the former words weigh the Words of the precept from which I thus reason First The servant eo nomine as a servant is commanded to remember the day therefore as a servant the Commandement is given to him to cease from his servile work or the worke of a servant For is hee to remember a part and not all the precept Or may hee earth himselfe in forgetfulnes and put all on his masters memory Againe the servant as a servant is commanded to keepe the day holy If any deny this then God and Caesar cannot have their due God callings cannot stand together God and societies must subvert each other and is this your quiet peaceable doctrine that ruines all and brings confusion Yeeld the Antecedent and then this conclusion will follow that hee is a a servant commanded not to worke For rest on the day is injoyned that holinesse may be followed and cessation from worke forbidden to whom holinesse is commanded as the words runne Remember the Sabbath or resting day to keepe it holy Besides That permissive mandate is not onely given of but to the servant sixe daies thou shalt labour and do all that thou hast to do therefore the command for the seventh daies rest is not only given of but to the servant for the commands of both respect the same persons Likewise this Command Thou shalt not do any work is given to him that is contained in the word Thou but the servant as thy servant is contained in the word thou and is it not given to him then For the words following expound the first Thou Thou shalt not Who meane you by this Thou who but thou master thy servant thou father thy sonne thou mother thy daughter c. Further the Commandement is given to them to whom the reasons of the Command reach but they reach alike to thy servant as to thee therefore the Command reacheth alike to thy servant as to thee And if you say yea the reasons reach to all alike to perswade to sanctifie but not to all alike to forbeare work It is false for besides that there can be no sanctification without cessation from servile workes the reasons do equally and strongly bend to perswade cessation from worke as the reason from the right of the Law-giver appropriating it to himselfe and his worship the equity of the Law which giveth sixe for worke and restraines but for one day the example of God and the speciall blessing given to the day To come to handy-gripes with you you yeeld the servants worke is forbidden I demand Is it forbidden because it hinders the master onely from sanctifying the day or the servant also Surely because it hinders the servant cheifly and not the master or not chiefely his worke crosseth the end of the Sabbath in him if therefore the command of sanctifying the day bee to him as a servant the command of ceasing from worke is to him as a servant Let mee againe reason with you from the command if the negative bee of the servant and not to the servant then also is the affirmative which is this Thou shalt doe the workes of holinesse that day and from hence will follow this grosse absurdity that if the servant goe not to the assemblies nor apply himselfe to workes of holinesse and the master also doe not bid him his master onely sinneth and not the servant because according to your new learning the master is charged with the servant for the workes of holinesse and the servants holinesse that day is the matter only of the Command the master and not the servant is the subject person commanded This Command Thou shalt doe the workes of holinesse is of the servants holy worke but no precept to the servant It may be you will flee off here-from but you are caught in your owne net as sure as the negative precept hath his affirmative every way proportionable Thirdly and seeing store is no sore where each apart will make a party good b Quae prosâ—nt singula multa juvant I adde He that gave the Law knoweth best the meaning of his owne Law let us see from his Word in other Texts the persons that stand expressely charged To whom is it given In Ier. 17. 20. to the Kings of Iudah to all Iudah to all the Inhabitants of Ierusalem that entred in by those gates was this Command given of ceasing from work of bearing no burden on the Sabbath day Were the Iewish servants none of Iudah none of Ierusalems inhabitants none of those that entred in and went out by Ierusalems gates To whom is the Command of the Sabbath rest given In Exod. 34. 21. to him that serves these are the words of the Text Sixe dayes thou shalt serve c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but on the seventh day thou shalt rest in eating time and in harvest thou shalt rest Now who serveth so properly as a servant and is not the originall word the same that notes is that serving and a servant d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 save that one is the Verbe and the other the Noune And what serving doth it signifie No other than that service of servants e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of houshold servants of such as till the ground There can bee no way to Servitus ministerium samulatus cultura exclude the servant at all from the charge of this precept Fourthly besides all this how is your doctrine built on the words of this Commandement the Law saith Thou and thy servant shall doe no worke you say it onely saith Thou shalt not command thy servant to worke Againe take your saying the Law bindeth the Master from commanding and will this follow therefore it binds the servant to obey his master if he should be so wicked as to command what God prohibits him This is a plaine non-sequitur and can not hold together by all the Geometry in the World nor can any Carpenter make this joyne but such loose reasonings hold best for them that would goe in a broad way Now weaken these following arguments if you can Fifthly hee that is circumcised is bound to keepe the whole Law and none is bound by your owne confession but he to whom the Law is given the Iewish servant then being circumcised was bound to keepe this Law as given to him The circumcised saith the Apostle is a debtor to doe the whole Law f Gal. 5. 3. Sixthly he that wrought on the Sabbath being a stranger was not fit for communion and ordinary conversing with the Iewes as appeareth by the words of the Commandement that charged the stranger within the gate to rest that day and by the practice of Nehemiah that drave such from within and without the Citie Ierusalem and by a like instance of leaven at the Feast of the Passeover and of unleavened bread For if the stranger that sojourned onely and was not borne in the Land did this while eate that which was leavened he was
the Jewes not the first day of the weeke the Sabaoth of Christians that was so strictly by Gods commandement destined to rest Therefore the workes done on the Sabaoth day are no transgressions of Gods commandements Object But you will say the old Sabaoth is abolished and the celebration of it translated to the first day of the weeke Translated by whom By any commandement of God Where is it The holy Scripture we know to be sufficient it containeth all the commandements of God whether of things to be done or to be avoided or to be beleeved Sol. Let me heare either one precept one Word of God out of the old Testament that it should be translated or one precept one word of the Sonne of God out of the new Testament commanding it to bee translated I say one word of any of his Apostles intimating that by Christs commandement it was translated It is certaine that there is none Therfore it is evident that the solemnitie of the Lords day was not established Iure divino Not by any commandement of God and consequently that to worke on that day is certainely no breach of any Divine commandement Answer You proceed and would prove this wicked assertion That it is no breach of any Divine commandement for a servant at the commandement of his master nay for any one on his owne head to worke on our Sabbath which is the Lords day the first day of the weeke First the commandement say you cannot be understood of the Lords day Why I pray you can you understand it of any other day save the Sabbath day Doth not the tenor of the precept sound thus Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it You yeeld in the next breath that the Lords day is the Christians Sabbath You must then yeeld that the commandement is understood of it You would bee thus understood and take it very hainously that you should be said to oppose Gods Sabbath do you No you doe not nor ever did Farre bee it from you to thinke it were to wrong you to write it were to calumniate you thus you pleade for your selfe in the first section of your Reply pag. 61 62. Yet lo now the commandement cannot be understood of the Lords day Why then say man the Lords day is not the Sabbath for of the Sabbath is the commandement Secondly but to your reasoning for it is not reason nor religion What day was it of which the charge was so strictly given was it not of the seventh day of the weeke say you Yes indeed of the seventh as the precept was first applied to man But aske againe Why of the seventh more than the sixth And the Lord answereth Because it was the Sabbath of the Lord for wheÌ„ it ceaseth to be the Lords Sabbath the commandement is not of it as you also acknowledge or else why keepe you it not Yet the commandement standeth in full vigor viz. of sanctifying and resting on the Sabbath To the Iewes the seventh from the Creation was the Sabbath the commandement stood in vigor to them for that day to the Christian the seventh even the first day of the weeke is the Sabbath the commandement stands in vigor to them also for that day Therefore he saith not Remember thou sanctifie the seventh day and keep it Sabbath nor thou shalt doe no worke on the Sabbath day for it is the seventh but he saith Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it and Thou shalt do no worke on the seventh for it is the Sabbath This Reason you leape and yet you aske a Why And why the seventh Because God rested thereon and sanctified the seventh day Here you violate first the words of the commandement written with Gods owne finger and then the sense for it is thus read o Exod. 20. 11. Therefore hee sanctified the Sabbath day or resting day and so hee sanctified our Sabbath day as well as theirs for the Sabbath he sanctified be it what day hee shall be pleased to nominate a matter of infinite comfort to us that desire to doe the duties of the day with faith in Gods both blessing and acceptation And hereby your conclusion is utterly weakened Thirdly this reason is given both as a reason of the rest on that day and as a plaine declaration of the institution of that Sabbath day and of this day in the precept now Hee rested the seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it When did hee so Gen. 2. 3. In the beginning Yea he did sanctifie the seventh Yea then he sanctified the Sabbath it was instituted when he blessed and sanctified it and this was in the Creation But how was this done The very worke of the day instituted the day which was this the Lords resting blessing and sanctifying it Now this teacheth us that the institution of the Sabbath in respect of the determination of the time is to bee looked for in the worke of God Gods resting blessing and sanctifying the seventh day made it the Sabbath day therefore in the commandement it is said The seventh is the Sabbath and the following words shew how it was made the Sabbath and what day he blesseth and sanctifieth is the Sabbath Now Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath by whom the worlds were made Col. 1. 16. by whom also they are renewed looke in his worke and find undoubtedly the making and institution of the day to the world renewed the seventh day he lay in the grave here was no worke of blessing and sanctifying but the first day of the weeke very early he arose and appeared to his Disciples and unfolded the Scriptures and opened their understandings to understand them The fourth commandement to speake all clearely stands in p Nomine Sabbathi nobis significatur quòd in nostris debeamus nos Sabbathiê â—â— Hoc est quiescere ab illis operibus à quibus Iudaei quiescere jubebantur Zanch. de red l. 1. c. 19. force to us and the Lords resurrection resting from the worke of our redemption and rejoycing in it blessing it with that worke with divers apparitions that very day and sanctifying it with spending it among his Disciples in his presence bodily now glorified in heavenly expositions and operations upon their hearts and in the returne of the day many times and in speciall upon the returne of it at Whitsontide with the mission of the Holy Ghost This I say applieth and determineth it to this day we now observe And as the Iewes are sent to seeke the precise day in the Lords resting from the workes of Creation so we are sent to the rest from the worke of redemption The institution of this day is clearely in the very worke of the Resurrection as the institution of the seventh day was in the worke of finishing the Creation This hath been anciently taught and still is sparsed in the writings of the godly learned S. Augustine saith q Domini resuscitatio promisit nobis
signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 56 57 58. CHAP. XIIII Sheweth What worke for kinde is forbidden on the Sabbath and how the Aduersaries argument makes against him page 59 60. The text in Esa 58. 13. vindicated from his false glosse and vnfolded page 60 61 62. Diuers things about the forme and residence of sinne page 62 63. How farre this is true that the Minister of anothers exorbitant will sinneth not page 64. The vanitie of that distinction that the Seruants worke done in obedience to his Master is his naturally not Morally pag. 64 65. CHAP. XV. Sheweth How sinne is attributed to the members and that properly the man sinneth page 66 67. The faultinesse of our Aduersaries Reasoning about a Naturall and Voluntary Instrument of sinne page 67 68. What takes Voluntarinesse from a deed and the danger of that speech worke on the Sabbath hath sinne annexed to it page 68. CHAP. XVI Prooueth these particulars The Seruants working on the Sabbath impeacheth his seruing of God page 72 73. The Distinction of forbidding Nakedly and Immediately is vaine and freeth not him that doth the thing forbidden from sin page 73 74. The specification of the Seruant in the Commandement makes his working neuer the lesse his sinne but the more and the venime of that word Exception page 74 75. The Gouernour is charged more then the gouerned in respect of a Politicall obseruance of the Commandement not of a personall page 75. The fourth Commandement is a Law of Nature by Reasons Authorities and the Aduersaries owne words page 75 76 77. To worke on the Sabbath is euill materially page 78 79. The danger of that Position that prohibitions in the Commandements are caused by the Natiue illnesse of that which is prohibited page 79. The footsteps of euery specialtie in the fourth Commandement found among the Gentiles page 80 81 82 83 84. Gomarus exceptions against this answered page 84 to 87. Our Aduersaries reasons answered with a proofe that the fourth Commandement was kept by the Patriarkes before the Law giuen in Sinai page 87 to 90. CHAP. XVII Prooueth that the Seruant in such worke sinneth as consenter to his Masters sinne where the wayes of partaking with other mens sins are layd downe page 92 93 94. Decideth a great Case viz. what workes Seruants may doe on the Sabbath page 94 95. With Cautions both to Master and Seruant page 96. CHAP. XVIII Sheweth that the Seruant in this case may breake the Morall Law and yet not fall vnder the Iudiciall Law page 98. Some fearefull examples of Gods justice on Inferiours working that day at the command of Superiours page 98 to 102. CHAP. XIX Prooueth that light workes that are our owne are forbidden on the Sabbath by foure arguments page 104 105. A large explication of the meaning of the Hebrew word Melachah page 105 106. Authorities to prooue this Doctrine page 107 108. CHAP. XX. Our Aduersaries senselesse Answer to that place Exod. 35. 3. with the true meaning thereof page 109 110. The clearing of the Instances of our Sauiour in commanding some workes to be done on the Sabbath page 111. That that which some Diuines terme Christian libertie on the Sabbath is no other then Christian dutie to the eternall Law and was the Iewes freedome also page 111 to 114. CHAP. XXI Sheweth that to worke on the Lords day is a breach of the fourth Commandement pag. 116. 117. Where to find the Lords Sabbath pag. 117. 118. Authorities to prooue this page 118. 119. That the Lord Christ translated the day and that it is of diuine authority and of the Lords owne institution pag. 120. to 127. CHAP. XXII Sheweth the weakenesse of our Aduersaries position that the Lords day is by constitution of the most ancient Church and therefore Jus humanum a humane law and how he jumpes with Arminians and Papists pag. 128. CHAP. XXIII Examineth our aduersaries doctrine about the abolishing of the Iewes Sabbath and the proofes to prooue it ceremoniall pag. 129. 130. Declareth there is no ceremony in the fourth Commandement yet if there had beene it cannot cause the Sabbath to vanish pag. 131. 132. CHAP. XXIIII Sheweth the absurdity of this opinion that the Sabbath was translated by the Church and of the distinction of his generality and speciality of the Commandement pag. 133. 134. CHAP. XXV Prooueth notwithstanding that if the Church haue just power to translate the day the Commandement needes no translation but stands in force to binde vs to that day pag. 135. 136. CHAP. XXVI Prooueth that the speciality of the fourth Commandement inioyning one day of seuen and the seuenth and a whole day and that with precise vacancy from worke is morall pag. 138. to 144. In speciall that Gomarus his evasions are frigid and senselesse page 140 141. That the Commandement yeeldeth inforcing consequents for the Lords day page 144. CHAP. XXVII Prooueth that the Commandement of God bindeth equally and as strongly for the Lords day as it did for the Iewish Sabbath pag. 146. CHAP. XXVIII Disprooueth the distinction of Sanctification and exact vacation on the Sabbath and the Instance of the Popes Succession of Peter Idlely applyed to the Lords daies Succession of the Iewish Sabbath page 147 148. CHAP. XXIX Deliuereth Authorities of Fathers to prooue a generall restraint of labours on the Lords day page 149 to 152. The constitution of Constantine answered by constitutions of the same Emperour and by that of Leo with an Apologie in briefe for Constantine page 152 153. The clearing of the Councell of Laodicea page 154 155 156. CHAP. XXX Sheweth the vanitie of our Aduersaries Reasons and wish to perswade notwithstanding his Doctrine as devout an obseruation of the Lords day as the Iewes held of their day page 157 158 159. The sound Doctrine of our Church concerning the Sabbath and the full concord betweene it and ours with the plaine dissent thereof from our Aduersaries page 159 160 161. CHAP. XXXI Deliuereth Constitutions of Churches and Edicts of Princes that forbid and censure light workes page 162 163. Constitutions that bound Masters in commanding and free the Seruants in obeying that day page 163 164. CHAP. XXXII Sheweth three limitations laid downe by the Apostles touching Seruants obedience page 167 168. There can come no dishonour to the Gospel nor inconuenience to seruants dwelling with heathen masters by their obseruing of the Sabbath pag. 170. 171. 172. This doctrine is no seminary of disturbance or contumacy p. 173. The obedience to this command doth not alienate masters from their Christian seruants pag. 173. 174. CHAP. XXXIII Sheweth that Antiquity doth beare out the seruant in refusing the doing of seruile workes at his masters command vpon the Lords day pag. 176. 177. That the cause of the persecution of Christians was their withdrawing of themselues from obedience to their superiours pag. 178. What the Heathens and many of the Papists doe teach concerning this doctrine pag. 179. CHAP. XXXIV Sheweth that
commandement which you cite doth properly signifie Thirdly all thy worke as opposed to workes of sanctification that is of piety and mercy properly though they bee not servile worke properly so called or mechanicall as the study and exercise of the Liberall Arts for these concerne naturall and civill things and looke not immediatly to the worship of God nor the unavoidable necessities of man It is apparant then that servile workes or workes of ministry about our callings and so servants worke is in a speciall manner prohibited Now then take your owne argument The worke permitted on the sixe daies is prohibited the seventh the in sense with the middle word with which it is the selfe same in sound If the first then it is opposed to all that dutie of the Sabbath which consists in the immediate honour of God done with the full complacency of hart therein and the honorable mention of it in our words and discourse as is cleare in the Text to him that duly weigheth it Now say Is not the servants conteined in this word thy pleasure as that which is no duty of Gods worship publike or private If the second then it is not al that is forbidden and so your argument fals but rather concernes as many learned and conscionable Divines deliver our works of recreation or sports which we finde out though at other times lawfull which take off the heart from holy duties for God hath found us another recreation chiefely on that day if any will be merry let him sing Psalmes as in Ps 92. The Title compared with the Psalme would have the Sabbaths duties our delight Fourthly Now whereas you lay this for a ground that the election of mans will is the proper forme of actuall sin I wonder how you should so mistake but that Divinity was not your covenanted Wife but only your Concubine which for a turne you use and in the use you ravish Ataxy or irregularity is the proper forme of sinne actuall be the Ataxy in thoughts in desires in deeds or in words Moreover election of the will is an act and good and therefore by no meanes the forme of sinne and if you say you speake not of election but this election namely the unruly and inordinate election tell me is the election or the unrulinesse the forme of sinne unrulinesse doubtlesse which informeth both the election that is sinnefull and the action that is sinfull And whereas you say that outward unlawfull actions are but expressions of sinne and not sinne properly if they bee unlawfull actions they bee sinnefull actions properly so called for you yeelded before according to the truth of Scripture and reason pag. 12. that sinne formally is nothing else but unlawfulnesse unlesse you will say that sinne formally is not sinne properly A proper position For your reason whereby you would maintaine this that sinne hath her residence and inhesion in the soule it selfe and passeth forth of it the actions outward carry onely the tincture of sinne therefore they are not sinne I reply If they carry the tincture of sinne then are they sinnefull Againe are they died with sinne and yet hath sinne no inhesion nor residence in them This is strange and for the residence of sinne it is not in the soule alone a Peccat um est in â—bjecto occasion â—liter in intellectu originaliter in voluntate formaliter in membris quoad usum Saint Paul saith the law of sinne is in our members Rom. 7. 23. and wee know sinne commeth by propagation but the soule is not propagated only the body commeth and is traduced from the parents I would know where in this propagation sinne hath its inhesion and whether an unfitnesse and perversenesse fighting with the rightnesse and aptnesse God approveth bee not traduced and doe not naturally sticke in the very bodily faculties And when you say sinne only consisteth in the exorbitancy of the will it is most false sounder philosophy refelleth this for Aristotle b Arist lib. 3. Ethic. c. 1. excuseth not from a fault the things that are offended in or done amisse against ones will through ignorance and Divinity teacheth that errors in judgement and ignorances c Ignorantia excâ—sat non a toto sed à tanto when it is of things which of dutie wee should know are sinnes that the want of originall righteousnesse and the defects of graces are sinne And Thomas d saith that so is every habit and Act deprived of due order The habit also of sinne is first in the understanding because all sinne commeth from error which is in the understanding consider it also in its absolute act without working with the will so sinne is firstin it Vpon such rotten props what building can bee reared Yet let us take notice of your reasoning for further satisfaction to all and the utter subversion of this new learning It stands thus The minister of another mans sinne being but the minister of anothers exorbitant will no further sinneth than his owne will concurreth thereunto The servant doing his masters worke on the Sabbath not of election but in obedience to his master is but the minister of anothers exorbitant will and his owne will no way concurreth therewith therfore so doing hee sinneth not instrument in the workes of his Master and conferreth also will I answere he conferreth will indeede if hee be a good servant by reason of the obligation of obedience wherein he standeth to his master but yet not absolute but conditionall will not the selfe election but only the obedience an yeelding of his will and th 〈…〉 onely as it is his masters worke not as it is his masters sinne for the worke on the Sabaoth hauing sinne annexed to it and so being a sinnefull worke the servant and the mastster must divide it betwixt them the worke is the servants and the sinne is the masters for the servant doth but his duty in obeying his masters commandemet but the master transgresseth his in disobeying Gods commandement touching his servants ceasing from that labour Answer First why should we feare to say the eye beholding vanitie sinneth and so of the tongue loose to blaspheme slander and lye For first they move irregularly secondly they are the weapons of sin thirdly in them sin is finished to the bringing forth of death both on body and soule fourthly these are the sinnes of both body and soule and not of either apart fifthly the sinne is made greater by the outward acting in respect of the extent thereof it having now invaded the body and not onely possessed the soule so that there is filthinesse of flesh aswell as of the spirit 2 Cor. 7. 1. and in respect of the dammage it bringeth to others either by way of scandall and offence or by some reall discommodity as slaughter defamation with the like sixthly and hence it is that certaine punishments are rightly inflicted for the outward acting of some sinne which never could have place for
commandement from being a Law of Nature according to your exposition of a thing that hath in it native ilnesse for to make an image setting aside the circumstance to bow to it is no more evil than for a servant to worke setting aside this circumstance on the Sabbath This your slye arguing savours of Popery which hath thrust out the second Commandement as a positive and ceremoniall Law upon the same grounds And when you say that the prohibition of other things is caused by their native illnesse if you meane their illnesse was before the Law not understanding by Law the promulgation thereof but the Law of Nature written in the heart of man inasmuch as this Law is the expresse righteousnesse of God it is a blasphemous Tenet for hereby transgression shall bee where there is no Law and a chiefe evill a summum malum as well as a chiefe good or an absolute goodnesse out of God which this illnesse swerveth from For my part I cannot tell how any thing should bee evill natively but evill because it is defective of good which good perfecting man is the Law of righteousnesse If by prohibition you meane the promulgation of the Law then I say that this maketh not the thing prohibited unlawfull but onely makes the sinne the greater in them that yet offend after God by lively voyce hath renewed those obliterated precepts offuscated with sinne in the heart of man Thirdly the Commandement it selfe in these five things you say is meerely Ceremoniall brought in by positive Law and is not of the Law of Nature first to observe one day in seven secondly to observe a certaine day of that number thirdly to observe the seventh in the ranke fourthly to observe a whole day by the revolution of the Sunne fifthly to observe it with severe exactnesse of restraining all worke This you essay to prove first by a place of Scripture secondly by the example of the Patriarchs and thirdly by the absurditie that else will follow This matter shall bee more largely discussed because it will much cleare the Doctrine of the Sabbath for now you strike at the roote of it and would lay Religion on the ground but your owne staffe will breake your backe which you give by the handle into our hands This you yeeld that the secret instinct of nature hath taught all men even the prophanest Gentiles that some time is to be set apart and dedicated to the solemne worship of God as set times to be spent in sacrifice and devotion Now goe on this instinct is the Law written in their hearts therefore the Sabbath is a Law of Nature But did this instinct of Nature guide them to your former five particulars about the time of worship If it did and that the sheards hereof are found among the Gentiles you cannot nor any other for you conclude unlesse you will play the mad-men with reason that every of them hath lesse than moralitie and perpetuitie in it It is true the Gentiles a thousand wayes depraved the use of the Sabbath by keeping holyday to their Idols saith Aretius y Aret. problem loc 55. de Sabb. obser they also wrested the name to a wanton and ridiculous signification in which notwithstanding there hath remained some footsteps of the ancient originall to which serò tandem Gentes redire debuerunt at length the Gentiles though late ought to returne To omit their depravations see in them the footsteps of every particular First the Gentiles set apart certaine and constant dayes not moveable and wandring Macrobius saith there are foure kinds of publike holydayes Feriarum that is dayes vacant from pleading and labour Stative Conceptive Imperative and nundinative and the Stative are common to all the people on certaine and set dayes and moneths and noted with standing observations in their Calendars Secondly they observed a certaine day of seven and particularly the seventh Hesiod saith z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesiod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the seventh day is a holyday Lampridius telleth of Alexander Severus that on the seventh day when he was in the City he went up to the Capitoll and frequented the Temple Homer saith the seventh day is holy and was the day in which all things were perfected and on which we depart from the bankes of Hell Callimachus saith the like and that it is the birth-day chiefe and perfect a Clemens Alexandr stromat l. 5. Clemens Alexandrinus sheweth b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. l. 5. strom that not onely the Hebrewes but the Greekes also knew the seventh day holy And Eusebius c Euseb de prepar Evang. l. 13. c. 7. affirmeth that almost all as well Philosophers as Poets knew that the seventh day was more sacred And Philo d Philo. lib. 2. de vita Mosis the Iew saith Who doth not honour that sacred day which returneth every weeke The seventh day holydayes were wont to be granted to children in Schooles among them e Lucianus in Pseudo logista Certaine of the Ethnicke Doctors were wont onely to dispute on the Sabbaths f Aul Gell. l. 13. c. 2. Sueton. Lib. 3. Seneca g Senec. ep 95. in his 95. Epistle shewing that exhortations are not enough but wee need obliging precepts yea the decrees of wisedome bee reckoneth up the Sabbath as the festivall day for Religion but condemneth their manner of observing it when he saith Let us forbid any one to light a candle on the Sabbaths for neither doe the gods want light and men themselves are not delighted with smoke he worshippeth God who knoweth him h Macrob. Saturn l. 1. c. 7. Macrobius sheweth that Saturne of whom is the name of Saturday was honoured with Candles lighted at his Altars and wax-Tapers offered on his dayes Aretius hath these words i Aret. problem loc de Sabbathi observ The Greekes and Latines call the Sabbath The day of rest which the Gentiles But before I passe over this point I would take off the exceptions of one Franciscus Gomarus ſ Gomarus de Investigat sententiae originis sabbati cap. 4. pag. 42. a Germane who pleades that these allegations for the seventh dayes celebrity observed among the Gentiles are insufficient and the consequence thence drawne to proove this to have ought of the Law of Nature in it infirme The insufficiency of allegations out of the Poets hee would evince from this that those Poets talke as the proverbe is of Garlike but we speak of Onions and though Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius alledge them yet for this cause they deserve little credit because they speake of the seventh but the Poets only of a seventh I answere that they must needs availe and be of force to any that hath reason for be it they spake not of that seventh from the Creation yet that they speake of the celebrity of a seventh maketh wholly and sufficiently to proove that they were guided to a seventh and if they knew
not the seventh through iniquity and vanity that can no more disproove the festivity of the seventh to bee from the beginning and reach to all than the failings in many specialties of the first and second and third and other commandements can disproove their ingraving on the heart of man as Lawes of Nature and on the other side it prooveth as sufficiently that this commandement is a Law of Nature so farre as it is expressed in the Decalogue as the reliques of the other precepts in the hearts of Gentiles proove them to be Lawes of Nature and therefore his exception in speciall against that authority out of Hesiod if it should bee understood of every seventh day taking the calculation from the first day of the month doth no way supplant our intended purpose Well hath a learned Bishop t Patterne of Catech. Doctr. pag. 124. of our Church observed that sufficient is found in the heart of the Gentiles to their condemnation for breaking the Law of the fourth commandement they knew that numerus septenarius est Deo gratissimus and it was numerus quietis and thence they might have gathered that God would have his rest that day and so the seventh day after birth they kept exequiae and the seventh day after death the Funerall Note also that Gomarus passeth over those sayings brought by Clemens and Eusebius out of Homer and Callimachus untouched because they are not found in their writings now extant which proveth the weakenesse of this cause That quotation out of Philo Iudaeus he thinketh he hath taken off by that place of the same Author in his booke of the Decalogue whereby hee saith it is evident that Philo spake not properly but only by similitude of the number of seven because hee thus expounds himselfe in that place The fourth commandement saith he commands the seventh day commanding it to be spent holily and godly This certaine cities celebrate every month as a Festivall beginning their reckoning from the New Moone but to the Iewes every seventh day is holy I answer First it is a meere presumption of his to say that here Philo expounds his meaning in the other place for this is in his booke of the decalogue that in another booke viz. The second of the life of Moses nor doth he make the least intimation of reference thither Then this quotation that he maketh the exposition of his meaning in the former place cannot be for here he speaketh only of some few cities there in generall termes who honoureth not that holy day Moreover in another place u Philo de mundi opisicio hee calleth that very seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a generall Festivall to be observed of all people for ever Lastly if hee had but perused Philo or not perverted him willfully hee might have seene his plaine meaning whose words both for this purpose and for the rest of servants about which our dispute is I set downe not mangled but entire and they are these It admonisheth saith hee meaning the Divine Law it admonisheth all of dutie Barbarians Graecians inhabitants of maine continents aswell as of Ilands the Westerlings the Easterlings the Europeans and the Asians the whole habitable World even to the uttermost coasts For who doth not honor that holy day returning every weeke bringing remission of labour and holy vacations to the master of the familie with his houshold not onely to freemen but also to servants yea moreover to the beasts vnder the yoke and so forth Againe hee helpeth us to another authoritie out of losephus in his second booke against Appain who saith Neither is there any city of the Grecians or Barbarians nor any Nation to whom the custome of the seventh day in which wee rest hath not come A pregnant proofe But Gomarus saith there are words foregoing which doe end the controversie namely these Moreover the people doe now much emulate our piety Which words saith he do only shew that the observation of the Sabbath among the Gentiles was only an imitation of the Iewes by Proselites and perchance many others What were all the Gentiles East and West become Proselytes or would all of them admit a meere ceremony Some Nations besides Proselytes admitted Circumcision but did all the cities of Greeks and Barbarians admit thereof And if they imitated their piety could it bee thought that they imitated it as theirs and not rather as that which their naturall light glimmeringly guided them unto especially seeing the Iewes were naturally hated of all people For his quotation out of Theodoret upon the 20. chap. of Ezekiel to testifie to his tenet who saith That in the observation of the Sabbath the Iewes seemed to obtaine a certaine proper commonwealth for no other Nation did observe this rest and neither did Circumcision so distinguish them from others as did the Sabbath I answer This cannot bee understood of any kind of observation of the Sabbath for then Theodoret must speake directly against all received testimonies of antiquity which may not bee thought but of the true observing thereof in the solemne rituall worship of God which being all publike and solemnely used on that day as the sanctification thereof did asmuch more lively distinguish the Iewes Gods people from the Heathen Idolaters than did circumcision as the whole Law doth more than any one part thereof Thus wee have made good the sufficiency of the quotations excepted against wee leave them therefore with the rest fore-alleaged to be cavilled at by the next that dares to attempt it The infirmenesse of the consequence saith Gomarus is this that if the observation of the Sabbath had prevailed among the Gontiles yet from thence no such antiquity of the Sabbath may bee evinced but only thence appeareth the imitation of the Iewes by the Gentiles as by Proselytes and others perhaps I answer the consequent is firme for the former Heathen Authors have no reference to the Iewes and the Gentiles derided the Iewish Sabbathes Lament 1. 7. But suppose it came up among the Gentiles by imitation of the Iewes yet this spreading of it farre and wide prooveth the goodnes of the consequence that it is of the moral Law For hence it sufficiently appeares that the institution of a set seventh day in the weeke is immutable and not ceremoniall and temporall not proper to the Iewes onely but common to all seeing nature apprehends it meet and necessary that we often exercise the worship of God and cannot but acknowledge as we see in the inclination of the whole universe of men that this weekely determination of a day is most convenient and altogether absolute Hitherto of the answer to your position determining what is ceremoniall in the fourth commandement Your proofe for the ceremony of it in those respects is first taken from Texts of Scripture in Exod. 31. 13. and Ezek. 20. 12 20. Hence you reason thus That forme of keeping Sabbath was given to the Iewes as a speciall marke of their
bee on common dayes And that the worke there forbidden hath a speciall relation to the gaine of riches is the better apparent because the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth opes as well as opus riches as well as worke and not onely where the commandement was pronounced in the 20 of Exodus but wheresoever it is repeated in the bookes of the law which is oftentimes and differently for other circumstances the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is ever retained and never changed not every worke therefore absolutely but every worke of such a kinde namely consisting in toyle and tending to gain is restrained by the commandement and is there not evident reason to understand it so For seeing the intendment of the Precept is clearly in the point of that dayes vacation that the body should be refreshed by abstinence from labour And in the point of sanctification of it the minde should be refreshed by attendance to spirituall exercise it followeth manifestly that if there bee any workes that resolve not the body and so hinder not the refreshing of it nor dissolve and alienate the minde from the Service of God and meditation of godlinesse that these workes are not forbidden because neither the vacation which the commandement importeth nor that sanctification which it intendeth is impeached by them written by his owne hand at the time when these things were in agitation the coppy being his first draught and so very imperfect in many things cannot bee published as could be wished for the satisfaction of the Christian Reader Therefore wee must bee contented here and there to give thee a little taste and first in this particular you have it thus in his owne words Object The word Melachah doth signifie properly servile workes and is a choyse word of purpose used in this Commandement Sol. That the word signifieth servile workes I finde some Divines so saying but that by servile workes they meane onely toylesome and gainefull workes I deny For they used to place servile workes over against workes of pietie Now as by workes of pietie they meane lesser as well as greater works of religion to God so by servile workes they meane as well lighter as toylsome workes of labour for man To deale plainly with you I see no cause why Melachah should have any such speciall weight in signification For thogh your conceit of it that it signifieth opes as wel as opus might cast som color to perswade that it might meane works of gain yet that it shold specially note works of toyle there is no color Nay me thinks Magnaseh is of a larger signification and fits for toyle as signifying to worke cum energia Thus the wicked are workers of iniquitie and Nabals cattell are called Magnasehu appellantur nomine operis eò quod homo seipsum occupat in illorum acquisitione and are called by the name of Worke because man busieth himselfe in getting them and yet Pegnulah more fit than them both it signifieth opus and opâ—ris merces worke and the reward of worke workes of hands Psal 9. 16. The worke of the hireling Iob 7. 2. It is likely that he that published this Treatise of Master Breerwoods hath a perfect coppie of a full answere For Master Breerwoods provoked spirit as he termeth it himselfe would not have beene allayed without a satisfactorie answer Faire dealing would have required it should have beene produced and then I had saved this paines in answering But then the Publisher had missed his aime which was to traduce the Dead who then being Dead had yet spoken Sixtly that this interpretation is orthodoxe and yours novel and adulterous see how Divines and the Churchâ—s of Christ have understood it Our Church of England declareth her minde in the first part of the Homilie of the place and time of Prayer where the example of the man that gathered stickes on the Sabbath day is alledged and those that pranke and prick and paint and point themselves to be gorgeous and gay those that toyishly talke are reckoned a sort of transgressors worse than those that keepe Markets and Faires that day Tertullian saith q Non facies opus quod utique tuum Arcam verò circuÌ„serre neque quotidianum opus videri potest neque humanum sed bonum sacrosanctum c. Tertul. l. 2. contra Marcionem God forbade humane workes not divine Thou shalt doe no worke what worke namely thine owne but to carry abou the Arke that is about the wals of Iericho can neither seeme a dayly worke nor an humane but a good and holy worke and therefore by the very Commandement of God divine Master Greenham r Greenh Treatise of the Sabbath As wee denie Church feasts as imitâ—tions of the Heathen so we deny Holy-day playes as remnants of ancient prophanenesse pag. 169. sheweth excellently that recreations as shooting and the like at other times lawfull and bankettings and the exercises for sicke persons refreshing if it be not in reading singing and holy conference for if they be sicke it is a time of praying not of playing and if they be well to play are they not so to doe these Heavenly and comfortable duties All these are unlawfull to be used that day neither saith he is the Sabboth onely broken by prophanenesse but also by idle workes Mayer Å¿ pag. 260. upon the fourth Commandement saith We must rest from worldly speeches and thoughts small workes which come not within the compasse of religion mercy or necessitie must not be done on the Sabbath saith Master Dod on the Commandements t pag. 152. Polyander Rivet Wallaeus and Thysius say u Synopsis purioris theol â—â—sp 21. pag. 261. That it is morall and ingrafted in nature that the whole minde bee taken off from other cares on the Sabbath and the whole day bestowed in the duties morall or if so how should the Iewes put a difference betweene the one and the other for you will needs have ceremoniall precepts in the body of the fourth Commandement And why bring you in the Instance of our blessed Saviour who was a Iew and bound to the law as given to the Iewes and kept the ceremonial as wel as the moral law Secondly Come come you are plunged let me helpe you In that our Saviour did allow and doe many light and laborlesse workes in your Ashdodaean phrase for we take your words till wee come to examine the matter further and yet by voluntary dispensation was bound to all the law it is cleare that no ceremoniall law or clause of any law in the old Testament forbade the workes that hee did on the Sabbath and so your answere that that command in Exod. 35. 3. was a If it were ceremoniall the equitie neverthelesse must binde Christians although the sanction doth not constraine them The equitie of the Law teacheth us wee ought not to turne this libertie to bee servants of our wanton desires Greenth Treatise of the
aeternum diem consecravit nobis Dominicum Domini Qui vocatur Dominicus ipse propriè videtur ad Dominum pertinere quia eo die Dominus resurrexit Aug. de verbis Apost Serm. 15. Dominicum ergò diem Apostoli Apostolici viri ideò religiosâ— solennitate habeâ—dum sanxerunt quia in eodem Redemptor noster â— mortuis resurrexit Serm. de temp 251. The Lords Resurrection hath promised us an eternall day and hath consecrated to us the Dominicall day of the Lord. The day which is called the Lords day it seemeth properly to pertaine to the Lord because that day the Lord rose againe The same Father tells us that in this resurrection of Christ the Apostles and Apostolicall men saw as much he saith the Lords day the Apostles and Apostolicall men have ordained with religious solemnity to be kept because in the same our Redeemer rose from the dead Ignatius r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Magnâ—s giveth this for the onely Reason binding every one to keepe this day saying Let every one that loveth Christ celebrate the Lords day the day pertaining to the Resurrection the Queene and Prince of all dayes Athanasius Å¿ Athanas de Sabbat circumcis Psal 118. 124. calls the Lords day in which Christ renewed the old Man the beginning of the new Creature and therefore hee saith when hee had renewed the Creature which was made within sixe dayes he would have that day consecrated to this instauration which the Spirit foretells in the Psalme This is the day which the Lord hath made Iunius t Tempus ad conventus sacros semper est dies octavus quem inde à resurrectione Christi Ecclesia vocavit Dominicum quod Christus suaresurrectione sacto sacris coetibus dicavit quem Apostoli observarunt coetibus dicatum esse docâ—erunt quem Christiana Ecclesia dictis corum obsequens facta imitans concelebrat Eccles lib. 1. cap. 4. sub sinem speaking of the time necessary to publike worship saith It is the eighth day for ever which the Church from the resurrection of Christ hath called the Lords day which Christ by his resurrection and deed hath dedicated to holy assemblies which the Apostles have observed and have taught that it is dedicated thereto and which the Christian Church obedient to their words and imitating their deeds doth joyntly celebrate In the Preface to the Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Perth Anno 1618. the question being moved how the particular and materiall day may bee knowne that the Christian Church should observe the answer is that the particular day was demonstrated by our Saviours Resurrection and his apparitions made thereon by the Apostolicall practice and the perpetuall observation of the Church ever since that time of the day which in Scripture is called the Lords day as that which the Iewes observed was called the Lords Sabbath because as the one was appointed by the Lord for a memoriall of his rest after the Creation so the other was instituted by the Lord for a memoriall of his Resurrection after the Redemption For this we must hold as a sure ground whatever the Catholike Church hath observed in all Ages and is found in Scripture expressely to have been practised by Christ and the Apostles such as is the sanctification of the Lords day the same most certainely was instituted by the Lord to bee observed and his practice in Word of the Lord and of equall worth as if the Lord by voice from heaven had spoken it and more sure for us than such a voice 1 Pet. 1. 12 25. and 2 Pet. 1. 19 20 21. Whence it is cleare that the Gospell preached by the Apostles with the holy Ghost sent downe from heaven is the Word of the Lord that endureth for ever Secondly it was enjoyned by the Apostles precept and observed by them enjoyned and the worke of the day in part prescribed 1 Cor. 16. 2. observed Act. 20. 7. Thirdly the Apostle saith that which you have seene and heard in me that doe and the God of peace shall be with you Phil. 4. 9. But this was seene and heard of to bee done by him Act. 20. 7. Therefore do it Perkins on Gal. 4. vers 10. Fourthly if the same reason grounded on Gods Word be as well for the first day of the weeke as it was once for the Sabbath of the Iewes then we are as certainely tyed by the Lord to the observation of this day as they were for their Sabbath for the same reason is of the same force But there is the same reason therefore wee are bound by the Lord. That there is the same reason is apparant by those three places laid together Exod. 20. 10. Mat. 12. 8. Ioh. 5. 23. The maine reason of the Iewes Sabbath is because it was the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner ours is the Sabbath of the Lord Christ when hee had finished the worke of our redemption for which cause hee taketh this name the son of man is even Lord of the Sabbath as if in more words he should say when God the Father had once ended the making of the world hee rested and published himselfe to be the Lord of that rest and dedicated it to himselfe giving it the name of the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner when I shall have finished the worke of mans Redemption I will rest have the day of my rest dedicated unto my selfe for which cause I say that the sonne of man is even Lord of the Sabbath also it shall be called the Lords day And thus the will of the Father shall be fulfilled which is that as they honoured the Father in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the Creation and Redemption so they should honour the Sonne in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the redemption and consummation of the world Fifthly the judgments of God fearefully and to miracles lighting on the contemners and prophaners of this day by worldlinesse the opposition of godlesse and most evill men the Conscience working on men for the observation and against the neglect thereof the errors of Familists Anabaptists Papists and such loose pleaders as you and others have shewed themselves to be are strong and impregnable arguments for the Divine Authority of it together with the contradictions and the grosse opinions you are forced to runne into which argue that you rebell against the light in you and your prophane Atheisticall hearts would have that true which yet your owne light disproveth in the truths that are forced thereby to drop from you Sixthly yea I shall through Gods grace evince this that it is of the Lords owne institution for besides that his resurrection institutes it as I sayd before First it is called the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. Which cannot bee for any reason but because it is of the Lords institution for so first the phrase his day not by creation for so all daies are his not by destinatioÌ„ for that
intendeth a time yet to come and so the day of generall judgement is his 1 Thes 5. 2. but by consecration and choise and institution a fourth way I would heare designed and then I shall bee ready to make answer SecoÌ„dly the like phrases of Scripture prove it in the same case in Exod. 20. 10. the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord in other ordinances of Christ the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 10. the Table of the Lord 1. Cor. 10. 21. his ministry 1. Tim. 1. 12. Thirdly the manner of predication sheweth x Thom. Aquin. 3. q. 16. art 3. that this day belongeth to him by his owne assuming properly for it s predicated of him denominatively because it is said to bee of the Lord denominatively the man Christ is not the Lords but the Lord but his will hand Passion is lightly called the Lords Will the Lords hand the Lords passion for that which is of and belonging properly to the Lord is called the Lords â—he first day of the weeke saith Tylenus g Is destinated Primus Hebdomadis dies sacris congressiâ—us destinatus est isque non modo ab Apostolis observatus sed etiam ab ipso Christo institutê° videri potest quem hoc die in conventus discipulorum venisse testatur historia Evangelica Tylen Synt. loc 44. p. 276. to holy assemblies and that not alone observed of the Apostles Act. 20. 17. 1 Cor. 16. 1. But also it may bee seene to be Instituted by Christ himselfe whom the evangelicall History doth testifie to have come this day into the assemblies of the Disciples Ioh. 20. 19 26. Polyander Rivet Walaeus Thysius affirme h Hic dies absolutè non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantum sed denominativè cum articulo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominari coepit Apoc. 1. 10. nempe non solum quod eo resurrexit Dominus vivum se exhibuit sedetiam quod ei rei imò universim Dominò imò à Domino sacratus dediâ—aiusque esset Qualiter coena Domini 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellatur locus conventus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 praecâ—tiosâ—lemnis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scitè declarat Aug. de verbis Apost Serm. 15. Si autem Apostolicae institutionis divinae quoque fuâ—rit authoritatis synops pur Theo. 2. disp 1. p. 263. that this day began to be named not onely the day of the Lord but also denominatively the Lords day Apoc. 1. 10. To wit not only because the Lord rose thereon and presented himselfe alive but also because it was made holy and dedicated to that thing yea wholly to the Lord yea and of the Lord so sanctified and dedicated like as also the Supper of the Lord is called the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11. 20. and the place of assemblies the Lords and the solemne prayer The Lords Prayer as wittily Augustine declareth in his fifteenth Sermon of the words of the Apostle But if it were of Apostolike Institution it were also of Divine authoritie Bishop Andrewes saith i Serm. 13. of the Resur p. 529. the Lords day hath testimony in Scripture for how came it to bee the Lords day But that as it is in the Psalmest the Lord made it and why made he it but because on it the stone cast aside that is Christ was made the head stone of the corner that is because then the Lord arose because his resurrection fell on it Who altered it I answer saith Master Attersol k Attersoll on Numb 15. vers 3â— p. 644. Christ himselfe is the Author of this change the Apostles often teach that whatsoever they taught they received it from Christ they learned it at his hands before either by word of his mouth or by revelation of his Spirit but the Apostles enjoyned the first day of the weeke to be kept as a Sabbath of rest 1 Cor. 16. 1. Master Barker l On the fourth Commandement p. 186. God did change the dayes and to shew the alteration the Apostles gave this day the name of the Lords day they themselves kept it and ordained that the Churches in their time should observe it Our renowned Champion Doctor Fulke in the confutation of the Rhemists saith m Dr. Fulke on Reve. 1. 10. sect 6. To change the Lords day and keepe it upon Monday Tuesday or any other day the Church hath no authoritie for it is not a matter of indifferencie but a necessarie prescription of Christ himselfe delivered to us by his Apostles Christ did appoint the new Sabbath saith Wolphius n Wolph Chronol l. 2. c. 1. when our last enemy death being overcome hee made an end of the labours of our Redemption which in his humanitie were to be borne and the next day with the new man restored he brought out a new time the time of our Redemption and of the new Covenant Adde hereunto Docter Bownd in the booke of the Sabbath commended by that painefull and learned Divine Doctor Willet and Doctor Iones in two latine epistles prefixed To conclude this matter the Apostles made this day the Lords day by a declaratorie consecration which Christ himselfe made before the Lords day by a fundamentall and binding relation to wit His resurrection thereon and by blessed and actuall applycation to his use in his apparitions and expositions thereon and by institution in his deedes and words for the Apostles taught to doe but what Christ commanded Matth. 28. 20. Act. 1. 3. CHAP. XXII Breerwood Pag. 38 39. HOw then hath the first day of the weeke gained the celebration and solemnity to become the Sabaoth of the Christians By the constitution of the Church and onely by that yet of that most ancient Church I confesse that next followed the ascention of our redeemer But yet all this is but Ius humanum it is but the decree of Secondly but you go about to prove the Iewes Sabbath ceremoniall because first it was a signe of difference betweene Iewes and Gentiles and part of the partition wall The first part of this proofe was answered before it was a signe betweene God and them that the Lord sanctified them so the Sanctification of the Sabbath understand it of ours is still a signe that God sanctifieth a man every signe is not a ceremonie as every living creature is not a man The Sabbath was a signe of the creation saith Athaenasiuâ— r Athanas de Sabbato Circumcis yet not therefore a ceremonie The second part of your proofe implyed when you say it was a part of the partition wall is very unsound the partition wall Å¿ Zanch. in Ephes 2. v. 14. 15. spoken of in Ephe. 2. 14. was the Law of Commandements contained in ordinances spoken of in the next verse which was not the Law morall but the ceremoniall therefore you must prove first the Sabbath to bee ceremoniall and then wee yeeld it is taken away and so farre forth as you can make that good Thirdly againe to prove it
ceremoniall you alledge the place in Col. 2. 16. but that the Apost speaketh not there of the fourth Commandement is evident First because hee treateth expresly of those Sabbaths which were of the same ranke with the New-Moones and were ceremoniall shadowes of things to come in Christ but the Sabbath prescribed in the Decalogue is altogether of another nature as hath beene and shall be further shewed Secondly he speaketh as the Apostles doth to the Galatians cap. 4. 10. but the place there treates only of the observation of the dayes moneths and yeeres which pertained to the servitude and bondage of weake and beggerly rudiments as in vers 9. appeareth Now that any precept of the Decalogue should bee so accounted and reckoned as a weake and beggerly rudiment was farre from the Apostle to thinke and is abhorred to Christian eares and religion Whatsoever also was Ceremoniall in the Sabbath if it bee granted according to the opinion of many Divines that some ceremony was in the day in respect of that precise day that is by constitution annexed to it extrinsecally and not of the nature of the Sabbath and first institution therof which nothing hinders the morality of the seventh dayes institution for so in the Authority of Fathers and first borne which pertaines to the fifth commandement there was annexed a Ceremoniall reason of a type namely the shadowing out of Christ the first borne among many brethren yet by this annexed typical figure the fifth commandement nor the priviledge of the first borne in respect of the first nature of it is not ceremoniall Nevertheles by Scripture there appeareth not unto me of certainty any ceremony or type in the observation of the seventh day properly so called for the mention of a spirituall Sabbatisme in Heb 4. 9. presignified in some type foregoing under the nature of a type if referred only to the rest in Canaan and by comparison of the like to the rest of God but by no meanes in the least signification is it referred to the rest commanded in the fourth precept as to a type and shadow And whereas the Fathers and many others include the Iewish Sabbath within the former text they must in my judgement bee understood of that day as it was the day in which the ceremoniall worship which was then the worship of God was the sanctification of the Sabbath and as that precise day was till Christ came apt and fit but now after Christs resurrection not fit for the new world but swallowed up of the greater namely the Lords day fit for the memoriall of the workes of Creation and Redemption For to observe the Sabbath with Moses Rites were to deny Christ come in the flesh whose Kingdome is not meat and drinke but righteousnesse peace and joy in the holy Ghost and to this the old Sabbatarian Heretikes had an aime and to observe the Iewish seventh for Sabbath now deserves worthily the Anathema of ancient Councels and Saint Austins sharpe sentence who saith thus t Quisque illum diem observat ut litera sonat carnaliter sapit Despir lit c. 14. Whosoever shall keepe that day as the letter soundeth savoureth of the flesh And lastly to observe the Sabbath in the devised assumed superstitious strictnesse Iewish which was never commanded but taken up of their owne heads or in the luxurious heathenish sports that others of them used is deservedly condemned by the Ancients and is against or Christian liberty or Christian sanctity Fourthly but to returne grant it to bee ceremoniall yet your arguing will not hold that the Sabbath in the Commandement is utterly vanished for all that place ceremony in that rest do hold that the rest in heaven was that which was chiefely aymed at Now this maketh against you for then a Sabbaths rest must remaine till that eternall rest bee come for though it bee assured yet it is not come And if the assurance by word and pledge would have cut off the necessity of a Sabbath rest to shadow it then might all the shadowes of the ceremoniall Law have been spared for they had the Word Oath and Spirit of God to assume Christs comming and from that place in Heb. 4. Doctor Willet u D. Willet on Gen. 2. his places of doctrine saw enough to prove the divine institution of the Lords day as a Sabbath rest he thus reasoneth Every simbole significative or representing signe mentioned in Scripture had a divine institution but so is the Sabbath a simbole or type of our everlasting rest Heb. 4. 9. there remaineth therefore Sabbatismus a Sabbath rest to the people of God Which words doe conclude that both the type remaineth that is a Sabbatisme and the signification of the type everlasting rest CHAP. XXIV Breerwood Pag. 39. BVt might not the celebration of the Sabaoth which thus ceased bee justly translated by the Church to the first day of the weeke Yes certainely both might and was iustly For I consider that the generality was of the morall law of the law of nature namely that men should sequester sometime from worldly affaires which they might dedicate to the honour of God onely the speciality that is the limitation and designement of that time was the churches ordinance appointing first one certaine day and that in relation of Christian assemblies namely that they might meete and pray and and praise God together with one voyce in the congregation And secondly designing that one day to the first day of the weeke for some speciall reasons and remembrances For first it was the day of Christs resurrection from the dead Secondly it was the day of the holy Ghosts descention from Heauen to powre infinite graces vpon Christians The first of them for our iustification as the Apostle speaketh The second for the sanctification and edification of the whole Church to omit some other reasons of lesse importance iustly therefore was the consecration of the Sabaoth translated to that day Answer First Yea a shadow Of which we have the substance in Christ Out of Date and expired of it selfe Part of the partition wall And yet the celebration and consecration of the Sabbath translated justly Then the Church by your Doctrine may revive the ceremoniall law and put life into the dead carcase thereof the Church may not alone embrace the shadow of which Christ is the body but also appoint it to bee embraced the Church may translate part of the ceremonial Law which yet Moses the typicall mediator would not might not order a tittle of it to a loope lace or placing of either but keepe to the patterne shewed him in the Mount and so by the same reason translate priesthood and all Heb. 6. The Church then is Lord of the Sabbath and can consecrate and not only celebrate the Sabbath all full of blasphemy against Christ and blemish to his chast spouse Secondly and for your distinction of generality and speciality of the commandement besides what hath been said before if you
precedent words of the administration of the Lords Supper But we after those things for the remainder of the time doe ever remember one another of these things and those of us which have any thing helpe every one that wants and are alwayes together one with another A little after hee saith that the assemblies on that day were frequented of all in Citie and Countrie prayer preaching and the Sacrament was administred Collections for the poore which was after the assemblies distributed to the needy imprisoned stranger with the like whom they visited Tertullian in that 16 chapter of his Apologie against the Gentiles gives this as one cause of their conjecture that Christians worshipped the Sunne because they kept the Sunday Holy Wee give our selves to joy saith hee the Sunday for another farre wide reason than in honour of Diem solis laetitiae indulgemus the Sunne are we in the second place from them which appoint Saturday to idlenesse and feeding themselves also wandring from the Iewish custome which they know not What meaneth he hereby but that such a solemnitie is kept and ought to bee by Christians as should exceede in that kinde the feasts of the nations and Heathen as in his booke of Idolatrie chap. 14. he speaketh Ignatius speaketh enough to any man not prepossessed for he saith let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords day as festivall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek word signifieth a solemne festivall free from worke and workeday labour That others also of the ancients did understand this celebration to be with exact vacation is evident Saint Austin saith come ye to the Church every Lords day for if the unhappy Iewes doe celebrate the Sabbath with such devotion that in it no earthly workes were done how much more ought Christians to bee vacant to God alone on the Lords day and come together for the Salvation of their soules Againe Apostles and Apostolike men have therefore ordained that the Lords day be kept with religious solemnitie because in it our Redeemer arose from the Dead and which is therefore called the Lords day that in it abstaining from earthly affaires and the enticements of the world we may serve onely in divine worship That of Saint Clement is also worthy note neither on the Lords dayes which are dayes of joyfulnesse doe we grant any thing may be said or done besides holinesse Austin also in the sixt booke de Civitate Dei chap. 11. speaking of Seneca's scoffing at the Iewes Sabbath that they lost the seventh part of their time in vacancie addeth this Notwithstanding he durst not speake of the Christians even then most contrarie to the Iewes on either part lest either hee should praise them against the old custome of his owne Countrey or reprove them perhaps against his owne will Saint Austine likewise reproveth their telling of tales their slanders playing at dice and such unprofitable sports as if one part of the day were set apart for dutie to God and the rest of the day together with the night to their owne pleasures In the same place also he condemnes walking about the fields and woods when they should bee at Serm. 251. De Temp. Divine Service with clamour and laughter and saith the day must be sequestred a rurali opere ab omni negotio from countrey worke and all businesse that wee may give our selves wholly to the worship of God Saint Chrysostome speaking of the fitnesse of the Lords day for almes saith it is a convenient time to practise liberalitie with a ready and willing minde not onely in this regard but also because it hath rest remission freedome and vacation from labours Saint Ambrose q Ambros tom 3. Serm. 1. de granosinapis p. 225. reproving the peoples neglect of Church on the Lords dayes saith Whatsoever brother is not present at the Lords Sacraments of necessity he is with God a forsaker of the Divine truth For how can he excuse himselfe who preparing his dinner at home on the day of the Sacraments contemneth that heavenly Banket and taking care of the belly neglecteth the physicke of his soule The same Father in another place r Id. Serm. 33. pag. 259. tom 3. saith Let us all the day bee conversant in prayer or reading hee that cannot reade let him aske of some holy man that he may bee fed with his conference let no secular acts hinder divine acts let no Table-play carry away the mind let no pleasure of Dogs call away the senses let no dispatch of a businesse pervert the mind with covetousnesse True this Father in this place speaketh of a Fast but we know that a Fast and Sabbath are alike for the point of rest Saint ſ Hieron ad Rustich Dominicos dies orationi tantum lectionibus vacant Hierom also On the Lords day saith he they onely give themselves to prayer and reading Secondly now for your contrary evidences what if they also make for us You alleage a constitution of Constantines Iurge First the same Emperours Constitutions found in Ecclesiasticall Writers Eusebius in his life saith Wherefore he ordained that all that obeyed the Romane Empire should rest from all labour on the dayes that are called from our Saviours Name Further hee saith of this Christian Emperour He taught all his hoste to honour this day diligently those that partooke of the Divine Faith hee gave them leasure to frequent the Assemblies that no impediment should hinder their attendance on prayer but others that had no savor of Divine Doctrine hee gave charge of them by another Law that they should goe into the open fields of the Suburbs on the Lords day and that there altogether should use the same forme of prayer to God when asigne was given of some one of them for said he we ought not to use speares and place the hope of our affaires in weapons and bodily strength Sozomen in his tripartite history testifieth thus That day which is called the Lords day which the Hebrewes call the first day which the Grecians attribute to the Sunne and which is before the seventh day he ordained that all should cease from suites and other businesses and should onely bee occupied in prayers upon it t Sozom Hist Eccles tripert l. 1. c. 10. Behold Constantine against Constantine Secondly your Constitution is read Cod. l. 3. tit 12 l. 3. This Constitution was reversed by Leo the Emperour and another made in these words We ordaine according to the true meaning of the holy Ghost and of the Apostles thereby directed that on the sacred day wherein our integrity was restored all doe rest and surcease labour that neither husbandmen nor other on that day put their hands to forbidden workes for if the Iewes did so much reverence their Sabbath which was but a shadow of ours are not we which inhabit the light and truth of grace bound to honour that day which the Lord himselfe hath honoured and hath therein delivered
was past therefore of a third rest hee must needs speake Lastly the Prophet gathered a perpetuall Rule and Law for marriage from the first example in the creation of married persons Mal. 2. 15. Made hee not one And wherefore one Because hee sought a godly seed So here did not God rest the seventh day but why the seventh that wee should sanctifie to God the seventh Yea but the Prophet made no such collection Yes such a one though not that very one And a greater than that Prophet God himselfe puts into us that very collection when he saith that he Rested and that he blessed and sanctified this his resting day Fourthly you would make good your conceite by shewing the needlesnesse of such a command when there was no toyle to the body nor distraction to the mind that called for Rest or sanctification one day in seven There was labour in Paradise Gen. 2. 15. And therefore there might bee need of a Rest There was danger of sinne in Paradise and therefore need of some speciall time by Gods ordinance and that time blessed of him to uphold the sanctification of the soule If you reply there was no such toyle in labour I answer it was no toyle to God to worke the sixe dayes and yet God rested the seventh Besides God that knew mans estate knew reasons for his commandement and therefore it is ill divining against the light of Gods truth And if it had beene but a commandement of triall man ought to have obeyed Fifthly hitherto of the eversion of your Tenet now for the Text in Gen. 2. 2 3. That the true sense of the words is this The Lord blessed the seventh day that is hee appointed it to be a Fountaine of blessing to the observers of that day and sanctified it That is Commanded it to be set apart by men from common businesses and applied to holy uses That this I say is the true sense not only the Hebrew and Greeke words do both give but the universall opinion of Divines ancient and moderne Cyprian writes thus e Cyprian de Spiritu Sancto sc edition Pamelianam Antuerp 1589. This sacred number of seven obtained authority from the creation of the World because the first workes of God were made in sixe daies and the seventh day was consecrated to rest as holy hallowing honored with the solemnity of abidding and entitled to the Spirit the Sanctifier Epiphanius speaketh thus of those words in the Gospell of Saint Luke It came to passe on the second first Sabbath f Epiphan advers Haeres lib. 2. tom 1. contra Hares Anoetâ—n Haeres 51. that the first Sabbath is that which was defined from the beginning and called so of the Lord in the Creation of the world which returneth by circuit according to the revolution of seven dayes from that time untill now but the second Sabbath is that which is described by the Law Origen answereth Celsus objecting against the History of the Creation that God like some Artificer that were wearied should need a resting and vacation in this manner g Origen contra Celsum lib. 6. fol. 81. Truely this man seeth not after the creation of the world as soone as the world was made what a one the day of the Sabbath and of God resting was in which both men rest to God and keep this day a festivall unto him which have dispatched their workes on the sixt day and because they let passe nothing that is urgent they ascend by contemplation to the feast day of the just and blessed men Chrysostome unfolds the Text in Genesis thus h Chrysost tomâ— in Gen. serm 10. sc edit Savilianam What is this and hee sanctified it he separated it Then the Divine Scripture teaching us the cause also for which it is said hee sanctified it addeth because in it he rested from all his workes which hee began to make Now hence God giveth to us darkely i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this instruction that we set apart and separate one day in the circuit of every weeke to the use of spirituall things for for this cause did the Lord finish all the fabricke of the world in six daies and honouring the seventh with his blessing sanctified it Hierome was of the mind that the k Hieron tradit Hebr. in Genes Sabbath was instituted in the beginning who reprehends the Iewes idlenesse on their Sabbath and empty rest in which yet they gloried from the example of God who in the beginning wrought on the day which he blessed and so brake the Sabbath in the Iewes sense Learned Mercerus upon this place following the choise and greatest Lights saith I doubt not but by the first fathers before the Law this day was solemne and sacred God himselfe being their teacher c. That the people of God might know that the Fathers observed it not of themselves but as taught of God to reteine them in the exercise of Gods worship Athanasius l Athanas de Sabbat circumcis also giveth his voice Who sheweth that that seventh day had its observation among all men of those generations from the creation to the resurrection of our Saviour Augustine was of this mind When God saith he m August ad Casul epist 86. sanctified the seventh day because in it he rested from all his works he expressed not any thing concerning the fast or dinner of the Sabbath The Fathers alledged by Gomarus that plead the Sabbath was not kept by the Fathers before Moses as Iustin Martyr Tertullian Irenaeus and Eusebius are to bee understood of the Ceremoniall observation thereof and so the Fathers were no observers of the Sabbath as those ancients rightly maintained against the Iewes and wee readily subscribe unto it and that they thus meant is apparent by some passages in their foresaid bookes Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Iew saith Neither thinke ye it grievous that we drinke some warme thing on the Sabbath seeing God also governeth the world on this day in like manner as he doth on other dayes And Tertullian in his booke against the Iewes saith That the temporall observation of the Sabbath ceaseth as it is a type Irenaeus also affirmeth in his booke against Heresies lib. 4. c. 3. That the precepts spoken by Gods owne voice receive not diminution but increase by our Saviours comming which precepts he saith were naturall liberall and common to all And in his 30. chap. of the same booke he saith That the godly Fathers had the substance of the Decalogue written in their hearts and soules and had in themselves the righteousnesse of the Law Beda therefore upon the sixt chapter of Luke maketh a distinction betweene the observation of the legall Sabbath and the liberty of the Naturall Sabbath which till Moses time was like other dayes See hee acknowledgeth a Naturall Sabbath under those first times of liberty Annexe to these the Iewish Doctors Philo thus openeth the Text
o Philo de mundi opificio After that this Vniverse was perfected according to the perfect nature of the number of sixe the Father added honour to the following seventh day which when he had praised presently he vouchsafed to call it holy For it is the feast not of one people or Region but of all universally which alone is worthy to be called a popular festivity and the birth-day of the world Broughton in his consent of Scriptures alleageth Ramban upon Gen. 26. fol. 46. And Aben Ezra upon Exodus the twentieth to prove that the Lord appointed the seventh day from creating to bee an holy rest and that the fathers observed it before Moses Peter Matyr alleadgeth p Pet. Mart. â—oâ— in Genes Rabbi Agnon for that same point Thomas Aquinas interpreteth it on this wise q he sanctified it that is he deputed it to sanctitie for he willeth that the Lords day be kept holy of us therefore that especially we be also vacant to Gods holy worship and in it and the memoriall therof we call to mind the continuall benefit of our creation and therefore in the old law it is commanded that on that day we cease from servile workes that we may intend more freely God and his divine worship whence that day is called Sabbath which is the same that rest it Selneccerus saith that r Nicol selnecceri Com. in Genes God would by this very sanctifying of the Sabbath institute a certaine worship in which mankind even in innocencie that is although Adam had not falled should publish the goodnesse of God and celebrate worship acceptable to God when as other things on other dayes were to be looked unto And then he giveth foure causes or ends of the institution of the Sabbath It was instituted First for rest Secondly for the excellencie of man Thirdly for the upholding of a certaine worship Fourthly and for the testimonie of immortalitie And here saith he Children may learne the answer of that Schoole argument the Apostle in Col. 2. bids that none judge in respect of the Sabbath dayes therefore we are not to keepe a Sabbath Answer the antecedent Paul speaketh of the ceremonie and the observation of externall circumstances he speaketh not of the generall or the principall meaning of the precept and the finall cause thereof which is naturall and unchangeable This Author calleth our Sabbath the Sabbath of Redemption Marius is full in this thing Å¿ Marius in Gen. 2. He blessed that is hee consecrated it to his blessing to bee kept of men and sanctified it not as if he estamped holinesse on it but because hee appointed it to his sanctification and praise and to the holy conversation of men Because with the Hebrewes to sanctifie is the same as to separate from pollution a day is said to be sanctified in which we ought to be separated from pollution It was made presently from that very day of the World as the letter sheweth a positive precept given to our first Parents concerning this thing which they passed over to posteritie by tradition as in the Church the celebration of the first or eight day is passed over for since it is of the Law of Nature that some time be peculiarly insinuated for the worship of God it was meete that that should be determined in the very beginning by a positive law whence even among the Gentiles the Religion on the Seventh day was famous Beza affirmeth t Beza paraph. in Iob 1. 5. of Iob That as oft as his children had made an end of feasting one another in their severall houses he sanctified them and offered burnt offerings according to their number but notwithstanding there is no doubt but that the dayly worship of God was diligently observed besides in this most holy family at least every seventh day was carefully sanctified as God from the beginning of the world had appointed This blessing saith reverend Calvin was nothing else but Calvin Com. in Gen. ca. 2. a solemne consecration whereby God claimes to himselfe the studies and imployments of men on the seventh day First God rested then hee blessed this rest that in all ages amongst men it might bee holy or he dedicated every seventh day to rest that his example might be a perpetuall rule Moreover we must know this exercise is not peculiar to one either age or people onely but common to all mankinde Wherefore when wee heare that by Christs comming the Sabbath was abrogated this distinction must be taken too What appertaines to the perpetuall ordering of humane life and what peculiarly agreeth to the old figures that the Sabbath figured the mortification of the flesh I say was temporall but that from the beginning it was commanded men that they should exercise themselves in the worship of God deservedly it ought to endure even to the end of the world Hereunto agree Zuinglius Iunius and Tremellius Vatablus Vrsin Catech. Bulling in Rom. 4 5. Decad. Danaeaeth Chri. l. 2 c. 10. Bertram pol. Iudaic. c. 2. Vrsinus Bullinger Danaeus Aretius Piscator Bertramus Hospinian Chemnitius and Zanchy who after this sense given upon the words of the Text in Genesis delivers his opinion of the manner of keeping the first Sabbath I doubt not saith he but that the Sonne of God Hospin de orig templ li. 2. c. 14. Chemnit loc Theo. de lege Dei Zanch. de hominis creat l. 1. c. 1 sub finem libri taking on him the shape of man was busied that whole seventh day in most holy colloquies with Adam and that he did also fully make himselfe knowne to Adam and Eve and did reveale the manner and order which hee had used in creating of all things and did exhort them both to meditate on these workes and in them to acknowledge their Creator and to prayse him and that by his owne example he did admonish them to imploy themselves in this exercise of godlinesse setting all other businesse aside and also that they would so instruct and teach their children To be short I doubtnot but that in that seventh day he taught them all Divinitie and did hold them busied in hearing of him and in praysing God their Creator for so many and so great benefits To this interpretation I am led by these two reasons The first taken from the Sanctification of the Sabbath which God hath prescribed in the Law the second because Adam ought to understand this sanctification of such a day therefore it is probable that the Sonne of God did open this unto Adam and Eve both in plaine words and by his owne example For even God also is said to rest upon that day and in Exodus hee doth exhort to the sanctification of the Sabbath by his owne example therefore he did sanctifie it with Adam and Eve Of this the Son of God gave us a shew for having finished the workes of our re-creating or Redemption being raised from the dead he conversed with his
Disciples appearing to them through forty dayes space and speaking the things that concerned the Kingdome of God and fully instructing them and teaching profound Theologie not so much with words as with the efficacie of the Spirit He so rested from both workes that hee ceased not yet to teach men and instruct them in the true worship The time would faile me to tell of our English worthies famous Westerne Lights that teach all this Truth as Willet Perkins Greenham Babington Bownd Gibbens Dod Scharpy Esty Williams with many more Behold what a cloude of witnesses doe compasse us about For further confirmation consider that place in Exod. 16. For first before all mention of Moses Law concerning the Sabbath it is storied that the People gathered on the sixt day twice as much bread two Omers for one man which Vers 22. 23. thing was observed by the Rulers of the Congregation who came and told Moses of it To what end was this but that they might apply themselves wholy to the observation of the Sabbath the day following Secondly the very phrase and words of Moses in giving admonition about the Sabbath in vers 23 is such as clearly sheweth that Moses spake not of the Sabbath as some new thing unheard of but cals to minde the ancient sanctimonie of that day which they had beene compelled to neglect of late in Egypt through Phâ—raohs cruell taske-masters This is that which the Lord hath said Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Thirdly the very command of Moses appointing them for after times to gather twice as much every sixth day as they did other dayes and giving this reason on the seventh day which is the Sabbath in it there shall bee none Vers 26. 29. sheweth that Moses himselfe was mindefull of the Law of the Sabbath delivered from Adam to the Fathers Out of this Text then it is evident that the Sabbath was from the beginning The third Section answered Vnto the Argument of Master Byfield for the mortalitie of the Sabbath taken from the manner of giving this Law by lively voyce on Sinai and by divine ingraving in Tables of stone by the finger of God and therefore differenced by the Lord from a ceremoniall Law which were all given mediately by Moses and from Gods owne testimonie by Moses that it is one of the Tenne words or Tenne Commandements you make here such an answer as doth not once come neare the force of the argument It became say you one of the Tenne perpetuall words then when it was given on Mount Sinai for the morall part perpetuall Thou shalt sanctifie the Sabbath for the ceremoniall part not perpetuall Thou shalt sanctifie the seventh day for the Sabbath If it became so because ingraven by the finger of God in Tables of stone then that part thou shalt sanctifie the seventh day for Sabbath is so because so ingraven If it became so but then that sufficeth us that have lived ever since and those that shall arise after us to the end of the world But this that you affirme that then when it was delivered on Sinai it became one of the perpetuall words hath no warrant in Scripture alledge the place nor in reason for as the other nine Commandements became not then first perpetuall though then first delivered in forme of lawes no more did this Were they perpetuall because written in Tables of stone and not rather because perpetuall so written This also is strange that you say that the morall part of the commandement Thou shalt sanctifie the Sabbath as you will have it became but then on Sinaia perpetuall word Was not obliging from the beginning and written in the heart that there should bee a vacant time for the worship of God If you deny it See your owne confession in pag. 24. of the Treatise The fourth Section answered That place in the fifty sixth Chapter of Esay vers 4 5. Vers 2. affords a strong argument against you for there the Christian Sabbath is prophesied of as that which every mortall man every sonne of Adam that would bee blessed must keepe in obedience to God It is therefore an ordinance of God charged in the fourth Commandement and no Command of men The strangers and Eunuchs there spoken of were not such as became proselytes under the law but Christians under the Gospell You object that the priviledge of Sonnes and Daughters was not tendered to strangers and so Master Byfield mistooke the Text. This is but a cavill the intent of the Prophet is to shew that the legall rules about strangers and Eunuchs shall not in Christs Kingdome where they are abolished hinder their election and choise into the number of his people but any of all sorts are accepted with God that thus take hold of his Covenant The Prophet expresly pronounceth them blessed v. 2. therefore it can be no wresting of the Text to say the stranger shall be a Sonne and the Eunuch made joyfull in the house of prayer nay if you take the Promise applyed in v. 5. to the Eunuchs exclusively shutting out the stranger how doth it answer so well the strangers objection who said The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people vers 3. You object further that the burnt offerings and sacrifices mentioned in vers 7. have no place in the New Testament therefore the Text must bee understood of the time of the Old Testament You might as well say that that place in Malach. 1. 11. is not spoken of the New Testament though it bee said Gods Name shall bee great among the Gentiles from the rising of the Sunne to the going downe thereof Because it is added In every place incense shall be offered and a pure offering Christians have their burnt offerings and sacrifices Rom. 12. 1. Heb. 13. But you say that then all the chapter must be understood in a mysticall sense and so of a mysticall Sabbath This consequence is utterly infirme as may be seene by that Text in Malachi forecited and that conceit of a mysticall Sabboth cannot have place here for these are made distinct to keepe the Sabbath from polluting it and to keepe the hand from doing any evill verse 2. To speake fully there is no one word in Scripture that speaketh of a mysticall Sabbath for what is spoken of a * Heb. 4. Spirituall Sabbatisme concernes our rest in Heaven and not a Spirituall Sabbath on earth and to say that servile workes condemned in the fourth Commandement are no other than sinnes or sinnes at all is nothing but an Allegoricall sporting with Gods Word for sinnes are not unlawfull on the Sabbath onely but alwayes and in all places nor doth the fourth Commandement intend to give a prohibition of all sinnes though it is true that in some sense sinnes receive an high aggravation when they are committed on so holy a day Esai 58. 4. Now how this mysticall and spirituall Sabbath of yours should serve to this
danger and a stinte set beyond which if they went their judiciall lawes condemned them to death as you ignorantly avouch Thirdly you say that the name of Sabbath was never applyed to the Lords day by any Apostle or other Christian for many hundred yeeres after Christ The Apostle in Heb. 49. doubted not to apply the name of Sabbath to the Christian people and our rest saying That the People of God have their Sabbatisme left unto them Yet admit your strong conceit had bin as strong a Truth what would follow thence That our Saviour intended our Sabbath in that place of Matthew because the Apostles call it the Lords day In no case For to use the name of distinction in times of the Church wherein the Saturday was called Sabbath cannot either make the Apostles faultie or the name of Sabbath incompatible to that day The seventh Section answered First that at the time of the siege of Ierusalem all ceremonies Zuares de lâ—gib l. 9 c. 19. of the old law were deadly you denie and we affirme for if our Saviours death be not the time of the ceremonies deadlinesse you confesse you lost your labour to the one halfe of your Reply hereto indeede St Hierome sets that for the period but you have not answered one of his arguments but to let that passe the terme prefixed is this Looke when the Ceremoniall law was dead throughout the whole world it began at the same time to bee deadly also through the world now the ceremoniall law was dead when the Gospell was published for that obliging the other ceased to oblige and that published the other was utterly evacuated Therefore in that point of time in which a sufficient promulgation of the Gospell was accomplished instantly the old law was deadly This you partly saw when you said in this Section and not onely dead they were but deadly also I confesse to Christians to whom he was certainely revealed to be the Saviour This time was before the eversion of Ierusalem as the Apostle testifieth in Col. 1. 6. that the Gospell was come unto and brought forth fruite also in all the world and proclaimeth to the Churches that the Ceremoniall law was deadly both in that Epistle to the y Col. 2. 20. 21. Gal. 5. 3 4. 4. 9. 10. 11. Colossians and in the Epistle to the Galathians Secondly for your assertion about the old Sabbath that it did remaine and was observed in the East Churches three hundred yeeres and above after our Saviours death it is utterly false that it was observed either Iewishly or as a Sabbath or in Obedience to the fourth Commandement No such observation was Anathematized in the Councell z Ignat. ad magn of Laodicea and Ignatius charged those Christians to worke that day If you meane this observation was the performance of some religious duties publikely then you might say every day in the weeke was observed religiously by them for that is knowne that many of the Greeke fathers as well as the Latine preached every day and a Aug. Ianuar. Ep. 11â— Augustine tels of divers customes in the Churches Some communicated at the Lords table every day some some certaine dayes some on the ancient Sabbath and the Lords day some onely on the Lords day But you must needs intend the Iewish observation of the Sabbath for these words you adde all ceremonies therefore and particularly of the old Sabbath at the time by you mentioned were not deadly Thirdly and when you say that the name of Sabbath was not given in the Church to any other day than the Iewes Sabbath for more hundred of yeeres than three hundred Augustine saith b Serm. de temp 251. So we also sanctifie the Sabbath the Lord saying Ye shall not doe any worke therein The eighth ninth tenth eleventh and twelfth Sections answered In the eighth Section you set forth slanderous reports of Master Byfield which you tooke in by retayle some about his Doctrine concerning late repentance of this the Church of England knoweth his wholesome propositions imprinted in his bookes on the Coloss and on the first Epistle of Peter Some about his Discipline as you terme it but those in and about Chester know his goings in and out then among them In the fourth page of the Treatise you tell of Rebellion against mens lawes and mischiefes to the common-wealth and in the 53. page that few drew so freely of this vessell as he all which cannot agree to a resolution of a private case and those words wherewith Mr Byfield chargeth you and you deny viz. that this doctrine tended to the corrupting of the estate where your kindred and acquaintance and your selfe had lived are expresse in a letter written Iune the ninth 1611. Therefore he justly charged you for charging him unjustly in these respects and did not calumniate you And whereas you say that the doctrine of the Sabbath which you opposed was not for pulpits but for Corners you might have knowne it hath sounded in pulpits and is in print by divers Divines This of the ninth Section But what doe I indeed these nor the other Sections containe nothing worthy an Answere The hands are joyned with scorners and the replies borrowed from wicked men let them alone The thirteenth Section answered That you did adjure Mr Byfield which yet you deny will be manifest if your forme of speech in the end of your Treatise and the nature of an Adjuration be compared together * Zauch in tertium precept de adjuratione An Adjuration is an action in which in the Name of God or by his Name either we require an oath of any one whereby hee should binde himselfe to doe or not to doe something or wee binde him to it by command or intreaty without an oath exacted and that our desire may be more surely obtained we interpose the Name of God Your words are these I challenge you as you will answere it at the judgement Seat of Almighty God when your accounting day shall come to repaire the ruine you have made in his Conscience True here you require not an oath to binde him to this yet you require it with an interposition of the Name of God and a denunciation secretly of Gods anger if he doe it not and so you fall under the second kinde of Adjurations The fourteenth Section answered Here begin Mr Byfields reasons why he would not yeeld to answere the Treatise though adjured Mr Breerwood would refell them Take M. Byfields words together and they are a sufficient reason for every strangers vaine challenge ought not to be answered Now this challenge of M. Breerwoods was vaine because the Injury was but a Conceit no Reality and the doctrine of M. Breerwood abundantly answered in Writers at his hand Thus all M. Breerwoods words are to no purpose and a meere beating of the Ayre By the way note M. Breerwoods Parenthesies no man lesse curious or inquisitive of other mens affaires neither
so to inferiors in 1 Pet. 2. p. 737. Secondly good masters not onely license but teach their servants to keepe Gods Sabbath and worship him Commandement 4. Gen. 18. 19. in 1 Pet. 2. p. 736. Thirdly masters doe not onely wickedly in restraining their servants from the meanes of their salvation or comfort but doe foolishly also in hindering them of that meanes that should make them good servants in 1 Pet. 2. p. 725. Fourthly they may not make their servants breake Gods Sabbath to satisfie their wils in Col. 3. 23. p. 130. In these Aphorismes that faithfull servant of Iesus Christ being dead yet speaketh unto which let me adde a word or two that thou mightest on all hands be leftready to duty in this behalfe Remember if thou be a servant that in workes of holinesse mercy and necessitie the masters power is to be obeyed in subjection to his commands for in those is he under God for God and over thee Then it is thy praise to follow Isa 41. 2. him in the lawfull use of his power at his foote Lastly the well-ordered houshold of that worthily praised Centurion should be the platforme for families that intend their welbeing When hee bad his servant goe he went and come he came and doe this and he did it if thou bee a master and hadst such servants wouldest thou couldest thou serve Ier. 43. 9. thy selfe of them I am perswaded there is not the most covetous and prophane Atheist but hee hath so much sense of a deitie and so much conscience yeelding and heart giving and relenting that he would sometimes in a moode proclayme to his houshold the Lords libertie Is it so indeede my prayer shall bee for thee that of this deede thou mayest never repent and pollute Gods Name with those wretched Israelites lest it should hasten desolation on thy house and name thy repentance may bee farre better bestowed upon the remainder of other sinnes against other the Holy Lawes of God To which worke I leave thee and all others that know that Repentance towards God and Faith towards the Lord Iesus is that which summeth up Christianitie among those that follow the Truth in Love the Lord answere us all with strength in our soules that alwayes we may labor fervently one for another in prayers that wee may stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God So prayeth Yours in the Lord RICHARD BYFIELD THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOKE THE PREFACE THE Preface of this Confutation sheweth The illiteratenesse and vanitie of the Title pag. 1 2 3. The abusiue application of holy Texts to such a Treatise p. 4. The state of the Question opposed by Mr. Breerewood pag. 5. CHAP. I. The first Chapter deliuers The plaine sense of the words of the fourth Commandement which concerne the persons to whom it is giuen page 6. Seuen reasons from the Commandement it selfe to auouch that exposition page 7. 8. Two texts in the old Testament to confirme it viz. Ier. 17. 20. Exod. 34. 21. page 9. The Infirmenesse of Mr. Breerwoods Collection page 9 10. An argument taken out of Gal. 5. 3. to prooue our exposition pag. 10. A grosse absurditie and wicked against the soules of inferiours arising from the contrary doctrine of our aduersary page 10. The singularitie and Noueltie of this opinion page 10. CHAP. II. Containeth Two things that make Precepts parallel and equally obliging page 11 12. A distinction to cleare this page 12. Another argument to prooue that the fourth Commandement is giuen to seruants taken out of the Rom. 3. 19. Many arguments to prooue that the stranger-Moabite eating the Passeouer sinned though he were inuited page 13 14. Instances proouing that a commandement in forme of words giuen of and not to one may yet be sinned against by him of whom it is so giuen page 13 14. A retortion of M. Breerwoods argument page 14 15. CHAP. III. Sheweth The weakenesse of that instance of the Precept of a Prince applyed to confirme his exposition page 15. The greatnesse of the Seruants sinne that neglects attendance on Christ vpon the Sabbath vnder the similitude of a Prince gathered out of Aquinas page 16. How commandements that are priuiledges binde the priuiledged and therefore if the commandement were of seruants and not to them yet it obligeth them page 16 17. A further proofe that the fourth Commandement is giuen to Seruants also page 17 18. CHAP. IIII. Prooueth that the fourth Commandement is giuen to Children out of Lev. 23. 3. and 19 3. and therefore to Seruants page 19 20. CHAP. V. Sheweth Our Aduersaries vnsound Reasoning from the Text in Deut. 5. page 22 23. The meaning of that text page 23. Many passages in his vnfolding the place in Deut. 5. lyable to just exceptions page 24 25 26 27. CHAP. VI. Deliuereth The difference betweene the Oxes and the Seruants subjection to the fourth Commandement page 28. Two arguments drawne thence to prooue that the Commandement obligeth Seruants page 28 29. Further proofes hereof page 29 30. A Rule to know when Precepts that are alike for forme of words yet doe not oblige alike page 30. CHAP. VII Sheweth That the Seruant working on the Sabbath at his Masters commandement sinneth though the wrought Oxe sinne not p. 31 32. The Horridnesse of that position that the Seruant and the Oxe or Asse are alike subject to their Masters page 32 33. Three Rules that guide Subjects in obedience to their Superiours page 33 34. CHAP. VIII Deliuereth the examination of our Aduersaries explication of that distinction of the matter and forme of sinne page 35 36. The Infirmenesse of his Reasoning from thence page 36. CHAP. IX Sheweth further What clause of the Commandement bindeth seruants as seruants page 37 38. Another argument drawne from the Texts Exod. 20. 1 20 21. and 35. 1 2. page 38. The exposition of the Commandement by Thomas Aquinas page 38 39 40. CHAP. X. Sheweth the weakenesse of the aduersaries reason taken from the wisedome and equitie of God page 41 42. Diuers vnsound passages let fall in laying down that Reason pag. 42. In speciall the falsehood of this that the Seruants are voide of power and libertie to obey Gods Commandement on the Sabbath if their Master bid them worke page 42 43. CHAP. XI Cleareth our Doctrine from vnjust aspersions and prooueth that it occasioneth No Disobedience to Masters page 44 45. No hard vsage to the Seruant page 45 46. No breach of the Law of Nations where many things about the Law of Nations page 46 47. Chargeth our Aduersaries Doctrine to produce these three euils page 47 48. Confirmeth further our Doctrine page 48 49. CHAP. XII Sheweth How our Aduersaries Reason from Gods goodnesse is faultie for forme and matter page 50 51 52 53. That his Doctrine casteth into mischiefes and Inconueniences page 54. CHAP. XIII Sheweth the abuse of that place in Neh. 13. which is vnfolded and maketh for vs A justification of our English translation and the
Master Breerwoods doctrine is like the waters of Marah and Meribah page 181. That the fruites of this doctrine can be no other but disturbance and sedition by fiue consequences that follow vpon it pag. 181. 182. CHAP. XXXV Answereth Master Breerwoods prouocation and adiuration to a polemicke discourse pag. 183. CHAP. XXXVI Sheweth the true relation of the occasion of the controuersie betwixt Master Breerwood and Master Byfield That Master Byfield did not indeed giue any such aduice to John Breerwood That this pretended scruple did not make John Breerwood disobedient to his Master who would not vrge him nor did it occasion his hard vsage nor tend to his ruine his Master being deceiued with his false pretences desired the more to inioy him THE SECOND PART CONTAINES A BRIEFE SVRVEY OF Master BREERVVOODS Reply and Sheweth THAT Master Byfields declining of the controuersie with Master Breerwood could not impeach his Knowledge Zeale or Charity pag. 193. 194. 195. That Master Breerwood opposeth Gods Sabbath pag. 195. 196. That the Commandement concerning the Rest and Sanctification of the Sabbath was giuen to Adam pag. 197. Diuers distinctions vsed by Master Breerwood against this truth answered pag. 197. 198. 199. 200. The true sence of the words of the text Genesis 2. verse 2 3. pag. 202. Authorities to confirme that exposition pag. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. The Commandement concerning the Sabbath was one of the ten perpetuall words from the beginning pag. 208 209. That place in the 56. of Esay 4 5. must be vnderstood of the Christian Sabbath pag. 210. No mysticall Sabbath spoken of in the Scripture pag. 210. The Sabbath translated by the authority of Christ pag. 211 212. That place in Matthew 24. 20. meant of the Christian Sabbath prooued at large pag. 213 214. That the Ceremonies of the old Law were deadly at the time of the siege of Jerusalem pag. 215. That the old Sabbath was not obserued in the East Churches 300. yeeres after our Sauiours death as Master Breerwood affirmeth pag. 216. The sufficiency of Master Byfields Reasons not to answere the Treatise at that time sent to him by Master Breerwood pag. 218 to 222. A letter of Master Breerwoods in which hee promiseth that this controuersie betweene him and Master Byfield shall neuer be made publique pag. 223 c. FINIS ⧠A TABLE OF THE ABSVRD AND GROSSE POsitions that lye scattered in this Treatise of the Sabbath written by Master BREERWOOD 1 THe seruant as touching bodily labour is meerely subiect to his Masters power pag. 11. 2. The seruant as touching bodily seruice incident to mankinde is in like degree of subiection to his Master as is the Oxe and Asse pag. 11. 3. Children are meerely vnder their Parents power as the Cattell are vnder their owners pag. 13. 4. Seruants are vnder their Masters power for seruice onely pag. 14. 5. A seruant cannot justly performe any labour which his Master forbids nor omit any which his Master commands pag. 14. 6. If the fourth Commandement * be giuen to seruants they cannot keepe it Their calling carrieth a necessity of breaking the Law as this Author would haue it as they are the seruants of men pag. 17. 7. The compassion and goodnesse of God is such that it agreeth not therewith to giue to man such a Commandement which through the wickednesse of other men he cannot keepe without an inconuenience and mischiefe that is without sharpe punishment pag. 17. 8. Sinne essentially is nothing else but the inordinate and vnruly election or resolution of the will varying from the Scripture or Gods Law pag. 19. 9. Outward vnlawfull actions are not sinne properly pag. 19. 10. Actions are no whit further sinfull then they are voluntary pag. 20. 11. The guilt of sinne is the forme of sinne pag. 12. 12. The eie beholding vanity the tongue loose to blaspheme slander and lie and the hand stretched out to shead blood sinne not pag. 20. 13. To worke on the Lords day is certainely no breach of any diuine Commandement pag. 37. 14. The designement of the first day of the weeke to be Sabbath is but ceremoniall pag. 42. 15. Gods resting from Creation was his Sabbath and his resting in himselfe the sanctification thereof other institution or sanctification of the Sabbath in Paradise will neuer bee prooued out of the place in Gen. 2. 2. pag. 63 64. 16. The Sabbath for the morall part of it I keepe his owne phrase became in the wildernesse on Sinai one of the ten perpetuall words not before pag. 67. 17. By the Iudiciall law of Moses it was death for a man in case of necessity or danger to depart from the place of his residence on the Sabbath further then a Sabbath-dayes iourney pag. 73. FINIS THE PREFACE BEfore I touch upon this Antisabbato-Dominicall Pamphlet to grapple with it it is requisite briefly to skan the title and sentences of Scripture prefixed and to propose the case or question controverted First the Booke is intituled A learned Treatise of the Sabaoth What the Treatise affords shall bee seene anon God willing the Title savours of little learning wherein for Sabbath is written Sabaoth which signifieth hostes as in a Esay 1. 9. Esay Vnlesse the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a remnant What hostes bringeth in this Treatise What the hostes of flies of which Saint Austine speaketh b Serm. de temp 95. Consideremus ergo cur ibi decem praecepta hic decemplagae memorentur ideo sine dubio quia in illis erant vulnera inâ—stis medicamenta Attendite tertiam plagam huic tertio praecepts contrariam Cyniphesnati sunt in terra Aegyptide lino muscae minutissimae inquiretissimae inordinate volantes in oculos irruenâ—â—s non permittentes hominem quirescere dum abiguntur iâ—erum irruunt dum expulsae suerint iterum redeunt Quales istae sunt muscae tolâ—s sunt homines inquieti qui Sabbaâ—â—m spiritalitèr observares id est bonis operibus studere lectioni vel orationi insistâ—re nolâ—nt Who comparing the ten Precepts and ten Plagues of Egypt together as the diseases and the medicines doth paralell the plague of flies to the Commandement of the Sabbath and thus applyeth it Such as â—â—e saith he these Dog-flies or Lice as our Translation readeth it Exod. 8. 16. such are unquiet men which will not spiritually observe the Sabbath that is which will not study good workes nor insist in reading and prayer Hold yee the Precept beware of the Plague These are hostes under the command of that Don-Beelzebub c The Lord of Flies I would haue imputed this to the Printers oversight if either the Errata had mentioned it or the whole Treatise in any one place had given the tâ—ue Orthography Well but be it so the Treatise plyed to this Discourse and therefore how prophanely abused to Gods high dishonour appeareth by setting other places to them and applying them to the matter in hand Take them thus The first
place Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5. 21. Ill applyed to try that reasoning that blots out one precept of the Decalogue Oppose that Text Whosoever therefore shall breake one of these least Commandements and shall teach men so hee shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven but whosoever shall doe and teach them the same shall bee called great in the Kingdome of Heaven Matth. 5. 19. The second place For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodnesse and righteousnesse and truth proving what is acceptable to the Lord. Ephes 5. 9 10. Ill applyed against the worke of the Spirit in Christians and the intent of the Lord. See those Texts I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall bee my people Ierem. 31. 33. Heb. 8. 11. The Lord is well-pleased for his righteousnesse sake he will magnifie the Law and make it honourable Esay 42. 21. The third place Holy Father Sanctifie them through thy truth Thy Word is truth Ioh. 17. 17. Ill applied against the great things of the Law written by Gods owne finger Looke to that Text I have written to him the great things of my Law but they were counted as a strange thing Hos 8. 12. Thirdly now for the matter controverted this learned Treatise hath in it the occasion and the substance We take the last first that all may the better judge of every passage onely out of the first part viz. the occasion thereof The Case of Conscience questioned must be proposed to cleare the words of the whole Discourse that the force of the arguments against it in this Treatise may bee seene and the blunting of their edge if they have any or the unsheathing of them that all may see they are but woodden Daggers may be apparant to eveâ—y understanding The Author of this Treatise states it thus and so opposeth it as untruth Breerwood Pag. 3. THat for a servant to do light businesses or any other worke on the Sabaoth day although it were such worke as might lawfully be done on another day and although he did it not of his owne disposition but only in obedience to his masters command yet was a sinne and transgression of Gods Commandement touching the Sabaoth and that he was not bound to yeeld nay that he sinned against God in yeelding obedience to every such commandement of his masters that day which by the precept of Almighty God was wholly precisely consecrated to rest and the service of God This is the point oppugned by our Adversary whose reasons shall be delivered in his owne words and confuted I will neither adde nor diminish but onely cut it into parts that every part may receive its answer apart This prefaced I proceed CHAP. I. Breerwood Pag. 4. l. 29. YOu are a teacher of Gods word within the compasse of that word I will stay with you and by it examine with your patience whether this frame of your Doctrine bee grounded on the rock or on the sand on the firme rock of Gods Law or on the fickle sand of your own fantasie misunderstanding the Law and so whether it tend to the edification or ruine of the Church For touching the commandement of the Sabaoth vpon which I averre this Doctrine of yours cannot bee grounded lay it before you and consider it well and tell me to whom is the charge of servants ceasing from worke on the Sabaoth day given Is it to the servants themselves or to their masters It is given of servants I confesse their worke is the matter of the Commandement But I demand whether it be given and imposed to the servants themselves or to the masters whose servants they are For if the Commandement bee not given to them then doe they not transgresse the Commandements if by their masters they bee set to worke but the masters to whom the Law was given that the servant should not worke and consequently the sinne is their masters and not theirs so if the Law be not imposed to them then it requireth no obedience of them it obligeth them not therefore is neither the transgression of it any sinne to them but only to those to whom it was given as a Law Answer First the Commandement is given to servants also the Words are Thou nor thy servant which referred to the former Thou shalt doe no manner of worke can have no other sense than this thou shalt doe no manner of worke that art the master nor thy seruant shall do no manner of worke a Father and sonne sonne and daughter bond and free were bound religiously to observe it Doct. Slater in the Ministers portion pag. 95. the Commandement of ceasing from worke not giuen of him onely but to him also For how know you that the commandement is given to the master but because the Lord saith thou meaning that hast a servant shalt doe no manner of worke And can you bee so purblind as not to see the Commandement is given aswell to the servant when it is thus delivered in the same forme Thy servant shall doe no manner of worke Nay consider you the Publisher for as for the Author hee knoweth already by the issue whether his collection hence were sound or no and if he might have the favour the Saints had that aroseat our Saviours resurrection Iam perswaded hee would judge this Treatise to the fire and therefore you the Publisher I say and all yee that feare God and know that a bored eare is the best Sacrifice consider The Commandement is given to the servant as a servant and as thy servant I will not worke maiest thou say but my servant shall his worke is mine by Covenant The Lord with whom there is neither bond nor free interposeth and saith not thou shalt not command him to worke but thus thy servant shall not worke What is this but to say as servant and as thine hee shall not worke As if hee said at other times his worke is thine but now his worke is mine thy covenant shall not infringe his covenant with his God As thy servant he is not thine in thy workes or servile workes that day but the Lords freeman yet thy servant that day by thee to be injoyned to the Lords worke Gods servant to be free from thy works Thou must observe the Commandement in thine owne person and preserve it in the persons under thy charge thy servant must doe no manner of thy servile worke that day but must bee thy servant to bee ordered for the Lords worke Consider it well and see the matter forbidden is the servile cares and labors of the houshold both of masters about servants and of Servants towards their Masters Secondly and seeing we are afforded by your good leave to consider the Commandement let us with your patience for I cannot but thinke the heart of any deceiving or deceived is not onely stumbled but convinced by
to be cut off from the Congregation of Israel g Exod. 12. 19. See Junius on the place Now shall the servant be left to the subjection to that command that makes him unfit for communion with the people of God God forbid Yet thus would you provide for servants and be such a sinner against their soules Seventhly how much better might you have tuned to Lyra's Harpe than to runne a new straine he saith thus h Non loquitur de adultis qui jam sciebant legem Sabbati quia prohibiti sunt simul cum parentibus sed hoc additur propueris ignorantibus legem qui non debebant permitti dparentibus aliquid operari in diem Sabbati Lyra. he speaketh not of those of ripe age which did now know the Law of the Sabbath because they are forbidden together with their parents but this is added for childrens sake that knew not the Law which ought not to bee permitted to doe any workes on the Sabbath day This interpretation hee had from Rabbi Solomon I doe not say it is the truth of the place but this I say you have neither truth nor patron for your abortive opinion Let all Christians be warned how they receive every one that pretends Scripture all Heretikes were such according to that of Irenaeuâ— they were evill Expositors of things well spoken i Pravi expositores probè dictorum Iraeneus l. 1. advers Haeres in prooem Satan laid his most dangerous assaults against Christ and would perswade them by Scripture too Behold here one professing to stay within the compasse of the Word and by a futilous distinction of of and to erres from the A. B. C. Such words fiet like a Canker or Gangreene k 2 Tim. 2. 17 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shall be your wisedome not to serve God by distinctions and to learne Divinitie of your Teachers and not Divisions of Sophisters CHAP. II. Breerwood Pag. 5. 6. FOr the better clearing of which point let me aske you a question or two of other Commandements that for their forme are paralell to this and whereof you have no prejudice God commanded the Israelites that no stranger should eate of the Paschall Lambe againe that no Ammonite nor Moabite should enter into the Congregation of the Lord to the tenth generation Good Sir tell me did the Stranger sinne if he eat of the Passeover being supposed invited or did the Ammonites and Moabites sinne if they came into the Congregation being admitted Did the Stranger I say and the Ammonites and the Moabites in these cases sinne of whom the Commandements were given or the Israelites to whom the Commandements were given touching them no but it is clearely the Lords meaning that the Israelites should not admit of any Gentile to the participation of the Passeover nor receive the Ammonites and Moabites into the Congregation of the Lord. Answer First I reply these Commandements are not paralell and so your ground faileth these Commandements I say this Thy servant shall doe no manner of worke and this No stranger shall eate of the Passeover In the first you acknowledge the masters worke is forbidden to the master whether done by himselfe or by his servant In the latter the Passeover forbidden to the stranger is enjoyned to the Iew. The Iew must eate the Passeover the Iew must not admit the stranger to eate but the master must not worke and must not admit his servant to worke The thing prohibited viz. to doe servile worke on the Sabbath is sinfull in it selfe but the eating of the Passeover which is the thing forbidden the stranger was the speciall worship of God his ordinance and service required of the Iew. Now this makes a wide difference in the sense of those precepts that sound alike for where the thing is evill it cannot but be evill who ever doth it that is capable of the divine precept as the servant is for he is a reasonable creature and was a Iew but where the thing it selfe is holy it becomes evill onely to him that prophaneth and defileth it The Iew is made the observer of the Passeover and the preserver of it from the strangers observation but here the master and servant are both made observers of the command of ceasing from work and the master is to preserve it to the servants observation Besides where the words runne in the same forme the precepts are not presently paralell or the prohibitions for to make them so the parties commanded must stand alike capable of the Law or uncapable Wee 'le not goe farre for instance the words in this precept are every way for forme of words paralell Thy sonne shall doe no manner of worke the stranger within thy gate shall doe no manner of worke yet the forme of the precept is not the same because the sonne of the Iew stood otherwise obliged to the Sabbath as your selfe doe yeeld pag. 25. than the stranger And to put it beyond all exception these for forme of words are paralell Thy sonne shall doe no worke Thy cattell shall doe no worke yet the precept is not paralell because the sonne is capable of Gods Law to obey it properlyâ— and the Soli homines capaces sunt propriae legit Zuarez de leg l. 1. c. 6. cattell are not There is a difference betweene the forme of precepts and the forme of words in which precepts are signified The forme of the precept must partly bee gathered from the subjects to which they have reference and as they are capable or lesse capable of law so the precepts to be understood for the Law in its owne nature carrieth a certaine respect and disposition to them on whom it is imposed m Lex essentialâ—â—er quandam habitudinem ad eos dicâ—â— quibut imponitur Zuarez l. 1. ca. 6. de leg Now for the Law of the Passeover the stranger was not so capable of it as being not under the Law but the servant being a Iew is alike capable of the Law of the fourth Commandement as is his Master because equally under the Law What the Law speaketh it speaketh to them who are under the Law n Rom. 3. 19. saith the Apostle Secondly I affirme that the strangers Moabites and Ammonites did sinne in thus doing though invited or admitted they prophaned holy things as Balthazar did the Bowles of the Temple o Dan. 5. â— Now the Iewes sinfull invitation cannot take away their prophanation It is all one as if a Pagan living among us that refused our Religion and were not baptized should yet come and eate of the Bread of the Lord though some Minister for some by respect should be supposed to invite him There were among the Iewes strangers that kept house and had servants that yet were no Proselytes but onely strangers within the gates these sinned against this precept if they would kill the Passeover and eate it although the sewes should through remissenesse suffer it Further that a stranger
may sinne against a precept given of him is cleare by that precept in vers 48. of chap. 12. of Exodus Let all his males be circumcised and then let him keepe the Passeover The commandement is given expressely to the Israelites of the stranger and yet if that stranger should out of Zipporah's tendernesse hide or spare a male and so eate all the Iewes held that he sinned against this precept given of him p Maimony in Korb Pesach c. 5. 5. 5. It is evident also by the penaltie laid on the stranger with whom leavened bread was found and eaten on the Feast of unleavened bread hee was to be cut off from the Congregation of Israel for punishment is to bee inflicted onely upon transgressors and yet the Commandement of keeping the Feast of unleavened bread was given to the Iewes onely in any fonne of words that we find vers 15 17. Thirdly and for your instances I have yet further to except against them as they are alleaged by you This precept No stranger shall eate thereof q Exod. 12. 43. hath been understood to bind the stranger there mentioned aswell as the Iew for the Chaldee Paraphrast renders it thus No sonne of Israel that is Apostate shall eate of it Now the Apostate Israelite sinned if hee ate aswell as the Iew that invited him to eate the persons that were uncleane legally at the day of the Passeover sinned if they kept it at that season though the Governours tooke no notice of it or would permit it Numb 9. 6 7 10 11. And for the Moabite and Ammonite r Deut. 23. 3. it is cleare that it is spoken of them converted made Proselytes who stood therefore bound to keepe the whole Law as being circumcised for the Law speaketh of a temporall punishment to be inflicted on them to the tenth generation after their conversion the one hundred generation of them remaining Heathen had been still farre from admission These then did breake this command of God aswell as the Iewes that admitted them though the command in your opinion bee given but of them and it is also in part true And that they did breake this precept appeares also by the example of the burst and of the bastard Å¿ Deut. 23. 1 2. the commandements are given in the same forme given of them to the Governours yet bound them of whom given For God by his prohibition makes them uncapable of such an honour and priviledge if they should rush upon holy things when hee hath interdicted them their prophanenesse and contempt were great I retort therefore your instances thus The strangers Moabites and Ammonites forbidden these holy things though the precept were of them chiefly and to the Iewes principally touching them did prophane them transgresse the Law and did proudly rush upon things peculiar if they meddled therewith therefore much more the servant though the precept bee of him chiefly and to his master principally concerning him if hee worke on the Sabbath prophanes it transgresseth the Law and proudly rusheth upon the priviledged and peculiar time enclosed by the Lord of time himselfe It is clearely the Lords intent that the master should not suffer nor charge his servant to worke this day and as clearely the Lords meaning that the servant should not doe his masters worke that day which is the Lords and not his masters day CHAP. III. Breerwood Pag. 6. LEt me aske you one question more of a case that hath fallen in my remembrance A precept comes out from the Prince That every Cittizen in London shall on such a day keepe his servants within doores and not suffer them to goe abroad If notwithstanding that precept some master sends forth his servant about his businesse doth the servant transgresse the Princes commandement by obeying his masters Or ought he by pretence of that precept to disobey his master and neglect his charge It is plaine he doth * Here the sense carrieth that you must reade be doth not the former that is he doth not transgresse the Princes commandement or else the force of this instance is lost correct it thus then though the Errata have not seene it the former and therefore he ought not to doe the latter For the commandement was given to his master not to him and the purpose of it was to restraine his master from commanding such service and not to restraine the servant from obeying his master if it were commanded there it is apparent that the obligations of commandements pertaineth to them to whom they are prescribed as rules and not to them of whom onely as being the matter of the precept they are prescribed Answer First this agreeth not with that in the commandement for the Lord saith not thus Thou shalt not suffer thy servant to work but thus Thy servant shall not work If the Princes command were this Thy servant shall doe no worke of thine that he may attend on me in my house and on my worke without avocations and disturbance did not the servant transgresse the Princes charge if he forsooke the Prince and obeyed his master or would his masters command excuse him in doing that which was against the Princes command or in neglecting the Princes service Sure this doctrine of yours would leave Princes persons kingdomes and necessities dayes thou shalt labour is likewise of indulgence for the Iewes in keeping the dayes of Purim-festivals sinned not Yea sometimes that commeth under the forme of a command in words which is onely spoken by concession when yet the thing so granted is not allowed or approved for good as when the Apostle saith Be angry but sin not e Ephes 4. 26. Be angry is in words of precept yet spoken onely by concession and yet no way alloweth the anger he speaketh of for that he speaketh not of a laudable anger is evident when it followeth let not the Sunne goe downe upon your wrath How needfull is it that we understand this thing distinctly lest we be deceived with the shew of a command To returne then that learned Scotchman Camero giveth us this excellent rule whereby to know a precept that is of indulgence or of Empire and Lawlike charge as I may say truly Whatsoever saith he f Sanè quicquid Deus prescribit quod non simplicitèr benesicii sed officii rationem habet idest d Dei imperio itaque in distinguendis iis quae mandatorum formâ concipiuntur in Scripturâ id semper ob oculos habendum est pertineantur res prescriptae ad officium an verò ad beneficium privilegium simplicitèr quod si occurrat in mandato officii ratio non est profectò indulgentia sed imperium Simplicitèr inquam nullum enim exigit officium Deus à creatura quod idem reipsa non sit benesicium sed benesicium simpliciter Domino in quo nalla se ostendit ratio officii erga Deum Joh. Camero â—om 1. prelect ad Mat. cap. 18. vers 15. pag.
15. God doth prescribe which hath not the reason and nature of a benefit simply but of a duty and office that is from the Empire of God And afterwards explaining himselfe he addeth I say simply a benefit for God requires no duty of his creature which is not in the thing it selfe a benefit but that is simply a benefit in which no nature of a duty towards God doth shew it selfe Now follow this Rule and who sees not that this precept Thy servant shall doe no worke on the Sabbath hath in it chiefly the nature of office and duty the servant oweth to God as well as the master even the observation of the Sabbath to God though in a second place here is a matter of fatherly indulgence God graciously tendring the servants as he doth also the very bruite beast for whose ease he mercifully provides that day Now Master Publisher if you have any mind to put questions you shall have leave if you please to aske as many more CHAP. 4. Breerwood Pag. 7. NOw that that clause of the Commandement touching servants was not given to the sevants themselves but to their masters in whose power and disposition they are the text and tenour of the commandement doth clearly import for marke it well and answere me to whom is this speech directed Neither thy sonne nor thy daughter shall doe any worke on the Sabaoth day is it not to the Parents For can this manner of speech thy sonne thy daughter be rightly directed to any other than the parent and is not by the same reason the clause that next followeth neither shall thy man servant nor thy maid-servant doe any worke on the Sabaoth day directed to the Masters of such servants Seeing that phrase of speech thy man-servant thy maidservant cannot rightly bee used to any other It is therefore as cleare as the Sunne even to meane understandings if they will give but meane attendance to the tenour of Gods commandements rather than the fond interpretations and depravations of men that that clause of the commandement touching servants cessation from working on the Sabaoth is not given to servants themselves but to their masters concerning them Answer First this proofe is sufficiently overthrowne by all the former arguments yet I adde This precept is directed to the parents restraining the use of their power to interrupt and injoyning the use of their power to preserve the sanctification of the day and to the sonne and daughter also not to worke at the houshold worke for saith God g Levit. 23. 3. The seventh day is the Sabbath of rest and holy convocation yee shall doe no worke therein it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Who are these charged in the word yee Who but yee that stand bound to come to the holy convocations yee that constitute families therefore yee children as well as yee parents Secondly and to free all that subscribe to this truth from feare of so much as any private interpretation and to cast it bee commanded nor intreated licence would serve their turne but to the masters whose desire of gaine by the servants labour might stand betwixt the Sabaoth and the servants rest and to make an end with the Text with the last words of it what is it that the Lord for these reasons commanded was it barely to keepe and observe the Sabaoth as it is in the vulgar English Latine and Greeke translations No they are all short it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to make a day of rest Deut. 5. 15. Now to make it to bee so importeth not onely to observe it himselfe but to cause others also to observe it which is evidently the property of masters and governours wherefore seeing both the commandement touching servants rest from labour on the Sabaoth day and reasons added by Moses to perswade that point and draw their mindes to obsequiousnesse are evidently directed to the Masters and not neither of both to the servants themselves I take it out of all question as cleare as the Sunshine at midday that if servants by their masters command doe any worke on the Sabaoth the sinne is not theirs who as touching their bodily labour are meerely subject to their Masters power but it is their masters sinne For their sinne it is that transgresse the law they transgresse the law who are obliged by it they are obliged by it to whom it was given and imposed and given it was as I have plentifully proved onely to Masters Answer First your first way of confirming your exposition was by instance then you goe on to proofes from texts whereof the first taken out of the commandement was taken off in the former Chapter this is your second proofe built on the text in Deu. 5. And here because you flaunt it out in many words and in many of them glance at things as if they made to your purpose besides the maine of your argument I thus reply first to your reason drawne from the text secondly to some chiefe passages in the venting of it The substance of the reasoning is this in briefe Moses applyeth the precept of servants rest to the masters that were slaves in Egypt but now ransomed and set in the estate of freemen that they should allow their servants rest and make the Sabbath a resting day therefore the commandement thou shalt not doe any worke is given onely to the masters It is applyed to the masters therefore given to them were a right consequence but therefore to them onely is fallacious for more is in the consequent than was in the Antecedent and if you put the word only into the Antecedent then both the propositions are false For in Levit. 19. 3. as above was specified Moses applyeth it to children And the argument is yet unsolid for it stands thus Moses applieth it in his expositions onely to masters therefore it was given onely to masters for applications are according to severall occasions but not alwaies extended to the utmost breadth of the precept and yet in all this Moses fidelitie no way impeached inasmuch as he faithfully applieth where it most needeth as occasion serveth keeping the bounds of truth These consequents from this place as you expound it may be gathered therefore that reason binds not servants or this therefore the master sinnes most ungratefully that will disturbe his servants rest or this therefore it is given chiefly to the masters as those that must not onely keepe but make a Sabbath all which wee yeeld but the mind that once is big of a new fancy maketh all that it feedeth upon nourish that fancy Secondly the truth is the Lord by Moses pleades in those words the reason of the right that hee hath to command thy servant rest who is his freeman by vertue of that redemption the servant as well as the master called into the liberty of his holy people as appeareth in the Preface to the Decalogue Exod. 20. and in Exod.
Sabbath day And the whole reason applied to the Sabbaths rest for servants sounds no lesse than this Remember when thou wast in Egypt the Egyptians made thee a slave and mard the Sabbath day now I have set thee free thou shalt free thy servant that day and make the Sabbath day Moses reasons are evidently directed to the masters not to the servants therefore the servant working at the masters command sinneth not What reasoning is this the master is by arguments peâ—swaded to make a day of rest therefore the servant must worke if the master bid him or therefore hee is not commanded to make a holy rest to his servant Who as touching bodily labour are meerely subject to their masters power This meerely in this place must needes exclude Gods power over the servant that he may not lawfully command him in any thing that respects the use of bodily labour but onely his master which wicked ground laid it will follow that the Lord may not command the master to let his servant rest but onely intreat or perswade but the Lord speakes pro imperio as a Lord and Emperor thy servant shall rest This meerely takes in all time so that the master may require their worke and not allow them any time for solemne worship now it is certaine that no man hath power to sell himselfe to any in such a manner no more than he hath to sell himselfe from God and to the divell for take away time from solemne worship and that falls to the ground nothing can bee done in an instant take away solemne worship and you are without God Ier. 10. 25 and without him under the power of Satan Act. 26. 18. This meerely in a word taketh away all bounds maketh the servants bondage and the masters power infinite Now Plato saith well l Servitus libertas infinita nullisque cancellis circumscripta summum est malum quod si modo quodaÌ„modo definiatur summum bonum Optimo illa modo constat servitus quae Deo paret Plat. tom 3. Epist 8. Servitude and liberty that is infinite and circumscribed with nolimitte is the chiefest evill but if some way it be defined by measure it is a chief good that servitude stands in the best forme which obeyeth God And Doct. Ames m Ames de conscientia lib. 5. c. 23. worthily in his Cases of Conscience it is the generall office of masters neither to exercise nor to imagine it is permitted them any absolute empire over their servants but a limited dominion the account whereof they must render to God as the common master of themselves and their servants Ephes 6. 9. Col. 4. 1. CHAP. VI. Breerwood Pag 11. OR if notwithstanding all these evidences you will still contend that the prohibition touching bodily labour on the Sabaoth is directly imposed on the servants themselves see whether you bring not the Oxe and the Asse and other cattle also under the obligation of this commandement whose worke is immediatly after that of servants prohibited and precisely under the same forme of words whose labours yet on the Sabaoth I hope you will not say to be in them sins and transgressions of Gods law Answer First No we doe not it is imposed on servants yet not on oxe or asse for the servant is forbidden labour because hee can labour without thee and so hee is capable properly of commandement to rest but the Oxe is not forbidden labour but to bee laboured and wrought for hee cannot worke without thee and is not capable of the commandement The servant is therefore forbidden labour even in his masters worke that hee might bee vacant to holy duties n Otio non otioso Zanch. in 4. praecep not so the Oxe The servant is forbidden to bee wrought by his master because now hee must acknowledge another master in whose service he is this day commanded to worke with whom there is no respect of persons and this end the servants obedience to his masters unlawfull commandement of worke that day would crosse no man can serve two masters Moreover doth God take care for Oxen No doubt it was written for the servants sake that he might not attend to guide the Oxes labour and that mercy due to the Oxe might call for more to man Zanchy is expresse that the commandement was given to the servant hee saith o Neminem vult excludi a sanctificatione Sabbati quia tam servi quam domini tam silii quà m parentes tam advenae quám indigenae obstricti Deo sunt natique â—d ejâ—s cultum De jumentis alia est ratio non enim jubentur quiâ—scere à laboribus ut possint vacare cultui divino sicut homines Id. ibid. God would have no man excluded from the sanctification of the Sabbath because aswell servants as masters sonnes as parents strangers as home-borne are bound to God and borne to his worship touching beasts there is another reason c. Secondly the Oxe is forbidden to bee wrought that they might have no snare to draw them to worke and may a servant worke at his masters command how great a snare would this bee to the master who naturally and such a master as will require his servant to worke on that day is not far from his pure naturals loveth profit more than his soule and feares a penny losse where he thinks it might bee gained more than the breach of a precept that God threatens with the curse and hell Hee will bee ready not onely to say with Rebecca p Gen. 27. 13. On me be the curse my sonne only doe as Ibid but in another tone Sirrah the sinne and curse is mine go you about your worke you shall not answer for my faults how comes on you this new religion now therefore I conclude against you thus he that forbade the strangers worke and the cattels that all examples and occasions might be remooved that might entise to evill it cannot bee that hee would leave sonne daughter man and maid in the family free to the master that they should and must obey him in his unlawfull commands Thirdly and to requite you out of the Text. In the same forme of words that the Oxe and Asse is prohibited the stranger within the gate of another is also forbidden work and is it not given to the stranger q It is partly understood of the strangers within the Covenant those saith Zanchy without controversie were commanded so to sanctifie the Sabbath even as other Iewes Zanch. in â— praecep aswell as of yet I hope you wil not say it is given to the oxe If you say it is not given to the stranger I vrge you thus The stranger is there meant partly of the stranger which being a Iew is with thee for the time as a guest r Dr. Williams of the Church l. 2 c. 8. and can this that he is a guest free him from the bond of this Law or if the Iew within whose
gate he is should require him to worke is he excused because hee is within his gate as you say the servant is Againe Å¿ Adigerâ— quisque paterfamilias potest debet suos do nesticos aâ— externum cultum cur non etiam magistratus suos subditos Non enim aâ—t memento ut sanctifices monebis autem silâ—â—m sed memento ut sanctifices ut alii tui sanctificent Zanch. in 4. praeceptum the Governour is commanded to compell those within his gate to keepe the rest and to punish refractory Will God authorise any to punish those that doe not offend and those doe not offend you say to whom the Law is not given those do not offend that can no more transgresse a command than the Oxe or Asse Furthermore Zanchy saith expresly that though upon the Sabbath the heathen which did not agree with the Iewes in the true religion did not come to their assemblies to be partakers of the sacrifices and to the performance of other parts of Gods service which pertained to the sanctification of the Sabbath yet they were commanded to rest upon that day aswell as the homeborne Iewes t Iubebantur feriari eo die quemadmodum Iudaei indigenae and he giveth one reason of this command which concerneth the strangers themselves namely that they might after some sort bee trained up in the knowledge of the Law of God u Isti jubebantur non simplicitèr quiescere sed quiescere ut ipsi suo modo Sabbatum sanctificare possent Id. ibid. Fourthly therefore you must know that the same forme of words make not the like bond and obligation in a precept nor the precept the same For besides all that I have said before in chap. 2. 3. The end not only differenceth the precept and proveth it a precept or a priviledge as here the end of the Oxes rest as respecting the Oxe is meerely rest but of the servants chiefely holinesse which labour servile wholly thwarteth but also the end giveth the precept its modification for the end of the prohibition of the servants labor being the sanctification of the day the servant is hereby bound to rest and apply himselfe to holinesse and the master not only not to worke him or to admonish him to sanctifie the day but to compell him to the outward worship CHAP. VII Breerwood Pag. 11. BVt as the labour of the beast is the sinne and transgresse of the Master to whom the commandement of the beasts resting from labour was given so is the labour of the servant also which by the masters commandment he executed on that day as being touching bodily service incident to mankind in like degree of subjection the masters sinne and not the servants Answer First heere you deliver your Doctrine and your reason Your Doctrine is this The labour of the servant on the Sabbath done at his masters command is no more the servants sinne than the labor of the Oxe is the Oxes sinne This beastly prophane opinion deserves rather stripes than arguments yet in a word or two The labour of the Oxe doth not violate the commandement of the Sabbath but you acknowledge the worke of the servant doth when in the words of the next page pag. 12. you say thus of the servants worke this day the act indeed wherewith the commandement of the Sabbath is violated is the servants The Law of nature it selfe requireth in general of all men the sanctification of times no lesse than of places persons and things unto Gods honor for which cause God exacts some parts of times by way of perpetuall homage never to bee dispensed withall nor remitted Of this kind among the Iewes was the Sabbath day the chiefe generall festivall Now Nature hath taught the Heathen and God the Iewes and Christ us saith worthy x Hooker Eccles pol. l. 5. sect 70. Hooker First that festivall solemnities are a part of the publike exercise of Religion secondly that praise liberality and rest are as naturall elements whereof solemnities consist The labor of the servant though injoyned by his master on this day violates the rest and so the sanctification of that time indispensable irremissable to any man who oweth it by way of perpetuall Homage unto God by the obligation of the Law of Nature For ordinary labour with festivall services to God can neither easily concurre because painfulnesse and joy are opposite nor decently because while the mind hath just occasion to make her abode in the house of gladnesse the weed of ordinary toyle and travell becommeth her not Thus learned y Id. ibid. Hooker againe Now can the masters command dissolve the eternall Law and the servant filching holy time be found lesse sinfull than one prophane and sacrilegious But what kin betweene Oxen Asses and the everlasting Covenant and Holy times Let them to their stalles and servants as Christs freemen to the assemblies in the beauty of holinesse as they will answer it to the God of Nature the eternall Lawgiver When the servant hath no more soule than the oxe nor holinesse and attendance on Gods worship required more of him than of the oxe nor the Sabbath made for man but for the oxe then shall the servants and oxes labour that day be alike faultlesse in either of them z Servants being created redâ—emed and sanctified are as highly indebted to the worship of God as their masters Greenham of the Sabbath pag. 163. This of your Doctrine which brings to my mind that of Hagur a Prov. 30 2 3. which I wish might bee the confession of every one that hath been infected with this dotage Surely I am more bruitish than any man and have not the understanding of a man I neither learned wisedome nor have the knowledge of the Holy Secondly your reason is this That the servant as touching bodily service incident to mankind is in like degree of subjection to his master as is the oxe and asse This is abhorring to Christian to naturall eares no slave is so the masters It fights with that Rule Whatsoever yee would that men should doe unto you even so doe yee to them b Matth. 7. 12. Mat. 7. 12. A perfect voluntary servitude betweene Christian and Christian can scarce be lawfull to be exercised on the masters part saith Amesius c Ames de consci l. 5. cap. 23. parag 2. Yet this placeth not man in the condition of a beast for subjection It fights with that humanitie and lenitie which masters owe to their servants with whom they may not deale imperiously as with their cattell Ephes 6. 9. It fights with that restraint given to servants to obey their masters in the Lord which cannot bee applied to beasts It fights with that liberty the servant hath in things unmeet and inexpedient though lawfull humbly to use all meanes to prevent and avoide the commandement of that nature It fights with that liberty the servant hath humbly to contend with
of Plato that because hee talked much of one God that made the world but nothing of Religion and his worship that hee dreamed and knew not God r Somniaverat enim Deum non cognoverat Lact. Instit l. 5. c. 15. How much more doe you dreame and know not God that talke of him to evert his worship CHAP. XIII Breerwood Pag. 17 18 19. ANd doth not the practice of holy governours registred in the Scriptures declare that they had the same understanding of the commandement Nehemiah when he saw among the Jewes at Jerusalem the Sabaoth prophaned with treading of wine-presses carrying of burthens buying and selling whom reproveth hee for it The servants by whose imployment and labour these things were done and the Sabaoth defiled No but them under whose power the servants were the rulers of Iudah and what rulers the Magistrates only No such matter but the freemen of Iudah that is to say the Masters of those Servants for such namely freemen the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used doth properly import not only the Magistrates or Rulers of the commonwealth for the Septuagint which being themselves Iewes I hold best knew the property of their owne language translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word is properly and directly opposed to servants and every where almost in the old Testament where the hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is found which is knowne to signifie a freeman and is translated in the greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is in the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is manifestly known to be the same with the hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but farre more usuall in the Chaldee tongue They were the freemen of Iudah then that by Nehemiah were called to account and reprooved for the prophanation of the Sabaoth by those servilo labours which no question had beene executed by their servants but if the servants by those labours had themselves transgressed the commandement had he not done hoth justly to have made them partakers of the reproofe who had been partakers of the sinne seeing the commandement of God lay equall on both and wisely too that if hee could not restraine the masters from commanding yet hee might restraine the servants from obeying and so have two strings to his bow This Nehemiah did not who understood well the commandement but rebuked the freemen or Masters only and omitted the servants and yet dealt you will not deny I am sure both justly and wisely for had he done more wisely thinke you to rebuke servants for not resting on the Sabaoth that would have rested with al their hearts if they had not beene constrained to worke Or had hee done more justly to exact that of the servants which for ought that appeareth the commandement of God exacted not from them 10. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred thus by our Translators Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the sonne of Nobles which in truth cannot be understood of freemen but of men nobly descended and educated All things considered I question much whether in the old Testament there be any thing to force us to understand it at all of freemen as opposed to servants But if it were so that the word had such a signification yet seeing it is neither the onely nor the proper signification of the word it must of necessitie in that place of Nehemiah not be taken in your large sense but in that true and restrained sense for chiefe Rulers and Princes that had authoritie over housholders and others that kept servants CHAP. XIV Breerwood Pag. 18 19. FOr what worke is it that men are forbidden of the Sabaoth Is it not the same that is permitted on the sixe daies their owne worke Thou shalt doe all thy worke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is it the servants work whereabout as a servant he is imployed that neither is undertaken of himselfe nor for himselfe that neither beginneth nor endeth in himself but beginneth in his Masters command and endeth meerely in his Masters profit and from beginning to end is performed in his masters feare It is manifest that in the accompt of God it is not for God beholdeth the heart and that is a mans owne worke with him that proceedeth from his owne will And therefore in Isaiah it is the will Isai 58. 13. that is forbidden about the prophaning of the Sabaoth that which in the law was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy worke is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy will and that most justly for the will it selfe indeede is the proper seat and subject of sin which essentially is nothing else but the inordinate or unruly election or resolution of the will varying from the Scripture or Gods law for this very election of mans will is the proper forme of actuall sin those outward unlawfull actions of ours are but the expressions or manifestations or fruits or effects of sinne sinne properly they are not which hath her residence and inhesion in the soule it selfe and passeth forth of it only the tincture and evidence and name of sinne they carry with them because they issue from a sinfull determination of the will and are no whit further sinfull then they are voluntary Seeing therefore sinne consisteth especially in the exorbitance of the will they that are only ministers of anothers exorbitant will are only ministers of another mans sinne which so farre only becommeth their owne sinne as their owne will concurreth therevnto The servant therefore doing that worke on the Sabaoth day in obedience to his master which of his owne will and election he would not do although the worke whereby the commandement of God is transgressed be in some sort his yet the transgression is none of his but his masters that exacted the worke so that although the worke as naturally considered be the servants yet morally it is the Masters The labour of it is the servants but the sinne of it is the Masters for the sinne is not the servants obedience to the Masters commandement but in the masters disobedience to Gods commandement which hath indeed prohibited the worke of servants in the Sabaoth but yet the prohibition is imposed and directed to their Masters not to them who are onely ministers not authors of their owne labours now in the imputation of sinne difference is to be made betwixt the authors and the ministers Betwixt the principall and instrumentall agents Answer Let the reader remember that you here yeeld that if the commandement be imposed on servants then they sinne in working this day at their masters command Now this hitherto hath been proved and all plainly answered that may seeme to make against it and so I proceed First the worke forbidden is First service which is permitted on the sixe daies Six daies shalt thou serve Secondly servile worke in which and about which the messenger is imployed so the notation of the word in the
is a law of nature and remaineth But as the speciality of that commandement implyeth plaine contradiction with the sabbaticall of the Lords day so the generality of it can enforce nothing for it for these are miserable consequents indeed plaine fallacies of the consequeÌ„t that God hath sometime commanded vacancy for his honour therefore he hath commanded the first day of the weeke to be that time or this God hath commanded us some time to rest therefore that time we must precisely abstaine from all manner of workes can the Church make these good consequences If it cannot the celebration of the Lords day can with no enforcement of reason be deduced out of the morality of Gods commandement But if you will reply that the Church hath established the first day of the weeke to be the Christians Sabaoth not by way of consequence as deducing it out of commandement but meerely by authority appropriating and fixing Gods morall commandement to it you may say your pleasure but I shall neither beleeve nor you prove that such authority belongs to the Church or that such an act hath beene established by the Church which I am sure you can never doe neither of both for seeing that all Divines acknowledge that the singling out of such a day to be sanctified namely the seventh rather than any other was meerely ceremoniall although it was Gods owne designation I hope that you will confesse the speciall designement of the first day of the weeke to that honour before other daies being made only by the Church to be also but ceremoniall But certaine it is that no ceremonies which come not under the obligation of Gods morall law should oblige to the observation of ceremonies Therefore it will never consist with reason that the morall law of God can by any authoritie of the Church oblige Christians to the celebration of the Lords day It is not therefore the translation of the old commandement of God from the one day to the other which yet if it were translated can oblige servants no otherwise than it did under the old law but the institution of a new commandement of the Church her selfe yet guided by the spirit of God that consecrated that day to the solemne service of God Answer First this objection we owne and for your distinction thus disprove it Your granted Generality is commanded in the commandements fore-going in which God that commands a worship commands also time for it as when he created the world time was concreated of necessity Besides this vaine conceit was before blowne up Therefore if all you name and put into the speciality of the Commandement be meerely ceremoniall we have no fourth Commandement distinct from the former Secondly for your speciality which you say is all meerly ceremoniall we proved before that the light of nature would prove the contrary and now we assault every particular with the sword of the spirit that the hairy scalpe of it may be wounded and in the welding of the same put our hands on the hands of the Lords Worthies to fetch the blowes with more force First that one day of seven and particularly the seventh is not ceremoniall is evident by the commandement which delivered with Gods owne mouth in the mount and charged by way of command is no other than morall and indispensable And by the celebration of the Christian Sabbath in the New testament which was on the seventh day viz. the first day of the weeke and was constantly in weekely revolution celebrated Calvin saith y Calvin in quarâ—uÌ„ praecâ—ptum diem unum separat a reliquis ab omnibus terrenis negotiis curis immâ—neÌ„ quoad hanc partem nobis cum veteri populo communis est Sabbaâ—i necessitas ut die uno liberi simus atque ita melius parati tam ad discendum qudm ad fidem nostram testandum God separateth one day from the rest and wills that it be free from all earthly businesse and cares In this respect the necessity of the Sabbath is common to us with the ancient people that one day wee be free and so the better prepared as well to learne as to testifie our faith so Peter Martyr on Gen. 2. and Mast Perkins on Gal. 4. 10. and infinite many more The Apostles knew and that by the Scriptures saith learned Fulke that one day of seven was appointed to be observed for ever during the world consecrated to the publike exercises of Gods true Religion The Church of Scotland saith that the Preface to the assembly at Perth day commanded in the Law formally must remaine and ever bee the seventh after sixe dayes worke Chemnitius z Chemnit examen Concil trident cap. de dieb fest Tam Veteris quà m Novi Testamenti pagina septimaÌ„ diem ad humanam quietem specialiter deputat id est interprete Zuâ—rez de diebus festis Cap. 1. utrúmque Testamentun appro bavit morem deputandi ad quietem humanam septimum quenque diem hebdomadae quod est formaliter deputate septimuÌ„ dicm licet materialiter non idem dies fuerit semper deputatus hoc modo verum est scptimum diem in lege veteri esse Sabbathum in nova verò esse dominicam diem De fcriis cap. licet who with the Lutherans ascribeth too much in this thing to the Churches liberty yet affirmeth truely thus much This is that which is said usually and truely that the New Testament in the commandement of keeping holy the Sabbath day abrogated not the Genus the generall which is morall but the species the speciall that is hath not taken away the generall which is the seventh day for this is naturall but the speciall or particular namely that seventh day which the Iewes kept in remembrance of the first Creation Alexander the third Pope of Rome affirmeth that the page as well of the old as the new Testament hath specially deputed the seventh day to humane rest that is by the interpretation of Zuarez both Testaments have approved the manner of deputing every seventh day of the weeke to humane Rest which is to depute the seventh day formally although the same day materially hath not alwaies been deputed and by this meanes it is true that that seventh day in the old law was Sabbath but in the New the Lords day is Sabbath M. Attersoll on Numbers 15. 35. p. 645. well observeth that if one day in seven be not morall and perpetuall a man may say that one day in seven weekes or seven yeeres is enough and so at length it shall be said wee are not bound to meet together publikely above one day in a 100. yeers But this absurdity Gomarus a that holds the contrary opinion thinketh hee Gomarus de invest haeret orig Sab. c. 5. pa. 61. Certi dies sufficientes hath evaded by these words when he holdeth that not only certaine daies but also sufficient dayes be observed for Gods worship But this is just
nothing for are not one day in a yeere yeerely certaine dayes and so of the rest and if that some shall say they are enough though others speake against it who shal tel which of these two sides sides with the truth when what is enough you hold God hath not particularly determined yea but Gomarus saith that what dayes are sufficient may be gathered out of the precept of the Sabbath namely that they be either not more seldome or else a little more oft than the Sabbaths of the Israelites as the indulgence of God in giving that precept sheweth For when the Lord for his clemency sake tooke one of seven onely to his worship for the Israelites men of a stiffe-necke and pressed with the heavy yoke of feasts and other ceremonies how shall more seldome suffice among Christians that are free from that yoke and burden Very good Can any looke on this without griefe and laughter If out of the precept you must gather your sufficient dayes why will you not take the dayes God hath in precept warranted for sufficient and sufficiently blessed one of seven the seventh If this your sufficiency must be gathered from the precept and that too as you gather that they bee more to us than were to Iewes then we are to have two Sabbaths a weeke at the least and the Church erred that Anathematized the keepers of Saturday in the time of the Gospell and still erreth that never saw this yet much lesse observed it Or if you say no they must not be Sabbaths how then gather you this sufficiency of the dayes out of the fourth Commandement which concerneth the Sabbath and not halfe holidaies and other feasts and if the Iewes were yoked with observation of feasts therfore Gods clemency would they should keep but the seventh day What an insupportable yoke doe you lay upon Christians that must as you say keepe more than one of seven or else they keepe not a sufficient number all the Iewish feasts would hardly arise to the number that two in a weeke constantly doe amount to and what interfearing is here One of the seven daies of the weeke in perpetuall revolution is not necessarily to be observed by force of the fourth Commandement And yet fewer than one a weeke cannot be sufficient and that by vertue of the fourth Commandement What would you have more than one a weeke by vertue of the Commandement and therefore you say one is not necessary Or is that which is onely sufficient not necessary Why then take that which is insufficient and let that be yet necessary even one when you will and more when you will now this day now that you may do them all a favour to take them over by turnes Thus farre for Gomarus in this thing Secondly that one whole day be kept holy and no lesse is morall and not ceremoniall you yeelde that the commandement for a Sabbath is morall now God never mentioned lesse than a day saying Remember thou keepe holy the Sabbath day the distinction also of time by the Lord of time cleareth this for the whole weeke is divided into seven daies and every of those dayes consisteth of 24. houres David in his Psalme for the Sabbath day b Psal 92. title with verse 2. describeth the time thus It is good to shew forth thy loving kindnesse in the morning and thy faithfulnesse every night meaning every Sabbath day morning and night as the title sheweth The apparition of our Saviour at the night of the day of his Resurrection in the midst of the Disciples assembled c Ioh 20. 19. Profunda jam nocte it being now very late at night saith Areâ—ius proveth that the night following of the day of Sabbath take here day for the day-light betweene sunne and sunne is of the Sabbath and lastly the celebration of the Lords day by Paul at Troas in Act. 20. 7. out of which saith Mr. Perkins I note two things First that the night mentioned there was a part of the seventh day of Pauls abode at Troas for if it were not so then he had staied at least a night longer and so more than seven dayes because he should have staied part of another day Secondly that this night was part of the Sabbath which they then kept For the Apostles keepe it in manner of a Sabbath in the exercises of piety and divine worship Answer This also suffereth just exception both in it selfe and in reference to the matter in hand it bindeth you yeeld because Gods command bindeth to obey the Churches just constitutions Consider it is Gods Command that bindeth and not the Churches but as it is Gods Now Gods Command bindeth equally and to despise Christ and despise him in his Apostles in as much as he saith He that despiseth you despiseth me is alike sinfull or what if it binde not equally to take your owne words if it bind enough to make the transgressor a sinner before God For this was never questioned whether the Master or Servant were the greater sinner in the servants working on the Sabbath Againe it bindeth equally by your owne doctrine because you say in pag. 43. lib. 1. it is of the Church guided by the Spirit of God unlesse you will say that the doctrine of the New Testament preached and written by men with the Holy Ghost sent downe from Heaven is of lesse binding power than the Ten Commandements delivered on Mount Sinai which runneth against not onely all Christian religion but also those Texts in speciall Heb. 2. 2 3. 12. CHAP. XXVIII Breerwood Pag. 43 44 45. BVt if you aske me how farre doth that constitution of the Church oblige the conscience I answere you as farre as it doth command you will desire no more further it cannot It cannot oblige farther than it doth ordaine it cannot bind the conscience for guiltinesse further than it doth for obedience because all guiltinesse both presuppose disobedience now that the Church ordained solemne assemblies of Christians to bee celebrated that day to the honour of God and in them the invocation of Gods holy name thankes-giving hearing of the holy Scriptures and receiving of the Sacraments is not denied It is out of question all antiquity affordeth plentifull remembrance of it But that it injoyneth that severe and exact vacation from all workes on the Lords day which the commandement of God required in the Iewes Sabaoth you will never prove It relisheth too much of the Iewish Ceremonies to be proved by Christian divinity for this is no proofe of it that the Lords day is succeeded in place of the Sabaoth or as some Divines tearme it as the heyre of the Sabaoth It is I say no proofe at all except it were established by the same authority and the observance of it charged with the same strictnesse of commandement for if it succeed the Sabaoth in place must it therefore succeed in equall precisenesse of observation So if the Pope succeedeth Peter in place
and vilifying of God Thirdly but what an argument is here The obligation of our thankefulnesse is more than theirs though the obligation of his commandement be lesse herein therefore the Christian should be more devout than the Iew. I had thought the commandement had bound to Devotion and the greater the more I had thought the Greatnesse of benefits whence the debt of thankfulnesse is greatned had increased the obligation of the commandement and our obedience to it But now you yeeld his commandement some what obligeth on our Sabbath though lesse when before you utterly denyed any breach of any divine commandement in laboring that day and so any obligation To strengthen this argument you expresse your wish that most religiously with all abstinence and all attendance it were kept Doe you wish this with all your heart and yet bend all your might to overthrow the commandement of God Would you or could you thinke that your wish should prevaile more than Apostolike truth Fourthly have wee in one breath these contradictory sentences No constitution of the Church obliging to the strict desisting from labour And the constitutions of some ancient Councels restraining that prophanation Fifthly you come in with the Edicts of Princes as one that would have the observation of the Lords day depend upon constitutions of the Church and Edicts of Princes only and so not to differ from another holy day Most wicked Popish worse than Popish and against all the famous lights ancient and moderne Or doe you mention Princes Edicts and Churches constitutions to glose with ours Ours detest your Tenet and you seeke herein to wound Church and Prince for how they hold of the Lords day that it is directly grounded on the fourth commandement appeareth in the Liturgie in the booke of Homilies and in the Statutes and godly Provisions for redresse of prophanations This is the Doctrine of our Church d Homil. of the place and time of prayer part 1. pag. 125. By this commandement speaking of the fourth wee ought to have a time as one day in the weeke wherein we ought to rest yea from our lawfull and needfull workes For like as it appeareth by this commandement that no man in the sixe daies ought to bee slothfull or idle but diligently to labour in that state wherein God hath set him even so God hath given expresse charge to all men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday they should cease from all weekely and worke-day labour of these lawes to reject their commandements touching matter of worke or service on the Sabaoth or any other day Answer First I might put off all this still because it is upon this false ground that the Commandement of God doth not enjoyne our Sabbath with the like But I willingly goe on with you to see if there bee one true stitch through your whole Discourse And here before wee come to particulars h Though the Lawes of men should not take hold of servants in this case yet the Lawes of God doe let all note that that odious terme and calumniating phrase of Servants rebellion against their masters is your owne and commeth from an evill heart and crafty head We teach that Princes unlawfull commands are not to bee executed yet we teach not that any so commanded must rebell but not obey and be so farre from rebellion if it should be urged that hee suffer even to blood patiently without so much as reviling judging or the like but onely committing his cause to him that judgeth righteously But to come to your matter you hold First That the Churches Constitutions and the Edicts of Princes never intended to forbid light and labourlesse worke nor doe their censures take hold on men therefore Secondly against this what the Doctrine of our Church is you heard before which taught that God condemned all weekely and worke-day labour all common businesse and to give themselves wholly to heavenly exercises c. The doctrine of the Church of Ireland i Articles of Religion in a Synod at Dublin 1615. is consonant hereunto which teacheth thus The first day of the weeke which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore wee are bound therein to rest from our common and daily businesse and to bestow that leasure upon holy exercises both publike and private In a Councell k Concilium Matiscon 2. c. 1. in the yeare 588. it was decreed that no worke on the Lords day bee done but the eyes and hands stretched out to God that whole day and that if a Countrey man or servant should neglect this wholesome Law he should bee beaten with more grievous strokes of Clubbes For these things saith that Councell pacifie God and remoove the judgements of diseases and barrennesse And againe understanding while they sate in the Councell l C. 4. that some absented themselves from the Assemblies they decreed under paine of Anathema that on all Lords dayes all both men and women received the Communion In another General Synod there was made this decree m Sancitum est ut domini in suis ditionibus diebus dominicis prohibeant nundiâ—as annuas sâ—ptimanales item conventicula in Tabernis compotationes alearum chartarum similes varios lusus concentus musicorum instrumentorum usum atque choreas Synod general Petricoviensis Anno 1578. It is ordained that the Lords in their severall dominions doe prohibit on the Lords dayes the yearely and weekely Faires also meetings in Tavernes Compotations or Gossipings Dice Cards and divers the like sports singing in Concents as now many in merry meetings have their singing of Catches and their roarings as they are called the use of musicall Instruments and Dancing In a Councell at Nice it was ordered that those who either kept Court bought or sold or otherwise prophaned the Sabbath should bee prohibited the Communion because that whole day we ought onely to rest and spread abroad our hands-in prayer to God n Toto hoc die tantummodò vacandum quia toto hoc die manus Deo expandendae Canutus o Canutus lege 14. 15. a King in this Land before the Conquest enacted in a Councell at Winchester that Sunday should be kept holy and Faires Courts Huntings and worldly workes on that day should be forborne Guntramnus p Praeceptio Guntramni ad Episcop dat in Concil Matiscon 2. King of France commanded that on the Lords day no bodily worke should be done besides what was prepared to eate to maintaine life conveniently Secondly you affirme that neither constitution of the Church nor edict of Princes doe free servants from their Masters power to command them to worke or their obedience to worke at their Masters command that day more than others Thirdly what the Doctrine of our Church is in this point is cleare in the Homily of the place and time of prayer delivered in these words Sithence which time meaning the time of our
wrongfully for he is to be obedient to his lawfull commands that day and to his unjust corrections for the Lords sake which will breake the heart of any Master and winne him but your course would take away the very practice of religion in the servant for where is religion if the publike worship be gone Nor will this deprive them of their service but make them in higher esteeme as Ioseph was and the famous courtier Daniel for refusing to obey the king decree when Parasites shall bee loathed and cast out Yet if this should not alwaies be the Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon him that suffers in these cases If this bee the blasphemie wee must avoide we all are undone while we are saith Tertullian y let his name be blasphemed in the observation and Tertul. de Idolat ca. 14. not the exorbitation of discipline so long as we are proved not reproved this malediction of preserved discipline is the benediction of Gods Name This would propagate the Gospell as in Daniels case is to be seene and in the case of the three children This is absolute meekenesse obedience humilitie and patience and such servants for their vertue and the profit that commeth to their masters by their faithfull service in the times and seasons due and their unfained respect even when they receive wrong shall carry in the eyes of the vilest high respects and praise but if your course were held that the servant should neglect the assemblies to doe his masters worke on that day we speake of workes unlawfull to be done on the Sabbath and should carry an heart to God while his feete and hands carried him to his masters worke which is all one as if one should sweare with his tongue and thinke to keepe his heart unsworne then where is the solemne worship of God And that gone where is Religion And that gone what vertue And that gone what profitable service Masters that respect but their owne lucre can conne you little thankes for this doctrine Besides this were the scandall and defamation of the Gospell for ever that whereas all Religions teach the followers thereof a time for pietie with all attendance of body and soule for that time this Christian Religion should teach that the servant hath no time at all nor doth God require it of him but the contrary if his master will but bid him worke This can be no seminarie of disturbance or contumacie for he is subject to his masters power for correction so as not to resist in wrongfull sufferings but yours sheweth it manifestly while it leaveth a man in anothers hands against two such principles that when they have beene by tyrannie prest to goe against them rebellion hath ever followed The principles are these First God must bee solemnely and publikely worshipped and that on some times weekly in which hee is to bee attended upon without avocations Secondly that Nature sheweth the preservation of it selfe Now to go about to blot out sense of God religion to keepe men to taskes of insupportable burdens which nature breaketh under while it beares them this is the ready way to overturne all This alienates not masters from their Christian servants let the experience of all ages shew it In this nation the servants that make conscience of the Sabbath are sought after by all sober and wise masters that onely are wise for the world for these are those that will not be night-walkers nor drunkards nor filchers with the like I know none but choose such and greatly affect them and for their fidelity otherwise and industry give them great liberties for Gods worship True I have heard of some of our Gentry that will by no meanes have such a servant especially to waite on their persons or to be their Clerkes but one may easily smell the reason it is not for any matter of Sabbaths labour or rest but first there is a divellish principle amongst them that it is for their reputation to have their men such as will make the servant of their neighbour-Gentleman Answer First that the subjection due to men in respect of obedience to execute their commands extendeth only so farre as it may not diminish the empire of God hath been sufficiently proved but you call for antiquity to beare out the servant in refusing his masters commands of servile worke on the Lords day I shewed you before out of Chrysostome what he taught were the bounds which a servant might not passe namely the commandements of God if the master command ought against them he may by no meanes execute his masters command Tertullian b Tertul. lib. de Idolat c. 17. saith that if a servant doe but by some word helpe the sacrifice he shall be accounted a minister of the sinne of idolatry he speakes of them as attending on their masters and that the place Give to Casar the things that are Caesars binds no subject to keepe the daies consecrated to idoles nor to set up lights at their doores or Laurell branches on their doore posts And then saith further c Ibid. ca. 15. it is well added and to God the things that are Gods Vnto which lay but that which went before in Chapter 14. d Ibid. cap. 14. where hee saith the Ethnickes have every festivall day yeerely once the Christian hath his on the eight day lay these together I say according to the true meaning of that Author and it is cleare that the servant might not for his masters command keepe a day in honour to an idoll nor any way be minister of that sinne nor might he neglect the day consecrated in honour to God for his master Clemens Alexandrinus e Clemens Alex. stromat l. 4. hath these words Discipline is necessary to all sorts of men and vertue since all tend to felicity And after quotation of the texts in Ephes 5. Col. 3. and 4. He concludeth out of these Therefore it is manifest to us what the unitie that is of faith is and is shewed also who is perfect wherefore the servant and the woman shall professe philosophy be any against it and exceedingly resisting although punishment hang â—ver their heads from their masters and husbands The free man also though the tyrant threaten death to him though he be led to judgement and drawne to utmost torments and runne the hazzard of all his goods and fortunes shall by no meanes abstaine from piety and the true worship of God nor shall ever dissent from it the woman likewise which dwelleth with an evill husband and the sonne if he have an evill father or the servant that hath an evill master pursuing vertue with a valiant and generous mind But as it is comely and honest for the man to dye both for vertue and for liberty and for himselfe so also is it for the woman for this is not proper to the nature of males but of good folkes Therefore both old and young both woman and servant
have good tastes like the water of Marah It will prove like that of Meribah a little lower and if you happe to draw to the bottome you will finde the dregges to bee nothing but disturbance and sedition both in Church and Commonwealth But I say in the beginning I would neither censure nor divine of the evill consequence of this Doctrine let them censure if they will to whom the governement of the Church and Commonwealth and provision of peace in both doth belong And to divine me thinkes there is little neede the events are too evident even to meane foresight already to require divination for who when he seeth that seede sowne doubts what graine will be reaped in heavinesse I will therefore neither censure nor divine of the fruits of your Doctrine but omit both and make an end Answer First now judge whether this Doctrine bee the water of Marah and besides all that hath beene spoken consider that it teacheth no forsaking of God nor disunion of soule from his feare that were bitter r Ier. 2. 19. indeed your doctrine doth it Consider it teacheth no neglect of righteousnesse or judgement Å¿ Amos 6. 12. but to yeeld subjection with patience where it may not yeeld obedience with a good Conscience but you make the Lords day that day of rejoycing to all Christians in the faith of Christ with whom there is neither bond nor free to be the servants bitter day who left under the commands of the master not to but from the assemblies lyeth under a bitter famine of the word t Amos 8. 10 11 Whiles others have it and vision falleth to him and his Sunne setteth at noone day whilst yet it shineth in its glory to others how will you escape that woe in Esay Woe to them that put bitter for sweete and sweet for bitter u Esai 5. 20. Who those are that you say have good tastes I know not the Publisher is one it seemeth but he was not then knowne to you one may probably conjecture how ever hee will not willingly bee knowne to have this good taste and it is not unlike but many more are of this sort that drinke your sweete waters secretly and crie Master Breerwood was right for his judgement but they would not teach it publikely for a thousand pounds This cals to minde the intoxicated foole in the proverbes x Prov. 9. 17. that saith stollen waters are sweete and bread eaten in secret is pleasant Secondly and for your Meribah this I say if your writing were not intended to this end certainely the publishing is It is no new thing to heare Christian Doctrine charged for seditious and disturbing both Church and state but it is much audaciousnesse and perversenesse to charge this doctrine so which having beene taught and printed and found in the hands of the whole kingdome y 〈…〉 ley on the Sabbath Dâ— Bownd D. 〈◊〉 M. Atteâ—sâ—l on Numbers never bred the least disturbance in any familie But you will not divine of the event no You doe both censure and divine and then say you will not You would exasperate authoritie against painefull and conscionable Ministers you would suggest hard things against the quiet of the land you would cast Iealousies causelesse You would doe more than divine if Divines were under your power I spare to say more onely I desire all to weigh whether the fruit of your Tenet can bee any other than disturbance and sedition for First it casts servants and by the same reason all inferiours under an unsupportable burden which hath alwaies sons to let me have as few words as you will but direct and materiall arguments For if they bee light and have but small force they will not move me If sophisticall and have but seeming force I shall espy the deceit I thinke and be able to discerne betwixt a vizard and a visage both the one sort and the other of such arguments will but prejudice your cause with me and were better kept for some other disciple but if you find your selfe not able to establish and justifie this doctrine wherewith I take my poore Kinsman to have beene corrupted then I challenge you as you will answer it at the judgement seat of almighty God when your accounting day shall come to repaire the ruine you have made in his conscience and remooving his scandall which hindreth him in his vocation to establish him in his former obedience to his Master So fare you well and the Spirit of Truth bee with you May 16. 1611. At Gresham house in London Answer This is your Conclusion which hath in it three things a provocation to a polemicke Discourse if he be able to justifie his Doctrine urged from the duty of a Minister which is twofold to defend his Doctrine to reduce his straying brother and from your challenge Secondly a request of two things in the Answer to this his Treatise ingenious reply to the force of his arguments and materiall arguments against him Thirdly an Adjuration upon sense of the falshood of the Doctrine or inability to justifie it to make up the breach of his Kinsmans conscience and restore him to his Masters obedience The provocation is sufficiently answered in the Letter printed at the end of your Treatise which by the Publisher is termed An answer to the Treatise but he might have well seene it was an answer only to this provocation Here hee shewed a spirit of calumniation and a love of all devouring words like a false tongue And how strong an answer that is hereunto all may judge that considering with what a spirit Master Breerwood hath replyed cannot but know with what an heart he both writ and provoked that patient man to contend especially if all knew also what he wrote unto Master Ratcliffe Alderman of Chester his Cosen the ninth of Iune 1611. One passage of which Letter I annexe out of that Letter which I have with me in the originall under his owne hand It is this If I satisfie not Master Byfield I would desire him to satisfie me by answering my reasons and producing better to prove his owne conclusion The one or the other must be done now he hath provoked me to stirre or else some blemish will sticke by him If he answer my arguments soundly and there by effectuall reasons establish his owne Doctrine I have soone done he shall satisfie and silence me I will presently yeeld and withall both love and praise him but if hee bee not able to doe it as I suspect hee is not and will yet persist in the fancy I shall both detest and despise his pertiuacy and perhaps displease him in the end The request was satisfied in an answer of Master Nic. Byfields written to him then which had been published here if we had met with a perfect Coppy in the meane while take this answer tendred to publike view The Adjuration savours of strong and strange audaciousnesse as shall appeare by the
Those that hold against the antiquity of the Commandement of the Sabbath that it was not given to Adam yet give no such interpretation of those words God sanctified the seventh day Not Master Broad not Doctor Prideaâ—x not Gomarus not Tostatus and Pererius nor any that I have met withall but they make it an institution by anticipation of which afterwards your selfe perceived it was too bold an assertion to say that the ever blessed Creator laid downe a Law for himself with apromise of blessednesse annexed and therefore confesse that both Gods resting and sanctifying of that day were exemplary to men though you would not they should bee obligatory till the commandement in Sin and Sinai But what then have you done If the Sabbath bee instituted in Paradise as you acknowledge from that place in Gen. 2. and this be exemplary to men as likewise you confesse how can it bee lesse than obligatory to men though it bee not delivered in a forme of words expresly mandatory Gods action which he would have exemplary cannot be lesse than obligatory Secondly but you say this sanctification might be in destination ordained then to holines but not to be applied till the time of the Law Was it ordained then to holinesse It was not then at mans liberty to spend it to other imployment than that to which it was ordained Gods preparation of a time to sanctification 2000. yeares before it should be sanctified is without example intimation in any Text or solid reason Had he ordained it then to holinesse What God hath sanctified why call you it common or how can you thinke that Adam and the Patriarchs would make it common The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say you signifieth a preparation as well as an actuall application to holinesse I could tell you that the word is used both in way of praise and dispraise as Rabbi David Kinchi observeth is it therefore to bee taken in dispraise here But to close with you the word signifieth to prepare apply it now to the seventh day and it noteth that God blessed and prepared the seventh day above other daies of the weeke to bee set apart to rest and the memory of the great worke of the Creation that so piety and religion for ever among posterity Gentiles aswell as Iewes might be nourished Had this beene driven out of use among the Holy Seed as it was among the Gentiles Satan had soone thrust on them also as hee did on the Gentiles the fiction of the worlds eternity and had blowne away as all memory of the Creation so also all faith and true piety out of the minds of men Now such a preparation which is the actuall separation of a thing to use is not of destination but present readinesse and such is the preparation this word signifieth as may bee seene in Rabbi Mardochai Nathans concordance When this word concernes holinesse for sometimes it signifieth preparation in generall as in Micah 3. 5. to prepare warre it signifieth to make holy Lev. 21. 23. to declare holinesse Ezek. 39. 27. to set a part to an holy use Ioel 1. 14. to command that it bee sanctified Exod. 13. 2. But to destinate aforehand without present and actuall separation of the thing so soone as it doth exist and is capable of that to which it is separated which must needs be your meaning hath no warrant of Scripture or Author that I know of For those places in Exo. 19. 10. Iosh 3. 5. and 7. 13. As they all meane by sanctifying to sanctifie by command that they bee sanctified so they speake not of a Destination of them to sanctity or a preparation without actuall application to holinesse but a present sanctifying themselves that day that they might be the fitter for attendance on the Lord it is not read thus in Exo. 19. 10 11. Sanctifie them against the third day but sanctifie them to day and to morrow and be ready against the third day So true is it also of the Sabbath sanctifie this Sabbath and the next Sabbath and every Sabbath It is senselesse to talke of a preparatory sanctification without application that were to separate to holines and yet to let it lye common Kades in Galilee Ioh. 20. was sanctified that is separated for a City of refuge was it only destinated and not actually set apart to that use Besides all those sanctifications are of persons not of times was there ever a set time sanctified and the time not separated to sanctity actually But what do I fighting with suppositions you say it might so signifie not it doth so How many interpreters ancient and moderne do say it doth signifie to command that it bee sanctified Thirdly you go on to a third evasion and say it might be a command and institution by anticipation shewing why not when God instituted the Sabbath That cannot be because Moses makes an Historicall narration of the creation according to seven daies time and in every day distinguisheth it by its proper worke and comming to the seventh he saith that was Gods resting day which was not inferiour to any of the sixe because God wrought no eminent worke of Creation thereon but extolled above them because it was not a day of empty rest but inriched above the other and advanced by Gods blessing and sanctifying of it that is he ordained it a time of greater and more holy workes and crowned those workes with richer fruit Esa 58. 14. and did chuse it above the rest to an holy use And that hee then sanctified that day both the connexion of the words sheweth and the words of the fouâ—th commandement in sixe daies hee made all hee rested the seventh and therefore blessed it This Anticipation never came into any mans mind who was not first anticipated with some prejudice about the observation of the Lords day the Iewes never dreamt of it and in the new Testament no such thing is taught or intimated The Authors of that opinion yeeld it is probable that the seventh day was observed froÌ„ the beginning Zuar de dieb festis Moreover there can be produced out of Scripture no example of such an Anticipation there is an Anticipation of the names of some places with the like but not an anticipation of an institution Besides the perfection of the creation on that day is twice joyned with the Sanctification of it in the same manner and phrase in which the creation both of man and of other living Creatures is joyned with the blessing of them Gen. 2. 2 3. with Gen. 1. 21 22 27 28. The new Testament confirmes our Text which teacheth that the people of God partake in the Old Testament of d Heb. 4. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. a twofold rest in this life the rest of the Sabbath and the rest in Canaan but David speaking in the 45. Psal of a rest speaketh not of the Sabbath rest for that was from the beginning of the world nor of that in Canaan for that
purpose which we intend I know not they are words of a disjoynted minde The fifth Section answered Concerning the authoritie that translated the Sabbath you say it is certaine that the translation thereof was actually and immediatly prescribed by the Church Deale ingenuously and shew me where if in Scripture then I answer that it was not immediatly prescribed by the Church for the Apostles were not Authors of the institution but Ministers of Christ and pen-men of the holy Ghost If in Ecclesiasticall writers I answer they all referre us to the Apostles and the Scriptures This opinion therefore is so farre from certaine that it is certainely false You say againe that certainely Christ never gave his Apostles particular charge of Instituting a new Sabbath either while hee conversed with them on Earth or afterwards by Revelation How know you this The Apostles delivered many things that the Evangelists did not set downe nor themselves expresly say they received them from the Lords mouth that they concealed Christs Command from the Church that is this particular expression in so many words that Christ commanded it this makes to prove it was given them in charge by Christ for else whē the Apostles enjoyned it they would have said of that their injunction as of other things x 1 Cor. 7. 6. 12. 25. We speake this by permission not by commandement wee have no commandement of the Lord but wee speake our judgement Herein speake wee not the Lord. This institution then to use your owne language of a new day of solemnitie in stead of the old Sabbath was of the exigence and necessitie of the Apostles commission not of the libertie The Apostles did nothing in ordering the Church but from Ioh 14. 26. and by Christ either by precept or by example or by divine inspiration It is out of question they had speciall warrant from Christ in expresse charge when you compare together their precept and practice with those two Texts Math. 28. 20. Act. 1. The first enjoyning the Apostles to teach what hee commanded and to teach and baptize in which ordinances teaching such things he would bee with them to the worlds end The latter declaring that Christ spake the things pertaining to the kingdome of God to his disciples in those fortie dayes before his assension For all that you say therefore it is certaine the Sabbath was translated by the same authoritie that first commanded it The Sixt Section answered First concerning that place in Matth. 24. 20. first you affirme that it is understood by all Divines of the old Sabbath by all the ancient without exception by all the latter for ought you know Could you know the judgement of the Ancients to be such because they held that there was a transgression of a law in hasting their flight on the Sabbath Did they hold thinke you that the fourth Commandement was in force then for the sanctifying of the Iewes Sabbath Or was there any other than the fourth Commandement which could bee transgressed by flight on the Sabbath Hierome saith That our Saviour bid them pray that their flight might not be in the winter nor on the Sabbath day because in the one the extremity of cold forbids to goe to the wildernesse and to lie hid in mountaines and desarts in the other there is either the transgression of the Law if they be willing to flie or imminent death if they abide Thus runneth also the ordinarie glosse and what a vaine boast is this concerning the judgement of the Ancients when they all almost give no other interpretation of that Text than what is Allegoricall as Origen Austine and others Many later Divines by Sabbath understand all inconveniences of flight caused by the necessary and enjoyned attendance on Gods worship This little favoureth your opinion and most understand the place of the Christian Sabbath And that this is the proper sense of the place will bee manifest to him that observeth three things First the persons to whom these words were spoken viz. to the Disciples privately and apart on the Mount of Olives vers 3. Secondly the time immediately before his death hee spake of that which should fall out fortie yeeres after Thirdly the intent of our Saviour which was to shew the great evils should then come to passe and the miserable exigents the enemies should put them to Now if it be not spoken of the Christian Sabbath what force could there bee in our Saviours speech saying pray that your flight bee not on the Sabbath who hereby intended to signifie that it should bee a singular griefe to them to flie on that day If the Sabbath had not beene in force what vexation had it beene to the Disciples to flie on that day more than any other nay it had beene an argument of comfort and our Saviour might have shewed them then that it was a singular mercie of God to them in such straites that now they were ridde of the obligation to the Sabbath and so might flie on that day as well as any of the rest otherwise they had more neede to have prayed for knowledge to see their libertie in Christ than to pray that they might not flie on such a Sabbath as should binde them but onely in their owne conceit Christ in this place acknowledgeth this day as His for it is manifest that this flight happened about forty yeares after when the Iewish Sabbath was gone As therefore when God gave to the people the Law of the Sabbath on Mount Sinai He said Remember the Sabbath day to keepe it Holy so the Lord Iesus in the Mount of Olives commands that they should studiously remember even in their Prayers the Christian Sabbath many yeeres before lest when the calamity came its holy rest should bee intercepted with the noyse of warlike tumults and with a tumultuary slight Secondly you say that to flie farre off on the Lords day in case of necessitie was never held unlawfull but on that Sabbath it was If it were not unlawfull to flie on the Lords day in such cases doth that make that it is not inconvenient and a griefe to a Christian heart to bee forced that day to forgoe the worship of God and misse the Lord in his ordinances and to taste that day of his heavie wrath in which he expects and uses to taste of his comforting and satiating blessings It was not unlawfull to flie in the winter yet it was needfull to pray that this flight might not then be and was it ever unlawfull in case of danger to flie on the Sabbath Have you forgot all while you eagerly pursue your owne phantasie The Iewes hold that being set upon by Theeves or enemies it was lawfull to flie that day as Rabbi Thanchuma teacheth in Ilmedenu 83. 4. the old rule amongst them is knowne to all Perill of life driveth away the Sabbath and as well knowne is their practice in the Maccabees The Sabbath-dayes journey was not an allowance in case of
was I ever greatly inflamed with ambitious heat they containe in briefe large justifications of himselfe but how rightfull this Treatise and Reply doe manifest let one instance serve here he requireth a reason for the injury and harme done to his Nephew and him for vexing his Conscience and to confesse the errour and injury and in pag. 95. hee confesseth and retracteth his owne errour in judgement and manners for provoking Mr. Byfield about this point The fifteenth Section answered To this reason that Master Breerwood sought more victory than truth Master Breerwood replieth that victory will attend truth I answere it will but one that seekes victory more than truth will runne over truth to reach at victory and that in your writing it may bee seene you sought victory more than truth appeareth for else you would have answered the arguments found in the writings of Divines in these cases about the Sabbath And whereas you aske If Master Byfields zeale to truth be not as fervent to truth as your affection to victory if it should not it is no more than that which is found oft-times in the best but his zeale was at least as fervent though not attended with an itch to mispend it The sixteenth seventeenth and eighteenth Sections answered Master Breerwood undertakes to giue him warrants to warrant him in this worke which Master Byfield pleads he could not finde To which I answere All his warrants warrant not a Minister to leave the Instruction of his charge to write confutations of a private opinion that infecteth neither his charge nor the Churches of Christ no not where the contending partie liveth the case is altered now this Treatise hath broken prison Master Byfield was no lover of contention neither by nature inbred nor by custome purchased and the Woe to them by whom offences come is the wofull portion of them that give the offence The Doctrine of our Saviour was an offence to the covetous envious proud hypocriticall and blind Pharises but yet no woe I hope to him for that Herein this Worthy man was conformed to Christ and yet is now more conformed Gods Children suffer not all their afflictions while they live Both these reasons therefore are good and reasonable Furnishing with gifts is not alwayes enough to make an inward calling to a particular action there must bee the seasonablenesse of the Action the evidence of good to issue from such an Action some sufficient notes of Gods separation of that man to that Action for all that are able are not presently inwardly called to an action and in a word d Rectè facit animo quando obsequitur suo quod omnes homines facere oportet dumid modo fiat bono Plaut in Anplitr malè respondent coactâ— ingenia Senec. Psal 31. 18. a mans inclinations which may not be forced and if they spring not from a corruptroote ought to be heeded next to abilities Master Byfield then though able might not finde himselfe inwardly called How farre M. Byfield was from Enthusiasmes with which you charge him proudly contemptuously and falsly as alwayes lying lips can speake grievous things against the Righteous let all testifie that knew his preaching and yet may see it in his writings no man ever so exact in keeping close to the expresse Word of God so free from ventring or upholding matter of opinion The nineteenth Section answered Master Byfield pleads needlesnesse of his Answere and referreth Master Breerwood to Master Greenham he replieth Master Greenham impugneth not any of his Conclusions No doth Let us try the matter Master Breerwood teacheth our Sabbath day to bee an ordinance of the Church This Master Greenham impugneth as the Doctrine of the Papists pag. 129. Master Breerwood teacheth that light workes were never forbidden on the Sabbath and that the rest for strictnesse was ceremoniall Master Greenham teacheth that light works are forbidden in the fourth Commandement as light oathes are in the third pag. 162. slâ—ight in keeping the Sabbath and full of sleight oathes and that the rest of the Sabbath is as needfull for us as for the Iewes pag. 136. Master Breerwood teacheth that servants have not the Commandement given to them and that they are for labour equall in subjection unto beasts Master Greenham teacheth that no lawfull calling and such is the servants implieth any necessity of forgoing the worship of God on the Sabbath and that to make the servant equall to beasts on the Sabbathis to hast to hell not thinking whither they are going pag. 163. your reasons also are answered most of them in that Treatise of Master Greenhams That weake shall I say or wicked taxing of Mster Gareenham that his affection was better than his judgement abundantly testifieth the pride of your spirit But this is usuall with the loose Atheisticall spirits of our times to account of all they call Puritanes for no great Schollers The 20. and 21. Section answered These give sufficient testimony of Master Byfields modesty and wisedome and of Master Breerwoods bold brags and rash censures and therefore I turne them over The 22. and 23. Section answered That Master Breerwood would disquiet Gods people as Master Byfield chargeth him was apparant though hee gaine-say it for hee sent the Treatise to Master Ratcliffe of Chester unsealed with these words in his Letter with which it was sent I have left the Treatise unsealed that you might if you please reade it and after make it up and as soone as you can deliver it And afterwards in that Letter hee giveth him instructions in the reading of it to reade with leasure and attendance with the like I have the originall of this Letter dated Iune 9. 1611. And that Master Breerwoods opinion is private is cleare because no man ever so interpreted the commandement touching servants save himselfe and how ill it agreeth with the renour of the commandement let the indifferent judge by the answer I have given to this Treatise When you say therefore that those determinations of yours have every where resounded in the Church of God this is false unlesse the Papacy be the Church or Anabaptists and Familists For what if Master Broad and two or three more make a clamor is that sufficient to make the Doctrine publike The publike Doctrine of the Church of England I have shewed out of the booke of Homilies and the Communion booke and all other famous Lights in our Church For my paines I looke not for thanks from your side much lesse such a reward as a 1000. of books worth a 1000. French Crownes The 24. Section answered Master Byfield would that Master Breerwood should should have spared his verdict about the fitnesse of Doctrine that should bee taught till hee had charge of soules Master Breerwood saith not so Ordination conferreth outward abilitie to exercise the function of a Pastor or Doctor in the Church but no inward ability This is somewhat of truth but not all the truth for it causeth more advised thoughts for