SECT. I.

HE states the first Question, Page 5. Whether the World were made by Jesus Christ? and that too, as affording help to his Sabbata­rian Notion; but rightly apprehended, it con­duces nothing at all thereto: For Evidence whereof, we say that it may be orthodoxly denyed and asserted, that Jesus Christ did not make the World, for the World was 4000 Years before ever Jesus Christ was: For these two Names J. C. do necessarily imply, or in­clude his Human Nature with his Divine: For his Divine Nature formally and abstractly con­sidered, cannot be Christ, that is, not Annoint­ed; not fitted nor qualifyed by any other, for any Offices, Imployments or Designs: It belongs to his Human Nature alone. Neither could his God-head so considered, be our Jesus; for the God-head can neither obey the Law, nor bear the Curse; both which were to be done by our Jesus: And these appertain only to his Huma­nity, though his Divinity gives the Merit of our Salvation to his active and passive Obedi­ence; so that actually and formally, Jesus Christ could not be till his Incarnation: Though his Merits extended to all the Generations of Re­lievers from Adam, according to that, Rev. 13.8. For though an actual Existence be ne­cessary in Physical Causes, before they can be Causes and produce their Effects, yet 'tis not so in Moral; but their Effects may be before [Page 5]the actual Existence of the Cause; as Persons may be redeemed and let loose from Prison, upon the foresight of a Ransom, or a Payment to be made, Months or Years after. And so God out of an Infallible Foresight of our Sa­viours paying the Debts, and laying down the Ransom of the Elect in the fulness of time, and giving to himself a full meritorious Price, (even the Blood of God, Act. 20.28.) for all their spiritual and eternal Mercies, delivered, blessed and saved all the Saints and Believers, before our Lords being actually a meritorious Saviour, with an Eye and Regard thereto; and so he was not actually Jesus, neither could he be, till he had actually done and suffered all these things for which they were Redeemed and Saved: And therefore here, as Jesus Christ could not make the World, though as God, we acknow­ledge he did.

In the Old Testament Christ is Prophesied of, as to come, Dan. 9.25, 26. How could he then create the World? And when he is born of the Virgin Mary, he is then pronoun­ced by the Angel to be Christ, Luk. 2.11. as being then the Accomplishment of Daniel's and other such Prophesies, that went before of his future Messias-ship. And upon his Incarnation, he had the Name of Jesus, given him by God, Math. 1.21. How then could he as Christ Jesus, create the World? I desire that this might be duly considered by the Reader, because 'tis of great weight to overthrow the chief Prop of his Sabbatarian Structure; and to prove them to be but of ill temper'd Mortar: For in [Page 6]this and the two following Queries, he builds upon a fallacious Composition, as though what­ever God is, or did, that Jesus Christ must be, and do; and so he must create the World be­cause God did so. Just as if we should suppose the Platonick Existence of Souls, Thousands of Years Solitary, without Bodies, and impute what ever those Souls Did, Thought, Resol­ved, &c. in that Condition, to those Men of whom they came in time to be an essential part; and say this Man so thought, and so resolved, this would be a very improper Speech; for the Man was not, till the Soul came to be essenti­ally conjoyned to the Body: And therefore in Propriety, 'twas the Soul, and not the Man that was the Author of these Cogitations and Resolutions; for they were Thousands of Years before the Man was. So the God-head of Jesus Christ made the World, but the God-head was throughout a beginning less Eternity, be­fore Jesus Christ; and therefore he could not be the Creator of the World. 'Tis somewhat strange to me, that Mr. B. did not see this gross Fallacy. All Scriptures therefore which he brings to prove this Assertion, must be thus understood, as for Example, Col. 1. v. 12, 13, 14. with v. 16. which Scripture confutes his Suggestion, and confirms our Assertion: For surely he cannot say that the Creator, as, and when Creator, had Blood: But Christ as such, had Blood; and therefore Christ was not Cre­ator, but his God-head. So must also, John 1.1, 3. where the Creator is called [...]; which we translate the Word; it might as well [Page 7]have been translated the Wisdom which was eternally with God, in God, and is God; and so must be the Creator. But 'tis very observable, that St. John doth not call him Jesus Christ, till v. 17. when he had before spoken of his Incarna­tion, v. 14.

Just such another is Heb. 1. where 'tis said, that God made the Worlds, (taking them for the created Worlds, visible and invisible; though other excellent Divines interpret them other­wise) by his Son, even his Co-eternal and Co-essential Son: But it is not here said, that he made them by Jesus Christ, but Christ, the Son of God, spake to us in the last days; he did it in and by his Humanity, but so he created not the Creatures.

In the last Proof, Eph. 3.9. 'Tis indeed expresly said, That God created all things by Jesus Christ; which if meant of the old and whole Creation, must be meant as above; and 'tis as much as if he had said, God the Father created all things by God the Son; which Son is now Jesus Christ. Wherefore we conclude our Reply to this Query, by asserting that the God-head of the Lord Christ, created the World; but that Christ consisting of that God-head, and the Humanity hypostatically united to it, did not so.

SECT. II.

HE asserts Page 9. that Proposition which no Christian ever denyed or questioned; and whoever does so, deserves not the Name Christian, viz. That the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah: Which he proves at large, home to Page 22. which in these days might have been very seasonable and commendable too, had it not been made a progressive Step toward the supremely intended Doctrin of the necessary Obligation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath. But yet I must say, that our Lord Christs Deity, or Jehovah-ship, has been more fully prov'd, and more methodically, and from more To­picks, and all these demonstrated and confirmed from Scripture, than here it is; and that by many Orthodox Divines. We acknowledging his Thesis to be good and orthodox; we hope he will acknowledge this to be so likewise, viz. That Jehovah was not always Christ: Christ is, and must be everlastingly Jehovah. But Jehovah was throughout a past Eternity, before there was ever any other Being, and in the begin­ning of time, before there was a sinful Being: And therefore necessarily before Christ Jesus had a Being. For Christ Jesus in an orthodox Notion, and according to Scriptural Revela­tions, does pre-suppose a created, and a faln sinful Being. And so this orthodox Propositi­on, will but contribute very little to that o­ther, which we deem heterodox. I shall make [Page 9]no Reflections at all upon what he has written in all these Papers, save only upon that Medium which he uses Page 12, and 13. which is Christs giving the Law; (for that's his Expression) where again we urge, according to our former Inter­pretation, that Christ properly apprehended, did not give the Law before his Incarnation, not being Christ before it: He gave it not to Man before the Fall. When the whole abso­lute and primary Moral Law, was implanted by God on his Mind, to know all the Duties he ought to perform towards his God, according to his Excellencies and Attributes revealed un­to him, according to his Works and his Obliga­tions laid upon him, and all his Duties to­ward all his Fellow Creatures: In his Will, by a perfect and full Complyance with, and active and exact Conformity to all these moral Dict­ates of his Understanding, in all the Inferiour Affections, Appetites, Inclinations, Motions, Sen­ses, Organs and Members of the Body; by a ready and compleat Subjection to the holy Will, and a most harmonious Obedience there­to. Which the Apostle calls Knowledge, Righ­teousness and true Holiness, Col. 3.10. Eph. 4.24. Neither did Christ Jesus give the Law just upon the Fall, as I suppose the Moral Law must be supposed to be given to Adam; seeing that by the Fall, he had greatly defac'd and blotted the former clear and perfect Edition of it, in his Heart and Soul. Neither did he give it in the Third Edition, when 'twas brought and delivered by the Hand of Moses, from the Finger and Mouth of God, to the [Page 10] Israelites: For all these were long before Jesus Christ came into, and so was in, the World: And St. John himself tells us, John 1.17. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. So that the Law was given long before Jesus Christ came, and preached, and purchased the Grace and Truth of the Gospel. But all this is made use of by this Author to insinuate, that even Christ Jesus, in the Flesh, was the Author of all the Ten Commands, as they are verbatim recorded in Moses's Books, or were written upon the Tables of Stone; and so par­ticularly of that very Clause in the Fourth Command; which is given as a reason of the Sanctification of the Seventh day to be the Sab­bath, home to his own Resurrection.

But this we shall prove in the Sequel to be a very great Mistake: The only Proof that he brings for this, which has not been sufficiently answered already, or may not be so, by what has been formerly said and proved, is John 14.15. If ye love me keep my Commands: And such other like Passages. Here I would feign enquire, in what Sense he understands the Commands to be Christ's Commands: Either as he is Jehovah; and so before his Incarnation: If so, then the Cere­monial and Judicial Commands were his as well, and as much, as the Moral; for he gave the one as well as the other. And so by this arguing, and from this Topick, we are bound to keep the one as well as the other: If we would evince to our own Consciences, or others Observations, that we sincerely love Christ. If he understands them to be his, after his Incarnation, as taught, [Page 11]commanded and confirmed by his own blessed Mouth and Doctrin: So we confess that all the Moral Law was his, and that he taught it in the discharge of his Prophetical Office in the Flesh. But then we affirm, and doubt not to prove, that in all his Doctrin, Discourses and Commands, there is not one word that teaches or enjoyns the Seventh-day-Sabbath, but much to the con­trary: Or if there be only a perfect silence in this particular, without any thing spoken or done by Christ contrary to it, whilst he parti­cularly enjoyns and presses all those other Pre­cepts, which are acknowledged by all to be Moral: I suppose this very Exclusion of it, out of all his Discourses, carries more weight in it, to cashire it from being any one of the Com­mands of Christ Jesus, than all his former En­deavours to prove Christ to be the Maker of the World, to be Jehovah, and here to be the Giver of the Law, have of moment to prove the Morality, and so the necessary observance of the Seventh-day. I have been here a little the more large, because I find the Author, Page 24. referring unto his having proved the Law to be given by Christ, as to that which highly con­duces to his grand Design; but being duly weighed, we see that 'tis of little or no use at all thereto.

SECT. III.

WE have a third Interrogation proposed, Page 22. Whether after the Creation the Lord rested on the Seventh day: And, Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was sanctified and so instituted by him, and was observed by him who made the World? To the first Clause whereof we have sufficiently answered, That it was not the Lord Christ that created the World and rested, but it was indeed Jehovah; and though Christ be Jehovah, and the Maker of all things as such; yet the same Lord Christ is also the Son of Man, and made by Jehovah, as such; And therefore as Christ, as God-man, he neither created the World, nor rested from that Creation. Though in the Body of the Que­stion, the Efficient of the Creation be only stiled Lord, by which may be equally understood the Son of God, before and after the Incarnation, yet in the Margin he interprets this by the word Christ; and therefore we have given a proper, a direct and sufficient answer to that part there­of: And here it will be worth our observing, that in a proper and strict Sense, Jehovah, the Creator of the World, cannot be said to rest; because it is impossible that he should either admit of any Weariness, or Pain in himself; yea, or of any the least new motion in himself; God being an Infinite, Perfect, Immutable, Act and Life, cannot possibly admit of any such thing; and all the Changes that he makes, either [Page 13]substantially of nothing into Being; or Altera­tion of the Qualities and Conditions of Being, &c. without himself, are and must be without the least Mutation, and Alteration within himself: And this the very Light of Nature, and Meta­physicks, will teach us, as well as the light of Scripture and Theology; as Mal. 3.6. Jam. 1.17. So that though God may properly be said to conclude, or end his work of Creation, yet cannot he properly be said to rest from it, or after it; because this, in its formal Notion, implies Motion, Activity and exerting of Power and Ability, with a Weariness thereby, which the Deity is infinitely free from: Which I desire may be heeded, because I perceive the Author would fain have every Clause in the Fourth Command to be Moral, and of necessary and perpetual Observance; and especially this of Gods resting on the Seventh day. Now that which is Moral, as to Motive and Obligation to the Humane Nature, is that which the light of Na­ture, right Reason, or (to go higher) the per­fectly irradiated Mind of our first Parents, would have of its self discerned and closed with, as a Motive and Engagement to Piety or Cha­rity, or any Duty: Which I think Gods resting on the Seventh day may well be asserted not to be, because,

1. Reason or the illuminated Mind of Man, could never suppose God to take after his work, any real Rest or Refreshment in himself, which he had not before. And Secondly, God's working in the maintaining of the Creation in its Being, Order and Operation, is altogether [Page 14]as great, and as much, as it was in the Produ­ction of it; and therefore the School-men say, That Preservation is a continual Act of Crea­tion, because the same Word and Power is ex­erted in the one as in the other. Yea, if we respect the Work it self, or the Term of it without God; we may well say that the Pre­servation of the World is a greater work than the Creation of it: Though as to the Act it self in God, all is the same, (being the Act of the same infinite Power, Wisdom and Godhead) because of the contrary Qualities of the Crea­tures mutually tending to each others Destru­ction; but especially because of the Malice of Devils, and the sinful wretched Depravity of Fallen Man; which without an infinite Wis­dom and Power exerted to the contrary, would soon bring all to Ruin, at least it would do so by the Humane Nature, for which all other things of this World were made and are conti­nued: And therefore this Motive to a Seventh-day-Sabbath, cannot be in, and of it self Moral. And this our Saviour clearly shews, John 5.17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work: Which he gives by way of Reply to those, who in the former Context, taxed and condemned him for a Breach of the Sabbath. Grounding it seems (tacitely at least) their Accusation, from that Passage in the Fourth Command of God's rest­ing on that day, as though it had been of a Moral and Perpetual Obligation: And therefore our Saviour here tells them, It was not so; for both he and his Father did work on the Seventh day, as well as on any other day of the week; [Page 15]from which 'tis clear this Clause in the Com­mand, is not Moral, but Positive.

As to the Second Part of the Question, whe­ther the Seventh-day-Sabbath was Sanctifyed, and so Instituted by him; and was observed by him who made the World. We answer, 'twas Sancti­fied, and Instituted by the Lord, as Jehovah, but not as Jesus Christ: And then that 'twas observed by Jesus Christ Incarnated, but not as Jehovah; because the Observation of it, seems to import some dutiful Obligation upon its Observer, which cannot be supposed with re­spect to the God-head, but may be so with re­spect to the Lord Christ, as Mediator in his Human Nature. But then this Observance makes no more for the keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath, than for the Observance of Pentecost, the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and other Ceremonial and Judicial Laws, under which our Lord Christ was, and which he observed in the days of his Flesh; the Mosaical and the Ceremonial Administration being in force all the while he lived, and expired with his Death, and were buried in his Grave, as to their Ver­tue and Obligation: And so we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath did also; which I hope we may evince in the progress of this Dis­course.

By what has been said, we have a sufficient Reply to his Three Proofs which follow his Querly, for it's Affirmative, and how they may be orthodoxly admitted, or else as Heterodox rejected. And here we may take notice that all the former Particulars which the Author makes [Page 16]use of, as Foundations to build his beloved No­tion upon, do as equally militate and plead for the Observance of all the Ceremonial and Judici­al Laws, as for the Seventh-day-Sabbath; for the Creator of the World enjoyned them, as well as this. The great Jehovah imposed them, as well as this. The Law-giver gave those Laws, as well as this. And our Lord Instituted and Sanctifyed those, as well as this, as he was God; and observed those, as well as this, as Christ Jesus, as God-man. 'Tis as Prejudice sufficient against all those (supposed) Achillean Argu­ments, that if they prove what they are plead­ed for, We must all turn Jews.

But before I leave this Query, I must reflect upon one Paragraph or two, under it, Page 23. wherein we have him laying down all his for­mer great Postulata's, that the Lord Christ made the World, rested on the Seventh day, observed, blessed and sanctifyed it: By which Repetition, we may see how much he depends upon these, for the carrying off his Design: But withal, we have formerly seen how little, yea, how not at all, they conduce thereto. But to these, he superadds another grand Postulatum, as though 'twere a Particular, which either he had undeniably demonstrated before, or were granted by his Adversaries: Which is, that the Lord instituted this Seventh-day-Sabbath for, and imposed it upon Adam, and in him, to all Mankind without distinction; and that before the Sin and Fall of Adam. And hence concludes that 'tis a Moral Law incumbent upon Adam, and all his Posterity; which is a Conclusion, either [Page 17]from rotten Premises, or from such as will ne­ver logically infer the Conclusion: Which we shall shew as briefly as we can; and what is spoken here, may lessen some of our Work hereafter. 1. Hereby is implyed that this Command of the Seventh-day-Sabbath, was given to Man in the State of Innocency; which he can never prove. For though the Instituti­on thereof, be inserted in the beginning of the 2. of Genesis yet 'tis clear, the Scripture doth not always keep a Chronical Order: We must not expect in our Bible, a constant Prius and Posterius; (as they say) but the sacred History, admits of many hysterons proterons; of many Misplacings with respect to the order of time; relating those thigns before, which were done after; and Vice Versa: And 'tis most clear that 'tis so in this very place. For here the Sabbath is recorded before the Plantation of Paradice, v. 8. which was not spoken of before; yet was Paradice part of the Works of the Creation, and consequently created before the Seventh day, though spoken of afterward; which proves that the order of the relation of the Sabbath, is no infallible proof that it was instituted before the Fall, but might be after it; though antecedently mentioned. And Mr. Warren brings many probable Arguments to prove that Adam fell before the Sabbath-day; and consequently before the giving or declar­ing of that Precept; because therein God's resting on the Seventh-day, is proposed as an Example and Motive to his keeping of it; which could not be done before the Seventh-day came: [Page 18]And so the Command must be given after the Fall. Which Arguments of his, ought to have been fairly debated, their Moment considered, and a due Answer and Solution given to them, before this had been so peremptorily asserted. But,

2ly. This seems to imply, that whatever In­junction God gave to Adam before the Fall, was of things that are purely Moral, or so in them­selves; or else it can never regularly be drawn from this Medium, that therefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath was so. But this we know was not so, for God prohibited him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; which was purely positive, and a Duty only resulting from the Will of the Legislator. Again, if we should take it for granted, that the Institution and In­junction of the Seventh-day, was antecedent to the Fall, yet this would rather prove the Ne­gative, than the Affirmative of its pure Morality. For whatever was purely Moral, and a Duty of its self, resulting from the Nature, Qualificati­ons and Obligations of the rational Creature, Adam in the perfect Knowledge of that Nature, must know and discern, in and of himself; and consequently would have known the Seventh-day to be so: And if he knew it, there needed no Institution thereof, by God at all. Besides, 'tis very observable, that from the Creation of our first Parents, till their Fall, we do not read of one Moral Duty enjoyned them, either of the First or Second Table; (unless this be supposed to be so) and what reason can be given for it, but this, that it needed not; because [Page 19]they were all fully and distinctly implanted in Mans Soul. If therefore the Seventh-day-Sab­bath, had been so Moral, 'twould not have need­ed a singular Institution; much less such Argu­ments to inforce its Observance upon perfectly wise, and holy Adam. From whence, in my Apprehension, a good Argument may be drawn against its Morality.

3. It implies, that all the Commands that were given to Adam in Innocency, are authori­tatively incumbent upon all his Posterity. The contrary whereto, is clear in the prohibition of the Tree in the midst of the Garden; for that ceased both to himself and all his Posterity upon his Fall: By all which, we see the weak reason­ings of this Author.

In the following Paragraph, he tells us that all those things were recorded for the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; where as none of them do at all concern Jesus Christ: For all those things in the foregoing Paragraph by his own Doctrin, and according to his own Sentiments, were effected and agitated before the Fall of Man: In which time there could not be so much as any need or use of a Jesus, or a Christ. Nor was there so much as the least Hint of him given, by ei­ther Prophesie or Promise; much less was he himself in being: And consequently none of these things could conduce to his glory; for there can nothing appertain to that which is not. And thus these supposed unmoveable Foundations of this Tenent, are found not to be so much as Sandy: For they are found to be nothing at all, as he would have them refer to our Lord Christ. [Page 20]We acknowledge therefore that all these Par­ticulars which he named, are for the Glory of Jehovah; and that the Observance of the Se­venth-day-Sabbath, home to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Dead, was to his Praise as Creator and Legislator. But withal, we hope to prove that the Change of it, and dedicating another day of the Week to our Lord Jesus Christ, the same Jehovah, and spotless Son of the Virgin, does highly conduce to his Honour, as Lord and Glorious Redeem­er; as Conqueror of Hell and Death; as Ac­complisher of that Great and Glorious Work of our merited Salvation. (A Work uncon­ceivably more glorious in it self, and insinitely more advantageous to us, and really laborious and grievous to himself) and as he entred in­to his real Rest on that day, even the first day, out of the Depths of his Humilitation. Here in the next Paragraph he quotes, Mat. 12.8. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, with that Gloss or Interpretation which he puts upon it, which I doubt not, is very false, and has been already proved to be so: But because he refers it to another Place, we shall attend him there, and then endeavour to give its true meaning. About the Fourhth Question, Page 23. I shall not contend, for I verily believe the antient Patriarchs, did Observe and Sanctify the Se­venth-day.

SECT. IV.

THE fifth Question: Whether the Ten Com­mands were given by Christ to Jews and Gen­tiles? Page 24. He thinks he hath proved the Legislation of Christ from the Beginning: But how this is to be understood, and wherein he has taken false Measures, has been before shewn. Whether he gave them to Jews and Gentiles, that is, to all Mankind, he takes this for grant­ed also, Which we also assert, even that all the Moral Law was given to the Humane Na­ture, and so to all Mankind in Adam: But with­all, that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was no part of the Moral Law; no nor yet a seventh part of time to be Consecrated and Sanctified to Di­vine Worship. (I mean not Primarily and in it self Moral) which I should endeavour here to prove; if I did not foresee a more convenient Opportunity for it hereafter. Only let us here consider what he himself here grants, viz. That the Moral Law was written upon Man's Heart; that it did consist in Knowledge, Righteousness and Holiness; wherefore the Seventh-day-Sabbath is no part of it; because it was not written upon Man's Heart at first. 1. Because God revealed it to Man after his Creation; which needed not, if it had been in him before. 2. Because there are obscure Remains of the Moral Law, in the Humane and Rational Creature, with respect to all the other Commands (as might be easily manifested by an Induction) but none as to the [Page 22] Seventh-day-Sabbath. It is true, as to the Moral Substance of the Law, that is found in Man­kind, even a Separation of time, and proper Seasons for the Worship of God; but this is not: Nay, it is so rare, that not one among Ten thousand does dream of it, or scarce one in an Age does so much as fancy it. 3. Because by his own Orthodox Assertion in this very place, the Moral Law is reingraven, that is, more fully, clearly and distinctly, and in its Spiritual Sense and Latitude upon the Hearts of those that are revived by the Spirit of God, which is the Image of God, reinstamped upon the Regenerate and Converted; as St. Paul saith Col. 3.10. Eph. 4.24. Now it is as clear as the Sun, that the Generality of the Called, inlight­ned and sanctified, have not the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath written in their Hearts: Nay, they have an Aversion from it. Of all truly Religious ones, that ever I knew, Mr. B—is the Solitary Person of this Perswasion; whence it must necessarily follow, that it is no part of the Moral Law, or of that Image of God which was instamped upon Man plainly and fully at first; and remains imperfectly and obscurely in all Men; and is restored to the Saints in their Regeneration, and is increased in them in their progressive Sanctification: Whence it is also clear, that this Command, thus stated, was not given by Christ to Jews and Gentiles in the Creation: And his proof for it is very weak and invalid; which is taken from those express Commands given by God to the Jews, of causing them that were either their Substance, [Page 23](Slaves bought with their own Mony) or Pro­selytes, Strangers by Nation, but yet joyning themselves to them, and dwelling among them; and so were of their Body; who were bound, as he himself there acknowledges and proves, to be Circumcised, to observe the Passover, &c. And now what Tendency hath this to prove, that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was given to Jews and Gentiles? When this proves only, that those Gentiles were bound to keep it, who were within the Gates, and of their Body Politick: But has no reference to, nor does at all concern other Gentiles; some of which might never hear of the Name of Israel; or of any of their Laws and Sabbaths. It pities me to see such weak and invalid Arguments; which if they have any force, it is to Judaize all the Christian World.

As to the second part of the Question, whe­ther the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath were ob­served ever after, during the Old Church: We acknowledge it was so still among the Jewish Nation; and he needed not to have produced any proofs for it: But withall we say, never among any other Nations, nor any Footstep of it, which is a sure Proof against its proper Mora­lity. As to that Observation, Page 28. That the Seventh Day, throughout the Old and New Testament, was called the Sabbath day. It was fit it should be so all along till our Saviour's Resurrection; because it was the Sabbath day till then: And afterward, if it be so called, it was in compliance with the Jews, who still held it so to continue, or to use the Expression which [Page 24]was in most common use, whereby the day might be known they spake of; (as we do of Sunday, Monday, &c. only to declare what day of the Week we mean) or else to declare the Abolition thereof: And (if we remember it) we may make some use of that Assertion, that the Seventh day and Sabbath are Synonimous in the Language of the Old and New Testament.

SECT. V.

THis Question he endeavours to prove Assir­matively, Page 29. That Christ did in the Flesh, confirm the Ten Commands, without any Ex­ception of the Fourth Commandment, or any part or tittle thereof. Which if we should fully grant, without the least Exception, it would make no­thing for his Cause, nor against ours; for as long as Christ was in the World, so long we all agree, that the Seventh day of the Week was the injoyed Sabbath; and therefore ought to be observed; and so might have been com­manded by Christ to be kept: And so we know he ratified the Ceremonial Law, by commanding the cleansed Lepers to go and shew themselves to the Priest, and offer the Gift which Moses com­manded for their cleansing, Matt. 8.4. And so also the Judicial Law, by injoyning them to pay Tithe of all, even of Mint, Annis and Cummin, Matt. 23.23. (which I think few or none do hold to be purely Moral) and so the Brother's taking of his Childless Brother's Wife, he [Page 25]seems to confirm by a Tacit Approbation to the Sadducees, objecting that to him, to baffle and puzzle him about the Resurrection, Matt. 22.23, 30. Yet nevertheless those Laws were not permanent, but expired; the Ceremonial with himself, and the Judicial with the Judicial State and Polity. Withall we add, that our Saviour did for ever confirm the Moral Law, which is contained in the Ten Commandments: And so the Fourth, as far as Moral; and in all that it commands as such: But withall we say, that some Passages of the Fourth Command are nei­ther Moral, nor yet commanded therein as such; or of the Substance thereof: Whereof the men­tioning of the last, the Seventh Day of the Week, to be the Sacred Rest; is one: (which here is but nakedly asserted, but we defer the Proof) and such as was to expire at his Resurrection. Wherefore we say that that Passage, Matt. 5.17. Till Heaven and Earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away, must refer only to the Moral Law, Quatenus Moral; and as it re­fers to, and obliges all Nations; which several Passages belonging to the Ten Commands do not; whereof this is one about the Seventh day; and I think th is may be cleared by this Argu­ment: That which neither our Saviour himself, nor any of his Apostles, did command or enjoyn to be followed by his, or their, Disciples and Followers, cannot be Moral: But neither he nor they did ever enjoyn the Seventh-day-Sab­bath, therefore it's not Moral. Our Saviour in none of his Discourses (that I remember) did ever expresly or particularly command the Ob­servance [Page 26]of the Sabbath-day; but spake and did things which seem to declare the Abolition of the Seventh day; neither do any of his Apo­stles, in any of their Writings, impose it upon, or command the Observance of it, from either Jews or Gentiles, to whom they write; and con­sequently we may conclude, that they never preached it (for we truly hold, that the Sum and Substance of all their Sermons is in their Books.) Yea, their Writings have several weighty Passages against the Seventh-day-Sab­bath. Now our Saviour in his Commission which he gave his Apostles, after his Resur­rection, just as he was ascending up to Heaven, expresly commands them to teach all Nations to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them, Matt. 28.19, 20. Wherefore seeing they com­manded not the Nations to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath, Christ never taught them that Doctrin, nor injoyned them to do it; and therefore this cannot be one of those Jots or Tittles of the Law, which in this Authors Sense, was not to pass from the Law; but only what was Moral in it. We acknowledge that the Lord Christ also confirmed the Moral Law, by commanding the Lawyer to love the Lord God, &c. But withall, that whoever gives to God the seventh part of his time, though it be not the Seventh day of the week; does therein love God as to the Declaration, as to the Fruit and Effect of his Love, as much as if he did the Seventh day; because it is as fully the Substance of that Command.

The same answer will serve to Mark 12.28, 31. (Page 30.) with this Addition, That the change of the Seventh-day-Sabbath into that of the first day, is no more laying aside of the Morality of the Fourth Command; than the change of Circumcision, the Passover, and other Ceremonial Ordinances of the Old Testa­ment into Baptism, the Lords Supper, and other Evangelical Administrations under the New. These being as really included in, and com­manded by, the second Command at that time, as the Seventh-day-Sabbath is in and by the Fourth. And therefore as the change of those Rites and Modes of Worship by our Lord Christ and his Apostles, was not the laying aside of the second Command, but rather a perfect Obedience thereto, and practical Confirmation thereof; so the change of the weekly-day-Sab­bath was no Infringement, but rather an Esta­blishment of the Fourth Commandment.

In the same Page he Insinuates, that we take away those words [The Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God] which yet we neither do in Letter, nor Sense, for we leave the words in the Command, and obey them in their pur­port and meaning: For they do not so much enjoyn the Seventh day in order, as in number, not so much the last day of the week, as one day of the week, to be observed and sanctified by us (as I suppose we may have an opportunity to prove.)

Page 31. He shews from Scripture that one great Article of the New Covenant, is Gods writing his Law upon the Hearts of his People, [Page 28]which he, with us, expresly acknowledges to be the Moral Law: How then can the Seventh-day-Sabbath (as such) be part of that Law, which is not written upon the Hearts of Thousands, to one of Gods People. I judge this to be a clear Demonstration against the Morality thereof.

He could never have shewn, that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was a part of the Law of Nature in Adam,) though the substance of the Ten Commands was it) and therefore it was insti­tuted by God as before.

Page 32. He shews us (for so I have a Belief he intends) that he had a mind to prove, that Set Forms of Prayers, or other parts of Worship under a Form, though never so Excellent, though in express words of Scripture; are the Pesel or Graven Image, that is forbidden in the second Command, which is a Notion, I am sure, alien from the Resentments of the most Grave, Pru­dent, Learned and Experienced Christians of former and Modern Ages, and very few of them have thought so uncharitably and rigor­ously of them, as to brand them with the grossest Idolatry; though many judge them fit to be lain aside by them, to whom God hath given a good and competent Gift; but yet much rather to be u sed, and that comfortably and profitably too, where such a Gift may be denied. And I think by this Rule, that everly Man that joyns with another in Prayer is guilty of Idolatry against the second Command; for he makes the words of the Minister, or private Christian, to be the Set Form of his Prayer: And why a Prayer written as a Form, should be [Page 29]more an Idol than a Prayer spoken as a Form, I do not yet understand.

In the same Paragraph he also hints, that the Lords Prayer ought only to be used in secret and alone; not in publick, no, nor in private, with any others; because of those Expressions in Matt. 6.6, 9. When thou prayest, enter into thy Closet and shut thy Door and Pray, &c. Whereas the Form of that Prayer in the plural Number, the very matter of that Prayer, being the uni­versal Concern of the Universal Church, and of every Congregation and Society of Christians, as well as of every private Christian; and our Saviour commanding his Disciples to use it without any such Limitation: Of a secret Per­sonal Retirement, Luke 11.2. are sufficient proofs, that it may be as well used Socially as Solitarily; with others as lawfully and conve­niently as by ones self.

In the following Paragraph he seems to be of the Opinion, that it would be better to have Mens or Ministers own Inventions in singing of Psalms, than the Divine Inspirations of David and other Authors in Scripture. And when I can believe, that theirs can be better than those in Scripture; or can be convinced that there is neither Psalm nor Hymn in the Bible that can fit a present Condition, either for Prayer, or Praises, or Gratitude, &c. I will think so: but as to the former of these two, I hope I shall never be­lieve; and as to the latter, I think it is not likely to fall out in my days. These things ought as curiously to be replied, as the Author has started these Notions; and when he sees fit [Page 30]to endeavour a more large Explication and Vindication of them, then we may also see what may be discoursed agianst them. And I heartily wish, he had but hinted this of his Seventh day; and so saved all this labour in an­swering of it; for it is just another such Opi­nion as the former, and deserved only to be mentioned: Indeed not to be mentioned at all, at least not in Print, not in publick: But of this in the Preface.

SECT. VI.

IN the next Paragraph he tells us, he has much to do to recover the word [Seventh] of the Fourth Commandment: Whereas none, but the Deniers of the Morality of the Seventh, would wrest it from him; for we all grant it to him, and acknowledge it to be of the very substance of the Command; that a Seventh day should be set apart for an Holy Consecrated Day to Divine Worship; only we say, that the Seventh day is so, as the seventh part of the Week; as one day of the seven, and not the seventh in order; or the last day of the Week: This we say is not expresly commanded therein, and might be altered for another day of the Seven, upon very good and authentick Reasons and Grounds; as it is from it to the first.

In this same Page he returns to our Saviours Confirmation of the Decalogue, from Mat. 5.17, 19. Luke 16.17. and then asks why [Page 31]those places confirm all the 10 Commands, and not the Seventh-day-Sabbath; and tells us that he can assign no other reason for it, but the marvelous Corruption of our Nature, which inclines us to be Gods, &c. when yet he knows, that they that are for the change of the Seventh, into the First-day-Sabbath, have given him many Reasons and good scriptural Grounds and Arguments, which do amount (in their Esteems) to a divine Authority for that Change; (though they do not produce an express Command for it; (as that which he seems to require in this Paragraph yet, what amounts thereto) but it seems all these are not Reasons to him; are not so much as Shews of Reasons: But the only Reason is Man's Corruption, Pride and Rebel­lion. Whereas he cannot but know, that ma­ny of those, who in Doctrin and Practice, ad­mit of this Change, are as free from these Vi­ces, and have as much mortifyed them, as him­self; and are as Eminent for Holiness, and Humili­ty and Obedience to God, as any Sabbatarian can pretend to be: And their Earnestness for the First day, does not spring from the Loose­ness of others thereon, nor mainly and chiefly from their Education and Custom: But because they know 'tis not Moral, (as other Parts and Appendix's of the Ten Commandments are not) and therefore not confirmed by Christ in those Expressions; with many other good and solid Grounds.

And here I shall ask him by way of requital, if the Seventh-day-Sabbath were really and primarily Moral, and by Christ confirmed, as [Page 32]well as all the other Commands, which are un­deniably so. Whence comes it to pass, that in all his Sermons and Discourses that he made to the Jews about the Moral Law, he did not so much as ever mention the Sabbath to his Hearer; either by way of Recommendation of it to them, or commending of them for their Zeal for it, and tthe strict Observance of it; nor yet commanding of its Observance, or teaching them how they should Keep and Sancti­fy it according to its first Institution? seeing 'tis clear, that he in his Discourse, doth par­ticularize every other Duty of the Moral Law; and Exhorts, and Requires Obedience thereto. In all his most copious and glorious Sermon up­on the Mount, where he Explains, Enlarges up­on, and Injoyns the other Moral Duties, we have not a Word about their Sabbath; and when ever he enumerates Particulars of the Moral Law of the Decalogue, he never mentions a­mong them, the Sabbath; nor when so many particular and express Occasions were given him by the Pharisees, and captions Jews; (in their condemning him and his Disciples, as Profaners of the Sabbath, &c.) to expound the Duty of the Sabbath, and to shew them where­in the due religious and acceptable Observance of the Seventh-day-Sabbath consisted; There is not the least Word appertaining hereunto, ut­tered by him; only a Vindication of his own, and his Disciples Practices, from a Profanation thereof. If I may judge at the Reasons, I think they may be such as these.

1 Because he knew that it was not of the same nature with the others, not Moral as they, nor necessary to be kept to Salvation as they. 2. Because he saw the Jews too superstitiously and zealously affected towards their Seventh-day-Sabbath already. 3. Because neither they nor we, neither Jews nor Gentiles, should have any thing from his Mouth that might have the least colour of confirming that Sabbath-day. 4. Because he designed its speedy Absolution as the Seventh day, and its Conversion into the First day. 5. Because as Place, Priesthood, Mode, outward Ceremonies of Divine Worship, which were before his coming into the Flesh; were to be altered by his Authority, as King of the Church, so was Time also; the day on which those were chiefly and most slemnly ob­served, into another day, wherein his own In­stitutions were to be chiefly and generally practi­sed by his Church: And for these and such like Reasons, he did not only particularly recom­mend and enjoyn, but did also speak and do (as has been formerly hinted, and may be fu­turely evinced) such words and things, as had a doctrinal and practical Tendency towards its Expiration.

Page 33. He imputes the Observation of the First day, but to a good Intention; which has been the cause of all manner of gross Superstitious Errors, Bloody Wars, &c. As though this gene­ral Opinion and Practice of the Universal Church all along, since the days of our Lord Christ, had no other Foundation, but in the deluded Brain of silly Zealots, and not the least [Page 34]Footing for it in the Word of God. An unwor­thy Suggestion, and a most invidious Compari­son; and such as very ill becomes a Man of his professed Candor and Reading.

'Tis strange that a Man should fancy that Commenius, when he exhorts to a Reformation of the Government, Doctrin, Worship and Practice of the Church; according to the Word of God, and the Patern in the Mount, should mean as one, if not the chiest of those Particu­lars, the removal of the First-day-Sabbath, and the reversion of the seventh day in lieu there­of: When he knows that all the Divines and Doctors that are orthodox, and his Adversaries in this Opinion, prescribe the same rule for the Reformation, and call upon those in Authori­ty to subserviate all their own Laws Ecclesi­astial and Civil, to an Observance of the Laws of God and of Christ: And Commenius himself, in his Practice and in his own Church, was an Observer and Sanctifier of the First-day-Sabbath, (as he here acknowledgeth) so a Disowner and Rejector of the Seventh day: And therefore questionless did not esteem the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be any part of that rule, according to which he would have all Churches regulated. But here we see what a strong fancy can do; it can transfigure into its self those things that are quite dissonant, if not directly contrary thereto.

SECT. VII.

HE gives us his Opinion Page 34. of abro­gating the Ceremonial Laws: But why does he not bring us an Express Command for their Abrogation, as he requires us to do, for not the Abrogation, but only the Mutation of the Sabbath, from one Day of the Week to an­other? For I assert, and can prove it, that some part of the Ceremonial Law was more confirmed by the Mouth of Christ, than his Seventh-day-Sabbath. I take leave to call it his, because though 'twas Gods day before the Resurrection of Christ, yet now 'tis not so; but Men will be favourably to themselves and their own Opinions, while they are rigorous towards others, and their more Orthodox and Scriptural Resentments.

In the same Page he gives us a Caution of not incurring the Threats of infringing the Laws of Christ, even the least of them; and by way of a charitable Requital, we warn him to be cautious lest he build again that which Christ hath destroyed, and repair the rased Syna­gogue.

Here we have also his Notion of what is Moral, telling us that many call the Ten Com­mandments the Moral Law: I think all slid Divines do call them so; but none that I know, do say that every Clause and Word in them, or belonging to them, (by this last Expression, I mean part of the Preface to them) is Moral; [Page 36]and particularly not the Seventh-day-Sabbath, or that Clause appertaining thereto in the Fourth Commandment; no, nor yet the Se­venth Part of Time therein expresly command­ed, and perpetually too, (that is not primari­ly nor absolutely, and of its self so.) As to his Notion of what is Moral, I cannot call it either a Definition, or a Description of the thing; but only an Interpretation of the Word Moral, viz. pertaining to Manners. We usually in such Discourses, put Moral, in oppo­sition to what is positive; whether it be Cere­monial, or Judicial: But this is such a Noti­on, as includes all Laws whatever, even Hu­man as well as Divine, and of Divine, all of them of what sort or kind soever; for they all apertain to Manners: Yea, to Thoughts, Words and Actions; yea, and are included in the Love of God, because whoever loves God truely, will, and must yield Obedience to all his Laws of what sort soever; whether Moral or Positive. But such a lax Interpretation of the Moral Law, served to the Design of the Seventh Day, because it includes it will all o­ther positive Laws; but had he given us a true Notion of what is Moral in its self, or in its own Nature, it would necessarily have been exclu­ed: As may be evinced by some Properties of what is truly Moral.

1. The Moral Law is inward, and was con­secrated with the rational Creature; and does need no external Revelation, or Divine Insti­tution; especially in the State of human Inte­grity before the Fall; but such was not the Se­venth [Page 37]day: For 'twas Instituted by God, af­ter Mans Creation. 2. The Moral Law yet remains in some Footsteps and Degrees there­of, in the Human Nature, and so in the gene­rality of Mankind, the Heathens themselves not excepted; (as might be easily proved by their Laws and Writings) but the Notion of the Se­venth day, is Universally excluded; and the Generality of Mankind totally destitute there­of. If it be here objected, That the Heathen did separate a Seventh-day to their Religious Service: To this may be applyed, That 'twas but some of them, and but for some time; not Universally and Perpetually. That they did it by Tradition from the Jews, or by Sa­tans Institution and Injunction, who in his cursed Pride, affects to have his Votaries serve him, as the Acknowledgers of Jehovah do him. 3. All Moral Laws are clearly and distinctly ingraven upon the Minds and Hearts of those that are enlightned and sanctifyed by the Spi­rit of God: But not a Tittle or punctum of his Seventh-day is seen in the Generality of them. 4. Man was made for Moral Duty, that is, to Glorify and Honour God in all Acts of Internal and External Piety; to profit and comfort his Neighbour by all Acts of Charity; to possess his own Vessel in Sanctification and Honour. And by so doing, he lives up to the end for which he was made: But now Man was not made for the Sabbath and for its Observance, but the Sabbath was made for Man, and for his Good, Mark 2.27. 5. Moral Duties are such, as a Man cannot change them, or neglect [Page 38]them, or do any thing beside them, without dis­honouring and sinning against God. But now it is certain, That as to the Nature of the thing its self, (separated form a positive In­stitution) that a Man may as fully Glorify and Honour God, and as compleatly serve him, by appropriating and imploying another day of the Week to, and in his Workship and Service, as the Seventh; provided he do dedicate ano­ther day in Seven, to that Service, the Wor­ship is the same; and the proportion of time the same: and so God as much and as long ser­ved, as upon the last day of the Week. Let him denominate any other Propriety of what is Moral; and I will undertake to evince, That it belongs not to his Seventh-day-Sabbath. To what purpose then to urge and insist so much, and so long, upon the Moral Law, when the Seventh-day-Sabbath, is no part at all of the Morality thereof?

Those Passages before mentioned, That Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil the Law; that the Breaker of the least of Gods Commands, shall be least in the Kingdom of God, &c. And these Page 35. He that will enter into Life, must keep the Commandments: It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away, than one tittle of the Law, to fail; do not only concern the Moral Law (though if they did, we have sufficiently shewn that the Sabbath is not concerned in them) but also the Positive; even the Ceremonial Law. For while they were in Force, as they all were throughout the days of our Saviour's Animal Life; (which I so call, to distinguish it from [Page 39]the Glorious Life of his Humanity upon Earth after his Resurrection.) They that would enter into Life (at least of the Jews and their Prose­lytes, to whom only they were Laws and Obli­gatory) were bound to keep them. And if they did willfully and perseveringly disobey them, they would as certainly be Damned, as if they had lived in a Contradiction to any of the Moral Laws: Because such a Refusal to observe and keep the Ceremonial Laws, is directly and ultimately a Disobedience to the Moral; and that too, to the very Soul and Foundation of all the Commandments: Even the First Com­mand, by being a Renunciation of Gods Au­thority in refusing a Conformity to his revealed Will. Again it was a direct and immediate Sin against the Second Command; by being a re­fusal to worship him according to his own in­stituted Worship: So Christ came not to de­stroy the Ceremonial Law, but to fulfil it. Which he did by being the End and Consum­mation thereof; by being the Substance of those Figures, and the Body of those Shadows, and no Law is destroyed which continues in its Force as long as the Legislator intended, and produces all those Ends for which he designed it. Now the Ceremonial was intended by God to be no longer a Law, than till our Lords Death, or Resurrection, or Mission of the Holy Ghost; and it was designed only to typisie the Lord Christ, and to lead Believers to him, as to the End and Substance thereof; which our Lord, being he was so far from destroying it, that he perfectly fulfilled it, though he abro­gated [Page 40]its future legal Authority: And so not one tittle of the Ceremonial Law did fail, for all had its Accomplishment on Christ, no more than a tittle of the Moral Law cannot: So that we have granted him his desire, in shewing him what Law Christ meant in such Passages, even the Ceremonial as well as the Moral; for they were the Object of the Superstitious Jews greatest Zeal, and they persecuted him and his Disciples, as the Overthrowers of the Ceremo­nial Laws; and therefore Christ tells them, He came not to destroy, but to fulfil them, &c.

By all that hath been already said, is fully shewn, the Impertinency of those Quotations (Page 35. 38.) where our Saviour makes use of an confirms the Moral Law: For there is not one word of his Sabbath in them all. In our Saviour's Carriage and Language he vindi­cates the Sanctity of the Temple, John 2.13, 17. so he does Circumcision, and Authorizes its Ad­ministrations upon the Sabbath day, and derives it from a more August Antiquity than Moses, John 7.22, 23. If our Author had any such Expression from our Saviour's Mouth con­cerning the Sabbath; how would he have triumphed therein, and have fetch'd its everlast­ing Establishment therefrom? But there is not one such Syllable concerning it. These have a greater shew for their Authority from our Sa­viour's Discourses than the Seventh-day-Sabbath; yet I doubt not but he looks on them as no longer in Force, and of no Obligation in these latter and Evangelical days.

Page 37. He produces the Church of England Articles, the Presbyterian Confession, the In­dependants Declaration of Faith, for the Rati­fication of the Moral Law; who yet are all for the Exclusion of the last day of the Week from being the Christian Sabbath; and thereby de­clare their Rejection of it from being any part thereof: And thus all the Authority, both Di­vine and Humane, that he produceth, makes nothing at all for him, but very much rather against him: With which this question is con­cluded.

SECT. VIII.

HE proposes the Question, Page 38. Whether Christ in his own Person did not observe the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath, and no other during his Life. To which we answer affirmatively with him, that he did so, that he was bound to do it, that it was part of his Righteousness which he was to fulfil; for he was born under the Authority and Obligation of the Old Testa­ment Administrations; even of the Ceremonial ones, and therefore was Circumcised the eighth day; went up to Jereusalem with his Mother in his Childhood to keep the Annual Feasts; and in his Manhood was a Constant, Conscientious and obedient Attender upon, and observer of the Passover; as we read in the History of his Life, after his Baptism, and manifesting him­self to the World, home to his Death, or just [Page 42]before his Sufferings; and so doubtless did by all the other Ceremonial Laws, according to Gods Injunction of them, and was an Observer of all other positive Divine Laws; and so con­sequently must he be of this; for neither all the former, nor this particular, were to be abrogated and lain aside, as to their Authority, till he himself was lain aside and buried in the Grave. Without doubt he also dutifully kept and practised all the Judicial Laws; being born a Member of their State, as well as of their Church, as far as their Roman Lords would permit; for the Authority of these Laws lasted as long as the Judicial Polity; and with it de­clined and perfectly expired. Will this Pleader for the Seventh day, contend for the Authority of all those Ceremonial and Judicial Laws home to our days, because our Blessed Lord observed and kept them? He must do so, if this Argu­ment be of any weight. And it has been the Fate of all his Arguments hitherto, to militate as much for all the Ceremonies (except that of the Sabbaths being given in Innnocency) of the Jews, as for the Seventh day. Enough for their own Confutation.

Just another such Medium is cunningly insi­nuated, Page 39. to prove the Goodness of the Observation of this Sabbath, viz. Its Antiquity, having been the Sabbath of the Church for four thousand Years; which will introduce Sa­crifices into the Worship of God, a Bloody Offering up of Beasts, for they are as ancient within a day or two (as 'tis probable) for God taught Adam to offer up such Sacrifices as the [Page 43]Types of the Seed of the Woman who was to have his Heel bruised by the Serpent, his Hu­mane Nature murthered by the Devil and his Agents; but then sacrificed and offered up to God, as the Expiratory Victim for the sins of Fallen Man: And 'tis probable that those Skins which God made Coats of for Adam, might be of such sacrificed Beasts: And Adam taught his Sons to Sacrifice to God: And we read Gen. 4.4. That Abel brought to God the Firstlings of his Flock, and the Fat thereof. Will he therefore plead that their venerable Antiquity must still give them a place in the Evangelical Dispen­sation, now that that Grand and All-sufficient Sacrifice, the substance of those Shadows, is offered up? I trow not: So neither can the Antiquity of the former Sabbath, till our Savi­our's days, and through his days, be any Argu­ment for its Admission and Authority now; seeing by our Saviours coming, we have the new Heaven and the new Earth, which the Pro­phets foretold, Isa. 65.17. & 66.22. and a more glorious and blessed Work accomplished, than that of the Creation; which doth much more deserve a Sanctification and Separation of that day, whereon its Compleater rested from all his former Labours, and a new external Ad­ministration was introduced; and a new day and consecrated time suitably also instituted.

SECT. IX.

IT is demanded Page 40. Whether Christ did rest the Seventh-day-Sabbath when he was in the Grave. And it is affirmatively resolved, that his Soul rested in Heaven, and his Body rested in the Grave that day. All as a Proof that our Lord Christ himself, did in his state of Death, confirm that Seventh-day-Sabbath, as well as by his Practice and Doctrin in Life; and so recommended it to the Observance of all the future Churches: Which Notion, if it could be proved, would do more for the Seventh-day-Sabbath, than all the Arguments he hath yet brought. If he could rationally demon­strate, that the blessed Redeemer did rest on the Seventh day from all his Humiliation and Sufferings; he would then defeat the great ground on which all the Churches, since our Lords coming and consummating the work of Redemption, have built upon for the Change of the Seventh day, into the First-day-Sabbath. For they say, they do it, because on the first day our Lord Jesus God-man, rested from that more Wonderful, Glorious, Gracious, Profit­able and Ravishing Work, than that of the Creation and more laborious and difficult work to himself; being really and dreadfully so to his Humane Nature. But indeed this Notion is a very strange and an uncouth one; because the Rest of the Mediator in this Sense, cannot be thought to be any other than a happy and [Page 45]Complacential Reflection upon the work of our Redemption, merited by all his Active and Passive Obedience; which could not be until he had waded through all the Degrees of his Abasement, and begun his Exaltation, and so in his Blessed and Glorious Estate, delighting himself in his Conquest of the Devil, the World, Death and the Grave; and his having per­fectly satisfied Justice, and purchased Grace and Glory for Lost Sinners; which could not be till the Resurrection of his Body. Can the State of Death with any probability be thought the Mediator's Rest? Or his lying in the Grave, be deemed the end of all his Abasements, when Death was the worst thing his Enemies could bring upon him in their Rage and Fury; when they triumphed over him in the Grave; and concluded that now they had compleatly van­quished him, and proved him to be a Grand Deceiver, Matt. 27.62, 64. when it was that which was especially required as the utmost of his Sufferings for the Expiation of our Sins; being that which was denounced, at first against Sin, Gen. 2.17. and as the consummate Punish­ment thereof, and is the proper Wages of Sin, Rom. 6.23. and therefore so to be undergone and lain under by the Sinners Surety; standing in his stead, and bearing his Punishment, and being made that Curse for him, Gal. 3.13. which was the lowest Descent of his Humilia­tion, which saddened the Hearts of his Disci­ples, and filled them with fear, whose hopes almost expired at his Death, and were buried in his Grave; in which Estate if he had abode, [Page 46]the Devil and his Enemies would have gotten a compleat Victory over him, and we could never have been justified nor saved.

Moreover our Saviour's Body and Soul rested as much upon the Cross after his Death, as they did in the Grave after his Burial; And so the Muchammedists have as fair a Plea for their Sixth-day-Sabbath, because on that day the Dead Body of our Saviour felt no pain on the Tree, and his Soul enjoyed all Bliss in Heaven. And so in this sense rested on their day of Worship.

How unreasonable and unscriptural to call this the Rest of our Redeemer! Besides it was impossible that as Redeemer he should rest in the State of Death, and in the Grave; for the Re­deemer must be God-man; his Deity could not declaratively rest, till it had raised its own Hu­manity out of the Grave, and rent in sunder the Bonds of Death: And his Humanity could not really do so; because it was not, during that Condition; for we know that Death is the Sepa­ration of the Soul from the Body: Now the Soul separated from the Body, is a Spirit and not a Man; the Body separated from the Soul, is a Corps not a Man; both Soul and Body sepa­rated are not Man; but essentially conjoyned they make the Man. Wherefore though both Body and Soul in their mutual Separation were united to the Deity; and so he was always God, and had the essential parts of Man; yet being divided, he was not Man; for by Death they being dissolved, his Humanity was destroyed, and continued so, as long as Death had power [Page 47]over him. So that 'tis against all Reason and common Sense, to assert that the Mediator, who must be God-man, rested in the Grave; seeing in this true sense he could not be Man there. No, no, This was no part of his Rest, but his Resurrection from the Grave; the re-uniting of his Body and Soul, was the first entrance into it: For as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Jehovah, is not said to rest, till he had fully compleated his six days work of Creation; and then with infinite Complacency viewed all he had compleated on the Seventh: So Jesus Christ, God-man, cannot be said to rest from the Work of our Redemption, till he had fully compleated and ended all his Humiliation; till he had con­quered all his and our Enemies; which could not possibly be while he lay in the Grave on the Seventh day; but it was when he rose from thence on the First; when indeed he had a glo­rious and Blessed satisfaction in himself, when he reflected upon all he had done, and all the Sufferings he waded through, and all the Humi­liation he was sunk into, and had happily and triumphingly concluded, with all those inesti­mable Blessings that should accrue to the Church, and that infinite Glory that would redound to God thereby: And therefore as God's Resting on the Seventh day from his work of Creation, was proposed as the Example and Motive to the Old Church before Christ's coming, for the keeping the Seventh for their Sabbath: So likewise our Saviour's Resting from his work of our Redempti­on on the First day of the Week, may wor­thily be, and we say really is, proposed as a [Page 48]Motive and Example to the Churches, since his coming, for their consecrating of that day for their Weekly Sabbath. I am sorry that such Passages of the Author, should occasion so much Tediousness to the Reader, and inforce such Enlargedness from the Writer. As to that place, Mat. 24.20. which he tells us he will improve hereafter to his own Advantage, we shall attend his Motions, and meet him there.

To his Query Page 41. we grant that the Jewish Believers, did keep the Seventh-day-Sab­bath, while our Saviours Body was in the Grave; and that they ought to do so, because as yet, the First day by our Lords Resurrection, was not Consecrated to be observed as the day of the Redeemers Rest. And withal, that they were obliged during this time, to observe the unleavened Bread-Feast; and (supposing it to be the Eighth day from their Birth, to Circum­cise their Children) yet I hope this is no Plea for the everlasting Permanency of these: So neither can it be for that of the Seventh-day-Sabbath.

SECT. X.

WE have his Conjecture Page 43. about the Week-day of our Lord's Ascension; which he would fain suppose to be on the Se­venth: But if we may believe St. Luke, Act. 1.3. that he tarried on Earth Forty Days, and so was visible to his Disciples all that time, and [Page 49]conversed with them as oft as he saw fit, and about what was most necessary and profitable for their Knowledge; and then ascended into Heaven: If we look on this as an Historical Account of his Abode on Earth after his Resur­rection, (as it lays a fairer Foundation for it, than all Human Conjectures can be) then if we reckon from the First day of the Week, to the Fortieth day, and both the First and Last inclu­sively, then the day of his Ascension, was up­on the Fifth day of the Week; which is our Thursday, (as the Church of England observes it) If we exclude either the First or Last day only, 'twill be upon the Sixth day of the Week, our Fryday, (if I mistake not;) but if we exclude both the First and Last Days, (I mean the day of his Resurrection, and the day of his Ascen­sion) from the number of Forty days, then 'twill fall out upon the Seventh day of the Week our Saturday; which he conjectures to be the day of the Week of our Saviours Ascension: But here we must consider that we have two to one against him in this Conjecture: And ac­cording to his Conjecture, and the usual Phrase of Scripture, our Saviour would have conti­nued Forty Two days upon Earth: For the Scrip­ture in the number of Days, does usually in­clude both the First and Last day. As in calling the last day of the Week the Seventh, it takes into the Number, both it, and the First day of the Week; for there are but Seven in all: And so when it saith that our Saviour rose the Third day from the Dead, it includes the First and Last days of the Three; and therefore having [Page 50]the scriptural usual Phrase on our side, and the Tradition of the Churches, we have very good Ground to conclude, that he ascended upon Thursday; and he has no Ground but his own Conjecture, for his Opinion of his Ascension up­on Saturday. But every little Surmise is made use of, to exalt the Seventh above all the days of the Week; and especially above the Lords day in this Controversie. As to that Fancy of our Saviours coming to Judgment on the Se­venth day, I leave it as a Pure Fancy.

Here also he takes it for granted, that our Saviour after his Resurrection, appeared to his Disciples upon the Seventh day, (or at least he supposes it may well be granted) because they were then assembled, &c. But he knows they met together on other days, and particularly upon the First day, on which our Lord appear­ed unto them. And that Assembly in the First of the Acts, if 'twere on the Ascension day, was according to Scripture numbering of days, up­on our Thursday. But seeing he would make use of (if we would grant) our Lords appear­ing to his Disciples once on the Seventh day, what an Advantage may we justly take for the First day, from our Saviour's appearing so oft­en unto them on the same? so that there is no other day of the Week named, where­on our Saviour manifested himself unto them after the Resurrection, but this First day: 'Tis not said that he appeared unto them on the Se­cond or Third, nor at all on the Seventh; and 'tis very probable, that all the Appearances of our Saviour, (which were not a few) were on [Page 51]the First day: Except only that on his Ascension day. 'Tis worth our serious Observance, that as our Saviour would not grace the Seventh day, with one particular express word of his Mouth about it, during his Life-time, so he would not honour it with one Appearance of his Human Nature to his Disciples, throughout all the Forty days after his Resurrection: Which to me, seems plainly to signify, that he would have a perpetual Silence thereof, in his future Churches; and that he had buried it in his Grave, and would have it lye dormant there for ever.

SECT. XI.

HAving done with this Conjecture, we pro­ceed to the Author's Question in the same Page, Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath was obser­ved after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ: Whereof he thinks he demonstrates the Affir­mative: But is far enough from it by those In­stances which he brings from the Apostles, and especially and mostly from St. Paul; yea, only from him. For though we take it for granted, that many of the newly Proselyted Jews to the Doctrin and Faith of the Lord Jesus, (the ordi­nary and common sort of them) did continue to observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath, out of an Erroneous Conscience toward God, and a Per­suasion of the perpetual Obligation of the Fourth Command, as to this Seventh day, as [Page 52]they did also Circumcision, the Passover, and o­ther Mosaical Rites, and Consecrated Times (for all which, St. Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians, does clearly and se­verely reprove them.) Yet we say that the Apostles themselves never did so, much less St. Paul, the great Doctor of the Gentiles, and the great Vindicator of their Freedom from the Rites and Days of the Old Testament-Admi­nistration: For they were otherwise, and bet­ter taught by their Lord, and instructed by the Holy Ghost; for they went indeed, (I mean Paul and his Companions) into the Synagogues on the Sabbath-day, I mean here the Seventh-day; though it deserves not now that Name. But 'twas not in any Observance of that day, as more Holy than another; as 'twas not in any Observance or Deference to the Synagogue, as a more Holy Place than another, that he went into it. But 'twas because that then and there, the Jews were assembled in great Numbers, be­cause that was the time, and that the place of their Solemn and Numerous Associations for their Divine Worship: And he could not find so fit an Opportunity any other day, nor so convenient a Room in any other place to Con­verse with them, to Preach the Gospel to them, to prove the Lord Jesus to be Gods promised, and their expected Messiah; to Convince them hereof, and to Exhort them to Believe on him, and Embrace him as such, which his Zeal for Christs Glory, and his Love to their Souls, strongly constrained him to. And this we assert, was the only cause of his so often, and so unusal [Page 53]going into their Synagogue on the Seventh day, without any Difference as to Time and Place; as if it were more holy than any other. We know how ardently he longed after the Con­version and Salvation of his own Countrymen and Kinsfolk, according to the Flesh; how fervently he panted after our Lord Christs be­ing acknowledged by them; as that which would be their greatest Good, and his greatest Glo­ry in the World: For so his Enemies would become his Friends; his Basphemers of him, as the worst of Deceivers, would be turned to be his Praisers, Adorers and Relyers on him; as the Son of God, the King of Israel, and Saviour of the World: And therefore this constrained him to apply himself to them in every Place, and at every Time, where he might discourse with most of them, and with greatest Freedom and Advantage. And if the Jews had convened on other Days, in other Places, in as great Crowds; he could doubtless then and there, have applyed himself unto them: And had they accustomed their Assemblies at any other time, or in any other place, he would have made it his Custom and usual Manner, to have associa­ted with them. The Reason that the Holy Ghost gives us of Paul's going into the Jews Synagogues on the Seventh day, and making it his usual Custom, is no where said, as I remem­ber, that he might Worship with them; much less, that he might observe the day with them; but on­ly that he might Preach the Gospel to them, and prove the Lord Christ to be their Messiah: Wherefore seeing the Holy Ghost tells us every [Page 54]where, that this was his great Design, and this his great Work in their Synagogue: There­fore it hence follows, That if he could not have had such Advantages for this Work among them, he would never then nor there, have ac­companied with them: So far was he from a­ny Respect, either to Time or Place, in this his Custom, that he only made use of them, in a Subserviency to his farther Design: And there­fore 'tis very remarkable, and worthy our most diligent Observance, that when the Apostle Paul, had sound the Jews given up so far to their cursed Blindness and Prejudice against the Lord Christ, that all his Pains he took with them, all the Affections he shewed he had for them, all the undeniable Demonstrations from Scripture he produced before them, could prevail nothing with them, but rather they contradicted and blasphemed. He forsook them and their Society, and turned to the Gentiles, Act. 13.45, 46. and doubtless, went into their Synagogues no more on the Seventh day. In other Places he did go into the Jews Synagogues after this, on the Se­venth day, as long as he had any hope of suc­ceeding in his Preaching the Lord Christ to them; but when he saw that they were gene­rally hardned, and took Advantage to speak Evil of the Lord Christ, and his Doctrin be­fore others, (the Gentiles) he turned away quite from them, and forsook their Synagogue; and made the School of a Heathenish Philosopher, one Tyrannus, the common Meeting-place of his Auditors, Act. 19.8, 9. and so questionless, al­tered the Time and Day, as well as the Place of [Page 55]his Preaching, and the Meeting of his Auditors: For after this, throughout all the remaining Book of the Acts, throughout the remaining part of this Chapter, and all the other Nine, you find not the least Mention of Paul's Preaching or Praying, or Associating with any others up­on the Seventh day; neither could this Author produce, because he could not find any such Passage after this Eighth Verse of this Nineteenth Chapter: Wherefore that Word of Mr. B. Pag. 45. Line 15. Continually, might well be omitted; for he did not continually go into the Jews Synogogue, on the Seventh day, but ceased from it, when his great Design thereof was frustrated; and never is said more to do it, after this time: No, not at Rome, where he lived Two whole Years in a hired House of his own, and might have appointed what day he would for the Collection of his Disciples and Hearers. Is he ever said to have called them together on the Seventh day? which I assert to be a clear Proof that he never did it before out of any Regard to that day, as more holy than other: And therefore this Discourse of Two or Three Pages, and the particular Remarks which he makes upon this Practice of St. Paul, in some few of the Chapters of the Acts, and the great Advantages he thinks he has for the Seventh day from them, are dwindled and vanished into nothing. If he would have gotten any thing for his Cause, from this Practice of St. Paul, he should have shewn these, or such like Particulars.

1. That St. Paul called his Auditors together upon that day; which he cannot do, for the [Page 56]Jews assembled themselves thereon. 2. That he associated himself with the Gentiles, and made their Religious Assemblies upon that day; but this he never reads. 3. That he did this perseveringly, even when he turned from the Jews; but this he can never shew, and there­fore all this shew is but a shew. Besides, we know St. Paul preached where-ever and whenever he found a convenient Auditory, in the School of Tyrannus, Acts 19.9. in the Market-place, Acts 17.17. on Mars-hill, v. 22. at the High Priests Bar, and before Festus and Agrippa; and as he made no distinction of places, so none of days, as to the preaching of the Gospel (though as to the Churches solemn stated Worship he did, though not the Seventh day) and so these days and times have as much to plead for their Sanctity from the Apostles preaching on them, as the Se­venth hath. But I suppose I have said enough of this, to satisfie any unprejudiced considering Person.

Page 46. To his Question we grant, that the Holy Scriptures do call no other day of the Week a Sabbath but the Seventh (though Dr. Lightfoot shews, that one day of the Year is called a Sabbath day, whenever it falls out upon any other day of the Week, viz. Pentecost) and do not begrudge him all the Advantage he can take from hence. Thus (I hope) by Gods Assistance and Guidance, I have ran through all this Author's Arguments for his Sabbatarian Opi­nion, and if I deceive not my self, have proved them to be very weak and ineffectual, as to the Edifying and Establishment of it: And now I must proceed to try his Skill in plucking down, [Page 57]and to see if he be more Dextrous and Success­ful in defeating our Arguments against the Seventh day, and for the Sanctification of the First day (which from henceforth I will take liber­ty to call the Lords day) which he judges to be most weak and empty, even the Conjectural Mistakes of the meaning of some Passages in Scripture; let us see whether he can prove them to be such.

SECT. XII.

THe first Objection against the Seventh day, and Argument for the Lords day, is Page 47. from the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that day, &c. Against which he has nothing directly and particularly, but only hints the Differences of Opinions about the changing of the day; but all (save one) do agree, that it is changed, and reason would judge, that their universal concurrent Suffrages, should weigh more for its Mutation, than their Differences about the Circumstances thereof, should against the Change of it. He answers, there is no ex­press Alteration of the Seventh into the First-day-Sabbath: And he expresses his meaning to be, not by any express Precept; but we say there are other ways of Abrogating and Establishing things in Scripture, than by express Prohibi­tions, or positive Injunctions; even by genuine Consequences from Doctrins, from Examples of those that are proposed to our Imitation, &c. And that the Sanctification of the Seventh day is as much abrogated in the Gospel, and the Lords [Page 58]day established in its stead, as any of the Cere­monies of the Old Administration are. And I think we may challenge him to produce any one express Command for the Abolishing of any one of the Jewish Ceremonies, or of all of them con­junctly; which because we cannot find, conse­quently we must still look upon them to be in force, and keep them alive in the Christian Churches, and these days of Reformation. I do verily believe, if my Judgment were sway'd with such Arguments against the Lords day, and for the Seventh, they would lead me back to all the Jewish Religious Worship, because they were all as really commanded by the Second Com­mand (even all instituted Worship) as the Se­venth day is by the Fourth, both which are in themselves positive, though referred to, and vir­tually contained in the Moral Commands; yet he acknowledges the Abolition of these without an express Command, and why not of this? Let him bring his Arguments from Scripture for the Abrogation of any of them, and I do verily believe we shall be able to use the very same for the Exclusion of the Seventh day. I know not any one particular Rite of the Old Testament, more particularly spoken of in the New Testament by the Apostle towards its Ex­clusion from the Christian Church, than Circum­cision; yet there is no express Command against it that I know of: And I assert, that let him bring what Argument he can from these Epistles against it, I will produce the same against the Seventh-day-Sabbath, and so they must either stand or fall upon the same Ground, and so [Page 59]must the other Ceremonies that are not so much as mentioned in the Books of the New Testa­ment. Again, here he recurs to the Danger and Presumption of Indulging to Conjectures and Humane Fancies in the things of God, with­out any warrant from Scripture, or against the Commands thereof, under a pretence of honour­ing God and Christ thereby, and unworthily applies all this to the Assertors of the Lords-day. But to this we have answered already, and doubt not but to be as Innocent in this Respect as himself; and this is the summ of all his an­swer to this Argument for the First-day-Sabbath. But we must not so leave it, but speak what (I hope) God will direct to the Vindication of it: And here we must know, that this Argu­ment is not the solitary Proof that we bring for the Lords-day's Holy Observation; for then it might seem to carry no great weight with it. But,

First, We undertake to prove an Abolition of the Seventh day from the Word, and then pro­pose the First day, as bidding fairest of all the other Week-days for it; because we acknow­ledge one day of the Seven to be the substance of the Fourth Commandment, and to be positively and secondarily Moral in it; and that there­fore there lies still an Obligation upon all the Churches unto the end of the World, to keep one day in seven Holy unto the Lord (at least all who may have the Commands intirely con­veyed to them, and duly taught them, for there may be a case of Exemption in this particular, as we may see in the progress) and we say the [Page 60]Seventh day being cashiered, the first day ought to be its successor; and that because of the glo­rious Privileges of this day above all others of the Week; whereof this of our Lords Resur­rection from the Dead is chief, because this was the day of God the Redeemer's entring into his Rest. And our Argument for the Lords day is both a Pari & a Majori; from Equality and Eminence; Equality with, and Eminency to, the Rest of God the Creator upon the Seventh day; for as the Creators having finished the Sixth days work and rested the Seventh, was made a positive Motive for the Observance of that day for a religious Rest, during all the time that Jehovah rested from no other more emi­nent work of his: So we say in like manner, the Rest of God the Redeemer from that his greater work of Redemption on the first day, may be as good a Motive for the Consecrating thereof to a religious Rest; for here we sup­pose the Seventh day excluded: Yea we argue a fortiori, and say it may much more upon this account challenges its Holy Observation. Be­cause,

1. The Rest of Jehovah after the works of the Creation, was no proper Rest (as has been proved) but now his Rest after the work of Redemption, was a real and proper one, from the Labours, Sufferings and Humiliation of his humane Nature. 2. The Work of Creation cost God but six words of his Mouth; but the work of Redemption cost him his Incarnation, and in his Manhood, his mean and contempti­ble Birth, his poor, obscure, laborious Life, for [Page 61]thirty Years together in his reputed Fathers House, and probably at his Trade too; and after that his itinerant, wearisom, tempted, re­proached, persecuted and sad Life, for 3 or 4 Years before his Sufferings, and his compleat, voluntary and sinless Obedience to his Fathers Will, all his days; and his fearful Sufferings, and most dreadful, shameful, painful, lingring and accursed Death. 3. By the work of Crea­tion God brought all things out of nothing, and so could not possibly meet with any opposition thereto; but in the work of our Redemption he waded through and overcame all Opposition, all the Temptations of Men and Devils; all the Rage and Malice, the Revilings, horrible Re­proaches, false Accusations, unjust Condemna­tions of Men; all the Rage, Fury and Cruelty, of Earth and Hell, of Men and Devils: Yea, all the Wrath and Vengeance of his Father (which was infinitely worse than all the former) and at last Death and the Grave. 4. By the Creation God brought our Nature out of no­thing; but by Redemption, from Satan, from Sin, from Death, from Hell, from the Wrath of God, and from the Grave. 5. By the Cre­ation God made us perfectly Holy and Happy; planted Paradise for us; gave us an Immorta­lity, and Abilities, and Inclinations, and infi­nite Obligations, so to remain for ever; but not the effectual Grace (for we speedily fell) and an animal Life (for we were to eat and drink and sleep in Innocency, to recruit the Decays of Nature) but by Redemption God brings us again into a perfect and more glorious State of [Page 62]Holiness and Happiness, conveys us into the third Heaven, gives us an eternal Security there, and makes us like the Angels for ever and ever; and doubtless our Condition in the third Heaven, where Redemption conveys and lodges us, will be as far more Noble, Glorious, Blessed and Happy, than our Condition in Para­dise, where Creation made and stated us, as that is in Situation above this. 6. God glori­fied his Power, Wisdom and Goodness in the work of Creation; but much more all these in the work of Redemption (as might easily be displayed to the Reader) and withall, his Pity, his Grace, his Justice, his Holiness, his Truth, his Jealousie for his own Glory; more of Gods Glory shining forth in one Line of the Re­deemers Face, than in all the Creation both visi­ble and invisible. Wherefore seeing this work of Redemption does so unconceivably surpass that of Creation, both as to Excellency, as wrought out by God; and as to its Ʋtility to us, as wrought out for us; we say (with Reverence and without Offence) that the first day hath more to shew upon this account for its Holy Separation from, and Exaltation above, the rest of the Week-days, than ever the Seventh had, or can pretend unto: And we say withall, that it is very Congruous, that God the Redeemer should have one day of the Week consecrated to his Rest for 2000 Years in the latter days of the World; as well as God the Creator have a day throughout 4000 Years consecrated to his Rest: Especially seeing that the Honour and Glory of the Redeemer herein, is the Glory and [Page 63]Honour of God the Creator, for both are the same Jehovah; whereas the Glory of the Crea­tor herein, is not the Glory of the Redeemer; for the Redeemer was not when the Creation was produced, neither should ever have been, had the Creation stood in that Estate wherein God created it, and rested in his works: So that 'tis clear from hence, that 'tis not a Pre­tence to honour the Lord Christ, that is pleaded for the first day; but 'tis really an Honour, a great Honour to the Redeemer, that it should be dedicated to a holy Commemoration of his Rest. That the First-day-Sabbath hath the same Argument and Motive in this particular that the Seventh hath, even God's Resting from his work; and herein a stronger, as far as the Glory and Profit of Redemption, excels that of Creation. I have been somewhat long here, and the Subject is very Glorious, Delightful and Profitable; and the Argument, with others, weighty and convincing, and ought not to be slightly passed over, how little soever is said against it; the Author seeming to fancy he could blow it out of door with a puff.

SECT. XIII.

HE proposes Page 49. our Argument from our Saviour's appearing to his Disciples on the first day of the Week, for its being the day of Christian and solemn Worship from John 20. to 26. To which he answers, all this [Page 64]amounts not to an Institution, but with other Ar­guments, it bids fairly for it, and shews the Honour our Saviour put upon this day beyond all others. As to his other, 'tis replied, that 'tis probable, that first day spoken of in v. 19. here, may be the same with that spoken of Luke 24.13, &c. and 'tis probable 'tis not so, for our Lord appeared to his Disciples on several Lord-days. But fairly to grant what he can­not get: Suppose it were so, could the two Disciples, travelling to Emaus, and our Savi­our's coming to them, walking and conversing with them, any way disparage this day, or weaken this Argument? Not at all. For 1. These Disciples were yet Unbelievers of Christ's Resurrection, and so could have no thoughts of keeping a First-day-Sabbath to the Comme­moration thereof. 2. Their Journey to Emaus might be but a Sabbath-days Journey; It might be for religious Ends, and we know many among us do go and ride, or have gone or rid, several Miles to hear Sermons and receive Sa­craments; and yet not be adjudged as Pro­faners of the Lords day: And our Lord, by several Discourses of his about, and Actions of his upon, the Sabbath, might well take them off from too scrupulous and nice Observation of the Lords day. 3. The Journey seems not to be so great, nor the distance between Emaus and Jerusalem so many Miles, as Geographers re­late: And therefore Beza saith (as Mr. Warren informs me) that they were mistaken: And there seems a great probability thereof, because 'tis said, Luke 24.33. That they rose up the [Page 65]same hour, and went to Jerusalem; and came to the Congregation of the Eleven, and the other Disciples, before ever they were dismissed: And therefore 'tis very improbable that it should be seven Miles and a half from that City, and much more probable that it was but a Sabbath-days Journey. 4. Our Saviour being risen and entred into his Glory (at least the first degree thereof) was now no longer sub­ject to Sabbath Observance, neither could he be a Profaner thereof, whatever he did thereon: And beside, having a glorified Body, he might be with them in an instant upon the way, and so in a very small particle of time return to Jerusalem; and all his Discourse to them was most proper for the Holy Sabbath; opening to them the Scriptures, reproving them for their Unbelief, and making their Hearts to burn with­in them: So that our Saviour's Discourses and walking with them, do rather serve to con­firm the First-days-Sabbath; and their going to Emaus no way to infringe it.

As to that which is produced, Page 50. from John 20.26. he replies, that they might not be gathered together for religious Worship: For what else then? For fear of the Jews. A very probable Conjecture indeed! For if it had been only for fear, it had been safer to have been divided, and every one have hid and concealed himself in some Friends House, or unsuspected and safe place or other. But to be all assem­bled together in a suspected House (for the Text plainly hints, that was either in a Dis­ciples House, or some other usual meeting place) [Page 66]would be rather to expose themselves; and to do this without any design of religious Wor­ship, would argue them very indiscreet: But now 'twas their duty to meet together to wor­ship God, though with hazard; and this they did, and shut the doors upon them, that they might not be disturbed by the Jews. His denial of this second Appearing to be on the Lords day, is taken from a Criticism about a Greek Preposition, which we translate after: Now all that know any thing of that Language, know that their Prepositions are very Polysemous, and admit of divers Interpretations, or include many of ours; and that two joyned to one Case of the following Noun, as this Meta does; for it might be rendred before the Accusative, in, within, as well as after; and it might have been so translated here, but they would render it by after; well knowing that even so rendred, it would no way alter the Sense of the Holy Ghost; but according to Scripture Phrase, still intend the first day of the week following, according to the Expression in Mark 8.31. After three days the Son of Man shall rise again: Three days after he was killed he should rise again; for so the Text says expresly, where the meaning must needs be upon the third day; and the English Translation of Queen Elizabeth render this place, within three days he shall rise again And thought it well rendred according to the purport of Meta; which the Criticks tell us is usually written and spoken by the Grecians in the meaning of in or upon: Other Translation render Meta by an Adverb, and not by a Pre­position; [Page 67]as afterward in three days; and so in John, afterward in eight days; in which eight days are comprised the first Lords day and the second, as compleating the number; and so this second meeting of Christ, and his Disciples, was on the first day, as his Circumcision was on the eighth day, which the Scripture expresses by another such like Phrase as this, When eight days were accomplished for the Circumcision of the Child, Luke 2.21. As for his Evasion of that passage in Mark, by telling us the same Expo­sitors think, that Mark reckons the time from his first being betrayed and apprehended. This no way helps him, for suppose he do so, yet his after must signifie upon, or on the third day, for 'tis clear that he was betrayed in the Even­ing late of the sixth day; for St. John tells us, chap. 18.3. that they came with Lanthorns and Torches to take him; and 'tis very probable, that that young Man who followed him with only a Linnen Cloth upon his Body, as he was immediately upon his Apprehension led to the High Priests Palace, Mark 14.51. was one startled out of his Sleep and Bed by the rude Violence of the Souldiers, haling him through the Streets: Therefore this must be the former part of the sixth day; in the latter part where­of he was Crucified, and laid in the Grave, in which he continued throughout the seventh, and out of which he rose very early in the Morning of the first day: And so it could not be after, as he would fain have it, but upon the third day: And therefore without any danger of shaking the third days Resurrection, our Ex­positors, [Page 68]according to the use of Scripture, do thus interpret this Passage, and this Preposition: (See another express place for this, where, after three days, is said to be upon the third day, 2 Chron. 3.5, 12.) And because it was our Sa­viour's use to appear to them upon that day, even the first day: 'Tis strange that he should herein go against all the Criticks of that Lan­guage, and against all the Sense of all the Ex­positors that I can see, to serve his own Hypo­thesis. 'Tis without doubt, that it was not upon the Seventh day that our Lord did now appear to his Disciples; unless we will under­stand it thus, after four or five days, after the eighth day he appeared to them: And thus he slily evades this other Argument for the Lords days Observance, even his Appearance to his Disciples, when gathered together for religious Worship, which as I have shewed formerly, was not once only, but several times after his Resur­rection: And 'tis the only day of the Week which is named by all the four Evangelists, upon which our Saviour appeared to them, and graciously discoursed with them; no other day so much as mentioned, nor the Seventh so much as hinted, to be the day of his Personal Mani­festation of himself unto them; which is ano­ther high Honour and Prerogative our Lord, and the King of the Church, has bestowed upon this first day of the Week, and seems to be a practical and exemplary laying aside of the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath-day, and substituting the first day to be that day consecrated to the publick and solemn Worship [Page 69]of God; and an Assurance that he will be in the midst of his People assembling themselves upon this his day; and will come and Bless them; which has been, and is, according to the Experiences of his People in their religious Devotions and publick Congregations, for there have they met, and do they still meet him, in those his Galleries: Then he brings them into his Wine-Cellar, and his Banner over them is Love: Then he gives them the ravishing Kisses of his Mouth: Then they behold his Beauty in his Sanctuary, apprehend his Glory, Experi­ence his gracious Power in and upon their Souls: Then they are abundantly satisfied with the Fatness of his House, and drink delicious Draughts of the Rivers of Spiritual Pleasures that flow therein: Then they experience that that first day of the Week in Gods House, is inconceivably better to them, than all the days of the Week any where else, or about any other Imployment whatever. Wherefore we have just cause to hope, that our People will not, and persuade them that they do not, neg­lect the Sanctification of the first day of the week, and their Assembling themselves together on that Holy day. Seeing herein they follow the Examples of the Apostles themselves, and the other Christians in their days; and experience the Gracious Spiritual Presence of our Lord in the midst of them (as they did both his Carnal and Spiritual Presence then) and turn aside after the novel and singular Opinion of this Author, being also poorly grounded, as we have seen.

He proceeds Page 51. against that which some bring from John 8.56. Abraham saw my day, &c. as the day of Christ's Resurrection; and so the First day of the Week: He says some would have it meant of his Birth-day, for the Obser­vance of Christmas; others all the days of his Flesh; and the things which he did speak and suffered, and our Redemption thereby, which I think to be a true Notion: But then to be sure he must foresee his Resurrection, and so a day thereof; and this was the great Cause of his Joy and Gladness: Because without this, there could be no cause of Gladness in all the rest. For his Birth, Life and Death, could have brought no Glory to him, if he had still layen in the Grave; nor Good, nor Profit to us, if he had not rose out of it; but he would have been conquered by his Enemies, and we for­ever undone. But now his Resurrection is for his own greatest Glory, his Enemies Confusion, and our Comfort and Triumph: This was pro­perly our Lords day. He calls the day and time of his Sufferings, Luk. 22.53. the hour of his Enemies, and the power of Darkness: Because then they insulted over him, and he was deli­vered into their Hands. But the time of his Resurrection was his own day; because he there­in Triumphed over all his Enemies, and had perfectly vanquished them; and therefore this day must chiefly be intended by Abraham; be­cause 'twas the chief day of his, and all Be­lievers Joy and Gladness: Though Mr. B. does not so much as once mention it in all those Particulars he reckons up, under this Head.

Moreover, Page 52.53. he mentions those Texts, Psal. 118.22, 24. and Heb. 4.1, 11. where the day the Psalmist speaks of, which God hath made, some do interpret of the Resurrection-day; and that therefore upon that day of the Week, Christians or the Churches, should go into the Houses of Worship; and there praise the Lord, and adore him: And Psal. 2.7. where the day of God's begetting his Son, is interpre­ted the day of Resurrection: And there is very good reason, nay, there is Divine Authority for it; for it's applyed and appropiated to that ve­ry day, Act. 13.33. So that the Text in the Hebrews, which speaks of a Sabbath, besides the Seventh day from the Creation; and that Sab­bath or Rest, which Jehovah brought Israel into, in the Land of Canaan; (which was to succeed, and as it were, to antiquate, and exclude the others) is by good and excellent Authors, understood of the Lords day; the Sabbath of the First day. Who bring many excellent Arguments, for this their Interpretation and Opinion: Which Mr. B. should have Produced, Answered and Invalidated; and not put them off only by a bare Denial, or Calling them Shifts and Wind-laces: As though his only Rejection of these Passages, were enough to Counter­ballance all the Arguments, and rational and scriptural Discourses, which many good Scho­lars, Divines and Holy Men do draw from them, and give us upon them: And therefore seeing he saith nothing to Confute what they have said, and I desire to study Brevity, I shall speak nothing more here, but only refer the Rea­der [Page 72]to these Orthodox Authors themselves; and Particularly to Mr. Warren, in whom he shall find very good Improvement of these Passages for the Lords day.

Page 54. He mentions Act. 20.7. as an Ob­jection against the Authority of the Seventh day, and for that of the First; and well he may: For 'tis an eminent one, and such an one as he will find very difficult to answer; but yet we must expect the utmost of his Efforts to do it: I shall track his Endeavours. 1. He says we guess that he First day of the Week, was that day we call Sunday; as though this were but a bare Guess: (as a Blind Man shoots the Mark, or catches the Hare; as the other Three Guesses, he says we make in the very next Paragraph.) But yet 'tis such a Guess as he will not controvert; and we think 'tis be­cause he cannot gain-say it: But yet this great Condescension to us, must be with a Grant from us to him, that St. Paul was a Keeper of the Seventh day, and an Observer of it as a Sabbath; and so for his granting us what he cannot de­ny, we must grant him what he can never prove; Yea, what we have denyed and still do, viz. that Paul was a Keeper of the Old Sabbath-day. We grant indeed (as before) that he Preached on that day usually to the Jews in their Syna­gogues, because he could have no other such convenient Time and Place for it: But that he kept that Sabbath, we utterly deny. For then he would have done it among the Gentiles, as well as among the Jews; which yet we never read he did: Or if he saith he did, let him [Page 73]prove it; which we are sure from Scripture, he can never do: Nor after the former Chapter, that ever he did go so much as to the Jewish Synagogue (for this is all the Proof of his keep­ing it) upon the Seventh day. But here we find that the Disciples came together uon the First day, and Paul came to them, and associa­ted with them in Religious Duties: And why is the First day now named, and the Seventh never after, as the Solemn, Dedicated Day to their Worship; but because it was never so from that time? But yet this is not all the Con­dition upon which he will be so exceedingly kind to us, as to grant the First day of the Week, to be Sunday or our Lords day; but it must be bought with another Information, e­ven on what part of the Sunday 'twas that this Assembly was, and St. Pauls associating in them; which he takes for granted, (and I am sure does but guess that his Opponents do) that 'twas in the Evening after the Seventh day: Which he takes for the beginning of the First day, and so Paul Preached till the Midnight; and brake Bread, and discoursed only till the Light of the First day; but performed no Religious Duty upon the Morning of that day at all; but as soon as ever the first Day-light began to dawn, he betook himself to what was Profane, and Travelled. Which I think is a begging of the Question; and in a scriptural Sense, is to say, that he performed no Religious Duties at all thereon; for 'twas the Light that God called day, and the dakness he called night, Gen. 1.5 and so to contradict the express words of the [Page 74]Text. Besides, I would fain know of him which is the chiefest part of a natural Day, either the dark part of it, which we with Scripture call Night, or the light part of it, which with it we call Day: If the light part (as I think an unprejudiced Mind will grant) why should he suppose that all the Religious Duties of that Day, should be done in the Dark thereof; and not in the Light?

Again, we think that the Lords day did not begin at Even, but rather in the Morning, when our Lord rose out of the Grave; that being the great occasion of its Sanctification to sacred Duties, and its being imployed therein by those Disciples and Paul. And for this we have ex­press Scripture, (I mean for the First day of the Weeks beginning in the Morning) as Mat. 28.1. in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the First day of the Week; where the Scripture determines the Sabbath to end with the Darkness of the Night, before the First-day Morning; and the Lords day to be­gin at the dawning of the Morning of the First day: So far is it from Truth, that the Evening and Night before the Morning of it, were part of that day; (at least in this Scripture Phrase) and hence we say that Paul began to Preach to them in the light part of that Day, as the be­ginning thereof; and continued with them till the following Midnight. Yea, throughout that Night, and so the next Morning being the Se­cond day, on Monday took his Journy, as a pro­per day for it: And now we have another of our Guesses, which is, that the breaking of bread [Page 75]here spoken of, was the Lords Supper; and we would fain know what other breaking of Bread should be meant. Can it be imagined that all the Disciples should come together to Feast it with Paul, and that too in the Night-season, as he would fain have it? They had Houses of their own to Eat and Drink in, and they would doubtless rather choose to receive the Conse­crated Bread from the Apostle, that day being the last he was to tarry with them; having as 'tis probable, no other Apostle, or Evangelist, or Pastor with them at that time; than to eat common Bread, which they could do when they pleased in his Absence: And the Sacrament is more suitable to the Society of Disciples as such, to the Preaching of the Word of God by the Apostle, than the feeding their Bodies. Where­fore we say, that seeing 'tis clearly here impli­ed, that the Disciples gathered themselves to­gether uon this day, as upon the usual time, and the Apostle ministerially served them then; 'tis very probable, (and more than a bare Guess) that this day was the usual day; and so to be the future day of their Solemn and Religious Devo­tions, Dedicated thereunto. As to what fol­lows in the other Paragraph about Preaching and Reasoning, we may with good reason pass it over, seeing we can see in it but little to the present Case.

Next by way of Concession, he tells us that though this were a Religious Assembly, and the breaking of Bread was the Lords Supper, yet then all this is but once. But this is such an once, as leaves the Seventh day for ever out of mention [Page 76]from being the day of Association: Such an once, as clearly seems to imply the Custom of the Disciples, to be their Convention on the First day: Such an once, as the Holy Ghost is pleased here, so particularly to mention, after he had shewed us before, that 'twas the usual day of the Disciples Religious Association, and our Saviours personal Presence with them, and his gracious Discourse to them: Such an once, in­deed now, (as no Meeting can be but once at a time) as with the former, makes more than once; and such an once, as with what hath been said, and what may be said, will be of force e­nough not to repeal a Law, or the Fourth Com­mand, but only to alter a Circumstance and Mo­tive therein; the whole Substance thereof con­tinuing in its full Vigour and Authority. Once he saith, occasioned by Paul's being to depart to Morrow. Which very Circumstance, seems to me to be of some Moment against the Seventh, or for the First day. For we may well suppose, that St. Paul had determined some days before the very day of his Departure; and therefore seeing he intended the Second day of the Week to be it, he might with much more Convenien­cy have Met and Preached, and Administred the Lords Supper to the Disciples on the Seventh day: If that had been now the Consecrated day of the Week, and so have had more Time and Leisure with them for his Work, and not have so straitned himself, or incommoded them throughout a whole Night: But becaust the Lords day was the sacred day of the Week to be observed and kept, therefore he would defer it [Page 77]till then; though to his own and their great­er Inconvenience. Here we have a Conjecture somewhat strange, viz. that the Apostle kept the Seventh day at Troas. What, was it alone by himself, and without any other with him? as a private Person, and not as an Apostle? and then would keep the First day of the Week as an Apostle, and with the Assembly of Be­lievers? Doubtless St. Paul was no such Dissem­bler on one hand, nor Supersticious Bigot on the other; to observe Two Sabbaths in the Week, one by himself, and another with the Church; when God commands but one only. But he seems to do all he can to turn the First day into the Seventh, and to persuade us that the Assemb­ly of the Disciples, was begun on the last day of the Week; and continued some time of the First: Whereas the Text expresly tells us, they came together on the First day, and so continu­ed together the First day, till its Conclusion in the Second days Morning. Here he takes no notice at all, or to no purpose, that the Holy Ghost tells us expresly, that Paul abode Seven days at Troas; of which one must necessarily be the last day, the Seventh day in order of the Week: And yet never tells us that the Disciples met on that day, or Paul with them; but only on the First day. And why should this be (if for any reason) but to shew us that the Lords day was the day of their Religious Conventions; and the Seventh day antiquated and no more to be mentioned, and observed among Christians as such a day? What follows has been (if I mistake not) satisfactorily answered already.

'Tis well he recedes from and stands not much upon the Greek word [...] to be interpeted one, for he knows that in both the Sacred Lan­guages, the Numerical word is frequently used for the Ordinal; and if we should render this word here one, it would make the Language of the Scripture very Impertinent and Uncertain: It would be Impertinent and Superfluous, be­cause if it were upon any day, it must be upon one day of the Week, for there is no day that is not one of the Week; and what need the Holy Ghost to tell us that was, which we are sure could not but be. And it would be uncer­tain and dubious, for according to this mean­ing we could never know what day of the Week this religious Congregation met, whether on the first, or second, or third, or fourth, &c. and the Expression seems to hint, that the Holy Ghost would acquaint us with the particular day thereof. But such an uncertain Translation would greatly befriend this Author, for then he might more confidently suppose it to be the Seventh day. Seeing that now when the Spirit clearly asserts it was upon the First day, he does perswade himself, and would perswade us, that it was upon the Seventh. What fol­lows after, being Conjectures and Conse­quences drawn from his former weak Pre­mises, I shall say nothing more to them.

SECT. XIV.

HE next proposes, Page 58. the Objection against his Sabbath, and Argument for our Lords day, which is in 1 Cor. 16.1, 2. which is taken (as we say) from the Collections for the Poor made in the publick Congregations on the first day of the Week, and does what he can to enervate it: Let us see how successfully.

1. He tells us he knows not what the order to the Church of Galatia was: But St. Paul tells him plainly, that in this particular it was to collect Mony for the Poor on the Lords-day. 2. That he does not find written, that this order to that Church should oblige all others. The like may be said of all the other Orders and Directions given in Scripture, to all particular Churches therein mentioned and written to: For 'tis not there said, that they are intended for all other Churches to the end of the World: Yet I hope he looks upon the Doctrins taught them, the Ordinance and Discipline established amongst them, to be Obligatory upon the Churches now. And we may well suppose, the Apostles being inspired by the Holy Ghost in these Matters, in all their Constitutions of their prime Primitive Churches, to lay the Platform for all succeeding ones; except there may be some particular Circumstance which may necessitate or allow a Deviation therefrom; which in this matter of Collection cannot well be pretended. 3. That it was a general order [Page 80]for a charitable Seposition, but no order to observe the first day: True indeed, but it does imply the Observance of that day, else why should it be enjoyned on that day more than on another, but because thereon publick Assem­blies met? 4. 'Tis an Order, he tells us, for a profane Employment, as to cast up their Ac­counts on that day, and to tell their Mony they have got, and to reckon up how much their Stock is increased; for he here supposes a Man must on this day look over all his Stock, cast up all his Charges, &c. But certainly this is a pretty far fetch'd Invention, for they are com­manded only to lay up by them on the Lords-day, what God had graciously enabled them to give to the Poor, by his Success on their La­bours, and his providential Blessing on them, as to Earthly things; which they might very well enquire into the day before, even the Se­venth; and having then discovered how God had succeeded them, the next day, even the Lords-day, to separate that charitable Portion from the rest, and carry it unto the publick Assembly, and so cast it into the Poors Box. And I think 'tis clear, that the Text necessarily implies a former Inquisition into their Stock, before this Seposition; but where it implies it must be done on that day, no Man can see. Wherefore we say, that a former Examination being had of these Matters, this day that con­secrated part was taken, carried to the Congre­gation, and put into the common Stock; that so the Apostle, when he came amongst them, might not be forced to go from House to House [Page 81]to gather, but find it all ready in the publick Ec­clesiastical Treasure. I am sure he can bring no Demonstration from the Text for his, or against my Interpretation: But then I have the Testimony of the most ancient Fathers, that on the first day they publickly assembled; and then they made Collection for the Poor in these Assemblies. More­over, If the Apostle here enjoyned such a profane or worldly Task as he supposes; why does he en­joyn them to do it on the First days, seeing it might have been done as well n every day of the Week, and better on the Sixth day? If the Seventh were then their Sabbath, that so they might know, at the end of the common days, what they might well and gratefully spare of that weeks Gains, and so lay it up against the ensuing Sabbath for the Poors Stock. Whence we see that this supposed Solution to this Argument, has no ground at all from the Text, and to be sure from no other Topick: And therefore conclude, that the General Collections, and so Associations of the Galatian Church, being on the First day; And the Appostle commanding the Church of Corinth to make the same Collections on that day in Imitation of them, or as they did; is, with the former, a very good Evidence, that that day was the instituted day for Worship, and so consequently the Seventh ex­cluded.

Page 60. That Proof for the First-day-Sabbath in Rev. 1.9, 10. where that day which St. John calls the Lords-day, we say was that day of the week, which we will by no means grant; but tells us what the Opinions of some singular Persons were concerning it; that it was Annual, not a [Page 82]weekly day; either the day of Christ's Birth, or of his Resurrection; either Christmas-day or Easter: Others say 'tis a great providential day to vin­dicate his Kingly Authority; and others, the last day of his coming; but how this day, whereon St. John was in the Spirit, should be a future day, can hardly be conjectured; but every thing must be hinted, that may seem to serve to an Under­mining of the First day of the week from being the day of this glorious Vision. But at length it is granted, that some take this Lords-day to be a weekly day: But then again these some are crum­bled into a Sub-division, and some of them assert it to be the First day, and some the Seventh day thereof; and this is written, as though the Asser­tors of the First day were as small a some, as those of the former annual Opinion, of a future day to John's Vision, and of the last day of the Week: Whereas I dare to say, put them all together, they will not amount to the hundredth part of those solid and learned Authors, which understand it of the First day of the week; but withall these some for the Seventh day, as inconsiderable for number as they are, in comparison of the other, yet they are far better founded, and proceed upon more certain and undeniable Grounds than the First-day-Men do; for they proceed upon Scripture, but these have only Tradition, if they have that for their Opinion. Now the Tradition which is pleaded for the First day to be the Lords-day, is constant, uninterrupted, and universal, from the days of the Apostles: The Generality of Christians acknowledging the Dominical day to be the First day, whatever Opinion they had [Page 83]of the Sabbath; till of late Years, some Sabbata­rians have thought fit to question it, and virtually (if not expresly) to deny it. Which is such a Tradi­tion, as upon which their very Scriptural Proofs are grounded; for 'tis from Tradition that they know the meaning of the very words of the Scripture. Whether the Original Languages carry the Sense they are interpreted in; and whether we have the genuine and proper Significations of the Ori­ginals, can be known by nothing but Humane Tradition; for either it must be had from Tran­slations, or Lexicons, or oral Traditions: Where­fore if the Sabbatarians will renounce here such a Tradition as is pleaded; they must withall re­nounce their own Scriptural Authority, which course will make wild work in the Church.

He very well denies it to be Christmas-day, or any annual one; but the great Query is, What day of the Week this was; and here in the entrance of his Discourse, he endeavours to invalidate the uni­versal Tradition of the Churches for 1600 Years, by an Induction of other unlawful Traditions; as that of Polygamy among the Patriarchs; of whom the Scripture mentions but a few parti­culars; and what is that to the Universality of Christians? And which was condemned by our Saviour as alien from the first Institution of Mar­riage: And how does this resemble the First days being the Lords-day, which was never blamed by him? The like he mentions in the Omission of the Feast of Booths; and the Custom of the Profana­tion of the Seventh-days-Sabbath before the Capti­vity: But these were against express Injunctions and Commands, still in force and obliging; which [Page 84]we deny the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be; and avouch, and may yet more prove its Abolition, as of other positive and ceremonial Commands, without any express or literal Prohibition of them in Scrip­ture. What therefore he saith, in the following Paragraph, would be very cogent and undeniable; If he could prove the Seventh day of the week to be still enjoyned by the Fourth Command, which he hath not yet done by his positive Proofs for his own Opinion, (as we have seen) nor by his Nega­tive, in denying of ours, (as has been in some measure seen already, and may be more hereafter.) At length he comes to give us his own Judgment concerning this Lords-day, what day of the Week it was; and if he had not told us, we should have presumed that it determined for the Seventh-day, (which in all things till the end of the World must have the Preheminence according to his thoughts) but withall 'tis grounded upon Scripture, which we will candidly and fairly weigh and examine. 1. That the Lord Christ instituted the Seventh-day-Sabbath just after the Creation, he means too before the Fall, quoting Gen. 1. begin. which we utterly deny, because Jesus Christ then was not, nor could be, (we speak of his Existence, not Gods Foresight and Decree) for then Man was Guiltless and Sinless, and so needed no Jesus, nor could have had one: But in all these Old Testament Proofs he runs upon that former Fallacy of Ill Composition; taking for granted that whatever Jehovah did, the Lord Jesus Christ did. Jehovah, the Godhead of our Saviour, did create and in­stitute the Seventh-day-Sabbath, but not Christ him­self; which necessarily includes both the Godhead [Page 85]and the Manhood: And therefore the Premises being false, the Conclusion cannot be true; nor the consequential Discourse thereupon of any Mo­ment. His second and third Arguments laboring under the same Mistake, admit of the same An­swer: Besides, we know that the positive and cere­monial Precepts of Jehovah before his Incarnation, were to be abolished by himself after his Incarna­tion, that is, by our Lord Jesus; and others more Easie, Clear and Effectual, introduced in their room, (whereof we assert the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be, which he can never prove to be Moral, and so was to be excluded with them) and a new Time, as well as new Rites, instituted by the King of the Church.

His next Argument to prove his Assertion, is from those Passages, wherein 'tis said, The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day, Matt. 12.8. Mark 2.28. Luke 6.5. A Proof which we make use of to prove our Doctrin of the First-day-Sabbath, and he thinks makes clearly and strongly for his. Though there may be some ground for the Opinion of ordinary Men, being meant by the Son of Man in these Texts; because 'tis the Appellation which the Holy Ghost usually gives them, calling them Sons of Men; and when he speaks to Ezekiel particularly, his usual Expression is Son of Man: And St. Mark relating the same History, of the Disciples gathering Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day; and the Pharisees being scan­dalized thereat, and complaining to our Lord Christ that they did that which was not Lawful; as the occasion of this saying of our Lord Jesus (which the other Evangelists relate also, and no other oc­casion [Page 86]of it is recorded in them, neither do we find that he used it at any other time) seems to carry it in this Sense; for he saith Mark 2.27, 28. that Christ said unto these Censurers, The Sabbath was made for Man, and not Man for the Sabbath: And then immediately adds this Sentence with an Illa­tive, Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. I suppose no Man will deny but that the first Verse is meant of ordinary (I mean) meer, Men; for 'tis brought by our Lord Christ as a Vindica­tion of his Disciples action, who were meer Men; and not of any one of his own, who was God as well as Man. Withall I believe that we cannot find in all the Scripture, that appellative Man, thus abstractly and absolutely used, without any di­stinction or Limitation, antecedent or consequent to it; understood of any but of meer Men, which being granted the Illative therefore, seems to carry the next Sentence for the same Subject, and to de­clare that Man, common Man, is Lord of the Sab­bath; not an authoritative Lord to dispose of it as he pleases, and do on it as he lists; but so far a Lord, as to be the end of the Sabbath; for whose Profit and Comfort it was ordained. As a Son may be said to be Lord of that House that is built for him; and in which he dwells and uses for his Convenience and Delight; though his Fa­ther obliges him not to sell or alienate it; and the Laws of the Land not to burn it.

Though therefore this Interpretation of the Son of Man be no way Heterodox, nor any way strain­ed, from this Text; neither do we by this Inter­pretation, give a meer Man a Lordship over the Moral Law, as he supposes, (for his taking for [Page 87]granted, that the Last-day-Sabbath is Moral; I look upon as his Fundamental Error; and the great cause of his Mistaken Confidence in all this Dis­course:) We say that in no respect Man is Lord over any of the Moral Law; not in this that we speak of; for Man was made for the Moral Law, that is, to perform all the Duties thereof; but now Man is Lord over the Sabbath (as our Lord avouches) in this respect, viz. That the Sabbath was made for him, and therefore cannot be Moral, (as before,) But yet I say let it be granted, that 'tis spoken precisely of our Lord Christ: Likewise we grant that the Sabbath spoken of in these Texts was the Seventh-day-Sabbath, and that our Lord Christ as the Son of Man, that is, such a Son of Man as is also the Son of God; is Lord of the Sabbath; (we should have observed before to eva­cuate all his Proofs drawn from the Old Testament, to prove the Seventh day of the Week to be the Lord's day here spoken of; that he, who is here called the Lord of the Sabbath, is said to be the Son of Man, which he was not then.) Wherefore being such an one, it cannot be denied but that he is an Absolute Lord of the Sabbath, without Limitati­on; and so hath power to alter and change the day (which is no way Moral, I mean not the Seventh day at all) and so to make that to be lawful on the Seventh day, which before was not; even all sorts of honest Imployments of our particular Callings, as well as charitable Actions; for when the day ceases to be Holy, and another advanced to that Honour by his Autho­rity; then being a common day, common works are proper for it, which may seem to be the proper Intention of this Expression to the Jews; for when [Page 88]they blamed him as a Tolerator of the Profanation of the Sabbath by his Disciples, he takes a double Medium to refute their Slander; the one as a Do­ctor and Prophet of the Church; and so he teaches them, that that charitable Action of theirs to­ward their own Nature, was no Breach, but an allowed work of that day; and proves it by a Scriptural President; and so vindicates his Disci­ples Action from Sin: Wherefore supposing (as this Author does) that our Saviour had no other design but to vindicate his Disciples, this had been abundantly enough, and he needed not to recur to his own Anthority over that day; which he does, and so uses another Medium; as a Lord and King of the Church, and so of all the Institutions, and particularly of the Seventh-day-Sabbath, (for which they were as Zealous as the Author, as necessary and permanent) and says he himself, is Lord of the Sabbath; and so had Authority to abrogate that day, or establish it as he pleased; which seems to imply this much: You are ever and anon carping at my Disciples, and especially at me, as though their, and mine, Actions, were Profanations of the Sabbath: But I would have you to know, that I have a Sovereignty over it, and can dispose of it as I please; and make things that are not Lawful on the Seventh to be Legitimate: Which we look upon as a hint of its Abrogation shortly after.

Especially considering what Christ did, or caused to be done on that day in another place, viz. John 5.8. where having cured the impotent Man at the Pool of Bethesda, he commands him to rise, to take up his Bed, and walk: Now we know that bearing of Burdens on the Sabbath day, is expresly [Page 89]forbid, Jer. 17.21, 22, 24, 27. and there are Pro­mises made unto them, that would obey that Com­mand, and bear no Burdens; and Threats de­nounced against them that should contradict it; serving to consirm the Defence of bearing Burdens on that day. Accordingly Nebemiah was strict in its Observance, Neh. 13.19. and the Jews them­selves were very nice in this particular, and very severe in their Punishment of such Bearers, by Whipping and by Death, (as that great Hebraick Critick Dr. Lightfoot informs us.) Yet here our Lord expresly commands the Healed Person to take up his Bed and walk, that is, to carry it either to his own House, or to some other convenient place; for so he did in obedience to this Command, v. 10. Whereat the Jews were very highly offended, and condemned it as an unlawful Act, and sought to persecute and kill Christ for enjoyning of it, v. 16. Now we would enquire, to what end our Lord Christ did enjoyn this Person to carry such a Bur­den on the Sabbath? If it be said, it was to try his Faith and Obedience, or clearly to evince the Per­fection of his miraculous Cure, or both of these: 'Tis replied, that these things could be as well done without the carriage of his Bed: He might have gone every where, and proclaimed his Cure, and his Restorer; he might have done it by leap­ing, dancing and praising God; as the Cripple in Acts 3. Wherefore 'tis probably apprehended by learned Men, that it was a practical Proof of his being Supream Lord of the Sabbath, and of his Authority to change the old day into another of his own appointment, and this was a real blow begun to be given to it.

Besides all that was said against these his Argu­ments for the Seventh day, to be the Lords day meant in the Revelation: 'Tis observable that the Greek word [...] is used but once more in the New Testament; and that is, 1 Cor. 11.20. where the Sacrament of our Saviours Body and Blood is called the Lords Supper; in which it is clear, it signifies both his Authoritative Institution thereof, and that his own Death is signified thereby: The Lord is both the Institutor thereof, and his Death the thing commemorated thereby: And therefore Reason, and comparing Scripture with Scripture, would require that it should be so understood here also; even as a day of his own Institution, as the Son of Man: For so he appeared to John to be in the Vision. And so St. John calls him, Rev. 1.13. and so a day for his own Commemoration, even of his Resurrection, viz. the First day of the Week; which none deny to be that day. And 'twas on that day whereon the Author of the Revelations, saw the Lord Jesus walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks, with the Seven Stars in his Right Hand; that is, with his Orthodox and Zealous Ministers, receiving their Light and Heat from him, the Sun of Righteous­ness; And then diffusing it abroad in the Church­es, or in the midst of the Congregations; which we know the Orthodox Fathers, throughout all Ages of the Church, have principally done upon the First day of the Week, the day of the Resur­rection: And so the future Practice of the Church, proves the Lords day to be the First day of the Week. Again, St. John calls this the Lords day, after his Resurrection; and our Saviour tells him Verse 18. I am he that liveth and was dead, and be­hold [Page 91]I live forevermore: Implying, that as after his Incarnation, Obedience, Death, Resurrection, As­cension, Session on the Right Hand of God, and Mission of the Holy Ghost; all the former carnal and ceremonial Administrations vanished, and a new Government, new external Modes of Worship, were introduced, which were properly the Lords and bear the Stamp of his Authority, as Mediator, as God-Man, over the Church and all her Ordi­nances: So this was also the Day of his own Institu­tion, after his Humiliation and Exaltation, for the Celebration of his new Institutions; the other be­ing excluded with the former Appendixes thereto. What follows under this Head, being what has been spoken to before, and is frequently inculca­ted (as of great Moment for him) as the Moral Law, as the now changing of the Sabbath; meer Pretences of the other party, &c. as being but a little better than the begging the Question, and taking that for granted, which we utterly deny: These I tacitly pass by, and leave the Judicious Reader to judge, if after all has been said, it be not far more probable that the Lords day, spoken of in the Revelations, is the First day of the Week; (as all Schollars and Churches almost, have hitherto be­lieved) than the Seventh day thereof, which a very few, scarce deserving the Title of Number, have pitched upon, as a Prop to their tottering Seventh-day-Sabbath.

SECT. XV.

THere are other Texts which he produces, Page 69.70. as Rom. 14.5, 6. Gal. 4.9, 10, 11. Col. 2.16, 17. from whence we hold and contend the Seventh day, to be everlastingly excluded from the Christian future Sabbath; the chief being the Two latter of these. We say in Gal. by Days are meant the Jewish Seventh day; because the Apostle mentions their Months, that is, their Observance of the New-Moon Festivals; Times: Which some apply to Easter, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, &c. and Years; which some think is meant of the year­ly Feast of Atonement and Expiation. Or it may be understood of the year of Jubilee, (if not the Great Jubilee every Fiftieth year, yet the less of every Seventh year;) which St. Paul probably ob­served them very Superstitious in: But whatever the Difference may be in the particular Applicati­ons of these Terms, yet they generally hold, the more rare or seldom Jewish Festivals to be meant; and by Days then, what other Festival of the Jews can be understood, but the Seventh day? If he do not mean their Weekly Sabbath by Days, it can­not well be conceived what it should be: We doubt not but by the latter Three Expressions, Months, Times and Years, are meant Jewish Festivals: And why Days should not signify the same, can­not well be imagined. Besides, we find that these Galatians were greatly infected with the false Le­ven of Judaical Doctors, who taught them to ob­serve Circumcision, &c. as is seen clearly by the [Page 93]Epistle, and seems to be the chief occasion of Writ­ing it; to turn them from, and sortify them a­gainst, such false Doctrins, and dangerous Obser­vances. And therefore hence we conclude St. Paul condemns the Galatian Church, for keeping the Se­venth-day-Sabbath, as well as other Judaical Rites and Festivals; and tells them he is afraid he had bestowed his labour in vain upon them.

In that Text to the Colossians, we have the Ob­servance of Sabbaths expresly spken of; and there­by St. Paul discarded from their Observance, as Shadows, which were to vanish when Christ the Bo­dy was come: By which we contend, is meant the Weekly-Sabbath; because that in the Scripture, is Chiefly, Mostly, if not Solitarily the Acceptation thereof: And we have heard him again and again, asserting that 'tis the Intent of this Word every where. And I believe so, whenever it stands abso­lutely, as here without some Annexion or other to alter its Signification. And what Reason can be given why here it should not so be understood? that only here, and no place else in the Bible, it should not be taken for the Weekly-Seventh-day? More­over, here the Apostle seems plainly to intend their Annual, Monthly, and Weekly Festivals; their Annu­al, by Holy days; their Monthly, by New Moons; and so their Weekly, by Sabbaths: And there was no Weekly Festival, but the Seventh-day-Sabbath. Or if by Holydays we apprehend the Generality of Jewish Festivals, because they were all Holydays as long as their First Institution lasted; yet then he condescends to some Particulars of them, as the Monthly and Weekly, which then must necessarily include the Sabbath; because that was a Jewish Holy­day. [Page 94]Yet again, If we should grant, that under the last word Sabbaths, any other Festivals may be included or meant: Yet certainly the Weekly-Sabbath cannot be excluded, being the most famous Analogate comprehended under it; and therefore in such an Expression, cannot be excepted; though sometimes the most famous Analogate be only meant, and excludes all others; yet never is it it self not intended in such Propositions. Withal, as we said before of the Galatian Church, so we do of the Colossian; 'twas infected by false Teach­ers, that would make a Mixture of the Jewis, and Christian Religion, and would have Moses's Rites to be kept with Christ's Ordinances: And they know well enough, that by Sabbaths was meant the Se­venth day; seeing 'tis always so accepted. Whence we may well conclude, that here is an express exi­ling the Seventh-day-Sabbath out of the Church of Church. Heretofore we were called upon to shew one Text in which the Seventh-day-Sabbath was abro­gated, and now we bring an express literal one; yet it will not do, but many Objections are brought in against it: Which we shall successively consider and traverse.

1. Some think it must be understood of Cere­monial Sabbaths only; because else 'twould reach the First-day-Sabbath, as well as the Seventh. But there is no fear of that, for the First day is never called Sabbath in the Scripture; and therefore can­not be meant; and wee say the Seventh-day-Sab­bath, was both positive and ceremonial, for he him­self allows it to signify the eternal Rest above. 2. He Objects that one place names no Sabbath, but only Days; the other indeed names Sabbaths, [Page 95](which he would have interpreted Weeks, for which I can see no Reason; but much against it; and therefore shall say nothing till he produce his Rea­sons for it.) And all the weight of this Argument is but a silly Conjecture of the meaning of the word Sabbaths: But we have seen before, that this is not a silly Conjecture, but grounded upon the very usual Acceptation of the Word, upon the Connection of the adjoyned things, upon the State of the Churches unto whom he writ; and upon the design of his Epistles to them. But I am sure what follows, is not so much as a Conjecture, but a very great Oversight; for he tells us, that he finds the word (Sabbaths) in the Plural Number, no where in the New Testament ascribed to the Se­venth day. It was then because he would not be at the pains to sind it; for 'tis in all these places, Mat. 12.5, 10, 12. Mark 3.4. Luke 4.31. and 6.2, 9. In all these places he will find it so; and in the Original Greek, the word is Sabbaths, without a Verbal Superaddition of days; which he himself must be inforced to acknowledge, spoke of this day.

3. The Seventh day he faith was never in Questi­on in any of these Epistles, and if there be no such Question about altering it, how can such a Sense be imposed, &c. Just so I may say the New-Moon Observation, and the Annual Festivals, are no where questioned in these Epistles; (nor any where else that I remember, expresly to be lain aside) How therefore can such a Meaning be put upon Years and Months, as to include the Judaical? see­ing Sabbaths are as plain and clear for the Seventh days, as any of the former, for what they are un­derstood [Page 96]here. We have still the Thred-beaten Plea of the Moral Law introduced and improved; when I assert, that neither he nor all the World can ever prove the Seventh-day-Sabbath to be part of the Moral Law, Quatenus Moral. His Fourth Answer plainly confounds Sabbaths with Years and New-Moons; which the Apostle clearly distinguish­es, and of all the rest I may truly say, they are but meer ungrounded Conjectures, to baffle an ex­press Text of Scripture: But here he has a very strange Fancy, That by Days may be meant the First day; because the Heathen worshiped the Sun on that day: And so then every day; because the Heathen worshiped distinct Idols every day: And so we should have no Consecrated day at all, nei­ther First nor Seventh, nor any other. All the rest that follows here, are but (as he expresses) his own Thoughts, and as well grounded, as that Thought of his, That the First day was not observed by Chri­stians: When yet we have found them several times associated on that day; and Christ appearing several times in the midst of them; and at Troas Assembled on that day; and St. Paul Preaching and Administring the Lords Supper to them, and therein to Harmonize with the Church of Galatia; (which I suppose proved against Objections) nei­ther of which can be said concerning the Seventh day: Only there were Assemblies of the Jews on that day; and St. Paul took the Advantage on these days to Preach to them. But what is this to Christs Disciples and Followers? We may therefore (ac­cording to his own Rule, That which appears not, is not at all) conclude, that the Seventh day was never observed by the Disciples and Followers of Christ, after his [Page 97]Resurrection, as a day consecrated to Publick Worship; because we never read in the Scripture, that they did so meet. Whereas the contrary is seen by the First day. So I dismiss this Thought, and the others as no more likely.

5. He farther saith that 'tis uncertain, and there­fore as such, I or'e look it. 6. He saith from Paul's constant keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath, that he cannot be supposed to condemn his own constant Practice: But how he did this, we have already seen; and therefore shall not stop here. 7. That St. Paul commends the Whole Moral Law, as Just, Holy and Good; and therefore can never be thought to condemn it here. Here we have anew theatri­zed the Moral Law, which we acknowledge the Apostle doth strenuously urge, and never opposed any one Tittle thereof. But yet he here decries the Seventh-day-Sabbath, as very consistent with, and agreeing to all his Zeal for the Moral Law; be­cause that was never of the Substance of it: Nei­ther is it either Holy or Just, or Good: (I mean not in, and of it self; as all that is truly and natu­rally Moral is; but by Gods commanding it: We acknowledge it to be positively Moral.)

8. The last Answer, is from Math. 24.20. Pray you that your Flight be not in the Winter, nor on the Sabbath-day. Upon which place he lays so great a Stress, as to suppose it a sufficient Proof for the Observation of the Seventh day, as our bounden Duty. For here he takes for granted, that this Sabbath here spoken of, is the Seventh day; that the Flight here spoken of, is that (at nearest) of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, about Forty Years after Christ: And therefore [Page 98]our Saviour knowing what a great Trouble of Spi­rit 'twould be to gracious and devout Souls, to be forced to flee for their Lives on that day, whereon they should have been Glorifying their God, and Refreshing their own Souls in Religious Duties, and Holy Communion with the Father and the Son; He exhorts them to Pray against such an Evil, thereby implying (as he would have it) the Con­tinuance of that Sabbath; and his own Confirmati­on thereof till then, and so forever. Wherein (I think) I have (I am sure I intended to have) given all the strength of what he hath written from hence, and not concealed or lessened any whit of it. Unto which I proceed to answer that,

1. Some understand this to be a proverbial kind of Speech, to express the Difficulty and Irksomness of a thing; that 'twill be as tedious as a Journy in a Cold, Snowy, Dirty Winter; or as a Flight to a superstitious Jew upon a Sabbath-day. 2. Others apprehend it to be spoken to the Disci­ples in this Sense, Pray that your Flight may not be on the Seventh-day-Sabbath; Because thereby you will greatly offend the superstitious Jews, who will deem you as Profaners of that day hereby, and so will be so far from Pitying and Relieving you, that they will hate and michief you all they can: As we know the Jews were great Enemies to them, because they were so to their Ceremonial Wor­ship (as they deemed them) and to their Sabbaths too; and hence were so far from sheltring them from, that they betrayed them to, and delivered them up into the Hands of Heathenish Persecutors. 3. It may well be interpreted specifically of a Sabbath, and not numerically of the Seventh day only: And [Page 99]so 'tis as if our Lord had said, pray that on what ever day your Solemn Rest for Religious Wor­ship, and Divine Service shall be; that on that day your Flight may not be; for 'twill then be very grievous, and more intolerable, than on a­ny day of the Week: And so includes, yea, pri­marily intends the First day, the Dominical day. But 4. To be as fair as we can with him, and to grant all that he does desire, we will suppose that our Saviour did mean by his words, what they, 'tis most probable, did understand by them, even the Se­venth day, to be that Sabbath on which they were to deprecate their Flight: Yet this will be also far e­nough from so clear a Proof for him as he ima­gines. For we know 'tis usual in the Holy Wri­ters, to speak of Evangelical days, and of the Wor­ship of God in them, under Legal Metaphors; to wit, by Sacrifices, by erecting of Altars, by coming up to the Temple, &c. as all that know the Stile of the Prophets, cannot but be acquainted with; because these were then the Services which that People performed, and they knew no other; and probably would not have endured the mentioning of any other. So here, our Saviour speaks indeed literally of the Seventh-day-Sabbath, because the Jews and his Disciples (who were Jews) knew yet of no other, neither were prepared to hear of the fu­ture substituting of another day in its place. Yet this does no more confirm the Seventh day to be the future Sabbath, than those other Scriptural Sayings, do the Ceremonial Rites to be the Evangelical Wor­ship; or the external Modes of serving God in the times of Reformation, and when the Body and Substance of these Signs and Figures were exhibi­ted.

Besides, we say our Saviour did very well fore­see that many of his Disciples (as we know the Churches of Galatia, and Colosse; and those of Je­rusalem, with James did) would many years after his Decease, dote upon the judaical Ceremonies, and would reverence them out of Conscience to God, their Author and Imposer; And so also on the judaical day. And therefore our Lord fore-ap­prehending this, bids them to deprecate their Flight on such a day, which their own Conceits and false Apphrehensions of things, would make more grievous and burdensom to themselves; not his Injunctions, or the real Obligation of the day. And there is nothing more common than this way of speaking according to Mens Apprehension of things, without any the least Approbation of that Appre­hension. So we find our Saviour speaking in his Discourses of the Jews Circumcision, very com­mendably and honourably; yet I hope this did not confirm it for the future. But here it may be objected, But he did not Prophesie of its future Observance, or require any thing of them, upon a Supposition of its Continuance afterwards; and therefore this is nothing to the purpose. But we know he could not but foresee that they would ob­serve it, and keep it up in the Churches after his De­parture from them and its Abrogation; and so these Speeches of his would then be upon Record, and probably made a Plea for its Use: (especially seeing he never did, as I remember, speak any thing against it, or expresly of its future Extrusion out of the Churches) Which Speeches of his cannot Authorize their future Practice Neither can our Saviours foresight of their superstitions and mista­ken [Page 101]Observance of the Seventh day, and his Com­mand for their Ease-sake upon that Prevision, au­thorize the Continuance thereof. Therefore see­ing there are so many Solutions given to this Plea, against the Apostles meaning of the Seventh day; when he condemns them for their Observance of Days and Sabbaths; (whereof some one may be deemed sufficient; but much more all together:) It cannot by any impartial, judicious Person, be thought of any Prevalency to evade an express Pro­hibition of the Apostle, of the Observance of that day; which we contend his Prohibition of Sab­baths to be; the Seventh being the most famous of all Sabbaths: Being that which is mostly, if not only intended by that Expression in Scripture, and in that very word, whereby the Holy Ghost in the New Testament, intends and means the Seventh-day-Sabbath.

SECT. XVI.

HE begins Page 75. to betake himself to the Command it self, and would from thence collect an absolute Necessity of the perpetual Observance of the last day of the Week; asserting the Morality of the whole Command, and endeavouring from some Passages and Letters of that Law, to ratify his own Opinion herein. Therefore I shall take leave with as much Brevity and Plainness as I can, to give my weak Thoughts about it; and leave it to the Learned and Judicious to determine. Here we must premise a Distinction or two: 1. Between [Page 102] Moral and Positive; between that which is Good, Just and Holy in it self; which emerges from the right Constitution of the rational Creature, and so would be a Duty, if 'twere never externally in­joyned by God; And that which has no such innate Goodness, neither would have been performed as a Duty by Man, were it not imposed by a superadded Precept. 2. Between that which is Purely, Natu­rally and Absolutely Moral in it self, and that which is Secondarily, Respectively and Positively Moral: The former is that spoken of above; the latter is that which, though the rational Creature could not of it self have judged a Duty, yet when 'tis once im­posed by Command, and so revealed to be the Le­gislator's Pleasure, there is discerned in the thing it self, a very great Equity, Goodness and Suit­ableness to Gods Glory, or the Creatures Good, or both: As in the case of Tithes, or the Tenth of every Mans Estate to be devoted to Pious Uses, for the Maintenance of the Worship of God, and of those that are by him called thereto, and im­ployed therein: Though the Light of Nature could not primarily, and from it self, have disco­vered and devoted this very precise proportion to the immediate Service of God as absolutely necessary; Yet when God does once require it, it must needs close with it, as very reasonable and just, that God, who gives all, and whose all is, should have the Tenth part devoted and separated to his own Service: So that the Goodness of this, does not only arise from the Will of the Legislator, but also from the Nature of what is required, when 'tis once discerned to be the Legislator's Pleasure. So that it is neither purely positive, nor yet primari­ly [Page 103]Moral, discovered only by the Promulgation of the Legislator; and then embraced at, and acknowledged to be most just and good by the Creature, from whom 'tis required: Whereas, what is purely positive, has nothing just or good in it self; nor discernable after its Imposition. 3. In the Fourth Command we must distinguish between; 1. The Duty commanded; 2. the Ex­plication of the Duty; and 3. the Arguments and Motives thereto. And so, without any more nice Distinctions we proceed by God's Assistance to our Apprehensions about this Matter.

1. The Duty Commanded, or the Substance of the Fourth Command, which is in the first Words of that Command, Remember the Sabbath-day, (or the Day of the Sabbath,) to keep it holy, (or to sanctify it:) Where we acknowledge the Rest, or the holy Rest, to be primarily and absolutely Mo­ral, which this right Judgment of the rational Cre­ature dictates, directs to, as that which it ows to its Creatour, Preserver, and Benefactor; even a set and solemn Time separated and devoted to the immediate Service, Praises and Adoration of God; who, because of his own Infinite and In­comparable Excellencies, deserves all their Prai­ses and Adoration; and because of their own in­numerable and inestimable Benefits received from him, merits all their Love and Observance: Which Imployment, the rational Creature would acknowledge to be the most noble and excellent, the most happy and blessed that it can be imploy­ed in, being the Imploying of the most noble Fa­culties of the Soul, in their most excellent Acts, about the most raised and glorious Object: This, [Page 104]I say, the true Light of Nature would direct un­to; and so is purely moral: But whether it would have directed to a Separation of a whole intire Day thereto, I cannot resolve: Though this al­so may be most probable; being a Time so limi­ted, measured and distinguished, by the antece­dent and subsequent Darkness; or by the Pre­sence, Light and Motion of the Sun in the He­misphere. But here, I believe, we may take for granted, that the rational Creature in its Recti­tude, would have actually consecrated to so di­vine Worship, and imployed in divine Worship, all that Time that could have been duly and conveniently spared from the Refreshment of the Body, and those due Preparations, which must be made for his decaying outward Man; so that Adam would have subserviated, (had he stood in his Innocence) all his tilling of the Garden, all his eating, drinking and sleeping; all the Recruits of his Body, to the solemn Manner, as that which was the End of his being; the due of his God from him, and the highest and most blessed Imployment of himself. This, I say, would have been, had he beenleft to the Dictates of his own Knowledge, which was given him of God, of himself, and of his Ingagements to the Author of his being, and well-being; and not been pre­scribed by a Precept from his Lord and Sovereign. But however, this all must acknowledge, that a Time of Rest, (For that's the english of Sabbath) to be set apart and sanctified to the immediate Service of the most high and munisicent God, is purely moral: And it may be also thought, that [Page 105] an intire Day may bid fairly for it. And this, I say, is the Substance of this Precept, and really moral.

But here, before I proceed, I must obviate a little Criticism, which the Author here seems to lay a great Stress upon; and that is about ה (hè) in the Original, which he would fain have to be very emphatical, and to signifie, That, by way of Eminency here in this Verse, the beginning of the Command, the Words are Remember the Day of Rest. (Eth Jom Hasshabbath.) I would enquire of him, whether this rendring of these Words, be not as proper, as any he can render it by: Whe­ther the Day of Rest, be not so proper, as the Day of a Rest, or the Day of that Rest. For every one that hath but peeped into the Hebrew Bible, very well knows that that Letter ה, serves many times, if not most times, only for a Letter and Ornament of writing, without any Signification whatever: And, whether I render it by an En­glish Particle or no, he cannot blame me; if I will, he hath no Reason to quarrel me, if I ren­der it A or The; nor I, much, to quarrel him, though he chuses to translate it That. For nei­ther A, nor The, nor That, are found in the Ori­ginal; but are only English Particles: And, I would fain know what Emphasis the same Hebrew Particle hath before [Shamajim, Aretz, and I am] Heaven, Earth and Sea; and whether the Transla­tion either without a Particle, or with that which carries no Emphasis, be not far better than the Tran­slation with an Emphatical one: As for Example, the Lord made Heaven and Earth and Sea, or the Lord made the Heaven, the Earth and the Sea, are not better than, the Lord made that Heaven, that [Page 106]Earth and that Sea; for if we take this Particle That, Emphatically, it seems to signifie, that there are more Heavens (for we suppose the visible Heaven or inferiour one, is here meant) and Earths and Seas, than One; and that 'tis Empha­tically and Eminently meant of those in the in Command, beyond the others; whereas there is no other Heaven, Earth, or Sea, but what is meant in the Command; and therefore would be very impertinently rendred by an Emphatical That. From whence I would ask this Gentleman; what reason there is why ה before Sabbath, and Shebigni, should be more Emphatical, than be­fore those other Words in the same Command: Sure that Opinion wants solid and deep Foun­dations, that must be upheld by such superfici­al and weak ones. Thus much for the first part of the Command, the Substance and unquestiona­bly moral Part thereof.

2. We have the Explication of that Part of the Command in its following Words. Six Days shalt thou labour and do all thy Work; and the Day, the Seventh, a Sabbath to the Lord thy God; (is or shall be, or both) a Sabbath to the Lord, that is dedicted to the Worship and Service of Him. Thou shalt do no Work; thou nor thy Son, nor thy Daughter, &c. Where we have one Day in Seven, or of Seven, declared and signified to be that Day of Rest, or Holy Sabbath, which was com­mnded in the Beginning. And here our Authors contend, and worthily, that this Seventh Day in this Peace, is not an Ordinal Seventh Day, that is, the next Day after the former Six Days: But rather a Proportional (If I may so express it) Day, [Page 107]or a distributed part of the Seven; that is, that of Seven days God will have one entire day to be sancti­fied to him and his Service, without specifying what day of the Seven it should be. And I am sure he has no reason nor ground from the Command hitherto, to except against this understanding of the Seventh day. In this Explication of the Com­mand we have two things.

1. The Portion of Time, or the Part of the days that God will have sanctified to an Holy Rest; the Seventh. 2. How he will have the Rest observed: By an Abstinence of all sorts of Persons from earthly and worldly Employments, (except such as do not interfere with its due Sanctification) that they may be wholly in Body and Soul busied in his Service; as is clearly enjoyned in that word in the Substance of the Command, (to Sanctifie it.) As to this Seventh part of time so sanctified and separated to Divine Service, this is not Primarily and Purely Moral; though we acknowledge it to be Secondarily and Positively so: Not such a measure of Time as the Wisdom of Man in Innocency would have pre­cisely separated to Divine Worship; and not one day more, nor one day less, of all the Week­days. I think I have shewn before, that the light of Nature would have separated and dedi­cated all to the solemn Service of God; all the time that it could spare from the due Recruits of Nature; Which I doubt not but in an Estate of Innocency, would have been a greater Measure and part of Time than the Seventh: For now we find by Experience, that even after the Fall, since that the Earth is cursed for our Sins, and [Page 108]requires a great deal more Labour and Time to be lain out upon it, for the Production of our necessary Sustinence, than before the Fall: Now that our weak, crasie and distempered Bodies call for a great deal more Care and Time for their Sustentation, their Recruits and Reparation, than when they had a perfect Temperature, were compleatly Healthy, Strong and Immortal, in Innocency; and many other Civil, Domestick Affairs take up, and must have, a great deal of our time, which would have exacted none of it in Innocencency: And yet we experience (I say) that six in seven allotted us for these things, are sufficient enough; and we can very well spare a Seventh day for the solemn Service of God, with­out any Detriment to our Bodies, or our civil Concerns: Yea, and have many other Seasons and good Opportunities given us to serve God in: And doubtless had God seen fit to have required the sixth part of our time; it would have been so also. Wherefore I conclude, that the seventh part of the Week, or one day of the Seven, is not primarily Moral; because the light of Nature could not have precisely dictated it to us: Which methinks I could demonstrate by this Supposition; Suppose a Person that is against the Morality of the Sabbath, that judgeth no day of the week more Holy than another, should by Providence be thrown among Mahonietans or Heathens, and preaching the Gospel to them, should be Instru­mental to convert any of them to the Christian Faith: I assert, that in such a case (and he would certainly be horribly uncharitable that should judge the contrary) if they did keep all the rest [Page 109]of the Moral Precepts with a sound Faith in Christ they would infallibly be saved, though they never separated one day of the week intirely to Gods Worship and Service: But now if they did allow­edly live in any Breaches of the other Commands; (yea supposing some of them should never have been expresly taught them by their Converter) as if they did not acknowledge the only true God in their Souls; if they did worship Idols; if they did Swear Falsly or Vainly; if they were Rebellious and Undutiful to Parents and Magistrates; if they lived in Hatred, and were Cruel; if in Wanton­ness, and were Lascivious; in Theft, and Cou­zenage; or were Oppressing, in Lying, Slandering, and False Witnessing; or in an inward Love and Delight in any of these Sins, they should certainly Perish: And why? But because all the other Com­mands are primarily Moral; and this of the seventh part of time is not so: Yea in, keeping the other Commands, they keep the Morality of this also; Commands, they must separate time to the per­formance of that Divine Service, which is the prime Morality of the fourth Precept. Thus I think 'tis clear, that the Sanctification of one Se­venth day of the week, is not absolutely and pri­marily Moral; but yet it may also be concluded, to be secondarily and positively so; that is, that upon the Revelation of the Will of the Legislator and his Injunction, the rational Creature closes with it, as that which is Holy, Just and Good; as that which is infinitely reasonable; for what can be more so, than that is seventh part of time should be devoted to his Service, whose all our time is; [Page 110]especially when it is also for the Creature's chief good.

3. We have the Reasons to inculcate its Obser­vation: 1. The Legislator's own Example, be­cause he was six days in creating the World, and ceased from those works on the Seventh day, rested on the Seventh day: and 'tis hence only, in all this Command, that they can have any shew or ground to plead for the last day, or the Seventh day of the week, to be the Sabbath or Rest that God did command; which is no way cogent, be­cause it may be meant a Seventh day, by way of part or portion, and not the Seventh day of order nor in number of the week. And it may be thus understood, Because I was six dyas in making the World, and then rested; so shall you be six days busie in your common lawful Imployments; and then a Seventh you shall consecrate to me and my Worship. So that in this Sense it doth not injoyn the last day, the Seventh day of the week in order, but a Seventh day in proportion of time: For which we have this to lead, That seeing Gods Example is made the great Fundamental Argument of the Seven-day-Rest, it should hence follow, that if Adam had exactly followed the Pattern, then the Sixth day of the week would bid fairest for the day of Rest of all the Seven, because then Adam must have worked six days before his Holy Rest, as God did; and then being created, as we may suppose, about the latter end of the sixth day of the Creation, he must have wrought the day fol­lowing (which is the Seventh) and so the five other days following, and rested upon the Sixth day as his first Sabbath; for that would have been the [Page 111]day after his six days Labour or Work: For 'tis clear, that the Seventh day after the beginning of the Creation, (though it were so with respect to Gods Works; yet) 'twas the very next day after Adam was; and could not but be within a very few hours (if hours) after his Creation; seeing it begun in the Evening: And so Adam and Eve were so far from an exact Imitation of God in the Observance of the first Sabbath, that in his parti­cular they were contrary thereto; for God wrought six days first, and then rested the Seventh; but Adam rested his first day, and then wrought the six days following: God's Rest was in the Conclusion of his Work; and Man's Rest was in the beginning of his Work, in his first seven days; which I think somewhat enervates this solitary Plea they have here for the last Week-day-Sabbath. But yet we will Suppose that in this Clause, God did there injoyn the last day of the Creation-week to be the Sabbath; but then we say this is purely Positive, and no way Moral at all, neither Primarily nor Secondarily; for it is were so, the Morality thereof must arise from the Reason that is given for it, viz. Gods Example; even because he made his work of Creation in six days, and rested on the Seventh: But this is no way cogent, or (rather) Moral, not such a thing as the light of Nature would engaged us to: For 1. God is not to be imitated by us in all that he does; neither could the rational Crea­ture conclude upon Gods Revelation of his having ended his work on the Seventh day, that therefore he must work six, and rest the Seventh, without an express Injunction; which therefore God gave here. 2. If we could suppose, that such a Col­lection [Page 112]of imitating God, could have been appre­hended by Man, without Relevation; then the Sixth day of the week, would by him be pitched upon for his own Sabbath of Rest; because the Sixth day of the following week would have been his Seventh day after his Six days working, as before. 3. Gods making of the World, in six days, was a pure Revelation; for Man could never have known it of himself; no not in the Estate of his pure Knowledge: Because, for ought he could know, God might have made the World simultaneously, all at once, or by one word speaking; for he knew he might so have done, if he had pleased; he could not know that God did gradually, or pro­gressively make the Creatures; much less that he took up six days for it, neither more nor less: Indeed the Order, and Method, the Time and Duration of the work of Creation, must be by Revelation to Man, seeing he was created the last of all the Creatures: So that in this respect 'tis not Moral; neither could it ever be the Dictate of Man's Mind. 4. God cannot properly Rest, because he cannot be said properly to Labour: Rest properly is a Refreshment after Weariness, Isa. 40.28. The everlasting God, the Creator of the Ends of the Earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. Consequently neither resteth; for he does all he does with an infinite Facility, and perfect Immo­bility; and takes no more pains in creating the World, than in creating a Fly; that is, none at all. And besides, as before, God works still in his works of Preservation and Providence, which are altogether as Great and Glorious, and some of them more Great Glorious, than were the [Page 113]works of Creation: So that in this respect this Argument is not Moral; not such a Motive as could have been found out by the Mind of Man. Lastly, If this were such a cogent Reason in it self, or a Moral Motive for the Sanctification of the Seventh day, in the Repetition of the Fourth Com­mand, why is it not so much as mentioned? For Deut. 5.13-15. there is not a word concerning it; but whereas in the other Commands all the Motives that were used, and adjoyned to them in their first Edition, are here again repeated; yet this is quite and clean left out in this second Edition of the Fourth Command; and in lieu thereof, their mighty and wonderful Deliverance out of the Land of Egypt is inserted, that 'twas therefore because he saved them, that he commanded them to keep the Sabbath-day. What this should signifie I cannot well see, unless God would hereby teach us, that the Salvation of his Church is a far more great and glorious work in it self, and far more bene­ficial and happy to us, than that of the Creation, (for the Deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses, was a Type of the Deliverance of the universal Church from the Devil, from Sin, from Hell, from the Curse, from Death and the Grave; by our Lord Jesus Christ) and that when this shall be compleated (as we know 'twas at our Savour's Resurrection, it being the Conclusion of his Estate of Humiliation by which he purchased our Salva­tion, and an entrance into his Glorification, where he would procure it, apply, and effect it) then the Reason annexed to the Fourth Command from the ceasing the Works of Creation, should (in a sense) be lain by; and that of the Redemption of [Page 114]the Church be substituted in its place: And so consequently as the Seventh-day-Sabbath was ob­served in Commemoration of the works of Cre­ation, until a more admirable work of God should be accomplished; so the first day ever after should be the Holy Rest; when that Supream of all the works of God, our Redemption, should be rested from on that day. I do verily believe Gods neg­lecting the works of Creation, and substituting that of the Churches Redemption, as the gread Foundation and Reason of keeping the Holy Rest, here in Deut. declares this unto us.

But I refer it to wiser Heads: Only from what has been here spoken, I will conclude, that this part is purely Positive; both the Seventh Week-day-Sabbath, and this Motive upon which 'tis grounded, God's working six days and resting the Seventh, which is a Motive to us to observe it, as well as it seems a Reason in God to require it. Where­fore here I would fain demand of this Gentleman, why he should be so exceedingly Zealous for the Perpetuity of the Seventh-day-Sabbath, when 'tis both a Ceremonial and Positive Precept: Ceremonial, as it signifies Gods own Rest from his Works past; and as it signifies our future Rest in Heaven from all our Labours in this present Life: And purely Po­sitive, seeing all the former Ceremonial and Posi­tive Precepts concerning Worship, are abolished by the coming of Christ: Why should this then solitarily be excluded, and stand in its Strength and Vigour, when all its other Companions are thrown to the Ground and vanish? I know no rea­son, but because this was written by the singer of God upon stone. But this altereth not the nature of [Page 115]the Command it self; neither can it from hence plead a greater Privilege; for all the former had God for their Author as well as this, and God's Mouth is as Authoritative as his Finger: Where­fore we may well conclude, that seeing there is no reason can be given, why the Seventh-day-Sab­bath should not recede and give place, as well as all other Ceremonial and Positive Precepts to our Lord Christ at his coming, and his new, and more glorious Administrations; that it is, and ought to be, excluded with them, and give place to a more glorious day, in Commemoration of a more glorious work, and Gods resting from it: Even the first day, our Lords glorious triumphing day.

The other two reasons of this Fourth Command follow, which are Gods Blessing the Sabbath day, and Hallowing it. Where 'tis worthy our Observance (though this Author deems it a Triffe) that 'tis the Sabbath day, not the Seventh day of the Week, that is here blessed and hallowed: As if God would hint, that the Sabbath, upon what day soever (of his own Appointment) should be Blessed; even the first as well as the Seventh day of the Week, when in the latter days his Sons glorious Rest should Authorize that day; and as it should alter all other Ceremonial and positive Ordinances of his own Appointment, so also this Ceremonial and Positive day, into that other, which with all the other Ordinances and Institutions of the Blessed Redeemer, should last to the end of the World. From which Discourse concerning the Nature of the Fourth Command, all that follows in his third or fourth Pages after, is sufficiently answered, and so his next answer to another Objection against his Opinion, P. 82.

SECT. XVII.

THUS by God's Help, and (I hope) his Guidance, I have considered all his Argu­ments that he urges for his Sabbatarian Opinion; and have shewen their Invalidity and Weakness: And all the Solutions that he brings to disannul all our Proofs for the Dominical Tenet; and sup­pose that I have vindicated ours from all his At­tempts, and shewen how they remain solid and substantial. Other things which follow, being but Appendixes to this Discourse, and not of so great Moment, I shall but touch upon them. As Page 83. about the Beginning of the Sabbath. He would have it to begin at Even; and we willing­ly grant him, that the Seventh-day-Sabbath did so; for it began when God had ended his Works of Creation, which was the Evening before the Sun-rising of the Seventh Day. But, I judge that now the best Time to begin our Lord's Day with, is in the Morning; because, 1. 'Twas on that Time of the Day, early in the Morning, about Break of day, that our Lord Jesus rested from his Work of Redemption: Wherefore, if the foregoing Evening of the Old Testament-Sabbath, was its most convenient Beginning; be­cause then God ended his Work of Creation, and re­sted then: So he Morning-Light of the First Day, is the most convenient Time for its Beginning; be­cause then God rested from his much more Glo­rious, and really (in his Humanity) Laborious Work of our Redemption. 2. Because the Holy [Page 117]Scripture expresly begins it thus, placing the Conclusion of the Seventh Day at the beginning of the Morning of the First Day, Mat. 28.1. In the End of the Sabbath as it began to dawn to­ward the First Day of the Week; and consequent­ly then that Day began. 3. Because 'tis the most convenient Time; because most observable, less ly­able to Prophanations, upon the account of Mi­stakes; and so to turbulent Spirits, less obnoxi­ous, &c. but this is not so substantial a Dispute. Let every Person give up and consecrate the whole Lords-day to the Service of God; I mean, the whole Artificial Day; or rather the whole light­some Part thereof; and then let him begin ei­ther at Even or Morning; I doubt not, but if it be conscientiously done in the Name of Christ, God will accept him. But, there he must not scandalize others by doing Common or Mechanick Works upon the following Evening of that Day; which the Generality of Christians, among whom he lives, account as Sacred.

He seems Page 84. to imply, that there should be Morning and Evening religious Service every Day in publick: But there is scarcely any preach­ing Minister can have so much Leisure, beside his own personal and domestical Devotions: And be­side our People will not attend it every day; and then the proper publick Duty of the Sabbath, to be but once, and begin about Noon. I, for my Part, believe the Times of publick Worship on the Lord's-day are most conveniently ordered al­ready: Twice, once in the Morning about Nine; and so in the Evening about Two. An Interval being for the Refreshment of the outward Man, [Page 118]and Recruits of the Spirit, for a more vigorous and enlarged serving of God in the Evening: Beside, we know in the Country, 'tis convenient to keep some Persons at home; or one Person, when Houses are solitary and lyable to Injury, by those who should know them totally destitute of an Inhabitant; and in Country and City, Fa­milies that have Children, which must be kept at home, either through Weakness, or such as would disturb the Congregation by their Presence, must have some one or other to take care of them: Now in such Cases, one Servant or Person, may be at home in the Morning, and another in the Evening; and so all partake of the publick Wor­ship every Lord's-day; which could not so con­veniently be done by one single assembling the Congregation: But however to meddle herein, would be very impertinent, and would rather savour of a restless Fancy (to say no worse) than of a peaceable and prudent Spirit.

The other Pages home to the 90th. I overlook; because in them I find, either such things as do not belong to the Sabbath, nor to this Contro­versy at all: Or if they do, they are such as are written already, (at least the Substance) and an­swered.

SECT. XVIII.

HE produces, Page, 90. the Argument of Tra­dition from the Apostles in the universal Church these 1600 Years, for the Observance of [Page 119]the Lord's-day. Whereto his Answer is, that no Tradition can add to, take from, lay aside, or al­ter any Word of Christ, or Duty of Man. But, yet such a perpetualand epidemical Tradition may serve for a good subservient Proof for that which is founded upon, and deduced from Scrip­ture; as the case is here; for we have proved by many Arguments from Scripture, the Abolition of the Seventh-Day-Sabbath, and the ratification of the Lord's-Day.

He answers to such a general and lasting Tra­dition for the Sanctification of the Lord's-day: That he has already proved that the Seventh Day is the Lord's-day spoken of, Rev. 1.10. But I think, I have disproved that Proof.

Page 91: He himself recurs to Tradition, and undertakes to prove that throughout several Cen­turies there have been Churches, who assembled themselves themselves for religious Worship on the Seventh Day. And, so this is set as a Bar a­gainst, and a Counterplea to that Prime, Primitive and universal Tradition for the Lords-day: To which, I answer in general: 1. That a few Exceptions against a general Rule, do rather confirm than weaken it. 2. Every Antiquity or Tradition will not, cannot, serve to prove either Practice or Doctrin to be commendable or ortho­dox, nor derogate from what is so. For, the Denyal of the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ is as ancient as the Apostles Days; in which Co­rinthus was such an Heretick; and the Ebionites, Photinians and Arains have handed down that damning Doctrin to our Socinians. 3. Scarce any Church, since the Apostles Days, have been with­out [Page 120]out their Flaws, in Doctrin or Worship or both; and we doubt not, but this hath been one of them, if it can be proved to be practised. 4. In ma­ny Churches, where they did observe the Seventh-day, as a Day of publick Assemblies; yet in them the Lord's-day was also kept and observed; and that too, as the chief Day: For on the Lord's-day all, in general, were ingaged to wait upon God's publick Worship, not so on Saturdays. On the Lord's-day all the Ordinances of the Gospel were administred, not so on Saturdays: And so still the Lords-day had the Preheminence even in those very Churches: Which general Answers may be enough to stop the Mouths of all his ancient Wit­nesses: Yet, I will take a little Pains, and imploy a little Time, to inquire into the Particulars; for I think they neither deserve nor require much of either. As to his first Instance, if all the follow­ing be such, I am sure they are stark naught; yea, they are not at all. For, he asserts, that in the Apostles times the Seventh Day was observed as the publick Day of divine Worship: Here he must meau by Christins, or else he trifles: But he can never find in all the Scripture, that in the Apostles Days there was ever one Society of Christians gather­ed on the Seventh Day: Indeed, St. Paul did go on that Day into the Assemblies of the Jews, to preach the Gospel to many of them, which he could not conveniently do on any other Day: But never did he invite any to keep that Day, ne­ver did he assemble afterward on that Day; when he was separated from their Synagogues finding them imperswasible and obstinate. But, now we can produce several Christian-Assemblies on the [Page 121]First day, the Lords day, after our Saviours Resurrection, in which our Lord appeared to them: And 'twas then their Custom to Assemble, and bring their Publick Alms to the Publick Trea­sure; wherefore I cannot but marvel at this bold Assertion.

The Basis of traditionary Structue, being so visibily sunk and come to nought, makes me suspect that the erected Stories thereof, will tumble and fall: So that 'tis clear, we have the Apostle Ex­amples, the Churches Use in their days, and their Commands against the Seventh day, and for the Lords day, as a sufficient Demurr to all his fu­ture Tradition: Into which I now descend, and must say that I have searched the Magdeburgenses for his Quotations, but cannot find them where he quotes them; and therefore believe that the Au­thor used either another Edition, or another that is various either in the Bulk, or in the Pages. I found in them the Eliberine Council, but there he Twenty Third Canon hath nothing of a Fast upon a Sabbath day. As to the other Authors, I have them not, and know not where to get them, that I might peruse them; neither is it needful; for the matter of these Quotations, makes very little for his Cause: For whoever considers them, will find, 1. That very many, if not most of them, declare the Establishment and Separation of the Dominical day for Divine Service. 2. That another great part of them, prove the Observation or keeping both of the Dominical day, and the Sabbath, in very many of the Churches. 3. These tell us that the Sab­bath was kept as a Fast, by the most (if not by all) of the Churches that kept it; and the Lords-day [Page 122]as a Festival, which all our Ecclesiastical Writers acknowledge as before: And so evince that it was not kept with so equal Authority as the Lords day. (So does Dr. Young at large) which also shews that they never observed it as the ancient Sabbath; or 'twas enjoyned in the Fourth Com­mand: But upon a new Account, or for a new Reason; even because our Lord Christ lay dead in the Grave on that day; Therefore they would Fast and Humble themselves, because their Lord and Sa­viour was on that day in his lowest Humiliation: (So far were they from this Gentleman's Opinion, that his State of Death was his Rest after his Work of Redemption) and they would observe the First day with Praises and Holy Rejoycings, as the Christian Festival; because 'twas the Lords day of Triumph over his Enemies, even of his Resur­rection. These include the greatest part, by far, of his Historical Examples, and a very few are left which do not expresly acknowledge these things: And they that do not express them, may well be thought to include them. I mean, though some of these Quotations do not verbally tell us that when they kept this Sabbath, they also kept the Lords day, yet it may well be presumed they did so; seeing 'twas the common Practice of such Churches, to observe both of them in the foresaid manner. Such an one, for Example, is that of Socrates Scholasticus, who tells us (for I have exa­mined him, and find he does verbatim tell us) in a manner all the Churches in the World do Cele­brate, and Receive the Holy Mysteries, every Sab­bath day after other: Yet the People inhabiting Alexandria and Rome, of an old Tradition, do not [Page 123]use it. Yet doubtless, they also observed the Lords-day, seeing 'twas that which Constantine, had before by Edict enjoyned the Churches to do. And he saith in the very next Page, and in the same Chapter of this Quotation, that at Caesarea in Cap­padocia, and at Cyprus, the Priests and Bishops do Preach and Expound Holy Scripture at Evening-Prayer, on the Saturdays and Sundays by Candle-Light; and therefore we may well presume that the other Churches did, which before he spake of: These being some of these all. As for his Histo­rical Account, when the Lord's day was brought into Scotland, viz. An. 1208. It may be very well answered, that the initiating, or bringing in of the Dominical day, does not refer to the day it self, but only to the Authority that introduced it; even that in that Year it began to be Establish­ed by the Authority of a Council; which before it had not been: Or if it refer to the day it self, it may not simply be understood, as if that day were never taken notice of at all in Scotland, as a San­ctified day: (For who ca believe this? seeing 'twas all along observed by the rest of the Church­es, as his own Quotations acknowledge.) But respectively, as now 'twas by Authority enjoyned to be strictly kept and sanctified, and to be solita­rily separated to Divine Service: Whereas before, they were Loose and Profane in their Carriages upon it. All which is most probable, and very well concurrs with the truth of the History. And therefore this History does not, nor that of Englands late due Observance of the Lords day; or their keeping Markets on that day, &c. till [Page 124]the same Century, or any other evacuate the Se­ries of an Universal and Constant Tradition for the Lord's day: For even in these Nations, the Lords day might be then acknowledged to be the day of Divine Worship; though not so strictly and duly kept; as we know in this very last Century among our Selves, Plays, Interludes, all manner of Sports, selling of things in our very Streets, have been permitted and practised. Yet still the Lords day acknowledged in the Church to be the day of Divine Worship. And it cannot well be supposed that those Christian Churches, (as England and Scotland) who observed the Seventh day, because on it our Saviour lay in the Grave (not because 'twas commanded in the Fourth Precept, nor be­cause 'twas the Creator's Rest after his Work) should alltogether neglect and disregard the First day, seeing 'twas the day of his Conquest, and the Entrance into his Glorious Exaltation. This I thought convenient to say to those Historical Collections of his, and must leave a more parti­cular and exact Answer of them to those who have better Helps, and more Leisure to examine them.

He gives us Page 102. Thomas Aquinas's Opi­nion concerning the Fourth Command, (whom I suppose to be the same Thomas before quoted for the same) that some part of it is Moral, and some Ceremonial, &c. Which Opinion of his, how he­terodox soever the Author deems it, I doubt not, but it is very Orthodox, and the Truth of God clearly evinced by the Light of Nature: And that no Person shall ever be Condemned for not observing a Seventh day of the Week, (much [Page 125]less for not observing the Last day of the Week) intirely to God's Worship and Service, without the Revelation of the Fourth Command to him; no more than he shall be Condemned for not be­lieving in the Lord Jesus, without the Revelation of the Gospel.

SECT. XIX.

BUt enough of this before, which invites me to reflect upon one Particular which I intended to have replyed to, in its proper place: But I know not how 'twas then neglected, which is Page 79. An Answer to another Objection against the Morali­ty of the Seventh-day-Sabbath, viz. That the Deca­logue in not at all in force to the Gentiles: Which Ob­jection methinks, should not be so crudely pro­duced, nor in such an unlimited and unqualified manner; for I dare to assert, That that One, who­ever he was, that this Author intends, does hold that the Decalogue in one respect does, and in an­other does not oblige the Gentiles. That it does oblige them as to the Morality and Substance of every one of the Ten Commands, (the Fourth not excepted) That it does not oblige them, as those Ten words were Engraven on Tables of Stone, as they were delivered to the Israelites upon the Mount, in such a dreadful and formidable man­ner, as Moses was the Receiver of them from God's Hand, and their Conveyer to the People: Which to be his Sense, his very Production of the Preface for his Argument, sufficiently proves. [Page 126]Which (we doubt not) is a most Orthodox O­pinion; and not only the Judgment of One, but of almost (if not altogether) all our learned and solid Divines. For, how can that oblige the Ge­tiles, which they never heard, nor were in a Possi­bility to know? As Millions of them never were; and Millions more may never be: Who never heard of a Deliverance from Egypt, nor of a Moses, nor of a burning Mountain, nor of horrible Thundrings and Lightnings, nor of such a Deliverance of that Law? And the Gentiles, who have, by Gods gracious and blessed Provi­dence, these things brought to their Cognizance, are not obliged to them, as given by Moses, but as given by God; not to them, as delivered out of the Land of Egypt, and out of the House of Bondage, which was peculiar only to the Israe­lites and those that came out with them; not to them, as having a share and Possession in the Land of Canaan, (the Motive to the Fifth Command,) for that was only peculiar to the Israelites: So then the Decalogue does not oblige all Man-kind, as 'twas given to the Israelites, and as urged upon them with their singular and peculiar Obligations, but as 'twas engraven upon the Humane Nature in our first Creation, as the moral Perfection of the rational Creature, so it obliges all the Gentiles, as well as the Jews. His Argument of the Delive­rance of the then whole visible Church, is a Mi­stake; for there were some of the visible Church, who were not among them, as Jethro, Moses's Fa­ther-in-Law; and we believe more with him, see­ing he was a great Man, or a Priest of Midian, Exod. 3.1. whose Faith in, and Worship of the [Page 127]True God are clearly seen, Exod. 18.8, 12. Wherefore this Deliverance of the Jews, could not so effect them or appertain to them: But, suppose that these Motives could have a typical and re­mote Influence, and lay some kind of moral Ob­ligations upon the Heathens that may have the Tydings thereof sent among them, it cannot be well imagined how it could ever affect, or be a Motive to those Nations that never had the least Notice thereof; and consequently, the Decalogue, thus given by Moses, is not in force toward the Gentiles as such; for so 'twould equally oblige them all.

SECT. XX.

AND thus I have passed through all his Book that concerns the Sabbath; and have done what God hath enabled me to shew the Weak­ness and Non-Conclusion of all his Arguments, having endeavoured to look into the Depth, and find out the Strength of every one of them: And on the other hand, to confirm and establish ours against all his Endeavours to undermine and bassle them. And, might here have concluded; but shall not 'till I have shewen him the Tradition of the Lords-days-Rest down along from the Apostles Time, home to the Conclusion of the Fourth Cen­tury; which is the purest Antiquity, and enough for our purpose, being found in the most ancient orthodox Fathers, and spoken of as the Practice of the Church of God in their Days, whom I [Page 128]shall but name, and set down the Time of their flourishing in the Church, referring the Reader to Dr. Young, and Mr. Warren, to find out their Quotations thus.

Ignatius Co-temporary with the Apostles.

Justin Martyr in the Year 160.

Dionisius Bp. of Corinth near the same time.

Tertullian Anno. 200. Origen 226. Cyprian Martyr An. 250. Athanasius An. 326. Hilary 355. Ambrose 374. Hierome 385. Chrysostom 398. Au­gustine in their Time. Eusebius (saith my Au­thor) testifies, 'twas observed all the World over. And Bp. Andrews (as I have read him) in his Speech against Thrask a Sabbatarian, in the Star-Chamber, avows it on his Credit, that there is not any Ecclesiastical Writer, in whom 'tis not found. Viz. The sacred Observance of the Lord's Day, that is, the First Day of the Week. Which Testimonies of so many excellent Doctors (yea, saith Bp. Andrews of all eminent Doctors) of so many great and flourishing Churches, carry much more Weight with them, than all his Collections can pretend to do against them.

As touching Easter and it's Observance, that is no Part of this Controversy; therefore I shall on­ly say, that I am no Zelot for it's Observance, and am perswaded it has less Grounds for it's Ce­lebration than any other of those Festivals which are appropriated to our Lord, and in Commemo­ration of his Birth, of his Manifestation, of his Ascension, of his Mission of the Holy Ghost, be­cause the Lord's Day is a constant Memorial of that Resurrection, being that Day of the Week where­on he rested from all the Work of his Redemp­tion: [Page 130]wherefore, seeing there is a weekly religious and solemn Commemoration thereof, there must needs be the less Cause for an Annual. As for the other Festivals which are appropriated to meer Men, and dedicated to their Remembrance and Praise; as I have nothing to say for them, so I think it neither prudent nor seasonable to say any thing against them. But, let him that keepeth a Day, keep it to the Lord, and he that keepeth not a Day, unto the Lord let him not keep it: And let both main­tain the Unity of the Spirit, in the Bond of Peace.

Here I hoped to have annexed my Epilogue, but some Passages in the Discourse of Easter, do re­quire a little Animadversion. As when,

He tells us, Page 134. (which he had done se­veral Times before) that the Change of the Se­venth Day to the First, was introduced by the Bp. of Rome, and so imposed by him upon the other Churches, which he thinks evidenced by his former Collection. But, 1. We have seen it ob­served before there was a Bp. of Rome, and he re­ceived it from the Assemblies of the Disciples and Christians just upon our Saviour's Resurrection, and in the Apostles Days. 2. We have seen it observed by very great Churches in the Purity of the Roman Faith, and the Moderation of the Roman Ecclesiastical Government, when either the Roman Bishop did not pretend to any Authority over them; or if he did, they rightly and stout­ly resisted and refused it: And therefore 'twas ra­ther an universal Reception of all the Churches conjunctly, as from the Apostles and scriptural Authority; than any Imposition of Rome upon them.

He has a strange Notion, Page 130. (as it ap­pears to me) which is, that first Rome endeavoured to introduce the Observation of the Passover upon the Lords-day; and so the weekly Holy Rest upon that day; which to my Apprehension, implies that Rome her self observed the Passover; Lords-day, before she did the weekly. Whereas 'tis clear, that Rome observed the first day of the week, because 'twas the Dominical day, the day of our Lord's Resurrection; whereas the proper Paschal-day was two or three days before the Lords day: And therefore in Honour to that day, did the Bishop of Rome require Easter to be kept; and not or­dained Easter First-day, as a Shooe-horn to bring in the weekly first day after. Moreover in those Churches wherein they dissented from Rome, as to the day of Easter, they concurred with her in the weekly Lords-day: So that the Lords-day was weekly observed by them, before Easter was kept upon that day; and therefore the yearly first day could not be an usherer in of that week-day which was before it.

SECT. XXI.

AS the Conclusion and Result of all this Dis­course, I think, I have shewn, that the Lord Christ did not make the World; that Jehovah was not Christ before the World; that he never instituted the Seventh day, nor rested on it, till his Incarnation; nor being Christ really till then; that he gave not the Commands on Mount Sinai: [Page 131]Neither were they there given to the Gentiles, but to the Jews only, and those mixed People that came out of Egypt: That the Ten Commands were confirmed by our Lord Christ in his Sermons and Discourses; but the Seventh-day-Sabbath never so much as mentioned by him in them all; as that which was no part at all of the Moral Law; but purely positive, both in it self, and in its Grounds and Motive upon which 'tis founded, and imposed upon its Observers in the Old Testament; and therefore was liable to be changed with the other positive and ceremonial Precepts of the Law of God; that our Lord Christ indeed observed it in his own Person in the Flesh, because he was made under the antecedent Law of all the Ceremonies and Mosaical Administration, and observed them all as well as the Sabbath; but yet he then spake, and did such things as declared its approach to Dissolution and its Non-Morality; that he rested no more in the Grave on the Seventh day, than he did on the Cross on the Sixth, when he hung dead thereon; but the day of his Rest from the work of Redemption, was the first day of the week; which day he supreamly honoured above all the days of the week, by his Resurrection thereon from the Dead; by his several Appearances thereon to his Disciples after his Death; by his most gracious Discourses thereon unto them (which he never did, nor made, on the Seventh day after his Resarrection) and by the Mission of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples thereon: Upon which account St. John calls it the Lords day, and by all the Churches ever since, that Lords day has been taken to be the first day of the Week: That the Apostles and Believers [Page 132]kept the Lords day, or the first day of the week as their religious Rest; and met together on that day as the day of their publick Assemblies, and we never read of any Assemblies on the Seventh day, save those of the Jews (our Lords Enemies) in their Synagogues, to whom Paul went to preach the Gospel then and there; but when he expe­rienced their desperate Obstinacy; left that time, and those Synagogues, and we never read that ever on that day he joyned with any religious Society; after that at Troas he preached and ad­ministred the Sacrament to the Believers on the first day, the Lords day; and that the Holy Ghost does call the first day of the week the Lords day, being the day of the Redeemer's Rest from a far more glorious, laborious, gracious and beneficial, Work, than that of the Creation: And that there is an express Prohibition of the Seventh-day-Sabbath in St. Paul's Epistles; and consequently, seeing the positive Morality of one day in Seven in the Fourth Command, is of perpetual Obligation to the Churches; therefore the first day must be that day, and the Sabbath was excluded, that the Lords day might succeed, and that the Promises made to the Rest of one day in Seven in the Com­mand, are made to, and entail'd upon the first day of those Seven now, as they were upon the last of them, before its Expiration; and that a due Observation thereof, shall have a gracious Acceptation with, a bountiful Remuneration from our God and our Saviour, according to all the Blessed Experiences of the strict and consciencious Observers thereof. That there is a more express and peremptory Abolition of this Sabbath in the [Page 133]Scriptures of that Apostle, than there is, or can be found in them for the Cessation of many other particular, positive and ceremonial Institutions; which yet Christians in general (and this Gentle­man in particular) disregard as dissolved and va­nished: And I profess, if I could see but half so much in the Second Command, to prove a Form of Prayer to be the Pesel there forbidden, or at least included therein, I should utterly deny all Forms as Idolatrous (which now I dare not do; but in some cases hold them not only lawful, but ne­cessary and Praise-worthy) or but half so much in any Line or Sentence of the New Testament against the use of the Lords Prayer in the publick Con­gregation; I would never so use it more, but to my due power would endeavour its Banishment thence: If, I say, but half so much as I find expressed for the Seventh days Deposal; well may we wonder that in such things a Man sees what scarce no Man else ever did, in the word of God, and yet in this, that he should not see what almost every Man else can plainly discover.

Wherefore I question not, but all our Divines and Ministers of Congregations, are sufficiently satisfied, that they serve God duly, as to the Cir­cumstance of time on Lords days; and may, and do, in Faith, associate on the Lords day, as the only Sacred day of the Week, with all other Christians in the Apostles days since our Saviours Resurrection, home to this very Generation: And I cannot but hope that this piece, how specious soever it be, and with what confidence soever re­commended; however back'd with the Pretences of Divine Authority, of Jehovah's Will, &c. with [Page 134]pathetical Inculcations of those in multitudes of its Pages, for the Observance of the Seventh day will find but very few, if any, Proselites among our common Professors; and, I am confident, none among our Wise, Stade, experienced Christians; or if any be in danger of Infection, I pray to God that this Reply, intended for this end, may be an Antidote to secure them. Lastly, it will be good Advice to this Gentleman, who hath caused the Expence of so much time in this Controversie, to bethink himself how his Opinion leads us to Judaize; and this work of his tends only to di­vide the Church, to stumble the Weak, to imploy and please the Silly, Fantastical and Giddy in matters of Religion, to encourage the Profaners of the first day, or rather of the Lords day, to scandalize and grieve all, and therefore to cease from farther Attempts of this kind. And all I desire is, that the Reader would impartially com­pare what he has written for his Seventh day against the Lords day; and what I have written for the Lords day, against his Seventh day; and beg Wis­dom and Understanding from God to have a due Insight into, and draw a right Conclusion from both.