and not the seventh in order or the last day of the Week This we say is not expresly commanded therein and might be altered for another day of the Seven upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds as it is from it to the first In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue from Mat. 5.17 19. Luke 16.17 and then asks why those places confirm all the 10 Commands and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature which inclines us to be Gods c. when yet he knows that they that are for the change of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments which do amount in their Esteems to a divine Authority for that Change though they do not produce an express Command for it as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet what amounts thereto but it seems all these are not Reasons to him are not so much as Shews of Reasons But the only Reason is Man's Corruption Pride and Rebellion Whereas he cannot but know that many of those who in Doctrin and Practice admit of this Change are as free from these Vices and have as much mortifyed them as himself and are as Eminent for Holiness and Humility and Obedience to God as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be And their Earnestness for the First day does not spring from the Looseness of others thereon nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom But because they know 't is not Moral as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions with many other good and solid Grounds And here I shall ask him by way of requital if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral and by Christ confirmed as well as all the other Commands which are undeniably so Whence comes it to pass that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer either by way of Recommendation of it to them or commending of them for their Zeal for it and tthe strict Observance of it nor yet commanding of its Observance or teaching them how they should Keep and Sanctify it according to its first Institution seeing 't is clear that he in his Discourse doth particularize every other Duty of the Moral Law and Exhorts and Requires Obedience thereto In all his most copious and glorious Sermon upon the Mount where he Explains Enlarges upon and Injoyns the other Moral Duties we have not a Word about their Sabbath and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue he never mentions among them the Sabbath nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees and captions Jews in their condemning him and his Disciples as Profaners of the Sabbath c. to expound the Duty of the Sabbath and to shew them wherein the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto uttered by him only a Vindication of his own and his Disciples Practices from a Profanation thereof If I may judge at the Reasons I think they may be such as these 1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others not Moral as they nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already 3. Because neither they nor we neither Jews nor Gentiles should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day and its Conversion into the First day 5. Because as Place Priesthood Mode outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship which were before his coming into the Flesh were to be altered by his Authority as King of the Church so was Time also the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly observed into another day wherein his own Institutions were to be chiefly and generally practised by his Church And for these and such like Reasons he did not only particularly recommend and enjoyn but did also speak and do as has been formerly hinted and may be futurely evinced such words and things as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day but to a good Intention which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors Bloody Wars c. As though this general Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along since the days of our Lord Christ had no other Foundation but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots and not the least Footing for it in the Word of God An unworthy Suggestion and a most invidious Comparison and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading 'T is strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government Doctrin Worship and Practice of the Church according to the Word of God and the Patern in the Mount should mean as one if not the chiest of those Particulars the removal of the first-day-First-day-Sabbath and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu thereof When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox and his Adversaries in this Opinion prescribe the same rule for the Reformation and call upon those in Authority to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesiastial and Civil to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ And Commenius himself in his Practice and in his own Church was an Observer and Sanctifier of the First-day-Sabbath as he here acknowledgeth so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day And therefore questionless did not esteem the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule according to which he would have all Churches regulated But here we see what a strong fancy can do it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant if not directly contrary thereto SECT VII HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abrogating the Ceremonial Laws But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation as he requires us to do for not the Abrogation but only the Mutation of the Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another For I assert and can prove it that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ than his Seventh-day-Sabbath I take leave to call it his because though 't was Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ yet now 't is not so but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions while they are rigorous towards others and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments In the same Page he gives us a
their Annual Monthly and Weekly Festivals their Annual by Holy days their Monthly by New Moons and so their Weekly by Sabbaths And there was no Weekly Festival but the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath Or if by Holydays we apprehend the Generality of Jewish Festivals because they were all Holydays as long as their First Institution lasted yet then he condescends to some Particulars of them as the Monthly and Weekly which then must necessarily include the Sabbath because that was a Jewish Holy-day Yet again If we should grant that under the last word Sabbaths any other Festivals may be included or meant Yet certainly the weekly-Weekly-Sabbath cannot be excluded being the most famous Analogate comprehended under it and therefore in such an Expression cannot be excepted though sometimes the most famous Analogate be only meant and excludes all others yet never is it it self not intended in such Propositions Withal as we said before of the Galatian Church so we do of the Colossian 't was infected by false Teachers that would make a Mixture of the Jewis and Christian Religion and would have Moses's Rites to be kept with Christ's Ordinances And they know well enough that by Sabbaths was meant the Seventh day seeing 't is always so accepted Whence we may well conclude that here is an express exiling the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of the Church of Church Heretofore we were called upon to shew one Text in which the Seventh-day-Sabbath was abrogated and now we bring an express literal one yet it will not do but many Objections are brought in against it Which we shall successively consider and traverse 1. Some think it must be understood of Ceremonial Sabbaths only because else 't would reach the First-day-Sabbath as well as the Seventh But there is no fear of that for the First day is never called Sabbath in the Scripture and therefore cannot be meant and wee say the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath was both positive and ceremonial for he himself allows it to signify the eternal Rest above 2. He Objects that one place names no Sabbath but only Days the other indeed names Sabbaths which he would have interpreted Weeks for which I can see no Reason but much against it and therefore shall say nothing till he produce his Reasons for it And all the weight of this Argument is but a silly Conjecture of the meaning of the word Sabbaths But we have seen before that this is not a silly Conjecture but grounded upon the very usual Acceptation of the Word upon the Connection of the adjoyned things upon the State of the Churches unto whom he writ and upon the design of his Epistles to them But I am sure what follows is not so much as a Conjecture but a very great Oversight for he tells us that he finds the word Sabbaths in the Plural Number no where in the New Testament ascribed to the Seventh day It was then because he would not be at the pains to sind it for 't is in all these places Mat. 12.5 10 12. Mark 3.4 Luke 4.31 and 6.2 9. In all these places he will find it so and in the Original Greek the word is Sabbaths without a Verbal Superaddition of days which he himself must be inforced to acknowledge spoke of this day 3. The Seventh day he faith was never in Question in any of these Epistles and if there be no such Question about altering it how can such a Sense be imposed c. Just so I may say the New-Moon Observation and the Annual Festivals are no where questioned in these Epistles nor any where else that I remember expresly to be lain aside How therefore can such a Meaning be put upon Years and Months as to include the Judaical seeing Sabbaths are as plain and clear for the Seventh days as any of the former for what they are understood here We have still the Thred-beaten Plea of the Moral Law introduced and improved when I assert that neither he nor all the World can ever prove the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be part of the Moral Law Quatenus Moral His Fourth Answer plainly confounds Sabbaths with Years and New-Moons which the Apostle clearly distinguishes and of all the rest I may truly say they are but meer ungrounded Conjectures to baffle an express Text of Scripture But here he has a very strange Fancy That by Days may be meant the First day because the Heathen worshiped the Sun on that day And so then every day because the Heathen worshiped distinct Idols every day And so we should have no Consecrated day at all neither First nor Seventh nor any other All the rest that follows here are but as he expresses his own Thoughts and as well grounded as that Thought of his That the First day was not observed by Christians When yet we have found them several times associated on that day and Christ appearing several times in the midst of them and at Troas Assembled on that day and St. Paul Preaching and Administring the Lords Supper to them and therein to Harmonize with the Church of Galatia which I suppose proved against Objections neither of which can be said concerning the Seventh day Only there were Assemblies of the Jews on that day and St. Paul took the Advantage on these days to Preach to them But what is this to Christs Disciples and Followers We may therefore according to his own Rule That which appears not is not at all conclude that the Seventh day was never observed by the Disciples and Followers of Christ after his Resurrection as a day consecrated to Publick Worship because we never read in the Scripture that they did so meet Whereas the contrary is seen by the First day So I dismiss this Thought and the others as no more likely 5. He farther saith that 't is uncertain and therefore as such I or'e look it 6. He saith from Paul's constant keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath that he cannot be supposed to condemn his own constant Practice But how he did this we have already seen and therefore shall not stop here 7. That St. Paul commends the Whole Moral Law as Just Holy and Good and therefore can never be thought to condemn it here Here we have anew theatrized the Moral Law which we acknowledge the Apostle doth strenuously urge and never opposed any one Tittle thereof But yet he here decries the Seventh-day-Sabbath as very consistent with and agreeing to all his Zeal for the Moral Law because that was never of the Substance of it Neither is it either Holy or Just or Good I mean not in and of it self as all that is truly and naturally Moral is but by Gods commanding it We acknowledge it to be positively Moral 8. The last Answer is from Math. 24.20 Pray you that your Flight be not in the Winter nor on the Sabbath-day Upon which place he lays so great a Stress as to suppose it a sufficient Proof for the Observation of the Seventh day as our bounden Duty For here he takes for granted that this Sabbath
here spoken of is the Seventh day that the Flight here spoken of is that at nearest of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple about Forty Years after Christ And therefore our Saviour knowing what a great Trouble of Spirit 't would be to gracious and devout Souls to be forced to flee for their Lives on that day whereon they should have been Glorifying their God and Refreshing their own Souls in Religious Duties and Holy Communion with the Father and the Son He exhorts them to Pray against such an Evil thereby implying as he would have it the Continuance of that Sabbath and his own Confirmation thereof till then and so forever Wherein I think I have I am sure I intended to have given all the strength of what he hath written from hence and not concealed or lessened any whit of it Unto which I proceed to answer that 1. Some understand this to be a proverbial kind of Speech to express the Difficulty and Irksomness of a thing that 't will be as tedious as a Journy in a Cold Snowy Dirty Winter or as a Flight to a superstitious Jew upon a Sabbath-day 2. Others apprehend it to be spoken to the Disciples in this Sense Pray that your Flight may not be on the Seventh-day-Sabbath Because thereby you will greatly offend the superstitious Jews who will deem you as Profaners of that day hereby and so will be so far from Pitying and Relieving you that they will hate and michief you all they can As we know the Jews were great Enemies to them because they were so to their Ceremonial Worship as they deemed them and to their Sabbaths too and hence were so far from sheltring them from that they betrayed them to and delivered them up into the Hands of Heathenish Persecutors 3. It may well be interpreted specifically of a Sabbath and not numerically of the Seventh day only And so 't is as if our Lord had said pray that on what ever day your Solemn Rest for Religious Worship and Divine Service shall be that on that day your Flight may not be for 't will then be very grievous and more intolerable than on any day of the Week And so includes yea primarily intends the First day the Dominical day But 4. To be as fair as we can with him and to grant all that he does desire we will suppose that our Saviour did mean by his words what they 't is most probable did understand by them even the Seventh day to be that Sabbath on which they were to deprecate their Flight Yet this will be also far enough from so clear a Proof for him as he imagines For we know 't is usual in the Holy Writers to speak of Evangelical days and of the Worship of God in them under Legal Metaphors to wit by Sacrifices by erecting of Altars by coming up to the Temple c. as all that know the Stile of the Prophets cannot but be acquainted with because these were then the Services which that People performed and they knew no other and probably would not have endured the mentioning of any other So here our Saviour speaks indeed literally of the Seventh-day-Sabbath because the Jews and his Disciples who were Jews knew yet of no other neither were prepared to hear of the future substituting of another day in its place Yet this does no more confirm the Seventh day to be the future Sabbath than those other Scriptural Sayings do the Ceremonial Rites to be the Evangelical Worship or the external Modes of serving God in the times of Reformation and when the Body and Substance of these Signs and Figures were exhibited Besides we say our Saviour did very well foresee that many of his Disciples as we know the Churches of Galatia and Colosse and those of Jerusalem with James did would many years after his Decease dote upon the judaical Ceremonies and would reverence them out of Conscience to God their Author and Imposer And so also on the judaical day And therefore our Lord fore-apprehending this bids them to deprecate their Flight on such a day which their own Conceits and false Apphrehensions of things would make more grievous and burdensom to themselves not his Injunctions or the real Obligation of the day And there is nothing more common than this way of speaking according to Mens Apprehension of things without any the least Approbation of that Apprehension So we find our Saviour speaking in his Discourses of the Jews Circumcision very commendably and honourably yet I hope this did not confirm it for the future But here it may be objected But he did not Prophesie of its future Observance or require any thing of them upon a Supposition of its Continuance afterwards and therefore this is nothing to the purpose But we know he could not but foresee that they would observe it and keep it up in the Churches after his Departure from them and its Abrogation and so these Speeches of his would then be upon Record and probably made a Plea for its Use especially seeing he never did as I remember speak any thing against it or expresly of its future Extrusion out of the Churches Which Speeches of his cannot Authorize their future Practice Neither can our Saviours foresight of their superstitions and mistaken Observance of the Seventh day and his Command for their Ease-sake upon that Prevision authorize the Continuance thereof Therefore seeing there are so many Solutions given to this Plea against the Apostles meaning of the Seventh day when he condemns them for their Observance of Days and Sabbaths whereof some one may be deemed sufficient but much more all together It cannot by any impartial judicious Person be thought of any Prevalency to evade an express Prohibition of the Apostle of the Observance of that day which we contend his Prohibition of Sabbaths to be the Seventh being the most famous of all Sabbaths Being that which is mostly if not only intended by that Expression in Scripture and in that very word whereby the Holy Ghost in the New Testament intends and means the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XVI HE begins Page 75. to betake himself to the Command it self and would from thence collect an absolute Necessity of the perpetual Observance of the last day of the Week asserting the Morality of the whole Command and endeavouring from some Passages and Letters of that Law to ratify his own Opinion herein Therefore I shall take leave with as much Brevity and Plainness as I can to give my weak Thoughts about it and leave it to the Learned and Judicious to determine Here we must premise a Distinction or two 1. Between Moral and Positive between that which is Good Just and Holy in it self which emerges from the right Constitution of the rational Creature and so would be a Duty if 't were never externally injoyned by God And that which has no such innate Goodness neither would have been performed as a Duty by Man were it not imposed by a
the Observance of it from either Jews or Gentiles to whom they write and consequently we may conclude that they never preached it for we truly hold that the Sum and Substance of all their Sermons is in their Books Yea their Writings have several weighty Passages against the Seventh-day-Sabbath Now our Saviour in his Commission which he gave his Apostles after his Resurrection just as he was ascending up to Heaven expresly commands them to teach all Nations to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them Matt. 28.19 20. Wherefore seeing they commanded not the Nations to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath Christ never taught them that Doctrin nor injoyned them to do it and therefore this cannot be one of those Jots or Tittles of the Law which in this Authors Sense was not to pass from the Law but only what was Moral in it We acknowledge that the Lord Christ also confirmed the Moral Law by commanding the Lawyer to love the Lord God c. But withall that whoever gives to God the seventh part of his time though it be not the Seventh day of the week does therein love God as to the Declaration as to the Fruit and Effect of his Love as much as if he did the Seventh day because it is as fully the Substance of that Command The same answer will serve to Mark 12.28 31. Page 30. with this Addition That the change of the Seventh-day-Sabbath into that of the first day is no more laying aside of the Morality of the Fourth Command than the change of Circumcision the Passover and other Ceremonial Ordinances of the Old Testament into Baptism the Lords Supper and other Evangelical Administrations under the New These being as really included in and commanded by the second Command at that time as the Seventh-day-Sabbath is in and by the Fourth And therefore as the change of those Rites and Modes of Worship by our Lord Christ and his Apostles was not the laying aside of the second Command but rather a perfect Obedience thereto and practical Confirmation thereof so the change of the weekly-day-Sabbath was no Infringement but rather an Establishment of the Fourth Commandment In the same Page he Insinuates that we take away those words The Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God which yet we neither do in Letter nor Sense for we leave the words in the Command and obey them in their purport and meaning For they do not so much enjoyn the Seventh day in order as in number not so much the last day of the week as one day of the week to be observed and sanctified by us as I suppose we may have an opportunity to prove Page 31. He shews from Scripture that one great Article of the New Covenant is Gods writing his Law upon the Hearts of his People which he with us expresly acknowledges to be the Moral Law How then can the Seventh-day-Sabbath as such be part of that Law which is not written upon the Hearts of Thousands to one of Gods People I judge this to be a clear Demonstration against the Morality thereof He could never have shewn that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was a part of the Law of Nature in Adam though the substance of the Ten Commands was it and therefore it was instituted by God as before Page 32. He shews us for so I have a Belief he intends that he had a mind to prove that Set Forms of Prayers or other parts of Worship under a Form though never so Excellent though in express words of Scripture are the Pesel or Graven Image that is forbidden in the second Command which is a Notion I am sure alien from the Resentments of the most Grave Prudent Learned and Experienced Christians of former and Modern Ages and very few of them have thought so uncharitably and rigorously of them as to brand them with the grossest Idolatry though many judge them fit to be lain aside by them to whom God hath given a good and competent Gift but yet much rather to be u sed and that comfortably and profitably too where such a Gift may be denied And I think by this Rule that everly Man that joyns with another in Prayer is guilty of Idolatry against the second Command for he makes the words of the Minister or private Christian to be the Set Form of his Prayer And why a Prayer written as a Form should be more an Idol than a Prayer spoken as a Form I do not yet understand In the same Paragraph he also hints that the Lords Prayer ought only to be used in secret and alone not in publick no nor in private with any others because of those Expressions in Matt. 6.6 9. When thou prayest enter into thy Closet and shut thy Door and Pray c. Whereas the Form of that Prayer in the plural Number the very matter of that Prayer being the universal Concern of the Universal Church and of every Congregation and Society of Christians as well as of every private Christian and our Saviour commanding his Disciples to use it without any such Limitation Of a secret Personal Retirement Luke 11.2 are sufficient proofs that it may be as well used Socially as Solitarily with others as lawfully and conveniently as by ones self In the following Paragraph he seems to be of the Opinion that it would be better to have Mens or Ministers own Inventions in singing of Psalms than the Divine Inspirations of David and other Authors in Scripture And when I can believe that theirs can be better than those in Scripture or can be convinced that there is neither Psalm nor Hymn in the Bible that can fit a present Condition either for Prayer or Praises or Gratitude c. I will think so but as to the former of these two I hope I shall never believe and as to the latter I think it is not likely to fall out in my days These things ought as curiously to be replied as the Author has started these Notions and when he sees fit to endeavour a more large Explication and Vindication of them then we may also see what may be discoursed agianst them And I heartily wish he had but hinted this of his Seventh day and so saved all this labour in answering of it for it is just another such Opinion as the former and deserved only to be mentioned Indeed not to be mentioned at all at least not in Print not in publick But of this in the Preface SECT VI. IN the next Paragraph he tells us he has much to do to recover the word Seventh of the Fourth Commandment Whereas none but the Deniers of the Morality of the Seventh would wrest it from him for we all grant it to him and acknowledge it to be of the very substance of the Command that a Seventh day should be set apart for an Holy Consecrated Day to Divine Worship only we say that the Seventh day is so as the seventh part of the Week as one day of the seven
Caution of not incurring the Threats of infringing the Laws of Christ even the least of them and by way of a charitable Requital we warn him to be cautious lest he build again that which Christ hath destroyed and repair the rased Synagogue Here we have also his Notion of what is Moral telling us that many call the Ten Commandments the Moral Law I think all slid Divines do call them so but none that I know do say that every Clause and Word in them or belonging to them by this last Expression I mean part of the Preface to them is Moral and particularly not the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath or that Clause appertaining thereto in the Fourth Commandment no nor yet the Seventh Part of Time therein expresly commanded and perpetually too that is not primarily nor absolutely and of its self so As to his Notion of what is Moral I cannot call it either a Definition or a Description of the thing but only an Interpretation of the Word Moral viz. pertaining to Manners We usually in such Discourses put Moral in opposition to what is positive whether it be Ceremonial or Judicial But this is such a Notion as includes all Laws whatever even Human as well as Divine and of Divine all of them of what sort or kind soever for they all apertain to Manners Yea to Thoughts Words and Actions yea and are included in the Love of God because whoever loves God truely will and must yield Obedience to all his Laws of what sort soever whether Moral or Positive But such a lax Interpretation of the Moral Law served to the Design of the Seventh Day because it includes it will all other positive Laws but had he given us a true Notion of what is Moral in its self or in its own Nature it would necessarily have been exclued As may be evinced by some Properties of what is truly Moral 1. The Moral Law is inward and was consecrated with the rational Creature and does need no external Revelation or Divine Institution especially in the State of human Integrity before the Fall but such was not the Seventh day For 't was Instituted by God after Mans Creation 2. The Moral Law yet remains in some Footsteps and Degrees thereof in the Human Nature and so in the generality of Mankind the Heathens themselves not excepted as might be easily proved by their Laws and Writings but the Notion of the Seventh day is Universally excluded and the Generality of Mankind totally destitute thereof If it be here objected That the Heathen did separate a Seventh-day to their Religious Service To this may be applyed That 't was but some of them and but for some time not Universally and Perpetually That they did it by Tradition from the Jews or by Satans Institution and Injunction who in his cursed Pride affects to have his Votaries serve him as the Acknowledgers of Jehovah do him 3. All Moral Laws are clearly and distinctly ingraven upon the Minds and Hearts of those that are enlightned and sanctifyed by the Spirit of God But not a Tittle or punctum of his Seventh-day is seen in the Generality of them 4. Man was made for Moral Duty that is to Glorify and Honour God in all Acts of Internal and External Piety to profit and comfort his Neighbour by all Acts of Charity to possess his own Vessel in Sanctification and Honour And by so doing he lives up to the end for which he was made But now Man was not made for the Sabbath and for its Observance but the Sabbath was made for Man and for his Good Mark 2.27 5. Moral Duties are such as a Man cannot change them or neglect them or do any thing beside them without dishonouring and sinning against God But now it is certain That as to the Nature of the thing its self separated form a positive Institution that a Man may as fully Glorify and Honour God and as compleatly serve him by appropriating and imploying another day of the Week to and in his Workship and Service as the Seventh provided he do dedicate another day in Seven to that Service the Worship is the same and the proportion of time the same and so God as much and as long served as upon the last day of the Week Let him denominate any other Propriety of what is Moral and I will undertake to evince That it belongs not to his Seventh-day-Sabbath To what purpose then to urge and insist so much and so long upon the Moral Law when the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part at all of the Morality thereof Those Passages before mentioned That Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law that the Breaker of the least of Gods Commands shall be least in the Kingdom of God c. And these Page 35. He that will enter into Life must keep the Commandments It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than one tittle of the Law to fail do not only concern the Moral Law though if they did we have sufficiently shewn that the Sabbath is not concerned in them but also the Positive even the Ceremonial Law For while they were in Force as they all were throughout the days of our Saviour's Animal Life which I so call to distinguish it from the Glorious Life of his Humanity upon Earth after his Resurrection They that would enter into Life at least of the Jews and their Proselytes to whom only they were Laws and Obligatory were bound to keep them And if they did willfully and perseveringly disobey them they would as certainly be Damned as if they had lived in a Contradiction to any of the Moral Laws Because such a Refusal to observe and keep the Ceremonial Laws is directly and ultimately a Disobedience to the Moral and that too to the very Soul and Foundation of all the Commandments Even the First Command by being a Renunciation of Gods Authority in refusing a Conformity to his revealed Will. Again it was a direct and immediate Sin against the Second Command by being a refusal to worship him according to his own instituted Worship So Christ came not to destroy the Ceremonial Law but to fulfil it Which he did by being the End and Consummation thereof by being the Substance of those Figures and the Body of those Shadows and no Law is destroyed which continues in its Force as long as the Legislator intended and produces all those Ends for which he designed it Now the Ceremonial was intended by God to be no longer a Law than till our Lords Death or Resurrection or Mission of the Holy Ghost and it was designed only to typisie the Lord Christ and to lead Believers to him as to the End and Substance thereof which our Lord being he was so far from destroying it that he perfectly fulfilled it though he abrogated its future legal Authority And so not one tittle of the Ceremonial Law did fail for all had its Accomplishment on Christ no more than a tittle of the Moral Law
Hebraick Critick Dr. Lightfoot informs us Yet here our Lord expresly commands the Healed Person to take up his Bed and walk that is to carry it either to his own House or to some other convenient place for so he did in obedience to this Command v. 10. Whereat the Jews were very highly offended and condemned it as an unlawful Act and sought to persecute and kill Christ for enjoyning of it v. 16. Now we would enquire to what end our Lord Christ did enjoyn this Person to carry such a Burden on the Sabbath If it be said it was to try his Faith and Obedience or clearly to evince the Perfection of his miraculous Cure or both of these 'T is replied that these things could be as well done without the carriage of his Bed He might have gone every where and proclaimed his Cure and his Restorer he might have done it by leaping dancing and praising God as the Cripple in Acts 3. Wherefore 't is probably apprehended by learned Men that it was a practical Proof of his being Supream Lord of the Sabbath and of his Authority to change the old day into another of his own appointment and this was a real blow begun to be given to it Besides all that was said against these his Arguments for the Seventh day to be the Lords day meant in the Revelation 'T is observable that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used but once more in the New Testament and that is 1 Cor. 11.20 where the Sacrament of our Saviours Body and Blood is called the Lords Supper in which it is clear it signifies both his Authoritative Institution thereof and that his own Death is signified thereby The Lord is both the Institutor thereof and his Death the thing commemorated thereby And therefore Reason and comparing Scripture with Scripture would require that it should be so understood here also even as a day of his own Institution as the Son of Man For so he appeared to John to be in the Vision And so St. John calls him Rev. 1.13 and so a day for his own Commemoration even of his Resurrection viz. the First day of the Week which none deny to be that day And 't was on that day whereon the Author of the Revelations saw the Lord Jesus walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks with the Seven Stars in his Right Hand that is with his Orthodox and Zealous Ministers receiving their Light and Heat from him the Sun of Righteousness And then diffusing it abroad in the Churches or in the midst of the Congregations which we know the Orthodox Fathers throughout all Ages of the Church have principally done upon the First day of the Week the day of the Resurrection And so the future Practice of the Church proves the Lords day to be the First day of the Week Again St. John calls this the Lords day after his Resurrection and our Saviour tells him Verse 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live forevermore Implying that as after his Incarnation Obedience Death Resurrection Ascension Session on the Right Hand of God and Mission of the Holy Ghost all the former carnal and ceremonial Administrations vanished and a new Government new external Modes of Worship were introduced which were properly the Lords and bear the Stamp of his Authority as Mediator as God-Man over the Church and all her Ordinances So this was also the Day of his own Institution after his Humiliation and Exaltation for the Celebration of his new Institutions the other being excluded with the former Appendixes thereto What follows under this Head being what has been spoken to before and is frequently inculcated as of great Moment for him as the Moral Law as the now changing of the Sabbath meer Pretences of the other party c. as being but a little better than the begging the Question and taking that for granted which we utterly deny These I tacitly pass by and leave the Judicious Reader to judge if after all has been said it be not far more probable that the Lords day spoken of in the Revelations is the First day of the Week as all Schollars and Churches almost have hitherto believed than the Seventh day thereof which a very few scarce deserving the Title of Number have pitched upon as a Prop to their tottering Seventh-day-Sabbath SECT XV. THere are other Texts which he produces Page 69.70 as Rom. 14.5 6. Gal. 4.9 10 11. Col. 2.16 17. from whence we hold and contend the Seventh day to be everlastingly excluded from the Christian future Sabbath the chief being the Two latter of these We say in Gal. by Days are meant the Jewish Seventh day because the Apostle mentions their Months that is their Observance of the New-Moon Festivals Times Which some apply to Easter Pentecost Feast of Tabernacles c. and Years which some think is meant of the yearly Feast of Atonement and Expiation Or it may be understood of the year of Jubilee if not the Great Jubilee every Fiftieth year yet the less of every Seventh year which St. Paul probably observed them very Superstitious in But whatever the Difference may be in the particular Applications of these Terms yet they generally hold the more rare or seldom Jewish Festivals to be meant and by Days then what other Festival of the Jews can be understood but the Seventh day If he do not mean their Weekly Sabbath by Days it cannot well be conceived what it should be We doubt not but by the latter Three Expressions Months Times and Years are meant Jewish Festivals And why Days should not signify the same cannot well be imagined Besides we find that these Galatians were greatly infected with the false Leven of Judaical Doctors who taught them to observe Circumcision c. as is seen clearly by the Epistle and seems to be the chief occasion of Writing it to turn them from and sortify them against such false Doctrins and dangerous Observances And therefore hence we conclude St. Paul condemns the Galatian Church for keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath as well as other Judaical Rites and Festivals and tells them he is afraid he had bestowed his labour in vain upon them In that Text to the Colossians we have the Observance of Sabbaths expresly spken of and thereby St. Paul discarded from their Observance as Shadows which were to vanish when Christ the Body was come By which we contend is meant the Weekly-Sabbath because that in the Scripture is Chiefly Mostly if not Solitarily the Acceptation thereof And we have heard him again and again asserting that 't is the Intent of this Word every where And I believe so whenever it stands absolutely as here without some Annexion or other to alter its Signification And what Reason can be given why here it should not so be understood that only here and no place else in the Bible it should not be taken for the Weekly-Seventh-day Moreover here the Apostle seems plainly to intend
superadded Precept 2. Between that which is Purely Naturally and Absolutely Moral in it self and that which is Secondarily Respectively and Positively Moral The former is that spoken of above the latter is that which though the rational Creature could not of it self have judged a Duty yet when 't is once imposed by Command and so revealed to be the Legislator's Pleasure there is discerned in the thing it self a very great Equity Goodness and Suitableness to Gods Glory or the Creatures Good or both As in the case of Tithes or the Tenth of every Mans Estate to be devoted to Pious Uses for the Maintenance of the Worship of God and of those that are by him called thereto and imployed therein Though the Light of Nature could not primarily and from it self have discovered and devoted this very precise proportion to the immediate Service of God as absolutely necessary Yet when God does once require it it must needs close with it as very reasonable and just that God who gives all and whose all is should have the Tenth part devoted and separated to his own Service So that the Goodness of this does not only arise from the Will of the Legislator but also from the Nature of what is required when 't is once discerned to be the Legislator's Pleasure So that it is neither purely positive nor yet primarily Moral discovered only by the Promulgation of the Legislator and then embraced at and acknowledged to be most just and good by the Creature from whom 't is required Whereas what is purely positive has nothing just or good in it self nor discernable after its Imposition 3. In the Fourth Command we must distinguish between 1. The Duty commanded 2. the Explication of the Duty and 3. the Arguments and Motives thereto And so without any more nice Distinctions we proceed by God's Assistance to our Apprehensions about this Matter 1. The Duty Commanded or the Substance of the Fourth Command which is in the first Words of that Command Remember the Sabbath-day or the Day of the Sabbath to keep it holy or to sanctify it Where we acknowledge the Rest or the holy Rest to be primarily and absolutely Moral which this right Judgment of the rational Creature dictates directs to as that which it ows to its Creatour Preserver and Benefactor even a set and solemn Time separated and devoted to the immediate Service Praises and Adoration of God who because of his own Infinite and Incomparable Excellencies deserves all their Praises and Adoration and because of their own innumerable and inestimable Benefits received from him merits all their Love and Observance Which Imployment the rational Creature would acknowledge to be the most noble and excellent the most happy and blessed that it can be imployed in being the Imploying of the most noble Faculties of the Soul in their most excellent Acts about the most raised and glorious Object This I say the true Light of Nature would direct unto and so is purely moral But whether it would have directed to a Separation of a whole intire Day thereto I cannot resolve Though this also may be most probable being a Time so limited measured and distinguished by the antecedent and subsequent Darkness or by the Presence Light and Motion of the Sun in the Hemisphere But here I believe we may take for granted that the rational Creature in its Rectitude would have actually consecrated to so divine Worship and imployed in divine Worship all that Time that could have been duly and conveniently spared from the Refreshment of the Body and those due Preparations which must be made for his decaying outward Man so that Adam would have subserviated had he stood in his Innocence all his tilling of the Garden all his eating drinking and sleeping all the Recruits of his Body to the solemn Manner as that which was the End of his being the due of his God from him and the highest and most blessed Imployment of himself This I say would have been had he beenleft to the Dictates of his own Knowledge which was given him of God of himself and of his Ingagements to the Author of his being and well-being and not been prescribed by a Precept from his Lord and Sovereign But however this all must acknowledge that a Time of Rest For that 's the english of Sabbath to be set apart and sanctified to the immediate Service of the most high and munisicent God is purely moral And it may be also thought that an intire Day may bid fairly for it And this I say is the Substance of this Precept and really moral But here before I proceed I must obviate a little Criticism which the Author here seems to lay a great Stress upon and that is about ה hè in the Original which he would fain have to be very emphatical and to signifie That by way of Eminency here in this Verse the beginning of the Command the Words are Remember the Day of Rest Eth Jom Hasshabbath I would enquire of him whether this rendring of these Words be not as proper as any he can render it by Whether the Day of Rest be not so proper as the Day of a Rest or the Day of that Rest For every one that hath but peeped into the Hebrew Bible very well knows that that Letter ה serves many times if not most times only for a Letter and Ornament of writing without any Signification whatever And whether I render it by an English Particle or no he cannot blame me if I will he hath no Reason to quarrel me if I render it A or The nor I much to quarrel him though he chuses to translate it That For neither A nor The nor That are found in the Original but are only English Particles And I would fain know what Emphasis the same Hebrew Particle hath before Shamajim Aretz and I am Heaven Earth and Sea and whether the Translation either without a Particle or with that which carries no Emphasis be not far better than the Translation with an Emphatical one As for Example the Lord made Heaven and Earth and Sea or the Lord made the Heaven the Earth and the Sea are not better than the Lord made that Heaven that Earth and that Sea for if we take this Particle That Emphatically it seems to signifie that there are more Heavens for we suppose the visible Heaven or inferiour one is here meant and Earths and Seas than One and that 't is Emphatically and Eminently meant of those in the in Command beyond the others whereas there is no other Heaven Earth or Sea but what is meant in the Command and therefore would be very impertinently rendred by an Emphatical That From whence I would ask this Gentleman what reason there is why ה before Sabbath and Shebigni should be more Emphatical than before those other Words in the same Command Sure that Opinion wants solid and deep Foundations that must be upheld by such superficial and weak ones Thus much
should have applied that of the Apostle Rom. 14.21 22. to have deter'd him there-from Wherefore seeing this Piece is so dangerous and may do and already has done so much hurt it s very Expedient if not morally Necessary to endeavour a prevention of its evil Consequences and there especially where the Author is resident and it may most infect and it may well be deemed a Duty of some one of the Dressers of that part of the Vineyard of the Lord Christ where this Weed or Thorn is sprung up to endeavour it's eradication before it spreads any farther or wounds any deeper That Province therefore which I most unable for and Naturally altogether averse from Polemical Disputes shall undertake and with the best skill and faithfulness that God shall afford perform shall only be with all possible Brevity and Perspicuity to weaken all the Arguments the Author manages for his Notion and to confirm and Ratifie all these which he endeavours to weaken and evacuate for the ancient general Scriptural Doctrin of the Lords-day-Sabbath or Sacred Rest and herein to follow his own method Giving some transient Glances upon things that may occur some what Excentrical or Alien from the Great design of this Book Which I shall study to do with all Candor and due Deference to the Gentility Gravity and I hope real Piety of the Author THE CONTENTS Sect. I. SOme general Observations premised whether the World were made by Christ as Jesus Christ God-man page 4 Sect. II. Of Christ's being Jehovah and in what sense the Law was given by him p. 8 Sect. III. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh-day and so Sanctified and Instituted it and did himself observe it as that even Adam in a State of Innocence was bound by it and all Mankind without distinction before the Fall p. 12 Sect. IV. Whether the Ten Commandments were given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles p. 21 Sect. V. Whether Christ in the Flesh did confirm all the Ten Commandments and every tittle of the Fourth And whether Christ and his Apostles did enjoyn or did not rather speak against the Observation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 24 Sect. VI. Of the Word Seventh in the Fourth Commandment the Sabbath not recommended by Christ to his Disciples Of Commenius's desire of Reformation c. p. 30 Sect. VII Of the Ceremonial Law and what is Moral and Positive what is truly Moral that the Saturday Seventh-day-Sabbath is not more may be pleaded for Circumcision p. 35 Sect. VIII Whether Christ in his own Person Observed the Seventh-Week-day-Sabbath and no other and what may be gathered from it The Arguments for the Seventh-day-Sabbath equally hold for all the Jewish Ceremonies Of the Pre-Antiquity of that Day and the falsity of that Argument p. 41 Sect. IX Whether Christ Rested on the Seventh-day-Sabbath while he lay in the Grave And what may be Argued from it p. 44 Sect. X. Vpon what day of the Week Christ ascended into Heaven whether the Seventh-day or Saturday p. 48 Sect. XI Whether after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed by the Apostles and First Christians How long the Apostles met the Jews in their Synagogues on the Seventh-day and for what Reason p. 51 Sect. XII The Argument from Christ's Resurrection for the First-day of the Week to be the Christian Sabbath Vindicated Circumcision not more abolisht than the Seventh-day-Sabbath That abolisht the First succeeds on the Account of Our Lord's Resurrection since that Time with equal or stronger Reason than the former continued till he Rose from the dead p. 57 Sect. XIII Other Arguments for the First-day-Sabbath Vindicated from the Objections of Mr. B. Of a Sabbath-days Journey After three Days may be understood on the third Day he rose again John 8.56 Psalm 118.22 Psalm 2.7 Acts 20.7 cleared and Vindicated Of the beginning of the Christian Sabbath p. 61. Sect. XIV More Texts cleared Rev. 1.9 10. of being in the Spirit on the Lords-day Math. 12.8 Mark 2.27 Jesus Christ Lord of the Sabbath Of the Lord Supper Christs Resurrection commemorated on the First-day of the Week by Institution p. 79 Sect. XV. Gal. 4.9 10. Explained What days excluded from binding Christians Col. 2.16 What Sabbaths meant as Shadows to vanish when Christ came Math. 24.20 no Argument for the Seventh-day-Sabbath p. 92 Sect. XVI Of the Morality of the Fourth Command The difference between Moral and Positive Between Naturally or Absolutely Moral and positively or secondarily Moral What the Fourth Commandment requires as Moral and Perpetual p. 101 Sect. XVII When to begin the Christian Sabbath and of the fit Time for Publick Worship on that day p. 116 Sect. XVIII The Argument of Tradition considered p. 118 Sect. XIX How far the Decalogue is in Force as to us Gentiles p. 125 Sect. XX. The Tradition of the Lords-day's Rest or First-day of the Week from the Apostles time to the end of the Fourth Century Of Easter and its Observation The change from the Seventh to the First-day not introduced by the Bishop of Rome p. 127 Sect. XXI The Conclusion of the whole with a Summary of what hath been Proved for the Observation of the First-day of the Week as the Christian Sabbath p. 130 A REPLY TO Mr. Bampfield's PLEA FOR THE Seventh-day-Sabbath THE very Title of the Book is justly lyable to Exception as that which does not fairly state the Question the second Enquiry being whether the fourth Command be repealed or altered for he very well knows that these against whom he Disputes even those who acknowledge the Morality of a Sabbath-day do neither pretend to the Repealing of the Command nor yet to the Alteration of it as such for they strenuously assert the Ratification of the preceptive part of it though they allow a practical Mutation of a single Clause therein which was at its first Injunction added as a Motive for the observance of the Seventh Weekly-day And therefore he should rather have stated the Enquiry after such a manner as this Whether every Clause in the Fourth Commandment be Moral or whether every Clause of it be absolutely Immutable or so imposed from the beginning as to be so 'T is not Ingenuous nor Candid so to propose the Controversie as though the Dissenters from him were either Repealers or Alterers of the Fourth Command Moreover the Annexion of this Query to the former and the Subservience of the former to this For 't is very evident that that weighty fundamental Enquiry is made to serve this Hypothesis by his Connexion thereof Page 5. thereto as though the Immutability of every Tittle to this Command was founded upon the Deity of our Lord Christ his creating the World and giving the Moral Law and the Denial of the one were vertually and consequentially the Denial of the other and so those that are for the observance of the Lords day for so I take leave now to call it are really and consequentially Ebionites
he made them by Jesus Christ but Christ the Son of God spake to us in the last days he did it in and by his Humanity but so he created not the Creatures In the last Proof Eph. 3.9 'T is indeed expresly said That God created all things by Jesus Christ which if meant of the old and whole Creation must be meant as above and 't is as much as if he had said God the Father created all things by God the Son which Son is now Jesus Christ Wherefore we conclude our Reply to this Query by asserting that the God-head of the Lord Christ created the World but that Christ consisting of that God-head and the Humanity hypostatically united to it did not so SECT II. HE asserts Page 9. that Proposition which no Christian ever denyed or questioned and whoever does so deserves not the Name Christian viz. That the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah Which he proves at large home to Page 22. which in these days might have been very seasonable and commendable too had it not been made a progressive Step toward the supremely intended Doctrin of the necessary Obligation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath But yet I must say that our Lord Christs Deity or Jehovah-ship has been more fully prov'd and more methodically and from more Topicks and all these demonstrated and confirmed from Scripture than here it is and that by many Orthodox Divines We acknowledging his Thesis to be good and orthodox we hope he will acknowledge this to be so likewise viz. That Jehovah was not always Christ Christ is and must be everlastingly Jehovah But Jehovah was throughout a past Eternity before there was ever any other Being and in the beginning of time before there was a sinful Being And therefore necessarily before Christ Jesus had a Being For Christ Jesus in an orthodox Notion and according to Scriptural Revelations does pre-suppose a created and a faln sinful Being And so this orthodox Proposition will but contribute very little to that other which we deem heterodox I shall make no Reflections at all upon what he has written in all these Papers save only upon that Medium which he uses Page 12 and 13. which is Christs giving the Law for that 's his Expression where again we urge according to our former Interpretation that Christ properly apprehended did not give the Law before his Incarnation not being Christ before it He gave it not to Man before the Fall When the whole absolute and primary Moral Law was implanted by God on his Mind to know all the Duties he ought to perform towards his God according to his Excellencies and Attributes revealed unto him according to his Works and his Obligations laid upon him and all his Duties toward all his Fellow Creatures In his Will by a perfect and full Complyance with and active and exact Conformity to all these moral Dictates of his Understanding in all the Inferiour Affections Appetites Inclinations Motions Senses Organs and Members of the Body by a ready and compleat Subjection to the holy Will and a most harmonious Obedience thereto Which the Apostle calls Knowledge Righteousness and true Holiness Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 Neither did Christ Jesus give the Law just upon the Fall as I suppose the Moral Law must be supposed to be given to Adam seeing that by the Fall he had greatly defac'd and blotted the former clear and perfect Edition of it in his Heart and Soul Neither did he give it in the Third Edition when 't was brought and delivered by the Hand of Moses from the Finger and Mouth of God to the Israelites For all these were long before Jesus Christ came into and so was in the World And St. John himself tells us John 1.17 The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ So that the Law was given long before Jesus Christ came and preached and purchased the Grace and Truth of the Gospel But all this is made use of by this Author to insinuate that even Christ Jesus in the Flesh was the Author of all the Ten Commands as they are verbatim recorded in Moses's Books or were written upon the Tables of Stone and so particularly of that very Clause in the Fourth Command which is given as a reason of the Sanctification of the Seventh day to be the Sabbath home to his own Resurrection But this we shall prove in the Sequel to be a very great Mistake The only Proof that he brings for this which has not been sufficiently answered already or may not be so by what has been formerly said and proved is John 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commands And such other like Passages Here I would feign enquire in what Sense he understands the Commands to be Christ's Commands Either as he is Jehovah and so before his Incarnation If so then the Ceremonial and Judicial Commands were his as well and as much as the Moral for he gave the one as well as the other And so by this arguing and from this Topick we are bound to keep the one as well as the other If we would evince to our own Consciences or others Observations that we sincerely love Christ If he understands them to be his after his Incarnation as taught commanded and confirmed by his own blessed Mouth and Doctrin So we confess that all the Moral Law was his and that he taught it in the discharge of his Prophetical Office in the Flesh But then we affirm and doubt not to prove that in all his Doctrin Discourses and Commands there is not one word that teaches or enjoyns the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath but much to the contrary Or if there be only a perfect silence in this particular without any thing spoken or done by Christ contrary to it whilst he particularly enjoyns and presses all those other Precepts which are acknowledged by all to be Moral I suppose this very Exclusion of it out of all his Discourses carries more weight in it to cashire it from being any one of the Commands of Christ Jesus than all his former Endeavours to prove Christ to be the Maker of the World to be Jehovah and here to be the Giver of the Law have of moment to prove the Morality and so the necessary observance of the Seventh-day I have been here a little the more large because I find the Author Page 24. referring unto his having proved the Law to be given by Christ as to that which highly conduces to his grand Design but being duly weighed we see that 't is of little or no use at all thereto SECT III. WE have a third Interrogation proposed Page 22. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh day And Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was sanctified and so instituted by him and was observed by him who made the World To the first Clause whereof we have sufficiently answered That it was not the Lord Christ that created the World and rested but it was indeed Jehovah and though Christ be
cannot So that we have granted him his desire in shewing him what Law Christ meant in such Passages even the Ceremonial as well as the Moral for they were the Object of the Superstitious Jews greatest Zeal and they persecuted him and his Disciples as the Overthrowers of the Ceremonial Laws and therefore Christ tells them He came not to destroy but to fulfil them c. By all that hath been already said is fully shewn the Impertinency of those Quotations Page 35. 38. where our Saviour makes use of an confirms the Moral Law For there is not one word of his Sabbath in them all In our Saviour's Carriage and Language he vindicates the Sanctity of the Temple John 2.13 17. so he does Circumcision and Authorizes its Administrations upon the Sabbath day and derives it from a more August Antiquity than Moses John 7.22 23. If our Author had any such Expression from our Saviour's Mouth concerning the Sabbath how would he have triumphed therein and have fetch'd its everlasting Establishment therefrom But there is not one such Syllable concerning it These have a greater shew for their Authority from our Saviour's Discourses than the Seventh-day-Sabbath yet I doubt not but he looks on them as no longer in Force and of no Obligation in these latter and Evangelical days Page 37. He produces the Church of England Articles the Presbyterian Confession the Independants Declaration of Faith for the Ratification of the Moral Law who yet are all for the Exclusion of the last day of the Week from being the Christian Sabbath and thereby declare their Rejection of it from being any part thereof And thus all the Authority both Divine and Humane that he produceth makes nothing at all for him but very much rather against him With which this question is concluded SECT VIII HE proposes the Question Page 38. Whether Christ in his own Person did not observe the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath and no other during his Life To which we answer affirmatively with him that he did so that he was bound to do it that it was part of his Righteousness which he was to fulfil for he was born under the Authority and Obligation of the Old Testament Administrations even of the Ceremonial ones and therefore was Circumcised the eighth day went up to Jereusalem with his Mother in his Childhood to keep the Annual Feasts and in his Manhood was a Constant Conscientious and obedient Attender upon and observer of the Passover as we read in the History of his Life after his Baptism and manifesting himself to the World home to his Death or just before his Sufferings and so doubtless did by all the other Ceremonial Laws according to Gods Injunction of them and was an Observer of all other positive Divine Laws and so consequently must he be of this for neither all the former nor this particular were to be abrogated and lain aside as to their Authority till he himself was lain aside and buried in the Grave Without doubt he also dutifully kept and practised all the Judicial Laws being born a Member of their State as well as of their Church as far as their Roman Lords would permit for the Authority of these Laws lasted as long as the Judicial Polity and with it declined and perfectly expired Will this Pleader for the Seventh day contend for the Authority of all those Ceremonial and Judicial Laws home to our days because our Blessed Lord observed and kept them He must do so if this Argument be of any weight And it has been the Fate of all his Arguments hitherto to militate as much for all the Ceremonies except that of the Sabbaths being given in Innnocency of the Jews as for the Seventh day Enough for their own Confutation Just another such Medium is cunningly insinuated Page 39. to prove the Goodness of the Observation of this Sabbath viz. Its Antiquity having been the Sabbath of the Church for four thousand Years which will introduce Sacrifices into the Worship of God a Bloody Offering up of Beasts for they are as ancient within a day or two as 't is probable for God taught Adam to offer up such Sacrifices as the Types of the Seed of the Woman who was to have his Heel bruised by the Serpent his Humane Nature murthered by the Devil and his Agents but then sacrificed and offered up to God as the Expiratory Victim for the sins of Fallen Man And 't is probable that those Skins which God made Coats of for Adam might be of such sacrificed Beasts And Adam taught his Sons to Sacrifice to God And we read Gen. 4.4 That Abel brought to God the Firstlings of his Flock and the Fat thereof Will he therefore plead that their venerable Antiquity must still give them a place in the Evangelical Dispensation now that that Grand and All-sufficient Sacrifice the substance of those Shadows is offered up I trow not So neither can the Antiquity of the former Sabbath till our Saviour's days and through his days be any Argument for its Admission and Authority now seeing by our Saviours coming we have the new Heaven and the new Earth which the Prophets foretold Isa 65.17 66.22 and a more glorious and blessed Work accomplished than that of the Creation which doth much more deserve a Sanctification and Separation of that day whereon its Compleater rested from all his former Labours and a new external Administration was introduced and a new day and consecrated time suitably also instituted SECT IX IT is demanded Page 40. Whether Christ did rest the Seventh-day-Sabbath when he was in the Grave And it is affirmatively resolved that his Soul rested in Heaven and his Body rested in the Grave that day All as a Proof that our Lord Christ himself did in his state of Death confirm that Seventh-day-Sabbath as well as by his Practice and Doctrin in Life and so recommended it to the Observance of all the future Churches Which Notion if it could be proved would do more for the Seventh-day-Sabbath than all the Arguments he hath yet brought If he could rationally demonstrate that the blessed Redeemer did rest on the Seventh day from all his Humiliation and Sufferings he would then defeat the great ground on which all the Churches since our Lords coming and consummating the work of Redemption have built upon for the Change of the Seventh day into the First-day-Sabbath For they say they do it because on the first day our Lord Jesus God-man rested from that more Wonderful Glorious Gracious Profitable and Ravishing Work than that of the Creation and more laborious and difficult work to himself being really and dreadfully so to his Humane Nature But indeed this Notion is a very strange and an uncouth one because the Rest of the Mediator in this Sense cannot be thought to be any other than a happy and Complacential Reflection upon the work of our Redemption merited by all his Active and Passive Obedience which could not be until he had waded through
in this Conjecture And according to his Conjecture and the usual Phrase of Scripture our Saviour would have continued Forty Two days upon Earth For the Scripture in the number of Days does usually include both the First and Last day As in calling the last day of the Week the Seventh it takes into the Number both it and the First day of the Week for there are but Seven in all And so when it saith that our Saviour rose the Third day from the Dead it includes the First and Last days of the Three and therefore having the scriptural usual Phrase on our side and the Tradition of the Churches we have very good Ground to conclude that he ascended upon Thursday and he has no Ground but his own Conjecture for his Opinion of his Ascension upon Saturday But every little Surmise is made use of to exalt the Seventh above all the days of the Week and especially above the Lords day in this Controversie As to that Fancy of our Saviours coming to Judgment on the Seventh day I leave it as a Pure Fancy Here also he takes it for granted that our Saviour after his Resurrection appeared to his Disciples upon the Seventh day or at least he supposes it may well be granted because they were then assembled c. But he knows they met together on other days and particularly upon the First day on which our Lord appeared unto them And that Assembly in the First of the Acts if 't were on the Ascension day was according to Scripture numbering of days upon our Thursday But seeing he would make use of if we would grant our Lords appearing to his Disciples once on the Seventh day what an Advantage may we justly take for the First day from our Saviour's appearing so often unto them on the same so that there is no other day of the Week named whereon our Saviour manifested himself unto them after the Resurrection but this First day 'T is not said that he appeared unto them on the Second or Third nor at all on the Seventh and 't is very probable that all the Appearances of our Saviour which were not a few were on the First day Except only that on his Ascension day 'T is worth our serious Observance that as our Saviour would not grace the Seventh day with one particular express word of his Mouth about it during his Life-time so he would not honour it with one Appearance of his Human Nature to his Disciples throughout all the Forty days after his Resurrection Which to me seems plainly to signify that he would have a perpetual Silence thereof in his future Churches and that he had buried it in his Grave and would have it lye dormant there for ever SECT XI HAving done with this Conjecture we proceed to the Author's Question in the same Page Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ Whereof he thinks he demonstrates the Affirmative But is far enough from it by those Instances which he brings from the Apostles and especially and mostly from St. Paul yea only from him For though we take it for granted that many of the newly Proselyted Jews to the Doctrin and Faith of the Lord Jesus the ordinary and common sort of them did continue to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of an Erroneous Conscience toward God and a Persuasion of the perpetual Obligation of the Fourth Command as to this Seventh day as they did also Circumcision the Passover and other Mosaical Rites and Consecrated Times for all which St. Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians does clearly and severely reprove them Yet we say that the Apostles themselves never did so much less St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles and the great Vindicator of their Freedom from the Rites and Days of the Old Testament-Administration For they were otherwise and better taught by their Lord and instructed by the Holy Ghost for they went indeed I mean Paul and his Companions into the Synagogues on the Sabbath-day I mean here the Seventh-day though it deserves not now that Name But 't was not in any Observance of that day as more Holy than another as 't was not in any Observance or Deference to the Synagogue as a more Holy Place than another that he went into it But 't was because that then and there the Jews were assembled in great Numbers because that was the time and that the place of their Solemn and Numerous Associations for their Divine Worship And he could not find so fit an Opportunity any other day nor so convenient a Room in any other place to Converse with them to Preach the Gospel to them to prove the Lord Jesus to be Gods promised and their expected Messiah to Convince them hereof and to Exhort them to Believe on him and Embrace him as such which his Zeal for Christs Glory and his Love to their Souls strongly constrained him to And this we assert was the only cause of his so often and so unusal going into their Synagogue on the Seventh day without any Difference as to Time and Place as if it were more holy than any other We know how ardently he longed after the Conversion and Salvation of his own Countrymen and Kinsfolk according to the Flesh how fervently he panted after our Lord Christs being acknowledged by them as that which would be their greatest Good and his greatest Glory in the World For so his Enemies would become his Friends his Basphemers of him as the worst of Deceivers would be turned to be his Praisers Adorers and Relyers on him as the Son of God the King of Israel and Saviour of the World And therefore this constrained him to apply himself to them in every Place and at every Time where he might discourse with most of them and with greatest Freedom and Advantage And if the Jews had convened on other Days in other Places in as great Crowds he could doubtless then and there have applyed himself unto them And had they accustomed their Assemblies at any other time or in any other place he would have made it his Custom and usual Manner to have associated with them The Reason that the Holy Ghost gives us of Paul's going into the Jews Synagogues on the Seventh day and making it his usual Custom is no where said as I remember that he might Worship with them much less that he might observe the day with them but only that he might Preach the Gospel to them and prove the Lord Christ to be their Messiah Wherefore seeing the Holy Ghost tells us every where that this was his great Design and this his great Work in their Synagogue Therefore it hence follows That if he could not have had such Advantages for this Work among them he would never then nor there have accompanied with them So far was he from any Respect either to Time or Place in this his Custom that he only made use of them in a
Subserviency to his farther Design And therefore 't is very remarkable and worthy our most diligent Observance that when the Apostle Paul had sound the Jews given up so far to their cursed Blindness and Prejudice against the Lord Christ that all his Pains he took with them all the Affections he shewed he had for them all the undeniable Demonstrations from Scripture he produced before them could prevail nothing with them but rather they contradicted and blasphemed He forsook them and their Society and turned to the Gentiles Act. 13.45 46. and doubtless went into their Synagogues no more on the Seventh day In other Places he did go into the Jews Synagogues after this on the Seventh day as long as he had any hope of succeeding in his Preaching the Lord Christ to them but when he saw that they were generally hardned and took Advantage to speak Evil of the Lord Christ and his Doctrin before others the Gentiles he turned away quite from them and forsook their Synagogue and made the School of a Heathenish Philosopher one Tyrannus the common Meeting-place of his Auditors Act. 19.8 9. and so questionless altered the Time and Day as well as the Place of his Preaching and the Meeting of his Auditors For after this throughout all the remaining Book of the Acts throughout the remaining part of this Chapter and all the other Nine you find not the least Mention of Paul's Preaching or Praying or Associating with any others upon the Seventh day neither could this Author produce because he could not find any such Passage after this Eighth Verse of this Nineteenth Chapter Wherefore that Word of Mr. B. Pag. 45. Line 15. Continually might well be omitted for he did not continually go into the Jews Synogogue on the Seventh day but ceased from it when his great Design thereof was frustrated and never is said more to do it after this time No not at Rome where he lived Two whole Years in a hired House of his own and might have appointed what day he would for the Collection of his Disciples and Hearers Is he ever said to have called them together on the Seventh day which I assert to be a clear Proof that he never did it before out of any Regard to that day as more holy than other And therefore this Discourse of Two or Three Pages and the particular Remarks which he makes upon this Practice of St. Paul in some few of the Chapters of the Acts and the great Advantages he thinks he has for the Seventh day from them are dwindled and vanished into nothing If he would have gotten any thing for his Cause from this Practice of St. Paul he should have shewn these or such like Particulars 1. That St. Paul called his Auditors together upon that day which he cannot do for the Jews assembled themselves thereon 2. That he associated himself with the Gentiles and made their Religious Assemblies upon that day but this he never reads 3. That he did this perseveringly even when he turned from the Jews but this he can never shew and therefore all this shew is but a shew Besides we know St. Paul preached where-ever and whenever he found a convenient Auditory in the School of Tyrannus Acts 19.9 in the Market-place Acts 17.17 on Mars-hill v. 22. at the High Priests Bar and before Festus and Agrippa and as he made no distinction of places so none of days as to the preaching of the Gospel though as to the Churches solemn stated Worship he did though not the Seventh day and so these days and times have as much to plead for their Sanctity from the Apostles preaching on them as the Seventh hath But I suppose I have said enough of this to satisfie any unprejudiced considering Person Page 46. To his Question we grant that the Holy Scriptures do call no other day of the Week a Sabbath but the Seventh though Dr. Lightfoot shews that one day of the Year is called a Sabbath day whenever it falls out upon any other day of the Week viz. Pentecost and do not begrudge him all the Advantage he can take from hence Thus I hope by Gods Assistance and Guidance I have ran through all this Author's Arguments for his Sabbatarian Opinion and if I deceive not my self have proved them to be very weak and ineffectual as to the Edifying and Establishment of it And now I must proceed to try his Skill in plucking down and to see if he be more Dextrous and Successful in defeating our Arguments against the Seventh day and for the Sanctification of the First day which from henceforth I will take liberty to call the Lords day which he judges to be most weak and empty even the Conjectural Mistakes of the meaning of some Passages in Scripture let us see whether he can prove them to be such SECT XII THe first Objection against the Seventh day and Argument for the Lords day is Page 47. from the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that day c. Against which he has nothing directly and particularly but only hints the Differences of Opinions about the changing of the day but all save one do agree that it is changed and reason would judge that their universal concurrent Suffrages should weigh more for its Mutation than their Differences about the Circumstances thereof should against the Change of it He answers there is no express Alteration of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath And he expresses his meaning to be not by any express Precept but we say there are other ways of Abrogating and Establishing things in Scripture than by express Prohibitions or positive Injunctions even by genuine Consequences from Doctrins from Examples of those that are proposed to our Imitation c. And that the Sanctification of the Seventh day is as much abrogated in the Gospel and the Lords day established in its stead as any of the Ceremonies of the Old Administration are And I think we may challenge him to produce any one express Command for the Abolishing of any one of the Jewish Ceremonies or of all of them conjunctly which because we cannot find consequently we must still look upon them to be in force and keep them alive in the Christian Churches and these days of Reformation I do verily believe if my Judgment were sway'd with such Arguments against the Lords day and for the Seventh they would lead me back to all the Jewish Religious Worship because they were all as really commanded by the Second Command even all instituted Worship as the Seventh day is by the Fourth both which are in themselves positive though referred to and virtually contained in the Moral Commands yet he acknowledges the Abolition of these without an express Command and why not of this Let him bring his Arguments from Scripture for the Abrogation of any of them and I do verily believe we shall be able to use the very same for the Exclusion of the Seventh day I know not any one
particular Rite of the Old Testament more particularly spoken of in the New Testament by the Apostle towards its Exclusion from the Christian Church than Circumcision yet there is no express Command against it that I know of And I assert that let him bring what Argument he can from these Epistles against it I will produce the same against the Seventh-day-Sabbath and so they must either stand or fall upon the same Ground and so must the other Ceremonies that are not so much as mentioned in the Books of the New Testament Again here he recurs to the Danger and Presumption of Indulging to Conjectures and Humane Fancies in the things of God without any warrant from Scripture or against the Commands thereof under a pretence of honouring God and Christ thereby and unworthily applies all this to the Assertors of the Lords-day But to this we have answered already and doubt not but to be as Innocent in this Respect as himself and this is the summ of all his answer to this Argument for the First-day-Sabbath But we must not so leave it but speak what I hope God will direct to the Vindication of it And here we must know that this Argument is not the solitary Proof that we bring for the lords-Lords-day's Holy Observation for then it might seem to carry no great weight with it But First We undertake to prove an Abolition of the Seventh day from the Word and then propose the First day as bidding fairest of all the other Week-days for it because we acknowledge one day of the Seven to be the substance of the Fourth Commandment and to be positively and secondarily Moral in it and that therefore there lies still an Obligation upon all the Churches unto the end of the World to keep one day in seven Holy unto the Lord at least all who may have the Commands intirely conveyed to them and duly taught them for there may be a case of Exemption in this particular as we may see in the progress and we say the Seventh day being cashiered the first day ought to be its successor and that because of the glorious Privileges of this day above all others of the Week whereof this of our Lords Resurrection from the Dead is chief because this was the day of God the Redeemer's entring into his Rest And our Argument for the Lords day is both a Pari a Majori from Equality and Eminence Equality with and Eminency to the Rest of God the Creator upon the Seventh day for as the Creators having finished the Sixth days work and rested the Seventh was made a positive Motive for the Observance of that day for a religious Rest during all the time that Jehovah rested from no other more eminent work of his So we say in like manner the Rest of God the Redeemer from that his greater work of Redemption on the first day may be as good a Motive for the Consecrating thereof to a religious Rest for here we suppose the Seventh day excluded Yea we argue a fortiori and say it may much more upon this account challenges its Holy Observation Because 1. The Rest of Jehovah after the works of the Creation was no proper Rest as has been proved but now his Rest after the work of Redemption was a real and proper one from the Labours Sufferings and Humiliation of his humane Nature 2. The Work of Creation cost God but six words of his Mouth but the work of Redemption cost him his Incarnation and in his Manhood his mean and contemptible Birth his poor obscure laborious Life for thirty Years together in his reputed Fathers House and probably at his Trade too and after that his itinerant wearisom tempted reproached persecuted and sad Life for 3 or 4 Years before his Sufferings and his compleat voluntary and sinless Obedience to his Fathers Will all his days and his fearful Sufferings and most dreadful shameful painful lingring and accursed Death 3. By the work of Creation God brought all things out of nothing and so could not possibly meet with any opposition thereto but in the work of our Redemption he waded through and overcame all Opposition all the Temptations of Men and Devils all the Rage and Malice the Revilings horrible Reproaches false Accusations unjust Condemnations of Men all the Rage Fury and Cruelty of Earth and Hell of Men and Devils Yea all the Wrath and Vengeance of his Father which was infinitely worse than all the former and at last Death and the Grave 4. By the Creation God brought our Nature out of nothing but by Redemption from Satan from Sin from Death from Hell from the Wrath of God and from the Grave 5. By the Creation God made us perfectly Holy and Happy planted Paradise for us gave us an Immortality and Abilities and Inclinations and infinite Obligations so to remain for ever but not the effectual Grace for we speedily fell and an animal Life for we were to eat and drink and sleep in Innocency to recruit the Decays of Nature but by Redemption God brings us again into a perfect and more glorious State of Holiness and Happiness conveys us into the third Heaven gives us an eternal Security there and makes us like the Angels for ever and ever and doubtless our Condition in the third Heaven where Redemption conveys and lodges us will be as far more Noble Glorious Blessed and Happy than our Condition in Paradise where Creation made and stated us as that is in Situation above this 6. God glorified his Power Wisdom and Goodness in the work of Creation but much more all these in the work of Redemption as might easily be displayed to the Reader and withall his Pity his Grace his Justice his Holiness his Truth his Jealousie for his own Glory more of Gods Glory shining forth in one Line of the Redeemers Face than in all the Creation both visible and invisible Wherefore seeing this work of Redemption does so unconceivably surpass that of Creation both as to Excellency as wrought out by God and as to its Vtility to us as wrought out for us we say with Reverence and without Offence that the first day hath more to shew upon this account for its Holy Separation from and Exaltation above the rest of the Week-days than ever the Seventh had or can pretend unto And we say withall that it is very Congruous that God the Redeemer should have one day of the Week consecrated to his Rest for 2000 Years in the latter days of the World as well as God the Creator have a day throughout 4000 Years consecrated to his Rest Especially seeing that the Honour and Glory of the Redeemer herein is the Glory and Honour of God the Creator for both are the same Jehovah whereas the Glory of the Creator herein is not the Glory of the Redeemer for the Redeemer was not when the Creation was produced neither should ever have been had the Creation stood in that Estate wherein God created it and
for that of the First and well he may For 't is an eminent one and such an one as he will find very difficult to answer but yet we must expect the utmost of his Efforts to do it I shall track his Endeavours 1. He says we guess that he First day of the Week was that day we call Sunday as though this were but a bare Guess as a Blind Man shoots the Mark or catches the Hare as the other Three Guesses he says we make in the very next Paragraph But yet 't is such a Guess as he will not controvert and we think 't is because he cannot gain-say it But yet this great Condescension to us must be with a Grant from us to him that St. Paul was a Keeper of the Seventh day and an Observer of it as a Sabbath and so for his granting us what he cannot deny we must grant him what he can never prove Yea what we have denyed and still do viz. that Paul was a Keeper of the Old Sabbath-day We grant indeed as before that he Preached on that day usually to the Jews in their Synagogues because he could have no other such convenient Time and Place for it But that he kept that Sabbath we utterly deny For then he would have done it among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews which yet we never read he did Or if he saith he did let him prove it which we are sure from Scripture he can never do Nor after the former Chapter that ever he did go so much as to the Jewish Synagogue for this is all the Proof of his keeping it upon the Seventh day But here we find that the Disciples came together uon the First day and Paul came to them and associated with them in Religious Duties And why is the First day now named and the Seventh never after as the Solemn Dedicated Day to their Worship but because it was never so from that time But yet this is not all the Condition upon which he will be so exceedingly kind to us as to grant the First day of the Week to be Sunday or our Lords day but it must be bought with another Information even on what part of the Sunday 't was that this Assembly was and St. Pauls associating in them which he takes for granted and I am sure does but guess that his Opponents do that 't was in the Evening after the Seventh day Which he takes for the beginning of the First day and so Paul Preached till the Midnight and brake Bread and discoursed only till the Light of the First day but performed no Religious Duty upon the Morning of that day at all but as soon as ever the first Day-light began to dawn he betook himself to what was Profane and Travelled Which I think is a begging of the Question and in a scriptural Sense is to say that he performed no Religious Duties at all thereon for 't was the Light that God called day and the dakness he called night Gen. 1.5 and so to contradict the express words of the Text. Besides I would fain know of him which is the chiefest part of a natural Day either the dark part of it which we with Scripture call Night or the light part of it which with it we call Day If the light part as I think an unprejudiced Mind will grant why should he suppose that all the Religious Duties of that Day should be done in the Dark thereof and not in the Light Again we think that the Lords day did not begin at Even but rather in the Morning when our Lord rose out of the Grave that being the great occasion of its Sanctification to sacred Duties and its being imployed therein by those Disciples and Paul And for this we have express Scripture I mean for the First day of the Weeks beginning in the Morning as Mat. 28.1 in the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the First day of the Week where the Scripture determines the Sabbath to end with the Darkness of the Night before the First-day Morning and the Lords day to begin at the dawning of the Morning of the First day So far is it from Truth that the Evening and Night before the Morning of it were part of that day at least in this Scripture Phrase and hence we say that Paul began to Preach to them in the light part of that Day as the beginning thereof and continued with them till the following Midnight Yea throughout that Night and so the next Morning being the Second day on Monday took his Journy as a proper day for it And now we have another of our Guesses which is that the breaking of bread here spoken of was the Lords Supper and we would fain know what other breaking of Bread should be meant Can it be imagined that all the Disciples should come together to Feast it with Paul and that too in the Night-season as he would fain have it They had Houses of their own to Eat and Drink in and they would doubtless rather choose to receive the Consecrated Bread from the Apostle that day being the last he was to tarry with them having as 't is probable no other Apostle or Evangelist or Pastor with them at that time than to eat common Bread which they could do when they pleased in his Absence And the Sacrament is more suitable to the Society of Disciples as such to the Preaching of the Word of God by the Apostle than the feeding their Bodies Wherefore we say that seeing 't is clearly here implied that the Disciples gathered themselves together uon this day as upon the usual time and the Apostle ministerially served them then 't is very probable and more than a bare Guess that this day was the usual day and so to be the future day of their Solemn and Religious Devotions Dedicated thereunto As to what follows in the other Paragraph about Preaching and Reasoning we may with good reason pass it over seeing we can see in it but little to the present Case Next by way of Concession he tells us that though this were a Religious Assembly and the breaking of Bread was the Lords Supper yet then all this is but once But this is such an once as leaves the Seventh day for ever out of mention from being the day of Association Such an once as clearly seems to imply the Custom of the Disciples to be their Convention on the First day Such an once as the Holy Ghost is pleased here so particularly to mention after he had shewed us before that 't was the usual day of the Disciples Religious Association and our Saviours personal Presence with them and his gracious Discourse to them Such an once indeed now as no Meeting can be but once at a time as with the former makes more than once and such an once as with what hath been said and what may be said will be of force enough not to repeal a Law or
the Fourth Command but only to alter a Circumstance and Motive therein the whole Substance thereof continuing in its full Vigour and Authority Once he saith occasioned by Paul's being to depart to Morrow Which very Circumstance seems to me to be of some Moment against the Seventh or for the First day For we may well suppose that St. Paul had determined some days before the very day of his Departure and therefore seeing he intended the Second day of the Week to be it he might with much more Conveniency have Met and Preached and Administred the Lords Supper to the Disciples on the Seventh day If that had been now the Consecrated day of the Week and so have had more Time and Leisure with them for his Work and not have so straitned himself or incommoded them throughout a whole Night But becaust the Lords day was the sacred day of the Week to be observed and kept therefore he would defer it till then though to his own and their greater Inconvenience Here we have a Conjecture somewhat strange viz. that the Apostle kept the Seventh day at Troas What was it alone by himself and without any other with him as a private Person and not as an Apostle and then would keep the First day of the Week as an Apostle and with the Assembly of Believers Doubtless St. Paul was no such Dissembler on one hand nor Supersticious Bigot on the other to observe Two Sabbaths in the Week one by himself and another with the Church when God commands but one only But he seems to do all he can to turn the First day into the Seventh and to persuade us that the Assembly of the Disciples was begun on the last day of the Week and continued some time of the First Whereas the Text expresly tells us they came together on the First day and so continued together the First day till its Conclusion in the Second days Morning Here he takes no notice at all or to no purpose that the Holy Ghost tells us expresly that Paul abode Seven days at Troas of which one must necessarily be the last day the Seventh day in order of the Week And yet never tells us that the Disciples met on that day or Paul with them but only on the First day And why should this be if for any reason but to shew us that the Lords day was the day of their Religious Conventions and the Seventh day antiquated and no more to be mentioned and observed among Christians as such a day What follows has been if I mistake not satisfactorily answered already 'T is well he recedes from and stands not much upon the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be interpeted one for he knows that in both the Sacred Languages the Numerical word is frequently used for the Ordinal and if we should render this word here one it would make the Language of the Scripture very Impertinent and Uncertain It would be Impertinent and Superfluous because if it were upon any day it must be upon one day of the Week for there is no day that is not one of the Week and what need the Holy Ghost to tell us that was which we are sure could not but be And it would be uncertain and dubious for according to this meaning we could never know what day of the Week this religious Congregation met whether on the first or second or third or fourth c. and the Expression seems to hint that the Holy Ghost would acquaint us with the particular day thereof But such an uncertain Translation would greatly befriend this Author for then he might more confidently suppose it to be the Seventh day Seeing that now when the Spirit clearly asserts it was upon the First day he does perswade himself and would perswade us that it was upon the Seventh What follows after being Conjectures and Consequences drawn from his former weak Premises I shall say nothing more to them SECT XIV HE next proposes Page 58. the Objection against his Sabbath and Argument for our Lords day which is in 1 Cor. 16.1 2. which is taken as we say from the Collections for the Poor made in the publick Congregations on the first day of the Week and does what he can to enervate it Let us see how successfully 1. He tells us he knows not what the order to the Church of Galatia was But St. Paul tells him plainly that in this particular it was to collect Mony for the Poor on the Lords-day 2. That he does not find written that this order to that Church should oblige all others The like may be said of all the other Orders and Directions given in Scripture to all particular Churches therein mentioned and written to For 't is not there said that they are intended for all other Churches to the end of the World Yet I hope he looks upon the Doctrins taught them the Ordinance and Discipline established amongst them to be Obligatory upon the Churches now And we may well suppose the Apostles being inspired by the Holy Ghost in these Matters in all their Constitutions of their prime Primitive Churches to lay the Platform for all succeeding ones except there may be some particular Circumstance which may necessitate or allow a Deviation therefrom which in this matter of Collection cannot well be pretended 3. That it was a general order for a charitable Seposition but no order to observe the first day True indeed but it does imply the Observance of that day else why should it be enjoyned on that day more than on another but because thereon publick Assemblies met 4. 'T is an Order he tells us for a profane Employment as to cast up their Accounts on that day and to tell their Mony they have got and to reckon up how much their Stock is increased for he here supposes a Man must on this day look over all his Stock cast up all his Charges c. But certainly this is a pretty far fetch'd Invention for they are commanded only to lay up by them on the Lords-day what God had graciously enabled them to give to the Poor by his Success on their Labours and his providential Blessing on them as to Earthly things which they might very well enquire into the day before even the Seventh and having then discovered how God had succeeded them the next day even the Lords-day to separate that charitable Portion from the rest and carry it unto the publick Assembly and so cast it into the Poors Box. And I think 't is clear that the Text necessarily implies a former Inquisition into their Stock before this Seposition but where it implies it must be done on that day no Man can see Wherefore we say that a former Examination being had of these Matters this day that consecrated part was taken carried to the Congregation and put into the common Stock that so the Apostle when he came amongst them might not be forced to go from House to House to
for the first part of the Command the Substance and unquestionably moral Part thereof 2. We have the Explication of that Part of the Command in its following Words Six Days shalt thou labour and do all thy Work and the Day the Seventh a Sabbath to the Lord thy God is or shall be or both a Sabbath to the Lord that is dedicted to the Worship and Service of Him Thou shalt do no Work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter c. Where we have one Day in Seven or of Seven declared and signified to be that Day of Rest or Holy Sabbath which was commnded in the Beginning And here our Authors contend and worthily that this Seventh Day in this Peace is not an Ordinal Seventh Day that is the next Day after the former Six Days But rather a Proportional If I may so express it Day or a distributed part of the Seven that is that of Seven days God will have one entire day to be sanctified to him and his Service without specifying what day of the Seven it should be And I am sure he has no reason nor ground from the Command hitherto to except against this understanding of the Seventh day In this Explication of the Command we have two things 1. The Portion of Time or the Part of the days that God will have sanctified to an Holy Rest the Seventh 2. How he will have the Rest observed By an Abstinence of all sorts of Persons from earthly and worldly Employments except such as do not interfere with its due Sanctification that they may be wholly in Body and Soul busied in his Service as is clearly enjoyned in that word in the Substance of the Command to Sanctifie it As to this Seventh part of time so sanctified and separated to Divine Service this is not Primarily and Purely Moral though we acknowledge it to be Secondarily and Positively so Not such a measure of Time as the Wisdom of Man in Innocency would have precisely separated to Divine Worship and not one day more nor one day less of all the Week-days I think I have shewn before that the light of Nature would have separated and dedicated all to the solemn Service of God all the time that it could spare from the due Recruits of Nature Which I doubt not but in an Estate of Innocency would have been a greater Measure and part of Time than the Seventh For now we find by Experience that even after the Fall since that the Earth is cursed for our Sins and requires a great deal more Labour and Time to be lain out upon it for the Production of our necessary Sustinence than before the Fall Now that our weak crasie and distempered Bodies call for a great deal more Care and Time for their Sustentation their Recruits and Reparation than when they had a perfect Temperature were compleatly Healthy Strong and Immortal in Innocency and many other Civil Domestick Affairs take up and must have a great deal of our time which would have exacted none of it in Innocencency And yet we experience I say that six in seven allotted us for these things are sufficient enough and we can very well spare a Seventh day for the solemn Service of God without any Detriment to our Bodies or our civil Concerns Yea and have many other Seasons and good Opportunities given us to serve God in And doubtless had God seen fit to have required the sixth part of our time it would have been so also Wherefore I conclude that the seventh part of the Week or one day of the Seven is not primarily Moral because the light of Nature could not have precisely dictated it to us Which methinks I could demonstrate by this Supposition Suppose a Person that is against the Morality of the Sabbath that judgeth no day of the week more Holy than another should by Providence be thrown among Mahonietans or Heathens and preaching the Gospel to them should be Instrumental to convert any of them to the Christian Faith I assert that in such a case and he would certainly be horribly uncharitable that should judge the contrary if they did keep all the rest of the Moral Precepts with a sound Faith in Christ they would infallibly be saved though they never separated one day of the week intirely to Gods Worship and Service But now if they did allowedly live in any Breaches of the other Commands yea supposing some of them should never have been expresly taught them by their Converter as if they did not acknowledge the only true God in their Souls if they did worship Idols if they did Swear Falsly or Vainly if they were Rebellious and Undutiful to Parents and Magistrates if they lived in Hatred and were Cruel if in Wantonness and were Lascivious in Theft and Couzenage or were Oppressing in Lying Slandering and False Witnessing or in an inward Love and Delight in any of these Sins they should certainly Perish And why But because all the other Commands are primarily Moral and this of the seventh part of time is not so Yea in keeping the other Commands they keep the Morality of this also Commands they must separate time to the performance of that Divine Service which is the prime Morality of the fourth Precept Thus I think 't is clear that the Sanctification of one Seventh day of the week is not absolutely and primarily Moral but yet it may also be concluded to be secondarily and positively so that is that upon the Revelation of the Will of the Legislator and his Injunction the rational Creature closes with it as that which is Holy Just and Good as that which is infinitely reasonable for what can be more so than that is seventh part of time should be devoted to his Service whose all our time is especially when it is also for the Creature 's chief good 3. We have the Reasons to inculcate its Observation 1. The Legislator's own Example because he was six days in creating the World and ceased from those works on the Seventh day rested on the Seventh day and 't is hence only in all this Command that they can have any shew or ground to plead for the last day or the Seventh day of the week to be the Sabbath or Rest that God did command which is no way cogent because it may be meant a Seventh day by way of part or portion and not the Seventh day of order nor in number of the week And it may be thus understood Because I was six dyas in making the World and then rested so shall you be six days busie in your common lawful Imployments and then a Seventh you shall consecrate to me and my Worship So that in this Sense it doth not injoyn the last day the Seventh day of the week in order but a Seventh day in proportion of time For which we have this to lead That seeing Gods Example is made the great Fundamental Argument of the Seven-day-Rest it should hence follow that if Adam
had exactly followed the Pattern then the Sixth day of the week would bid fairest for the day of Rest of all the Seven because then Adam must have worked six days before his Holy Rest as God did and then being created as we may suppose about the latter end of the sixth day of the Creation he must have wrought the day following which is the Seventh and so the five other days following and rested upon the Sixth day as his first Sabbath for that would have been the day after his six days Labour or Work For 't is clear that the Seventh day after the beginning of the Creation though it were so with respect to Gods Works yet 't was the very next day after Adam was and could not but be within a very few hours if hours after his Creation seeing it begun in the Evening And so Adam and Eve were so far from an exact Imitation of God in the Observance of the first Sabbath that in his particular they were contrary thereto for God wrought six days first and then rested the Seventh but Adam rested his first day and then wrought the six days following God's Rest was in the Conclusion of his Work and Man's Rest was in the beginning of his Work in his first seven days which I think somewhat enervates this solitary Plea they have here for the last Week-day-Sabbath But yet we will Suppose that in this Clause God did there injoyn the last day of the Creation-week to be the Sabbath but then we say this is purely Positive and no way Moral at all neither Primarily nor Secondarily for it is were so the Morality thereof must arise from the Reason that is given for it viz. Gods Example even because he made his work of Creation in six days and rested on the Seventh But this is no way cogent or rather Moral not such a thing as the light of Nature would engaged us to For 1. God is not to be imitated by us in all that he does neither could the rational Creature conclude upon Gods Revelation of his having ended his work on the Seventh day that therefore he must work six and rest the Seventh without an express Injunction which therefore God gave here 2. If we could suppose that such a Collection of imitating God could have been apprehended by Man without Relevation then the Sixth day of the week would by him be pitched upon for his own Sabbath of Rest because the Sixth day of the following week would have been his Seventh day after his Six days working as before 3. Gods making of the World in six days was a pure Revelation for Man could never have known it of himself no not in the Estate of his pure Knowledge Because for ought he could know God might have made the World simultaneously all at once or by one word speaking for he knew he might so have done if he had pleased he could not know that God did gradually or progressively make the Creatures much less that he took up six days for it neither more nor less Indeed the Order and Method the Time and Duration of the work of Creation must be by Revelation to Man seeing he was created the last of all the Creatures So that in this respect 't is not Moral neither could it ever be the Dictate of Man's Mind 4. God cannot properly Rest because he cannot be said properly to Labour Rest properly is a Refreshment after Weariness Isa 40.28 The everlasting God the Creator of the Ends of the Earth fainteth not neither is weary Consequently neither resteth for he does all he does with an infinite Facility and perfect Immobility and takes no more pains in creating the World than in creating a Fly that is none at all And besides as before God works still in his works of Preservation and Providence which are altogether as Great and Glorious and some of them more Great Glorious than were the works of Creation So that in this respect this Argument is not Moral not such a Motive as could have been found out by the Mind of Man Lastly If this were such a cogent Reason in it self or a Moral Motive for the Sanctification of the Seventh day in the Repetition of the Fourth Command why is it not so much as mentioned For Deut. 5 13-15 there is not a word concerning it but whereas in the other Commands all the Motives that were used and adjoyned to them in their first Edition are here again repeated yet this is quite and clean left out in this second Edition of the Fourth Command and in lieu thereof their mighty and wonderful Deliverance out of the Land of Egypt is inserted that 't was therefore because he saved them that he commanded them to keep the Sabbath-day What this should signifie I cannot well see unless God would hereby teach us that the Salvation of his Church is a far more great and glorious work in it self and far more beneficial and happy to us than that of the Creation for the Deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses was a Type of the Deliverance of the universal Church from the Devil from Sin from Hell from the Curse from Death and the Grave by our Lord Jesus Christ and that when this shall be compleated as we know 't was at our Savour's Resurrection it being the Conclusion of his Estate of Humiliation by which he purchased our Salvation and an entrance into his Glorification where he would procure it apply and effect it then the Reason annexed to the Fourth Command from the ceasing the Works of Creation should in a sense be lain by and that of the Redemption of the Church be substituted in its place And so consequently as the Seventh-day-Sabbath was observed in Commemoration of the works of Creation until a more admirable work of God should be accomplished so the first day ever after should be the Holy Rest when that Supream of all the works of God our Redemption should be rested from on that day I do verily believe Gods neglecting the works of Creation and substituting that of the Churches Redemption as the gread Foundation and Reason of keeping the Holy Rest here in Deut. declares this unto us But I refer it to wiser Heads Only from what has been here spoken I will conclude that this part is purely Positive both the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath and this Motive upon which 't is grounded God's working six days and resting the Seventh which is a Motive to us to observe it as well as it seems a Reason in God to require it Wherefore here I would fain demand of this Gentleman why he should be so exceedingly Zealous for the Perpetuity of the Seventh-day-Sabbath when 't is both a Ceremonial and Positive Precept Ceremonial as it signifies Gods own Rest from his Works past and as it signifies our future Rest in Heaven from all our Labours in this present Life And purely Positive seeing all the former Ceremonial and Positive Precepts
concerning Worship are abolished by the coming of Christ Why should this then solitarily be excluded and stand in its Strength and Vigour when all its other Companions are thrown to the Ground and vanish I know no reason but because this was written by the singer of God upon stone But this altereth not the nature of the Command it self neither can it from hence plead a greater Privilege for all the former had God for their Author as well as this and God's Mouth is as Authoritative as his Finger Wherefore we may well conclude that seeing there is no reason can be given why the Seventh-day-Sabbath should not recede and give place as well as all other Ceremonial and Positive Precepts to our Lord Christ at his coming and his new and more glorious Administrations that it is and ought to be excluded with them and give place to a more glorious day in Commemoration of a more glorious work and Gods resting from it Even the first day our Lords glorious triumphing day The other two reasons of this Fourth Command follow which are Gods Blessing the Sabbath day and Hallowing it Where 't is worthy our Observance though this Author deems it a Triffe that 't is the Sabbath day not the Seventh day of the Week that is here blessed and hallowed As if God would hint that the Sabbath upon what day soever of his own Appointment should be Blessed even the first as well as the Seventh day of the Week when in the latter days his Sons glorious Rest should Authorize that day and as it should alter all other Ceremonial and positive Ordinances of his own Appointment so also this Ceremonial and Positive day into that other which with all the other Ordinances and Institutions of the Blessed Redeemer should last to the end of the World From which Discourse concerning the Nature of the Fourth Command all that follows in his third or fourth Pages after is sufficiently answered and so his next answer to another Objection against his Opinion P. 82. SECT XVII THUS by God's Help and I hope his Guidance I have considered all his Arguments that he urges for his Sabbatarian Opinion and have shewen their Invalidity and Weakness And all the Solutions that he brings to disannul all our Proofs for the Dominical Tenet and suppose that I have vindicated ours from all his Attempts and shewen how they remain solid and substantial Other things which follow being but Appendixes to this Discourse and not of so great Moment I shall but touch upon them As Page 83. about the Beginning of the Sabbath He would have it to begin at Even and we willingly grant him that the Seventh-day-Sabbath did so for it began when God had ended his Works of Creation which was the Evening before the Sun-rising of the Seventh Day But I judge that now the best Time to begin our Lord's Day with is in the Morning because 1. 'T was on that Time of the Day early in the Morning about Break of day that our Lord Jesus rested from his Work of Redemption Wherefore if the foregoing Evening of the Old Testament-Sabbath was its most convenient Beginning because then God ended his Work of Creation and rested then So he Morning-Light of the First Day is the most convenient Time for its Beginning because then God rested from his much more Glorious and really in his Humanity Laborious Work of our Redemption 2. Because the Holy Scripture expresly begins it thus placing the Conclusion of the Seventh Day at the beginning of the Morning of the First Day Mat. 28.1 In the End of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the First Day of the Week and consequently then that Day began 3. Because 't is the most convenient Time because most observable less lyable to Prophanations upon the account of Mistakes and so to turbulent Spirits less obnoxious c. but this is not so substantial a Dispute Let every Person give up and consecrate the whole Lords-day to the Service of God I mean the whole Artificial Day or rather the whole lightsome Part thereof and then let him begin either at Even or Morning I doubt not but if it be conscientiously done in the Name of Christ God will accept him But there he must not scandalize others by doing Common or Mechanick Works upon the following Evening of that Day which the Generality of Christians among whom he lives account as Sacred He seems Page 84. to imply that there should be Morning and Evening religious Service every Day in publick But there is scarcely any preaching Minister can have so much Leisure beside his own personal and domestical Devotions And beside our People will not attend it every day and then the proper publick Duty of the Sabbath to be but once and begin about Noon I for my Part believe the Times of publick Worship on the Lord's-day are most conveniently ordered already Twice once in the Morning about Nine and so in the Evening about Two An Interval being for the Refreshment of the outward Man and Recruits of the Spirit for a more vigorous and enlarged serving of God in the Evening Beside we know in the Country 't is convenient to keep some Persons at home or one Person when Houses are solitary and lyable to Injury by those who should know them totally destitute of an Inhabitant and in Country and City Families that have Children which must be kept at home either through Weakness or such as would disturb the Congregation by their Presence must have some one or other to take care of them Now in such Cases one Servant or Person may be at home in the Morning and another in the Evening and so all partake of the publick Worship every Lord's-day which could not so conveniently be done by one single assembling the Congregation But however to meddle herein would be very impertinent and would rather savour of a restless Fancy to say no worse than of a peaceable and prudent Spirit The other Pages home to the 90th I overlook because in them I find either such things as do not belong to the Sabbath nor to this Controversy at all Or if they do they are such as are written already at least the Substance and answered SECT XVIII HE produces Page 90. the Argument of Tradition from the Apostles in the universal Church these 1600 Years for the Observance of the lord's-Lord's-day Whereto his Answer is that no Tradition can add to take from lay aside or alter any Word of Christ or Duty of Man But yet such a perpetualand epidemical Tradition may serve for a good subservient Proof for that which is founded upon and deduced from Scripture as the case is here for we have proved by many Arguments from Scripture the Abolition of the Seventh-Day-Sabbath and the ratification of the Lord's-Day He answers to such a general and lasting Tradition for the Sanctification of the Lord's-day That he has already proved that the Seventh Day is the Lord's-day
Command is of perpetual Obligation to the Churches therefore the first day must be that day and the Sabbath was excluded that the Lords day might succeed and that the Promises made to the Rest of one day in Seven in the Command are made to and entail'd upon the first day of those Seven now as they were upon the last of them before its Expiration and that a due Observation thereof shall have a gracious Acceptation with a bountiful Remuneration from our God and our Saviour according to all the Blessed Experiences of the strict and consciencious Observers thereof That there is a more express and peremptory Abolition of this Sabbath in the Scriptures of that Apostle than there is or can be found in them for the Cessation of many other particular positive and ceremonial Institutions which yet Christians in general and this Gentleman in particular disregard as dissolved and vanished And I profess if I could see but half so much in the Second Command to prove a Form of Prayer to be the Pesel there forbidden or at least included therein I should utterly deny all Forms as Idolatrous which now I dare not do but in some cases hold them not only lawful but necessary and Praise-worthy or but half so much in any Line or Sentence of the New Testament against the use of the Lords Prayer in the publick Congregation I would never so use it more but to my due power would endeavour its Banishment thence If I say but half so much as I find expressed for the Seventh days Deposal well may we wonder that in such things a Man sees what scarce no Man else ever did in the word of God and yet in this that he should not see what almost every Man else can plainly discover Wherefore I question not but all our Divines and Ministers of Congregations are sufficiently satisfied that they serve God duly as to the Circumstance of time on Lords days and may and do in Faith associate on the Lords day as the only Sacred day of the Week with all other Christians in the Apostles days since our Saviours Resurrection home to this very Generation And I cannot but hope that this piece how specious soever it be and with what confidence soever recommended however back'd with the Pretences of Divine Authority of Jehovah's Will c. with pathetical Inculcations of those in multitudes of its Pages for the Observance of the Seventh day will find but very few if any Proselites among our common Professors and I am confident none among our Wise Stade experienced Christians or if any be in danger of Infection I pray to God that this Reply intended for this end may be an Antidote to secure them Lastly it will be good Advice to this Gentleman who hath caused the Expence of so much time in this Controversie to bethink himself how his Opinion leads us to Judaize and this work of his tends only to divide the Church to stumble the Weak to imploy and please the Silly Fantastical and Giddy in matters of Religion to encourage the Profaners of the first day or rather of the Lords day to scandalize and grieve all and therefore to cease from farther Attempts of this kind And all I desire is that the Reader would impartially compare what he has written for his Seventh day against the Lords day and what I have written for the Lords day against his Seventh day and beg Wisdom and Understanding from God to have a due Insight into and draw a right Conclusion from both FINIS Books Printed for Samuel Clement at the Swan in S. Paul's Church Yard GOD's Revenge against Murther and Adultery expressed in Thirty several Tragical Histories Wherein are lively delineated the Various Stratagems subtle Practices and deluding Oratory used by our Modern Gallants in order to the seducing young Ladies to their unlawful Pleasures To which are annexed the Triumphs of Friendship and Chastity in some Heroical Examples and Delightful Histories The whole illnstrated with about fifty Elegant Epistles relating to Love and Gallantry By Thomas Wright M. A. of S. Peter's Colledge in Cambridge A Compleat History of the Late Revolution from the first Rise of it to this present Time in Three Parts The English Grammar setting forth the Grounds of the English Tongue and particularly its Genius in making Compounds and Derivatives with many other Useful and curious Observations Wherein are also explained the usual Abbreviations the several hands used in Writing and Characters in Printing the Variety of Styles the Art of true Pointing and the Way to understand Books With a Prefatory Discourse about the Original and Excellency of the English Tongue and at the end an Alphabetick Collection of the Monosyllables being a Treatise of Orthography for Writers and of Rhymes for Poets A Necessary Work in general for all sorts of Persons desirous to understand the Ground and Genius of the English and very proper to prepare Young Men for the Latin Tongue By Guy Miege Gent. Cerevisiarii Comes Or the New and True Art of Brewing Illustrated by various Examples in making Beer Ale and other Liquors so that they may be most Durable Brisk and Fragrant and how they may be so ordered as to yield the greatest Quantity of Spirits in Distillation To which is added the right way to refine and bottle Beer and Cyder and a Cure for those that are Sick and Ropy so as to return them to their internal Sanity as also the true Method of manuring Lands and the Art of making Salt-Water fresh All proved by Demonstration and Sound Philosophy to be more agreeable to Man's Body than otherwise and so not only sit for English Constitutions but also for Transportation Published for the fake of Variety and therefore recommend to all that esteem demonstrated Truths before Notional Theory By W. Y. worth Medicin-Professor