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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	time_n	word_n	3,610	5	4.0576	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60480	The doctrine of the Church of England, concerning the Lord's Day, or Sunday-Sabbath as it is laid down in the liturgy, catechism, and book of homilies, vindicated from the vulgar errours of modern writers, and settled upon the only proper and sure basis of God's precept to Adam, and patriarchal practice, where an essay is laid down to prove, that the patriarchal Sabbath instituted, Gen. 2. 3. celebrated by the patriarchs before the Mosaick Law, and re-inforc'd in the fourth precept of the Decalogue, was the same day of the VVeek, viz. Sunday, which Christians celebrate in memory of the perfecting of the creation of the world by the redemption of mankind.	Smith, John, Rector of St. Mary's in Colchester.	1683 (1683)	Wing S4110; ESTC R3081	78,815	242

the Decalogue declares it to be of the same nature with the rest of the Ten for how can it stand with the Wisdom of the God of Order who forbad plowing with an Ox and an Ass who prohibited the wearing of Linsy-woolsy and was so careful that the Male and Female Sex should wear different Apparel to shuffle a Ceremonial Law amongst his Moral Laws seeing that would have been a far greater Indecorum than the yoking of an Ox and an Ass together would have rendred the Decalogue a piece of Linsie-woolsie and have been the apparalling of permanent and transient of perpetual and temporary Laws which in their own nature differ more than Male and Female that is specifically in the same garb SECT II. But that which makes the greatest difference betwixt these Sabbaths is this The Sabbath of the fourth Precept and that commanded the Jews are grounded upon different Reasons The first in commemoration of the Creation which is common to all persons in all ages and places The other 1. That it might be a sign to discriminate the Jews from all other Nations Exod. 31. 13. It is a sign between me and you that I am the Lord your God that is That I have taken you to be unto me a People and an Inheritance Deut. 4. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the Lord your God which have separated you from all other Nations Lev. 20. 24. Now if other Nations had celebrated Saturday as their weekly Sabbath and not another day of the week the Jews could not have been discriminated from them by their observing the same day this would have been no part of the Wall of Partition 2. The Jews weekly as well as their monthly Sabbaths were Shadows of good things to come the Body whereof is Christ Col. 2. 16. If therefore the Sabbath of the fourth Precept had been the Jewish Sabbath it ought to have been abolished when Christ the Substance is come as well as other Ceremonial Laws But this is contrary to the sense of the Universal Church which reckons this one of the ten Commandments And our Church hath appointed this Precept with the rest of the Decalogue to be pronounced at the Lord's Table and enjoyned her Children to beg pardon for the breach of this and Grace to encline their Hearts to keep it which would be the putting of a Cheat upon them if that Precept in the plain Letter of it were not still in force and the putting a figurative sense upon it would make it as unintelligible to vulgar capacities as if it were in Latine And so much the more hard to be understood as the Church in her Liturgies and Catechisms wherein she propounds Milk to Babes affects the greatest plainness of Speech Upon which account most serious Persons have been prejudic'd against Calvin's Interpretation of Christ's descent into Hell that being an Article of the common Faith and therefore to be interpreted in the plain literal sense Let me add that the Church no where declares her Sentiments more plainly than in publick Liturgies upon which Consideration St. Austin so often appeals from those Testimonies of Fathers which Pelagius urged to the forms of Common-Prayer And therefore tho a thousand private Doctors Opinion should thwart me yet I having the Opinion of the whole Church declared in her Liturgies for me if not in so many words yet in her general practice unavoidably inferring what I maintain to wit that the fourth Precept of the Decalogue is still in full force this is sufficient to acquit my Assertion from the imputation of Novelty or singularity as being no other but what I drew from my Mother's the Church of England's Breasts not only by good consequence as hath been shewed but in plain words for in the Homily of the time and place of Prayer she tells us that God expresly in the fourth Precept commandeth the celebration of the Sabbath which is our Sunday But I have greater Authority than this of the Church even Christ himself who could not endure that he should be thought to come to destroy the Law and assures us that not one jot or tittle should fall from the Law Mat. 5. 17. which all interpret to be meant of the Decalogue whose fourth Precept must therefore be concluded to have nothing in it that is ceremonial typical and upon that account to be abolished as instituting a Sabbath to be a shadow of good things to come 3. The Sabbath appropriate to the Jews was commanded them to be a Memorial of God's giving them rest from Egyptian Servitude Deut. 5. 15. Remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Egypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day Observe here the difference betwixt the Law of the Sabbath given on Mount Sinai and this in Deuteronomy tho it be repeated in the Decalogue For this Book containing an explanation of the Law whether Moral Ceremonial or Judicial and application of it to the particular state of the Jews Moses in this Text Judaizeth the fourth Precept and therefore assigns as the reason of its institution thus applied and limited not God's resting on the Seventh Day from his Work which is common to all Mankind but his causing them to rest from their servil work under the Egyptians which was peculiar to the Jews Which is a manifest Argument that the Sabbath of the Decalogue engraven in the Tables was of larger extent than this mentioned in Deuteronomy or else why should the Reason of the one be universal of the other particular As also that the Jews were obliged to the observation of their Sabbath not from the literal and primary sense of the fourth Precept as all Mankind are and always were except the Jews to whom God appointed another Sabbath but only from the equity of it For seeing God had sanctified the precise Seventh Day whereon he had rested to be observed by all Men it was meet that the Jews should keep holy one Day of seven and that Day which God had peculiarly enjoyned them viz. Saturday tho that was not the Sabbath of the fourth Precept the Lawgiver having Right to dispense with his own Law And this is clearly the plain meaning of Moses his inserting vers 12. as the Lord hath commanded thee or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had commanded thee viz. before the publishing of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai and of his leaving out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remember the first word of the fourth Precept as it was delivered on Sinai by which word mankind was called upon to call to mind the Patriarchal Sabbath or rather his transferring it to his mentioning their Egyptian bondage vers 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and remember that thou wast a Bondsman c. As if Moses had said perhaps you may interpret the fourth Precept repeating the Law of the Patriarchal Sabbath as either vacating that Law of the Sabbath he gave you

therefore Christ's Resurrection his Converse with his Disciples and their celebration of holy Assemblies on Sundays do warrant us to keep that day as sure and infallible Guides to the Old Patriarchal Sunday-Sabbath mentioned in the fourth Precept which was to take place again on course at the expiration of the Temporary and Ceremonial Sabbath enjoyned the Jews for a time as a badge to difference them from other Nations but is too sandy a ground whereon to build the Institution of a new Sabbath-day in direct opposition to the express Precept and example of God And thus the mouth of the Saturday-Sabbatarians is stopt But tho I might without deserved blame being back'd with so great Authorities prefer the Septuagint before the Hebrew Exod. 16. 1. yet I presume not to prefer the Text of the Septuagint before the Text of the Hebrew but only compare the Text of the Septuagint which is utterly incapable of any other pointing than what I urge with the pointing of the Hebrew which referrs to the 15th day of their coming into the Wilderness And here the preference may without disparagement to the Hebrew Text be given to the Septuagint considering 1. That it is a question amongst the Learned whether the Pentateuch had any Vowels or so much as distinctions of Words but was all as one word before the Masorites 2. That it is not agreed who those Masorites were that distinguish'd the Old Testament into Sections and Verses whether the wise Men of Tiberias or those of Ezra's Synagogue c. 3. And that the Hebrew Text without distortion is capable of the same pointing that I urge but the Septuagint capable of no other And therefore to ask whether the immoveable pointing of the Septuagint should yeild to the moveable point of the Hebrew is to question whether the Mountain should come to Mahomet or Mahomet to the Mountain 4. I have the Suffrage of Learned Men to stand by me in asserting that the Quails fell and were gathered on the fifteenth day For Bochart in his Hierozoicon Cornelius a Lapide Menochius c. on Numb 11. affirm that the Quails mentioned Exod. 16. fell on the fifteenth day of the second month and it is certain from the Text that the Quails fell on that day they murmured SECT V. The next Inference I draw from this Text is this That this Assembly hath all the Characters of a Church-Assembly 1. It is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Congregation or Church of the Children of Israel to difference it from the People or mixt multitude that murmured at Marah Chap. 15. 24. that marched in one Body with the Israelites and are implied in the first clause of verse 1. They took their Journey from Elim And in that Chapter 15. 27. and they came to Elim meaning the Israelites with the mixt multitude And as they came to Elim so here the same they are said to journy from Elim but when Moses gives an account of what fell out when they came into the Wilderness of Sin he shakes off the mixt multitude and leaves them out of his Discourse by changing the phrase he used when he speaks of their Journeying and saying The whole Congregation of the Children of Israel came into the Wilderness And the whole Congregation of the Children of Israel on the fifteenth day murmured By which he intimates this Assembly to have consisted wholly and solely of Israelites and to have been of the same make with that which St. Stephen calls the Church in the Wilderness consisting of our Fathers as he stiles them he and those he spake to being Jews Act. 7. 28. Briefly this was not a murmuring in their Tents like that Psal 106. 25. and that Numb 14. 2. at the return of the Spies or that through their Families every Man at his own Tent-door Numb 11. 10 where we have the mixed multitude represented as the fomenters thereof And therefore if they had been of this Murmuring Assembly in my Text they would have been mentioned here as well as there 2. Here is the whole Church of Israel assembled on course before the Lord for Moses did not call them but finds them together Aaron indeed bids them come near before the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the face of the Lord but all he meant by that was that they should turn their faces towards the Pillar the then token of God's special Presence for that was all they did in compliance with that Injunction ver 9. And as Aaron spake unto them they looked toward the Wilderness and the Glory of the Lord appeared in the Pilar of Cloud And that is an Argument they were already before the Lord though not so as to face the cloudy Pillar as they did in their Journyings yet they were assembled before or about the Tabernacle the ancient token of God's Presence I mean that little Tabernacle which they had before the erecting of that which Moses received the Pattern of in the Mount and therefore brought with them out of Egypt to which they had used to repair for Divine Worship for the sake of publick Prayer so Mede Rivet Willet It was saith Vatablus a little portable Chappel this was it that Moses after they had worshipped the Golden Calf took and pitched far off from the Camp to which every one that sought the Lord went out Num. 33. 7. this was called the Tabernacle of the Congregation of the sacred Convention so Junius and Tremelius of the Church Pagn The Hebrew word is Mogned whence is derived Lemognedim Gen. 1. which signifies solemn stated Assemblies as hath been observed before Towards this they directed their Faces in their sacred Assemblies and therefore Aaron withdraws their Faces towards the Pillar of Cloud vers 11. where Moses stood praying while Aaron was speaking to the Congregation saith Mr. Mede upon the place 3 This Assembly hath this Character of a Religious Convention that it was instructed by an Ecclesiastical Minister Aaron the Priest for Moses commanded Aaron expresly that he should speak to them ver 9. Now if this had not been Coetus Ecclesiasticus a Church Assembly it had been more proper for Moses himself to have come with his Rod in his hand and have spoken to them for he might with Authority have silenced their murmuring as he did Numb 11. 24. when they murmured for want of Flesh And as Caleb and Joshua stilled them Numb 14. 6. after the return of the Searchers It is said indeed vers 6. that Moses and Aaron spake to them but the meaning of that is no more than thus that Moses spake mediately and Aaron immediately Moses by putting words into Aarons mouth and Aaron by conveying those words into the Peoples Ears according to the instruction given Exod. 4. 15. Thou shalt speak to Aaron the Levite and put words into his Mouth and I will be with thy Mouth and with his Mouth and he shall be thy spokesman unto the People It is also said vers 8.