and for ought doth appear accepted well the said Commemorations of his signal mercies and deliverances at the Jews hands until the coming of Christ when the case was wholly altered as that Service but not so as to all future For an invincible argument it is to the contrary that one day of the week is still continued to serve God in a peculiar manner notwithstanding after the strong attempts made especially of late and never before later days either by Eastern or Western Christians or by Reformed or Unreformed to make the Lords day a Sabbath and obliging Christians by vertue of the fourth Commandment in the Decalogue nothing to that end is effected Indeed if men will tenture and extend Gods word to that extream as thereby to draw every thing out of any thing they may reduce all moral duties unto the Ten Commandments according to the custom of expounding them viz. That where the Effect is commanded or forbidden there the Cause likewise and where the Outward act the Inward and where the Genus there the Species and where the Thing there the Circumstances and where one kind there all of like kinds are forbidden or commanded then were there some colour for what they say of all moral duties to be found in the Decalogue and sins interdicted But there is no more ground for the expounding of this so than any other part of Scriptures And if there were this would make Eight of the Ten Commandments superfluous all sins and all duties being reducible at this rate to those two our Saviour in the Gospel refers to viz. Love of God and Love of our Neighbours And surely most essential to all actions are the circumstances of time and place and nothing can be done by Man in Religion or out of it without them therefore it should seem superfluous expresly to enjoyn a time to serve God in and distinctly from the act which unavoidably implyes it And if it be said that not so much a time simply as a time precisely so determined viz. to a Seventh Day and that in such and such manner to be observed is instituted of God then do fall to the ground the supposed naturalness and morality of the time there commanded and that by natural light or law no more is commanded then time or at most a day but not a Seventh Day Now if we are being Christians under the Law no farther than in these two respects First as some of it is repeated and enforced by the Law of the Gospel given us by Christ Secondly as it is consonant to the Law of Reason or Nature And that a seventh part of our time should be dedicated constantly to God is no where so positively delivered in the New Testament as it was in the Old nor doth the light of Nations or Nature suggest any such determinate time for that only and not of time in general is all the question How can a Seventh Day be commanded of God It is not to be denyed but some of the ancient heathen Philosophers and Poets did talk of somewhat of sacredness in the Seventh Day But first whence had they such opinions from the thing it self No surely it was a superstitious and blind admiration of the number Seven of which we find so much in their writings and especially the consideration of the Seven Planets in the Heavens which made them think better of the Seventh Day or cause the week to consist of so many days and no more But what real opinion they had of that above other days doth appear in their practise Philo In Decalog pag. 585. Id. De Opificio Mundi pag. 15 16. 21. Genevae which no monuments declare to have been in more sacred or solemn esteem than any other And the reputed sacredness of the number seven is that which Philo Judaeus playeth upon so handsomly in his commendation of the Jewish seventh day as may be seen in his works And Chrysostome from thence takes a better argument to prove that a Seventh day is not moral from whence several have endeavoured to prove that it is and that in a more sacred manner than any other of the Commandments For to perswade to a precise observation of it these say that God hath set a Memento a Remember upon it such as upon no other Commandment Therefore there should be somewhat extraordinary in it And so there is indeed For saith Chrysostome whereas all other Commandments are very agreeable to the Reason of man and are in some degree known to him by natural light and so need not the like intimation and advice this of a Seventh Day to be kept holy to God cannot be discerned by Natures light at all and therefore needeth such a Memento and Remembrancer as this to bring that to his mind which is so apt to slip out 'T is granted moderner Jews in despight of Christ and Christians have asserted a naturalness and immutability of this Command and an extent of it to all Nations but this concludes not Christians knowing from whence such Antichristian Dogmes proceed Now here lyes the labour to infer a Seventh Day from the Law obliging Christians I say from the letter of the Law and not from the reasonableness of the thing it self to which they flee who find their other proofs too weak and here I will not contend much with them But all their Old Testament testimonies being more easily evaded and nulled then they are alledged by this one answer That they speak only of Jewish Sabbaths and so have no force at all upon us or the same in all respects that they have upon the Jews they must be constrained to repair only to Gospel for the Confirmation of any day separate from civil affairs and dedicate to God And here they are altogether to seek for any one direct or positive Precept not one in all the New Testament can be found for any either Seventh or First Day of the week Whereupon they are compelled to betake themselves to the uncertain way of arguing from Example to a Rule viz. That because they read several instances in the New Testament of things done on the first Day of the week in reference to Religion and the Service of God therefore that day ought specially and religiously to be observed they will perhaps say That the infinite blessing of our Redemption by Christ and his Resurrection is the ground of our observation as the Creation was of theirs This I grant to be a just and sufficient cause but it doth not from thence follow that therefore actually it was so constituted upon that ground We now are in quest of the Constitution it self and not of the Reason why it should be so ordained For many things that seem to us very reasonable are not certainly actually ordained And many things for which in the New Testament we may find presidents of the Apostles or Apostolical persons do not necessarily infer a Rule or Precept But in the New Testament there
In his state of innocencie and perfection or imperfection and blindness of mind God certainly knew that man was frail and apt to mistake when he delivered his Law How then is this an Apologie sufficient for him who gave such a Law as was disproportionable to his understanding at the time of giving it But then secondly considering that the understanding and the thing to be understood are Relatives and that it comes to the same end whether the Facultie be unapt to conceive or the Object unapt to be conceived such an excuse is to no purpose But yet withal wo must note that man is not to be excused from guilt in misunderstanding First be cause he willingly brought this defect upon himself by his Original â—â—lly and Falâ— of Secondly Because he through vile and vitious affections doth oftentimes contract a greater darkness and disorder than is natural to him even in this state of Original sin And God as all other Law-givers did not proportion the Law given according to the contingent dispositions of particular mens understanding but according to that common Scantling found generally in Man So that undoubtedly some men are the proper authors of their own ignorance in divine matters through their affected evil manners as the Scripture and the Fathers jointly shew A second General reason is from God 1. Calling man to the knowledge of himself and that by his word and never intending to alter the course of nature and general state of man in this life which was and is to be fallible Infallibilitie being the portion of the blessed in the life to come â—t were not impossible that God should either by so framing his word or so reframing man have secured him from erring about it but he hath not so done neither doth it appear how such Exemptions and priviledges could consist with his Providence more general For Secondly The Providence of God having determined to preserve humane and divine Societies as he had constituted this can hardly be understood to be more readily and safely effected than by mutual obligations and a necessity of mutual offices to be done one towards another And the first thing conducing hereunto is the Order of Governors and Governed of Masters and Scholars of such as teach and such as are taught in the Word But if every man were wise in the Laws of man had the power of the Sword justly given into his own hands or the power of the Word in his own breast then would there be no need at all of Rulers or teachers to teach or instruct or reprove and redress errours in manners because Every man is supposed to be an independent Prince and though he should offend against nature it self was not to be punished by one who had no autority over him Hence there fore it is that God most wisely hath suffered an inequalitie of Persons in all Ages all Faculties all Policies as well divine as humane that the more strickt the bond is the more intire the societie and unity might also be Thirdly As this discrimination secures the necessary relations between men within themselves so doth it the dependance between God and Man which must never be forgotten For as for the Father to deliver all the writings of his Estate to his son and to put him in present and full possession of all his wealth is the next way to tempt his son to forget and disrespect him and no more to acknowledg any duty to him in like manner were it so that God at once should have put man in ample and absolute knowledg of his holy writings and will without reserving to himself the farther manifestation of difficulter matters there would be no address to God no worship no seeking to him for satisfaction and information in the Care of his Soul One main end and office of prayer would be extinct So we read that God designing the Law to the Israelites provided aforehand That the ordinary Rulers should judg the people at all time but the hard causes they should bring to Moses and Moses himself cases too hard for him to God As in the Case of him that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day and of Zelophehads daughters Fourthly God suffers this to the end he might quicken and excite our Endeavours and industry in the search after his holy will so reveiled unto us For were it so that all things were presently and readily obvious unto us there would be wanting that excellent vertue of labour to which God hath ordained all men since the fall to perserve them from greater mischiefs incident to weak man And besides contempt and slighting are Besides those Texts of Scripture which by reason of wisdom and depth of sense and mystery laid up in them are not yet conceived there are in Scripture of things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemingly confused 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrying semblance of Contrariety and Achronisms Metachronisms and the like which brings infinite obscurity to the text There are I say more of them in Scripture then in any writer that I know secular or divine Dr. Hales Serm. 1. p. 22. alwaies the consequent of what is plain and familiar to us And therefore that argument which some use to prove all things evident in Scripture and others contrariwise that all things are unquestionable in the Church so that according to the opinion of the one a man committing himself to the holy Scriptures and according to the other submitting himself to the Church in all things he may promise himself security rather than safety do make more against this It being more certainly the Will of God while we war in the Church militant we should never rest secure from due solicitudes and temptations but by often contentions with him to preserve our selves from falling from the true Faith or falling into a false Faith A third General reason of the obscurities in Scripture may be taken from the Scriptures themselves which not compared with the general ability of mans reason and understanding only but with other writings also are of difficult access and that will be thought no calumnie if it be considered First That the languages in which they were originally written are so far perished now adayes that they are familiar to no nation neither can the many Idioms and proprieties of the phrase be well understood by us Secondly The Histories thereof and the several customes rites Civil and Religious amongst the Heathens as well as Jews and Christians the habits gestures and acts very easily known and readily apprehended by such as lived in those dayes and places are now hardly to be understood Thirdly The difficulty of distinguishing between Canonical and Uncanonical Writings Fourthly The subtilty and artifices of Heretiques in their corrupting if not the Letter yet perverting the genuine sense Yea the very Orthodox Expositors are themselves so various and unconsenting in the true meaning that they much more distract and unsettle
And it is very wonderful if any thing can be strange which we find comming from that monstrous wit that Socinus should profess Christianity and yet deny that which common humanity taught others as great wits as himself For denying that Religion or Worship of God is natural to man as in divers places he doth what account can he give of many Heathen who never heard of or received any such revelations as he holds necessary to make God known in the world And why because there are certain people in the Indies saith he which have no reverence of a Deity But doth he think that nature teacheth us just so much as we actually know and no more It should seem so indeed by his reasonings and conclusions But that was his folly and mistake as much as it would be to hold an opinion that the Preacher of the Gospel doth not instruct or advise men in Religion the knowledge and service of God because they profit not by him but live profanely and vitiously For that we say is natural to us and that we have by the Law and light of Nature which we have so within us as that by the help of them we may arrive to the knowledge of the truth not that whether we will or no we shall necessarily attain it And surely it is but as the opening of the eyes of the body in a drowfie person to discern the light of the day for a man to perceive such notices as these by vertue of that natural light in him and those legible Characters writ by Gods finger in the heart of man He is franck enough to man and more than enough more then any good Christian in magnifying mans natural reason and natural freedom of will and his power in choosing good and refusing evil and living regularly without those Divine aids judged necessary by all good Christians But how can this be done without the acknowledgment of a Deity and the worship of it But it seems he must give place to Tully in Christianity Cicero pro Plancio whose words are these In my judgment Piety is the Foundation of all Vertues which if true as true it is how can he hold that a man can have any one moral vertue without devotion towards God And can devotion to God be separated from the knowledge of God There are it may be some Nations which are so inhumane and barbarous as to regard neither truth nor justice Doth it therefore follow they have no such seeds of both these sown in their hearts as are naturally apt if not violently choaked to increase to vertuous and laudable actions and habits Many men we see lay violent hands on themselves and take away their own lives should any wise man then conclude from hence Nature never taught him to preserve it It may further be argued for a naturalness in man to be Religious and to agnize and worship a Deity from the absolute necessity of it to the subsistance of humane society Man is naturally sociable saith the Philosopher but without Religion no Civil society can long or well hold together and therefore if Nature hath disposed man to the one and this cannot be attain'd without the other it will follow that the necessary means must in some manner be provided to that end by the author of that first design unless we will grant that too as commonly one absurdity tumbles in upon the neck of another as Aristotle observes that nature designs things in vain Of this natural necessity of Religion diverse have treated whom I might imitate but that I study compendiousness and upon that reason instance no more than in the Original of the Roman Monarchy begun rudely and barbarously by Romulus and so in all likelyhood to have suddenly vanished and expired had not Numa stay'd and secur'd it by Religion and the fear of the Gods as is observed by Florus He brought a fierce people Florus Lib. 1. C. 2. Id. C. 8. to that pass that what they had by force and injustice possess'd themselves of they should manage by Justice and Religion And afterward What was more Religious than Numa So the case required that a fierce people should be softened by the fear of the God We shall therefore take it for granted that Religion is and ought to be in all persons and amongst all people and leaving the common Criticisms about the name Religion whether it proceeds from Religando as Hierome Hier. in Amâ—s C. ult thinks which implies a double obligation upon man towards God natural and Moral or of Election very commodiously Or whether as St. Augustine it comes from Religendo Recognizing a Deity not unfitly Aug. Civit. de Lib. 10. 4. Enchirid. c. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvian ad Cath. Eccl. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pan. c. 3. Paris C. 3. we pass in a word to the Nature and proper Offices of Religion as taken here for the worship of God For so necessary and natural are these two general Parts of Religion we have laid down Knowledg of God and Worship of God that some both Heathen as well as Christian Philosophers define it by each of them Epictetus declares it the primest thing in Religion to have a Right Judgment of the Gods And Mercurius that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knowledg which Salvian literally translates and uses as his definition On the other side the Scholiast on Aristophenes saith He that is religious does those things that are pleasing unto God And Tully where we above quoted him describes it to be The worship of God And Guilielmus Parisiensis describes it thus The sum of Religion is to persevere immoveably against all the provocatious of temptations and to ascend upward towards God and inseparably to cleave to him And surely that Question moved in the Schools Whether Theology or Religion be a speculative or Practical vertue is never like to be decided until the different Parties agree to compound the matter by taking in both and making it both Speculative and Practical as we do For undoubtedly as it delivers rules and Articles of Faith it is speculative as it delivers Rules and preceps of Holy and divine Life it is Practical and both these it doth as we have shew'd But it is the practical part of it or worship we are at present concerned in and of which no small doubt may be made whether it consists more in the Fear or Love of God but I suppose it may be as be before disided It being an Affection of the Inward man consisting of Reverence and love of God and demonstrating the same in Acts proper and proportionable thereunto And this is all the definition needful to be given of Serving God so essential that the word of God doth nothing more frequently than put the fear of God simply for the Service of God Abraham saith in Genesis The Fear of God is not in this Gen. 20. 11. Psal 36. 6. 2 Cor.