Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	bind_v	law_n	nature_n	1,568	5	5.4669	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97211	The Jevvs Sabbath antiquated, and the Lords Day instituted by divine authority. Or, The change of the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week, asserted and maintained by Scripture-arguments, and testimonies of the best antiquity; with a refutation of sundry objections raised against it. The sum of all comprized in seven positions. By Edm. Warren minister of the Gospel in Colchester. Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Warren, Edmund, minister of the Gospel in Colchester.	1659 (1659)	Wing W955; Thomason E986_26; ESTC R204006	221,695	275

wants and if we have hearts to weep over our week day sins and stir up our selves to take hold of Christ that we may make peace with God they that have any acquaintance with heart-work find it hard to have to do with a dusty world full of sins and snares and not be defiled or intangled with it earthly things are apt to leave a tincture upon the most holy and heavenly hearts There must therefore be a rubbing off this rust of the world a washing these dirty hearts and hands before we are fit to draw nigh to God in solemn Worship Exod. 19.14 What were those Ceremonial washings of old but emblematical predictions and documents of preparation to Gospel-worship and if I mistake not something to this purpose is prophesied concerning the purest times and Churches in these later days Rev. 15.2 3. Revel 15. We read of those that had gotten the victory over the Beast and his Image i. e. those that had shaken off the yoke of Anti-Christian Tyranny and Superstition standing upon a sea of glass with the harps of God in their hands those harps in their hands speak them in a posture of publike worship But what means their standing upon a sea of glass Why among other things I conceive it alludes to that Laver or * 1 Kings 7.23 sea in Solomons Temple in which the the Priests were wont to * 2 Chron. 4.6 wash when they went to worship and it may teach us thus much that the people of God under the Gospel as well as they under the Law must wash before they worship there must be some preparation Secondly the sanctification of the Sabbath follows and this also consists in two things Holy rest and holy work First we must keep it as a day of holy rest to the Lord resting from our own works our own words and our own thoughts 1. We are bound upon the Lords day to rest and cease from our own works whether works of labour or works of pleasure if I may so distinguish The Lords day must neither be our working-day nor our play-day both these are prohibited by the letter of the fourth Commandment and the analogy of that Text which seems to be written as a Commentary upon the Commandment Isai 58.13 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thy own words c. In which words we have the lively Picture and Pourtraiture of a true Sabbath in both parts of it it must be celebrated with rest from our own ways works words pleasures and this rest must be accompanied with a spiritual rejoycing in God and delight in his Sabbath arising from an honourable esteem of the day considering whose day it is namely the Lords Now the scope of this Text is as applicable to our Christian Sabbath as ever it was to the Jews Sabbath ours being first a day of holy rejoycing in the Lord as well as theirs Psal 118.24 Secondly a day which hath the Lord for its author as well as theirs Thirdly a day every whit as honourable as theirs yea a degree above it being instituted upon a more noble account Viz. The most gracious and glorious work of Redemption Fourthly a day in all respects as holy as theirs holy I mean in respect of separation and dedication to holy duties as prayer preaching breaking of bread praise and thanksgiving Acts 2.1 and 20.7 Psal 118.27 28. Therefore it must be kept with rest from accustomed labour and pleasure as well as theirs and that by vertue of the fourth Commandment which requires the sanctifying of one day in seven of divine appointment as a Sabbath with rest from servile works and secular imployments And let it be further considered both the fourth Commandement and the Prophet Isaiah in commenting upon it do first and chiefly call for sanctity Secondarily for rest First Remember the Sabbath to sanctifie it then Thou shalt do no work Sanctification is required as the end cessation from labour as the means the one as principal the other as accessary Now both Prophets and Apostles have markt out the Lords day as a holy day to be spent in holy duties of solemn worship and that weekly therefore by the Law of God and nature we are bound to keep it as a day of weekly rest otherwise we separate the end from the means which cannot be rest from servile work being an inseparable adjunct to a day of solemn worship What then shall we say to those that afterwarning make the Lords day either a common working-day or a sporting day the former I may fitly call the Devils workmen who will one day pay them their wages the other the flesh's Bondmen whose pleasure in the end will prove torment without end The Lord awaken both to repentance better then that of Esau whose sin of the two is greater then his * Hebr. 12.16 there are prophane Esau's under the Gospel and they are the worst of Esau's there is also a sin called * Rom. 2.22 Sacrilege condemned in the Gospel and Sabbath-breaking is very like it when sinners lay sacrilegious hands upon that which is consecrated to the Lord for a sin much like to which Ananias and his wife were once stricken with sudden death and how many such dreadful strokes have been felt and heard in these later days I shall not repeat what has been already committed to record by others Mr. Bernard Mr. Byfield and sundry others have been serious observers of Gods heavy hand in this kind I could say something of what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears But I shall forbear Numb 10.1 2. when men are struck dead in the very act of their sin as Vzzah in touching the Ark Nadab and Abihu in offering strange fire when the sin and the judgement meet together and do one point at the other surely Gods hand is not to be slighted Mr. Byfield has related many such tremendous strokes upon those that have presumed to work on the Lords day and ended their lives and their work together having no more respit between their sin and their execution or expiration then with trembling lips to tell others the secret reflections of their own guilty Consciences and how many Malefactors have we heard at their execution bewailing their profanation of the Lords day as the leading-cause of all their mischiefs and miseries Now the Conscience of the sinner smarting under Gods revengeful rod is many times like a finger to point out the sin for which God smites as we see in the case of a Judges 1.7 8. Adonibezek To be short the exemplary judgments of God against this sin of Sabbath-breaking falling in so great variety and happening so thick together in many places do call aloud to the

THE JEWS SABBATH ANTIQUATED AND THE LORDS DAY INSTITUTED By DIVINE AUTHORITY OR The Change of the Sabbath from the Last to the First Day of the Week asserted and maintained by Scripture-Arguments and Testimonies of the Best Antiquity with a Refutation of sundry Objections raised against it The Sum of all Comprized in Seven Positions By EDM. WARREN Minister of the Gospel in COLCHESTER REV. 1.10 I was in the Spirit on the Lords Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius in Hom. de sement ad init Imprimatur EDM. CALAMY LONDON Printed by David Maxwel for W. Weekly of Ipswich and are to be sold by John Rothwel at the Fountain in Cheapside and also by Nath. Web and Will. Grantham at the Black Bear in Pauls Church-yard 1659. To the Right Worshipful JOHN GVRDON Esq Justice of Peace in the County of SUFFOLK HONOURED SIR THe design of this Dedication is not so much to shelter the ensuing Treatise under the protection of your name let it stand or fall at the bar of Scripture and right reason as to shew my real and unfeigned gratitude for the many and much-obliging favours you have been been pleased to heap upon me both while I lived under your roof and since my removal to a more publike station I thought thus with my self It is the first and likely to be the last time of my appearing in Print therefore the best and fittest season to signifie my due resentment of your love and friendship which from first to last since my acquaintance with you I have experienced so firm and constant as also to shew the precions esteem I still have of you and your pious Family which as I found so I left most religiously devoted to the practise of the truth here pleaded for the keeping holy of the Lords day the undoubted Christian Sabbath it is verily no small joy to me in these days of liberty and loosness to find any especially of your rank walking in this truth of Christ Go on dear Sir in this good old way of truth and holiness be you still a friend to this good day the Lords Day and the Lord will be a friend to you in in an evil day yea in that great day of his appearing Concerning which as Paul prayed for Onesiphorus and his houshold the Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day so prays for you and yours The Unworthiest of Christs Ministers EDM. WARREN A Word by way of Preface to the Courteous Reader With a Word of Advice to my Christian Friends and Hearers in and about the Town of Colchester Good Reader I Shall not tire thy patience with any tedious Prefatory Discourse only hint a Word or two concerning the occasion of this Treatise with the Method observed in the composure of it about a year and half since or something more amidst that African brood of Erroneous Books which the lawless liberty of the Press has Midwiv'd into the world came forth a Treatise swelling as with a Timpany of vain glorious confidence for the Jews Saturday-Sabbath so no less opprobious contempt of the Lords day our Christian Sabbath The Author of it Mr. Tho. Tillam by Name by Profession an Anabaptist was pleased in Print to found a challenge and provoke me to the combat in answering of it It was some time before I was fully resolved what to do the sense of my own Insufficiency bespake my silence and willed me rather to sit still in obscurity than venture abroad to the view of a captious and quarrelsom World Besides my Pastoral charge and Preaching-work would scarce afford me that leisure which others of more natural promptness and dexterous parts and gifts might well enough spare for such an Imployment But on the other hand the spreading of this Jewish Leaven together with the pressing Importunity of some Christian Friends perswaded me to undertake this work which accordingly I did and after I had spent much time and written many sheets in answering this Author Page by Page I found his Method so confused his excursions so many his eructations of putrid choler and calumny so bitter that I had not the patience to follow him any longer in that wildgoose-chase but laid all aside and resolved upon a new Method namely to assert the Truth thetically in distinct Positions and answer his most material Arguments as Objections against it He would fain perswade silly people That Antichrist changed the Sabbath and goes about to prove it from Dan. 7. where we read of a little horn that thought to change Times and Laws and with this little horn he makes a loud noise up and down his Book But who told him that this horn was Antichrist Our best Expositors take it to be meant of Antiochus Epiphanes and indeed Dan. 8. cleerly proves it But what desperate insolency is this to take the crown of Christ and set it upon the head of Antichrist Is not the change of the Jewish Law attributed to Christ Hebr. 7.12 and did he not also change their times and seasons of worship was their weekly Sabbath exempted I pray where or how not by the fourth Commandement for we have proved that the seventh day from the Creation was never the substance of that precept nor by any clause in the New Testament for there it is rather repealed 'T is true the Moral duty of rest remains still in a holy day of weekly recourse according to the Commandment but the old Sabbath being of a shadowy nature in the after observation if not in the first Institution of it is certainly done away by Christ the substance of all Legal shadows yet not simply but in way of exchange for a new day of the same number though not of the same shadowy nature What I have argued for the change of the day is sufficiently authorized by the Scriptures the Fathers and our own judicious Divines My Arguments are but few in number more might have been added but for oppressing the Reader 's either purse or patience Mr. Cawdrey and Mr. Palmer have largely handled what I have but briefly touched If what I have written be answered with scurrilous gibes and railing Rhetorick as Mr. Jenisons Book was My next answer shall be nothing but silence and contempt which I the rather hint because the Adversary has threatned a Reply before he read my Book right or wrong it seems he is resolved to have the last word for which I purpose never to contend If I know my own heart 't is truth not triumph that I seek and thirst after truth I say grounded upon the Scriptures sealed with the blood of Martyrs attested by the Primitive Fathers and maintained by the pens of the most Reformed Writers such is the truth here asserted and I shall own nothing as an Answer to it but that which fully answers all these Now my Christian Friends and Brethren I beseech you love and live this truth stand to it stand for it and stand in it

decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away Where among other things the Holy-Ghost seems to imsinuate the shadowy nature of the old Covenant setting forth the deficiency of it by a metaphoricall expression of vanishing or disappearing viz. as the shadow disappears when the substance or body comes in place so that if the old Sabbath were of a shadowy uature 't is clearly gone But here lies the knot of the question which yet in the judgment of the most and best interpreters is dexterously decided in that vulgar Text Coloss 2.16 Let no man therefore judg you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day or new Moon or Sabbath dayes which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ In the exposition of which Scripture I conceive there have been two great extremes for some in opposing Judaism from hence have opened a gap to Libertinism by condemning all difference of dayes under the Gospel others in going about to stop that gap have made a Bridge to bring in Judaism again I shall equally shun both extremes hoping to find truth in the middle And therefore First I shall premise this as a sure foundation That the Sabbath indefinitely considered as abstracted from the precise seventh day Isai 56.6 7 8. Is a plain prophecy of a Sabbath under the Gospel So is Mat. 14.20 See both opened and vindicated by Mr. By field p. 220 c. was never a shadowy ceremony but was and is a moral and perpetual duty incumbent upon all the people of God to the end of the world for not only Scripture but even Nature it self teacheth us that as there is a supreme God so this God must be worshipped with solemn worship and that therefore there must be some solemn time set apart for his worship and this time not less then a whole day together yea a day of frequent return and this day a day of rest from worldly labour for worshipping-time and working time are utterly inconsistent All this may be fairly deduced from the dictates of Nature Indeed as to the punctual proportion of time whether it should be one day of six or one of seven Nature which doth not so well discern of numbers cannot so positively determine and therefore in this case where the instinct of nature fails us Praxis san●lorum interpres praeceptorum had wont to passe for a principle and maxime in Divinity the instruction of Discipline as one calls it relieves us By which I understand both the prescript of Gods law and the practise of his Church especially Apostolical practise which is the best and clearest commentary upon the Divine precept Now both these determine the proportion of one day in seven for the ordinary season of solemn worship and the last limits it to the first of seven as shall be seen hereafter That the law of God even the fourth Commandment which was the tenth part of Jehovahs will published at Mount Sinai is directly for one day of seven not the last of seven or the seventh from Creation I have proved before and that in this point it is moral and perpetual although not moral-natural may be briefly hinted here I shall offer but one Argument for it Rom. 7.12 Morale est mandatum quatenus praecipit ut è septem diebus unum consecremus cultui divino proinde quatenustale mandatum est nunquam fuit abrogatum nec abrogari patest Z●●ch in praecept 4. p. 595. Ut aelique dies in septimana fit deo dedicata praetum est stabile aeternum Jac. de Valen. adv Judaeos q. 2. Nobis cum veteri populo quoad hanc partem communis est necessius Cal● in praec 4. Item Luther Quoad observationem unius dieiiu singulis hebdomadis Sabbatum nonest legis Ceremonialis sed moralis qua immota ao perpetua est Ravanel Bibl. grounded upon that Scripture-aphorism That Commandments is holy just and good these are the uudeniable Characters of a moral and immutable law Now if the proportion of one day in seven for holy rest be holy just and good it must needs be moral and perpetual and so must the precept it self that prescribes it But this proportion is holy just and good Grant it to be just and you cannot deny it to be holy grant it good and you cannot deny it to be just Now let me reason the case with any religious soul yea with any rational man Is it not a point of moral equity to pay tribute out of all our times to the Lord of time who holds our souls in life and in whose hands both our times and our breath are do we owe him a piece of every day and shall we grudg him a day of every week when he has given us six can we in equity deny him one Not that I take upon me to demonstrate the equity of this number by the light of Nature or to the light of Nature for as I said before Nature is blind in these things but I presuppose Nature and Reason informed by divine discovery and acquainted with the written word Surely such as have read and pondered Gods liberal grant of six dayes to man cannot but yield his demand to be very reasonable requiring but one in seven for himself Thus in respect of God Again in respect of Man Is it not just and meet that since Mans life upon earth is a pilgrimage and he has no abiding City here but looks for one above therefore he should not spend all his time and thoughts and studies about the trifles of the world but as some time every day so also some one day every week retire from the world and draw neer to God to seek communion with him with whom he looks to live for ever Again in respect of servants and cattel is there not grand equity and reason that one day in a week they should injoy some relaxation from their painsul servitude and bondage that thy poor drudging servant especially who bears God image as well as thy self should have a breathing-time a day of weekly rest for his wearied body and one holy day in a week for his pretious soul Can we in equity afford them less when we have had six dayes service from them can we find in our wretched hearts to grudge the Lord one True you will say there is much equity in this that some time in general should be set apart for holy rest but what necessity of such an exact proportion why one day of seven more then one of ten or two of seven I answer as before A natural necessity we do not pretend but a Scriptural necessity there is why we should be tyed to this proportion and not to any other and herein lies the moral and religious equity of it as thus The written word informs me that there are but four main divisions of time and these of Gods own making viz. dayes weeks moneths years and I am convinced that