mean the eldest Records of our Christianity I must for that brevity's sake which use has made necessary wave the deductions I had prepared at length from the Law of Nature as to this matter and say in few words summarily Sect. IV Nature teaches God is publickly to be worshipped Publick Worship cannot Natural reason for a Sabbath be without times publickly ascertained for it If such times be either too short or too seldom returning the impressions of God of Holyness and of an Unseen World which such Publick Worship is designed to make on the Worshippers will either be very slight or by infrequency defaced beyond recovery In either of which cases the worship is rendred unprofitable Further since 't is impossible for us intirely to attend two things at once therefore on such days as this Publick Worship is to be paid common business is to be laid aside There must then through all Bodies or Societies of People be frequent vacations from ordinary Employments for the Publick Worship of God That is a Sabbath or fixt and certain time of holy rest for the publick Offices of Religion is from Nature Sect. V For such reasons as these to come briefly to Law positive we may The first institution of a Sabbath in Paradise with humble reverence conceive it was that the most holy and wise God has provided there should be extant a very early Revelation and most ancient Record of his resting immediately upon the finishing of the Creation Gen. ii v. 1 2 3. Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them and on the Seventh day God ended his work which he had made and rested the Seventh day from all his works which he had made and God blessed the Seventh day and sanctified it because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made By these words there must be designed either a direct Command given or at least a precedent in the Oeconomy of God's actions proposed which might be instead of a Command for keeping a Seventh day from the begining Holy unto God For mine own part I am of the mind with the * Rivet alledges 30 of the Reformed Divines beyond Sea Besides diverse of the Fathers and even of the Romanists Dissert de Orig. Sabbat cap. 1 generality of Interpreters both antient and modern It is a Command For what less can be meant by Gods blessing the Seventh day and sanctifying it Let blessing it signifie what it can sanctifying it in the very primary sense of the word signifies separating it namely to Religious purposes Now how could it be thus separated without a Command Sect. VI The conceit of a Prolepsis here or that this was spoken and recorded Objections answered out of time only as a kind of antedating the Fourth Commandment besides that it is forced if not rash and with all likelihood in that great person who first advanced the Notion due meerely to an excess of zeal against Judaism is no better than a bold begging of the Question without any ground in the Text or Context rather indeed against the manifest import and scope of both For 't is plain thence that the Six days and the works thereof being ended God did then or on that first Seventh day of time actualy rest that is as St. Austin expounds it cease from making other kinds of Creatures But how incongruous is it to refer things spoken continuedly and connected as done in one and the same instant to refer such things I say to so distant parts of time viz. Gods resting to the first Seventh day of time and his blessing and sanctifying the Seventh day to another like Seventh day above two thousand-years after This is forcing wide asunder what God joined Who can digest this Paraphrase on the Text God having finisht his Six days work then Rested the Seventh day and two thousand five hundred and fourteen years after he Sanctified the like day of the Week or appointed it to be kept Holy If so I say here are two Seventh days spoken of in one and the same word the Seventh day whereon God rested and the Seventh day which recurred in the weekly course so long after which I think all men of sense must acknowledge to be as great a violence as was ever used to a word and never allowed in interpreting any other place of Scripture wherefore not to be admitted here Add hereto that when this Institution came to be reinforced at Sinai the observation of the Sabbath having been discontinued by the Israelites during their travel and perhaps during their bondage too the very wording of the Command bespeaks the thing commanded to have been of elder use For Remembring is of things formerly known Now Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy is the very letter of the Text On which the Jews tell us as Tertullian hinself reports it that God sanctifyed the Seventh day from the beginning by resting thereon from all his works and therefore Moses said Remember the Sabbath day If it be objected the sanctifying a Seventh day could be no Command from the beginning for then we should have had it amongst the Precepts of the Sons of Noah I answer to say nothing of the uncertainty of the Tradition of those Precepts any otherwise than as they are grounded in Moses's writings Neither have we in these Precepts any mention of Sacrifices of Prayer of a Priesthood c. Yet are we sure that Adam had Command or which is much the same Directions or Revelations from God touching all these And that they were practised by him and his posterity before the Law If it be said these were included in the Precept Gnal Birkath Hashshem touching Divine Worship or against profaning the Name of God for I think the words may be rendred either way I say so may this of the Sabbath well be too and the rather in as much as it being impossible to perform an outward act without time the same Law which commands that Act must be understood to command time for the doing it Sect VII But supposing not granting no proper command then given yet Gods Example Obligatory can it not be denyed that God by declaring and causing to be recorded this his Procedure of gradually finishing all his works in Six days and resting the Seventh did propose his practice as a precedent to our first Parents for their Ordinary passing their time God was under no necessity to take up Six days in making the World He could have done it had he pleased in Six hours Nay in Six minutes Nor was he under any fatigue by working so that he needed to talk of resting therefore his proceeding thus and not wraping up his procedure in darkness and silence but making all matter of Revelation and a standing Record plainly shews he design'd thereby to teach Adam and in him all mankind they were neither to live Idle any of their days for God
breaking it and his Grace for inclining our hearts to keep it What to keep a Jewish abrogate Ceremony No no It s moral obligation is by our Church and us before God solemnly acknowledged in these very Prayers as oft as we make them and further as before hinted in the Homily of the time and place of Prayer to which I refer my self it is more at large asserted Now sure our holy Mother never intended both her self to falsify with God and Man and to breed her Children too to so hopeful a practice A hopeful practice I say to falsify with God in her Prayers even in her most solemn Office the Communion Service and with Man in her form of Doctrine or Homilies both which she does if this be not her sence It is then the Judgment of our Church what we have otherwise proved that by the eldest positive Law of God a Seventh day is holy to him Sect. XII And this Seventh day is now the Lords day or First day of the Week The Reasonableness of Christian Peoples observing the Lords day instead of the Jewish Sabbath by the Law Christian Here also the evidence is too long to give it in in full at present But. First a word or two for the reasonableness of the First day of the Week under the Christian state The very self same reasons with which God of old bound the Seventh day-Sabbath on Adam and on the Jews bind the observation of the First day of the Week upon us Christians The reason to Adam was on the Sixth day God ended his works that he had Created and Rested the Seventh In like manner the Seventh day of the Week being ended our Lord Jesus had finisht his work of the new Creation in that thereon by his resurrection he made Man again the second time happily immortal and having wrested from Death its Sting from the Grave its Victory opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers entred into it himself and began the everlasting Sabbatism of the new World Which work had he not finisht what had it advantaged poor mankind to have been Created once Alas had not the work of Redemption been compleated Mans first Creation had only capacitated him to have been eternally miserable This reason therefore from the Divine Rest thereon holds to us Christians much stronger for this Christian Sabbath The Reason to the Jews in speciall was because the Lord thy God brought thee out of the Land of Egypt through a mighty hand and an out-stretched arm therefore the Lord thy Deut v. 15. God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day On the Sabbath or Seventh day say the Jewish Doctors their Forefathers sung their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Triumphal Hymne to God at the Red Sea over the drowned Egyptians And on the first day of the Week while it was yet early Our Lord rose from the dead as out of a Red Sea of Bloud and brought with him the raised Bodies of many Saints which slept the Bodies of our first Parents saith an old tradition and having thus rescued mankind from under the bonds of Sin and Death and of him that had the power of Death the Devil he made a shew of them triumphing over them openly Thus also there is the like reason for the First day of the Week to be a Christian Sabbath as there was for the Seventh day to be the Jewish Sect. XIII But where have we any Institution for this day in the Records of the Of the Institution of the Lords Day 1. By Christ himself New Testament I answer our Lord Instituted it the most effectual way imaginable namely by his own practice His frequent if not constant shewing himself to his Disciples on this day during the Forty days after his Resurrection his meeting them in their Assemblies sometimes with some of them breaking bread with all of them always speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God was as solemn a dedication of this day to the Christian worship as well can be conceived John XX. 19. The same day which was ver 1. the first day of the week at evening the doors being shut for fear of the Jews came Jesus where the Disciples were assembled and stood in the midst of them and said Peace be unto you and shewed them his hands and his feet And on the Eighth day which reckoning after the Jewish use inclusively was the next Lords day they are met again ver 26. and now Thomas was with them for the course of Sunday-Assemblies was begun and Jesus came again the Doors being shut and said Peace be unto you Then addressing himself more particularly to Thomas for the satisfying his doubts and thereby confirming the Faith of them all he pronounces a Blessing not only on them but on all that should believe on him to the end of the World How often in those Forty days our Lord appeared to his Disciples it has not pleased the Holy Ghost precisely to set down Two Lords days apparitions to them in their assembly we have thus seen expresly on Record and on the same days several private apparitions to diverse of them apart are recorded also which we may not stand to examine Thirdly the most famous and often fore-appointed appearance on the mountain in Galilee a place distant enough from Jerusalem that none might fear disturbance from the Chief Priests and their Partisans is by some very great men placed on the Lords day at which time he was seen of above Five hundred Brethren at once speaking no doubt as his use was of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God And being that this his appearance cannot consistently with St. Paul's account be 1 Cor. xv 6 7. coincident with that at his Ascension there is little probability all circumstances being considered for placing it on any other day Last of all our Lord chose to bless the First day of the Week by that most illustrious manifestation of his being the Son of God in sending the spirit of Promise Acts. XI 1. When the day of Pentecost was fully come Pentecost that is the Fiftieth day there is no reason to regard precisely the Jewish Festival or to make a proper name of a common one on the Fiftieth day I say which from the Resurrection must needs fall on the First day of the week reckon it at leisure they were all with one accord in one place continuing still their Assemblies on the First day of the week and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a mighty wind In a word the Holy Spirit most miraculously came upon them all as the Lord had promised Here is from our Lord himself another sanctifying of the Lords day to the purpose For indeed with it he miraculously sanctified the whole body of the faithfull assembled thereon Subsequent hereto or after the 2. By his Apostles mission of the holy Ghost the Apostles and Apostolical Churches constant observing the Lords day in
its weekly course as is most probable upon Apostolical Orders for it was a continued or reinforced practical Divine Institution of the same Divine I said For none will doubt whatever Orders proceeded from the Apostles as Planters of Christianity in the World were of the same authority as if they had come immediately from Christ who sent them As to the practice of the Church At Troas St Paul passing to Jerusalem upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread preached to them Acts xx 7. St. Pau'ls preaching at that time might be as to that Church casual enough but it appears to have been the stated and usual course the Dies Natus for the Churches meeting together to break Bread Besides this solemn and continued practice we have the footsteps of the Apostolical mandate it self 1 Cor. xvi 1. 2. Now concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia even so do yee upon the first day of the Week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gathering when I come The Churches of Galatia were of a great extent He had given orders in those Churches and now gives orders also in Corinth for Lords day-alms The private laying aside at home if we will interpret it consonantly to what we are assured to have seen from the begining the usual practice was only in order to the depositing all in the Assembly with the Chief Minister of the Church called in Justin Martyrs days the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bishop For if this had not been design'd the end he mentions would not have been obtained There would have needed still a Gathering of all when he came But at the celebration of the Eucharist styled in those days Breaking of Bread the Deacons collected what each person offered and delivered it to the trust of the Bishop as we read more at large in the Antients This collection therefore proves a Communion that day and the Apostles order being plain for what was Accessary must be acknowledged for the Principal Now if the Apostle gave order for the Communion and Collection thereat on the Lords day no doubt he gave orders for the Assemblies thereon at which the one was to be celebrated and the other made And then if we admit that the Doctrine and Tradition of all the Apostles was one and the same as the Ancients affirm and I know not on what good reasons any can deny it will follow that it was an Apostolical Order that the Lords day should be the day of publick Christan Assemblies Sect. 14 In this assertion of the sacredness of the Lords Day partly from the The Antient Fathers are Unanimous herein Institution of Christ and afterwards by the Order of the Apostles the Antient Fathers are unanimous Above all others memorable is that large Text of St. Ignatius an early Martyr of Christ who himself avows as his Text is commonly rendred that he saw our Lord Jesus in the flesh after his Resurrection and who was ordained Bishop of Antioch by the imposition of the hands of St. Peter himself truely therefore St. Peters Successor and an Apostolical Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Let us therefore no longer Jewishly keep the Sabbath that is neither on the day nor in the manner the Jews do which manner he there exposeth But let each of us spiritually keep the Sabbath rejoycing in meditations on the Law of God admiring the works of his hand Let every one that loves Christ keep the Lords Day the Queen of days on which our life rose and victory over death was gotten with more Elogies of it there to be seen Now here the Jewish Sabbaths and Sabatising are expresly required to be laid aside and a Spiritual Rest and the Lords Day injoyned instead thereof But St. Athanasius in his Homily De Semente goes farther and teaches us the Lord of the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. translated the Sabbath Day to the Lords Day And further The Apostles Apostolical Men did ordain namely by our Lords appointment as in other cases that the Lords Day should be kept with Religious Solemnity saith St. Austin And much more on the same purpose have others which I must wave Sunday then does not stand on the same foot with other Church Holy days It is more sacred truly of Divine Right the Lords Day or a Christian Sabbath Sect. 15 Now as to the true Christian way of keeping it I was saith St. John How the Lords day is to be kept in the Spirit on the Lords day Time will not permit me to present the various glosses on this phrase To shorten all I will readily acknowledg we now adays cannot be in the spirit any Lords day as St. John was on this in the Text. He was in a prophetick extasy But that which in all likelyhood led him into this exalted temper and which in our state of things bears analogy thereto may be and ought to be our entertainment each Lords Day St. John was now in Patmos a small Island in the Archipelago between Crete and Asia minor banisht thither by Domitian for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ Here was no assembly of Christians for him to joyn with But the Lords Day coming upon him in course we cannot well but conceive him taken up in this his Solitude with Prayer Praise and Contemplations suitable to the day and in these being transported to have had his Soul wholly possest by the Holy Spirit and to have received from our Lord all those Revelations which in this book he Records And thus past that whole day at least far the greatest part of it with the beloved Disciple For in one day as is conceived by very learned Interpreters had he all those apocalyptick visions They who cannot ascend into heaven may yet go up to the mountain We are not in the present state to expect Visions and Revelations each Lords Day St. John himself had them not that we know of but while in Patmos and when God made his Church amends as I may say for the want of his common Ministry by extraordinary Revelations which were to convince the World and all the Powers of Hell that their malice could not suppress the Gospel but only make it shine another way clearer and farther and that however Tyrants might drive the messengers of those glad tydings into desolate corners so as some Assemblies might for a season want their living voice yet should they not be able to hinder but the whole World should ring of their testimony wherever they were and thereby know in what methods and disguises the Grand Master of all the Tyrants on earth the Devil has and shall in the several ages of Mankind set them on work to the end of all things so that I say St. Johns being thus in the Spirit was not common
worked Six nor to work each day as they listed for God rested the Seventh and blessed it that is he made it a Holy Rest a Sabbath Sect VIII From this either Command or Precedent without all doubt proceeded The Sabbath observed by the Church before the Law even before Moses's Law the Observation of The Sabbath amongst all such at least as adhered to the worship of the true God which observation has been by diverse learned men amply proved both from Scripture and Fathers the proof is too long here to insert I will only mention that St. Epiphanius expresly distinguishes betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Sabbath by nature or Law Naturall appointed from the beginning and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Sabbath ordained under the Law which shews a Sabbath before the Law was in his time or at least by him in no wise doubted of Sect. IX For mine own part I am in that Paradox with submission to better T is probable Adam and Eve observed the Sabbath in Paradise judgments that the Sabbath was kept by Adam in Paradise notwithstanding what the Rabbies talk to the contrary and that it was the only intire day he stood in his Innocency For that Adam fell not on the Sixth day as many have thought Eves being Created late that Day and God's pronouncing all very good for the conclusion of the day seem to me little less than demonstration And whereas God having finished his works immediatly rested blessed the Seventh day and sanctified it it looks not likely that the day which God blessed and sanctifyed should be the day on which the curse enter'd into the World Therefore I say it seems to me most probable that our first Parents received the revelation of Gods resting upon the very day he rested and so kept the first Seventh or Sabbath day in Paradise But be that as it shall I contend not However I think it cannot be denyed but to them who in those early ages knew the History of the Creation which undoubtedly Seth's Race in general till the Floud and many of them long after it did know there was as also there will be to the end of the World more reason for keeping one Day in Seven than one Day in Six or one in Eight Nine or Ten for that the first Period by which even from the begining Time was distinguisht was that of a septenary of Days or a Week God worked Six Days and rested the Seventh Nor is it improbable but that to such a periodical distinction of days may that passage Gen. iv 3. be referr'd At the end of days so stands it in the Hebrew Text what we too largely render In process of time that is not improbably I say upon the Revolution of some certain Week namely upon some Sabbath Day Cain and Abel brought their Offerings The like may be believed of those Texts in Job a History generally granted to be elder than the Law There was a day when the Sons of God as the Holy Race are stiled Gen. vi 2. came to present themselues before the Lord Job i. 6. and ii 1. This cannot be better fix'd than as by Learned Persons it is on the Sabbath Day Sect. X But to pass the Patriarchal Observation There can be no question The fourth Command of the Decalogue Morall of the command of the Sabbath from Mount Sinai amongst the other Commands of the Decalogue It is delivered in a style more emphatical than any of the other And therefore a man would wonder that it alone of all the Ten should not be Moral Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy which words that they should injoyn matter of meer Ceremony of concernment only to the Jews and of no lasting obligation to Christians as to a weekly day of a holy rest for the publick Service of God the Arguments which I have yet known offered I must confess are much too feeble to perswade 'T is true indeed the Apostle tells us Colloss ii 16 17. the Jewish differencings of Meats and Drinks their Holy days their New Moons and Sabbaths Sabbath days is not in the original but Sabbaths that is their great variety of Carnal Rests their Sabbaths of Years and their Sabbaths of Months and their Sabbaths of Days for all these they had their Feast-Sabbaths and Fast-Sabbaths and the peculiar ways of observing them by feeding on certain appointed Meats and abstaining from others usual enough at common seasons all these were a shadow of things to come But will this which concerns only a part of the Ceremonial Law evacuate one of the branches of the Decalogue all whose other Commands are confessedly moral Let that precise Seventh day namely the last day of the Week be Temporary and only obligatory till the fullness of time were come Let bodily rest and strictness of the rest thereon injoyned to the Jews not to do so much of servile work as to kindle a fire thereon let these I say be Ceremonial significative of a speritual Rest under the Gospel Was therefore a weekly Sabbath holy to God for his publick worship a shadow too and no certain constant proportion of time to be allowed as separate to God because the multitude of Jewish Festivals and even the Judaism and Ceremonialness of the Sabbath were to be abrogated which is the utmost can be concluded hence Let us beware of arguing thus there being no reason for such conclusion as the Objectours would infer Before we resolve of laying aside any part of the Law of God let us consider it better There was more in the Command then a meer Carnall Rest and therefore more than a Ceremony Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day Resting from common labours thereon was a Ceremony but somewhat of this Rest a Ceremony necessary and pre-requisite to the keeping of it Holy the main substance of the Command or chief matter commanded was keeping it holy that is worshiping God thereon in publick contemplating him and his works in secret being wholy free to him for that day Is Divine Worship and Holy Contemplation and Converse with God a Ceremony Further Somewhat there is too in the Command as to other days which we cannot account Ceremonious Is it a Ceremony a thing in it self meerly Indifferent how we spend our time the Regulation of which is most plainly the summe of this Commandment Six days to be spent in our common calling as persons of such or such condition or occupation And a Seventh in our holy calling as worshippers of the true God Sect. XI Let who will say this Command is meerly Ceremonial I am sure no The Judgment of our Church herein Son of the Church of England must say so For if this as well as the other nine Commandments be not in the Judgment of our Church a part of the Moral Law why were we just now upon our knees before God by order of our Church beging Gods mercy for our