophesie by Isaiah doth fortel that at that time of the new Heavens and the new Earth the ten Tribes of Israel as well as the other two of Judah and of Benjamin shall according as to an express promise return home to their own Country and Land For Sharon was in Gilead which belonged to Manasseh The Valley of Achor was a parcel of the Tract of Jericho in the Tribe of Judah There will then be a new face of things in their glorious and blessed Renovation when there will be divers things accomplished which are not as yet fulfilled As
from whom other Nations shall receive a shining Light giving them Honour doing them Homage and bringing in their Glory to them whom the King of Saints so much will delight in as to dignifie them with the Glory of his presence compleating and perpetuating their Purity and Peace their Holiness and Happiness So that these are Works which were never yet so finished and which yet remain behind to be done That Prophesie in Jeremiah doth speak much the same thing For there is foretold the destruction of the Enemies of the Jews which will be in the last days the usual expression setting out the accomplishment of this glorious Mystery as other Scriptures do declare Then will Jehovah renew a Covenant with all the Families of Israel All with the ten as well as with the other two Tribes Here also is the place expressed from what part of the inhabited Earth their return should first be even from the North. The Call would be to the generality of that people to come unto Christ and so great a multitude would be converted to him as were not to be numbred by man Jehovah himself would be their Conductor and Leader in the way of their Return The LORD 's providential appearance would be so wonderful in this that the Nations afar off and remote in distance from them would upon report hereof brought unto them much praise Aelohim for his Grace and Favour towards his People The Lamention was foretold then would be great when Innocents were slain at Christ's Birth but for greater in the latter Days after that when the Israelites would repent and turn unto Christ then should they return home to their own Land to dwell in their Cities Their Enemies would be overthrown by a Woman these Converts should peaceably inhabite their Country and become very happy in being made a pure glorious Church The new or renewed Covenant would be firmly ratified and surely established with them Jerusalem would once again be rebuilt Have these gladtyyings yet had their through fulfilling are they not Works yet to be performed That other Scripture in the Epistle to the Hebrews has the same Import and Design as to the Covenant and the renewing of it Here is no determinate Day of Christ's Resurrection mentioned when this Promise was to have its exact precise fulfilling and if we would point any particular time more than other according to this kind of arguing it was rather the Fruit of Christ's Ascension if it relate to those times so near Christ when this High Priest entred into the Holy of Holies For this Chapter doth more particularly set out the High Priesthood of Christ entred into Heaven with Blood and with Incense satisfying and interceding there fitting at the Right hand of his Father Raigning having all Power sending Messengers to teach his People and so is more consummately a glorious Priest King and Prophet together actually bestowing upon Believers all those purchased covenanted Blessings for which he intercedes on their behalf as Pardon Peace Grace Mercy Reconciliation Assistance Acceptance and such like which he did for Believers before but in another way of dispensing For whilst he remained on Earth even after his Resurrection till he ascended into Heaven the Levitical Priesthood did continue So that the Honour is more in some respect put upon Christ's Ascension if we will date these new things about that time when Christ went up into the highest Heavens For then more especially was the new and living Way new made by Christ's entring into the Holy of Holies into the highest Heaven As to what doth relate to the New Testament Ministration as such more spiritually dispensed we have several times acknowledged that without making any change in the sum and substance of the Christian Religion in the Law of the ten Words The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews doth set out the excellency of the New Testament above and beyond the Old as to the clearness and gloriousness of dispensing the same Truths and Things of God which were of old under a darker administration This new Covenant spoken of has had in all Ages since the writing of that Epistle some particular fulfillings when the Regenerating Spirit doth write the Holy Law of the ten Words on the two Tables of the Mind and Heart of any person and people especially if they be of the converted Hebrews who are more eminently concerned in this Promise the most of which is yet behind unaccomplished and waits for the larger conversions of that people in days yet to come For that is a prophetical Scripture yet taken out of that place in Jeremiah which has been spoken unto already and which is again mentioned towards the closing up of the New Testament Canon as reserved for one of the choicest Blessings of the last days The newest things then will be the last things called therefore the newest Times For the fulfilling of this the whole Creation doth groan and wait especially those who have the First Fruits of the Spirit they groan in themselves expecting the Adoption Redemption of their Body The rest of the Creation long to be delivered from the wrong that is done to them by fallen Devils and by sinful men They labour under their subordination to vanity their oppresling servitude their travelling pain their use and service being so quite perverted from what it was at their primitive make and they shall be freed when the New Created-State shall come For which Holy longers do expect and hope when Tzijon shall put on her Royal Ornaments when the new Heavens and the new Earth shall appear clothed with their new glorious Dress when the Elect have been all gathered in unto Christ when the Saints shall be possessed of the full and whole of their Heavenly Inheritance to which they are adopted of their glorious Liberty to which they are appointed from remaining indwelling Sin to a complete Holiness from persecutions temptations sorrows and other troubles to an uninterrupted peace and happy Sabbatism from their strange Country where they meet with such unkind usage to their purchased Home and prepared Palace in their new City when their Body shall be more perfectly Redeemed that it may be transformed into a likeness unto Christ's glorious Body together with their Spirit and Soul all together fully to injoy this God in Father Son and holy Spirit for ever to glorifie him in consort with the blessed Inhabitants of that Heavenly Country where they may have all their waitings for fulfilled all their Prayers answered all their longings satisfied all their capacities filled up with a suitable good Then shall groanings pass into shoutings and sighings into singings O for that day O who will give this O how could Hearts sick of Love for more of Christ in clearness of Vision and in fulness of injoying even leap out of the Body and forthwith give a spring into Glory O how
will remember unto them said Jehovah Aelohim speaking of his Covenanting Israel walking obediently the Covenant of Ancestors them whom I brought forth out of the Land of Egypt before the eyes of the Heathen to be unto them a God I Jehovah Thus did he often in that Book of Moses make over himself to his people in Christ such delight did he take in taking occasion to tell them that he was and would be a God unto them Was not here Covenanting Grace and Redeeming Love It was the faine that was made before with Jacob Isaac and Abraham as sometimes the order of words is In other places is mentioned from Abraham downwards to Isaac and Jacob But in one place of Moses's Book it is mentioned renewed and confirmed going upward from the people near a deliverance in Egypt to Jacob to Isaac to Abraham the Father of the Faithful Thus leading them to that former and more ancient Promise and Gospel-covenant of Grace in Christ Believers could say in the Psalmist's time that J. â—â—lohim was their portion for ever Hath the LORD graciously promised that a chosen People shall be his people So they were of old in Moses's days If ye shall walk in my Stntutes thus spake he to them and keep my Commandments and do them then I will walk among you and will be to you a God and you shall be to me a People Jehovah hath avouched or hath caused to say or to promise by giving his and by taking thy Word thee to be unto him for a People of peculiar Treasure as be hath spoken unto thee and to keep all his Commandments For Jehovah ' s Portion is his people Jacob the Line of his Inheritance Ho hath divided and separated them unto himself as his allotted part and peculiar Possession Hath he promised Covenant teaching and Knowledge This also was a Covenant privilege of Old He taught them his name Jehovah and made himself known to them by that name in putting a Being into his Promises made to their Fathers for their deliverance and proclaimed this Name to Moses His people sate down at his feet receiving of his Words Thus were Christ's Disciples even then taught by him as their Master Thou saith he to his people then hast been made see to know that Jehovah he Aelohim none else besides him And thou shalt know and cause to return into thy heart that Jehovah he Aelohim in the heavens above and on the earth beneath none else This doth particularly relate to their being instructed to acknowledge Christ's Jehovahship In David's time the Secret of Jehovah was to them who feared him and his Covenant to make them for to know He revealed in the inner Man of Believers the hidden Mysteries of Wisdom Will he be merciful to the unrighteousness of his Covenant-people no more remembring their sins and their iniquities The same free Mercy and Grace was manifested under the former Dispensation Christ hath put it into the second Word or Command and proclaimed it as his Name when Moses went up into Mount Sinai as Jehovah had commanded him taking in his hand the two Tables of Stone Jehovah Jehovah God pitiful and gracious long suffering and much in Mercy and Truth keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and trespass and sin Doth not the blessedness of man consist in this Whereupon Moses makes haste and bows himself and pleadeth this in Prayer Pardon thou O LORD our iniquity and our sin Was not this the meaning of the Sin Offerings and of the Trespass Offerings with the annexed promises of Pardon and of acceptation Did not the covering Merch seat which was altogether as broad as the Ark wherein were the two Tables preach this Did it not set out the merciful covering and propitiation of sins Was not this a precious Figure of Jesus Christ by and through whom received by and through Faith in him his peoples transgranssings of the Law of the ten Words are freely fully forgiven and wholly covered How full are the Books of Moses of the Psalms and of the Prophets of this comforting Doctrine So that all these Promises in the Covenant of Grace have been are and will be the same under both the Dispensations All the difference is that in the last days there will be a more clear discovery of this gracious Covenant A more glorious way of dispensing a more through inabling to the keeping of it For to this especially have the expressions of difference an eye and respect between the old and renewed Covenant Spoken of in Jeremiah and in the Epistle to the Hebrews compared There will be larger pouring out of the holy Spirit and blessing from the Father in the Name of the Son in those latter purer times that are near at hand So that this Covenant shall not be broken as it has been under former Dispensations of Grace but be better kept with more exactness and faithfulness with more intireness and continuedness in the fulness and perfection of it Halelujah I will confess Jehovah with all the heart Gracious He. He will Remember his Covenant for ever toward his people The secret of Jehovah to them who fearing him and his Covenant to make them for to know All the paths of Jehovah Mercy and Truth to them that keep his Covenant and Testimonies and that remember his precepts for to do them Have respect unto the Covenant For ever thou wilt keep for thy Saints thy excelling Ones thy Mercy and thy Covenant faithful to them The whole of the Christian Religion for Doctrines Graces Duties Priviledges and such like parts of that Religion is one and the same under both the Old and New Testament Is not the Word called the Word of Christ Is not Christ named the speaking-one both by Daniel and by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews Doth not Christ call himself the Word and the Word of God Is not He the sum and the subject matter of the whole Scriptures Is not he the Author of them Hath he not said of himself he is the one Doctor or Teacher of his Disciples Is he not the great Prophet Is he not the LORD God of the holy Prophets Did he not at Mount Sinai speak by his own voice from Heaven Was it not his forewithessing Spirit who from him spake in the Prophets of old declaring the sufferings that should befal Christ and the glory that was to follow as saith Peter in his first Epistle Was not that passage in the ninety and fifth Psalm To day if you will hear his voice applyed to the voice of Christ in what was written to the Hebrews Has not Christ himself declared that those who searched the Scriptures might find them testifying of him And what other Scriptures had they at that time but those of the Old Testament When he himself in the days of his flesh did exercise his publick Ministery preaching the glad tydings of Justice in the
great Church Assembly did he not teach in that Sermon of his at the Mount the same true Christian Doctrine which was delivered of old to his faithful Messengers from him the which to bring to his people And did he not vindicate the verity and purity of it from those corrupt wrong Interpretations that false Teachers had given of it Did not Christ who lay in the bosom of his Father declare and reveal the whole of the Will of his Father under that former dispensation of Grace so far as concerned that Dispensation And is it not one and the same Will still the difference in the manner of dispensing only well observed Were not they then taught all things and all Truths whatsoever that were necessary to Salvation Were not they fully and perfectly directed the true right way to Eternal Life Were not they strictly charged from Christ by his Servant Moses not to add to the words that he gave them in commandment nor to take from them And must not that Word then be a complete Directory and comprehensive sum of all Doctrinals as well as of other matters O who will give that this Word of Christ may ind wel in us copiously abundantly in all Wisdom O let it not stand as a stranger without doors but let us receive it in and find a place for it in our inmost parts That it may be as well known and familiar to us as the most dear delightful companions and the most near beloved Relations with whom we dwell and converse Let us be well acquainted with the whole of it and diligently compare it in the several parts of it Be we much and mighty in the Scriptures of both the Prophets and also of the Apostles receiving the whole as a Doctrine revealed from Heaven by Christ O that this were more found in our Hearts and Minds In our Memory and Conscience in our Wills and Affections That all the good Fruits thereof may abound and be more visible in the whole of our Life There we may learn all saving Wisdom There is the perfect Knowledge to be had of all things to be both believed and done that Eternal Life may be obtained There are Universal Principles of this Law of the ten Words which do pertain to Faith and Manners and these Practical Dictates which every one of these Laws doth include is a Fundamental Truth and Doctrine necessary to be believed as that we must have Jehovah Aelohim for our God and him alone that we must worship him according to his Institutions in his Word and not in any other way of Humane Inventing and imposing that we ought to have an holy reverent use of his Name That the Seventh day is his Sabbath in which we may not do the servile works of our particular calling that the Father and Mother are to be honoured and so of the rest Whoever doth believe the contrary to these is guilty of erring in Decalogical Fundamentals Have I not already demonstrated and proved by the whole Scriptures those great Doctrines concerning the Jehovahship the Christship the Mediatorship the Lordship the Lawgivership the Creatorship of the LORD Jesus Christ Would the Reader have more Doctrines thus manifested The Doctrine of Regeneration was preached of old The first Creation of Man was an exact Patten and a lively Samplar of this when man was made in the Image according to the likeness of his Makers he having a concreated resemblance unto his Creators in Knowledge in Righteousness in Holiness in Dominion in Glory this was defaced by the Fall of Man and is again restored to Sons and Daughters of God in Spiritual Recreation which is a new man renewed unto acknowledgement according to the Image of him who created him in Righteousness and Holiness of Truth As Paul doth speak David acknowledgeth in the Book of Psalms that a new heart is Creation-work So glorious and excelling a piece as that it is the making of a new World of Men and of Women A Work that none but the Almighty-creating power can do and therefore all the Honour and Glory of it must be given to him alone This is the humble confession called for Know ye that Jehovah he God he made us and not we his people and sheep of his pasture This is variously expressed in the Old Testament in very significant Words Moses sets it out by the circumcision of the heart So doth Jeremiah David by Creation and Renovation Isaiah by Jahovah's creating a people for his Glory for his Forming of them or Framing them anew by the Spirit of Regeneration Ezekiel by a Resurrection a Life from the Dead he calleth it a new Heart a new Spirit an Heart of flesh Jehova's giving of his Spirit in the innermost of the Covenant-people The Prophets often by conversion or turning from sin to Jehovah Aelohim What Spiritual Discerner doth not here see the same Doctrine which Christ preached to Nicodemus when he discovered to him the necessity of being born again from above otherwise there could be no seeing no entring into the Kingdom of God Affirming once and again and the third time that this must be Which when this great Doctor understood not what this Spiritual Regeneration was what that was which was born of the Spirit The LORD Christ reproves him for and convinceth him of his Ignorance Art thou a Teacher in Israel and knowest thou not these things Whereby he evidently shews that this was no such new unheard of Doctrine before but the same that was taught in Moses's Book and by the Prophets Wouldst thou be led to some other great Truth Consider that Doctrine about Justification Hath not Habakkuk declared that The Righteous by faith he shall live And is not this three if not four several times mentioned in the New Testament Hath not Paul confirmed the same shewing that The Righteousness without the Law only by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe hath testimony from the Law and the Prophets Doth not Jeremiah call Christ by this name Jehovah-tzidkenu Our Righteousness Did not Noah preach the same true sound Doctrine Was not that which was said of Abraham that He believed and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Was not this written not for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for our sakes also to whom it shall be imputed even to them that believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered over for our sins and was raised up for our Justification Were not Believers of old well instructed in the Doctrine of free Remission of sins O how kindly was David's heart affected herewith when he tasted the sweetness and enjoyed the good of this Truth O the blessedness the happy goings on of him whose trespass is forgiven whose sin is covered O how Blessed the man to whom Jehovah imputeth no iniquity and in whose spirit no deceit Thou O
declared in the first Psalm Sinners will then fall and be condemned This Daniel saw in that glorious Vision wherein the Judge of all shewed himself sitting upon his Throne having thousand times thousands ministring unto him and ten thousand times ten thousands standing before him Where Judgement set it self and the Books were opened Thus did Solomon close the Book of his Experiences of his folly in seeking a happiness in creature injoyments which were all vanities having minded others of the Day of their Death A serious Meditation of which might prove either a prevention or a remedying of this evil malady The Dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it He leaves behind him with those who came after him these acceptable words of Truth the end of the Word of all hath been heard these same Aelohim or adored Almighties in Father Son and holy Spirit fear thou and those Commandments of his keep thou because this all that Adam or for this all Adam or the whole of that first Adam or all of Man or the whole Man here is all the main of all our Religion when we have spoken and written and printed never so much about Religion this is our grand spiritual and eternal concern thine and mine and every other mans Because Aelohim will make to come into Judgement every Work all Work with all that is hidden be it kept never so secret from other men here if good and if evil or whether good and whether evil Wouldst thou who readest this have the Graces of the holy Spirit in wrought by him in the hearts of his Covenant people to pass under the same Scripture-examination Did not the Believers under the Old Testament Dispensation l obtain by Lot like precious Faith with those under the New Administration Hath not the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews given us a large Catalogue of such as were full of lively fruitful-working-Faith Doth he not give us an Historical Account of the Faith of Abel of Enoch of Noah of Abraham of Sarah of Isaac of Jacob of Joseph of Moses of Gideon of Barak of Sampson of Jephthah of David of Samuel and of the Prophets And of the wonderful Fruits and Effects of this Grace in them How eminent was Abraham more especially and particularly this way Who has this honourable Title put upon him that he is called The father of the faithful Did not James in his Epistle Exhort the Christian Brethren to take for an Example of suffering of evil and of long suffering the Prophets who have spoken in the Name of the LORD Behold said he we count them blessed that endure Ye have heard of the patience of Job and ye have seen the end of the LORD that the LORD is of so much Bowels and Compassionate How lively was Abraham's Hope who against Hope believed in Hope What a Man of Hope was David Who that savours of and that frames to his renewed Spirit can considerately read Davids Psalms and not see this Grace often put forth into Act by him How constant an expectant was he unto Jehovah Aelohim in variety of difficult and trying Cases And how often doth he call earnestly upon others to be much in this The good whereof he had so often proved to his great satisfaction and to his raised joy How full of love was his heart towards Christ and towards the Law of Christ So that when he could not express the whole of what he thus felt stirring within him he gives a vent to his heart by his Exclamations O how I Love And by his longings after more O what an holy Fear had he of this glorious God And O how much did David's heart stand in awe of his Word Shall I speak of Duties Was not this David the Man to whom God himself gave Testimony and said I have found David of Jesse a man after mine heart who shall will-do all my wills How full of Prayings Praisings Singings and of such like Religious Services is that one Book of Psalms Wouldst thou hear somewhat of their Priviledges Doth not James bear witness that Abraham was called a friend of God Did not Enoch walk with God Had he not Testimony that he pleased God Did not Noah find Grace in the Eyes of Jehovah Did not he also walk with God Were not the believing ones of the Israelites Sons and Daughters to Jehovah their Aelohim Were not they made partakers of the same Adoption and Love by Faith in Christ What a fulness of assurance of Faith had Abraham How filled with joy and peace in believing was David whilst he walked in the ways of Jehovah O what gladness was there often given into his heart How often was the Light of the Faces of Jehovah lifted up over him In this Light did the gracious Saints of old walk on who were marvellously separated unto Jehovah Aelohim In his Name were they glad all the day and in his Justice were they exalted for he was the Glory of their strength They were satisfied with his favourable acceptation and were full with his blessings The Sons of Israel were a people near him Halelujah Jehovah's portion was his people even then Jacob was the Line of his Inheritance they his portion and he theirs Hear some of their holy Breathings To me how precious are thy thoughts O God! How mightily increased are the summs of them Would I tell them they will be more than the sand I awake and still I with thee How precious thy mercy O Aelohim And the Sons of Adam hope for safety in the shadow of thy wings They shall be plenteously moistened with the fatness of thy house and the stream of thy pleasures thou wilt give them to drink Because with thee the Well of life In thy light we see light Extend thy mercy to them that know thee and thy justice to the right of heart How much thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them who fearing thee Were not these things forewritten for the use of Believers now When Jacob found Jehovah Christ in Bethel did he not there speak with praying Believers in after Ages When Aelohim turned the Sea into Dry When his people passed thorow the River on foot did not the Saints in after Generations there rejoyce in him The Faithful then and the Faithful now are fellow-servants and fellow-brethren and joynt-heirs of the same promised Glory They confessed that they were Guests and Strangers upon Earth they were desirous of and sought a better the heavenly Countrey Therefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God Happy they who are in Abraham's bosom who are taken into intimate society conjunction love and glorious fellowship with him How full of heavenly joys is that blessed State of Christ's Spiritual Kingdom which is a Being with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all
not so commend it self to God not being well testified before him who searcheth the Heart and who being a Spirit will be worshipped in Spirit and if there be only inward worship without the outward worship there the worship is not well witnessed before Men and Angels The outward bodily part of idolatrous worship by gesture and posture as a testification of homage is for that cause a sin because that is given to an Idol which is an honour due peculiarly unto Jehovah Aelohim himself it belongs properly unto the great Creator and should not be sacrilegiously stollen from him to be bestowed upon a creature Where there is a daring scorning and a presumptuous neglecting of the outward part of solemn worship there the guilt of hainous sinning is chargeable upon such and of provoking asfront to the Heavenly Majesty A decent comly dress and deportment in the acts of outward worship and service doth well become the Saints Further yet those Ceremonial Rites of old are called the Elements of the World weak and egene such as by which the Israel of God were instituted in their minority who were Children and Disciples under the Mosaick Paedogogy which although under that old ministration they were profitable exercises leading Believers unto the promised Messiah yet after the manifestation of Christ in the flesh their external use ceased and their observation would be noxious Those paedagogical rudiments with which the LORD taught his Church under the former dispensation when it was in its infancy are now vanished being shadowy Rites which had annexed to them an open professed declaration of their Faith concerning the Messias who was then to come in the flesh to be born of a Virgin and to expiate the sins of mankind and therefore are not to be observed now by the New Testament Churches grown to their ripe age for so is the force of Paul's arguing set against those who would have brought in the Mosaick Rites into the New Testament Church and have mingled them with the Evangelical Doctrine I draw another argument from those various phrases in the New Testament which do express the doing away of those ceremonial Rites such as to loose or to disbind which doth denote its abrogation and that it doth not now bind Believers to its observation Christ having taken away the bond of it To destroy or to abolish to cause to loyter behind or to render improfitable so has Christ dealt with those Mosaick Ceremonies To be changed to be carried from one place or thing to another to be transported conveyed turned so it is with ritual institutes they are passed into somewhat more spiritual heavenly and glorious To be abrogated to be abolished to be razed out to be put out or away so that there is a disanulling of these ceremonial Rites To take away so has Christ removed out of the way that handwriting in ritual injunctions To rail it to affix it to the Cross the forementioned Handwriting of Figuring Ceremonies under that former Dispensation Christ did this fastning it to his Cross To blot it out to obliterate to wipe off the Oyntment to wipe out thus the Chirograph spoken of but just before was blâ—â—ted out by Christ Christ cancelled the bond tare it in pieces cut it into small parcels with those nails as it were with which he was nailed to the Cross Christ having paid the debt and fully discharged all the demands of his Fathers Justice it was equal that the bonds subscribed should no longer stand in force To pass away the Priesthood of Christ is an eternal Priesthood which doth not pass from one unto another either by descent or by succession as the Levitical Priesthood did Christ's Priesthood was so personal as for ever to abide in himself whereas in the Levitical Priesthood the Priests dyed one after another and the Priesthood it self was changed being translated unto another Tribe from Levi to Judah from which Tribe of Judah our LORD sprâ—ng so that the Levitical Priesthood having now passed into Christ that Priesthood ceaseth and the ceremonial Rites belonging to it To cease and to be taken out of the way if those shadowy Sacrifices which of old they offered year by year continually could have made the comers thereunto perfect would they not then have ceased to be offered For so it should be rendred interrogatively undoubtedly they would have so ceased this therefore being now perfected by the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once the Sacrifices must necessarily cease To be dead The ceremonial Statutes obliged for a certain time as in the Ordinance of Marriage which doth bind till death but death doth unloose that Matrimonial Bond so here Believers under this new Administration are freed from those ritual observations and therefore when all this is put together let those who would still be serving the old Tabernacle remember that thereby they deprive themselves of having any right to eat of the spiritual Altar and that so long and so far Christ's coming in the flesh doth profit them nothing and they betray that Liberty which Christ hath purchased and intangle themselves by thrusting their necks still under that Yoke of Bondage which Christ has broken If these Mosaick Rites should still continue in the later-day-Glory then their Glory in those later days as to the outward Administration of Grace will be less than our Glory now is whereas we have a better ministration now more spiritual more heavenly more glorious than the former dispensation of Grace under the old Testament was and the later-day-Glory will be yet more excelling what there is of perpetual equity in those figuring Types and shadowy Signs and how far in Christ who is the Truth of them they have an everlasting continuance in which regard they are called everlasting Ordinances and Ordinances from Generation to Generation this is a matter though of very useful yet of far distinct inquiry from what has been now under my Disquisition For it sets out the inward spiritual part the things signified by those external Signs such Truths Duties Graces and Priviledges as are some way or other contained in one or other of the Laws of the ten Words and are one of the strong arguments for their cessation now upon the change of the dispensation the external fleshy obscure earthy veiled part being now passed into the inward spiritual glorious heavenly unveiled part I hasten now to evidence in the Word of Truth That The Law of Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation Here to avoid mistakes and cavils for we are for standing upon plain firm ground having the whole Scripture in plain express words for the Weekly Seventh day Sabbath I notice the Reader that to believe actually in the Messiah as Mediator between God and Man and actually to believe in this Messiah as he that was in the Fulness of Time to come in the Flesh born of
a Virgin was a Law under the Old Administration And to believe actually in that particular person this Christ when come in the Flesh as so born of the Virgin Mary is a Law of the New Testament yet so as that this Quateneity as so born of the Virgin Mary is one part of the New Testament Ministration properly as such and so in that respect doth belong to another matter And thus in some places Faith doth set out the New Dispensation of Grace The short and plain is this Faith in the Messiah or in Christ was a Law under the Old Testament-dispensation or it was then a commanded Duty to believe in Christ which was to be done in obedience to a Law of Jehovah Aelohim For the Advancement of this sort of profitable Learning I propound these following Inquiries which if well cleared up from Scripture might bring in some considerable Augment to this Holy Science Q. Whether there be not convincing evidence in the Word of Truth that fallen Adam and Eve did actually repent and believe in the Messiah for Justification Acceptation and Salvation Q. What Names are there in the Old Testament given to Christ which do set him out as Mediator as Saviour as the Justifier of his people and as being their Righteousness Q. What Types and Figures and Shadows were there of this Doctrine of Faith in the Messiah under old Testament Dispensation Q. Whether if all the Hebrew expressions were put together that in the Old Testament are expressive * descriptions of Faith Trust Hope Expectation in the New with all the Synonyma's and Phrases referring to this subject matter it would not discover much of lively Faith in the Saints under that former Dispensation That Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation I thus demonstrate both in the general significancy of the word grounded on the Almightness and Faithfulness of Jehovah Aelohim and also in the special acceptaon it for closing with applying of relying on Jehovah the Messiah and his Righteousness for justification in the sight of God In its general significancy it has a firm Foundation a rockie bottom even the Power and Truth of the omnipotent unchangeable Jehovah a God of ability to perform and of veracity to fulfil what he has spoken and promised Every Word and Truth of God revealed is the general and common object of Faith A lively working belief of this though seemingly but in the general yet has great influence upon the special actings of justifying Faith for the Scriptures do give us instances of too much and too often questioning the Power and Fidelity of Aelohim in his Word and Promises in some particular trying Cases as long hiding of his Faces great withdrawing delay of fulfilling of Propheties and Promises not answering of Prayer carrying himself as one angry at the very Prayers of his people much conflicting with and yet frequent foyling by some particular bewailed confessed corruption under violent temptations the LORD 's seeming forsaking of his Churches and people his shining upon and prospering of the Enemies of the LORD and of his people his seeming to act contrary in his works from what he covenanteth in his Word with more of this kind But I suppose that it is the notion of Faith in its special acceptation that is intended by this pretended new Law of Faith in this Objection That this Faith in Christ is now in more clearness spiritualness evidence growingness heavenlyness for the manner and degrees of it we thankfully and admiringly acknowledge to the praise of God of rich Grace and of free Love who has brought us under this new and more glorious Administration But there was the same Grace of Faith in Truth and in reality for its Nature and Essence in the savingness and justifyingness of it for the kind and specifickness of it under the Old This we also affirm was it not this saving and justifying Faith which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews do speak of when he said The just by faith shall live Those who are justified counted just by Faith in Christ applying him and his Righteousness shall live that life of Grace and of Comfort of support and stay of waiting and of dependance here which shall pass into an eternal life of Glory of full Vision Injoyment and Happiness And was not this Testimony brought out of the Old Testament which is used once and again and a third time in the new And in every one of the places in the new it is applyed with respect to Justification by Faith in Christ So in the Epistle to the Romans the Righteousness of God of Christ who was God as well as Man for the complete satisfactory righteousness of such an one did we stand in need of is revealed in the same Gospel of Christ from Faith to Faith as it is written But the just by faith shall live That Righteousness by which a Believer doth stand justified before the Judgement Seat of God and can be no other Righteousness but only the Righteousness of Christ this is a free gift from the Father and is through the inworking of the holy Spirit by Faith imputed to Believers The like sense it has in that passage of the Epistle to the Galatians that no man by the Law is justified before God is mentioned for the just by faith shall live referring again to that place in Habakkuk whereby to prove justification by Faith in Christ only as the Context doth evidently declare And thus in the formentioned passage to the Hebrews having in the last verse but one of the tenth Chapter cited that Scripture in the Old Testament the Author proceeds in the first verse of the eleventh Chapter to describe the true spiritual Nature of saving justifying Faith and he gives particular Instances and Examples of the Saints of old who acted this Faith Was it not by this Faith in the promised Seed of the Woman in Christ that Abels person and Sacrifice was acceptable to God and by which he obtained witness that he was Righteous and so justified in the sight of God Was it not by this Faith that Enoch pleased God who gave him this Testimony and was therefore honoured with the priviledge of walking with God here and then of Gods taking him away to himself Was it not by this Faith that Noah prepared the Ark as a Type of Christ by which he became an heir of the Righteousness which is according to Faith Of which Righteousness of Justification by Faith in the Messiah Noab was Preacher to others Was it not by this Faith that Abraham was justified Did not he believe God Jebovah the Messiah who appeared to him And was it not accounted to him for Righteousness And is not this brought in by Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians to prove the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in Christ by his Righteousness imputed to the Believer Did not Abraham receive
the Sign of Circumcision as a Seal of this Righteousness of Faith which was thus imputed to him Is not Abraham propounded as an Example to after-Believers in this being called the Father of all that believe in the Foot steps of whose Faith after-Believers are to walk For what was so counted to him for Righteousness was written not for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for the sake of Paul and of others in Paul's time and so still for our sakes in the present day to whom it shall be imputed namely to them that do believe in him what Moses doth speak of the Duties of the Law Paul doth interpret of the Faith of the Gospel It would fill up much paper to inlarge in all the other instances of the old Testament-Believers recorded in the new particularly in that eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews There is one Faith one and the same Doctrine of Faith to be believed and one and the same Grace of Faith by which men do believe for Justification and Salvation both under the Old and New Testament It was the open confession of Peter's Faith in one of the first Councils or Synods held in the New Testament when the Apostles and Elders were assembled together to debate some weighty Question of the Christian Religion We believe saith he by the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ to be saved in such manner as they also as the believing Fore-fathers under the Old Testament were merely through free Grace by Faith in Grace by Faith in Christ in his righteousness They by Faith in Christ who was then to come to be in due time born of the Virgin which was held forth in Types of old to this end We in Christ as the perfect Anti-type thus already come The Analogy of Faith in both Testaments should be attended unto by a diligent discerning Reader of the Word a due proportional collating of them between and to each other would discover the uniformness and well-agreingness of the Will of our LORD in them both by a particular right application and limitation of their Analogy the orderly regulation whereof must be made according to that measure and number of proportion which the different manner of dispensing doth call for and no further is it to be admitted as to any substantial and essential part of the Christian Religion there is a likeness of Word a sameness of Sense a oneness of intendment on them both unto which Analogy he must keep close who would give forth a true explication of sound Doctrine That Faith which is required and promised in the Covenant of Grace is for the substance of it one and the same Grace which is commanded in the Law of the ten Words and let it be further researched into by the ingenuous for the augment of this Spiritual Science Whether the Faith of Adam in his innocence I do not put here into this inquiry as to the special use and the proper object of it were not for the substance of the Grace one and the same with the New Covenant Grace of Faith Was not Adam in all things to give confident credence to all as to every Truth which Aelohim his Creator had revealed or should further reveal was he not bound to believe in the promised Messiah by the Law of Creation and of Nature as soon as ever Jehovah should reveal this to him The whole Scripture is profitable for this doctrine of the oneness and sameness of old and New Testament Faith and I am perswaded after some years research into the word of Truth about this matter and long experience suited thereunto that one great occasion at least if not cause of the Apostasies and Backslidings of some of the loose ungospel-like and ill-principled-conversation of others and of the practical Atheism and Infidelity of some others and of the doubts and fears and unprofitable walking of other some has been men's unscriptural unwarrantable setting up of so many different Religions in the Old and New Testament and the urging of some one or a few misunderstood misinterpreted Scriptures wrested and wryed to some particular purpose contrary to the drift and intent and scope of the whole Scripture besides which doth write about that Case Whereas the whole Scripture is uniform and harmonious speaking with one mouth one and the same thing The only difference between the Old and the New being in the mode of Administration as has been opened once and again Let me here further add seeing this Objector doth call this a New Law of Faith as a part of the the New Creation brought in and perfected particularly and only upon the first day of the Week and upon no other day as he pretends that this Grace of Faith was put into a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation for besides that if there had been no Law for this Faith under that Dispensation it had been no sin no transgression not to have believed with that Faith for sin is the transgression of some Law and I have shewn it was Christ manifesting himself to Moses in Egypt and in the wilderness whom the Israelites did so often tempt grieve provoke and not not believe But further Faith in that Jehovah Aelohim who proclaimed the ten words at Mount Sinai was a plain duty injoyned in the first word or command and that Promulgator I have proved to be the Messiah or Christ So that it was a duty actually to believe him to believe in him Faith in the Lawgiver is one of the ways and commandments of this Jehovah I had here given a dismiss unto this that I might hasten to the last particular but that I called to mind how another adversary of and objector against the Seventh-day Sabbath had affirmed that the Decalogue had less in it than the Law of Nature and that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature Although if he had improved his own concession he might have seen how he tacitely gave an answer to his own Objection for he says That the chief Heads of Natutes Law are contained in the Decalogue He gives instances in divers particulars some of the chief of them in which he seems much to glory I shall examine In which he judgeth the Decalogue is defective such as the belief of the Soul to love our selves with a just and necessary Love to fame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation to deny all bodily Pleasure Profit Honour Liberty and Life for the securing of our Salvation Let the considerate Reader now spiritually according to the Word of Truth discern in these matters If the Scripture-rules of interpreting these ten Words Laws or Commands be observed allowed and applyed it will be manifest That they are a comprehensive as for other things so for the particulars specified so far as doth concern the discharge of Duty and the avoiding of Sin These general Laws do take
in more particulars than is commonly observed for the particulars are expressed by some word or other in the general Law which by collating of other Scriptures in the Original words and phrases doth evidently demonstrate this which is well worth the noting and improving for the advancement of this decalogue-Science The definition of every one of the ten Words is so fully and comprehensively fitted as they take in all the Laws of Natural Holiness and Righteousness So that we may say with the Psalmist In all perfection I have seen an end but thy commandment O Jehovah is very large O how I love thy Law To believe that the Soul is what Scripture and Nature do say that it is is comprehended in the Decalogue The Maker and Giver of this Law is the best Interpreter of it When the Lawyer asked Christ which was the great Commandment in the Law The LORD Jesus answered him Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thine understanding and with all thy strength This is the first and the great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self On these two Commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets Observe here Is not the Soul particularly taken notice of in the expression And that too as a distinct essential constitutive part of man from the spirit and body And is not this a Word to be believed Is it not plain here that the Scripture Doctrine of the Soul is to be believed And this as comprehended within the due bounds of the Decalogue That Christ doth here speak of the Law of the ten words is evident by collating of other Scriptures which do historically relate the same thing where the Preface Hear O Israel doth shew that it is meant of this Law of the ten words seeing there is a particular enumeration of several of the ten Words in express terms Which ten Words do summarily contain the whole Doctrine of Holiness and of Righteousness whatsoever the Law and the Prophets do speak of And how much is there in these concerning the Doctrine of the Soul This exposition of the Law-maker himself is a sufficient warranting of this interpretation For he doth make the sum of the first Table to which the four first words do belong to be the loving of Jehovah our Aelohim with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our might And the sum of the second Table which takes in the six last words to be Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And the expressions which Christ doth use are remarkable the whole Heart the whole Soul the whole Strength the whole Mind which words do take in the whole Power and Powers of the inner and outer man The whole strength doth more properly set out the might of the Body in the external Members Limbs and Parts of it The whole Heart doth express all the Inwards of the bodily fleshy part of man The whole Mind doth call for the Vigour and Activity the light and life of the Spirit of Man The spirit of a Man is naturally Luminous and has Light enough in it to demonstrate his Being to be distinct from the respiring faculty in Man So that the whole in his All and in every part of him is concerned and engaged in this Love And all these words thus put together do discover and declare that this Law of the Ten Words doth extend to Spirit Soul and Body both the External and Internal parts of the Body which three do constitute and make up a complete Man And the LORD can make this good use of this part of the Answer to put the Readers upon further Inquiries into the Word of Truth after the true nature and proper difference of their Spirits Souls and Bodies and what the distinct duties of each are and wherein they must all joyntly agree in obeying this precept of Love The Fourth Word doth declare Jehovah Aelohim to be the Maker of the Heavens and of the Earth and of all things that are therein and the Soul of Man is one of these things which he created and made It is of the Law of Nature agreeably to the Word to believe that souls are and that there is a Maker of them And that it is a duty both to get more of the knowledge of our souls and with our souls to love and honour the Creator of them To love our selves with a just and necessary Love as such is of the Law of Nature He that doth it not is a Self Murderer he doth kill somewhat or other of himself which is against the express Letter of the Sixth Word Those that by sinning against and hating of the LORD Christ are Oppressors Wrongers Abusers of their own Souls and love death they do that by which they bring death and destruction upon themselves and so do not discharge that duty which under and for him they owe unto themselves To love our Neighbour as our selues is of the Law of Nature in the Decalogue which is the sense that the Law-giver himself doth give of his own Law This Objector himself doth acknowledge all the Duties of self-love to be deeply written in Man's Nature but in this he doth mistake in that he saith That all the Duties of self love as such are passed by as supposed in Moses's Decalogue In the way men should use more tenderness in their expressions about these holy Laws of Christ upon which he himself doth put so much honour This Adversary doth sometimes call it a Jewish Law and here Moses's Decalogue when he had before and after written so much diminitively about these ten Words whereas the Scriptures do name them with more honour the Words of the Covenant the ten Words the ten Words which Jehovah spake which he gave unto Moses Moses called them the ten Words of Jehovah's Covenant which Jehovah wrote upon two Tables of Stone with many more of such glorious Names and Titles But to my matter in hand If these Duties of self love are supposed where are they supposed if not in this present comprehensive Law which doth include all Duties Christ's Rules of Interpreting do expresly take in self-love making this commanded Duty of self-love to be the measure of our Love to our Neighbour the one must be regulated by the other according to the Word In his own Commentary upon his own Law he doth affirm all the Law and the Prophets to make a regular Love to our selves to be the measure of our Love to others This Law of self-love is not then so passed by but that in express terms if we will take Christ for an Interpreter it is a Duty required in the Law of the ten Words Both Old and New Testament do speak one and the same thing in this matter And men will never be thorowly true right lovers of
Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the New In my entrance upon this I must express my aâ—horrence of that bold daringness in some who charge the LORD Jesus Christ himself with being in his life-time a counâ—enancer of some breaches of the Seventh-day Sabbath Thus flying in the face not only of this holy Law but also of the Supreme Lawgiver They give two Instances one in the twelfth of Matthew and the beginning of that Chapter the other in the fifth Chapter of John the ninth tenth and so on to the sixteenth Verse As to the the former concerning Christ's Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn and eating on the Seventh-day and Christ's pleading their Cause Consider well their Case in all the Circumstances of it They did what was lawful on the Seventh day it being a needful refreshing of their outer man thereby to strengthen for Sabbath-worship and Service where other provision was wanting a work of Mercy as Christ shewed it to be an action tending towards the Sanctification of the Sabbath and not bringing any Duty thereof It was according to what the Law of Jehovah did allow in the two last Verses of the twenty third Chapter of Deuteronomy which had foundation in right Nature and in just Equity amongst all Mankind who did allow this in a case of present necessity And this Christ's doth further exemplifie in a like case of David Concerning the later Where Christ healed the man diseased and bid him To take up his bed and walk And this on the Sabbath-day The diseased man was there on his bed in the way of his cure a cure was lawful on the Sabbath-day a doing good on such a day a work of necessity and of mercy and so lawful This was a Work that the diseased man could not foresee or prevent before the Sabbath came nor being healed was he to delay it till the Sabbath was over left he had lost that of his goods which his duty was so to preserve the Creator on the Seventh-day Sabbath preserved his Creatutes which he had made on the six foregoing days of the same week It was a publick Testimony of the truth of the Cure and of the power of the Healer who as God-man spake the cure It was an act of Faith and of Obedience in him who was whole and did not hinder any Sabbath-worship For you may find him in the Temple in the fourteenth Verse Having already proved that the LORD Jesus Christ was Admininistrator under the Old Testament and that he was the Promulgator of the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai who was to be believed and obeyed in that Day as well as now and that the end of the Law also the great design drift purport and meaning of it was Christ for Righteousness to every one that believeth That which is now upon my hand to defend and maintain is that it is still a Rule of Obedience now unto the New Testament for the confutation of Anomy or Antinomianism This Law of the ten Words was confirmed by the express Doctrine of our LORD Jesus Christ when he took to his God-head the Humane Nature born of the Virgin Mary and dwelt here on Earth and conversed with men for some years particularly in his Sermon at the Mount So that as he was the Proclaimer of them at Mount Sinai Thus also was he here again at the Mount the Preacher and Confirmer of them in the faithful discharge of his Kingly Prophetick Office He would not have any Disciple of his so much as to give way unto any one thought that he came to dissolve any of the least commands of this Law of the ten Words the least Consonant or Vowel or Point whatsoever it was that was originally this of Christ's own giving and writing from his Father by his Spirit in his Word Nothing not the least part of it was in any wise to pass from it Who-ever he were that did loose or dissolve one of these least Commandments more especial too if he did further teach men so such an one was not in a fiâ—â—edness for the New Testament Church-state which is set out by the Kingdom of Heaven He was neither to be admitted into this State where it was known or if he unawares crept in yet being discovered he was not to continue in that state without the exercise of Church Discipline And that Christ doth speak of this Law of the Ten Words is manifest for he doth give particular instances of particular Commands in the Decalogue Of the Sixth Word or Command in the one and twentieth Verses of that fifth Chapter of the Second or Fourth Words or Commands though set out after the manner of the Old Testament Dispensation which at that time was not so fully perfected and accomplished as I have shewed else where in the twenty third and twenty fourth Verses of that fifth Chapter where the manner of Worship and the times and seasons of Worship are spoken to and of Of the Seventh Word in the twenty seventh Verse and onwards to the end of the thirty second Verse Of the Third Word in the thirty third Verse and so forward to the thirty seventh Verse Of the First Word in the nineteenth Verse and further even to the end of the sixth Chapter If thou be a discerning unprejudiced Reader it is but open thy Bible and read those three Chapters and thou wilt conclude with me that this Sermon is Christ's reviving of and Commentary upon the Law of the Ten Words making this to be the Doctrinal Foundation upon which wise Believers are to bottom and to build The same Truth and Duties which are here taught and commanded by Christ are the same which the Prophets of old did commend to the people and which Moses also did deliver as may be seen in the Citations in the margin It was by this Law of the Decalogue that Christ doth prove the truth of his Doctrines and the equity of his Commands It is Christ's obedience unto the Law of the Ten Words wherein he propoundeth and setteth himself as a Pattern and Example for Believers to imitate and to follow him This Law of the Ten Words is affirmed in the New Testament to be in its own nature an Holy Just Good Spiritual Law a Perfect Law commanding all good and forbidding all evil All and every sin is a transgression of one or other of the Ten Words which are still the Believer's light to guide his steps aright in those straight ways wherein he is to walk The Apostles in the History of their Acts and in the Epistles which they sent to the Christian Churches are full of this Doctrine which doth constantly attend their preaching of that great Truth of Justification by faith in Christ particularly even as to the Laws of the Second Table The Prophesies
not the lips of Knowledge go we from him his foolishness is deceitful Sophistry deceptory fraud But the Wisdom of the Acute is to understand his way of practical business Philosophical Folly has too long been made an Hereditary Possession one Generation to another Inâ—pt Opinions have been pertinaciously reteined But the Wittily-ingenious who take up with naked Truth in naked Souls they crown themselves with Knowledge and they put a Crown upon Knowledge Wisdom is their rich and royal Ornament The tongue of the Wise maketh knowledge good grateful commendate renders it amiable adapting of it and opportunely using it to time place person and case Speech when according to the Laws of the Heavenly Apothecary-Art salutiâ—erously compounded of proper Scripture Ingredients is Healthfulness curing the unsoundness the grief of mind There is healing Medicine in such a tongue The lips of the Wise do sow Science they winnow it first sever it from chaffy Philosophy and then sow it pure That is the true good Knowledge which the Wisdom of God doth teach in the Word The best Intelligence is that which is grounded upon the Word To this should we attend and bend our mind referring all our study hither especially the teachers of others they of all men should be in these written Words They are then in their proper Studies and Places it should be their Being and Life This makes men wise in heart it doth prudentiate and intellectuate them The suavity the sweetness of the lips will add Doctrine by a commodious aptness of savoury Expressions and by a pleasing elegancy of winning Eloquence we should be Lords Masters Possessors of this The heart of savoury wise ones will make their mouth to understand it will suggest to the tongue what how when where and to whom to speak A more inner understanding of a Truth or Thing doth much help the Faculty of Speech about that Truth and Thing New noble Conceipts will still be under-begotten It expedites the lips when the Rule of all is this Word Savoury knowledge may be seen and read in the faces of such prudent ones It puts a placidness modesty right-composedness upon their Countenance which is an Index of their Wisdom Such are Cool of Spirit Moderate placid sedate not hot and hasty and rash to pour out Words Those who have all their desire and delectation in this to find out in a way of searching all solid Science and useful Wisdom they withdraw themselves from Philosophick and over-worldly Diversions to immix themselves in those Holy Studies that do bring in durable Essence Their Understanding has depth of living Waters and their Vein is flowing over with it To be without the knowledge of the Soul or for the Soul to be without Knowledge not good this How can such an one govern his Actions and order his Affairs with judgment and discretion That is Wisdom which will be found and acknowledged to be Wisdom at the last in thy last or utmost end Cease we therefore from erring and straying out of the way of those written words of Wisdom O prize we this for the lips of Wisdom are Gold and a multitude of Gems and a precious Vessel Vain affectation of Humane Wisdom is drossy strawy broken and earthy He that wanders out of the Way of Understanding from this prescript word of the LORD will in the end remain in the Cougregation of the incurably-dead To keep the words of the Wise in the belly is sweetly delectable they will be aptly put together in the lips Study Wisdom that thou maist trust in Aelohim he makes known Wisdom to thee to this for this end They are his written Words that do teach it In the Scripture are those excellent Counsels that do tend to true and to sound Knowledge The Counsels and Knowledges that are found here are the Justness or Rectitude of Truth or certainty of the words of Truth every way true It is the truth that is here learnt To make to return words of truth to those who send thee words truth when others do send their Questions and propound their Cases to thee for resolution and satisfaction We should make our heart and our ears to enter into Discipline into the Words of Knowledge The seat of Wisdom is in the heart when that doth rejoyce to see and to hear others to be wise the whole man rejoyceth The reins of a Teacher do rejoyce when the lips of a Scholar do speak Rightnesses When the prescript word and not our own or others carnal corrupt reason is followed we shall make a blessed progress in holy Sciences Here is truth which we should acquire into our possession the right knowledge of Naturals and Spirituals not parting with it upon any terms That is Wisdom Instruction and Understanding which is Scripture-Truth He who is thus wise is manly in strength A man of Knowledge has fortifying Prowess It doth increase his inner and outer vigor These Word-wisdoms are unreached heights 100 sublime for and to an evil-fool lofty excellencies which he cannot come at whilst such But to know these is to the inlightned Soul as honey or the distillings of the honey-Comb sweet and nourishing what natural causality honey may have this way for the sharpning quickning clearing of Ingeny let others inquire If thou have found it it shall be a last reward It would be the Glory of Kings to search out a Word in all their warlick and civil as well as Religious transactions to inquire after those treasured senses of Scripture which would direct them in this It would teach all to word their words over its circumstance or Modes aptly opportunely as if it moved aright upon Wheels No answers but are Scriptural concordant thereunto are sapid Counsel or savoury Advice judicious Reason returned to inquirers Those who in this way do seek Jehovah shall understand all whatsoever it be that doth belong to their Office and Duty A Prince a Leader in State or Church or Field of all men should not want understanding in Scripture Sciences in word acts He should be well skilled in all sorts of useful Learning otherwise their imprudent misgovernment will put them upon oppressing and misguiding their people O love we this Wisdom and this way of VVisdom The Primitive Understanding of Adam which he had concreated with him is not now to us we are corruptly bruitish as to the answering of difficult Questions it is only to be had from Christ in the Word who is able and willing He the God-man For the knowledge of holy Ones Angelical heavenly Ones is not so with us now not so born and bred with us of our own but is a gift from him who is all VVisdom Reades let thine eyes therefore be now up to him that thou mayst be one of the God-taught Ones that thy knowledge may even whilst thou art here on Earth more grow up to answer the knowledge of those