Answer.

First, the Commandement is given to servants also, the Words are, Thou, nor thy servant, which referred to the for­mer, Thou shalt doe no manner of worke, can have no other sense than this; thou shalt doe no manner of worke, that art the master, nor thy seruant shall do no manner of worke Father and sonne, sonne and daughter, bond and free, were bound re­ligiously to ob­serve it. Doct. Slater, in the Ministers por­tion, pag. 95.: the Commandement of ceasing from worke not giuen of him onely, but to him also. For, how know you, that the com­mandement is given to the master but because the Lord saith, thou (meaning, that hast a servant) shalt doe no man­ner of worke? And can you bee so purblind as not to see, the Commandement is given aswell to the servant, when it is thus delivered in the same forme, Thy servant shall doe no manner of worke? Nay, consider, you the Publisher (for, as for the Author hee knoweth already by the issue whe­ther his collection hence were sound or no, and if he might have the favour the Saints had that aroseat our Saviours re­surrection, Iam perswaded hee would judge this Treatise to the fire, and therefore) you the Publisher I say, and all yee that feare God, and know that a bored eare is the best Sa­crifice, consider, The Commandement is given to the ser­vant, as a servant, and as thy servant. I will not worke, maiest thou say, but my servant shall, his worke is mine by Covenant. The Lord with whom there is neither bond nor free, interposeth, and saith not, thou shalt not command him to worke, but thus, thy servant shall not worke. What is this but to say, as servant and as thine, hee shall not worke. As if hee said, at other times his worke is thine, but now his worke is mine: thy covenant shall not infringe his covenant with his God. As thy servant, he is not thine in thy workes or servile workes that day, but the Lords freeman, yet thy ser­vant [Page 7] that day by thee to be injoyned to the Lords worke, Gods servant to be free from thy works. Thou must observe the Commandement in thine owne person, and preserve it in the persons under thy charge, thy servant must doe no manner of thy servile worke that day, but must bee thy ser­vant to bee ordered for the Lords worke. Consider it well and see, the matter forbidden is the servile cares and labors of the houshold, both of masters about servants, and of Ser­vants towards their Masters.

Secondly, and seeing we are afforded by your good leave to consider the Commandement, let us with your patience (for I cannot but thinke the heart of any deceiving or de­ceived, is not onely stumbled but convinced by the former words) weigh the Words of the precept, from which I thus reason:

First, The servant, eo nomine as a servant, is commanded to remember the day, therefore as a servant the Comman­dement is given to him to cease from his servile work, or the worke of a servant. For is hee to remember a part and not all the precept? Or may hee earth himselfe in forgetfulnes, and put all on his masters memory.

Againe, the servant as a servant is commanded to keepe the day holy. If any deny this, then God and Caesar cannot have their due, God & callings cannot stand together, God and societies must subvert each other; and is this your quiet peaceable doctrine, that ruines all and brings confusion? Yeeld the Antecedent and then this conclusion will follow, that hee is a a servant commanded not to worke: For rest on the day is injoyned, that holinesse may be followed, and cessation from worke forbidden, to whom holinesse is com­manded, as the words runne, Remember the Sabbath or resting day, to keepe it holy.

Besides, That permissive mandate is not onely given of, but to the servant, sixe daies thou shalt labour and do all that thou hast to do, therefore the command for the seventh daies rest is not only given of, but to the servant: for the com­mands of both, respect the same persons.

Likewise this Command, Thou shalt not do any work, is gi­ven to him that is contained in the word, Thou: but the ser­vant as thy servant is contained in the word, thou; and is it not given to him then? For the words following expound the first Thou, Thou shalt not. Who meane you by this Thou? who but thou master, thy servant; thou father, thy sonne; thou mother, thy daughter, &c.

Further, the Commandement is given to them to whom the reasons of the Command reach, but they reach alike to thy servant as to thee; therefore the Command reacheth alike to thy servant as to thee. And if you say, yea, the rea­sons reach to all alike to perswade to sanctifie, but not to all alike to forbeare work; It is false: for, besides that there can be no sanctification without cessation from servile workes, the reasons do equally and strongly bend to perswade ces­sation from worke; as the reason from the right of the Law­giver appropriating it to himselfe and his worship, the e­quity of the Law which giveth sixe for worke, and re­straines but for one day, the example of God, and the spe­ciall blessing given to the day.

To come to handy-gripes with you: you yeeld, the ser­vants worke is forbidden. I demand, Is it forbidden; because it hinders the master onely from sanctifying the day, or the servant also? Surely, because it hinders the servant cheif­ly, and not the master, or not chiefely: his worke crosseth the end of the Sabbath in him, if therefore the command of sanctifying the day bee to him as a servant, the command of ceasing from worke is to him as a servant.

Let mee againe reason with you from the command; if the negative bee of the servant, and not to the servant, then also is the affirmative, which is this, Thou shalt doe the workes of holinesse that day: and from hence will follow this grosse absurdity, that if the servant goe not to the assem­blies, nor apply himselfe to workes of holinesse, and the master also doe not bid him, his master onely sinneth, and not the servant; because according to your new learning, the master is charged with the servant for the workes of holi­nesse, [Page 9] and the servants holinesse that day is the matter only of the Command: the master and not the servant is the subject person commanded. This Command, Thou shalt doe the workes of holinesse, is of the servants holy worke, but no precept to the servant. It may be you will flee off here-from, but you are caught in your owne net, as sure as the negative precept hath his affirmative every way pro­portionable.

Thirdly, and seeing store is no sore, where each apart will make a party good Quae pros [...]nt singula multa juvant., I adde: He that gave the Law, know­eth best the meaning of his owne Law; let us see from his Word in other Texts the persons that stand expressely char­ged. To whom is it given? In Ier. 17. 20. to the Kings of Iu­dah, to all Iudah, to all the Inhabitants of Ierusalem that entred in by those gates was this Command given of cea­sing from work; of bearing no burden on the Sabbath day: Were the Iewish servants none of Iudah, none of Ierusa­lems inhabitants, none of those that entred in and went out by Ierusalems gates? To whom is the Command of the Sabbath rest given? In Exod. 34. 21. to him that serves, these are the words of the Text, Sixe dayes thou shalt serve [...], but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in eating time and in harvest thou shalt rest. Now who serveth so properly as a servant; and is not the originall word the same that notes is that serving, and a servant [...], save that one is the Verbe, and the other the Noune? And what serving doth it signifie? No other than that service of servants, [...] of houshold ser­vants, of such as till the ground. There can bee no way toServitus, mini­sterium, samula­tus, cultura. exclude the servant at all from the charge of this precept.

Fourthly, besides all this, how is your doctrine built on the words of this Commandement; the Law saith, Thou and thy servant shall doe no worke; you say, it onely saith, Thou shalt not command thy servant to worke. Againe, take your saying, the Law bindeth the Master from comman­ding, and will this follow, therefore it binds the servant to obey his master, if he should be so wicked as to command what God prohibits him. This is a plaine non-sequitur, and [Page 10] can not hold together by all the Geometry in the World, nor can any Carpenter make this joyne, but such loose rea­sonings hold best for them that would goe in a broad way. Now weaken these following arguments if you can.

Fifthly, hee that is circumcised is bound to keepe the whole Law, and none is bound by your owne confession, but he to whom the Law is given: the Iewish servant then, being circumcised, was bound to keepe this Law as given to him. The circumcised, saith the Apostle, is a debtor to doe the whole Law Gal. 5. 3..

Sixthly, he that wrought on the Sabbath being a stran­ger, was not fit for communion and ordinary conversing with the Iewes, as appeareth by the words of the Comman­dement, that charged the stranger within the gate to rest that day, and by the practice of Nehemiah, that drave such from within and without the Citie Ierusalem, and by a like instance of leaven at the Feast of the Passeover, and of un­leavened bread. For if the stranger that sojourned onely, and was not borne in the Land, did this while eate that which was leavened, he was to be cut off from the Congre­gation of Israel Exod. 12. 19. See Junius on the place.. Now shall the servant be left to the subje­ction to that command, that makes him unfit for communi­on with the people of God? God forbid. Yet thus would you provide for servants, and be such a sinner against their soules.

Seventhly, how much better might you have tuned to Lyra's Harpe, than to runne a new straine; he saith thus Non loquitur de adultis, qui jam sciebant legem Sabbati, quia prohibiti sunt simul cum parentibus: sed hoc additur propueris ignoran­tibus legem, qui non debebant permitti dpa­rentibus aliquid operari in diem Sabbati. Lyra., he speaketh not of those of ripe age, which did now know the Law of the Sabbath, because they are forbidden toge­ther with their parents: but this is added for childrens sake, that knew not the Law, which ought not to bee per­mitted to doe any workes on the Sabbath day. This inter­pretation hee had from Rabbi Solomon. I doe not say, it is the truth of the place, but this I say, you have neither truth nor patron for your abortive opinion.

Let all Christians be warned how they receive every one that pretends Scripture; all Heretikes were such, accor­ding to that of Irenaeu [...], they were evill Expositors of things [Page 11] well spoken Pravi exposi­tores probè di­ctorum. Iraeneus l. 1. advers. Hae­res. in prooem.: Satan laid his most dangerous assaults a­gainst Christ, and would perswade them by Scripture too. Behold here one professing to stay within the compasse of the Word, and by a futilous distinction of of, and to, erres from the A. B. C. Such words fiet like a Canker or Gan­greene 2 Tim. 2. 17, 18. [...]..

It shall be your wisedome, not to serve God by distincti­ons, and to learne Divinitie of your Teachers, and not Divi­sions of Sophisters.

Answer.

First, I reply, these Commandements are not paralell, and so your ground faileth: these Commandements; I say, this, Thy servant shall doe no manner of worke; and this, No stran­ger shall eate of the Passeover. In the first, you acknowledge the masters worke is forbidden to the master, whether done by himselfe or by his servant. In the latter, the Passeover forbidden to the stranger, is enjoyned to the Iew. The Iew [Page 12] must eate the Passeover, the Iew must not admit the stran­ger to eate, but the master must not worke, and must not ad­mit his servant to worke. The thing prohibited, viz. to doe servile worke on the Sabbath, is sinfull in it selfe, but the ea­ting of the Passeover (which is the thing forbidden the stranger) was the speciall worship of God, his ordinance and service, required of the Iew. Now this makes a wide difference in the sense of those precepts that sound alike: for where the thing is evill it cannot but be evill who ever doth it, that is capable of the divine precept, as the servant is; for he is a reasonable creature, and was a Iew: but where the thing it selfe is holy, it becomes evill onely to him that pro­phaneth and defileth it.

The Iew is made the observer of the Passeover, and the preserver of it from the strangers observation, but here the master and servant are both made observers of the com­mand of ceasing from work, and the master is to preserve it to the servants observation.

Besides, where the words runne in the same forme, the precepts are not presently paralell, or the prohibitions: for to make them so, the parties commanded must stand alike capable of the Law, or uncapable. Wee'le not goe farre for instance; the words in this precept are every way for forme of words paralell, Thy sonne shall doe no manner of worke, the stranger within thy gate shall doe no manner of worke; yet the forme of the precept is not the same because the sonne of the Iew stood otherwise obliged to the Sab­bath, as your selfe doe yeeld, pag. 25. than the stranger. And to put it beyond all exception, these for forme of words are paralell, Thy sonne shall doe no worke, Thy cattell shall doe no worke; yet the precept is not paralell, because the sonne is capable of Gods Law to obey it properly [...], and theSoli homines ca­paces sunt pro­priae legit. Zua­rez. de leg. l. 1. c. 6. cattell are not. There is a difference betweene the forme of precepts, and the forme of words, in which precepts are signified. The forme of the precept must partly bee gathe­red from the subjects, to which they have reference, and as they are capable, or lesse capable of law, so the precepts to [Page 13] be understood: for the Law in its owne nature carrieth a certaine respect and disposition to them, on whom it is im­posed Lex essentia­l [...]er quandam habitudinem ad eos dic [...], quibut imponitur. Zua­rez. l. 1. ca. 6. de leg.. Now for the Law of the Passeover, the stranger was not so capable of it, as being not under the Law; but the servant being a Iew, is alike capable of the Law of the fourth Commandement as is his Master, because equally under the Law. What the Law speaketh, it speaketh to them who are under the Law Rom. 3. 19., saith the Apostle.

Secondly, I affirme, that the strangers, Moabites and Ammonites, did sinne in thus doing, though invited or ad­mitted, they prophaned holy things, as Balthazar did the Bowles of the Temple Dan. 5. [...].. Now the Iewes sinfull invitation cannot take away their prophanation. It is all one as if a Pagan living among us, that refused our Religion, and were not baptized, should yet come and eate of the Bread of the Lord, though some Minister for some by respect should be supposed to invite him. There were among the Iewes strangers that kept house, and had servants, that yet were no Proselytes, but onely strangers within the gates; these sinned against this precept, if they would kill the Passeover and eate it, although the sewes should through remissenesse suffer it. Further, that a stranger may sinne against a pre­cept given of him, is cleare by that precept in vers. 48. of chap. 12. of Exodus, Let all his males be circumcised, and then let him keepe the Passeover. The commandement is given expressely to the Israelites of the stranger, and yet if that stranger should out of Zipporah's tendernesse hide or spare a male, and so eate, all the Iewes held that he sinned against this precept given of him Maimony in Korb. Pesach. c. 5. 5. 5.. It is evident also by the penaltie laid on the stranger, with whom leavened bread was found and eaten on the Feast of unleavened bread, hee was to be cut off from the Congregation of Israel (for pu­nishment is to bee inflicted onely upon transgressors) and yet the Commandement of keeping the Feast of unleave­ned bread was given to the Iewes onely in any fonne of words that we find vers. 15, 17.

Thirdly, and for your instances, I have yet further to ex­cept [Page 14] against them, as they are alleaged by you.

This precept, No stranger shall eate thereof Exod. 12. 43., hath been understood to bind the stranger there mentioned, aswell as the Iew▪ for the Chaldee Paraphrast renders it thus; No sonne of Israel that is Apostate, shall eate of it: Now the Apostate Israelite sinned if hee ate, aswell as the Iew that invited him to eate, the persons that were uncleane legally at the day of the Passeover sinned, if they kept it at that season, though the Governours tooke no notice of it, or would permit it. Numb. 9. 6, 7, 10, 11.

And for the Moabite and Ammonite Deut. 23. 3. it is cleare, that it is spoken of them converted, & made Proselytes, who stood therefore bound to keepe the whole Law, as being circum­cised: for the Law speaketh of a temporall punishment to be inflicted on them to the tenth generation after their con­version; the one hundred generation of them remaining Heathen had been still farre from admission. These then did breake this command of God, aswell as the Iewes that admitted them, though the command in your opinion bee given but of them, and it is also in part true. And that they did breake this precept, appeares also by the example of the burst, and of the bastard Deut. 23. 1, 2., the commandements are gi­ven in the same forme, given of them to the Governours, yet bound them of whom given: For God by his prohibition makes them uncapable of such an honour and priviledge, if they should rush upon holy things when hee hath inter­dicted them, their prophanenesse and contempt were great. I retort therefore your instances thus: The strangers, Moa­bites and Ammonites forbidden these holy things, though the precept were of them chiefly, and to the Iewes princi­pally touching them, did prophane them, transgresse the Law, and did proudly rush upon things peculiar, if they meddled therewith: therefore much more the servant, though the precept bee of him chiefly, and to his master principally concerning him, if hee worke on the Sabbath, prophanes it, transgresseth the Law, and proudly rusheth upon the priviledged and peculiar time enclosed by the [Page 15] Lord of time himselfe. It is clearely the Lords intent, that the master should not suffer, nor charge his servant to worke this day; and as clearely the Lords meaning, that the ser­vant should not doe his masters worke that day which is the Lords, and not his masters day.

Answer.

First, this agreeth not with that in the commandement; for the Lord saith not thus, Thou shalt not suffer thy servant to work; but thus, Thy servant shall not work. If the Princes command were this; Thy servant shall doe no worke of thine, that he may attend on me in my house, and on my worke without avocations and disturbance, did not the servant transgresse the Princes charge, if he forsooke the Prince, and obeyed his master? or would his masters command excuse him in doing that which was against the Princes command, or in neglecting the Princes service? Sure this doctrine of yours would leave Princes persons, kingdomes, and neces­sities [...] [Page 18] dayes thou shalt labour, is likewise of indulgence: for the Iewes in keeping the dayes of Purim-festivals sinned not. Yea, sometimes that commeth under the forme of a command in words, which is onely spoken by concession, when yet the thing so granted is not allowed or approved for good, as when the Apostle saith, Be angry, but sin not Ephes. 4. 26.. Be angry, is in words of precept, yet spoken onely by con­cession, and yet no way alloweth the anger he speaketh of: for that he speaketh not of a laudable anger is evident, when it followeth, let not the Sunne goe downe upon your wrath. How needfull is it that we understand this thing distinctly, lest we be deceived with the shew of a command? To re­turne then, that learned Scotchman, Camero, giveth us this excellent rule, whereby to know a precept that is of indul­gence, or of Empire and Lawlike charge, as I may say tru­ly; Whatsoever, saith he Sanè quicquid Deus prescribit quod non simpli­citèr benesicii, sed officii ratio­nem habet, idest d Dei imperio: itaque in distin­guendis iis quae mandatorum formâ concipi­untur in Scrip­turâ, id semper ob oculos haben­dum est, pertine­antur res pre­scriptae ad offici­um, an verò ad beneficium & privilegium simplicitèr: quod si occurrat in mandato officii ratio, non est profectò indulgentia sed imperium. Simplicitèr, inquam, nullum enim exi­git officium Deus à creatura quod idem reipsa non sit benesicium, sed benesicium simpliciter Domino in quo nalla se ostendit ratio officii erga Deum. Joh. Camero [...]om. 1. prelect. ad Mat. cap. 18. vers. 15. pag. 15., God doth prescribe which hath not the reason and nature of a benefit simply, but of a duty and of­fice, that is from the Empire of God. And afterwards explai­ning himselfe, he addeth; I say simply a benefit; for God re­quires no duty of his creature which is not in the thing it selfe a benefit, but that is simply a benefit in which no nature of a duty towards God doth shew it selfe. Now follow this Rule, and who sees not that this precept, Thy servant shall doe no worke on the Sabbath, hath in it chiefly the nature of office and duty the servant oweth to God as well as the master, even the observation of the Sabbath to God, though in a second place here is a matter of fatherly indulgence, God graciously tendring the servants (as he doth also the very bruite beast, for whose ease he mercifully provides that day. Now Master Publisher, if you have any mind to put que­stions, you shall have leave, if you please, to aske as many more.

Answer.

First, this proofe is sufficiently overthrowne by all the former arguments, yet I adde: This precept is directed to the parents restraining the use of their power to interrupt, and injoyning the use of their power to preserve the sancti­fication of the day; and to the sonne and daughter also not to worke at the houshold worke: for, saith God Levit. 23. 3., The seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, and holy convocation; yee shall doe no worke therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. Who are these charged in the word, yee? Who, but yee that stand bound to come to the holy con­vocations; yee that constitute families; therefore yee chil­dren as well as yee parents.

Secondly, and to free all that subscribe to this truth from feare of so much as any private interpretation, and to cast it [...] [Page 22] bee commanded nor intreated (licence would serve their turne) but to the masters whose desire of gaine by the servants labour might stand betwixt the Sabaoth and the servants rest: and to make an end with the Text, with the last words of it: what is it, that the Lord for these reasons commanded? was it barely to keepe and observe the Sabaoth, as it is in the vulgar English, Latine and Greeke translations? No they are all short, it is [...] that is, to make a day of rest. Deut. 5. 15. Now to make it to bee so, importeth not onely to observe it him­selfe, but to cause others also to observe it, which is evidently the property of masters and governours: wherefore seeing both the commandement touching servants rest from labour on the Sabaoth day, and reasons added by Moses to perswade that point, (and draw their mindes to obsequiousnesse) are evidently direct­ed to the Masters, and not (neither of both) to the servants them­selves, I take it out of all question as cleare as the Sunshine at midday, that if servants by their masters command doe any worke on the Sabaoth the sinne is not theirs, who as touching their bodily labour are meerely subject to their Masters power, but it is their ma­sters sinne. For their sinne it is that transgresse the law: they trans­gresse the law, who are obliged by it: they are obliged by it, to whom it was given and imposed, and given it was as I have plentifully pro­ved onely to Masters.

Answer.

First, your first way of confirming your exposition was by instance; then you goe on to proofes from texts, where­of the first taken out of the commandement was taken off in the former Chapter: this is your second proofe built on the text in Deu. 5. And here because you flaunt it out in ma­ny words, and in many of them glance at things as if they made to your purpose, besides the maine of your argument, I thus reply, first, to your reason drawne from the text: se­condly, to some chiefe passages in the venting of it.

The substance of the reasoning is this in briefe: Moses applyeth the precept of servants rest, to the masters that were slaves in Egypt, but now ransomed and set in the estate of free­men, that they should allow their servants rest, and make the Sabbath a resting day, therefore the commandement (thou shalt not doe any worke) is given onely to the masters. It is applyed to the masters, therefore given to them, were a [Page 23] right consequence: but therefore to them onely, is fallaci­ous, for more is in the consequent, than was in the Antece­dent: and if you put the word (only) into the Antecedent, then both the propositions are false: For in Levit. 19. 3. as above was specified, Moses applyeth it to children. And the argument is yet unsolid, for it stands thus, Moses appli­eth it in his expositions onely to masters, therefore it was gi­ven onely to masters: for applications are according to se­verall occasions, but not alwaies extended to the utmost breadth of the precept, and yet in all this Moses fidelitie no way impeached, inasmuch as he faithfully applieth where it most needeth as occasion serveth (keeping the bounds of truth. These consequents from this place as you expound it, may be gathered; therefore that reason binds not servants, or this, therefore the master sinnes most ungratefully that will disturbe his servants rest: or this, therefore it is given chiefly to the masters, as those that must not onely keepe, but make a Sabbath; all which wee yeeld: but the mind that once is big of a new fancy, maketh all that it feedeth upon, nourish that fancy.

Secondly, the truth is, the Lord by Moses pleades in those words, the reason of the right that hee hath to com­mand thy servant rest, who is his freeman by vertue of that redemption; the servant as well as the master called into the liberty of his holy people, as appeareth in the Preface to the Decalogue, Exod. 20. and in Exod. 19. 4, 5, 6. bond and free indifferently entertained into the priviledge and honour of the Covenant, and into the band of it: and the reason the master hath both to obey, and yeeld up his servant for that day to Gods commanding and appointing, and also to use his authoritie for God, in seeing that his servant keepe the Sabbath: but in other respects both master and ser­vant to rejoyce alike in the great worke of their redemp­tion.

Thirdly, but let us examine more narrowly some of the speciall passages.

Moses addeth in vers. 14. that thy manservant and maid­servant [Page 24] may rest as well as thou; it is to this (Thou) therefore to whom this charge is directed, &c.] Which (thou?) that in those words, thou and thy sonne. That makes nothing to the exemption of the servant, as thy servant from the obli­gation of the first thou, which is this, thou shalt doe no man­ner of worke: for thy servant is one contained under this thou, as well as thou art that art the master. Or if it bee meant of this first thou, that were absonant from the very context. It being meant of the latter thou, we must ask what you meane when you say, it is to this thou to whom this charge is directed. Mean you by charge, the charge to make the servants rest? That you say afterwards were needlesse, they need but licence, and neither command nor intreat. Or meane you the charge to give them leave to rest? nay, that is against your owne reading, the master is to make a day of rest, and your owne interpretation, to make it to be so, impor­teth not onely to observe it himselfe, but to cause others also to observe it. Or by charge, meane you the command, Thy servant shall doe manner of worke; and this is directed to this thou; namely, the master of the servant? Well, bee it so: And what will follow thence? Why surely this; Thou master must know that God commands thy servant to rest, and thee to make him keepe the Sabbath day: but not this; Thou art commanded to rest, but thy servant is not comman­ded to rest, but may worke if thou biddest him, the sinne and perill is thine only. What new Divinitie and Logick is this? We see then, here is some motion in, but no promotion of your cause. Nay, because the command is given that the servant may rest as well as the master, and that all might be free to attend on Gods service that day alike; therefore it cannot be that the servant should remaine bound to the commands of the master for servile worke on that day. For as master Calvin well observes, Calvin in quartum prae­ceptum. Tenen­dum est, propriè spectatum fuisse unum Dei cultum? Scimus enim totum Abrahae genus sic fuisse Deo sacrum, ut serviessent quaedam accessio, unde & circumcisio illis communis fuit. We must hold this, that the alone worship of God was properly looked unto: but wee know (saith hee) the whole off-spring of Abraham was so [Page 25] sacred to God, that this that they were servants was a cer­taine accession, whence also circumcision was common to them all.

If the commandement of rest had been directly and im­mediately given to servants.] Doth your owne conscience know and force out this acknowledgement, that it is given to them, though not directly and immediately?

Would not servants overset & wearied with six daies toile, be of themselves glad to rest on the seventh] These interro­gations are brought in, to set on the proofe, that the com­mandement of rest was not given at all to servants: but how ill they conclude, may bee seene by these certaine truths. That the servant (if not religious, which God lookes not to find, but by his word to make us such)▪ had rather oft times worke for his master, than bee imployed in the duties of sanctification for a part, much more for all the day: for they are more irkesome to flesh and blood, than handy worke. True, that question might take more place, if it were rest alone that were aymed at, and not rest for an higher end. That the master (if covetous and prophane) will not stand upon pleasing or displeasing God, in requiring such unlawfull worke, but respect his gaine more than all, and to the utmost call for the servants worke that day, when the servant in the Court of God and man can have no redresse; yea out of irreligious petulancy he will most exact worke then. Againe, that the toyled servant will be oft ready to worke for himselfe, as in mending his clothes, or the like; now the master is charged to remember the conditi­on of his slavery, that hee may not dare to overset his s [...]r­vant with worke in the sixe dayes, but every way make a Sabbath day.

Hath it any other but to declare, &c.] Yes, it declares Gods just title over their servants to command them that day, and their unequall and wicked carriage, if they should offer to plead their covenant to evert Gods covenant.

Which reason could not bee intended, nor directed to them that still remained in servitude] No: not at all inten­ded, [Page 26] nor could be. This redemption prooved them Gods servants, and not theirs, nor any mans to use them as slaves to use them as servants on the Sabbaths: as we read in Le­vit. 25. vers. 39, 41 42. Thou shalt not compell him to serve as a bond-servant, he shall returne in the yeere of Iubile, for they are my servants which I brought out of the Land of Egypt, And in vers. 53. 55. The stranger (meaning to whom the poore Iew was sold) shall not rule with rigour over him, he shall goe out in the yeere of Iubile; for unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the Land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Here the servant saw that God put no difference betweene bond and free, and that the Sabbath made master and servant e­quall in respect of freedome for attendance on God. Cessati [...]nem indixit, ut ful­geret ubique Sabbathi San­ctitas, at que ita ad ejus obser­vantiam terrae conspectu magis animarentur filii Israël. Cal­vin. com. in 4. praeceptum. in Lev. c. 25. Those Sabbaths of yeeres had all respect to engrave on them the respect of this Sabbath. Heere no slavery (but liberty for Gods service, which is perfect freedome,) may passe upon the redeemed: and therefore their servitude did not make the Redemption void to them. But such an Expositor as you are, would leave them slaves, because servants, and slaves without intermission, even on the Lords Sabbath; to drudgerie, and not the Lords servants, when yet they were the Redeemed of the Lord equally as their masters were. Thus you derogate from the breadth of the cōmandement, and the reasons, and clip the wings of Scripture, while you take that precept to belong onely to masters, and the ma­ster enjoyed no further than to make a rest for his servant, when the text saith, Hee shall make a Sabbath day. And the whole reason applied to the Sabbaths rest for servants sounds no lesse than this, Remember when thou wast in E­gypt the Egyptians made thee a slave, and mard the Sabbath day; now I have set thee free thou shalt free thy servant that day, and make the Sabbath day.

Moses reasons are evidently directed to the masters, not to the servants; therefore the servant working at the masters command sinneth not.] What reasoning is this; the master is by arguments pe [...]swaded to make a day of rest, & there­fore [Page 27] the servant must worke if the master bid him: or there­fore hee is not commanded to make a holy rest to his ser­vant.

Who as touching bodily labour are meerely subject to their masters power.] This meerely in this place must needes exclude Gods power over the servant, that he may not law­fully command him in any thing that respects the use of bo­dily labour, but onely his master: which wicked ground laid, it will follow that the Lord may not command the master to let his servant rest, but onely intreat or perswade, but the Lord speakes pro imperio as a Lord and Emperor, thy servant shall rest. This meerely takes in all time, so that the master may require their worke, and not allow them any time for solemne worship; now it is certaine that no man hath power to sell himselfe to any in such a manner, no more than he hath to sell himselfe from God and to the di­vell; for take away time from solemne worship, and that falls to the ground, nothing can bee done in an instant; take away solemne worship and you are without God, Ier. 10. 25▪ and without him, under the power of Satan, Act. 26. 18. This meerely in a word taketh away all bounds, & maketh the servants bondage and the masters power infinite. Now Plato saith well, Servitus & li­bertas infinita nullisque can­cellis circum­scripta, sum­mum est malum, quod si modo quodāmodo de­finiatur, sum­mum bonum. Optimo illa mo­do constat servi­tus, quae Deo pa­ret. Plat. tom. 3. Epist. 8. Servitude and liberty that is infinite and circumscribed with nolimitte, is the chiefest evill: but if some way it be defined by measure, it is a chief good, that servitude stands in the best forme, which obeyeth God. And Doct. Ames. Ames. de con­scientia, lib. 5. c. 23. worthily in his Cases of Conscience, it is the generall office of masters, neither to exercise nor to imagine it is permitted them, any absolute empire over their servants; but a limited dominion: the account whereof they must render to God as the common master of themselves and their servants, Ephes. 6. 9. Col. 4. 1.

Answer.

First, No, we doe not; it is imposed on servants, yet not on oxe or asse: for the servant is forbidden labour, because hee can labour without thee, and so hee is capable properly of commandement to rest; but the Oxe is not forbidden la­bour, but to bee laboured and wrought; for hee cannot worke without thee, and is not capable of the commande­ment. The servant is therefore forbidden labour even in his masters worke, that hee might bee vacant to holy duties, Otio non otio­so. Zanch. in 4. praecep. not so the Oxe. The servant is forbidden to bee wrought by his master, because now hee must acknowledge ano­ther master, in whose service he is this day commanded to worke; with whom there is no respect of persons; and this end, the servants obedience to his masters unlawfull com­mandement of worke that day, would crosse; no man can serve two masters. Moreover, doth God take care for Oxen? No doubt it was written for the servants sake, that he might not attend to guide the Oxes labour, and that mercy due to the Oxe might call for more to man, Zanchy is expresse, that the commandement was given to the servant, hee saith; Neminem vult excludi a san­ctificatione Sab­bati: quia tam servi, quam do­mini: tam silii, quàm parentes, tam advenae, quám indigenae obstricti Deo sunt, natique [...]d ej [...]s cultum. De jumentis alia est ratio: non enim jubentur qui [...]scere à laboribus, ut possint vacare cultui divino sicut homines. Id. ibid. God would have no man excluded from the sanctification of [Page 29] the Sabbath, because aswell servants as masters, sonnes as pa­rents, strangers as home-borne, are bound to God, and borne to his worship, touching beasts there is another reason, &c.

Secondly, the Oxe is forbidden to bee wrought, that they might have no snare to draw them to worke: and may a servant worke at his masters command? how great a snare would this bee to the master; who naturally (and such a master as will require his servant to worke on that day, is not far from his pure naturals) loveth profit more than his soule; and feares a penny losse, where he thinks it might bee gained, more than the breach of a precept that God threatens with the curse and hell? Hee will bee ready not onely to say with Rebecca, Gen. 27. 13. On me be the curse, my sonne, on­ly doe as Ibid; but in another tone; Sirrah, the sinne and curse is mine; go you about your worke, you shall not answer for my faults; how comes on you this new religion now? there­fore I conclude against you thus, he that forbade the stran­gers worke, and the cattels, that all examples and occasions might be remooved that might entise to evill, it cannot bee that hee would leave sonne, daughter, man and maid in the family free to the master, that they should, and must obey him in his unlawfull commands.

Thirdly, and to requite you out of the Text. In the same forme of words that the Oxe and Asse is prohibited, the stranger within the gate of another, is also forbidden work, and is it not given to the stranger It is partly understood of the strangers within the Co­venant, those (saith Zanchy) without con­troversie were commanded so to sanctifie the Sabbath even as other Iewes. Zanch. in [...] praecep. aswell as of? yet I hope you wil not say it is given to the oxe. If you say it is not given to the stranger; I vrge you thus: The stranger is there meant partly of the stranger, which being a Iew, is with thee for the time as a guest, D^r. Williams of the Church, l. 2 c. 8. and can this (that he is a guest) free him from the bond of this Law; or if the Iew within whose gate he is, should require him to worke, is he excused, because hee is within his gate, as you say the servant is? Againe, Adiger [...] quis (que) paterfamilias potest & debet suos do nesticos a [...] externum cultum: cur non etiam magistratus suos subditos? Non enim a [...]t, memento ut sanctifices, monebis autem▪ sil [...]m, sed memento ut sanctifices & ut alii tui sanctificent. Zanch. in 4. praeceptum. the Go­vernour [Page 30] is commanded to compell those within his gate to keepe the rest, and to punish refractory: Will God authorise any to punish those that doe not offend? and those doe not of­fend, you say, to whom the Law is not given: those do not offend that can no more transgresse a command, than the Oxe or Asse. Furthermore, Zanchy saith expresly, that though upon the Sabbath, the heathen which did not agree with the Iewes in the true religion, did not come to their assemblies to be partakers of the sacrifices, and to the per­formance of other parts of Gods service, which pertained to the sanctification of the Sabbath; yet they were comman­ded to rest upon that day, aswell as the homeborne Iewes: Iubebantur feriari eo die, quemadmodum & Iudaei indi­genae. and he giveth one reason of this command, which concer­neth the strangers themselves, namely, that they might af­ter some sort bee trained up in the knowledge of the Law of God Isti jubeban­tur non simplici­tèr quiescere: sed quiescere ut & ipsi suo modo Sabbatum san­ctificare possent. Id. ibid..

Fourthly, therefore you must know, that the same forme of words make not the like bond and obligation in a pre­cept; nor the precept the same: For besides all that I have said before in chap. 2. 3. The end not only differenceth the precept and proveth it a precept, or a priviledge, as here the end of the Oxes rest, as respecting the Oxe, is meerely rest; but of the servants, chiefely holinesse, which labour servile wholly thwarteth; but also the end giveth the precept its modification: for the end of the prohibition of the servants labor, being the sanctification of the day, the servant is here­by bound to rest and apply himselfe to holinesse and the master not only not to worke him, or to admonish him to sanctifie the day, but to compell him to the outward wor­ship.

Answer.

First, heere you deliver your Doctrine and your reason. Your Doctrine is this:

The labour of the servant on the Sabbath done at his ma­sters command is no more the servants sinne, than the labor of the Oxe is the Oxes sinne. This beastly prophane o­pinion deserves rather stripes than arguments: yet in a word or two:

The labour of the Oxe doth not violate the commande­ment of the Sabbath, but you acknowledge, the worke of the servant doth, when in the words of the next page (pag. 12.) you say thus of the servants worke this day, (the act in­deed, wherewith the commandement of the Sabbath is viola­ted, is the servants.)

The Law of nature it selfe requireth in general of all men, the sanctification of times no lesse than of places, persons, and things unto Gods honor: for which cause God exacts some parts of times by way of perpetuall homage, never to bee dispensed withall, nor remitted. Of this kind among the Iewes was the Sabbath day, the chiefe & generall festivall. Now Nature hath taught the Heathen, and God the Iewes, and Christ us (saith worthy Hooker Eccles. pol. l. 5. sect. 70. Hooker.) First, that festivall so­lemnities are a part of the publike exercise of Religion; se­condly, that praise, liberality and rest are as naturall ele­ments, whereof solemnities consist. The labor of the servant, [Page 32] though injoyned by his master, on this day violates the rest and so the sanctification of that time, indispensable, irremis­sable to any man who oweth it by way of perpetuall Ho­mage unto God, by the obligation of the Law of Nature. For ordinary labour with festivall services to God can nei­ther easily concurre, because painfulnesse and joy are oppo­site, nor decently, because while the mind hath just occasion to make her abode in the house of gladnesse, the weed of ordinary toyle and travell becommeth her not. Thus lear­ned Id. ibid. Hooker againe. Now can the masters command dis­solve the eternall Law, and the servant filching holy time be found lesse sinfull than one prophane and sacrilegious? But what kin betweene Oxen, Asses, and the everlasting Cove­nant and Holy times? Let them to their stalles, and servants as Christs freemen to the assemblies in the beauty of holi­nesse, as they will answer it to the God of Nature, the eter­nall Lawgiver.

When the servant hath no more soule than the oxe, nor holinesse and attendance on Gods worship required more of him, than of the oxe; nor the Sabbath made for man, but for the oxe, then shall the servants and oxes labour that day be alike faultlesse in either of them Servants be­ing created, re­d [...]emed and sanctified, are as highly in­debted to the worship of God as their ma­sters. Greenham of the Sabbath, pag. 163.. This of your Do­ctrine, which brings to my mind that of Hagur Prov. 30 2, 3., which I wish might bee the confession of every one that hath been infected with this dotage: Surely I am more bruitish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man: I neither learned wisedome, nor have the knowledge of the Holy.

Secondly, your reason is this:

That the servant as touching bodily service incident to mankind, is in like degree of subjection to his master, as is the oxe and asse.

This is abhorring to Christian, to naturall eares: no slave is so the masters.

It fights with that Rule; Whatsoever yee would that men should doe unto you, even so doe yee to them Matth. 7. 12., Mat. 7. 12. A perfect voluntary servitude betweene Christian and Christian can scarce be lawfull to be exercised on the ma­sters [Page 33] part, saith Amesius Ames. de con­sci. l. 5. cap. 23. parag. 2.. Yet this placeth not man in the condition of a beast for subjection.

It fights with that humanitie and lenitie which masters owe to their servants, with whom they may not deale im­periously as with their cattell. Ephes. 6. 9.

It fights with that restraint given to servants to obey their masters in the Lord, which cannot bee applied to beasts.

It fights with that liberty the servant hath, in things un­meet and inexpedient, though lawfull, humbly to use all meanes to prevent and avoide the commandement of that nature.

It fights with that liberty the servant hath humbly to contend with his master Iob 31. 13, 14..

It fights with that common honour both master and ser­vant are equally estated in by creation Vers. 15.; Did not hee that made the master in the wombe, make him? And did not one fashion them in the wombe?

It fights with the eternall Law in the fifth Commande­ment, in which the master of the servant is required, that he be to his servant in his manners a brother, in his office a fa­ther 2 King 5. 13., things incompatible to bruite beasts and man. Com­mand. 5. 2 King. 5.

Thirdly, and howsoever the condition of a slave was har­der than that of an ordinary servant, or one hired, yet our question hath been all this while of Iewish servants, and so of Christian servants; now the Iew in service might not bee used as a slave or bond-servant, but as an hired servant, as in Levit. 25. 39, 40.

The Iew that was a servant, was still a brother in Religi­on, and so to be used in his service and labour; not so the oxe.

Fourthly, for the duty of subjects to their superiours, to cleare the whole matter, these grounds I lay downe:

First, subjects are bound to obey their superiours onely in those things in which themselves are subjected to their supe­riors, & in which the superiors themselves, are not contrary [...] [Page 36] respect guiltinesse hath somewhat of good in it, and is of God: and in this regard God can separate guilt from sinne: But partly it followeth sinne as that which floweth from out of sinne, and is the desert and merit of punishment, and so it participates of the nature of sinne, and is quid vitiosum, a thing vitious: and in this respect it cannot bee separated from sinne. This double consideration of guiltinesse is in­timated in Rom. 1. 32. We know the judgement of God, that they which commit such things, are worthy of death. This is the nature of guiltinesse, but the forme of sinne can no way bee separated from sinne; and yet the sinne be sinne: that were a contradiction. The forme of sinne is in no respect good, that were likewise a contradiction.

Thirdly, besides this, you say first; there are two things in every sinne, the act and guilt, as the matter and forme; yet in the same breath you tell of three things in every sin, the Act, the Anomy or unlawfulnesse, and the Guilt.

This for the application of your Schoole-termes.

Fourthly, hence, you say, it appeareth manifestly, that his is the guiltinesse, whose the transgression is, and his the trans­gression to whom the law was prescribed as a Rule, and that is the masters, &c. what coherence is here? because guilti­nesse is, in your stile, the forme of sinne, therefore his is the guiltinesse whose is the transgression. Is guiltinesse and trans­gression all one, and is not transgression the forme of sinne? This is then in your owne sense, as much as to say, his is the sinne, whose is the sinne. A faire conclusion, but no mar­vaile you were thus puzled here, for your reasoning should thus have runne from your owne grounds: The Act where­with the commandement of the Sabbath is violated is the servants, therefore the guilt is the servants; for whoso vi­olates the Law, hee is guilty; and thus not only the master that commands the worke, but the servant that doth the work, violating the command of God, is guilty.

What followeth in this section of yours, hath been part­ly answered already, and followeth to bee answered below in its more proper place.

Answer.

First, this indeed is our just exception against your do­ctrine, that the commandement, though given chiefely to masters in those words of specification, authorising and ap­pointing them not onely to cease their labour by them­selves, or any under them, but to cause them to cease, and to cause them to sanctifie the day for outward conformity; yet is given also to, and imposed on sonne and daughter, man and maide: and when you aske for the expresse or implied precept, reaching them as servants, you have the same ex­pressely in that clause, thy servant shall not worke; and in that other, Thou shalt doe no worke, as hath been hitherto a­bundantly and unanswerably prooved, and is of plaine light to manifest it selfe. Therefore when you call the first clause of the comandement, thou shalt doe no worke, the clause of freemen; thereby implying, that the latter is of bondmen, [...] [Page 40] ding the losse of things, according to that in Deut. 22. Thou shalt bring home thy brothers erring oxe; and therefore a corporall worke, pertaining to preserve the health of ones owne body, doth not violate the Sabbath; as to eate, and such like, whereby the health of the body is preserved. So the Iewes fought, Macchab. 2. Elias travelled fleeing from Iezabel; and the Disciples pluckt the eares of Corne on the Sabbath, &c.

This Schooleman saith, that the bodily workes whereby man serveth man, of all other bodily labours are forbidden this day, and to the other the servant as well as the freeman is bound freely to apply himselfe. And that these workes of servants doe contrary the observance of the Sabbath, and hinder the application of the man that serves, to divine things.

Answer.

First, here begin your reasons; the first whereof is taken from the equitie and wisedome of God: and it stands thus in briefe; It was more equity and wisedome to impose the commandement on masters for their servants and children, rather than on the children and servants themselves, who are under their masters power and inforcement. Therfore what? You leave us to gather up the conclusion, for you may bee ashamed indeed of the consequence, which is this; There­fore it is against Gods wisedome and equitie to impose it on ser­vants and children also: it is more wisedome and equity to doe the one, you say, is it therefore against wisedome and equitie to doe the other also? If the first be more equall and wise, the second joyned to the first, is of equitie and wise­dome, and no rashnesse nor iniquitie, as you lavishly terme it. It is given to masters for their servants, you say, and rightly, is it therefore not intended to oblige servants also? Wee grant, it is more equity and wisedome to impose it chiefly on masters, that they insnare not the servants, and that they provide that the worship of God and his religion may bee kept a foot in the family, and all attend on God in the assemblies; insomuch that God will require of them, and the Church also, those that are under their charge: and not chiefly on the servants who have no authority over [Page 42] others, but are under the authority of another: but this hin­dreth not the imposing hereof on the servant also, who shall answer for his owne soule to God, and cannot bee excused by the command of his master.

Secondly, but in your discourse divers things suffer excep­tion as most unsound, as; First, that they are meerely under their masters power; this confuted before in Chap. 5.

Secondly, that they are under their power for service onely: which is most false; for in this fourth Commande­ment they are put under their power directive and coactive for duties of Religion. And this your position overthrowes the power of Princes over their subjects in matters of Reli­gion. A wicked doctrine.

Thirdly, that they cannot justly performe any labour their masters forbid. They may in case the masters life or livelihood be in manifest hazzard, by obeying the masters prohibition, as in Abigaïls case 1 Sam. 25. 18, 19.. They may lift their neigh­bor out of a pit, or save him from some imminent danger or losse, though the master should forbid it.

Fourthly, that they may not omit any labour which their masters command. They may omit the labour which will manifestly creeple them, and ought to doe it by vertue of the sixth Commandement, Thou shalt not kill. And so that phrase of yours in pag. 9. l. 7. (overset with sixe dayes toyle) if spoken as a thing lawfull on the masters part to overset his servant, is sinfull. Againe, they may omit the labour that is against the commandement of an higher power, as Thomas Aquinas sheweth in his Summes 22^a. q. 104. art. 5.

Fiftly, that servants are vtterly void of power and liberty to obey the commandement of God, in resting on the Sab­bath when their master bids them worke.

This is manifestly false: for,

First, if they are not void of liberty to refuse workes that will creeple them on any day, then much lesse are they not void of liberty to refuse such workes on that day. They are not void of liberty to refuse such uncessant imployments as will not give them leave to take breath, in as much as that [Page 43] will kill them. Now to worke the seventh day too, is to have no time to take breath, as the phrase is in Exod. 23. 12. That the sonne of thy hand-maid and the stranger may take breath. And so in the other cases forementioned.

Secondly, they have power to refuse a thing unlawfull: but the servants worke that day is a thing unlawfull: for it is forbidden, as your selfe acknowledges.

Thirdly, they are here for this day restored to freedom, by this that the Lord commands the master not to work them.

Fourthly, they have no power to sell themselves from Gods solemne worship and service, and such a bargaine is void, if it were made, ipso facto, nor did ever the Law of na­tions so bind the servant to his master, and make him so to be his masters.

Fifthly, if the master bid the servant do any thing which is either contrary to piety, or repugnant to a servants duty, he is not bound to obey Si herus jubeat servum aliquid facere, quod aut pietati contrari­um, aut à servili officio alienum sit, non tenetur parere; quia do­minus non debuit talia imperare: rectè igitur Hie­ronymꝰ hanc ex­ceptionem appo­suit, per omnia; nimirum, (inquit ille) in quibus do­minus carnis, Domino spiritus contraria non imperat. Dave­nant in Col. c. 3. v. 2 [...]., because the master ought not to command such things. Rightly therefore S. Hierom annex­ed this exception to the Apostles (In all things) to wit (saith hee) in which the master according to the flesh, doth not command things contrary to the master of our spirit. Now these commands of the master are of this nature, and where the master ought not to command, the servant is not bound to obey; the master here, you confesse, ought not to com­mand, then the servant is not bound to obey; and thus, be­ing a freeman, by your former doctrine the commandement is in force upon him, and hee sinneth, if he worke at his ma­sters command this day.

Thirdly, and as these grounds are wicked, which you in­terlace your argument withall, and therefore do not streng­then, but weaken your reason, so where your ground is good, your consequence is naught. This is indeed true which you say, that the master hath over his servant a coactive and corrective power. But what a miserable consequence is this? Masters have a coactive power; therfore there is no wisdom, justice or equitie in the Almighty to give a cōmandement to a servant in obeying whereof he is lyable to the stripes of a [Page 44] wicked master. Nay, God requires servants to undergoe wrongfull buffetings patiently, 1 Pet. 2. 18, 19. and yet hee is wise, and just, and equall in so doing.

Answer.

First, in this continuance of your former reason, partly you charge our doctrine, and partly you cleare your owne. First, you charge ours as occasioning servants disobedience to their masters, and servants punishment by their masters, and the breach of the Law of nations: but yours, as you say, prevents all this. Wee affirme, that the giving of the commandement of the Sabbath to servants as well as to masters, though to masters as those that should preserve this Law, if those under them would violate it, occasioneth none of these three evils: First, it occasioneth not any disobedi­ence to masters; for at the most it giveth but power to the servant submissely to refuse the unlawfull command of his master, and not to cast off subjection to his authoritie: to the first he is not bound, and therefore is not disobedient when hee obeyeth not, but on the contrary, if he should [Page 45] yeeld to doe the thing that is unlawfull, he is a man pleaser. And to the second he yeelds himselfe in his submisse refusall, and acknowledgeth his power to the full, when he gives up himselfe that day to bee commanded by him in things per­taining to the worship of God, in which thing alone God hath allowed the master the acting or execution of his power over his servant for that day. The reason hereof your selfe suggests, when you say, the servant remaines in his ma­sters power no lesse this day, than any other, but to other and better ends, unto which ends, viz. respecting the wor­ship of God, you confesse the masters power, for the time, is determined in respect of the execution thereof. And who seeth not then, that if the execution of their power bee bounded, the servant is not to fulfill the boundlesse and un­lawfull puttings forth of that power; here it is enough to be a patient meerely, and by no meanes an agent. So then the servant remaineth no lesse in the masters power, but to higher ends, but more free to Gods service, while the master may not call him off by unjust exactions. And so farre is this from occasioning any disobedience, that it occasioneth, and properly effecteth in the servants heart a conscionable, and produceth in his life an entire and singlehearted obedi­ence to his master as to the Lord. Inasmuch as they are here­by brought to the house of God where they learn all duty to God and man, though their master should bee wicked, and so returne to their masters fruitful, faithfull and conscio­nable serving them, not with eye-service, but with all up­rightnesse, to which the feare of God will bind them. But the unfaithfull to God will be unfaithfull to man. Oh the wisedome of God that provides for particular men and so­cieties by this his Law, better than they could or would for themselves. Secondly, this occasioneth not any punish­ment wilfully incurred, if then it come, it may patiently, yea, joyfully be borne; for this is thanke-worthy with God 1 Pet. 2. 18. 19.. But we see by experience, that as religious observing the duties of the Sabbath maketh one faithfull in his Calling all the weeke; and as fideli [...]ie is in it selfe amiable, and to the ma­ster [Page 46] profitable, so many evill and covetous masters will wil­lingly chuse such servants, & give them willingly that liber­ty on the Sabbath, which themselves care not for, nor feare sinfully to forgoe. Moreover, if any master should bestow blowes on his servant for going to Church, when his master on the Sabbath commands him to the works of his calling; this very precept requireth the Magistrate to relieve the ser­vant against the injury of a wicked master, when it giveth the Magistrate charge to see the Sabbath kept by all with­in his gate, and the supreme Magistrate to punish the infe­riour Magistrates neglects, or injust impositions, as wee see in Nehemiah, who contended with the Nobles for propha­ning the Sabbath by unjust impositions of worke upon in­feriours. And so you see also the justice and equity of God in providing for the servant both in soule and body.

Thirdly, for the Law of Nations, if you take it stricktly and properly, it is simply and universally a positive Law, as saith Iohn de Salas Ius gentium est simpliciter & u­niversè jus posi­tivū. Ioh. de Sa­las tract. de. leg. q. 91. disp. 2. sect. 3., and is thus described by Zuarez, it is the common Law of all Nations, not by instinct of nature alone, but constituted and ordained by their use Et jus cōmune omnium genti­um non instinctu solius naturae sed usu earum consti­tu [...]um. Zuarez de leg. l. 2. c. 19.. It is that which al Nations wel-ordered, do use: for use requiring, and humane necessities, Nations of men have ordained to them­selves certaine Rites or Lawes. Of this sort of Lawes these examples are reckoned up by Isidore Ius Gentium est sedium occu­patio, aedificatio, munitio, bella, captivitates, ser­vitutes, postlimi­nia, foedera pa­cis, induciae, lega­torum non vio­landorum reli­gio, cōnubia inter alienigenas pro­bibita. Isid. Orig. l. 5. c. 6., first, possessions, or the taking up of our abodes; secondly, building; thirdly, munition; fourthly, warres; fifthly, captivity; sixthly, servi­tude; seventhly, recovery of possessions lost, or alienated un­lawfully; eighthly, covenants of peace; ninthly, truces; tenthly, the care not to violate embassadours; eleventhly, marriages forbidden with them of another Nation. Now that the imposing of this commandement of the Sabbath on servants also should occasion the breach of the Law of Nations is a meere pretence: for the Law of Nations could never charge servants with such a subjection as should crosse and cast out the worship of God, so that the servant should be so obliged to his master, that of conscience and necessity the servant of a wicked master must bee left in a [Page 47] condition, wherein he should never have power to frequent the solemne worship of God, as will of necessity follow, if he be alwayes, absolutely, as you teach, his masters. Shew me whether ever the Nations generally, nay, ever any one Nation well ordered, gave such a Law? If no such Law or­dained, it is no way of the Law of Nations: if not ordai­ned, it is much more absonant from Natures instinct. I say, such a thing could never possibly be found among the Na­tions of men, it is so abhorring to Nature: but if men could so farre and so universally degenerate, yet this without all controversie determines this case: Ius Gentium quum sit positi­vum, non potest derogare juri na­turae. Ioh. de Sa­las tract. de leg. q. 91. disp. 2. sect. 5. the Law of Nations being a positive Law and humane, though brought in by the custome of Nations, cannot, nor must derogate from a Law of Nature. Now the Law of Nature binds all men, even servants as servants to serve God solemnely on the times he shall call for their homage from them indispensa­bly, as on this day he doth, and to this end to be vacant and free from bodily labours that are servile for that time. The Decalogue is the Law of Nature, it chargeth servants in the fourth and fifth Commandements; the duties there requi­red servants stand bound unto, and to them first as the rules of the Law of Nature, to other duties after, under, and in re­ference to them, if any such be agreed upon, and constituted by the Nations: but if Nations should constitute any thing against any duty in the ten Commandements, it is not a Law: for that is no Law which is not just Ius non est, quod non est justum & rectum▪ non lex sed faex: non lex, sed labes: non lex sed lis. and right; it is perversenesse, no Law: it is not Law, but lees, but strife, but a destroyer, but error, but tiranny, any thing rather than Law, as all the learned conclude. If you, or any can shew such a Law, or rather lees of Nations, blessed be God in his wisedome, justice and equity for ever, who by his eternall Law freeth poore servants from such tyrannous exact▪ on.

Secondly, as our doctrine is wine that comes of the pure grape, so yours is the poyson of Dragons pressed from the vine of Sodome: for I affirme, that it produceth all the for­mer evils: For this, That the servant is left, even the Sabbath day also meerely in his masters power to be obedient to [Page 48] his commands for servile works; first, it would occasion re­bellion in the servant through bitternesse of soule arising from an unsupportable burden; secondly, and so from thence just punishment on the servant, if the masters strength can reach them to inflict it, or from superiour Magistrates; and thirdly, evert the Law of Nations, by striking at the life of Religion and Societies in the first and fundamentall society, viz. a family; and in one of the most necessary props of that society, viz. master and servant. From this likewise it will follow, that God shall be neglected by the servant, through neglect of holinesse, and that the servant of an unjust master shall no way be provided for, in respect of his refreshing, no not so well as the oxe or asse: for God will be the avenger of that injustice, his poore creature be­ing mercilesly used, but for this, God, you say, provides, that the servant must of conscience obey, and so Gods justice, wisedome, goodnesse, and the ends of giving the comman­dement in regard of the servant shall bee impeached, and wholly frustrate.

Thirdly and lastly, you overthrow your owne Tenet: for if the execution of that power be bounded for that day, as you rightly teach, how is the servant to obey the unjust usage of their power? For if hee have no power to com­mand, the servant may refuse to obey, and must, both be­cause in this respect the servant is made a freeman, and so under the obligation of Gods command by your owne confession; and Quisque ex tharitate propria tenetur non a­mittere liberta­tem sine gravi causa. Ioh. de Sal. tract. de leg. q. 91. disp. 2. Sect. 5. because every one of charity to himselfe is bound not to lose his liberty, without some weighty cause, but to enjoy and use it rather where he may be free 1 Cor. 7. 21.; and because the power the master in this case takes, he usur­peth, nor is it of God, but is turned directly against him. I say, therefore if the masters power be determined, the ser­vant is freed; but if he have power, how is it notwithstan­ding herein determined? Againe, if the master must not on­ly discharge the servant of worke, but in stead thereof charge him to the exercises of holinesse; the servant must needs in obeying his masters sinfull command of working, flee off [Page 49] from his charge and power, to charge him at that time of his so labouring, in the duties of holinesse, seeing no man can doe two things (chiefly of this nature) at once.

Answer.

First, here I have to say against both the manner and the maine of your arguing: For the manner; first, you play the Sophister egregiously, the question is, whether it be gi­ven onely to masters, and not to servants? And you take the rise of your reasoning from hence, that the commande­ment (according to our opinion) is given to servants only, and not to masters; and therefore you talke (that you might put a glosse upon your reasoning, and make the con­trary appeare the more foule, of the commandement of the servants cessation, not touching the master. The commande­ment given to themselves, not to their masters? This is meere cavilling: for who ever thought or dreamt, save your selfe, much lesse held, that the commandement was not given to their masters, though it were given to the servants also. A­gaine, you seeme to promise the servant liberty, but indeed make him the bond-slave to his masters unlawfull com­mands: and while you would free him from blowes of an injurious master, you free him (if it may bee called free­dome) from the service of God, which is perfect freedome.

Secondly, for the maine of your reason, it is thus: to give the commandement to servants also, is against the good­nesse of God; for it casts the servant upon stripes or sinne: I answer: Doth the commandement cast any upon sinne? If it any way provoke, or revive sinne, it is by accident, be­cause a spirituall, just, and good Law meets with a carnall heart, sold under sinne Rom. 7. 11, 12.. Sinne taketh occasion by the com­mandement [Page 51] the commandement doth not cause sinne. Had you had Pauls spirit, you would have justified the Law, and laid load upon the flesh and corrupt nature as out of measure sinfull, and have advised all youth to cleanse their wayes by taking heed thereto according to Gods word Psal. 119. 9.: and not goe about to fill greene heads with crot­chets. Yea, but if they sinne not, but obey, stripes attend them, and this is against the mercy of God. Indeed? Is this your stumbling blocke? It is then against his goodnesse that Hagar Gen. 16. 6, 9. should returne to her Mistris and submit her selfe. It is against his pitty, that the Apostle from Gods spi­rit should require servants to suffer buffetings that come un­deserved, 1 Pet. 2. 19. It is against goodnesse to be happy; for blessed are yee (saith Christ) when ye suffer despightfull usage for righteousnesse sake Mat. 5. 11, 12.. It is against goodnesse, that any man should be, or doe good, inasmuch as some wicked men will persecute a man for that good. Why should the pitifull God require that which will cast us on the wheele, greediron, racke, fire and faggot, and what not that is of tor­ment and torture? Oh divelish, earthly and sensuall reaso­ning. This is farre from our Saviours Doctrine and Spirit, the King of Sion, meeke and having salvation, who bids us Luk. 14. 26, 27, take up our crosse daily, and hate father and mother, and our owne lives, as ever we meane to be worthy of him, and find life to life eternall. Such sufferings are to Gods glory, and to our glory. Our Saviour premeditating of his suffe­rings, said, Father, glorifie thy Name; that is, saith Chryso­stome [...]. Chrysost. in Ioh. 12. 28., Leade me now to the Crosse: the Crosse he calleth, glory, saith Ammonius [...]. Am­monius.. Glorifie thy sonne; that is, doe not forbid him now hastening to death, assent to thy sonne herein for the profit of all, saith Cyrill [...]. Cyril. in Ioh.. We have an excel­lent Chapter in Lactantius his Institutions answering this se [...]suall argument upon another occasion, for the povertie and afflictions and unjust persecutions of the Church, and the prosperity of Idolaters and Heathen might seeme to proove the worship of God to bee vaine, and the Rites of gods or idols to be true, because their worshippers enjoyed [...] [Page 54] brought. Therefore that Starre in the firmament of your reasoning (whose condition is yet honest and lawfull) shooteth and falleth.

Yea, but you say, the point you stand on, is not, how much better it is to obey God than man, but how the com­mand, requiring obedience in a thing that will cast us into the hands of wicked men, can stand with the goodnesse of God. This is the point that all this while I have han­dled: reade and see how.

Fourthly, and for a recompence, when you talke so free­ly of mischiefes and inconveniences, free your Doctrine of them if you can. For if the servant must obey his masters unlawfull commands of worke on that day, I say, hee can­not doe it, but he falleth into mischiefe; for he is sold from Gods service and the Covenant of God, (Esay 56. 6. Every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, taketh hold of Gods Covenant) if a master be wicked; and into inconvenience, for he hath no breathing time: he cannot leave it undone, but hee falleth into stripes and sinne at once, without any support from God or man.

Therefore your Conclusion, that all is avoided by this your dreame is most untrue, neither Scripture nor reason fa­voureth your opinion, and in this you suffer the just re­proofe of 2 Pet. 2. 12. Iude 8. Peter and Iude, you are one of the filthy drea­mers. Lactantius saith of Plato, that because hee talked much of one God that made the world, but nothing of Re­ligion and his worship, that hee dreamed, and knew not God Somniaverat enim Deum non cognoverat. Lact. Instit. l. 5. c. 15.. How much more doe you dreame and know not God that talke of him to evert his worship?

Answer.

Let the reader remember, that you here yeeld, that if the commandement be imposed on servants, then they sinne in wor­king this day at their masters command. Now this hitherto hath been proved, and all plainly answered that may seeme to make against it: and so I proceed.

First, the worke forbidden is; First, service, which is per­mitted on the sixe daies; Six daies shalt thou serve. Second­ly, servile worke, in which, and about which the messenger is imployed; so the notation of the word in the comman­dement which you cite doth properly signifie. Thirdly, all thy worke: as opposed to workes of sanctification, that is, of piety and mercy properly, though they bee not servile worke properly so called, or mechanicall, as the study and exercise of the Liberall Arts; for these concerne naturall and civill things, and looke not immediatly to the worship of God, nor the unavoidable necessities of man. It is apparant then, that servile workes, or workes of ministry about our callings, and so servants worke, is in a speciall manner prohi­bited. Now then take your owne argument. The worke permitted on the sixe daies, is prohibited the seventh; the [...] [Page 62] in sense with the middle word, with which it is the selfe same in sound. If the first, then it is opposed to all that dutie of the Sabbath which consists in the immediate honour of God, done with the full complacency of hart therein, and the honorable mention of it in our words and discourse, as is cleare in the Text to him that duly weigheth it. Now say, Is not the servants conteined in this word (thy pleasure) as that which is no duty of Gods worship, publike or private? If the second, then it is not al that is forbidden (and so your ar­gument fals; but rather concernes (as many learned and con­scionable Divines deliver our works of recreation, or sports which we finde out, though at other times lawfull, which take off the heart from holy duties; for God hath found us another recreation; chiefely on that day, if any will be merry, let him sing Psalmes (as in Ps. 92. The Title compared with the Psalme) & would have the Sabbaths duties our delight.

Fourthly, Now whereas you lay this for a ground, that the election of mans will is the proper forme of actuall sin, I wonder how you should so mistake, but that Divinity was not your covenanted Wife, but only your Concubine, which for a turne you use, and in the use you ravish. Ataxy or irre­gularity is the proper forme of sinne actuall, be the Ataxy in thoughts, in desires, in deeds, or in words. Moreover, ele­ction of the will is an act, and good, and therefore by no meanes the forme of sinne: and if you say, you speake not of election, but this election, namely, the unruly and inor­dinate election; tell me, is the election or the unrulinesse the forme of sinne; unrulinesse doubtlesse, which informeth both the election that is sinnefull, and the action that is sin­full. And whereas you say, that outward unlawfull actions are but expressions of sinne, and not sinne properly; if they bee unlawfull actions, they bee sinnefull actions properly so called, for you yeelded before, according to the truth of Scripture, and reason (pag. 12.) that sinne formally is nothing else but unlawfulnesse: unlesse you will say, that sinne for­mally is not sinne properly: A proper position.

For your reason whereby you would maintaine this [Page 63] (that sinne hath her residence and inhesion in the soule it selfe, and passeth forth of it, the actions outward carry one­ly the tincture of sinne, therefore they are not sinne) I re­ply: If they carry the tincture of sinne, then are they sinne­full. Againe, are they died with sinne, and yet hath sinne no inhesion nor residence in them. This is strange: and for the residence of sinne, it is not in the soule alone: Peccat um est in [...]bjecto occasi­on [...]liter, in in­tellectu origina­liter, in volunta­te formaliter, in membris quoad usum. Saint Paul saith, the law of sinne is in our members, Rom. 7. 23. and wee know sinne commeth by propagation, but the soule is not propagated, only the body commeth, and is traduced from the parents, I would know where, in this propagation, sinne hath its inhesion, and whether an unfitnesse, and perverse­nesse fighting with the rightnesse and aptnesse God appro­veth, bee not traduced, and doe not naturally sticke in the very bodily faculties?

And when you say sinne only consisteth in the exorbitan­cy of the will, it is most false; sounder philosophy refelleth this, for Aristotle Arist. lib. 3. Ethic. c. 1. excuseth not from a fault, the things that are offended in, or done amisse against ones will through ig­norance: and Divinity teacheth, that errors in judgement and ignorances Ignorantia ex­c [...]sat, non a toto sed à tanto. (when it is of things which of dutie wee should know) are sinnes, that the want of originall righte­ousnesse, and the defects of graces are sinne. And Thomas ^d saith, that so is every habit, and Act deprived of due order. The habit also of sinne is first in the understanding, because all sinne commeth from error which is in the understanding; consider it also in its absolute act without working with the will, so sinne is firstin it. Vpon such rotten props, what buil­ding can bee reared? Yet let us take notice of your reaso­ning for further satisfaction to all, and the utter subversion of this new learning. It stands thus.

The minister of another mans sinne, being but the minister of ano­thers exorbitant will, no further sinneth, than his owne will concur­reth thereunto.

The servant doing his masters worke on the Sabbath, not of ele­ction, but in obedience to his master, is but the minister of anothers exorbitant will, and his owne will no way concurreth therewith; ther­fore, so doing hee sinneth not. [...] [Page 66] instrument in the workes of his Master and conferreth also will: I an­swere; he conferreth will indeede if hee be a good servant, by reason of the obligation of obedience wherein he standeth to his master, but yet not absolute but conditionall will: not the selfe election, but only the obedience an yeelding of his will; and th [...] onely as it is his ma­sters worke: not as it is his masters sinne; for the worke on the Saba­oth, hauing sinne annexed to it, and so being a sinnefull worke, the servant and the mastster must divide it betwixt them: the worke is the servants, and the sinne is the masters, for the servant doth but his duty, in obeying his masters commandemet, but the master transgres­seth his, in disobeying Gods commandement, touching his servants ceasing from that labour.

Answer.

First, why should we feare to say, the eye beholding va­nitie sinneth, and so of the tongue loose to blaspheme, slan­der, and lye? For, first, they move irregularly; secondly, they are the weapons of sin; thirdly, in them sin is finished, to the bringing forth of death both on body and soule; fourthly, these are the sinnes of both body and soule, and not of either apart; fifthly, the sinne is made greater by the outward acting, in respect of the extent thereof, it having now invaded the body, and not onely possessed the soule: so that there is filthinesse of flesh, aswell as of the spirit, 2 Cor. 7. 1. and in respect of the dammage it bringeth to others, either by way of scandall and offence, or by some reall discommodity, as slaughter, defamation, with the like: sixthly▪ and hence it is, that certaine punishments are right­ly inflicted for the outward acting of some sinne, which ne­ver could have place for the inward sinne alone, as divorce is rightly inflicted for the act of adultery, that cannot bee so for the intent of it. And thus the Scripture chargeth the members of the body, eyes full of adultery 2 Pet▪ 2. 14., the tongue is a world of wickednesse Iam. 3. 6., Rivers of water run downe mine eyes because they (that is, mine eyes) keepe not thy Law Psa. 119. 136.. Your hands are full of blood Esay 1. [...]5.. I doubt not but the Scripture spea­keth more exactly than you. You would bee thought to speake properly when you say, These workes are the sinnes of the dissolute mind: but neither Philosophy nor Divinitie [Page 67] will admit it: for we may not say, The will sinneth, the body sinneth: but thus, The man sinneth. For actions are spoken, and are the acts of the subject persons Actiones sunt suppositorum.: it is not a proper speech to say, The body sleepeth, but, The man sleepeth: The soule understandeth, but, The man. And the Scripture phrase inclineth more to this, The eye sinneth; than this, the will sinneth. For that saying, The soule that sinneth shall die, Ezek. 18. is meant thus, the person or man that sinneth; as in that phrase, so many soules went downe into Egypt, Genes. 46. 26. Now from this it followeth▪ that not onely in lying the tongue is abused, as the senselesse creature is abused by a sinner, but (inasmuch as the body and soule are but one man, and make one person whose are the a [...]ious and works good or bad) the body and members thereof have their share in the very sinne, in the irregularity, filth, and guilt of it, and so shall find it by the punishment hereafter, and doe fine it by the punishment that seazeth on the body here: and though the members bee instruments of the soule, yet not such as can bee separated from the man; for the body and soule are essentiall parts of man.

Secondly, and for objecting, first, I would retort upon you your owne argument: if the naturall instrument, that in your opinion sinneth not, (as the tongue lying, lyeth not, a sottish speech) yet it is charged with sinne in the Scrip­ture, it is punished for sinne here, and hereafter, and is pollu­ted with sinne: then how much more is the voluntary in­strument charged, polluted, and shall be punished, that can­not worke in evill, but must needs bring will to the worke, and election too in some sort.

Thirdly, for your objection and solution: the objection is this, The servant is a voluntary instrument, not so the eye, or hand in the body; therefore from the hand to the servant will not hold. You solve and salve it thus; The servant con­ferreth will, but thus and thus; as a conditionall will, a wil o­beying, not selfe-electing, a will to the work, not to the sin; therefore a naturall instrument and such a voluntary are all one. This can never bee made good; for by your owne [Page 68] confession, such an instrument is in part voluntary, and so is not the naturall instrument.

Besides the maine of your answer lyeth in this, that to obey the master in his worke, and not in his sinne, is law­full; you yeeld then that if it be a sinne; no conditionall or halfe-election will serve to free him, that so chuseth it, from being a sinner. I urge not onely the masters commanding of worke that day is sinne, but the worke of the master that day is forbidden to be done, and so is sinne. There the con­ditionall, halfe, or under will, the obeying will of the ser­vant (if he worke) will not excuse him from sinne. For no­thing taketh away voluntarinesse from a deed, but absolute violence of compulsion, and a meere casualty that could not be foreseene or foreheeded. As if one be compelled to bend the knee (by force his knee bowed by others) before an Idoll; or if one kill another by meere chance, Deut. 19. 5, 6, 10.

Fourthly, for that speech where you say, The worke on the Sabbath hath sinne annexed to it, it is not right; for the worke on the Sabbath is sinne, that circumstance of time, on the Sabbath, is the forme of it. And this indeed must bee divided betweene the master and the servant, as both their sinnes; the masters in commanding, the servants in work­ing. But to divide sinne from servile worke on the Sabbath that they should not meet in the same person, neither ma­ster, nor servant, nor all the oxen in the Gate are able with Cart-ropes to doe. I pray you note; the worke (say you) is the servants, the sinne is the masters. Why, the worke is the sinne, and is it not the servants then?

Answer.

First, that place is to be understood of the presumptuous offender as appeareth in Numb. 15. 35, 36. with that in vers. 30, 31. The soule that doth ought presumptuously, re­proacheth the Lord, and shall be cut off. For if the sinne were of ignorance, infirmity and errour, he was bound to bring a sinne-offring, vers. 27, 28. thus the Iewes under­stand that place in Exodus. Now the servants worke at the masters command will not come under a wilfull and presumptuous sinne: yet that law sheweth this truth, that men for breach of Sabbath shall be punished according to the nature of their offence, so shall he that forgoeth Gods to doe his masters worke. This is the true Answere, you meerly trifle, and therefore the force of the objection lieth still upon you, and your Answere falls like an untimely fruite or rotten nut. And your hard cases (for they seeme full of pitty, and yet would have a servant to be in the con­dition of a beast) are meer conceits. And for that phrase of yours, saying, The servants may be compelled to work by men, speaking there of such worke as the fourth commandement hath forbidden, doth contradict your former Tenet ex­pressely, who say, that the master may not command his servant to worke: may he not command him? and may he yet compell him? Good stuffe I promise you.

Secondly, in this place also seeing you offer to our thoughts Gods judiciall Law, and so his judiciary procee­ding, I urge you with the just hand of Gods yengeance that lighteth oftentimes on children and servants working at the command of their parents and masters on that day. God punisheth none but those that offend lesse or more. But this ungodlinesse he hath punished from heaven. And all wise Christians will esteeme more of one Demonstration of Gods wrath, than of two hundered sophisticated Rhetoricall Demonstrations of any Disputer in the world. At Kimstat a towne in France, Iob. si [...]col. l. 3. De mirac. there lived in the yeere, [Page 99] 1559. a certaine covetous woman, who was so greedy of gaine, that shee would not frequent the Church her selfe, nor suffer any of her family to doe it, but continually toy­led a bout drving and pilling of flaxe, and doing other hous­hold businesses: neither would she bee reclaimed by her neighbours, who admonished and disswaded her from such unseasonable workes. One Sabbath day as they were thus busily occupied, fire seemed to issue out of the flaxe, without doing any hurt: The next Sabbath it tooke fire indeed, but was quickly extinct: Yet this wretch continu­ed obstinate in her prophanenesse even the third Sabbath, when the flax againe taking fire, could not bee quenched till it burnt her and two of her children to death, for though they were recovered out of the fire alive, yet the next day they all three died; and that which was much to be won­dred at, a young infant in the cradle was taken out of the midst of the flame without any hurt. God we see, tooke vengeance on the children that wrought at the mothers commandement. Are there not strange punishments for the workers of iniquitie Iob 31. 3.? Above fifty persons were con­sumed in the fire which burnt the towne of Fevertone in Devonshire, in the yeere 1598. where 400. dwelling houses were all at once on fire and consumed for their hor­rible prophanation of the Lords day. Can any thinke that of those fifty, none were children and servants, whose worke that day had been usually abused?

Here also, Christian Reader, I thought it my part to lay before thy more serious consideration these notable and late examples of Gods wrath from heaven against mens ungodlinesse on the Sabbath day. [...] [Page 102] Blackesmith by trade, (he is yet alive, the Lord give him an heart to repent, and all the Towne to learne by that hand of God) this woman was with her yong childe in her armes within her owne gate looking on them: and so it was that while she looked on, one of the greatest ropes failed and broke, and the Pole fell downe upon the pale that parteth their gate and the streete, and the upper end of it with the fall, lapped over, and strucke the childe on the head in the mothers armes, and killed it. It was the edge of the weather-cocke that hit the childe on the head, (marke it well) and cleft the skull, and it dyed the next day.

It is time for thee Lord to worke, for men have made voide thy Law. Psal. 119. 126.

The Lord is known by the judgement which he executeth: The wicked is snared in the worke of his owne hands. Higgai­on. Selah. Psal. 9. 16.

That place in Exo. 23. 12. which commeth in on the left side is abusively rendred by you when you read, that thy son and thy maide may be refreshed, whereas it is thus in the text, the sonne of thine handmaid: and when you say, it is manifest that the servants worke is accounted the masters; seeing the rest from the masters worke is the refreshing of the servant, is it not as manifest that it is the servants, when the rest is his refreshing? For by another rest▪ I am not re­freshed, if I worke: and what if in some respects it may be called the masters worke, is it therefore no sinne in the ser­vant to doe it? This is a begging of the question, and a shame in a professed Disputant.

Answer.

You proceed, and would prove this wicked assertion, That it is no breach of any Divine commandement, for a ser­vant at the commandement of his master, nay, for any one on his owne head, to worke on our Sabbath, which is the Lords day, the first day of the weeke.

First, the commandement, say you, cannot be understood of the Lords day. Why I pray you, can you understand it of any other day save the Sabbath day? Doth not the te­nor of the precept sound thus, Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it? You yeeld in the next breath, that the Lords day is the Christians Sabbath. You must then yeeld, that the commandement is understood of it. You would bee thus understood, and take it very hainously, that you should be said to oppose Gods Sabbath, do you? No: you doe not, nor ever did. Farre bee it from you; to thinke it, were to wrong you; to write it, were to calumniate you (thus you pleade for your selfe in the first section of your Reply, pag. 61, 62.) Yet lo, now the commandement cannot be un­derstood of the Lords day? Why then, say man, the Lords day is not the Sabbath; for of the Sabbath is the comman­dement.

Secondly, but to your reasoning; for it is not reason nor religion.

What day was it of which the charge was so strictly gi­ven? was it not of the seventh day of the weeke, say you? Yes indeed, of the seventh, as the precept was first applied to man. But aske againe, Why of the seventh more than the sixth? And the Lord answereth, Because it was the Sab­bath of the Lord: for whē it ceaseth to be the Lords Sabbath, the commandement is not of it, (as you also acknowledge, or else why keepe you it not?) Yet the commandement standeth in full vigor, viz. of sanctifying▪ and resting on the Sabbath. To the Iewes the seventh from the Creation was the Sabbath, the commandement stood in vigor to them for that day: to the Christian, the seventh, even the first [Page 117] day of the weeke is the Sabbath: the commandement stands in vigor to them also for that day. Therefore he saith not, Remember thou sanctifie the seventh day, and keep it Sab­bath; nor, thou shalt doe no worke on the Sabbath day, for it is the seventh: but he saith, Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it; and, Thou shalt do no worke▪ on the seventh, for it is the Sabbath. This Reason you leape, and yet you aske a Why; And why the seventh? Because God rested thereon, and sanctified the seventh day. Here you violate first, the words of the commandement written with Gods owne finger, and then the sense; for it is thus read, Exod. 20. 11. Therefore hee sanctified the Sabbath day, or resting day, and so hee sanctified our Sabbath day as well as theirs: for, the Sabbath he sanctified, be it what day hee shall be pleased to nominate: a matter of infinite comfort to us, that desire to doe the duties of the day with faith, in Gods both blessing, and acceptation. And hereby your con­clusion is utterly weakened.

Thirdly, this reason is given both as a reason of the rest on that day, and as a plaine declaration of the institution of that Sabbath day, and of this day in the precept now. Hee rested the seventh day, Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sab­bath day and hallowed it. When did hee so? Gen. 2. 3. In the beginning. Yea, he did sanctifie the seventh. Yea, then he sanctified the Sabbath, it was instituted, when he blessed and sanctified it, and this was in the Creation. But how was this done? The very worke of the day instituted the day, which was this, the Lords resting, blessing, and sanctify­ing it. Now this teacheth us, that the institution of the Sab­bath, in respect of the determination of the time, is to bee looked for, in the worke of God. Gods resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day, made it the Sabbath day: there­fore in the commandement it is said, The seventh is the Sab­bath, and the following words shew how it was made the Sabbath, and what day he blesseth, and sanctifieth, is the Sab­bath. Now Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, by whom the worlds were made, Col. 1. 16. by whom also they are renew­ed, [Page 218] looke in his worke, and find undoubtedly the making and institution of the day to the world renewed; the se­venth day he lay in the grave, here was no worke of bles­sing and sanctifying; but the first day of the weeke very early he arose, and appeared to his Disciples; and unfolded the Scriptures, and opened their understandings to understand them.

The fourth commandement (to speake all clearely) stands in Nomine Sab­bathi nobis sig­nificatur, quòd in nostris debea­mus & nos Sab­bathiꝭ [...], Hoc est quiescere ab illis operibus, à qui­bus & Iudaei quiescere jube­bantur. Zanch. de red. l. 1. c. 19. force to us, and the Lords resurrection, resting from the worke of our redemption, and rejoycing in it, bles­sing it with that worke, with divers apparitions that very day, and sanctifying it with spending it among his Disciples in his presence bodily, now glorified, in heavenly expositions and operations upon their hearts, and in the returne of the day many times, and in speciall, upon the returne of it at Whitsontide with the mission of the Holy Ghost. This, I say, applieth, and determineth it to this day we now observe▪ And as the Iewes are sent to seeke the precise day in the Lords resting from the workes of Creation, so we are sent to the rest, from the worke of redemption. The institution of this day is clearely in the very worke of the Resurrection, as the institution of the seventh day, was in the worke of fi­nishing the Creation.

This hath been anciently taught, and still is sparsed in the writings of the godly learned.

S. Augustine saith, Domini resus­citatio promisit nobis aeternum diem, & conse­cravit nobis Do­minicum Domi­ni. Qui vocatur Dominicus, ipse propriè videtur ad Dominum pertinere, quia eo die Dominus resurrexit. Aug. de verbis Apost. Serm. 15. Dominicum ergò diem Apostoli & Apostolici viri ideò religios [...] solennitate habe [...]dum sanxerunt, quia in eodem Redemptor noster▪ [...] mortuis resurrexit▪ Serm. de temp. 251. The Lords Resurrection hath promi­sed us an eternall day, and hath consecrated to us the Domi­nicall day of the Lord. The day which is called the Lords day, it seemeth properly to pertaine to the Lord, because that day the Lord rose againe.

The same Father tells us, that in this resurrection of Christ, the Apostles and Apostolicall men saw as much: he saith, the Lords day the Apostles and Apostolicall men have or­dained with religious solemnity to be kept, because in the [Page 119] same our Redeemer rose from the dead.

Ignatius [...]. Epist. ad Magn [...]s. giveth this for the onely Reason binding every one to keepe this day, saying, Let every one that loveth Christ, celebrate the Lords day, the day pertaining to the Resurrection, the Queene and Prince of all dayes.

Athanasius Athanas. de Sabbat. & cir­cumcis. Psal. 118. 124. calls the Lords day in which Christ renew­ed the old Man, the beginning of the new Creature; and therefore, hee saith, when hee had renewed the Creature which was made within sixe dayes, he would have that day consecrated to this instauration, which the Spirit foretells in the Psalme, This is the day which the Lord hath made.

Iunius Tempus ad conventus sa­cros, semper est dies octa­vus, quem inde à resurrectione Christi Ecclesia vocavit Domini­cum, quod Chri­stus suaresur­rectione & sa­cto sacris coeti­bus dicavit, quem Apostoli observarunt & coetibus dica­tum esse doc [...]e­runt, & quem Christiana Ec­clesia dictis co­rum obsequens, & facta imi­tans, conce­lebrat. Eccles. lib. 1. cap. 4. sub sinem. speaking of the time necessary to publike wor­ship, saith, It is the eighth day for ever, which the Church from the resurrection of Christ, hath called the Lords day, which Christ by his resurrection and deed hath dedicated to holy assemblies, which the Apostles have observed, and have taught, that it is dedicated thereto, and which the Christian Church obedient to their words, and imitating their deeds, doth joyntly celebrate.

In the Preface to the Assembly of the Church of Scot­land at Perth, Anno 1618. the question being moved, how the particular and materiall day may bee knowne, that the Christian Church should observe; the answer is, that the particular day was demonstrated by our Saviours Resur­rection, and his apparitions made thereon; by the Apostoli­call practice, and the perpetuall observation of the Church ever since that time, of the day which in Scripture is called the Lords day, as that which the Iewes observed, was called the Lords Sabbath; because as the one was appointed by the Lord for a memoriall of his rest after the Creation, so the other was instituted by the Lord for a memoriall of his Resurrection after the Redemption. For this we must hold as a sure ground, whatever the Catholike Church hath ob­served in all Ages, and is found in Scripture expressely to have been practised by Christ and the Apostles, (such as is the sanctification of the Lords day) the same most certainely was instituted by the Lord to bee observed, and his practice in [...] [Page 122] Word of the Lord, and of equall worth, as if the Lord by voice from heaven had spoken it, and more sure for us than such a voice, 1 Pet. 1. 12, 25. and 2 Pet. 1. 19, 20, 21. Whence it is cleare, that the Gospell preached by the Apostles with the holy Ghost sent downe from heaven, is the Word of the Lord that endureth for ever.

Secondly, it was enjoyned by the Apostles precept, and observed by them: enjoyned, and the worke of the day in part prescribed, 1 Cor. 16. 2. observed Act. 20. 7.

Thirdly, the Apostle saith, that which you have seene and heard in me, that doe; and the God of peace shall be with you, Phil. 4. 9. But this was seene, and heard of, to bee done by him, Act. 20. 7. Therefore do it. Perkins on Gal. 4. vers. 10.

Fourthly, if the same reason, grounded on Gods Word, be as well for the first day of the weeke, as it was once for the Sabbath of the Iewes, then we are as certainely tyed by the Lord to the observation of this day, as they were for their Sabbath: for the same reason is of the same force. But there is the same reason; therefore wee are bound by the Lord. That there is the same reason, is apparant by those three places laid together, Exod. 20. 10. Mat. 12. 8. Ioh. 5. 23. The maine reason of the Iewes Sabbath is, because it was the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner ours is the Sabbath of the Lord Christ, when hee had finished the worke of our redemption: for which cause hee taketh this name, the son of man is even Lord of the Sabbath: as if in more words he should say; when God the Father had once ended the making of the world, hee rested, and publi­shed himselfe to be the Lord of that rest, and dedicated it to himselfe, giving it the name of the Sabbath of the Lord. In like manner, when I shall have finished the worke of mans Redemption, I will rest (& have the day of my rest dedica­ted unto my selfe; for which cause, I say, that the sonne of man is even Lord of the Sabbath also; it shall be called, the Lords day. And thus the will of the Father shall be fulfilled, which is, that as they honoured the Father in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the Creation and Redemption; so they [Page 123] should honour the Sonne, in keeping the Sabbath betwixt the redemption and consummation of the world.

Fifthly, the judgments of God fearefully, and to miracles lighting on the contemners and prophaners of this day by worldlinesse, the opposition of godlesse and most evill men; the Conscience working on men, for the observation and against the neglect thereof; the errors of Familists, A­nabaptists, Papists, and such loose pleaders, as you and o­thers have shewed themselves to be, are strong and impreg­nable arguments for the Divine Authority of it; together with the contradictions, and the grosse opinions you are forced to runne into, which argue that you rebell against the light in you, and your prophane Atheisticall hearts would have that true, which yet your owne light dispro­veth, in the truths that are forced thereby to drop from you.

Sixthly, yea I shall (through Gods grace) evince this, that it is of the Lords owne institution: for, besides that his resur­rection institutes it, as I sayd before;

First, it is called the Lords day. Rev. 1. 10. Which cannot bee for any reason, but because it is of the Lords institution: for so, first, the phrase, his day, not by creation, for so all daies are his; not by destinatiō, for that intendeth a time yet to come; and so the day of generall judgement is his 1 Thes. 5. 2. but by consecration, and choise and institution; a fourth way I would heare designed, and then I shall bee ready to make answer. Secōdly, the like phrases of Scripture prove it in the same case in Exod. 20. 10. the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord; in other ordinances of Christ, the Lords Supper, 1 Cor. 10. the Table of the Lord, 1. Cor. 10. 21. his ministry, 1. Tim. 1. 12. Thirdly, the manner of predication sheweth, Thom. Aquin. 3. q. 16. art. 3. that this day belongeth to him by his owne assuming, properly, for its predicated of him denominatively, because it is said to bee of the Lord denominatively, the man Christ is not the Lords, but the Lord; but his will, hand, Passion is lightly called, the Lords Will, the Lords hand, the Lords passion: for that which is of, and belonging properly to the Lord, is called the Lords. [...]

[...]he first day of the weeke, saith Tylenus, g Is destinatedPrimus Heb­domadis dies sacris congressi­ [...]us destinatus est, isque non modo ab Aposto­lis observatus sed etiam ab ipso Christo institutꝰ videri potest, quem hoc die in conventus disci­pulorum venisse, testatur historia Evangelica. Tylen. Synt. loc. 44. p. 276. to holy assemblies; and that not alone observed of the A­postles, Act. 20. 17. 1 Cor. 16. 1. But also it may bee seene to be Instituted by Christ himselfe, whom the evan­gelicall History doth testifie to have come this day into the assemblies of the Disciples, Ioh. 20. 19, 26.

Polyander, Rivet, Walaeus, Thysius, affirme Hic dies abso­lutè non [...] tantum, sed & denominativè cum articulo [...] nominari coepit, Apoc. 1. 10. nem­pe non solum quod eo resur­rexit Dominus, & vivum se ex­hibuit, sedetiam quod ei rei imò universim Domi­nò imò à Domino sacratus dedi [...]a­iusque esset. Qualiter & coena Domini [...] appellatur & locus conventus [...] & prae­c [...]tios [...]lemnis [...] scitè declarat Aug. de verbis Apost. Serm. 15. Si autem A­postolicae institutionis, divinae quoque fu [...]rit authoritatis synops pur. Theo. 2. disp. 1. p. 263. that this day began to be named not onely the day of the Lord, but also denominatively the Lords day. Apoc. 1. 10. To wit, not only because the Lord rose thereon, and presented himselfe alive, but also because it was made holy and dedicated to that thing, yea, wholly to the Lord, yea, and of the Lord so sanctified and dedicated; like as also the Supper of the Lord is called the Lords Supper, 1 Cor. 11. 20. and the place of assemblies the Lords, and the solemne prayer The Lords Prayer, as wittily Augustine declareth in his fifteenth Ser­mon of the words of the Apostle. But if it were of Aposto­like Institution; it were also of Divine authoritie.

Bishop Andrewes saith, Serm. 13. of the Resur p. 529. the Lords day hath testimony in Scripture; for how came it to bee the Lords day? But that, as it is in the Psalmest, the Lord made it; and why made he it? but because on it the stone cast aside, that is, Christ was made the head stone of the corner; that is, be­cause then the Lord arose, because his resurrection fell on it.

Who altered it? I answer, (saith Master Attersol) Attersoll. on Numb. 15. vers. 3 [...]. p. 644. Christ himselfe is the Author of this change; the Apo­stles often teach, that whatsoever they taught, they recei­ved it from Christ; they learned it at his hands before, either by word of his mouth, or by revelation of his Spi­rit: but the Apostles enjoyned the first day of the weeke to be kept as a Sabbath of rest. 1 Cor. 16. 1.

Master Barker, On the fourth Commandement p. 186. God did change the dayes, and to [Page 127] shew the alteration, the Apostles gave this day the name of the Lords day, they themselves kept it and ordained that the Churches in their time should observe it.

Our renowned Champion Doctor Fulke, in the confu­tation of the Rhemists saith, Dr. Fulke on Reve. 1. 10. sect. 6. To change the Lords day and keepe it upon Monday, Tuesday, or any other day, the Church hath no authoritie; for it is not a matter of indifferencie, but a necessarie prescription of Christ himselfe delivered to us by his Apostles.

Christ did appoint the new Sabbath, saith Wolphius, Wolph. Chro­nol. l. 2. c. 1. when our last enemy death being overcome, hee made an end of the labours of our Redemption, which in his hu­manitie were to be borne, and the next day with the new man restored, he brought out a new time; the time of our Redemption, and of the new Covenant.

Adde hereunto Docter Bownd in the booke of the Sab­bath commended by that painefull and learned Divine, Doctor Willet and Doctor Iones, in two latine epistles pre­fixed.

To conclude this matter, the Apostles made this day the Lords day, by a declaratorie consecration, which Christ himselfe made before the Lords day, by a fundamentall and binding relation, to wit, His resurrection thereon; and by blessed and actuall applycation to his use in his apparitions and expositions thereon, and by institution in his deedes and words, for the Apostles taught to doe but what Christ commanded. Matth. 28. 20. Act. 1. 3.

Answer.

First, Yea; a shadow? Of which we have the substance in Christ? Out of Date? and expired of it selfe? Part of the partition wall? And yet the celebration and consecra­tion of the Sabbath translated justly? Then the Church, by your Doctrine, may revive the ceremoniall law, and put life into the dead carcase thereof; the Church may not alone embrace the shadow, of which Christ is the body, but also ap­point it to bee embraced: the Church may translate part of the ceremonial Law (which yet Moses the typicall mediator would not, might not order a tittle of it, to a loope, lace, or placing of either, but keepe to the patterne shewed him in the Mount) and so by the same reason translate priesthood and all, Heb. 6. The Church then is Lord of the Sabbath, and can consecrate, and not only celebrate the Sabbath, all full of blasphemy against Christ, and blemish to his chast spouse.

Secondly, and for your distinction of generality and spe­ciality of the commandement, (besides what hath been said before) if you yeeld not the speciality to bee morall, you turne out one commandement of the ten from being morall for all your generality for to say that this is the morality of the commandment & no more, that some time shuld be se­questred to divine worship, maketh this commandment no more morall, then the building of the Tabernacle or Tem­ple is morall: for therein this perpetuall will of God was shewed, that some place must bee assigned for Church as­semblies [Page 134] and publike worship.

By this also it will follow, that the Papists that in their Catechismes render the fourth commandement thus, keepe holy the festivall dayes, doe render the full s [...]nse of it. Which being yeelded, this also will follow, that you may aswell put it downe thus, frequent the assemblies.

Moreover, all the feast daies of the Iewes conteined this generall equity. Lastly, then God should in this command nothing to particular men, because it is not in their power to institute these daies, and so nothing shalbe commanded to them further, than what publike persons shall injoyne, be it but one day in the yeere: and for them neither is there any thing commanded in speciall, and they sinne not if they appoint but one day in a Moone, or if they appoint but one in a quarter, then also the Feasts of Christs Nativity, of Ea­ster of Whitsontide, &c. are of equall authority with the Lords day, which thing, what eares can heare with pati­ence? These also are constitutions of the ancient primitive Church.

Answer.

First, this reasoning is on false grounds supposed (as hath beene proved) and therefore fals to the ground.

Secondly, yet take their owne grounds.

If the Church have powre to translate the day and con­secrate it a Sabbath, they may have power, and had so, to translate the Commandement: for the Commandement is but the consecration of the Sabbath, and determination thereof to a certaine day.

And if they doe not translate the Commandement, yet the Commandement stands in force for that day to which by just power they have translated the Sabbath. For the Commandement is in force as a law of nature; you con­fesse, for the celebration of a Sabbath, or else you deny a moralitie in any part of that Commandement, but if that your moralitie stand, (as without doubt it doth) then is working on that day equally a violation of the Comman­dement of God; as working on the seventh, from the cre­ation, for then it was sinfull, because that day was then Sabbath: and now it is so because this is now Sabbath.

Thirdly, and for those quaeres, let me see the Act? Let me see the Authoritie, as they may bee retorted to your conceite of their translating the seventh day, and consecra­ting it a Sabbath, so in the true sense of consecrating that day, you have seen before the Act and Authority, and may now see (if you winke not) that the Commandement is not translated but remaines the same it was, namely, to keepe holy the Sabbath day. Neither is there a making of that Gods Commandement which was not his, nor yet doth the commandment containe any impossibilities and contra­dictions. Distingue tempora, & tolle dubia, Distinguish the times, and the doubts vanish, the Commandement enjoyneth rest and holinesse Sabbath-like on the Lords Sabbath, then that seventh day, now this seventh day: and of both is it true, the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Then the seventh day was it, and so enjoyned thereon; Now the first day of the weeke, and so enjoyned thereon. Hence this reasoning is easily answered. First, God commanded to worke on the first and rest on the seventh, therefore to rest on the first, and work on the seventh was not his Comman­dement, it was not then, it is now, moreover, sixe dayes thou shalt worke, doth not point out, which sixe daies, and the seventh day will containe both ours and theirs: and their seventh they knew then by the worke of Creation as our seventh we know by the worke of Redemption.

For the authoritie and Act of the Church we need it not, the Scripture as before, hath saved the labour. But that the act of this power was put forth, the Church hath ac­knowledged and your selfe doe while you yeeld, the first day consecrated Sabbath.

Answer.

First, this objection we owne, and for your distinction thus disprove it. Your granted Generality is commanded in the commandements fore-going, in which God that commands a worship, commands also time for it, as when he created the world, time was concreated of necessity. Be­sides, this vaine conceit was before blowne up. Therefore if all you name and put into the speciality of the Comman­dement be meerely ceremoniall, we have no fourth Com­mandement distinct from the former.

Secondly, for your speciality which you say is all meerly ceremoniall, we proved before that the light of nature would prove the contrary, and now we assault every particular with the sword of the spirit, that the hairy scalpe of it may be wounded, and in the welding of the same put our hands on the hands of the Lords Worthies, to fetch the blowes with more force.

First, that one day of seven, and particularly the seventh, is not ceremoniall, is evident by the commandement, which delivered with Gods owne mouth in the mount, and charged by way of command, is no other than morall and indispen­sable. And by the celebration of the Christian Sabbath in the New testament, which was on the seventh day, viz. the first day of the weeke, and was constantly in weekely re­volution celebrated. Calvin saith, Calvin. in quar [...]ū praec [...]p­tum. diem unum separat a reli­quis, & ab omnibus terrenis negotiis & curis imm [...]nē; quoad hanc partem, nobis cum vete­ri populo communis est Sabba [...]i necessitas, ut die uno liberi simus at (que) ita melius parati tam ad discendum qudm ad fidem nostram testandum. God separateth one day from the rest, and wills that it be free from all earthly busi­nesse [Page 139] and cares. In this respect the necessity of the Sabbath is common to us with the ancient people, that one day wee be free, and so the better prepared as well to learne, as to te­stifie our faith: so Peter Martyr on Gen. 2. and Mast. Per­kins on Gal. 4. 10. and infinite many more. The Apostles knew and that by the Scriptures, saith learned Fulke, that one day of seven was appointed to be observed for ever, du­ring the world, consecrated to the publike exercises of Gods true Religion. The Church of Scotland saith, that thePreface to the assembly at Perth. day commanded in the Law, formally must remaine, and ever bee the seventh, after sixe dayes worke. Chemnitius Chemnit. exa­men Concil. tri­dent. cap. de di­eb. fest. Tam Ve­teris quàm No­vi Testamenti pagina septimā diem ad huma­nam quietem specialiter de­putat, id est, (interprete Zu [...] ­rez. de diebus festis Cap. 1.) utrúmque Testa­mentun appro. bavit morem de­putandi ad qui­etem humanam, septimum quen­que diem hebdo­madae: quod est formaliter de­putate septimū dicm, licet ma­terialiter non i­dem dies fuerit semper deputa­tus: & hoc mo­do verum est, scptimum diem in lege veteri esse Sabbathum, in nova verò esse dominicam diem. De fcriis cap. licet. (who with the Lutherans, ascribeth too much in this thing to the Churches liberty) yet affirmeth truely thus much: This is that which is said usually and truely, that the New Testament in the commandement of keeping holy the Sabbath day, abrogated not the Genus, the generall, which is morall, but the species, the speciall: that is, hath not taken away the generall, which is the se­venth day, for this is naturall: but the speciall or parti­cular, namely, that seventh day which the Iewes kept in re­membrance of the first Creation. Alexander the third Pope of Rome, affirmeth that the page as well of the old as the new Testament hath specially deputed the seventh day to humane rest: that is (by the interpretation of Zuarez) both Testaments have approved, the manner of deputing every seventh day of the weeke to humane Rest: which is to de­pute the seventh day formally, although the same day ma­terially hath not alwaies been deputed: and by this meanes it is true, that that seventh day in the old law was Sabbath, but in the New the Lords day is Sabbath. M. Attersoll on Numbers 15. 35. p. 645. well observeth, that if one day in seven be not morall and perpetuall, a man may say that one day in seven weekes or seven yeeres is enough, and so at length it shall be said, wee are not bound to meet together publikely above one day in a 100. yeers. But this absurdity [Page 140] Gomarus, ^a that holds the contrary opinion, thinketh heeGomarus de in­vest. haeret. & orig. Sab. c. 5. pa. 61. Certi dies & sufficientes. hath evaded, by these words, when he holdeth that not only certaine daies, but also sufficient dayes be observed for Gods worship. But this is just nothing, for are not one day in a yeere yeerely certaine dayes, and so of the rest: and if that some shall say they are enough, though others speake against it, who shal tel which of these two sides, sides with the truth, when what is enough (you hold) God hath not particularly determined: yea, but Gomarus saith▪ that what dayes are sufficient may be gathered out of the precept of the Sabbath, namely, that they be, either not more seldome, or else a little more oft, than the Sabbaths of the Israelites, as the indul­gence of God in giving that precept, sheweth. For when the Lord for his clemency sake, tooke one of seven onely to his worship for the Israelites, men of a stiffe-necke and pressed with the heavy yoke of feasts and other ceremonies; how shall more seldome suffice among Christians, that are free from that yoke and burden? Very good: Can any looke on this without griefe and laughter. If out of the precept you must gather your sufficient dayes, why will you not take the dayes God hath in precept warranted for sufficient and sufficiently blessed; one of seven, the seventh? If this your sufficiency must be gathered from the precept, and that too as you gather that they bee more to us than were to Iewes, then we are to have two Sabbaths a weeke at the least, and the Church erred that Anathematized the keepers of Saturday in the time of the Gospell, and still erreth that never saw this yet, much lesse observed it. Or if you say, no they must not be Sabbaths, how then gather you this suf­ficiency of the dayes out of the fourth Commandement which concerneth the Sabbath and not halfe holidaies, and other feasts: and if the Iewes were yoked with observation of feasts, & therfore Gods clemency would they should keep but the seventh day? What an insupportable yoke doe you lay upon Christians, that must, as you say, keepe more than one of seven, or else they keepe not a sufficient number? all the Iewish feasts would hardly arise to the number that [Page 141] two in a weeke constantly doe amount to: and what inter­fearing is here? One of the seven daies of the weeke in per­petuall revolution is not necessarily to be observed by force of the fourth Commandement. And yet fewer than one a weeke cannot be sufficient, and that by vertue of the fourth Commandement. What? would you have more than one a weeke by vertue of the Commandement, and therefore you say, one is not necessary? Or is that which is onely sufficient, not necessary? Why then take that which is in­sufficient, and let that be yet necessary, even one when you will, and more when you will, now this day, now that, you may do them all a favour to take them over by turnes. Thus farre for Gomarus in this thing.

Secondly, that one whole day be kept holy and no lesse is morall, and not ceremoniall, you yeelde that the comman­dement for a Sabbath is morall: now God never mentioned lesse than a day, saying, Remember thou keepe holy the Sab­bath day, the distinction also of time by the Lord of time cleareth this, for the whole weeke is divided into seven daies, and every of those dayes consisteth of 24. houres. David, in his Psalme for the Sabbath day Psal 92. title with verse 2., describeth the time thus, It is good to shew forth thy loving kindnesse in the morning, and thy faithfulnesse every night (meaning every Sabbath day morning and night) as the title sheweth. The apparition of our Saviour at the night of the day of his Resurrection in the midst of the Disciples assembled Ioh 20. 19. Profunda jam nocte, it being now very late at night, saith Are [...]ius., proveth that the night following of the day of Sabbath (take here day for the day­light betweene sunne and sunne) is of the Sabbath: and last­ly, the celebration of the Lords day by Paul at Troas in Act. 20. 7. out of which, saith M^r. Perkins, I note two things: First, that the night mentioned there, was a part of the seventh day of Pauls abode at Troas: for, if it were not, so then he had staied at least a night longer, and so more than seven dayes, because he should have staied part of ano­ther day. Secondly, that this night was part of the Sabbath which they then kept. For the Apostles keepe it in manner of a Sabbath, in the exercises of piety and divine worship, [...]

Answer.

This also suffereth just exception, both in it selfe, and in reference to the matter in hand: it bindeth you yeeld; because Gods command bindeth to obey the Churches just constitutions. Consider, it is Gods Command that bin­deth, and not the Churches, but as it is Gods. Now Gods Command bindeth equally: and to despise Christ, and de­spise him in his Apostles (in as much as he saith, He that de­spiseth you, despiseth me,) is alike sinfull: or what if it binde not equally? (to take your owne words) if it bind enough to make the transgressor a sinner before God? For this was never questioned, whether the Master or Servant were the greater sinner, in the servants working on the Sabbath. Againe, it bindeth equally, by your owne doctrine, be­cause you say in pag. 43. lib. 1. it is of the Church guided by the Spirit of God, unlesse you will say that the do­ctrine of the New Testament, preached and written by men with the Holy Ghost sent downe from Heaven, is of lesse binding power than the Ten Commandements deli­vered on Mount Sinai; which runneth against, not onely all Christian religion, but also those Texts in speciall. Heb. 2. 2, 3. & 12.

Answer.

First, what was acknowledged by the Church, as injoy­ned by the point of vacancie from all labour, without the least rellish of Iewish ceremonies; wee shall see in the next Chapter. Here onely wee examine your supposed confu­tation of a reason to prove it; which reason is this; The Lords day is succeeded in the place of the Sabbath, or as some say, as Heire of the Sabbath, therefore to bee kept Sabbath-like. You confute it thus: If it succeeds it in place, must it succeede in equall precisenesse of observation? No, It succeeded in point of Sanctification, not of exact vaca­tion. I reply, your distinction is not distinct; for if in San­ctification, then in exact vacation, namely, vacation Sabba­ticall: [Page 148] for if in the end, in the meanes necessary to that end, and for that end ordained, which is exact vacation, so farre as it may further Sanctification: Now for your playing on the termes about an Heire, it is frivolous.

Secondly, for your instance in the Pope succeeding Peter, arguing from place to power, it little conduceth to this matter: for the Pope succeedeth not in place Apostolicall, if he did, I should not much doubt of his power Apostolicall. Had there beene a certaine Commandement of God to shew, that God in his eternall Law commanded his peo­ple to obey the Apostolicall place? But by place you mean roome, not Officiall function, and then what kinne betweene your instance, and the matter in hand?

Answer.

Having made it evident that the Commandement of God stands in force for our Sabbath, I might easily cast off all that you shall say to the end of your Discourse: but to cleare and scoure the coast, and make it apparant that what you say is nothing, and all maketh for us, who in this thing hold the Truth, we proceede.

You say, you finde nothing for the generall restraint of works on the Lords day in any Historie, cannon monu­ment, and register of Antiquitie, but cleare evidence to the contrarie.

First, for the first; let the places you alleage speake out that all may heare them, and not be blindly huddled up.

That in Euseb. l. 4. cap. 22. is a passage in the Epistle of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, to Soter Bishop of Rome, [Page 150] concerning the accustomed reading of the Epistle of Cle­ment to the Corinths; in their publike assemblies on the [...]. Lords day, of which hee saith thus; Wee have spent (or passed through to the end of it) the Lords day to day, an Holy day. Now to spend the Lords day throughout, an holy day, is not to spend any of it in servile worke; let Scripture, Heathen writers, and all men testifie: this was done saith that Bishop [...] After their ancient cu­stome: Iustin Martyr, after he hath recorded all the duties of their publike assemblies, addeth this, (having spoken in the precedent words of the administration of the Lords Supper) But we after those things for the remainder (of the time) doe ever remember one another of these things, and those of us which have any thing, helpe every one that wants, and are alwayes together one with another. A little after hee saith, that the assemblies on that day were frequented of all in Citie and Countrie, prayer, preaching, and the Sacrament was administred, Collections for the poore, which was after the assemblies, distributed to the needy, imprisoned, stranger, with the like, whom they visited.

Tertullian, in that 16, chapter of his Apologie against the Gentiles, gives this as one cause of their conjecture, that Christians worshipped the Sunne, because they kept the Sunday Holy. Wee give our selves to joy (saith hee) the Sunday, for another farre wide reason than in honour ofDiem solis laeti­tiae indulgemus. the Sunne are we in the second place from them which ap­point Saturday, to idlenesse and feeding themselves, also wandring from the Iewish custome, which they know not. What meaneth he hereby, but that such a solemnitie is kept and ought to bee by Christians, as should exceede in that kinde the feasts of the nations and Heathen, as in his booke of Idolatrie, chap. 14. he speaketh.

Ignatius speaketh enough to any man not prepossessed, for he saith, let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords day as festivall, [...] the Greek word signifieth a solemne festivall free from worke and workeday labour.

That others also of the ancients did understand this cele­bration [Page 151] to be with exact vacation is evident.

Saint Austin saith, come ye to the Church every Lords day, for if the unhappy Iewes doe celebrate the Sabbath with such devotion, that in it no earthly workes were done; how much more ought Christians to bee vacant to God alone on the Lords day, and come together for the Salva­tion of their soules?

Againe, Apostles and Apostolike men have therefore ordained that the Lords day be kept with religious solem­nitie, because in it our Redeemer arose from the Dead; and which is therefore called the Lords day, that in it, abstai­ning from earthly affaires and the enticements of the world, we may serve onely in divine worship.

That of Saint Clement is also worthy note, neither on the Lords dayes, which are dayes of joyfulnesse, doe we grant any thing may be said or done, besides holinesse.

Austin also in the sixt booke de Civitate Dei chap. 11. speaking of Seneca's scoffing at the Iewes Sabbath, that they lost the seventh part of their time in vacancie, addeth this; Notwithstanding he durst not speake of the Christians, even then most contrarie to the Iewes, on either part, lest either hee should praise them against the old custome of his owne Countrey, or reprove them perhaps against his owne will.

Saint Austine likewise reproveth their telling of tales, their slanders, playing at dice, and such unprofitable sports; as if one part of the day were set apart for dutie to God, and the rest of the day together with the night to their owne pleasures: In the same place also he condemnes wal­king about the fields and woods, when they should bee atSerm. 251. De Temp. Divine Service with clamour and laughter, and saith the day must be sequestred a rurali opere, & ab omni negotio; from countrey worke and all businesse, that wee may give our selves wholly to the worship of God.

Saint Chrysostome speaking of the fitnesse of the Lords day for almes, saith; it is a convenient time to practise li­beralitie, with a ready and willing minde; not onely in [Page 152] this regard, but also because it hath rest, remission, free­dome and vacation from labours.

Saint Ambrose Ambros. tom. 3. Serm. 1. de gra­nosinapis, p. 225. reproving the peoples neglect of Church on the Lords dayes, saith; Whatsoever brother is not pre­sent at the Lords Sacraments, of necessity he is with God a forsaker of the Divine truth. For how can he excuse him­selfe, who preparing his dinner at home on the day of the Sacraments, contemneth that heavenly Banket, and taking care of the belly, neglecteth the physicke of his soule?

The same Father in another place Id. Serm. 33. pag. 259. tom. 3. saith: Let us all the day bee conversant in prayer or reading; hee that cannot reade, let him aske of some holy man, that he may bee fed with his conference: let no secular acts hinder divine acts; let no Table-play carry away the mind; let no pleasure of Dogs call away the senses; let no dispatch of a businesse pervert the mind with covetousnesse. True, this Father in this place speaketh of a Fast, but we know that a Fast and Sabbath are alike for the point of rest.

Saint Hieron. ad Ru­stich. Dominicos dies, orationi tantum & lecti­onibus vacant. Hierom also; On the Lords day, saith he, they onely give themselves to prayer and reading.

Secondly, now for your contrary evidences, what if they also make for us? You alleage a constitution of Con­stantines, Iurge:

First, the same Emperours Constitutions found in Eccle­siasticall Writers. Eusebius in his life saith:

Wherefore he ordained, that all that obeyed the Romane Empire, should rest from all labour on the dayes that are called from our Saviours Name. Further, hee saith of this Christian Emperour;

He taught all his hoste to honour this day diligently: those that partooke of the Divine Faith▪ hee gave them leasure to frequent the Assemblies, that no impediment should hinder their attendance on prayer, but others that had no savor of Divine Doctrine, hee gave charge of them by another Law, that they should goe into the open fields of the Suburbs on the Lords day, and that there altogether should use the same forme of prayer to God, when asigne was given of some one of [Page 153] them: for, said he, we ought not to use speares, and place the hope of our affaires in weapons, and bodily strength.

Sozomen in his tripartite history testifieth thus, That day which is called the Lords day, which the Hebrewes call the first day; which the Grecians attribute to the Sunne, and which is before the seventh day, he ordained that all should cease from suites and other businesses, and should onely bee occupied in prayers upon it Sozom Hist. Eccles tripert. l. 1. c. 10..

Behold Constantine against Constantine.

Secondly, your Constitution is read, Cod. l. 3. tit. 12 l. 3.

This Constitution was reversed by Leo the Emperour, and another made in these words:

We ordaine according to the true meaning of the holy Ghost, and of the Apostles thereby directed, that on the sacred day wherein our integrity was restored, all doe rest and surcease labour; that neither husbandmen, nor other on that day put their hands to forbidden workes: for if the Iewes did so much reverence their Sabbath, which was but a shadow of ours, are not we which inhabit the light and truth of grace, bound to honour that day which the Lord himselfe hath honoured, and hath therein delivered us both from dishonour and from death? Are we not bound to keepe it singular and inviolable, well contenting our selves with so liberall a grant of the rest, and not incroaching upon that one which God hath chosen to his honour? Were it not wretchlesse neglect of Religion to make that very day common, and to thinke we may doe with it as with the rest.

The title of this Constitution is this Iustin. tom. 3. p. 459. Leon. Ira­per. constit. 54., Vt Dominicis die­bus omnes ab operibus vacent: That all men should cease from workes on the Lords dayes. This Constitution of Leo is approved by Master Hooker Hooker eccles. polit. l. 5. sect. 71. pag. 385., and that of Constantine cal­led an over-great facility under pretence of the miscarriage of the fruits of the earth by unseasonable weather.

Yet this may bee said for that renowned Emperour, hee gave that as a conc [...]ssory Law, which proves nothing, unlesse it bee the hardnesse of mens hearts. So Moses permitted men to put away their wives, and Aaron agreed to it, and [Page 154] yet none can reason thence that they were not of Christs mind in that matter. Say the same for Constantine.

The Councell of Laodic [...]a is abused by you in your Al­legation thereof, for the Canon of that Councell according to the Greeke is this:

[...]. That Christians Concil. Laod. Can. 29. ought not to Iudaize, and to rest on the Sabbath, as they are Chri­stians; but if they be found to Iudaize, let them be Anathe­ma from Christ, or with Christ.

The Annotation upon it, is this, [...] deest.

Of this Originall I find three Latine Translations. The first; Quod non oportet Christian [...]s Iudaïzare, & ociari in Sabbato, sed operarieos in eodem die, preferentes autem in ve­neratione diem Dominicum (si vacare voluerint) ut Chri­stiani hoc faciant: quod si reperti fuerint Iudaïzare, Anathe ma sint à Christo. Thus in English: Translat. Dio­nys [...]i exigui. That Christians ought not to judaize, and rest on the Sabbath, but worke on that day, and preferring the Lords day in reverence (if they will bee vacant) as Christians doe this thing: but if they bee found to Iudaize, let them be Anathema from Christ.

The second: Non oportet Christianos Iudaïzare, & in Sabbatho vacare, sed operari eos in eadem die, Dominicam preponendo eidem diei: si hoc eis placet, vacent tanquam Christiani, quod si inventi fuerint Iudaïzare, Anathema sit. In English: Translat. Isi­dori Mercatoris. Christians ought not to Iudaize, and to sur­cease labour on the Sabbath, but worke on that day, pre­ferring the Lords day before that day: if this please them, they may be vacant as Christians, but if they be found to Iudaize, let him be Anathema.

The third: Quod non oportet Christianos Iudaïzare & in Sabbato ociari: sedipso eo die operari: diem autem Domini­cum preferentes ociari, si modo possint ut Christi [...]os, quod si inventi fuerint ut Iudaïzantes, sint Anathema apud Christū. Gentianus Hervetus. That Christians ought not to Iudaize, and rest on the Sab­bath: but worke that day: but preferring the Lords day, they ought to rest as Christians, if so be they can, and if [Page 155] they bee found as Iudaizing, let them be Anathema with Christ.

Here note three things; first, that the Sabbath here spo­ken of, is Saturday, which was the Iewes Sabbath. Second­ly, that the last is by all acknowledged for the worst translation: indeed they are all rather paraphrases and glos­ses, than translations. Thirdly, the two first plainely carry this sense: that provided they preferre the Lords day in ho­nour and reverence above the Iewes Sabbath, and that they doe not Iudaize; if this please them, they may rest the Sa­turday too. And the last translation in my opinion, and ac­cording to the pointing thereof, as I find it in the Author foundeth thus, preferring the Lords day they must rest, if so be they can do it as Christians, not as Iudaizers. Now how the Iewes did rest on their Sabbath in those primitive times, is cleare in Ignatius and others.

[...]. In English as followeth:

Therefore (saith that blessed Martyr Ignat. epist. ad Magnes.) let us not Sabba­tize after the Iewish manner, as rejoycing in idlenesse, (for he that doth not labour let him not eare, for in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eate thy bread, say the Oracles: but let every of us keepe Sabbath spiritually, rejoycing in the meditation of the Law, not in the remission of the body, ad­miring the workmanship of God, not eating things of the day before, nor drinking things lukewarme, nor walking measured spaces, nor rejoycing in dancings and mad shou­tings, and clappings of the hands and feet.

Now was it not needfull to say, if they can, they should rest the Lords day like Christians, and not like Iewes in an idle, wanton, luxurious, and lascivious rest, which was rather idlenesse and sloth, than rest; rather madnesse like those that kept Bacchus Feast, than rest.

But this Alleager taketh to the worst Translation, and fasteneth upon that clause, which by no meanes will bee ad­mitted [...] [Page 158] to your Tenet, is no breach of any divine commandement. What by freely? May he doe it, so he doe it with reluctan­cy? What by every man? Are some priviledged? As the Tempter said to Eve; Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eate of every Tree of the Garden. Some need no priviledge, for some will not labour any day, these need no such liberty to worke extraordinarily the Lords day, your liberty were their bondage on any day; or may some freely prophane it, though not every man? Or ordinary labour in none will prophane it? Or will ordinarily labour in some prophane it, but only extraordinary labour in other? How too shall one know this ordinary and extraordinary labour apart? What meane you to say, (Would I set at liberty?) because, in your opinion, there is no command of God to bind; ther­fore can you bind and loose?

Secondly, it is meet, say you, that all worldly affaires be abandoned that day, and that it be dedicated wholly to the honor of God: What? meet to doe that which no Law of God, of Apostles, of universall Synods did ever require, as you spake but now? What? is it meet for a present pur­pose? To distill your poyson closely, which shall runne like oyle into the bones of Church and Common-wealth, and none stay it: while the devout heart shall be put off with this flappe, It is meet indeed.

It is meete that Christians should bee as devout in rest and sanctity on the Lords day, as the Iewes on their Sab­bath. That is all one as to say, (according to what you have taught before,) that a man should be as devout in the com­mands of his owne heart, as in Gods command (for so you make it) and in the precepts of men, as in Gods: what deify­ing is here of men, and vilifying of God?

Thirdly, but what an argument is here? The obligation of our thankefulnesse is more than theirs, though the obligation of his commandement be lesse herein; therefore the Christi­an should be more devout than the Iew. I had thought the commandement had bound to Devotion, and the greater the more. I had thought the Greatnesse of benefits (whence [Page 159] the debt of thankfulnesse is greatned) had increased the ob­ligation of the commandement, and our obedience to it? But now you yeeld, his commandement some what obli­geth on our Sabbath, though lesse, when before you utterly denyed any breach of any divine commandement in labo­ring that day, and so any obligation.

To strengthen this argument, you expresse your wish, that most religiously with all abstinence, and all attendance it were kept. Doe you wish this with all your heart, and yet bend all your might to overthrow the commandement of God? Would you, or could you thinke, that your wish should prevaile more than Apostolike truth?

Fourthly, have wee in one breath these contradictory sentences: No constitution of the Church obliging to the strict desisting from labour. And the constitutions of some ancient Councels restraining that prophanation.

Fifthly, you come in with the Edicts of Princes, as one that would have the observation of the Lords day depend upon constitutions of the Church, and Edicts of Princes on­ly: and so not to differ from another holy day. Most wick­ed, Popish, worse than Popish, and against all the famous lights ancient and moderne. Or doe you mention Princes Edicts and Churches constitutions to glose with ours? Ours detest your Tenet, and you seeke herein to wound Church and Prince: for how they hold of the Lords day, that it is directly grounded on the fourth commandement, appea­reth in the Liturgie, in the booke of Homilies, and in the Statutes and godly Provisions for redresse of prophanati­ons. This is the Doctrine of our Church Homil. of the place and time of prayer, part, 1. pag. 125.: By this comman­dement (speaking of the fourth) wee ought to have a time, as one day in the weeke, wherein we ought to rest, yea from our lawfull and needfull workes. For like as it appeareth by this commandement, that no man in the sixe daies ought to bee slothfull, or idle, but diligently to labour in that state wherein God hath set him; even so, God hath given expresse charge to all men, that upon the Sabbath day, which is now our Sun­day, they should cease from all weekely and worke-day labour, [...] [Page 162] of these lawes, to reject their commandements touching matter of worke or service on the▪ Sabaoth or any other day.

Answer.

First, I might put off all this still, because it is upon this false ground that the Commandement of God doth not en­joyne our Sabbath with the like. But I willingly goe on with you, to see if there bee one true stitch through your whole Discourse. And here before wee come to particu­lars Though the Lawes of men should not take hold of servants in this case, yet the Lawes of God doe., let all note, that that odious terme and calumniating phrase of Servants rebellion against their masters is your owne, and commeth from an evill heart, and crafty head. We teach, that Princes unlawfull commands are not to bee executed; yet we teach not, that any so commanded must re­bell, but not obey, and be so farre from rebellion if it should be urged, that hee suffer even to blood patiently, without so much as reviling, judging, or the like, but onely committing his cause to him that judgeth righteously. But to come to your matter you hold: First,

That the Churches Constitutions, and the Edicts of Princes never intended to forbid light and labourlesse worke, nor doe their censures take hold on men therefore.

Secondly, against this, what the Doctrine of our Church is, you heard before, which taught, that God condemned all weekely and worke-day labour, all common businesse, and to give themselves wholly to heavenly exercises, &c. The doctrine of the Church of Ireland Articles of Religion in a Synod at Dub­lin, 1615. is consonant here­unto, which teacheth thus; The first day of the weeke, which is the Lords day, is wholly to be dedicated to the ser­vice of God: and therefore wee are bound therein to rest from our common and daily businesse; and to bestow that leasure upon holy exercises both publike and private.

In a Councell, Concilium Matiscon. 2. c. 1. in the yeare 588. it was decreed, that no worke on the Lords day bee done, but the eyes and hands stretched out to God that whole day, and that if a Countrey man or servant should neglect this wholesome Law, he should bee beaten with more grievous strokes of [Page 163] Clubbes. For these things, saith that Councell, pacifie God, and remoove the judgements of diseases and barren­nesse. And againe, understanding while they sate in the Councell C. 4., that some absented themselves from the Assem­blies, they decreed under paine of Anathema, that on all Lords dayes all both men and women received the Com­munion.

In another General Synod there was made this decree Sancitum est, ut domini in suis ditionibus diebus domini­cis prohibeant nundi [...]as annu­as, & s [...]ptimana­les, item conven­ticula in Taber­nis, compotatio­nes, alearum, chartarum & similes varios lusus, concentus, musicorum in­strumentorum usum, atque choreas. Synod. general. Petri­coviensis. Anno 1578.: It is ordained, that the Lords in their severall dominions doe prohibit on the Lords dayes the yearely and weekely Faires, also meetings in Tavernes, Compotations (or Gossipings) Dice, Cards, and divers the like sports, singing in Concents (as now many in merry meetings have their singing of Cat­ches and their roarings, as they are called) the use of musicall Instruments and Dancing.

In a Councell at Nice it was ordered, that those who ei­ther kept Court, bought or sold, or otherwise prophaned the Sabbath, should bee prohibited the Communion, because that whole day we ought onely to rest, and spread abroad our hands-in prayer to God Toto hoc die tantummodò vacandum, quia toto hoc die ma­nus Deo expan­dendae..

Canutus Canutus lege 14. 15., a King in this Land before the Conquest, en­acted in a Councell at Winchester, that Sunday should be kept holy, and Faires, Courts, Huntings, and worldly workes on that day should be forborne.

Guntramnus Praeceptio Guntramni ad Episcop. dat. in Concil. Matis­con. 2., King of France commanded, that on the Lords day no bodily worke should be done, besides what was prepared to eate, to maintaine life conveniently.

Secondly, you affirme that neither constitution of the Church, nor edict of Princes, doe free servants from their Masters power to command them to worke, or their obe­dience to worke at their Masters command that day more than others.

Thirdly, what the Doctrine of our Church is in this point, is cleare in the Homily of the place and time of prayer, delivered in these words; Sithence which time (mea­ning the time of our Saviours ascension) Gods people hath alwayes in all ages, without any gaine-saying used to come to­gether [...] [Page 166] ken of? (which was the point of the Apostles doctrine I especially re­membred you of) That God I say, which commanded, and that do­ctrine which instructed servants to disobey their Masters, and by depriving them of their service caused their hindrance? The Apostle knew full well this was not the way to propagate the Gospell, and en­large the kingdome, of Christ, he knew it was Christian meekenes and obedience, and humility, and patience that must doe it: and therefore hee commandeth Christian servants to give their masters all honour, to obey them in all things, and to please them in al things, that so their masters seeing them more serviceable and profitable ser­vants, and withall more vertuous than others were, might sooner be drawne to like of the religion that made them such, whereas the con­trary would have bin manifestly a scandall, and grievous impeach­ment to the propagation of the Gospell, and defamed it, for a do­ctrine of contumacy and disobedience, and for a seminary (as it were) of disturbance and sedition of families and common-wealths. And not onely alienated the affections of masters from their Christian servants: but inflamed all men with indignation and hatred against the Christian religion and the Professors of it. Such therefore▪ evi­dently is the importance and intendment of the Apostles doctrine (as unpartiall men, whom prejudice or selfe conceipt leads not away, may soone discerne) very farre differing from this doctrine of yours. Touching which point of the Apostles instruction given to servants for this effectuall and generall obedience, you will not reply (I hope) as some have done; that at first indeede it was permitted for the good of the Church, lest the increase of it, and proceeding of the Gospell should be hindred by offence given to the Gentiles. For would that have beene permitted if it had beene unlawfull? Or could the Church of God bee increased by the sinnes of men? His Church increased by that whereby himselfe was dishonoured? Or would the Apostles have permitted men to sinne (as now Iesuites do) for the good of the Church, (nay exhorted and commanded to it) who had himselfe expresly taught, that wee must not doe evill that good may come of it? No, neither of both can bee, because either of both were a staine and derogation to the righteousnesse of God: the intention therefore of the Apostles was simple, without all trickes of policie to teach servants all exact and entire obedience to their masters, touching all workes that belong to the dutie of ser­vants, namely that were in themselves honest and lawfull, without excepting of any day.

Answer.

First, here you would prove your Tenet, for servants obe­dience to their masters commands for worke on the Lords day, even worke prohibited, to bee more agreeable to the Apostles Doctrine, than the contrary: and to this end you alledge Texts to prove their obedience in al things to all ma­sters, at all times, and thence conclude the answerablenesse of yours, the unanswerablenesse of ours thereunto.

First, object that you bring no proofe of Scripture to con­firme this your universall obedience at all times, viz. on the Sabbath day: though you should have done it, especially the doctrine of the Commandement touching cessation of worke lying so fully upon the servant. If you reply that there is no exception of time: I answer, there is exception of obedience to unlawfull commands, and such are workes, otherwise lawfull; enjoyned to bee done on the Sabbath: and so we have equivalent exceptions to that of time.

Your ground therefore which you lay, and say it is foun­ded on Apostolike truth, namely (that Apostles permit servants no point of libertie, but command them obedi­ence without exception of master, of labour, or of time;) we thus impugne:

The Apostles Doctrine touching servants obedience doth admit of three limitations by themselves expressed;

First, it must be an obedience in the Lord; [...]. Scholia. that is, accor­ding to the will of the Lord, in all things in which godli­nesse may not be overthrowne, in all things provided, that we admit of nothing against the Lord. If the masters co­venant should crosse the covenant of the servant, as he is a man and Christian to his God, it is sinfull in the making; (if such should be made) and worse in the keeping, and al­wayes voide ipso facto. The ground of this limitation is this, that all authoritie and superioritie is derived from God, and subordinate to him; therefore the command of an inferior power binds not to obedience, when it is contrary to the [Page 168] precept of the superior power, as Durand Durand. lib. 2. distinct. 39. quaest. 5. well noteth. That therefore of Gregorie touching wives, must bee held touching servants for ever. Sic placeat ux­or voluntati conjugis, ut non displiceat volun­tati conditoris. Let the wife so please the will of her husband, that she doe not displease the Will of her Creator. This limitation excepts the servants labour in ser­vile worke on the Sabbath, or Lords day.

Secondly, it must bee an obedience wherein they abide with God in their service, that is, in the observation of the Commandements of God, saith the ordinarie Glosse; Glossa interlin. and saith Lyra 1 Cor. 7. 20, 24 Lyra. as farre as pertaines to those things which are not repugnant to the state of Faith; thus also your doctrine is plainely condemned: for God hath provided by his un­changeable Law, that one day in seven the servants shall rest from their labour, and with their master attend on God, with whom there is neither master nor servant.

Thirdly, yea, but the master commands him to worke then, otherwise indeede he ought not? Nay, the Apostles doctrine hath yet a third limitation; That they be not the servants of men: Vpon which place saith Chrysostome? [...]. Chrysost. tom. 3. in 1 Cor. 7. 23. pag. 362. [...]. Ibid. pag. 363. There are bounds set of God to servants, and how farre they ought to keepe them, this is also ordered by Law: and they may not passe over them: for when the master enjoyneth none of those things which are displeasing to God and disallowed, hee ought to follow and obey; but beyond this by no meanes; for thus the servant is a free man. And if thou yeeld any fur­ther, although thou were free, thou art become a slave. This therefore he intimates saying, bee yee not the servants of men. And not farre after he briefly expounds it thus ^t, Obey not men that command absurd things, yea, neither yeeld to their owne selves. Are not these Commandements of the ma­sters for servile worke, [...] absurd and without place, and footing in Gods Word? are they not of things displeasing to God? These, these are the servants limits, beyond which if hee passe, hee is the servant of men, even of mens humours and a very slave; because hee hath rejected the [Page 169] freedome of a freeman to God and Righteousnesse. Could you see none of these limitations to restraine your bound­lesse glosse.

Againe, the Apostles Doctrine admits of this limitation; That the commandment of the master, bee of things possible, as well as lawfull: and therefore Abrahams servant putteth the doubt, Gen. 24. 5. What if she will not come? And is in that case set free. Yea, it admits also of another limitation; That it bee of things, though in their nature lawfull, yet not exceeding so farre the strength of nature, that the servant so doing shall manifestly ruine his body: as to toyle night and day; to toyle all dayes, and not have a day in the weeke to take breath? Now tell me, doth not the law of Nature bound the master in respect of time?

And as it hath these limitations, so it hath this distincti­on: servants owe to their masters subjection and obedi­ence: obedience is limited to their lawfull command with the like; subjection reacheth to submission, to their wrong­full and unjust corrections and usage, as in 1 Pet. 2. 18, 19. Bee subject to your masters—for conscience towards God endure griefe, suffering wrongfully. Even where the servant may not obey, he must be subject.

Secondly, having thus cleared the Apostles doctrine, let us see what you say to prove your Tenet agreeable, ours dis­agreeable thereto.

First, you take hold of the words in all things, to con­clude, the servants yeelding to the masters exacting of la­bour that day, to be no sinne; for then say you, he would not command them to obey in all things, but would have excepted that. I answer, by the same reason you may con­clude, the servants yeelding to the master in any other un­lawfull commands to be no sinne, because he is commanded to obey in all things without exception of that particular. But if you say, that is excepted in the former limitations; so say I, that this is also as hath beene proved. Obedience of subjection the servant oweth to his master in unjust dea­lings with him, and the Apostles perswading servants of [Page 170] those dayes to such things, sheweth that masters did wrongfully binde and buffet for well doing. 1 Pet. 2. 19. Tel me, was it for working, or truth and fidelitie, and not for pietie and the worship of God? And therefore, may not I say with bet­ter probabilitie than you have spoken, that it was for in­termission of labour on the times of the holy assemblies? Will any correct their servants for performing the duties of the secōd Table, or the secret duties of the first? It must needs be then, that that wel [...] doing was publike worship of God, for which chiefly Heathen masters buffetted Christian ser­vants. And thus your very Texts have implyedly this parti­cular in them, that servants should not doe ill, or leave the doing well for the frowardnesse of the master, and not obey unlawfull commands, but beare wrongfull stripes, for there­unto are they called: & for piety & the duties of Gods wor­ship submit to the stripe, rather thā quit the service of God.

Now in that you say, it cannot be that the Gentiles that did not beleeve should respect religion so, as not to exact their servants worke: I answer, they certainely did in that point of the Sabbath through a speciall providence of God and the inclination of soule to this law of nature, which is in part written in the harts of all men: for S. Austine De illis sanè Iudaeis cum lo­queretur, ait cùm interim us­que eò scelera­tissim [...] gentis consuetudo con­valuit, ut per omnes jam ter­ras recepta sit, victi victoribus leges dederunt Mirabatur haec dicens, & quod divinitus agcretur ignorans, subjecit planè sententiam, quia significaret, quid de illorum sacramentorum ratione sentiret: ait enim illi tamen causas ritus sui noverunt, & major pars populi facit, quod cur faciat, ignorat. August. De Civit. Dei lib. 6. cap. 11. tels as much, who relating the saying of Seneca concerning the Iewes and the Sabbath hath these words, truely when he speaketh of those Iewes; he saith, When in the meane while, the custome of that most wicked nation hath so farre prevailed, that now through all lands it is received: the conquered give lawes to the conquerors. Speaking these things he wondred, & being ignorant what was wrought of God, he set downe plainly his opiniō, in which he might signifie, what he thought con­cerning the reason of their Sacraments; for he saith, but they know the causes of their rites, and the greater part of the people doth that which they know not why they doe it.

See how the Sabbath had prevailed among all Heathen; [Page 171] In Seneca's dayes who lived in the time of the Apostle Paul, but what is that to the Lords day? Yea, thence easi­ly you may gather how they could well afford one day in a weeke to worship: and Saint Austine in the same place saith, that though Seneca reproved the Iewes for losing a seventh part of their time in keeping Sabbath, yet would not mention the Christians to reproove their rites in any kinde, lest hee should either praise them against the recei­ved custome of his Countrey, or reprove them against his owne heart. Note, it was (saith this Father) a speciall worke of God, that the Sabbath should have that prevalencie a­mongst Heathens. And for the Christians rites of wor­ship, he could not speake of them but in prayse, unlesse he should have gone against his conscience, and therefore si­lently passeth them over.

But secondly, you affirme that their withdrawing of their obedience would have caused the name and doctrine of God to bee blasphemed. I answer, their modest and hum­ble refusall of the worke, would adorne the doctrine and not dishonor it, and if they should forsake the assemblies, they forsake their God and religion, the Heathen well knew it, who were so observant in their superstition. It may seeme by the Apostles rules given to servants and wives, that more of them were converted, than of masters and husbands, and the assemblies of the Lords day more constantly frequented of all that had given up their names to Christ. Now as the rendering a reason of the hope that was in them to the Magistrate, performed with meeknesse and feare, honoured God and his Doctrine; so the rende­ring of an account how they worshipped God on the day of assemblies, viz: the Lords day: (as may appeare by the Apologie of Iustin Martyr for them) who in that Apologie, renders a reason of their worship of God, and of the day spent wholly in that worship. What the Apostle saith upon the Christians readinesse thus to give a reason of his hope, may rightly be applyed to the Christian servants readinesse to yeeld himselfe wholly to God that day, and to render [Page 172] the reason thereof with meekenesse and feare: And who is that will harme you, if you doe that which is good? 1 Pet. 3.

But this submissive withdrawing; you tearme by the o­dious name of disobedience very wrongfully; for he is to be obedient to his lawfull commands that day, and to his un­just corrections for the Lords sake, which will breake the heart of any Master, and winne him, but your course would take away the very practice of religion in the ser­vant; for where is religion, if the publike worship be gone? Nor will this deprive them of their service, but make them in higher esteeme, as Ioseph was, and the famous courtier Daniel, for refusing to obey the king decree: when Para­sites shall bee loathed and cast out. Yet if this should not alwaies be, the Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon him that suffers in these cases. If this bee the blasphemie, wee must avoide, we all are undone, while we are saith Tertul­lian ^y, let his name be blasphemed in the observation, andTertul. de Idolat. ca. 14. not the exorbitation of discipline, so long as we are proved, not reproved, this malediction of preserved discipline is the benediction of Gods Name.

This would propagate the Gospell; as in Daniels case is to be seene, and in the case of the three children.

This is absolute meekenesse, obedience, humilitie and patience, and such servants for their vertue, and the profit that commeth to their masters, by their faithfull service in the times and seasons due, and their unfained respect, even when they receive wrong, shall carry in the eyes of the vi­lest, high respects and praise; but if your course were held that the servant should neglect the assemblies to doe his masters worke on that day (we speake of workes unlaw­full to be done on the Sabbath) and should carry an heart to God, while his feete and hands carried him to his ma­sters worke; (which is all one, as if one should sweare with his tongue and thinke to keepe his heart un­sworne) then where is the solemne worship of God? And that gone, where is Religion? And that gone, what vertue? And that gone, what profitable service? Masters that re­spect [Page 173] but their owne lucre, can conne you little thankes for this doctrine. Besides, this were the scandall and defama­tion of the Gospell for ever; that whereas all Religions teach the followers thereof a time for pietie with all atten­dance of body and soule for that time; this Christian Reli­gion should teach that the servant hath no time at all, nor doth God require it of him, but the contrary, if his master will but bid him worke.

This can be no seminarie of disturbance or contumacie, for he is subject to his masters power for correction; so as not to resist in wrongfull sufferings: but yours sheweth it manifestly while it leaveth a man in anothers hands against two such principles, that when they have beene by tyran­nie prest to goe against them, rebellion hath ever followed. The principles are these: First, God must bee solemnely and publikely worshipped, and that on some times weekly in which hee is to bee attended upon without avocations. Secondly, that Nature sheweth the preservation of it selfe. Now to go about to blot out sense of God & religion, & to keepe men to taskes of insupportable burdens, which na­ture breaketh under, while it beares them, this is the ready way to overturne all.

This alienates not masters from their Christian servants: let the experience of all ages shew it. In this nation the ser­vants that make conscience of the Sabbath are sought after by all sober and wise masters, that onely are wise for the world: for these are those that will not be night-walkers, nor drunkards, nor filchers, with the like. I know none but choose such, and greatly affect them, and for their fidelity otherwise and industry, give them great liberties for Gods worship. True, I have heard of some of our Gen­try that will by no meanes have such a servant, especially to waite on their persons, or to be their Clerkes, but one may easily smell the reason, it is not for any matter of Sabbaths labour or rest; but, first there is a divellish principle amongst them, that it is for their reputation to have their men, such as will make the servant of their neighbour-Gentleman. [...]

Answer.

First, that the subjection due to men in respect of obe­dience to execute their commands extendeth only so farre, as it may not diminish the empire of God, hath been suffi­ciently proved: but you call for antiquity to beare out the servant in refusing his masters commands of servile worke on the Lords day. I shewed you before out of Chrysostome, what he taught were the bounds which a servant might not passe, namely, the commandements of God: if the master command ought against them he may by no meanes exe­cute his masters command. Tertullian Tertul. lib. de Idolat. c. 17. saith, that if a ser­vant doe but by some word helpe the sacrifice, he shall be accounted a minister of the sinne of idolatry (he speakes of them as attending on their masters, and that the place, Give to Casar the things that are Caesars, binds no subject to keepe the daies consecrated to idoles, nor to set up lights at their doores or Laurell branches on their doore posts. And then saith further, Ibid. ca. 15. it is well added, and to God, the things that are Gods. Vnto which lay but that which went before in Chapter 14. Ibid. cap. 14. where hee saith, the Ethnickes have every festivall day yeerely once, the Christian hath his on the eight day, lay these together, I say, according to the true meaning of that Author, and it is cleare, that the servant might not for his masters command keepe a day in honour to an idoll, nor any way be minister of that sinne, nor might he neglect the day consecrated in honour to God, for his master. Clemens Alexandrinus Clemens Alex. stromat. l. 4. hath these words, Dis­cipline is necessary to all sorts of men, and vertue, since all tend to felicity. And after quotation of the texts in Ephes. 5. Col. 3. and 4. He concludeth out of these, Therefore it is manifest to us what the unitie that is of faith is, and is shewed also who is perfect, wherefore the servant and the woman shall professe philosophy, be any against it and excee­dingly resisting, although punishment hang [...]ver their heads from their masters and husbands. The free man also, though [Page 177] the tyrant threaten death to him, though he be led to judge­ment and drawne to utmost torments, and runne the hazzard of all his goods and fortunes, shall by no meanes abstaine from piety and the true worship of God, nor shall ever dissent from it: the woman likewise which dwelleth with an evill husband, and the sonne, if he have an evill father, or the servant that hath an evill master, pursuing vertue with a valiant and ge­nerous mind. But as it is comely and honest for the man to dye both for vertue and for liberty, and for himselfe, so also is it for the woman, for this is not proper to the nature of males, but of good folkes. Therefore both old and young, both woman and servant shall live, and if need bee shall dye, being faithfully obedient to the commandements, which dying were but to be made alive by death; we certainely know both children, and women, and servants to have beene no lesse than excellent oftentimes, their parents, and husbands, and masters being set against it. They ought therefore which would leade an holy life, not to be of a lesse cheerefull and ready minde, when they see some to chase them from it: But it is meete much more that they contend and strive stoutly, that they fall not off, as conquered, from the best and most necessary coun­sels: for I doe not thinke it may admit any compare, whether it be better to be received into the fellowship of the Almighty, or to choose the darkenesse of divels. Things which are done of us for others sake, we will alwayes doe, endeavoring to have an eye to them for whose sake they seeme to bee done, taking the measure to be, that which is acceptable to them: but things which are done rather for our owne sake, than for others, shall be done by us with equall study, whether they seeme, or seeme not to please any man.

Secondly, it is neither of my ability, nor beseeming a worke of this nature, to alledge all that might be cited here to this purpose, this shall suffice to shew either your wilfull blindnesse or daring presumption, upon your great reading. It is very dangerous to oppose the truth and to trust unto your oppositions of Sciences falsely so called: no man ever attempted it, but God polluted him in his gifts, in a just [Page 178] judgement. In this Treatise it may bee seene, and in this particular passage. For Clemens Alexandrinus Cle. Alex. st [...]o. 4., Iustine Iustin. Apel. 2., Augustine Aug. in Psal. 118. Co [...]io. 31., and almost all the ancients which published Apologies for Christians, testifie that among other causes why the Gentiles persecuted the Christians, this was one, that they withdrew themselves from obedience to their superiours under pretence of Religion. Now this was only in matter of the publike worship of the true God, where­in else did their disobedience (as they called it) consist? They worshipped the true God on his day, and refused commu­nion with Idolaters on their daies, dedicated to their idoles: but this you could not see. You know moreover, that the histories of the first three hundred yeeres are of little weight for their brevity, imperfection, and the iniquity of those times through rage of persecutors, and malice of falsifying Heretikes and Seducers. Therefore your bold and large assertion herein is of little worth.

Thirdly, had you remembred that there is the same pro­portion in matter of obedience in one sort of inferiours as in another, you might soone have knowne what servants did in those times towards their masters: for all Antiquity teacheth, that it is perversenesse to call that obedience wherein the obedience to God is forgone to obey man, and that the superior of any sort is to bee obeyed in whatever he commandeth that is not contrary to Gods Command, not otherwise: Thus taught Hierome, Ambrose, Augustine, Fabian Decret. 11. q. 3. c. 92, 93. to. 101., Basil Basil. reg. 7. ex brevi & 114. & 203. & 204. & de instit. Mona. c. 14. & 16., Bernard Bern. Epi. 7. & li. de praecept. & dispensat. c. 12., and the like. But Saint Austine Serm. 6. De verbis Dom. & Ep 166. & in Psal. 124. chiefely is most notable in this point, both for his lively expressions and instances, and for his reasoning from humane things to divine, where obedience is denied to the inferiour magistrate, when it is contrary to the superiour.

Fourthly, I am sure godly superiors will never thanke you for this doctrine, which cannot will to bee obeyed of inferiors, if they command ought against Gods Law and reason. Heathen Princes have refused such an obedience and desired the contrary, Antiochus the third wrote to the cities; that if he should command by letters any thing repug­nant [Page 179] to the lawes, they would not care for it, but take it as if it were written, he not knowing of it. Antigonus king of the Macedonians answered a Flatterer, who said, All things were honest and just for kings to doe; They are so onely to kings of Barbarians; but to us those things onely are honest which are honest; and just which are just. Pericles answere is knowne, [...]. that a man ought to doe for his friends but yet onely as farre as he may not goe against God.

Fifthly, the Papists can see, where the light did put out your eyes: they teach Possevinus. lib. 3. de stud. cas. Consc. c. 23. tom, 1. p. 147. that the father and mother of the houshold which have servants and maids, sonnes and daughters, and doe not see that they obey the precepts of the Decalogue, or which is worse, hinder them from the observation thereof, and worke them so hard on the Eves, that on the Festivals and Lords dayes they are by necessity of their owne in a manner compelled to worke, or that give them not time to be present at the Assemblies, without promise of amendment they shall by no meanes be absol­ved of the Confessour. Molina Molin. de inst. tract. 2. disp. 38. Col. 200. 201. saith, that the power of the master over the servant reacheth not to his life, and much lesse to his spirituall salvation, as if hee might com­mand him or exact of him any thing that might fight against his spirituall safety. The Magistrate in this case is to vindicate the servant; if the master shall impose on the servants a necessitie of sinning, the Bishops may deliver them from servitude. And Antoninus affirmeth in such case, Antoninus 3. par. titulo. 3. ca. 6. §. 7. the servant may lawfully flee from his master, if being ad­monished hee will not leave off. Wee know it is better to suffer hard usage, than to flee, but see what master Breer­wood might have knowne, to have set his heart at a stand, in his so forward and eager proceeding.

Answer.

First, now judge whether this Doctrine bee the water of Marah, and besides all that hath beene spoken, consi­der, that it teacheth no forsaking of God, nor disunion of soule from his feare; that were bitter Ier. 2. 19. indeed, your do­ctrine doth it. Consider, it teacheth no neglect of righte­ousnesse or judgement Amos 6. 12.: but to yeeld subjection with pa­tience, where it may not yeeld obedience, with a good Conscience: but you make the Lords day, that day of [Page 181] rejoycing to all Christians in the faith of Christ, with whom there is neither bond nor free, to be the servants bitter day, who left under the commands of the master, not to, but from the assemblies, lyeth under a bitter famine of the word, Amos 8. 10, 11 Whiles others have it; and vision falleth to him, and his Sunne setteth at noone day, whilst yet it shineth in its glory to others: how will you escape that woe in Esay, Woe to them that put bitter for sweete, and sweet for bitter Esai. 5. 20..

Who those are that you say have good tastes I know not, the Publisher is one it seemeth, but he was not then knowne to you, one may probably conjecture: how ever hee will not willingly bee knowne to have this good taste; and it is not unlike but many more are of this sort, that drinke your sweete waters secretly, and crie Master Breer­wood was right for his judgement, but they would not teach it publikely for a thousand pounds. This cals to minde the intoxicated foole in the proverbes, Prov. 9. 17. that saith, stollen wa­ters are sweete, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

Secondly, and for your Meribah, this I say, if your wri­ting were not intended to this end, certainely the publish­ing is: It is no new thing to heare Christian Doctrine charged for seditious, and disturbing both Church and state; but it is much audaciousnesse and perversenesse to charge this doctrine so, which having beene taught, and printed, and found in the hands of the whole kingdome, [...]ley on the Sabbath. D [...]. Bownd. D. [...]. M. Atte [...]s [...]l on Numbers. never bred the least disturbance in any familie. But you will not divine of the event; no? You doe both censure and di­vine, and then say you will not. You would exasperate authoritie against painefull and conscionable Ministers, you would suggest hard things against the quiet of the land, you would cast Iealousies causelesse. You would doe more than divine, if Divines were under your power. I spare to say more, onely I desire all to weigh whether the fruit of your Tenet can bee any other than disturbance and sedition: for;

First, it casts servants (and by the same reason all infe­riours) under an unsupportable burden, which hath alwaies [...] [Page 184] sons to let me have as few words as you will, but direct and materiall arguments; For if they bee light and have but small force, they will not move me. If sophisticall and have but seeming force, I shall espy the deceit I thinke, and be able to discerne betwixt a vizard and a visage, both the one sort and the other of such arguments will but prejudice your cause with me, and were better kept for some other disciple; but if you find your selfe not able to establish and justifie this doctrine, wherewith I take my poore Kinsman to have beene corrupted, then I challenge you as you will answer it at the judgement seat of almighty God when your accounting day shall come, to repaire the ruine you have made in his conscience, and (remooving his scandall which hindreth him in his vocation) to establish him in his former obedience to his Master. So fare you well, and the Spirit of Truth bee with you.

May 16. 1611. At Gresham house in London.

Answer.

This is your Conclusion, which hath in it three things; a provocation to a polemicke Discourse (if he be able to justi­fie his Doctrine) urged, from the duty of a Minister, which is twofold; to defend his Doctrine, to reduce his straying brother; and from your challenge. Secondly, a request of two things in the Answer to this his Treatise, ingenious re­ply to the force of his arguments, and materiall arguments against him. Thirdly, an Adjuration (upon sense of the falshood of the Doctrine, or inability to justifie it) to make up the breach of his Kinsmans conscience, and restore him to his Masters obedience. The provocation is sufficiently an­swered in the Letter, printed at the end of your Treatise, which by the Publisher is termed, An answer to the Trea­tise: but he might have well seene it was an answer only to this provocation. Here hee shewed a spirit of calumniation, and a love of all devouring words, like a false tongue. And how strong an answer that is hereunto all may judge, that, (considering with what a spirit Master Breerwood hath re­plyed) cannot but know with what an heart he both writ, and provoked that patient man to contend: especially if all knew also what he wrote unto Master Ratcliffe, Alderman [Page 185] of Chester, his Cosen, the ninth of Iune, 1611. One passage of which Letter I annexe out of that Letter which I have with me, in the originall under his owne hand. It is this: If I satisfie not Master Byfield, I would desire him to satisfie me, by answering my reasons, and producing better to prove his owne conclusion. The one or the other must be done (now he hath provoked me to stirre) or else some blemish will sticke by him. If he answer my arguments soundly, and there by ef­fectuall reasons establish his owne Doctrine, I have soone done, he shall satisfie and silence me, I will presently yeeld, and withall both love and praise him: but if hee bee not able to doe it (as I suspect hee is not) and will yet persist in the fancy, I shall both detest and despise his pertiuacy, and perhaps dis­please him in the end.

The request was satisfied in an answer of Master Nic. By­fields, written to him then, which had been published here if we had met with a perfect Coppy; in the meane while take this answer tendred to publike view. The Adjuration savours of strong and strange audaciousnesse, as shall ap­peare by the occasion of all this stirre in this mans spirit, which in the beginning of the Treatise he layeth downe, viz. the wound in the conscience of one Iohn Breerwood, by Master Nic. Byfield. First, it is evident, those workes he stucke at, were never in question. Secondly, it is manifest by the Letter of Master Breerwoods, written to the above­said Master Iohn Ratcliffe, that the servant confessed, that he received the first touch at Master Bruens of Stapleford, but his conference after with Master Byfield was it that re­solved him. And yet it is cleare, that there was never any case propounded to him at Chester about servants worke on the Sabbath at Master Ratcliffes, and he never to that time delivered his opinion touching it unto any. Thirdly, it is no lesse cleare, that the occasion was foolish and weak, as shall be manifest, by giving to all the world a true infor­mation how the case then stood with this Iohn Breerwood, which I give you in the next Chapter for a conclusion to this first part of the booke. Happy had it been for him, if [...]

Answer.

For the occasion, three things will lively represent it to the world; a briefe relation concerning the condition of Iohn Breerwood at that time: secondly, the comparing of some passages in Master Breerwoods relation with the former: thirdly, the beginning of Master Byfields answer to this Treatise, containing a short and satisfactory answer to this particular.

First, this was the true state of things concerning Iohn Breerwood at the time while these things fellout. Iohn Breer­wood was servant and Apprentice to one Master Thomas Shipton Grocer in Fridaystreet, in the Parish of Saint Iohn the Evangelist: He was imployed by his Master on busi­nesse to Chester; and going downe, hee fell in love with a Maide that accompanied him downe at the same time. Whereupon when hee returned (as was manifest by the consequents) hee cast in his mind which way to wind him­selfe out of his Masters service. For the attaining of his disor­dered desire, when yet hee had not spent halfe the time of his Apprentiship in his Masters service, hee made therefore many scruples; some about the Sabbath, pretending his conscience had been much wrought upon by Master Ni­colas Byfield in that his foresaid journey; some about his calling in the weeke dayes. About the Sabbath, when his Master bade him fetch a pint of wine, or see his horse have provender, or call the invited Guest to dinner, he would re­fuse to doe it: which thing his Master (supposing it had been indeed upon some trouble of conscience) with joy re­lated to the Minister of the parish, M. Walker, and therupon sought meanes to bind and retaine him the faster in his ser­vice: for his Master was a conscionable and religious man, and carefull of the Sabbath, and hoped that here would be­gin the discovery of some good wrought in him, who be­fore was many wayes untoward. But this Iohn Breerwood saw, that this would take no place, he casts other scruples [Page 189] about the workes of his Calling, to get off that way, by his pretexts of the evils he saw attended Trades in the City: and this turned not off his Master from his desires to retaine him, but rather increased them the more. Afterwards, per­ceiving that Religion pretended wrought against his inten­ded plot, and not for it, hee fell to impudent and vile stub­bornnesse. On a time, his Master, for some stubbornnesse of his, gave him a boxe on the eare: then he found out this project; to lay his Dagger under his pillow; that when the maides should find it there, and relate it to their Master, he might conceive he had some intent to play some vile part; and being a timorous man, might bee moved to turne him out of his service. After this, his Master upon his earnest desire, sent him downe againe to Chester to gather up mo­neys; who there gathered up to the summe of an hun­dred pounds, or thereabout, his Master fearing to lose it, gave way to his motion to leave his service, and set up for himselfe in Chester, that so he might get his money of him. This Iohn Breerwood thus released, married the former wo­man: and since, putting her to shift for her selfe, hath been to and fro beyond Sea, and hath played many prankes.

This Relation was taken from Master Walkers mouth, March 30. 1631. as a briefe of those things that might bee more largely set downe: the Christian Reader for his fur­ther satisfaction, if hee desire it, may enquire of him who was very well acquainted with all those passages.

Now consider with me some passages in Master Breer­woods Relation:

First, he saith, the true cause of his distemper was a Case of Conscience about workes on the Sabbath; yet hee saw, that at the first discovery of his strange alteration, were discovered obstinate resolutions, by faire or foule meanes to forsake his service. Hee is little skill'd in the plight of a wounded conscience, that can thinke such a conscience, and such obstinatenesse are compatible to the same man at the same time.

Secondly, hee talketh of his Masters great offence; yet [Page 190] this was no other, but that as one joyed to see hee made some shew of conscience in that thing, he sought all meanes to tie him the faster to him and his service.

Thirdly, hee talketh also of his Kinsmans affliction: What? From such a man as was so milde as his Master was?

Who can beleeve that this matter about his Kinsman was any more than an occasion, no cause in truth of Master Breerwoods attempts? some thing there was besides this, as rightly he acknowledgeth.

And to put it out of doubt, heare M. Byfield speake after long silence under these injuries, beginning his Treatise thus,

Thus farre Christian Reader, thou hast Master N. Byfield [...] Answer to this Treatise, the rest had been printed, and I had saved my labour, if we had had a perfect Coppy: It is likely they that set forth Master Breerwoods have one, which they conceale, and put in stead thereof a Letter written to Master Breerwood, refusing on good grounds to give an answere, which they call, Master Byfields answer. So indig [...]ely every way hath that worthy man been used in this businesse.

Out of this that hath been set downe, I leave every one to judge of the occasion, and of the spirit of the man. [...] [Page 194] solution, they are abundantly discovered: his knowledge, in those briefe grounds for the Sabbath which hee hath laid: his zeale that (sweetly guided) stifled that fire of contention beginning to flame, so that it brake not forth; and therein no small measure of charity to the soule of the Opposer, which being resty and set to contend, wanted but one to answer, that matter might bee ministred for him to worke upon: and to the soules of all, when these boi­sterous windes should be kept in their dennes of privacy, and laied with a short and grave repulse. What want of zeale for the truth could there bee in this case, when the opposition being privat, was dangerous only to the Oppo­ser, and if hee should make it publike would have raised an holy Armie of defendants, in both the famous Cities and other parts of the Kingdome, to the great impeachment of the Opposers reputation, who disperseth his loose and A­theisticall conceites upon an occasion occasionlesse? Or what want of Charity? It never commanded to attend the saying of every Prater, nor requireth more than repre­hension [...] Ioh. 1 [...]. of the error with arguments to confirme the truth; this is Direction. There may bee never the lesse zeale for the truth, where is wanting a zealous affectation of quarre­ling about the truth: and there may bee no want of chari­ty, where yet the erroneous person remaines unrefor­med.

What impressions of excesses his letter contained shall bee seene, God willing, in time and place convenient. But this I say, your excesses not only swarme in your Reply, but also in this Preface stand out to the view. For you say, you are hopelesse of him, and yet you will provoke him to give satisfaction and to disclaime his error. Would not satis­faction and disclaiming of an error answer your hopes? Or delight you to provoke to give that which you cannot hope for, only that you might provoke? What? Hope­lesse if hee cannot bee provoked, and hope enough if hee bee provoked enough? What? Nothing satisfaction with you, but to call the truth error, when you call it error? A­gaine, [Page 195] you intend you say, to abate his stomacke and high conceit: Would you abate it by invectives, scoffes, Ale­house language with the like, such as is scattered in this Reply? In this case therefore I hold it no way against just and plaine dealing to give an answer to your words that have any shew of truth and sobernesse, and by no meanes to put downe verbatim your words Syllabicall froth, be­fore this my ensuing answer. For though while you see­med to seeke satisfaction to your arguments, I could afford you the first place, yet now that you jeere at the person, and thinke to scoffe out the truth held by my dearest Bro­ther, I can give you no place in my bookes.