the Law is abrogated I look upon them as words ' of course which in a Controversie weigh no more then a feather yea as beggerly fallacies for they all along begge the question taking that for granted which hath been soundly whipt with a denyal by sundry learned pens viz. that the seventh day from the Creation was ever an express tittle of the Commandment a seventh day in a week indeed is more then a tittle of the Law and this number is still continued in the observation of the Lords day all the Christian world over And I doubt not but it shall continue to the end of the world although the old day be changed as in the celebration of the Passeover the precise order of time was sometimes altered for whereas the fourteenth day of the first moneth was the time appointed at first Exod. 12.18 yet Hezekiahs great passeover was kept on the fourteenth day of the second moneth 2 Chron. 30.5 Where you see the precise individual day altered upon occasion yet the number the fourteenth day still observed See this illustration further cleared by Mr. G. Abbot p. 37. and Mr. Walker p. 49. So upon a greater and better occasion the Sabbath is altered as to the day yet the seventh day in number still kept intire in this as the fourteenth in the other And so the Sabbath now as well as the Passeover then for substance preserved notwithstanding the circumstantial and occasional change of the day And thus through the conduct of my gracious Guide leading me by Scripture light and the foot-steps of my dear companions in the cause of Christ I have safely passed the pikes of opposition and vindicated this royal law from the false glosses and erroneous discants of the adversary carrying this conclusion all along before me as a truth triumphing over all contradiction That the old seventh day was never propounded as the substance or special subject of any moral law I shall but touch upon the second 2. That it seems to be pointed at as a sign under the ceremonial law yea it does more then seem so if the text be impartially viewed Exod. 31. from v. 13. to v. 18. where we find a special charge imposed upon the Jews to observe the Sabbath and that upon sundry considerations 1. From the end of it Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it a sign between me and you V. 13. throughout your generations to know that I am Jehovah that sanctifieth you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so the words run in the Hebrew And this is farther explicated v. V. 14. 14. ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore for it is holy or holiness to you thereby expounding what was meant by his sanctifying of them in the verse before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As if the Lord had said the keeping of my Sabbaths shall be a distinctive badge and cognisance of your Covenant-holiness Sabbathum est signum quod Deus Israclem sanctificat ut Sabbathum sanctifionvit scil segregando eosex Gentibns profanls in peculiarem sibi popnlum Lavat in Exek Hom. 26. a sign that I do sanctifie you and separate you to my self above all the people of the earth for an holy and peculiar people for as the Lord is said to sanctifie the Sabbath so also to sanctifie Israel that is by separating it from all other dayes and them from all other nations to be holiness to himfelf And this is the first special reason why they should keep the Sabbath throughout their generations as a sign or mark of distinction to difference them from the rest of the profane world 2. From the perill of profaning it v. 14.15 Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death for whosoever doth any work therein that soul shall be cut off from amongst his people c. A law shortly after executed in the letter of it by stoning to death one that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day Numb 15.36 which rigour for ought I can find to the contrary lasted no longer then the Israelites peregrination in the wilderness where as one sayes an extraordinary strict rest was imposed upon them because they were extraordinarily accommodated for it Being as the Saints in heaven are immediately at Gods finding having Mannah without means daily provided for them and hence it is said Numb 15.32 While the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day and stoned him to death Note the Phrase while they wore in the wilderness not elsewhere for when they were out of the wilderness we never read of the like punishment inflicted It seems then that this strict kind of rest and rigour was restrained to that time and place only 3. Another argument to inforce their observation of the Sabbath is taken from the moral equity of it verse 15. Six dayes may work be done but the seventhis the Sabbath As if the Lord had said ye may well afford me one day in seven since I have given you six in seven And this again is reinforced by Gods example in the latter part of v. 17. For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh day Now it concerns us to inquire in this context what was proper to the Jews and what common with them to us What is moral and perpetual what judicial or ceremonial and temporary For that morals and judicials are here mingled together none can deny and the difficulty will be how to sever the one from the other and to shew in what sense the Sabbath was made a sign what the significancy of it was and especially what kind of sign whether a permanent sign as the Rain bow or a transient sign as the cloudly pillar in the wilderness There are sundry sorts of signs spoken of in Scripture I shall onely instance in those that are of prime note and pertinency to resolve the case in hand 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Josh 4.6 7. So also the Passeover was and the Lords supper is a sign being both memorative Exod. 12.26 Mat. 26.26 1 Cor. 11.24 There are remembrancing signs as the twelve stones taken out of Jordan for every tribe one were set up as a sign to after-ages for a memorial to the childen of Israel that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark And such a kind of sign it is commonly thought the Sabbath was a memorial of the Creation But that it is so propounded or intended here cannot easily be proved since the Lord does not say I have given you my Sabbaths as a sign that I created the world but for a sign that I the Lord do sanctifie you And although it be added v. 17. It is a sign betwixt me and the Children of Israel for ever Ainach majoris distinctionis pausae est accentus Buxtorf Thes Gram. for in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth c. Yet it
it so Having premised this by the way now let us see how the old Sabbath was founded upon the finishing of his works As thus That day which God hath honoured and crowned with the accomplishment of the greatest work must be the day of solemn worship or sabbath-Sabbath-day But the seventh day from the Creation was thus honoured and crowned in the Cradle or infancy of the world Therefore that day must be the Sabbath day viz. till a greater work take place And then the argument will conclude as strongly for the change of the day as ever it did for the choice of it For we shall argue thus If the ground of stating the Sabbath on the seventh day were applicable to another day then the Sabbath in the first ground-work of it was alterable to another day But the ground of stating it upon that old seventh day was applicable to another day therefore c. The consequence is cleere as the Sun for as it is with duties so with dayes of worship the grounds upon which they are setled being applicable to other times and places the dayes and duties themselves have alwayes been moveable and circumstantially mutable also as that duty of reverencing of Gods Sanctuary which is mated and coupled with keeping his Sabbaths the ground of it being applicable to the Temple as well as the Tabernacle Levit. 19.30 the duty it self was also moveable from the Tabernacle to the Temple although the first were only in being when the precept was given And the like must be said of the Sabbath The consequence hath evidence enough in it self to every vulgar eye If the foundation be moveable so is the building If the Assumption be questioned viz. That the ground of fixing the Sabbath on the seventh day was moveable and applicable to another day we shall thus confirm it The ground of fixing the Sabbath on the old seventh day was Gods honouring and advancing that day above all other dayes for the time being by his most eminent work of Creation manifested to be accomplished on that day therefore when another day shall be crowned with the accomplishment of a more eminent Creation the same ground and reason which cast the Sabbath on the old day will unavoidably carry it to the new Now the work of Redemption is a new Creation 2 Cor. 5.17 and it was long ago prophesied that as the a Hag. 2.9 glory of the second Temple should out shine that of the first so the glory of this new Creation should excell that of the old and comparatively eate out the memory of it b Isai 65.17 Behold I create new heavens and a new earth sayes the Lord and the old shall not be remembered nor come into mind Not that the Lord would simply and absolutely have the memory of the Creation to be lessened but respectively and in comparison of Redemption it must not be obliterated but only subordinated retained and remembred it must be still but as a lesser work then Redemption and as a lesser good to us as the Law is to the Gospel or the Old Testament to the New Redemption must be owned as the greater and better work in as much as Spiritual things are better then Natural and Gods last works are his best the first being only preparative to the last as Dr. Sibbs excellently observes Mat. 16.26 Mark 8.36 And verily he that shall question whether Redemption be a greater and better work then Creation knows little what a Redeemer is or what the ransome of an immortal soul is worth See Mr. Phil. Goodw. Dies Dominic rediv. pa. 11.12 13. I should think as mans gaining the world cannot recompense the loss of his soul so Gods creating of the world doth not equalize Christs redeeming the soul In creating the world indeed the Lord has done much for me but in shedding his precious blood in conquering sin and death he hath done more then if he had created another world for me Let the redeemed of the Lord say so yea the work is not only better to me but greater in it self too In creation there was but a words speaking and the work was presently done 2 Cor. 5.21 Gal. 3.13 See more in Dr. Gouge Heb. 9. S. 63. but in Redemption there was doing and dying God must come down from heaven God must be made man yea God-man must be made sin and a curse for me Here was a work exceeding wonder Besides in the work of Creation there was nothing to with stand But in the work of Redemption here was Justice against Mercy wrath against pity In a word in the Creation God brought something out of nothing but in redemption he hath out of one contrary brought another good out of evil life out of death Is not thy soul ravished Christian at these discoveries of wisdome grace and power shining forth in thy souls Redemption Canst thou see the like in the worlds Creation Is there not more glory in one Christ then in many worlds What a sapless unsavory question therefore to a soul that knows any thing of Christ Pa. 130. is that which T. T. propounds Who told thee the work of Redemption was the greater work A question more beseeming a Jew then a Christian But the answer is ready at hand He that hath told me the heavens are the works of his a Psalm 8.3 fingers and Redemption the work of his b Isal 52.9 10. arm his out-stretched unbared arm hath sufficiently taught me that Redemption is the greater work a work of greater might I am sure of greater mercy And so for his next question If it be the greater work who told thee that it deserves the honour of the day I answer a wiser and better man then you or I that man after Gods own heart who was most likely to know the mind of the Lord he has foretold it in that 118th Psalm when by a prophetick spirit foreseeing the glory of the resurrection day as a day amongst the seven dayes like the Sun amongst the seven planets he accordingly salutes it with a magnificent Title This is the day which the Lord hath made yea magnified for the word signifies not only to make but to magnifie and advance above all others c 1 Sam. 12.6 And such was the power of God in raising Christ hat the Psalmist cryes our it is marvellous in our sight Acts 4.10.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est vel imus vel summus lapis Arretius in 1 Pet. 2.7 Mat. 11.11 As by the same word the Lord is said to advance Moses and Aaron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to lift them up in dignity and preeminency above the rest of the people Thus he foresaw that the Lord would magnifie and exalt the resurrection day and why Because on this day the most glorious work of redemption was to be accomplished the stone which the builders resused being made the head of the corner i. e. to perfect
and complete the fabrick of the new Creation And thus is the resurrection-day prophetically crowned with honour above all other dayes Old Sabbath and all For the work crowns the day and the greater the work the greater the day And therefore although the last day of the week were the greatest in dignity during the supereminency of the old Creation yet when a greater work was to be finished the day on which it was to conclude must without dispute be the greater day As John Baptist being the last and greatest of the prophets yet was lesse then the least in the Kingdome of heaven so I may say of the Old Sabbath the greatest day under the Old Testament yet it must vail and stoop when the Sun of righteousness shines forth in a new day under the New Testament Surely the second Creation must have a Sabbath of commemoration as well as the first or else God should magnifie his lesser work of Creation above his greater work of Redemption And thus I suppose I have made good my Position both Logically and Theologically that the old seventh day was alterable in its first institution since the same ground of stating the Sabbath at first upon that day might be a sufficient ground of translating it to another day as now it is and that by Divine Authority as shall be seen hereafter The adversary has no considerable weapons to oppose this truth withal but what have been already beaten out of Mr. Brabourns hands and are sufficiently blunted by others or if any new ones be added we shall now try what mettal they are made of Obj. 1 T.T. p. 7. The seventh day sayes he was set apart in memorial of the most glorious work of Creation the benefit whereof being extended to us p. 69. engageth us to that day still And again The world being created not only for Israel but for all people I appeal to all conscientious Christians whether all mankind be not bound to that very day who enjoy the benefit of the Creation By the way let me tell him when I read his insulting challenge I expected Scripture-arguments and not popular appeals But to let him swim in his own element the sum of his appealing for arguing I cannot call it amounts but to this that if the old seventh day were set apart in memory of the Creation which every Christian as a creature is bound to commemorate then the day is unchangeable perpetually to be observed But to this I answer The consequence is sick and crasie Answer and therefore it can produce but a weak conclusion For first the Covenant of grace I suppose is as ancient as the old Sabbath I am sure as eminent a mercy as the occasion of the Sabbath And doubtless to every true-hearted Christian the memory of Gods Covenant is and ought to be as precious as the memory of the worlds Creation yet I hope he will not say that circumcision and sacrifices the old memorials of the Covenant are therefore still in force or ought to be still in use among Christians who are interested in that Covenant And the like may I say of the Saturday-Sabbath Let none object the disparity between the Old Sabbath and circumcision for they are both clad in a livery of the same colour in many things they do much resemble one another Was a Gen. 17.11 circumcision a sign betwixt God and the seed of Abraham so was the b Exod. 31.17 old Sabbath betwixt God and the house of Israel Was c Gen. 17.7 circumcision a perpetual Covenant with Abrahams seed in their generation So also was the d Exod. 31.16 Sabbath to be kept as a perpetual Covenant throughout their generations In a word was e Gen. 17.14 circumcision so exacted that whosoever was uncircumcised must be cut off from the house of Israel why so also was the old f Exod. 31.14 Sabbath whosoever doth any work therein that soul shall be cut off from among the people Again let none tax me with incongruity in comparing the old Sabbath and sacrifices together for the Lord of the Sabbath himself hath taught me to lay them in an equal ballance who when the Pharisees clamoured his Disciples for Sabbath breaking stops their mouths with that g Hos 6.6 Mat. 12.7 Pluris apud De um salus mortalium quà ms crifi iapecudum Muscul in Loc. Scripture The Lord will have merey and not socrifice That is the necessities of men relieved rather then the supposed letter of the Law observed In my poor judgment it is very considerable that such a person at such a time should match the Sabbath day and sacrifices together for it was not the Sabbath in general but the Sabbath day which was then under dispute Surely there was some mystery in this Divinity of our Saviour But this may suffice for a first answer As the Covenant of grace is perpetually to be commemorated but not by circumcision and sacrifices the old memorials of it so the work of creation is continually to be had in remembrace but not by the old Sabbaths celebration For we say as the new Covenant must have new signs so the new creation a new Sabbath And 2. A new day might keep alive the memory of the old Creation Meditatio celebratio operum Dei non minus alio die quà m septimoficri potest Ursin although it be primarily intended as a memorial of redemption And this double honour is put upon the Lords day as the first day of the week it commemorates the worlds redemption as the seventh day in weekly recourse it calls to mind the worlds Creation For in labouring six dayes and resting the seventh weekly we recognize Gods working six dayes and resting the seventh originally And here I may as rationally as T.T. appeal to any ingenuous Christian if the Old Sabbath served the Jews as a means to keep them mindful both of the worlds Creation and their redemption from Egypt why may not our Lords day Sabbath be the Christians memorandum both of the worlds Creation Deut. 5.15 and his Redemption from hell Of the last most directly indeed and that most deservedly being the greatest work and the richest mercy For although t is true to have an earth to tread upon an aire to breath in light to look upon creatures to live upon are excellent mercies yet to have an angry God reconciled a sinful nature repaired Death and Hell vanquished Heaven and glory purchased and assured is infinitely more blessed more beneficial To conclude If I must consecrate a weekly Sabbath to the Lord what day more proper more suitable more significant then that which bears a lively inscriptior of the Lord my Redeemer not without some commemoration of God my Creator But the old seventh day may still he retained in memory of the Creation and the Lords day be celebrated too in memory of Redemption though not as a Sabbath both dayes may lovingly live together
to break the bonds of Christian unity and the bounds of Christian liberty yea to render the golden yoke of Christs Gospel heavier then the Iron yoke of Moses Law But his wretched design is visible in pressing two dayes in a week he would suppresse one The old seventh day must be kept as a Sabbath the Lords day only as a Church holy-day or State holy-day rather for he calls it mans Sabbath But I beseech you what has man to do to appoint a weekly holy-day contrary to Gods expresse command of six dayes for labour If the Lords day be of mans making you sin in keeping of it Psalm 118.24 But if it be a day of Gods making as the Scripture sayes then you sin in keeping any other weekly day besides it And to close all let me adde this which will not easily be answered To keep the old seventh day as a Sabbath in memory of the Creation and the Lords day only as a lesser holy-day in memory of Redemption is to place the greater honour upon the lesser work and to professe that we are lesse ingaged to Christ for shedding his blood to redeem the world then to God the Father for speaking the word to create the world which how it can stand with that Gospel-precept of honouring the Son as we honour the Father John 5.23 let any sober Christian judg Thus we have considered the ground of the Sabbaths institution in the first sense as Gods ending his work may be understood in respect of Providence But 2. Secondly and chiefly God may be said to have ended his work on the seventh day in respect of the promise then manifested to have been given by Christs actual undertaking the work of his Mediatorship and the Fathers rest or complacency in that blessed undertaking of the Son And here I doubt not but we shall make it appear by the light of Gods candle shining in the Scriptures that the first institution of the seventh day was founded not so much upon the memory of the Creation as upon the first publication of Christ in the promise and then it will undeniably follow that the day was made mutable in the first foundation of it For a day fixed upon the making of a promise must needs be changed upon the making good of that promise To make way for the framing of my argument I shall premise these seven considerations 1. That man sinned and fell the same day on which he was created as has been already argued and shall be further proved in the close of this position neither should it seem improbable or incredible to any that so goodly a building should be raised and ruinated both in one day considering the foundation of it stood upon the tottering Sands of free-will not the impregnable rock of free-grace and Christs righteousness 2. As man fell suddenly so Christ was promised seasonably and early The merciful Lord would not let the Sun go down upon his wrath but in the cool of the day while the wound of mans fall was yet fresh and bleeding he gave him that soveraign plaster in the promise Gen. 3.15 The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head 3. That the fall of man brought corruption and confusion upon the whole Creation Gen. 3.17 18. Rom. 8.21 22. subjecting it to the curse of God the consequences whereof are misery and vanity 4. That therefore when it is said Gen. 2.2 On the seventh day God ended or perfected his work for so the word may be rendered and so it is Ezek. 16.14 it may well bear this construction that upon the seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the actual undertaking of Christ newly promised to bring about mans redemption So 2 Chron. 4 12. and the worlds restauration the creatures were brought into a better state then they were in before See more of this in that learned Treatise of Mr. G Walker intituled the Doctrine of the Sabbath as corrupted and defaced by the sin of man This is certain that upon the sixth day the creation was dispatched and fully perfected as to natural perfection Therefore when it is said on the seventh day God perfected his works it may well be understood of a further and higher degree of perfection even that which was supernatural shewing a higher and more excellent end of all things created then that which at first they were created unto At least it implyes such a perfection as consisted in the creatures restauration by the mediation of Christ which made way for the setting of all to rights again A most blessed and seasonable transaction for a sin-shattered world which had certainly been demolished and laine buried in its own ruines had not the blessed Son of God put to his gracious helping-hand These are no humane fancies for a Colos 1.17 Heb. 1.3 Psal 75.3 the Scriptures do abundantly testifie that the Lord Christ is the great supporter and repairer of the Creation without whom we have reason to think that the Sun would not shine one day nor the world stand one moment Hence 5. It followes that God rested on the seventh day That is not only ceased from his work but found rest in his Son he rested and was refreshed Exod. 31.17 that is with a rest full of sweetness and delight such as he finds only in Christ in whom his soul delighteth Isai 42.2 And hence again it is said 6. That God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it how did he blesse it but by ordaining it as a day of Grace and spiritual blessings to the souls of his people during the Old Testament Now this kind of blessing was utterly inconsistent with that covenant of works made with Adam in the state of innocency there was no Grace no Christ in that Covenant But all spiritual blessings flow from Christ that fountain of the Gardens Eph. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore blessed be God sayes that blessed Apostle who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ Jesns Did the Lord then ordain the seventh day to be a day of spiritual blessings to the souls of his people Why still this strongly argues that Christ in the promise lay at the bottom of that day in the first designation of it for he was that blessed seed in whom it was all along promised that the nations and families of the earth should be blessed I would ask T.T. and his followers whether the blessings which they expect by vertue of the old Sabbaths Institution be new Covenant-blessings If so then they cannot deny but the day thus blessed was bottomed upon Christ The foundation of the new Covenant a Isai 42.6 I say upon Christ in the promise that renowned promise of blessed memory the seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head which promise was first made to Adam the father of men Gen. 3.15 and afterwards renewed to b Gen. 12.3 c. 18.22 c.
sufficient refutation of them 1. The seventh day being a sign makes it not a ceremony T.T. Obj. 1. p. 18. for Christ was a sign Isai 7.14 Luk. 2.34 the Saints are set for signs Isai 8.18 So is the holy Spirit 1 Joh. 4.13 yea for the same sign as the Sabbath is c. He might have added that circumcision Answ Exod. 13.9 Rom. 4.11 and the Passe over also were signs but then he had spoiled his argument for it is certain that both these were ceremonial yet doubtlesss it had been more proper and pertinent to have compared the old Sabbath with other old Ordinances then to have thus equalized it with Christ and his blessed spirit But to answer his instances Christ was propounded as a sign of Confirmation Isai 7. as a sign of Contradiction or a sign to be spoken against Luke 2. The Saints were set for signs of Wonder Isai 8. The holy spirit for a Witness and not properly a sign now what cognation and alliance is there betwixt these and the old Sabbath which as to the day was a distinguishing sign and that for a season only therefore temporary I will not say ceremonial The Sabbath is set for a sign of things past as the worlds Creation not of good things to come Obj. 2 as the ceremonial Sabbaths So also are the annual Sabbaths Answ Deut. 16.1 c. Passeover and Pentecost ordained in memorial of things past as their deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai yet both are abolished although I grant the Sabbath was never abolished or abrogated as to the substance of it only altered in respect of the circumstance If the morality of the Sabbath cease by being a sign Obj. 3 upon the same account must the whole law cease to be moral since Gods spirit hath set it also for such a sign Deut. 8.6 Thou shalt bind it as a sign upon thine hand But This is frivolous for every child can distinguish between the book and the binding of it Answ Numb 15.38 39 40. The law it self was not a sign but the binding it on their hands and that for a remembrancing sign only the proper use of their fringes and Phylacteries By the way if I mistake not here is a plain contradiction for a little before he had argued that the Sabbath was such a sign as the holy spirit is and now he makes it such a sign as the wearing of the law upon their hands was If one of these be true the other must needs be false for the one is internal the other was external and visible only And this is the Goliahs sward he talks of wherewith He fights with his own fancy Answ 2 for who of sound judgment ever affirmed that the morality of the Sabbath must cease as a sign still he runs upon his ol mistake that the old seventh day was the morality of the Sabbath which we have constantly denyed and disproved The term seventh day is not set for a sign but the term Obj. 4 p. 19. Sabbath The Word Sabbath is very often Answ Levit. 19.3 Isai 1.13 Lam. 1.7 Mat. 12.5.11 Mark 1.21 Luk. 4.31 Acts 13.14 Chap. 17.2 though not alwayes put for the old seventh day especially when it is used in the plural number as here it is Therefore I conclude as before that the day and not the duty is hee set for a temporary sign the duty no otherwise then as it is peculiarly related to the day T is not a Sabbath in general much less the Commandment concerning a weekly Sabbath but the old Sabbath then in use which was given the Jews as a sign and so designed for change for change I mean in respect of the time not of the thing according to that of Augustine who writing against Faustus the Manichee who sought to overthrow the faith of Christians by maintaining that Moses and Christ were opposite in their Doctrines alledging among other things that there was one tradition of Moses another of Christ concerning the Sabbath answers him thus Their doctrine was not divers Non diversa doctrina sed diversum tempus August contra Faust Man lib. 16. cap. 28. only the time or day was different intimating that Moses and Christ were both for a weekly Sabbath but Moses for the last Christ for the first day of the week And thus we have made good the second Position That the old Sabbath being made alterable in the first Institution was further manifested to be alterable in the second Edition of the Sabbath A few words shall suffice for the third POSITION III. That the Old Sabbath was yet further evidenced to be alterable and changeable in the after Observation of it FOr proof whereof I shall only cite the practise of our blessed Saviour in which the Adversary glories most as if it made only for him T is his ground argument for the perpetuity of the old seventh day that Christ did most of his cures and famous miracles on that day Now learned Chemnitius takes the same argument and turns the edge of it against him thus De abrogatione Sabbathi Mosaici dictis docuit Christus libertatem factis sapiuo testatam fecit cum Sabbathis sanaret c. Chemn Examen Concil Trident. cap. de Festis ubiplura The Lord Jesus both by word and deed hath taught us that the Mosaical Sabbath was to be abrogated not only in that he proclaimed himself Lord of the Sabbath but in that he often witnessed his liberty and power over it by sundry of his cures performed on that day Some instance in the cure of the man born blind John 9.6 7 14. Others in the miraculous cure of that cripple or impotent man John 5 whereas Dr. Lightfoot learnedly observes there was the most apparent sign towards the shaking and alteration of the Sabbath as to the day that we meet withall in the New Testament till the alteration it self came To this purpose let the context be duly considered and we shall find two things observable in it 1. What our Saviour did on the Sabbath day he healed a long languishing malady a disease of 38. years standing 2 What he sayed upon this occasion and that 1. To the man his patient 2. To the Jewes his persecutors who call him in question about it To the man he said Take up thy bed and walk Now the question is why our Lord should enjoyn this man to carry his bed on the Sabbath day the expresse letter of the law prohibiting the bearing of any burthens on that day T. T. Supposes that it was either for the confirmation of the miracle to shew the perfectness of the cure Jerem. 17.21 p. 21. or for the publication of Gods glory but it is answerd that both these might have been done as well by his walking upon his feet and leaping as in the like case wee read elsewhere or at least by bearing his bed the next day
And here I cannot but note how emphatically the truth answers the type w Deut. 5.15 c. 6.21 9.26 Exod. 24.8 ch 15.1 21. for look as Israel was redeemed from Egypt with a mighty hand not as captives but as conquerours with the ruine and spoll of their enemies so were the elect redeemed by Christ not barely in a way of ransome by the price of his blood but in a way of rescue and conquest by the hand of his power as in the day of his triumphant resurrection concerning which the Prophet seems to speak x Isai 53.13 I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death Thus in substance there is an admirable similitude betwixt the type and the Antitype yea the very circumstance of time is considerable for upon search into Scripture I believe it will be found that their deliverance out of Egypt was on the first day of the week in memorial whereof they kept the feast of unleavened bread y Exod. 15.3 4 5. with because they came forth with their z Exod. 12.6 unleavened lumps being thrust out in hast that it was upon the first day of the week appears from the twelfth chap. where the Passeover is fixed upon the a Exod. 12.6 fourteenth day of the moneth then it was first instituted and celebrated now the fourteenth day of the moneth must needs be the second Sabbath of the moneth even of the moneth Abib answering to our March which was here made the beginning of moneths or the first moneth in the year From the Creation of the world till now they began their year with the moneth Tisri or September See Dr. Lightfoots gleanings on Exod. p. 20. but here upon a work greater in figure as representing our Redemption by Christ about the same time of the year the beginning of their year is changed to Abib and the Passeover being killed the fourteenth day at even the midnight following the first born of Egypt were slain But yet still Israel is in Egypt only their longs girt V. 11. and shoones on their feet ready to depart and see how it followes The Egyptians being dreadfully alarum'd by the death of the first-born resolve to be troubled no longer with such fatal Guests and therefore in a great hurry they pack them away intreat and importune them to be gone Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before then now to depart But Israel must not go empty-handed they must be well paid for their hard service some time must be spent in borrowing the Egyptians Jewels by that time they were furnished for their journey we may suppose it was well towards the morning and now all the Armies of the Lord march out of Egypt in the b Levit. 26.4 5. sight of all the Egyptians this was on the c Numb 33.3 fifteenth day of the first moneth the morrow after the Passeover and the fourteenth dcay being the Sabbath this must needs be the first day of the week which was afterwards kept as a solemn Festival and called the d Levit. 23.6 7. Numb 28.17 Deut. 16.3 feast of unleavened bread in which they were to have a holy convocation and to do no work To this the Apostle plainly alludes e 1 Cor. 5.7 8. Christ our Passeover was sacrificed for us wherefore let us keep the feast he points at the feast of unleavened bread Paul was an excellent Critick he understood these sacred mysteries he knew Christs Passion and humiliation was our Passeover which lasted as long as he lay in the grave being under the pains t Acts 2.24 or sorrowes of death and the day of his resurrection answering to the first day of unleavened bread which originally was on the first day of the week here upon he concludes let us keep the feast I will not say here is a precept for the Christian Sabbath but drawing aside the veile from Moses face this I may safely say here is a proof of it and a plain argument for it for Israels Redemption from Egypt and our Redemption from death and hell being both on the first day of the week completed and the former of these in the type being alledged as the reason of the fourth Commandment with a total omission of the Argument drawn from the creation Deut. 5.15 and that in the repetition or second promulgation of the Law seems to speak plainly what I alledg it for that the accomplishment of that type states the Sabbath on the day of Christs resurrection which all the four Evangelists tell us as the first day of the week But 2. Let us passe on to the promissory part of the Covenant and see if some change be not made there also and whether the change of the Sabbath be not necessitated by it I shall only instancei n that fundamental and complexive promise of Christ who was indeed the sum and substance of all the rest for f 2 Cor. 1.20 in him they are all Yea and in him Amen And therefore we must with g Bphes 2.12 Una fuit promissio sed saepius sancita Beza in Loc. promise in the singular number when mention is made of Covenants in the plural to intimate that all the periods and promises of the old Covenant did concenter and meet together in that grand promise of the Messiah He was both the h Gen. 3.15 seed of the Woman the i Gen. 22.18 seed of Abraham the seed k Psalm 122.10 11 12. of David the seed of Mary or son of the l Isai 7.14 Virgin and to say the truth all these after-promises were but as so many Commentaries upon that first promise The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head Now as long as Christ was tendred in that old promise the old Covenant was still in force The old Covenant was a Covenant of promise the new Covenant is Covenant performance and together with it the old Sabbath in ue But the promise being once performed Christ fully exhibited and a new Covenant established the old as to the expressure of it was instantly changed Hebr. 8.13 and together with it the old Sabbath which had neither birth before nor being after it unless for a season in condescention to the infirmity of the Jewes whose weak eyes could not indure the bright Sun shine of the Gospel all at once Now if it be demanded when and where we shall state the accomplishment of that old Covenant and the establishment of the new I answer both upon te resurrection of Jesus Christ the first day of the week For First Then and thereby was the grand Covenant-promise performed As the Apostle assures us in that forementioned Text m Act. 13.32 33 We declare unto you glad tidings how that the promise which was made to our fathers God hath fulfilled the same to us their children
style being very agreeable to his other Epistles Paul is inspired by the Holy Ghost to write this Epistle wherein his main design is to disswade them from this sin as appeares by several passages sparsed here and there as ch 4.14 Where he exhorts them to hold fast their profession and observe it well ch 7 8 9. When he had argued that upon the coming of Christ there was to be change of the Priesthood and Law of old-Testament worship-hereupon he concludes ch 10. Let us hold fast the professio of our faith without wavering and verse 38. If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him That is if any man draw back from Gospel-ordinances to abrogated Legal rites therfore again ch 12. v. 25. 26 27. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh whose voice shakes not only earth but Heaven also Which shaking signifies the removing of things that are made that is Old-Testament-Ordinances such as were alterable that the things which cannot be shaken may remain that is Gospel-institutions Having found out his main mark which he aimes at namely to disswade them from Apostatizing to legal worship and perswade them to persevere in Gospel-worship let us consider in the next place See Mr. Carter on Heb. 6. what arguments he uses to prevaile with them herein First Inasmuch as the Ordinances of the Old Testament were given by Angels and by the hand of Moses a Typical Mediator therefore in the two first ch he sets forth the excellency and dignity of Christ above Angels proving him to be the very Son of God and then ch 3. he prefers him before Moses inasmuch as Moses was but a Servant in Gods house but Christ a Son yea the ownet and builder of the house and such a builder as made not only the little house the Church but the great house the world also ch 3. v. 4. therefore they had little reason to return from Christ to Moses Secondly Having thusprepared them he fals upon his intended subject viz. A serious disswasive from Apostacy And because they were about to cast off the Solemn worship of the new Testament for t is expresly said ch 10. v. 25. That the manner of some was to forsake the assembling of themselves together which assemblies in the Churches of Christ were alwayes upon the first day of the week therefore to Preach down this sin among others the Apostle takes a Text out of Psalm 95. and spends the best part of two chapters in the opening and applying of it The words you have at large ch 3. v. 7 8 9. Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith to day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts c. His voice that is the voice of Christ our great Prophet spoken of before and that upon his own day his day of grace in generall and his day of Solemn worship in particular for so it followes in that Psalm Let us how down and worship before him And let it be noted the words cited out of the Psalm are not so much Davids exhortation to the people of his time as a prophetical prediction of Gospel-times Plalm 95. 6 7. Isaiah 2.3 wherein he brings in the people of God as also the Prophet Isaiah does mutually inviing and calling upon one another to hear the voice of Christ yea to come and worship before him else how could the Apostle apply it to these Christians Further oh 3. v. 12. he advises them to take heed of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God i. e. by forsaking his Ordinances and worship and in particular his day of solemn worship of which David here seemes to spea lest they should provoke God by their Apostacy as Israel did by their infidelity till he sware against them in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest whose sin and punishment is further exemplified to the end of that chapter Now because it might be thought that Gods oath did only concern the Israelites exclusion out of Canaan the Holy Ghost informs us that there was a Prophecy in that History and a promise in that Threatning Therefore we are admonished ch 4.1 To fear lest a promise being left us of entring into rest any of us should seem to come short of it But how does the Apostle ground his admonition What need Christians fear Yes good reason for v. 2. To us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them Therefore having the like priviledges we may expect the like punishment if we pervert those priviledges or Apostatize from them through unbelief for that was Israels undoing the word Preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it v. 2. hence they fell short of Gods rest in Canaan which was a type of our eternal rest in Heaven into which none but believers do enter v. 3. For unbelievers are out off by Gods oath as it followes I have sworn in my wrath * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nota jurantis 1 Sam. 14.45 Psalm 89.35 Jer. 38.16 if they shall enter that is they shall not enter the sense must be supplied thus if ere they come there let me not be reputed a God of truth Thus far we have traced the Apostles argument and found it mainly tending to this to caution these Hebrews against Apostacy and against infidelity as the root of that Apostacy against Apostacy I say not from Moses fot they were * Acts. 21.20 They were all zealous of the law tenacious enough that way but from Christ and his institutions and probably from the Christian Sabbath which some conceive to be the day pointed at by David But because they were apt to think that the day and the rest of which David spake was the old seventh day and the rest of Canaan which they were but too much devoted to to root out this conceit in the following verses the Apostle removes these two supposed rests and plainly shews that neither the one nor the other could be intended either by David or himself First It could not be * Exod. 35 2. meant of the old seventh day which is sometimes styled a Sabbath of rest For although the works were finished from the foundation of the world and God did rest the seventh day from all his works yet in this place again he saith if they shall enter into my rest v. 4 5. His argument stands thus David expresly mentions a day and a rest to some so much the word shall implies if they shall enter but the rest of the old seventh day was already entred into three thousand years before Davids time even from the foundation of the world See dr Gouge Comment on the Hebr. Therefore that could not be this The force of the argument lies in this that things spoken of different times whereof the one is of time past the other of time to come cannot be the same for instance that * Ezek. 34.24
Oracles of God Observation does imply obligation And how can this stand with the soveraignty of God But I suppose his meaning is that God rested the seventh day what then Therefore it was no rudiment had nothing Typical or ceremonial in it It followes not Psam 132.8 2 Chron. 6 41. How often is God said to rest in Types of Christ is not the Tabernacle stiled Gods rest And the Temple and the Temple Worship are not t Gen. 8.21 Exod. 29.18 Numb 15.3 Sacrifices and oblations called a Savour of rest unto God not that Gods soul rested in any of these rests properly nor the people of God neither But he rested in Christ and so did they in these things only as Types or prefigurations of Christ to come And thus he is said to rest on the seventh day We have proved before that man sinned and fell the sixth day and that Christ was promised and actually invested in the office of Mediatorship before the Sabbath was instituted And hereupon God rested the seventh day not only from the work of Creation but from the weight and burthen of Adams sin For God complains of sin as a heavy u Isai 1.14 Amos 5.2.13 burthen and as the sins of the old world are said to * Gen. 6.6 grieve him at his heart so no doubt did the sin of Adam But Christ interposing to make reconcilation God rested the seventh day and was refreshed Exod. 31.17 That the old Sabbath was instituted after the fall besides what has bin formerly alledged appears plainly from that of our Saviour x Mark 2.28 The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath For man that is for man in misery not man in innocency for the context speaks of necessitous indigent man man subject to hunger and thirst and want T is spoken upon the occasion of the hungry disciples plucking the ears of Corn and eating out of pure necessity on the Sabbath day The Pharisees presently censure them as Sabbath breakers Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath day having power to dispose of it at his pleasure but sayes the Lord of the Sabbath you quarrel without cause For the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath That is the Sabbath was made for the good and benefit of man in misery Principally for the good of his sick and sinfull soul but partly for the support of his weak and frail body also that it might rest and be refreshed with convenient food Physick and the like which clearly argues that the Sabbath was made ordained and instituted after man was in necessity and misery namely after Adams fall and therefore t is said That God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it Gen. 2.3 Blessed it how not with natural blessings that the Sun should shine brighter or the weather be fairer that day then another No the blessings of the Sabbath were of another nature spiritual blessings such as were suitable to the state of fain man such as God has pronounced Fallen man blessed withall otherwise the institution had never concerned any one man since the fall How could it if the blessings contained in it had bin nothing but Paradise blessings But we shall not inculcate former arguments only add one consideration more to make it further manifest that Gods rest on the seventh day was partly if not chiefly in relation to Christ the promised Messiah T is a saying of the Hebrew Doctors and it agrees well with the a Heb. 2.10 Rev. 5.11 12 13. Scriptures that the world it self had not bin made but for the Messiah For all things were made by him and for him and he is the b Heb. 1.2 heir of all things and that as Mediatour and we have reason to think that Gods heart were more set upon Christ when he set up this visible frame of Heaven and earth then upon all the world besides How unlikely therefore is it that the glorious Creator should set apart a day of rest till the grand design upon which his thoughts had run from all eternity and which was chiefly in his eye when he made the world the glorifying of himself in his Son by investing him with the government of the world and putting him as heir of all things into actuall possession of his hereditary Dominions had some actual inchoate existence 'T is cleare that God did not rest from his other works of Creation till he had made man because till then he had not attained his subordinate end of making the rest of his creatures and t is credible that he would not rest after he had made man till he had made Christ Mediatour and put the government of all upon his shoulders because till then he had not attained his ultimate end for which he made man and all the rest of the world besides Certain it is that the Creation was made but mutably perfect at first and therefore it cannot be conceived how God could keep a setled rest the seventh day till he had setled and established the Creation on Christ the rock c Deut. 32.4 whose work is perfect And this I conceive to be the true and undoubted sense of that saying Gen. 22. On the seventh day God ended Finished or perfected his work namely by establishing it upon Christ that sure foundation 1 Peter 4.18 hence he is styled a faithfull Creator in that he did not leave his work of Creation in a mutable estate as Masons and Carpenters when they have built their houses leave them without any further care what becomes of them but as a faithful Creator * God was not the author or approver of mans falbut only the orderer and over ruler of it to bring good out of evill he over ruled the Fall of Adam for a greater good namely for the establishment of his mutable work by bringing in Christ the right heir setting him as e Ps 8.6 He. 2.8 1 Cor. 15.24 Lord over all the works of his hands puting all things under his feet making him f Josh 3.11 Neb. 9.6 Dan. 10.14 15. Acts 10.36 Lord of the whole world and of all things therein to whom doth appertain the Dominion of the Heavens and the Heaven of Heavens the earth and all that is therein Thus on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made or perfected his work which he had made That which he had made perfect at first with mutable perfection he now perfected again by a further degree of supperadded perfection namely by the promise of Christ and his personall undertaking as Mediatour by whom all things g Col. 1.16 consist And accordingly God rested the seventh day not in the changeable Creature but in Christ the rock and so the Sabbath was stated on the seventh day upon the account of Christ in the promise upon the performance of which promise the seventh day ceases to be any longer a day of rest But
this last book of the Bible to the praise of him who is our Alpha and Omega the very name speaks Christ the Author of it if not his Resurrection whereby he was declared both Lord and Christ the occasion of it The antients had it in singular esteem for the very name sake 't is an elegant and pious poem which I find written upon it by Sedlius an antient Christian Poet who was but a few years * Vid. Sixti Senesis Biblioth sanct p. 308. Jerome's Junior Caeperat intereà post tristia Sabbata felix Irradiare dies Libr. 5. Carm. Culmen qui nominis alti A domino dominante trahit primusque videri Promeruit nasci mundum atque resurgere Christum In English thus After sad Sabbaths th' happy day'gan dawn Whose lofty name from Lord of Lords is drawn A blessed day that first was grac'd to see Christs Rising and the worlds Nativity But we have more antient Records than this appropriating the title of Lords day to our Christian Sabbath Omnes ferè sacrae Scripturae interp etes tam veteres quam Recentiores de primo dïe hebdomadis intelligunt Wallaeus dissert de 4. prae cap. 6. p 150. Ignatius who lived in St. Johns time makes it a weekly holy day of the Christians observed in the room of the Jewes Sabbath So Tertullian Atharasius Hierom Austin who not By this title we may trace it down from the Apostles times through the Ocean of the Fathers Councills Schoolmen to this present age wherein we live And to come to Scripture there seemes to be much in that which Beza observes out of an antient Greek manu-script wherein that first day of the week 1 Cor. 16.2 is expresly called the Lords day and the Syriack translation tells us * Institut Theol loc 48. de cana Dom. that the Christians meeting together to receive the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.20 was upon the Lords day And Bucanus saith this Sacrament is called the Lords Supper as in respect of the institutor and the end of it I had rather interpret the Lords day by the Lords Supper than as Bucan does the Lords Supper by the Lords day so also in respect of the day on which it was wont to be administ viz. The Lords day citeing that Text Acts 20.7 and hence also the antients stiled it Dies panis the day of bread because the Churches of Christ ever used to break bread on this day But to end all disputes if Scripture may be safely interpreted by Scripture and dark places by plain ones then let us expound the Lords day Rev. 1.10 by the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.20 Here let the reader take notice that the blessed Spirit of God who had his choice of words and never spake any thing but upon admirable reason never vouchsafed this title of honour in the new Testament but only to the Supper and the day the Lords Supper and the Lords day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 1.10 Neither can any third Text be produced where this Epithet is applyed to any thing else Now the phrase being the same and thus singular the sense must needs be the same Look therefore in what notion the Supper is the Lords Supper in the same sense is the day stiled the Lords day The supper is the Lords because the Lord Christ instituted it yea and substituted it in the room of the Passeover and why not the day His * So Mr. Perkins in his cases of conscience because he instituted and substituted it in the room of the old Sabbath T is evidently a day of Christs institution a day of the Lords own making and with reference to his Resurrection he made it such a day of the week not such a day of the year as we proved before in a word let any other day be set up in constitution with the first day of the week for the title of Lords day and we shall easily non-suit it Our Saviours birth-day bids fair for it Obj. 1 T.T. Answ Then it must be a day of divine institution which I hope he will not say But I answer further if the day of Christs nativity or any other day besides the first day of the week had been devoted to Christ and intended by John in this place he had spoken very obscurely to say I was in the spirit on the Lords day he would rather have said I was in the spirit on one of the Lords dayes Annot. ad loc But to put this fancy to flight observe the day here dignified with this magnificet title must needs be some noted day the circumstances of time place and person are set down as Beza observes the better to conciliate credit to the truth of these heavenly visions therefore all but that of the place have an eminent badge of cognizance upon them John was a known person and the Lords day with an emphatical Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a well-known day doubtless he that relates to others such a thing done such a day presupposes the day sufficiently and certainly known for a doubtfull circumstance darkens a story and drawes a curtain in stead of opening a casement to give light to the matter now let us put it to the question what day was more eminently and unquestionably known in all the Churches of Christ than the first day of the week Which the Secretaries of Christ all the four Evangelists had so exactly noted and the Psalmist so prophetically extolled as a day of the Lords making St. John could not but know that these seven Churches knew the first day of the week to be Christs Resurrection-day and neither he nor they could be ignorant that Christs Resurrection-day was the day which the Lord had made and what 's that but the Lords day As for our Saviours Birth-day although it were a day of wonderful mercy yet it is left in great obscurity not one of the Evangelists marking it out by name neither can it be so clearly resolved either what day of the * Unless the adversary will grant Mr. A. that it was the first day of the week week or what day of the month or what month of the year nor hardly what year of the world our Saviour was born in but it may be matter of controversie See divers disputes about it in Dr. Willets Hexapl. on Dan. chapter 11. If John intends any single day t is most likely to be the seventh day which was antiently stiled the Lords holy day Obj. 2 Isai 57.6 and is declared by Christ to be his day Mark 2. last and no other day throughout the Gospel does he declare to be his This he and Mr. Braburn in contradiction to the whole Christian world would fain perswade us that the Lords day which St. John speaks was the old Sabbath But He may as well say that the Lords Supper which St. Paul speakes of was the old Passeover Ans
day of the Lord will be as a day of refreshing to some so a stormy day of tempests and terrors to others and a great part of the tempest of that day will fall upon the thoughts and hearts of men for * Eccles 12. ult God will bring every secret thing into judgement we must be accountable not only for idle words but vain thoughts And thus much of the first thing we must keep the Sabbath as a day of rest but we must not rest in this rest we must not make it a Sabbath of idleness but a Sabbath of holiness we must not so much cease from working as change our work servile work for soul work worldly imployments for spiritual exercises That is the next thing 2. To our holy rest we must join holy work and this is either publike or private something indeed must be done in private before the publike our closet-devotions and Family duties common to other dayes must not he omitted this day but rather augmented their Sacrifices under the Law were * Numb 28.9 doubled upon the Sabbath-day and observe it Exod. 3.7 their first service was the burning of Incense before the Lord. Matth. 28.1 Mark 16.2 John 20.1 Now prayer is our Incense let this be our morning exercise in private Seek the Lord O my soul seek him early do as Mary Magdalen did she was early up to seek him whom her soul loved she was last at the Cross and first at the Sepulchre in the dawning while it was yet dark very early in the morning say the Evangelists Oh that our love to Christ could keep pace with hers Shall we love the world better than Christ if we have a journey to go about worldly concernments we can set out betimes oh that we were as wise for our souls as we are for our bodies let not sleep that devourer of time beguile us of our golden hours in the morning in which we are freshest and fittest for converse with God let the sluggard that sleeps with the Sun-beams in his face remember that saying of Austin If the Sun could speak how roundly might it salute thee with this reproof I laboured more then thou yesterday and yet I am risen before thee to day But this is too low an Argument behold the Sun of righteousness is risen and he rose early this day therefore let us not sleep as do others but say and sing with the Church f Isai 26. â— With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early Having performed our morning exercises in private how cheerfully should we repair to the publike Assemblies and draw nigh to God in publike Ordinances on this acceptable day this season of grace when Christ sits in State as one speaks scattering treasures of grace amongst hungry and thirsty Saints that are poor in Spirit and wait for spiritual alms at the Throne of grace g Psal 84.1 2. How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of Hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord My heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And again h Psal 122.1 I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord. For the i Psal 87.2 Lord loveth the gates of Zion more then all the dwellings of Jacob and most sweetly the Prophet Isaiah speaking of Gospel-times k Isai 2 1 2. Many people shall go and say Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths A most lively prediction of our Christian solemn Assemblies the select season of which is signified by t he practice of the Apostles and Primitive Saints to be the first day of the week on this day they met to break bread and Paul preached to them Acts 20.7 on this day they were all together with one accord in prayer Acts 2.1 with chap. 1.2 4. and at these meetings the Scriptures were read by the Apostles command Tertul. Apol. cap. 39. Col. 4.16 1 Thes 5.27 to which may be added singing of Psalms usual at their solemn Assemblies 1 Cor. 14. an Ordinance by which God is much glorified and the souls of his people sweetly cheered and refreshed what greater act of honour can we do to the great God here on earth then publikely to praise him in the great Congregation especially on the Lords day Psal 111.1 when all the Churches of Christ in the world joyn consort with us in this melodious duty Hebr. 10.25 Let us not therefore forsake the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is while we enjoy publike Liberties and Ordinances let us improve them we know not how soon the songs of the Temple may be turned into howlings and Ichabod may be written upon all our Church-doors the glory is departed from Israel Lam. 1.4 16. the ways of Sion de mourn because none come to her solemn assemblies The Lord forbid that ever we should live to see that woful day wherein we shall desire to see one of the dayes of the Son of man but shall not see it Let not our neglect of the Lords day provoke the Lord to deprive us of it let us conscienciously wait upon God in Sabbath-Assemblies and publick Ordinances lest we be forced for contempt of the publike to seek our bread in secret wandring up and down in caves and dens of the earth destitute afflicted tormented as we read of some better than our selves Heb. 11.38 39. Lastly The publike solemnities of the day being ended what remains but that we return again to our private exercises searching the Scriptures concerning the truths taught in publike as the * Acts 17.11 noble Bereans did to which we may joyn Repetition and Conference to whet the Word upon one anothers hearts let not our souls be weary of Sabbath-work only take heed as of resting in the rest so also in the work of the day for what one truly speaks of duties and actings of grace they are good duties and good graces but bad Christs the like may I say of Sabbaths never so well kept they are good Sabbaths but bad Saviours let our rest and confidence be only in Christ and to such as take him for their rest his work is but recreation and so indeed we should esteem it in a spiritual sense not looking upon it as a sowr task or a rigid exaction but calling the Sabbath a delight we should keep it accordingly even the whole day with the whole man as a day of delights to the Lord being transported beyond flesh and the world and having our conversation in heaven as much as is possible for creatures cloathed with flesh To come to a closure There is a double duty to be performed in private on the Lords day which I seriously advise Christians
every puny in Logick is able to resolve for why might not Gods approbation be given forth in the morning or forenoon of the sixth day and time enough left before night for sin to creep into the world To clear this let it be noted See Dr. Willets Hexapla in Exod. 31. That although God was pleased to parcel out his work into six distinct dayes yet he measured not every dayes work by the hour-glass of time as we creatures do but what he did on each day was done in an instant He did but speak the word and it was done he commanded and it was created Psal 33.9 Psa 146.5 This is evident from principles of reason as well as from the forementioned places of Scripture for creation is the production of something out of nothing or that which is as much as nothing Now betwixt the being of something and nothing there can be no intermediate state and consequently no imaginable space of time but an imperceptible moment Hence that received maxime that Creation is in an instant Now to accommodate this to the work of the sixth day consisting of man and beasts certainly the forming of these creatures being momentaneous in the sense above mentioned took up but little of the day I can see no colour of reason to the contrary but our first Parents might be created and the whole creation compleated in the fore part of the sixth day And doubtless as soon as the creation was ended the divine approbatiom was added And God saw that it was good For surely as soon as the creature was the Creator saw what it was and he saw it to be good for he made it good And although the conclusion of the day be presently added yet 't is without dispute that many other things were transacted though not expressed in the first Chapter before the close of the sixth day as the naming of the creatures the joyning of our first parents together in marriage and disposing of them in the garden yea the giving of the Law and in all likelyhood the breaking of it too And so the first knot is untied Whereas he adds Answer 2 That as soon as the sixth day ended and the seventh began God rested and sanctified the Sabbath I answer This Assertion is built upon a very uncertain if not a false supposition viz. That the order of the words and Chapters is exactly answerable to the order of the things done Whereas in the judgment of the learned here is a manifest dislocation or misplacing of the sacred story as to the order of things for if we regard the exact order of things done the second chapter of Genesis would begin at the fourth verse as learned Junius affirms And the second and third verses would come in at the end of the third Chapter Junij Praelect in Gen. 2. and so the mention of the Sabbaths institution would follow the description of Adam's sin as an acute * De. Lightfoot's Harmony of the Old Testa and he gives this solid reason why the words stand as they do and why the mention of the Sabbath is set down before Adams fall viz. because the Holy Ghost would dispatch the general history of the first seven daies together without the interposition of any particular story Writer of our own hath observed But because the adversary will say these are but humane fancies let us see whether they have not sure footing in the Word it self To this purpose let the Reader turn to Genes 2. and view the texture and composure of the whole Chapter In the three first verses you have an account of God's finishing the heavens and the earth as also his resting on the seventh day From the third to the eighth verse you have the creation of Vegetables herbs and plants which was the work of the third day From ver 8. to ver 15. you have the planting of the garden and adorning of it with trees and rivers which if it were a work of creation was done before the seventh day though it be not mentioned till after it Again ver 7. you have the forming of the man and from ver 18. to 22. the framing of the woman as a also the creating of birds and beasts and the naming of the creatures which you see are all mentioned after the seventh day yet all or most of them done on the sixth So that should we strictly cleave to the letter In Scriptura non est prius posterius The order of time is not alwaies kept in Scripture but sometimes that is placed first which was done last contrà and believe that all things were done in the same order as they are here set down we must believe that herbs and plants birds and beasts man and woman were all created after the creation was ended and God had rested the seventh day Yea if the literal and historical order of the words must be maintained how will T.T. make good his Mount-paradise-notion For according to the order of the words Paradise was not planted till after the Sabbath How then could Adam keep his first Sabbath in Paradise Viderit ipse Hitherto therefore he must of necessity yield a transposition that is that although these things be mentioned after the seventh day yet they were done before it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Haec est un◠de regulis ad intelligendam Scripturam sanctam necessariis Luth. loc com p. 75. and here set down by way of Postscript Now let us see what may be said for that which follows ver 16.17 compared with the three last verses you have the woman given in marriage to the man and the Creators Law touching the forbidden fruit given in charge to both and that all this was done on the sixth day will be readily granted Well then Chap. 3. you have the story of the Serpents temptation the transgression of our first parents their conviction in the cool of the day and lastly their expulsion out of Paradise and the juncture of all this lying so close to the story of the sixth day Chap. 2. that unless you purposely loosen the connexion you may rationally look upon it as one and the same daies work And verily methinks the Serpents first on-set sounds as if there were very little distance of time between God's giving the Law and Satan's tempting the woman to break it Gen. 3.1 Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden a very abrupt motion if it had not been made immediately upon the giving of the Law The words are as one observes a form of speech used by one who standing aloof and over-hearing what was forbidden Mr. Walker Doctrine of the Sabbath doth presently step in and ask if it were not so as he took it to be and besides the woman's answer as was hinted before being in the future tense we may or shall eat hereafter implies that they had scarce eaten as yet So that all
no congruity in that passage of T.T. where he reasons thus against reason p. 54. Certainly if Adam were a follower of God as a dear child he must needs keep the Sabbath with his Father With his Father how then could he follow him Certainly God went before if Adam followed him as a dear child I cannot conceive how he could possibly keep a Sabbath that God himself had not first blessed and sanctified to that end I may upon better grounds suppose with a late renowned Champion in this controversie that God alone kept the first Sabbath as Christ alone the first Lord's day that he might afford Adam an example Mr. Cawdrey's Sab. rediv. p. 3. cap. 1. as of working six daies by his being exercised six daies in the work of creation so of resting the seventh in it's next weekly return and so successively week after week But it will be said if Adam were bound to keep the first Sabbath we are bound to believe he did keep it Therefore a word or two of that 2. If he were bound I demand quo jure by what Law By the Law written in his heart why then was he bound to keep a Sabbath before there was a Sabbath to keep for the Law was graven in his heart on the sixth day as a branch of that * Eph. 4.24 Col. 3.10 divine image of God concreated with him Whereas the Sabbath to be sure was not instituted till the seventh day if then Besides the Law written in the table of Adam's heart was the same in this Authors judgment which was afterwards written in Tables of Stone that is the fourth Commandement which if we take his and Mr. Brabournes Comment upon it prescribes six daies for labour before a seventh of rest Now this order Adam could not possibly observe for the first week being created but on the sixth day He must therefore look out some other Law and where he will find it I cannot see unless in Gen. 2.3 and he must be very sharp-sighted to find any thing there that looks like a Law binding our first Parents to observe the first Sabbath For let the words be well pondered And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it Gen. 2.3 Opened becase in it he had rested from all his works which he had created and made Whence we may clearly gather 'T is not said because he should rest but had rested that God's resting on the seventh day was in order of time before his blessing and sanctifying of the day as those words ver 2. On the seventh day God rested from all his works which he had made See Mr. White of Dorchester Gen. 2. imply the making of the works before God's resting so ver 3. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day because in it he had rested must needs intimate that God's resting on the seventh day went before his sanctifying of the day or setting it apart for a Sabbath Not long before I grant As Chap. 1. where Moses relates God's six daies works as finished by him then followeth the blessing upon them So in the 2. Chap. he makes the blessing to follow upon Gods resting as before upon his working but evidently long enough to discharge our first parents by virtue of those words from any obligation to keep the first Sabbath And whereas T.T. argues that the Sabbath was made for man and if Adam were a man the Sabbath was made for him I grant the whole argument onely with this distinction That although it was made for man yet it follows not that it was made for man as soon as man was made Neither has he alledged any one text of Scripture Valeat quantum valere potest of sufficient evidence to support his grand conclusion That the seventh-day-Sabbath was instituted and observed in pure Paradise Which if it b Yet I grant it not should be granted him yet his feeble cause would receive no invincible strength by it For although it would prove a Sabbath and a weekly Sabbath one day in seven to be moral and perpetual which I deny not and herein I could joyn issue with the contrary-minded yet what is this to the perpetuity and immutability of that old seventh day since in the judgment of all Interpreters both antient and modern except Jews onely one day in seven or a seventh part of weekly time is here perpetually established that old seventh day onely temporarily and during the state of the old world So Chrysostome Here saies he from the beginning God has intimated to us this doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Hom. 19. in Gen. 2. instructing us to set apart one day in the circle of every week for spiritual exercises Note by the way he saies not it is expresly determined here that is left for the fourth Commandement but it is intimated and implied here And the like saies Junius But to draw to a conclusion I suppose it is more then probably demonstrative If I may so speak without a Soloecism that the old Sabbath was instituted though in the beginning yet after the Fall in man's corrupt estate when he had put off his publick capacity as the representative of mankind and was looked upon as a single person yea a sinful person and one that stood in need of a Redeemer and so the day must needs be alterable as shall be shortly argued and evinced However if we should suppose the date of the Sabbaths institution to be utterly uncertain as the institution of Sacrifices is I see not but this may argue as to the day mutability stamped upon it It is true the solemne worship of God is unalterable as long as there is a God to be worshipped but the old way of worship by Sacrifices was mutable from the very first original of it Thus I grant the time of worship Rom. 12.1 Chrys in Hebr. Hom. 11. Basil in Isai c. 20. the Sabbath it self being an inseparable adjunct of solemne worship is perpetual but the old day the seventh from the Creation was made mutable in the first institution of it Indeed in some sense we have sacrifices still spiritual sacrifices and we have a Sabbath still yea * Mat. 24.20 a literal Sabbath But old Sabbaths and old Sacrifices being twins though both honorable and serviceable in their generations yet like Hippocrates twins they lived together and died together and let both together in God's name be buried in the grave of Christ so as never to rise again 2 Cor. 5.15 17. But let our Gospel-worship and Gospel-Sabbath take life from our Saviour's Resurrection which brought with it a new Creation a new World making all things new as the Apostle speaks 2. That the old seventh day was made alterable in the first institution will further appear if we consider the Law or command by which it was instituted which is no where to be found but in Gen. 2.3 As for the Law written in Adam's breast it is
were given before the fall and should undoubtedly have bound Adam and all his posterity if he had not fallen Gen. 2.17 yet now it binds none neither should it if the tree were known So also that positive law of keeping and dressing the Garden Mr. â—â— Strange which to Adam was a binding precept yet now it is wholly abrogated in the letter of it or else as one sayes we must all tag and rag turn gardeners True there was something moral and of the law of nature in that precept Yates Model of Divin Haec lex naturalis est conjunctam habens designationem diei ceremonialem quia verò partim naturalis partimque ut loquuntur Scholae positiva est Propterea discrimen oportet in eo ordine adhiberi quod enim naturale est puta diem septimum quemque Deo sacrum esse illud permanet quod positivum nempe illum diem qui septimus est creationis esse Diem Sabbathi hoc mutatum est Juni prae'ec in Gen. 2. p. 27. man must alwayes be exercised and imployed the earth his store-house must also be his work-house Idleness and happiness could never consist together But that his imployment must be limited to the culture of a Garden that was meerly positive The like may be said for the Law of the Sabbath supposing not granting it had been given in paradise that man should celebrate a Sabbath was moral and perpetual but that it must be on the seventh day from the Creation was meerly positive temporary and alterable at the law-givers pleasure And this may serve as a proper Engine to undermine that grand argument founded on the institution of marriage P. 155. The Sabbath is a precept saith he as ancient as Vniversal as marriage both were instituted in paradise for Adam and all his posterity Ans We grant that the institution of marriage was made in pure paradise which ever since has made it honorable amongst all men Heb. 13.4 And thus far we also grant the first institution is a perpetual obligation viz. That one man is bound to one woman yet I hope no man is tyed by that first institution to make choice of this or that particular woman but he is at liberty to marry whom he lists provided it be in the Lord so also admitting the Sabbath to be instituted in paradise yet I can see no reason why it should limit us to that particular day but that notwithstanding we may observe any other day that shall appear to be of the Lords appointment as the first day of the week infallibly is and therefore it bears the Lords name being styled the Lords Day by way of eminency Indeed now the day is fixed and we cannot chuse another nor change it to another Psa 118.29 Rev. 1.10 for reasons hereafter to be rendered But enough is said to prove the command whatever it was whereby the old Sabbath was instituted to be but temporary though it had been given in Innocency A positive precept given in innocency might suffer much alteration by mans apostasie Mr. Sheph. Thes 17.19 For to borrow the words of a reverend Author the sin of man made the Lord repent that ever he had made man and consequently that ever he made the world for man which might be a sufficient ground of the Law-givers pleasure to alter and change the day stated upon the worlds Creation to another day stated upon the worlds Redemption of which the Lord will never repent Now if a precept or institution given before the fall might be mutable at the Law givers pleasure how much more this of the seventh day which was rather imposed since the fall as the institution of Sacrifices the prohibition of blood c. Gen. 9.4 3. That the old seventh day was made alterable in the first institution of the Sabbath is most of all evident from the ground or occasion upon which it was instituted and this is hinted unto us in those words Gen. 2.2 See Ainsworth annot in Gen. 2.2 On the seventh day God ended his works which he had made and rested the seventh day wherefore he blessed and sanctified it Now it much concerns us to enquire in what sense the Lord is said to have ended his works on the seventh day since we must not imagine with Hierome and Catharinus that God made any new creatures on the seventh day for doubtless the creation was finished on the sixth day How then it is said on the seventh day God ended his works Why without resting and torturing the words as some do we may understand it in one or both of these two respects either 1. In respect of Providence or 2. In respect of the Promise 1. In respect of Providence So judicious Mr. White in Gen. 2. and why may not this be the meaning of the holy Ghost That on the seventh day God was pleased by a signal hand of Providence to perfect his works of Creations either by establishing them to continue as they do this day or at least by manifesting their accomplishment in his rest and cessation from Creating-work Take the word Ended in this sense and so it informs us that the ground of Gods sanctifying the seventh day was not simply his rest upon that day but also the reason of that rest Heb. 4. v. 3.4 namely the finishing of his works witnessed by his resting as the Author to the Hebrews plainly intimates And not only that but also the result and consequent of both namely the dignifying and honouring of that day above all other dayes for the time being by crowning it with the accomplishment of the greatest work then made or manifested to be made perfect Isa 58.3 Hence the seventh day was styled The Honorable of the Lord not that in it self one day is more honorable and observable then another but that which differences the one from the other and dignifies one above another is Gods casting honour upon it by some memorable work of Providence either begun or finished upon that day Upon which account most of the Jewes Festivals were instituted as their Passeover in the 14th of Abib Lev. 23.5 Esth 9.21 the Feast of Purim on the 14th of Adar like our Gunpowder-treason-day on the 5. of November because the noble acts of God have been done upon these dayes And this was a main ground of their weekly Sabbath upon the seventh day being a day crowned with the greatest work then visible a work manifested to be finished on the seventh day by Gods resting on that day Yet this must be noted that the finishing of Gods work did not make the day more honorable then others by any natural necessity but only by positive right and equity There was no necessary and natural cause why the seventh day on which the work was declaratively ended should be more honorable then the sixth day on which it was really ended and finished only it was Gods will and pleasure to have
28.4 Abraham the father of the faithful then to David and others in after-ages till at last it was fully accomplished by the most glorious resurrection of Christ from the dead whereby he trode on the Serpents head and all to-bruised it This consideration will out deep in the adversaries cause and to set the better edge upon it let it be further considered 7. And lastly the Holy Ghost has fully assured us that Christ in the promise was of the same antiquity with the confessed ground of the seventh dayes Sabbath c Heb. 3.3 4. The Apostle confesses that one ground or occasion of singling out that precise seventh day was Gods ending his work evidenced by his entring upon his rest And when this was done the same Apostle in the same place informs us the works sayes he were finished from the foundation of the world Now hear another Apostle guided by the same Spirit speaking of Christ in the same terms not differing in a tittle d Revel 13.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Observe the difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one signifies from the other before Joh. 17.24 Eph. 1.4 Thus he styles him the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world he does not say the Lomb slain before the foundation of the world as if it intended Christ in the eternal purpose of God but from the foundation of the world which clearly speaks Christ in the promise of Godfrom the beginning Now by the foot-steps of these two Texts compared how visibly may we trace the Antiquity of Christ in the promise and find a Saviour promised before a Sabbath instituted The seventh day-Sabbath was instituted upon Gods finishing of his works now as the works were finished from the foundation of the world so Christ was slain from the foundation of the world slain I say in respect of his Fathers promise and his own personal beginning to undertake that work which he was to perform in a way of suffering and dying so that when the Father ended his work of Creation the Son entred upon his work of redemption and thereby added a further perfection to the first work Whereupon God rested the seventh day and blessed it That is appointed it for a day of spiritual blessings upon the account of Christ the promised and blessed seed All which particulars premised it will be a truth of unquestionable evidence that the institution of the old seventh day was founded and bottomed upon Christ in the promise And now a dim eye may easily discern mutability lying at the very foundation of the day and thus it may be demonstrated A day founded upon Christ in the promise must necessarily be changed when the promise shall be fully accomplished Argum. But the old seventh day was founded upon Christ in the promise as appears by the premises Therefore c. The proposition needs no confirmation or if it does take it thus If the greatest duty founded upon Christ in the promise was to vary and change with the promise how much more the day For instance the great duty of believing in the Lord Jesus It cannot be denyed but one and the same Christ was the object of saving faith in all ages before the law under the law and under the Gospel Heb. 13.8 Rev. 1.8 Christ Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever being he which was and which is and which is to come And so the faith of Gods elect which was and is and is to come looks to the same object But yet according to the different state of the object the eye of faith has had a different and various aspect Old Testament-believers who went before looked to him that should come after we that come after in the New Testament look to him that is gone before As long as Christ was in the promise they believed in the Messiah to come now the promise is fulfilled we believe and know that the Son of God is come And though still we look for his second coming to judge the world 1 Joh. 5.20 yet his first coming to save the world by his blessed Incarnation his bitter Passion and glorious resurrection we no longer expect as to come but look upon as already come and gone Well then you see how this great duty of believing circumstantially varies and changes with the promise and why because it was founded upon Christ in the promise And verily if the old Sabbath had the same foundation as we have proved then it must admit of the same variation As long as Christ continued in the promise the seventh day from the Creation was the Sabbath day but now the promise is accomplished the * Note that well day must be altered for the first foundation upon which it stood is removed And as we cannot now call that true faith which looks upon the Messiah as yet to come in the sense above mentioned so neither can we count that the true Sabbath which leans upon the promise of a Messiah to come Look to it if you keep the old seventh day you must keep Christ still in the old promise and together with the Jews Sabbath profess the Jews faith the twelfth Article of whose cursed Creed is this I believe with perfect faith that the Messiah is yet to come Buxtorf Synag c. 1. p. 4. And thus deluded creatures may see what they have gotten by siding with forlorn infidels against the principles and practises of the Christian world But I must here resolve a scruple or two and then I shall put a period to this first part You will say if the old seventh day were founded upon Christ in the promise Scrup. 1. then it must have been changed as soon as Christ was manifested in the flesh It followes not Resol 1. for the promise was not fully accomplished when Christ was manifested in the flesh but when he was justified in the spirit by his resurrection from the dead then indeed it was completely fulfilled as Paul and Barnabas do plainly testifie to the Jews at Antioch Act. 13.32 33. Acts 13. The promise which was made unto our fathers God hath fulfilled the same unto us their Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adimpleoit Arius Mont. in that he hath raised up Jesus again So that the day of Christs resurrection was infallibly the day of the old Sabbaths expiration for then the promise upon which it was founded was fully accomplished of which more hereafter But will not this argument overthrow the duty as well as the day the Sabbath it self as the old seventh day Scrup. 2 Not in the least Resol for a Sabbath or day of rest in general is moral-natural and so perpetual but the fixing of it on that precise seventh day was meerly positive if not ceremonial Therefore the particular day may be and is cashiered and yet the duty Sabbath or holy rest still retained as the duty of solemn fasting is still
the resurrection day as after ages have by the Incarnation the Passion or the Assention day have kept it once a year only not once a week as they did and we do But this by the way to illustrate my concession which is this that the fourth Commandment for the substance of it that is for a Sabbath in general yea a seventh day Sabbath and that of Gods appointment is a moral and perpetual precept this I freely grant and firmly believe But 2. That the old seventh day is either in part or in the whole De substautia praecepti non est ut septimum diem precise quo etiam Deus cessavit ab operibus sanctificemus sed dicm quieti consecratum à Deo ipso mediatè vel immediatè Zanch. in praec 4. the moral substance of this Commandment or that the morality of the law-lyes in the particularity of the day this I utterly deny And I shall with the rest of my Brethren affirm and maintain the contrary as an undoubted truth of God Namely that the fourth Commandment doth principally and properly and as the moral substance of it prescribe only such a proportion one day in seven at Gods appointment to be spent in holy rest not this or that particular seventh day unless it be indirectly and occasionally To explicate this the second commandment is usually and aptly alledged as a commentary upon the fourth the form of worship and the time of worship being neerly allyed to each other Now as in the second Commandment we have the rule of solemn worship in general without specifying the particular ordinances of worship whether sacrifices and offerings as under the Law or Prayer Preaching Baptisme and breaking of bread as under the Gospel all which we re consequentially injoyned in the second Commandment but neither of them directly in like manner in this fourth commandment we have a rule for the solemn time of worship a seventh day or one in seven at Gods appointment But whether it should be reckoned from the worlds Creation or from Christ resurrection is not here determined particular duties of worship and the particular day of worship being to vary and change with the different age and state of the Church The wisdome of the Law-giver has so contrived these two Commandments that both the day and the duties as occasionals might be changed without any change of his moral and immutable Lawes But there is native light and evidence enough in the fourth Commandment it self to convince us of this truth Prov. 6.23 For as Solomon sayes the Commandment is a Lamp and the Law is light Only we must look to the sense and not wholly liften to the sound of the letter for in all lawes the meaning of the Law-giver Isai 8.20 Non in verbis sed insensu non in superficie sed in medulla non in foliis sed in radice ratiouis Hieron in Gâ—l 2. Tertull. de Carne Chrsti and the sense of the Law is to be respected not the letter only as he sayes well the mind of God is not so much in letters and syllables as the sense and meaning Not in the out-side but in the pith and marrow not in the leaves of words but in the root of reason for which we must digg deep by serious study and prayer before we can discern it Now if laying aside all prejudice we would thus look into this perfect Law of liberty as those that look to be judged by it another day Jam. 2.12 I doubt not but we shall find one day in seven at Gods choice not the old Seventh day to be the soul and substance of it which that it may the better be demonstrated I shall for methods sake distribute this fourth Commandment into these four parts 1. Exod. 20.8 The preceptive part Remember the Sabbath or day of rest to keep it holy 2. V. 9.10 The directive part Six dayes shalt thou labour but a seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God c. 3. V. 11. The argumentative part For in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh 4. The benedictive part or the conclusion Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it Now if all these four parts of the Commandment be directly for a seventh day in number or proportion and but indirectly occasionally and consequentially for a seventh day in order then the substance of the Commandment is for one day of seven not the last of seven But the premises are true and to demonstrate their truth let us come to tryal 1. We shall examine the Preceptive part Remember the Sabbath day or day of rest to keep it holy This I hope is not be restrained to the old seventh day Sabbath and seventh day cannot be terms convertible here for then there were a tautology in the Commandment as Mr. Cawdrey observes It were as if God should say Remember the seventh day Sabbath the seventh day is the Sabbath which is such a flat tautology as the God of Wisdome will never own in so short a summe of words No it s evident that hitherto the precept is comprehensive and large not limitted to one day more then another for Sabbath day if you will hear the Hebrew word speak English is no more but a day of rest and that is any day set apart for solemn worship by divine authority It is applicable to the first day of the week as much as ever it was to the last A judicious Author does piously and pithily illustrate it by that second table precept Honour the King Mr. Bernard late of Batcomb 1 Pet. 2.17 If Saul be King honour him if he be dead or displaced and David be King then honour King David To neither of them directly but successively and consequentially it might be accommodated to both So remember the day of rest to sanctifie it while the old seventh day was the day of rest the Jews were bound to sanctifie that If that be changed and the first day of the week be chosen in its room we are as much bound to sanctifie that and this by the same law for as the change of the person took not away the precept of honouring the King Hac enim ratione nos quoque proeceptum hoc servamus dum sanctificamus diem dominicum quia hic quietis nobis est dies sicut Judaels fuit septimus Zanch. in praec Col. 2. Syg so the change of the day made not void the command of sanctifying the Sabbath And thus as learned Zanchy tells us We Christians keep the Sabbath as much as ever the Jewes did in keeping holy the Lords day which is a day of holy rest as well as their was For if it be a day of holy rejoycing it must needs be a day of holy rest since it is both improper and impossible to keep a set or solemn day as a day of holy rejoycing in Christ and at the same time
substance of the law I do not say they are abrogable as ceremonies but alterable as circumstances they may be changed for better things and not a tittle of the law annulled but rather fulfilled by it according to that of our Saviour till heaven and earth pass one jot Mat. 5.18 or one tittle shall not pass from the law till all be fulfilled I say the law is not destroyed but rather fulfilled by the varying of some circumstances as by changing their typical deliverance from Egypt into our spiritual deliverance from sin and the land of Canaan meant in the fifth Commandment into England where we dwell And because the fourth Commandment and the fifth are neer neighbours methinks the one may fairly expound the other It cannot be denyed Ephes 6.3 The Apostle in repeating that promise leaves out the words which the Lord thy God giveth thee because they were more appropriate to the Jews and to us the argument is entire without them See Weems Chris Syn. that the promised land intended occasionally in the fifth Commandment was the land of Canaan neither do I deny that the day on which God is said to rest in the fourth Commandment was the seventh day from Creation yet all will grant that the argument or inducement of the fifth Commandment is not to be restrained to that land only for then it were no argument at all to us Now I would ask any rational man why the argument of this fourth Commandment should be limited to that particular day from Creation more then the argument of the fifth Commandment to that particular land of Canaan since both the one and the other are but occasionally insinuated And to limit the inducement of a moral law to an occasional circumstance is the ready way to evacuate and make void the whole law But we shall put it out of all doubt that Gods example here propounded is only for one day in seven directly substantially and properly for the old seventh only consequentially indirectly or occasionally and that by a double consideration 1. Because it is here urged as a reason of what went before 2. Because the reason of this reason is chiefly for one day in seven 1. This example of God in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh day is alleged as a reason of the forementioned clause six dayss shalt thou labour but the seventh is the Sabbath so much is clearly implyed in the connexive or causal particle For six dayes shalt thou labour and rest a seventh For so did Jehovah thy God Now the reason annexed to any rule must if there be any amiguity in it be expounded by the rule the rule must not be interpreted by the reason for the rule is not brought for the reason but that for the rule Therefore as the former receives strength by the latter so the latter must receive light from the fotmer Now the standing rule for the weekly Sabbath is this Six dayes shalt thou labour but a seventh is the Sabbath Here the term seventh is general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indifferently signifies a seventh or the seventh a and the being particles proper to the English tongue are defective in the Hebrew and Latine To supply which defect the schooles distinguish of Diet septimus formaliter and Dies septimus materialiter as was noted before 'T is not said this or that seventh but leftat large And where God has left a latitude we may not dare to put a limitation that were to enclose Gods Common and intrench upon his Royalty Well then the Rule being only express for a seventh day in general the reason or argument here brought to perswade to the observation of such a general seventh is taken from Gods example who also rested a seventh day which although it were the last of seven yet being only alledged as a reason of the forementioned rule it can signifie no more then the rule it self of which it is a reason And so it is clear that the sense of this latter clause in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh must be only according to the sense of the former clause six dayes shalt thou labour but a seventh is the Sabbath that is a seventh in proportion directly And thus the first day of the week is as much the Sabbath of the fourth Commandment to Christians as ever the last of the week was to the Jewes being one day in seven as well as that To dispute for the same day on which God rested and infer a necessity of observing that day because we must observe that proportion is to argue à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter a well known fallacy For the argument is only direct for such a proportion six for labour and a seventh every week for rest not this or that seventh from any prefixed period 2. Let us look into the reason of this reason and then the case will be yet more clear the reason or equity of any law is the life and strength of the law And it is the design of Gods wisdome in imposing laws upon his creatures to propose such reasons in those lawes as shall make them appear congruous and suitable to those common principles of right and equity Psalm 119.18 Rom. 7.12 Deus ideò leges suas judicia vocat quod aequiffima sunt quae praescribit impressed upon the creature And hence Gods lawes are so often styled Judgments because in all things they are just and equal and certainly that sense of the argument which doth most shew the equity of the Commandment is the best and truest sense Now let us consider the equity that Gods example carryes with it in reference to the aforesaid proportion of six dayes for labour and one in seven for rest As thus if the great God who needs not a moment of time either for work or rest as being neither subject to weakness nor weariness if he I say were pleased when he had work to do even a world to make to take six dayes for his work and one in seven for rest how much more should we men still hold to this proportion who by reason of corporal weakness and spiritual wants need such a competency of time both for secular imployments and soul refreshments Thus there is convincing strength of reason and equity in it But now to argue for the particular day God wrought first six dayes and then rested the last of seven therefore we must first work and then rest has no such argumentative force in it especially to us Christians who living under a Covenant of pure grace do rather work by rest then rest by works and therefoe the Sabbath being suitable to the Covenant we may rather judg it equitable to begin the week with a day of rest and work the six dayes after then to work the six first dayes and then rest the last seventh Even dim-eyed nature judges it most
but when the type should give place to the truth the day also which went along with the type must necessarily expire with it At least our spiritual Redemption by Christ being much more glorious then their typical and temporal deliverance from Egypt must needs eate out the memory of the Creation and so translate the day by antiquating the argument of it viz. the indirect force of Gods example in resting upon that day I do not say the direct and principal force of the example for one day in seven is evacuated But rather that this number and proportion being still observed by the Apostles in a new day strongly argues that the inserting of the forementioned argument instead of Gods example does only make void the circumstantial force of the example for the old seventh day not the substantial and moral equity of it for one day in seven Quod orat respondendum As for the Hebrew Article or Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which he makes such a noyse Answ 3 By the same rule we must in the next verse translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those heavens and that earth as though there were some others Num. 18.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who knows not that it is more frequently a cypher then a figure serving rather for ornament then for argument and to fill up the sentence then to form the sense Mr. White of Dorch has given many clear instances where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prefixed to a numeral notes nothing at all and if need were I could adde twice as many more let these two suffice the tithes or tenth part has ha set before it yet it signifies indefinitely one part of ten b Ezek. 5. v. 2.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bp. White p. 183. So Ezek. 5. it is no less then four times prophets hair without any Emphasis at all denoting only one part of three and I see no reason why it might not also signifie one day of seven in the Commandment I wonder T.T. will trouble the world with such common cirtifismes sure he cannot be ignorant that this was Bp. Whites notion long before it was his And the truth is that unhappy proverb may be written upon many of his arguments The Bishops foot hath trodden here yet this is the man that cyres down Bishops as every coward will draw his sword upon a conquered enemy when there is no truth in me if the weapons with which he fights against the truth be not the very same which they formed against their Puritant adversaries What shameful hypocrisie is this But suppose the Particle ha in this place be Emphatical yet why must it needs point out the day on which God rested Why not rather such a day in proportion Therefore instead of ending all cavils this is but a meer cavil Oh but he blessed it and sanctified it says the Objector Ans This is either an ignorant or an impudent cavil for there is but one it in the clause and that refers to the word Sabbath and not the seventh day and so I make bold to retort his own words with a little addition Take heed of adding to the commandement of the living God to serve your own turn or putting seventh day instead of Sabbath day for feare of being left speechlesse at the day of Judgment As for those that suppose a seventh day is the morality of the fourth Commandement T. T. Obj. 4. p. 47. they will never help themselves by it for if it be a seventh it cannot be a sixth or an eighth or any other number This shaft seemes to be taken out of T. Bs. or James Ockfords Quiver who argued at the same rate Answ and are sufficiently answerd by others The summe of what hath been said is this That the Lords day ay in one account be termed the first day of the week or the 8th day As 2 Pet. 2.5 compared with 1 Pet. 3.20 Noah is stiled the 8th person as one that made up the number of eight although in respect of dignity he was the first person and yet in another account the seventh day And it is a pithy saying of Mr. Shepheard If the Lords day may be styled the first day of the week in one respect and yet the eighth day in another respect why may it not in a third respect put on the name sevent day and so Mr. Cawdrey seconds him as Adam says he excepting but the first seventh day might be said to worke the first six dayes and rest the seventh so supposing Christ kept the first Lords day we may be sayd ever after to work six days and rest the seventh And that thus it was says another in the account of the primitive Christians appeareth 1. Cor. 16.2 upon the first day of the weeke let every one of you lay be him in store as God hath prospered him to wit So Mr. Sheph. Octavus dicitur quod cum aliis septem servatus fuit Beze in locum So also Act. 20 6.7 where no day but the first of the week is thus disposed of to be the seventh day G. A. in the six foregoing work dayes In a word although our Christian Sabbath be the first day of the week in order yet it is still the seventh in number having six working dayes going before it in one weeke and following it in another continually and this satisfies the Commandement The like may be sayd for that notion of a seventh part of time which they confess to be purely moral T.T. Ob. 5. p. 47. If so then no other but simply the seventh part must from week to week be devoted to Gods worship for when ever the seventh part of time is altered p. 117. the morality must needs be destroyed Which is thus pieced up in another page The wisest Christian in the world cannot contrive a change of the day but he must destroy the morality of the law This Objection was long ago started by Mr. Primrose in his zeal against the English Puritans part 2. ch 7. p. 162 for let him change it to a sixth day and that cannot be a seventh part of time let him translate it to the eighth day and then seven days passe without any one Sabbath let him keep the seventh or the eighth or first at his change of the day and then he keepes two Sabbaths within the compasse of seven dayes This is his Gordian knot but we need not cut it it is easily untyed For A seventh part of time which here he derides as a notion Answ 1 when as a p. 43. little before it was his own concession we grant indeed to be morall yet not morall natural if he intend that by purely moral but we say it is moral positive And to grant him as much as we can If moral natural be taken for that which is known by the light of nature without revelation so one day in seven is not purely moral But if it be taken
is not said it shall be a sign that in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth For there is a notable pause in the middle which divides the sentence and the sense also The seventeenth verse containes two distinct arguments or reasons why they should keep the Sabbath 1. Because it was a sign 2. Because it was set apart upon the occasion of Gods work and rest in the beginning 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 2.3 1 Joh. 3.18 There are indicating or evidencing signes such are the Characters of saving grace But neither can this be the sense of the word sign in this place It is a sign that I the Lord do sanctifie you What savingly why then all were Israel that were of Israel for the Sabbath was given to all neither was it so much their keeping the Sabbath as Gods giving them a Sabbath to keep which is here made a sign Witness Ezekiel Moses his interpretor I have given them my Sabbath for a sign Ezek. 20.13 to know that I the Lord do sanctifie them Therefore 3. There are distinguishing or differencing signs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as do visibly mark out a people for Gods peculiar select and sanctified ones above all other people of the earth And in this sense the Sabbath is here given the Jews as a sign a sign of his sanctifying them that is in one word as Calvin speaks a sign of his segregating and singling them out from the rest of the nations as his peculiar people Siquis un◠verbo reddere vellet sanctificare est segregare Cal. Praelec in Ezek. 20. Ita Simler in Exo Levit. 21.8 ch 2.32 So also Simlerus and to the same effect is that of Lavater aforementioned The Sabbath was a sign of Gods sanctifying them as the Sabbath it self was sanctified that is separated from other common dayes and set a part for holy ends and uses And so the Word sanctifie is usually if not only taken in Scripture when it is applyed to the whole bulk or body of a people as here it is Well the Sabbath was given to the people of Israel as a sign of Gods sanctifying them but how long throughout their generations That is during the Oeconomy of the Law as long as the people of Israel should be the only peculiar people of God Exod. 12.14 The very same Phrase is used concerning the Passeover ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations by an ordinance or ever which clearly speaks it a temporary ordinance But Secondly We must distinguish of Sabbaths as well as of signes very briefly the Word Sabbath signifies one of these three things either 1. The moral duty holy rest or 2. The penal rigour of that rest or 3. The precise day of rest Now 1. It cannot be meant of the moral duty simply considered since that extends beyond their generations for there remaineth a rest Heb. 4.9 10. or keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God still neither 2. Can itwell be understood of that penal rigour resting from all work upon pain of corporal death for this in all likelihood lasted not out half their generations being calculated chiefly for their wilderness estate as was saidbefore Therefore 3. It must be the precise day of rest the old seventh-day-Sabbath or nothing which is here set as a sign throughout their generations and this I take to be the true intent of the Holy-Ghost both here and Ezek. 20. The case seems clearly to me to be stated in this wise The old seventh day was at first given to Adam and his posterity as the only true Sabbath during the pre-eminency of the Creation and Christ in the promise and that it was conscientiously kept by the holy Patriarchs for some ages after I doubt not though some of the Ancients seem to deny it but to be sure in tract of time the sinful race of Adam forsaking the true God did also forget the true Sabbath Now when it pleased God out of that degenerate lump of mankind to form Israel or the seed of Abraham a peculiar people to himself he gave them his old Sabbath again in a new Edition That among other ends it might be a visible sign to distinguish them from the rest of the world Other nations no doubt had their Sabbaths as well as their gods but as Israel must serve the only true God so they must also observe the then only true Sabbath Ezod 31.13 So much is implyed in the text Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep saith the Lord. The Word my is Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it points at the precise day of Gods appointment the seventh and last day of the week therefore this and mainly this was made a sign of Gods sanctifying the Jews throughout their generations which being so how evidently doth it follow that the day was design'd for change and that now it is certainly changed by the will and appointment of God For if the Jews generation be extinct and they that were once the people of God have now a Lo-ammi written upon them Ho. 11.20 1 Thes 2.15 16. Ye are none of my people how shall that day any longer stand as a Sabbath wich was given them as a sign of their being the peculiar people of God and that for a season only till their generations were expired Maledic domine Nazarais Lord curse the Christians is one of their daily imprecations vid Trapp in Hosea Either let the adversay say the blaspheming Jews who powre out daily curses instead of prayers are still the Covenant-people of God in so much as still they retain that Saturday-Sabbath And then he shall speak like a true Jew indeed or let him confess their saturday-Sabbath which was once the crown of their glory is now no better then the badge of their blasphemy whereby they would make the world believe that they are still the sanctified people of God though they trample underfoot the blood of his Son whereby they should be sanctified I speak not this as insulting over the misery of the Jews but as lamenting the sin of apostate Christians who take up that day as a badge of their Saintship which the infidel Jews wear as a badge of their blasphemy and enmity against Christ and Christians Indeed it was once an illustrious sign of their sanctification but it was limited to their generations as the Passeover was and therefore if the one be expired so is the other upon the same account And in this respect I dare boldly affirm and I doubt not to maintain it that it is every whit as lawful for a Christian to celebrate that old Sacrament the Passeover as to observe the old Sabbath For the one was as well a sign as the other and the one was ordained for a season as well as the other There are a few feeble objections to face this argument but the bare repetion with the premises will be
decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away Where among other things the Holy-Ghost seems to imsinuate the shadowy nature of the old Covenant setting forth the deficiency of it by a metaphoricall expression of vanishing or disappearing viz. as the shadow disappears when the substance or body comes in place so that if the old Sabbath were of a shadowy uature 't is clearly gone But here lies the knot of the question which yet in the judgment of the most and best interpreters is dexterously decided in that vulgar Text Coloss 2.16 Let no man therefore judg you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day or new Moon or Sabbath dayes which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ In the exposition of which Scripture I conceive there have been two great extremes for some in opposing Judaism from hence have opened a gap to Libertinism by condemning all difference of dayes under the Gospel others in going about to stop that gap have made a Bridge to bring in Judaism again I shall equally shun both extremes hoping to find truth in the middle And therefore First I shall premise this as a sure foundation That the Sabbath indefinitely considered as abstracted from the precise seventh day Isai 56.6 7 8. Is a plain prophecy of a Sabbath under the Gospel So is Mat. 14.20 See both opened and vindicated by Mr. By field p. 220 c. was never a shadowy ceremony but was and is a moral and perpetual duty incumbent upon all the people of God to the end of the world for not only Scripture but even Nature it self teacheth us that as there is a supreme God so this God must be worshipped with solemn worship and that therefore there must be some solemn time set apart for his worship and this time not less then a whole day together yea a day of frequent return and this day a day of rest from worldly labour for worshipping-time and working time are utterly inconsistent All this may be fairly deduced from the dictates of Nature Indeed as to the punctual proportion of time whether it should be one day of six or one of seven Nature which doth not so well discern of numbers cannot so positively determine and therefore in this case where the instinct of nature fails us Praxis sanâ—lorum interpres praeceptorum had wont to passe for a principle and maxime in Divinity the instruction of Discipline as one calls it relieves us By which I understand both the prescript of Gods law and the practise of his Church especially Apostolical practise which is the best and clearest commentary upon the Divine precept Now both these determine the proportion of one day in seven for the ordinary season of solemn worship and the last limits it to the first of seven as shall be seen hereafter That the law of God even the fourth Commandment which was the tenth part of Jehovahs will published at Mount Sinai is directly for one day of seven not the last of seven or the seventh from Creation I have proved before and that in this point it is moral and perpetual although not moral-natural may be briefly hinted here I shall offer but one Argument for it Rom. 7.12 Morale est mandatum quatenus praecipit ut è septem diebus unum consecremus cultui divino proinde quatenustale mandatum est nunquam fuit abrogatum nec abrogari patest Zâ—â—ch in praecept 4. p. 595. Ut aelique dies in septimana fit deo dedicata praetum est stabile aeternum Jac. de Valen. adv Judaeos q. 2. Nobis cum veteri populo quoad hanc partem communis est necessius Calâ— in praec 4. Item Luther Quoad observationem unius dieiiu singulis hebdomadis Sabbatum nonest legis Ceremonialis sed moralis qua immota ao perpetua est Ravanel Bibl. grounded upon that Scripture-aphorism That Commandments is holy just and good these are the uudeniable Characters of a moral and immutable law Now if the proportion of one day in seven for holy rest be holy just and good it must needs be moral and perpetual and so must the precept it self that prescribes it But this proportion is holy just and good Grant it to be just and you cannot deny it to be holy grant it good and you cannot deny it to be just Now let me reason the case with any religious soul yea with any rational man Is it not a point of moral equity to pay tribute out of all our times to the Lord of time who holds our souls in life and in whose hands both our times and our breath are do we owe him a piece of every day and shall we grudg him a day of every week when he has given us six can we in equity deny him one Not that I take upon me to demonstrate the equity of this number by the light of Nature or to the light of Nature for as I said before Nature is blind in these things but I presuppose Nature and Reason informed by divine discovery and acquainted with the written word Surely such as have read and pondered Gods liberal grant of six dayes to man cannot but yield his demand to be very reasonable requiring but one in seven for himself Thus in respect of God Again in respect of Man Is it not just and meet that since Mans life upon earth is a pilgrimage and he has no abiding City here but looks for one above therefore he should not spend all his time and thoughts and studies about the trifles of the world but as some time every day so also some one day every week retire from the world and draw neer to God to seek communion with him with whom he looks to live for ever Again in respect of servants and cattel is there not grand equity and reason that one day in a week they should injoy some relaxation from their painsul servitude and bondage that thy poor drudging servant especially who bears God image as well as thy self should have a breathing-time a day of weekly rest for his wearied body and one holy day in a week for his pretious soul Can we in equity afford them less when we have had six dayes service from them can we find in our wretched hearts to grudge the Lord one True you will say there is much equity in this that some time in general should be set apart for holy rest but what necessity of such an exact proportion why one day of seven more then one of ten or two of seven I answer as before A natural necessity we do not pretend but a Scriptural necessity there is why we should be tyed to this proportion and not to any other and herein lies the moral and religious equity of it as thus The written word informs me that there are but four main divisions of time and these of Gods own making viz. dayes weeks moneths years and I am convinced that
ch 37.25 David who dyed many hundred years before Christ cannot be the same David who is promised to be a Prince amongst Christians So here the day or rest of which David speaks being to come and not then entred into could not be the rest of the old seventh day since that was entred into long before even from the foundation of the world This is the true and genuine sense of those words although and again Although is a discretive term * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a note of distinction importing thus much that albeit there is mention made of a day of rest in the beginning of the world yet it is as another distinct day and rest that is here intended So also this Adverb again is to be taken of another rest-day then that which is mentioned in the former verse for although the old seveuth day were spoken of by Moses as the first and most famons rest in the beginning yet now again so many thousand years after that David speaks of another rest if not another rest-day and if any Sabbath or day of rest be here intended either by David or Paul it will certainly prove fatal to the old Sabbath for I would humbly propose this quere to the consideration of the learned Whether the Psalmists intimation that there should be a day of solemn worship under the Gospel and the Apostles assumption that it could not be meant of the old seventh day will not amount to this conclusion that the old seventh-day-Sabbath is to be no day of rest or solemn worship under the Gospel If T.T. quarrel at this conclusion let him thank himself for the premises one of them at least for he grants a moral rest or Sabbath to be here meant and I will thank the Holy-Ghost and S. Paul for the other for they have assured me that the seventh day from the Creation could not be meant by David no nor Secondly The rest of Canaan neither in the sense above mentioned for although that be sometimes termed the * Deut. 12.9 Josh 1.15 rest which God gave Israel under the conduct of Jesus or Joshua yet sayes the Apostle v. 8. If Jesus had given them rest that is if he had given them the rest of which David here speaks then would he not afterward have spoken of another day where note by the way t is a day of rest which the Psalmist seems to scope at else why should the Apostle thus interweave the one with the other If Joshuah or Jesus had given them rest then would he not afterwards have spoken of another day Note again the same Argument is here used against the supposed place of rest that was urged before against their conceived time of rest the old seventh day both these were entred into long before Davids time whereas he spake by the spirit of prophecy concerning things to come a long time after and hereupon the Apostle concludes There remaineth therefore a rest or the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God distinct and different from the old Sabbath yet not much unlike it in respect of the ground of it for he that hath entred into his rest hath ceased from his works as God did from his own works And this is spoken only of Christ sayes T.T. Be it so then I hope our proposition will not offend him that when our blessed Lord Jesus ended his work and entred into his rest he laid the foundation of a new Sabbath on that day of his rest only t is like this word new Sabbath will stick in his stomach yet it needs not for we cannot put the old Sabbath into the Apostles conclusion because he himself puts it out of the premises But we shall not wrangle about words by new Sabbath I mean only a new Sabbath-day and for peace-sake I am content the proposition should pass in these terms The day on which Christ ended his works and entred into his rest must be our Christian Sabbath day The assumption followes Secondly That Christ ended his work and entred into his rest by his resurrection from the dead on the first day of the week for proof whereof we may proceed upon another of the Adversaries Principles for thus he argue Christs entring into his rest on the seventh day T.T. p. 144 145. Our dear Redeemers soul was no sooner separated from his body but his better part immediately entred into glory and soon after his blessed body was laid to rest in the grave Where although I cannot but mind him of his gross mistake about the cricumstance of time for t is evident that as our blessed Redeemers soul entred into Paradise on the sixth day the same day that he dyed witness his words to the dying theef this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise so also his sacred body was interr'd the same day even a Mark 16.42 Luke 23.53 54. the day before the Sabbath not on the seventh day as this sophister would make silly people believ e yet I shall take him at his word in the main of his argument namely that when our Saviour entred into his glory he entred into his rest But I assume By his resurrection from the dead on the first day of the week our Lord entred into his glory and for this I have his own word more then once or twice in the 24 of Luke he overtakes the two Disciples going to Emmaus and as they were talking together with sad hearts about the sufferings and the death of Christ and also relating what they had heard but could hardly believe concerning his resurrection he takes them up with a sharp rebuke b Luke 24.25 26. O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory to enter into his glory you will say that is to be understood of his ascention into Heaven nay verily he spake it of his resurrection from the dead where their chief doubt lay and so himself expounds it for the same day at night he appears to the rest of his Disciples and these among them preaching the same Doctrine and saying c V. 46. Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day this was that he had so often inculcated before his death d Math. 16.21 ch 17. 23. Mark 9.31 ch 10. 34. Luke 9.22 ch 18. 31 32 33. That he must go up to Jerusalem and suffer and die that all things which were written in the prophets concerning him should be accomplished that he should be delivered up to the gentiles that they should crucifie and kill him and that the third day he should rise again according to the Scriptures so that what one Text speaks of his suffering and entring into glory others interpret of his dying and rising again the third day and that Christ by his resurrection entred into his glory
it agrees not with the scope of the context which is to disswade them from unbelief as the root of Apostasie ch 3. 12. Take heed Brethren of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God where the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 18.19 word doth properly and without all question signifie unbelief And the Apostles rendring of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies either unbeliefe or disobedience by another word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies unbelief only v. 18.19 does evidently speak his meaning namely that we should take heed of falling by Israels example of unbelief which is the mother of all * John 16.8 9 vice as faith is the mother of grace And therefore ch 4. v. 1. he cautions us to fear lest a promise being left any of us should seem to come short Now the promise is the ground of Faith as the precept is of obedience I conclude therefore it is not so much Israels disobedience as Israels unbelief upon which the stress of the argument is laid To take the Apostles admonition as a caution against the neglect of the old Sabbath is utterly to mistake his main mark and scope For his grand design is to prevent their Apostasie from Christ and his Gospel not from Moses and his law And I am perswaded if any Sabbath-breaking be here intended it is to deterre them from the breach of the Christian Sabbath To understand this Scripture there remaineth the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God of the old seventh-day-Sabbath Answ 3 is utterly to invalidate the Apostles argument because it confounds that distinction of rests on which he grounds his argument For 't is evident See Mr. White of Dutch in this Tex p. 230 the Apostle speaks of several and distinct rests and insists most strongly upon the opposition between Moses words Gen. 2. and the words of David Psalm 95. not Psalm 45. as T.T. misquotes it and makes it most manifest that David could not mean the rest of the Sabbath of which Moses speakes Gen. 2. for Hebr. 4.3 thus he reasons David speaks of a rest to come but Moses speakes of a rest past therefore David cannot mean the rest of the old Sabbath of which Moses speaks which was entred into so long before And verse 5. he takes up the same opposition again and in this place i. e. of David again if they shall enter who sees not a manifest opposition betwixt these two have entred and shall enter That word although v. 3. relates not to the sin of Israel but the saying of David And thus this Authors first fancy is battered There remaineth therefore the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God but no the old Sabbath T is set down in the Margin of our Bibles the keeping of a Sabbath whence they would evade the seventh-day Sabbath Obj. 2 T.T. although the Dictionaries and Lexicons render ib plainly the keeping of the Sabbath The Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Answ without an Article and therefore this is a meer causless cavil and as for Lexicons that render the Greek into Latin I suppose be will find neither a nor the in any of them for these are English particles and as for Latin Dictionaries he may look long enough before he will find the word in any of them for t is a pure Grecism And thus I think he has shewed his Scholarship with a witness No wonder such an accurate Critick casts odium upon the Translatours t is much he does not give us a Bible of his own making The Scripture gives full evidence Obj. 3 p. 144. that Christ entred into his rest the true seventh day he means the old seventh day when he had finished his great work of Redemption and for this he cites Acts 2.26 where t is said his flesh did rest in hope The* word signifies only thus much Answ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his flesh did remain in hope and it may be as well rendred remain as rest It implyes no such thing as Sabbatical rest He cites Job 17.3 for Job 3.17 an argument he is not infallable As for Job 3.17 which he misquotes again it makes nothing for his purpose All that it speaks is this There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest Teaching us that the grave is a place of rest from external impressions of violence and cruelty as also from trouble labour and sorrow to the people of God They shall rest in their beds sayes the Prophet Yet I hope he will grant the grave is a softer bed to Saints then it was to our Saviour for as he took away the sting of death by dying and rising again so also the horror of the grave by being buried Certain it is that Christs burial was a part of his humiliation and while he lay in the grave he lay under the sorrowes paines or chains of death as the Holy Ghost witnesseth Acts 2.24 And who ever doubted but our Saviours durance in the Sepulchre was penal Even the Lutherans who attribute more then is meet to the buriall of Christ as they do to his body do confess that it was a part of his humiliation and that hereby he underwent that penalty Gen. 3.19 vide Gerh. Supplem ad Chem. Harm p. 230. as well as his death upon the Crosse How then did he rest from the work of Redemption as long as he lay under the arrest of death in the prison of the grave Certainly all his humiliation work was Redemption-work from his Birth to his burial and setting aside his Crucifixion we have reason to think our Redeemer was not so much humbled all the three and thirty years of his life as the three dayes and three nights after his death while he lodged in the heart of the earth Before he was but as the Sun in a cloud but now as the Sun under a total Eclipse as to the view of the world And doubtless for the blessed Son of God and Lord of Glory to lie down in the a Psalm 22.15 Ephes 4 9. dust of death and suffer himself to be trampled under the feet of that Tyrant was no small degree of abasement But to be sure whatever our blessed Redeemers rest were before his Resurrection either that of his Soul in glory or the other of his body in the grave it could make nothing for the Saturday-Sabbath for neither of these rests were entred into on the seventh day but both on the sixth day The b John 19. v. 14 31.42 day before the Sabbath he was crucified and the same day he was buried otherwise how is it said That he rose again the third day c 1 Cor. 15.4 according to the Scriptures Methinks this should make the Objector blush to look back upon his anti-scriptural conclusion That Christ entred into his rest on the true seventh-day-Sabbath expounding it of his rest in the
grave But a word with you Sir did the Lord Jesus indeed enter into that rest of the grave the seventh day of the week why then it seems he rose again from the dead the second day and rested but two dayes and two nights in the grave and had he not need be greater then an Angel that shall take upon him to coine such new Creeds and preach such new Gospels for sear of the Apostles d Gal. 1.7 8. Anathema To salve this he tells us p. 145. that our Saviours body was laid to rest in the Sepulchre in the close of the sixth day Very good Why then does he say in the next page that he entred into this rest on the seventh day Thus at once he contradicts both himself and the Scriptures But to conclude this author has little reason to vaunt and glory as he does in this new invention For to make Christs rest in the grave a ground of the weekly Sabbath is neither proper in respect of the thing nor proportionable in respect of the time For the thing it self how altogether improper and incongruous is it to keep a weekly festival in memory of our Saviours Funeral to make that day a day of rejoycing which was rather a day of mourning For so the Ancients held it and therefore kept it as a Fast ergo not as a Sabbath for the Sabbath was ever reckoned among the solemn c Ier. 23.2 3. Feasts of the Lord which one consideration is sufficient to shew the judgment of antiquity in this controversie For they kept the * Diem Solis laetitiae indulgemus Tertul. Apol. c. 36. Sabbato usque ad galli cantum jejunium producite et illucescente uno Sabbatorum qui est dominicus desinite Constit lib. 5. c. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan lib. â—3 Tom. 3. Haeres 75. Lords day as a day of spiritual joy and gladness and spent the whole Saturday the time of Christs lying in the grave in Fasting and mourning alledging for their practise that speech of our Saviour When the Bride-groom is taken from them then shall they fast Luke 5.35 Again it holds no proportion in respect of the time for our Saviour lay three dayes and three nights in the grave therefore this can be no pattern for a weekly Sabbath I doubt the best of our new Sabbath-keepers would be weary of resting so long at a time But the stress of T. T s Argument is laid upon Christs entring into rest therefore there remaineth the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God and here I shall lay the stress of my answer having manifestly proved that Christs entrance into rest was not on the seventh day no not in this authors own new notion of rest And whereas he addes that the taking down of our Saviours body from the Cross and laying it in the sepulchre in the close of the sixth day was providentially ordered I answer true providentially indeed for hereby the Holy Ghost has admirably provided against this future error of raising the old seventh-day-Sabbath from the dead and building it up anew upon the grave of Christ where it rather lies buried never to rise again For if the blessed body of Christ were laid in the grave on the sixth day then he entred not into that rest nor indeed any rest at all on the seventh day But on the first day of the week he entred into his true rest and ceased from his work of Redemption as God the Father did the seventh day from his work of Creation therefore there remaineth the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God upon the day of Christs resting from his work the day of his rising from the dead And we have grand reason to think that Christ had a significant meaning in prolonging his Resurrection to the third day which was the first of the week as the Father had in lengthening out the Creation to the seventh day which was the last of the week For as the Father could have created the world in a moment so could the Son have quickned and raised himself from the grave assoon as he was in it either the same day or the seventh if he had pleased But he purposely and providentially passed over that day and crowned the first of the week with the glory of his resurrection which plainly speakes it his will and pleasure to make that day the day of our weekly rest in which our Lord himself rested from his greatest work Oh! But Christ rested not on the day of his Resurrection Obj. 4 T. T. p. 120. for he journeyed fifteen miles that very day which was no fair president for celebrating a Sabbath And again he travelled fifteen miles upon this supposed new Sabbath and this not to any Church-meeting but from Jerusalem where most of his disciples were purposely joyning with the two disciples that were journeying on foot seven miles and a half into the Countrey He means the disciples going to Emmaus Luke 24.13 14. This is his last refuge and 't is a very sorry one For First This travel was without labour and if he had journeyed that day from earth to Heaven and back again from Heaven to earth it had been no impeachment to his holy rest any more then the motion of an Angel sent upon Gods errand would be a profanation of his Sabbath certainly the body of Christ at his resurrection was a glorious body and able to move from earth to Heaven as some think in a moment And whether he did not locally though not so solemnly as afterwards ascend into Heaven and descend again the very day of his resurrection is disputed by some I shall not positively assert it but modestly propound it to further inquiry whether those words a John 20.17 Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go and tell my brethren I ascend do not seem to imply that even now in the morning of the resurrection-day he was about to ascend and whether the same day at night returning again and bidding them touch or b Luke 24.39 handle him do not argue that now he had ascended Again whether those words c Eph. 4.8 11. When he ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men some Apostles some Prophets c. must be necessarily limited to his last ascention or whether they may not be construed of some former ascention Since it seems those gifts were given upon the very day of his resurrection for then d John 20. towards the evening or end of that day the Gospel-Ministry was constituted then the Apostles received their mission and commission e v. 19. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you f v. 21. whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Yea then they received the g v. 22. Holy Ghost For he breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the
the first day of the week not directly indeed but by very good consequence as Mr. Cawdrey and Mr. Byfield do convincingly argue it For sayes the one our Saviour does here speak of a Sabbath indefinitely and a Sabbath to be observed long after his death even at the destruction of Jerusalem and this was spoken to his disciples apart from the multitude sayes the other v. 3. and the period of time here pointed at was forty years after his death when the Jewish Sabbath was gone and the Gospel sufficiently published whereby the ceremonial Law was evacuated and become not only dead but deadly Not that the old Law of a Sabbath the fourth Commandment was then out of force but the Law of the old Sabbath And then the conclusion is this Christ shewes a Sabbath to continue and a religious respect due to a Sabbath still after his death yet not the Jewes Sabbath therefore he intended the Christian Sabbath to be observed according to the fourth Commandment As for the Jewes Sabbath t is certain that it was void at this point of time yea long before this forewarned flight the Apostles and Christians had their assemblies apart from the other Jewes and kept the Lords day the first day of the week as on the Great day of Pentecost Acts 2. and at Troas Acts 20.7 And although sometimes the Apostles did preach on the seventh day yet as Mr. C. notes it was only before the time mentioned Acts 20 never after and only in other Cities abroad not at Jerusalem for there we never read a word of the Sabbath in all the story of the Acts. I conclude therefore with that reverend Author that no reason can be given why our Saviour in this prophetical caution should regard the Jewish Sabbath but altogether the contrary in regard the Christians inhabiting in Jerusalem and the Coasts about Judea preferred the Lords day before it and it would be grievous to gracious hearts to have their holy rest interrupted with the noise of warlike tumults and the hurry of a tumultuous flight well might the disciples be taught to pray Lord when ever we be driven from the place of our Residence let it not be on a day of holy rest for that would be as uncomfortable to our souls as a winters flight would be cumbersome to our bodies Not that it would be sinful or unlawful when life lay at stake to flye on the Sabbath for to save a mans life is a Sabbath-dayes duty and a matter of far greater moment then to leade a beast to the water or pull an oxe out of a pit both which are allowable it may therefore be scored down among the rest of T. T 's errors and oversights that he makes it a sin to flye on the Sabbath day when peril of life puts a man upon it for hâ— terms it a dishonor to God and prophaning his sacred season p. 77. and yet he sayes in the next page That had their flight bin on the Sabbath as long as they carried nothing they could not be counted Transgressors Which may pass for another of his contradictions But for a closure to this answer we have deliberately weighed our Saviours words and sayings concerning the Sabbath but cannot find that ever he spake one word or one syllable in countenance of the old seventh day as the Sabbath of Christians his words prove no such thing And lastly Whereas his workes are pleaded as the crown of that day Answ 4 I am content if the author think good to venture the whole weight of the cause in this bottom That day which Christ has crowned with his greatest wonders is to be most highly esteemed among Christians 'T is his own grant p. 78. and 't is a truth now let him have but a little patience and we shall prove by undeniable Arguments that in this respect the first day of the week carries away the Crown from all other dayes old Sabbath and all If Christs resurrection his often apparitions the mission of his Spirit the inspiration of his Apostles the conversion of three thousand souls ot once be worthy the name of wonders surely the first day of the week is a day of wonder a day of honor and renown above all the dayes that ever the Sun shone upon The most glorious day that ever God created the most solemn day that ever the Church celebrated a day that has crowned Christ and a day that Christ himself has crowned with the greatest glory of any day that ever dawned upon the world Rom. 1.4 I speak but the words of truth and soberness Luke 13.32 Psalm 118.24 Joh. 20.22 23. Cant. 3.11 the Lords day is no day of small things 't is the day of the Lords power the day of his perfection the day of his praise and glory the day of his bounty and blessing the day of his espousals and of the gladness of his heart which can be understood so properly of no day as of this the Resurrection day Let prophane Esaus despise it and proud Notionists oppose it at their peril Behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart never was Christ more visibly Crowned by his Church then on the Lords day which also was the day of his espousals when he was made sure to his Church by a sure Covenant even the sure mercies of David Hos 2.19 20. Acts 13.34 but let neither of them blame me if I honor and esteem it above all dayes till they can shew me another day which the Saviour of the world has honored and exalted above it Never tell me of one or two miracles wrought on the seventh day yet I desire to adore Christ in all his miracles but shew me such a confluence of wonders and wonderful transactions wrought by him whose name is wonderful on that day as on this and I will confess I have lost the day Alas It cannot be that one transcendent act the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead the finishing act of our Redemption weighs down all the honor of the seventh day with advantage 'T is objected that our Saviour was pleased to put forth his Divine vertue on the seventh day in sundry miracles miracles of healing and the like I answer 'T is very true and to him be all the glory But if it were an honor to that day that our Heavenly physitian healed the sick what a Crown of glory was it to his own day that he raised the dead Yea that being dead he raised himself from the dead so also if he dignified the seventh day by casting out unclean Spirits how much more the first day by sending his holy Spirit If his preaching in the Synagogues were an honor to the seventh day how much more his presenting himself in that great Assembly of Divines twice at least on the first day of the week Did Christ ever
is causelesse What if they translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preaching Acts 20.7 and reasoning Acts 18.4 or disputing as it is rendred Acts 19.9 Sure they saw good ground for this variation Though the word be the same yet the scope of the Texts is not the same for Acts 20. Paul was among Christians and Christians that came together to communicate at the Lords table and that 's no time to dispute but to beleeve to act faith and not reason therefore well is it said there Paul preached to them some quickening Sermon doubtless to excite their Sacramental graces But Acts 18. he was among a company of unbeleeving wrangling Jewes and there they do well to render it reasoning Mark 9.34 Acts 17.17 which unless the context carry it another way is the most apt and usuall signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very art of reasoning Logick has its name from this compound What rashnesse therefore and sinful saucy boldness is it in this Author to throw dirt in the faces of those eminent instruments the Translators of the Bible charging them with inexcuseable sin because they cross his humours and erroneous conceipts To say Answ 7 as we do that Paul took the opportunity of the old Sabbath to preach to the people is not to render him a constant dissembler as he reproachfully accuseth us but to commend him as a diligent dispenser of the word of truth who for the quicker progress of the Gospel was willing to embrace all opportunities to preach in season and out of season wherever he came Neither is it to speak without book as we shewed above nor does it charge Christ with any criminal imputation he kept the Sabbath while it was in force from a principle of conscience in obedience to the Law Paul from a principle of Christian prudence and indulgence the better to promote the Gospel and so his custom was not formally the same with Christs neither does his custom argue his commission unlesse it be in things Moral and Evangelical and among the Gentiles * Ro. 11.13 ch 15.16 Gal. 2.7 1 Tim. 2.7 to whom he was cheifly sent as a commission-officer of Christ to preach the Gospel of the uncircumcision Lastly Pauls reasoning in the Jewes Synagogue at Corinth and that every Sabbath till he were persecuted and his general precept to the Corinthians and other Christians to be followers of him is as good a plea for the Synagogue as the seventh day and indeed a Jewes Sabbath and a Jewes Synagogue would do well together So that all objections to the contrary notwithstanding it remains a firm and immoveable truth of God that the old seventh day is discharged from being a Sabbath or day of weekly solemn worship to the people of God Now by way of Transition to the second branch of my Argument that the first day of the week is designed for a day of weekly solemn worship under the Gospell I would remind the Reader of what was premised and proved before viz. That the Law of the fourth Commandment for the proportion of six working dayes and a seventh every week for solemn worship ordinarily is still in force under the Gospel Which being made good and the old seventh day manifested to be void one Argument will put it out of all question that the first day of the week is the only day of weekly worship to be observed under the Gospel As thus That day of the week upon which above all others in the vacancy of the old seventh day God has set his mind in the Law and upon which above all other dayes Christ has set his mark in the Gospel must needs be the Christians weekly day of solemn worship or Sabbath day But the first day of the week the old seventh day being void is the day above all others in the week upon which God has set his mind in the Law and upon which above all other dayes Christ has set his mark in the Gospel Therefore The first day of the week must needs be the Christians weekly day of solemn worship or Sabbath day The proposition is undeniable for what better warrant can be pretended for a weekly Sabbath then Gods mind or will in the Law and Christ Mark in the Gospel The Assumption is all that requires proof namely That the seventh day being void the first day of the week is the day above all others upon which God has set his mind in the Law and Christ his mark his signal mark in the Gospel Both which shall be distinctly and demonstratively proved by Scripture-consequence and evidence 1. That the seventh or last day of the week being void as we have proved the first day of the week is the only day upon which it appears that God has set his mind in the Law I mean the Law of the fourth Commandment which may be thus made out It was the mind and pleasure of God that the proportion stated in the Commandment six dayes in the week for civil imployment and one for sacred and religious rest should be observed in all ages Exod. 35.2 Ezek. 46.1 See Mr. Gawdrey p. 1. ch 9. S. 53. and part 3. ch 3. both under the Law and under the Gospel Now the seventh day which was observed under the Law being discharged there is no other day but the first day of the week on which Gods proportion can be preserved and perpetuated without intermission and interruption For take any other day as the second or third or fifth or sixth and there would be losse of time it would not be for once at least one day in seven but one of some other number and besides the six working dayes would not come all together but some of them would go before the day of rest and others would come after it in one and the same week Both which would offer violence to the Holy Commandment which as it requires but one day in a week for religion to six for worldly businesse and allots six for worldly business to one for religion ordinarily so it takes order that the six working dayes must go together and the day of rest not come between them in the same week but either go before or follow them Now in pitching upon the first day of the week both these were punctually observed at the first change of the day for in the revolution of twice seven dayes there were two dayes for religion the last of the first seven and the first of the latter seven and in each revolution the six working dayes are all together And thus it is still successively week after week and thus it shall be perpetually I question not to the last week of the world for I am assured that the old seventh day is void and I am fully convinced that whatever the Lord Christ could have done we cannot make choice of any other weekly day of worship but the first of the week to hold up the morality of
Zech. 4.7 Temple was finished the head-stone was brought forth with shouting crying grace grace thereunto So here when the work of our redemption should be finished and Christ exalted as head and corner-stone of his Church by his triumphant Resurrection the Holy Ghost intimates the solemn gratulation and publick praise that the Church should offer on that day So we are to understand the next words were as c Isal 56.7 Mal. 1.11 usually New Testament-worship is set forth in an old Testament-dress v. 27. God is the Lord which hath she wed us light light indeed when the Sun of righteousness arises he has made it a day of light and gladness to poor self-condemned sinners therefore bind ye the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar That is offer to the Lord the sacrifice of publick praise and thanksgiving verse 29. Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good his mercy endureth for ever So that t is evident a day of solemn worship is here intended and Christs resurrection day is principally pointed at as a day which the Lord would institute and a day which the Church should celebrate Saying This is the day which the Lord hath made let us be gland and rejoyce therein What a plain Scripture-proof is this of Divine authority of the Lords day So plain that the adversary is forced to grant it page 61. It must needs be meant of Christs resurrection-day saies he and when he wrote his first book he excited Christians to the weekly celebration of it Whereas in a late railing pamphlet since he seekes to smother the light and evidence of this Text by a silly evasion that the Psalmist speaks not of every first day of the week but Easter-day as may be conjectured But I shall easily shake off this slight exception Away with conjectures let us search the Scriptures what day does the Holy Ghost in Scripture call Christs resurrection-day Ask Matthew Mark Luke and John they 'l tell you Math. 28.1 Mark 6.2 Luke 24.1 John 20.1 19. t is the first day of the week the day of the year is never mentioned nor the day of the month on which Christ arose but the day of the week only to teach us doubtless that Christs resurrection-day must be no yearly or monthly but a weekly solemnity Good reason that the work of Redemption should have as frequent a commemoration as the work of Creation had Now ponder this good Reader and the Lord print it upon thy heart the day of the Saviours Resurrection prophetically extolled in the old Testament as the day which the Lord hath made is historically noted down in the New Testament as the first day of the week and now we shall draw an argument which I hope will be an arrow of conviction to the contrary-minded the rather because it comes out of Gods own quiver thus the day of Christs resurrection is the day which he Lord hath made for duties of solemn worship but the first day of the week is the day of Christs Resurrection therefore the first day of the week is the day which the Lord hath made for duties of solemn worship The proposition is warranted by the Testimony of the Psalmist the assumption is confirmed by the harmony of all the four Evangelists the conclusion therefore will stand as long as the world stands namely that the first day of the week is a day of divine institution mark'd out by the finger of God the spirit of Christ for a day of solemn weekly worship under the Gospel For as I hinted before the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy * Acts 1.16 2 Tim. 3.16 1 Pet. 1.11 and ch 3.19 Rom. 15.4 It was by the spirit of our great Prophet that all the Prophets of old did speak Like stars they all borrowed their light from this Sun they were irradiated and inspired by Christ and when a holy Prophet foretels such a thing shall be we may as confidently build upon it as if Christ himself had said I will have it so For indeed it is the voice of Christ that speaks in the old Testament as well as in the new And possibly this may be one reason why the Lord Christ has spoken so little in the Gospel concerning some new Testament-ordinances as the Lords day for one namely because the Prophets had spoken so much before and Christ would not take off his people from the study of the old Testament upon which the authority of the new does so much depend Me thinks as to the controversie of the Christian Sabbath this should abundantly satisfie any sober Christian that the day of Christs resurrection was prophesied of by David and others as a day which the Lord would make and institute and accordingly practised by the inspired Apostles upon the first day of the week and this practice perpetuated by the Church of Christ the Catholick Church in all ages since for above sixteen hundred years What can be objected with any colour of reason against so clear a truth Christ hath not left one syllable for the institution or celebration of this day T.T. p. 120. Answ Not one syllable Why did he not grant before that Psalm 118. compared with Acts 4. Must needs be meant of the resurrection-day and does not the spirit speak expresly Mr. Perkins in his cases of conscience argues for the Christian Sabbath from this text Cyprian Austin and Ambrose and all the ancients who have ever cited or saluted this place Psalm 118. do expound it and understand it of the Lords day See Mr. L. strange This is the day which the Lord hath made Is it a day of the Lords making and will he make nothing of that What else can be made of it but a prediction of a Divine institution which is equivalent to a precept especially when expounded by Apostolical practice as this has been Let it be seriously considered in what other sense can a day made long before in respect of Creation be stiled the day which the Lord hath made than in respect to a divine institution An institution then it is and the occasion of it Christs resurrection which was the concluding act of our Redemption and what an impression of glory does this stamp upon the day above all the dayes that God ever made the seventh day and all As some * years are crowned with Gods goodness above others so dayes also The work crownes the day as I have often said and the greater the work the greater the day now that work in which God is most glorified in all his attributes must needs be the greatest work such is the work of Redemption Quasi hactenus nullus fuerit in orbe dies Mollerus in Loc. therefore the day set apart in commemoration of it must wear away the crown from all other dayes Such is Christs resurrection-resurrection-day therefore Emphatically stiled The day which the Lord hath made as if there had never been
a day in the world till this day dawned at the rising of the Sun of righteousnesse never such a day T is worthy to be noted what a wonderful concurrence of remarkable periods of time met together at our Saviours resurrection both in respect of the year and the day Is 61.2 ch 63.34 John 4.34 35. Heb. 2.14 15. 1. The year was a Sabbatical year the year of Jubilee as may be gathered from scripture which if it make nothing for the Christian Sabbath yet it makes much against the Jewes Sabbath themselves being witnesses For the Hebrew Doctors have spoken rarely to this purpose even to the admiration of considerate Christians The Divine Majesty say they will be to Israel in a Jubilee Freedom Redemption and finisher of Sabbaths H. Broughtons Sinai-sight 2. The day of our Lords Resurrection was a remarkable day in many respects As 1. It was the eighth day in a continued reckoning of dayes and eight was a number of greater prefection then seven in some respect witness Circumcision which was so strictly tyed to the eighth day John 7.22 Sacramentum hoc suit diei illius octavi quo dominus resurrexit ad justificationem nostram Ep. ad Fid. ita Aug. de Gelebr Pasch that if it had fallen on the weekly Sabbath it must not be omitted for the Sabbaths sake The antients insist much on this Circumcision on the eighth day was a type of that eighth day on which our Lord rose again for our justification sayes Cyprian 2. Christs resurrection was also on the third day after his passion which himself foretold as the day of his perfection For so some expound that saying of his The third day I shall be perfected Luke 13.32 Besides this third day was a day of * Ho. 6.2 Lu. 24.46 note in the Law and the Prophets a day appointed and appropriated to the Messiah signally markt out in the Kalendar of the Prophets and figured by many famous Types as that of Isaac who was virtually a James 2.21 offered and restored again the b Gen. 22.4 third day as it may be computed and that in a kind of c Heb. 11.19 figure as the Apostle intimates So also Hezskiah who was in account a dead man and on the d 2 Kings 20.5 third day miraculously revived again So e Jonah 2.10 Math. 12 40. See Ainsw in Gen. 22. Jonah and others from which instances the Rabbins it serms could conclude Christs Resurrection on the third day There be many a three dayes say they in Scripture of which one is the Resurrection of the Messiah 3. Christs Resurrection was on the first day of the week as the Evangelists unanimously testifie Which although it be termed by the blaspemous Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Nazarens day in a way of reproach yet in Scripture-account it is a day of greatest renown being the first in order in the Creation and the first in dignity by our Saviours resurrection The first-fruits of time and the first-born of dayes and accordingly the only day in which our Lord became the f 1 Cor. 15.20 first-fruits of them that slept and the g Col. 1.18 first born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence 4. To all these may be added what some have probably argued that this first day of the week was our blessed Redeemers Birth-day as well as his Resurrection day yea the day of his Ascension into Heaven as well as the mission of his Spirit but this I leave to Mr. Aspinwal to make good Only thus much I dare assert that the day of our Saviours resurrection the first day of the week is the fittest for the commemoration of his Nativitie Passion Ascension and all other blessed transactions in the work of our Salvation For the Resurrection of Christ implyes all the rest but is not necessarily of them And if the Lord Jesus had not risen from the dead what benefit had we had either by his birth life death or burial or being dead and buryed how had he ascended and the Spirit the Comforter descended unless he had first bin raised from the dead Besides his Resurrection and Ascension are computed h Luke 24.26 Eph. 4.8 9 10. See Dr. Twisse p. 117. Sect. 5. 1 John 20.17 in Scripture as one compleat motion As his dying and continuing under the power of death for a time were but one entire work of Redemption For however after his resurrection he stayed a sew dayes here upon earth to confirm the faith of his followers and settle the affairs of his Kingdom yet he was no sooner risen but presently he speaks of his ascending and indeed his rising was in reference to his ascending partly if not a part of it It was the first step of his triumphant passage into his kingdom and glory So that in a right sense very Lords day is our Christmass-day Easter-day Ascension-day Whitsunday and all my meaning that in a right celebration of our Christian Sabbath we solemnize the memorial of all these blessed ingredients in the work of our Redemption We need not contend for an annual Solemnization of our Saviours birth-day resurrection-day ascension-day neither need we fear oblivion of these gracious and glorious mysteries if the Lords day were duly observed We cannot better keep alive the memory of these mercies than by keeping a day in commemoration of them once a week and no day so fit as the Lords day in which we have the sum of all A day that brought forth the greatest good to faln man of any day even a compleat Redeemer who on this day redeemed us with triumph from the tyranny of Satan the dominion of death and hell and k John 10.25 ch 14. 19. restored us to life and Salvation yea assured it unto us Therefore I conclude with that renowned father the Lords day was declared by the Lords Resurrection to be the Christians day Dies Dominicus Christi resurrectione declaratus est ex illo caepit habere festivitatem suam August Ep. 119. ad Jan. item de Civitate Dei lib. 22. cap. ult Serm. 15. de verb. Apost and from that very time it began to be celebrated as the Christian mans Festival or rather with that of the Psalmist This is the day which the Lord hath made 'T is no day of mans making if the God of truth may be beleeved 'T is a plant of the Lords own planting therefore the Divel and all his instruments shall never be able to pluck it up Neither can all the men nor all the Churches in the world alter it to another day And how remarkable is it that the Church for sixteen hundred years should no where offer or attempt to alter it but in all places and all ages observe it What does this speak but the Divine authority of it by which mens Spirits have been awed and their hands tied from such presumptuous undertakings the truth is
other arguments as prophetical prediction Psalm 118. and Apostolical practice Acts 20. allege this as one proof of our Christian Sabbath That Christ Jesus our Lord was often seen upon it seen in assemblies of his Saints seen in his royal robes in his state of immortality and not only seen but heard preaching peace to poor sinners opening Scriptures cheering quickening warming cold dead sad hearts for when the disciples saw him they were * Luke 24.32 John 20.21 glad and their hearts did burn within them while he opened the Scriptures to them and all this on the first day of the week T is true after this double apparition our Saviour appeared on a working day as the disciples were a fishing and that was the third time of shewing himself or the third day of his appearing John 21.3.14 But what of this The disciples were sufficiently confirmed in the authority and solemnity of the Lords day by the two former apparitions therefore well might Christ appear the third time upon a working day and countenance worki-day-business by his presence to teach his disciples and us that every day is not a Sabbath day But this fishing-day is not named it might as well be on the Jewes Sabbath as any other day of the week for ought appeares to the contrary in the Text yet I do not say it was I will not speak where the Scripture is silent How often the first day of the week was celebrated by our Saviour between his Resurrection and ascension is not punctually set down in Scripture Junius is confident for every week But there is good evidence for the two first and none against the three last Much may be said for that famous apparition on a Mountaine in Galilee which learned Lightfoot Math. 28.16 17 19 20. Fenner and others conclude without doubt to have been on the first day of the week Mar. 16.15 16. Now the ascension-day drawes on and Christ withdrawes his Corporal presence from his disciples but on the day of Pentecost he visits them again by his spiritual presence Acts 2. And that this also was on the first day of the week shall be fully clear'd when we come to the fourth mark Lastly Rev. 1.10 Some years after all these it pleased the Lord Jesus to appear again on this day Namely to his servant John in the Isle of Patmos little paradise we may call it for the presence of Christ makes a wilderness a paradise especially so much of his presence as this blessed Apostle now enjoyed more than ever was vouchsafed to any man upon earth since Christ went up to Heaven I was in the spirit sayes he upon the Lords day what then Why v. 12. I saw seven Golden Candle-sticks and v. 13. In the midst of them one like the son of man So like him that indeed it was the son of man the man Christ Jesus on the Lords day then John saw Jesus Christ in the midst of his Churches filling them with his blessed presence that day above all others and holding the stars in his right hand that is holding forth Heavenly light by the Ministry of the word on that day especially this John saw and this he is commanded to set down in writing verse 19. and accordingly written it is and written for our learning upon whom the ends of the world are come And what may we learn from it Surely this at first view viz. That in St. Johns time the Golden Churches of Christ were wont to meet Gospel-Ministers to preach and Christ himself to be present with them by his spirit on the Lords day And this is written for a pattern to after-ages and there is a * Verse 3. blessing pronounced on those that read and keep the things that are written in this book Blessed be Christ for this blessed book here we have another glorious appearance of Christ on the Lords day not to one man only or one Church only but seven Churches in which no doubt there were more then seven thousand soules and that this Lords day was also the first day of the week none but peevish spirits ever question'd Ignatius who was trained up in the School of this great Apostle and in all reason was most likely to know his terms * Epist ad Magnes clearly makes it a weekly holy-day observed by Christians in the room of the abrogated Sabbath of the Jewes Yea the Lords day was never taken for other than the first day of the week by any Christian writer in any age since the dayes of St. John till this last age of liberty and lyes that ever I could see or learn Fathers Councils Schoolmen ancient modern writers two or three of this generation excepted do constantly understand it of Christs Resurrection-day the first day of the week and one would think the constant Dialect of the Church of Christ a sufficient Dictionary to interpret a word or phrase in Scripture especially in such a sense as does not cross but correspond with Scripture So does this for how agreeable to Scripture is it to take the Lords day for that day which the Lord hath made Besides 't is observable that this same beloved disciple who was so exact in penning the first apparition John 20. is a spectator of the last Rev. 1. and just as he had related that he sees this the circumstances are remarkable John 26.19 26. Christ appears in the midst of the disciples and Rev. 1.13 in the midst of the Candle-sticks or Churches John 20.19 he appears upon the Resurrection-day arguing his Resurrection and Rev. 1.18 repeating the same argument Saying I am he that liveth and was dead and have the keyes of death and hell To say no more John 20. he appeared on the first day of the week and here again upon the day under a new name the Lords day because it appeared by his Resurrection and former apparitions to be the day which the Lord had owned above other dayes yea the day which the Lord had made and instituted Thus we see how Christs often appearing on this day tends to the further marking out of the day But this mark is sorely shot at objections come thick but short answers will serve when nothing is objected but what has been answered by others or nothing to any purpose He is not ashamed to say T. T. Obj. 1. p. 121. I beleeve it will be found upon inquiry that Christ never appeared to any assembly no not any one first day for it is most certain that the day upon the Scripture-account begins with the evening Now upon the Resurrection-day we find Christ at the village seven miles from Jerusalem when it was towards evening and the day far spent Luke 24.29 30. after which he supped with the two which took up some time then they returned that seven miles and a half to Jerusalem on foot so that by that time they came there the day must be quite spent and though t is
in the notation of it for John 20.1 having spoken of the first day of the week verse 19. he reduplicates it most emphatically saying the same day then in the evening that day being the first day of the week as if he would be loth to be mistaken in that point of time and though for the present the Apostles might be ignorant of their own practise what it tended to as Mary was when she poured the box of ointment on our Saviours head that she did it for his burying yet afterwards by Christs second apparition that day seven-night they were better instructed witness their after-assembling on that day Acts 2. and Acts 20. to conclude this why our blessed Saviour should neglect the Jewes Sabbath and afford his-glorious presence in Christian assemblies on the first day of the week thus often and thus eminently but to establish the day for sacred assemblies and to teach us on what day especially we may expect his presence and blessing I confess I am to seek And although this mark may seem obscure to persons possest with prejudice yet the objectors attempts to deface it are utterly invalid he ha's indeed trampled upon it with the Prelates old shoes for his objections are the very same which the Prelatical party so much defied by himself urged long ago but he cannot tread out the divine impression which Christ ha's stampt upon it The apparitions of Christ on this day do further tend to mark out the day especially in a joynt consideration with the next scripture-mark viz. 3. The gracious speeches actions and transactions of Christ at his several appearings tending partly to prove his Resurrection the ground of our hope and the hinge of the day to this purpose we may observe how sweetly our gracious Redeemer condescended to his poor doubting staggering disciples manifesting himself even to all their senses to their hearing by his heavenly voice to their seeing by his visible presence yea to their feeling by offering his sacred body to be touched and handled by them and partly to dignify his Resurrection-day distinguishing it from all other dayes by Sabbath-exercises As 1. By his heavenly instructions opening the Scriptures Luke 24.46 and preaching peace to his disciples and to us as well as them having slain the enmity by his Cross Eph. 2.16 17. he came and preached peace and this day he came with his Olive branch in his mouth saying peace be unto you 2. By giving forth commissions to his Apostles John 20 19. As my father hath sent me so send I you whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. And then breathing upon them the Holy Ghost 3. By convincing demonstrations of his Resurrection to strengthen the faith of Thomas John 20.26 to which some add 4. His celebration of the sacred supper according to that promise I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine Mark 14.25 untill that day I drink it new in the kingdom of God That is after I rise from the dead which therefore t is like that then he did Yea then he brake bread and was known of the disciples in breaking of bread as he sate with them Luke 24.30 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not at meat as we read it the word only implyes his gesture of siting However his first and second apparition together with the forementioned great transactions of instructing inspiring blessing sending his Apostles on this day and performing most of these at their solemn meetings do argue more for this day than any other that it is the day which Christ ha's selected and sealed for the religious assemblies and Sabbath-exercises of his Church in all future ages to the end of the world But I must contract 4 Another indeleble mark of honour fix'd upon the first day of the week is The mission of the Holy Ghost or sending the promise of the father as a princely largess or royal gift of Christ upon his coronation-Coronation-day Luke 24.40 John 15.26 Acts 1.4 ch 2. 33. such a gift as was never given before but when God gave his Son Jesus Christ God so loved the world that he gave his son and Christ so loved the world that he gave his spirit And as Christ was given according to the fulness of the promise upon the day of his Resurrection so was the blessed spirit of promise upon the day of Pentecost And the same wonderful providence that ordered the Resurrection of Christ to fall upon the first day of the week did also take order for the sending of the spirit on the same day For that the day of Pentecost Acts 2.1 was the first day of the week as it is generally taken for granted by Christian writers so it may be evidently proved by the Scriptures I shall not puzle the Reader with perplexing intricacies nor lead men into labyrinths to find out the truth Let plain Scripture determin the matter look to the statute-lawes of Moses concerning the feast of Pentecost Exod. 34.21 22. Six dayes shalt thou work but on the seventh day thou shalt rest both in earing-time and in barvest and thou shalt observe the feast of weekes of the first-fruits of Wheat-harvest Levit. 23.10 11 12 15 16. When ye be come into the land which I give you and shall reap the harvest thereof then ye shall bring a sheaf of your first-fruits of your harvest unto the Priest and he shall wave it together with the offering of a lamb without blemish on the morrow after the Sabbath he shall wave it and ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath from the day that yee brought the sheaf seven Sabbaths shall be complete even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath ye shall number fifty dayes So Numb 28.26 and more fully Deut. 16.9 Seven weekes shalt thou number unto thee begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the Corn. From the harmony of which four texts it appeares that this feast had three significant names which were all made good at that solemn Pentecost Acts. 2. 1. Deut. 16.10 It was called the feast of weekes or of sevens because from the waving of the sheaf thehy reckoned as many weekes to this feast as there be dayes in the week namely seven weekes Which evidently shadowed out some weekly Festival under the Gospel the day whereof was denoted by that dya of Pentecost Acts 2. 2. Exod. 23.16 Levit. 23.10 It was called the feast of first-fruits and of harvest because as they began their harvest upon the first of the fifty dayes when they offered the sheaf of first-fruits so they had ended it upon the fiftieth day which was properly the Feast-day upon which they offered the wave-loaves and indeed these fiftie dayes or seven weekes Levit. 23.17 were the appointed weekes of their harvest by the offering of the sheaf at the beginning of their harvest there after fruits were sanctified and the
Le. 23.10 which they are expresly forbidden to do upon their weekly Sabbath Ex. 34.21 22. Six dayes shalt thou labour but on the seventh thoushalt rest both in earing-time and harvest And see how this is coupled with the feast of first-fruits in the very same place Thou shalt observe the feast of weekes c. Now observe it if the morrow after the Sabbath Levit. 23. had been the morrow after the Passeover-Sabbath this would often have fallen upon the weekly Sabbath For the Passe-over-Sabbath being fixed upon a certain day of the month viz. the 15th of Nisan when ever this 15th of Nisan fell upon the Friday the morrow after it must needs be on the Saturday and so they must begin to reap their harvest upon the weekly Sabbath against an expresse command of God The Hebrew Doctors foresaw this inconvenience and had no other way to salve it but by affirming * See Ainsworth in Levit. 23. that this reaping did drive away the Sabbath and that it was lawfull on the Sabbath-day A most impious opinion For it crosses the very letter of Gods Law In earing-time and in harvest thou shalt rest Secondly The morrow after the Sabbath at the begining of their account must be such a morrow as concludes it Levit. 13.15 16. therefore it could not be the morrow of the Passeover-Sabbath or any Festival-Sabbath for there was no such Sabbath at the end of the account whatever there was at the beginning of it Thirdly The Passeover-Sabbath was fixed to a certain day of the month * Numb 28.17 namely the fifteenth day of the first month and thus all their other Festivals they had their fixed dayes But this feast of Pentecost is no where affixed in all the bookes of Moses to any one certain day of the month nor indeed could it be unless God should make a ceremonial Law to cross the Law of nature or rather to limit the course of divine Providence to ripen their corn just against such a day of the month which as Dr Vsher observes is a very great presumption that the Feast of Pentecost was a moveable Feast namely as to the day of the month but immoveable as to the day of the week so varying that it might always fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbath Fourthly The Anti-type is the best key to unlock the type And this is clear in the new Testament for that Christ was our first-fruits in reference to his Resurrection St. Paul assures us 1 Cor. 15.20 and that he rose from the dead on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath all the 4 Evangelists do inform us And T. T. ha's granted us that these things must be punctually fulfilled by Christ as well in the time as in the type From his own grant therefore I conclude That the day of first-fruits was the first day of the week therefore so was the day of Pentecost to the everlasting honour of that Lords day and the glory of God the Holy Ghost who sanctifyed it by his presence and power sending down a new supply of tongues from Heaven as if all the tongues upon earth were not sufficient to sound forth the praises of our Redeemer and spread his Gospel all the world over upon the first day of the week as an earnest whereof there was a glorious beginning made this day the Gospel being now published to some of all nations for there was now a great concourse even of every nation under Heaven met at Jerusalem Acts 2.5 and at this meeting three thousand soules converted and baptized v. 41. a double baptism was indeed dispensed this day the Apostles were now baptized with fire and three thousand converts with water Which was such a solemnity as the Church of God never saw the like from that day to this I need say no more T. T. p. 81. the adversary confesses that this was the most glorious Sabbath that ever Church enjoyed Only he would fain perswade himself and others that it was the Saturday-Sabbath but herein he befooles himself and deceives others His Grammar Logick and Arithmetick never falled him more than in this point See what a Grammarian he is Mr. Aspinwal had objected that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated fully come should rather be rendred fully past to which T. T. learnedly replies that the Greek being a Gerund in do signifies fulfilling now I confesse t is the first time that ever I heard of a Greek Gerund in do it may be this author learnt some Latin-Greek-Grammar while he was a Roman-Catholick I wish he do not stick too much in the Gerund in do stil One passage in his book renders it a little suspicious as p. 146 Let us sayes he celebrate the seventh-day-Sabbath a day of delights to the Lord and so obtain meercy for the Sabbath-pollution of our dayes of ignorance What does he hope to obtain mercy by doing Nay then I do not much wonder at his zeal for the Saturday-Sabbath I rather wonder he does not cry up the old Covenant again To trace him yet further he is a little out in his Arithmetick too For in beginning the count of the fifty dayes on a Saturday he begins at the wrong end making the last day of the week to be the first of the week the seventh day the eighth day the first day the second day the sixth day the last day against his own professed principles and is not here strange confusion Let me ask him in good earnest if the seventh day were the first day in all those seven weeks Deut. 16. how was the fourth Commandment kept all that while which according to his opinion will brook no other weekly Sabbath but the last of the week Thus for his Arithmetick Now for his Logick But here he is quite lost his Conclusions are flat Contradictions and his his best Arguments Barbarous absurdities I do him no wrong let the Reader judge I Affirm sayes he Object 1 Pag. 22. of his last book with the most Learned of this Age That the Sabbath from whence our Reckoning arises Levit. 23.11 15. was not the weekly Sabbath but the first day of the Passeover-Feasts And a little before he calls it The Passeover on the morrow of which Sabbath the waving of the Sheaf was exactly accomplished in Christ by the Crucifying Priests who waved him between Heaven and Earth upon the sixth day of the week from which day began the Count of the Apostles Pentecost punctually beginning and ending upon the Seventh-day-Sabbath Here are strange mysteries indeed First Answ he states the Crucifixion of Christ on the morrow of the Passeover-Sabbath and yet he had argued before That Christ was Crucifyed on the Passeover-Sabbath it self upon the day called Good Friday sayes he was our First-fruits waved by the Priests upon the Cross And what day that was he tell us namely The fifteenth of Nisan which was the first day of the Passeover-Feast say his Learned Authors And I
affirm with them sayes the Objector That this was the Sabbath Lev. 23. So that to make good his cross conceits he would have Christ Crucifyed two dayes together namely on the Passeover Sabbath and the morrow after it that is Friday and Saturday which exceeds the cruelty of the crucifying Priests themselves Secondly To salve this sore the coyns another conceit namely that the Passeover-day and the Passeover-Sabbath were all one Pag. 83.84 For thus he argues in his first book The Israelites were appointed to bring on the morrow after their Passeover-Sabbath a Sheaf of their First-fruits to be waved by the Priests before the Lord and from that day to count seven weeks And here let the believer who sees all Types ended in Christ with confidence behold his dying Redeemer as the undoubted Sheaf of First-fruits waved upon the Cross by the Crucifying Priests the very morrow after he had eaten the Passeover As if the morrow after the Passeover-Sabbath were all one with the morrow after the Passeover Whereas the Learned Authors whom he cites will tell him That the Passeover-day was no Sabbath but a half-holiday Ainsw Lev. 23.5 But here again he is at odds with himself for in his last book he boasts of his concurrence with the most Learned of this Age saying I affirm with them That the Sabbath Lev. 23. is not the weekly Sabbath but the first day of the Passeover-feast that is the fifteenth day as they affirm therefore it could not be the fourteenth day And if he wikll contradict himself who can help it Thirdly Another gross Error is this That he makes Christ the Anti-type of the First-fruits in reference to his Death and quotes 1 Cor. 15.23 to prove it which speaks expressely of his Resurrection What shameful abuse of Scripture is this The morrow after the Sabbath on which the account began Object 2 is known by three things First by the Sickles entring into the Corn Deut. 16 9. Secondly by the waving of the First-fruits Lev. 23.11 Thirdly by offering the same day a Lamb without Spot Lev. 23.12 Now all these were punctually fulfilled in Christ on the day caleld Good Friday Then the Sickle was put to him to cut him down then he was Waved on the Cros then this Lamb without spot was offered from which day the holy Sabbath is the first of the account and at the end of seven full weeks the same day that began did end the account All this may be answered in a word The Type and the time to use his own language hold no proportion For the Sickle must be put to the Corn the First-fruits Waved and the Lamb offered the morrow after the Sabbath Lev. 23.10.12 Whereas Christ suffered and dyed the day before the Sabbath and not upon that day which he counts the morrow after the passeover-Sabbath for then he must have been Crucifyed upon the Saturday but upon that which he calls the Passeover-Sabbath it self namely the fifteenth day of the Moneth And here let him see how he hath lost his Cause and his Credit too For I hope he will stand to the judgment of Mr. Ainsworth and the English Annotators else why does he cite them now they both affirm That the Passeover Sabbath must be the fifteenth of Nisan and the morrow after it from which they began to reckon must needs be the sixteenth day From which they reckoned Exclusively from the night of the sixteenth day sayes Mr. Ainsworth Law 23.15 Now Christ suffered upon the Friday which was the fifteenth day and the supposed Passeover-Sabbath The next day being the Sabbath was the sixteenth of Nisan from which day namely when the day was ended they must begin to reckon the fifty dayes to Pentecost and so it falls pat upon the first day of the week and thus T. T. reckons in his first book excluding the morrow after the Passeover-Sabbath from being one of the fifty dayes And so against his will he must be forced to begin upon the first day of the week and that day that begins the account must needs end it and so his confidence is utterly dismounted Indeed in his last book he begins to reckon the sixteenth day Inclusively but in the very next page he contradicts himself again leaving out the morrow after the Passeover-Sabbath as none of the number a just jugment of God to make men fight with themselves when they would fight against his Truth The Waving of the First-fruits Answ and putting the Sickle into the Corn are Erroneously and falsely applied to the death of Christ they do both more properly relate to his Resurrection The Resurrection of the Just at the last day is resembled to reaping Matth. 13.39 The Harvest is the end of the world and the Reapers are the Angels Now Christ by virtue of his Resurrection was the First-fruits of that harvest The First-fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. The waving of the First-fruits under the Law did Typifie Christs rising from the dead and presenting himself alive before God upon the day of his Resurrection Again the offering of the Lamb without Blemish Lev. 23.12 makes not that day a Type of our Saviours dying day for it was their daily offering and upon the last of the fifty dayes they were to offer seven Lambs without blemish Levit. 23.20 Yet Christ dyed but once and by that one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb 9.28 ch 10 14. But Mr. Jemison has prevented me in this Argument and to give him his due he has done worthily in it as to the substance of what he hath written To conclude after all attempts to the contrary the glory of the Spirit 's Mission rests upon the First day of the week This day the Church of Christ was visited from on high the promise of the Father was sent Acts 1.4 The blessed Spirit came the Disciples were assembled Peter preached thousands converted and Baptized Acts 2. and all this is written for our instruction Why the Church assembled as Mr. Sprint argues why on that day Why the holy Ghost Why Preaching Why Conversion and administration of Sacraments Why the Promise of Christ accomplished all on this day but still to declare the will and Ordinance of Christ in blessing and sanctifying this day to his Church and so marking it out for a day of publick solemn worship as a day in all its Prerogatives superlative above other dayes the day of our Saviours Resurrection by which we are Justified the day of the holy Spirits Descension by whom we are Sanctified Fifthly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Andr. Caesar Another signal mark is the inscription of his royal name upon it whose day it is Rev. 1.10 t is stiled the Lords day Surely 't is some additionall honour to this illustrious day that as it was the first day of time mentioned the beginning of the first book of the Bible so it is the last day of same noted in the beginning of
of his Kingdom Our Saviour made them a kind of Letter of Atturney as one speaks to speak and act in his Name as if he himself had been personally present c John 20.21 As my Father sent me so send I you and d Luke 10.16 Non minùs ratum est quod Apostoli dictante S.S. P. tradiderunt quà m quod ipse Christus tradidit Cyprian he that heareth you heareth me Neither does this extend only to their Verbal preaching but to their visible preaching also their practice I mean at least in things Evangelical and of moral general perpetual concernment to the Churches of Christ otherwise why is their practice propounded as our Patern e Philip. 3.17 Walk as ye have us for an ensample And f Philip. 4.19 Those things which ye have seen in me do And again Be g 1 Cor. 11.2 followers of me as I am of Christ sayes the great Apostle Yea not only the Apostles themselves but the first Churches planted by them are imitable paterns to other Churches especially in things apperteining to the publick exercise of Gospel-worship h 1 Thes 2.14 we may exemplifie both together in the observation of the Lords day not once but often not by single persons only but by sundry Churches and Church-assemblies met on this day That general Assembly Acts 2.1 when they were all together with one accord we have already proved to have been upon this high and holy day and how they keep it we have seen and how God crowned it with the effusion of his holy Spirit as also the Conversion of souls is further considerable For 't is very probable that not only the three thousand Acts 2.41 but the other five thousand also Acts 4.3 were all converted upon this day of Pentencost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 3.1 notes identity of time as 2 Sam. 21.9 Deut. 25.5 and the ninth hour ch 3. hath reference to the third hour ch 2. See Dr. Lightfoots Harm in Acts. For it was but the third hour of the day or nine a Clock in the morning when the first Sermon was preached which brought in the three thousand Acts 2.15 and at the ninth hour that is about three a clock in the afternoon Peter and John went into the Temple Acts 3.1 wrought a glorious miracle preacht another powerful Sermon which gained five thousand more Ch. 4. such a Spirit of Conversion was never poured out upon any day as this Well might the Holy Ghost call it i Psalm 120.3 the day of the Lords power the adversary acknowledges it was spoken of this very day Again As this Church at Jerusalem so the Churches of Corinth and Galatia kept this day too as shall presently appear from 1 Cor. 16.2 and so the Church of Troas in Phrygia Acts 20.7 which was a neighbour Church to them of Galatia And the like may be said for the seven Churches of Asia for upon the Lords day St. John saw them all in a vision and saw Christ in the midst of them saw him as the Saints have been wont to see him in his glorious goings in the sanctuary walking amidst his golden Candlesticks Psalm 68.14 Isai 30.20 with stars in his hand that is Gospel-Ministers shining like stars in the Firmament of the Church and diffusing the light of the glorious Gospel in the actual exercise of their Ministry on this day especially Yea upon this day John himself was ravished in spirit which made the place of his exile like Pauls third Heaven to him now I demand how this could come to pass that so many several Churches as the Church at Jerusalem Corinth Galatia Troas Ephesus Thyatira and the rest many of which were at a great distance one from another should so unanimously consent and concurr in keeping this day if the Apostles by the authority of Christ had not setled it as an Ordinance in all Christian Churches Let any rational man tell me how all these Apostolical Churches should so early and in the beginning of their plantation consent together to keep the same day unless they had been directed by their first founders the holy Apostles themselves Add to this the joint and uniform practice of all Christian Churches in all succeeding ages since and he ha's hardly the faith of a Christian if the reason of a man that dares so much as question the divine authority of the Lords day for whence came this universal agreement all the Christian world over that all the Churches of Christ should so early so * Even Herericks themselves and such as were for the Jewes Sabbath as Ebion and his followers did alwayes observe the Lords day also Euseb lib. 3. and so do the Ethiorick Churches to this day as Dr. Heiten testifies universally so constantly observe this day not one Church ever attempting to alter it but from some authority superior to the Churches themselves Certainly such customes as were never ordained by Christ or his Apostles were never observed by all Christian Churches throughout the world as the Lords day hath been Such unity of custom in universality of place with perpetuity of practice all meeting together in that which ha's some footing in Scripture must needs argue a divine institution yea if there had been no express Scripture testimony of the Apostles practice and observation of it as our Divines do solidly argue for the baptisme of infants although there be no express precept nor express example of it found in Scripture yet the grounds and reasons of it being found in Scripture with the general practice of the Church concurring we dare not but own it and maintain it How much more the Lords day yea if there had been neither precept nor practice of it in Scripture as long as the grounds of it are laid in Scripture namely a Moral law for the substance of it as one day in seven and a prophesie for the particularity of the Church without any contradiction till these last disputing dayes wherein men are grown so bold as to deny principles I do the rather instance this because I have to deal with an Anabaptist who confidently calls the baptiseing of grown persons * Let him shew me one Scripture for that if he can either precept or president for the baptiseing of such at years of diferetion as were born of Christian parents To tell us of the Apostles baptiseing men and women is no newes but were they such men and such women as are plunged now adaies no verily they were not born of baptized Christian parents as blessed be God we are born of Christian parents a flourishing truth after it ha's been convicted and condemned by the learnedest pens in Christendom for a foolish error But to come to that I aim at let me advise this man in coole blood to ask his own conscience this question namely whether or no if he could find in Scripture expresse Apostolical practice consequential proof satisfies me and others for
infant-Baptisme he would not own it as an Ordinance of Christ Or thus whether if the Holy Ghost had expresly affirmed in Scripture that in the Apostles times baptisme was once at least administred to infants in a solemn assembly of Christians Paul himself being present and actually assisting in the administration his own conscience would not tell him nay then surely infant-baptism is an Ordinance of Christ Let him say the same concerning the celebration of the first day of the week For the Holy Ghost ha's expresly declared that this day was solemnly kept at Troas Paul himself being present and principally ingaged in the work of the day For let the Text be consulted Acts 20.6 7 8. We came to Troas in five dayes where we abode seven dayes and upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together or were gathered together in a Church-assemblie to break bread Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the morrow and there were many lights in the upper room where they were assembled together and there sate in a window a certain young man named Eutychus c. Here note 1. Una Sabbati id est Die dominiâ—â— dies dominica recordatio dominicae resurrectionis Ven. Beda In Acts 20. Tom 5. When this solemn assembly met together on the first day of the week saies the Text. The day which all the Evangelists witness to be Christs Resurrection-day This day then the disciples were congregated But why the first day of the week Why not th elast day of the week which was the Jewes Sabbath strange if that had been the Christian Sabbath that these primitive Christians had not have met on that day especially since it was but the day before yet more strange that we read not a word of Pauls keeping it since he tarried at Troas seven dayes But most of all that we read not one word in all the New Testament of his owning that day in any Christian Church at all only the first day of the week a fair argument that the day was changed upon the account of our Saviours Resurrection 2. The Church is assembled on the first day of the week but how Privately it may be No publickly and openly as those times would bear yea probably the company was very numerous for it seemes the room below would not hold them but they were fain to get up into the windowes three stories high as Eutychus did Acts 20.8 doubtless it was no small appearance Well 3. Here is a full assembly met upon the first day of the week but why then To break bread sayes the Text to receive the Eucharist sayes the Syriack translation that is to * Math. 26.26 Acts 2.46 1 Cor. 11.24 receive the Lords Supper upon the Lords day The Lords Supper What without preparatory prayer and other Sabbath-exercises that had been but a faint devotion will some say Mr. Shepard answers it well Breaking of bread is here put Thus prayer is put for the whole worship of God Gen. 4.26 ch 12.8 Acts 2.21 Rom. 10.12 13. Synecdochically the part for the whole there is no more reason to exclude prayer preaching singing of Psalms because these are not mentioned than to exclude drinking of wine in the Sacrament as the blind Papists do because neither is that expressed but breaking of bread only So that the first day of the week in effect is called the day of meeting to break bread which was ever accompanied with prayer preaching and other holy exercises Now as the fore-mentioned * Thes 35. Author observes if ever the Saints used to break bread on any other day yet the day is never mentioned as a speciall time for such a purpose nor do we find in all the Scriptures a day distinctly mentioned for holy duties as this first day of the week is wherein a whole Church meet together for such ends but that day was holy The nameing of the particular day for such ends implies the holiness of it Well the Saints at Troas meet on this day to receive the Sacrament But 4. Have they no Sermon yes and Paul himself preaches it v. 7. And continued his speech till mid-night and about break of day he departed Which yeeldeth us two notes one that the first day of the week is no travelling day St. Paul would not we are sure he did not travel this day but the day after another that the first day of the week is a solemn holy-day to be spent in spirituall exercises and sabbath-Sabbath-day duties as preaching hearing praying conferring breaking of bread in commemoration of Christ his death and Resurrection Why else does the Holy Ghost story this down so exactly and precisely Is it not written for our learning upon whom the ends of the world are come Yea doubtlesse for our learning that we might forecast our journeyes and other affairs in such sort as to keep holy the Lords day and not intrench upon it by travelling or the like thus we have plain Apostolicall practice for the observation of this day But see how this clear Text and truth is cavill'd at This meeting of the Saints at Troas was occasional Obj. 1 T.T. p. 123. Answ and what was the occasion of it he intimates in the next words viz. Paul's departing by Sea This is a sorry shift for the Text saies not that the disciples were assembled by reason of Paul's departure the next day but they were assembled this day to break bread without the least reference to Paul's journey the day following So that this Church-meeting was not occasional but a thing usual upon the first day of the week And the context clearly implies that the puting off of Pauls journey till the next day was occasioned by the Church's meeting this day not this meeting by his departure the next day for the Apostle seems to stay purposely and wait seven dayes among them that he might have a publick opportunity of preaching and communicating with them upon the usual day of their publick assemblies which appears by this convention to have been the first day of the week here was therefore nothing occasional in all this solemnity neither the assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor Sacrament no nor the Sermon neither but only the length and continuance of the Sermon till mid-night this indeed was occasional by reason of St. Pauls departure on the morrow so the Text it self imports Paul being to depart on the morrow preached and continued his Sermon till mid-night he preacht a long Sermon because it was his last Sermon he was like to preach among them The Saints assembled and brake bread every day Obj. 2 Acts 2.26 therefore they may as well plead for an every day Sabbath as for the first day Sabbath from Acts 20.7 It cannot be proved by Scripture that the Lords Supper is an every dayes Supper Answ or that ever it was celebrated on any day after the first institution but upon the Lords day which
may be reckoned as a special prerogative of this day above the Jewes Sabbath and all other dayes The Lords day and the Lords Supper are Scripture-companions Acts 2.26 is misquoted I perceive this Author uses to quote Scripture at a venture but I suppose he means Acts 2.46 and there indeed we read of the Saints continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and * Domi frangebant portionem Syriack verse breaking bread from house to house but to take this for Sacramentall bread and make it their daily bread is to mistake the matter quite For although verse 42. speak of bread Sacramentally broken yet verse 46. the phrase is quite altered and the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word signifies ordinary bread or common food Piscator understands it of bread broken in a way of Charity or dealing their bread to the hungry as it is * Isai 58.7 elswhere expressed If breaking of bread had been a service peculiarly designed for the honour of the first day Obj. 3 the Apostle would not have deferr'd it till the second day till after mid-night verse II. Neither does it appear that he did deferre it till after mid-night For Eutychus dropt asleep in Sermon-time Answ verse 9. and the Sermon lasted but till mid-night verse 7. and as soon as Eutychus caught his fall no doubt Paul hasted to raise him again And when he was come up again he brake bread verse 11. Part 3 Thes 63. all this while it might not be mid-night for after all this he talked a long while even till break of day Besides as Mr. Shephard observes the Lords Supper might be administred before Pauls Sermon And that breaking of bread verse 11. might be common bread some ordinary repast for Paul after his long preaching and before his long journey And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies as much and hence also 't is spoken of one man principally When he had broken bread and eaten c. however t is expresly said v. 7. that the disciples were assembled together ex more sayes * Ad locum Pellican after their wonted manner to break bread upon the first day of the week and their purpose shewes what was their usual practice The disciples came not together till towards evening Obj. 4 for as soon they are met we read of lights in the upper room and this is no fair president for keeping a Sabbath They must needs be come together before Candle-lighti ng Answ 1 by is own principles otherwise how is it said they were assembled the first day of the week since he holds that the day begins and ends with the Sun-set evening The text saith not Answ 2 they met in the evening of the first day but on the first day and it might be in the morning for ought appears to the contrary The lights in the upper room ar gue not that it was late in the day before they assembled but long in the night before Paul ended his Sermon Besides supposing they came not together till towards the close of the day remembring still what perillous persecuteing times those were yet out of question the former part of the day was spent in religious exercises otherwise the disciples had rusht very rudely upon that sacred and solemn ordinance of the Lords Supper We should count them but sorry Christians that should dare to come reaking out of the world from their Merchandise or shops or fields or farms to sit down as guests at the Lords table The Saints example at Troas doth no more oblige us to their time Obj. 5 than their meeting in an upper chamber doth tie us to the like place If time and place be equal circumstances in religion Answ See Mr. Wowe of the Sab. then the old Prelatical Argument were good as the true worshippers of God are not tied to worship him either in Jerusalem or any other peculiar place but must worship him in spirit and in truth in all places so neither are they tied to any time of worship but may pray continually But this principle is out of plea now and I am perswaded in urging of it the objector fights against conscience and struggles against his own convictions For he ha's elswhere maintained time and place to be unequal circumstances and if not equal why does he argue from the one to the other But the truth is he ha's no game to play but what the Anti-Sabbatarian Prelatists have plaid and lost before him Only one card more which was none of their pack Examples do only allow us a liberty Obj. 6 page 13. of his Pamphlet nothing but a clear command can oblige us to a duty For instance community of goods is the Saints liberty because it was practiced but liberality of our proper substance is a duty because it is commanded Saints may freely seast before Communion because we have Apostolical president but all true disciples must break bread because we have Evangelical precept so we have liberty to meet the first day because we find the Saints at Troas then occasionally assembled but we are tied in duty to celebrate the seventh day Sabbath because it is commanded If this rule were as true as it is false Answ 1 he might blot out all the examples of the Saints recorded in Scripture For what are they good for To allow us a liberty only Why that we had before Had we never heard of the Saints meeting and Pauls preaching on the first day of the week yet I hope we had had free liberty to meet and worship on that day nevertheless what followes now Why by this Doctors new divinity absit blasphemia verbo the Holy Ghost ha's inserted this story in vain This leaf yea and twenty more might have been left out of the Bible without loss See the poison of a rotten error 'T is no less false Answ 2 that nothing but a clear command can oblige us to duty What must we limit the holy one of Israel must he deliver his mind and will only by way of precept May he not do it as well by promise or prophesie or proportion or consequence Must we teach the Lord how to teach us our duty pray what expresse command was there to sanctifie the Sabbath or what example of any one man that did sanctifie it for 2000. years after the Creation I mean in expresse terms Was it never a duty therefore till the Commandment came and is not Apostolicall example with a consequential command a sufficient rule for the observation of the Lords day He argued before for the Jewes Sabbath that we must be followers of Paul as he was of Christ how much better may we urge the same argument for the Lords day As thus Christ was present upon this day in the assembly of his disciples and kept it like a Sabbath John 20.19.26 and so Paul Acts 20.7 and we must follow Paul as he did Christ therefore we must keep holy the Lords day the
Jewes Sabbath was not at least not as a Sabbath nor with equal solemnity as the Lords day nor as of necessity so it was ever condemned and the Lords day was ever preferred before it if not observed without it in the purest Churches for the first two hundred years after Christ to say no more Let us examin witnesses in order as they come First Ignatius Let us hear what Ignatius saies who lived some thirty years in the Apostles times and in his Epistle to the Magnesians in the Vulgar Edition is brought in speaking to this purpose * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us therefore no longer keep the Jewish Sabbath as rejoicing in idleness for it is written He that will not labour let him not eat and in the sweat of thy browes shalt thou eat thy bread But let every of us keep Sabbath spiritually not in bodily ease but in the meditation of the Law not eating meat drest yesterday or drinking luke-warm drinks or walking out a limited space nor in dancings and sensless sportings but in admiration of the workes of God And setting aside the Sabbath let every one that loves Christ keep holy the Lords day the Queen of days the Resurrection day the highest of all dayes I do the rather insert this Testimony though Dr. Vsher except against this Edition of Ignatius his Epistles because T. T. cites it also for the Saturday-Sabbath only he mangles and misinterprets it dealing with Ignatius as men use to deal with Mag-pyes slitting their tongues to make them speak what they would have them Just thus he deals with this renowned father severing the last clause from the rest of the sentence and singling out a little piece of it to serve his own turn for he insists only upon the last branch and mistranslates it too his words are these Next after the Sabbath-day let every friend of Christ make the Lords day a Solemn festivall As if Ignatius had preferred the Jewes Sabbath before the Lords day but by his favour this clashes with the context for in the foregoing words Christians are counselled no longer to keep the Jewes Sabbath but to work upon it for it is written He that will not labour let him not eat Whereas on the contrary all that love Christ are charged to keep the Lords day a solemn Festival Exam. Concil Trid. de dieb Fest p. 257. being the Queen and princess of dayes Besides these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are well rendred by setting aside the Sabbath So learned Chemnitius and others translate them If any desire further satisfaction I referr them to judicious Mr. Cawdrey who ha's dexterously discuss'd this Testimony The more * Approved by Dr. Twiss after it had been compared with a latin translation found in Caius Col. library in Cambrig and two other Manuscripts in Oxon the one in Magdal the other in Balliot Coll. Library correct copy of Ignatius ' Epistle to the Magnesians presented by Dr. Vsher as agreeable to the citations of Eusebius Athanasius and Theodoret ha's this material and remarkable passage in it The Blessed Martyr speaking of the Jewes converted to the Faith of Christ in his dayes gives this most Christian Character of them * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad Magnesian That they did no longer keep the Sabbath but led their life according to the Lords day in which our life arose in which words First He expounds what St. John meant by the Lords day Rev. 1.10 namely the day of our Saviours Resurrection and that not as an anniversary but a weekly holy-day contradistinct to the Jewes Sabbath Seconly He acquaints us with the practice of the Church in those Apostolick times which was to observe the Lords day in stead of the old Sabbath If the converted Jewes did thus how much more the Christian Gentiles Therefore blessed Ignatius his preface to this discourse shall be my conclusion by way of caution to my Christian brethren a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem Suffer not your selves to be carried about with diverse and strange doctrines for if we shall still live according to the Jewish Law we deny that we have received grace And a litle after b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. ibid. Since we are become the disciples of Christ let us learn to live according to Christianity For it is absurd to profess Christ and Judaize For Christianity ha's not beleeved into Judaism but Judaism into Christianity As for Ignatius's Epistle to the Philippians which the adversary glories it is rejected as spurious and counterfeit and indeed there is nothing of an Apostolical spirit breathing in it See Mr. Perkins Praep. to the dem of the problem Our next witness is Justin Martyr who lived in the very prime of the primitive times about a hundred and fifty years after Christ's Nativity Justin Martyr at * Vide Alfied Chron. Patr. p. 450. what time he wrote a learned Apology for the poor persecuted Christians to Antoninus pius the Emperour wherein among other things he mentions the manner of their publick meetings on the Lords day which he calls Sunday because he had to do with a Pagan Emperour his words are these Vpon the day called Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Apol 2. ad Cal◠all that abide within the cities or the villages do meet together in some place where the Records of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets as much as is appointed are read unto us The reader having done the Priest or President ministreth a word of Exhortation that we do imitate those good things which are there rehearsed then standing up together we send up our prayers to Heaven which being ended there is delivered unto us bread and wine with water Water to mingle with their Wine in those hot countries of which as he sayes a little before none are allowed to partake but baptized persons Beleevers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as live according to the rule of Christ After this the Priest or President offers up as much as in him is our prayers and thanksgivings to God and all the people say Amen then those of the richer sort every one as his good will is contribute something towards the relief of the poorer Brethren c. What an excellent pattern is here for after-ages and how agreeable to the practice of the Apostles themselves here we have publike assemblies prayer preaching reading the Scriptures breaking of Bread distributing to the poor and all this upon the day called Sunday that is the Lords day and why upon this day rather than any other let Justin himself resolve this as he doth in the next words * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. On the Sunday saies he we all make a publike Assembly in as much as it is the first day in which God who changed the darkness and the first matter made the world and because on this day Jesus Christ our Saviour arose from
venerable and solemn because thereon our Saviour as the rising Sun having dispellea the darkness of death shone forth by the light of his resurrection And elswhere t Dies Sabbati evat dierum Ordine posterior sanctificatione legis anierior sea ubi finis legis advenit qui est Christus Jesus Rom. 10.4 resurrectione sua octavam sanctificavit caepit eadem prima esse quae octava est habens ex numeriordine praerogativam ex resurrectione Domini sanctitatem The Sabbath day was the last in order of dayes but the first in sanctification under the Law but when the end of the Law was come to wit Jesus Christ Rom. 10.4 and by his Resurrection had consecrated the eighth day that which is the eighth began to be the first being dignified by the precedency of the number and sanctified by the Resurrection of the Lord. Then speaking further by way of allusion to Luke 6. he addes u Vbi Dies Dominica â—aepit praecellere qua Dominus Resurrexerit Sabbatum quod primum erat secundum haberi caepit a primo prima enim requies Cessavit secunda successit unde ad Hebr. scribens Apostolus ait post hac die restat ergo requies populo Deim requies ergo vera non in operis cessatione sed in Kesurrectionis est tempore Ambr. Enar. in Tit. Psalm 47. When the Lords day on which our Lord arose began to excel the Sabbath which was the first began to be accounted the Second from the first For the first rest ceased and the second succeeded Whence the Apostle writing to the Hebrewes Ch. 4. speaks of another day there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God Therefore the true rest is not now in the cessation of the work meaning the work of Creation but in the time of the Resurrection 'T is as much as if he had said the true Sabbath is not now the seventh day or last day of the week but the first day of the week this is that other day mentioned Heb. 4. this is the rest or Sabbatism that remaineth to the people of God I do the rather cite these sayings of the two worthy Father Ambrose because T.T. quotes him also for the Saturday-Sabbath which he was a zealous disputer against And although he preacht on that day it was but in preparation to the Lords day Hierom 10. Anno 385. Hierom is the next writer of note and eminency in the Church of God and he also speaks very honourably of the of the Lords day In his book against Vigilantius (w) Per unam Sabbati hoc est in die Dominico omnes conferre quae Hierosolymam in solatium dirigerentur praecipit Paulus Item ad Hedib quaestio 4. the Apostle Paul saith he commanded almost all Churches that there should be collections for the poor upon the first day of the week which is the Lords day And elsewhere he informs us how it was observed by the religious in his time x Dominicos dies orationi tantum lectioni vacant Ad Eustoch namely That they designed the Lords day wholly unto prayer and reading of the holy Scriptures For which he commends them and by commending approves their practice But of observing the Jewes Sabbath he speaks not a word only he interprets Gal. 4.10 as a repeal of the Saturday Sabbath and so does Tertullian also Libr. 1. Contr. Marc. Ch. 20. After Hierom comes Chrysostom Chrysostom 11. Anno 398. a painful and powerful preacher in his time and her how he thunders against Judaizing Christians y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will close my Sermon saies he with the words of Moses I call heaven and earth to witness against you that if any of us present or those that are absent shall go to look upon the Trumpets or meet in the Synagogues or go up to Matrona a Synagogue of the Jewes two or three miles from Antiochia in Daphne a pleasant village as himself describes it elswhere or joy in their Fasts or partake of their Sabbaths or perform any other Jewish custom great or small I am clear from the blood of you all these words shall stand up in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ between me and you and if you obey they shall give you great boldness but if you disobey or conceal any of them that presume to commit such like things they shall rife up as vehement witnesses against you c. See how zealous this holy man was against Jewish rites and customes and amongst the rest against their Sabbaths Neither was it blind zeal but zeal according to knowledge for he knew and ha's told us z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Paul perswaded the Churches of Christ to leave off Circumcision to slight the Sabbaths and dayes legal dayes he means and all other ceremonials And again a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ ha's freed us from these Jewish observances neither was his practice in these things intended for ouru pattern for as he kept the passeover with the Jewes not that we should keep it with them but that he might introduce the truth in stead of the shadow in like manner he also endured Circumcision and observed Sabbaths and celebrated their Festivals and did all these things at Jerusalem but to none of these are we subject Yet lest we should think Chrysostom an enemy to the Christian as well as the Jewes Sabbath consider what he sayes in another place treating of almes where he occasionally touches that Text 1 Cor. 16.1 2. concerning the collection for the Saints on the first day of the week and asks this question what reason the Apostle had to command this day for the oblation of their alms And answers it thus b Hom. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Item 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ubi supre Because this day they did abstain from all workes and the Soul was more cheerful by the rest of the day besides the good things received this day for on this day death was destroyed the curse was dissolved sin vanquished the gates of Hell broken in peices therefore saies he if we so honour our Birth-dayes how much more ought we to honour this day which may well be called the Birth-day of all Mankind and how often does this Father call the First day of the week the c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In John 20. 1 Cor. 16.2 Lords day a royal day a day of rest and the like so others extol it Ignatius calls it the Queen of days the first day of the week and the first day of the world as truly the chiefest as it is undoubtedly the first of dayes saies Eusebius a most Holy day sayes Athanasius higher than the highest saith Nazianzen So sincerely were the Antients devoted to the solemnity of this day that in honour of Christ the Author of it they thought they could never sufficiently grace and garnish it
with titles of preheminence To perfect this Catalogue Let us take in the Testimony of that renowned Austin yea his judgement too Augustine 12. 't is worth the while to take a view of each his testimony touching the Lords day is plain d Vos in dic quem dicunt Solis solem colitis ficut autem nos cundem diom Dominicum dicimus in eo quòd non solem sed Resurrectionem Domini veneramur Contra Faust Manich. lib. 18. cap. 5. You saith he speaking to the Manichees on the day called Sunday worship the Sun but we call the same day the Lords day because therein we honour not the Sun but the Lords Resurrection and how sound his judgement was in the Doctrine of the Christian Sabbath appears by that which he speaks of the divine Authority of it he assigns this as the reason why it is called the Lords day c Per Christum Factus est Dies Dominicus Ep. 86. because as it is in the Psalm the Lord hath made it and it was made the Lords day by Christ Jesus the Lord And that upon the occasion of his Resurrection as he telleth us twice over f Dies Dominicus Christi Resurrectione sacratus est De Cir. Dei Ep. 119. ad Januar The Lords day was consecrated saies he by the Lords Resurrection and concerning the Jews Sabbath he is as plain and peremptory quisque illus diem observat tanquam litera sonat carnaliter sapit who ever keeps that day as the letter soundeth he savoureth of the flesh And again Christs doctrine is the same with Moses's concerning the Sabbath but the time or day is different It were easie if it were not needless to add any more here is a complete Jury already yet let it not be thought superfluous if one Witness more be called in Eusebius by name Eusebius 13. whose Testimony concerning the universal observation of the Lords day all the Christian world over is worthy to be filed We have it towards the end of his Oration of the praises of Constantine where magnifying Christ above all the gods and grandees of the Heathens he speaks thus g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who of all the gods or Heroes of the Gentiles hath prescribed to all the Inhabitants of the world by sea and land that coming together into one place every week they should celebrate as Festival the Lords day and appointed that as they feed their bodies with food so they should refresh their soules with divine instruction Thus he testifies the Observation of the Lords day all the world over and that by theh appointment of Christ But does he not also tell us of some as the Ebionites who had a religious esteem of the Saturday-Sabbath still and accordingly kept both days Yes but he writes them down in the black Book among the Hereticks of that age and so does Epiphanius too Haeres 30. Let us a little attend Eusebius in his Historical description of these Hereticks he observes that their name was given them from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies poor Lib 3. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the poverty of their understandings h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the men being very silly and their Heresie very senceless for they did saith he entertain very mean and poor thoughts and opinions of Christ holding that he was but a meer i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a common man Observe it well The high opinion they had of the Saturday-Sabbath was founded upon a low opinion of Jesus Christ I wish the new Ebionites of this age do not still build upon the same foundation Could men but see the Godhead and glory of Christ through the veil of his flesh me thinks the change of the Sabbath should be no such paradox to them especially to such as have felt his divine power in the change of their hearts But to close all let us briefly examine the opposite authorities produced in favour of this Ebionitish errour The first is Clemens Romanus or he that writ the constitutions called Apostolicall who is thus presented in great pomp by our Antagonist That blessed Clement saies he whose name is written in the book of life that elect vessel speaks thus Let us keep holy the Sabbath in memory of the Creation and the Lords day in memory of Christs Resurrection lib. 7. c. 24. Answ 1 The Author of those Constitutions was not that blessed Clement mentioned by Paul but some bastard Clement of a later extraction as our learned Dr. Fulk tells the Remish Annotators 'T is true the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is generally repoted the Legitimate issue of that elect vessel But let not this Author be angry if I let the reader see his Legal-demain in ascribing the book of Constitutions to the same Clement which none but Papists do our * Vide Chmenis de lectione patrum Perkins to Demont Praep. of the ptobl Protestant writers I am sure are of another mind 'T is a pitifull forlorn cause that flies so often for sanctuary to the Bulwarks of Popery But If he will needs build upon the authority of these constitutions let him take what followes in the same book Answ 2 Hebdomas una est insignis annus septimus mensis septimus Sabbatum c. iis omnibus praestat Dies Dominious Const lib. 7 c. 36. and much good may it do him Por ch 36. this elect vessel as he calls him prefers the Lords day before the Jewes Sabbath and all other Jewish Festivities whatsoever and herein he concurred with the rest of the antients whereas his Doctrine about the seventh day was but one Doctors opinion The next Testimony objected against us is that of Eusebius who reports a decree of Constantine the Emperour to establish the Lords day as the great holy-day Obj. 2 which the objector calls a presumptuous decree Year Anti-Christ prevailed with Constamine as he would make silly people beleive to change the Sabbath time into the first day Page 113. The Lord rebuke thee thou false tongue Answ That the day was changed by a greater than Constantine even Christ himself and his holy Apostles we have I think made good by Scripture-Argument and that this change was visible in the Church's practice long before Constuntine was born we have manifestly proved by the testimony of the most antient Fathers and eminent Martyrs What if the renowned Emperour Constantine made a decree to establish the Lords day Was he therefore the Author of the day or of the change Sozomen tells us that this Christian Emperour as a tender Nursing Father to the Church of Christ did also by a publick Edict establish the Christian religion in all his dominions Sozomen ib. 1. ch 7. But will any man in his right wits draw such a crack-braind Conclusion from hence viz. That therefore Constantine was the Author of the Christian Religion Understand presumptuous
16.8 On the seventh day shall be a solemn Assembly to the Lord thy God thou sahlt do not work therein And as the seventh or last so also the first day of that Feast was to be a day of rest because a day of Convocation On the first day shall be a holy convocation ye shall do no servile work therein saith the Lord. Numb 28.17 18. Now that first day of unleavened bread being a memorial of their Redemption from Egypt was typical of our Christian Sabbath as was noted before And besides there being a moral equity in Gods argument that a day of holy Worship and holy Convocations must be a day of rest it is as applicable to the Lords day as ever it was to any day for we have abundantly proved that this is a holy Convocation-day and 't is a good note that of Mr. Ainsworth on Deut. 16.8 That the Hebrew word Gnat-sereth which we translate solemn Assemblies does also signifie restraint from labour whereby the Holy Ghost would teach us that Holi days set apart for solemn assemblies must be days of holy rest and restraint from work Such is the Lords day to us Christians and no other day but that a day of solemn Assembly it is and has bin from the Apostles days till now yea a day of solemn Worship therfore a day of rest or Sabbath day yea a day of solemn weekly worship therefore the undoubted Sabbath of the fourth Commandment which is the standing rule for a day of weekly worship and but a day ordinarily for the Commandment numbers out six days in the week for worldly business As when a man makes two Wils the last does ipso facto make void the first although there be no express clause to signifie the repeal or revocation and one for religious exercises neither more nor lesse So that supposing there were no repeal of the last day of the week yet the first day being instituted by Divine Authority makes void the last and takes possession of its place by the warrant of the Divine Precept it self Again as the Ministry and the Sacraments appointed by Christ are used by virtue of the second Commandment so the day appointed by Christ must be observed by virtue of the fourth Commandment because this is the general scope both of the second and fourth Commandment that we must observe all the Institutions of God from time to time I might argue further from that prophetical speech of our Saviour Matth. 24.20 where he presignifies to his Disciples that there should be a Sabbath in force long after his death at such time as the old seventh-day-Sabbath was either quite out of doors or out of date at least therefore he spake of the Christian Sabbath which we are obliged both by Law and Gospel to observe The Ancients indeed do seldom apply the title of Sabbath to the Lords day yet sometimes they do They were but too jealous of Judaizing in this particular Orat. in Christi Resurrect Ex illo Sabbato praesens hoc Sabbatum agnosce c. Sic quâ— que ritè sanctificamus Sabbatum Domini Dicente Domino omne â—pus c. Tract de tempore 152. Gregory Nyssen is express for having spoken of the old Sabbath he presently adds from that Sabbath acknowledge thou this present Sabbath the Lords day this day of rest which God hath blessed above other days For in this the only begotten Son of God did truly rest from all his works So also Austin or he that writ the Book De tempore having pleaded the due celebration of the Lords day he concludes with respect to the fourth Commandment concerning the Sabbath so do we rightly sanctifie the Sabbath of the Lord as the Lord hath said In it thou shalt do no work Hence that Royal Edict of Charles the Great published in the year 789. We ordain says he according as it is commanded in the Law of God that no man do servile work on the Lords day To which may be added the decree of King Edgar expresly stiling the Lords day the Sabbath day Diem Sabbati ab ipsa Die Saturni hora pomeridiara tertia usque in Lunaris diei dilaculum festum agitari taking order that the Sabbath should be celebrated from Saturday three a clock in the afternoon till Munday morning at break of day and this was in the year of Christ 959. seven hundred years ago better Antiquity than any can be produced or so much as pretended against this appellation If it be objected That this was in times of Popery I answer That even since the Reformation the Lords day hath been frequently called by the name Sabbath Those precious but persecuted Saints To all these might be added the Church of England Can. 70. So Hom. of time and place of prayer the Waldenses in a Catechism of theirs teach their children to call it by this name And the holy Martyr Bp Hooper in his treatise on the ten Commandements uses the same Dialect some scores more might be reckoned if need were But leaving these Authors I return to the Objector who sets all his wits a work to prove the Lords day a working day most sinfully and shamefully abusing the Scriptures to this purpose I am loth to stain my Paper with his profane Sophisms yet lest his ignorant and erroneous Proselites should take them for unanswerable Arguments I shall briefly sum up all into one Objection and return several answers to it Object T.T. p. 14. of his Pamphlet In stead of that honour put upon the first day of the week First The Father wrought upon it Gen. 1. and therefore we should be his followers as dear children Ephes 5.1 Secondly The son travelled upon it Luke 24.13 15. And he hath given us an example that we should do as he hath done John 13.15 Thirdly The Saints cast their accounts upon it 1 Cor. 16.2 And so may we Thus he quotes Scripture to as good purpose as that Arch Sophister did Matth. 4 But we shall answer him soberly though he deserve it not Answ 1. That which was the Fathers working-working-day at the Worlds Creation was the Sons Rest day from the work of Redemption and we must not be sollowers of God in contradiction to Christ or oppose the works of God against the Word of God lest in stead of followers as dear children we be found fighters against him as desperate enemies the first day of the week was a common day when it was made at first Gen. 1. but since it is made again and made a solemn day a day of holy worship Psal 118.24 therefore no working day now but to such as have no God to worship or no hearts to worship him God the Father wrought upon the first day of the week yet Israel must not work on this day once a year at least Viz. on the day of unleavened bread as often as it fell on this day Numb 23.18 why because it was a day
wants and if we have hearts to weep over our week day sins and stir up our selves to take hold of Christ that we may make peace with God they that have any acquaintance with heart-work find it hard to have to do with a dusty world full of sins and snares and not be defiled or intangled with it earthly things are apt to leave a tincture upon the most holy and heavenly hearts There must therefore be a rubbing off this rust of the world a washing these dirty hearts and hands before we are fit to draw nigh to God in solemn Worship Exod. 19.14 What were those Ceremonial washings of old but emblematical predictions and documents of preparation to Gospel-worship and if I mistake not something to this purpose is prophesied concerning the purest times and Churches in these later days Rev. 15.2 3. Revel 15. We read of those that had gotten the victory over the Beast and his Image i. e. those that had shaken off the yoke of Anti-Christian Tyranny and Superstition standing upon a sea of glass with the harps of God in their hands those harps in their hands speak them in a posture of publike worship But what means their standing upon a sea of glass Why among other things I conceive it alludes to that Laver or * 1 Kings 7.23 sea in Solomons Temple in which the the Priests were wont to * 2 Chron. 4.6 wash when they went to worship and it may teach us thus much that the people of God under the Gospel as well as they under the Law must wash before they worship there must be some preparation Secondly the sanctification of the Sabbath follows and this also consists in two things Holy rest and holy work First we must keep it as a day of holy rest to the Lord resting from our own works our own words and our own thoughts 1. We are bound upon the Lords day to rest and cease from our own works whether works of labour or works of pleasure if I may so distinguish The Lords day must neither be our working-day nor our play-day both these are prohibited by the letter of the fourth Commandment and the analogy of that Text which seems to be written as a Commentary upon the Commandment Isai 58.13 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thy own words c. In which words we have the lively Picture and Pourtraiture of a true Sabbath in both parts of it it must be celebrated with rest from our own ways works words pleasures and this rest must be accompanied with a spiritual rejoycing in God and delight in his Sabbath arising from an honourable esteem of the day considering whose day it is namely the Lords Now the scope of this Text is as applicable to our Christian Sabbath as ever it was to the Jews Sabbath ours being first a day of holy rejoycing in the Lord as well as theirs Psal 118.24 Secondly a day which hath the Lord for its author as well as theirs Thirdly a day every whit as honourable as theirs yea a degree above it being instituted upon a more noble account Viz. The most gracious and glorious work of Redemption Fourthly a day in all respects as holy as theirs holy I mean in respect of separation and dedication to holy duties as prayer preaching breaking of bread praise and thanksgiving Acts 2.1 and 20.7 Psal 118.27 28. Therefore it must be kept with rest from accustomed labour and pleasure as well as theirs and that by vertue of the fourth Commandment which requires the sanctifying of one day in seven of divine appointment as a Sabbath with rest from servile works and secular imployments And let it be further considered both the fourth Commandement and the Prophet Isaiah in commenting upon it do first and chiefly call for sanctity Secondarily for rest First Remember the Sabbath to sanctifie it then Thou shalt do no work Sanctification is required as the end cessation from labour as the means the one as principal the other as accessary Now both Prophets and Apostles have markt out the Lords day as a holy day to be spent in holy duties of solemn worship and that weekly therefore by the Law of God and nature we are bound to keep it as a day of weekly rest otherwise we separate the end from the means which cannot be rest from servile work being an inseparable adjunct to a day of solemn worship What then shall we say to those that afterwarning make the Lords day either a common working-day or a sporting day the former I may fitly call the Devils workmen who will one day pay them their wages the other the flesh's Bondmen whose pleasure in the end will prove torment without end The Lord awaken both to repentance better then that of Esau whose sin of the two is greater then his * Hebr. 12.16 there are prophane Esau's under the Gospel and they are the worst of Esau's there is also a sin called * Rom. 2.22 Sacrilege condemned in the Gospel and Sabbath-breaking is very like it when sinners lay sacrilegious hands upon that which is consecrated to the Lord for a sin much like to which Ananias and his wife were once stricken with sudden death and how many such dreadful strokes have been felt and heard in these later days I shall not repeat what has been already committed to record by others Mr. Bernard Mr. Byfield and sundry others have been serious observers of Gods heavy hand in this kind I could say something of what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears But I shall forbear Numb 10.1 2. when men are struck dead in the very act of their sin as Vzzah in touching the Ark Nadab and Abihu in offering strange fire when the sin and the judgement meet together and do one point at the other surely Gods hand is not to be slighted Mr. Byfield has related many such tremendous strokes upon those that have presumed to work on the Lords day and ended their lives and their work together having no more respit between their sin and their execution or expiration then with trembling lips to tell others the secret reflections of their own guilty Consciences and how many Malefactors have we heard at their execution bewailing their profanation of the Lords day as the leading-cause of all their mischiefs and miseries Now the Conscience of the sinner smarting under Gods revengeful rod is many times like a finger to point out the sin for which God smites as we see in the case of a Judges 1.7 8. Adonibezek To be short the exemplary judgments of God against this sin of Sabbath-breaking falling in so great variety and happening so thick together in many places do call aloud to the
stood by the Sepulchre and seen the Sun of righteousness covered with a cloud before shining forth most gloriously in the morning of the Resurrection-day how would this have raised and ravished thy heart How glad were the Disciples when they saw the Lord so glad that 't is said They beleeved not for joy O the day of Christs rising from the dead was a day of joy and gladness John 20.20 Luke 24.41 No day like this when our surety was released the Covenant and sure mercies of David confirmed hope revived heaven and eternal life assured In the midst of these thoughts who can but cry out with the Apostle O that I may know him and the power of his resurrection Phil. 3.10 That I may feel the working of that mighty power which God wrought in Christ Eph. 1.19 when he raised him from the dead O that the same * Rom. 1.4 and 6.4 5. spirit of holiness which quickned Christ from the dead this day and so made the day holy would also quicken my soul from the death of sin to the life of holiness that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so I also might walk in newness of life being planted into the likeness of his resurrection as also of his death Our hearts being thus tuned by meditation how should our tongues shew forth the praises of our precious Redeemer Let him have the praise and the glory of the whole work of our Redemption Awake my glory utter a song Sing that Psalm of John the Divine Vnto him that loved us Rev. 1.5 6. and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and his Father To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever Thus give unto Christ the glory of his death yea the praise of his Resurrection say with Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.3 4. who acording to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled reserved in heaven for us Surely God requires a thousand thousand Hallelujahs for this blessed work of our Redemption he calls upon all creatures to join with us in rejoycing upon this account Isai 44.23 Sing O ye Heavens for the Lord hath done it shout O ye lower parts of the earth break forth into singing ye mountains O forrest and every tree therein for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob Let us therefore devote our selves more solemnly to this Angelical service begin the day with prayer and end it with praise not only in publike but in private O that every house were in this respect a temple that the songs of the Temple might be heard in all our tabernacles on the Lords day that the streets might ring with our praises even the high praises of our Creator and Redeemer 'T is Scripture counsel That we should speak to our selves in Psalms Ephes 5 19. and Hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord and singing with grace in our hearts grace in the heart as one saies well is the best tune to every Psalm We must sing with the Spirit as well as pray with the spirit And therefore we should labour to be with S. John in the Spirit on the Lords day In a word Christian prudence should direct us to chuse out sutable Psalms for such a solemn day Psal 118. is very proper and pertinent The stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner this is the Lords doing and it is marvellons in our eyes This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce in it God is the Lord which hath shewed us light c. Thou art my God and I will praise thee Thou art my God I will exalt thee O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Thus much in brief concerning the prime duties of the day I shall conclude all with the words of that Prince of English Poets HERBERT O day most calm and bright The week were dark but for thy light The other days and thou Make up one man whose face thou art Knocking at heaven with thy brow The working days are the back-part The Sundays of mans life Thredded together on times string Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternal glorious King Thou art the day of mirth And where the work-days trail on ground Thy Flight is higher as thy birth O let me take thee at thy bound Leaping with thee from seven to seven Till that we both being toss'd from earth Fly hand in hand to heaven FINIS Books sold by John Rothwel at the Fountain in Goldsmiths Row in Cheapside THe Use and Practise of Faith or Faiths Universal usefulness and quickning influence into every kind and degree of the Christian life Delivered in the Publike Lectures at Ipswich by the late eminent and Faithful Servant of his Lord Mr. Matthew Laurence Preacher to the said Town 4o. Festered Conscience new lanced The Good Masters Plea and the Evil Servants Cavil Orthodxal Navigation by Benjamin Hubbard The Saints Rest in an Evil day both in their dependance upon God and assistance from him Together with Bowels of Mercy interceding for the Saints in danger Or Sacred Sympathy unsealed by Alex. Pringle late Minister of the Gospel at Georges Southwark The Universal Character by which all Nations in the World may understand one another Conceptions reading out of one common Writing their own Mother-tongues an invention of general use the Practise whereof may be atteined in two hours space observing the Grammatical Directions which Character is so contrived that it may be spoken as well as written By Cave Beck M. A. The same Book is also Printed in French for the use of that Nation The Reign of Gustavus King of Sweden son of Ericus collected out of the Histories of those times and offered to the service of these A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr. Samuel Collins Minister of Braintree in Essex By Matthew Newcomen Minister of Dedham in the same County The Saints Delight in the Spring of Salvation Or Christ saving Delivered in a Sermon at Gregories by Pauls the day of their solemn Weekly Lecture there by Alex. Pringle late Pastor of Georges Southwark
a fit subject for a devotional pen. But that which I insist upon as argumentative is only the day in which out Lord suffered and dyed which in my judgment doth much help to determine the day in which Adam sinned 3. The parley betwixt the woman and the serpent insinuates as much for both the serpents demand and the womans reply speak plainly that as yet they had not tasted the sweets of Paradise Gen. 3.1 Hath God said ye shall not eate of every tree of the Garden The serpent had not been subtile to ask whether that might be done which had been done already and the womans replying in the future tense we may or shall eate hereafter makes it more probable that as yet they had not eaten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it is utterly improbable that they would have continued a whole day in the Garden in the midst of all that delicious fruit and not have tasted of some Besides the tree of life being sacramental as Augustine sayes Erat homini in lignis aliis alimenium in hoc verò Sacramentum Aug. de Gen. ad lit in other trees there was nourishment in this a Sacrament may it not well be thought that if Adam had stood the first Sabbath he had tasted of the tree of life Doubtless he had observed all the ordinances of the day But that he had not yet touched that tree is evident from that speech of God where he resolves upon his speedy banishment out of Paradise Gen. 3.22 lest sayes the Lord he put forth his hand to the tree of life and eate and live for ever which had been spoken too late if he had already done it 4. The policy and activity of Satan in contriving of mischief may assure us that he was tampering with our first parents betimes partly that he might take the advantage to shake them before their habits of grace were setled and confirmed by exercise as new-planted trees are more easily plucked up at first then after they are more deeply radicated but principally that by poysoning the fountain of mankind before any streams issued from it he might the more easily and certainly corrupt the whole current of mans posterity Such as have been taught by sad experience how crafty an adversary that old serpent the Divel is cannot but subscribe to the validity of this argument 5. To all these I may adde the circumstance of time when these malefactors were brought to the bar and arraigned for what they had done viz. in the coole of the day Hebr. in the wind of the day Gen. 3.8 in the wind after midday as Hierom renders it or in the Even-tyde a Adversus haereses lib 5. cap. 15. ad fin as Irenaeus Now it is very observable sayes a late Worthy that this is the first evening mentioned after the creation of Adam Mr. Roberts myster medulla Bibl. p. 39. and the covenant made with him Adam was arraigned and sentenced towards the evening of the sixth day therefore he sinned the same day As for that of the Psalmist Adam being in honour loà ged not a night Psa 49.12 but was like the beasts that perish for so it is in the Hebrew word for word although I will not restrain it to the first Adam for as learned Ainsworth observes it may be meant both of the first man Adam who continued not in his dignity Annot. in locum and his posterity also yet it doth most singularly point at him and is most pregnantly applicable to him as being in the greatest honour that ever man was in upon earth Lord of all the lower world and father of all mankind c Exod. 23.8 Deut. 19.4 2 Sam. 17. Psal 30.5 And the word baal jalin does properly signifie to lodge or tarry for a night What if it be in the future tense as T.T. suggests yet as d Dr. Twiss great a Rabbin as himself has told us that it is nothing strange for the future tense the structure of the words requiring it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Assimulatus fuit as here it does the next word being of the preter tense to signifie the time past Again what if the context does not in every circumstance suit with Adam Is it any unusual thing especially in the book of Psalms for one and the same sentence to point at several persons How often are David and Christ both intended in the same place yea where every thing spoken of the one does not agree to the other The adversary might therefore have spared that passage that this text cannot be applyed to Adam because t is said v. 19. He shall go to the generation of his fathers unless I could shew him what fathers Adam had to go to p. 10. I will answer his Dilemma with another when he himself sayes that innocent Adam had all the Ten Commandments written in his heart let him tell me what father and mother had Adam to honour in a second Table sense But to let that pass enough is said if this text was silent to make it more then probable that the transgression of our first parents presently followed their creation i.e. the same day To be sure there is more evidence of truth in it then all his objections to the contrary are a ble to obscure Indeed his confidence is great but we shall now scan his evidence and accordingly judg of his confidence He argues That man T.T. Obj. 1. yea and the Angels also stood in their integrity with the clo sure of the sixth day for then all things were very good Gen. 1.31 And no sooner did the sixth day end and the seventh begin but God rested and sanctifyed his holy Sabbath and was refreshed and exceeding well satisfyed with the goodness of his creatures which must needs precede sin This great argument has many little ones in the belly of it and accordingly I shall return several answers to it Whereas he dictates Answ 1 That man had not sioned in the closure of the sixth day for then all things were very good I answer the word then is an addition to the text And therefore the whole weight of his argument hanging upon this wooden pin of his own making must needs fall to the ground 'T is a conclusion founded upon a fallacy which the Logicians call a Fallacy of composition when those things are jumbled together which ought to be taken asunder for the detection whereof let it be considered that in the text alledged Gen. 1.31 there be two distinct clauses first Gods approbation of his works He saw every thing that he made and behold it was very good Secondly the conclusion of the day and the evening and the morning were the sixth day Now to take these two clauses conjunctly which are related distinctly and to argue as this Author does that man had not sinned on the sixth day for then all was very good is a meer sophisme such as