Christ is the great Exemplary Pattern for his Disciples to imitate and to follow he rested on that Seventh-day and therefore his people must also rest on the same seventh-day Thus he himself doth argue He was the First-seventh-day-Sabbath-Observer and under all the several Administrations of Grace He called upon his People to do the same In the days of his flesh here on earth after he was born of the Virgin Mary he through the Weeks of his life yielded Obedience unto this Command by keeping the Seventh-day as the weekly Sabbath-day and no other day in the weekly return as such And this was and is a part of that perfect Righteousness which every sound believer doth apply to himself as his Plea of Justification in the sight of God for his Sin of Sabbath-breaking and every such believer is to conform in Sanctification to Christ in all the Acts of Christs Obedience to this Law of the ten words He as his Custom was went into the Synagogue on the sabbath-Sabbath-day and stood up for to read He taught the people such as would give him the hearing on the sabbath-Sabbath-days And whither shall we go to get our selves cloathed with Sabbath Righteousness but unto him putting on this Lord Jesus and making this Jehovah to be our Righteousness How can there be such an apt proper distinct suitable Sabbath-Righteousness from Christ applyed to the Soul but by those who make out after that weekly seventh-day-Sabbath-Righteousness which was in its perfection in Christ Those that observe any other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath cannot so directly go to Christ for such a days Righteousness not particularly for the First-days Righteousness as to a Sabbath which First day Christ all his life through never observed as the weekly Sabbath He has left us an example a Pattern a Copy such as Writing Masters do leave to their Scholars that we should follow his steps He that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked Because as he is so are we in this World if we keep to his Rule and Example for the Scripture speaks of things as they ought to be taking it for granted that they be so and they are so so far forth as Believers do act regularly like themselves as doth become them According to this Pattern we have Paul practising after Christs Ascension into Heaven on every Sabbath-day it was his Custom and Usage his constant Practice the same Expression that sets out Christs continued weekly observing of the Seventh-day-Sabbath that it was usual to him is affirmed also of that eminent Servant of his That it was also usual to this Paul O that the same might be truly testified of more in our Day of Leaders and of their People that Christ might hold such forth before others and say Here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus The Holy Seed of Christ and of his Church are such as keep these Commands of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ O the happy Progresses O the blessed goings on with a strait foot of such as do his Commandments A Second Reason of his affixing to this Holy Law of the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath who is Wisdom essential Wisedoms All Wisdoms in one is this For that Aelohim blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day Thus it was from the beginning and thus it is and will be to hidden ages of hidden ages The blessing is its peculiar Portion and what is Man that he will take away this Heritage of Blessing from the Seventh-day to endeavour to settle it on any other day on the first day particularly where the LORD himself never so gave and secured it The Seventh-day the Seventh-day Aelohim blessed the Seventh-day he hath blessed it he doth bless it and he will bless it and it shall be blessed O blessed day which Jehovah himself hath blessed so blessed This blessing was afterwards renewed revived solemnly openly declared at Mount Sinai and affix'd to the seventh-day Six days thou shalt labour but the seventh-day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any work For six days Jehovah made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh-day Wherefore Jehovah blessed that day that Sabbath the blessing is gone forth for this Seventh-day-Sabbath irreversibly from the Mouth of Jehovah Mashiach himself It has his Applaud and approve for its due estimation and deserved renown its noble majestickness and Royal imperialness How many are the Prerogatives and Priviledges which he hath Conferred upon it Christ is the Seventh-daies-benedictor and benefactor This is the day which he hath Dedicated to the Instituted worship and service of Jehovah Aelohim A day greatly to be desired and delighted in by his Children Friends and Servants as a day of holy rest and of Heavenly joy A day of sweet converse between him and his Saints A day that calleth upon them for a singingshouting-triumphing-rejoycing-frame and therefore there is a peculiar Psalm fitted for this purpose to this end Thus is the Crown of special Benediction put upon the head of the Seventh-day and no other foregoing day of the Week is to share with it in this princely honour Isaiah that evangelical Prophecier and Preacher has from Jehovah Pronounced those Blessed even to admiration O the happy Progresses O the happy goings on of such that do keep this Sabbath and not prophane it They shall enjoy many a covenant-favour O how choice Spiritual blessings are there that do visit the Hearts of Holy observers of this Seventh-day-Sabbath under the New-Testament Administration O what a Blessed day did Christ make it to be unto some whose sick bodies he healed whose sinful Souls he pardoned whose sadned Spirits he comforted unto whom his Gracious words were converting and Restoring teaching and enlightning quickning and strengthning whom he met in Sabbath ordinances and gave them the Blessing of this separated day and how many a Soul had cause to bless the LORD for ever who so prospered Pauls labours on the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath for blessing for good to them Christ taught daily in the Temple and Paul was often in the Synagogues on the foregoing daies of the Week and much good was done thereby but the whole Scripture doth take peculiar notice of this That the Seventh-day as the Weekly Sabbath-day carried away the Sabbath-blessings which no other day in the week did though the LORD do bless his People every day yet not with Sabbath-blessings but only on the seventh-day Aelohim gave a Special Blessing an appropriated Blessing to this day above all the other daies So true and good is that saying of Christ still That this Sabbath was made for Adam for Man for a blessing to him every way for his cheifest and choicest good It was Christs counsel to
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
drawn into orderly Obedience thereunto That the same Jehovah Aelohim who proclaimed the Holy Law together with the other Nine was their Aelohim theirs in a peculiar especial distinguishing manner who conformed in all things to his revealed will and stood compleat and perfect in his whole will and therefore should they be engaged and be encouraged to do the Sabbath day to Hallow it as he had commanded them Ye shall keep my Sabbaths I Jehovah if ye walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments and do them then saith Jehovah I will give you this and that Blessing in Temporals and further I will set my Tabernacle amongst you and my Soul shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and will be your God and ye shall be my People Sabbath-worship on the Sabbath-day in this Sabbath For the instituted day of the Weekly Sabbath must be observed to be accepted shall be a Savour of Rest to me said Jehovah Thus also in the Prophets That Evangelical Prophet Isaiah sweetly thus Blessed is the Man or O the blessedness or happy Progresses or Blessed goings on with a streight foot for such will make a good Progress in other Religion who are found walking on Prosperously in this Sabbath-way of that Aenosh and the son of Man of Adam that keepeth the Sabbath so that he doth not pollute it or not Prophane it For thus saith Jehovah to them that keep these my Sabbaths not those that are of Mens inventing and imposing Contrary to these seventh-day-Sabbaths which are of his Instituting and which he doth own as his peculiar and have chosen in what I delight or have pleasingly willed and who taking hold of my Convenant I will give unto them in my House and within my Walls an everlasting name that shall not be cut off I will bring them to the Mount of my Holiness and I will make them joyfull in my house of Prayer their Sacrifices and their Offerings shall be accepted upon mine altar And in another place Jehovah hath prophecyed and promised that he will raise up such as shall be Restorers of Paths to Sabbatize in saying if thou turn away from the Sabbath thy Feet to do thy pleasure on mine Holy day and thou call the Sabbath a delight the Holy of Jehovah Honorable and thou hast Honoured shalt Honour him not doing thy own waies nor finding thy own pleasure nor speaking thy own words then shalt thou delight thy self in Jehovah and I will cause thee to Ride upon the High places of the Earth and I will feed thee with the Inheritance of Jacob thy Father From the time of the Sabbath in his Sabbath all Flesh shall come for to bow down to my Face saith Jehovah The Prophet Jeremiah doth also bring good and comfortable words from Jehovah to right observers of the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath Thus saith Jehovah bear no Burden on the Sabbath-day Hallow ye the Sabbath day as I commanded your Fathers It shall come to pass if Hearkening ye shall Hearken unto me to bring in no Burden through the Gates of the City on the Sabbath-day and shall Hallow the Sabbath day to do no work therein then shall there enter into the Gates of this City Kings and Princes sitting upon the Throne of David Riding in Chariots and on Horses they and their Princes the Men of Judah and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and this City shall remain for ever and they shall come from the Cities of Judah and from the places about Jerusalem and from the Land of Benjamin and from the Plain and from the Mountains and from the South bringing Burnt Offerings and Sacrifices and Meat Offerings and Incense and bringing Sacrifices of Praise unto the House of Jehovah They are sweet precious Words those by the Prophet Ezekiel I saith the LORD gave them my starutes and shewed them my Judgements which if a Man do he shall even live in them Moreover I gave them my Sabbaths but they despised my Judgements which if a Man do he shall even live in them This is twice expressed as a gracious encouraging Promise and a Third time it is Covenanted there I Jehovah your Aelohim Hallow my Sabbaths that ye may know that I Jehovah your Aelohim and I will accept you with your Savour of Rest There is one Psalm that has several Choice promises in it and the Title of it is a Psalm or Hymn for the Sabbath-day which is to be carried through that Psalm Those who keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath shall experience Jehovahs Loving kindness in the Morning and his faithfulness in the Nights they shall be made Glad through his work they shall Triumph in the Works of his Hands They shall have their Horn their Power their Strength their Defence their Glory their Honour their Dignity their Exaltation their Firmness their long-continued happiness like that of an Unicorn They shall be poured over with Green Oyl with new revivings and pleasant refreshings Their Eyes shall see on their spying Enemies and their Ears shall hear concerning the Evil-doers which rise up against them Such Righteous ones as are due Observers of this seventh-day-Sabbath shall grow like to a Palm-tree They shall grow like a Cedar-tree in Lebanon To them that are thus Planted in the House of Jehovah those they shall make to grow in the Courts of their God They shall bear Fruit yet in the Gray Age They shall be fat and green If all and every of these were opened and applyed at Large O how much of rich treasure is there in them The Chaldee upon the Title of this Psalm doth thus paraphrase An Hymn which the First Man Adam said for the Sabbath day And the Seventy two Greek Interpreters have a double Article here a Psalm of a Song unto that day of the Sabbath The same Sabbath-day that was the Seventh day of the Week from the Creation which was to be Sanctified as many other ways so particularly by Singing of Psalms This Psalm has divers Prophetical passages in it relating to New-Testament-promises especially in the Latter-day-glory of this dispensation of Grace It is Judged by the Hebrews to be penned by Adam when he beheld the Glorious Works of the Creator and commending it prophetically to after-ages The New-Testament gives us to know from the mouth of our LORD Christ himself the Commander and observer the blesser and the Sanctifier of this Seventh-day-Sabbath that It was made for Adam and in him for all mankind for their Happiness for their Good if they would be diligent observers of it And that to be forced to flee from Sabbath-work and enjoyments was to be driven from special priviledges which sore Judgement those who are Sabbath-observers should endeavour by Prayer to keep off lest otherwise it did so befal them Let it also be duly pondered upon in this one weighty consideration more that there is no threatning either denounced against or executed upon any that shall not observe any other day in
Order to the Glorifying of Jehovah This special Mark is put upon this day to distinguish it from all and every of the other daies of the Week to note the Importance of it and to signify the Antiquity of it It being as old of as Antient constitution as the very first Week of this Created World which Aelahim did expresly command to be observed as a distinct separate Sanctifyed day it being the Last day in the Week And therefore his people have need to remember it that when the time did come about in its Weekly returns it might not be forgotten and neglected as neither its natural Equity There being the same Reasons now as ever which the Lawgiver himself has repeated and revived in the Fourth word or Command which doth set out the weight of this precept and the necessity of Mans obedience unto it The Three former Commandements or words of the First Table are much in order unto this to Remember the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath For if this be not kept Holy those Foregoing three will be broken as Scripture and experience doth prove Let several other expressions in this Fourth word be yet further Considered with seriousness For besides many other Peculiar Honours which the Adored Almighties the great Law giver hath put upon this Law of the Ten words in some respects beyond any other part of the whole Scripture take we notice of what doth follow more specially and particularly as to the Fourth word about the Law of the Weekly Sabbath This Fourth Command hath Double Accents and particularly that word Seventh which do call upon the understanding Reader for this special Noting of some singular matter in this Law about the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath There are Four of these forementioned Notes of Demonstration put before that particular day of the Week two of them before the word Sabbath and two other of them before the word Seventh that all may mark it which is the day and what a kind of day it should be observed to be This Demonstrating Note being prefixt when the speech is of a thing certain and known And therefore it is called by some skilfull Hebricians a prefix of Knowledge of the Knowledge of that particular thing Besides two other Particles which do put a great significancy upon that day that particular day And moreover there is one Letter put before the word day In a day that Seventh which doth lead and direct the Observer of the Weekly Sabbath into that particular day the Last day of every week keeping him within the limited bounds thereof to mind and to doe what the one and the only LORD over the Conscience and Lawgiver to the Soul hath appointed him to If any where in the Scriptures of Truth this Note of Demonstration have a more Remarkable Significancy it is in this Law of the weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath both at the first Creation and Institution of it and as it is one of those Ten words which alone of All the word of God was more signally written by the Finger of the Law-giver himself Which Ten words are so few and yet with all so full and Comprehensive particularly this of the Fourth word That Particle being a sign which alwaies by hastning is referred to the following word with which it is Construed doth in this place signifie a particular certain day noting an excelling thing known to All to whom the speech is directed This Aeth is twice prefixed to the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath that Jom the day is four times mentioned That Author whom I answer in this doth so far acknowledge the Emphitie Prefix that he saith it may possibly denote an Excellency in the thing it self But his may and may possibly are Diminutive uncertain Termes doing injury to this Scripture which by those Prefixes joyned with the other special remarks doth and must certainly not only denote an Excellency in the thing it self the weekly Sabbath but also tends expresly to the determination of the certain day thereof the seventh which is the last in Order of every Week A case so clear to an impartial Judgment that one who has written both against Seventh-day and First-day-Sabbath yet confesseth And he passeth for a potent Ratiocinator that the day of Gods Rest was that particular Sabbath which Jehovah gave at Mount Sinai It is not A Sabbath but The Sabbath even that which God sanctified and it is as antient as the first week of the Creation the Sabbath must be the same with the seventh Thus he There might be a large enumeration of many particular words in Hebrew which are of common universal use such as no institute custom or consent of men has imposed upon things but created Nature it self by a secret instinct and impulse has assigned to and imprinted on real beings thus as to the present case this Hebrew letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heh doth take its name from that gesture which generally all mankind do express when they do demonstrate a person or thing Hea Hin Hinnea in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek En Ecoe in Latin As when we see a Man that has Hou in Hebrew that is Substance Wealth Riches we crie with some admiration Ha Ho or Hah there goes such a Rich Man and we are ready to point him out with a Finger for that doth please such Men when they are so noted by others The Demonstrative Letter is Consignificative and is not idle in the beginning of those words but doth Super-add a certain signification to them What colour of Reason can there be to exclude the Notificativeness here This being a word or Command so express so weighty so significant with such an Awakening word set at the beginning of it and there being such need that Jehovahs Instituted time for his Weekly-Sabbath-worship be determinately fixed and certainly known How great care should men in Reputation for Learning and for Godliness take whose words with many do go for Oracles and whose mistakes too often do grosly impose upon ignorant understandings of the vulgar and upon the Lazy minds of Semi-Scholars who are loath to be at the pains to satisfie themselves by a diligent search but take up things over credulously upon trust without tryal As this Learned man is an Opposer of those prefixes in the Hebrew so also of the Prepositive Articles in the Greek as if these also were sometimes Redundant thereby Insinuating that it is so in this case Whereas there is much of significancy in those which are Emphatical and Deictical noting some certain thing in a Limited sense not indefinitely That the prepositive Articles in the Greek are not insignificantly redundant but demonstratively Emphatical is an assertion capable of clear proof As also that they are so in this particular Case relating to the Seventh-day-Sabbath as I have already discovered And I am now to give it forth to the Reader in some other Cases For this Objector doth not afford us any Light by which wee might discern when
man above and beyond the Fool. The Hebrews and Chaldees do set out an especial part of wisdom in Circumspection when the eyes in the Head are deligently used As Folly doth notably manifest it self in heedless walking The last instance is in Leviticus where there is the notificative prefix put before Adam which as the English Reader may find the Dutch Annotations in English do express that man which doth the same shall live by them It doth signally set out a singular excelling Adam or Man If other Scriptures be Collated that do speak of the same thing they have all and every one of them the emphatick Article The Pronoun Relative also doth directly with a strait foot lead to that same man Thus also the Greek has the prepositive Article in two several places of the New Testament where this Scripture is cited out of the Old Testament Let therefore those marks of Honour by Notes of Demonstration which the LORD hath put upon it still be worn as an Hereditary Crown set and established upon the head of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath That day of the Sabbath that day of this Sabbath As it is expressed in another Scripture It should further be considered here in a way of conâ—utation of those who would leave the appointing of Sabbath-times to the Church or State besides what has been already mentioned that the weekly Sabbath-day must be a particular known determinate Fixed standing day for all men to take notice of unchangeable in the weekly returns of it distinct from all other daies of the same week How else should there be a coming together for Jehova's solemn Instituted worship It must be such a stated constant day as that the Governours of Families might carefully and watchfully see to it that both they and their Children and Servants and the stranger within their Parts might remember to observe it That the freed Beasts might take some Natural Perception of it in whose custody soever he were kept whoever were the owner and possessor of it None but Jehovah Aelohim hath Authority to determine and to appoint this weekly Sabbath-day Christ the Creator and Redeemer is LORD of the Sabbath and he has fixed it on the seventh the last day of the week The work of a Commanded day must be done in the day thereof on which Jehovah hath appointed it If men would expect from him acceptance of their work the word or thing we should have a word for every thing of a day must be done in his day How express are the Scriptures in this with respect to the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath In the Sabbath-day the seventh day-Sabbath in the weekly returns thereof there was to be the Ascension or Ascending Sacrifice of the Sabbath in his Sabbath Sabbath worship must be done on the proper day and time of it on the seventh day the last day of every week and not a day before in the same week nor a day after in another week They that will change a day from what Jehovah hath appointed do devise a day of their own Heart Jehovahs time and Law should not be Changed Sabbath-worship must be from the time of the Sabbath in his Sabbath One of the great opposers of the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath doth yet grant that Rest in the first notion of it doth include a respect to an Antecedent work or labour And that it is so every where declared And that it is vain to imagine the World was made in Six daies and those closed with a day of Rest without an especiall respect unto the obedience of rational Creatures Hereby then man in general was taught obedience and working before he entered into rest For being Created in the Image of God he was to conform himself to God As God wrought before he rested so was he to work before his Rest Thus he How then can the first day of the week be now the Resting day of that week where the Rest is made to go before the work and labour This being contrary to Greated Nature And it being a part of mans natural Created Image of Aelohim to conform unto him in working before Resting in the same week Meditation on the works as well as on the word of Christ and on Christ himself is a necessary useful duty And how can this be performed in its right proper place where the Sabbath is carried from the seventh to any other day of the week as for instance to the First day For this Computation would put the Seventh day back to the sixth day the Sixth to the Fifth day the Fifth to the Fourth day the Fourth to the Third day the third to the Second day the Second to the First day and it would set the First day forward to the Seventh quite inverting the order of the Creation and so would engage a man on the First day which was and is a working day to meditate on a Sabbath-days priviledge and on the Creators Resting and mans Resting which was upon another day the seventh which is the last day of the week and on the Seventh day which by this wrong account is misreckoned the Sixth It would put a man upon meditating on the work of the Sixth day whereas it was Created and appointed the Resting-day Thus every day would be set out of its due place And hence it is that such multitudes of namers of the Name of Christ do so little understand what the particular Created works of every day in the week are and so seldom meditate upon the peculiar works of their proper day Whereas when the seventh day closeth the week with a Sabbath day a day of Rest which is most natural then Meditation passeth naturally into Created order as to working and as to Resting To speak in propriety of speech there is but one only day in a week that is the Seventh day in the same week in orderly reckoning according to Created beings which is and must be and can be no other than the last day of the week every day has its own Peculiar proper Name And apt and â—it names are to be kept close unto especially when given by Jehovah Aelohim himself setting out the true nature and property of things This being one Testimony of his Sovereign LORDship to call persons and things by their own proper Names How else can there be a Peculiar Distinct Certain Knowledge of them Hence the Name is sometimes taken for the Person or thing thus the Name of God is put for God himself And thus the Name of Christ is put for the LORD Jesus Christ himself And what is observable the Law of Christ is by Christ himself expounded to be his Name Thus also with reference to a day the Name of the Number is sometimes inclusive of the day too It were of very profitable use if the daies of the Week were every one called by their own proper Names Is it not high time to throw
to Restrain or to Retain Every one of those seven days was a Solemnity or Solemn Feast a distinct Day in a day by themselves in which Jehovah was praised with Great Joy Each day was a Solemn Assembling This shews plainly that those Passover-days were to be kept Holy to Aelohim as so many Sabbath-days There is one Opposer of the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath who to establish his first day in the room of the seventh doth urge Levit. 23. 39. where the eight day is called a Sabbath which he affirmeth from John 7. 37. to be the last day the Great day of that Feast of Tabernacles from whence he would infer a first day Sabbath Whereas there were but seven days in that Feast Deuter. 16. 13 15. Besides that Feast of Tabernacles or of Booths was not a weekly Feast and so cannot have a weekly Antitype directly answering to it The weekly Sabbath was spoken of before and settled upon the seventh day Levit. 23. 3. A Learned Adversary of the seventh-day-Sabbath doth acknowledge that about the time of the writing of the Books of the New Testament both the Jews themselves and all the Heathen which took notice of all these Feasts and solemn Assemblies did call them Sabbaths and not only so But by God himself from their Analogie which I shall have further occasion after a few leaves to make some use of In Luk. 6. 1-10 compared with Mat. 12. 1-14 we may read of Sabbaths in the Plural number as in many other places of the First Sabbath a second Sabbath another Sabbath which if they be applyed to the Sabbaths of either of the Typical Feasts then it is an evident proof that the days of those feasts had the name of Sabbaths in the Scripture if they refer the expressions to the weekly Sabbaths then it doth afford a testimony for the Weekly seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath Upon one of these Sabbaths our LORD Jesus Christ did arise from the Dead And now let the Considering-Reader bethink himself whether this do give any the least intimation of any Change of the weekly-weekly-Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week Where nothing either in the words themselves or in the Coherence or Context or design of those Scriptures or expressed or implyed or intended sense of them doth meddle at all with any change of the weekly-Weekly-Sabbath Where there is no either Blessing or Sanctifying either Name or Thing either Institution or separation either Command or promise relating to the first day of the Week as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day under the New-Testament-Administration Yet notwithstanding all this so clear and express which is either not understood or not pondered men rise up against it to the troubling of us and to disturb us if they could in our seventh-day-Sabbath of weekly Rest For say they The Hebrew word for One hath sometimes the sense of First and the New Testament doth Hebraize in this particular that if the sense were one of the Sabbaths then the word should be in the Neuter Gender not in the Feminin to agree with its Substantive which is of the Neuter Gender and that it is expresly said in one place the first of the Week which word is never used for One but First or Chief Thus it is Objected My Reply unto these is as followeth As for the Hebrew word which doth properly signify One What satisfying reason can there be given why any other Tralatitious sense should be assigned to it in these particular places which have so plain and familiar so obvious and pertinent a sense in their propriety of meaning where these Objectors would have it bear such a sense as that of First I shall examine the places usually alledged after a few Lines more Or if it could be evidenced that in some one place it be convenient to translate it First what cogencie of Inference can there be drawm from thence that therefore it must be so in the Greek word in the Scriptures fore-quoted What necessity doth there appear of this Where the Circumstances of the Text do so well and fitly admit of such a rendring interpretation and construction of the Original Words as is according to their true certain and proper signification which has been already Demonstrated What satisfactory-spiritual-convincing-Reason is there to fasten such an Interpretation upon them in the Translation as gives them a sense improper and a meaning unusual to which no necessity doth urge and drive either the Translator or the Annotator Words are to be understood according to the propriety of them unless we be otherways unavoidably forced by some evident Absurdity Of which there is no Colourable appearing shew here How can convincing Demonstrations and Infallible Conclusions be drawn from Scripture-expressions if a contrary liberty be assumed and granted Why should we yield our selves to flee to a pretended double Hebraism of One for First and of Sabbaths for Week where the plainness and expressness of the Letter and the Propriety and significancy of the Words is so Consistent with and adapted to the Context and the Analogy and Harmony of other Scriptures upon that Subject-matter I would know yet further of these men whether the Evening of the Sabbaths mentioned Mat. 28. 1. did belong to that which they call the First day of the Week or not If they judg not then they go quite contrary to all the Scriptural-Accompt which doth begin the day at Evening If they acknowledg it to belong to that Day then I further enquire how when that Evening and the Day-part which belonged to it when these were over and gone How it could be said of the Evening next following of this Day John 20. 19. that it was the Evening on the same first-First-day of the Week as they mis-interpret it For one and the same day cannot have two such Evenings at such a distance As for the Hebrew word One of the most punctual and exact in the Hebrew-Tongue in his Lexicon both as to the root of it in the Verb in all the Conjugations thereof in which it is used and in the Nouns derived from thence doth render its significancy to be He was One and One and particularly on that place which is most alledged by the Objectors it is by him translated One He has a Passage in his Epistle to the Reader before that Lexicon worth the Noting a certain proper and alonely or only-one signification is attributed to All to every of the words Another Learned Hebrician in that place cited by our Gain-sayers doth render it One He is the Corrector of another's Translation of the Hebrew Bible But here in these places it needed not because it is the true meaning of the word and so properly rendered there by both of them One in Greek signifies only One a Numeral Cardinal doth signify a Number Absolutely from which as from a Fountain other numbers do flow forth and they are called Cardinals that is Principals because from these
the context or any necessary unavoidable consequence present any such thing to an impartial unprejudiced understanding which doth report a matter of fact done upon another day not medling with any state of this question about this matter of Right Has the First day of the Week either the name of the Weekly Sabbath or the substance and essence of it Is there any one word of Command found here requiring beleiving Christians to observe the First Day as the Weekly Sabbath Is there any Promise made over to the weekly observers of it As such Is there any threatning denounced here against the not-observers of it As such Is there any mention made of Christs being the Author of it As such Is there any one expression of its being instituted by Christ As such Is there any one word or Phrase against the the Seventh daies being now any longer the Weekly-Sabbath-day Can this Objector satisfie and establish thee upon any firm ground such as is Scriptural by any contrary arguing wherein nothing of all this can befound The plain Historical Narration doth inform us that Paul abode at Troas seven daies in the sixth verse And whether he came to Troas on the First day of the week search may be made Troas standing near the Sea of Hellespont in Asia the less whether Paul came from Philippi that was scituated in Greece which was on the other side of Hellespont or of the Euxine Sea which Sea did lie between Europe and Asia the less Macedonia whence Paul came was a Province in Graecia There at Troas Paul stayed seven daies inclusively in the fifth and six verses of this twentyeth Chapter spending a Seventh-day-Sabbath amongst them and then went away from them the next Week in the Seventh and eleventh verses after the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath The Objector therefore mistaking the day to be the first day of the week whereas It was the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath all that which he doth wrongly build upon that mistake falleth to the Ground together with that mistake This answer drawn up from the true proper translating of the words one of the Sabbaths I mainly stick to as plain convincing and self Evidencing though I have elsewhere drawn up much more about it We are not hurried away with noise and multitude But that which swayes with us and keeps our hearts in an awesul fear and trembling-joy and believing establishment with sweet satisfaction nourishing delight and great complacency is the Word of the adored Almighties clearly opened well-agreeingly-collated soundly understood and rightly applyed Christ and his word have their Authority with us beyond any man or men whatsoever or any or all of their sayings to the contrary His words do always best express things according to the true Nature of them in their own familiar sense which the Holy Spirit doth give of them in their respective places The same Genuin significancy has this Phrase in that passage to the Corinthians where also it is in true propriety of speech not the first day of the Week but one of the Sabbaths meaning according to the proper significancy of the words phrase and thing either one of the Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost inclusively as in the former place of which two Feasts he makes express mention in the same Epistle and of one of them in the same Chapter or else one of the Sabbaths of one or other of those Three great Festivals spoken of else where The Feast of Unleaveneds The Feast of Sevennies and the Feast of Booths or leaf-hutts especially at the time of ingathering the yearly Fruits and increase of the Earth at which time they were able by such a revolution of a year to pass a Judgment upon Jehovahs Blessing of them which cannot be so well estimated on every Weekly return for then all the Males that appeared before the Faces of Jehovah were not to appear empty but every man according to the gift of his Hand or according to the Blessing of Jehovah his God which is much the same with the expression in this Epistle which he had given him And this reply has consent and agreement with other Scriptures and with the nature of the Duty of Charitable Relieving and is evident upon the same place It is the confession and acknowledgment of an adversary as was Noted a few leafs before that about the time of the writing of the Books of the New-Testament both the Jews themselves and all the Heathen that took notice of them called all their Feasts and solemn assemblies their Sabbaths Because they did no servile work in them they had the general Nature of the weekly Sabbath in a cessation from Labour It is known and confessed saith he that at that time when Paul wrote to the Church at Colosse which they suppose to be about twenty and nine years after Christs Ascension into Heaven all Iudaical observation of daies or the daies which they religiously observed whether Feasts or Fasts Weekly Monthly or Annual were by themselves and all other called their Sabbaths They were so called by God himself from their Analogy Thus he And this First Epistle to the Corinthians is reckoned by some to be sent unto that Church about two and twenty years after Christs ascension So that to translate the words one of the Sabbaths is the most proper significant Rendring the most pertinent to the drift and Scope and the most Harmonious in consent with the whole Scripture that treats of this matter The believing Corinthians were to lay a way by themselves somewhat of their income proportionable to the LORD 's prospering of them in a way or Journey of their particular Trades Functions and callings Thus gathering some Treasure that they might have in a readiness that which might afford a necessary supply of the poor Saints at Jerusalem that the collection might be in a preparedness against that time when Paul was to call for it and to carry and distribute it to that End Let the Reader here observe that Corinth to the Church in which City Paul did write this Epistle out of one passage of which the Adversary would raise an objection was that city where Paul had been a publick preacher according to all or every Sabbath So that Paul did keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath there in that Particular place constantlyin this City of Achaia A City Scituate near the Sea where he taught the word of God one whole year and six months and that by a special Call and encouragement from the LORD Jesus Christ So far was he from setting up the First day in the room of the Seventh Day as to the weekly-weekly-Sabbath that even there he was a diligent Observer of every Seventh-day-Sabbath For so the Holy Spirit himself calls that day the Sabbath Here is therefore no firm bottom in this place objected to ground a transferring of the weekly Sabbath from one day to another which is nothing at all the design of this place as neither is it
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-Weekly-Sabbath-day in the room of the old the seventh-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
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
Objector doth not confirm his reasoning thus only with respect to the first Day but doth carry it much further on by his asserting that the first Institution of Church Officers and Orders as well as that of the LORD's Day by which he means the first Day was not by Scripture The proof saith he is undeniable because the Old Testament did not contain the Institution e. g. of particular Churches Sacraments Presbyters Deacons Diaconesses and the LORD's Day c. And the New Testament was none of it written till An. 40. at soonest and it was not all written till An. 99. Now it is certain that the Church was not all these years without the Orders now in question nor without a day to meet on for publick Worship even as Baptism and the LORD's Supper were Instituted by Christ himself long before the writing of any part of the New Testament and the Church was in long possession of them upon the bare word and Declaration of the Apostles So he writes That the Church was not all these years without a day to meet on for publick Worship we readily subscribe for they knew the Seventh day Sabbath was the weekly day to meet on for that end of which the Churches had had long possession for near four thousand years and of which they had still the Tenure and for the continuance of which title and practice they had the whole Writen Word of God whereunto the practice of Christ and of his Apostles did fully agree But as for his other exemplified instances we desire both him and the Reader a little to consider If these were received and practised by the Church upon the bare verbal Declaration of the Apostles and not by Scripture what then meant the Types of these Did these signifie nothing Was there nothing of these understood by Moses Aaron the Priests and Levites Did not Moses by the Word and Prayer sanctifie the Baptismal Types of the Red Sea and the Cloud and the Supper-Types of the Paschal Lamb the Heavenly Manna and springing Rock Though there was a veil upon these and such other Figures and Shadows in the reading of the Old Testament yet Believers had some knowledge of their meaning and some insight into their Mystery and there were Teachers by Office who were to interpret the signifyingness of these things and to open the spiritual part of the Pattern Had not these things a Spiritual Relation unto Christ and to an after administration of Grace Was not this the end the drift the design the purport the scope of these Institutions to refer unto Christ They were a Pedagogue a Leader of those Children to the Christian School for their Institution and Discipline There áre divers Scriptures in the Old Testament which did discover unto discerning Believers of that Dispensation that those Types Figures and Shadows were to be done away under an after administration of Grace to receive their perfection and accomplishment in the Messiah who was to be born of a Virgin and in his days Several Prophesies also under that former Ministration do speak punctually to this matter though we who have the New Testament-fulfilling of them and Commentary upon them have a more clear unveiled manifestation of them The Christian Religion for sum and for substance being one and the same under both dispensations particularly as to the institutions mentioned For there is one Baptism in this sense the Baptismal Types of old and the Baptismal Antitypes now are thus one and the same excepting the different manner of Administration So that suppose Baptism was instituted by Christ himself before the writing of any part of the New Testament yet was not this upon the bare verbal Declaration of the Apostles especially not as to that part of the Church which was in Christ's time For John's Baptizing of others particularly of Christ and Christ's Baptizing by his Apostles and Christ's Doctrine which he several times taught about Baptism and John's foretelling of this As John himself also was Prophesied of of old particularly by Isaiah and by Malachi By these and such like passages was this known to such at least knowable by them and somewhat of this had a confirmation and testimony from Heaven As for particular Churches and the calling and gathering of them there were such under the Old Testament times In Adam's days in Epoch's days in Noab's days Though at the first they called upon the Name of Jehovah in a way of family Worship yet afterwards in greater Church-Assemblies and a difference was put between the true and pure Worshipers and those that were corrupt So it was before the Flood and thus also it was after the Flood Melchisedec was a Priest in the Church of Aelohim Abraham had a Church in his Family and was King Priest and Prophet there So was Isaac and Jacob. Job and Eliphaz were of congregated Societies and had their Church-meetings in their days though living in other Regions in Countries distant from Abraham In Moses's time the Israelites were put into a Church way and had such Institutions and Laws and Ordinances for Church-Assemblies and Societies as were afterwards observed not only by the Israelites as a national Church but by particular Churches of the Israelites when after Moses's death they were settled in the promised Land in the days of Joshua Judges and the Kings For the Priests and Levites were not only for all the Tribes joyntly but also for several Tribes distinctly and further for the several Cities and Towns and other populous places in every particular Tribe where they had distinct Assembles injoying all Ordinances Institutions Priviledges excepting what was specially limited to some particular place of Jehovah's chusing and appointing for some solemn Sacrifices and Festivals and they exercised Church-Discipline in those particular Churches Neither was Syria and Mesopotamia in Moses days without their congregated Societies Church convention and worshiping Assemblies Balaam having a gift of Prophesie was an hireling that served Congregations There are particular Congregations both described and prophesied of in what was written afore of old A wise observer and a spiritual discerner and a diligent comparer may easily find and plainly see how Christ's Institutions and Directions for management of Church Affairs and for the Exercise of the Duties of Church fellowship and Discipline have evident reference to his Institutions under the old Dispensation though clearer and more spiritual and glorious and heavenly now and it will be found in experience as it is evident in Scripture that several Church proceedings will not be either so well understood or so regularly practised but by a collating of Old with New Testament directions about those matters particularly for Church-Discipline as in the case of Leprosie especially As for Church-Officers Overseers Presbyters or Elders teaching and ruling Ones Pastors and Teachers Diacons or Ministers under the Old Testament it were no very difficult task to write a large Treatise upon that
of Promise made to the observers of the First day as such What one word of threatning against any that do not so observe the First day as the weekly Sabbath day and if there be not any one word here for the First day either as to Institution or Command or Promise or Threating how can any observer keep it aright either in Faith or Obedience in Hope or Fear The direct plain meaning of this Scripture is if I mis-judge not that this day doth evidently relate to that providential Day of the LORD Christ's appearing in the fulfilling of this Prophesie who appeared to John as LORD pleading the Cause of his Kingly Lordly Office which has been too long and too far invaded by the Kings and Lords of the Earth who have not inforced Christ's Laws nor made them to be the Rule of Government but usurped an unscriptural authority over mens consciences and souls How Lordly a Day therefore will it be when Christ will recover and exercise his Power and his Right Those great things which this ever-blessed LORD of Glory would do in the latter ages were represented to John from Christ by an Angel in a way of Prophetical Revelation This manifestation by Vision and by Voice was after such a manner as if the thing had been acted and performed before and to John's senses By comparing of this passage with some other passages in the same book of Revelation relating to the same matter he that doth diligently mark and wisely observe and rightly understand may see that this Lordly Day is the great Providential Day of that God that Almighty One a name several times given to Christ in this Book There are several parts of this great comprehensive large Vision and there are several seasons of their fulfillings and accordingly several days in this great Day Ezekiel doth mention one part of this Prophesie that will last seven years The LORD Jesus Christ will come and come in several Judgements on several Hours Days Weeks Months and Years It is one of his Names to be such a one as is coming and he is called the coming King And his Kingdom is a coming Kingdom and the age of this is said to be a coming Age and the World to come a coming World In every age of the Church of Christ there were fulfillings of this in part Those in John's time had somewhat of this Lordly Day who therefore were to behold Christ's coming This was partly Historical before John's death when Christ came in his admirable way of wonderful providence to destroy Jerusalem according as was foretold in other Scriptures and partly Prophetical to be accomplished in the several ages after John's time John saw this Day in a Vision and speaks of it with a double confirmation John was made to be in the Spirit on that Lordly Day An expression of which he had experience as is mentioned in other places of this Book The Article added that Lordly Day doth determine but indefinitely There is no such certain particular Day of the Week pointed out so to our understanding on what Day of the Week it will begin or on what Day of the Week it will end This is not the design at least not as to the pretended change of the Weekly Sabbath-day It was that Lordly Day of Christ's coming when he would convert and recover the chosen remnant of those of Israel and of Judah and destroy the Rebellious and the unbelieving among them If men will be limiting of this day to any one determinate definite particular day of the week what one day has such a plea as the Seventh-day Sabbath Seeing for the dreadfully executed Judgement part of it as the first Temple was destroyed being burnt with fire on the tenth day of the fifth Moon which day according to Jeremiah's Prophesie is granted even by many adversaries to be the Seventh-day Sabbath he told the Jews before it came to pass that their Temple would be burnt with Fire if they profaned the Sabbath of Jehovah Answerable unto which is that passage in another Prophet who on the same day of the same Moon reproved Sabbath-breaking when the Elders came to inquire what the mind of the LORD was And as the second Temple was under the like threatning from the mouth of the LORD Christ himself putting them upon earnest importunate Prayer lest otherwise that terrible destruction brake in upon them on the Sabbath the Seventh-day Sabbath Those who are sond of Ecclesiastical Histories may find it recorded in them that the second Temple was actually destroyed according to this Prophetical threatning of our LORD on the seventh-day Sabbath The change of Jehovah's Ordinance of which mens changing of his Seventh day Sabbath is one is soretold in Isaiah with respect to the later ages of the World to be one great provoking Cause of his sending of Judgements upon the rebellious and unfaithful World when keepers of his Seventh-day Sabbath shall have his holy Arm revealed for their Salvation Some of the first great rejections of the unbelieving Jews in a way of Church censure after Christ's ascending on high were occasionally and deservedly by their prophane blaspheming miscarriage on the Seventh day Sabbath of which some account hath been given before So that if a particular day of the week in the weekly returns of it were here designedly pointed at what day can plead and claim a fairer Title and Right unto it than the seventh-Seventh-day which is the Sabbath of or to Jehovah or to the LORD Jehovah is the chief choice Name of the Eternal Ever blessed Self-being the Being of beings as that Name doth signifie And that Word which in the Greek doth answer to this Hebrew Name Jehovah some do draw from a word that doth signifie I am which they constantly render LORD So that Jehovah in the Old Testament is often rendred by this Word in the New which we do translate LORD That which in the Old is Hear O Israel Jehovah our Aelohim Jehovah One is in the new Hear O Israel The LORD that God of ours is one LORD Thus also the Hebrew Text doth sometimes but Adonai supporting LORD for Jehovah Thus that whith in one Psalm is I will confess thee among the peoples O Jehovah is in another Psalm I will confess thee among the peoples O LORD Further Christ Jesus saith of himself that he is LORD of the Sabbath of that Seventh-day Sabbath which he created commanded and observed being a keeper of his Fathers Commandments whereof this of the Seventh-day Sabbath was one Those that do relie on the judgement and authorities of men about the meaning of this expression may consider that Ecclesiastical Historians do relate that John and his followers the Eastern Asiatick Churches did keep the Passover on the Seventh-day not pressing the observation of the first day for the celebration of the Passover as
the Western Churches did Further as in Low-Dutch the seventh Day is named Rust-dagh that is the Day of Sabbath or of Rest so in Teutonick or High Dutch or the German Tongue which is an ancient Nation and Language the last Day the seventh Day of the Week is called Samstag as if Schemtag that is the LORD's Day or the Day of the LORD It is further yet observable as to this that the Visions of Ezekiel and those of John well agreeing in many particulars which a diligent comparer may easily observe Ezekiel's Visions were on the fifth day of the fourth Moon which some affirm to have been the Seventh day Sabbath Jehovah's Day But upon the whole it is the first answer that I more stick unto namely that the Lordly Day is that great Providential Day when he will more visibly appear as King and LORD Whereas some do object that this word in Greek Lordly is applyed but to one thing more in the New Testament which is the Supper called the Lordly Supper or LORD's Supper or the Supper of the LORD What can there rationally necessarily convincingly be inferred from thence as to any establishing of the first day of the week in the room of the seventh as the weekly Sabbath in this place of the Revelation The Lordly Supper or Lordy Supper is expresly mentioned Whereas here is no express mention of the first Day as a Sabbath day not either of the words First or Sabbath nor their sense and meaning in the Text or Context nor any where else in all this Book or in the whole Scripture The Lordly Supper is so called in that it was instituted by our LORD It is to his Honour a Lordly Feast one great design and end of it being to exalt Christ in his Lordship and to shew forth the Death of this LORD till he came in his Lordly appearance in the later Day This Ordinance was received of the LORD by Paul It was the LORD who Instituted it It sets out the LORD's Death The Cup is called the Cup of the LORD The LORD's Body we read of also there Which Supper is not fixed to the first day of the Week The first Institution Administration and Participation of it was on another Day of the Week on the Passion Day on the Passover Day which is called a Sabbath For a further discovery that a Day in some Scriptures is used for a larger space of time than from one going in of the Sun on one day to the next going in of the Sun on the next day consider that in the Scriptures day doth sometimes set out the time of Christ's Reign and glorious Power The day of judging of his grand Adversaries John saw this in the Vision as if the time had been then present Will not that be a Lordly Day when Christ will glorifie and magnifie his Office of King and of LORD in the utter destruction of Enemies and in the eminent salvation of Friends It is called the Day of Christ the Day and Kingdom of God the presence of coming of Christ Do not these expressions significantly declare some glorious shining season of Christ's Lordly appearing It is named the Day of Jehovah about six and twenty times and in some of those places the Day of the Vengeance and of the Anger of Jehovah and the Day of Jehovah's Battel The great and terrible and dreadful Day of Jehovah the same expressions which are used in this Book of the Revelation And the Day of the LORD is mentioned five times expresly in the New Testament In which also it is set out by divers words that doth intend the same thing as his Day that is the Day of this LORD Christ who will then be revealed in his Lordly Power and Glory That Day pointing out that Age when these things should be The Day that Day The Days in the plural Number as being more than one and of longer continuance That great conspicuous Day of the LORD The Day of the LORD Jesus The times and the seasons which do relate to this Day of the LORD The Day approaching the last hour It is observed that in all Languages this Word Day doth sometimes signifie judgement here on Earth Hence a Days man or Umpire to judge between party and party Mans day and the Judgement of Men The Day that is the Judgement or trial shall declare Hence Day is sometimes put for the time of destruction Day doth sometimes denote a long continued duration as the Day of the Age or the Day of Eternity Other times Day points out the time of Grace and of Salvation And now upon this occasion having shewn that Day doth not always in all Scriptures point out any one particular Day of the Week distinctly from and in opposition to the rest of the Days of the Week I have here some fair opportunity to write a little about one other Scripture which some do urge to put a colour upon their first Day as if it did point out the first Day of the Week as the eminent transcendent determinate definite day of Christ's compleating the Work of Redemption on his Resurrection Day which say they was then and from thenceforth to be observed as the weekly Sabbath day in the room of the Seventh Thus they As to what doth concern Christ's Resurrection as also how and when he compleated the Work of Redemption I have written already and I am now to consider this Scripture which is mentioned by all and every of the four Evangelists In which Historical-fulfilling it is evident that much and the main of this Prophetical passage was fulfilled according to the Letter before Christ's Resurrection and upon another Day of the Week than that first Day of the Week for which it is so brought and pressed although if it could be proved to be otherwise yet doth it no way determine this Case about a pretended change of the weekly Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another from the Seventh to the First The chief men of the Jews who were counted the Builders did more notoriously refuse Christ the Head Corner Stone when being put to their choice they actually openly declaredly preferred a Barabbas who was a seditious Murderer before an innocent holy Jesus and this on a Day of solemn Judicature when the Judge Pilate sat upon Christ either for life or for death which also was by a joynt consent of chief Priests and Rulers and People who cry out all at once Away with this man and release unto us Barabbas This was before that Christ was crucified Also after his Death before his Resurrection the chief Priests and the Pharisees do call him a Deceiver and this before Pilate which was another refusing and rejecting of Christ Thus according as was Prophesied in that Psalm that the Builders would refuse that Stone which was to become for Head to the Corner so accordingly did they act as at many
other times so at these two seasons one in Christ's life time the other after his death and both before his rising The chief Priests did count themselves and were counted by others to be Builders yet thus notoriously did they refuse Christ The word in the Psalm according to the Hebrew in its propriety of signification is they have reprobated rejected despised refused scorned or turned away from and that expression in a place of the New Testament doth signifie ye have earnestly desired and refused and that when Judge Pilat had absolved him in his own declared judgement yet did they crave earnestly that a man murderer and a seditious one might be freed and that Christ whom yet they could not justly charge with any crime or the least sin might be crucified Then and thus was Christ reprobated of these men Was it not an eminent Day of monstrous rejecting when the question being put to them whether of the two they would have to be released they preferred a seditious Murderer Though there were other times of their refusing and rejecting of Christ before this and that on the Seventh day Sabbath but it was more notorious on the Passion day It was also Prophesied in that Psalm that the people would pray O Jehovah save now or prosper now blessed be he that cometh in the Name of Jehovah This was fullfilled before the Day of Christ's crucifixion when he rode into Jerusalem and the people went forth to meet him crying Hosanna Hoshignana in the Hebrew or Hosanna as it is put into the Greek These things are plain familiar and clear evident of themselves upon the bare reading of them and are not any forced interpretations of my own What a far way about do Objectors go and carry their Followers along with them to bring them at last to that which is no proof at all of that for which they have brought them thither As for the Day spoken of which Jehovah made for his people to rejoyce in it is the large Day of Grace under the New Testament Dispensation of Grace which doth take in many a Natural Day And as for spiritual rejoycing it is every days work though more especially upon the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath so that in short there being not in the Scriptures urged by Objectors either First day or sabbath-Sabbath-day either in the letter of the words or in any necessary consequence naturally flowing from thence or any design that looks any thing like a change of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath translating it to any other day How any satisfaction can such a change be inferred and inforced from hence To return therefore a while unto that place in the Revelation although there must be some particular distinct determinate Day of the Week when John first saw the beginning of this Vision For all that doth come to pass in time must necessarily be on one Day or other of the Week yet this Lordly Day here spoken of had not this design at all in it to set up the first day in the room of the seventh The skilful in the Greek Tongue do know that an Adjective joyned to a Substantive doth usually mean the Genitive Case of that Substantive as the Lordly Day is the Day of Lordship or Day of the LORD So we find this expressed in other Languages In Hebrew it is in the Day of our LORD in Syriack a Day of the LORD So in Spanish in a Day of the LORD In Greek the Participles have sometimes the force of the Nouns So in English the LORD's Day or the Day of the LORD as in the other instance where the word is used the LORD's Supper or the Supper of the LORD For which Supper we have evident express both Institution appointing of it and command injoyning us to do it Promise making over and sealing the benefit of Christ's Death to such as partake of it worthily after a due sitting manner and threatning denouncing judgements against the profaners of this Ordinance None of all which either Institution Command Promise or Threatning have we yet after all our search found for the first Day to be the Day of the weekly Sabbath in the place of the seventh so that here is no foundation for belief and practice to build upon Where any one place of Scripture is so interpreted as not to have the Harmonious Oneness and the well agreeing consent of the whole Scripture where they do treat of that matter or subject there that is the interpretation of mens own private spirit and not the interpretation of the Spirit of Aelohim And therefore the cause of the first day as the weekly Sabbath not having the whole Scripture profitable for the proving of it cannot stand in the judgement notwithstanding one misinterpreted Scripture is yet further alledged to defend it if the urger of it could be any Art plead it One historical hint more this Objector doth suppose may be with respect to the Day of Pentecost which he thinks was that year on the first Day of the Week when the pourings out of the holy Spirit were on the Apostles and so thinks it to be the Day separated by the Apostles for holy Worship especially in publick Church Assemblies and yet he says he was loth to name the day of the sending down of the Holy Ghost Holy Spirit it should have been said was given as a proof because that some do controvert it but it seemeth to him a very considerable thing I must therefore return somewhat in answer unto this It is much of the Artifice in the present age as in some other cases so concerning the matter under debate to darken and obscure some particular places of Scripture either by corrupt Translations or by false Interpretations upon which to ground their wrong Inferences and conjectural consequences and then to perswade the plain people how deep these things do lie and how much they should lean upon the Wisdom and Advice of their Church Guides who much study humane Histories for them to lead them through what through those dark Mazes into which these Guides have misled them Whereas the Scriptures about the weekly Sabbath are full of clear Light and of satisfying self-evidence to those who are made throughly willing to do the acceptable Will of Jehovah Aelohim What conviction can there be brought in upon the understanding concerning any change of the weekly Sabbath-day from the seventh to the first day of the week where is not either expressed or implyed any thing at all of any such change and where the Reader cannot find the first day spoken of or hinted to to any such purpose The Passover is acknowledged by this Author on this year of Christ's Death to be a Seventh-day Sabbath If so then including that day in the number of fifty and seven Sabbaths reckoned and added to that day Pentecost or the fiftieth day was a Seventh-day Sabbath also for so was the computation seven times
Which is a standing unchangeable Rule of Life uniform and always one and the same They were written once and a second time in Tables of Stone by Jehovah Christ which doth shew amongst somewhat else their renewed durableness It was the Writing of Aelohim and the Record of them is to remain for ever So that a due difference must be put between this weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath as it is such a standing established Rule of Life in created Nature one of the ten Words and between some Typical Institutions and superadded Rites and Figuring Shadows afterwards annexed to this Sabbath There is a plain evident difference between these two sorts of Laws Let Moses be heard concerning this in what he said to the Israelites Jehovah declared unto you his Covenant which he commanded you to do the ten Words observe these are distinctly expressed and severed from the Figuring Laws and he wrote them upon two Tables of Stone and Jehovah commanded me at that time to teach you Statutes and Iudgements that ye may do them in the Land whither ye are going over to possess it May we not discern here that Moses doth put a clear difference between the Laws of the ten Words which were publickly openly spoken and given by the LORD Christ in his own Royal Person from his Father to all the people and were written with the Finger of his own Spirit between these and those other shadowy Ordinances which were privately spoken to Moses only and by him and by his Ministery brought to the people and written by him These figuring Statutes admitted of a change and yet the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath doth remain unchangeable a perpetual Law And if any think that there is yet further any thing significative annexed to this day by Jehovah's Institution of Christ's second coming and of the heavenly Sabbatism then let that so far when any will clear it up from Scripture stand firm and unmoved till that time If the naturalness and self evidence of the Law of the ten Words were to receive a change because of superadded Institutions fitted to that Dispensation particularly as to Signs then the naturalness and self evidene of every one of them by this kind of arguing were to receive a change Was there not a Law for Fringes by the Institution of Jehovah Aelohim himself throughout the Generations of the Israelites for this end that they might see and remember all his Commandments This outward Rite was a memorative Sign or a religious Sign to help their memories and to further their sanctification To lead them unto a continual remembrance and practice of all the Law of the ten Words Thus also their Phylacteries were for a Sign upon their Hand and for a Memorial between their eyes that Jehovah's Law might be in their Mouth This was a Typical Memorial or Monument Which is the proper meaning of the Original Word By this outward Sign Jehovah Aelohim would have them to apply all their serious study and all their careful practice unto the keeping of all and every of the Laws of the ten Words All the outward Rites of the Ceremonial Laws were Signs typical Figures and significant Shadows instituted of God as Seals and Pledges to assure Believers of Christ and of those good things which his Faithful Obedient Perswadable ones have in and by him A due difference therefore should be put between Signs and Figures Signs and Shadows For although in the general and in common there be somewhat of a Sign in Figures and Shadows yet every Sign is not a Figure and Shadow but has somewhat particularly specially distinct A Figure doth set out and foreshew some Truth Duty Grace or Priviledge which is afterwards more clearly to be revealed though even then to be known believed done acted and injoyed A Shadow doth give some dark resemblance and it is a betokener of a Body which is to come in the place thereof and is in the appointed season to be exhibited whereas a Sign as it doth in some instances point out somewhat which is yet afterward to be looked for so in other cases it doth assure Believers of somewhat that is already gone and performed and in somewhat else it may stand and be joyned together with that which is signified thereby and be of special usefulness at one and the same present time The Ark wherein was nothing but only the ten Words in two Tables and the propitiatory Covering which was over the Ark were Types Figures and Shadows of Christ So that if Ceremonial Annexes should make void the Law of the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath that way of arguing would lay aside and make void all the other Laws of these ten Words Sanctification is either that which was natural and concreated at the first and is now restored to and inwrought in some a spiritual transforming-Sanctification whereby the LORD doth regenerate and renew his People by the Power and Grace of his holy Spirit The seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath duely observed and well filled up having a suitable growing knowledge of and obedience to the rest of the revealed Will of God summarily comprehended in the ten Words would be a notifyingtestifying-certifying Sign of this Sanctification as has been shewn Or it is a Ritual Ceremonial Sanctification whereby under the former Dispensation in the use of some outward Rites and Ceremonies some persons and things which had some ways contracted some uncleanness were sanctified or purified which were typical and significative of in ward spiritual transforming Sanctification and of real inwrought Holiness and Purity Of this sort of Signs were their Blood sprinklings their Water-washings and such like Baptism is such a Sign under the new Dispensation Thus the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath if it be taken under this consideration as it had under the Old Testament Administration divers Ceremonial Laws added unto it both for preparation before and for cleansing in and after in some cases in this respect that which was superadded to it was a Sign of Sanctification to the Israelitish Church beyond any other people unless others came in and embraced the same true Religion and then there was one Law for the Israelite and for the Stranger When the Forreigner or Sojourner did leave the Worship of Idols and other heathenish practices of the Infidel World Thus that people were injoyned some out ward ceremonial Sanctifyings for the reviving of the Law of the ten Words But these Figures and Shadows made no real change upon the fourth Word the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath as neither did they upon any other of the ten Words Or Sanctification is the separating of somewhat from a common use and destinating and setting of it apart for some special singular holy Use Thus in several Scriptures some persons were Sanctified as the Administrators about holy things the Israelitish people which is also applied to the chosen Vessels Sanctification in this sense was applyed to the Tabernacle Temple Altar
spake all and every one of them in a singular emiment manner at the Mount Sinai he spake at other Seasons but this Law was spoken with more solemnity of proclaiming This is that Law which the Apostate Angels were and are trangressors of Satan is the Evil one he sets himself up as a God to be worshiped which is against the first and second he is a blaspheming spirit against the third Word He keeps not the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath and tempts men to profane it against the fourth Words He has broken the Law of his Relation and tempts all both Superiors and Inferiors to break the established order according to the fifth Word Christ calls him a Murderer against the sixth Word An unclean spirit against the seventh Word He is a Thief a Robber a Stealer Robbs men of their holiness and happiness steals away the Word out of their hearts against the eighth Word He is a Lyar against the ninth Word A covetous craver of what is not his own And he sollicits men to covet what is their Neighbours against the tenth Word For this Decalogue is the Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness given to Angelical Natures who were summoned to appear at the solemn promulgation and proclaiming of this Law Even the Holy Spirits are doers of Jehovah's Commandments and they hearken unto the Voice of his Word And what is more yet this Law will be the perfect establish'd continud Law and Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness of the glorified ones for ever in Heaven How great therefore is there ignorance and how gross their mistake and dangerous their errour who daringly assert that this Law was temporay given only to one national people of Israel and some few more as if others were not under the obligation of it at least in part if not in whole Whereas it is a Kingly Law to which all mankind ought to be subject and conforming all being concern'd in this Law all being to be judged by this Law all sin and duty being to be measured by this Law There must an universal regard had to all and to every one of the Commands in the Decalogue both by Prince Minister and People There is a note of universality requiring Obedience to all these Commands and a word of singularity forbidding the breach and violation of any one of them Though Christ have Redeemed his people from the Curse of this Law yet not from the Rule of it the Redemption from the Curse of it doth still establish the Rule of it And as to this particular Law of the weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath there was a mixed multitude of others with the Israelites at the very time of proclaiming it And the Stranger yea the very Cattel are expresly comprehended within the bounds and in the very Letter of this Word and natural Reason for the observation thereof And if men will still be so adventurous in this age of clear Light and of shining discovery as to go on to do the labour and work of their particular Functions and Imployments on the seventh-Seventh-day there is no Word of God that doth dispense with this neither can any word of man bear them out in it against a direct prohibition The ten words or the Law of the Decalogue being that perfect Image and exact Sampler according to which all Mankind in the loyns of Adam were at the first created in all Wisdom Holiness and Righteousness as their finite Capacities could take in and it being still the Rule and Direction for the renewing and restoring of Wisdom Holiness and Righteousness in any of the sons and daughters of men it is therefore in a proper sense the Law of Nature and it being so it hath some foundation in the Humane Nature and so doth respect all Mankind Jew and Gentile Male and Female no Sex nor Age no Language nor People excepted which Law when proclaimed at Mount Sinai universally concerned all the men and women that then were since have been now are and that shall be in the after Generations the Head and Representative of us all was under the Direction and Obligation of this Law and so are all the Posterity of Adam Sin was in the World from Adam even unto Moses and Death was reigning in the World from Adam even unto Moses and the Law was existing in the World from Adam even unto Moses when it was a new promulgated for where the Law is not in being sin is not reckoned Thus was the first Adam the representing Type of all Mankind who had this complete Law concreated with the Humane Nature This Decalogical Holiness and Righteousness though not the very natural Essence and real Substance of the Humane Nature nor necessarily flowing from the very principles of that Humane Nature yet was a concreated perfection in him and a connatural suitableness to him it was implanted in Adam's heat which Law and Obedience thereunto was the greatest part of his resembling the Image and likeness of his Creators and Makers it being after the same Pattern a Law commanding all Good and forbidding all Evil a Law of hidden ages without limitation of any time place or person serving all times all places all persons being an absolute full Directory both before and since the Fall whether this Law were given outwardly by the Creator to Adam by word and voice is not now the matter of inquiry Let it suffice that it was given to Adam which all his Postery should conform unto It was continued in the Church all along as a Rule of Life so it was to Noah one of the Fathers of the Gentile Nations who was a just man perfect in his Generations walking with Aelohim and finding Grace in the Eyes of Jehovah he was a Preacher of Righteousness a very Holy Righteous Man and an Obedient Believer The Anomous or lawless times of the later days are compared to Noah's days in that corrupt age Thus also to Abraham who was the Father of many Gentile-Nations of a multitude of them this Abraham had an express full Testimony from the LORD himself that he was such a one as obeyed the voice of Jehovah and kept his charge his commandments and Laws which three words are the same that are afterwards used by which to express the ten Commandments the Judgement and the Statutes which God gave by Moses Aelohim knew Abraham how that he would command his sons and his house after him and they should keep the way of Jehovah to do Justice and Judgement Thus also to Moses and to those of his time before the promulgation of this Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai Jehovah Aelohim by Moses rebuked those who contrary to their LORD's commandment went out to seek food on the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath and he expresseth himself thus in his convincing reproof How long will ye refuse to keep my commandments and laws the same words again implying that that rebellious disobedient people did continue on to be transgressors
of this holy Law of the ten Words particularly to be breakers of that Law of the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath so that these Laws were well known to the Church and people of God by a long continued handing of them down by Posterity from Age to Age though practical Anomy or lawlessness had too much crept in and corrupted them of that Generation who neglected and broke them especially whilst bond-slaves in Egypt Afterwards when this Law was proclaimed and commanded at Mount Horeb where was a great mixture a miscellaneous multitude of Israelites and Gentiles who were present at that Mount and the stranger is expresly named in the very Letter of the Fourth Word or Command so that he also was under the obligation to yield obedience unto the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath The mind of man having by sin covered over with thick darkness ignorance errour and long diâ—use evil inclinations to Vice having much depraved and blinded the Understanding The LORD in words of his own mouth proclaimed this Law that it might be a manifest Testimony to mankind that natural Notions and Novelties of the Law concerning the difference between Good and Evil Duty and Sin were divinely ingrafted into the Nature of Mankind and were consentaneous unto this Eternal Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness which is in Aelohim He instaurs and restores the intire knowledge of his Will in his Law by this solemn promulgation that those old Letters of it which were much worn and defaced in the decayed Monuments of corrupt hearts might be more deeply ingraven and more plainly read again that what men had observed he by his own speaking Voice and writing Finger might rightly explain thus interposing his own Royal Authority to beget an inward testimony in their own consciences for the justness and equity of his holy righteous Law that all Mankind might be convinced of their sin and misery and might thereby be awakened to make out after a remedy otherwise they would be left altogether without excuse Upon the second of the Trumpets at Mount Sinai all Mankind was bound to make diligent inquiry after that which the LORD who is the King of Nations there spake so that they are all under his Law and are all bound thereunto being all concerned to take notice of the promulgation thereof by Royal Proclamation though more especially given forth at that place of Sinai It is not unworthy of serious consideration what a tonourous loud voice that was which not only all the Israelites did hear who yet were about six hundred thousand men a multitude that took up a great space of ground when Aelohim spake all the Words of the Decalogue This voice was also accompanied with a sound of Trumpets so exceeding loud as that the Lord could make all Mankind then alive to hear it such a sound shall go forth in the last day Besides all this what tempests were there at that solemnity what smoke what fire yea what thunderings and what an Earth-quake Such as might shake all the Inhabitants of the Earth at once and make them take notice of it For not only did Mount Sinai or Horeb quake greatly but that expression of Mount Sinai also doth shew that other parts of the Earth were shaken too The Earth was then shaken as the Earth shall be shaken at Christ's coming in the later days when all Nations shall be shaken or moved or made to tremble all and every one of them so shaken as the Heavens then will all of them at once All the Earth is bid to rejoyce at Jehovah's reigning which is described by his solemn giving of the Law which the Church is to rejoyce at and this is applyed unto Christ all the inhabited World was then enlightned all the Earth saw and trembled he then and their declared himself to be LORD of the whole Earth in giving forth this Kingly Law Thus this glorious Law-giver himself descended from Heaven with a shout his Charriot being twice ten thousand thousands of Angels the LORD being with them at Sinai in the Sanctuary and when he ascended to on high he led captive a Captivity he had taken Gifts unto Adam observe so is the Original word or in Adam which Paul doth explain to be men all Adam's posterity particularly from that time and also the rebellious to dwell with that God This Law universally concerneth all for in Christ all are one and whoever they were of the Heathen Nations that came into the Church of God in that day and were obedient unto all the Laws of Jehovah they had a part with Israel in all the holy things of God the Strangers themselves were under a Promise of having an allotted Inheritance in the Holy Land together with the Tribes of Israel There were the same privileges to the Obedient to the Stranger as to the Home-born The same judgments executed upon Transgressors of the Law of the Ten Words were he the one or the other All Nations under Heaven heard report of Israel and of the LORD 's appearing for them and giving them his holy Law Let the Reader further observe how it was afterwards when Solomon built the Temple at his dedicating of it he put the Stranger into his Prayer as well as the Israelite And this wise just Judge especially whilst his heart was right with the LORD judged according to this Law of the ten Words and the judicials annexed thereunto Solomon had his Dominion from Sea to Sea and from the River unto the ends of the Land they that dwelt in dry places kneeled before him and his Enemies licked the dust The Kings of Tharshish and of the Isles rendred an oblation the Kings of Sheba and Seba offered a present and all Kings bowed down to him all Nations served him he reigned over all Kingdoms who were someways under his subjection being herein a Type of Christ so that Solomon was a kind of Universal Monarch upon Earth ruling and governing by Jehovah's Laws Consider what the Office and Work of the Prophets was after Solomon's time even to preach Commentaries and Sermons upon this Law of the ten Words directing transgressors unto the Messiah to procure pardon and reconciliation And these Prophets especially some of them had not only the Israel of God put into their Embasse and Commission but also the Gentile Nations and Kingdoms and People let Jeremiah be one eminent instance of this when the LORD did set over the Nations and other the Kingdom according unto that Word which he brought or sent to them from Jehovah and according as they yielded obedience or not unto this Law of Jehovah so they were either built and planted or plucked up and broken down spoiled and destroyed All those Nations unto whom Jehovah sent Jeremiah with a word of Prophety were many not Jerusalem and Judah the Kings thereof the Princes thereof but also Pharaoh King of Egypt and his Servants and his Princes and
even in those Climates between seventy and ninety Degrees there is an equivalent space of time measured by hours days weeks months and years by which they overthrow most of the force of their own Argument God commanded no impossibility in Nature in requiring a determinate day in every week to be kept as a weekly Sabbath by man by all mankind though some daringly would infer the quite contrary We must take the Seventh-day as the Creator hath made and continued it to us The Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath is not bottomed upon Ethnick Philosophy which has corrupted the Principles of Astronomy and of Geometry of Theology and of Christianity but upon holy Scriptures and created Nature The seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath instituted and commanded in Paradise and renewed and re-inforced at Mount Horeb neither of which places were in the lesser Judaea or Canaan and therefore this Law of the fourth Word was not a local Precept of force no where but in that lesser Judaea and Canaan as some affirm this Seventh day Sabbath is such a kind of day as may be known kept and observed by men where-ever they should inhabit That day in every week which followeth the six foregoing known days of labour is none of ours it is the day of Jehovah he hath plainly pointed it out to us in this Law none need to say the knowledge hereof is hidden from us who shall ascend for us into Heaven and bring the knowledge thereof to us that we may know it and observe it it is clearly demonstrated to us by Aelohim himself we may not make the Sabbath-day the sixth day for then we should shew our selves unthankful in not receiving the LORD 's own bountiful allowance unto us of six days for labour in our particular Functions Neither are we to make it the eight day for then we incroach on the LORD's Right and are not contented with his liberal Grant of six days for our own employments It might be asked of these Objectors whether God have any Covenant People near the North Pole and South Pole if so whether they have not the Scriptures If they have how then can they so mingle Faith with several Scriptures if such a people have not Day and Night in their successive daily Seasons was not the whole Scripture fitted for all Mankind for all Nations for every rational Creature in those Nations to whomsoever the glad tydings of Salvation should come and did not the LORD hereby confirm the lasting establishedness of the Covenant of Grace Is there one Bible for temporate Zones and another Book for Poles and for the inhabitants thereabouts Day and Night were made for the Earth or Land The Heavenly Luminaries have a preaching Voice to all Languages and People night and day To be under the Sun is a phrase which signifieth to be in this inferiour World those that do live in this inhabited Earth are set out by being beholders of the Sun all who have eyes and will use them to that end the Sun is made for light by day and the Sun riseth upon the evil and the good There was a First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Day in every Week here in England from the beginning ever since it was dry Land and will be so to the Worlds end if it still continue dry Earth and therefore let us make use of such arguments as do concern our selves there has been always a day from one going in of the Sun to the next going in of the Sun here in this Island ever since it was an Island the created Sun was just in those very places of the firmament at those seasons of the year as to its setting or rising as it is now at the same seasons of the year by unvariable constancy in his ordinary course and our continued certain measure of Days by Divine Ordination in the revealed Word and in created Nature must be by the orderly regular Motion of the Sun Moon and Stars this being one great end of their Creation and these being made before man was Created so that as soon as man had a being he might measure his time this way though it was made known unto him by the LORD on what day of the week he was created and which was the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath when Jehovah made a promise unto Abraham that should be fulfilled some hundreds of years after it is said that in the self-same day the Prophety was fulfilled so that there is a certain Rule of measuring of Time Oh how much is it to be lamented that although the Seventh day Sabbath be so evidently and plainly asserted through the whole Scripture yet multitudes who have and do own the Scriptures will not as yet receive this holy Law of Christ whilst there is any thing that doth but look like somewhat of an Objection against it they take up with every humane conjecture though besides and against the Word many there are who will rather boldly attempt to throw down all weekly Sabbaths than humbly submit and obedientially conform to Jehovah's determinate weekly time of the seventh-Seventh-day though Scripture and Nature have joyntly established it When the LORD threatned and accordingly executed it to drive his Israel in case of such provoking disobedience into strange Nations unto the utmost parts of the Heaven yet there they were under the Law and Obligation of the ten Words In Judaea it self or Canaan the lesser the breadth from East to West was generally fifty Miles to which if the Kingdom of Sihon and Og be added on the other side Jordan parcels of Canaan the larger and possessed by Ruben Gad and half Manasses the bredth reckoned to be eighty Miles which doth make some variation of minutes according to this objection and by the same reason made it impossible for them to keep as to the same minute parts of time with respect to the weekly Sabbath but as for the larger Canaan which the Israelitish and Judaick Kings subdued under their Dominion this had a much larger extent as has been in part shewed already their foot did tread and their coast was from the Wilderness and Lebanon from the River the River Euphrates and unto the hindmost Sea The Wilderness of Paran was the Southern part of Canaan Lebanon was a Mountain at the Northen bound Euphrates the great River was the Eastern border of their Territories the hindmost Sea or after Sea called by the Greek and Chaldee the Western Sea was the main or great Sea toward the going in of the Sun this was to the West their Western bound This was prophetied in Moses's and Jehovah's time and afterwards fulfilled in Solomon's days where the Nations subdued were to fear and to worship where the Sun and Moon went forth and went in in their successive courses the Chaldee doth interpret with the rising of the Sun and in the light of the Moon that is at Morning and at Evening as the twelve Tribes
generation observed the Sabbath on the seventh day by that Generation he speaketh of the whole time from the beginning of the world full home to Christ which is a Testimony that the seventh day was not changed in Moses's time from what it was before Moses one of the Authors cited in the Margin doth acknowledge that the Pagan gentils observed the seventh day every where this custom prevailed to observe the same seventh day which the Jews used to keep holy so common was it grown Pleaders for the Dominical day do lay the foundation of their observing of it upon Christs Resurrection which they assert to be on the first day of the week on this day saith one of them speaking of the Dominical day the world received its beginning The first day of the week because of Christs resurrection saith another is the birth-day of the whole humane nature Why did the Heathen the Pagans scoff at the Jews for observing the seventh day as Sabbath if they both kept one and the same day before Moses and a different day after Moses and after Christ which the Pagans called the seventh day why do they name the seventh day which was kept festival in Palestine if another day were the seventh and why do they call the Jews seventh days by the name of Sabbaths if they did not judge them so to be and why do they give unto the Jews the name of Sabbatarians several of the Pagans do deride all Sabbaths one of them says that the Sabbaths of the Jews were dedicated to sloth or idleness Another calleth the observation of the Sabbath an evil solemnity and Foolishness and says that to observe the Sabbath was ridiculous because that in so doing they lose the seventh part of their life one of the First day-men writeth that the Gentiles and all the Heathen did not keep the seventh day which the Patriarchs did according to Institution they did altogether hate the only true holy day and would not observe it themselves but they erected other days to an holy and Religious use the Romans he saith further anciently instituted every ninth day and the Graecians every eighth day and neither of them the seventh the Romans dedicated their ninth day to Jupiter the Graecians consecrated the eighth unto Neptune but neither of them consecrated the seventh unto the LORD and these two were the chief of the Heathen Philosophers we saith he speaking of Christians that are for the First-day keep not the same day which was from the beginning So that the Reader may by this discern how much men will be at a loss who resolve this case into humane Authorities and Histories which are many of them so quite cross and contrary to Scripture-truth and which do so contradict one another satisfaction and settlement such as is sound and demonstrative can never come in that way Another Advocate for the first-day doth declare that Cyprian Tertullian and Hilary do call the Dominical-day the eighth from the Creation the Enemies derided the Christian-sabbath saith Ruffinus Athanasius saith that he observed the Sabbath day not as it was in the first age in the beginning of the world Philo the Apostles contemporary asserteth the seventh day-sabbath's observation to be according to the Law of nature constituted by God at the Creation of Nature Athanasius acknowledgeth that the seventh-day-sabbath was observed from the Creation till Christ The seventh day of every week in order from the Creation was Sacred not only to the Hebrews but Gentiles thus the Author cited in the Margin with much more if it were needful which might be added to discover the invalidity of the objectors arguing who doth bring many humane Authorities against himself and his own assertion and against whose way of arguing many contradicting humane authorities are and may further be brought so widely will men wander whilst they go astray from the word-way of the LORD's Precepts One of the learnedest in this Century doth affirm the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the express Letter of it as it is written and read in its obvious meaning of the fourth Commandment pointeth at the Sabbath as it was in the first Institution the Seventh day from the Creation The very Gentiles both Civil and Barbarous both ancient and of later days as it were by an universal kind of Tradition retained the distinction of the Seven Days of the VVeek notwithstanding that great variety of differences which is betwixt them in the ordering of their Years and Months Every where they attributed some Holiness to the seventh-Seventh-day they were not ignorant that the VVorks of the Creation were finished on the Seventh But whither have these Objectors diverted me I now return O what a many peculiar honours hath the LORD put upon this Law in his Word The Ark in which was nothing else put but only these ten Words had many Dignities conferred upon it It was made of durable Wood not so subject to putrefaction this Wood was overlaid within and without with pure Gold It had a Crown of Gold round about The Pot of Manna was before it by which Jehovah Aelohim confirmed the Seventh-day Sabbath Out of this Ark Jehovah spake by Oracle This was an assurance of Aelohims gracious presence amongst his people and that he did dwell there There must they worship before him with a proomise of acceptance The Propitiatory covered it There between the Cherubims the LORD himself sat I could fill up much more paper upon this one Argument The Lawgiver himself was the Writer of this Law The Law is one of Christ's Names The Name of Aelohim was given to the Ark of the Covenant It being an illustrious Symbol of his presence All the prefiguring prophetical Scriptures in the Old Testament relating to this Law have a New Testament significancy and sense What a multitude of Scriptures might here be heaped together in commendation of this Law It has an invincible firmness There Precepts are true and certain The Church is governed by this Law as its Rule Christ himself submits his Doctrine to be examined by it There is Perspicuity in this Law It is perfect in its Nature and Doctrine When the Spirit of the LORD doth bring it on with living Efficacy and with saving Power O how wonderful are its effects It begets Faith its Regenerates it nourisheth it makes to be growing it inlightens it gives heavenly saving Wisdom it restores and strengthens the Soul it exciteth a lively firm Consolation it joyeth and refresheth the Heart it kindleâ—h a love to God in the Heart it furnisheth with Armour aginst temptations and assaults It doth guard against captious Sophistry and Treachery It leadeth to Life and to eternal Salvation Nothing may be added to it or taken from it Moses leads to Christ and Christ sends to Moses They appeared together at the Mount of Transfiguration The characteristical Notes and the distinguishing Marks that do difference an Evangelical Reformed Christian Church and
Disciple from an Antichristian Synagogue and a Worshipper of the Beast are the keeping of the Commandments of God and the having the Testimony of Jesus Christ Much peace to them that love Jehovah's Law and to them no stumbling block This will be the everlasting Rule of the Holiness and Righteousness of glorified Ones in Heaven If some one will do he shall know of this Doctrine whether it be of God or not O the happy straight goings on of that man who fearing Jehovah who delighting greatly in his Commandments Christ is the Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that obey him and the Father gives his Spirit unto such How freely and delightfully could I here inlarge in the commendation of this excellent perfect Law How good how holy how just is this Law for the matter intrinsecally externally good and holy and just consonant to the eternal Justice and Holiness and Goodness which is in the LORD himself whose Authority is stamped upon this and as such is given forth from him unto us to be a Rule How can this be abrogated or changed which is so full and comprehensive of that Righteousness and Holiness which is the perfect Image of the pure unchangeable Jehovah Aelohim were we more throughly conformed to it in our natures and actions we should be tied to it and to the Commander of it with an everlasting love love beyond expression How can the obligation of its mandatory power be other than eternal and immutable O how good is it in its kindly effects inlightning converting restoring quickning comforting and many other ways operating upon the heart when the holy Spirit doth put life and power into mens hearts for these productions This way of obedience to the ten Words is the way of lasting of hidden age and of everlastingness that way which alone of all ways will continue and hold out to the utmost duration when all the ways of Anomous of lawless ones shall perish Christ's Disciples should evidence and manifest their love to him by their friendliness to his Law The Doctrines and the Precepts of this Rule the promises and the threatning of it do some way or other lead to Christ and have him for their scope and this under the old as well as new Administration were not the believing Israelites to look unto the covenanted Messiah and to act Faith upon him Were they not by all the Types and Figures and Shadows of him to make application of him to themselves and of themselves to him and and to confirm their expectation of his coming Was not this that which made all their prayers and other services acceptable their spiritual relation which they had unto him How could mercy be done unto thousands as the Letter of this Law doth include if we exclude this Messiah or Christ out of his own Laws as if he were not intended there The Administration of this Law was Evangelical in its great design and main intention Can a believer but highly prize Christ and esteem him precious when he doth so look into the glass of this Law as to view and loath the spots on the face of his nature and life the least of which this Law doth discover and will not hide any of his deformities nor cover his wrinckles nor paint his ugliness In this case how great are the benefits by Christ to the Believer who is made of God to the Believer Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption The more that a Beliver doth honour Christ the more will he be carried out in a Spirit of Love to delight in the Commands of Christ When Adam was most holy he was most obedient and when he was most obedient he was most acted by a principle of Love Thus the holy blessed Angels do all in obedience and love to Christ for they also are under this Law and at command Even the LORD Jesus Christ himself kept these Commandments of his Father and did abide in his Love his ready chearful obedience to his Father must have an eye to a commanding Law The Law of the ten Words though it include a perfect holiness in its requirements yet doth it not exclude an Advocating Mediator in its intendments O how will mens faces be covered with shame at the last when they shall be judged by that Law which now they so much contend against When the LORD had given forth the Law of the ten Words it is said Not hath he added He added no more commands of this Nature This was almost forty years after the promulgation of the Decalogue at Mount Sinai He hath not added he doth not add he will not add will still be a true saying relating to this no more commands of this kind and sort for they are but ten Words a perfect Law to which nothing is to be added and from which nothing is to be substracted In this Book of Deuteronomy Moses repeated the ten Words or Commandments and presseth to the observation of this Law confirming the whole of it with promises to the believing and obedient and with threatnings against the unperswadeable and transgressing And Christ himself a little before his death foretold of the continuance of the Seventh-day Sabbath calling it by the name of Sabbath well towards forty years after his death though for the advancement of Sabbath-learning I propound to the Vertuoso and the Ingenuoso of the times to consider Q. Whether that expression Mat. 24. 20. Pray ye that your flight be not in the Sabbath do not relate to all and every of those great periods of time the destruction of Jerusalem the down-fall of Antichrist and the Tribulation of that time which shall make way for the later-day-Glory this seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath will last as long as this world lasteth to the utmost end of it Thus Reader have I through Mercy and Grace somewhat traded according to my Talent received for the Honour of my LORD and of his Works Words and Law and for the promoting of Scripture-sciences and Arts. It is with him what entertainment he will give it in thy heart and what blessing he will there put upon it O the Excellency of this Word Knowledge The Wise of heart will receive Commands They will treasure up Knowledge to draw it out in season Wisdom is found in their lips To the mouth of their Vnderstanding shall they be praised The Well-advised will hearken unto Counsel and those that fear the Command shall prosper Whereas the proud will be always wrangling and contending Contemners of the Word will quickly be corrupted The Law the Doctrine the Institution of a wise man is a clear Vein and Fountain of Lifes and a good Understanding will give Grace A Scorner seeks Wisdom and finds it not but Knowledge is easie unto him that understands it It is facile it is obvious it freely presents it self it is soon learnt it is easily gettable quickly attained A Fool has
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-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-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-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
should withdraw our selves from such It has been great encouragement and sweet satisfaction unto me for divers years that I have Christ and his Word his Will and his Law for me in this Holy Contest His ten Words or Commandments how perfect and complete how standing and unchangeable a Rule of life are they in all and every of the matters of Duty to be performed and of Sin to be avoided It was Jehovah Christ himself who by his Spirit from his Father wrote upon the two Tables the Words of the Covenant the ten Words or Precepts This Scripture more especially I undervalue not any of the rest though this have its signal remark cannot be broken This is a perfect Law These words Jehovah spake and he added no more Christ would not have us so much as think that he came to destroy to dissolve the Law he came not to dissolve but to fulfill He confirms it by an high Asseveration that till Heaven and Earth do pass one Jod or Chirek one either Consonant or Vowel or any thing else originally belonging thereunto shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments and such do the most of men compt the weekly Sabbath though misjudgingly and will teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whosoever shall do and teach men the same shall be called Great in the Kingdom of Heaven This Law is established This Law or Testimony is sure or faithful or firm or constant it endures for ever it is standing-abiding continuing firm yet and perpetually This is the Rule of the New Creature by this must we walk This is to be bound up and sealed among Christs Disciples To the Law and to the Testimony must we refer all our Controversies in Religion for Determination and Resolution If any speak not according to this Word it is because No morning-light is as yet in them Here is the full comprehensive of what is our Duty to do Where or for what no Law is there is no Transgression or neither a Transgression Sin is not imputed where is no Law for Sin is a Transgression of the Law Then a Soul is guilty when it sinneth against any of the Commandments of Jehova in what ought not to be done and shall do against any of them This Law of the Ten words was put into the Ark and this alone and nothing else but this put there in which it was so closed as that it was not to be taken out or changed having a Crown of gold by Jehovah's own appointment put round about it This particular Law of the weekly-seventh day-Sabbath has a special mark of remembrance fixt unto it at the very entrance into it This must not be forgotten to be kept Holy and the Works of our particular Functions are expresly prohibited to be done on it This Seventh-day must be sanctified as the weekly Sabbath of Jehovah our God because all and every of those weighty Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim the Law-maker the Law-giver himself hath assigned and rendred and no Reasons can be so demonstrative and convincing as those which he doth give who is only wise from whence to inforce and perswade Obedience to his Command in observing of a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy to him do properly belong and are applicable to the Seventh which is the last day in every Week in Order of time in the weekly returns of it As the weekly Sabbath-day and to no other day of the Week as such neither to the first second third fourth fifth or sixth day Six daies in the week we are to labour and the Seventh day in the same week is the Sabbath The Seventh-day the seventh-day has its peculiar Note of Honour put upon it There can be but one Seventh day in one Week in the weekly Order and Succession of the Seven days though each of the other foregoing six days in the week are one of seven or one of the seven daily parts of weekly time Every one of the other days of the week have another name as one the second the third the fourth the fifth the sixth Only the last day of the week is called the Seventh day and the Sabbath day Weeks will be to the worlds end concluded within the compass of Seven days One of Aelohims Reasons is because he rested upon the seventh day upon that and that only which is the last day in the week and upon no other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day This History of the Creation doth go this day over three times on or in the seventh-Seventh-day the seventh-Seventh-day the seventh-Seventh-day Aelohim rested and again a second time He rested Afterwards in Moses time a little before Christ's Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Seventh-day and the rest or Sabbath on it are several times mentioned the Seventh-day the Seventh-day the Seventh-day and a fourth time the Seventh-day The Rest of the Holy Sabbath or a Resting of Holy Rest for Sabbath signifies a Rest a Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath the People rested on it At the Promulgation of this Law this same Reason is resumed again For in six days Jehovah made the Heavens and the Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh-day and therefore His people ought to rest on the same day as the Holy-Sabbath-day The Scriptures do carry this further along after the Promulgation of it Six days shall men work but on the Seventh-day the Seventh-day a Sabbath a Sabbath of rest a Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath Jehovab rested on this day and refreshed himself Six days thou shalt work but on the seventh-day thou shalt rest thou shalt rest Six days shall work be done but on the Seventh-day there shall be to you an Holy-day a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah the seventh-day is the Sabbath of rest the Sabbath the seventh day is the Sabbath to Jehovah Thus also in the After-Prophets in Jeremiah's days Bear no burden on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day sanctifie the Sabbath-day to do no Work therein The Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day Thus in Nehemiah's time that zealous Reformer would not suffer Ware or any Victuals to be brought to be sold on the Sabbath-day on the Sabbath-day on the Holy-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath No burden shall be brought in on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day The New Testament also doth take special notice of this The Seventh-day has the name of Sabbath or of Rest given it there above threeâ—â—ore times They rested Christs followers were silent from the Works of their particular Functions the seventh-day The Seventh-day God did rest the seventh-day from all his Works None of all this is said of any other day of the week Particularly not of the first and therein the LORD Jesus
the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as observed not the seventh-day as such If it be thus then how nameless how Commandless how promiseless how threatless is the first day of the week as to this matter of the weekly-Sabbath-day Examine and search we the Scriptures in this case All the Scriptures through where the holy spirit speaks of a weekly-sabbath day the name and thing thereof that is of such a weekly-Sabbath-day is given only to the seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly-Sabbath-day On the seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day Aelohim Sabbatized he Sabbatized The seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day the rest of the Holy Sabbath a Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath the People rested on it The seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work The seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work In the seventh is the Sabbath of rest The seventh day a Sabbath of Rest The seventh day the Sabbath of rest Scores of times in the Scripture of the old testament the seventh day is called the Sabbath Several times also in the new Testament about threescore times The LORD Christ himself speaking Prophetically cals it the Sabbath-day Divers times in the Historie of the Acts of the Apostles after Christs Ascension to his Father Every Sabbath Paul reasoned in the Synagogue as his manner was No other day in the week is called the Sabbath-day This some of the most Learned amongst the adversaries of the seventh day having been convinced of and finding their labours fruitless in searching after the name Sabbath to be given to the first day of the week which is no where done they rather oppose the name Sabbath as not fit to be used now under the new-Testament-administration of Grace as applyed to the weekly seperated day for Holy rest and worship they reject it themselves that others too might the more abhor it by giving it an ill name miscalling it the Jewish-Sabbath So that these Enemies themselves being Judges they confess that all Churches do call the seventh day alone by the old name Sabbath It was the seventh this seventh day it is double-Articled on which God rested from all his works Consider further there is not all the Scriptures through any command given for the observation of any other day in the week asthe weekly-Sabbath-day but only the seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly return of it At the first Creation of this seventh day It was instituted for Adam to do it and observe it as the weekly Sabbath day Thus before the Law was proclaimed how long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws Jehovah hath given you the Sabbath Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day for to gather Manna or to do any other servile work So the People rested on the seventh day Thus at the time of Promulgation Remember or to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Six daies shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God In it thou shalt not do any work It expresseth both a precept what to do and a prohibition what not to do Keep the Sabbath to sanctifie it as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee Six daies shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God In it thou shalt not do any work So express is this word of the Law-giver himself After the proclaiming of this Law six daies thou shalt do thy work and on the seventh day thou shalt rest Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep said Jehovah ye shall keep the Sabbath six daies shall work be done but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest Six daies thou shalt work but on the seventh day thou shalt rest In Eating-time or Plough-time and in Harvest thou shalt rest during the seventh-day-Sabbath If any time had more colouraable plea for working than other the Ploughing-time and the Harvest-time were the seasons the one to prepare the Ground and to cast in the Seed the other to reap and gather in the Fruit and increase Tillage was necessary for Harvest Harvest was necessary for sustenance yet the holy rest of the Sabbath must not be broken for these The prohibition reached in the very letter of it against these times Again these are the words which Jehovah hath commanded that ye should do them six daies shall work be done but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah If any handy-work were to be spoken for as an exception to this general rule Tabernacle-work was the work yet this Law of the seventh-day-Sabbath must not be transgressed for the carrying on of such work for the preparing finishing and erecting of the Tabernacle though it were the appointed place under that dispensation of Grace for the publick Instituted worship and service of God Ye shall keep my Sabbath again ye shall keep my Sabbath and a third time in Leviticus ye shall keep my Sabbaths the like we have in the Books of the Prophets carry not forth any burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day nor do any work but ye shall hallow the Sabbath day according as I commanded your Fathers said Jehovah by Jeremiah to the People of God in his time much the same we have in Ezekiel bringing in the LORD thus bespeaking his People I Jehovah your God walk in my statutes observe my judgments and do them and Hallow my Sabbaths The same Prophetically in another place thus saith Adonai Jehovah the gate of the inner Court that looketh towards the East shall be shut the six working daies but on the Sabbath it shall be opened But the gate shall not be shut until the Evening The Prince shall offer the burnt Offering on the Sabbath-day Thus after the return from the Babylonish Captivity Zealous Nehemiah reproves the transgressors of this law and Command of the seventh day-Sabbath what Evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath-day I commanded and charged saith he This he did in pursuance of Jehovahs Express command and charge that no burden be brought in on the Sabbath day I said unto the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and come and keep the gates to sanctifie the Sabbath-day The same is mentioned in the New-Testament the holy Women had Rested on the Sabbath-day according to the Commandement They who were no friends to Christ could yet acknowledge this in the Principle for the matter of Right though they misjudged in a matter of Fact in point of practise and in a particular Case there are six daies in which men ought to work and not
on the Sabbath In obedience to this Law and Command of Christ it was that Paul preached and the People heard the word of God on this Sabbath-day some years after Christ was Ascended up into Glory Whither can the Observers of the First day as the Weekly Sabbath-day go to find out Commands in the whole Scripture for their day One of the adversaries of the seventh-day-seventh-day-Sabbath who appeared in Writing against a Letter of another to him upon his own desire which conteined some reasons and Scriptures for the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath He in delivering his Judgment concerning the First day upon this Question whether there be any Express word for the Institution of the first day of the week to be observed as the Lords-day the day for his Weekly Sabbath has these passages we might say that it might be Instituted though it be not Recorded he meaneth in the Scriptures When and where and again t is acknowledged saith he we have no express word in so many letters and Words or Syllables for the Institution of the First day of seven And a Third time what if it should be said that he that is that Jesus Christ the Mediator did according to his Power actually change the day though when and how it be not recorded And a Fourth time why might he not Institute this he intends the first day although it be not expressed when or where and though it be not recorded Observe here thou who readest this with a desire to have the mind of Christ in this matter Suppose in the serious tenderness of thy Heart thou shouldest enquire of this Answerer whether there be any Institution of the First day of the week to be Observed as the Weekly Sabbath-day under the New-Testament in the Room of the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath and he should say there may be an Institution of the First day of the Week as the Weekly-Sabbath-day though it be not recorded Suppose thou shouldest further ask when for the time might this Institution be if it were at all And he should reply there might be an Institution though it be not recorded when for the time Put case thou demand of him further where for the Place might this supposed Institution be And he should tell thee there might be an Institution though it be not Recorded where for the place Upon this thou further propoundest this to him how is this pretended Institution for the occasion or manner that I might be somewhat Directed in my practise if it were manifested to be my Duty to observe the first day as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day To which he should return thee these words there might be an Institution though it be not recorded how for the occasion or manner Can such answers as these give thee any Convincing Demonstration or satisfying Evidence What After all thy Trading in Sabbath-Religion wilt thou at last be sent thou knowest not whether to pretended unwritten verities for thy Religion Art thou under any Obligations of Conscience in these matters to beleive further than what is written Can thy spiritual Appetite savour in such Cases what is not written As for any other Framed Fancyed Forged Grounds of Instituting the First day as the weekly Sabbath-day from pretended practise of the Apostles for this end in this or any other Author I meet with or from what other Reasons Conjecturally unscripturally suggested it will be spoken unto in its place Only here is one part of the fore-mentioned passage which I would write somewhat about lest the force of the answerers Arguing should be thought to be passed by unobserved which is that expression according to his Power whereby the answerer intends that Jesus Christ as Mediator had Power to Change the Weekly Sabbath from the Seventh which is the last day to the First day of the Week What Power the LORD Jesus Christ as Mediator has received I thankfully acknowledge and through Mercy and Grace purchased by him for me and freely richly given from the Father to me in the supplies of the holy Spirit I have been for several years an applyer of a liver upon and somewhat an Improver of though I find great cause to be deeply humbled for that I have put it to no better use As for the Power of Christ considering him as mediator we have it from his own Mouth in his life time that the Father had given all Judgment unto the Son That the Father hath given unto Christ Power to do Judgment because he is the Son of Man that the Father hath given all things into his hand And a little before his death that the Father gave him power of all Flesh And after his Resurrection that unto him all Authoritative Power was given in Heaven and on Earth This is my Faith and my Food Yet withal it must be considered that Christ as Mediator was one put into Office by his Father and sent by him in a delegated Function having his proper work assigned him And thus his Power was Limited Let us search whether the whole Scripture be profitable for this In the Law of Moses there is a Prophesie that Jehovah the Aelohim of his People would raise up unto them a Prophet meaning the LORD Jesus Christ as is manifest by a collation of those other Scriptures which do so interpret this from the midst of them of their Brethren like unto Moses unto him they were to hearken and I said Jehovah the Father will give my words into his Mouth and he shall speak unto the People all that I shall Command him And it shall come to pass that the Man who will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him Remark here It was the Father who raised up Christ to this Office of being a Prophet they were the Fathers words which were given into Christs Mouth and Christ was to speak unto the People all that which the Father should Command him They must be the Fathers words and it must be in the Fathers Name that Christ was to speak To this Clause in the Commission must Christ keep close And accordingly so he did In the Book of the after-Prophets you may read Jehovah the Father thus speaking concerning his Son Christ behold my servant whom I uphold mine Elect my Soul delighteth I have given my spirit upon him he shall bring forth Judgment to the Nations Christ as Mediator was his Fathers Servant he took upon him the Form of a Servant and the Servant must keep close to the will and word and Command of him whose Servant he is especially in this case where all and every of the words and wills and Commands of the Father are Holy just and good And it is fore told of Christ that he would when he had a bodie Prepared for and taken to him thus bespeak his Father I take pleasure O my Aelohim to do thy well-pleasing thy will as Christ else where in the history of
in the Wilderness Hallow my Sabbaths Notwithstanding the Children rebelled against me they polluted my Sabbaths Then I said observe he takes notice a second time of this time of the Provocation was given him by them this way I would pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the Wilderness The like we have in another place of the same Prophet her Priests speaking of Jerusalem have violated my Law and have profaned my Holy things They have put no difference between the Holy and Profane neither have they shewed between the unclean and the Clean and have hid their Eyes from my Sabbaths even administrators about Holy things do some times hide their Eyes from Jehovahs Sabbaths and I am profaned among them Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them I have Consumed them with the Fire of my wrath their own way have I recompenced upon their heads saith Adonai Jehovah Such a passage we also find in the Prophecie by Amos hear this O ye who saying when will the Sabbath be gone they thought the seventh day the longest day in the Week that we may set forth wheat making the Ephah Small and the Shekel great and perverting the Balances of deceit Jehovah hath sworn by the Excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works Shall not the Land tremble for this and every one mourn that dwelleth therein I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your Songs into Lamentation I will send a Famine of hearing the words of Jehovah Thus after that the People of God had returned from Babylonish captivity in Nehemiahs time when the Sabbath was profaned he as a Magistrate reproves and threatens those in Judah whom he saw treading Winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and lading Asses as also Wine Grapes and Figs and all Burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day And I testified in the day wherein they sold victuals there dwelt men of Tyre also therein which brought Fish and all manner of ware and sold on the Sabbath unto the Children of Judah and in Jerusalem Then I saith he contended with the Nobles of Judah and said unto them what Evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath-day Did not your Fathers thus and did not our God bring all this Evil upon us and upon this City Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath Upon this he commands that there should no Burden be brought in on the Sabbath day And when the Merchants and the Sellers of all kind of Ware lodged within Jerusalem once or twice then he testified against them and said unto them why lodge ye before the Wall If ye do again I will lay hands on you From that time forth came they not on the Sabbath And he Commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should come to keep the Gates to Sanctifie the Sabbath-day For an improvement of this kind of Learning let the Studious search the Scriptures whether both the First and the second Temple were not burnt and the People captived in the one and fleeing into the other both these on the seventh-day-Sabbath And whether the First great Ejection and unchurching of the Jews were not also on the seventh-day-Sabbath and the Gospel more carried over to the Gentiles Having thus carried this Doctrine and Duty concerning the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath through the whole Scripture with that arguing convincingness which is clear and evident to plain unprejudiced Judgments and understandings though so full a Testimony should suffice yet that I may the better make way for the answering of somewhat that may look a little like Objection I shall add this to the rest for a further Confirmation that Aelohim hath put this Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath into Created Nature The Human nature in the First Adam was made and framed to the Perfection of Holiness and of Righteousness in the Ten words which Ten words I take to be the only certain vniversal perfect summary and Comprehensive of that which is the Law of Nature in Mankind A full exact Copie draught and Transcript of the Law of Creation in the heart of Adam the Proclaimed and now Written word the same for sum and for substance which had a living Concreated impression on that Heart and mind of his As the true unchangeable Original-Law being not only the declared will but also agreeing with the Holy nature or Essence and being of the Creator himself an Holy just and good Law no waies differing from the Law which was given to and put into the Humane nature in the uprightness and integrity The purity and perfection of that Humane Nature This Law particularly of the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath and the due observation thereof was a part of this Law of Nature as it lay evidently in that Established order of Aelohims Creating the foregoing six daies of that one week the rule and pattern of all after-weeks being the working days and the seventh the last day of that Week being the weekly-Sabbath-day Such being the method which Aelohim used in the production of his Creatures on the several six daies and the disposal of his and of Mans Rest on the Seventh day Thus standeth the Relation in the weekly succession of daies which Aelohim made to be in the true nature of these Created existences really whilst the World stands to be instructive unto all mankind of what is his natural will and mans natural Duty There was in this Primitive Ordination a full evidence and a convincing Demonstration of Aelohims pleasure herein by his appointing a sufficiencie of light about this matter both in the Created nature of daies and of works and Rest respectively in those daies to give Adam to see and know what he ought to do what daies to work in and what day to rest on and also Innate in Adam himself for his instruction thereby discerningly to understand and Faithfully to improve this for the designed end true use and proper purposes Some notions of this Law as well as of the others of the Ten words are still retained and kept in man even though now fallen and in his corrupt state and renewing Grace doth restore in part to the first Created Holiness and Righteousness Aelohim Created Adam in his own Image In the Image of Aelohim Created he him And we are to put on the New man which according to God is Created in Righteousness and Holiness of Truth which is renewed unto knowledge according to the Image of him that Created him And the whole of this is still in being carefully faithfully unalterably preserved not only by Revelation in the Scriptures of Truth but also by Primitive Creation and Providential Continuation in the true Nature and in the real Existence of the things themselves All and every of the daies and Weeks that have been are and will be since the first Created Week in their ordinary revolutions and
some particular known day Do not Commissions to Judges and to other Officers meet with this sense by their Dates Do not Charters to Corporations express some special day of Grants Are not Fairs and Markets held upon certain days of the week agreeing with the present Accompt as the reckoning now is Search the records of Marriages Nativities Deaths Burials in Ecclesiastical Register-books and is not the memory of Days preserved there Do not Compacts Covenants Agreements between party and party Wills and Testaments speak the certain knowledg of Days Do not Day-labourers keep to this Accompt Do not Ephemeries Diaries Hemerologies Calendars Almanacks Astronomies assent and consent to this same What further Evidence is now needful in this case of a matter of Fact for the satisfying of them who will keep a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy unto Jehovah As an act of Faith with an eye to his Promise as an Act of Fear with an eye to his Threatning Sandys in his Travels being a narrow inquirer into the state of other Nations and Kingdoms doth relate this concerning the matters of Religion in the Eastern parts that there is a Christian Empire of the Aethiopians that did still in his time Celebrate Saturday as well as the Sunday as he useth the old Ethnick Phrases and Purchas writes of the Abyssines as Subject to Peter and Paul and especially to Christ that they observed the Saturday Sabbath The Melchites or Syrians are said to Celebrate Divine Service as solemnly on the Sabbath day as on the Dominical day as they call the First day Some Christian Churches have forbid Fasting on both these days Many more Historical records of this may an Ingenious Industrious Reader of such books Collect that would further Inform himself about this Sufficient to me is Scripture Authority warranted in created Nature Having now gone thorow my great Task and undertaking in asserting and proving thorow the whole Scriptures by Aelohim's own assigned Reasons by other Scripture Arguments and by Created Nature and Established Order the Seventh-day which is the last day of the week to be the Weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day should not every Mouth be stopped from gain-saying of it Yet the plainests clearest Truths have been opposed and so is this Some rise up against it and object that no special Honour is put by the LORD and by his Word upon the seventh day more than upon any other day of the week and that it is but A seventh not The seventh And that that part of time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven and that one day in seven hath and must have a natural priority unto the seventh-day because say such the seventh day is one of the seven Whereas such should have more deliberately considered that one day of seven was not before the seventh day in order of time It could not be truly affirmed of any one day that it was one of seven before the seventh day was Created For when the one day was so named there was but that one day so but two on the second day but three on the third day but four on the fourth but five on the fifth but six on the sixth day till the seventh had its natural Existence and it s created being and untill then no one of the fore-going days of the Week could be called one in seven For till then there were not seven and the seventh day is the last number of days and the only seventh in the days of the Week So that here is a stop made and we go no further forward As to the natural created Order and accompt of a Week and therefore that exception and objection which some do bring in against this from ten Lambs any of which may be the tenth according as they may run out is nothing pertinent and applicable to the present matter For the days of every week do not run voluntarily at their pleasure which can be before or behind as they will to go backward or forward when they list but they keep their created order in this successive continued weekly course by a well-established natural unalterable Law although in the exception and objection this should be noted that when the ten Lambs were run out they had each distinct names and the last was the only tenth and no other but the last That particular day of the week is the Weekly Sabbath-day which alone As to this of the weekly-Sabbath has proper marks of Note and of Honour put upon it As Jehovah's own peculiar day which he has culled out from all the rest of the days of the week for his created ends and instituted purposes There is not any one Insignificant word or letter in the whole Book of God All that he has spoken and given to his people is of good use The LORD Jesus Christ has confirmed his Law of the Ten Words to a Letter a Consonant a Vowel a Particle a Point These things amongst others I have commended to their serious Observation who do understand the Original or will take so much pains as to learn the notes of Demonstration and their Significancy which may the LORD blessing it be gotten with a little Industry one is to observe well the first place in the Scriptures where the Doctrine and Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is taught here is a Note of Demonstration importing The This or That and it is three times joyned to the word Seventh which particular day of the Week the Last day Aelohim Rested on Blessed and Sanctifyed as the Weekly-Sabbath-day The seventh and a second time The Seventh and a third time The seventh and three times there is a Letter an Inseparable joyned Preposition signifying In Which would carry the discerning obedient Observer of the Weekly-Sabbath-day into the Possession and enjoyment the Duties and Priviledges of that set Seventh-day Besides another Particle there which doth here put a great force upon the signification as That day That Seventh The Note of Demonstration in this Place doth point out a certain known Determinate Fixed Particular Unchangeable day in every Week in that First Created Week and in the after Successive Returns of that last day in every Week as the Weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day Because this is the First place in the Holy Scriptures where this Note of Demonstration is put to this word Seventh And this was an Eminent Remarkable thing pointed at this seventh day as the day of Weekly Rest And all and every of the foregoing daies of the Week of this Created World have a distinct observable put upon them and therefore so has this also Especially the Seventh day being the most remarkable day in divers respects that was in all the Week Here was a thing certain to be known and to be taken special notice of that was thus Demonstrated and Notificated The Subject matter compared with that which doth go before doth eminently point out as it
were with a Finger the Seventh day to be the Remarkable day of the whole Week a day to be Sabbatized and rested in distinct and separated from all and every of the other foregoing daies in the same Week All these Scripture-reasons are strong and might be enlarged upon This Note of Demonstration doth come from a word which doth signifie Lo Behold So that it doth set out the Gesture Posture and carriage of one who doth plainly and particularly point out a day to be specially observed by the Beholders and Hearers It doth significantly note a certain day and doth restrain and confine it to that and to that only It doth plainly Import an Emphatical Certitude Whence the Greeks have taken their Significant Article this being the Initial Letter of a Demonstrative Article And this the Hebrew Grammarians do generally acknowledge that It doth denote an Emphasis and is used to a Certain and known thing so distinctly and expresly is the Excellency of this Seventh day indigitated as its being the only day of the whole Week for the weekly Sabbath day to prevent any the least doubt or question about the matter For which end also there is this Emphatic-Article prefixed before the Sixth day in order of time which doth in that place Demonstrate that as the work of that Sixth day was somewhat more remarkable and that Aelohim has perfected all the Works which he propounded and purposed to Create in the foregoing Six daies of this one week of the Created World shewing a thing known and Signally illustrious and commendable So also that that day only was the Sixth day in the Weekly revolution and no other day and that the Weekly Sabbath must be reckoned in order of Created time the immediately next succeeding after that Sixth which was the seventh day the last day in the week Thus also in another place before the Promulgation of this Law of Mount Sinai these Emphatic Articles are Remarkable where it is once before the Sixth day to fix that to a certainty Which is the Immediate preceding day once before the Sabbath day and four times before the Seventh day that there might be not the least Colour or pretence for any mistake in that forementioned place in the History of the Creation There is a Particle which is not only a Note of the accusative Case but it doth also signifie the very self-same-substance of a thing Which together with this Notificative doth point out the seventh day Sabbath to be the most Glorious Renowned day of the hebdomadal revolution or weekly return of dayes not only Grammatically in the signification of these Prefixes but also Physically in the nature of the thing it self as the Seventh day the last day in the week That Particle is significant of a Person or thing which cometh from a word that doth denote a coming with speed It denoteth this Created day passive upon which the Creator Acted signifying the substance of the seventh day made being a note of an Article and also of Demonstration This seventh-Seventh-day besides its being thus notedly expressed is also set out by a Primitive Noun signifying him or it and also by an Affix contracted of another word which doth obtain the Nature and significancy of a Pronoun For Affixes are Demonstrative Pronouns signifying in him or in it The proper significancy of a Pronoun is to set out a certain and a Finite substance it signifyes somewhat more certain and more First than a Noun or a proper Name As if thou say this is my Father he is my Brother pointing but both the one and the other with the Finger to some by-stander it is better known than if thou shouldst say John is my Father Thomas is my Brother because there may be and are more Johns and more Thomas ' s. I Thou and he do more set out an Individuality than the Name of Caesar for neither when I say I canst thou understand another or communicate it with another Whereas when I say Caesar my understanding also may transmit it to another as from Augustus Caesar to Tiberius Caesar Hence the Hebrews call the Pronoun by a word which doth signifie Cognames because they are another kind of Cogname of the Principal name or Nown Nouns do properly signifie things and Cognames are Accessions to Names from some vertue or vice or event or such like in the things In the present Case the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath is an Hereditary Cogname received all down along in Scripture from the first Week of the Created World and is Inherent in its own excellency of Created Nature As a Noun doth Enuntiate what a Person or a thing is all the Affixes are Demonstrative To question the Emphaticalness of this Notificative besides that it is contrary to the Judgment of the exactest of Hebrew Lexicographers and Grammarians is also chiefly opposite to the true genuine Proper Signification and usage of the Letter in the Scriptures whoever doth assert that it doth not at all limit specifie or determine doth speak too hastily and unadvisedly It is Emphatically discretive that by which one thing is differenced and distinguished from another even where some other Hebrew Letters Consonants do exclude this Emphatick Note yet there the excluding Letter doth receive the point of the Excluded For Twelve times it is prefixed before those Letters which doth manifestly shew that this Letter will have some signifying place in the word It being a prefix of use and of some notable meaning where it is and will some way or other maintain its title and have a Compensation It s Primary signification is to hold forth what is joyned to it and to make its significate the more known A late learned Writer should therefore a little look over what he hath Written about this and somewhat further Consider and not conclude that the discerning inquirer in this age of growing Light will be so imposed upon by any mans bare say of Magisterial dictate without any probation at all to assert that this prefix to Sabbath in the Fourth word is Redundant and doth tend nothing to the Determination of a Certain day but only denotes one of seven Which doth now lead me to another cogent Reason for the Demonstrativeness and Notificativeness of this Prefix because the Law of the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath in the Ten words being much in the same words and expressions with the forementioned place in the History of the Creation has not only a special Note of Remembrance set before it remember thou or rather to remember and it doth set out one Main great End of Mans being Created even to remember the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath Man is bound for ever for it is infinitive indefinit to keep this in mind for himself and to mention and to speak of it to others It is the Duty of Created Man to look well to this that the Seventh-day-Sabbath be not forgotten by him but duly remembred in
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-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-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-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-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-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
of the Gospel to be expressed on this day the First day he speaks of nor to be any thing distinguished from the Night of other Days of the week So writes a Learned Man Thus we have a kind of half Holy-day set up by a Man in the room of an whole Seventh-days-weekly-Sabbath Created and Instituted by Jehovah Aelohim But what part of Time shall we reckon that Night-time to It must belong either to Working-day or Sabbath-day If to Sabbath-day-time then it is a part of the time of a Sabbath-day If to Working-day-time then we have more time than Six Working-days in one Week which is contrary to Scripture-revelation and to Created Nature For the Evening is as Natural to the Created Days as the Morning The Creator Himself did some of his works in the Night As Particularly He created Darkness in the beginning of the Evening of the one Day in the first Week of the created World and the night-part of every one of the Large days and it is the Commendation of a Virtuosa-Woman that she and her Houshold do work some part of the Night Whereas we are expresly forbid to do any Work of our particular Functions on the Seventh-day-Sabbath all that kind of work is supposed to be done on the six foregoing days of the Week and I have before shewed that the Night-part as well as the Day-part belongs to the Weekly Sabbath-day And how doth this Assertion of that learned Man agree with another Affirmation of his so often repeated in that Book of his that That part of Time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven If so Then how can this Learned Man and his Followers in This well groundedly expect Acceptance with God When the seventh-part of Time is not observed as the Weekly-Sabbath but one half of that Seventh part is cut off by him quite contrary unto what God has declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment This incoherence and inconsistence doth bewray the Darkness and doubtfulness that is upon the Minds and Hearts of the most Learned Opposers of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath What will become of Jehovah's Laws and Prescriptions if Men take such an Unwarranted Liberty at one blow to cut off the half of the Weekly-Sabbath contrary to the LORD's Appointments and contrary too unto their own Concessions and Assertions especially also when on this piece of a pretended Sabbath they give such a Loose to carnal Hearts as to leave any to be a Rule unto themselves for their words works and actions upon this half part of a day of Rest as if all others were Men of a Legal Spirit and were Judaizing Sabbatizers that will be exact according to the Scripture-rules of the good old way in these Matters Who sees not what an Unscriptural liberty even good men will be too prone to allow themselves if once they apprehend that this is referred unto themselves to judg Determinately of Where doth the whole Scripture leave any Man or Men to be rules unto themselves Must we not in all these Cases be Directed Determined and Judged by the Word Here again My heart would be at work in sweet thoughts and in raised affections towards a dear Redeemer who has done and suffered so much for his unworthy Creature that my Heart and Head and Hand may cease a while from giving answering Solutions to Fallacious arguings O how full how sutable a good is here Thou who readest this canst thou truly say this Redeemer is my Redeemer this Mediator hath loved me and hath given himself for me Redemption is wrought out and finished by Christ for me He will perfect it in me as well as for me All the just demands of the Father are fully satisfied by the Son of His love In the vertue of his Satisfaction and Intercession I will go to the Father and expect Audience and Assistance Acceptance and a Blessing O how well will it go with them and with their Cause who have Christ for their Advocate How sure is that Covenant of Grace which hath Christ for the Surety The Reader now may expect that I say something to that part of the Objection which doth suppose the work of Redemption to have been finished on the day of Christ's Resurrection So that He being then Gloriously Manifested to have Rested from it the Objectors think that Christ might have good cause to Honour the First day of the Week above any other day as the weekly-sabbath-Weekly-Sabbath-day Here is Mens Thinking and Reasoning but the serious Inquirer doth look for Christ's Instituting and Commanding which he can never find in the Word as to the First-days being the Weekly Sabbath-day Redemption in the whole and in all and every of the parts of it and in all and every of the Fruits and effects of it I beleivingly confess praise and apply according to those growing measures of Scripture light and of saving Graces which the LORD hath graciously given me therein about this Both those great works of Jehovah-Christ Creation-work and Redemption-work are highly to be valued and one of them should not be set against the other let them both be brought in Creation-work and Redemption work too as proper matter for Meditation conference and Praise whereby the Seventh-day-Sabbath may be Celebrated and Sanctifyed in the Weekly returns of it The observationâ— of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is inforced by the Lawgiver himself to be kept holy to Jehovah by an argument drawn from Salvation-work from Redemption work The LORD Jesus Christ who is Redeemer was Creator too as I have clearly proved from self-evidencing-Scriptures It was he that Rested from his works of Creation Blessing Sanctifying and keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath in the First week of the World Jehovah Christ as Mediator did himself at Mount Sinai Proclaim this Law of the Ten words whereof this of the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath is one It is he who is our one and our only Lewgiver It is he whose Voice then shook the Earth at that Mount It is he who was from his Father an Angel by delegated Office sent for this as for many other purposes to be with Moses in the Wilderness It is he who wrote this Law of the Ten words in the two Tables It is he who brought his People Israel out of Egypt and gave them this Law of the seventh-day-Seventh-day-sabbath It is he who came down upon that Mount attended gloriously with ten thousands of his holy Angels and promulgated this Law That Sixty Eighth Psalm doth evidently to a spiritual discerner commend Christ in his glorious Excellencies as to his wonderful person as to his wise Government and Gratious Administration particularly to the Israelites in their Journey out of Aegypt in giving them to Inherit the promised Land in confounding of their Foes all which Favours and Blessings to his Covenant people are set out to be the
Fruit of Christs Mediating for them with his Father He their Saviour and their God and the God of their Past-Present-and After-Salvarions who would make of their Posterity a Glorious new Christian Church in the latter daies As for Redemption-work it doth confirm the Law of the Ten words in the Type And the antitype must answer to the Type The Israel of God were to do the weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath and to keep it Holy to Jehovah their Saviour and Redeemer and so are believers under the New-Testament-Dispensation the Saviour himself this Redeemer having so observed it all his life through in the daies of his Flesh here on Earth when Born of the Virgin Mary The Ark which was one of the principal of all the Holy things of God and for which the Tabernacle mainly was set up which did Sanctifie the place where it did Rest this Ark had nothing in it but the two Tables of the Covenant And this Ark was a Type of Christ who had this Law in his Heart And did in his own Person Confirm it to every Letter and part of it by his Doctrine and Practice when more Familiarly Conversant here amongst men It was Christ as Mediator who appeared as man unto Abraham Moses Zechariah and others under that former Administration These works of Redemption were in the Types then and as for the Actual Perfecting and Accomplishing of these in the Person of the Mediator himself when he took to his Godhead the seed of Abraham and was made of the seed of David according to the Flesh and was made of a Woman these works may be said to take their beginning as to this of perfecting and accomplishing them in the antitype upon Christs First thus manifesting of himself in the Flesh And they were further carried on by him in his Life so declared by his Father and attested by his Spirit His Life was a Continued fulfilling of Redeeming-types And as for his Death upon the Cross there just before his giving up the Spirit and commending it into the hands of his Father he himself said it is Finished or accomplished or perfected namely for so much and for fo far he having but a little before on the same day of his Death in his Prayer to his Father declared that he had finished the work which the Father gave him to do This work of Reconciliation and Redemption Thus accomplishing it and perfecting the Types by steps and degrees Some Remainders whereof are further Fulfilled at his 〈◊〉 Resurrection Which also it self was a great work Yet was not this all For these works of Reconciliation and of Redemption had yet a further filling up and a more through perfecting when Forty daies from his rising again he ascended up into Heaven Where he appeared as the great High-Priest of his Peoples Holy profession as the Antitype with Blood and with Incense in that Holy of Holies having his satisfaction and intercession Further in his Glorious Person Actually accepted by his Father which was Typified of Old by the High-Priests entering into the Holy of Holies once every year upon the Atonement day or day of Expiation of which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives an account of its being perfected and fulfilled in Christ To this Ascension of His into the Highest Heavens and his sitting there at the Right Hand of his Father where he appears for his People and intercedes on their behalf in a way suted to his Glorious Majesty in so raised an Exaltation to this doth belong his putting down of the Levitical Priesthood which was a shadow and Type and Figure of the Heavenly Priesthood of Christ and must now upon Christs Ascending and session give way and place to the Truth to the true antitype the High Priest being got into Heaven For whilst Christ was upon Earth the Levitical Priesthood continued at least as to some parts of their Office When the Reader puts all this together and sees how the Redemption-work was for so many years together before Christs Resurrection perfecting and accomplishing and finds Christ Travelling upon the day of his Rising with Two Disciples to Emmaus which was from Jerusalem about Sixty Furlongs which in Common Computation is about seven Miles and a half at least seven Miles too long a Journey for the weekly Sabbath day especially when it was a going off from a greater assembling at Jerusalem the Publick appointed place of worship and this about a private business to a little Village an Example not to be followed upon a pretended new Instituted weekly-Sabbath-day And withal the Reader observes that some part of Redeeming-work was actually compleated by Christ in a way of fulfilling of a Redeeming-Type which work was not done by him before either in his Birth or Life in his Death or Resurrection it will be time for him ponderingly to think on his waies and to turn his feet unto Jehovahs Testimonies to make hast and not to slacken to entertain his Commandments particularly this of the weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath To set this right precept before him and no longer to put away this Institution of Aelohim from him Which is so full and plain and clear through the whole Scripture and no further to wander on misled by mens darkning-conjectures who would still keep up a day of their own setting up up the First day of the week which as to this of a weekly Sabbath-day is a Creationless and Scriptureless Restingless Blessingless and Sanctifyingless Nameless Thingless Commandless Promiseless and Threatless-day none of those being for it but all for the Seventh day The adversary being driven out of this hold seeks refuge for his First day Sabbath in some other Scriptures cited in the Margin which yet will not allow him Countenance and Warrant For say they the good Apostles met on the First day the day of Christs Resurrection which they then observed as the weekly-Sabbath-day in memory of his Resurrection and of his compleating the works of Redemption on that day Christ taught the two Disciples on that day of his Rising on the same day he appeared to the Disciples and instructed them and did eat with them thus assembled and Blessed them The next First day of the week he chose to appear to them again And those Apostles Christ did Commission as his principal Church Ministers to teach the Churches all his Doctrine and to deliver them all his Commands and orders and so to settle and guide the first Churches Which Apostles did actually separate and appoint the First day of the week for Holy Worship especially in Church-assemblies They themselves frequently meeting upon that day for that end and enjoyning the Churches of their Plantation so to do who obeyed them in this The First day is mentioned as the day of the Disciples assembling to break Bread which though they did it oft on other daies yet no day else was peculiarly appointed for
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
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-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-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
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
seven being forty and nine the Passover going before and being put to the seven sevennies the last of those seven Sabbath-days was the fiftieth day and a Seventh day Sabbath As in the computing the Jubilee year there were seven times seven years which addeth together do make up the number of forty nine years which by reckoning of the former Jubilee year into the number doth make up a fiftieth year the last of those seven sevennies of years being the Jubilee year For this honour did Johovah put upon the number of seven in the Scriptures with respect to divers of his Institutions the last day which was the seventh being solemnly dignified as in the weekly Sabbath which is the last day in the week And this in the way answereth that which some others do alledge for their first day from such Scriptures which do speak of an eighth day and an eighth-days Sabbath as a typical proof As for that expression relating to the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles that lasted seven days now that on the eighth day should be an holy Convocation a solemn Assembly a day of Restraint a Sabbath upon such a supposition that the first day of that Feast was the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath or at least when it so fell out to be and was so then this eighth day the day after this Feast must be a Seventh day Sabbath also But whatever it were as to that the Scripture proofs for the observing of the seventh-Seventh-day the last day of the week as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day are clear and full For Objectors against this to pretend possibilities and probabilities of Aelohim's declaring and signifying of his mind about changing the day of the Sabbath is a darkning of counsel in words without knowledge and a going off from Scripture-Light to unscriptural darkness For the Seventh-day Sabbath we have evident express commands and promises to awe us and to incourage us in the observation thereof that what we do may be done in Obedience and in Faith so for that other place where it is foretold that upon the eighth day and so forward the Priests shall make their Burnt-offerings upon the Altar If the first of those seven days of sanctifying the Altar were a Seventh-day Sabbath the eighth day was a Seventh-day Sabbath too although I take the plain meaning of the so forward there to set out the daily Offerings upon the Altar the continual on every day For the Seventh-day-Sabbath-worship is distinctly spoken of in an after part of that Prophesie There are several sorts of Times mentioned by this Prophet Passover-time New Moon-time Booth-time besides these Festival Times for Moons and Years there is weekly Seventh-day Sabbath-time which is one evident establishment of the last day of the week for the continued weekly Sabbath-day in the weekly returns of it under the New Testament Dispensation For the Seventh-day Sabbath was in the same week after the six working days which were to go before in the same week and for the continuing of the day from evening to evening and this Seventh-day Sabbath not being a Type figure and shadow as the Ceremonies of the old Dispensation were but a natural standing confirmed commanded weekly Sabbath-day from the first week of the created World And there is also daily time set forth for Evening and for the Morning-worship and to this doth that place forementioned refer as the Sacrifices do expresly declare The Altar was seven days in purging which doth denote the through purity of Spiritual Worship in the later days The number of seven in Scripture being a number of perfection fulness and sufficiency This being done and finished they must be on the eighth and so still onwards on the ninth tenth day and forward continually as days come on offer daily spiritual Sacrifices thereon Thus have I shewn as to the former Objector that his pretended Historical hints both severally and apart by themselves do make nothing at all for his purpose about his first day They prove not any such usage for the matter of Fact as to the separation of the first day in the room of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath much less do they prove the matter of Right which is the great thing here inquired after And now if all of them be put together and joyntly inforced they speak as little for this as each of them severally that is to say not at all in favour of the first day as a separated day for holy Worship but do either speak of Festival Sabbaths of Passover or the like or of the Seventh-day Sabbaths or of a Lordly providential day which doth â—inot ngle out the first day of the week in the weekly revolution as the weekly Sabbath-day how fain soever this Author would have it so to be I know no signal note put upon the first Day of the Week as the Day of Rest or solemn Worship in the New Testament The places have been examined and do set out and signifie another day And were there an exact literal version according to the true proper significancy of the Words I do not remember any one place all the New Testament through where there is so much as that particular expression of the First day of the Week much less as applyed unto a Day of Rest or solemn Worship or weekly Sabbath Having thus far cleared the way of such stumbling blocks which some have cast before us in our Seventh-day Sabbath journey there is another stone thrown before me which I am to remove and that is an Argument for the First Day brought in as a Proof of the cessation of the Seventh-day Sabbath by a misinterpreted misapplyed place in the Epistle to the Hebrews which I am now to examine more at large That a clear and a full Answer unto this Objection may be the more freely and readily received I shall first give in some lines the plain meaning and scope of this Scripture and then further discover that the Day expressed in the Psalm and referred unto in the Epistle to the Hebrews is not to be understood of the First Day of the Week in the weekly returns of it so as to shut out all and every of the other days of the week and particularly as to this of Rest excluding the seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath for Christians to observe under the New Testament Administration of Grace that the Rest spoken of in that Psalm and transferred from thence into this Epistle is not meant either by the Psalmist or by the Author of this Epistle to the Hebrews of the weekly Sabbath-rest as to the First Day of the Week in opposition to the seventh Under which the significancy of the word Sabbatism will be be searched after Then that the He mentioned in one passage in this Epistle is meant of the Believer After that I shall shew wherein the parallel doth not hold and wherein it doth What the Works are which
Believers are said to Rest from What the force of the Conjunction is in this place What the change of the Number from the Plural to the Singular may import As for the meaning and scope of this Scripture in this Epistle The Considerate Reader is desired after his serious seeking of the LORD by the prayer of Faith to be taught of Him and to be led into the Truth diligently to observe how the Aim and Design of this Epistle in this part of it is to confirm and establish the professing Hebrews in the Faith and Doctrine of the LORD Jesus Christ which would be the better done if they hearkened unto what Christ had said in a both Historical and Prophetical Psalm to this purpose and to caution and charge them against an evil heart of Unbelief that would fall off from the Living God and harden them through the seducingness of that sin that he might the more speedily and thorowly awaken and quicken them up to attend unto and to follow his spiritual and wholsome Counsel which was so seasonable in such a time when they were so persecuted for their Discipleship to Christ He sheweth what dangerous Evils were near and what great Mischiefs would follow if they did give way to their unbelief distrust and carnal fear they would then backslide from their Heavenly Calling and from their Holy Profession And if they did live and did in such a state of unbelief and of unperswadedness of unrepentingness and of disobedience they would be shut out of that Spiritual Heavenly Eternal Rest of God in Christ And that his manner of Arguing might be the more convincing and prevailing he brings a strong evident proof of it out of one of the Psalms it being that Scripture which the Author of this Epistle doth Comment upon and expound here Where the Holy Spirit by the Prophet David who penned that Psalm for him having exhorted the Israel of God to laud Jehovah the Messiah The Rock of His people's Salvation and to obey His Voice whilst the Day of His Grace and of their life did last Earnestly dehorting those of his Time and Age from that unbelief which would have an hardening effect upon their heart and exclude them out of Aelohim's Heavenly Rest As the like prevailing unbelief and hardness and disobedience and unperswadableness had shut out many of their Fore fathers out of that Canaan-Rest which was a Type of the Heavenly Rest the Figure of a Better Rest in a Better Country For the preventing of which Exclusion that his speech might come with the more weight upon their spirits David doth bring in Aelohim himself exhorting the people that they would not follow the bad Example of their Fore-fathers who were not of a Teachable Mind nor of a Practical Understanding nor of an Inclinable Will nor of an Obedient Carriage and so die away in their Wilderness-state This dreadful Example he makes use of to awe the Christian Hebrews in his Day unto an abiding stâ—dfast in the Christian Religion lest otherwise they also did fall after the same Example of unbelief and of disobedience and so loytered behind and came not safe-full-home to the Heavenly Rest That the forcibleness of his right Arguing words might not be abated by any who would be Replying that there were other Rests besides the Heavenly Rest which also were spoken of in the Word of God as if it may be the Psalmist spake of one or other of those Rests and not of that Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest therefore he reckons up several kinds of Rests There was the Rest of the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath This the Prophet David did not particularly mean in that Psalm because this Rest of the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath was from the foundation of the World the last day of the first created Week Which therefore being from the beginning thus honoured both by Aelohim's Word and in its own Created Nature must remain the Weekly Sabbath-Day to the end of the World And this Rest as to the outward part at least of keeping the Seventh day as the only Weekly Sabbath-day they in David's time had already actually entred upon in the Weekly returns of it Further There was the Rest of and in Canaâ—n which is called the Rest of Jehovah and expresly the Rest where after their Travels and Journcyings their Warrings and Conquests Jehovah Christ gave Rest unto his people Jerusalem in Canaan has more particularly and specially the Name of the Rest he doth declare that neither was this the Râ—ll which David threatned the unbelieving and disobedient in his time to be shut out of For David and they had been and then actually were in Canaan that promised Land of outward Rest Jehovah Christ by his servant Joshua had led their Fore-fathers into that Rest long before some hundreds of years ago before David's Day David therefore speaketh of another Day after those things in a prophetical manner and of another Rest than either of the two forementioned the Seventh-day Sabbath Rest or the Canaan Rest neither could it be meant of any other Rest by any Enumeration of any other particular but only of the Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest of and with a God in Christ If any thought that that passage in the Psalm might be understood of any other Rest but this Heavenly one the Author of this Epistle would readily have demonstrated the mistake The Rest that David spake of out of which Jehovah Christ from his Father by his Spirit in his Word threatned confirmingly by an Oath to shut the unbelieving and unrepenting the disobedient and the unperswadable they living and dying such was such a Rest as those who were in a state of unbelief were not actually possessed of A Rest in a Promise a Rest yet further to come offered and tendered unto them set plainly and openly in a Wor. Revelation before them if they did not by their own affected ignorance and wilful transgression exclude themselves out of it A Rest into which sound Believers had entred did and should enter and so cease from their own works Seeing therefore that there yet further remaineth such a Rest so glorious a Sabbatism for the people of God he presseth the professing Hebrews to study and endeavour how to enter into this promised Rest by yielding the due Obedience of Faith in and unto Christ Having thus opened and applyed the Scriptures that we might look the deeper and see the clearer into the sense and scope of it I am next to shew that the Day to Day or this Day expressed in the Psalm and referred unto in the Epistle is not to be understood of the First Day of the Week in the weekly returns of it so as to shut out all and every of the other Days of the Week and particularly as to this of Rest excluding the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath for Christians to observe under
were shut out of that Rest which the Psalmist doth speak of was not their not entring into the Observation and Rest of the First Day which was none either of their Duty or Privilege They had no Law for the keeping of any other Day but only the Seventh and of what there is no Law there is no Transgression for Sin is the Transgression of the Law but their Sin was hardening of their Heart through unbelief and unperswadeableness and disobedience contrary to Christ's Mind and Will in His Word and by His messengers These in David's time had no Ground to expect to enjoy the Rest of a pretended New day of Weekly Sabbath under the New Testament Dispensation It is therefore from Day to Day in a continued Succession of Days Christ's Command to hearken to His Voice is an Actual Command given forth by Him to His People every Day which would more set this out if it were rendred Participially in the Present Tenses as it is in several Scriptures It doth deoote the Continuedness of the Command as the Successiveness of the Day As the Day is mistaken by the Objector so also is the Rest The Rest spoken of in this Epistle brought thither out of that Psalm is not meant either there or here of the Weekly-Sabbath-Rest As to the First Day of the Week in opposition to the Seventh let the following Arguments be exactly weighed in the Scripture ballance One is because the People in David's time were not bound to make out after the First-Day-Rest not being under any obligation to keep the First Day of the Week as their Weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath The Law of the Seventh-Day Sabbath was upon them as was shewed but a few lines before Further The Rest mentioned in both these places in that Psalm and in this Epistle was such a Rest as the people to whom David and the Author of this Epistle did write this had not as yet Then entred into they were not possessed of it whilst they remained in a State of unbelief neither ever would if they passed into the other World in that State of Unbelief impenitence disobedience and unperswadableness What Rest can then be named for the People of David's Time as is proved in the fore cited place of this Epistle in the Margin to enter into but only that Spiritual Eternal Rest of with and in Jehovah the Messiah As for the Rest of the Weekly-Sabbath That was from the Foundation of the World when God Rested from All His Works on the Seventh Day and accordingly blessed and sanctified that Particular Day as the Day of the Weekly Sabbath The Syriack and the Aethiopick Languages do express the Seventh Day by the word Sabbath in the fourth Verse of this fourth Chapter And this Rest at least as to the outward part of it was Entred upon by the Israelites in David's time and by their Forefathers long before The Rest mentioned in the forecited places of this Epistle is such a Rest as he and others had a Probability as well as Possibility though with difficulty and studiousness to enter yet into unless by their own unbelief and hardening of their Heart they did fall short of it Let Vs fear Vs He includes Himself Whereas if the First-day-rest pretended from hence to be the Christians Weekly-Sabbath had been the Rest here meant what difficulty or studiousness was there as to their entring upon this so far at least as to the External Duty and Privilege and especially as to the particular Case of the Author of this Epistle and of other of the Believing among those Hebrews in his Day who are supposed by these Objecters to have already entred upon the First-Day-Rest that is pretended which Author so earnestly exhorted the Hebrews to Enter upon the same Rest For we are to observe that he joyneth himself with the Hebrews to quicken up himself as well as them unto an Holy Fear lest he and they otherwise fell short of the Promised Rest through want of due diligence and through careless negligence though he himself reckon himself among the Believers He inforceth his exhortation by this Argument amongst others in the fourteenth Verse of the third Chapter drawn from a very profitable effect of it even from the consortship and society and fellowship that such will have with Christ in that heavenly inheritance if they retain firm even unto the end that beginning of confidence or subsistence by which Faith is described in this Epistle As for any partakership of Christ in a way of conformity to him with respect to the observation of weekly Sabbath-day it could have no relation to the First Day of the Week which Day Christ observed not as a Sabbath but through the whole of his life kept the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day The great Design of this Epistle the same thing which doth run all the Scripture through where occasion is given and taken to speak of this matter is to prove that a state of unbelief lived layn and dyed in will shut the guilty of it out of the sweet satisfying injoyment of the True Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest For to this particular purpose is it that he fetcheth his proof out of that Psalm confirming what he had said by the Testimony of David shewing that the Psaimist by that Rest could mean nothing else and nothing less but the Spiritual Eternal heavenly Rest there being no other Rest left out of which the unbelieving were threatned to be shut in that Psalm called so great a Salvation in the third Verse of the second Chapter of this Epistle The Rest of the weekly Sabbath had been entred upon already and as for the Canaan Rest that was some ages before David's Time entred upon and into by the surviving Israelites under the leading of Joshuah or Jesus or if you will of Jeshuang or Jesus by Joshuah Whereas the Rest promised here in the first verse of the fourth Chapter was such a Rest as Joshuah did not bring the Israelites into in the eighth Verse though he led them into Canaan the Type of it as the causal conjunction doth evidently prove which is an Answer to a tacit Objection if any did say that Joshua had placed the Fathers in that Rest As for that Canaan Rest it was actually possest by David and the Israelites of his Day This Land of Canaan is called the Land of Immanuel Isai 8. 8. that is of Christ because it was a sign of the Heavenly Inheritance obtained by Christ Heb. 11. 9 11. The Rest therefore that David speaks of must be a Rest yet to come The other Rests particularly mentioned having been already then entred into a Rest which they should fear they might be shut out from a Rest not past but yet to come This Epistle speaks of Believers entring into this promised Rest after their working season is at an end appears by comparing some Verses in
this place together at least as to the full possession of that Rest If it should be pleaded by the Objectors from one of the Verses compared with other Scriptures that sound Believers do actually injoy some beginning of it here this we are perswaded of and experienced Believers are supposed in Scripture to have already somewhat of it as well as to hope for more of it here and to believe and expect their full everlasting possession of it in the heavenly Glory at the last when they have here finished that Work which the LORD sent them into the World to do and this is their every days happiness more or less as they more or less act as Believers O how often may the Spirit of a Believer be in the Heavenly Rest in one Day He may get thither into this Rest in one Holy Thought and how many of such thoughts may his thoughts be who thus doth act Faith Hope and Love aright upon this Object A sound Believer should check himself under his divertisements from this Felicity Return O my Soul to thy-my-Rests My Rests are thy Rests thy Rests are my Rests Be friendly to me and to thy self Sit down and silently Rest in Jehovah Aelohim There is an abundant entrance subministred to thee to me so to do This Epistle in one passage of this cited place do prove that Jesus or Joshuah For Joshuah or Jehoshuang in the Syriack Language and also by the Greeks denoteth a Saviour had not then given them that Rest spoken of in that Psalm referred to because then the Psalmist would not afterward have spoken of another Day and therefore that Rest which Joshuah or Jesus or Jesus by Joshuah set them in was not this Rest it self but a Type of this heavenly rest to believers for many entred into Canaan who never entred into Heaven Joshua had not given them that rest which is here spoken of So that this cannot be understood of the rest of the first day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day seeing the Objectors do affirm though groundlesly and but pretendedly that the Captain Jesus of whom Joshuah was someways a Type gave his Disciples this first day rest Heaven is in other Scriptures set out by the Name of God's Rest This was Typified by the Ark and by the Temple and by Canaan and is plain enough spoken of in this passage to the Hebrews God's rest is in the highest Heavens there is the dwelling place of his Rest There doth Christ sit in Glory at the right hand of his Father in full perfect happy Rest where sound Believers also shall rest in and with Him For a little after this passage we are told Christ's Rest is in the Heavens in the highest Heavens the Holy of Holies So elsewhere in the same Epistle We saith he have a great High Priest who is gone thorow into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God and therefore let us hold fast our Christian profession For Christ is not entred into the Sanctuary that is made with hands which is an Antitype of the true that is of the Heavenly Sanctuary which was Figured by the other but into Heaven it self now to appear before the face of God for us with full satisfaction made to the Justice of his Father by the Sacrifice of himself offered up to his Father and with prevailing Intercession for those whom the Father gave unto him So that as his rest is divers times mentioned in this Epistle so also is Heaven often expresly mentioned besides other words that do set it out and there is likewise the phrase of thus entring in several times spoken of All these in the same Epistle which was of old under the former ministration typified by the High Priests entring into the Holiest once every year For the High Priest also was in this a Type of Christ who is called the Apostle and the High Priest of their Profession who are partakers of the Heavenly calling So that all these expressions thus put together which we do meet withal in the same Epistle do best reconcile this sense to the whole of the Epistle besides and to other Scriptures which do treat of the same Subject-matter that the entring in the Ingress into this rest is the entring into the Heavenly rest above Some beginnings of which Heavenly rest Believers do enter into here in that holy Heavenly Fellowship which they have with Jehohah Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirit and with the living Members of Christ's mystical Body Jesus the fore-runner being already entred into the innermost of the veil for them the Believers hope has a way of entring in there after him We have Ordinances now dispensed with more clearness Spirituality and Heavenliness then Believers under the former Administration had though they also enjoyed the same for sum and for substance yet under Types Shadows and Figures And therefore they are called Heavenly things which the pattern of Old did more darkly resemble These are not forced sences and interpretations of my own but such as are Natural and Familiar Plain and Obvious and in the express Language and literal words of the same Epistle Before I quite dismiss this about the rest I am to write somewhat about the significancy of the word Sabbatism The Greek Noun is derived from a Verb which doth signific I Sabbatize or I rest The seventy two Greek Interpreters do use the Verb in one Scripture where it doth set out the rest of the Land every seventh year they use it also in another place where it is applyed to the Seventh-day-Sabbath that being the weekly sabbatizing-Sabbatizing-day or resting-resting-day The Greek Noun in the proper significancy of the Word is an actual or active resting or Cessation from work or labour or from motion about such work and labour as is rested from a Requietion or Requiescence from this This being used in the Greek of the New Testament but once the means to come to a right apprehension of the true signification and the proper meaning of it in this place will be to examine what the Original of this Greek Word is in that Language from whence it is borrowed in the Old Testament Hebrew and what that word in the Hebrew Original doth contain and express in it How that word is used in the Scriptures from whence this Greek Noun hath its Origination as also what there is in the Context of this place in this part of the Epistle to the Hebrews about this matter enquired after What there is in that Psalm referred to here in this Epistle that may bring some light to this matter And what there is in the Word of Christ about this Phrase of Sabbath-keeping or keeping a Sabbath as the Objector doth render it It is not here unworthy of our noting That the Greek Tongue in a multitude of Words has its Origination from the Hebrew Language Its Alphabet and Letters hath its
derivation from hence What is its Alpha Beta Gamma Delta but Aleph Beth Gimel Daleth the power and force the vertue and value in the sound for the manner of pronunciation is much the same and many particular words do in their very sound declare though in some things the Greek Tongue is defective at least as now it is in use particularly in that it wants a Jod Consonant as also in that it has not an H in the middle or in the end of a word which is the reason why we so seldom meet with the Word of Words Jehovah or Jah or Ehieh in the Greek of the New Testament though the citations brought out of the Old into the New have often the word Jehovah and Jah expressed The Original of this Greek word Sabbatismos or Sabbatism is from the Hebrew word Shabbaton as the Greek Sabbaton is from the Hebrew Shabath The sound and the sense going together do enough speak this to every intelligent Man's Ear Thus in Chaldee Syriack and Arabick Shebath is a Sabbatism Shabbathon or Shabbaton which is the Original of that Greek word Sabbatismos or Sabbatism doth sometimes set out the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath or rest which Seventh day is expressed by this word as one of its Names and Appellations by which it is called Sometimes the first day of the seventh Moon is expressed by this word at another time the seventh year has that denomination and the day of explation also on the tenth day of the seventh Moon is so stiled The reason whereof is that these days and years were observed as Sabbaths when there was an Actual rest a cessation from Work and Labour The Context in this place of this Epistle doth evidence that what is expressed by Sabbatism in one Verse is in other Verses relating to the same matter called hy another word which is a resting reposing a cessation a rest from labour a ceasing from work Which two words much denoting one and the same thing here rest resting Sabbatism or Sabbatizing-rest are both of them in this place distinguished and severed from the weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath to be observed here now Whereas the other promised is yet remaining to be enjoyed This discourse being grounded upon the ninty fifth Psalm it is observable that the word used there in the last verse is Menuchah rest quietness a quiet rest an acquiescing from Nuach he rested he was quiet he was at rest he acquiesced A place of quiet and of quiet rest in that place of the Psalm is set out by that word relating to a former passage in Moses time The Land of Canaan was a place of quiet rest when peaceably possessed by the Israelites And it was a Typical Figure of the promised rest and Sabbatism mentioned in this place of this Epistle Which word is applyed to several other things besides the weekly Sabbath As it is the word used to set out the shadowy rest in the Land of Canaan It is applyed to a Man a Man of rest It is attributed to an House an House of rest It is ascribed to Waters Waters of rest of rests and to divers things distinct and different from the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day or resting day as such As for the phrase of keeping Sabbath the Scriptures do usually add some other word unto Sabbath whereby to denote that expressiveness Such as to remember a Sabbath-day to this end of sanctifying it To sanctifie a Sabbath to keep Sabbaths to do the Sabbath and such like And some such phrases are applyed unto somewhat else besides the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath As to Sabbatize a Sabbath which was on the seventh year thus to enjoy or to accept or to will Sabbaths meaning the seventh years The next particular which I expressed that I would discover is that the He mentioned in one passage of this part of this Epistle is meant of the Believer The grounds why I so apprehend are as follow Because The tenth Verse of this fourth Chapter doth resume that which was spoken of in the third Verse in both which there is express mention made of the same rest and of the same persons in some of the same expressions where believing ones are said to enter into that rest The He is every such He as is believing and all such The ninth Verse is an inference from the sixth Verse and it hath respect unto that by a corollary he forceth the remainingness of a rest to the people of God Which rest is defined in the tenth Verse by Believers cessation from his works and this Definition is Illustrated by a collation of the example of God who then rested when he ceased from his works Seeing therefore it remaineth some to enter into that rest there remaineth therefore a Sabbatism to the people of God It must evidently follow that seeing the unperswadeable ones to whom this was first Evangelized or to whom the Gospel was first preached did not enter into the Typical rest of Canaan therefore there is a rest yet still behind which the believing people of God have a promise of entring into in the first Verse which is Typilied by that Prophetical word in the fifty ninth Psalm of which more in the next reason The Sabbatism or rest spoken of in the ninth and tenth Verses of this fourth Chapter is that which being Typified doth answer directly unto the Type thereof This Type in the eleventh Verse of the nineth fifth Psalm was the Land of Canaan which is called a rest out of which those of the Israelites who were twenty years old and upward were shut such as were unbelieving murmuring and unperswadeable who revolted from Jehovah Aelohim and in their heart returned back again into Egypt Their evil heart of unbelief made them depart from the living God Those of them who were believing as Caleb and Joshuah Caleb has a remark of He put upon him as the He eminently that had another Spirit with him and that did fulfill after Jehovah Christ and Joshuah was another such He. These and such as these did enter into that Typifying rest where after they had driven out their Enemies they enjoyed a peaceable rest and a quiet safety This Typical rest in the Land of Canaan did not Figure out a first day weekly Sabbath rest into which day as into a resting day weekly none of the Israelites either unbelieving or believing did enter upon as an Hebdomadal Sabbath But it did Typifie that rest in the better the Heavenly Countrey as is expressed in this same Epistle into which none do enter but the believing So that the He who entring into the rest of God in the tenth Verse is any one of the Believing people of God for whom the promised Sabbatism was said to be remaining in the words immediately foregoing in the ninth Verse Which also the reason brought to prove the soundness of the inference doth shew The Illative particle
carnal compliance either with old Judaizers or with superstitious Pagans who had added divers of their own Ethnick corrupt mixtures of Idolatrous Worship which they gave to Sun Moon and Stars By the course and motion whereof Days Times Moons and Years were measured Gentile Philosophers having parcelled out the power of the only true God into the particular vertues of Elements and Creatures As the Lights in the Heavens Fire Water and Earth ascribing some portion of Deity to every one of these and so assigning a part of the Worship of God unto them too appointing times and seasons for their superstitious service These practices are blame worthy This were to go back either to the Old Testament dispensation or to return to their former Heathenish Rites which is three times rebuked and reproved What Again Again Backward But what is all this to the standing Law of the Seventh day Sabbath kept in an Holy Spiritual manner in obedience to Jehovah's command according to his Word Institution This is a matter of a distinct Nature from the other being a Law of another kind So that to lay aside all instituted natural seasons of Worship such as daily Evening and Morning Worship and weekly Sabbath Worship as some would infer from this place is in the issue to open a back-door for the main of Religion to be turned out at and to enforce it as others do from hence and from one Scripture more which they also wrest to the like wrong ill purpose as if it mattered not what day of the Week were kept or whether any day or no day at all So both were done to the LORD and we were now under no such particular Law This were to open a Gap to all superstition and prophaneness or to urge it as if we were now under no obligation of one special day in a Week but must keep every day of the week as Sabbath as some others Which is quite contrary to the whole Scripture and to the Word and Nature of a sabbath-Sabbath-day Which is a cessation from the ordinary labour a resting from the common work of our particular Functions which to do on every day of the Week were a sin expresly against the Letter of the Law of the fourth word which doth command us to work six days To spend the day in the Instituted work of Jehovah Aelohim This under a pretence of being always in a Sabbath is to mislead them to be never in a Sabbath Or as other some to plead from hence that they may keep both first day and Seventh-day too as Sabbaths every week this also is directly against the precept For we must work the six foregoing days of the Week and rest on the Seventh We do declare against all and every of these mistakes and miscarriages both in principle and in practice in whomsoever they are found Paul is supposed by these Objectors to speak against the observing of that which comes under the expression of weak and poor Rudiments Elements or first beginnings Whereas the ten Words are not such These are a Kingly Law Obedience to these is the Liberty of Children whereas subjection to the other in comparison of this was sometimes the Bondage of Servants The ten Words are a Kingly Law of Liberty If it be objected that the Typical Figuring shadowy part annexed of old to the Seventh-day Sabbath to be then observed such as the two He-Lambs and such like was a part of these weak and poor Rudiments We acknowledge that these have received their perfection and accomplishment in Christ now come born of a Virgin So that in this part which was Typically superadded we are not now so to observe the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath by such Types and Figures but after that glorious spiritual Heavenly manner as becometh those who are under this New Testament dispensation and thus to keep it is no bondage to a renewed Heart The more excelling in Knowledge in Grace and in Experience that any is the more free will they be to this when once they are led aright into it Let that therefore which Paul saith in the twelfth verse be considered here Be ye as I am for I have been as ye are As if he had said I was once superstitious whilst a Pharisee fond of un-Scriptural Traditionary seasons days and observances or an observer of Scriptural times and institutions in an un-Scriptural un-Spiritual manner as ye but now I bring all to a Word-Rule and so should you If the Reader do diligently observe it in his going over of this Epistle he may find the Law of the ten words established as a rule of Life in the whole of it and by enumeration and induction in several particular commands of it though withal he set out the different manner of dispensing of Grace under the Old and New Testament This improved and applyed might also be an answer to that part of the Objection which is formed from wresting that other place to the Colossians The great drift scope and design of the Apostle in this second Chapter is to set up and establish Jesus Christ as Head LORD Law-giver and the great Exemplar Contrary unto which amongst others were these great opposers the maintainers and defenders of corrupt Philosophy whereby some did endeavour to make a prey of Souls through affectation of humane Wisdom and vain deception according to the Tradition of Men according to the Elements of the World and not according to Christ Another sort of Adversaries were the Advocates for humane Inventions the pleaders for the institutions and impositions of Men besides and against the Scriptures of Truth in the matters of Faith and of manners of Doctrine Worship Discipline Government and Conversation they were Will-worshippers Some others there were who were hot contenders for the keeping up of such Ceremonies as were once Shadows and Types of a Christ who was then to come to be born in the flesh of a Virgin These Typical Institutions were perfected in Christ when he thus came These shadows now passed into the body and substance of them Believers were now complete in their Head Christ in the tenth Verse and had the true grace of what was under Types and Shadows before in the eleventh and twelfth verses That Chirograph by Rites which before they had as it were written exhibited signed sealed and delivered was now blotted out or cancelled Which before was their act and deed in the fourteenth and fifteenth Verses As for what they object that two He-Lambs of the first year perfect were an annexed part of the worship on the Seventh day Sabbath and two tenth parts of fine flower for a Meat-offering mingled with Oyl and the Drink offering thereof the Burnt-offering of the Sabbath in his Sabbath As if therefore the Sabbath too were to be laid aside with these If there were any force in this arguing then we should lay aside all Religion and Worship For what was there under that
former dispensation which some way or other had not some Figures and shadows annexed to it There was blood of a Bull sprinkled on the Altar Christ and the Book of the Covenant it self and what shall we therefore lay aside Christ and his Book The particular commands of the ten words had some Types and Figures annexed to them Doctrines Duties Graces and Priviledges relating to the first and second words were set out by the Ark the Altars the Burnt offerings the Incense the Fire on the Altar and such like as any spiritual discerner may discover by comparing the Epistle to the Hebrews with the pattern in the Mount The third word or command in several duties of it had annexed Ceremonials as particularly about an Oath about a Vow Thus also about the sixth word or command as in a case of Murther about the seventh command as in a case of Jealousie about the eight word or command as in a case of Restitution and generally when a Soul did sin in omitting of some duty or in committing of a Trespass when it was ignorantly or in some other cases there were peculiar offerings that were appointed So that if this carnal reasoning did hold it would lay aside all and every of the other ten words This Epistle to the Colossians doth establish the Law of the ten words in the several particulars of it and the first word by forbidding the worshipping of Angels the second by condemning of Will-worship The third by taxing of Balsphemy especially when against the Holy Name of God The fourth word by shewing the accomplishment of the Ceremonials annexed to Sabbaths if it were admitted that the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath were here included The fifth word by pressing to a discharge of Relation-duties The sixth by declaring against Anger Wrath and Malice The seventh by threatning of Fornicators and unclean Persons with the Wrath of God The eight by for bidding of wrong and commending of Justness and Equality in dealing The ninth by prohibiting of lying and evil speaking The tenth by charging of inordinate lusting to be Idolatry Which is also a breach of the first command Thus is the Decalogue confirmed in this Epistle The next premise is that the LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under the Old as well as New Testament dispensation of Grace I take it to be one great occasion of many misapprehensions not only in the common sort of professing Christians but even in many who have gotten a name for Learning and for Godliness that they eye Christ as Christ and Redeemer only under the New Testament and God as Creator only under the Old Whereas Christ says of himself that he was anointed from the beginning before the Earth was as yet made and the Father speaks of this his Son under the Old Testament that he had anointed him Aelohim anointed him by pouring out of the Oyl of his Spirit upon him with an effusion of a fulness of Gifts and of Graces and of Joys mentioning it expresly as a matter of Fact done Mashiach or Christ or Anointed is one of the Mediators names often used in the Old Testament This is attributed to his substance The Father had ordained him to his Mediatoral Office of Priest King and Prophet even then It was Christ who was tempted by the unbelieving Israelites of old It was by Christ that all things were created Christ was the same under all Dispensations of Grace The Fathers purpose and election concerning his people was in Christ The whole Word is the Word of Christ Believers were reproached for Christ in Moses's time It was the Spirit of Christ who was in the Prophets and the Jews and Samaritans acknowledged the Messias before they knew who was the very person and this Christ acted as Mediator under the Old as well as under the New Testament Though his being born of a Virgin and so taking the Humane Nature to his Godhead were a great part of the New Testament Dispensation when in the days of his flesh here on earth he familiarly conversed with men For he had a way of appearing as Man to several Believers upon several occasions under the Old Testament as a forerunning discovery of this latter It was the Messiah or Christ who made himself known by open manifestation visibly audibly to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Moses and to several of the Prophets and to some others It was he who proclaimed the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai and who afterwards upon the same Mount gave the typical pattern for that Dispensation privately to Moses It was he who was with the Israelitish Church in the Wilderness he was the Mediator between God and Man even then he was the Reconciler even in those Ages This and more to this purpose I have already proved from the Scripture in this Book and therefore if the Reader would be further informed and inlightned in it I refer him to the Pages cited in the Margin This is he to whom all observe all It was the received and delivered Doctrine of them all the Prophets do give Witness that through the Name of the LORD Jesus Christ whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins A great full word this But a remark and observand a special one upon it It is acknowledged by this learned Man that it was the Son who from the Foundation of the World immediately in his own person transacted the Affairs of God with Men yet he opposeth the Seventh day Sabbath whereas it was a Law of Christ's giving to Mankind from the beginning Come we now unto the proofs of the several particulars forementioned whereof this is one that this New Heaven and this New Earth spoken of in prophetical Scripture this Renovation by a New Creation is not finished and completed but that it is yet to come in the large fufilling and accomplishing of it There will be New Heavens and a New Earth This we believe because the Scriptures have foretold it and we rejoyce in Hope of their Appearing For they are not as yet come These glorious Creatures are antedated by such Objectors by many hundreds of years For although there were some beginnings of a New Creation in the Days of Christ's Flesh here on Earth and after Christ's Ascension in the Apostle's time in Regenerations and Conversions as there were also in the Old For even there we may read of the creating of a clean Heart and of the renewing of a right constant Spirit Christ's name was filiated even under that Dispensation and there were Sons and Daughters new createdly born unto him even then and Believers were instated in the Messiah then As for that place in the second Epistle to the Corinthians If any man be in Christ he is a new creature Old things pass away beheld all things become new It doth speak a wonderful change in the New Creature The old carnal State the
may be seen in the next Scripture cited in the Margin which is a part of this same Prophesie For observe here the Jews shall then be restored when this will be performed Their Foes will be terrified upon the report of the Jews repair home which is not fully verified The Nations will do homage to the Jews upon their Conversion whereas hitherto they have been dispersed among and subdued by the Nations are objects either of scorn or pitty to all Mankind where ever they are a great overthrow will be given to their open Enemies which is yet to come The converted Jews will turn to Jehovah Christ and will constantly and continuedly serve him according to Gospel Institution particularly by observing the Seventh-day Sabbath in his Sabbath which expression is used elsewhere referring to the Seventh-day Sabbath When these things shall come to pass the LORD will make crooked things to be streightness before his people when that Law of his to which the Isles do expect shall be magnified and made honourable as the Giver of it also will be So great and so glorious things being to come so long after Isaiah's Prophesyings Such as whereof all the World could not have foretold these are confirmed and verified by the Testimony of the Father in his Son by his Spirit in his Word As for what is Prophesied of by Ezekiel concerning the new Temple or Church state where especial direction is given for the service of the Sabbath-day this doth confirm and establish the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath to continue under New Testament times For it speaks of such a Day of Sabbath in the same Week as has six working Days going before it which is expresly according to the same Law proclaimed Mount Sinai as one of the ten Words That which is alledged out of Peter was a Prophesie long after Christ's Resurrection and Ascension a little before Peter's death and not long before the destruction of the Temple and of the Jews which had a quite contrary Face and Nature from the glorious Renovation foretold Those new Heavens and new Earth that were prophesied were at that time of Peter's writing the Epistle in the Promise unfulfilled such as were yet expected and look'd out after and the whole Discourse doth manifest that it was not then accomplished That day of the LORD the same LORDLY Day spoken of in the Revelvtion the great providential Day of his LORDLY Appearance was not then come it Peter's time The Heavens were not then passed away with a noise they were not then perished in flames by fire the Elements were not then burnt and loosed or dissolved and melted the Earth and the works that were therein were not then burnt up The Heavens which are now saith he speaking of those that were in his Day and Time and the Earth are by the same Word laid up as a Treasure and are kept unto fire against the day of Judgment and of the Destruction of ungodly men or of corrupt Worshippers These things saith he shall perish They had not then perished The day of the LORD shall come It was not then come but they were to look for and to hasten unto the coming of it We according to his promise expect new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness We look for these things They were as yet but in the Promise They were under the Expectation of Believers They looked for them but they did not then see and enjoy them actually in their real Coming for they were not as yet come Thus also that Prophety by John in the Revelation when he had a Visional sight of a new Heaven and a new Earth upon the passing away of the first Heaven and the first Earth and when he saw the Holy City and the New Jerusalem and when a great Voice out of Heaven had told him that God would wipe off all tears from the eyes of his Covenant-people and that Death should be no more neither mourning nor crying nor any more trouble for the former things should pass away He that sat upon the Throne said Behold I make all things new Write for these things are true and faithful Is it not evident here that this Prophetie was many years after the Day of Christ's Resurrection And must not the Fulfilling be after the Prophetie Is there not enough in this very place to confute the Objector's Arguing Is the first Heaven and the first Earth yet passed away When ever was this fulfilled Is the new Heaven and the new Earth yet come Is the Holy City the New Jerusalem as yet come down from God out of Heaven Are there not tears found in the eyes of the LORD'S people to be wiped away Is there not death still Are these former things yet passed away Is not the LORD He who then foretold that he would make all things new John saw in a Vision and heard in a voice they would be so made but they were not actually so excellent on earth in John's Day and Time For there will be this new face of things in the Churches of Christ on earth This New Holy City Jerusalem is not said to go up to God into Heaven but it doth come down from God out of Heaven God will renew his Covenant with his people and he will Tabernacle with them God will put away Humane Ordinances Inventions Impositions and Traditions to set up his own Institutions all the Laws and Orders of his New House in their Purity and Power The Nations shall receive Light from this New Church so shiningly enlightned so clearly taught of him Church-Discipline shall be revived set up and exercised Distempers Diseases and Ulcers of Spirit of Soul and Body shall be healed and cured and removed by the Medicinal leaves of the Tree of Life All which do belong to a Church-State here on earth If other passages in this Book of the Revelation be collated it will appear that many things foretold to go before this are not yet fulfilled For there must be another manner of Conversion of the Tribes yet of all the Tribes which do include the Ten of Israel as well as the Two of Judah and Benjamin The twelve thousands of the several Tribes The New Church was to be erected after that the See of the Beast was overthrown The Returning Jews are called the Kings of the East There will be a laying dry the Waters of Euphrates as those of the Red Sea were of Old for Jehova's Redeemed ones to pass thorow The Turkish oppressing Tyrant will yet further destroy many of the Jews which grand Enemy shall at length be quite destroyed utterly ruined and his Power shall be broken to pieces The very place of this Conflicting Battel is particularly mentioned where his Overthrow shall be And there will yet be a glorious Christian Church of returning believing Jews erected
Confirmer of the Covenant He who ever was is and will be the foundation the ground-work the substance the comprehensive of the whole Covenant of Grace He in whom all the Promises of God as many as there be are Yea and Amen Truth and firmness it self faithful and unchangeable as he himself is This Law it self had much of a Gospel Design in it In the preparation that was made for the giving and receiving of it there were precious Promises made to that people who were then about to be taken into Covenant with Jehovah Aelohim A God in Christ ingaged that if hearkning they would hearken to his Voice and keep his Covenant they should be a peculiar treasure unto him above all peoples He would take them for his own proper Goods The same thing is mentioned in the New Testament Christ purchased to himself a peculiar people So Paul kept close to this Expression and that of Peter is much the same in his first Epistle though expressed by another A people for peculiar possession these are they whom Christ Buys and Redeems to himself for his own special use and service they are singularly dear unto him So is that Prophesie and Promise in Malachi How rich how free is this Grace that Jehovah chose his people for his portion as Moses thankfully confesseth in the words of one of his last Songs They were that part which he had marvellously separated unto himself his Heritage as by Liâ—â— allotted to him whom none other can challenge as their Propriety This People he chose above all Peoples that are upon the faces of the earth Not for their Multitude above all Peoples did Jehovah set his love upon them and chuse them for they were the fewest of all peoples but because Jehovah loved them and because he would keep the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers did Jehovah bring them out with a strong hand and redeemed them The Election was of his Grace not of any worthiness in them This Jewel was dear unto him and he promised a further honour that he would put upon them They should be unto him a Kingdom of Priests and an holy Nation Is not this the self-same thing which is mentioned as the Covenant-privilege of God's chosen ones under the New Testament-dispensation of Grace For to this phrase doth Peter keep and so also does John in the Revelation who doth give glory unto the LORD Christ that he hath made his people such now unto God his Father How full are the treasures of this Grace O what an honour did Jehovah put upon that People whom he so brought unto himself How signal a favour was this to his Israel If we look into the Ten words themselves do they not begin with a gracious Covenant I Jehovah Thy God This he made over to his People in a special manner there being no higher no greater Good than himself none so high none so great as he He is all Good in one whatever Good there is it is in and from him They are the Blessed ones who have this Jehovah for their God O the Blessedness of such thus sweetly sung the Psalmist This is the choice part of their happiness who enjoy this privilege by his Gracious Covenant and peculiar favour Under every Dispensation of Grace this is mentioned as the summ of all good for this is all the Salvation and all the desire of Believers To be For or To a God unto that People is the substance of that Covenant of Grace which God hath made with his People in Christ So it has been to this day and so it is revealed that it will be renewed and revived in the purest and best days When he gives himself to any he gives an Inheritance of all things to such As this doth bring in the first great Word or Command so also is it expresly put into the Second into the Third and into the Fourth into every Word of Command of the First Table In the Second Table also we may find it in the Fifth Word And those that will diligently observe and duly apply it in their reading of the Holy Scriptures may discern it to be a rich Portion going along with every one of the Ten Words in particular as well as made over to all of them in general especially with respect to the Fourth Word It is remarkable in Moses's repeating of this Law that in his going over of the Law for the seventh-day-Seventh-Day-Sabbath this Covenant of Grace I am Jehovah Thy God is four times expresly mentioned besides the Type of Spiritual Redemption by Christ which is also about thirty nine years after Christ's first proclaiming of this Law at Mount Sinai superadded and expresly put into this Fourth Word as a forcible Reason to engage Obedience to this holy Precept The Figure of which Salvation by Christ and of his delivering of his people from their Spiritual bondage and misery under Sin and Satan is a choice part of the Covenant of Grace This is that which doth lead in the Ten Words By this manifested Grace doth he invite his people to Faith and Obedience His Israel of Old had Redeeming mercy put into the beginning of this Holy Just and Good Law who were redeemed not only from outward Slavery but also from the Idolatry of Egypt as the Prophet Ezekiel hath declared and from the false Gods there so hath Samuel discovered in his Second Book And they had a Promise of other mercy in the Second Word which Jehovah would do unto those who loving him and keeping his Commandments They should receive Mercies Benefits Loving kindnesses Bounties from him It is further note-worthy that most of the Ten Words even Eight of them as they are in the two Tables are exprest in that manner that they are Precepts and Promises too such is the significancy of that Future-tense in which they run and the other two that is to say the fourth and fifth are put into the same promising as well as commanding way in the same Book of Moses in another place and the particular Duties and Graces required in those ten Words are somewhere or other covenanted by Jehovah Aelohim to be given to his people in other Scriptures as to love him to fear him to delight in him and such like he will inwork in them what he doth require of them O what abundance of riches of Grace is here If you meditate upon what did accompany the ten Words and what was annexed to them what were all the Shadows and Figures and Types but a significant Commentary upon the Covenant of Grace What was the true spiritual meaning of all these superadded Patterns but to set out Christ and all those special benefits which Believers have and do injoy in him of which the followers of Christ under that Dispensation of Grace had a free participation as the Disciples of Christ have now they fed on Christ in their Manna
the Prophets Should not those who are fellow-members with them of the same body under that one Head the LORD Jesus Christ rejoyce together O how delightful is it to be with them in the Spirit The Church of Believers of old was then more in her Infancy she is now grown up they now have all their Veils of Figures and Types taken off and they see and enjoy Christ face to face They are brought into the light of the Divine Majesty which is in Christ cloathed in our Flesh Christ is now no longer hidden to and from them under shadows these former Coverings are now removed and the clear Light is not kept away They are now able to look into the bottom of Moses's Ministry They now so behold the Glory of the LORD as to be possessed of the heavenly things themselves having a clear view of Christ who is the Image of the invisible God the brightness or resplendence of his Glory and the Engraven Form of his Person There they receive their Reward which God doth graciously give unto his Servants the Prophets and to his Saints and to all that fear his Name Having thus at large manifested it to be according to the Word that there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament-administration and that the privileges of the LORD's Covenant-people even then were the same for kind with Believers now though differently dispensed I shall here further discover that the seventh-day-Seventh-Day-Sabbath it self was some ways a sign of this thus improving this Expression and Meditation to a right useful purpose which some Adversaries do wrongfully pervert to an ill end Thus they object The Seventh Day-Sabbath was a sign of their Sanctification to whom it was given and therefore of a Ceremonial nature and not given to all men These to whom the Sabbath was given to them it was a sign of their present Sanctification but it was no sign of the present Sanctification of all people over the whole World And therefore it was never given to all the people of the whole World but only unto God's people Israel And therefore of no Natural Consideration therefore Ceremonial Thus it is objected This Objection is like to have the more satisfactory Answer if there be a due clear distinguishing of the several things which are contained in it and a proper Application of each Particular unto the present matter in hand that so the understanding Reader and the spiritual Discerner may see that way plain before him which may directly lead him into the Mind and Will of Christ and he may the better learn the Truth as it is in Jesus I purpose therefore to distinguish of Signs of Sanctification of the Law of the Ten Words of Peoples of Ceremonials of Giving this Law of the Ten Words Signs are either natural Signs such as have a force of signifying from the created Nature of that thing which is the Sign Thus the Heavenly Luminaries are Signs of divers things particularly with respect to the seventh-day-Seventh-Day-Sabbath There is the same word in the Original A diligent Observer with the eye of the motions of those Luminaries may see that set Times and fit Seasons for solemn Assembling and for Instituted Worship are directed to and pointed at by these shining Lights to measure out Daily-Evening and Morning and weekly-seventh-day-Weekly-Seventh-Day-Sabbath Opportunities for our direction in Working and in Resting or the conserving of the orderly course and state of this World in the required matters of appointed Services due from Man to his Creators and Makers throughout all the Ages all the days of this Earth Which is also put into a Promise And the Covenant of Grace is confirmed by these natural Signs If these be Signs of created Nature of the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath after the six foregoing working Days in the same Week and this Seventh day-Sabbath have foundation in created Nature and both these be by the Ordination and appointment by the All wise Creator then this being so established by an unchangeable Law of pure Primitive Creation the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath must continue as long as those Luminaries do continue to be such a Sign Which Seventh-day-Sabbath is also a sign of Aelohim's creating the World of Heaven and of Earth and of all things therein in the six foreging Days and of his Resting on the Seventh which is the last Day of the Week This being expresly rendred by himself as the Reason why it is called a Sign Or Signs are instituted which do signifie somewhat by Vertue of some special appointment by the only Supreme Soveraign LORD and Lawgiver Jehovah Christ Thus the Typical Sacrifices and such Ceremonial Figures as were after wards annexed for a time to the weekly Seventh day-Sabbath were Signs and Shadows Types and Figures These were significative of a Christ who was then under that Dispensation to come to be born of a Virgin So they were perfected and accomplished in and by Christ when God was thus manifested in the Flesh when Christ was then born of the Virgin Mary But the weekly Seventh day-Sabbath had its created Being before this and distinct from this and so continued after this did pass into its Antitype This weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath doth stand firm established for ever in the Word and in Nature If the Objector or any other do further affirm that the weekly seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath is still a significant Sign by Institution and that this significativeness is a part of it If they mean that it is thus a shadow of that Spiritual Eternal Rest that Sabbatism which doth yet remain for the people of God in the Heavens let them look well to their Scripture-proofs for this but I shall not contend with them about it it rather making for the cause I undertake For the Type must continue till the Antitype come Let these men therefore keep the Seventh-day-Sabbath till they get to Heaven if ever they come there and then and there they will know more clearly and fully If any further Typical significativeness be pretended and urged when I understand what it is it is like to pass under Examination and Consideration with me Observe here that the Typical Signs superadded unto the Law of the ten Words did establish that Law in the natural unchangeable Holiness and Righteousness of it Only by Institution they did put some further thing into it during that former Dispensation of Grace Or they are notifying-testifying-certifying-Signs By these somewhat is made known and witnessed unto them unto whom these are given from the LORD for some particular use and end Thus the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath is a Sign Consider here the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath as proclaimed and given by Jehovah Christ put into a Covenant of Grace as have been proved Thus it was is and will be a Sign For there is no particular Verb of definite time expressed in one of the places in the Original to determine when and how long so as if then and
ground and evidence enough in the things themselves thus made and Light and Reason enough in the Humane Intellect of Rational Beings to discern and to improve this to the very same ends Both these had Primitive concreated self-evidence however sin now have darkned and defaced things The indication of these Duties were at the first true real sufficient Some worn Letters of which original Ingraving are yet still remaining to be read These Laws resulting from the Humane Nature and from that Relation which created Man doth stand in to his creating Maker The Obligation which doth arise from hence must continue as long as the Humane Nature doth continue For it is Essential to our Formation and constitution as we are reasonable men and women and so is unchangeably binding And he that would make any one Law of pure primitive Nature alterable doth thereby though it may be not designedly yet eventually heave at the overturning of all the Laws of Nature This Primigenial Holiness and Righteousness in created Man bearing exact conformity to the holy Righteous Nature of creating Aelobim And Christ's coming was not to dissolve any one Law of the Decalogue or any thing of the Obligation to any Law therein but to maintain these Laws and their obliging All mankind brought under convincing demonstrations from distinguishing taste of the difference of good and of evil should acknowledge all and every of those holy just and good Laws to have a clear congruity to their Natures Who of all mankind that has the due exercise of rational abilities but must acknowledge that we ought to love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves On which two Commandments hang all the Laws and the Prophets For which we have the Authority of the LORD Jesus Christ himself He being the Law-giver and Law-Interpreter too Further yet People in some Scriptures are the Elect and Believers Whether of Jews or of Gentiles Who are also absolutely called People The Nations which shall be converted to the Faith of the Gospel renouncing Antichrist and his corrupt principles and practices are some of this people These both under the Old and New Testament Administration had this Law of the ten Words written not only in the Scripture Revelation but also on the two Tables of the Mind and Heart by the holy Spirit Thus is the Law of the ten Words specially and distinguishingly given to new Creatures and thus it will be renewed in the purer Churches in the later Days In this sense the Rule and Direction for renewed Holiness and for the Works and Duties of Grace and of Sanctification is called The new Law or Commandment the same with the Old only renewed Next of Ceremonials These are sometimes called The Law of Degrees placed in external Rites and by some such other Expressions These Rites were used about outward fleshie things such as Meats Drinks Washings and the like These so far as they were Typical Figuring and Representative of a Christ who was then to come to be born of a Virgin and to shed his blood were perfected and accomplished in Christ when he was so born and had so suffered was risen and had ascended And they did peculiarly belong to the People under the former dispensation Of this nature were some Ceremonies annexed to the Weekly-seventh-day Sabbath By these holy rites the Church and People of God under that administration were differenced and discerned as a People holy to God distinct from other prophane Nations An Old Testament Ceremonie is set out in Scripture by Flesh a carnal Ordinance an hand-writing of death an Element of the World weak and egene an Exemplar of Heavenly things unstable An Intolerable Yoak A shadow and such like Which are not properly applicable to the Seventh-day-Sabbath as such If any say it is an Exemplar of the Sabbatism in Heaven and so a Ceremonious Type Let then the Type stand as I have said till we can come at the Antitype Ceremonies sometimes do set out the inward spiritual things Graces Duties Priviledges which they did signify and teach A Ceremonie has been and is a Sign of somewhat that is natural and so they have been annexed to natural Spiritual Duties As Evening and Morning worshipping of God had divers Ceremonial Observances So the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath Thus for Parents to give up themselves their Sons and Daughters to God is a natural dutie Yet this duty has Baptism even now under the new Testament-Ministration annexed to it Those things which are still of a concreated Spiritual Nature Were are and will be a duty The Epistle to the Hebrews is a Gospel-Exposition hereupon Though Multitudes of these Ceremonies were superadded to the Law of the ten Words as an Evangelical Explanation and Interpretation of them yet this doth not alter the true real nature of any of these ten words which are always a standing unalterable Rule of holy Righteous living As for the giving of this Law of the Ten words If this Law be considered As promulgated and proclaimed at Mount Sinai by Jehovah Aelohim thus there was somewhat in it which was a peculiar gift to the Israelitish Church and those who were proselyted to it beyond any other People As for the time when he brought them out of Egyptian bondage so for the place the Desert Jehovah gave them this in their Wildernesses condition At Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai in an Enemies Land that of the Amorites and of the Moabites Thus also For the persons They were those of that age who were then alive at that place who understood the Hebrew to whom He gave this Law So for the subservient Administrator by whose hand Jehovah Christ gave this Law to them Who was Moses there was Moses's a Ministery used in it Hence it is called the Law of Moses Moses wrote this Law in a Book Also for the manner of proclaiming With Trumpet Thunder Fire Audible Immediate voice of Aebolim himself and such like And thus too for the solemn imbodying of an whole nation into a Church-state These and some such other like were the peculiar Circumstances of that Promulgation in that day Yet is the Law still the same now The LORD Jesus Christ doth speak unto us even now in this Law of the ten Words What God did speak unto Moses He spake unto others in the days of Christs flesh when born of the Virgin Mary which was hundreds of Years after And these ten Words were written unto us If this Law be considered as the Law of nature so it was given to all mankind in Representative Adam As I have declared If it be looked on as Inwritten in the mind and Heart of the Regenerate by the Holy Spirit Thus it is peculiarly given to new Creatures As also I have manifested Thus I have laboured to clear and to
of the Scripture that do foretell of an Holy Righteous People in the purer Churches of the later days have respect unto this Law which is sealed in Christ's Disciples which is transcribed in their new Heart It is engraven on the Hearts and Minds of Christ's New Covenant people by the LORD the Spirit Anti-christ that lawless one will set himself most to persecute those Disciples of Christ who do stick closest to Christ in walking according to the Rule of this Law Both the Old Testament and also the New doth close with a Reviving and Inforcing of this Law and that under a terrible threatning of Excommunication against scandalous Transgressors of it and a dreadful Curse denounced against such as shall add to or take from it whereunto other Scriprures do well agree For the accomplishing of what John had in a Vision Believers do now wait even that the Temple of God may be open in Heaven in which Temple may be seen the Ark of his Testament or Covenant in which Ark there was nothing put but the Two Tables on which the Ten Words written with the finger of Aelohim This Law shall yet once again come forth out of Mount Sion This Law is one of the Great honourable things of Aelohim All the LORD'S Appearings in his way of Justice against Sin for Holiness is his Vindication of this Law And all his free Rewardings of his obedient people in his way of Righteous performing of Covenant Mercy is his Approbation of this Law for upon this bottom do all his Judicial Laws stand These later days do call for Advocates to plead the Cause of this Holy Righteous Law Antichrist now doth more appear to be the Anomous one The Antichristian party have mangled the ten Words for thus they publish them in their Psalters and Catechisms 1. I am the Lord God thou shalt have no other God but me 2. Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain 3. Remember to sanctifie the holy days 4. Honour thy father and mother 5. Thou shalt not kill 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery 7. Thou shalt not steal 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness 9. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours wife 10. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours goods Here they wholly leave out the second Commandment They thrust the weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath of Jehovah out of the Fourth Word and substitute their own unscriptural holy-days they turn the last Word into two They teach religious reverence to be done to Creatures as to Angels to Souls departed to the Cross c. they hold it lawful to be present at idolatrous service keeping a man's conscience to himself they teach Invocation of Saints they allow blasphemous Oaths they teach Will-worship Idolatry Superstitions and their fabulous feigned Traditions and such vows as are unwarrantable and unlawful they lay aside the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and set up days of mens inventing instituting and imposing dedicating them and the worship and service on them much to Creatures they hold that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in the Matters of Religion they exempt their Clergy from the jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate They absolve Inferiors from their subjection to Superiors They justifie Murthering of Princes and of others that promote not their Cause they tolerate Stewes they allow uncleanness to some persons as venial and scarce a sin They assert officious and sporting lyes to be lawful and justifiable if good may be attained by it They dispense with the whole Decalogue by Usurpation If the Pope command what Christ doth forbid or if he forbid what Christ doth command yet they require their people to obey them contrary to Christ's Law The sins of the later days are expressed by the name of Anomies which is often declared against in the New Testament as well as in the Old Violence to the Law and partiality in the Law is one great Article that will be brought in by way of charge against corrupt Teachers in the later days This is the great comprehensive sin which the LORD doth so much hate One Word for Law is used if I have not misreckoned abvoe one hundred and ninety times in the New Testament and another word for a commandment about seventy times And those who are nefarious not consentaneous to Laws Out laws and lawless ones are the gross erring ones in principle in practice or in both O how zealous was the LORD Christ for this Law of his How careful to have the whole of it all and every part of it to be safely kept He put it all into two comprehensive Precepts and there hung it up to stay it that none of it might fall to the ground or be lost All Religion conspireth into these two This is that way of Righteousness wherein Believers ought to be found walking Anomy Antinomianâ—sm lawlessness or a disowning and rejecting of the Law of the ten Words this is a description of sin as opposed to Holiness and Righteousness 1 John 34. Rom. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Anomy is that foul comprehensive evil which Christ doth hate Heb. 1. 9. To be reckoned amongst the Anomous ones is to be reckoned amongst the vilest and most notorlous of sinners Mar. 15. 28. Luk. 22. 37. They were Anomous hands which did crucifie Christ Act. 2. 23. Anomous works are grieving and vexing to the Righteous Soul of a Righteous Man 2 Pet. 2. 8. Anomy is that great Evil which Christ came to redeem his people from Tit. 2. 14. Anomy is that sin which all Christ's justified ones have freely forgiven unto them Rom. 4. 7. Heb. 8. 12. and 10. 17. Anomy doth lay aside that Rule by which we must judge of Good and of Evil of Sin and of Duty Rom. 4. 15. and 5. 30. It is one of Antichrists Names that he is the Anomous one 2 Thess 2. 8. Anomy is the hainous crime of the later days Mat. 24. 12. 2 Thess 2. 7 8. Anomous ones will be cast out of Fellowship and Communion in the purer Churches of the later-day-Glory Mat. 13. 41. Such as live and die working of this Anomy will at the last be shut out of the New City and the Heavenly Glory Mat. 23. and 23. 28 33. We must take one and all one and every one of the ten Words They are conjoyned into one body of the Law and must be so likewise in our Obedience It is as it were one copulative if you dissolve and break one you dissolve and break all and thereby violate his Authority who requires obedience to all and to every one of them All the ten Commandments is but one Commandment A Law Kingly A Law of Liberty A Law by which we must be obliged A Law by the works of which men must manifest their Faith to be of the right saving living-kind and by which Faith is made perfect The same Aelohim who spake one of the Laws of these ten Words
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΣΑΒΒΑΤΙΚΗ ΗΜΕΡΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septima dies Dies Desiderabilis SABBATUM JEHOVAE The Seventh-Day-Sabbath the Desirable-Day The closing completing DAY of that FIRST Created Week WHICH Was is and will be the just Measure of all succeeding Weeks in their successive Courses BOTH For Working in the six foregoing DAYS and for Rest in the Seventh which is the Last Day by an unchangeable LAW of well-established Order Both in the REVEALED WORD AND IN CREATED NATURE The SECOND PART By FRANCIS BAMPFIELD Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE Second Part OF THIS TREATISE ATransition from the First to the Second Part Page 1 2 3 Of the Seventh-Day p. 3 4 Q. Whether the Seventh-day which is the last Day in every Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof have been from the Beginning and so continued to be all the Old Testament-administration of Grace thorow 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 the World the weekly Sabbath day 4 The Answer at large given to this Inquiry is in the Affirmative that it is so from 4 to 149 Vnder this Answer are divers particular useful Truths and Duties opened As that the Seventh-day was Created for to be the weekly Sabbath the last day of the week being that Seventh and no other day of the week so Thus it was in the Primitive Creation 4 5 6 7 Which matter is resolved into a Scripture Determination 4 5 6 7 That all the Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim doth give for the due Observation of a weekly Sabbath do belong to to the Seventh which is the last day in every week and to no other day of the week as such 7 8 9 10 That Aelohim rested from his Works of the foregoing six days of the week on the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day Which Seventh day Sabbath righteousness in Christ is that Righteousness which a Believer is to apply himself to cover his Sabbath-unrighteousness 7 8 That Aelohim Blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath day 8 9 That Aelohim sanctified the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 9 10 That all the Scriptures thorow where the Holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath-day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly Revolutions and successive Courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly Sabbath-day Page 10 11 That no Command is given for the observation of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 11 to 15 Where is also further discovered that pretended unwritten Institutions for a First-day weekly Sabbath are a false deceitful wrong cooked rule which we may neither measure nor walk by 12 13 That Christ as Mediator had it not in Commission from his Father to change the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First 13 14 15 That 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 15 16 That there is no threatning all the Scriptures thorow either denounced against or executed upon any that shall not observe any other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the Seventh-day which is the last day in every week 16 to 19 That Aelohim bath put this weekly Seventh-day Sabbath into Created Nature by a standing unchangeable Law 19 20 21 22 Here is declared what is meant by Nature in Scripture 20 21 22 Where also seeing it is called for by some as an argument to men is disoovered That this particular Seventh-day which we now count to be the last day of the week is the Seventh-day by the Judgement and Tradition of such Historical Records as many are so fond of although we do bottom our judgment and practice upon Scripture Revelation and created Nature 22 23 24 25 Objections against this Seventh-day Sabbath are answered from 25 to 147 Here is proved that it was not a seventh part of weekly time or a seventh day But the Seventh-day the last day in every week this and this only is the weekly Sabbath-day having a special honour put upon it by Aelohim himself by notes of Demonstration by particles by pronouns by praepositions all significant in their places to point out the Seventh-day to be the only certain known determinate fixed particular unchangeable day of the weekly Sabbath where the emphatickness of the Hebrew Ha is asserted 25 to 33 It is further evidenced that what is in the English Transsation in seven places of the New Testament the first day of the week is in every one of them in the Greek one of the Sabbaths in propriety of speech and so its colourable pretence for a First day weekly Sabbath is convincingly reprehended as Scriptureless from 33 to 45 That five of these seven places mentioned in the four Evangelists relate to the Paschal Sabbaths and not to the weekly Sabbath 33 to 41 That Believers in the times of Christ and of his Apostles before the New Testament was written could find nothing in all their Scriptures of the Old Testament for a pretended First day Sabbath 32 33 That in one place where it is The first of the Sabbath this speaks nothing to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day but has a quite another meaning both in the significancy and in the intendment of that phrase 35 36. 37 38 That the weekly Sabbath under the New Testament is not barely or no more than an half-holy-day between Sun rising and Sun set but that it is an whole Seventh-day from Evening to Evening 38 That Christ's Redemption Work as well as his Creation Work has established the Seventh-day to be still the weekly Sabbath day 39 40 That Acts 20. 7. is no firm ground to bottom the pretended First day Sabbath upon 41 42 43 Neither is 1 Cor. 16. 2. 43 44 That the eleven Disciples did not meet on Christs Resurrection Day as a newweekly Sabbath day in memory of that Rising 45 That the weekly Sabbath under the new Dispensation is not left so much in the dark and deep as some pretend but is clearly the Seventh-day in the plain Precept as of old 46 47 That the true stating of the Matter of right in this Question about the weekly Sabbath doth not depend upon Ecclesiastical History Page 47 to p. 62 That mens cause of
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-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
his Dsiciples that when troublous times would be some years after his Ascending into the highest Heavens they would be much in Prayer that upon the Enemies Invading their Land their flight might not be on the Sabbath lest they should be hindered from or disturbed in the Blessings of that seventh-day which alone has the Name of the Weekly Sabbath Thus is the whole Scripture profitable for the clearing and confirming of these two Reasons of Christs Assigning as I am now also further to manifest that it is so for his third Reason which is this because Aelohim sanctified the seventh which is the last day in every week that and that only and no other day of the week as the Weekly Sabbath-day Thus at the First Creation and Institution the seventh day the seventh-day the seventh-day Aelohim sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which he Created for to make or to do He hath sanctified this same seventh-day he doth and he will sanctifie it setting it apart as the only weekly Sabbath-day for Spiritual services and for other holy ends he segregated it from all prophane common employments and usages and dedicated it to his own peculiar worship It was not to be reckoned nor counted amongst vulgar daies but was to be had and held as solemn and sacred holy and honourable desirable and delightful He hath put a difference between this seventh day and other daies by way of Excellency in a dignifying manner by appropriating and â—evering of it in the special holiness thereof from ordinary foregoing week-daies that are but of a common rank that it may be singularly filled up as becometh the sanctity or holiness of it By this derived or relative sanctity it is the peculiar appropriate day of Jehovah â—lohim He has separated Ordinances for his separated People on this separated day O how holy is Jehovahs seventh-day-sabbath on which he would have his Worshippers to be so Holy All here in this History of the Creation is actual and real Anticipations here have no such place as those pretend who would have this sanctification of the seventh day as a Weekly Sabbath to be only in Aelohims Decree and destination as if it took not place actually till the proclaiming of the Law at Mount-Sinai which was above two thousand years after for this Scripture as others also collated with it do evidently shew that it was thus set apart from the beginning of the World from Adams time and so downwards This History doth treat of Existences of Beings in their Created nature As Aelohim rested on that day Actually and it was made for Adam and for his posterity for that purpose and end that he and they might sanctifie it and that it might be a blessed day to him and to them The Creator and maker of daies did put apart the seventh-day from all and from every of other daies for peculiar uses and Ends. The Proof is convincing enough to the Ingenious and unprejudiced that the sanctification of the seventh-day-Sabbath was before the promulgation of it at Sinai Moses speaks of it as of a thing known using the same reasons and grounds of equity and much in the same words which Aelohim himself used in the proclaiming and referring to the first institution of labouring on the six fore going daies and Sabbatizing on the seventh where the seventh day is mentioned four times and Sabbath Sabbatism Rest Rested about six times declaring that in times past of old Jehovah had given the Sabbath for this end that in it there should be a ceasing from ordinary Labour and accordingly the People rested on the seventh-day-Sabbath at Mount-Sinai the promulgator of this Law himself delivers his mind to be still the same in much plainness of speech six daies thou shalt labour but the seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work for six daies Jehovah made the Heavens and the Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day wherefore Jehovah hallowed the Sabbath day he sacrated it consecrated it sanctified it restored it to its holy use he spiritually distinguished it from the other foregoing six daies of the week Setting it apart for his more solemn worship and instituted service And thus you may carry this sanctification of it through the rest of the Scriptures that do treat on this subject for the People of God all along were Sabbath-keepers and Aelohim-worshippers They remembred this as that word of memoir and of remark bringing in this Law upon their hearts as of special observance The sanctification of the sabbath doth set out sometimes the whole worship of God for where this is duly observed it doth promote all other religion and it is put Prophetically by Isaiah for the spiritual worship under the New Testament dispensation it was instituted to the end that solemn service might be performed to the LORD therein therefore did his People hold publick conventions on the seventh day-Sabbath when they assembled to read to Interpret and to hear the word of Jehovah Aelohim And these were stated ordinances on every such day Then they put up their publick requests and made Prayers to the LORD they then pleasantly sang songs to him they had spiritual conferences holy Arguings heavenly meditations merciful actings It being a day of spiritual delight of heavenly joy and of high praising Then they offered up instituted sacrifices unto him to the honour of his name Which sacrifices now under this administration are spiritual glorious heavenly accepttable to God by Jesus Christ Thus and in such like holy services is it to be sanctified by us The seventh-day-Sabbath is therefore said to be holy unto the LORD's People as it is holy in its Institution and holy unto Aelohim And now is it not great and good reason that these reasons of Aelohims own giving should have a convincing-cogency and winning perswasiveness upon our hearts to yield obedience unto this holy Law of his which is every way so designed and fitted for our own Good I pass on to some other spiritual proofs of this After long and serious search into the whole scripture about this matter I find that all the Scriptures through where the holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the seventh which is the last day of the week in the weekly revolutions and returns and successive courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly-Sabbath-day That there is no Command given for the Observation of any other day in the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day but only of the seventh day That 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 and that there is no threatning either Denounced against or executed upon any that have not observed any other day in
the Week as a weekly-sabbath-Weekly-Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the seventh day which is the last day in every Week In the Book of Moses before the Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Israelites were to gather Manna on the six foregoing daies of the Week and on the sixth day that sixth the day immediately before the Seventh that there could be no mistake of the day the bread of two daies one part whereof being kept for Food on the seventh day Sabbath did neither melt nor stink neither was any Worm therein yet notwithstanding this wonderful appearance of Jehovah for the sustenance and Food of his people who but a little before had murmured and complained for want of Bread there were of the People who went out on the Seventh day for to gather Manna and they found none Upon this Jehovah steps in with his prohibition and threatning and said unto Moses how long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws See for that Jehova hath given you the Sabbath this Sabbath this noted day therefore he giveth you on that sixth day the Bread of two daies abide ye every Man in his place let no man not a Man of you if you dare to transgress it will be to your hurt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Particle of Dehorting and of Deprecating go out of his place on this seventh day And that this seventh-day Sabbath might have the more confirming Sanction Jehovah Aelohim continues this miraculous way of seeding of his people for about Fourty years and takes order for the preserving of a Pot of this Manna to be laid up to the Faces of Jehovah to be kept for their generations for the better establishing of the Doctrine of Weeks and of the certainty and duty of observing the seventh-day-Sabbath which admirable appearing if we reckon it seven times over for every Week six times for the fall of Manna on the six foregoing daies of each Week and a seventh time for the preserving of that part of the double portion on the Seventh day which was gathered on the Sixth day the Number amounts to above fourteen Thousand times At the Promulgation of the Law there was a threatning in the Prohibition six daies thou shalt Labour but the seventh day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any Work So in Moses's repeating of this Law the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy Aelohim in it thou shalt not do any work if thou wilt boldly transgress it will be at thine own Peril After the solemn reviving and publishing of this Law every one that defiâ—eth the Sabbath shall surely be put to death For whosoever doth any Work therein that Soul shall be cutt off from amongst his people Six daies shall work be done but in the seventh the Sabbath of Rest or a Sabbath of Sabbatism Holiness to Jehovah who doing a work in the day of that Sabbath to die he shall die whosoever doth work on the seventh-day-Sabbath shall be put to death Thus saith Jehovah if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these my Commandments particularly if ye will not keep my Sabbaths I also will do this unto you And then followeth Threatning upon Threatning Curse upon Curse Thus f when Jehovah had by a judicial Law declared against wilful transgressors a Soul that would sin with an high hand whereby such an one did Reproach Jehovah for which that Soul was to be cut off from among his People because he had despised the word of Jehovah and had broken his Commandment that Soul was utterly to be cut off his Iniquity was to be upon him And notwithstanding this Denunciation one of the Children of Israel would be gathering of Wood upon the Sabbath-day when those that found him thus Transgressing this Law and contemning this threatning had brought him unto Moses and Aaron and unto all the Congregation and they had put him in ward because it was not declared as to the particular kind of Death for the judicial Law was declared before as was but now mentioned should be done to him Hereupon Jehovah said to Moses that man shall surely be put to death All the Congregation shall stone him with Stones without the Camp And all the Congregation brought him without the Camp and stoned him with Stones and he died as Jehovah commanded Moses In the Book of the Prophets there is also a denouncing of Judgments against Profaners of the seventh-day-Sabbath Hear what Jehovah spake by the mouth of his servant Jeremiah thus said Jehovah unto me go and stand in the gate of the Children of the People whereby the Kings of Judah come in and by the which they go out and in all the Gates of Jerusalem and say unto them hear ye the word of Jehovah ye Kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that enter in by these Gates Thus saith Jehovah take heed to your selves and bear no Burden on the Sabbath-day nor bring in by the Gates of Jerusalem neither carry forth a Burden out of your Houses on the Sabbath-day neither do ye any work but Hallow the Sabbath-day as I commanded your Fathers but they obeyed not neither inclined their Ear but made their Neck stiff that they might not hear nor receive instruction And if you will not hearken unto me to Hallow the Sabbath day and not to bear a Burden even entring in at the Gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day then will I kindle a Fire in the Gates thereof and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and it shall not be quenched Let Ezekiel now speak from the LORD I saith Jehovah caused my people to go forth out of the Land of Egypt and brought them into the Wilderness and I gave them my statutes and shewed them my Judgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I Jehovah who Sanctifie them But the House of Israel rebelled against me in the Wilderness they walked not in my statutes and they despised my Judgments which if a Man do he shall even live in them This promise mentioned twice here implyeth the contrary death even death upon death death unto death threatned against not-doers particularly against not-doers not-Hallowers of the seventh-day-Sabbath and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted Then observe the LORD catched at this season of their provoking of him I said I would pour out my fury upon them in the Wilderness to consume them Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the Wilderness that I would not bring them into the Land which I had given them Flowing with Milk and Hony which are the Glory of all Lands Because they despised my Judgments and walked not in my Statutes but polluted my Sabbaths But I said unto their Children
successive courses are as the daies and week of that one Created week were At the First Creation was this Law given to Adam in respect of his humane Nature and in him given to all the World of Humane Creatures Even adversaries themselves in their Writings against the seventh-day-Sabbath have confessed that the Law given to Adam from the beginning is unalterable and therefore remains still in full force so that all men to the Worlds end are bound to yield obedience thereunto and that the Rest of the seventh-day-Sabbath was entred into from the Foundation of the World Christ himself the Creator rested the seventh day from all his works and that Aelohims resting on that Seventh-day-Sabbath doth necessarily imply Mans Resting on that day as well as Gods resting God's entring into that rest being the ground of Man's rest at the same time which they prove from Heb. 4. 3 4. The created nature of it as the seventh day and the cogent reason of it as the Weekly Sabbath-day not being peculiar to the Israelites but common to the Gentiles the Command is not proper to one of these only excluding the other but doth belong unto both the LORD 's resting on it which gave such occasion to his Blessing and Sanctifying of it has an Universal preceptive respect to Adam and to his whole Posterity it is a common Instruction and a general Command unto all men in all ages to labour in their particular callings functions and employments on those six fore-going days of the Week wherein Jehovah Aelohim made the Heavens and the Earth and to cease and rest from such labour on the seventh-day because in it He Sabbatized or rested from all his work This Law was made and it came with Authority in the beginning of the Created World and it shall continue and last to the end of the World Adam the Father of Nations and of Generations was put under the obligation of it and so are all his Off-spring from first to last throughout all Nations in all Generations Every Man has a teaching light and law of Nature which he doth carry about with and in him and is born and bred together with him There are still some reliques and remainders as dark Letters in an old Monument of those Holy Just Good and spiritual Laws of the Ten Words still to preserve and keep alive the memory of Man's first created Honour and Dignity His Rectitude and Uprightness as also for some other ends Though those seeds are corrupted now Natural right reason will teach men that seeing all men in all Nations do measure their time by Weeks and their Weeks by seven days they should besides what part they separate of their time as due unto God every day set apart one whole day of every week unto their Maker who has allowed them so liberal a portion of time wherein to provide for themselves and for their families there being no other proportion of time that can so well provide both for the worship and service of God every day as Evening and Morning of every day and every week as the whole Seventh which is the last day and also for the necessities of all Families as that which remaineth of the several six fore-going days of the Week and that is so well fitted to all functions and Callings and Employments There is that in every man who has the due exercise of his right reason that will directly answer unto this especially when compared with these created beings and more especially yet when having the advantage of Scripture-revelation The light and law of Nature when cleared up will tell men that all mens labour and motion being in order to Rest and Rest being the perfection and end of Labour into which labour and work and motion do pass that therefore the seventh which is the last day in every week is the most fit and proper whole day for a weekly religious rest unto the Creator for his Worship service and honour The natural reasonableness of this Command for observing the seventh-day-Sabbath doth suggest That Man and Beast should have his resting-Resting-day every week The Ass that poor beast so much used to burdens and drudgery on other days must rest and the Stranger be refreshed on the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath That word in the Original which doth set our conventions for Worship to those who do understand it and who will make a diligent observation and due improvement of it would inform them that they may with their own eyes discern something of this in the motion of those Heavenly lights which would instruct men that set times of their Creator's appointing for solemn Assembling and for his instituted Service are directed to and pointed at by those Great Luminaries which the All-wise Aelohim hath set up in the Heavens As for many other good purposes so also particularly for this Great and Holy end This naturalness of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath should make all the judgments and wills of grown reasonable Creatures to bend and to bow before it and should for ever stop the mouth of all gain-sayers never more to speak or write or print a word against that which is so Legible in its own created Existence Pure Primitive nature in Scripture is put sometimes for the essence of a being or for the Essential Properties of it Thus the Goddy-nature is His Essence His unchangeable Being a lively resemblance unto which communicable properties in Him such as His Wisdom Goodness Truth Holiness and such like are impartable to rational creatures especially to new creatures For otherwise as for His very Essentiality This is incommunicable to any meer Creature Hence as to Creatures Nature is put for the person or thing it self Indeed or In-truth really so For the essence and being of a Creature for that which is Concreated born with a Creature Connatural with it For that which is proper Genuine and Innate For the Natural Law particularly Aelohim will not change what He did create to be pure and good naturally essentially so It is the Seventh-days proper nature to be the Weekly-Sabbath This Seventh-day and the Weekly-Sabbath were Concreated It was so made and ordained according to pure Primitive Creation When the first pure created state of what Aelohim made was defaced by sin much of his doing in the World is to bring back to that Original purity and goodness Therefore the work of Redemption is set out by Creation and for the same reason it is called a renewed Creation So is his work of Preservation of and of Providence over his creatures So will his work of Regeneration and of Conversion still be Thus also his constituting of his Church Thus also his work of Instauration and of Renovation of the Heavens and of the Earth This work of first Creation by the creating Messiah is the rule and Standard the pattern and exemplar to which all must be brought It is as to the final cause
thereof for the glory of Aelohim The glory of Christ The good of the Elect and of the Believing The work of Creation in that one week of the Erected World was a glorious work every way perfect particularly of Man as Man That Sabbath which was thus from the beginning must still stand The first created Seventh-day-Sabbath is throughout the Scripture most natural according to the Scripture This alone and no other Day is the Sabbath in pure created Nature This Seventh in order has the natural name of Sabbath which the First second third fourth fifth and sixth have not The creation has a natural order The several works thereof having been so created in such due order in six distinct days doth carry that along with it in the very nature and order of their creation which would convince a natural conscience exercising right reason especially when the true information and clear discovery thereof is brought unto him by Scripture-revelation that the Creators wisdom doth shine forth in that order and that this self-evidencing light should be received entertained and improved with ready submission to its obliging Law which doth bind such a natural conscience to believe observe and obey it The first created time as to the weekly Sabbath was perfected and appointed in its proper prime pure and natural Created state and therefore the created order of the seven days of that one week must still keep their natural Names and so the last day of the week and no other is alone the seventh-day and the Sabbath-day Which day then cannot be altered unto a working-day Aelohim's Law must still be obeyed and his Example followed whilst Time has duration To carry the Sabbatizing rest from the seventh to the first day and the Labouring-service from the first to the seventh-day is contrary to the purest Created Nature There is not a translating either of the Work or of the Rest from one day of the week to another Aelohim would not have either of these to be separated from his from their appointed seasons It must abide to the End what was thus from the Beginning What the Holy Law of pure Nature doth confirm doth remain unmoved through all the Dispensations of Grace both of the Old and New-Testament-Administration This doth not destroy that which is pure and perfect in its natural created Being Scripture and Nature are in Harmonious Concord in this matter This seventh day is peculiarly sequestred by Aelohim for a Sabbath and has this Preeminence beyond all the rest the Vote and suffrage of Primitive Nature doth determine and conclude it to be so And what is Man that he attempts to change this Time and Law by a Devising of his own heart and to level this Honorable Day with the rest seeing it was the Institution of Aelohim in the very Forming of Created beings The Holy ends whereof were concreated uses natural and permanent for this portion of Time Which seventh day may not therefore be employed about the common ends uses and works of the six foregoing days of the Week Which six days in their order and names have their several distinct Existence as sense doth plainly demonstrate by the continued successive courses of Night and Day in their seasons At the first framing of Nature the very time it self of the seventh day was on that same day created and made an Holy Rest and was by Law and Sanction so declared The time it self of the seventh-day-Sabbath As such was and is and will be That distinct part of Time which was the object of Aelohim's blessing and sanctifying of it as the natural Weekly Sabbath to be a day of Holy Rest having Foundation in its own natural Existence This is manifestly evidenceable to every rational Man's revived nature and it is perfectly demonstrable by Scripture-revelation to every considering Believer who gives himself impartially to understand the substance and the end of Aelohim's creating of such a separated determinate portion of Time This is the true Doctrine and the Genuin meaning of the Weekly-Sabbath Man and this seventh-day-Sabbath being created in one and the same week will be coeval whilst Weeks do last They will live and stand together The fittedness of this Day was a Creating-Act The reason of which Day is of natural self-Manifestation and Obligation in which we are confirmed by Word-revelation This is the prime Make of it having its first rise with Created Nature and so is Perpetual and unchangeably fixed An Individual-Sabbath-day untransferrable to any other Day of the Week Sabbath-day and seventh-day are Connatural and Reciprocal Sabbath-worship and service must be done on the Day thereof All days of the week are not of equal accompt with God neither have they the same Honour Christ Himself hath put the Crown upon the Head of the seventh-Seventh-day and so let it enjoy its sole and lasting Royal Dignity It having a concreated Excellingness which will be and abide with it through the duration of the World A Primitive Constitution that must stand firm It is a distinct day and has a distinct word for it Thus let the Scriptural compleat Journal and its perfect Diary of that one Created Week in seven distinct days remain in its unmoveable Order And now if this Argument drawn from pure Primitive Created Nature be convincing and demonstrative let that Great Ratiocinator call to mind his Expressions I can consent saith he that all They take the seventh-day for the Sabbath who can prove it to be by meer natural evidence and in another place he thus writes This is the very hinge of all our Controversie For if this be once proved we shall easily consess that it he speaks of the Seventh-day-sabbath is not abrogated For Christ came not to abrogate any Law of Nature And further he writes That the great Laws of nature containing Man's Duty to God resulting from and manifested in our nature As related to God and in the nature of things or the works of God was still made the chief part of the Redeemer's Law So that this Law of nature whose sum is the love of God and of his Image is ever the Primitive unchangeable Law No title of this shall ever cease if Nature cease not The seventh-seventh-day thus speaks for it self and has its Creator and his word cogently pleading for it No other day of the week either in name or in nature is the Seventh-day The order of the Days is sensible from the first to the seventh He that can tell the days and knows their number understandeth that there must six go before in the same week ere he can come to the seventh A day which cannot be lost by all Mankind Will any apprehend that all and every of reasonable creatures have out slept just one whole day or more whereby this accompt is disturbed What colour is there for such an apprehension And if for Disputes sake such a groundless supposition were admitted yet the Day if thorowly searched after
would recover its ancient right Exact Astronomers have observed that natural days are not all of equal length whatever the vulgar of Philosophers have supposed to the contrary Let those improve their skill to advance this great secret in Created Nature with a particular eye unto the seventh-day-Sabbath Which alone should put a deciding end unto this Controversie Yet in regard this Thwart-over-Generation of vain affecters of Humane Wisdom doth expect some further accompt of this Matter by way of Argument unto Men although I bottom my judgment and practise upon Scripture-Revelation and Created Nature Let me present the Reader with somewhat of Expostulation and of reasoning the Case with such as do importunately call for it Was not the Seventh-day kept unlost and unchanged for about Four thousand years till Christs time Did not Christ in the days of his flesh keep the right seventh-day as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day Is there any likelyhood that this last day of the week would be suffered either in all that time or since Christ's time to this week to be altered who has taken such care for its preservation both in Creation and in Providence and who has in his Word put so many proper marks of Note and Honour upon it Is it not affirmed by James some years after Christ's ascension that Moses from the Antient times hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day Is publick Custom universal of all Mankind in all ages of any force with these contradicting Opposers If so then Observe Do not most of those who name the Name of Christ and multitudes of Pagans with them observe the first day of the week as their weekly Holy-day which according to Ethnick Idolatry and Superstition they miscal Sunday Can he that proves which is the first day of the week but be able to tell which is the seventh if they keep the first right Then have we the true Seventh Have not the Indians their Sabbath on the fourth day of the week If theirs be still on the fourth day then how can the seventh day in Order be lost with them Do not the Mahumâ—dans keep the sixth day of the week as their weekly Festival If their day be the sixth the next immediately following day must be the seventh Have not the Jews all along and some Christians kept close to the seventh which is the last day in every week as the Weekly-Sabbath-day And how could all these so mis-reckon the seventh for any other day of the week How many Testimonies out of Authors could I cite for these If I would cram the Margin to cloy the Examiner of it Do not publick Tables witness this If these be searched in the Courts of Record and in Register-books will it not be found they distinguish and difference the Sabbath-day as the Seventh-day from that which they Name Sunday the first day of the week Have not the Councils by their Decrees still differenced these days as such a kind of Proof for the matter of Fact Do not Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances of Parliament keep alive the memory of these distinct days Do they not give the Name of Sabbath-day to the seventh the last day of the week Their freeing of a particular day of the week from all Executions from troubling any with any Summons from compelling any Man to bring forth his Surety from Apparitors or Serjeants speaking from Advocates pleading from Cryers crying Doth not this also speak it Have not some of their Acts the name of Sunday in the Title of the Act Do not many Law-processes require persons to appear on the Sabbath-day Are not some Statutes Penal upon common Laborers and Travellers on Sunday Are there not Injunctions by some on Rogation week as Superstition calls it to forbid the Solemnization of Marriage from the first day of the said week until Trinity-Sunday If any Common-Prayer book-man make this Objection against me he may take notice That the year when the LORD graciously led me into the observation of the Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath that It was the seventh-day in order of time from the Twenty fifth of March according to Vulgar Accompt which I observed and that twenty fifth day they suppose in their Calendar prefixt to the Church-Bibles and Common-Prayer-Book to be the very day when the year of the World began Let them look to their proof but according to that I observe the seventh day from the Creation So Easter-week Thus do men heathenishly mis-name days and weeks and months and years is by all such understood to be that week whereof Easter-day the Sunday is the first and so they reckon afterwards the first Sunday after Easter-week the second Sunday and so on So Whitsundayweek begins that week with Whitsunday And afterwards Trinity-Sunday the first second and so forth Sunday after Trinity Thus they observe the times for the keeping of their Sessions Do not dead Monuments and Tomb-stones keep alive the memory of the days of the Week when they have often engraved upon them that particular day of the Week when such or such a one dyed or was buried or had his Epitaph and Monument erected Do not Engravings at some Fountains and Springs speak this where the Owners have Recorded some known day of the week upon the Head-stones So also some Boundary stones or Mark-stones May we not often meet with this in Dictionaries and Lexicographers allowed by publick authority which do give other names to other day of the Week But the Seventh which is the last day they call the Sabbath-day The Day of Rest Do not Historians keep this Truth Company with their Judgment For a thousand years and upward say some when we meet with Sabbath in any Writer of what name soever it must be understood of no other day than this seventh-day So those whom they call the Antient Fathers generally style this last day of the Week Sabbath Are not Synods Councils and Canons of one and the same mind in this Do not the Records of this English Nation fully agree in this Many particular Instances of the seventh-days being called the Sabbath being to be found as those who are versed in those Histories do inform in the King's Exchequer in the Common-Pleas in the King's-Bench Chancery Chequer-Chamber and those of the house of Lords which is one of the Highest Courts of Record in this Kingdom all retaining the name of the day of Sabbath for the seventh-day This being the common phrase in the Courts of Westminster and the Latin processes do run in this style which is known to all observing Lawyers Sheriffs Atturneys Clerks and Solicitors Are not Tenures of Lands and of Estates Witnesses of this which are held conditionally upon paying or doing such a sum or such a thing upon such or such a day of the week whereby the number and order of Days cannot be lost Do not Conveyances Copies Leases Deeds concurr in this Which do specify
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
writing and to keep the Records of it well attested especially when another doth claim a former Title for some hundreds of years As this of the seventh-day Sabbath did for some thousands of years for some ages beyond the memory of man and when they could not but foresee that their Title would be so much called in question and controverted and especially too where the Matter of Fact is pretended as it is by this Author so much to prove the Matter of Right All Matters of Fact that do pass into Historical Writing are fittest to be written in the same age wherein they were done as being then better known in their circumstances by sensible demonstrations which cannot be so well discerned in after ages How fond are Traditionists of unscriptural humane Antiquities and Universalities Whereas Errors have been ancient even as long full home to the times of the Apostles Even then did the Mystery of iniquity begin to work there were even then many Antichrists and Malignant Assemblies and when the Antichrist shall be revealed there would be a great Apostasie and Defection from the Truth The Revelation hath foretold that all the World would go a whoring after the Beast and would worship the Beast and the Dragon that gave him power yet are these some of their Notes of a visible Church Antiquity and Universality which that they might be the sooner imposed upon the hoodwinck'd credulous World have another vain pretence going along with them altogether as unscriptural and vain as they that is that the Church cannot err And they falsly call their particular Romish Synagogue the Catholick Church I expectingly believe and hopingly wait for a coming day when our plain tender sincere upright-hearted people will be undeceived and no longer to suffer themselves to be deluded and imposed upon by such confident Assertions as this Objector doth bring them As if that which beyond all doubt must assure them that de facto the first day was by the Apostles separated for holy Worship especially in publick Church Assemblies is the full and unquestionable expository evidence of the practice of all the Churches in the World since the very days of the Apostles For so has this Learned Author affirmed Reader bethink thy self what thy Faith must resolve it self into if it will follow this misguiding How can such believers as never traded in this kind of humane Learning ever come to undoubted assurance about the matter How can they be fully ascertained of this who were never versed nor are ever like to be neither are under any such obligation by any Scripture Precept to be throughly versed and understandingly read in all and every of the Writings of all and every of the Ecclesiastical Histories that do write about this Or if it were possible and facible that they could compass this of which I can see no end who yet have more helps and advantages this way than the most How can they unquessionably be confirmed in this perswasion that there never was any one Church of Christ that did escape the Humane Church-Record and History And if so who can tell them but that that particular Church might be of a different judgement and practice What doth this kind of arguing in this Author mean What would it have our people to resolve their satisfaction and assurance concerning the pretended first day Sabbath into that report which their humane fallible Guides do make unto them of this without their tryal of it The Word of Christ doth call upon them to try the spirits whether they be of God and to prove all things that are thus brought them by Teachers by the Scripture-canon and Touch stone as the one and the only infallible Rule What a kind of Faith is that which is a trusting of fallible men without tryal a depending upon Humane Authorities without Scripture Evidence The God-inspired Authority of Christ and of his Word is fully attested within the holy Scriptures own bounds and needs not step out to Humane Histories Authorities and Traditions However this Author would buz into the ear such amazing expressions as this that it is impossible it should be otherwise than as such Humane Historie doth record of the practice of all the Churches since the times of the Apostles and that this Testimony is infallible Humane History and that part of it which they call Ecclesiastical History however it be a pleasant study and an employ someways in its place profitable yet of all kinds of Scientifick Learning is one of the weakest common places of arguing and the least convincing for demonstration because it doth resolve its probations into the fallible Testimonies of lying men and so doth not cannot give any firm full satisfaction to an inquiring Spirit and studious Mind who will still be doubtful and afraid how he doth bottom his Faith in so weighty a case as is now before him upon such an unsure and unsafe ground as he can build no firmness of belief and certainty of knowledge upon even the uncertain witness of deceivable men what their eyes and ears and tongues and pens have reported to us who are so many hundred years come into the World after they were dead and gone that way of disputing therefore which this mighty man of Humane Reason has walked in to find out some place if he could where to make his First day Sabbath cause to stand is such a by-path as doth mislead his Reader into bogs where he cannot settle and stay with any good confidence and sound comfort Such arguments may take with over credulous minds and with passive intellects who through idleness and guile of spirit in a matter which would ingage them in so much of self-denyal and of cross bearing had rather use another man's writings and reasonings than be at the pains of studying of the Scriptures and of exercising their own understanding What has at large been written in trying this Objectors spirit upon the former Scriptures in an answer also to the next mentioned by him in the Revelation which he calleth another Historical hint of the New Testament How can a change of the weekly Sabbath-day from one day to another from the seventh to the first be soundly proved from this other Scripture where he that is of a serious spirit and doth diligently inquire after word-satisfaction about this matter cannot find either Sabbath or First day either in terms plainly expressed or clearly implyed or necessarily inferred in this place or in the context or in the design of the Holy Spirit here or by comparing of it with other places of Scripture Those that would lay the foundation of so great a change should see their Scripture grounds to be more evident convincing and firm What one Word is there in this Scripture that doth warrant any new Instition from Christ for the observing of the First day as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day What one word is there here of command so to observe the First day What one word
the New Testament Administration of Grace Of this I give these Reasons grounded upon Scripture because that Day which is spoken of in that Psalm and made use of in this Epistle is such a Day as doth take in every Day in the Week as the Author himself doth interpret in the same Epistle speaking of the same Day in this very ease and instance now under debate where he puts the Christian Hebrews upon the faithful discharge of that Gospel-fellowship-duty of mutually exhorting one another daily or according to every Day as the Duty of every Day was when they had occasion and opportunity so to do whilst it is called to Day this Day and the next and still the next after that every Day whilst Grace is offered and whilst your time doth last whilst Christ's Voice from his Father doth speak unto you and whilst the Spirit of Christ in the Word and Ministry thereof doth call upon you That Hodiernal Day of which the Holy Spirit doth make mention in this Exhortation has its duration full home to this our Day and it appertaineth no less unto us than it did unto in David's time For the Illative Conjunction Therefore in the beginning of the seventh Verse of the third Chapter doth properly belong to Take heed in the beginning of the twelfth Verse as went before and so must be here understood Therefore as the holy Spirit exhorted your Fathers to obedience under pain of exclusion from the Rest of God so see ye well unto it that you yield obedience lest otherwise you also be shut out of the same Holy Heavenly Rest The Seventh-day is in this place mentioned with a double mark of Honour put upon it that Day that Seventh The Law concerning the Seventh-day Rest or Sabbath was given to Adam from the beginning and put into Created Being in the first Week of the Created World and is therefore unchangeable still standing in its due Force and in its full Authority Whereas in all this passage of this Epistle there is no mention made of the First Day either in express words or by any necessary consequence So that I may use the force of Christ's Reason and the strength of his Argument here which he did in another case bearing yet a very clear like date from the founding of the World from the beginning the First Day of the Week was not the Sabbath whereas the Seventh day was made Instituted and appointed for the Day of weekly Rest the same Week of the Creation when the foundations of the World were laid and when the Glorious Creator did set up his great Works The Day thereof prefixed by David must in this case be some other kind of Day even the determinate day of Grace and of Life and of Christ's speaking Voice during this Day and of the present time That expression in the Psalm to day or this day was spoken and written by David to the Priests and People in History if it refer to that special occasion of the transferring of the Ark when David called upon them to come unto that place of solemn convention for Publick Worship to the Faces of Aelohim the Ark being a sign of this he threatens those of that Day and Age to be shut out of God's Rest of Eternal Life as their Forefathers were shut out of Canaan in case that they did harden their hearts through unbelief as those had done before them which therefore cannot be understood of the First Day oi the Week as a New Sabbath-day take it as in part Historical though it be further Prophetical also which the Objectors would set up in the room of the Seventh day Sabbath For then according to this arguing the people in David's time were bound to alter the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First Day of the Week It is evident by divers particular passages as well as by the whole drift of that Psalm that is was somewhat fitted for David's Day and time and for the people of his age although withal there is a Spirit of Prophesie in it For those Hebrews in the days of the Author of that Epistle to them and we in the present Generation are concerned in that Scripture as others also will be in the Ages after us Whatsoever is written in the Holy Scriptures is written unto all of us calling us unto Faith in and Obedience to the LORD Jesus Christ What God spake unto Moses in his time was spoken by God unto them in Christ's time when he conversed for some years visibly openly here on Earth in the Flesh and it is still spoken unto us and in this place to the Hebrews that Day did reach to the time of this Epistle and continueth to this Day and will preach to after times That expression in that Psalm to day or this day is that Day wherein the Voice of Christ by his Spirit from his Father in his Word and the Ministery thereof may and ought to be harkned unto believed and obeyed that is as long as this Call of Grace doth continue and the time of ones life doth last the whole season of Grace is this Day It is a Day taken largely For so a Day is sometimes taken for the whole time of conversation here on Earth For Time consisting of Days Months and Years For the Time of Life The Day of the Israelites was a long Day A Day of about forty Years with some of them in the Wilderness wherein they tempted and provoked God as is declared in that Psalm and elsewhere The Gospel the glad-tidings of Salvation by Faith in the Messiah was preached and the Doctrine of Redemption work revealed to the Israelites in Moses's time and long before that in Abraham's time and further back also and in David's time afterwards though unbelievers did not savingly profit by it To day or this day is every present Day whatever Day of the Week that Day be as it passeth along in order several Scriptures do lead to this sense and for every present Day of the time of the New Testament ministration of Grace There needs no further evidence of this than the diligent comparing of the Scriptures in hand That limited determinate Day is that Time which the Sovereign LORD over all hath set unto his speaking to particular persons and to their Life-time of hearing and it doth much refer unto that term of Years which he did set and fix in Moses his time to the unbelieving murmuring rebellious Israelites and is referred unto in another Psalm If To Day were meant of the First Day as the Weekly Resting Day then the Israelites had not been the same Example not so proper so resembling an Example of Admonition for the Prosessing Hebrews to take warning by lest running into their Sin they fell into their Judgments For the Israelites Sin and Judgments for the which they
therefore and the comparative like as in the seventh Verse of the third Chapter relating to the twelfth Verse of the same Chapter doth shew the exhortation to be inforced upon the Believer therefore as the Holy Spirit exhorteth you to believe and obey the Voice of Christ so look to it that you do believe and obey his Voice The reason is strong from an example of old because your Fathers who contemned the Voice of Christ and did not contemper the word with Faith were frustrated of the Heavenly rest The reason of which consequence is seeing there is the like reason of you and of them For both to you and them it was Evangelized in the second Verse of the fourth Chapter The whole drift of the Discourse from the seventh Verse of the third Chapter to the eleventh Verse of the fourth Chapter doth respect a professing people that would pass for the people of God and be accounted Travellers towards the promised Heavenly rest which none but the believing perswadeable obedient true spiritual Israel of God would enter into The Sabbatism or rest spoken of in the first third ninth tenth and eleventh verses of this fourth Chapter is a rest that remaineth in the sixth and ninth verses of the same Chapter A rest that was before them towards which they were travelling and short of which they should fear lest they came by their loytering behind in the first Verse A rest that in the time of the Authour of this Epistle when he wrote this was as to himself and the believing people of God then alive before them and they were left behind it as yet short of it Into which they were not as then so fully entred but they were under a promise or expectation thereof And the same may be said of his believing people who are now alive in the present day whilst it is called to day There is a promised rest which they should have in their eye which they are not as yet so thorowly passed into Of which that place in the Psalm was a Typical prediction The rest here is a rest yet in the promise yet to come and hoped for attainable enterable and enjoyable if unperswadeableness hinder not The Eleventh verse doth again introduce and enforce the principal exhortation by way of rational inferehee and by a doubled Argument Therefore let us study to enter into that rest that not any one sall by the same example of disobedience If we believe and obey Christ's Voice we shall then enter into it but if not we shall be shut out from it as those were who died away in their unperswadeableness The whole Context both in this place and in the Psalm doth evidently demonstrate that the rest here treated of and foretold by David is such a rest as out of which the unbelieving unperswadeable and disobedient living and dying such would be shut and into which the believing perswadeable and obedient such a people of God should enter and none but such Which therefore cannot be ineant of a pretended first day of weekly rest For if that had been the rest the believing had already actually entred into not only the outward but also the inward rest and even the unbelieving had actually entred into the outward part of that rest had they so far observed it as the weekly Sabbath Whereas the Israelites in Type in Moses's time had not entred so much as into the outward part of the Type of it That is to say not those of them who were above twenty years of Age when the Spies returned from searching the Land All except Joshuah and Caleb died short of Canaan that were above that number of years whether Believers or unbelievers All the Promises and the Threatnings the Exhortations and the Cautions and such like that are made use of in all this Discourse do plainly relate to a prosessing people according as they believe or believe not and so do enter or not enter into this rest As for what doth concern the parallel wherein it doth not hold and wherein it doth hold I shall open now my thoughts The Parallel here is not between God the Father as Creator and his Son Christ as Redeemer though there are some others that would have it so For the LORD Jesus himself the Christ the Mediator was the Creator not excluding the Father nor the Holy Spirit As I have proved before in this Treatise and have here again put some of the Scriptures into the Margin which the Reader may examine if he have need The Authour of this Epistle doth industriously prove and promote this great Truth of Christ's Jehovah ship or God-ship by his Creator-ship as well as by other Arguments from Scripture That God who is spoken of in the tenth verse of this fourth Chapter of this Epistle to the Hebrews is the same Christ by whom the Father made the Worlds the Ages He was the LORD in the beginning who laid the Foundation of the Earth and the works of whose hands the Heavens were as is declared in the second and tenth Verses of the first Chapter the same God who built all things in the fourth verse of the third Chapter Which doth make way for the following discourse concerning his rest and entring or not entring into it as Christian Professors did believe and obey or not As this Objector himself doth elsewhere confess upon the tenth Verse of the third Chapter that Christ is so brought in as God and expresly called God to make way for this following discourse about works and rest The same God whose voice from his Father by his Spirit in his Word the Israelites of Old and the Hebrews in this Authour's time were called upon to hearken unto in the seventh and fifteenth Verses of that third Chapter The same living God from whom they should take heed lest by an evil Heart of unbelief in them they did depart in the twelfth Verse Which the Authour doth expresly interpret of Christ in the fourteenth Verse The same God who was tempted provoked grieved disbelieved by the Israelites in the Wilderness in the eighth ninth tenth sixteenth and seventeenth Verses of this third Chapter which also is confirmed elsewhere in the Word the same God who did rest the seventh-Seventh-day from all his Works which were finished from the foundation of the World in the third and fourth Verses of the fourth Chapter The same God who has a people more pecularly belonging unto him in the ninth Verse The same God whose Word is quick and powerful or living and active and sharper than any two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and of Spirit and of the Joynts or Nerves and Marrow and is a critical discerner or a Critick of the imaginations and thoughts of the Heart in the twelfth Verse hold forth also in other Scriptures The same God who is the great high Priest of his People passed into the Heavens as into the full Rest
Jesus the Son of God in the fourteenth Verse Neither is the parallel between the Works of the Father and the Works of the Son as if they were such different Works of a different Nature and of different Time which was not the matter under debate in the third and fourth Chapters of this Epistle as men have divided them the which what was mentioned before doth also discover For what things soever the Father doth these also doth the Son likewise Nor is the parallel between one Day of the Week and another Day of the Week and the first Day of the Week in the weehly Revolution For the to day mentioned in the Psalm and the seventh Verse doth not point out the particular first Day of the Week as distinct from the others Days of the same Week As if the Exhortation did peculiarly properly and openly belong unto that but it takes in the whole of our Day and Time wherein the sound of Christ's Voice comes unto us speaking by his Spirit in his Word from his Father every Day of the Week as appears from the thirteenth Verse of the third Chapter So that those expressions in the seventh and eighth Verses of the fourth Chapter which do speak of a certain day and of another day do set out a large providential Day a long time after the Israelites entring into Canaan the Land of Rest The Rest spoken of in the Psalm could not refer to this or the weekly Sabbath from the Worlds Creation for these were before whereas the Psalmist doth speak of a Rest that was future and yet to come as to those who were then alive As likewise it was to the Author of this Epistle and to the Believers in his Day and Time It was remaining even then A Rest a Sabbatism which was not then by him and those to whom he wrote fully entred into possessed and injoyed Though Believers so far as they had their Citizenship their Burgeship in Heaven and in the Spirit did converse with the glorious Inhabitants of the New City of that Heavenly Jerusalem did pass into somewhat of it and had some views and foretasts some beginnings and first fruits of it So that the parallel here is between Rest and Rest For as Jehovab Aelobim the Creator having finished his Works of the six foregoing Days in the first Week of the Created World did Rest on the Seventh-day Sabbath and look as the Israclites did Rest in the Land of Canaan after their labour and travel when they had peaceable quiet possession of that Land So shall believers also when they have done their Generation-work and have finished the Work of their Day and Time in doing and in suffering the whole Will of our LORD have and injoyed a Rest a Sabbatism which will be fully compleated in that better Heavenly Country And so also is the parallel between entring or not entring into the typical Rest in the Land of Canaan and entring or not entring into that Rest which was typified thereby which was not a First-Day Rest as is pretended but the Heavenly Eternal Rest This parallel is held forth in the eleventh eighteenth and nineteenth Verses of the third Chapter and in the first third sixth tenth and eleventh Verses of the fourth Chapter And the parallel further holds between Believers and Unbelievers in the passage towards or entrance or not entrance into the Land of Canaan the Land of Canaan the Land of Typical Rest according as they were perswadable and obedient or not And Believers or Unbelievers since the time of that Psalm which I therefore mention because it is the Foundation of the Discourse in this place to the Hebrews and particularly at the time when the Author of this Epistle did write wherein all Ages since and those after us are also concerned For even these also according as they are found perswadable and obedient or not so shall they either enter into or come short of this typified promised Rest As it was in the Prophet David's time the offer of Grace as to the Promised Rest was made to the Israelites for this same Gospel was published unto them under that Ministration of Grace as unto us now under the present Dispensation of Grace in the second and third Verses of the fourth Chapter The Doctrine of Salvation by Faith in the Messiah being the Doctrine in David's time and in Moses Days and long enough before him and those of them who were believing obedient and perswadable in the sixth and seventh and eleventh Verses of that Psalm So that there was in part a fulfilling of this in David's time both as to the threatning part upon the unbelieving impenitent and disobedint dying away such and as to the promising part as to the believing repenting and obeying ones who died in the Faith And therefore it cannot be understood of the First Day of the Week in opposition to the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath as is pretended there being nothing at all of any such observation of the First Day in David's time And the same Gospel was published unto those in the time of the Author of this Epistle in the second Verse of the fourth Chapter even as unto the Israelites before and it had a further fulfilling than in that Authors time in the third Verse of the fourth Chapter and it still has and will have as the Exhortations do prevail in the first sixth seventh twelfth thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Verses of the third Chapter and the first third eleventh fourteenth and sixteenth Verses of the fourth Chapter The Works that Believers are said to Rest from in the tenth Verse of the fourth Chapter are according to Scripture-phrase and meaning elsewhere their labours Believers shall Rest from their labours from the labours of their particular Functions and Callings wherein they were exercised in their life time here and as for their labour in the LORD whilst they were here in which time they did abound in the Work of their LORD as also for their labour of Love in all their suffering as well as doing for Christ Believers will have satisfaction and complacency sweetness and delight in such works as these are though above in the heavenly Rest they will be wholly for ever free from sufferings as also from all corrupt mixtures and defectivenesses which were their sorrow grief and trouble here which they much laboured under where the Tempter shall no more assault them There is a Rest promised to Believers evidently and expresly in the first third and eleventh Verses of this fourth Chapter not now to mention other Verses in this passage of this Epistle which the Objector doth causlesly and groundlesly controvert And Rest is a cessation from such Labour and Work as into which that Labour and Rest doth pass which Rest in the better heavenly Country is so far from being unsuitable to the purpose of the Author of this Epistle that it is the main drift and scope of his arguing in the
third and sourth Chapters to exhort the Christianized professing Hebrews to take great heed lest they were shut out of it by their unbelief unperswadableness and disobedience as the unbelieving unperswadable and disobedient of old amongst the Israelities did not enter into the Land of Canaan which was a Type of this Rest The parallel of the As the Believers resting from his Works as God Christ God man rested from his Works holds here exactly enough in the sense of this Objector himself For he affirms that in the tenth Verse of the fourth Chapter of this Epistle and in his expression upon it that the Works which Christ did rest from were all that he did and suffered from his Incarnation to his Resurrection as the Mediator of the Covenant with all the Fruits Effects and Consequents of what he so did and suffered as belong to these Works And so shall Believers Rest when they shall pass into Glory from what they did and suffered for Christ here As Christ shall suffer no more and dye no more so Believers shall suffer no more dye no more when once raised as Christ is risen As Christ so ceased from Working as yet to continue the Work of his Grace in the preservation of the New Creature and orderly increase and propagation of it by the Spirit so shall Believers so cease from this working here as yet to continue in the full supplies of the holy Spirit for ever in the acting of Grace perfected in Glory in the freest largest exercising and putting forth thereof according to the capacities and powers of the New Creature when thus growing up to it s well proportioned measure of a perfect man keeping the New Creature by a Power received from Christ in its due order and putting it forth to the Glory of Jehovah Aelohim As Christ so Rested from his Works as to take Refreshment in his Works to have satisfaction and complacency in them as those which did set forth his praise and did satisfie his glorious design Thus Believers so far are delighted with what they have done and suffered for Christ as the Father is delighted and pleased in what his holy Spirit through Christ has in wrought in them and inabled them to Work for the setting forth of his Praise and for the promoting of his Glorious Design in the World whilst they were in it and so far they were conformed here to Christ in their doing and suffering here for Christ who will be their Eternal Righteousness even in Glory though they own nothing in any or in all their own Works as Meritorious of Reward or satisfactory to Divine Justice these being the Works of Christ the Mediator by his alone All-suffering Sacrifice So that here is a fair apt resemblance as to Works and as to Rest They do answer each other so far as Believers have a capacity in a way of similitude And this kind of doing and of suffering doth last as long as a Believers life doth last even upon the Seventh-day Sabbath in their weekly Returns according to the Duties of those Days as Christ's doing and suffering did last as long as his life did last even upon the Seventh-day Sabbath There is a Sabbath-service which a Believer is to do for Christ in Obedience to his Command and men of persecuting spirits will be laying on of crosses upon the Believer for his thus keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath holy to Jehovah though a Believer will rejoyce in such sufferings for Christ Only here the Reader may take notice that this Objector doth lay the foundation of his Sabbatizing on the Morning of the First Day of the Week when he supposeth that Christ by his then first rising from the dead did lay and perfect the Foundation of the New Creation I desire that this may be considered How can a serious inquiring spirit be satisfied from the Objectors arguing concerning a Weekly-day of Rest or Sabbath from Sun-rising to Sun-set of that First Day by an Argument drawn from Christs ceasing from his Works of Redemption on that Morning as he affirms when withal he doth acknowledge that Christ works did continue from his Inearnation to his Resurrection without any interruption never ceasing from it all the First Days of his Life Can a weekly half-day of resting from work be demonstratively inforced upon a rational intellect from three and thirty years continued working without any cessation from that working For that is the shortest time assigned to Christ's abode here on Earth though some do reckon more years than three and thirty The Creation of the World was finished in six Days which did lay the foundation of the weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath both in Word and Nature to continue every Week As a Law Rule and Pattern for man's working the six foregoing Days and for his resting on the Seventh which is the last Day of the Week Whereas now this Objector would urge upon our consciences a weekly observing of half a Day as a weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath from a continued Work thirty years out-right if not more The Conjunction For in the tenth verse of the fourth Chapter comes next to be searthed into This word doth set out a further Reason of the Conclusion which the Author of this Epistle had drawn from that Psalm and the Parallels which I mentioned before which was in the Sixth and Ninth Verses of the fourth Chapter that there was yet remaining a Sabbatism for the people of God For as God did work and then Rested from His Labors so must Believers work here which when they have finished they also shall Rest from their Labors For is a word which hath such a Syllogistical sense by which often the Reason of a thing is rendred by a Causal Rationality As also in other Languages There are such Conjunctions Rational Sometimes it sets out such a Probation as is by way of Special Declaration of that which before was spoken of in a more general position other times it is a rational transition of another Member of two or of more things propounded Sometimes it is a rational repeating of a Sentence begun a little before and it doth absolve and complete it though by another manner of Speech to mention no more Still it is a Rational All which do well agree here The Believing Israelites had their Work and Labour and then their Rest ensued thereupon when they entred into the Typical Land of Promised Rest and quietly enjoyed it when they had subdued their Enemies And so shall Believers after their Working-Labouring-Season is over here enter into that Promised Rest of which the other was a Type So did Believers who died in the Faith under the Old Testament-dispensation of Grace So do Believers now who so live and so die And so will Believers in the Ages after us As for the Import of the change of the Number from the Plural to the Singular which the Objector would fetch about to his own purpose thus The
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 Heaven and they drank of Christ in their Water from the Rock By the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ they did believe to be saved the same way as Believers do now Peter put no difference between them and us but only in the manner of dispensing What shall I say more of all the Signs and Seals under that Administration of the free favour of Jehovah Aelohim towards his Covenant people What was all this but a Gospel-Teaching an applying of the Covenant Take but off the Veil from them and they appear much with a face of shining Grace Was not the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's death under that dispensation of Grace He was the Lamb slâ—in from the Foundation of the World so he is said to be in the Revelation Christ's satisfaction and intercession was available for his Covenant people in Moses's time The Book it self wherein Moses did write all the Words of Jehovah is called The Book of the Covenant This Book on the Altar was sprinkled with blood to be sanctified thereby which blood is also called The blood of the Covenant The people also were sprinkled with the blood of the Covenant in the sprinkling of the twelve Pillars which did represent them that is the twelve Tribes This Covenant or Testament at Horeb as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews hath observed and declared was not dedicate without blood These were Patterns Anti-types and the Types must answer the one to the other of the heavenly things and they were purified by the blood of those Sacrifices signifying that the LORD Christ by his death should sanctifie his people unto himself by the blood of the New Testament in a clearer manner of dispensing and fuller measure of accomplishing though otherways one and the same Covenant of Grace Moses called upon the people to behold this which Scripture is explained in what is written to the Hebrews this is the Blood of the Covenant or of the Testament which God hath commanded unto you Thus was the Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament confirmed by the Blood of Beasts exactly answering unto the same Covenant of Grace under the New Testament which was confirmed by the Blood of Christ There was free remission of sins acceptation of the person and of the service for in the through Christ then as there is now All the Prophets do give witness unto Christ that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins This doth further appear in Moses's repeating over in the latter part of his Book the same Covenant which Jehovah Aelohim made with his people at Sinai wherein he doth at large discover how much rich Grace and free Love a God in Christ had manifested towards that people in Covenant with him The Book commonly called Deuteronomy is a second Declaration of the same Covenant of Grace repeated renewed with their Children renewed with Israel the same made before only with some clearer Revelation of Christ and of Blessings by him and of inlarged explained promises It was the same Covenant of Grace which was also solemnly renewed with and by the people of God at their return from the Captivity of Babylon as may be seen in the Records of Ezra and of Nehemiah The same Covenant of Grace also which the LORD makes with his people in Christ now And the same which he will revive and renew with the new formed created people in the latter days Who shall not so break Covenant as those Israelites in the Wilderness of old did but shall be more stedfast and faithful to God who will be so graciously in Covenant with them Those promises in Jeremiah repeated in the Epistle to the Hebrews are if not peculiarly yet at least chiefly made to the house of Israel the ten Tribes as well as Judah have their part in them Ephraim setting out the Israelites of the ten Tribes They shall come from the North and be generally called an innumerable multitude they shall dwell in their Cities in their own Country their City of Jerusalem shall be re-edified their Estate shall be flourishing and happy to perpetual continuance with such other things as were never yet throughly fulfilled Which cannot be meant of their coming out of the Captivity at Babel The promises relating to the New Testament Dispensation And all this shall be in the last days by which words this great Mystery is usually expressed This will yet further be evidently demonstrated in that this Prophetie and Promise was renewed and revived several years after Christs Ascension into Heaven as is clear by the mention of it in that Epistle to the Hebrews and in several places of the Revelation For the contrary to all this was some few years in the same generation or age after Christ's death the Jew 's were unchurched the City and the Temple were destroyed according to Christ's foretelling in what is written in that Book of his Generation All and every of the particulars expressed in the renewed Covenant were before under that Dispensation in Moses's time They are also now made good unto this present Dispensation according to the manner and measure of Administration as the All-wise God saw and sees fit which will be more clearly manifested and more fully accomplished in the last times And with this Prophetie both the Old and New Testament are closed Let all and every of the Particulars pass under a Scripture-Examination Will Christ give his Laws in the mind of his people and write them in their hearts So he did under the Old Testament-dispensation The same thing was fulfilled towards and in a Covenant-people then Thus in Moses's Writings Jehovah Aelohim speaks to his People these words The Ten Words written in the Two Tables of Stone which I commanding thee this day shall be in thy heart These are the fleshly Tables wherein they shall be written Thus the Psalmist in his time in his describing the Just man saith The Law of his God is in his heart it shall not stagger his steps The Prophet Isaiah thus sets out the people of God They are a People in whose heart is this Law It was Solomon's advice in his Proverbs My Son forget not my Law but let thine heart keep my Commandments Write them upon the table of thine heart And again a second time in another place My Son keep my sayings and lay up my Commandment with thee Keep my Commandments and live write them upon the table of thine heart Hath the LORD promised that he will be for or to a God to his people This was performed under the Old Testament I have already shewed that it is expresly put into the Ten Words several times In Moses's time Jehova's people had avouched or had made to say him to be unto them for a God They owned and acknowledged him to be thus in Covenant with them for the confirming of their Faith and for the increase of their Obedience I
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
there it were to be cut off and so cease to be a Sign For it takes in all the parts of Time all the spaces of Duration it has been a Sign it is now a Sign and it will be a Sign And in the other place the latter Verse doth take in the past Time which they render â—uturely In the former Verse it is Infinitive and Indefinite Thus the Seventh-day-Sabbath is a Sign between Jehovah and his Covenant-people that they are a separate sanctified people a special token of his distinguishing kindness unto such as are inwardly in Covenant with him and some ways a Priviledge even to those who are as yet but outwardly in Covenant with him as it brings them under the Instituted Ordinances of that Day The Seventh-day-Sabbath in a Documental Sign giving Institution in this Pledge of Christ's Love who having been the Creator is the Redeemer too and will be sanctification to his Covenant-people who are in a special manner his new created peculiarly redeemed and separatedly sanctified Ones As this Seventh-day-Sabbath has its Nature Institution Use and End put into Scripture-Revelation so it is a peculiar Sign to those unto whom this Word-discovery is made especially when to their inner man and will be such to the Worlds end to all and every of those who are so choicely favoured It is a witnessing evidencing Sign to know this where Spiritual-Worshippers are Right Sabbath-keepers Were there a more Universal-holy-through growing-Conformity in Knowledge and in Obedience to this and to every other just holy and good Law of Jehovah Aelohim experience would prove to spiritual senses what Faith is to believe from Word-Revelation that the Weekly Seventh day-Sabbath would be such a Sign as would the holy Spirit of the LORD witnessing together with a renewed Spirit in the Saints point out unto them and declare in them that such are some of Jehovah's peculiar people in special Covenant with them like as the holy Fruits of the regenerating Spirit are such a notifying-testifying certifying Sign of translation from death to life This is a Sign which doth still continue O who will give that there were more of this evidencing Sign as to the natural Seed of such of Israel of old as were spiritualized and new born so to the Spiritual Seed of Israel now that there is a mutual convenanting and communion between Jehovah Aelohim and such a people of his that they might know him to be theirs and themselves to be his This is a Sign that is still put into a Promise and will even now and in after days be made good to right Spiritual Observers of Jehovah's weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath A Sign to know here is one great End and special Use of this Sign which is also a lasting-standing continued one that Jehovah doth sanctifie such and is their God Whoever he be that can well evidence an Universal Obedience and Conformity to an whole Christ and his whole Word particularly as to his due sanctifying of the weekly seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath of Jehovah his God which would much influence and operate upon all other Religion would have Aelohim's Covenanted-Love more manifested to him by the incouraging Sign it would be a token to him for this and for much other good It is promised and it would be injoyed actually injoyed for the present even now and this Spiritual Rest with Christ in God here would by improving of Mystical-membership in relation to the Glorified Ones above be some beginning of that eternal Sabbatism in Heaven Thus a Natural Duty is sometimes made a Sign of a Spiritual Priviledge Against this it hath been further objected that Circumcision is called a Sign of the Covenant between Jehovah Aelohim and his Covenant people in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God unto them And so is the Seventh-day-Sabbath called a Sign between Jehovah and his people throughout their Generations which they were to observe throughout their generations for an everlasting Covenant between him and the Sons of Israel it a Sign for ever And therefore they were to cease together For Answer to this in the General Here is a Fallacy of Composition and Division by taking some things severally and apart which are to be taken conjoynedly and by taking other things conjoynedly which are to be taken apart Some things here would be well divided and severed which are ill joyned and other things would be well joyned which are ill divided Here the divided sense must be separated from the compounded and the compounded sense from the divided There is another Fallacy in the comparing of these two Circumcision and the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath Because it is not of the same thing in the same manner according to the same part to the same person and thing in the same time And there is a translation from one kind to another Though in some thing these two do more generally agree yet in other things they do specially differ which doth discover both a deceit and a defect a confusedness and a captiousness in the Objector This will further open it self by a more particular distinct considering of what doth follow All Signs are not mutable or changeable Signs to end with the Old Testament Dispensation Sun Moon and Staâ— have been are and will be to the end of this World natural and instituted Signs These Luminaries are Witnesses of God's faithfulness in his Covenant to Generation of Generations Thus also are Day and Night such a Sign The Rain-bow whenever it doth appear is to be a Sign to the Worlds end a Sign or Token of God's Covenant with mankind that he will no more drown this whole Earth with Water Jehovah's weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath has been already manifested to be both a Natural Instituted and notifying Sign Such an immutable unchangeable Sign as that Jehovah Aelohim will in no Generation not even under this New Testament Administration put an end to his sanctifying of his people Whereas Circumcision was a Typical Mutable Changeable Sign which passed into it more spiritual and heavenly Antitype when the Old Testament Dispensation was brought to its accomplish perfected End All Signs are not laid aside under the new Dispensation The Signs mentioned before even the Luminaries Day and Night the Rain bow So also the Seventh-day Sabbath were Signs under the Old and do still continue to be Signs under the New Testament admiâ—â—â—â—ration Such a Sign Circumcision is not as to that of the Foreskin of the Flesh for this doth cease So that Circumcision was another kind of Law than the Natural Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath The Type and Figure of fleshy Circumcision was Temporary and Changeable This Sign which was the Seal of the Covenant of Grace did belong to other sorts of Laws to the Ceremonial Law as it was Typical Figuring and Shadowing and so doth widely differ in the whole kind from the Natural Law of the ten Words whereof this of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath is one
Instruments Meats and to other things It is also applyed to the Seventh-day Sabbath which Aelohim did sanctifie for holy Uses and to no other day of the whole week as such at the first Creation according to the Nature of its Essence in the order of its being before those after superadded Ceremonies and Shadows So that in this sense Right Reason would inform all reasonable men and women in the World that the Seventh the last day in every week has a concreated adaptness to be a day of holy Rest for the worship of their Maker and that they themselves should be an holy people separated to the service of the holy God Though his Church and People are thus sanctified and severed from other people by Jehovah in a peculiar especial manner his Elect yet more especially As for the Law of the ten Words if we look upon it in its superadded Ceremonies and some such other intermixed Annexes so it had somewhat peculiarly belonging to the Israelitish Church and people in Moses's time and to those of other Nations who were prosâ—lited to that Ceremonial Typical way under that Administration Whereas we under the New Testament have another manner of Dispensation of the same Grace in a more spiritual heavenly glorious way Although this Typical Figuring part made no real change even of old upon the Law of the ten Words If this be considered as it is an absolute and perfect Rule of Life comprehending all duties whatsoever and being that Image and Samplar unto which all mankind at the beginning in their representative Head were created in Wisdom in Holiness and in Righteousness which was afterwards promulgated and proclaimed by Jehovah Christ with a Covenant of Grace intermingled so it is that Law of Nature which inlightned Intellect or right Reason doth teach some notions whereof are still retained even now in man's fallen corrupted estate There are some Seeds of those Eternal Truths and Things some common principles of good and of evil both for the knowledge of God and of his Service and for those Duties which we owe unto our selves and unto our Neighbours This is born and bred with reasonable man every one doth carry it about with him every one coming into this World is inlightned therewithal which Remnants of this Law do serve for many good uses and purposes in civil converse amongst men and for some other ends In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath is given to the whole World All mankind had it in their common representative the first Adam clearly fully perfectly and have still some Relicks of it left within them by the Law of Nature in the Light of Reason demonstrated by concreated Principles the foundations and grounds of which are knowable by Humane Intellect In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh day Sabbath is given to the whole World all mankind had it in their common representative and have still some indwelling Notions of it left within them This Law in some parts of the natural Duties of it may yet by the Institution of Jehovah Aelohim be a sign of some mystical thing signified which doth make any real change in the natural Duty it self this standing still in its due force as before but it may have something further significant in it by the LORD 's special appointment As the State Duty and Priviledge of Marriage in the fifth and seventh Words Instituted in Paradise doth figure the great Mystery of that Mystical Union which is between Christ and his Church People come next to be considered People are sometimes in some Scriptures more especially taken for the Israelites and the Jews These are sometimes in the plural Number called Peoples This People had some peculiar Priviledges beyond other Peoples particularly as to the kingly manner of proclaiming and revealing the Law of the ten Words more in their sight and hearing at Mount Horeb and as to some things afterwards annexed to it which was the Pattern in the Mount Thus Jehovah's holy Sabbath was made known unto the Israelites after another manner than to other Nations Whilst they walked by this Rule of Life they were a wise and prudent people But when they transgressed greatly they were a rebellious people The Israelitish people so constituted as it then was are called The people of God The people of the God of Abraham These had some distinguishing favours in that day People in some other Scriptures are some times taken for all Nations besides Israel and besides those other Lands who were brought over to the true Religion Thus the Uncircumcised Nations strangers from the Covenant of God Indels profane and ungodly they also are called People and the People of the Earth and the abominable People Though these whilst such did not share in choice special Church-Priviledges yet some ways they had the Law of the ten words and amongst others the Law of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath particularly As this Law of the Decalogue is the natural concreated Law There are divers Records in Humane Authors for those to search after who are curious in such Disquisitions which do evidence that the Seventh-day Sabbath was generally observed by the Pagans as the weekly Holy Day The remaining Relicks of their Natural Life and Right Reason dictating the equity of this Law which also might be traditioned down to them The Pagan Idolaters so far conforming to the Laws and Practice of the Church of God They acknowledged the Seventh-day as more holy and owned its Rest from labour And the Ethnick Doctors in this way of teaching would Philosophize only on the Seventh-day Sabbath Then did they frequent their Temples and then some of them sung their Hymns to their Idol God These Precepts of the Decalogue were the Law of our Creation they are the natural Dictates of the Humane Essence in its rational Exercise ingraft Notions concreated Characters wrought into the essential composition of our natural Being the Sanction whereof has more or less a living impression in the Humane Existence The very order of the Days in the first created Week did teach the observation in the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and made it a part of the Law of Nature Aelobim's Method in the Creatures Production which did so dispose of his Works and of his Rest hath confirmed this Order in laying its foundation in created Beings And this is a very forcible way of right arguing used by the LORD himself in his Word in divers cases The six forgoing Days of the Week for Work and the seventh the last Day of the Week for Rest These were from the beginning of the Creation Designed they were thus originally appointed by the Creator himself and so laid as a standing Law upon the Rational Creatures The natural equity whereof man's Representative in Adam readily submitted and subjected and conformed to there being both
distinguish that which the Objector did tumble into a confused heap and then from thence he drew wrong inferences He should better have bethought himself that when he would speak of the nature and Essence of a thing as particularly of a Sign or Ceremony and doth so define it that according to his own philosophical way all definitions of any thing should be universal or universally agreeing to the thing defined where-ever it is found it must be universally affirmed of that thing where-ever it hath a Being Whereas it is discovered that there is a Sign of Sanctification which yet is not so in his sense There are some natural Signs of this of sanctified Seasons separate for holy Services The Heavenly Luminaries were are and will be such Signs There is a notifying testifying-certifying Sign of Sanctification Both these the Weekly Seventh-day Sabbath has been is and will be It doth bespeak Holiness in the Nature and Being in the Name and Thing of it to the due observers of it and therefore doth widely differ from that which is meerly Ceremonial And both these Signs are Signs to all mankind O how special a gift was this Law of the k Seventh day Sabbath A choice favour One of the precious Mercies as to the Law To have all holy Rest even here in and with the LORD For unto this doth it Call To lodge in the bosom and heart of the Messiah O how delightful O how good O how pleasant I now return unto a further passage in a former another from this last Objector The next Particular to be demonstrated is that the new Worship was Typically signified in the figuring Pattern of old So that neither doth this make any change at all upon the weekly Sabbath to make it pass from one day of the Week unto another from the seventh to the first For as for that Typical Figuring Worship which was a part of the Pattern under that Administration in Types Shadows Figures and Rites which was performed on the Seventh-day Sabbath that way of Worship by Sacrifices of Lambs by Meat and Drink offerings Incense and such like as to this part these were perfected and accomplished in and by Christ when born of the Virgin Mary when living dying rising ascending But the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath stands firm as one of the ten Words which are another sort of Laws that do abide for ever This Epistle to the Hebrews doth expresly affirm that the Spiritual Heavenly things of this New Testament of Glory were in the Pattern under the Old The parts of Worship now were then only in a more shadowy figuring manner and therefore you may find the same things as well as words transferred out of the Old into the New Testament Only spiritualized in the new As Priest Propitiatory Altar Sacrifices Offerings Incense and many such like Had this Ingager on the side for the cause of the first Day given instances in any particulars of VVorship in the place where he speaks of new VVorship it might have been discovered that the same was in the Pattern of Old to which Types then the Antitypes now do directly exactly answer If a skilful experienced Believer would write an exact Commentary upon the first second third fourth fifth and sixteenth Chapters of Levitious not now to mention much more in that Book and in Exodus Numbers and Deuteronomy and take off the Veil from them and give forth the true intended spiritual significant meaning of them by a collating of other suitable Scriptures particularly in the New Testament Every spiritual Discerner may quickly see there was Gospel-worship even then only differently for the manner dispensed The Ceremonies of old were Types and Figures and Shadows instituted of Jehovah Aelohim for these ends amongst others to be signifying Seals of the assurance of Christ's coming in the fulness of time to accomplish them and of those good things which Believers had then have now and shall have in after time in and by him whether they were Administrators of holy Things or particular Saints or the Saints generally all of them These were of old Signs and Seals of Regeneration of Justification of Sanctification of Acceptaon of Salvation and of eternal Life they were shadows of good things to come which shadows did continue until the time of correction at the coming of Christ in the Flesh born of the Virgin Mary which Christ was the Body of these things themselves the express form the summary substance of them They were now to pass into the spiritual things signified as those Typical Figuring signifying sealing Ordinances and Institutions of the New Testament Dispensation of Grace Baptism and the Supper of the LORD do really to believing partakers of them represent glorious things and will do so till Christ come to make all things new The forementioned time of correction did then eminently begin when Christ first openly shewed himself to be the same Messiah the same God manifested in the flesh for he was born a Saviour Of whom all the Prophets had foretold And it had still a further progress as he passed further on in his life fulfilling all Righteous Observances as afterwards by his Death and Resurrection The thorough perfection of which time of correction was when he ascended up into the Heavens The Holy of Holies there So that if we speak of God thus manifested in the flesh thus was Redemption Work in the Antitype carried on the complete finishing thereof was upon Christ's going up to his Father from Earth to Heaven For then and not till then was the thorough completed consummation of the Old Testament Administration and then and not till then was the full perfect initiation of the New Testament Dispensation as the Author of this Epistle to the Hebrews doth expresly declare it If men will lay any more stress and weight in their arguing about this to any particular time and day then the very form and the true Existence and real Essence and the consummating Consecration of that Priesthood of Christ which did set an end to and did put down the Aaronical and Levitical Priesthood before which the whole of the Antitypical Work of Redemption so far as it did relate to the Priestly Office of Christ the Mediator between God and Man was not perfectly filled up This doth stand and consist in those things which do belong unto the Ascension of our LORD Jesus Christ into Glory For whilst Christ was on Earth there were other Priests which offered gifts according to the Law of the Pattern who did serve unto the Pattern and Shadow of Heavenly things of Heaven it self and so long Christ had not the former typical Priesthood so unchangeably unpassingly to any other passing into him as the Antitype so long as he remained on Earth he was not such an High Priest as the Author of this Epistle doth plainly word it into which Heaven Christ did therefore ascend to
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
World made known in every Nation to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews all Mankind being concerned therein as to their Eternal Estate so that if as Adversaries have confessed it were the Gentiles Duty to observe the Law of the ten Words as soon as these were made known unto them which have so much of self-evidence in them commending themselves to every man's conscience at first view we take then their own concession and would improve what they grant for their own conviction that seeing besides what was made manifest to Gentile Nations of these Laws before Moses's time there were many present at the very time of Promulgation of the Decalogue of Mount Sinai and who knows how many more might hear the sound of Christ's Voice at that time and there was one and the same Law to Israelite and to Gentile and seeing in the after-dispersions of the Israelites and Jews unto the several Nations into all Nations these Laws were published abroad among the Gentiles that therefore the Gentiles also who had or at least might have had the knowledge of these Laws were under the obligatory power of them Come we now to the New Testament This doth not run in the stile nor carry the form of enacting new Laws which were never before but as to the Matter in hand it doth confirm and established the Old Law of the ten Word This was the constant Doctrine of Christ when he spake to this subject This Decalogical Doctrine and Rule of Life was not at all disanulled or any way dissolved by this Lawgiver but he made it to stand firmly in his place and to preach the good old Gospel of Reconciliation through his Name he being that very Messiah who was foretold of should come in the flesh born of a Virgin and to declare the sound old Doctrine of Faith for the comfort of such converted Souls as turned from sin to a Saviour and so obtained Justification and Salvation by Faith in Christ which was the same in all ages of the Church under the several dispensations of Grace unto all and upon all that believe which Truth hath Testimony from the Law and from the Prophets This Law of the ten Words the Apostles by Commission from the LORD Jesus Christ commend and command to all rational Creature as a Rule of Life in their Preaching and Uniting to the Gentile Nations not as by way of new constituting and re-enacting of Laws as if they had been no Laws to them before but reviving and re-inforcing of these old Laws upon their Conscience and this they often bring in especially Paul sometimes to prove a Doctrine othertimes convincingly to reprove for a sin or reformingly to correct some Error or Vice or chastizingly to instruct some Duty of Holiness and Righteousness according as the particular occasions for these were taking it for granted that they were a Directory for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews The Apostles when they preached to Jew or Gentile before the New Testament was written were it a Doctrine or a Duty or what else which they pressed upon the hearers still they proved what they taught out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament as that which did and doth bind I speak of the Law of the ten Words both Jew and Gentile this was a part of that word-foundation on which all the Jewish and Gentile Churches were built Examine we some passages in the Epistles to this end There were Gentiles in the Church at Rome and Paul in his writing to them doth evidently declare That they were under the Obligation of those Commandments which were delivered from God by Moses giving particular instances in several of the Laws of the ten Words as the Marginal references will inform And commending of this Law in the general at large There were Gentiles in the Church at Corinth and Paul in his first Epistle to them doth convince them both of sin and duty from what was written in the Law of Moses There were Gentiles in the Church of Galatia yet Paul doth convince them of their guilt and cursedness whilst they were in their sinful state from those things which were written in the Book of the Law and sheweth them the necessity of Faith as to Justification which he proveth out of the writings of an Old Testament Prophet and as for Love he declares unto them that all the Law is fulfilled in one Word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self which was the same Doctrine with that of Moses and of Christ There were Gentiles in the Church at Ephesus yet was that Church built upon the foundation of the Prophets of the Old Testament whose writings were much of them a Commentary upon the Law of the ten Words as well as under the Apostles of the New he urgeth upon them obedience to the Decalogical Law and particularly doth single one out of the Ten about honouring of the Father and the Mother which was the first Commandment of the second Table with promise An industrious Reader and a diligent observer may quickly carry this through the New Testament and spare me the further labour by his own unprejudiced ingenuity The Gentiles as well as the Jews are in their natural corrupt state in Sin and under the Curse which sin is a Transgression of this Law The Light of Nature in the Gentiles especially when rightly and throughly informed by the Word of God approves of every one of the Laws of the ten Words There is but one only Lawgiver who has mere and direct Empire over the consciences of all Mankind even Jehovah Aelohim who is able to save and to destroy according as men obey him or not And there is one only perfect Rule of Life to which all thoughts words and actions should be conformed and by which we shall be judged at that last Great Day even the Word of God the ten Words summarily this is the chief the principle the supreme Directory Whatsoever is written in the heart of the Pagans so far as it is right is concordant unto this Law The Will of the LORD concerning what is or is not to be done which way soever he has revealed it to all or to any of Mankind is still the same with this holy righteous Law when ever he has signified to man what his requirements from man in these matters are Unto his Will must the will of all Mankind be conformed all Mankind is always bound to will that which God would have them to will all Mankind who have the use and the exercise of right Reason cannot but acknowledge that the two great comprehensive Summaries of the ten Words do bind them all which are To love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves all are reduced to this bipartite Universal Law Though the LORD variously reveal his Will and his Word for
the manner yet his Will and his Word is one and the same for the Matter That Law of the ten Words which was written on Tables of Stone is the same in the true Nature of it with that which is written in the hearts of men all the ten Words are the prime dictates of right pure Nature as soon as they are offered to a man's mind and cogitations they presently command his assent and consent and require his Faith and Obedience they carry along with them a clear self-evidence leaving no place for doubtingness where the proper signification of the words is sufficiently perceived they are self-credible and shine forth in their own light and authority so consentaneous to innate light is the whole matter of them external Revelations thereof do exactly agree to its internal expressions this Law has been publickly Read and Preached in that Ministery of the Word Which the Church did injoy in all Ages a perpetual means and a blessed Instrument which God hath used for information in what is the Duty of Man for conviction what is sin in Man and for exhortation to all Holiness as an absolute Law and an Universal Rule There never was never will be a repeal of this Law which is so lively an expression and draught of the Holy Righteous Nature of Aelohim himself A perpetual duty has a perpetual binding these Laws are necessary everlastingly and so will the obligation be Though the Preface of this Law be objected by some to be occasional and personal the Law it self is perpetual and binding to all Many of the Posterity of Israel were never literally themselves bond-slaves in Egypt yet this Law bound them some special new peculiar Reason may be brought to inforce a general Duty The Mystical intendment of that Preface doth belong even to us Gentiles For we were delivered in their deliverance we Believers as members of the mystical Body of Christ so we share in their mercies and we also are brought out of spiritual Egypt and even in the Letter it is thus far true as Mitzraim may signifie Distressers or Distresses O who will give that the set time were fully come when both Jew and Gentile shall keep Seventh-day-Sabbath together even all Nations in Jehovah's house which shall be called an house of Prayer How can right reason judge that the Sons and Daughters of men are exempted and freed from acknowledging of Jehovah to be LORD of the Creature which he hath made by giving unto him a due stated proportion of time which is a part of Divine Worship so natural and which hath been assented to and used by Mankind since the beginning of the World And that there might be no mistake about the separate appropriate time for his weekly Worship he himself hath plainly expresly prescribed the Seventh day for the Weekly Sabbath in his Word and stamped it upon Created Nature that all Mankind in the use of lawful appointed means might come to the true knowledge of it and might agnize him in the due observation of it keeping this instituted time with a discriminative regard using it with a select and distinct respect from the other foregoing days of the same Week for the solemn Celebration of the Worship of God The Sabbath was made for Adam for Man as Man therefore for all men all men being in Adam The Seventh-day-Sabbath had its being given it and its end assigned it even for the good of Mankind it was made born and brought forth for this purpose it was for this that it did exist and come abroad into the created World And was made that Man might do it as an holy Sabbath day Hutterus in his Hebrew on that place in Mark has it thus in to pass over to this Adam not for the very being of Man as a day of rest is some ways necessary every Week after the six foregoing days of labour but also for Man's well being it being necessary for holy Worship and Services for Priviledge and Communion made also for ease rest and benefit of r other Creatures in their kind in reference to Man It is the Seventh-day that passeth under the command in the orderly weekly Revolutions and Successions of time Where-ever all the inhabited Earth over there is a Seventh-day weekly there that people are under the Authority of this Precept whatever the variation be as to the several beginnings and endings of the days in the several climates and this is natural in every Country where ever Nights and Days and Weeks are measures of daily and of weekly time even from the beginning Where-ever the Darkness began there began the Evening and where-ever the Light began there began the Day part of the natural Day which was more especially pointed out after the creating of the Sun Moon and Stars on the Fourth Day before the Seventh-day Sabbath As for those Objectors who quarrel at their scriptural natural command by their supposition that under the seventieth and so onward to the nintieth degree the day continues in one place about two Months together in another about four Months and in another about six Months out right these Calenders upon their own supposition should inquire whether ever the LORD did appoint such places for habitation unto Mankind What Genealogies concerning persons and pedegrees are there to be found in those places if there be no exact computation of Time God having afore appointed the Times what Geography is there in such Climates as to Habitations or measurings out of the limits of several Nations He having appointed the bounds of Habitations That Scripture in the Acts forecited in the Margin makes mention of all the face of the Earth the Face-part is habitable by Divine appointment that which faceth the Sun in its going and coming There is Non-inhabited un-inhabitable Earth spoken off by the Prophet Jeremiah who a little after that doth make mention particularly of the Seventh-day Sabbath It should therefore be examined by these Contenders whether all Mankind should not dwell there where Sabbaths may unquestionably be kept without any such strifes of disputations and where the means of saving Knowledge and of sanctifying Grace are injoyable As for the people of half-year-night and of half-year-day or of any people near either the North or South Pole where some say is continual Day-light for many years together Where do the holy Scriptures make mention of any such people whom the LORD would have so to measure their time they are Scripture-days which we must stick to and reckon by A Day is not properly merely Time but a well proportioned measure of Time Nights and Days Weeks and Months and Years have their constant motions their successive courses their unchangeable periods and renewed returns In every Nation and Country where-ever men do inhabite they must begin the Seventh day at that time when that Seventh-day doth naturally begin in that place and some of the Objectors do acknowledge that
are said so instantly to serve God Those Countries which were far South where the inhabitants dwelt by the Main Sea as Ethiopia and Arabia dwelt in by the Posterity of Sheba and Seba the Nephew and Son of Cush the Son of Cham the Son of Moab the Queen of Sheba or of the South submitted to Solomon He had Dominion from the Salt Sea the Lake of Sodom to the main Sea the limits of Judaea from the River Euphrates which was Eastward from the River to the Land of the Philistins and to the border of Egypt The Ethiopian Deserts or dry places were subjected to him they bowed down their faces to the ground before him as is the manner in the Eastern Countries Here Christ was preached and his name was filiated that is Christians were there for as a Son continueth his Father name so was Christ's Name there continued in those that believe on him which name of Christians and of Children was long after revived under the New Testament and how were they Christians if they did not profess and practice obedience to Christ's Law of his ten Words Men of all Nations even in Solomon's time counted and spake of Blessedness in Christ in being brought under his Holy and Righteons Laws and in their subjection to him and to them All the Earth was filled with Christ's Glory and the Nations blessed the Name of his Glory Did not Solomon expect that these submitting Nations should receive Laws from the Messiah and was it a reason of any weight or force then to object against the Seventh-day Sabbath because of the different Horizons and Climates From Evening to Evening is the first great Natural measure of a long Day according to Primitive created Order A late Author has brought in some objections against this which do call for some answer The Artificial Day or Day-light saith he was anciently before Israels going out of Egypt counted the beginning or former part of the Natural Day and the Night the later part of the said Natural Day in that when the parts of the Natural Day are mentioned in Scripture before Israels coming out of Egypt the Morning was set before the Night and because at what time soever or hour of the Day-light the Scripture speaks of the following Night it speaks not of the Night as belonging to the Day following but as belonging to the day before going and because our Sunday-Sabbath saith he or LORD's day is the very same day of the week which was anciently observed by the Jews and Gentiles for the solemn day of their solemn weekly Worship beginning at the light part or morning of the day because Israels coming out of Egypt and after that by the Gentiles but Moses put back the account to begin the Sabbath-day at the evening before whereupon they so began their week-days also whereby their Sabbath-day was measured out unto them to be their Seventh-day otherwise their Seventh-day would not have been proportionable to their six days of labour and so Christ reassumed and brought forth all that day-light and put it to the next day with which together with the night following he made a new distinct day by rising early in the morning of that new made day and because the days of the first week of the Created World were creational extraordinary universal daies when it was day it was day over the universal World when it was night it was night every where over the whole Universe both in regard of the beginning and ending of the day and the night Thus he Whereas he doth affirm that when the parts of the natural day are montioned in Scripture before Israels coming out of Egypt the morning was set before the night let the History of the Creation in the beginning of the Bible be read and there it may be found expresly in the very Letter that the Evening is put before the Morning in every one of the six foregoing days of the week the Evening and the Morning were one day the Evening and the Morning were the Second day the Evening and the Morning were the Third day the Evening and the Morning were the Fourth day the Evening and Morning were the Fifth-day the Evening and the Morning were the Sixth day they were then so they have continued to be so they now are so and they ever will be so to the Worlds end as long as such Evenings and Mornings do last this Author endeavoureth to darken the clearness of this evidence by a bold asserting that Moses in writing the Book of Genesis after Israels coming out of Egypt when their day their natural day being to begin at Even did therefore also so set it down in his History of the Creation For saith he if Moses should have said the Morning Gen. 1. The morning and the evening was the first second third fourth fifth sixth seventh day putting the Morning before the Evening he might have seemed thereby to have disliked the said change appointed by God as aforesaid of making the evening the beginning of each day after their coming out of Egypt Thus he reasoneth and yet acknowledge that Moses was inspired by the appearance of God to him but this arguing doth carry no probation along with it they are not right words and so have no forcibleness with them would the Penmen of this Holy Writ which was dictated to him by the Holy Spirit speak and write quite contrary to the created Nature of Darkness and of Light lest he should seem to dislike a pretended charge Especially this Author saying though without proof that such a change was appointed by God was there any just cause and good reason for such a man of God to dislike any of God's appointments of all the Prophets that arose in Israel was there any like unto Moses whom Jehovah Aelohim knew face to face The things which Moses wrote were they his own No but the Law of the LORD by his hand Did not the after-Prophets bear witness to this Moses had not Moses Letters Testimonial from the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of All that he spake and wrote That which Moses said was it not the Commandment of God Hath not Christ willed y to hear this Moses which if any do not neither will they be perswaded though one rise from the dead What God spake unto Moses doth not God spake the same unto us that which Moses did say is it not as much as Moses wrote unto us Was not Moses faithful in all Christs house What would the Infallible holy Spirit dictate according to the disliking fears of man and not according to the true nature of created beings Whereas he further saith that at what time soever or hour of the day-light the Scripture speaks of the following night it speaks not of the night as belonging to the day following but as belonging to the day before going I answer that in those
Scriptures which he doth cite where the word Aemesh is used some of the best Lexicographers and Translators do render it past time and the Past night As for the LORDS appearing to Isaac The same night or that self same night there is nothing either expressed or implyed in this that doth say it was the night belonging to the immediate preceding day light neither any such thing in the forementioned Scriptures in the margin but that self same night doth point out that eminent remarRable night of Jehovans appearing to Isaac to encourage him against his fears promising unto him his presence blessing of him and confirming his faith in the multiplication of his seed the place in Numbers has a quite contrary proof to what this Author doth bring it in for For this morrow did make up the self-same-day with the foregoing Night as may be discerned if that Scriptures cited in the Margin be compared with it That self-same-day That same which followed after in time did belong to that Night that very Night that same For otherwise the Israelites did not come out of Aegypt in one day but in part of one day and in part of another day the same Passover day which began at even was the day of their going out and this Author confesseth that the Natural day began at even when the Israelites were come out of Aegypt The night was made the former part of such a day This was prophesied of four hundred years or more before the full accomplishment thereof That place which he doth urge out of Samuel doth shew that Saul had an intention to have David to be slain in the Morning if he did not make an escape in the Night but that it should therefore hold forth the Morning of another natural day to which the foregoing night did not belong is this Authors meer saying without any evidence in this place Those expressions in Matthew and in James To Morrow doth signifie the time coming but how can this convince us that This To Morrow doth demonstrate the Natural day to begin in the Morning for we have the same expression in the significancy of it in Hebrew above threescore times in the Old Testament after the Israelites coming out of Aegypt relating some to Religious others to Civil affairs in which time this Author doth acknowledge that the Night was made the former part of the Natural day amongst which these in the Margin are some so that even Then as to Civil affairs the Israelites did not commonly account the Artificial day of day light to be the former part of the Natural day which though sometimes asserted by this Author is yet elsewhere in the same Treatise contradicted by him when he confesseth the week days had the same measure even then with the seventh day Sabbath which began at even so that how to reconcile such contrary sayings to one matter I discern not much less to reconcile them both to the Scriptures of truth when men do forget in one part of a book what they write in some other part of it inconsistent with a former passage His other Scriptures out of Exodus Leviticus and Numbers do not witness what he doth bring them into the court for seeing although the Day-part be set in order of place in those citations before the night-part yet this doth not there testifie that therefore the Day-part must in order of Nature and of Time be before the Night-part in the Natural-day for divers other Scriptures do place the Night before the Day and that after Israel came out of Aegypt when he himself owneth the Natural-day to begin at even The same we may also find in the New Testament both before and after Christs resurrection after which this Author would have the morning of the Natural-day to be in time before the Evening of it He that would be informed in the true right order must resort to the first established Law in primitive created Nature and in Scripture determinations when this case is professedly treated of and therefore both in the Hebrew and in the Greek when both the parts of a Natural day are joyned together in one Word the Evening and the Night are put before the Morning and the day So that there is no putting back by Moses nor bringing forward by Christ the account of Nights and of Days but they have all along continued as they were at the first made by the unchangeable Laws of the Creation For hereby doth the LORD prove the unchangeableness of his Covenant of Grace The first Creational days and week were the just measure of every after week and of the days thereof in the ordinary course succession and revolution and particularly the fourth fifth sixth and seventh days of that first created week were measured out by the heavenly luminaries and the three foregoing days of that week were of the same nature As to evening darkness and night going before the after morning light and day all and every of the seven days of that week As days were such as the after-days and were the measure of after-days in their stated order it was night and day in the several parts of the earth as it is now the well setled frame of the standing statute of created Nature is not to be inverted Could not did not the creating Aelohim carry the foregoing created evening darkness and night and the following morning light and day in the same moments of time to cause the same beginnings continuings and endings of nights and of days wheresoever and whensoever it is night and day any where in any part of the earth then as it is now Darkness and light were severed then both in nature and in time this Author doth acknowledge a revolution of them on the first created day and that the night was before the day in one Hemisphere From this part of the earth is the Scripture account in the opposite part it is Sea by his own arguing it could not be night every where at the same time for light was in the other Hemisphere and so the first day did not every where begin at the same time for it could not be day where it was evening and dark nor night where it was morning and light thus has he intangled himself in his own net of humane reasoning which he so spread to have catched seventh-day-sabbath observers If when Sun Moon and Stars were created and put into their moving walks on the fourth day they made an universal day that so all seven might in a just proportion of length and number answer to one another as he affirmeth Then at the same time it was night in some parts at full noon when the Sun shone in its strength and the light was clearest and fullest and then also it was day in some parts at the mid of night when it was darkest as the two parts of a natural day are distinguished and yet
both these he asserts to be an universal day contrary to Scripture and Nature he saith a little after that Sun setting was in some places on the fourth day before Sun-rising and therefore it may be inferred according to this concession that it was night in some places when it was day in other places in other places it was Sun-rising before it was Sun-setting he who would make it otherwise in respect of the wide earth must take this Authors bare words for it without any proof our weeks and the days thereof here in England are as the first week and the days thereof were at the first creation of this part of the earth unless he can evidence that it was since that brought hither from some other part of the earth and if he could do that yet it would make nothing for the proving of his main general assertion whilst the main of the present inhabited earth doth stand firmly in the same place where it was at the first before it was inhabited There is one part of his objection which doth expect to have somewhat replyed to it wherein he thus argueth and reasoneth our Sunday sabbath saith he is the very same day of the week which was anciently observed by Jews and Gentiles for the solemn day of their solemn weekly worship beginning at the light part or morning of the day before Israels coming out of Aegypt and after that by the Gentiles and since Christs time by Gentil pagans and by Gentil-Christians thus far he the proof whereof he referreth us to some humane Authorities having quite contrary humane histories which do relate a different practice some whereof I am upon this occasion even necessitated to point unto for it is Scriptural Authority and Law and created nature and order which we resort unto for the proof of our position and therefore the Reader is here desired to bear a little herewith seeing I am even driven into it so many several Treatises having been sent and brought unto me which some are under a temptation to misjudge to be unanswerable unless somewhat be said and written to stop the mouths of such gain-sayers The Pagan Sun worshippers kept Sunday as this and other days of the week have their heathenish names still kept up besides the word and contrary to it the Jews kept Saturday for the Heathen charged the Jews that they worshipped Saturn for their God so doth one Historian record because they kept the seventh day which the Pagans had consecrated to Saturn Another called the Rest or quietness or leasure time of the Sabbaths Saturnin chairs or chairs of Saturn and therefore the Christians Sunday Sabbath is not the same day of the week observed by the Jews the Pagans did draw the Ionic or Asiatic Jews into their Civil Courts on the seventh day which the Jews complained of to him that was the Superior Power in Civil Government A learned Lexicographer makes Sunday the first and Saturday the seventh day of the week among Pagans The Warring Pagans both before Christs being born of a Virgin and also since did purposely assault the Jews in fight on the seventh-day The Pagans did scoff at the Jews Sabbath of which we have an account given in Scriptures and humane histories do also speak and write the same when the Christians complyed with the corrupt practice of the Pagans the Pagans charged the Christians that they were worshippers of the Sun because they kept and observed the first day of the week their Sunday The Christians do generally call the first-day of the week the Sunday and their Sabbath-day as this objector doth whereas Saturday has the name of Sabbath in all their Law Books in the English Ancient Records This objector doth confess that their Sunday-sabbath could not be the Jews Saturday-sabbath so that if there were no change of the day of the week from the seventh the last to the first in Moses's time which this Author calleth the seventh day all his building is upon the sand and doth totter and fall Another great Antiquary doth reckon the seven days of the week according to their course and order Sunday the first and so onwards Saturnday the seventh as most Christians now do the most Ancient Germans being Pagans as having appropriated their first day of the week to the particular adoration of the Sun whereof that day doth yet in our English Tongue retain the name of Sunday the next day was Monday appropriated to the Moon as the second great luminary the third day was Tuesday from Tuisco the reputed god among the Ancient German Pagans the Conductor of the Teutonic people at the confusion of Babel This objector doth confess that Adam knew from the standard of Gods working the six foregoing days and resting the seventh what was a day a week and the boundary thereof that in the state of iunocency the seventh day was Sacred and that this seventh day Sabbath was sanctified by God and celebrated by our first parents in Paradise and that never was the week counted to be more or less than seven days with any people Therefore I infer from hence that Adam kept the weekly seventh-day in order of time from the creation As the weekly Sabbath-day in imitation of the Creators Rest and Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years which observation he left upon record for after-ages the holy Spirit calleth the seventh day the Sabbath day after Christs Ascension into Heaven Many of the Authorities from humane Histories which this objector doth quote do militate for the LORDS seventh day against the Sunday Sabbath of this Author An Ancient Historian of our own witnesseth that the Rest on the seventh day was wont always to be celebrated who is there saith another that doth not honor that sacred day returning each Septenary of seven days neither is there any City of the Greeks saith a third or of the Barbarians nor any nation to whom the custom of the seventh day in which we Rest hath not come The first Fathers saith a fourth being taught of God kept the seventh day holy to God a fifth speaking of the seventh day affirmeth it to have been Venerable and Sacred in all ages among all Nations I might add a sixth seventh eighth and many more one calleth the Dominical day the eight from the Creation Another doth give it the name of the first after the Sabbath a third doth describe it by the beginning of days which a fourth doth call the first day of the week a fifth doth style it in a Sermon of his the first day of the week a sixth nameth it the eighth day which is also it self the first a perfect week In the second Century Christians on the first day of the week worshipping towards the East while they prayed fell into a suspicion of worshipping the Sun Another affirms that God rested when he had finished the former creation and therefore the men of that
22. 39. Rom. 13. 8 9. o Pag. 218. of his Treatise p Exod. 34. 28. Deut. 20. 4. 4. 13. q Mat. 22. 39. 〈◊〉 Luk. 10. 27. r Mat. 7. 12. s Lev. 19. 1â— t Deut. 10. 12 13. u Job 22. 2. w Ephes 5. 2â— 29. x 2 Tim. 3. 2. y Mat. 22. 36 37. 38 39 40. Lev. 19. 17 18. z Rom. 8. 13. Prov. 5. 1â— a Col. 3. 5 8 9 18 19 20 21 2â— 4. 1. b Deut. 30. 6. Jer. 4. 3 4. c Rom. 12. 1. d Mat. 22. 35-40 Mar. 12. 28-34 Luk. 10. 25-28 e Heb. 11. 7. 1 Pet. 3. 20 21. f Heb. 11. 8 9 13 17 18. g Heb 11. 24-27 h Mat. 24. 12. i Mat. 5th 6th and 7th Chapters k Exod. 19th and 20th Chapters Isai 33. 22. Heb. 12. 18 19 24 26. Act. 7. 37 38 39. Psal 68. 8 11 17. 18 20. l Mat. 5. 17 18 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 loose or disâ—bind which that man whatsoever be be dâ—â—b that eicher abrogateth this Law any one of its Commands much more if the â—bole of it or that doth not observe it much more if he affirm 〈◊〉 unlawful to be observed m 2 Cor. 10. 4 〈◊〉 n Mat. 5. o Compare Mat. 4. 5 6 7 8 Chapters particularly Mat. 7. 28. with Mar. 1 21 22. and inquire Whether it were not on the weekly seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath when Christ preached this Sermon at the Mount Wherein he confirmed the whole of this Law of the ten Words p Mat. 6. q Mat. 5. 6 7. Chapters r Mat. 7. 24-27 Luk. 6. 47 48 49. s Exod. 20. 13. Deut. 5. 17. Exod. 20. 14. Deut. 5. 18. Exod. 20. 7. Lev. 19. 12. Deut. 5. 11. Exod. 21. 24. Lev. 24. 20. Deut. 19. â—1 Lev. 19. 18. t Mat. 7. 12. 22. 40. Luk. 6. 31. u John 2 3-6 4. 17. Ephes 5. 1 2. 1 Pet. 2. 21. w Rom. 7. 12 13 14 16 22. 12. 2. Jam. 1. 25 2. 8 9 10 11 12. 1 John 3. 4 Rom. 4. 15. 5. 13. x Rom. 13. 8 9 10. Gal. 5. 14. and in a multitude of other places y Isai 51. 4 5 6 7 7. 42. 4 16 21. Jer. 31. 31-34 Heb. 8. 9-13 Isai 8. 16 20. z Ezek 36. 26 27. Isai 51. 7. 2 Cor. 3. 3 18. Rom. 7. 22. 12. 2 Tit. 2. 11-14 a 2 Thess 2. 8. b Rev. 14. 12. 12. 17. c Mal. 4. 4 5 6. Rev. 22. 14 18 19. d Deut. 4. 1 2. 1â— 32. Prov. 30. 5 6. Josh 1. 7. e Rev. 11. 7. f 1 King 8. 9. Exod. 31. 18. 34. 1 27 28. g Isai 2. 3. h Hos 8. 12. Isai 42. 4 16 21. i 2 Thess 2. 3 8. k Mat. 24. 12. 7. 23. 23. 28. Rom. 4. 7. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 6. 14. 2 Thess 2. 7. Tit. 2. 14. Heb. 1. 9. Tzephan 3. 4. Malac. 2. 9. Heb. 8. 12. 10. 17. 1 John 3. 4. Mar. 15. 28. Luk. 22. 37. Acts 2. 23. 2 Thess 2. 8. 1 Tim. 1. 9. a Pet. 2. 8. 3. 17. l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 o Mat. 22. 40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. 17 18 19. Mat. 19. 17. 2 Pet 2 28. p Jam. 2. 8-12 22. Deut. 8. 1. 5. 31. 6. 1. 11. 22. q 2 Pet. 2. 4. 11. 22. John 5. 19. John 17. 15. 1 John 3. 8. John 8. 44. Mar. 5. 8. Mat. 12. 43 45. r Psal 103. 20 21. 104. 4. Zech. 1. 10 11. 1 Pet. 3. 22. Rev. 19. 10. 22. 9. Mat. 25. 31. Deut. 33. 2 3. Psal 89. 7. s Jam. 2. 8 9 10 11 12. Rom. 3. 19-31 4. 15. 5. 13. 1 John 3. 4. John 12. 48. Rom. 2. 14 15 16. Exod. 12. 38. 20. 10. 23. 12. Lev. 4. 13 〈◊〉 Gal. 3. 10 13. t Eccles 12. 13 14. h Rom. 5. 12 13 14. w Gen. 6. 8 9. ch 10. 2 Pet. 2. 5. Fzek. 14. 14. 20. Heb. 11. 7. x Gen. 17. 4 5 6. Rom. 4. 16 17. Gal. 3. 28 29. Gen. 18. 19 26. 5. y Exod. 16. 28 29 30. z Exod. 12. 28. Numb 11. 4. Deut. 29. 11. Exod. 20. 10. a Exod. â—0 1 c. Job 23 12. 22. 22 Psal 78. 1 2. 119. 13 72 88. Deut. 18. 15 -19 b Jer. 10. 7. c Exod. 12. 37. d Exod. 19. 18 19. 20. 18. Heb. 12. 18 19 20 21 25 26. Deut. 33. 2. Psal 19. 1 10. Rom. 10. 18. Deut. 30. 11-14 Rom. 10 6 7 8. 1 Thess 4. 16. e Psal 68. 8 17 18. 114. 1 2 7. Heb. 12. 18 19 20 21. 25 26. Hag. 2. 7. Deut. 4. 6 7 8 11. f Psal 97. 1-7 Heb. 1. 6. Rev. 4. 5. Psal 97. 5. Judges 5. 5. Mount 〈◊〉 and Hills in the plural number then flowed and melted g Psal 68. 17 18. Ephes 4. 8. h Exod â—2 49. Lev. 24. 2â— Numb 15. 16 19 Gal 3 28. Act. 15. 9 11. Ezek 47. 22 23. Deut. 2. 25. 4. 6 7 8. i 1 King 8 4â— 42 43. k Psal 72. 1-14 1 King 4 â—1 l Mat. 28. 18 19. Acts 1. 8. Col. 1. 5 6. Rev. 11. 15. Psal 2. 1 2 3 6 7 8. m Jer. 1. 10. n Jer. 25. 15-33 o Gen. 6. 8 9. 7. 1. Heb. 11. 7. 2 Pet. 2. 5. p Gen 10. throughout Ch. 11. 10-32 9. 27. q Gen. 17. 5. Rom. 4. 17. Gen. â—6 5. 18. 18 19. r Joh 1. 1 5 6. 2. 2. 23 11 12. 31. 26 27 27 28. s Numb 23. 7. t 2 King 17. 6-18 18 9 12. 1 Chron. 5. 26. * 2 Chron. last Chapter compared with the Books of Ezra and of Nehemiah u Acts 2. 5-11 w Luk. 21. 24. The Jews shall be carryed Captive ouer all Nations x Jam. 1. 1. y 1 Pet. 1. 1. 5. 13. z Mat. 5. 17 19 c. 19. 17 18 19. 12. 36-40 and elsewhere a Rom. 3. 21 22. Acts 15. â—1 Heb. 13. 8. Rev. 13. 8. Gal. 3. 8. Hab. 2. 4. John 14 15. Where is the same expression with the words in the second Commadment Exod. 20. 6. b 1 John 2. 7 8 2 John 5. 5 6. c Rom. 3. 39. 30 31. d Acts 26. 22 23. Rom. 25. 4 Ephes 2. 19 20 21 22. e Rom. 13. 8 9 10. 1. 29 30 31 32. 7. 7 22. f 1 Cor. 9. 9 13. 14. 34. g Gal. 3. 10 11 12. Deut. 27. 26. Hab. 2. 4. Gal. 5. 14. Lev. 19. 18. Mat 2â— 3â— h Ephes 2. 19 20. 6. 1 2 3. i 1 John 3. 4. Rom. 4. 15. 5. 13. k Jam. 4. 12. 2. 8-12 l Psal 66. 6. Hos 12. 3 4. We. Vs m Rev. 11. 8. n Isal 56. 1 〈◊〉 o Mar. 2. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum accusative significat propter ut plurimum sinem notat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p Gen. 2. 3.
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