The Practical Sabbatarian

CHAP. XLV. Sabbath-holiness doth as well become the Christian, as the Jew, if we look back to the infancy of the Law.

THat the Sabbath was given to Adam, and in him to all his posterity, to us Christians, as well as to others, hath already been largely discovered: Now my task is to show, that in the second edition of the Sabbath upon Mount Sinai, it was given as a moral command, for everyone to obey, and not as a ceremonial precept, whose force must end with the Jews, and their pedagogy; for we must know, that all ceremonies were buried in Christ's grave, and their honor was laid in the dust with him; for when the Sun came, the shadows were to disappear, and when Christ triumphed on the Cross, then the hand-writing of Ordinances (as Ceremonies are usually called) was blotted out, Col. 2. 14. Those inferior garnishes of Religion, were then to be taken away.

Now to evidence the morality of the fourth Commandment, and that it concerns us Christians, every way as much as the Jews, will be best attempted; by showing, 1. Negatively, it is not Ceremonial. 2. Positively, it is clearly Moral, and binds us Christians as much, as any Precept in the Decalogue; nor hath the Christian more liberty to be loose on a Sabbath, then he hath to cast contempt on his Parents, to break the door of his neighbors house, or attempt the chastity of his neighbors wife; as much guilt is folded up in robbing God of his day, as in robbing man of his goods; the chain is as strong to bind us in the fourth, as in the sixth Commandment, and the sin is the same to loosen the one, as well as the other: Every Command in the Decalogue is of equal Authority, which to resist, is an equal provocation to the Legislatour.

[unspec 1] The fourth Commandment, that blessed command for the Sabbath, is not Ceremonial: And here I must reassume a notable speech of Bishop Andrew's, whose eminency and learning was not of an ordinary stature; This learned man puts the Query, But is not the Sabbath a Ceremony? and then answers, Do as Christ did in the cause of divorce, look whether it was so from the beginning; now the beginning of the Sabbath was in Paradise, before there was any sin, and so before there needed any Savior's, and so before there was any ceremony or figure of a Savior. Thus this learned Man clears the fourth Commandment of all ceremony. Ceremonies have in them aliquid oneris, something of burden, which cannot be asserted of the state of innocence, in which the Sabbath was first ordained. Sin only lays load upon us; and as it first opened the door to death, Rom. 5. 12. so it first opened the gap to Ceremonies. It is observed by learned men, that the Evening and the morning was the first day, and so the second, and so every day of the six days; But no Evening is attributed to the seventh day, to show us, that no shadow of rite or ceremony first attended that blessed day. The Sabbath is the first-born of Institutions, and was brought into the World without any wen of ceremony upon it: And though the Lord of it, Mark 2. 28. in his infancy was wrapped up in the meanest swaddling-clothes, suitable to the manger wherein he lay; yet the Sabbath in its first production was not wrapped up in beggarly elements, as ceremonies are called by the Apostle.

[unspec 2] Nor needed that solemn preparation of a smoking mountain, of a sounding trumpet, of a flaming fire, to usher in a poor, flying, dying ceremony. A transient rite did not require so much pomp and state. Beggars have not their trains to go before them. We sound not the trumpet at the lighting of a candle. Surely ceremonies are but a candle light, which casts but a faint light, and soon expires: nor doth it indeed comport with the infinite and unsearchable wisdom of God, to preface a ceremony with so much grandeur and solemnity, a ceremony which must so soon be buried in the grave of oblivion. Short Leases are written in a little paper, and need no sheets of Parchment. Israel trepidates, and shakes to hear those noises, and see those sights which prepared the publication of the fourth Commandment among the rest; and thought, their death should have borne the date of the Exhibition of those ten words. And therefore it must needs savor of presumption, to call that a Ceremony, which was published with so much awful and tremendous solemnity.

[unspec 3] Nor can the fourth Commandment be ceremonial, because it was given by God himself. Now Divines rightly distinguish between Law and Ceremony: the Law comes immediately from God; the Ceremonies were either instiuted by Moses, or at least given by him; God left those Rudiments to his Servant: But God himself wrote the fourth Commandment with his own finger, and proclaimed it with his own voice, nay, delivered it himself with all glorious solemnity: and therefore the Decalogue is called his Covenant, Deut. 4. 13. to show the stability of it: God doth not draw his people into Covenant with himself upon the account of a Rite, nor tie himself to them, by the breaking thread of a Ceremony; his Covenant of Salt doth not so easily lose its savor.

[unspec 4] Let us hear the learned Andrew's once more; this is a principle, saith he, that the Decalogue is the Law of Nature revived, and the Law of Nature is the Image of God; now in God there is no ceremony, but all must be eternal, and so in this Image, which is the law of Nature, and so in the Decalogue. And so I suppose the Bishop of Winchester hath silenced the Bishop of Eli, who wrote to a contrary purpose. To what is laid down by Bishop Andrew's, accords Chrysostom, when he calls the Law of the Sabbath, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an immovable Law; and where there is no change, there can be no ceremony. And reverend Sprint hath a suitable speech accommodated to this purpose; The observation of the seventh day, saith he, is of the Law of Nature, and whatsoever is found in the fourth Commandment appertaineth to the law of Nature. And so holy Master Walker; The observation of the seventh day was established before Christ was promised, and therefore it is not ceremonial, but of the law of Nature, and perpetual. Thus the suffrages of those who have been most eminent, do freely concur in establishing this great truth, (viz.) that no ceremony can be found in the fourth Commandment; and let the adversaries follow the scent of a ceremony with never so much diligence and speed, they can no more overtake it, then the Egyptians can find out the head of the River Nile; or the Israelites trace Moses his Grave: and this is, to seek the dead among the living, a little to allude to the speech of the Angel, Luk. 24. 5.

[unspec 5] And the usual expostulation of our Divines is, How came this Ceremony among the moral Precepts? How came it to shelter itself there? Is not this to make the fourth Commandment like Nebuchadnezzar's Image, partly Gold and Silver, durable Mettals, and partly Clay and mouldering earth? Doctor Bound positively asserts;

Bishop Hooper saith, The same speaks Iraeneus, So clearly doth this Father distinguish between Moral Laws pronounced by God, and Ceremonial Laws given by Moses. Nay, Aquinas is sensible of this, when he pronounces all the Precepts of the Decalogue Moral; and would not this mixing Ceremonials with Morals in the same Decalogue produce confusion and disorder; or as Doctor Bound saith, And if this be true, that the Law for the Sabbath is Ceremonial, and all the rest Moral, then we have only an Ennealogue, not a Decalogue, so God must lose one of his ten words, and pay tythe of his. Commandments to the wild and desultory fancies of men: for if the fourth Commandment be a Ceremony, it dies at the coming of Christ. But we have the just division of the Commandments in Scripture, they were written in two Tables, we have their full number, they were ten, so many and no more: and therefore as we must not unite them into one Table, so we must not contract them into nine Commandments; and if this fourth Commandment be ceremonial, why is it not rased out of the Commandments? How came it in, is a question, and no less, how stays it in? The Papists cashire the second Commandment, and divide the last into two to make up the number, forbidding in the former to covet our Neighbors wife, in the latter to covet our Neighbors goods: and if we still admit a Ceremony in the midst of the Commandments, why may not Atheists put a Ceremony upon the first, and Swearers put a Ceremony upon the third: Nay, Antinomians put a Ceremony upon them all? and so the two Tables shall be broken the second time, and so rendered useless and impertinent to mankind? It is a sage saying of Wolfius; As once it was the wonder of the people of Israel, Is Saul also among the Prophets? And may we not with as much astonishment cry out, And is a Ceremony put in among the Moral Precepts? Nor is it suitable to God, who is a God of Order, to mis-place a Ceremonial among Morals. Holy Greenham observes; The learned Hooker, most sagely, according to his manner, thus discourses: All that I shall add is, Take the fourth Commandment, and see it in this Glass, and then you will see how like a Ceremony it looks.

Doctor Ames will not have the Command for the Sabbath Ceremonial, because it wears nothing of a Jewish Livery, whereby it may be appropriated to them, and so made part of their transient Pedagogie. To set apart a day for God, is as necessary and congruous to Christians, as to Jews. To remember the works of the Creation, and the Rest in the close of it, is no more unseemly or impertinent for Christians than for Jews, when both are God's Creatures and Subjects: to see our Families keep the Sabbath, as well as ourselves, doth as well befit the times of the Gosspel, as the time of the Law, is every way as decent and comely: to forbear servile works on a Sabbath is as convenient for the Christian Church, as the Jewish Synagogue. How then comes the Sabbath to be the Jews monopoly? for indeed it must be so, if it be a Ceremony: But if the Sabbath in the fourth Commandment hath nothing peculiar to the Jew, let us not lose our claim in this blessed day, but let us receive our Inheritance, which was first given us in Paradise, and this Will further ratified on Mount Sinai. It is strange, that so many should so easily part with one of God's ten words to an abrogated Jew, only to please a design, or gratify an interest in some men; that the Sabbath being expired as a Ceremony at the coming of Christ, and so all days in the week lying common, it may lie in the power of the Church to erect a new Sabbath, which is a Trophy of their Plenipotentiary Grandeur: and this will make the Mitre look more splendid. But others plead the Ceremoniality of the fourth Commandment; that the Sabbath being abrogated and cancel'd as out of date, they may have no Sabbath, but of human institution, and then they may break it with more ease, than Sampson did his Withs, and so still lie in Delilah's lap of pleasure and delight, the noise of a Clerical Institution being too faint to awaken them. But let every gracious heart more study duty then interest; and what becomes him in conformity to the will of God.

[unspec 7] From the times of the Gospel all Ceremonies are ended, they were all buried in Christ's Grave (as was suggested before.) But the Sabbath went over Christ's grave, for Mat. 24. 20. Christ commands his Disciples to play, that their visitation be not on the Sabbath day, which visitation was many years after Christ's Ascension to the Father, So then, the Sabbath survives after the decease and Funeral of all legal Ceremonies. By the coming of Christ, the Sabbath suffered a change, but not a loss; the circumstance of time was altered, but the substance of the command was no way impaired; the Sabbath did only slide down, upon a new and most glorious occasion, from the seventh day to the first.

[unspec 8] The Commandment for the Sabbath hath not so much as any character of a Ceremony in it.

[unspec 1] It was not typical, it did not praenote anything to be accomplished under the Gospel. If that fancy of the Jewish Cabala be true, that the world shall continue but 6000 years, and then the day of Judgment shall follow, it might prefigure that, and yet no Ceremony proved, for the type must continue till the thing typified be fulfilled; so this rather evinceth the duration, then the abrogation of the Sabbath.

[unspec 2] The Sabbath hath no particular relation to the Land of Canaan, the proper place of Ceremonies, nor yet to the Jews, the proper subjects of Ceremonies; (and this hath been proved before.) But now if it be objected that the Sabbath was a sign between God and the Jews, Exod. 31. 13, 17. Ezek. 20. 12, 20. It is answered, the Sabbath was at that time a mark of difference and separation betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles: But was it so as a seventh day? No, that which caused the distinction, was the sanctification of them upon that day, not anything in the number seven: God's seposing of a time for them, and only for their sanctification, was an argument he had a more special care of them then of other Nations, and they were his only people.

[unspec 3] It was not imposed upon the Jews as any burden or yoke: The Sabbath is a day of joy, not toil, our blessing, not our burden. In the explanation of the fourth Commandment, it is rather recited as an Ordinance of comfort and refreshing, of mercy and favor, and not of rigor and severity, of depression and servitude. The Sabbath in its own nature is a day of relaxation to the body, and of reviving to the soul; a day of unbending the bow to the outward man, and of heavenly visits to the inward man; there is no knot in the cord to hold out any sharpness in this blessed Ordinance; the Sabbath is our term, not our task-master. On a Sabbath we are not sent out to make brick without straw, we are not to perform duties without promises of assistance, Rom. 8. 26, 27. without promises of acceptance, John 14. 15. If we put ourselves upon meeting Christ that day, he hath engaged himself, Mat. 18. 20. to give us the meeting. The Sabbath is not a task, but a gift, Ezek. 20. 12. not a symptom of servitude, but a sign of love, Ezek. 20. 12. The golden knot between God and a people, and not the iron chain.

[unspec 4] The Sabbath was not commanded in recognition of any special favor shown to the Jews, it was a memorial of God's creating the world in six days, and his own resting on the seventh: But this being a benefit wherein all mankind are equally concerned, and enter common, the Jews can claim no property therein peculiar to themselves; and so yet there is no tidings of a Ceremony, and so no cause of abolition. One very well observes, that seeing the same Authority is for the Sabbath, as is for marriage, one may as well conclude, the Law for marriage is Ceremonial, as well as the Law for the Sabbath; nay, we may seriously consider, that whereas marriage is but once termed the Covenant of God, Prov. 2. 17. because instituted by God in the beginning, the Sabbath is everywhere called the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, because ordained by God in the same beginning, both of Time, State, and Perpetuity, and therefore no way Ceremonial.

[unspec 9] It is a truth as immovable as the pillars of Heaven, that God hath given to all men universally a rule of life to conduct them to their end; now if the whole Decalogue be not it, what shall be? The Gospel is a rule of our faith, but not of our spiritual life which flows from faith, the Law therefore is the rule of life; now if nine of these be a complete rule without a tenth, exclude that one, and then who sees not an open gap made for all the rest to go out also? For where will men stop if once this principle be laid, that the whole Law is not our guide and conduct? May not men justly say, the Decalogue is not a rule of life, and so a way laid open for all looseness and enormity; and if the Sabbath be a Ceremony, we have but nine Commandments left.

[unspec 10] Nor would the Scriptures make so much ado about a Ceremony; there is no part of Scripture wherein their is not something remarkable about the Sabbath.

The institution of it we find in Genesis, where the Sabbath is one of the best flowers in the Garden of Eden.

The solemn promulgation of it we meet with in Exodus, when the mountain smokes, fire flames, trumpet sounds, at the second Edition of this perpetual statute.

The manner of the sanctification of it, we may take notice of in the Book of Levitious; God there turns paraphrast for the further dilucidation of this law.

The profanation of it is vindicated in the Book of Numbers, where God builds a wall about it with the stones, which stoned the man who gathered sticks upon that blessed day.

The pressing arguments for the sanctification of it, we may observe at large in the Book of Deuteronomy; God knowing the advantage of Sabbath-holiness, presses man urgently to pursue his own interest.

The historical part of the Bible hath some remembrance of it, either as observed, or profaned.

There is in the Book of Psalms, a Psalm appointed for it, viz. the ninety second Psalm.

The Prophets are very frequent in complaining of the violation, and in pressing the observation of it.

The Gospel hath often mention of it, and takes notice of Christ's preaching, of his healing, of his debating cases with his adversaries upon that day.

The Acts of the Apostles have likewise touches both of the old and the new Sabbath.

The Epistles hint and insinuate the institution of a Christian Sabbath, when the old Sabbath lost both its place in the week, and its title in the Scutcheon, and now the Sabbath which closed, begins the week; and that holy festival which was the Evening star of the work of Creation, is the Morning star of the work of Redemption.

The Revelation discovers God's right to it, and gives it the title of the Lord's day; besides all this, the observation of the Sabbath is ranked by the Prophets among the most substantial and perpetual duties of Religion.

Now shall Scriptures be thus copious in mentioning, be thus powerful in pressing, be thus severe in revenging a flying, dying Ceremony? Surely this must cast too much contempt upon the blessed and eternal spirit of God.

Having followed the chase thus far, and yet starting no Ceremony in the fourth Commandment; it would be enough to say, it not being Ceremonial, it must needs be Moral. But we will take a review of this blessed command; and upon our better search, no doubt but its morality, and so its perpetuity will be more evident and perspicuous.

Let us therefore look upon this Commandment

[unspec 1] In the order of it; Is it comely and good to have God to be our God, in the first Commandment? to worship him after his own heart and will, in the second? to give him his worship, with all the highest respect, and reverence of his name, in the third? and is it not as comely, good, and suitable, that this great God and King should have some magnificent day of state, to be attended on by his poor servants, and creatures, both publicly and privately, with special respect and service, as oft as he himself sees meet, and which we cannot but confess to be most equal and just according to the fourth Commandment? In the first table, one Commandment is linked to, and depends upon another: God must be our God, and then he must be worshipped, and with all 〈◊〉 reverence to his name, and so there must be a set time 〈◊〉 this; and who shall appoint this day of worship, but he who h •• h appointed the manner of it? The close co • nexion of the precept to another speaks the inseparability of it from the rest and so its perpetuity with the rest. And let us 〈◊〉 , i • all the precepts of the second table be moral, 〈◊〉 only concern man; why should any of the first table •• ll short of that glory, which do immediately concern 〈◊〉 Shall man's weal be more cared for, then God's worship? Nay, shall man have six Commandments, the greater 〈…〉 and all of them morally good, and God have bu • • our, •• • esser number, and one, or more of them not so? May we not here say, (a little to invert that in the Prophet) are not all the Commandments equal? but are not man's cavils, & undue expositions unequal?

[unspec 2] Let us look on the fourth Commandment in the site and position of it; it is put into the besom of the Dec • logue, that it might not • e 〈◊〉 , as we put letters and things into our bosoms, which w • • re m • st chary of; it is the Golden clasp which joins 〈…〉 Tables together; it is the sinew in that 〈…〉 were written with God's own finge • 〈…〉 precept which participates of the 〈…〉 ; and the due observance of which, is as 〈…〉 wh • le Law: And as Christ was a 〈◊〉 〈…〉 and Man, Heb. 8. 6. so this blessed 〈…〉 hinge upon which the Precepts of the 〈…〉 God, and the Precepts of the seco •• 〈…〉 ▪ do principally turn; it no way being pro •• ble, 〈…〉 who is spiritual and serious in the observation of God's holy day, should fly into Idolatry to break the second, into theft, to break the eighth, or other gross evils to violate the rest of the Commandments. This Command for the Sabbath is set by God in the very heart of the Decalogue, and we are enjoined obedience to it by a peculiar memento: And therefore to any unprejudiced mind, it is very unlikely, that this Commandment alone should be overtaken with the shadows of the evening, should fly away as an empty and useless ceremony. One tells us, The Command for the Sabbath is put in the close of the first, and in the beginning of the second table, to denote, that the observation of both Tables depends much upon the sanctification of this day: And indeed let us break the clasp, and both tables will fall asunder.

[unspec 3] Let us look on this command in the reason of it. No command hath more reasons to enforce it. 1. Its own equity: Shall man have six days for himself, and shall not God have one? It was Adams ingratitude, that he had but one tree forbidden him to eat of it, and yet he must eat of that tree: And surely it is the highest sacrilege, when God forbids but one day in a week for our pleasures and affairs, and yet we should entrench upon that. Bucer well observes, If God be so bountiful to give us six days, we should be so dutiful to give him one; If we have six days for our affairs, surely God must have one for his glory; If we have six for our labor, shall not God have one for his worship? And indeed our interest is more wrapped up in the observation of the seventh, then in all our toil and gains on the six days. God's day concerns our better part, the week days only our outward man.

2. God's bounty in giving us a day for converse with himself. The Sabbath is a day wherein Christ gives his visits, the spirit works his wonders, the Father shows his face to the children of men; this blessed day is the morning star of happiness, the worlds choicest festival, and those who are blessed with it, may say with the Psalmist, Psal. 147. 20. God hath not dealt so with every Nation. It is Sabbath-enjoyment makes every Province a Goshen, every place a Paradise, every nation a Canaan, and every City a Jerusalem. The Sabbath is still a sign between him & his people, that he is among them, and the foot-steps of his presence remain with them.

3. God's own pattern. God rested on the seventh day, that he might be presidential to us in our holy rest. In the command for the Sabbath, God is not only our Sovereign to enact a law for us, but our example to set a copy before us; and therefore in this we must be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect, Mat. 5. 48. Philo Judaeus bids us spend the Sabbath in holy contemplation, and the study of spiritual wisdom, and in this follow God who is an example of holy rest; ye have not only his prescript, but his pattern. And indeed as Mr. Byfield observes, God's example doth not court us, but bind us to an holy imitation.

4. God's benediction which he sheds on the Sabbath, is a reason to enforce the command. God blessed this day above all days; we may say of it, as once it was said of the Virgin Mary in another case, Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee, thou art blessed among days. Morning and Evening doth not describe this day, as it did other days; no Evening predicated of it, to show its prerogative above all other days; this day is all light, all day, all sun-shine, to prefigure our eternal joys. God doth most delight to dispense his grace on this day. Heathen Princes are wont on their Coronation days to cast about Gold and Silver, and largely to scatter their donations: God on this solemn day is present with us in holy duties, and sheds abroad in our hearts his holy graces; then he comes and speaks with his people, and is magnificent in his royal and spiritual donations. And what need so many reasons to press a rite, a ceremony, to urge a shadow, Col. 2. 17. A mere command is sufficient to enjoin a fainting ceremony, an ordinance calculated only for a time; there need not so many cords of reason to bind a ceremony upon us, which will soon die away, and be evaporate. Let this be superadded; In the fourth Commandment God gives us reasons, which are common to us Christians, with the Jews: As namely,

1. Conformity to God's Image, which is no less proper to us, then the Jews.

2. The memorial of the Creation; for which benefit, the Patriarchs before the Law; and we since, are no less bound to be thankful to God, then the Jew.

3. Rest of ourselves and families, a common necessity to us, as well as to them; therefore this Commandment appeareth moral, and to be given to us as well as to them. And seeing the reason of this 4 ^th Commandment doth urge, as well as the reason of the second, third and fifth Commandments, why should not this Commandment tie us to the observation of it, as well as the other, and why not Christians, as well as Jews? Its reasons are as strong, why should not its obligations be so too?

[unspec 4] Let us look upon the fourth Commandment in the congruity of it, how agreeing to the principles of nature. The learned Twisse argues most profoundly; we are to distinguish three things in subordination, the latter to the former:

1. The first is, a time in general to be set apart for God's worship.

2. The second is the proportion of this time.

3. The particularity of the day, according to the proportion specified. Now the first seems of necessary duty by the very light of nature, to as many as know God, and acknowledge him to be the Creator; and this is the highest degree of morality in the fourth Commandment. As to the second we are something to seek by the light of nature, as whether one day in a week, or one day in a month, or more, so that herein it is most fit we should seek direction from God, who is the Lord of the Sabbath;

1. Because the service of the day is his; and it is but fit, he should cut out what proportion of time he thinks fit and convenient.

2. Because of the maintenance of uniformity therein, and least otherwise there may be as many divisions thereabouts, as there are Churches in the world. For reason of a conjectural nature is various, and therein commonly affection bears the greatest sway, and draws the judgment to comply with it; but when God hath determined a certain proportion of time, we shall find great congruity therein even to natural reason, more then in any other. Dr. Field, as Mr. Broad reports, professeth; That to any one who knows the story of the Creation, it is evident by the light of nature, that one day in seven is to be consecrated to God's service. And Azorius the Jesuit in his moral institutions acknowledgeth, that it is most agreeable to reason, that after six working days, one day should be consecrated to divine worship. Now by the light of nature, it seems far more reasonable, that one day in seven should be employed in God's service, then one day in a month; for such long strides, and great chasmes would quickly breed an estrangement between God and the soul: and if a seventh part of our time be consecrate to God, better a seventh day, then the seventh part of every day, because the worldly occupations of each of those days must needs cause miserable distractions. Thus reason may discourse in a probable manner, when God hath gone before us to open a way to us. Certainly, when God hath once determined the proportion of time, it is so far to be accounted moral and perpetual, that it is to hold till God himself shall alter it: and as for the particularity of the day, according to the forementioned proportion, therein we should be far more to seek, were we left to ourselves: therefore this also is ordered by God himself, and that in great congruity, as appears to as many as are acquainted with the story of the Creation; for the Lord having dispatched all his works in six days, and resting on the seventh, commanded men to imitate him: This being thus ordered by the Lord of the Sabbath, it must be in force of perpetual observation, as a requisite determination of the morality of this Law, and it cannot be of an alterable nature, unless it be by the same Authority by which it was ordained.

Now by the fourth Commandment it is clear;

1. That God commanded some time to be set apart, and sanctified to his service.

2. The proportion of this time to be one day in seven.

3. That the particular day under this proportion, be the seventh, and that unto the Jews in correspondency to the seventh day from the Creation, wherein God commanded them to rest from all their works; but then when God manifests his pleasure for the alteration of this day from the seventh to the first, we are to be an obedient people; thus far the worthy Twisse. (And that this change was made, will be further seen in the next Chapter) to all which may be added, such Laws as necessarily flow from natural relation, both between God and man, as well as between man and man; these are good in themselves, because suitable and comely even to human nature: for there is a comeliness and decency which attend those rules, to which our relation binds us: there are scarce any question the duties of the second table, because they are so evidently comely, suitable, and agreeing to human nature; as to honor Parents, to secure our neighbor, not to destroy him, &c. And shall not the morality of the rules of the first table be as evident and fully manifest? For if there be a God, and this God our God, according to the first Commandment, then it is most comely, most meet, most suitable to love him, to fear him, to trust on him, to delight in him; and if this God must be worshipped by man, in respect of the mutual relation between them, then it is comely and meet, to worship him with his own worship, according to the second Commandment; to worship him with all holy reverence, according to the third; and if he must be thus worshipped, and yet at all times he cannot be solemnly honored and worshipped, in respect of our necessary and worldly employments, then it is very fit and comely for all men to have some set and stated time of worship, according to some proportion, which the Lord of time can only best make; and therefore a seventh part of time, which he doth make according to the fourth Commandment, is most suitable to man, and most comely for him to obey God in, and nothing more decent then for man to serve God in his own proportionated time.

Now let the case be reasoned, with any religious Soul, yea, with any rational man; Is it not a point of moral equity to pay tribute out of all our times to the Lord of time, who holds our Souls in life, and in whose hands our time and breath is? Do we not owe him a piece of every day, and shall we think it too much to give him a day in every week? Shall he give us six, and shall we deny him one? And is it just and meet that since man's life upon earth is but a pilgrimage, and he hath no abiding City here, but looks for one above, that he shall spend all his time and thoughts upon the trifles of the world; but rather (as some time every day, so also) some one day in every week, to retire himself from the world, and to draw near to God, and to enjoy communion with him, with whom he looks to live forever? Again, in respect of Servants, and Cattle, is it not grand equity and reason, that one day in the week they should enjoy some relaxation, and not always toil in their servitude and bondage? that poor drudging Servants, who bear God's Image as well as ourselves, should have a breathing-time, one day in a week, a day of weekly Rest for their wearied bodies, and one holy day in a week for their precious Souls? Can we in equity afford them less? and what meeter proportion for the solemn service of God, than one day in seven; when Experience tells us, that the necessities both of civil and soul affairs, require a mutual interchange of speedy dispatches, and quick returns, which cannot be less then one day in seven, and not well more? and therefore God's proportionating this time in the fourth Commandment is most suitable to the infinite wisdom of the Divine Legislator; as once Ptolomaeus Philadelphus said of all God's Laws. And this one day in seven, was the tribute which was paid to God in the times of the Old Testament, and much more is it due in the times of the new. This proportion of time is moral and perpetual, being of God's assignation, of the Churches constant observation, and of itself a most exact proportion: and this fourth Commandment is holy, just, and good (to use the Apostles Language) and so never was subject to the decays and instability of a withering Ceremony.

[unspec 5] Let us look upon the fourth Commandment in the spirituality of it. The corruption of our nature, found in the manifest opposition of wicked men, and in the secret unwillingness of good men, to sanctify sincerely the Sabbath-day, sufficiently demonstrates that this Commandment is holy, spiritual, and heavenly: Rites and Ceremonies are but the trappings of Religion at the best, the splendid O •• aments which set off Divine Worship in the Jewish Pedagogie: Pareus well observes, That the ceremonies of the Law are called beggarly Elements, ab inutili effect •• , from their inefficaciousness to profit, they bring nothing to the comfort of the Soul, they contribute nothing to eternal salvation: How shall a Ceremony heal a sick Soul, relieve a trembling Soul, or raise •• dead Soul? They are all but as Elijah's Staff, which can 〈◊〉 no good to the dead; they only point at Christ, Who is the way, the truth, and the life; they are only the Gnomon on the Dial; but Christ is the Sun: But now the fourth Commandment is no such thing, it commences war with our lusts: If we are covetous, we must not work this day; If we are voluptuous, we must not sensualize this day; If we are profane, we must not sin against the holiness of this day; we have a Memento to stop us.

This Commandment, like Grace, sets up its Standard against all the Cavils and corruptions of man's heart: And can a dying Ceremony rally up this force to encounter man's potent lusts? As Bishop Davenant tells us, the Schoolmen give us a threefold reason why legal Ceremonies ceased at Christ's coming:

1. Because they were obscure in point of signification.

2. Imperfect in point of operation.

3. Burdensom in point of observation. Now to charge these defects upon the fourth Commandment, is not only to challenge Divine wisdom, but also to confute common Experience. The Commandment for the Sabbath is clear, without a Mask, and plainly tells us, we have a day every week for converse with the most High. This Command, like Moses who delivered it, hath its face shining, that everyone may take notice of it.

2. The Command for the Sabbath is perfect, without defects, for God would never have written an imperfect Command with his own finger, and it is wonderfully efficacious. How often on the Sabbath are sturdy sinners appaled, profane persons converted, doubting Souls satisfied, weak Christians strengthened, secure Professors awakened, and all varieties of Divine operation accomplished? The Sabbath is the rest-day of man, but the working-day of the blessed Spirit. Powerful Acts of divine Grace are exerted on this day.

3. The Command for the Sabbath is full of indulgence. The Sabbath must be our delight, Isa. 58. 13. It is our honor, not our burden: This blessed day is the Saints spiritual work-day, and his weekly jubilee. Thus the fourth Commandment is diametrically opposite to the very nature and purport of a vanishing Ceremony.

[unspec 6] Further to evidence the stability and morality of the fourth Commandment, let us consider the circumstances with which it was attended.

1. There is no Commandment excepting the second (which likewise the Papists ceremonialize into nothing) which is in words larger, or in reasons fuller, then this of the Sabbath: as if the Lord had foreseen that these Commands would meet with the greatest batteries of opposition, they being most contrary to the wisdom of the flesh; The one opposed by superstition, and the other by profaneness.

2. The fourth Commandment is both Negative and Affirmative; the other Commands are either Negative or Affirmative.

3. There is a Memento prefixed to this Command, which Note is not prefixed to any other; and is a Note, as some of our Divines observe, of special observance and animadversion: It is a peculiar Asterisk annexed to this Precept, requiring more than ordinary attention, and more than common practice.

4. No such particulars as in this Commandment; Thou, thy Son, thy Daughter, thy Man-servant, thy Maid-servant, thy Cattle, the Stranger.

5. No such reasons affixed to any Commandment.

• 1. God hath given us six days.
• 2. It is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.
• 3. God rested on the seventh day.
• 4. The Lord hallowed the seventh day.

6. No such works intimated in any Commandment; works to be avoided, all civil and secular works; works to be accomplished, all works tending to the sanctification of this blessed day: All these circumstances are set down, and made more observable, and notable to us, by the unspeakable wisdom of God. Now such a train of circumstances would never have attended a beggarly Element, Gal. 4. 9. Kings make not a Proclamation with enforcing Arguments, for things trivial or contemptible: Nor would God have embroidered this Commandment with such rich circumstances; had it been only a Ceremony, which will soon faint away and give up the ghost; had it been only a shadow, 2 Col. 17. which is full of darkness and fugacity.

[unspec 7] Moreover, the morality of the fourth Commandment will be yet more conspicuous, If we look on the Solemnities by which it was honored.

1. It was as the rest of the Decalogue, pronounced and promulgated by the immediate voice of the incomprehensible Jehovah with thundering and lightning, those Heralds of Divine Majesty; and all this in the common audience, and to the great amazement of the people of Israel.

2. It was, with the rest, written and engraven upon Tibles of stone, not on leaves of Paper, not on sheets of Parchment, but on Tables of stone; and not by some Scribe, or Amanuensis, but by God's own blessed singer; and on stone, as to denote the hardness of man's heart, and how difficultly he would comply with this Command, so likewise to show the continuance and perpetuity of the Commandment itself.

3. According to God's own appointment, this Commandment with the rest, was put into the Ark of the Testimony, within the most holy place of the Tabernacle, as being a chary Treasure, not to be lost in their frequent removes. And the two Tables are called the Tables of the Covenant, Deut. 4. 13. all denoting the importance and stability of this, with the other Commandments.

4. This Command with the rest, had the same Proem, containing a general motive to provoke the people to obedience. God being as tender of conformity to the fourth, as to any other Commandment. And thus this Commandment partakes of the same Honors and Prerogatives with the three before it, and the six after it: And how comes it then, that it should be worse metal than the rest, and be embased with a notion of a Law, and elementary Ceremony? Chrysostom and Theophylact observe; that in the time of Moses, only the Tables of stone were in the Ark, and that afterwards in the time of the Prophet Jeremy, Aaron's Rod and the Pot of Manna were put in. And Catharinus saith, That in the time of Moses, all the forementioned Particulars were in the Ark; but in the time of Solomon there were only found the two Tables of stone, upon which were written the ten Commandments. However it is, still the Tables of stone were in the Ark, to show, that in all times God was tender of his Decalogue, where the fourth Commandment was placed: Surely such providential care would never have attended the wing of a flying Ceremony.

[unspec 8] This fourth Commandment will further commence moral, if we take notice of the motives by which it was enjoined: The first Commandment hath but one reason annexed to it; the third Commandment hath but one reason appendant to it; the fifth Commandment but one reason to reinforce it; Nay, the second Commandment hath only two reasons to engage obedience to it: But now in the sourth Commandment, the Lord goes beyond all this, and binds with a threefold Cord, which cannot easily be broken; for God setteth down three reasons, as so many forcible and pregnant motives to induce, or rather to enforce obedience; not only to command the excellency, but to show the necessity of keeping this Commandment.

1. God shows us the equity of the Command; If man may have six days, surely God may have one.

2. God shows us the Presidency of himself, he goes before us in Sabbath-rest; and this blessed Pattern is a strong Argument for imitation.

3. God intimates to us, it is a blessed day, besides the blessings of other days, by the Law of Nature; this day hath a peculiar blessing of holiness, it is a day of divine munisicence, wherein God featrers his Diamonds, his choicest blessings among his obedient Worshippers. And was not the fourth Commandment a standing Rule of conformity, what need the twisting of so many Arguments? and why doth God more consult man's practice in the pressing of this, than any other Commandment? Surely God's jealously, least it should be violated, shows not only the eminency of this Precept, but its abiding morality.

[unspec 9] Divines generally conclude, That the substance of the fourth Commandment lies in this Clause, viz. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; and this is the preceptive part: For the other three parts of the Commandment, viz. The Directive, six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; Nay, the argumentative part; For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, and rested the seventh day: And the benedictive part, Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it; all these only enforce the Command: but the sum and substance of the Command lies in the first clause, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. And shall not the keeping of a Sabbath to God be moral and perpetual? The spending of a seventh part of every week in holy service, and spiritual worship, shall not that be standing and permanent? Doth not the necessity of our Bodies require a seventh days rest, and the Exigence of our Souls a holy rest? Surely we will not sink below the dregs of Paganism, who had their set times of sacred solemnity to their Idol God's? And the Church of Christ in all Ages had its Sabbath, when it was most clouded with Superstition and Idolatry: the Sabbath was never suspended by any Emperors Edict, nor Excommunicated by any Popes Bull: Zion never wanted her Sabbaths, when she lay in her lowest ashes. Surely then to keep a Sabbath to God is most fully and entirely moral; and this is, as Zanchi saith, The substance of the fourth Commandment; the other part of it, being taken up either in explication, how we must observe it, or in reason and argumentation, why we must observe it; Or in motive, and insinuation, that we must observe it: It is a blessed day, and blessings are the greatest courtship to the Soul. And in one of the Homilies of the Church of England, we meet with these words: By the fourth Commandment we ought to have a time, as one day in a week, and this appertaineth to the Law of Nature, as a thing most godly, most just, most needful for the setting forth of the glory of God, and therefore ought to be retained, and kept of all Christians. Thus the Church of England lays down this as a fundamental, that every seventh day (not in order but in number) be consecrated to God.

[unspec 10] The fourth Commandment hath all the Characters of a moral law.

1. It is not reversed or repealed in the Gospel; for though the old Sabbath be reversed, yet the Commandment for 〈◊〉 day in seven is not; and indeed, why should it 〈…〉 the whole Decalogue is God's royal law, Jam •• 〈…〉 the golden rule of our obedience?

2. It is ratified in the Gospel, and that many 〈…〉

1. In general, together with the Decalogue, 〈…〉 Whosoever shall break one of the least of these Command •• nt and teach men so, shall be called the least in the King 〈◊〉 Heaven. Now the fourth Commandment is one of the •• commands, which it is so dangerous to break and 〈◊〉 late.

2. By the designation of the Lord's day, of the same number, of the same use and profit, which is a real ratification of this law.

3. This law of the Sabbath is neither weak nor unprofitable, but exceeding useful for the ends for which it was first intended, which was the glory of God, the good of souls, and the preservation of Religion. It was the speech of a Learned man, Let any man show me in this law either weakness or unprofitableness, I yield, and bid it vanish; but it hath, and will have as much strength and force, as any Law can have from the Author, Consent, Multitude, Custom, and express approbation of all Ages. Profit it hath too, and hath been preserved without any man's complaint for the thing it was designed to.

4. This fourth Commandment is part of the Decalogue which is an immatable and eternal law, and was delivered with as much solemnity and Majesty as any other Law.

[unspec 11] To urge no more arguments, ten is the perpetual number of God's Commandments, so delivered by God, Deut. 4. 13. and so preserved by Moses, so received in all the Churches of God to this very day. Now this law for the Sabbath is one of the ten, and therefore perpetual to hold up the number, unless with the Papists we will cleave more Commandments, to make way for the flight of this divine law of the Sabbath: And the ten Commandments being God's Covenant, Deut. 4. 13. We may neither add thereunto, nor take therefrom: Mans Covenant being once confirmed, no man disanulls it, or takes away any clause in it; and may any take from the Covenant of the Lord? Then as this Covenant is perpetual, consisting of the number of ten words, no fewer in the Tables which were first written, Deut. 4. 13. nor in the tables which were written the second time, Exod. 34. 1. 28. nor was anything added in the recapitulation and rehearsal of them, Deut. 5. 22. Therefore most irrefragably this fourth Commandment, as one of the ten words, remains perpetual, as is the Covenant itself.

This truth of the morality of the fourth Commandment is so evident, so clear, so indisputable, that all varieties come in to give their free assent, and full attestation: Ask a Jew, and Manasseh Ben Israel will tell you, Therefore the blessed God desiring that the Sabbath may be observed forever of all, whose sanctity by so many Commandments, he hath commended, placed it in the Decalogue, and made it one of his ten Commandments, to the end that we knowing these precepts to be everlasting, we should understand that this Commandment also was to be accomplished amongst them. What more fair, more full, more satisfactory? Ask one of the Fathers, Chrysostom tells us, That from the beginning God hath intimated to us this Doctrine, instructing us to set apart one day in the circle of a week for spiritual exercises. Ask a School-man, Jacobus-de Valentia tells us, That the Commandment for the Sabbath is moral for the conditions of it.

1. In regard of the rest.

2. In regard of the sanctification of that rest: far the Sabbath was first given to man for his rest, that he might cease from all his worldly labors, and so he might with more ease and facility be a commodated to the service and worship of God; and one day in the week must be dedicated to God for this sanctification and worship; and thus the precept is stable and everlasting. Ask a Jesuit, Azorius tells us, It is a most rational thing, that after the works of six days, the seventh should be a rest consecrated to God and his worship; nay, ask a Cardinal, whose Princely altitude might lift him above the tenure of this truth, Bellarmine tells us, The Divine law required, that one day in a week should be sequestered for holy worship. Ask a more inferior Romanist, Terus tells us, God will have one day in a week at least to be allowed him. Ask a Lutheran, Baldwin tells us, It is moral to sanctify one day in seven. Ask a Protestant either of a Foreign Nation, Zanchi tells us, The fourth Commandment is moral, as it biddeth us dedicate one day in a week for the service of God, and so Junius, God therefore sanctified the seventh day, that man might know that in the weekly circuit, one day is to be bestowed upon the public worship of God. Or of our own Nation; thus the Reverend Hooker, We are to account the sanctification of one day in a week, a duty which God's immutable law doth exact forever. So Dr. Donne, God required a seventh part of our time for his exterior worship. But I will not tire or cloy the Reader with a multiplicity of allegations; only this is very observable, that all these Divines fix the morality of the command upon the seventh day in number, and not in order, as some incautelously and erroncously do.

Nay the Morality of the fourth Commandment shines with so many beams of light and conviction, that the very adversaries may be subpoenaed in by their own Consciences and Writings, to give in their testimony and assent unto it. Thus Stella the Papist, In the sanctification of the Sabbath, this is Moral, to observe one day in the week. Arminius, the great enemy of God, as King James calls him, tells us, It is Moral to set apart one day in seven for God's service: And those who are adversaries to this truth in particular, accord in the same confession. Dr. Heylin saith, The Decalogue contains the Moral law, or the law of nature, a Law universal in itself, and general, equally appertaining to Jew and Gentile: We can desire no more then this full confession. Mr. Primrose confesseth, That the Sabbath is Moral in its foundation, end, marrow, and principal substance, and that a stinted time is Moral, and grounded on the principles of nature, and therefore the Gentiles had their set days of Religion, and this is ratified by the Gospel. Nay, the Learned Ironside freely acknowledges, That all the Commandments of the Decalogue are Moral, and so is that of the Sabbath, it is Moral for substance, but not for circumstance. Now the acknowledgment of an Adversary is very evidential to the truth of a position: Thus every way the fourth Commandment, that holy, that just, that good precept for the Sabbath, hath been vindicated from the imputation of a Ceremony, and it is too much to be feared, it was the body of a design cast that shadow upon it. The worthy Twisse roundly concludes, Never any man was found to devise any ceremoniality in resting one day in seven; they may as well give themselves to devise a ceremoniality in setting apart some time in general, for God's holy worship and service: So then the fourth Commandment being a Moral law, it binds all persons, Christians as well as Jews; it binds in all places, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as in Palestine and Judea; it binds at all times, since the coming of our dear Redeemer, who drew a line over all Ceremonies, and expunged them, that they should have no more existence in the Church of God, as well as before this glorious Sun appeared to beautify and revive the world.

CHAP. XLVI. The Sanctification of the Sabbath is the Christians homage, as well as the Jews, if we look back to the infancy of the Gospel.

HAving already shewn that the Sabbath in the first institution of it, was given to Adam, and in him to all his posterity, and so it belongs to us Christians as well as to other • ; and that the command for the Sabbath, in the second Edition of it upon Mount Sinai, was Moral and perpetual, a standing Law, and so binding all man-kind, Christians as well as Jews: I shall now go one step further, and show, that the Sabbath is still the same, though the day be changed from the last, to the first day of the week, and that by Divine Authority.

Now to make way for the clearer evidence of this truth, so much decried and contradicted by some, who too much amplify Ecclesiastical Power and Authority; I shall begin in discovering, that two days weekly cannot be observed.

[unspec 1] This would not only repeal the indulgence of God in giving us six days every week for our secular affairs, and worldly labors, to sustain ourselves and families, and to acquire the good things of this world; but it tacitly impeacheth the wisdom of God, who in the fourth Commandment hath accommodated himself to the frame and constitution of man, who knows his weakness and frailty, and therefore frankly and bountifully hath bestowed upon him six days, knowing that he must get his living in the sweat of his brows, Gen. 3. 19. And likewise considering, that in spirituals, the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak, Mat. 26. 41.

[unspec 2] And besides all this, this must be a work of pride and supererogation, for man to go about to outvy God's blessed example, who rested one day only, and no more, for our future and constant imitation; His Presidency binding us, as well as his Precept.

[unspec 3] And it may be added, these two days would be as the twins in Rebekah 's womb, always struggling and striving who should have the preeminence, and how with Zebedees Sons, they should be both nearest Christ; nor can it easily be conceived, what confusion this may engender in the Church, competition being always the womb of dissention.

[unspec 4] Besides how much would this confirm the Jews in their blasphemous obstinacy, and hinder them from closing with their Messiah, when their Sabbath shall still be retained and dignified with a solemn and reverential observation? Surely they will interpret it conscience in Christians, and that in keeping the seventh day Sabbath, they do no more then their bounden duty; and how will this feed their insultations, and put their hope upon the wing, that the Christian Church is coming back to the Jewish Synagogue: If the head of their Sabbath be got in, they will strongly conjecture, that in time the whole body of ceremonies will follow after: As the Apostle most critically and prudentially joins all the solemn feasts of the Jews together in their discharge and abolition, Gal. 4. 10. Col. 2. 16. wisely fore-seeing, that if any one was continued, the whole train in process of time would unavoidably follow. Pleas for the one would easily be raised into arguments for the others: And it is very well argued by Musculus, It never contributes, saith he, to the progress of Religion, that rests should be multiplied to the people, for one Sabbath every week is abundantly sufficient for vulgar capacities.

[unspec 5] Moreover, the Celebration of two days every week, is more then the Law requires, or the Gospel allows. And here Chrysostom is most Elegant, The week contains seven days, saith he, now see how the Lord hath distributed these days; he hath not taken the greatest part unto himself, and left the least to us, neither hath he taken half and left half; No, the Lord is more liberal, he hath given us six, and taken but one for himself. And both Law and Gospel speak the same. And if we take five days only for labor, we make void the Law in this particular; and besides how inconsistent is it to Gospel liberty to keep two days every week; this would outvy all the Jews Festivals in number, and bring us again under a severer yoke; and this would at once both break the bonds of Christian Unity, and the bonds of Christian liberty, and render the golden yoke of Christ's Gospel heavier then the iron yoke of Moses his Law.

As for that objection, that the Apostles kept the seventh day Sabbath, and preached on that day among the Jews, Acts 13. 42. Acts 16. 13. Acts 18. 4. To this it is answered;

[unspec 1] It is most equal and rational, that some time must be granted for the wearing away of an old usage. A Sabbath which had continued in the world much about four thousand years, the world could not presently be awakened to take notice of its abrogation: Old customs are removed with some difficulty, and the religion of our Fathers takes so great impression upon us, that it is not easily eaten out, notwithstanding we see clear reason for it. Antiquity in things natural is their weakness and unbeautifulness, but in things spiritual it sheds a greater luster upon them. Time then must be granted to convince the world, that the old Sabbath is now deceased, and honourably buried in Christ's own grave.

[unspec 2] Suppose it be granted, that both Sabbaths, Jewish and Christian, were observed by the Disciples for a time, the Jewish, least they should offend the Jews, and the Christian, least they should scandalize the Christians; what inconveniency would follow? Man naturally is hard of belief, and to evince the abrogation of old things, and the surrogation of things which are new in their stead, is a work of some pains and difficulty; therefore that the Jews might be taken off from their fondness, and the Christians firmly established in the truth, some time must be granted, and some allowance made of absolute necessity. And that a respect was had to both days, it was only for the term of some years, which when expired, the morning-sun of the Christian Sabbath did shine without a competitour; and during that little and short time of the observation of both days, we may consider,

[unspec 1] 1. The Saturday Sabbath was never the day of solemn assemblies in all the Churches; for the custom of holding solemn Conventions and Assemblies on that day, never obtained in the Churches of Rome and Alexandria; whereas all Churches had their Church-meeting on the Lord's day, our Christian Sabbath.

[unspec 2] The Old Sabbath was never kept as a solemn festival, for in many Churches it was a weekly fasting day; whereas every Lord's day throughout the year was held a solemn festival; the Jews Sabbath, as in a fainting fit, was kept with sorrow and abstinence.

All Ordinances were never administered with that uniformity on the Old Sabbath, as they were on the Lord's day; As the Ordinance of the Lord's supper, which in the purest Churches was appropriate to the Lord's day, which was therefore called, dies panis, the day of bread, in the primitive times; hence that memorable speech of Athanasius, who being accused for breaking a Communion Cup, clears himself thus, That time instanced by his accusers, was no communion time, for it was not the Lord's day.

[unspec 4] The conventions on the old Sabbath were ever arbitrary, not urged as of necessity, unless by the Arch-heretic Ebion, and his followers, who were therefore condemned as Heretics: but the observation of the Lord's day was ever held a Christian duty, and none was ever branded with the name of heretic for the observation of it; Nay, this observation was the badge and Character of a Christian in the best times of the Church.

[unspec 5] The old Sabbath was never in the least the Christian Sabbath, or day of rest; but a working day, and used as another day; and let us never give that day a prerogative, which the best times of the Church laid open and common.

The Apostles and Disciples of Christ never observed the seventh day as a Sabbath: It is true, they took an opportunity then to dispense and disperse the Gospel, because multitudes were then convened and met together; an happy opportunity was then put into their hands for the insinuating of Christ, and the doctrines of the blessed Gospel into the minds of the people, now in an unwonted concourse. The Apostles did then cast the heavenly bread upon many waters. The zeal of a faithful Minister, much more of an holy Apostle will take the best opportunities for soul-advantage, and for heavenly instruction. It was not the Sabbath, but the Season, not the circumstance of time, but of place, invited the Apostles to the dispensation of the Word; not the feast, but the multitude, as Chrysostom well speaks; nor did the Apostles anymore keep the Jewish Sabbath, then Paul worshipped the God's of the Gentiles, when he preached in the field of Mars, and disputed in the Schools of the Heathens; these places were only the sudden Sanctuaries, in which he disseminated the glorious Gospel.

It is true, as a learned man observes, in the Eastern Churches, for a time, the Jewish and Christian Sabbath were both observed: Now the reason was, there was a sort of Heretics who did disuse and disgust the Old Testament, and said it was evilly compiled of God, and did throw off with scorn the Sabbath day, and usually fasted on that day in a way of contempt and contradiction: Now the Eastern Christians in detestation of this cursed heresy, and to show that God was the Author of the Old Testament, as well as of the New, did for a while retain the old Sabbath; not that they worshipped on it, after the manner of the Jews, they were far enough from that; but some observance they gave to it, least they might seem to join issue with the forementioned heretics: And moreover in the East, were many Jews in the early days of the Gospel, which were newly converted to Christ, who in the simplicity of their hearts, did bear still a reverence to the old Sabbath, and therefore did observe it with the Lord's day: Now the Christians were to deal tenderly with those, and not to offend Babes in Christ, and not to create any perturbation in the Church, but to keep peace and unity; and so they gave respect to this day, not that they thought it any way necessary, or a duty to be done, but for peace-sake, and that salvation-work might not be retarded, nor the Church of our dear Redeemer shattered, or crumbled into Schisms and Factions; and so (as the Apostle speaks in another case) the Christians of those times became all things to all men, that if possible, the late Converts of the Jews might have no temptation to apostasy, nor the Proselytes of the Gospel have any occasion of disturbance.

But now in the Latin Churches, where this Heresy never took root, nor spread itself, the Jewish Sabbath was never observed, but rather marked with a Note of sadness and sorrow, viz. The memory of Christ's death, our Jesus lying in his Grave as on that day; and this sprang fresh tears, and did yield new and constant matter of mourning, to the Christians of those times. And it was no strange thing in the primitive times, in a surplusage of zeal, to run down one Extream, by running into a nother; as we see, to make a stick straight, we bend it on both sides. Thus then at last we see, that we cannot keep two Sabbaths, no more then we can serve two Masters.

Then one Sabbath must be discharged, which can be no other than the old seventh-day Sabbath, which was fairly laid asleep in the Grave of Jesus Christ, and the Christian Sabbath rose up in its stead, in the resurrection of Christ.

To evidence this truth more clearly and methodically, we must know, a thing may be discharged and abrogated two ways; by expiration, and so a Law is expired, when the reason of giving that Law being ceased in respect of time or persons, ceases of itself, and so the Law is laid aside as useless, and there needs no formal repeal: And thus we may argue for the expiration of the old Saturday Sabbath.

[unspec 1] A special Ordinance given unto the old World is then expired, when that World itself is ended (except it be revived, and renewed in the new.) But this Law concerning the old seventh day, was given to the old World: Now for the clearing of this, we must take notice, that the Scripture speaks of two Worlds: the first, which begun at the Creation, and ended presently after the passion of Christ; the second beginning at Christ's resurrection, and ending at the general Judgment. The Apostle speaks of Worlds, 1 Heb. 2. viz. The old World, and the new; the one before, and under the Law, and the other under the Gospel: and the new World, viz. The time of the Gospel is sometimes called A new Heaven, and a new Earth, Isa. 65. 17. The second World, the invincible Athanasius calls it,

Upon all this let us assume the first Argument.

The old Sabbath, as also the whole manner of service, was limited to the term or time of the old World, and so must necessarily expire with it; It is not said, the Command • meant expired with it, for that was moral for one day in seven, to be consecrated to the service and worship of God; but the old seventh-day Sabbath instituted at the beginning of the old World, is together with that old World expired, and a new one come in its room.

[unspec 2] When the reason of any Law ceases, (for that is the life, and the Soul of a Law) then the Law itself ceases: But the reason of the institution of the old Sabbath ceased at the end of the old World, and the beginning of the new, viz. The resurrection of Christ. The reason of the institution of the old Sabbath, was God's honoring that day in resting from all his works, and for the memory of the Creation, which was implied, and to be supposed, till a greater work should be finished, to be the ground of the institution of another day, which was the work of Reparation or Redemption. To make this out a little further; let it be observed, that the ground and reason of the institution of days, which are set and solemn, is some memorable work falling out upon such days: The very Heathens chose out Nativity days, the days of founding Cities, of memorable Victories, &c. Now the first Sabbath was instituted upon such a reason, viz. God's honoring that day by his rest from the great work of Creation: And so Mr. White of Dorchester urges this, after this manner,

Now the Proposition will serve the turn for the Lord's-day, and thus; That day which is honored by God above all other days, by his most eminent work of mercy to Mankind, shall be the day of holy Rest: But the first day of the week, in which Christ rested from the work of Redemption, is the day honored and advanced above all other days, old Sabbath and all; therefore this is the Christians day of solemn Rest. The old Sabbath indeed was to continue upon the reason given, viz. God's rest after the Creation, till a greater work should appear, and then it must expire and resign unto a new Possessor. Indeed the latter work, viz. Mans Redemption, so great, so necessary, so glorious, even puts out the memory of the former, and so antiquates the reason of it, and thereupon the day itself expires, and obliges to no more observance: The Redemption of Mankind then being the greater work, (as shall be more fully shown hereafter) and having a stronger reason in it, hath swallowed up the memory of the stupendous work of Creation, as Doctor Young calls it; not that the work of Creation should be forgotten, (for that glorious work gave us our esse, our being, as the work of our Redemption gave us our been esse, our well-being) but rather that it should be more adorned and perfected: we still retain the memory of the Creation, in keeping one day in seven to the Lord, and the memory of the Redemption, in keeping the first of seven. Our contemplations on the wonderful work of the Creation are heightened, not stifled by the memorials of a fresh and additional, and more glorious work of Redemption.

[unspec 2] 2. The Sabbath of the Jews expires, by the surrogation of another day in the room of it, upon a more remarkable and eminent occasion, and by the same Divine Authority: The substitution of another day, viz. The Lord's day, puts out the observation of the former. A new Mayor of a City being elected, the Authority of the old ceases, and he becomes dis-authorized: As a Candle is put forth, and the Stars dis-appear, when the Sun ariseth. So the observation of the Lord's day thrusts out the observation of the old Sabbath, and takes all the honor of it to itself; and this it doth by virtue of the fourth Commandment, which requires one day in seven: So then the old Sabbath being buried in its Grave, the Lord's day is Heir apparent to it, and like another Phoenix arises out of its ashes to succeed it. The substitution of the new Sabbath is the abrogation of the old; and the Lord's day appearing (which shall be plentifully proved) the Saturday Sabbath vanisheth, and is evaporate, as the scattered cloud at the breaking out of the Sun. In a word, God had his work, and so had Christ; God had his rest, and so had Christ; God rested after the work of Creation, and Christ after the work of Redemption; the seventh day Sabbath commemorates God's rest after the work of Creation, and the first day Sabbath commemorates Christ's rest after the work of Redemption, which is universally to be observed in the Christian world.

It is rationally argued by a learned man, that the old Sabbath is abolished by the death and resurrection of Christ, and God Almighty hath appointed a new form of Divine worship according to the Evangelical law. Now the form of worship being changed, it was expedient that the outward circumstances of place and solemn time should likewise be altered from what they were before; and concerning the time of solemn worship, the Lord's day succeeds, upon which Christ riseth and resteth from the great work of man's Redemption. Old Sabbaths and old sacrifices being twins (though both honorable and serviceable in their time) yet like Hypocrates his twins, they must live and die together, and let both be buried together: But let our Gospel Sabbath take life from our Savior's Resurrection, which brought with it a new creation, a new world, making all things new, and giving a new life to lost mankind. Holy Ignatius contemporary for many years with the Apostle John with some indignation rejects the Jewish Sabbath, and charges us as we have any love to Jesus Christ, to lay it aside, and keep the Lord's day, the supreme and Queen of days: And this blessed Martyr speaking of the Jews converted to Christ in his time, gives them this most Christian character, viz.

Augustine brands the keeping of the old Sabbath, with the odious term of Judaizing. And indeed it can be n • less then great contempt cast on our dear Messiah; It is well observed by one, The Council of Laodicea was so zealous against the observation of the old Sabbath, that it pronounced an Anathema against the obstinate observators of it. The words of the Council are these, Here we may note, that this Venerable Council which was held Anno Dom. 314. One of the most primitive Conventions of the Christian Church, commands as under a severe penalty to follow our works on the Saturday Sabbath, and to put the crown of rest and holiness upon the head of the Lord's day. I suppose the Canons of this Council are a good Comment upon the spirit of those times. It is well observed by Musculus, and draw the curtains about it, no more expecting its rise or revival. Let me conclude this particular with a saying of Athanasius, Now what can be more evident for the dismission of the legal, and the admission of the Evangelical Sabbath?

[Quest.] The old Sabbath then is discharged, and is not the fourth Commandment discarded with it, & buried in the same grave?

[Answ.] Surely no, for the fourth Commandment enjoined the sanctification of the Sabbath indefinitely, not definitely, a seventh day, not the seventh day; a seventh day not in order, but proportion. Junius very well observes,

Indeed the law of sanctifying the Sabbath is natural, and perfectly Moral in respect of the substance of it, which is this, That every seventh day is to be kept holy to the Lord, and this remaineth still, though the very seventh day be changed. The equity of the fourth Commandment is drawn from the proportion of six days labor, and a seventh days rest. One thus opens that phrase in the fourth Commandment, Six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. What seventh, saith he, pray note it; the Lord saith not, the seventh from the Creation, if he had, the Law had confined us to that day, But because the Law-giver intended to choose a new day, and not to change the old law, he hath left it at large in general terms, neither can it be restrained to one day more then to another: And though the old seventh day was occasionally pointed at in the fourth Commandment, as a seventh day, which the Jews were to observe, as by the fifth Commandment they were bound to honor their Parents then living, yet these occasional circumstances might be, and were altered without any impeachment to the morality of these commands. The altering of a mutable circumstance either of time, place, or person, is far from abolishing the substance of a law, and it is to be considered, That this proportion of one day in seven is nowhere directly stated by a perpetual precept, but in the fourth Commandment, and therefore there it must be determined; that it must be some where determined, is evident, because it is substantially profitable to Religion, to the glory of God, and the good of souls: For if men were left to their own liberty, to choose their own proportion, in all probability Religion would be very much damnisied, and endangered, either it would be starved with too little, or surfeited with too much Sabbath-time; either Popery would create almost every day in the week a holy day, or profaneness would be content with one day in a month. Let sinful man have liberty to pluck up God's bounds and alter his proportion one way or another, and experience will show the inconvenience and mischief of it.

And that which is very observable in the fourth Commandment is, that the Lord blessed the Sabbath day; not the seventh day, but the Sabbath day, the day of rest is blessed: And the fourth Commandment both opens and shuts, both begins and ends with the term Sabbath day, and not the seventh day; we must sanctify the Sabbath day, so in the beginning of the precept; and God blessed the Sabbath day, so in the close of the Commandment. The word Sabbath, like a finger points forward and backward, directing us how to expound the whole precept in a large, and not a limited sense. Doubtless if God had intended to tie up the Church in all ages to the seventh day from the Creation, he would have fixed the Commandment upon that day only, especially in the conclusion of it; for why should not that precise day be mentioned in the close of the fourth Commandment, as well as in Gen. 2. 3. There God is said to bless the seventh day, here only the Sabbath day, the most probable reason is, the Commandment is a larger extent then the institution.

Moreover the learned, zealous, and pious servants of God, affirm the same thing, viz. That the Commandment for the Sabbath is moral for one day in seven, and not for the old seventh day.

These Champions for the truth have given in their full attestation to this fair and true interpretation of the fourth Commandment: And as Attersoll very well observes, as in the first institution of the Lord's Supper, Christ made use of unleavened bread, yet his example binds us only to the use of bread, and not that which is unleavened; so for the first institution of the Sabbath, God rested on the seventh day from the Creation, yet his example binds us only to a day of that number, and not that particular day. And if in the preceptive part of the fourth Commandment, Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day, this be restained to the seventh day in order, there was then a plain tautology in the command; it was, as if God should say, Remember the seventh day Sabbath, for the seventh day is the Sabbath, which is a flat tautology, and unbecoming infinite wisdom. No, it is evident, that the precept is comprehensive and large, and not limited to one seventh day more then another; for Sabbath day in the Hebrew is no more then a day of rest, and that is any day set apart for holy worship, by Divine Authority, and is applicable to the first day of the week, as well as to the last, which may be illustrated by this instance. By the force of the fifth Commandment, we must honor the King; if Saul be King, honor him; and if he be dead or displaced, and David be King, then honor King David. To neither of them the Commandment is level'd directly, but successively, and so the Command is consequentially accommodated to both. So, Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Whilst the seventh day was a day of Rest, the Jews were bound to sanctify that day; if that day be changed, and another succeed, if the first day be placed in its room, we are as much bound to sanctify that day; all this by the force of the fourth Commandment; for as the change of the person takes not away the precept of honoring the King, so the change of the day makes not void the Commandment for the Sabbath: And thus we Christians in keeping holy the Lord's day, keep the Sabbath as much as ever the Jews did; the Lord's day being a day of holy rest to us, as the seventh day Sabbath was to them.

Moreover let us a little further consider; that in the first giving of the Law upon Mount Sinai in thunder, flames and lightning, the Sabbath is wholly enforced from the work of Creation, and God's example in resting from that stupendous work; but in the repetition, and the second giving of this Law, by the hand of Moses, a typical Mediator, Deut. 5. 14, 15. The reason from the Creation is quite left out; And the Sabbath is altogether enforced from a type of our Redemption, (viz.) The deliverance of the people of Israel from their Egyptian bondage; for so saith the Text, Deut. 5. 15. Remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Egypt, and the Lord brought thee thence by a mighty hand, therefore he commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day; lively intimating by all this, the sistence and abiding of the fourth Commandment under the Gospel, and the binding authority of it, by the incorporation of a new reason drawn from our redemption or spiritual deliverance by Christ, typified by the Jews deliverance from Egypt, instead of the old reason drawn from the Creation, which is here wholly omitted; and we must take notice, that surely the Jews deliverance from Egypt literally considered, was no way comparable to the work of the Creation, that it should here in the second giving of the Law by Moses, be propounded as the reason of the Sabbath, and the other wholly left out, but only as a type of the most glorious and admirable work of our Redemption; so there came so much weight in it, that in the review of the Commandment, it became the reason of the Sabbath; and if the type itself was so significant, how much more the Ante-type, which excels all types in glory, as much as the Sun doth the flying and dark shadows? Thus we then see, the old seventh day Sabbath was never propounded as the substance or special subject of the fourth Commandment.

[unspec 1] Nay, reason itself compels us to put this sense and interpretation upon the fourth Commandment.

The order of the day is no way substantially profitable to religion, nor if altered, is any way prejudicial; we may be as holy, as heavenly and spiritual on the first, as on the last day of the week: Order only cannot elevate the mind, influence the heart, or work upon the soul and affections, it can contribute nothing to a holy sublimation in us; one day is as good as another, so Divine appointment fix it. But now we must consider, in all other Commandments of the first table, which concern Religion, only that which is substantially profitable is placed in them, and so they are concluded moral and perpetual; and so it must be in this fourth Commandment, that which is substantially profitable must be put into the command, and therefore the order of the day cannot be it. And what prejudice arises to Religion from the alteration of the day from the seventh to the first, so God make it? (which that he did, we shall see hereafter.) Cannot Christians serve God with as much heavenly devotion, seraphical affection, nay, with as much care and circumspection on the first day of the week, as the Jews did on the last? Well then, the order of the day cannot be the substance of the fourth Commandment: God doth not interlace his holy Commandments, especially his Ten words, with things which are not substantially profitable.

[unspec 2] The reasons in the Commandment are for the number, not the order; for a seventh, not the seventh day. The first reason in the Command to persuade to the observation of the Sabbath, is taken from the concession of six days for our own labors, six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh is the Sabbath, &c. But these words are directly for the number, only indirectly for the order; and the genuine sense of them is, thou art permitted to work six days, but on the seventh is the Sabbath, and then thou shalt abstain from all kind of work; thou hast six days for thyself, and God must have the seventh, where most plainly number, not order is the substance and sense of the command.

And 2. God wrought six days, no more, and no less, and rested one, no more, or less, and therefore thou shalt labor six days, and rest but one. Now if God did so, who needed not to have wrought one day, being able to have made all things in a moment, nor to have rested one hour, as not being subject to any weariness, much more poor Man needs a competent time for his affairs, and for his rest to the service and worship of God, and for the refreshing of his soul; and if God did that for man which he needed not to have done, (viz.) to work six days, and rest one, how much more are we bound to observe the same proportion, and to imitate this blessed example? So that not order, but proportion is the soul of this Commandment.

[unspec 3] Thirdly, if the fourth Commandment did directly, and in the substance of it, command the seventh day Sabbath, and not the Sabbath indefinitely, then either we Christians must keep that day still, and so fall back to Judaism, and in effect deny the Lord that bought us, and cast a damp upon the ever blessed Resurrection of Jesus Christ, or else the fourth Commandment is purely Ceremonial, and so utterly void and abolished, all which hath been refuted already. Now both these consequences are so opposite to truth, and so abhorrent to most Christians, that it is far more rational to grant, the seventh day in proportion was commanded in that holy and immutable precept, then to dash ourselves upon either of these two rocks, which may be a Scylla or Charybdis to the soul.

[unspec 4] To assert, the fourth Commandment enjoins the seventh day in order, draws a whole train of absurdities after it.

1. Why a Ceremonial command should be placed among all morals; so the fourth Command must be, if abrogated, and we observe another Sabbath differing from the seventh day.

2. Then why a special command concerning only the people of the Jews, (for we have rejected their Sabbath) should be placed among general Commandments, which concern all the world; for the other nine do so, and is confessed by all, but Papists, Antinomians and Familists, and such others of the litter of Heretics.

3. If the seventh in order be the substance of the fourth Commandment, it thrusts men upon two dangerous rocks and extremes to the great disquiet of the Churches peace: One, that the fourth Commandment is only ceremonial, which is a gate to licentious liberty: Or, Secondly, it is only moral for that seventh day, which is to bring us back into the Wilderness again of legal Rites and Judaism.

4. Those who hold the seventh day in order, to be commanded in the fourth Commandment, are forced to fly to a miserable distinction at the best, that the fourth Precept is partly moral, and partly ceremonial; for the substance of the command is, that a seventh day be consecrated to divine worship, which if the day mentioned in the command be ceremonial, then the whole precept is so. And therefore to disintangle our souls from these intricacies of error and absurdity, we must conclude, that a seventh day in proportion, and not the seventh day in order, is the substance and equity of the fourth Commandment; and so the practice of the Church in all ages, which is the best interpreter of this command, hath fully shewn and declared.

The fourth Commandment then enjoins one day in seven to be weekly observed, and this is the reason and the substance of it. Now the old seventh day, which was the Jews Sabbath being antiquated and discharged, what day remains for the Christian Sabbath, for the Disciples of Christ to meet upon for holy and divine worship?

[Quest.] Here the answer is ready, It is the first day of the week, the blessed day of our adored and admired Saviors Resurrection.

[Answ.] But still the Query will be, By what Authority is this day made the Christian Sabbath? To which it is answered,

[unspec 1] Not by Ecclesiastical Authority: And Mr. Perkins gives us the reason, The Church, saith he, hath no power to ordain a Sabbath, or to change the present Sabbath into any other day in the week, as to Tuesday, Wednesday, &c. for time is the Lord's, and the disposing thereof in his hands; therefore Christ saith to his Disciples, it is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath kept in his own hands: Now if God hath the disposing of times in his hands, then it belongeth not to the Church to dispose them: And it may be hence gathered, if that which is less belong not to the Church, then that which is more doth not: But the knowledge of times and seasons, which God hath in his power belongs not to the Church, much less the disposing of times and seasons; I may add, and far less the appointing of a weekly Sabbath. And thus the Reverend and worthy Pe • k • ns: And indeed to sublimate Church Authority so far, what is it, but to put man into God's chair? And to make him King of the Church, and so take the Scepter out of Christ's hand? It is a worthy saying of Bishop Lake, The Church hath received the Lord's day (not ordained it) not to be liberae observationis, of free observation, as if man might at pleasure accept or refuse it; but it is to be perpetually observed to the worlds end: For as God only hath power to apportion his time, so he only hath power to set out a day for his portion; he is the Lord of the Sabbath, the work of the day, is the ground of the hallowing of the day, and therefore as no man can translate the work, so no man can translate the day; and this is an undoubted rule in Theology. And thus this Learned Person hath both asserted the Divine Authority of the Lord's day, and given us good reason for it. Man therefore being impotent and incapable to lay the foundation of a weekly Sabbath by some glorious work, especially equivalent to the work of Creation or Redemption, let him never presumptuously pretend to the appointment or institution of it.

[unspec 2] Let us a little reason this case. We read there is one who is Lord of the Sabbath, Mark 2. 28. Now in reason, who shall appoint this day, but he who is Lord of it? And considering it is his holy day, and it is expressly said, Psal. 118. 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made, the whole stream of Interpreters expounding this text of the Lord's day: So then the day is of the Lord's making, and not of man's making; and moreover, there can be no cause why man should desire such a liberty; for it is much to be feared, if there were twenty days in the weak, there would be twenty differences; every one, every Church at least would choose its own day, and admire the issue of its own institution. What jars and digladiations would this bring into the Church of Christ? how would this tear Christ's seamless coat in pieces? The dissensions between the Eastern and the Western Churches about the observation of Easter day are not forgotten, when Victor, Bishop of Rome, was ready to draw the Sword of Excommunication. Indeed the appointing of a day for weekly worship and divine communion, is a task too great for weak and unstable Man, and can be only the product of an infallible spirit: As Dr. Twisse happily and closely argues, Christ calls himself Lord of the Sabbath; and as he constituted it, so none but he can abrogate it, and place another in the room of it. And in the Apostles days, the first day of the week was set apart for the Christians Sabbath, which could not be but by the joint consent of the Apostles.

[unspec 3] And how strange is it, that the Church for 1500 years should never offer to alter it, no not in the least, if so be such power and liberty was put into their hands as to ordain and appoint it. Among us nothing more usual, then for one Parliament to unravel and disannul what another hath done and enacted, as being unsatisfied in the thing itself, or else to show their own plenipotentiariness: And no doubt, had the Church been fledged with this power to ordain a Sabbath for the Church of Christ, in some age or another, they would have given us a cast of this power, and would have attempted to pluck up a plant of their own planting, and would have inoculated the Sabbath into the stock of some other day: Darkness and Division there hath been enough in the Church, to quarrel with institutions and appointments of former times. But the perpetual silence of the Church in this particular, infallibly shows the Divine right of the Lord's day: And the Churches are so hush, because they dare not attempt such a piacular enterprise, as to rase the foundation of a divine institution: And in case they should put in practice such a pretended liberty, what inconvemences would fall out, to be bewailed with tears of blood? for this liberty must be equal in every Church, and so our English Church might institute the Monday, the French Church the Tuesday, the Belgic Church the Wednessday, the Germans might ordain the •• ursday, the Danes the Friday; and other Churches might keep the present day to be the Lord's day: And so, so many Churches, so many Sabbaths, and what int • llerable scandal would this procure to the Church of Christ; and what feuds would it disseminate among Christians? Nay, how would this confusion strike the Christian profession under the fifth rib, and give it its mortal wound? This Ecclesiastic power and liberty, would likewise open a way to revive and reduce the Jewish Sabbath, or the solemn day of the Turks, which is every Friday; nay, we know not with what Heathens we might concur in their weekly solemnity: And when the Pagans shall well espy our dissensions, how much we disagree about our Sabbath, this may re-enforce their detestation both of us and our Religion. Now if the Church had power to ordain the Sabbath, they have likewise power to alter and change it, which we see, may be the womb of irreparable mischiefs. Is it not then far more rational and convictive for the prevention of those miserable disorders, to take the Sabbath as marked out by God himself, the institution of Christ by his Apostles, which is now the first day of the week, a day founded and bottomed on Christ's glorious Resurrection? And thus the Church of Christ, his little, but precious flock, may keep the Unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace: No doubt then, the Lord's day is of Divine, not Ecclesiastical Authority, otherwise men's spirits would never have been so over-awed, and their hands tied from presumptuous undertakings. The truth is, our Christian Sabbath must be built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ (by his Resurrection) being the chief corner stone: And because nothing can fall out in the world comparable to the Resurrection of Christ in glory and power; therefore no day can be set up like unto this, neither can it be changed into any other. The like cause can never be offered to change this day, which at first occasioned the choice of it; and therefore it must remain until the end of all things. And they whoever they be who go about to raze this day, must first pick out Christ's mark which he hath wrought into it by the work of Redemption, and so blot out the testimony of the four Evangelists concerning Christ's Resurrection on the first day of the week, the happy Basis of our Sabbath.

[unspec 4] Moreover the observation of the Lord's day being fresh and frequent in the Apostles days, they being yet alive, and exercising a superintendency over the Church, who should interpose to ordain this holy day of worship but themselves? If any other Governors of the Church, they did it either with the consent of the Apostles, and then their Authority was subordinate, and so swallowed up in the power Apostolical: For the Apostles were the Supreme guides of the Church, and had the ordering of the affairs of Christ's flock, the care of the Churches was in the first place committed to them, 2 Cor. 11. 28. Or else this Committee of Church Governors (who they were, where they met, or what they did, could never yet be discovered) did appoint the Christian Sabbath