point of time some have referred the institution and original of the Sabbath taking these words to be a plain Narration of a thing then done according to that very time wherein the Scripture doth report it And that the sanctifying of the seventh day therein mentioned was a Commandment given by God to our Father Adam touching the sanctifying of that day to his publick Worship Conceiving also that there is some special Mystery and morality in the number of seven for which that day and none but that could be designed and set apart for this employment Others and those the ancienter and of more authority conceive these words to have been spoken by a Prolepsis or Anticipation and to relate unto the times wherein Moses wrote And that it was an intimation only of the reason why God imposed upon the Jews the sanctifying rather of the seventh day than of any other no Precept to that purpose being given to Adam and to his posterity nor any mystery in that number why of it self it should be thought most proper for Gods publick service The perfect stating of these points will give great light to the following story And therefore we will first crave leave to remove these doubts before we come to matter of fact that afterwards I may proceed with the greater ease unto my self and satisfaction to the Reader The ground-work or foundation laid the Building will be raised the surer And first it is conceived by many learned men that Moses in the second of Genesis relates unto the times in the which he lived and wrote the History of the Creation when God had now made known his holy Will unto him and the Commandment of the Sabbath had by his Ministery been delivered to the house of Israel This is indeed the ancienter and more general tendry unanimously delivered both by Jew and Christian and not so much as questioned till these later days And howsoever some ascribe it to Tostatus as to the first inventer of it yet is it ancienter far than he though were it so it could not be denied but that it had an able and a learned Author A man considering the times in which he lived and the short time of life it pleased God to give him that hardly ever had his equal It 's true Tostatus thus resolves it In Gen. 2. He makes this quaere first Num Sabbatum cum à Deo sanctificatum fuerit in primordio mundi rerum c. Whether the Sabbath being sanctified by God in the first infancy of the World had been observed of men by the Law of Nature And thereunto returns this Answer quod Deus non dederit praceptum illud de observatione Sabbati in principio sed per Mosen datum esse c. that God commanded not the Sabbath to be sanctified in the beginning of the World but that it was commanded afterwards by the Law of Moses when God did publickly make known his Will upon Mount Sinai And that whereas the Scripture speaketh of sanctifying the seventh-day in the second of Genesis it is not to be understood as if the Lord did then appoint it for his publick Worship but is to be referred unto the time wherein Moses wrote which was in the Wilderness Et sic Moses intendebat dicere quod Deus illum diem sanctificavit sc nobis c. And so the meaning of the Prophet will be briefly this that God did sanctifie that day that is to us to us that are his people of the house of Jacob that we might consecrate it to his service So far Tostatus In which I must confess that I see not any thing but what Josephus said before him though in other words who speaking of the Worlds Creation doth conclude it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Antiqu. l. 1.2 So that Moses saith that the World and all that is therein was made in six whole days and that upon the seventh day God took rest and ceased from his labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By reason whereof we likewise desist from travail on that day which we call the Sabbath i. e. Repose So that the institution of the Sabbath by Tostatus and the observation of it by Josephus are both of them referred by their us and we unto the times of Moses and the house of Israel Nor is Josephus the only learned man amongst the Jews that so interpreteth Moses's meaning Solomon Iarchi one of the principal of the Rabbins speaks more expresly to this purpose and makes this Gloss or Comment upon Moses words Benedixit ei i. e. in manna c. God blessed the seventh day i. e. in Mannah because for every day of the week an Homer of it fell upon the Earth and a double portion on the sixth and sanctified it i. e. in Mannah because it fell not on the seventh day at all Et scriptura loquitur de re futura And in this place saith he the Scripture speaks as of a thing that was to came But what need more be said Mercer a learned Protestant and one much conversant in the Rabbins In Gen. 2. confesseth that the Rabbins generally referred this place and passage to the following times even to the sanctification of the Sabbath established by the Law of Moses Hebraei fere ad futurum referunt i.e. sanctificationem Sabbati postea lege per Mosen sancitam unde Manna eo die non descendit And howsoever for his own part he is of opinion that the first Fathers being taught by God kept the seventh day holy yet he conceives withal that the Commandment of keeping holy the Sabbath day was not made till afterwards Nam hinc from Gods own resting on that day postea praeceptum de Sabbato natum est as he there hath it Doubtless the Jews who so much doted on their Sabbath would not by any means have robbed it of so great antiquity had they had any ground to approve thereof or not known the contrary So that the scope of Moses in this present place was not to shew the time when but the occasion why the Lord did after sanctifie the seventh day for a Sabbath day viz. because that on that day he rested from the works which he had created Nor was it otherwise conceived than that Moses here did speak by way of Prolepsis or Anticipation till Ambrose Catharin one of the great sticklers in the Trent-Council opined the contrary He in his Comment on that Text falls very foul upon Tostatus and therein leads the Dance to others who have since taken up the same opinion Ineptum est quod quidam commentus est c. It is a foolish thing saith he that In Gen. 2. as a certain Writer fancieth the sanctification of that day which Moses speaks of should not be true as of that very point of time whereof he speaks it but rather to be referred unto the time wherein be wrote as if the meaning only were that then it
or to the seventh precisely from the Worlds Creation Constitui potuisset quod in die sabbati coleretur Deus aut in die Martis Aut in altera die God saith Tostatus might have ordered it to have his Sabbath on the Saturday In Exod. 20. qu. 11. or on the Tuesday or any other day what ever what any other of the week and no more than so No he might have appointed it aut bis aut semel tantum in anno aut in mense once or twice a year or every month as he had listed And might not God as well exceed this number as fall short thereof Yes say the Protestant Doctors that he might have done He might have made each third or fourth or fifth day a Sabbath indeed as many as he pleased In Exod. 20. Si voluisset Deus absolute uti dominio suo potuit plures dies imperare cultui suo impendendos So saith Dr. Ryvet one of the Professors of Leiden and a great Friend to the Antiquity of the Sabbath What was the principal motive then why the seventh day way chosen for this purpose and none but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep God always in their minds so saith Justin Martyr But why should that be rather done by a seventh day Sabbath than by any other Dial. Cum Try phone Detsest Paschal hom 6. Saint Cyril answers to that point exceeding fully The Jews saith he became infected with the Idolatries of Egypt worshipped the Sun and Moon and Stars and the Host of Heaven which seems to be insinuated in the fourth of Deut. v. 19. Therefore that they might understand the Heavens to be Gods workmanship eos opificem suum imitari jubet he willeth them that they imitate their Creator that resting on the Sabbath day they might the better understand the reason of the Festival Which if they did saith he in case they rested on that day whereon God had rested it was a plain confession that all things were made by him and consequently that there were no other Gods besides him Et haec una ratio sabbato indicatae quietis Indeed the one and only reason that is mentioned in the body of the Commandment which reflects only on Gods rest from all his work which he had made and leaves that as the absolute and sole occasion why the seventh day was rather chosen for the Sabbath than the sixth or eighth or any other Which being so it is the more to be admired that Philo being a learned Jew or any learned Christian Writer leaving the cause expressed in the Law it self should seek some secret reason for it out of the nature of the day or of the number De Abrahamo First Fhilo tells us that the Jews do call their seventh day by the name of Sabbath which signifieth repose and rest Not because they did rest that day from their weekly labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because seven is found to be both in the world and man himself the most quiet number most free from trouble war and all manner of contention A strange conceit to take beginning from a Jew Problem loc 5 5. yet that that follows of Aretius is as strange as this Who thinks that day was therefore consecrated unto rest even amongst the Gentiles quod putarent civilibus actionibus ineptum esse fortasse propter frigus planetae contemplationibus vero idoneum Because they thought that day by reason of the dulness of the Planet Saturn more fit for contemplation than it was for action Some had it seems conceived so in the former times whom thereupon Tostatus censures in his Comment on the fifth of Deuteronomy Qu. 3. For where it was Gods purpose as before we noted out of Cyril to wean the People from Idolatry and Superstition to lay down such a reason for the observation of the Sabbath was to reduce them to the worship of those Stars and Planets from which he did intend to wean them I had almost omitted the conceit of Zanchie See n. 1. before remembred who thinks that God made choice of this day the rather because that on the same day he had brought his People out of Egypt In case the ground be true that on this day the Lord wrought this deliverance for his People Israel then his conceit may probably be countenanced from the fifth of Deuteronomy where God recounting to his People that with a mighty hand and an out-stretched arm he had delivered them from Egypt hath thereupon commanded them that they should keep the Sabbath day Lay all that hath been said together and it will come in all to this that as the Sabbath was not known till Moses time Annal. d. 7. so being known it was peculiar unto Israel only Non nisi Mosaicae legis temporibus in usu fuisse septimi diei cultum nec postea nisi penes Hebraeos perdurasse as Torniellus doth conclude it For that the Gentiles used to keep the seventh day sacred as some give it out is no where to be found I dare boldly say it in all the Writings of the Gentiles The seventh day of the moneth indeed they hallowed and so they did the first and fourth as Hesiod tells us Opera dies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not the first day and the fourth and seventh of every week for then they must have gone beyond the Jews but as the Scholiast upon Hesiod notes it of every month à novilunio exorsus laudat tres the first fourth and seventh And lest it should be thought that the seventh day is to be counted holier than the other two because the attribute of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems joyned unto it the Scholiast takes away that scruple à novilunio exorsus tres laudat omnes sacras dicens septimam etiam ut Apollinis natalem celebrans and tells us that all three are accounted holy and that the seventh was also celebrated as Apollos birth-day For so it followeth in the Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence the Flamines or Gentile Priests did use to call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the God born on the seventh day Dies Geniales l. 3. c. 18. For further proof hereof we find in Alexander ab Alexandro that the first day of evry moneth was consecrated to Apollo the fourth to Mercury the seventh again unto Apollo the eighth to Theseus The like doth Plutarch say of Theseus that the Athenians offered to him their greatest Sacrifice upon the eighth day of October because of his arrival that day from Crete and that they also honoured him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the eighth day of the other moneths because he was derived from Neptune to whom on the eighth day of every month they did offer sacrifice To make the matter yet more sure De Decalogo Philo hath put this difference between the Gentiles and the Jews that divers Cities of the Gentiles did solemnize the seventh
of the affairs of the Christian Church cannot but be displeasing unto them which are not Christianly affected Our former Book we destinated to the Jewish part of this enquiry wherein though long it was before we found it yet at the last we found a Sabbath A Sabbath which began with that state and Church and ended also when they were no longer to be called a Nation but a dispersed and scattered ruin of what once they were In that which followeth our Enquiry must be more diffused of the same latitude with the Church a Church not limited and confined to some Tribes and Kindreds but generally spreading over all the World We may affirm it of the Gospel what Florus sometimes said of the state of Rome Ita late per orbem terrarum arma circumtulit ut qui res ejus legunt non unius populi sed generis humani facta discunt The history of the Church and of the World are of like extent So that the search herein as unto me it was more painful in the doing so unto thee will it be more pleasing being done because of that variety which it will afford thee And this Part we have called the History of the Sabbath too although the institution of the Lords Day and entertainment of the same in all times and Ages since that institution be the chief thing whereof it treateth For being it is said by some that the Lords Day succeeded by the Lords appointment into the place and rights of the Jewish Sabbath so to be called and so to be observed as the Sabbath was this Book was wholly to be spent in the search thereof whether in all or any Ages of the Church either such doctrine had been preached or such practice pressed upon the Conscience of Gods people And search indeed we did with all care and diligence to see if we could find a Sabbath in any evidence of Scripture or writings of the holy Fathers or Edicts of Emperours or Decrees of Councils or finally in any of the publick Acts and Monuments of the Christian Church But after several searches made upon the alias and the pluries we still return Non est inventus and thereupon resolve in the Poets language Et quod non invenis usquam esse putes nosquam that which is no where to be found may very strongly be concluded not to be at all Buxdorfius in the 11th Chapter of his Synagoga Judaica out of Antonius Margarita tells us of the Jews quod die sabbatino praeter animam consuetam praediti sunt alia that on the Sabbath day they have an extraordinary soul infused into them which doth enlarge their hearts and rouze up their spirits Ut Sabbatum multo honorabilius peragere possint that they may celebrate the Sabbath with the greater bonour And though this sabbatarie soul may by a Pythagorical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seem to have transmigrated from the Jews into the Bodies of some Christians in these later days yet I am apt to give my self good hopes that by presenting to their view the constant practice of Gods Church in all times before and the consent of all Gods Churches at this present they may be dispossessed thereof without great difficulty It is but anima superflua is Buxdorfius calls it and may be better spared than kept because superfluous However I shall easily persuade my self that by this general representation of the estate and practice of the Church of Christ I may confirm the wavering in a right persuasion and assure such as are already well affected by shewing them the perfect harmony and agreement which is between this Church and the purest times It is our constant prayer to Almighty God as well that he would strengthen such as do stand and confirm the weak as to raise up those men which are fallen into sin and errour As are our prayers such should be also our endeavours as universal to all sorts of men as charitable to them in their several cases and distresses Happy those men who do aright discharge their Duties both in their prayers and their performance The blessing of our labours we must leave to him who is all in all without whom all Pauls planting and Apollo's watering will yield poor encrease In which of these three states soever thou art good Christian Reader let me beseech thee kindly to accept his pains which for thy sake were undertaken that so he might in some poor measure be an instrument to strengthen or confirm or raise thee as thy case requires This is the most that I desire and less than this thou couldst not do did I not desire it And so fare thee well THE HISTORY OF THE SABBATH The Second Book CHAP. I. That there is nothing found in Scripture touching the keeping of the Lords Day 1. The Sabbath not intended for a perpetual Ordinance 2. Preparatives unto the dissolution of the Sabbath by our Saviour Christ 3. The Lords day not enjoyned in the place thereof either by Christ or his Apostles but instituted by the Authority of the Church 4. Our Saviours Resurrection on the first day of the week and apparitions on the same make it not a Sabbath 5. The coming down of the Holy Ghost upon the first day of the week makes it not a Sabbath 6. The first day of the week not made a Sabbath more than others by Saint Peter Saint Paul or any other of the Apostles 7. Saint Paul frequents the Synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath and upon what reasons 8. What was concluded against the Sabbath in the Council holden in Hierusalem 9. The preaching of Saint Paul at Troas upon the first day of the week no argument that then that day was set apart by the Apostles for religious exercises 10. Collections on the first day of the week 1 Cor. 16. conclude as little for that purpose 11. Those places of Saint Paul Galat. 4.10 Colos 2.16 do prove invincibly that there is no Sabbath to be looked for 12. The first day of the week not called the Lords day until the end of this first Age and what that title adds unto it WE shewed you in the former Book what did occur about the Sabbath from the Creation of the World to the destruction of the Temple which comprehended the full time of 4000 years and upwards in the opinion of the most and best Chronologers Now for five parts of eight of the time computed from the Creation to the Law being in all 2540 years and somewhat more there was no Sabbath known at all And for the fifteen hundred being the remainder it was not so observed by the Jews themselves as if it had been any part of the Law of Nature but sometimes kept and sometimes broken either according as mens private businesses or the affairs of the republick would give way unto it Never such conscience made thereof as of Adultery Murder Blasphemy or Idolatry no not when as the Scribes and Pharisees had most made it
sake of Jesus Christ to lay aside all prejudice which possibly you may be possessed withal either in reference to the Argument or unto the Author and to peruse this following Story with as much singleness of heart and desire of truth and invocation of Gods Spirit to find out the same as was by me used in the writing of it It is your welfare which I aim at as before was said your restitution to your functions and reconciliation to the Church from which you are at point of falling that we with you and you with us laying aside those jealousies and distrusts which commonly attend on divided minds may joyn our hearts and hands together for the advancement of Gods honour and the Churches peace And God even our own God shall give us his blessing For others which shall read this Story whether by you misguided or yet left emire I do desire them to take notice that there is none so much a stranger to good Arts and Learning whom in this case and kind of writing I dare not trust with the full cognizance of the cause herein related In points of Law when as the matter seems to be above the wit of common persons or otherwise is so involved and intricate that there hath been no Precedent thereof in former times it is put off to a demurrer and argued by my Lords the Judges with their best maturity of deliberation But in a matter of fact we put our selves upon an ordinary Jury not doubting if the evidence prove fair the Witnesses of faith unquestioned and the Records without suspition of imposture but they will do their Conscience and find for Plaintiff or Defendant as the cause appears So in the business now in hand that part thereof which consists most of Argument and strength of Disputation in the examining of those reasons which Pro or Con have been alledged are by me left to be discussed and weighed by them who either by their place are called or by their Learning are inabled to so great a business But for the point of practice which is matter of fact how long it was before the Sabbath was commanded and how it was observed being once commanded how the Lords day hath stood in the Christian Church by what Authority first instituted in what kind regarded these things are offered to the judgment and consideration of the meanest Reader No man that is to be returned on the present Jury but may be able to give up his Verdict touching the title now in question unless he come with passion and so will not hear or else with prejudice and so will not value the evidence which is produced for his information For my part I shall deal ingenuously as the cause requires as of sworn counsel to the truth not using any of the mysteries or arts of pleading but as the holy Fathers of the Church the learned Writers of all Ages the most renowned Divines of these latter times and finally as the publick Monuments and Records of most Nations christned have furnished me in this enquiry What these or any of them have herein either said or done or otherwise left upon the Register for our direction I shall lay down in order in their several times either the times in which they lived or whereof they writ that so we may the better see the whole succession both of the doctrine and the practice of Gods Church in the present business And this with all integrity and sincere proceeding not making use of any Author who hath been probably suspected of fraud or forgery nor dealing otherwise in this search than as becomes a man who aims at nothing more than Gods publick service and the conducting of Gods People in the ways of truth This is the sum of what I had to say in this present Preface beseeching God the God of truth yea the truth it self to give us a right understanding and a good will to do thereafter THE HISTORY OF THE SABBATH BOOK I. From the Creation of the World to the destruction of the Temple CHAP. I. That the SABBATH was not instituted in the Beginning of the World 1. The entrance to the Work in hand 2. That those words Genes 2. And God blessed the seventh day c. are there delivered as by way of anticipation 3. Anticipations in the Scripture confessed by them who deny it here 4. Anticipations of the same nature not strange in Scripture 5. No Law imposed by God on Adam touching the keeping of the Sabbath 6. The Sabbath not ingraft by Nature in the soul of man 7. The greatest Advocates for the Sabbath deny it to be any part of the Law of Nature 8. Of the morality and perfection supposed to be in the number of seven by some learned men 9. That other numbers in the confession of the same learned men particularly the first third and fourth are both as moral and as perfect as the seventh 10. The like is proved of the sixth eighth and tenth and of other numbers 11. The Scripture not more favourable to the number of seven than it is to others 12. Great caution to be used by those who love to recreate themselves in the mysteries of numbers I Purpose by the grace of God to write an History of the Sabbath and to make known what practically hath been done therein by the Church of God in all Ages past from the Creation till this present Primaque ab origine mundi ad mea perpetuum deducere tempora carmen One day as David tells us teacheth another Nor can we have a better Schoolmaster in the things of God than the continual and most constant practice of those famous men that have gone before us An undertaking of great difficulty but of greater profit In which I will crave leave to say as doth St. Austin in the entrance to his Books de Civitate Lib. 1. c. â— Magnum opus arduum sed Deus est adjutor noster Therefore most humbly begging the assistance of Gods holy Spirit to guide me in the way of truth I shall apply my self to so great a work beginning with the first Beginnings and so continuing my Discourse successively unto these times wherein we live In which no accident of note as far as I can discern shall pass unobserved which may conduce to the discovery of the truth and seâ—ling of the minds of men in a point so controverted On therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the present business Gen. 2. In the beginning saith the Text God created the Heaven and the Earth Which being finished and all the hosts of them made perfect on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made And then it followeth And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made Unto this passage of the Text and this
kept from the Creation to the Flood 1. Gods rest upon the Seventh day and from what he rested 2. Zanchius conceit touching the Sanctifying of the first Seventh day by Christ our Saviour 3. The like of Torniellus touching the Sanctifying of the same by the Angels in Heaven 4. A general demonstration that the Fathers before the Law did not keep the Sabbath 5. Of Adam that he kept not the Sabbath 6. That Abel and Seth did not keep the Sabbath 7. Of Enos that he kept not the Sabbath 8. That Enoch and Methusalem did not keep the Sabbath 9. Of Noah that he kept not the Sabbath 10. The Sacrifices and devotions of the Ancients were occasional HOW little ground there is whereon to build the original of the Sabbath in the second of Genesis we have at large declared in the former Chapter Yet we deny not but that Text affords us a sufficient intimation of the equity and reason of it which is Gods rest upon that day after all his works that he had made Origen contra Cels l. 6. Not as once Celsus did object against the Christians of his time as if the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. like to some dull Artificer was weary of his labours and had need of sleep for he spake the word only and all things were made There went no greater labour to the whole Creation than a dixit Dominus De Gen. ad lit l. 4. c. 14. Therefore Saint Austin rightly noteth nec cum creavit defessus nec cum cessavit refectus est that God was neither weary of working nor refreshed with resting The meaning of the Text is this that he desisted then from adding any thing de novo unto the World by him created as having in the six former days fashioned the Heaven and Earth and every thing in them contained and furnished them with all things necessary both for use and ornament I say from adding any thing de novo unto the World by him created but not from governing the same which is a work by us as highly to be prized as the first Creation and from the which God never resteth Sabbaths and all days are alike in respect of providence in reference to the universal government of the World and Nature Semper videmus Deum operari Hom. 23. in Num. Sabbatum nullum est in quo Deus non operetur in quo non producat Solem suum super bonos malos No Sabbath whereon God doth rest from the administration of the World by him Created whereon he doth not make his Sun to shine both on good and bad whereon he rains not plenty upon the Sinner and the Just as Origen hath truly noted Nor is this more than what our Saviour said in his holy Gospel I work and my Father also worketh Contra Faustum Man l. 16. c. 6. A saying as Saint Augustine notes at which the Jews were much offended our Saviour meaning by those words that God rested not nec ullum sibi cessationis statuisse diem and that there was no day wherein he tended not the preservation of the Creature and therefore for his own part he would not cease from doing his Fathers business ne Sabbatis quidem no though it were upon the Sabbath By which it seemeth that when the Sabbath was observed and that if still it were in force it was not then and would not be unlawful unto any now to look to his estate on the Sabbath day and to take care that all things thrive and prosper which belong unto him though he increase it not or add thereto by following on that day the works of his daily labour And this according to their rules who would have Gods example so exactly followed in the Sabbaths rest who rested as we see from Creation only not from preservation So that the rest here mentioned was as before I said no more than a cessation or a leaving off from adding any thing as then unto the World by him Created Upon which ground he afterwards designed this day for his Holy Sabbath that so by his example the Jews might learn to rest from their wordly labours and be the better fitted to meditate on the works of God and to commemorate his goodness manifested in the Worlds Creation Of any other Sanctification of this day by the Lord our God than that he rested on it now and after did command the Jews that they should sanctifie the same we have no Constat in the Scriptures nor in any Author that I have met with until Zanchies time Indeed he tells us a large story of his own making how God the Son came down to Adam and sanctified this first Sabbath with him that he might know the better how to do the like De creat hominis l. 1. ad finem Ego quidem non dubito c. I little doubt saith he I will speak only what I think without wrong or prejudice to others I little doubt but that the Son of God taking the shape of man upon him was busied all this day in most holy conferences with Adam and that he made known himself both to him and Eve taught them the order that he used in the Worlds Creation exhorted them to meditate on those glorious works in them to praise the Name of God acknowledging him for their Creator and after his example to spend that day for ever in these pious exercises I doubt not finally saith he but that he taught them on that day the whole body of divinity and that he held them busied all day long in hearing him and celebrating with due praises their Lord and God and giving thanks unto him for so great and many benefits as God had graciously vouchsafed to bestow upon them Which said he shuts up all with this conclusion Haec est illius septimi diei benedictio sanctificatio in qua filius Dei una cum patre spiritu sancto quievit ab opere quod facerat This was saith he the blessing and sanctifying of that seventh day wherein the Son of God together with the Father and the Holy Ghost did rest from all the works that they had made How Zanchie thwarts himself in this we shall see hereafter Such strange conceptions See n. 5. though they miscarry not in birth yet commonly they serve to no other use than monsters in the works of nature to be seen and shewn with wonder at all times and sometimes with pity Had such a thing occurred in Pet. Comestors supplement which he made unto the Bible it had been more tolerable The Legendaries and the Rabbins might fairly also have been excused if any such device had been extant in them The gravity of the man makes the tale more pitiful though never the more to be regarded For certainly had there been such a weighty conference between God and Man and so much tending unto information and instruction it is not probable but that
of Enos Seths son that he was born Anno two hundred thirty six And till that time there was no Sabbath But then as some conceive the Sabbath day began to be had in honour because it is set down in Scripture that then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. That is as Torniellus descants upon the place then Gen. 4. Annal. Anno 236. n. 4. were spiritual Congregations instituted as we may probably conjecture certain set Forms of Prayers and Hymns devised to set forth Gods glory certain set times and places also set apart for those pious duties praecipue diebus Sabbati especially the Sabbath-days in which most likely they began to abstain from all servile works in honour of that God whom they well knew had rested on the seventh day from all his labours Sure Torniellus's mind was upon his Mattins when he made this Paraphrase He had not else gathered a Sabbath from this Text considering that not long before he had thus concluded That sanctifying of the Sabbath here on Earth was not in use until the Law was given by Moses But certainly this Text will bear no such matter were it considered as it ought The Chaldee Paraphrase thus reads it Tunc in diebus ejus inceperunt filii hominum ut non orarent in nomine Domini V. 3. of this Chapter which is quite contrary to the English Our Bibles of the last Translation in the margin thus then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord and generally the Jews as Saint Hierom tells us do thus gloss upon it Tunc primum in nomine Domini Qu. Hebraic in Gen. in similitudine ejus fabricata sunt idola that then began men to set up Idols both in the name and after the similitude of God Ainsworth in his Translation thus Then began men prophanely to call upon the Name of the Lord who tells us also in his Annotations on this Text out of Rabbi Maimony That in these days Idolatry took its first beginning and the people worshipped the stars and all the host of Heaven so generally that at the last there were few left which acknowledged God as Enoch Methuselah Noah Sem and Heber So that we see not any thing in this Text sufficient to produce a Sabbath But take it as the English reads it which is agreeable to the Greek and vulgar Latin and may well stand with the Original yet will the cause be little better For men might call upon Gods Name and have their publick meetings and set Forms of Prayer without relation to the seventh day more than any other As for this Enos Eusebius proposeth him unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Praeparat Evang. l. 7 ◠as the first man commended in the Scripture for his love to God that we by his example might learn to call upon Gods Name with assured hope But yet withal he tells us of him that he observed not any of those Ordinances which Moses taught unto the Jews whereof the Sabbath was the chief as formerly we observed in Adam And Epiphanius ranks him amongst those Fathers who lived according to the Rules of the Christian Church Therefore no Sabbath kept by Enos We will next look on Enoch who as the Text tells us walked with God and therefore doubt we not but he would carefully have kept the Sabbath had it been required But of him also the Fathers generally say the same as they did before of others For Justin Martyr not only makes him one of those which without Circumcision and the Sabbath had been approved of by the Lord but pleads the matter more exactly The substance of his plea is this that if the Sabbath or Circumcision were to be counted necessary to eternal life we must needs fall upon this absurd opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. cum Tryphone that the same God whom the Jews worshipped was not the God of Enoch and of other men about those times which neither had been Circumcised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor kept the Sabbath nor any other Ordinances of the Law of Moses So Irenaeus speaking before of Circumcision and the Sabbath placeth this Enoch among those Lib. 4. cap. 30. qui sine iis quae praedicta sunt justificationem adepti sunt which had been justified without any the Ordinances before remembred Tertullian more fully yet Enoch justissimum nec circumcisum Adv. Judaeos nec sabbatizantem de hoc mundo transtulit c. Enoch that righteous man being neither Circumcised nor a Sabbath-keeper was by the Lord translated and saw not death to be an Item or instruction unto us that we without the burden of the Law of Moses shall be found acceptable unto God He sets him also in his challenge as one whom never any of the Jews could prove Sabbati cultorem esse to have been a keeper of the Sabbath De Demonstr l. 4. c. 6. Eusebius too who makes the Sabbath one of Moses's institutions hath said of Enoch that he was neither circumcised nor medled with the Law of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and that he lived more like a Christian than a Jew the same Eusebius in his seventh de praeparatione and Epiphanius in the place before remembred affirm the same of him as they do of Adam Abel Seth and Enos and what this Epiphanius saith of him Scal. de Emend Temp. l. 7. that he affirms also of his son Methusalem Therefore nor Enoch nor Methusalem ever kept the Sabbath It 's true the Aethiopians in their Kalendar have a certain period which they call Sabbatum Enoch Enoch's Sabbath But this consisteth of seven hundred years and hath that name either because Enoch was born in the seventh Century from the Creation viz. in the year six hundred twenty two or because he was the seventh from Adam It 's true that many of the Jews Beda in Ger. 4. and some Christians too have made this Enoch an Emblem of the heavenly and eternal Sabbath which shall never end because he was the seventh from Adam and did never taste of death as did the six that went before him But this is no Argument I trow that Enoch ever kept the Sabbath whiles he was alive Note that this Enoch was translated about the year nine hundred eighty seven and that Methusalem died but one year only before the Flood which was 1655. And so far we are safely come without any rub To come unto the Flood it self to Noah who both saw it and escaped it it is affirmed by some that he kept the Sabbath and that both in the Ark and when he was released out of it if not before Yea they have arguments also for the proof hereof but very weak ones such as they dare not trust themselves It is delivered in the eighth of the Book of Genesis that after the return of the Dove into the Ark Noah stayed yet other seven days before he sent
was a burden to him not what he carried upon both as Origen informs us of them So where they found it in the Law that thou shalt do no manner of work they would have no work done at all no though it were to save ones life neither to heal the wounded or to cure the sick both which they did object against Christ our Saviour nor finally to take sword in hand for the defence either of mens persons or their Countrey And though their rigour herein had been over-ruled by Mattathias and that it was concluded lawful to fight against their Enemies on the Sabbath day yet they found out a way to elude this order teaching the people this that they might fight that day against their Enemies if they were assaulted but not molest them in their preparations for assault and battery This is now made the meaning of the former Law and this cost them dear As good no Law at all as so bad a Comment For when that Pompey warred against them and besieged their Temple he quickly found on what foot they halted and did accordingly make use of the occasions which they gave unto him Had not the Ordinance of the Countrey as Josephus tells it commanded us to keep the Sabbath and do no labour on that day Antiq. Jud. l. 14. c. 8. the Romans never had been able to have raised their Bulwarks How so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because the Law permits us to defend our selves in case at any time we are assailed and urged to fight but not to set upon them or disturb them when they have other work in hand Which when the Romans found saith he they neither gave assault or profer'd any skirmish on the Sabbath days but built their Towers and Bulwarks and planted Engines thereupon and the next day put them in use against the Jews It seems they were not well resolved on the former point whether they might defend themselves on the Sabbath day Hist l. 5 ◠though they were assaulted For on that day it was that Pompey took the City and enslaved the people So Dio tells us touching the use the Romans made of that advantage adds for the close of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that at the last they were surprised upon the Saturday not doing any thing in their own defence Strabo therein concurs with Dio in making Saturday the day Geogr. l. 16. but takes it for a solemn Fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein it is not lawful to do any work And so it was a Fast indeed but such a Fast as fell that time upon the Sabbath Josephus tells us only that the Temple was taken in the third month on a fasting day which Casaubon conceives to be the seventh Exerc. 16.108 and Scaliger the seventeenth of the month called Tamuz but both agree upon it that it was the Sabbath Em. Temp. edit 2. l. 3. As for their fasting on that day it was permitted in this case and in this case only when as their City was besieged as before we shewed Yet could not this unfortunate rigour be any warning to the Jews but needs they must offend again in the self-same kind For just upon the same day seven and twenty years the City was again brought under by Sosius and Herod who had then besieged it in the same month L. 14 c. 24. l. 49. and on the same day as Josephus tells it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and on the day called Saturday as Dion hath it So fatal was it to the Jews to perish in the folly of their superstitions The first of these two actions is placed in Anno 3991. therefore the last being just 27 years after must be 4018 of the Worlds Creation Augustus Caesar being then in the Triumvirate By means of these two Victories the Jews being tributary to the Romans began to find admittance into their Dominions in many places of the which they began to plant and filled at last whole Townships with their numberous Families Scarce any City of good note in Syria and the lesser Asia wherein the Jews were not considerable for their members and in the which they had not Synagogues for their Devotions So that the manner of their lives and forms of their Religion being once observed the Roman people many of them became affected to the rites of the Jewish worship and amongst other Ceremonies to the Sabbath also It was the custom of the Romans to incorporate all Religions into their own and worship those Gods whom before they conquered Et quos post cladem triumphatos colere coeperunt in Minutius words Therefore the marvail is the less that they were fond of something in the Jews Religion though of all others they most hated that as most repugnant to their own Yet many of them out of wantonness and a love to Novelties began to stand upon the Sabbath some would be also circumcised and abstain from Swines flesh Javenal Sat. 14. others use Candlesticks and Tapers as they saw the Jews The Satyrist thus scoffs them for it Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem Nil praeter nubes coeli numen adorant Nec distare putant humana carne suillam Qua pater abstinuit mox praeputia ponunt Some following him the Sabbaths who devised Only the Clouds and Sky for Gods adore Hating Swines flesh as they did mans before Cause he forbare it and are circumcised Remember Persius taunteth them with their Sabbata recutita as before we noted Now as the Poet did upbraid them with Circumcision and forbearing Swines flesh so Seneca derides them for the Sabbaths Epist 95. and their burning Tapers on the same as a thing unnecessary neither the Gods being destitute of light nor mortal men in love with smoak Accendere aliquam lucernam sabbatis praecipiamus quoniam nec lumine dii egent ne homines quidem delectantur fuligine Nay some of them bewail the same and wish their Empire never had extended so far as Jewry that so the Romans might not have been acquainted with these superstitions of their Sabbaths O utinam nunquam Judaea subacta fuisset Pompeii bellis Rubilius Imperioque Titi. Latius excisae gentis contagia serpunt Victoresque suos natio victa premit O would Judaea never had been won By Pompeys Armies or Vespasians Son Their superstition spreads it self so far That they give Laws unto the Conquerour Nor were the Sabbaths entertained only in Rome it self Some in almost all places of their Empire were that way enclined as Seneca most rightly noted Eo usque sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo invaluit ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit victi victoribus leges dederunt Cap. 11. De mund opis Saint Augustine so reports him in his sixth Book de civitate And this is that which Philo means when as he calls the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the general Festival of all people when he sets up this
on another Sabbath that in the Synagogue he beheld a man with a withered hand and called him forth and made him come into the midst and stretch out his hand and then restored it Hereupon Athanasius notes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ reserved his greatest miracles for the Sabbath day and that he bade the man stand forth in defiance as it were of all their malice and informing humour His healing of the Woman which had been crooked 18. years and of the man that had the Dropsie one in the Synagogue the other in the house of a principal Pharisee Joh. 9. are proof sufficient that he feared not their accufations But that great cure he wrought on him that was born blind is most remarkable to this purpose First in relation to our Saviour who had before healed others with his Word alone but here he spit upon the ground and made clay thereof and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay L. 1. Haeres 30. n. 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to mould clay and make a Plaister was questionless a work so saith Epiphanius Next in relation to the Patient whom he commanded to go into the Pool of Siloam and then wash himself which certainly could not be done without bodily labour These words and actions of our Saviour at before we said gave the first hint to his Disciples for the abolishing of the Sabbath amongst other Ceremonies which were to have an end with our Saviours sufferings to be nailed with him to his Cross and buried with him in his Grave for ever Now where it was objected in S. Austins time why Christians did not keep the Sabbath since Christ affirms it of himself that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it Cont. Faust l. 19. c. 9. the Father thereto makes reply that therefore they observed it not Quia quod ea figura profitebatur jam Christus implevit because our Saviour had fulfilled whatever was intended in that Law by calling us to a spiritual rest in his own great mercy For as it is most truly said by Epiphanius Lib. 1 haer 30. n. 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He was the great and everlasting Sabbath whereof the less and temporal Sabbath was a type and figure which had continued till his coming by him commanded in the Law in him destroyed and yet by him fulfilled in the holy Gospel So Epiphanius Neither did he or his Disciples ordain another Sabbath in the place of this as if they had intended only to shift the day and to transfer this honour to some other time Their doctrine and their practice are directly contrary to so new a fancy It 's true that in some tract of time the Church in honour of his Resurrection did set apart that day on the which he rose to holy exercises but this upon their own authority and without warrant from above that we can hear of more than the general warrant which God gave his Church that all things in it be done decently and in comely order This is that which is told us by Athanasius Hom. de Semente 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we honour the Lords day for the Resurrection So Maximus Taurinensis Dominicum diem ideo solennem esse Hom. 3. de Pentecost quia in eo salvatur velut sol oriens discussis infernorum tenebris luce resurrectionis emicuerit That the Lords day is therefore solemnly observed because thereon our Saviour like the rising Sun dispelled the clouds of hellish darkness by the light of his most glorious Resurrection The like S. Austin Dies Dominicus Christianis resurrectione Domini declaratus est â—p 119. ex illo cepit habere fostivitatem suam The Lords day was made known saith he unto us Christians by the Resurrection and from that began to be accounted holy See the like lib. 22. de Civit. Dei c. 30. serm 15. de Verbis Apostoli But then it is withal to be observed that this was only done on the authority of the Church and not by any precept of our Lord and Saviour or any one of his Apostles And first besides that there is no such precept extant at all in holy Scripture Socrates hath affirmed it in the general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Li. 5. c. 22. c. that the designs of the Apostles were not to busie themselves in prescribing Festival days but to instruct the People in the ways of godliness Now lest it should be said that Socrates being a Novatian was a profest Enemy to all the orders of the Church we have the same almost verbatim in Nicephorus li. 12. cap. 32. of his Ecclesiastical History De Sabb. Circumcis S. Athanasius saith as much for the particular of the Lords day that it was taken up by a voluntary usage in the Church of God without any commandment from above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As saith the Father it was commanded at the first that the Sabbath day should be observed in memory of the accomplishment of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so do we celebrate the Lords day as a memorial of the beginning of a new Creation Where note the difference here delivered by that Reverend Prelate Of the Jews Sabbath it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was commanded to be kept but of the Lords day there is no Commandment only a positive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an honour voluntarily afforded it by consent of men Therefore whereas we find it in the Homily entituled De Semente 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ transferred the Sabbath to the Lords day this must be understood not as if done by his commandment but on his occasion the Resurrection of our Lord upon that day being the principal motive which did induce his Church to make choice thereof for the assemblies of the People For otherwise it would plainly cross what formerly had been said by Athanasius in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not him only but the whole cloud of Witnesses all the Catholick Fathers in whom there is not any word which reflects that way but much in affirmation of the contrary For besides what is said before and elsewhere shall be said in its proper place The Council held at Paris An. 829. ascribes the keeping of the Lords Day at most to Apostolical tradition confirmed by the authority of the Church For so the Council Cap. 50. Christianorum religiosae devotionis quae ut creditur Apostolorum traditione immo Ecclesiae autoritate descendit mos inolevit ut Dominicum diem ob Dominicae resurrectionis memoriam honorabiliter colat And last of all Tostatus puts this difference between the Festivals that were to be observed in the Jewish Church in novo nulla festivitas à Christo legislatore determinata est sed in Ecclesia Praelati ista statuunt but in the new there were no Festivals at all prescribed by Christ as
those of Corinth in that they joyn'd not with the Assembly but had their Psalms unto themselves Whereby it seems that they had left the true use of Psalms which being so many acclamations exultations and holy provocations to give God the glory were to be sung together by the whole Assembly their singing at that time being little more than a melodious kind of pronuntiation such as is commonly now used in singing of the ordinary Psalms and Prayers in Cathedral Churches And so it stood till in the entrance of this Age Ignatius Bishop of Antiochia one who was conversant with the Apostles brought in the use of singing alternatim course by course according as it still continues in our publick Quires where one side answers to another some shew whereof is left in Parochial Churches in which the Minister and the People answer one another in their several turns Hist li. 6. c. 8. To him doth Socrates refer it and withal affirms that he first learnt it of the Angels whom in a vision he had heard to sing the praise of God after such a manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author hath it Hist l. 2. c. 24. And where Theodoret doth refer it to Flavianus and Diodorus Priests of Antiochia during the busilings of the Arian Hereticks In Damaso and Platina unto Damasus Pope of Rome Theodoret is to be interpreted of the restitution of this custom having been left off and Platina of the bringing of it into the Western Churches For that it was in use in Ignatius time who suffered in the time of Trajan and therefore probably begun by him as is said by Socrates is evident by that which Pliny signified to the self same Trajan where he informs him of the Christians Quod soliti essent stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo tanquam Deo dicere secum invicem c. Their greatest crime said he was this that at a certain day but what that day was that he tells not they did meet together before day-light and there sing hymns to Christ as unto a God one with another in their courses and after bind themselves together by a common Sacrament not unto any wicked or unjust attempt but to live orderly without committing Robbery Theft Adultery or the like offences Now for the day there meant by Pliny it must be Saturday or Sunday if it were not both both of them being in those times and in those parts where Pliny lived in especial honour as may be gathered from Ignatius who at that time flourished For demonstration of the which we must first take notice how that the world as then was very full of dangerous fancies and heretical dotages whereby the Church was much disquieted and Gods worship hindred The Ebionites they stood hard for the Jewish Sabbath and would by all means have it celebrated as it had been formerly observing yet the Lords day as the Christians did in honour of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eusebius tells Hist l. 3. c.x. 3. The like saith Epiphanius of them l. 1. Haeres 30. n. 2. And on the other side there was a sort of Hereticks in the Eastern parts whereof see Irenaeus li. 1. ca. 20.21 22 23 24 25. who thought that this world being corruptible could not be made but by a very evil Author Therefore as the Jews did by the festival solemnity of their Sabbath rejoyce in God that created the world as in the Author of all goodness so they in hatred of the maker of the world sorrowed and wept and fasted on that day as being the birth-day of all evil And whereas Christian men of sound belief did solemnize the Sunday in a joyful memory of Christs Resurrection So likewise at that self same time such Hereticks as denied the Resurrection did contrary to them that held it and fasted when the rest rejoyced For the expressing of which two last Heresies Ignat. it was that he affirmed with such zeal and earnestness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any one did fast either upon the Lords day or the Sabbath except one Sabbath in the year which was Easter Eve he was a murderer of Christ So he in his Epistle ad Philippenses Cax 65. The Canons attributed to the Apostles take notice of the misdemeanor though they condemn it not with so high a censure it being in them only ordered that if a Clergy-man offended in that kind he should be degraded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if any of the Laity they should be excommunicated Which makes me marvel by the way that those which take such pains to justifie Ignatius as Baronius doth in Ann. 57. of his grand Annales should yet condemn this Canon of imposture which is not so severe as Ignatius is only because it speaks against the Saturdays fast Whereof consult the Annales Ann. 102. Now as Ignatius labours here to advance the Sabbath in opposition of those Hereticks before remembred making it equally a festival with the Lords day so being to deal with those which too much magnified the Sabbath and thought the Christians bound unto it as the Jews had been he bends himself another way and resolves it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us not keep the Sabbath in a Jewish manner in sloth and idleness for it is written that he that will not labour shall not eat and in the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread But let us keep it after a spiritual fashion not in bodily ease but in the study of the Law not eating meat drest yesterday or drinking luke-warm drinks or walking out a limited space or setling our delights as they did on dancing but in the contemplation of the works of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And after we have so kept the Sabbath let every one that loveth Christ keep the Lords day Festival the Resurrection day the Queen and Empress of all days in which our life was raised again and death was overcome by our Lord and Saviour So that we see that he would have both days observed the Sabbath first though not as would the Ebionites in a Jewish sort and after that the Lords day which he so much magnifieth the better to abate that high esteem which some had cast upon the Sabbath Agreeable unto this we find that in the Constitutions of the Apostles for by that name they pass though not made by them both days are ordered to be kept Holy one in memorial of the Creation the other of the Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See the like l. 8. c. 33. Of which more hereafter And so it was observed in the Eastern parts where those of the dispension had took up their seats and having long time had their meetings on the Sabbath day could not so easily be persuaded from it But in the Western Churches in the which the Jews were not so considerable and where those
Musick used in the Congregation it grew more exquisite in these times than it had been formerly that which before was only a melodious kind of pronunciation being now ordered into a more exact and artificial Harmony This change was principally occasioned by a Canon of the Council of Laodicea in the first entrance of this Age. For where before it was permitted unto all promiscuously to sing in the Church it was observed that in such dissonancy of Voices and most of them unskilful in the notes of Musick there was no small jarring and unpleasant sounds This Council thereupon ordained Conc. Laodic Can. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that none should sing hereafter in the Congregation but such as were Canonically appointed to it and skilful in it By means whereof before the shutting up of this fourth Century the Musick of the Church became very perfect and harmonious suavi artificiosa voce cantata Confess l. 10. cap. 33. as St. Austin tells us So perfect and harmonious that it did work exceedingly on the affections of the Hearers and did movere animos ardentius in flammam pietatis inflame their minds with a more lively flame of Piety taking them Prisoners by the ears and so conducting them unto the glories of Gods Kingdom Ibid. Saint Austin attributes a great cause of Conversion to the power thereof calling to mind those frequent tears quas fudi ad cantus Ecclesiae tuae which had been drawn from him by this sacred Musick by which his soul was humbled and his affections raised to an height of godliness The like he also tells us in his ninth Book of Confessions and sixth Chapter Nor doubt we but it did produce the same effect on divers others who coming to the Churches as he then did to be partakers of the Musick return'd prepared in mind and well disposed in their intentions to be converted unto God Now that the Church might be frequented at the times appointed and so all secret Conventicles stopped in these divided times wherein so many Heresies did domineer and that the itching ears of men might not persuade them to such Churches where God had not placed them so to discourage their own proper Minister it pleased the Fathers in the Council of Saragossa Anno 368. â—an 2. or thereabouts to decree it thus First Ne latibulis cubiculorum montium habitent qui in suspicionibus perseverent that none who were suspected of Priscillianism which was the humour that then reigned should lurk in secret corners either in Houses or in Hills but follow the example and direction of the Priests of God And secondly ad alienas villas agendorum conventuum causa non conveniant that none should go to other places under pretence of joyning there to the Assembly but keep themselves unto their own Which prudent Constitutions upon the self-same pious grounds are still preserved amongst us in the Church of England Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lords day stands on custom first and voluntary consecration of it to religious Meetings that custom countenanced by the Authority of the Church of God which tacitely approved the same and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian Princes throughout their Empires And as the day so rest from Labours and restraint from Business upon that day received its greatest strength from the supream Magistrate as long as he reteined that Power which to him belonged as after from the Canons and decrees of Councils the Decretals of Popes and Orders of particular Prelates when the sole managing of Ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath which neither took original from custom that people being not so forward to give God a day nor required any countenance or authority from the Kings of Israel to confirm and ratifie it The Lord had spoken the word that he would have one day in seven precisely the seventh day from the Worlds Creation to be a day of rest unto all his people which said there was no more to do but gladly to submit and obey his pleasure nec quicquam reliquum erat praeter obsequii gloriam in the greatest Prince And this done all at once not by degrees by little and little as he could see the people affected to it or as he found it fittest for them like a probation Law made to continue till the next Session and then on further liking to hold good for ever but by a plain and peremptory Order that it should be so without further trial But thus it was not done in our present Business The Lords day had no such command that it should be sanctified but was left plainly to Gods people to pitch on this or any other for the publick use And being taken up amongst them and made a day of meeting in the Congregation for religious Exercises yet for 300 years there was neither Law to bind them to it nor any rest from labour or from worldly businesses required upon it And when it seemed good unto Christian Princes the nursing Fathers of Gods Church to lay restraints upon their people yet at the first they were not general but only thus that certain men in cetrain places should lay aside their ordinary and daily works to attend Gods service in the Church those whose employments were most toilsome and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sabbath being allowed to follow and pursue their labours because most necessary to the Common-wealth And in following times when as the Prince and Prelate in their several places indeavoured to restrain them from that also which formerly they had permitted and interdicted almost all kind of bodily labour upon that day it was not brought about without much strugling and on opposition of the People more than a thousand years being past after Christs Ascension before the Lords day had attained that state in which now it standeth as will appear at full in the following story And being brought unto that state wherein now it stands it doth not stand so firmly and on such sure grounds but that those powers which raised it up may take it lower if they please yea take it quite away as unto the time and settle it on any other day as to them seems best which is the doctrine of some School-men and divers Protestant Writers of great name and credit in the world A power which no man will presume to say was ever challenged by the Jews over the Sabbath Besides all things are plainly contrary in these two days as to the purpose and intent of the Institution For in the Sabbath that which was principally aimed at was rest from labour that neither they nor any that belonged unto them should do any manner of work upon that day but sit still and rest themselves Their meditating on Gods Word or on his goodness manifested in the worlds Creation was to that an accessory and as for reading of
had trespassed therein against the Sabbath he gathered the small chips together put them upon his hand and set fire unto them Vt in se ulcisceretur Matropol l. 4. t. 8. quod contra divinum praeceptum incautus admisisset that so saith Crantzius he might avenge that on himself which unawares he had committed against Gods Commandment Crantzius it seems did well enough approve the solly for in the entrance on this story he reckoneth this inter alia virtutum suarum praeconia amongst the monuments of his piety and sets it up as an especial instance of that Princes sanctity Lastly whereas the modern Jews are of opinion that all the while their Sabbath lasts the souls in Hell have liberty to range abroad and are released of all their torments Pâ—i ad Domivicum c. 5. So lest in any superstitious fancy they should have preheminence it was delivered of the souls in Purgatory by Petrus Damiani who lived in Anno 1056. Dominico die refrigerium poenarum habuisse that every Lords day they were manumitted from their pains and fluttered up and down the lake Avernus in the shape of Birds Indeed the marvel is the less that these and such like Jewish fancies should in those times begin to shew themselves in the Christian Church considering that now some had begun to think that the Lords day was founded on the fourth Commandment and all observances of the same grounded upon the Law of God As long as it was taken only for an Ecclesiastical Institution and had no other ground upon which to stand than the Authority of the Church we find not any of these rigours annexed unto it But being once conceived to have its warrant from the Scripture the Scripture presently was ransacked and whatsoever did concern the old Jewish Sabbath was applied thereto It had been ordered formerly that men should be restrained on the Lords day from some kind of labours that so they might assemble in the greater number the Princes and the Prelates both conceiving it convenient that it should be so But in these Ages there were Texts produced to make it necessary Thus Clotaire King of France grounded his Edict of restraint from servile labours on this day from the holy Scripture quia hoc lex prohibet sacra Scriptura in omnibus contradicit because the Law forbids it and the holy Scripture contradicts it And Charles the Great builds also on the self same ground Statuimus secundum quod in lege dominus praecepit c. We do ordain according as the Lord commands us that on the Lords day none presume to do any servile business Thus finally the Emperour Leo Philosophus in a constitution to that purpose of which more hereafter declares that he did so determine secundum quod Sp. Sancto ab ipsoque institutis Apostolis placuit according to the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles by him tutored So also when the Fathers of the Church had thought it requisite that men should cease from labour on the Saturday in the afternoon that they might be the better fitted for their devotions the next day some would not rest till they had found a Scripture for it Observemus diem dominicum fratres sicut antiquis praeceptum est de Sabbato c. Let us observe the Lords day as it is commanded from even to even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath The 251. Sermon inscribed de tempore hath resolved it so And lastly that we go no further the superstitious act of the good King Olaus burning his hand as formerly was related was then conceived to be a very just revenge upon himself because he had offended although unaware contra divinum praeceptum against Gods Commandment Nor were these rigorous fancies left to the naked world but they had miracles to confirm them It is reported by Vincentius and Antoninus that Anstregisilus one that had probably preached such doctrine restored a Miller by his power whose hand had cleaved unto his Hatchet as he was mending of his Mill on the Lords day for now you must take notice that in the times in which they lived grinding had been prohibited on the Lords day by the Canon Laws As also how Sulpitius had caused a poor mans hand to wither only for cleaving wood on the Lords day no great crime assuredly save that some parallel must be found for him that gathered sticks on the former Sabbath and after on his special goodness made him whole again Of these the first was made Arch-Bishop of Burges Anno. 627. Sulpitius being Successor unto him in his See and as it seems too in his power of working miracles Such miracles as these they who list to credit shall find another of them in Gregorius Turonensis Miracul l. 1. c. 6. And some we shall hereafter meet with when we come to England forged purposely as no doubt these were to countenance some new device about the keeping of this day there being no new Gospel Preached but must have miracles to attend it for the greater state But howsoever it come to pass that those four Princes especially Leo who was himself a Scholar and Charles the Great who had as learned men about him as the times then bred were thus persuaded of this day that all restraints from work and labour on the same were to be found expressly in the Word of God yet was the Church and the most Learned men therein of another mind Nor is it utterly impossible but that those Princes might make use of some pretence or ground of Scripture the better to incline the People to yield obedience unto those restraints which were laid upon them First for the Church and men of special eminence in the same for place and learning there is no question to be made but they were otherwise persuaded Isidore Arch-Bishop of Sevil who goes highest De Eccles Offic. l. 1.29 makes it an Apostolical Sanction only on divine commandment a day designed by the Apostles for religious exercises in honour of our Saviours Resurrection on that day performed Diem dominicum Apostolì ideo religiosa solennitate sanxerunt quia in eo redemptor noster à mortuis resurrexit And adds that it was therefore called the Lords day to this end and purpose that resting in the same from all earthly acts and the temptations of the world we might intend Gods holy worship giving this day due honor for the hope of the resurrection which we have therein The same verbatim is repeated by Beda lib. de Offic. and by Rabanus Maurus lib. de institut Cleric l. 2. c. 24. and finally by Alcuinus de divin Offic. cap. 24. which plainly shews that all those took it only from an Apostolical usage an observation that grew up by custom rather than upon commandment Sure I am that Alcuinus one of principal credit with Charles the Great who lived about the end of the eighth Century as did this Isidore in the beginning of the seventh saith
the custom of the Alexandrian and Western Churches Page 292 5. Origen ordained Presbyter by the Bishops of Hierusalem and Caesarea and excommunicated by the Bishop of Alexandria Page 293 6. What doth occur touching the superiority and power of Bishops in the Works of Origen ibid. 7. The custom of the Church of Alexandria altered in the election of their Bishops Page 294 8. Of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria and his great care and travels for the Churches peac Page 295 9. The Government of the Church in the former times by Letters of intercourse and correspondence amongst the Bishops of the same ibid. 10. The same continued also in the present Century Page 296 11. The speedy course taken by the Prelats of the Church for the suppressing of the Heresies of Samosatenus Page 297 12. The Civil Jurisdiction Train and Throne of Bishops things not unusual in this Age Page 298 13. The Bishops of Italy and Rome made Judges in a point of title and possession by the Roman Emperour Page 299 14. The Bishops of Italy and Rome why reckoned as distinct in that Delegation Page 300 CHAP. VI. Of the estate wherein Episcopacy stood in the Western Churches during the whole third Century 1. Of Zepherinus Pope of Rome and the Decrees ascribed unto him concerning Bishops Page 301 2. Of the condition of that Church when Cornelius was chosen Bishop thereof Page 302 3. The Schism raised in Rome by Novatianus with the proceedings of the Church therein Page 303 4. Considerable observations on the former story Page 304 5. Parishes set forth in Country Villages by P. Dionysius ibid. 6. What the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do signifie most properly in ancient Writers Page 305 7. The great Authority which did accrue unto the Presbyters by the setting forth of Parishes Page 306 8. The rite of Confirmation reserved by Bishops to themselves as their own Prerogative Page 307 9. Touching the ancient Chorepiscopi and the Authority to them entrusted Page 308 10. The rising of the Manichean Heresie with the great care taken by the Bishops for the crushing of it Page 309 11. The lapse of Marcellinus Pope of Rome with the proceedings the Church in his condemnation Page 310 12. The Council of Eliberis in Spain what it decreed in honour of Episcopacy Page 311 13. Constantine comes unto the Empire with a brief prospect of the great honours done to Bishops in the following Age Page 312 14. A brief Chronology of the estate of holy Church in these two last Centuries Page 314 The History of the Sabbath BOOK I. From the Creation of the World to the destruction of the Temple CHAP. I. That the Sabbath was not instituted in the Beginning of the World 1. THE entrance to the Work in hand Page 325 2. That those words Gen. 2. And God blessed the seventh day c. are there delivered as by way of anticipation Page 326 3. Anticipations in the Scripture confessed by them who deny it here Page 327 4. Anticipations of the same nature not strange in Scripture Page 328 5. No Law imposed by God on Adam touching the keeping of the Sabbath Page 329 6. The Sabbath not ingraft by Nature in the soul of man ibid. 7. The greatest Advocates for the Sabbath deny it to be any part of the Law of Nature Page 330 8. Of the morality and perfection supposed to be in the number of seven by some learned men Page 331 9. That other numbers in the confession of the same learned men particularly the first third and fourth are both as moral and as perfect as the seventh ibid. 10. The like is proved of the sixth eighth and tenth and of other numbers Page 332 11. The Scripture not more favourable to the number of seven than it is to others Page 333 12. Great caution to be used by those who love to recreate themselves in the mysteries of numbers Page 334 CHAP. II. That there was no Sabbath kept from the Creation to the Flood 1. Gods rest upon the Seventh day and from what he rested Page 335 2. Zanchius conceit touching the Sanctifying of the first Seventh day by Christ our Saviour Page 336 3. The like of Torniellus touching the Sanctifying of the same by the Angels in Heaven ibid. 4. A general demonstration that the Fathers before the Law did not keep the Sabbath Page 337 5. Of Adam that he kept not the Sabbath ibid. 6. That Abel and Seth did not keep the Sabbath Page 333 7. Of Enos that he kept not the Sabbath Page 339 8. That Enoch and Methusalem did not keep the Sabbath ibid. 9. Of Noah that he kept not the Sabbath Page 340 10. The Sacrifices and devotions of the Ancients were occasional ibid. CHAP. III. That the Sabbath was not kept from the Flood to Moses 1. The Sons of Noah did not keep the Sabbath Page 341 2. The Sabbath could not have been kept in the dispersion of Noahs Sons had it not been commanded Page 342 3. Diversity of Longitudes and Latitudes must of necessity make a variation in the Sabbath Page 343 4. Melchisedech Heber Lot did not keep the Sabbath Page 344 5. Of Abraham and his Sons that they kept not the Sabbath ibid. 6. That Abraham did not keep the Sabbath in the confession of the Jews Page 345 7. Jacob nor Job no Sabbath-keepers ibid. 8. That neither Joseph Moses nor the Israelites in Egypt did observe the Sabbath Page 346 9. The Israelites not permitted to offer Sacrifice while they were in Egypt ibid. 10. Particular proofs that all the Moral Law was both known and kept amongst the Fathers Page 347 CHAP. IV. The nature of the fourth Commandment and that the Sabbath was not kept among the Gentiles 1. The Sabbath first made known in the fall of Mannah Page 348 2. The giving of the Decalogue and how far it bindeth Page 349 3. That in the judgment of the Fathers in the Christian Church the fourth Commandment is of a different nature from the other nine Page 350 4. The Sabbath was first given for a Law by Moses Page 351 5. And being given was proper only to the Jews Page 352 6. What moved the Lord to give the Israelites a Sabbath ibid. 7. Why the seventh day was rather chosen for the Sabbath than any other Page 353 8. The seventh day not more honoured by the Gentiles than the eighth or ninth Page 354 9. The Attributes given by some Greek Poets to the seventh day no argument that they kept the the Sabbath Page 355 10. The Jews derided for their Sabbath by the Grecians Romans and Egyptians Page 356 11. The division of the year into weeks not generally used of old amongst the Gentiles Page 357 CHAP. V. The practice of the Jews in such observances as were annexed unto the Sabbath 1. Of some particular adjuncts affixed unto the Jewish Sabbath Page 358 2. The Annual Festivals called Sabbaths in the Book of God and reckoned as a
that why should you think of any thing but despising this as Tully did unto Mark Antony Catilinae gladios contempsi non timebo tuos Why may you not conclude with David in the like sense and apprehensions of Gods preservation that he who saved him from the Bear and Lion would also save him from the sword of that railing Philistine and you may see that the Divine Providence is still awake over that poor remnant of the Regular and Orthodox Clergy which have not yet bowed their knees to the golden Calves of late erected by putting so unexpectedly a hook into the Nostrils of those Leviathans which threatned with an open mouth to devour them all I will not say as Clemens of Alexandria did in a case much like that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to indulge too much to apprehensions of this nature in matters which relate to Gods publick service All I shall add is briefly this that having presented you with these Considerations I shall with greediness expect the sounding of the Bell to morrow morning and in the mean time make my Prayers to Almighty God so to direct you in this business as may be most for his glory your own particular comfort and the good of this people with which expressions of my Soul I subscribe my self Your most affectionate Friend and Brother in Christ Jesus PETER HEYLYN After this good Letter Mr. Huish went on in his prayers as formerly and this little Church withstood all the batteries and fierce assaults of its Enemies who were never able to demolish it or unite it to Saint Ellens So well had the Doctor managed the business for the publick good and benefit of the Parish for as to his own particular he might have spared that pains and charge having in his house an Oratory or little Chappel which he built after his coming thither where he had constant Prayers and Sacraments for his own Family and some particular Neighbors who had a desire to hear the Service and receive the Sacrament according to the Church of England He was a strict keeper of Lent save only Sundays and an exact observer of the Holy-days And as he was a strict observer of all the Rites and Orders of our Church so he was a perfect abhorrer of Popery and Romish superstitions in so much that he would not hold a correspondency with a Papist or with one so reputed as I can instance an example of one Mr. Hood whose Family and the Doctors were very kind when he lived at Minster being near Neighbors the Gentleman afterward turning Papist and coming to Abingdon to give him a Visit the Doctor sent his man Mr. Gervis to him to bid him be gone and shut the doors against him saying that he heard he was turn'd Papist for which he hated the sight of him and so my Gentleman went away never daring to give him another Visit In the Year 1658. he put forth Respondet Petrus or his Answer to Dr. Bernards Book entituled The Judgment of the late Primate of Ireland c. at the same time Dr. Bernard who was before an Irish Dean but was now Chaplain to Oliver one of his Almoners and Preacher in Grayes Inn would have procured an Order from Olivers Privy Council not only for suppressing but the burning of that Book which caused a common report that Dr. Heylyns Book was publickly burnt but it was a mistake for the Book never saw either the Fire or any Answer At the same time the Doctor printed an Appendix to Respondet Petrus in answer to certain passages in Mr. Sandersons History of the Life and Reign of King Charles in which he layeth a scandal upon the Doctor that he was an Agent for the See of Rome The Doctor indeed in all his Writings did ever assert the Kings Prerogative and the Churches Rights for which he incurr'd the Odium of the opposire Party with whom 't is ordinary to brand such persons with the ignominious name of Papists or being Popishly affected as abhor the other extreme of Puritanism in which kind of Calumnies the Doctor hath sufficiently had his share though no man hath written more sharply against the Church of Rome as appears from most of his Books and particularly in his Theologia Veterum and his Sermons upon the Tares but though these have not been able to secure him from the malicious Tongues and Pens of ill men yet his innocence hath found very worthy Advocates Among whom I thank particularly the Reverend and Learned Dr. Stillingfleet in his Answer to T.G. who would have made use of the Puritans accusation for the Papists purpose but the worthy Doctor quickly refuted him out of the fourth Sermon of Doctor Heylyn upon the Tares where he lays at the door of the Papists the most gross Idolatry greater than which was never known among the Gentiles But against these things 't is commonly said and as commonly believed that some persons and those of most illustrious quality have been perverted from the Protestant Faith to Popery by reading some of the Doctors Books and particularly that which he writ about the History of the Reformation called Ecclesia Restaurata And Mr. Burnet in his late History upon the same subject has done all he can to confirm the world in that belief For after a short commendation of Dr. Heylyns style and method it being usual with some men slightly to praise those at first whom they design to sting and lash afterward he presumes to tell his Reader that either the Doctor was ill inform'd or very much led by his passions and he being wrought on by most violent prejudices against some that were concerned in that time delivers many things in such a manner and so strangely that one would think that he had been secretly set on to it by those of the Church of Rome though I donbt not but he was a sincere Protestant but violently carried away by some particular conceits In one thing he is not to be excused that he never vouched any Authority for what he writ which is not to be forgiven any who write of Transactions beyond their own time and deliver us things not known before This Objection having many particular Charges contained in it will require as many distinct Answers which I shall give in short And first if it be true that any have embraced the Roman Faith by means of that Book he may enclude them to be very incompetent Judges in the matters of Religion that will be prevailed upon to change it upon the perusal of one single History and especially in the Controversies between us and the Papists which do not depend upon matter of fact or an Historical Narration of what Occurrences happened in this Kingdom but upon doctrine of Faith what we are to believe and disbelieve in order to our serving God in this life and being Eternally blessed with him in the next Secondly As for his vouching no Authority for what he writ which is
not to be forgiven him I hope the Doctor has met with a more merciful Judge in another World than Mr. Burnet is in this If he had been a Factor for Papists Mr. Burnet should have presented one particular instance which he cannot do As we have said before in his Life he communicated that design of his History of Reformation to Arch-Bishop Laud from whom he received all imaginable encouragement by ancient Records that he perused And what benefit could any Reader receive to have quoted to him the pages of Manuscripts Acts of Parliament Records of old Charters Registers of Convocation Orders of the Council-Table or any of those out of the Cottonian Library which the Doctor made use of The Lord Bacon writ of Transactions beyond his own time living as far distant from the Reign of K. Hen. VII as Dr. Heylyn did from K. Hen. VIII who laid the first foundation of the Reformation yet I cannot find there more quotations of Authors than in Dr. Heylyns History yet I suppose Mr. Burnet will look upon the Lord Bacons History as compleat And if all this were made out 't is no more than what may be laid at the door of the Author who lately writ the History of Duke Hamilton Hist D. Ham. p. 29 30. where are reported the most abominable Scandals that were broach'd by the malicious Covenanters against the Scottish Hierarchy and they are permitted without the least contradiction or confutation to pass as infallible Truths that so Posterity as well as the present prejudiced Age might be levened with an implacable enmity and hatred against the whole Order of Episcopacy Although the Hamiltons were the old inveterate Enemies of the Stuarts and the Duke of whom the History is compiled was an Enemy as treacherous to K. Charles I. as any that ever appeared against him in open Arms. He was the cause of the first Tumult raised in Edenburgh He Authorised the Covenant with some few alterations in it and generally imposed it on that Kingdom He was the chief Person that prevailed with the King to continue the Parliament during the pleasure of the two Houses and boasted how he had got a perpetual Parliament for the English and would do the like for the Scots He aimed at nothing less than the Crown of Scotland and had so courted the common Soldiers that David Ramsey openly began a health to K. James VII yet all these things with many others are either quite smothered or so painted over by Mr. Burnet that the Volume he has writ may be called an Apology or a Panegyrick rather than a History Of all these matters the Doctor hath acquainted the world before in the Life of Archbishop Laud and the Observations that he wrote upon Mr. L'Estrange's History of King Charles I. I will be bold to aver if the Doctor had employed his great Learning and Abilities to have written but one half of those things against the King and Church of England which he wrote for them he would have been accounted by very many persons I will not say by Mr. Burnet the truest Protestant the most faithful Historian the greatest Scholar and in their own phrase the most pretious man that ever yet breathed in the Nation But he had the good luck to be a Scholar and better luck to employ his Learning like an honest man and a good Christian in the defence of a righteous and pious King of an Apostolical and true Church of a venerable and learned Clergy and that drew upon him all the odium and malice that two opposite Parties Papist and Sectary could heap upon him After the happy Restauration of the King it was high time for the good Doctor to rest a while from his Labours and bless himself with joy for the coming in of his Sovereign for now the Sun shone more gloriously in our Hemisphere than ever the Tyrannical powers being dissolved the King brought home to his people the Kingdom setled in peace the Church restored to its rights and the true Religion established every man returned to his own vine with joy who had been a good Subject and a sufferer and the Doctor came to his old habitation in Westminster of which and of his other Preferments he had been dispossest for the space of seventeen years and he no sooner got thither but according to his wonted custom he sets upon building and erected a new Room in his Prebends house to entertain his Friends in And seldom was he without Visitors especially the Clergy of the Convocation who constantly came to him for his Advice and Direction in matters relating to the Church because he had been himself an ancient Clerk in the old Convocations Many Persons of Quality besides the Clergy for the Reverence they had to his Learning and the delight they took in his company payed him several visits which he never repayed being still so devoted to his Studies that except going to Church it was a rare thing to find him from home I happen'd to be there when the good Bishop of Durham Dr. Cousins came to see him who after a great deal of familiar discourse between them said I wonder Brother Heylyn thou art not a Bishop but we all know thou hast deserved it To which he answered Much good may it do the new Bishops I do not envy them but wish they may do more than I have done Now what that great Man did so readily acknowledge to be the Doctors due was no more than what his true worth might justly challenge from all that were Friends to Learning and Virtue For his knowledge was extensive as the Earth and in his little world the great one was so fully comprehended that not an Island or Province nay scarce a Rock or Shelf could escape his strict survey and exact description Nor was he content with that degree of knowledge which did far exceed what any other durst hope or even wish for viz. A perfect familiarity with the present State of all the Countreys in the World but he was resolved to understand as well what they had always been as what they then were to be as throughly acquainted with their History as he was with their Situation and to leave nothing worth the knowing undiscovered So that what he has done in that kind looks liker the product of the most Learned and Antient Inhabitans of their respective Countreys than the issue of the industry of a Single Person Yet for all this his head was not so filled with the contemplations of this World as to leave no room for the great concerns of the other But on the contrary the main of his Study was Divinity the rest were but by the by and subservient to that For he having strictly viewed and examined all the various Religions and Governments upon Earth and coming to compare them with those under which himself lived did find the advantage both in respect of this life and another to lie so much on the side
having made confession of thehir faith according as we saw before from the Constitutions they were thrice dipped into the water in memory of our Saviours lying in the grace three days the formal words of Baptism being therewithal pronounced though not here expressed Which done the party is again anointed on the forehead nostrils Id. Catech. 3. ears and breasts upon the reasons there declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cloathed in white garments Id. Catech. 4. which concludes the action But here it is to be observed that this last anointing was in the way of confirmation it being the custom of those times in the baptizing of all such as were Adulti or of riper years to minister both Baptism and Confirmation at the same time as our incomparable Hooke rightly noteth And note withal that in the anointing of the forehead in his later Unction Hooker Eccles Politic. l. 5. § 66. Cyril Catech. mystagog 4. Tertull. de resurrect carnis the party baptized was signed with the sign of the Cross 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father there Which is no more than that so celebrated passage of Tertullian Caro signatur ut anims muniatur declares to be the antient and unquestionable practice of the Church of CHRIST Next for the celebration of the Eucharist he describes it thus Things being in readiness the Deacon bringeth water for the hands to the chief Minister Cyril Catechis mystagog 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the Priests that stand about the Altar and then saith aloud Complectimini osculemini vos invicem embrace and kiss ye one another which is done accordingly and this in token of that Vnion both of hearts and souls which is and ought to be between them Then saith the Priests Sursum corda or Lift up your hearts the people answer We lift them up unto the Lord The Priest again Let us give thanks unto the Lord the people say Dignum justum est or It is meet and right so to do And by this place I note this only by the way we make up the breach in S. James his Liturgy being the antient Liturgy of the Church of Hierusalem as before was said which breach we shewed and touched at obiter in the former Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Then saith he we make mention of Heaven Earth and Sea and all the Creatures reasonable and unreasonable and also of the Angels and Archangels and the Powers of Heaven praising God and saying Sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbati By which celestial Hymns we do not only sanctifie our selves but beseech our good and gracious God that he would send his holy Spirit on the gifts presented that is to say the Bread and Wine that so the Bread may be made the Body of Christ and the Wine his Blood Then do we call upon the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the general peace of all the Churches the tranquillity of all the World for Princes and their Armies for our Friends and Brethren for all that be in need sickness or any other adversity and in a word for every one that wanteth help from the hands of God The rest that followeth as a part of this general Prayer upon the alteration of the Form and Person viz. from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We call upon the Lord in the third person unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second person is most judiciously concluded by Dr. Rivet Rivet Critici sacri l. 3. c. 10. to be the fraud and forgery of some Impostor whose judgment in the same I heartily both applaud and follow But to proceed with that which is received for true and genuine and of unquestionble credit This general Prayer being thus concluded followe tht at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Cateches mystagog 5. which Christ our Saviour gave unto his Disciples the Lords Prayer he means and meaning so shews plainly that the Church conceived how the Lords Prayer was given to be said and used not to be imitated only Then saith the Priest thus Sancta Sanctis unto the holy all things are holy or holy things are for holy persons the people answering Unus sanctus unus Dominus JESUS CHRISTUS That is to say there is but one Holy one Lord JESVS CHRIST Then sangt the Priest the divine Hymns exhorting you to the communion of the holy Mysteries and saying Gustate videte quam fuavis est Dominus O taste and see how good the Lord is This said they came to the Communion not with their hands spread out nor disjoyned singers but with the left hand placed under the right receiving the Lord's body in the palms of their hands lest any of the consecrated Bread should fall to the ground and therewith viz. to the Priests prayer when he gave the same each one said AMEN After they had received the Communion of the Body of CHRIST they received the Cup also of his Blood where still we have the whole Communion sub utraque specie what ever new Doctrines have been coyned at Rome not stretching out the hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but falling down as when Men are in the Act of Worship or Adoration they said AMEN as formerly at the receiving of the Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Last of all tarrying for the parting or concluding Prayers they gave thanks to God who had vouchsafed to make them worthy of his holy Mysteries This was the course and these the footsteps of the Forms observed of old times in the Mother Church the holy City of Hierusalem And if we may conjecture ex pede Herculem what the dimensions were of the body of Hercules by the proportion of his foot we may be well conjecture by these evident footsteps what the whole bodies were of the antient Liturgies From Cyril on unto St. Basil another famous Bishop of the Eastern Churches Who having made some Rules for the better order of those who did intend to lead a Monastick life and being accused that in the singing of the Psalms and regulating the manner of that Melody he had somewhat innovated contrary to the received custom of the Church was forced to make his own Apology and send it to the Clergy of Neo-Caesarea * Basil Ep. 63. Thus then saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Rites saith he which we observe amongst us are such as are agreeable and consonant to all the Churches of God Our people rising in the night do before day repair unto the Chappel or house of Prayer and having made confession of their sins to God in sorrow tears and great compunction of the Soul they rise at last from Prayer and take themselves unto the Psalms Being divided into two parts they sing as it were in turns one second another or Quire-wise as is used in our Cathedrals so taking time to meditate on the words of God and therewithal making our hearts and minds more attent thereto Then
and Rulers of the Church and that the Apostles after his ascension did ordain the Deacons to be the Ministers of their Episcopal function and the necessities of the Church Saint Ambrose doth affirm the same Ambros in 1. ad Cor. c. 12. Caput it aque in Ecclesia Apostolos posuit c. Christ saith he made the Apostles the head or supreme Governours of his Church they being the Legats or Ambassadours of Christ according unto that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.20 And then he adds Ipsi sunt Episcopi that they were Bishops More plainly in his Comment on the Ephesians Apostoli Episcopi sunt Prophetae explanatores Scripturarum The Apostles saith he In Comment in Ephes 4. are Bishops and Prophets the Expositors of Scripture But because question hath been made whether indeed those Commentaries are the works of Ambrose or of some other ancient Writer he tells us in his Notes on the 43. Psalm that in those words of Christ Pasce oves meas Peter was made a Bishop by our Lord and Saviour De Repub. Eccles l. 2. c. 2. n. 4. Significat Ambrosius Petrum Sacerdotem hoc est Episcopum electum illis verbis Pasce oves meas as the place is cited by the Arch-Bishop of Spalato And thus Saint Chrysostom speaking of the election of the Seven saith plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that then there were no Bishops in the Church Chrys hom 14. in Act 6. but only the Apostles But what need more be said in the present business than that which is delivered in the holy Scripture about the surrogation of some other in the place of Judas wherein the place or function of an Apostle is plainly called Episcopatus Acts 1.20 Episcopatum ejus accipiat alter let another take his Bishoprick as the English reads it His Bishoprick i. e. saith Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Principality his Priesthood Chrys hom 3. in Act. 1. the place of government that belonged unto him had he kept his station A Text most plain and pregnant as the Fathers thought to prove that the Episcopal dignity was vested in the persons of the Lords Apostles The Comment under the name of Ambrose which before we spake of having said Ipsi sunt Episcopi Ambros in 1. ad Cor. c. 12 that the Apostles were Bishops adds for the proof thereof these words of Peter Episcopatum ejus accipiat alter And the true Ambrose saying of Judas Id. Serm. 50. that he was a Bishop Episcopus enim Judas fuit adds for the proof thereof the same very Text. Finally to conclude this matter Saint Cyprian shewing that Ordinations were not made without the privity of the people in the Jewish Church Nisi sub populi assistentis conscientia lib. 1. ep 4. adds that the same was afterwards observed by the holy Apostles Quando de ordinando in locum Judae Episcopo when Peter spake unto the people about the ordering of a Bishop in the place of Judas But for a further proof of this that the Apostles were ordained Bishops by our Lord and Saviour we shall see more hereafter in convenient place Vide chap. 6. n. 12. when we are come to shew that in the government of the Church the Bishops were the proper Successors of the Apostles and so esteemed to be by those who otherwise were no great friends unto Episcopacy In the mean time we may take notice of that impudent assertion of Jobannes de Turrecremata viz. Quod solus Petrus à Christo Episcopus est ordinatus Lib. 2. Summae de Eccl. c. 32. ap Bell. de Rom Pont. that Peter only Peter was made Bishop by our Saviour Christ and that the rest of the Apostles received from Peter their Episcopal consecration wherein I find him seconded by Dominicus Jacobatius lib. 10. de Concil Art 7. A Paradox so monstrous and absurd that howsoever Bellarmine doth reckon it amongst other the Prerogatives of that Apostle in his first Book de Romano Pontifice cap. 23. yet upon better thoughts he rejects it utterly in his 4th Book upon that argument Cap. 22. and so I leave it Thus having shewn in what estate the Church was founded by our Saviour and in what terms he left it unto his Apostles we must next see what course was taken by them to promote the same what use they made of that authority which was trusted to them CHAP. II. The foundation of the Church of Hierusalem under the Government of Saint James the Apostle and Simeon one of the Disciples the two first Bishops of the same 1. Matthias chosen into the place of Judas 2. The coming of the Holy Ghost and on whom it fell 3. The greatest measure of the Spirit fell on the Apostles and so by consequence the greatest power 4. The several Ministrations in the Church then given and that in ranking of the same the Bishops are intended in the name of Pastors 5. The sudden growth of the Church of Hierusalem and the making of Saint James the first Bishop there 6. The former point deduced from Scripture 7. And proved by the general consent of Fathers 8. Of the Episcopal Chair or Throne of Saint James and his Successors in Hierusalem 9. Simeon elected by the Apostles to succeed S. James 10. The meaning of the word Episcopus and from whence borrowed by the Church 11. The institution of the Presbyters 12. What interest they had in the common business of the Church whilst S. James was Bishop 13. The Council of Hierusalem and what the Presbyters had to do therein 14. The Institution of the Seven and to what Office they were called 15. The names of Ecclesiastical functions promiscuously used in holy Scripture OUR Saviour Christ having thus Authorized his Apostles to Preach the Gospel over all the World to every Creature and given them power as well of ministring the Sacraments as of retaining and remitting sins as before is said thought fit to leave them to themselves Luk. 24.49 only commanding them to tarry in the City of Hierusalem until they were indued with further power from on high whereby they might be fitted for so great a work Act. 1.9 And when he had spoken those things while they beheld he was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight No sooner was he gone to the Heavenly glories but the Apostles with the rest withdrew themselves unto Hierusalem as he had appointed where the first care they took was to fill up their number to surrogate some one or other of the Disciples in the place of Judas that so the Word of God might be fulfilled Psal 69.26 which he had spoken by the Psalmist Episcopatum ejus accipiat alter A business of no small importance and therefore fit to be imparted unto all the Brethren not so much that their suffrage and consent herein was necessary as that they might together joyn in prayer to Almighty God Act. 1.21
do of this In Gen. 6. n. 17. The Jesuit Pererius shall stand up to make good the first and Doctor Cracanthorp to avow the second Pererius first resolves it clearly numerum Septenarium etiam in rebus pessimis execrandis saepenumero positum esse in Scriptura sacra As for example The evil spirit saith St. Luke brought with him seven spirits worse than himself and out of Mary Magdalen did Christ cast out seven Devils as St Mark tells us So in the Revelation St. John informs us of a Dragon that had seven Heads and seven Crowns as also of seven Plagues sent into the Earth and seven Viols of Gods wrath poured out upon it He might have told us had he listed that the purple Beast whereon the great Whore rid had seven Heads also and that she sat upon seven Mountains It 's true saith he which David tells us that he did praise God seven times a day but then as true it is which Solomon hath told us that the just man falleth seven times a day So in the Book of Genesis we have seven lean Kine and seven thin ears of Corn as well as seven fat Kine and seven full Ears To proceed no further Pererius hereupon makes this general resolution of the case Apparet igitur eosdem numeros aeque in bonis malis poni usurpari in sacra scriptura Next whereas those of Rome as before I noted have gone the same way to find out seven Sacraments Contra Spalat cap. 30. our Cracanthorpe to shew the vanity of that Argument doth the like for the proof of two Quod si nobis fas esset c. If it were lawful for us to take this course we could produce more for the number of two than they can for seven As for example God made two great lights in the Firmament and gave to man two Eys two Ears two Feet two Hands two Arms. There were two Nations in the womb of Rebecca two Tables of the Law two Cherubins two Sardonich stones in which were written the names of the sons of Israel Thou shalt offer to the Lord two Rams two Turtles two Lambs of an year old two young Pigeons two Hee-goats two Oxen for a Peace-Offering Let us make two Trumpets two Doors of the wood of Olives two Nets two Pillars There were two Horns of the Lamb two Candlesticks two Olive-branches two Witnesses two Prophets two Testaments and upon two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets saith our Saviour Congruentiis facile vinceremus si nobis in hunc campum descendere libet c. We should saith he presume of an easie victory should we thus dally with congruities as do those of Rome Hence we conclude that by the light of Scripture we find not any thing in Nature why either every seventh day should or every second day should not be a Sabbath Not to say any thing of the other Numbers of which the like might be affirmed if we would trouble our selves about it It 's true this Trick of trading in the mysteries of Numbers is of long standing in the Church and of no less danger first borrowed from the Platonists and the Pythagoreans by the ancient Hereticks Marcion Valentinus Basilides and the rest of that damned crew the better to disguise their errours and palliate their impieties Some of the Fathers afterwards took up the device perhaps to foil the Hereticks at their own weapons though many of them purposely declined it Sure I am Chrysostom dislikes it In Gen. hom 24. Who on those words in the 7th of Genesis by seven and by seven which is the Number now debated doth instruct us thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Many saith he do tell strange matters of this fact and taking an occasion hence make many observations out of several Numbers Whereas not observation but only an unseasonable curiosity hath produced those fictions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence so many Heresies had their first original For oftentimes that out of our abundance we may fit their fancies we find the even or equal number no less commemorated in holy Scripture as when God sent out his Disciples by two and two when he chose twelve Apostles and left four Evangelists But these things it were needless to suggest to you who have so many times been lessoned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stop your Ears against such follies Saint Augustine also though he had descanted a while upon the mysteries of this Number yet he cuts off himself in the very middle De Civit. Dei l. 11. c. 31. as it were Ne scientiolam suam leviter magis quam utiliter jactare velle videatur lest he should seem to shew his reading with more pride than profit And thereupon he gives this excellent Rule which I could wish had been more practised in this case Habenda est itaque ratio moderationis gravitatis ne forte cum de numero multum loquimur mensuram pondus negligere judicemus We must not take saith he so much heed of Numbers that we forget at the last both weight and measure And this we should the rather do because that generally there is no Rule laid down or any reason to be given in Nature why some particular numbers have been set apart for particular uses when other numbers might have served why Hiericho should be rather compassed seven times than six or eight why Abraham rather trained three hundred and eighteen of his servants than three hundred and twenty or why his servant took ten Camels with him into Padan Aram and not more or less with infinite others of this kind in the Law Levitical Yet I deny not but that some reason may be given why in the Scripture things are so often ordered by sevens and sevens Respons ad qu. 69. viz. as Justin Martyr tells 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the better to preserve the memory or the Worlds Creation Another reason may be added which is by this inculcating of the number of seven unto the Jews to make that people who otherwise were at first averse from it as before I noted continually mindful of the Sabbath In Isaia 4. Numerum septenarium propter Sabbatum Judaeis familiarem esse was the observation of S. Hierom. To draw this point unto an end It is apparent by what hath before heen spoken that there is no Sabbath to be found in the beginning of the World or mentioned as a thing done in the second of Genesis either on any strength of the Text it self or by immediate Ordinance and command from God collected from it or by the law and light of nature imprinted in the soul of man at his first Creation much less by any natural fitness in the number of seven whereby it was most capable in it self of so high an honour which first premised we shall the easier see what hath been done in point of practice CHAP. II. That there was no Sabbath
we should have heard thereof in the holy Scriptures And finding nothing of it there it were but unadvisedly done to take it on the word and credit of a private man Non credimus quia non legimus was in some points Saint Hieroms rule and shall now be ours As little likelihood there is that the Angels did observe this day and sanctifie the same to the Lord their God yet some have been so venturous as to affirm it Sure I am Torniellus saith it Annal. d. 7. And though he seem to have some Authors upon whom to cast it yet his approving of it makes it his as well as theirs who first devised it Quidam non immerito existimarunt hoc ipso die in Coelis omnes Angelorum choros speciali quadam exultatione in Dei laudes prorupisse quod tam praeclarum admirabile opus absolvisset Nay he 38.4.6 and they whoever they were have a Scripture for it even Gods word to Job Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy Who and from whence those Quidam were that so interpreted Gods words I could never find and yet have took some pains to seek it De Civit. Dei l. 11. c. 9. Sure I am Saint Austin makes a better use of them and comes home indeed unto the meaning Some men it seems affirmed that the Angels were not made till after the six days were finished in which all things had been created and he refers them to this Text for their confutation Which being repeated he concludes Jam ergo erant Angeli quando facta sunt sydera facta autem sunt sydera die quarto Therefore saith he the Angels were created before the Stars and on the fourth day were the Stars created Yet Zanchius and those Quidam be they who they will fell short a little of another conceit of Philos De vita Mosis lib. 3. who tells us that the Sabbath had a priviledge above other days not only from the first Creation of the World though that had been enough to set out the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but even before the Heavens and all things visible were created If so it must be sanctified by the holy Trinity without the tongues of Men and Angels and God not having worked must rest and sanctifie a time when no time was But to return to Torniellus however those Quidam did mislead him and make him think that the first Sabbath had been sanctified by the holy Angels Annal. d. 7. yet he ingenuously confesseth that sanctifying of the Sabbath here upon the earth was not in use till very many Ages after not till the Law was given by Moses Veruntamen in terris ista Sabbati sanctificatio non nisi post multa secula in usum venisse creditur nimirum temporibus Mosis quando sub praecepto data est filiis Israel So Torniellus So Torniellus and so far unquestionable For that there was no Sabbath kept amongst us men till the times of Moses the Christian Fathers generally and some Rabbins also have agreed together Which that we may the better shew I shall first let you see what they say in general and after what they have delivered of particular men most eminent in the whole story of Gods Book until the giving of the Law And first that never any of the Patriarchs before Moses time did observe the Sabbath Justin the Martyr hath assured us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. cum Tryph. None of the righteous men saith he and such as walked before the Lord were either circumcised or kept the Sabbath until the several times of Abraham and Moses And where the Jews were scandalized in that the Christians did eat hot meats on the Sabbath days the Martyr makes reply that the said just and righteous men not taking heed of any such observances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obtained a notable testimony of the Lord himself Adv. haeres l. 4. c. 30. So Irenaeus having first told us that Circumcision and the Sabbath were both given for signs and having spoken particularly of Abraham Noah Lot and Enoch that they were justified without them adds for the close of all that all the multitude of the faithful before Abraham were justified without the one Et Patriarcharum eorum qui ante Mosen fuerunt and all the Patriarchs which preceded Moses without the other Adv. Judaeos Tertullian next disputeth thus against the Jews that they which think the Sabbath must be still observed as necessary to salvation or Circumcision to be used upon pain of death Doceant in Praeteritum justos sabbatizasse aut circumcidisse sic amicos Dei effectos esse ought first of all saith he to prove That the Fathers of the former times were Circumcised or kept the Sabbath or that thereby they did obtain to be accounted the friends of God Then comes Eusebius the Historian and he makes it good Hist l. 1. c. 4. that the Religion of the Patriarchs before Moses Law was nothing different from the Christian And how proves he that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were not Circumcised no more are we they kept not any Sabbath no more do we they were not bound to abstinence from sundry kinds of meats which are prohibited by Moses nor are we neither Which argument he also useth to the self-same purpose in his first book de demonstr Evang. and sixth Chapter And in his seventh de praeparatione he resolves it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. 6. c. The Hebrews which preceded Moses and were quite ignorant of his Law whereof he makes the Sabbath an especial part disposed their ways according to a voluntary kind of piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 framing their lives and actions to the law of nature This argument is also used by Epiphanius Adv. haereses l. 1. n. 5. who speaking of the first Ages of the World informs us that as then there was no difference among men in matters of opinion no Judaism nor kind of Heresie whatsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. but that the faith which doth now flourish in Gods Church was from the beginning If so no Sabbath was observed in the times of old because none in his I could enlarge my Catalogue but that some testimonies are to be reserved to another place when I shall come to shew you that the Commandment of the Sabbath was published to Gods People by Moses only See Ch. 4. and that to none but to the Jews After so many of the Fathers the modern Writers may perhaps seem unnecessary yet take one or two First Musculus 2 Edit p. 12. as Doctor Bound informs me for I take his word who tells us that it cannot be proved that the Sabbath was kept before the giving of the Law either from Adam to Noah or from the Flood to the times of Moses or
her forth again Ver. 10. 12. De festis c. 3. What then This seems unto Hospinian to be an argument for the Sabbath In hostoria diluvii columbae ex arca emissae septenario dierum intervallo ratione sabbati videntur So he and so verbatim Josias Simler in his Comment on the twentieth of Exodus But to this argument if at the least it may be honoured with that name Tostatus hath returned an Answer as by way of Prophecy He makes this Quaere first sed quare ponit hic quod Noe exspectabat semper septem dies In Gen. 8. c. Why Noah betwixt every sending of the Dove expected just seven days neither more nor less and then returns this answer to it such as indeed doth excellently satisfie both his own Quaere and the present argument Resp quod Noah intendebat scire utrum aquae cessassent c. Noah saith he desired to know whether the waters were decreased Now since the Waters being a moist body are regulated by the Moon Noah was most especially to regard her motions for as she is either in opposition or conjunction with the Sun in her increase or in her wane there is proportionably an increase or falling of the Waters Noah then considering the Moon in her several quarters which commonly we know are at seven days distance sent forth his Birds to bring him tiding for the Text tells us that he sent out the Raven and the Dove four times And the fourth time the Moon being then in the last quarter when both by the ordinary course of Nature the Waters usually are and by the Will of God were then much decreased the Dove which was sent out had found good footing on the Earth and returned no more So far the learned Abulensis which makes clear the case Nor stand we only here upon our defence For we have proof sufficient that Noah never kept the Sabbath Justin the Martyr Ubi supra and Irenaeus both make him one of those which without Circumcision and the Sabbath were very pleasing unto God and also justified without them Tertullian positively saith it that God delivered him from the great Water-flood nec circumcisum nec sabbatizantem Adv. Judaeos and challengeth the Jews to prove if any way they could sabbatum observasse that he kept the Sabbath Eusebius also tells us of him that being a just man and one whom God preserved as a remaining spark to kindle Piety in the World De demonstr l. 1. c. 6. yet knew not any thing that pertained to the Jewish Ceremony not Circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor any other thing ordained by Moses Remember that Eusebius makes the Sabbath one of Moses's Ordinances Finally Epiphanius in the place before remembred ranks Noah in this particular with Adam Abel Seth Enos and the other Patriarchs It 's true that Joseph Sealiger once made the day whereon Noah left the Ark and offered sacrifice to the Lord De Emendat Temp. l. 5. to be the seventh day of the week 28. Decembris feria septima egressus Noah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immolavit Deo saith his first Edition Which were enough to cause some men who infinitely admire his Dictates from thence to have derived a Sabbath had he not changed his mind in the next Edition and placed this memorable action not on the seventh day but the fourth I say it might have caused some men for all men would not so have doted as from a special accident to conclude a practice Considering especially that there is no ground in Scripture to prove that those before the Law had in their Sacrifices any regard at all to set Times and Dayes either unto the sixth day or the seventh or eighth or any other but did their service to the Lord. I mean the publick part thereof and that which did consist in external action according as occasion was administred unto them The offerings of Cain and Abel for ought we can inform our selves were not very frequent The Scripture tells us that it was in process of time Gen. 4.3 at the years end as some expound it For at the years end as Ainsworth noteth men were wont in most solemn manner to offer sacrifice unto God with thanks for all his benefits having then gathered in their fruits The Law of Moses so commanded Exod. 23.16 the ancient Fathers so observed it as by this place we may conjecture and so it was accustomed too among the Gentiles their ancient Sacrifices and their Assemblies to that purpose as Aristotle hath informed us being after the gathering in of fruits Ethic. l. 8. No day selected for that use that we can hear of This Sacrifice of Noah as it was remarkable so it was occosional an Eucharistical Oblation for the great deliverance which did that day befall unto him And had it hapned on the seventh day it were no argument that he made choice thereof as most fit and proper or that he used to sacrifice more upon that day than on any other So that of Abraham in the twelfth of Genesis was occasional only The Lord appeared to Abraham saying Gen. 12.7 Vnto thy seed will I give this land the land of Canaan And then it followeth that Abraham builded there an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him The like he did when he first set his footing in the promised Land and pitched his Tents not far from Bethel Ver. 8. and when he came to plant in the Plain of Mamre in the next Chapter See the like Verse 18 Gen. 21.33 1.22 13. Of Isaac Gen. 26.25 Of Jacob Gen. 28.8 31.54 33.20 35.7 14. No mention in the Scripture of any Sacrifice or publick Worship but the occasion is set down Hoc ratio naturalis dictat In Gen. 8.20 ut de donis suis honoretur imprimis ipse qui dedit Natural reason saith Rupertus could instruct them that God was to be honoured with some part of that which he himself had given unto them but natural reason did not teach them that one day differed from another CHAP. III. That the SABBATH was not kept from the Flood to Moses 1. The sons of Noah did not keep the Sabbath 2. The Sabbth could not have been kept in the dispersion of Noahs sons had it been commanded 3. Diversity of Longitudes and Latitudes must of necessity make a variation in the Sabbath 4. Melchisedech Heber Lot did not keep the Sabbath 5. Of Abraham and his sons that they kept not the Sabbath 6. That Abraham did not keep the Sabbath in the confession of the Jews 7. Jacob nor Job no Sabbath keepers 8. That neither Joseph Moses nor the Israelites in Egypt did observe the Sabbath 9. The Israelites not permitted to offer Sacrifice while they were in Egypt 10. Particular proofs that all the Moral Law was both known and kept amongst the Fathers WE are now come unto the hither side of the Flood
at least of Noahs posterity and all that have from them descended either did keep at all no Sabbath or not upon the day appointed which comes all to one Or else it needs must follow that God imposed a Law upon his People which in it self without relation to the frailty ne dum to the iniquity of poor man could not in possibility have been observed Yea such a Law as could not generally have been kept had Adam still continued in his perfect innocence To make this matter yet more plain It is a Corollary or conclusion in Geography that if two men do take a journey from the self-same place round about the Earth the one Eastward the other Westward and meet in the same place again it will appear that he which hath gone East hath gotten and that the other going Westward hath lost a day in their accompt The reason is because he that from any place assigned doth travel Eastward moving continually against the proper motion of the Sun will shorten somewhat of his day taking so much from it as his journey in proportion of distance from the place assigned hath first opposed and so anticipated in that time the diurnal motion of the Sun So daily gaining something from the length of day it will amount in the whole circuit of the Earth to twenty-four hours which are a perfect natural day The other going Westward and seconding the course of the Sun by his own journey will by the same reason add as much proportionably unto his day as the other lost and in the end will lose a day in his accompt For demonstration of the which suppose of these two Travellers that the former for every fifteen miles should take away one minute from the length of the day and the latter add as much unto it in the like proportion of his journey Now by the Golden Rule if every fifteen miles subtract or add one minute in the length of the day then must 21600. miles which is the compass of the Earth add or subtract 1440. minutes which make up twenty-four hours a just natural day To bring this matter home unto the business now in hand suppose we that a Turk a Jew and a Christian should dwell together at Hierusalem whereof the one doth keep his Sabbath on the Friday the other on the Saturday and the third sanctifieth the Sunday then that upon the Saturday the Turk begin his Journey Westward and the Christian Eastward so as both of them compassing the world do meet again in the same place the Jew continuing where they left him It will fall out that the Turk by going Westward having lost a day and the Christian going Eastward having got a day one and the same day will be a Friday to the Turk a Saturday unto the Jew and a Sunday to the Christian in case they calculate the time exactly from their departure to their return To prove this further yet by a matter of fact The Hollanders in their Discovery of Fretum le Maire Anno 1615. found by comparing their accompt at their coming home that they had clearly lost a day for they had traveled Westward in that tedious Voyage that which was Munday to the one being the Sunday to the other And now what should these People do when they were returned If they are bound by nature and the moral Law to sanctifie precisely one day in seven they must then sanctifie a day apart from their other Country-men and like a crew of Schismaticks divide themselves from the whole body of the Church or to keep order and comply with other men must of necessity be forced to go against the Law of nature or the moral Law which ought not to be violated for any by-respect whatever But to return unto Noahs Sons whom this case concerns It might for ought we know be theirs in this dispersion in this removing up and down and from place to place What shall we think of those that planted Northwards or as much extreamly Southwards whose issue now are to be found as in part is known near and within the Polar Circles What Sabbath think we could they keep Sometimes a very long one sure and sometimes none indeed none at all taking a Sabbath as we do for one day in seven For near the Polar Circles as is plainly known the days are twenty-four hours in length Between the Circle and the Pole the day if so it may be called increaseth first by weeks and at last by months till in the end there is six months perpetual day and as long a night No room in those parts for a Sabbath But it is time to leave these speculations and return to practice And first we will begin with Melchisedech King of Salem the Priest of the most high God Rex idem hominumque divumque sacerdos a type and figure of our Saviour whose Priesthood still continueth in the holy Gospel With him the rather because it is most generally conceived that he was Sem the Son of Noah Of him it is affirmed by Justin Martyr that he was neither Circumcised not yet kept the Sabbath and yet most acceptable unto God Dial. cum Tryphone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian also tells us of him Incircumcisum nec sabbatizantem ad sacerdotium Dei allectum esse Adv. Judaeos and puts him also in his challenge as one whom none amongst the Jews could ever prove to have kept the Sabbath Eusebius yet more fully than either of them Dem. l. 1. c. 6. Moses saith he brings in Melchisedech Priest of the most high God neither being Circumcised nor anointed with the holy Oyl as was afterwards commanded in the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no not so much as knowing that there was a Sabbath and ignorant altogether of those Ordinances which were imposed upon the Jews and living most agreeably unto the Gospel Somewhat to that purpose also doth occur in his seventh de praeparatione cap. 8. Melchisedech whosoever he was gave meeting unto Abraham about the year of the world 2118. and if we may suppose him to be Sem as I think we may he lived till Isaac was fifty years of age which was long after this famous interview Now what these Fathers say of Sem if Sem at least was he whom the Scriptures call Melchisedech the same almost is said of his great Grand-child Heber he being named by Epiphanius for one of those who lived according to the faith of the Christian Church wherein no Sabbath was observed in that Fathers time And here we will take Lot in too although a little before his time as one of the Posterity of Heber that when we come to Abraham we may keep our selves within his Family Him Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both in the places formerly remembred make to be one of those which without Circumcision and the Sabbath were acceptable to the Lord and by him justified And so Tertullian that sine legis observatione Sabbath
conclude that point nisi aliunde suffulciantur unless they be well backed with better Argumens and Authorities out of other Authors Nay more than this the Gentiles were so far from sanctifying the Sabbath or seventh day themselves that they derided those that kept it The Circumcision of the Jews was not more ridiculous amongst the Heathens than their Sabbaths were not were they more extreamly scoffed at for the one than for the other by all sorts of Writers Ap. Aug. de civit Dei l. 6. c. 11. Hist l. 5. Seneca lays it to their charge that by occasion of their Sabbaths septimam fere aetatis suae partem vacando perdant they spent the seventh part of their lives in floth and idleness and Tacitus that not the seventh day but the seventh year also was as unprofitably wasted Septimo quoque die otium placuisse ferunt dein blandiente intertia septimum quoque annum ignaviae datum Moses saith he had so appointed because that after a long six days march the People became quietly setled on the seventh Juvenal makes also the same objection against the keeping of the Sabbath by the Jewish Nation Sat. 14. quod septima quaeque fuit lux Ignava partem vitae non attigit ullam And Ovid doth not only call them peregrina sabbata as things with which the Romans had but small and that late acquaintance but makes them a peculiar mark of the Jewish Religion Reme amor l. 1. Quaque die redeunt rebus minus apta gerendis De Arte l. 1. Culta Palestino septima sacra viro The seventh day comes for business unfit Held sacred by the Jew who halloweth it Where by the way Tostatus notes upon these words In Exod. 20. that sacra septima are here ascribed unto the Jews as their badge or cognizance which had been most improper and indeed untrue si gentes aliae servarent sabbatum if any other Nation specially the Romans had observed the same But to proceed Persius hits them in the teeth with their recutita sabbata And Martial scornfully calleth them Sabbatarians Sat. 5. l. 4. ep 4. Ap. Josephum Antiq. l. 12.1 in an Epigram of his to Bassus where reckoning up some things of an unsavoury smell he reckoneth Sabbatariorum jejunia amongst the principal So Agatharebides who wrote the lives of Alexanders successors accuseth them of an unspeakable superstition in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they suffered Ptolomy to take their City of Hierusalem on a Sabbath day rather than stand upon their guard But that of Apion Joseph adv Apion l. 2. the great Clerk of Alexandria is the most shameful and reproachful of all the rest Who to despight the Jews the more and lay the deeper stain upon their Sabbaths relates in his Egyptian story that at their going out of Egypt having travelled for the space of six whole days they became stricken with certain inflammations in the privy parts which the Egyptians call by the name of Sabbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for that cause they were compelled to rest on the seventh day which afterwards the called the Sabbath Than which what greater calumny could a malicious Sycophant invent against them Doubtless those men that speak so despicably and reproachfully of the Jewish Sabbath had never any of their own Nor did the Greeks and Latines and Egyptians only out of the plenty or the redundance rather of their wit deride and scoff the Sabbaths celebrated by those of Jewry Cap. 1. v. 7. it was a scorn that had before been fastned on them when wit was not so plentiful as in later times For so the Prophet Jeremiah in his Lamentations made on the death of King Josiah The adversaries saw her and did mock at her Sabbaths The Jews must needs be singular in this observation All Nations else both Graecian and Barbarian had never so agreed together to deride them for it Yet we deny not all this while but that the fourth Commandment so much thereof as is agreeable to the law and light of nature was not alone imprinted in the minds of the Gentiles but practised by them For they had statos dies some appointed times appropriated to the worship of their several gods as before was shewed their holy-days and half-holy-days accordding to that estimation which their gods had gotten in the world And this as well to comfort and refresh their spirits which otherwise had been spent and wasted with continual labour as to do service to those Deities which they chiefly honoured Dii genus bominum laboribus natura pressum miserati De leg l. 2. remissionem laborum statuerunt solennia festa was the resolution once of Plato But this concludes not any thing that they kept the Sabbath or that they were obliged to keep it by the law of nature And where it is conceived by some that the Gentiles by the light of nature had their Weeks Purch Pilgr l. 1. c. 4. which is supposed to be an argument that they kept the Sabbath a week being only of seven days and commonly so called both in Greek and Latine We on the other side affirm that by this very rule the Gentilos many of them if not the most could observe no Sabbath because they did observe no weeks For first the Caldees and the Persians had no weeks at all but to the several days of each several month appropriated a particular name of some King or other Emend temp l. 3. as the Peruvians do at this present time nomina diebus mensis indunt ut prisci Persae as Scaliger hath noted of them The Grecians also did the like in the times of old there being an old Attick Calendar to be seen in Scaliger wherein is no division of the month into weeks at all Then for the Romans they divided their accompt into eighths and eighths as the Jews did by sevens and sevens the one reflecting on their nundinae Id. l. 4. as the other did upon their Sabbath Ogdoas Romanorum in tributione dierum servabatur propter nundinas ut habdomas apud Judaeos propter sabbatum For proof of which there are some ancient Roman Calendars to be seen as yet one in the aforesaid Sealiger the other in the Roman Antiquities of John Rossinus wherein the days are noted from A. to H as in our common Almanacks from A to G. The Mexicans go a little further 〈…〉 and they have 13 days to the week as the same Scaliger hath observed of them Nay even the Jews themselves were ignorant of this division of the year into weeks as tostatus thinks In Levit. 23. qu. 3. till Moses learnt it of the Lord in the fall of Mannah Nor were the Greeks and Romans destitute of this accompt only whiles they were rude and untrained People as the Peruvians and the Mexicans at this present time but when they were in their greatest flourish for Arts and Empire Hist l. 36.
Galatine reports from their own Records that in their latter exposition on the Book of Numbers upon those words send men that they may search the land of Canaan Chap. 13.2 they thus resolve it Nuncio praecepti licitum est c. A Messenger that goes upon Command may travail any day at what time be will And why because he is a Messenger upon Command Nuncius autem praecepti excludit sabbatum The phrase is somwhat dark but the meaning plain that those which went upon that Errand did not keep the Sabbath Certain it also is that for all that time no nor for any part thereof the people did not keep the Sabbath compleatly as the Law appointed For where there were two things concurring to make up the Sabbath first rest from labour and secondly the sacrifices destinate unto the day however they might rest some Sabbaths from their daily labours yet sacrifices they had none until they came into the Land of Canaan Now that they rested sometimes on the Sabbath day and perhaps did so generally in those forty years is manifest by that great and memorable Business touching the man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath The case is briefly this the people being in the Wilderness Numb 15. Verse 32. ad 37. found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day and brought him presently unto Moses Moses consulted with the Lord and it was resolved that the offender should be stoned to death which was done accordingly The Law before had ordered it that he who so offended should be put to death but the particular manner of his death was not known till now The more remarkable is this case because it was the only time that we can hear of that execution had been done upon any one according as the Law enacted and thereupon the Fathers have took some pains to search into the reasons of so great severity De vit Mos l. 3. Philo accuseth him of a double crime in one whereof he was the principal and an Accessary only in the other For where it was before commanded that there should be no fire kindled on the Sabbath day this party did not only labour on the day of rest but also laboured in the gathering of such materials 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which might administer fuel to prohibited fire Saint Basil seems a little to bemoan the man De judicio Dei in that he smarted so for his first offence not having otherwise offended either God or Man and makes the motive of his death neither to consist in the multitude of his sins or the greatness of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only in his disobedience to the will of God But we must have a more particular motive yet than this And first Rupertus tells us per superbiam illud quod videbatur exiguum commisit In locum that he did sin presumptuously with an high hand against the Lord and therefore God decreed he should die the death God not regarding either what or how great it was sed qua mente fecerat but with what mind it was committed But this is more I think than Rupertus knew being no searcher of the heart Rather I shall subscribe herein unto Saint Chrysostom Who makes this Quaere first Hom. 39. in Matth. 12. seeing the Sabbath as Christ saith was made for man why was he put to death that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath And then returns this answer to his own demand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because in case God had permitted that the Law should have been slighted in the first beginning none would have kept it for the future Theodoret to that purpose also ne autor fieret leges transgrediendi Qu. 31. in Num. lest other men encouraged by his example should have done the like the punishment of this one man striking a terrour unto all No question but it made the people far more observant of the Sabbath than they would have been who were at first but backwards in the keeping of it as is apparent by that passage in the sixteenth of Exod. v. 27. And therefore stood the more in need not only of a watch-word or Memento even in the very front of the Law it self but of some sharper course to stir up their memory Therefore this execution was the more requisite at this instant as well because the Jews by reason of their long abode in a place of continual servile toil could not be suddenly drawn unto contrary offices without some strong impression of terrour as also because nothing is more needful than with extremity to punish the first transgressours of those Laws that do require a more exact observation for the times to come What time this Tragedy was acted is not known for certain By Torniellus it is placed in the year 2548. of the Worlds Creation which was some four years after the Law was given More than this is not extant in the Scripture touching the keeping of the Sabbath all the life of Moses What was done after we shall see in the Land of Promise In the mean time It is most proper to this place to take a little notice of those several Duties wherein the sanctifying of the Sabbath did consist especially that we may know the better what we are to look for at the peoples hands when we bring them thither Two things the Lord commanded in his holy Scripture that concern the Sabbath the keeping holy of the same one in relation to the People the other in reference to the Priest In reference to the People he commanded only rest from labour that they should do no manner of work and that 's contained expresly in the Law it self In reference to the Priest he commanded sacrifice that on the Sabbath day over and above the daily sacrifice there should be offered to the Lord two Lambs of an year old without blemish one in the morning and the other in the evening Numb 28. as also to prepare first and then place the Shewbread being twelve loaves one for every Tribe continually before the Lord every Sabbath day These several references so divided the Priest might do his part without the People and contrary the People do their part without the Priest Of any Sabbath duties which were to be performed between them wherein the Priest and People were to join together the Scriptures are directly silent As for these several Duties that of the Priest the Shew-bread and the sacrifice was not in practice till they came to the Land of Canaan and then though the Priest offered for the People yet he did not with them So that for forty years together all the life of Moses the sanctifying of the Sabbath did consist only for ought we find in a Bodily rest a ceasing from the works of their weekly labours and afterwards in that and in the Sacrifices which the Priest made for them Which as they seem to be the greater of the two so
been a part of the Law of nature Yet had the Sabbath been laid by in such cases only wherein the Lord had specially declared his will and pleasure that these and these things should be done upon it or preferred before it there was less reason of complaint But we shall see in that which followed that the poor Sabbath was inforced to yield up the place even to the several necessities and occasions of particular men and that without Injunction or Command from the Court of Heaven This further proves the fourth Commandment as far as it concerns the time Ryvet in Deca one whole day of seven to be no part nor parcel of the law of Nature for if it were the law of Nature it were not dispensable no not in any exigent or distress whatever Nullum periculum suadet ut quae ad legem naturalem directe pertinent infringamus No danger saith a modern Writer is to occasion us to break those bonds wherewith we are obliged by the law of Nature Nor is this only Protestant Divinity Aquinas 1.2 ae qu. 100. art 9. Qu. ex N. Test 61. for that Praecepta decalogi omnino sint indispen sabilia is a noted maxim of the School-men And yet it is not only School Divinity for the Fathers taught it It is a principle of Saint Austins Illud quod omnino non licet semper non licet nec aliqua necessitate mitigatur ut admissum non obsit est enim semper illicitum quod legibus quia criminosum est prohibetur That saith the Father which is unlawful in it self is unlawful always nor is there any exigent or extremity that can so excuse it being done but that it makes a man obnixious unto Gods displeasure For that is always to be reckoned an unlawful thing which is forbidden by the Law because simply evil So that in case this rule be true as no doubt it is and that the fourth Commandment prohibiting all manner of work on the Sabbath day as simply evil be to be reckoned part of the Moral Law they that transgress this Law in what case soever are in the self-same state with those who to preserve their lives or fortunes renounce their Faith in God and worship Idols which no man ought to do no though it were to gain the World For what will it profit a man to gain the world and to lose his soul But sure the Jews accounted not the Sabbath of so high a nature as not to venture the transgressing of that Law if occasion were Whereof or of the keeping it we have no monument in Scripture till we come to David The residue of Josuah and the Book of Judges give us nothing of it Nor have we much in the whole story of the Kings but what we have we shall present unto you in due place and order And first for David we read in Scripture how he stood in fear of Saul his Master how in the Festival of the New-moon his place was empty 1 Sam. 20. how Saul became offended at it and publickly declared his malicious purpose which in his heart he had before conceived against him On the next morning Jonathan takes his Bow and Arrows goes forth a shooting takes a Boy with him to bring back his Arrows and by a signal formerly agreed between them gives David notice that his Father did seek his life David on this makes haste and came to Nob unto Abimelech the Priest and being an hungry desires some sustenance at his hands The Priest not having ought else in readiness sets the Shew-hread before him which was not lawful for any man to eat but the Priest alone Now if we ask the Fathers of the Christian Church what day this was on which poor David fled from the face of Saul they answer that it was the Sabbath Saint Athanasius doubtingly with a peradventure Hom. de semente 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most likely that it was the Sabbath His reason makes the matter surer than his resolution The Jews saith he upbraid our Saviour that his Disciples plucked the ears of Corn on the Sabbath day to satisfie which doubt he tells them what was done by David on a Sabbath also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Father hath it Saint Hierom tells us that the day whereon he fled away from Saul was both a Sabbath and New-moon In Math. 12. ad sabbati solennitatem accedebant neomeniarum dies Indeed the story makes it plain it could be no other The Shew-bread was changed every Sabbath in the morning early that which was brought in new not to be stirred off from the Table till the Week was out the other which was taken away being appropriated to the Priests and to be eaten by them only Being so stale before we may be easier think it lay not long upon their hands and had not David come as he did that morning perhaps he had not found the Priest so well provided in the afternoon Had David thought that breaking of the Sabbath in what case soever had been a sin against the eternal Law of Nature he would no doubt have hid himself that day in the Field by the stone Ezel as he had done two days before rather than so have run away 1 Sam. 20. Verse 19.24 as well from God as from the King Especially considering that on the Sabbath day he might have lurked there with more safety than before he did none being permitted as some say by the Law of God to walk abroad that day if occasion were Neither had David passed it over in so light a manner had he done contrary to the Law That heart of his which smote him for his Murder and Adultery and for his numbring of the People would sure have taken some impression upon the breaking of the Sabbath had he conceived that Law to be like the rest But David knew of no such matter neither did Jonathan as it seems For howsoever Davids fact might be excused by reason of the imminent peril yet surely Jonathans walking forth with his Bow and Arrows was of a very different nature Nor did he do it fearfully and by way of stealth as if he were affraid to avow the action but took his Page with him to bring back his Arrows and called aloud unto him to do thus and thus according as he was directed as if it were his usual custom Jonathan might have thought of some other way to give advertisement unto David of his Fathers anger rather than by a publick breaking of the Sabbath to provoke the Lord. But then as may from hence be gathered shooting and such like manlike Exercises were not accounted things unlawful on the Sabbath day This act and flight of Davids from the face of Saul hapned in Torniellus computation Anno 2974 and forty six years after that being 3020 of the Worlds Creation and the last year of Davids life he made a new division of the sons of Levi. For where
means to attain that knowledg they entertained the Pentateuch or five Books of Moses and with them the Sabbath They were beholden to the Lions which God sent amongst them Otherwise they had never know the Sabbath nor the Lord who made it Themselves acknowledg this in an Epistle to Antiochus Epiphanes when he made havock of the Jews The Epistle thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To King Antiochus Epiphancs the mighty God the suggestion of the Sidonians that dwell at Sichem Our Ancestors enforced by a continual plague which destrayed their Countrey this was the Lions before spoken of and induced by an ancient superstition Joseph Antiq. lib. 12. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took up a custom to observe that day as holy which the Jows call the Sabbath So that it seems by this Epistle that when the Assyrian sent back one of the Priests of Israel to teach this people what was the manner of the God of the Land that at that time they did receive the Sabbath also which was about the year of the Worlds Creation Orig. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. 3315. The Priest so sent is said to have been called Dosthai and as the word is mollified in the Greek it is the same with Dofitheus who as he taught these new Samaritans the observation of the Sabbath so as some say he mingled with the same some neat devices of his own For whereas it is said in the Book of Exodus Let no man go out of his place on the Sabbath day this Dositheus if at least this were he keeping the letter of the Text did affirm and teach that in what ever posture any man was found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the beginning of the Sabbath in the self-same he was to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even until the evening I say if this were he as some say because there was another Dositheus a Samaritan too that lived more near unto the time of Origen and is most like to be the man However we may take it for a Samaritan device as indeed it was though not so ancient as to take beginning with the first entertainment of the Sabbath in that place and people this transportation of the ten Tribes for their many sins was a fair warning unto those of the house of Judah to turn unto the Lord and amend their lives and observe his Sabbaths his sabbata annorum Sabbaths of years as well as either his weekly or his yearly Sabbaths The Jews had been regardless of them all and for neglect of all God resolved to punish them First Chap. 13. v. 18. for the weekly Sabbath that God avenged himself upon them for the breach thereof is evident by that one place of Nahemiah Did not your Fathers thus saith he and our God brought this plague upon us and upon our City yet ye increase the wrath upon Israel in breaking the Sabbath Next for the Annual Sabbaths God threatned that he would deprive them of them by his Prophet Hosea as before was said And lastly for his Sabbaths of years they had been long neglected and almost forgotten if observed at all Torniellus finds three only kepe in all the Scripture Nor are more specified in particular but sure more were kept the certain number of the which may easily be found by the proportion of the punishment God tells them that they should remain in bondage 1 Chrom 36.21 until the Land had enjoyed her Sabbaths for so long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfil threescore and ten years So that as many years as they were in bondage so many Sabbaths of years they had neglected Now from the year 2593. which was the seventh year after their possession of the Land of Canaan unto the year 3450. which was the year of their Captivity there passed in all 857. years just of which 122 were years Sabbatical By which account it is apparent that they had kept in all that time but fifty-two sabbatical years and for the seventy Sabbaths of years which they had neglected God made himself amends by laying desolate the whole Country seventy years together till the Earth had enjoyed ber Sabbaths Not that the Earth lay still all that while and was never tilled for those that did remain behind and inhabit there must have means to live but that the tillage was so little and the crop so small the People being few in numbers that in comparison of former times it might seem to rest But whatsoever Sabbaths the carth enjoyed the People kept not much themselves The solemn Feasts of Pentecost the Passeover and the Feast of Tabernacles they could not celebrate at all because they had no Temple to repair unto nor did they celebrate the New-moons and the weckly Sabbath as they ought to do Non neomeniae non sabbati exercere laetitiam In Hos 2. nee emnes festivitates quas uno nomine comprehendit as Saint Hierom hath it For that they used to work on the Sabbath day both in the Harvest and the Vintage during the Captivity we have just reason to suspect considering what great difficulty Nehemiah found to redress those errors So little had that People profited in the School of Piety that though they felt Gods heavy anger for the breach thereof yet could they hardly be induced to amend their follies But presently on their return from babylon they reared up the Altar and kept the Feast of Tabernacles and the burnt-offerings day by day and afterward the continual burnt-offering Ezra 3.4 5. both in the New-moons and the solemn Feast-days that had been consecrate unto the Lord. This the first work that was endeavoured by Zorobabel and other Rulers of the People and it was somewhat that they went so far in the Reformation as to revive the Sabbaths and the publick Festivals I say the Sabbaths amongst others for so Josephus doth express it They Celebrated at that time saith he the feast of Tabernacles according as their Law-maker had ordained and afterwards they offered oblations and continual Sacrifices observing their Sabbaths and all holy solemnities Yet they observed them not so truly but that some evil customs which had crept amongst them during the Captivity were as yet continued Markets permitted on the Sabbath and the publick Festivals Burdens brought in and out the Vintage no less followed on those days than on any other And so continued till the year 3610. which was some ninety years after they were returned from Babel what time they celebrated that great Feast of Tabernacles and Ezra publickly read the Law before all the People Upon which Act this good ensued that both the Priests and Princes and many others of the People did enter covenant with the Lord that if the People of the Land brought ware Nch. 10. v. 31. or any Victuals to sell them on the Sabbath day that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath or on the holy-days and that we would
challenge against all the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. De vita Mos ◠2. What man is there in all the World who doth not reverence this our holy Sabbath which bringeth rest and ease to all sorts of Men Masters and Servants bond and free yea to the very brute beasts also Not that they knew the Sabbath by the light of Nature or had observed the same in all Ages past but that they had admitted it in Philos time as a Jewish ceremony For let Josephus be the Comment upon Philo's Text and he will thus unfold his meaning The Laws saith he established amongst us have been imitated of all other Nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 2. cont Apiox Yea and the common people did long since imitate our piety Neither is there any Nation Greek or Barbarous to which our use of resting on the seventh day hath not spread it self who also keep not Fasting days and Lamps with lights and many of those Ordinances about Meats and Drinks which are enjoyned us by the Law So far Josephus These Romans and what other Nations they were soever which did thus Judaize about the Sabbath were many of them Proselytes of the Jews such as had been admitted into that Religion for it appears that they did also worship the God of Heaven and were Circumcised and abstained from Swines flesh Otherwise we may well believe that of their own accord they had not bound themselves so generally to observe the Sabbath being no parts nor members of the Jewish state considering that such strangers as lived amongst them not being circumcised nor within the Covenant were not obliged so to do Tostatus tells us of two sorts of strangers amongst the Jews In Exod. 20. qu. 14. The first qui adveniebat de Gentilitate convertebatur ad Judaismum c. who being originally of the Gentiles had been converted to the Religion of the Jews and were Circumcised and lived amongst them and such were bound saith he to observe the Sabbath omnes observantias legis and all other rites of the Law of Moses This is evident by that in the twelfth of Exodus where it is said that every man servant bought with money when he was circumcised should eat the Passeover but that the foreigner and hired servant conceive it not being circumcised might not eat thereof The other sort of strangers were such as lived amongst them only for a certain time to trade and traffique or upon any other business of what sort soever And they saith he were not obliged by the Commandment to keep the Sabbath quia non poterant cogi ad aliquam observantiam legalem nisi vellent accipere circumcisionem because they could not be constrained to any legal Ordinance except they would be Circumcised which was the door unto the rest Finally he resolves it thus that by the stranger within their gates which by the Law were bonnd to observe the Sabbath were only meant such strangers de gentilitate ad Judaismum conversi which had renouced their Gentilism and embraced the Religion of the Jews And he resolved it so no doubt according to the practice of the Jews amongst whom he lived and to the doctrine of their Rabbins amongst whose writings he was very conversant Lyra himself a Jew and therefore one who knew their customs as well as any doth affirm as much and tells us that the stranger in the Law intended Gentilis est conversus ad ritum Judaeorum is such a stranger as had been converted to the Jewish Church And this may yet appear in part by the present practice of that people who though themselves milk not their Kine on the Sabbath day permissium est iis ut die Sabbatino dicant Christiano Buxdorf Synagog c. 11. c. Yet they may give a Christian leave to perform that Office and then to buy the milk of him for a toy or trifle Add here what formerly we noted of their Servants Ch. 3. n. 1. Of whom we told you out of Rabbi Maimony that if they were not circumcised or baptized they were as sojourning strangers and may do work for themselves openly on the Sabbath as any of the Israelites might on a working day By which it seems that strangers yea and servants too in case they were not Circumcised or otherwise initiated into their Churches were not obliged to keep the Sabbath Which plainly shews that by the Jews themselves the keeping of the Sabbath was not taken for a moral Law or to concern any but themselves and those of their Religion only For had they took it for a part of the Law of Nature as universally to be observed as any other they had not suffered it to be broke amongst them before their faces and that without controul of censure no more than they would have permitted a sojourning stranger to blaspheme their God or publickly to set up Idolatry or without punishment to steal their goods or destroy their persons The rather since their Sabbath had prevailed so far as to be taken up with other parts of their Religion in many principal Cities of the Roman Empire or otherwise by way of imitation so much in use among the Gentiles And this I have the rather noted in this place and time because that in these times the Countrey of the Jews was most resorted to by all sorts of strangers and they themselves in favour with the Roman Emperours Indeed these customs of the Jews did fly about the Roman Empire with a swifter wing by reason of that countenance which great Augustus Caesar did shew both to the men Philo. leg ad Caium and unto their Sabbath First for the men he did not only suffer them to enjoy the liberty of Conscience in their own Countrey and there to have their Synagogues and publick places of Assembly as before they had but he permitted them to inhabit a great part of Rome and there to live according to their Countrey Laws 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet saith he he knew that they had their Proseuchas or Oratories that they assembled in the same especially on the holy Sabbaths and finally that there they were instructed in their own Religion Then for the Sabbath the Jews had anciently been accustomed not to appear in judgment either upon the Sabbath day or the Eve before Augustus doth confirm this priviledg bestows upon their Synagogues the prerogative of Sanctuary Jos Antiq. l. 16. c. 30. enables them to live according to the Laws of their own Countrey and finally threatneth severe punishment on those which should presume to do any thing against his Edict The tenour of which Edict is as followeth Caesar Augustus Pont. Max. Trib. Pleb ita censet Quoniam Judaeorum gens semper fida grata fuit populo Rom. c. placet mihi de communi Senatus sententia eos propriis uti legibus ritibus quibus utebantur tempore Hyrcani Pontificis Dei
maximi eorum fanis jus Asyli manere c. neque cogi ad praestanda vadimonia sabbatis aut pridie sabbatorum post horam nonam in Parasceve Quod si quis contra decretum ausus fuerit gravi poena mulctabitur This Edict was set forth Anno 4045. and after many of that kind were published in several Provinces by Mar. Agrippa Provost General under Caesar Phil. legat ad Caium as also by Norbanus Flaceus and Julius Antonius Proconsuls at that time whereof see Josephus Nay when the Jews were grown so strict that it was thought unlawful either to give or take an Alms on the Sabbath day Augustus for his part was willing not to break them of it yet so to order and dispose his Bounties that they might be no losers by so fond a strictness For whereas he did use to distribute monthly a certain Donative either in Mony or in Corn this distribution sometimes happened on the Sabbath days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo hath it whereon the Jews might neither give nor take neither indeed do any thing that did tend to sustenance Therefore saith he it was provided that their proportion should be given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the next day after that so they might be made partakers of the publick benefit Not give nor take an Alms on the Sabbath day Their superstition sure was now very vehement seeing it would not suffer men to do the works of mercy on the day of mercy And therefore it was more than time they should be sent to School again to learn this Lesson I will have mercy and not sacrifice And so indeed they were sent unto School to him who in himself was both the Teacher and the Truth For at this time our Saviour came into the World And had there been no other business for him to do this only might have seemed to require his presence viz. to rectifie those dangerous Errours which had been spread abroad in these latter times about the Sabbath The service of the Sabbath in the Congregation he found full enough The custom was to read a Section of the Law out of the Pentateuch or five Books of Moses and after to illustrate or confirm the same out of some parallel place amongst the Prophets That ended if occasion were and that the Rulers of the Synagogue did consent unto it there was a word of Exhortation made unto the people Chap. 13.15 conducing to obedience and the works of Piety So far it is apparent by that passage in the Acts of the Apostles touching Paul and Barnabas that being at Antioch in Pisidia on the Sabbath day after the reading of the Law and Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them saying Ye men and brethren if ye have any word of exhortation to speak unto the people dicite say on As for the Law I note this only by the way they had divided it into 54 Sections which they read over in the two and fifty sabbaths joyning two of the shortest twice together that so it might be all read over within the year beginning on the Sabbath which next followed the Feast of Tabernacles ending on that which came before it So far our Saviour found no fault but rather countenanced and confirmed the custom by his gracious presence and example But in these rigid Vanities and absurd Traditions by which the Scribes and Pharisees had abused the Sabbath and made it of an ease to become a drudgery in those he thought it requisite to detect their follies and ease the people of that bondage which they in their proud humours had imposed upon them The Pharisees had taught that it was unlawful on the sabbath day either to heal the impotent or relieve the sick or feed the hungry but he confutes them in them all both by his Acts and by his Disputations Whatever he maintain'd by Argument he made good by Practice Did they accuse his followers of gathering Corn upon the Sabbath being then an hungred he le ts them know what David did in the same extremity Their eating or their gathering on the Sabbath day take you which you will was not more blameable nay not so blameable by the Law as David's eating of the Shew-bread which plainly was not to be eaten by any but the Priest alone The Cures he did upon the Sabbath what were they more than which themselves did daily do in laying salves unto those Infants whom on the Sabbath day they had Circumcised His bidding of the impotent man to take up his Bed and get him gone which seemed so odious in their eyes was it so great a toyl as to walk round the walls of Hiericho and bear the Ark upon their shoulders or any greater burden to their idle backs than to lift up the Ox and set him free out of that dangerous Ditch into the which the hasty Beast might fall as well upon the Sabbath as the other days Should men take care of Oxen and not God of Man Not so The Sabbath was not made for a lazy Idol which all the Nations of the World should fall down and worship but for the ease and comfort of the labouring man that he might have some time to refresh his spirits Sabbatum propter hominem factum est The Sabbath saith our Saviour was made for man man was not made to serve the Sabbath Nor had God so irrevocably spoke the word touching the sanctifying of the Sabbath that he had left himself no power to repeal that Law in case he saw the purpose of the Law perverted the Son of man even he that was the Son both of God and Man being Lord also of the Sabbath Nay it is rightly marked by some that Christ our Saviour did more works of Charity on the Sabbath day than on all days else Zanchius observes it out of Irenaeus In Mandat 4. Saepius multo Christum in die Sabbati praestitisse opera charitatis quam in aliis diebus and his note is good Not that there was some urgent and extream necessity either the Cures to be performed that day or the man to perish For if we look into the story of our Saviours actions we find no such matter It 's true that the Centurions son and Peters mother-in-law were even sick to death and there might be some reason in it why he should haste unto their Cures on the Sabbath day But on the other side the man that had the withered Hand Matth. 13. and the Woman with her flux of Blood eighteen years together Luke 13. he that was troubled with the Dropsie Luke 14. and the poor wretch which was afflicted with the Palsie John 5. in none of these was found any such necessity but that the Cure might have been respited to another day What then Shall it be thought our Saviour came to destroy the Law No. God forbid Himself hath told us that he came to fulfil it rather He came to let them understand
Festivals whatsoever they should abstain from every kind of bodily labour save what belong'd to dressing meat But that which needs must most afflict them is that the Council doth profess this abstinence from bodily labour which is there decreed to be no Ordinance of the Lords that he exacteth no such duty from us and that it is an Ecclesiastical exhortation only and no more but so And if no more but so it were too great an undertaking to bring all Nations of the World to yield unto the prescript of a private and particular Canon made only for a private and particular cause and if no more but so it concludes no Sabbath Yet notwithstanding these restraints from work and labour the Church did never so resolve it that any work was in it self unlawful on the Lords day though to advance Gods publick service it was thought good that men should be restrained from some kind of work that so they might the better attend their prayers and follow their devotions It 's true these Centuries the fifth and sixth were fully bent to give the Lords day all fit honour not only in prohibiting unlawful pleasures but in commanding a forbearance of some lawful business such as they found to yield most hinderance to religious duties Yea and some works of piety they affixt unto it for its greater honour The Prisoners in the common Goals had formerly been kept in too strictly It was commanded by Honorius and Theodosius at that time Emperours Anno 412. that they should be permitted omnibus diebus dominicus every Lords day to walk abroad with a guard upon them as well to crave the charity of well disposed persons as to repair unto the Bathes for the refreshing of their bodies Nor did he only so command it but set a mulct of 20 pound in gold on all such publick ministers as should disobey the Bishops of the Church being trusted to see it done Where note that going to the Bathes on the Lords day was not thought unlawful though it required no question corporal labours for had it been so thought as some thought it afterwards the Prelates of the Church would not have taken it upon them to see the Emperours will fulfilled and the Law obeyed A second honour affixt in these Ages to the Lords day is that it was conceived the most proper day for giving holy Orders in the Church of God and a Law made by Leo then Pope of Rome and generally since taken up in the Western Church that they should be conferred upon no day else There had been some regard of Sunday in the times before and so much Leo doth acknowledge Quod ergo à patribus nostris propensiore cura novimus servatum esse à vobis quoque volumus custodiri ut non passim diebus omnibus sacerdotalis ordinatio celebretur Ept. Decret 81 But that which was before a voluntary act is by him made necessary and a Law given to all the Churches under his obedience Vt his qui consecrandi sunt nunquam benedictiones nisi in die resurrectionis dominicae tribuantur that Ordinations should be celebrated on the Lords day only And certainly he gives good reason why it should be so except in extraordinary and emergent cases wherein the Law admits of a dispensation For on that day saith he The holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles and thereby gave us as it were this celestial rule that on that day alone we should confer spiritual orders in quo collata sunt omnia dona gratiarum in which the Lord conferred upon his Church all spiritual graces Nay that this business might be done with the more solemnity and preparation it was appointed that those men who were to be invested with holy Orders should continue fasting from the Eve before that spending all that time in prayer and humbling of themselves before the Lord they might be better fitted to receive his Graces For much about these times the service of the Lords day was enlarged and multiplyed the Evenings of the day being honoured with religious meetings as the Mornings formerly Yea and the Eves before were reckoned as a part or parcel of the Lords day following Cui à vespere sabbati initium constat ascribi as the same Decretal informs us The 251. Sermon de tempore ascribed unto St. Austin doth affirm as much but we are not sure that it is his Note that this Leo entred on the Chair of Rome Anno 440. of our Saviours birth and did continue in the same full 20 years within which space of time he set out this decretal but in what year particularly that I cannot find I say that now the Evenings of the Lords day began to have the honour of religious Meetings for ab initio non fuit sic it was not so from the beginning Nor hd it been so now but that almost all sorts of people were restrained from works as well by the Imperial Edicts as by the constitutions of particular Churches by means whereof the afternoon was left at large to be disposed of for the best increase of Christian Piety Nor probably had the Church conceived it necessary had not the admiration which was then generally had of the Monastick kind of life facilitated the way unto it For whereas they had bound themselves to set hours of prayer Epitaphium Panlae matr Mane hora tertia sexta nona vespere noctis medio at three of the clock in the Morning at six at nine and after in the Evening and at midnight as St. Hierom tells us the people generally became much affected with their strict Devotions and seemed not unwilling to conform unto them as far at least as might consist with their Vocations upon this willingness of the people the service of the Church became more frequent than before and was performed thrice every day in the greater Churches where there were many Priests and Deacons to attend the same namely at six and nine before Noon and at some time appointed in the Evening for the afternoon accordingly as now we use it in our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches But in inferiour Towns and petty Villages where possibly the people could not every day attend so often it was conceived sufficient that they should have the Morning and the Evening prayer sung or said unto them that such as would might come to Church for their devotions and so it is by the appointment of the Rubrick in our Common Prayer book Only the Sundays and the Holy days were to be honoured with two several meetings in the Morning the one at six of the clock which simply was the morning service the other at nine for the administration of the holy Sacrament and Preaching of the Word to the Congregation This did occasion the distinction of the first and second Service as we call them still though now by reason of the peoples sloth and backwardness in coming to the Church of God they are in most places
the offering of the Paschal Lamb his Death and Passion Sic Sabbatismus ille requiem annunciabat quae post hanc vitam posita â—â—t fanctis â—lectis so did the Sabbath signifie that eternal rest which after this life is provided for the Saints and elect of God And more than this Spiritualis homo non uno die hebdomadis sed omni tempore Sabbatizare satagit the true spiritual man keeps not his Subbath once a week but at all times whatever every hour and minute What then would he have no day set apart for Gods publick service no but not the Sabbath Because saith he we are not to rejoyce in this world that perisheth but in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection therefore we ought not rest the seventh day in sloth and idleness But we dispose our selves to prayers and hearing of the Word of God upon the first day of the week on the which Christ rose cum summa cura providentes ut tam illo quam caeteris diebus feriati semper simus à servili opere peccati Provided always that upon that and all days else we keep our selves free from the servile Acts of sin This was the Sabbath which they principally looked for in this present life never applying of that name to the Lords day in any of those monuments of Learning they have left behind them The first who ever used it to denote the Lords day the first that I have met with in all this search is one Petrus Alfonsus he lived about the times that Rupertus did who calls the Lords day by the name of the Christian Sabbath Dies domnica dies viz. resurrectionis quae suae salvationis causa extitit Christianorum sabbatum est But this no otherwise to be construed than by Analogy and resemblance no otherwise than the Feast of Easter is called the Christian Passeover As for the Saturday the old Sabbath day though it continued not a Sabbath yet it was still held in an high esteem in the Eastern Churches counted a festival day or at least no fast and honoured with the meetings of the Congregation In reference to the first we find how it was charged on the Church of Rome by the sixth Council in Constantinople Anno 692. that in the holy time of Lent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they used to fast the Saturday which was directly contrary to the Canons of the Apostles as they there alledge This also was objected by Photius Patriarch of Constantinople against Pope Nicolas of Rome Anno 867. and after that by Michael of Constantinople against Leo the ninth Anno 1053. which plainly shews that in the Eastern Churches they observed it otherwise And in relation to the other Curopalat we find that whereas in the principal Church of Constantinople the holy Sacrament was celebrated only on the greater feasts as also on the Saturdays and the Sundays Sabbatis dominicis and not on other days as at Rome it was Constantine surnamed Mononiachus Anno 1054 enriched it with revenue and bestowed much fair plate upon it that so they might be able every day to perform that office Which proves sufficiently that Saturday was always one in all publick duties and that it kept even pace with Sunday But it was otherwise of old in the Church of Rome where they did laborare jejunare as Humbertus saith in his defence of Leo the ninth against Nicetas And this with little opposition or interruption save that which had been made in the City of Rome in the beginning of the seventh Century and was soon crushed by Gregory then Bishop there as before we noted And howsoever Vrban of that name the second Hect. Boet. hist l. 22. did consecrate it to the weekly service of the blessEd Virgin and instituted in the Council held at Clermont Anno 1095. that our Ladies office Officium B. Mariae should be said upon it Eandemque Sabbato quoque die praecipua devotione populum Christianum colere debere and that upon that day all Christian folk should worship her with their best devotions yet it continued still as before it was a day of fasting and of working So that in all this time in 1200 years we have found no Sabbath nor do we think to meet with any in the times that follow either amongst the Schoolmen or amongst the Protestants which next shall come upon the Stage CHAP. VI. What is the judgment of the Schoolmen and of the Protestants and what the practice of those Churches in this Lords day business 1. That in the judgment of the Schoolmen the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment 2. As also that the Lords day is not founded on Divine Authority but the Authority of the Church 3. A Catalogue of the Holy-days drawn up in the Council of Lyons and the new Doctrine of the Schools touching the native sanctity of the Holy-days 4. In what estate the Lords day stood in matter of restraint from labour at the reformation 5. The Reformators find great fault both with the said new doctrine and restraints from labour 6. That in the judgment of the Protestant Divines the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment 7. As that the Lords day hath no other ground on which to stand than the Authority of the Church 8. And that the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other 9. What is the practice of all Churches the Roman Lutheran and Calvinian chiefly in matter of Devotion rest from labour and sufferance of lawful pleasures 10. Dancing cried down by Calvin and the French Churches not in relation to the Lords day but the sport it self 11. In what estate the Lords day stands in the Eastern Churches and that the Saturday is no less esteemed of by the Ethiopians than the said Lords day WE are now come unto an Age wherein the Learning of the world began to make a different shew from what it did to such a period of time in which was made the greatest alteration in the whole fabrick of the Church that ever any time could speak of The Schoolmen who sprung up in the beginning of the thirteenth Age contracted Learning which before was diffused and scattered into fine subtilties and distinctions the Protestants in the beginning of the sixteenth endeavouring to destroy those buildings which with such diligence and curiosity had been erected by the Schoolmen though they consented well enough in the present business so far as it concern'd the Institution either of the Lords day or the Sabbath Of these and what they taught and did in reference to the point in hand we are now to speak taking along with us such passages of especial note as hapned in the Christian world by which we may learn any thing that concerns our business And first beginning with the Schoolmen they tell us generally of the Sabbath that
Kingdom So great is their delight therein and with such eagerness they pursue it when they are at leisure from their business that as it seems they do neglect the Church on the Holy-days that they may have the more time to attend their Dancing Upon which ground it was 〈…〉 and not that Dancing was conceived to be no lawful sport for the Lords day that in the Council of Sens Anno 1524. in that of Paris Anno 1557. in those of Rhemes and Tours Anno 1583. and finally in that of Bourges Anno 1584. dancing on Sundays and the other Holy-days hath been prohibited prohibited indeed but practised by the People notwithstanding all their Canons But this concerns the French and their Churches only our Northern Nations not being so bent upon the sport as to need restraint Only the Polish Churches did conclude in the Synod of Petricow before remembred that Tavern-meetings Drinking-matches Dice Cards and such like pastimes as also Musical Instruments and Dances should on the Lords day be forbidden But then it followeth with this clause Praesertim eo temporis momento quo concio cultus divinus in temple peragitur especially at that instant time when men should be at Church to hear the Sermon and attend Gods worship Which clearly shews that they prohibited dancing and the other pastimes then recited no otherwise than as they were a means to keep men from Church Probably also they might be induced unto it by such French Protestants as came into that Countrey with the Duke of Anjou when he was chosen King of Poland Anno. 1574. which was four years before this Council As for the Churches of the East being now heavily oppressed with Turkish bondage we have not very much to say Yet by that little which we find thereof it seems the Lords day keeps that honour which before it had and that the Saturday continues in the same regard wherein once it was both of them counted days of Feasting and both retained for the Assemblies of the Church First that they are both days of Feasting or at the least exempted from their publick Fasts appears by that which is related by Christopher Angelo a Graecian whom I knew in Oxford De institut Graec. c. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that on the Saturday and Sunday which we call the Lords day they do both eat Oyl and drink Wine even in Lent it self whereas on other days they feed on Pulse and drink only water Then that they both are still retained for the Assemblies of the Church with other Holy-days he tells us in another place where it is said Id. c. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that for the Lords days and the Saturday and the other Festivals they use to go unto the Church on the Eve before and almost at midnight where they continue till the breaking up of the Congregation For the Egyptian Christians or Cophties as we call them now it is related by G. Sandys Travels l. 2. That on the Saturday presently after midnight they repair unto their Churches where they remain well nigh until Sunday at noon during which time they neither sit nor kneel but support themselves on Crutches and that they sing over the most part of Davids Psalms at every meeting with divers parcels of the Old and New Testament He hath informed us also of the Armenians another sort of Eastern Christians that coming into the place of the Assembly on Sunday in the afternoon he found one sitting in the middest of the Congregation in habit not differing from the rest reading on a Bible in the Chaldean tongue that anon after came the Bishop in an Hood or Vest of black with a staff in his hand that first he prayed and then sung certain Psalms assisted by two or three after all of them singing joyntly at interims praying to themselves the Bishop all this while with his hands erected and face towards the Altar That service being ended they all kissed his hand and bestowed their Alms he laying his other hand on their heads and blessing them finally that bidding the succeeding Fasts and Festivals he dismissed the Assembly The Muscovites being near unto the Greeks once within the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople partake much also of their customs They count it an unlawful thing to fast the Saturday Gagvinus de Moscovit which shews that somewhat is remaining of that esteem in which once they had it and for the Holy-days Sundays as well as any other they do not hold themselves so strictly to them but that the Citizens and Artificers immediately after Divine Service betake themselves unto their labour and domestick businesses And this most probably is the custom also of all the Churches of the East as holding a Communion with the Church of Greece though not subordinate thereunto From the which Church of Greece the faith was first derived unto these Muscovites as before was said and with the faith the observation of this day and all the other Holy-days at that time in use As for the Country people as Gagvinus tells us they seldom celebrate or observe any day at all at least not with that care and order as they ought to do saying that it belongs only unto Lords and Gentlemen to keep Holy-days Last of all for the Habassines or Ethiopian Christians though further off in situation they come as near unto the fashions of the ancient Grecians Enquiries c. 23 Of them we are informed by Master Brerewood out of Damiani that they reverence the Sabbath keeping it solemn equally with the Lords day Emend Temp. lib. 7. Scaliger tells us that they call both of them by the name of Sabbaths the one the first the other the later Sabbath or in their own language the one Sanbath Sachristos that is Christs Sabbath the other Sanbath Judi or the Jews Sabbath Bellarmine thinks that they derived this observation of the Saturday or Sabbath from the Constitutions ascribed to Clemens which indeed frequently do press the observation of that day with no less fervour than the Sunday â—e Script Ecclin Clem. Of this we have already spoken And to this Bellarmine was induced the rather because that in the Country they had found authority and were esteemed as Apostolical Audio Ethiopes his Constitutionibus uti ut vere Apostolocis ea de causa in erroâ—ibus versari circa cultum Sabbati diei Dominicae But if this be an errour in them they have many partners and those of ancient standing in the Church of God as before was shewn As for their service on the Sunday they celebrate the Sacrament in the morning early except it be in the time of Lent when fasting all the day they discharge that duty in the Evening and then fall to meat as the same Scaliger hath recorded So having looked over all the residue of the Christian World and found no Sabbath in the same except only nominal and that
which afterwards in the year 1625. he published to the World with his other Lectures Now in this Speech or Determination he did thus resolve it First that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first Creation of the World nor ever kept by any of the ancient Patriarchs who lived before the Law of Moses therefore no moral and perpetual Precept as the others are Sect. 2. Secondly That the sanctifying of one day in seven is ceremonial only and obliged the Jews not Moral to oblige us Christians to the like Observance Sect. 3. 4. Thirdly That the Lords day is founded only on the Authority of the Church guided therein by the practice of the Apostles not on the fourth Commandment which in the 7. Section he entituleth a seandalous Doctrine nor any other authority in holy Scripture Sect. 6. 7. Fourthly That the Church hath still authority to change the day though such authority be not fit to be put in practice Sect. 7. Fifthly That in the celebration of it there is no such cessation from the works of labour required of us as was exacted of the Jews but that we lawfully may dress Meat proportionable unto every mans estate and do such other things as be no hinderance to the publick Service appointed for the day Sect. 8. Sixthly That on the Lords day all Recreations whatsoever are to be allowed which honestly may refresh the spirits and encrease mutual love and Neighbourhood amongst us and that the Names whereby the Jews did use to call their Festival whereof the Sabbath was the chief were borrowed from an Hebrew word which signifies to Dance and to make merry or rejoyce And lastly that it appertains to the Christian Magistrate to order and appoint what Pastimes on the Lords day are to be permitted and what prohibited not unto every private person much less to every mans rash Zeal as his own words are who out of a schismatical Stoicism debarring men from lawful Pastimes doth incline to Judaisin Sect. 8. This was the sum and substance of his resolution then which as it gave content unto the sounder and the better part of the Assembly so it did infinitely stomack and displease the greater numbers such as were formerly possessed with the other Doctrines though they were wiser than to make it a publick Quarrel Only it pleased Mr. Bifeild of Surrey in his Reply in a Discourse of Mr. Brerewoods of Cresham Colledg Anno 1631. to tax the Doctor as a spreader of wicked Doctrine and much to marvel with himself how either he durst be so hold to say Page 161. or having said it could be suffered to put it forth viz. That to establish the Lords day on the fourth Commandment were to incline too much to Judaism This the said M. Bifeild thinks to be a foul aspertion on this famous Church But in so thinking I conceive that he consulted more his own opinion and his private interest than any publick maintenance of the Churches cause which was not injured by the Doctor but defended rather But to proceed or rather to go back a little About a year before the Doctor thus declared his judgment one Tho. Broad of Gloucestorshire had published something in this kind wherein to speak my mind thereof he rather shewed that he disliked those Sabbath Doctrines than durst disprove them And before either M. Brerewood whom before I named had writ a learned Treatise about the Sabbath on a particular occasion therein mentioned but published it was not till after both Anno 1629. Add here to joyn them altogether that in the Schools at Oxon Anno 1628. it was maintained by Dr. Robinson now Archdeacon of Gloucester viz. Ludos Recreationis gratia in die Dominico non esse prohibitos Divina Lege That Recreations on the Lords day were not at all prohibited by the Word of God As for our neighbour Church of Scotland as they proceeded not at first with that mature deliberation in the reforming of that Church which had been here observed with us so did they run upon a course of Reformation which after was thought fitting to be reformed The Queen was young and absent in the Court of France the Regent was a desolate Widow a Stranger to the Nation and not well obeyed So that the people there possessed by Cnoxe and other of their Teachers took the cause in hand and went that way which came most near unto Geneva where this Cnoxe had lived Among the first things wherewithal they were offended were the Holy days Proceedings at Perth These in their Book of Discipline Anno 1560. they condemned at once particularly the observation of Holy days entituled by the names of Saints the Feasts of Christmas Circumcision Epiphany the Purification and others of the Virgin Mary all which they ranked awongst the abominations of the Roman Religion as having neither Commandment nor assurance in the Word of God But having brought this Book to be subsigned by the Lords of secret Counsel it was first rejected some of them giving it the Title of Devote Imaginations Cnoxe Hist of Scotl. p. 523. whereof Cnoxe complains Yet notwithstanding on they went and at last prevailed for in the middle of the Tumults the Queen Regent died and did not only put down all the Holy days the Lords day excepted but when an uprore had been made in Edenburg about a Robin-hood or a Whitson-Lord they of the Consistory excommunicated the whole multitud Now Proceedings at Perth that the holy days were put down may appear by this That in the year 1566. when the Confession of the Helvetian Churches was proposed unto them they generally approved the same save that they liked not of those Holy days which were there retained But whatsoever they intended and howsoever they had utterly suppressed those days which were entituled by the Names of particular Saints yet they could never so prevail but that the people would retain some memory of the two great and principal Feasts of Christs Nativity and Resurrection For in the year 1575. Complaint was made unto the Regent how in Dunfreis they had conveyed the Reader to the Church with Taber and Whissel to read Prayers all the Holy days of Zule or Christmas Thereupon Anno 1577. it was ordained in an Assembly of the Church That the Visitors should admonish Ministers preaching or ministring the Communion at Pasche or Zule or other like superstitious times under pain of deprivation to desist therefrom Anno 1587. it was complained of to his Majesty That Pasche and Zule were superstitiously observed in Fife and about Dunfreis and in the year 1592. the Act of the Queen Regent granting licence to keep the said two Feasts was by them repealed Yet find we by the Bishop of Brechin in his Discourse of the Proceedings at the Synod of Perth that notwithstanding all the Acts Civil and Ecclesiastick made against the superstitious observation and prophane abuse of Zule day the people could never be induced to labour on
the excellency of Divine Grace so the Second being that maintained by the Franciscans was plausible and populare and cherished humane presumption c. The whole passage we have had before in the Second Chapter Numb 4. but we shall answer to no more of it than the former Clause Concerning which it may be said that though Father Paul the Author of the History hath filled the Christian World with admiration yet it is obvious to the eye of any discerning Reader that in many places he savoureth not so much of the Historian as he doth of the Party and that being carryed by the Interest of his Native Countrey which was the Signory of Venice he seldom speaks favourably of the Jesuits and their adherents amongst which the Franciscans in these points are to be accounted Secondly that either Father Paul did mistake himself or else that his Translator hath mistaken his meaning in making the Second Opinion to be more pleasing to the Preaching Fryers than the understanding Divines the name of Preaching Fryers being so appropriated in common speech to those of the Dominican Order that it is never applyed unto any other And Thirdly That the Authority of Father Paul is no otherwise to be embraced in Doctrinal matters what credit soever may be given to him in point of History than as it is seconded by Reason And certainly if we proceed by the rule of Reason that Doctrine must needs more cherish humane presumption which puffeth men up with the certainty of their Election the infallibility of assisting and persisting Grace and the impossibility of falling from the attaining of that salvation which they have promised to themselves than that which leaves these points uncertain which puts a man to the continnal necessity of calling on God and working out the way unto his salvation with fear and trembling He that is once possessed with this persuasion that all the sins which he can possibly commit were they as many as have been committed by all mankind since the beginning of the World are not able to frustrate his Election or separate him from the love and favour of Almighty God will be too apt to swell with Pharisaical pride and despise all other men as Heathens and Publicans when such poor Publicans as have their minds humble and relying on God will stand aloof not daring to approach too near the Divine Majesty but crying out with God be merciful unto me a sinner and yet shall be more justified in the sight of God than the others are For this we need produce no proof we find it in the supercilious looks in the haughty carriage of those who are so well assured of their own Election who cannot so disguise themselves as not to undervalue and despise all those who are not of the same party and persuasion with them A race of men whose insolence and pride there is no avoid by a modest submission whose favour there is no obtaining by good turns and benefits Quorum superbiam frustra per modestiam obsequium effugeris as in another case was said by a Noble Britain And finally it is objected but the Objection rather doth concern the men than the Doctrine that the Arminians are a Faction a turbulent seditious Faction so found in the Vnited Provinces from their very first spawning not to be suffered by any Reason of State in a Commonwealth So saith the Author of the pamphlet called the Observator observed and proves it by the wicked conspiracy as he calls it of Barnevelt Obf. Observed p. 46. who suffered most condignly as he tells us upon that account 1619. And afterwards by the damnable and hellish plot of Barnevelts Children and Allies in their designs against the State and the Prince of Orange P. 37. This Information seconded by the Author of the Book called The Justification of the Fathers c. who tells us but from whom he knows not that the States themselves have reported of them that they had created them more trouble than the King of Spain had by all his Wars And both these backt by the Authority of King James who tells us of them in his Declaration against Vorstius That if they were not with speed rooted out no other issue could be expected than the Curse of God infamy throughout all the Reformed Churches and a perpetual rent and destraction in the whole body of the State This is the substance of the Charge So old and common that it was answered long since by Bishop Ridly in Qu. Maries days when the Doctrine of the Protestants was said to be the readiest way to stir up Sedition and trouble the quiet of the Commonwealth wherefore to be repressed in time by force of Laws To which that godly Bishop returns this Answer That Satan doth not cease to practice his old guiles and accustomed subtilties He hath ever this Dart in a readiness to whirl against his adversaries to accuse them of Sedition that he may bring them if he can in danger of the Higher Powers for so hath he by his Ministers always charged the Prophets of God Ahab said unto Elias art thou he that troubleth Israel The false Prophets complained also to their Princes of Jeremy that his words were seditious and not to be suffered Did not the Scribes and Pharisees falsly accuse Christ as a seditious person and one that spake against Caesar Which said and the like instance made in the Preachings of St. Paul Confer between Kidley and Latimer he concludes it thus viz. But how far they were from all sedition their whole Doctrine Life and Conversation doth well declare And this being said in reference to the Charge in general the Answer to each part thereof is not far to seek And first it hath been answered to that part of it which concerns King James that the King was carried in this business not so much by the clear light of his most excellent understanding as by Reason of State the Arminians as they call them were at that time united into a party under the command of John Olden Barnevelt and by him used for the reasons formerly laid down to undermine the power of Maurice then Prince of Orange who had made himself the Head of the Contra-Remonstrants and was to that King a most dear Confederate Which Division in the Belgick Provinces that King considered as a matter of most dangerous consequence and utterly destructive of that peace unity and concord which was to be the greatest preservation of the States Vnited on whose tranquillity and power he placed a great part of the peace and happiness of his own Dominions Upon which reason he exhorts them in the said Declaration To take heed of such infected persons their own Countrey-men being already divided into Factions upon this occasion as he saith which was a matter so opposite to Vnity which was indeed the only prop and safety of their State next under God as of necessity it must by little and little
lay it upon the Predestination of God and would excuse it by ignorance or say he cannot be good because he is otherwise destined which in the next words he calls A Stoical Opinion refuted by those words of Horace Nemo adeo ferus est c. But that which makes most against the absolute irrespective and irreversible Decree of Predestination whether it be life or death is the last clause of our second Article being the seventeenth of the Church as before laid down where it is said that we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and that in all our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared to us in holy Scriptures And in the holy Scripture it is declared to us That God gave his Son for the World or for all mankind that Christ offered himself a Sacrifice for all the sins of the whole World that Christ redeemed all mankind that Christ commanded the Gospel to be preached to all that God wills and commands all men to hear Christ and to believe in him and in him to offer grace and salvation unto all men That this is the infallible truth in which there can be no falshood otherwise the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel preaching the same should be false witnesses of God and should make him a liar than which nothing can be more repugnant to the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination which restrains Predestination unto life in a few particulars without respect had to their faith in Christ or Christs sufferings and death for them which few particulars so predestinate to eternal life shall as they tell us by an irresistible Grace be brought to God and by the infallible conduct of the holy Spirit persevere from falling away from grace and favour Nothing more contrary to the like absolute decree of Reprobation by which the infinitely greatest part of all mankind is either doomed remedilesly to the torments of Hell when they were but in the state of Creability as the Supralapsarians have informed us and unavoidably necessitated unto sin that they might infallibly be damn'd or otherwise as miserably leaving them under such a condition according to the Doctrine of the Sablapsarians which renders them uncapable of avoiding the wrath to come and consequently subjected them to a damnation no less certain than if they were created to no other purpose which makes it seem the greater wonder that Dr. Vsher afterwards Lord Primate of Ireland in drawing up the Article of predestination for the Church of Ireland Anno 1615. should take in so much as he doth of the Lambeth Articles and yet subjoyn this very clause at the foot thereof Article of Ireland Numb 12.14 17. which can no more concorporate with it than any of the most heterogeneous metals can unite into one piece of refined Gold which clause as it remaineth in the Articles of the Church of England how well it was applyed by King James and others in the Conference at Hampton Court we shall see hereafter In the mean time we must behold another Argument which fights more strongly against the positive decree of Reprobation than any of the rest before that is to say the reconciliation of all men to Almighty God the universal redemption of mankind by the death of Christ expresly justified and maintained by the Church of England For though one in our late undertaking seem exceeding confident that the granting of universal redemption will draw no inconvenience with it as to the absoluteness of Gods decrees or to the insuperability of converting Grace Cap. 10. or to the certain infallible perseverance of Gods Elect aftec Conversion Yet I dare say he will not be so confident in affirming this That if Christ did so far die for all as to procure a salvation for all under the condition of faith and repentance as his own words are there can be any room for such an absolute decree of Reprobation Antecedaneous and precedent to the death of Christ as his great Masters in the School of Calvin have been pleased to teach him Now for the Doctrine of this Church in that particular it is exprest so clearly in the second Article of the five before laid down that nothing needs be added either in way of explication or of confirmation howsoever for avoiding of all doubt and hesitancy we will first add some farther testimonies touching the Doctrine of this Church in the point of universal Redemption And secondly touching the applying of so great a benefit by universal Vocation and finally we shall shew the causes why the benefit is not effectual unto all alike And first as for the Doctrine of Universal Redemption it may be further proved by those words in the publick Catechism where the Child is taught to say that he believeth in God the Son who redeemed with him all mankind in that clause of the publick Letany where God the Son is called the Redeemer of the World in the passages of the latter Exhortation before the Communion where it is said That the Oblation of Christ once offered was a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD in the proper Preface appointed for the Communion on Easter day in which he is said to be the very Paschal Lamb that was offered for us and taketh away the sins of the world repeated in the Gloria in excelsis to the same effect Hom. Salvation p. 13. And finally in the Prayer of Conservation viz. Almighty God our heavenly Father which of thy tender mercies didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our Redemption who made there by his own Oblation of himself once offered a firm and perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD To this purpose it is said in the book of Homilies That the World being wrapt up in sin by the breaking of Gods Law God sent his only Son our Saviour Christ into this world to fulfil the Law for us and by shedding of his most precious blood to make a Sacrifice and Satisfaction or as it may be called amends to his Father for our sins to asswage his wrath and indignation conceived against us for the same Out of which words it may be very well concluded That the World being wrapt up in sin the Recompence and Satisfaction which was made to God must be made to him for the sins of the World or else the plaister had not been commensurate to the sore nor so much to the magnifying of Gods wonderful mercies in the offered means of Reconcilement betwixt God and man the Homily must else fall short of that which is taught in the Articles In which besides what was before delivered from the second and 31. concerning the Redemption of the world by the death of Christ it is affirmed in the 15. as plain as may be That
Christ came to be a Lamb without spot who by the Sacrifice of himself once made should take away the sins of the world Than which there can be nothing more conducible to the point in hand And to this purpose also when Christ our Saviour was pleased to Authorize his Holy Apostles to preach the good Tidings of Salvations he gave them both a Command and a Commission To go unto all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature Mark 16.15 So that there was no part of the World nor any Creature in the same that is to say no rational Creature which seems to be excluded from a Possibility of obtaining Salvation by the Preaching of the Gospel to them if with a faith unfeigned they believe the same which the Church further teacheth us in this following Prayer appointed to be used in the Ordering of such as are called to the Office of the holy Priesthood viz. Almighty God and Heavenly Father which of thine Infinite Love and Goodness toward us hast given to us thy only and most Dear Beloved Son Jesus Christ to be our Redeemer and Author of Everlasting Life who after he had made perfect our Redemption by his Death and was ascended into Heaven sent forth abroad into the world his Apostles Prophets Evangelists Doctors and Pastors by whose labour and Ministry he gathered together a great Flock in all the parts of the World to set forth the Eternal Praise of his Holy Name For these so great Benefits of thy Eternal Goodness and for that thou hast vouchsafed to call thy Servant here present to the same Office and Ministry of Salvation of Mankind we render unto thee most hearty thanks and we worship and praise thee and we humbly beseech thee by the same thy Son to grant unto all which either here or elsewhere call upon thy Name that we may shew our selves thankful to thee for these and all other thy benefits and that we may daily increase and go forward in the knowledg and faith of thee and thy Son by the Holy Spirit So that as well by these thy Ministers as by them to whom they shall be appointed Ministers thy Holy Name may be always glorified and thy Blessed Kingdom enlarged through the same thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with thee in the Vnity of the same Holy Spirit world without end Amen Which Form in Ordering and Consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons I note this only by the way being drawn up by those which had the making of the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixth and confirmed by Act of Parliament in the fifth and sixth of the said King was afterwards also ratified by Act of Parliament in the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth and ever since hath had its place amongst the publick Monuments and Records of the Church of England To these I shall only add one single testimony out of the Writings of each of the three godly Martyrs before remembred the point being so clearly stated by some of our Divines commonly called Calvinists though not by the Outlandish also that any longer insisting on it may be thought unnecessary First then Bishop Cranmer tells us in the Preface to his Book against Gardiner of Winchester aforementioned That our Saviour Christ according to the will of his Eternal Father when the time thereof was fully accomplished taking our Nature upon him came into this World from the high Throne of his Father to declare unto miserable Sinners the Goodness c. To shew that the time of Grace and Mercy was come to give light to them that were in darkness and in the shadow of death and to preach and give Pardon and full Remission of sin to all his Elected And to perform the same he made a Sacrifice and Oblation of his body upon the Cross which was a full Redemption Satisfaction and Propitiation for the sins of the whole World More briefly Bishop Latimer thus The Evangelist saith When Jesus was born c. Serm. 1. Sund. after Epiph. What is Jesus Jesus is an Hebrew word which signifieth in our English Tongue a Saviour and Redeemer of all Mankind born into the World This Title and Name To save appertaineth properly and principally unto him for he saved us else had we been lost for ever Bishop Hooper in more words to the same effect That as the sins of Adam Pref. to the ten Commandments without Priviledg or Exemption extended and appertained unto all and every of Adams Posterity so did this Promise of Grace generally appertain as well to every and singular of Adams Posterity as to Adam as it is more plainly expressed where God promiseth to bless in the seed of Abraham all the people of the World Next for the point of Vniversal Vocation and the extent of the Promises touching life Eternal besides what was observed before from the Publick Liturgy we find some Testimonies and Authorities also in the Book of Homilies In one whereof it is declared That God received the learned and unlearned and casteth away none Hom. of Holy Scrip. p. 5. but is indifferent unto all And in another place more largely that the imperfection or natural sickness taken in Adam excludeth not that person from the promise of God in Christ except we transgress the limits and bounds of this Original sin by our own folly and malice If we have Christ then have we with him Hom. against fear of death p. 62. and by him all good things whatsoever we can in our hearts wish or desire as Victory over death sin hell c. The truth hereof is more clearly evidenced in the Writings of the godly Martyrs so often mentioned as first of Bishop Latimer who discourseth thus We learn saith he by this sentence that multi sunt vocati that many are called c. that the preaching of the Gospel is universal that it appertaineth to all mankind Serm. Septure that it is written in omnem terram exivit sonus eorum through the whole world their sound is heard Now seeing that the Gospel is universal it appeareth that he would have all mankind be saved that the fault is not in him if they be damned for it is written thus Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri God would have all mankind saved his salvation is sufficient to save all mankind Thus also in another place That the promises of Christ our Saviour are general they appertain to all mankind He made a general Proclamation saying Qui credit in me 1 Serm Lincol habet vitam aeternam Whosoever believeth me hath eternal life And not long after in the same Sermon That we must consider wisely what he saith with his own mouth Venite and me omnes Hook pres to Commo c. Mark here he saith mark here he saith Come all ye wherefore should any body despair or shut out himself from the promises of Christ which be general and appertain to the whole
Prin and his Shadow so declare themselves Anti-Armin Pag. 48. the one affirming that all these passages are directly for them and punctually opposite to their Arminian Antagonists the other crying out with some admiration How do the Master and Scholar plainly declare themselves to bâ— no friends to the Tenents which the English Arminians how contend for but notwithstanding all this cry I fear we shall get but little wool when we come to consider of those passages in Poynets Catechism which are most relied on and which hâ—re follow as I find them in the Anti-arminianism without alteration of the words or syllables though with some alteration in the method of the Collection Now the passâ—ges collected out of Poynets Catechism are these that follow viz. The Image of God in man by original sin and evil custom was so obscured in the beginning and the natural judgment so corrupted Caâ—â—â—â— Pag. 7.8 12. Page 9. that man himself could not sufficiently understand the difference between good and bad between just and unjust c. As for the sacrificings cleansings washings and other Ceremonies of the Law they were Shadows Types Images and Figures of the true and eternal sacrifice that Jesus Christ made upon the Cross by whose benefit alone all the sins of all Believers from the beginning of the World are pardoned by the sole mercy of God Page 13. and not by any merit of their own As soon as ever Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit they both died that is that they were not only liable to the death of the body but likewise lost the lise of the soul which is righteousness and forthwith the Divine Image was obscured in them and those lineaments of Righteousness Holiness Truth and knowledge of God exceeding comely were disordered and almost obliterated the terrene Image only remained coupled with unrighteousness fraud carnal affections and great ignorance of Divine and Heavenly things from thence also proceeded the infirmity of our flesh from thence corruption and confusion of affections and desires hence that plague hence that seminary and nutriment of sin wherewith all man-kind is infected which is called Original sin Moreover nature is sodepraved and cast down that unless the goodness and mercy of Almighty God had helped us by the medicine of grace as in body we were thrust down into all the miseries of death so it was necessary that all men of all sorts should be cast into eternal torments and fire which cannot be quenched â—eâ— 18. Those things which are spiritual are not seen but by the eye of the spirit He therefore that will see the Divinity of Christ on Earth let him open the eyes not of the body but of the mind and of Faith and he shall see him present whom the eye doth not see he shall see him present in the midst of them Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in his Name he shall see him present with us to the end of the World What have I said he shall see Christ present yea he shall both see and feel him dwelling in himself no otherwise than his own soul for he doth dwell and reside in the soul and in the heart of him who doth place all his confidence in him Above all things this cannot be concealed that the benefits which are brought unto us by the Death 〈◊〉 23. the Resurrection and Ascention of Christ were so great and ample that no tongue either of men or Angels can express it c. From these and from other actions of Christ two benefits do accrew unto us One that whatsoever he did he did it all for our profitand commodity so that they are as much ours if we cleave fast to him with a firm and lively faith as if we our selves had done them He verily was nailed to the Cross and we are crucified with him and our sins are punished in him He died and was buried we likewise with our sins are dead and buried and that so as that all the memory of our sins is utterly abolished he rose again and we also are risen with him being made partakers of his resurrection and life that henceforth death might no more domineer in us for there is the same Spirit in us that raised Jesus from the dead Lastly as he ascended into Celestial glory so we are exalted together with him Fol. 30. The Holy Ghost is called holy not only for his own holiness but because the Elect of God Fol. 31. and the Members of Christ are made holy by him The Church is the company of them who are called to eternal life by the Holy Ghost by whom she is guided and governed which time she cannot be understood by the light of sense or nature is justly placed amongst the number of those things which are to be believed and is therefore called the Catholick that is the universal Assembly of the faithful Fâ—â— 44 45. because it is not tied to any certain placed God who rules and governs all things can do all things No man is of so great power that he can so much as withst and him but he gives whatsoever he shall decree according to his own pleasure and those things which are given to us by him he is able to take them away After the Lord God had made the Heavens and Earth he determined to have for himself a most beautiful Kingdom 〈◊〉 from Pag. 37. to 41. and holy Commmon-wealth The Apostles and Ancient Fathers that writ in Greek called it Ecclesia in English a Congregation or Assembly into the which he hath admitted an infinite number of men that should be subject to one King as their Soveraign and only Head him we call Christ which is as much as to say Anointed or to the furnishing of this Common-wealth belong all they as many as do truly fear honour and call upon God daily applying their minds to holy and godly living and all those that putting all their hope and trust in him do assuredly look for bliss of everlasting life But as many as are in this Faith stedfast were fore-chosen predestinate and appoined to everlasting life before the World was made witness whereof they have within their hearts the merit of Christ the Authour earnest and unfailable pledge of their Faith which Faith only is able to perceive the mysteries of God only brings peace unto the heart only taketh hold on the Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus Master Doth then the Spirit alone and Faith sleep we never so securely or stand we never so reckless or slothful work all things for us as without any help of our own to convey us to Heaven Scholar Just Master as you have taught me to make a difference between the Cause and the Effect The first principal and most proper cause of our Justification and Salvation is the goodness and love of God whereby he chose us for his before he made the World After that God
Realm Apud eund p. 219. Thus do we read that Egbert who first united the seven Kingdoms of the Saxons under the name of England did cause to be convened at London his Bishops and the Peers of the highest rank pro consilio capiendo adversus Danicos Piratas Charta Whitlafii Merciorum Regis ap Ingulf to advise upon some course against the Danish Pirates who infested the Sea coasts of England Another Parliament or Council call it which you will called at Kingsbury Anno 855. in the time of Ethelwolph the Son of Egbert pro negotiis regni to treat of the affairs of the Kingdom Chart. Bertulfi Merc. Regis ap Ingulf Ingulfi Croyland hist the Acts whereof are ratified and subscribed by the Bishops Abbots and other great men of the Realm The same King Ethelwolph in a Parliament or Assembly of his States at Winchester Anno 855. Cum consilio Episcoporum principum by the advice and counsel of the Bishops and Nobility confirmed unto the Clergy the tenth part of all mens goods and ordered that the Tithe so confirmed unto them should be free ab omnibus secularibus servitutibus from all secular services and impositions In the Reign of Edred we find this Anno 948. In Festo igitur nativitatis B. Mariae cum universi Magnates regni per Regium edictum summoniti tam Archiepiscopi Episcopi ac Abbates quam caeteri totius Regni proceres optimates Londoniis convenissent ad tractandum de negotiis publicis totius Regni Id ibid. p. 49. edit Lond. viz. That in the Feast of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin the great men of the Realm that is to say Archbishops Bishops Abbots Nobles Peers were summoned by the Kings Writ to appear at London to handle and conclude about the publick affairs of the Kingdom Mention of this Assembly is made again at the foundation and endowment of the Abbie of Crowland Id. p. 500. and afterwards a confirmation of the same by Edgar Anno 966. praesentibus Archiepiscopis Espiscopi Abbatibus Optimatibus Regni in the presence of the Archbishops Bishops Id. pag. 501. 502. Abbots and Peers of the Kingdom Like convention of Estates we find to have been called by Canutus after the death of Edmund Ironside for the setling of the Crown on his own head of which thus the Author Rog. Hoveden Annal. pars prior p. 250. Cujus post mortem Rex Canutus omnes Episcopos Duces necnon principes cunctosque optimates gentis Angliae Londoniae congregari jussit Where still we find the Bishops to be called to Parliament as well as the Dukes Princes and the rest of the Nobility and to be ranked and marshalled first which clearly shews that they were always reckoned for the first Estate before the greatest and most eminent of the secular Peers And so we find it also in a Charter of King Edward the Confessor the last King of the Saxon race by which he granted certain Lands and priviledges to the Church of Westminster Anno 1066. Cum consilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque Optimatum Ap. H. Spelman in Concil p. 630. with the Council and decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earls and others of his Nobles And all this while the Bishops and other Prelates of the Church did hold their Lands by no other Tenure than in pura perpetua eleemosyna or Frank almoigne Cambden in Brit. as our Lawyers call it and therefore sat in Parliament in no other capacity than as spiritual persons meerly who by their extraordinary knowledg in the Word of God and in such other parts of Learning as the World then knew were thought best able to direct and advise their Princes in points of judgment In which capacity and no other the Priors of the Cathedral Churches of Canterbury Ely Winchester Coventry Bath Worcester Norwich and Durham the Deans of Exeter York Wells Salisbury and Lincoln the Official of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of the Arches the Guardian of the Spiritualties of any Bishoprick when the See was vacant Selden Titles of hon part 2. c. 5. and the Vicars general of such Bishops as were absent beyond the Seas had sometimes place and suffrage in the house of Lords in the Ages following But when the Norman Conqueror had possest the State then the case was altered the Prelates of the Church were no longer suffered to hold their Lands in Frankalmoigne as before they did or to be free from secular services and commands as before they were Although they kept their Lands yet they changed their Tenure and by the Conqueror Mat. Paris in Will 1. Auno 1.70 were ordained to hold their Lands sub militari servitute either in Capite or by Baronage or some such military hold and thereby were compâ—â—lable to aid the Kings in all times of War with Men Arms and Horses as the Lay subjects of the same Tenures were required to do Which though it were conceived to be a great Disfranchisement at the first and an heavy burden to the Prelacy yet it conduced at last to their greater honour in giving them a further Title to their place in Parliament than that which formerly they could pretend to Before they claimed a place therein ratione Officii only by reason of their Offices or spiritual Dignities but after this by reason also of those ancient Baronies which were annexed unto their Dignities Stamfords Pleas l. 3. c. 1. en respect de lour possessions l'antient Baronies annexes a lour dignities as our Lawyers have it From this time forwards we must look upon them in the House of Parliament not as Bishops only but as Peers and Barons of the Realm also and so themselves affirmed to the Temporal Lords in the Parliament holden at Northamptâ—n under Henry 2. Non sedimus hic Episcopi sed Barones nos Barones vos Barones Ap. Selden Titles of hon p. 2. c. 5. Pares hic sumus We fit not here say they as Bishops only but as Barons We are Barons and you are Barons here we sit as Peers Which last is also verified in terminis by the words of a Statute or Act of Parliament wherein the Bishops are acknowledged to be Peers of the Land Stat. 25 Edw. 3. c. 5. Now that the Bishops are a fundamental and essential part of the Parliament of England I shall endeavour to make good by two manner of proofs whereof the one shall be de jure and the other de facto And first we shall begin with the proofs de jure and therein first with that which doth occur in the Laws of King Athelstan amongst the which there is a Chapter it is Cap. 11. entituled De officio Episcopi quid pertinet ad officium ejus and therein it is thus declared Spelm. concil p. 402. Episcopo jure pertinet omnem rectitudinem promovere Dei scilicet seculi
't is well known that the ensuing Parliaments which they instance in moved not of their own accord to the deposing of K Edw. the 2d or K. Richard the 2d but sailed as they were steered by those powerful Councils which Qu. Isabel in the one Walsingham in Hist Angl. Hypodig Neustriae and Henry Duke of Lancaster in the other did propose unto them It was no safe resisting those as their cold wisdoms and forgotten loyalties did suggest unto them qui tot legionibus imperarent who had so many thousand men in Arms to make good their project and they might think as the poor-spirited Citizens of Samaria did in another case but a case very like the present Behold two Kings stood not before him 2 Kings 10.4 how then can we stand For had it been an Argument of the power of Parliaments that they deposed one King to set up another dethroned King Richard to advance the Duke of Lancaster to the Regal Diadem they would have kept the House of Lancaster in possession of it for the full demonstration of a power indeed and not have cast them off at the first attempt of a new plausible pretender declared them to be kings in fact but not in right whose lawful right they had before preferred above all other Titles and set the Crown upon the heads of their deadly Enemies In the next place it is objected that Parliaments are a great restraint of the Sovereign power according to the Doctrine here laid down by Calvin in that the King can make no Laws nor levy any money upon the Subject but by the counsel and assent of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament But this Objection hurts as little as the former did For Kings to say the truth need no Laws at all In all such points wherein they have not bound themselves by some former Laws made for the common use and benefit of the Subject they are left at liberty and may proceed in governing the people given by God unto them according to their own discretion and the advice of their Council New Laws are chiefly made for the Subjects benefit at their desire on their importunate requests for their special profit not one in twenty nay I dare boldly say not one in an hundred made for the advantage of the King either in the improvement of his power or the encrease of his Revenue Look over all the Acts of Parliaments from the beginning of the reign of King Henry III. to the present time and tell me he that can if he finds it otherwise Kings would have little use of Parliaments and less mind to call them if nothing but the making of new Laws were the matter aimed at And as for raising Moneys and imposing Taxes it either must suppose the Kings to be always unthrifts that they be always indigent and necessitous and behind-hand with the World which are the ordinary effects of ill husbandry or else this Argument is lost and of little use For if our Kings should husband their Estates to the best advantage and make the best benefit of such Escheats and forfeitures and confiscations as day by day do fall unto them If they should follow the Example of K. Henry VII and execute the penal Laws according to the power which those Laws have given them and the trust reposed in them by their People if they should please to examine their Revenue and proportion their expence to their comings in there would be little need of Subsidies and supplies of money more than the ordinary aids and impositions upon Merchandize which the Law alloweth of and the known rights of Sovereignty backed by prescription and long custom have asserted to them So that it is by Accident not by and Nature that the Parliament hath any power or opportunity to restrain their King in this particular for where there is no need of asking there is no occasion of denying by consequence no restraint upon no baffle or affronting offered to the Regal power And yet the Sovereign need not fear if he be tolerably careful of his own Estate that any reasonable demand of his in these money-matters will meet with opposition or denial in his Houses of Parliament For whilest there are so many Acts of Grace and Favour to be done in Parliament as what almost in every Parliament but an enlargement of the Kings favours to his people and that none can be done in Parliament but with the Kings siat and consent there is no question to be made but that the two Houses of Parliament will far sooner chuse to supply the King as all wise Parliaments have done than rob the Subject of the benefit of his Grace and Favours which is the best fruit they reap from Parliaments Finally whereas it is Objected but I think it in sport that the old Lord Burleigh used to say that he knew not what a Parliament in England could not do and that K. James once said in a Parliament that then there were 500 Kings which words were taken for a Concession that all were Kings as well as he in a time of Parliament they who have given us these Objections do either misunderstand their Authors or abuse themselves For what the Lord Burleigh said of Parliaments though it be more than the wisest man alive can justifie he spake of Parliaments according as the word is used in its proper sense not for the two Houses or for either of them exclusive of the Kings presence and consent but for the supream Court for the highest Judicatory consisting of the Kings most excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Representees of the Commons and then it will not serve for the turn intended And what King James said once in jest though I have often heard it used in earnest upon this occasion was spoken only in derision of some daring Spirits who laying by the modesty of their Predecessors would needs be looking into the Prerogative or finding Errors and mistakes in the present Government or medling with those Arcana imperii which former Parliaments beheld at distance with the eye of Reverence But certainly King James intended nothing less than to acknowledg a co-ordinative Sovereignty in the two Houses of Parliament or to make them his Co-partners in the Regal power His carriage and behaviour towards them in the whole course of his Government clearly shews the contrary there never being Prince more jealous in the points of Sovereignty nor more uncapable of a Rival in those points than he But yet the main Objection which we may call the Objection paramount doth remain unanswered For if the three Estates convened in Parliament or any other popular Magistrate whom Calvin dreams of be ordained by the Word of God as Guardians of the peoples Liberties and therefore authorized to moderate and restrain the power of Kings as often as they shall invade or infringe those liberties as Calvin plainly says they were or that they know
Princes and Ecclesiastical Governors yet the Apostle calleth not Princes an humane Creation as though they were not also of Gods Creation for there is no power but of God but that the form of their Creation is in mans appointment All the Genevians generally do so expound it and it concerns them so to do in point of interesse The Bishop of that City was their Sovereign Prince and had jus utriusque gladii as Calvin signified in a Letter to Cardinal Sadolet till he and all his Clergy were expelled the City in a popular Tumult Anno 1528. and a new form of Government established both in Church and State So that having laid the foundation of their Common-wealth in the expulsion of their Prince and the new model of their Discipline in refusing to have any more Bishop they found it best for justifying their proceedings at home and increasing their Partizans abroad to maintain a parity of Ministers in the Church of Christ and to invest the people and their popular Officers with a chief power in the concernments and affairs of State even to the deposing of Kings and disposing of Kingdoms But for this last they find no warrant in the Text which we have before us For first admitting the Translation to be true and genuine as indeed it is not the Roman Emperor and consequently other Kings and Princes may be said to be an humane Ordinance because their power is most visibly conversant circa humanas Actiones about ordering of humane Actions and other civil affairs of men as they were subjects of the Empire and Members of that Body politick whereof that Emperor was head Secondly to make Soveraign Princes by what name and Title soever called to be no other than an humane Ordinance because they are ordained by the people and of their appointment must needs create an irreconcileable difference between St. Peter and St. Paul by which last the Supream Powers whatsoever they be are called the Ordinance of God The Powers saith that Apostle are ordained of God and therefore he that resisteth the Powers resisteth the Ordinance of God Upon which words Deodate gives this gloss or comment That the Supream Powers are called the Ordinance of God because God is the Author of this Order in the world and all those who attain to these Dignities do so either by his manifest will and approbation when the means are lawful or by his secret Providence by meer permission or toleration when they are unlawful Now it is fitting that man should approve and tolerate that which God approves and tolerates But thirdly I conceive that those words in the Greek Text of St. Peter viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are not so properly translated as they might have been and as the same words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are rendred by the same Translators somewhat more near to the Original in another place For in the 8th Chapter to the Romans vers 22. we find them rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the whole Creation and why not rather every Creature as both our old Translation and the Rhemists read it conform to omnis Creatura in the vulgar Latine which had they done and kept themselves more near to the Greek Original in St. Peters Text they either would have rendred it by every humane Creature as the Rhemists do or rather by all Men or by all Man-kind as the words import And then the meaning will be this that the Jews living scattered and disperst in Pontus Galatia Cappadocia and other Provinces of the Empire were to have their conversation so meek and lowly for fear of giving scandal to the Gentiles amongst whom they lived as to submit themselves to all Man-kind or rather to every Man unto every humane Creature as the Rhemists read it that was in Authority above whether it were unto the Emperor himself as their supream Lord or to such Legats Prefects and Procurators as were appointed by him for the govenment of those several Provinces to the end that they may punish the evil-doers and incourage such as did well living conformably to the Laws by which they were governed Small comfort in this Text as in any of the rest before for those popular Officers which Calvin makes the Overseers of the Sovereign Prince and Guardians of the Liberties of the common people If then there be no Text of Scripture no warrant from the Word of God by which the popular Officers which Calvin dreams of are made the Keepers of the Liberties of the common people or vested with the power of opposing Kings and Sovereign Princes as often as they wantonly insult upon the people or willingly infringe their Priviledges I would fain learn how they should come to know that they are vested with such power or trusted with the defence of the Subjects Liberties cujus se Dei oratione Tutores positos esse norunt as Calvin plainly says they do If they pretend to know it by inspiration such inspiration cannot be known to any but themselves alone neither the Prince or People whom it most concerneth can take notice of it Nor can they well assure themselves whether such inspirations come from God of the Devil the Devil many times insnaring proud ambitious and vain-glorious Men by such strange delusions If they pretend to know it by the dictate of their private Spirit the great Diana of Calvin and his followers in expounding Scripture we are but in the same uncertainties as we were before And who can tell whether the private Spirit they pretend unto and do so much brag of 1 Ring 22.22 may not be such a lying Spirit as was put into the mouths of the Prophets when Ahab was to be seduced to his own destruction Adeo Argumenta ex absurdo petita ineptos habent exitus as Lactantius notes it All I have now to add is to shew the difference between Calvin and his followers in the propounding of this Doctrine delivered by Calvin in few words but Magisterially enough and with no other Authority than his ipse dixit enlarged by David Paraeus in his Comment on Rom. 13. into divers branches and many endeavours used by him as by the rest of Calvins followers to find out Arguments and instances out of several Authors to make good the cause For which though Calvin scap'd the fire yet Paraeus could not Ille Crucem pretium sceleris tulit hic Diadema For so it hapned that one Mr. Knight of Brodegates now Pembroke Colledge in Oxford had preach'd up the Authority of these popular Officers in a Sermon before the University about the beginning of the year 1622. for which being presently transmitted to the King and Council he there ingenuously confessed that he had borrowed both his doctrine and his proofs and instances from the Book of Paraeus above mentioned Notice whereof being given to the University the whole Doctrine of Paraeus as to that particular was drawn into several Propositions which in a full and frequent Convocation
of Abraham and his Posterity Which is no more than what we shall see shortly out of Eusebius Hospinian next De festis 1. cap. 3. who though he fain would have the sanctifying of the Sabbath to be as old as the beginning of the world yet he confesseth at the last Patres idcirco Sabbatum observasse ante legem that for all that it cannot be made good by the Word of God that any of the Fathers did observe it before the Law These two I have the rather cited because they have been often vouched in the publick controversie as men that wished well to the cause and say somewhat in it We are now come unto particulars And first we must begin with the first man Adam The time of his Creation as the Scriptures tell us the sixth day of the week being as Scaliger conjectured in the first Edition of his work Emend temp l. 5. the three and twentieth day of April and so the first Sabbath Sabbatum primum so he calls it was the four and twentieth Doctrina temp l. 4. c. 6. Petavius by his computation makes the first Sabbath to be the first day of November and Scaliger in his last Edition the five and twentieth of October more near to one another than before they were Yet saith not Scaliger that that primum Sabbatum had any reference to Adam though first he left it so at large that probably some might so conceive it for in his later thoughts he declares his meaning to be this Sabbatum primum in quo Deus requievit ab opere Hexaemeri Indeed the Chaldee paraphrase seems to affirm of Adam that he kept the Sabbath For where the 92 Psalm doth bear this title A Song or Psalm for the Sabbath day the Authors of that Paraphrase do expound it thus Laus Canticum quod dixit homo primus pro die Sabbati the Song or Psalm which Adam said for the Sabbath day Somewhat more wary in this point was Rabbi Kimchi who tells us how that Adam was created upon Friday about three of the Clock fell at eleven was censured and driven out of Paradise at twelve that all the residue of that day and the following night he bemoaned his miseries was taken into grace next morning being Sabbath day and taking then into consideration all the works of God brake out into such words as those although not the same A tale that hath as much foundation as that narration of Zanchy before remembred Who though he seem to put the matter out of doubt with his three non dubito's that Christ himself did sanctifie the first Sabbath with our Father Adam and did command him ever after to observe that day yet in another place he makes it only a matter of probability In 4. Mandatum that the commandment of the Sabbath was given at all to our first Parents Quomodo autem sanctificavit Non solum decreto voluntate sed reipsa quia illum diem ut non pauci volunt probabile est mandavit primis parentibus sanctificandum So easily doth he overthrow his former structure But to return unto the Rabbins and this dream of theirs besides the strangeness of the thing that Adam should continue not above eight hours in Paradise and yet give names to all the â—â—atures fall into such an heavy sleep and have the Woman taken out of him that the must be instructed tempted and that both must sin and both must suffer in so short a time Besides all this the Christian Fathers are express that Adam never kept the Sabbath Justin the Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho a learned Jew makes Adam one of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which being neither circumcised nor keeping any Sabbath Adv. Judaeos were yet accepted by the Lord. And so Tertullian in a Treatise written against the Jews affirms of Adam quod nec circumcisum nec sabbatizantem Deus eum instituerit Nay which is more he makes a challenge to the Jews to prove unto him if they could that Adam ever kept the Sabbath Doceant Adamum sabbatizasse as he there hath it Which doubtless neither of them would have done considering with whom the one disputed and against whom the other wrote had they not been very well assured of what they said The like may be affirmed both of Eusebius and Epiphanius De Praepar Evang l. 7. c. 8. and most learned Fathers Whereof the first maintaining positively that the Sabbath was first given by Moses makes Adam one of those which neither troubled himself with Circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor any of the Law of Moses Adv. haereses l. 1. n. 5. The other reckoneth him amongst those also who lived according to that faith which when he wrote was generally received in the Christian Church Therefore no Sabbath kept by our Father Adam But whatsoever Adam did Abel I hope was more observant of this duty Thus some have said indeed but on no authority It is true the Scriptures tell us that he offered Sacrifice but yet the Scriptures do not tell us that in his Sacrifices he had more regard unto the seventh day than to any other To offer Sacrifice he might learn of Adam or of natural reason which doth sufficiently instruct us that we ought all to make some publick testimony of our subjection to the Lord. But neither Adam did observe the Sabbath nor could Nature teach it as before is shewn And howsoever some Modern Writers have conjectured and conjectured only that Abel in his Sacrifices might have respect unto the Sabbath yet those whom we may better trust have affirm'd the contrary For Justin Martyr disputing against Trypho brings Abel in for an example that neither Circumcision nor the Sabbath the two great glories of the Jews were to be counted necessary For if they were saith he God had not had so much regard to Abels Sacrifice being as he was uncircumcised and then he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that though he was no Sabbath-keeper yet was he acceptable unto God Adv. Judaeos And so Tertullian that God accepted of his Sacrifice though he were neither circumcised nor kept the Sabbath Abelem offerentem sacrificia incircumcisum neque sabbatizantem laudavit Deus accepta ferens quae in simplicitate cordis offerebat Yea and he brings him also into his challenge Doceant Abel hostiam Deo sanctam offerentem Sabbati religionem placuisse which is directly contrary to that which is conjectured by some Modern Writers Adv. haeres l. 1. n. 5. So Epiphanius also makes him one of those who lived according to the tendries of the Christian Faith The like he also saith of Seth whom God raised up instead of Abel to our Father Adam Therefore no Sabbath kept by either It is conceived of Abel that he was killed in the one hundred and thirtieth year of the Worlds Creation
to the sons of Noah To whom the Hebrew Doctors say their Father did bequeath seven several Commandments which they and their posterity were bound to keep In Lexilo p. 1530. Septem praecepta acceperunt filii Noah c. as Shindler reckoneth them out of the Rabbi Maimony First That they dealt uprightly with every man Secondly That they should bless and magnifie the Name of God Thirdly That they abstained from worshipping false gods and from all Idolatry Fourthly That they forbear all unlawful lusts and copulations The fifth against shedding Blood The sixth against Theft and Robbery The seventh and last a prohibition not to eat the flesh or any member of a Beast taken from it when it was alive whereby all cruelty was forbidden These precepts whosoever violated either of Noahs Sons or their Posterity was to be smitten with the sword Yea these Commandments were reputed so agreeable to nature that all such Heathens as would yield to obey the same were suffered to remain and dwell amongst the Israelites though they received not Circumcision nor any of the Ordinances which were given by Moses So that amongst the precepts given unto the Sons of Noah we find no footstep of the Sabbath And where a Modern Writer whom I spare to name hath made the keeping of the Sabbath a member of the second precept or included in it it was not so advisedly done there being no such thing at all Cunaeus de repab Hebr. 2.19 either in Schindler whom he cites nor in Cunaeus who repeats the self-same precepts from the self-same Rabbi Nay which is more the Rabbin out of whom they cite it doth in another place exclude expresly the observation of the Sabbath out of the number of these Precepts given to the Sons of Noah Ap. Ainsworth in Exod. 20. The Man and Woman servant saith he which are commanded to keep the Sabbath are Servants that are Circumcised or Baptized c. But Servants not Circumcised nor Baptised but only such as have received the seven Commandements given to the Sons of Noah they are as sojourning strangers and may do work for themselves openly on the Sabbath as any Israelite may on a working day So Rabbi Maymony in his Treatise of the Sabbath chap. 20. § 14. If then we find no Sabbath amongst the Sons of Noah whereof some of them were the Sons of their Fathers piety there is no thought of meeting with it in their Children or their Childrens Children the builders of the Tower of Babel For they being terrified with the late Deluge as some conjecture and to procure the name of great undertakers as the Scripture saith resolved to build themselves a Tower unto the top whereof the waters should in no wise reach Antiqu. Jud. l. 1. cap. 5. A work of a most vast extent if we may credit those reports that are made thereof and followed by the People as Josephus tells us with their utmost industry there being none amongst them idle If none amongst them would be idle as likely that no day was spared from so great an action as they conceived that work to be They that durst bid defiance to the Heaven of God were never like to keep a Sabbath to the God of Heaven The action was begun and ended Anno 1940. or thereabouts To ruinate these vain attempts it pleased the Lord first to confound the Language of the People which before was one and after to disperse them over all the earth By means of which dispersion they could not possibly have kept one and the same day for a Sabbath had it been commanded the days in places of a different longitude which is the distance of a place from the first Meridian beginning at such different times that no one day could be precisely kept amongst them The proof and ground whereof I will make bold to borrow from my late Learned friend Nath. Carpenter that I may manifest in some sort the love I bore him though probably I might have furnished out this argument from mine own wardrobe at least have had recourse to many other Learned men who have written of it For that the difference of time is varied according to the difference of longitudes in divers places of the earth may be made manifest to every mans understanding out of these two principles First if the earth is sphaerical and secondly that the Sun doth compass it about in twenty-four hours From hence it comes to pass that places situate Eastward see the Sun sooner than those do that are placed Westward And that with such a different proportion of time that unto every hour of the Suns motion there is assigned a certain number of miles upon the Earth every fifteen degrees which is the distance of the Meridians being computed to make one hour and every fifteen miles upon the Earth correspondent to one minute of that hour By this we may perceive how soon the noon-tide hapneth in one City before another For if one City stands Eastward of another the space of three of the aforesaid Meridians which is 2700. miles it is apparent that it will enjoy the noon-tide no less than three hours before the other and consequently in 10800. miles which is half the compass of the Earth there will be found no less than twelve hours difference in the rising and setting of the Sun as also in the noon and mid-night The reason of which difference of times is as before we said the difference of longitudes wherein to every hour Cosmographers have allotted fifteen degrees in the Suns diurnal motion so that fifteen degrees being multiplied by twenty-four hours which is the natural day the product will be 360. which is the number of degrees in the whole circle Now in these times wherein the Sons of Noah dispersed themselves in case the Sabbath was to have been kept as simply moral it must needs follow that the moral Law is subject unto manifold mutations and uncertainties which must not be granted For spreading as they did over all the Earth some farther some at shorter distance and thereby changing longitudes with their habitations they must of meer necessity alter the difference of times and days and so could keep no day together Nor could their issue since their time observe exactly and precisely the self-same day by reason of the manifold transportation of Colonies and transmigration of Nations from one Region to another whereby the times must of necessity be supposed to vary The Author of the Practice of Piety though he plead hard for the morality of the Sabbath cannot but confess that in respect of the diversity of the Meridians and the unequal rising and setting of the Sun every day varieth in some places a quarter in some half in others an whole day therefore the Jewish Sabbath cannot saith he be precisely kept in the same instant of time every where in the World Certainly if it cannot now then it never could and then it would be found that some
day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once a month beginning their account with the New-moon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the Jews did keep every seventh day constantly It 's true that Philo tells us more than once or twice how that the Sabbath was become a general Festival but that was rather taken up in imitation of the Jess than practised out of any instinct or light of nature as we shall see hereafter in a place more proper Besides which days before remembred the second day was consecrate to the bonus Genius Hospin de orig Fest cap. 5. the third and fifteenth to Minerva the ninth unto the Sun the last to Pluto and every twentieth day kept holy by the Epicures Now as the Greeks did consecrate the New-moons and seventh day to Phoebus the fourth of every month to Mercury and the eighth to Neptune sic de caeteris So every ninth day in the year was by the Romans anciently kept sacred unto Jupiter the Flamines or Priests upon that day offering a Ram unto him for a Sacrifice Nundinas Jovis ferias esse ait Granius Licinius Saturnal l. 1. c. 16. siquidem Flaminica omnibus nundinis every ninth day in regia Jovi arietem solere immolare as in Macrobius So that we see the seventh day was no more in honour than either the first fourth or eighth and not so much as was the ninth this being as it were a weekly Festival and that a monthly A thing so clear and evident 2. Edit p. 65. that Dr. Bound could tell us that the memory of Weeks and Sabbaths was altogether suppressed and buried amongst the Gentiles And in the former page But how the memory of the seventh day was taken away amongst the Romans Ex veteri nundinarum instituto apparet saith Beroaldus And Satan did altogether take away from the Graecians the boly memory of the seventh day by obtruding on the wicked Rites of Superstition which on the eighth day they did keep in bonour of Neptune So that besides other holy days the one of them observed the eighth day and the other the ninth and neither of them both the seventh as the Church doth now and hath done always from the beginning It 's true Diogenes the Grammarian Sueton. in Tiber. c. 32. did hold his disputations constantly upon the Saturday or Sabbath and when Tiberius at an extraordinary time came to hear his exercises in diem septimum distulerat the Pedant put him off until the saturday next following A right Diogenes indeed and as rightly served For coming to attend upon Tiberius being then made Emperour he sent him word ut post annum septimum rediret that he would have him come again the seventh year after But then as true it is De illustrib Grammat which the same Suetonius tells us of Antonius Gnipho a Grammarian too that he taught Rhetorick every day declamaret vero non nisi nundinis but declaimed only on the ninth But then as true it is which Juvenal hath told us of the Roman Rhetoricians that they pronounced their Declamations on the sixth day chiefly Nil salit Arcadico juveni cujus mihi sextâ Sat. Quâque die miserum dirus caput Annibal implet As the Poet hath it All days it seems alike to them the first fourth sixth eighth ninth and indeed what not as much in honour as the seventh whether it were in civil or in sacred matters I am not ignorant that many goodly Epithets are by some ancient Poets amongst the Grecians appropriated to this day which we find gathered up together Clem. Strom. l. 5. Euseb Praepar l. 13. c. 12. by Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius but before either of them by one Aristobulus a learned Jew who lived about the time of Ptolomy Philometor King of Egypt both Hesiod and Homer as they there are cited give it the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an holy day and so it was esteemed amongst them as before is shewn but other days esteemed as holy From Homer they produce two Verses wherein the Poet seems to be acquainted with the Worlds Creation and the perfection of it on the seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the seventh day all things were fully done On that we left the waves of Acheron The like are cited out of Linus as related by Eusebius from the collections of Aristobulus before remembred but are by Clemens fathered on Callimachus another of the old Greek Poets who between them thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which put together may be thus Englished in the main though not verbatim On the seventh day all things were made compleat The birth-day of the World most good most great Seven brought forth all things in the starry Skie Keeping each year their courses constantly This Clemens makes an argument that not the Jews only but the Gentiles also knew that the seventh day had a priviledg yea and was hallowed above other days on which the World and all things in it were compleat and finished And so we grant they did but neither by the light of Nature nor any observation of that day amongst themselves more than any other Not by the light of Nature For Ariftobulus from whom Clemens probably might take his hint speaks plainly that the Poets had consulted with the holy Bible and from thence sucked this knowledg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author saith of Hesiod and Homer Which well might be Ap. Euseb considering that Homer who was the oldest of them flourished about five hundred years after Moses death Callimachus who was the latest above Seven hundred years after Homers time Nor did they speak it out of any observation of that day more than any other amongst themselves The general practice of the Gentiles before related hath throughly as we hope removed that scruple They that from these words can collect a Sabbath had need of as good eys as Clemens who out of Plato in his second de republ Strom. l. 5. conceives that he hath found a sufficient warrant for the observing of the Lords day above all the rest because it is there said by Plato That such as had for seven days solaced in the pleasant Meadows were to depart upon the eighth and not return till four days after As much a Lords day in the one as any Sabbath in the other Indeed the Argument is weak that some of those that thought it of especial weight have now deserted it as too light and trivial Ryvet by name who cites most of these Verses in his notes on Genesis to prove the Sabbath no less ancient than the Worlds Creation doth on the Decalogue think them utterly unable to