it The next word is the day of the Sabbath By Sabbath here is meaned rest as it is exponed by the Apostle Hebr. 4. and that not every rest but a holy rest from our own works that there may be access to positive sanctifying of that day for the sanctifying of that day is the end and this is but a mean and necessary supposed help without which the day cannot be sanctifyed in holy duties holy duties and our own works being for the time inconsistent besides that rest on this day is not onely called for as ceasing from our ordinary affairs in the time of worship is called for on any other day but more especially and solemnly in respect of the day it self for at other times our duties require a time for them and therefore that time cannot be employed in another ordinary work and in worship also but here the Lord requireth time and rest to be sanctified and therefore we are to perform holy duties 〈◊〉 that time because it is to be sanctified other times and rests are drawn after worship this time and rest draweth worship necessarily after it hence it was that onely the Jews feasts were called Sabbaths I mean religious Sabbaths not civil or politick as their years were because they included a rest upon destination to an â—oly use That which is mainly questionable here is concerning the day expressed in this Command concerning which may be asked 1. What sort of day or the quamdiu â— How often or the quoties 3. What day of the seven or the quando 4. When we are to reckon its beginning For Answer to the first we say There are two sorts of dayes mentioned in the Scripture one is artificial of twelve hours so the Jews divided their day making â—heir hours longer or shorter as the day was long or short but they kept up the â—umber of their hours alway the other is a natural day which is a seventh part â—f the week and containeth twenty four hours taking in so much time as interâ—eneth betwixt the Suns beginning to ascend after midnight the nocturnal Solâ—ice till it pass the Meridional altitude which is the Suns Vertical point for that â—ay till it come to that same very point of Midnight again which is the Suns natuâ—al course every twenty four hours comprehending both the artificial day which 〈◊〉 from midnight to midday and the artificial night also which is from midday to â—idnight again The day mentioned here is the natural day because it 's a seventh day proportionable to each of the six dayes given unto us and they with the seventh making up the Week it must contain as many hours as any of the rest doth but the six dayes wherein God made Heaven and Earth c. are natural days therefore the seventh to wit the day of rest must be so also Let us only for further clearing and for directing our own Practise speak here a word or two more 1. We say it is a whole natural day that is as it 's usually employed by us on any of the six Dayes for our own Works that as we spend so much time in our ordinary Callings on other dayes so would we employ so much in Gods Worship secret private and publick on that day what proportion of time we use to give or may and should give ordinarily to our Callings on other dayes we would give as much to God and his Worship to our Souls and our spiritual state on the Lords day or Sabbath Therefore 2. there is not to be understood here a rigid pressing of all these hours to be spent in Duties of immediate Worship but our Working and Walking time having a respect to our infirmities and also to our Duties lest under pretext of infirmity we incroach upon Gods day and give him less then we give to our selves or should and may give him And so in Scripture they accompted what is betwixt rising and going to bed as still the Work of one day or one dayes Work for as God in conceding six dayes to us hath yet so done it as there may be a Reserve of particular times for Worship called for from us to him every day for keeping up our Communion with him so on the seventh day doth the Lord allow so much conveniency of sleep and other refreshing as may be subservient for the main end of the day these being Works of mercy and necessity which Christ allowed on the Sabbath which was made for man and not man for the Sabbath 3. Yet care would be had lest under pretext of these we exceed and apply too much of what is the Lords unnecessarily for our selves and on our lusts and if we will wake for ordinary business and keep up on such and such a Dyet other Dayes yea if we might do it or others no more strong then we do it the pretence of infirmity will not excuse us especially seeing hardly it can be often instanced that timeousness at Gods Work in that day or earnestness and continuance in it hath proved hurtful which we may account as a part of Gods blessing on the seventh day that less meat and sleep may be as refreshful as more at another time thus much for the quamdiu or the Continuance of the day Secondly it may be enquired how often by vertue of this command that day doth recur if it be one of seven or if it be the very seventh And so if this day be to be taken definitely for the very seventh day after the Creation or indefinitely for one day of seven as the Lord should otherwayes determine or had elsewhere determined a stricting then to a day but not any particular day by vertue of this command but to such a day as was formerly described or prescribed from the beginning during the Jewish State and to such another day as God should after Christs coming reveal unto them and pitch upon for his service for taking it for granted that a Seventh day as moral is commanded it followeth to be inquired whether it be the Seventh in number that is one of seven or the seventh in order that is the Seventh day For answering this we would permit 1 That there is a great difference betwixt these two the one to wit that there be a Seventh doth concern the matter and substance of piety the other to wit which of these Seven it be is more circumstantial and is alike if it be appointed by God and have the blessing 2. That it is usual for God in his commands concerning worship not at first to express a particular definitely but to deliver it in the bosome of a general indefinitely mediately and by clear consequence as it were several Species under one Genus As for instance 1 when Deut 12. 5. he commandeth his people to offer their Sacrifices in the place which he should choose here there is a stinting or astricting of them to the place which God should reveal unto them this before the
under the New Testament as the seventh day was under the Old Therefore now the seventh day is changed and the First is come in its room which was the thing to be proved In the last room we argue from the Apostles Ordinance 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. concerning contributions for the Saints As I have saith Paul given order to the Churches of Galatia even so do ye that is the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him c. I say we argue tâ—us That not the seventh but the first day is the chief solemn day for worship after Christs Resurrection If the First day of the week be particularly and eminently pitched on by the Apostle and that in diverse Churches as the fittest time for expressing their Charity then must there be somewhat eminent in the First day giving ground for such an appointment and ordinance as the Apostles singling that from other dayes for such an end and no other reason can be given but that that day being more especially and immediately appointed for God is most fit for that duty which is a Work of Mercy but it s there clear that the Apostle pitcheth singularly on that day beside other dayes Ergo c. For strengthening of the Argument consider 1. That it 's clear to be the first day of the week since that same phrase which is used by the Evangelists Matt. 28. 1. Mark 16 2. Luk. 24. 1. is made use of here by the Apostle who no question followeth the Evangelists phrase yea his following that phrase may hint at a reason why he commandeth Charity to be on that day or sets it apart for that use as beyond other dayes to wit our Lords Resurrection 2. It s clear that he thinketh it not indifferent what day it be done on nor that all days are alike therefore he pitcheth on that day the first day and that not in one Church onely but in many 3. That this is not commended onely to them but commanded and enjoyned even in reference to the day and will the Apostle load Churches with Commands in that circumstance without ground and universally to speak so prefer one day to another and so as he will have uniformity in the very day in the Church of Corinth with other Churches unnecessarily Let it not be said nay nor thought 4. That this day was commanded even in the Churches of Galatia in which Churches he had condemned the observation of dayes whereby it would seem to be clear that he counteth not the preferring of this first day as one of these dayes the observation whereof is prohibited and condemned by him noâ— willeth it to be laid aside and that purposely he passed the seventh day as amongst these dayes which were not to be observed and retained but laid aside 5. That the thing required is a duty of the Sabbath being a work of mercy as Isai 58. giving bread to the hungry is mentioned particularly as one of the duties of Gods Holy day 6. That the mentioning of the First day of the week must be looked on as relating to and as compared with the practise of keeping solemn meetings on that day and this Command of doing this on the First day of the week must be more strong and infer somewhat more being compared with other places then if such things were not recorded other wayes of the First day 7. This Command supposeth them to be already acquainted with some special priviledges of the First day beyond others when he commendeth this as a motive to them to be more charitable to wit that it was to be done on that day 8. That there must be some peculiar thing in this day making it fit yea more fit for such a purpose as doing works of Charity on it rather then on any other And the Apostles commanding this and that in many Churches doth necessarily presuppose a reason why he doth it drawn from some fitness of this day by another Now if we will enquire no reason can be given but that the seventh-day Sabbath was expired and that this first day was instituted in its place for otherwise any day was alike yea the seventh-day being the last day of the week and the day when men usually reckon their weeks success it would seem more reasonable for this end that men at the close of the week should lay up by them as God had blessed them then to reserve it to the beginning of another week were not the first day more especially to be sanctified then the last and the last to be accounted but an ordinary working day The fitness then floweth from this that the first day of the week being the day of their solemn Communion with God and with one another and the day of their partaking most liberally of spiritual blessings from him that therefore they should be most readily warmed in their affections and be most liberal in their Communications to such as wanted especially if we consider the Jews to be parties for whom that Collection or Contribution was It s the Apostles great Argument whereby he pleadeth for Charity to the poor Jews from the Christian Gentiles Rom. 15. 26 27. That the Gentiles were their Debtors in temporals because they had received spiritual things from them now this argument is most fresh and powerful when Believers do on the first day of the week record Gods priviledging them with his Ordinances and giving them his day in place of the Ordinances and day which the Jews once had and yet deriving these unto them by the Jews I say this Argument will then be most fresh to incite to that duty in particular If any say that it was accidental that the first day was chosen or named rather then another because one behoved to be named and it was alike which But 1. I demand why is it universal If it were from one Church onely it might possibly have been thought so but he doth call for this duty on that day from more Churches 2. Why doth he not recommend it but command it as having more then an indifferency in the very day And 3. Can it be by guess or accident to speak so that so many priviledges are fallen on that day And that so manie things are recorded of it and astricted to it by commands which is not done of and to any other dayes And if one place would not suffice to prove that the first day and not the seventh day was preferred by the Apostles as the chief day of solemn publick worship yet all these things put together must prove a preference in that day or we must say that the Pen-men of Holy Scripture have been very partial who have marked many things and recorded them concerning Gods Worship on that day and have never so much as once for solemn Service named what was done on the second third fourth fifth dayes we must either say that this is inadvertently done which were blasphemy considering by what Spirit
to their need 3. to what may conveniently attain the end Yet it is needful here to add some qualifications or caveats lest folk indulge themselves too much and exceed under the pretext of the former liberty which the Lord hath condescended to leave men at 1. That men would see that the necessity be real that real sickness keepeth at home that real hazard maketh them flie or maketh them bide at home that it be such a necessity as they caâ—not contrive a way conveniently to evite when it cometh or could not foresee before it came 2. Men would see that that necessity be not brought on by themselves If the thing might have been done at another time that necessity will not excuse though if the sin be taken with and repented of and Christ fled unto for the pardon of it we may go about the doing that lawfully which sinfully we have necessitated our selves unto as suppose one had got warning to flie the day before to bring such a Physician or to provide such drugs c. if he did it not then he sinneth yet when necessity cometh he may still do it but not with a good Conscience till he first acknowledge the former fault of his neglect 3. It would be adverted if that thing may be done as well another time or may not without prejudice that is considerable be delayed till the next day Thus taking or giving of Physick on the Lords day making ordinary civil visits beginning voyages c. will not sustain and bear weight before God when folk do them that day to have their own work day free and so put by the proper duties of the Lords day for some things that may be done the day or dayes following Thus rest is commanded Exod 34. 21 even in sowing rime and Harvest because the necessity is not clear but dependeth on ordinary providence and folks are to expect occasion and opportunities for them afterward 4. Men would take heed that they have not a tickling complacency that such necessities fall on the Sabbath and be not glad to have diversions from the proper duties of the day They would go about such works with a sort of sadness though yet with clearness and peace of Conscience as to their lawfulness Therefore Christ saith to his Disciples Matth. 24. 20. pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath day because it would be heavy to Gods people to flie on that day though it was lawfull 5. We would see that it marr not a spiritual frame and that in doing these we turn not to mind the World as on other dayes There would be still a respect to the day in our frame which is called for in the word remember and even when our hand is otherwayes imployed the heart should not be taken up with these things but so far as is necessary to the acting of them 6. It would be adverted to that they be done without inregularity and so as not to give offence by them hence it was that Christ ever gave the reasons of what he did on the Sabbath lest others not knowing our necessity judge us guilty of Sabbath-breaking or be involved without necessity to do the like 7. Folks would have great respect to the end in these works and to the motive which swayeth and putteth them on If it be outward gain or fear of some temporal loss as if for gaining money a Physician should go rather on the Sabbath then on another day to save the life of a man that turneth then to be a servile work and one of his ordinary Week day calling to speak so So if a Minister should preach with respect to gain or applause on the Sabbath or if any man should make a visit for a meer civil end as we visit on other dayes without a suitable respect to spiritual edification or furtherance of Piety it will marr all and will be found a breach of the Sabbath 8. We would beware of spending too much time in these things but would endeavour timely and quickly to expede and dispatch them and rightly to tryst them Dressing of meat and trimming adorning and busking of folks bodies will not be found a well spent part of the Sabbath when it shutteth out other duties and getteth too much time as it doth with many By all which we may see what need there is to watch over our selves in these things lest our liberty be turned into licentiousness and lest we grow either idle or carnal on that day Let us then consider how far this rest extendeth and under it we take in 1. The rest of the whole man outward and inward in deeds words and thoughts so is it Isai 58. 13. we should not speak our own words nor by proportion think our own thoughts nor find our own pleasures 2. It goeth through the whole day for though every minute of the day cannot be applyed to positive duties yet in no minute of it is it lawful to do another work inconsistent with the qualifications and scope aforesaid that is the negative part in it thou shalt do no work which bindeth ad semper 3. It is to be extended not onely to a mans own person but to all under him children servants c he must be answerable for it that they rest and must give them no occasion of work 4. It s to be extended even to the least work of any sort if unnecessary as gathering sticks speaking our own word c. these are all breaches of the Sabbath 5. This rest extendeth to all actions or sorts of actions or cases which are not comprehended under the former exceptions which are permitted or are consistent with the sanctifying of the Sabbath As 1. All works which tend to our external profit pleasure satisfaction c. all works of our callings which make for the increase of outward gain and profit such whereby we ordinarily sustain our lives These Hebr. 4. 15. are called our own works and here it s such works as ordinarily are wrought in the rest of the six dayes So it is doing thy own pleasure as well as works Isai 58. 2. Such works as tend to others external gain or profit as the great motive of them as Servants may be working for their Masters profit and yet prophane the day 3. Such as are not necessary on that day as ploughing sowing reaping or gathering in and that even in Seed-time and Harvest and so fishing going of mills c. when these are not done for the very preserving of life because they are not necessary out of that case neither is there any thing here of an extraordinary dispensation that maketh them necessary the weather depending on an ordinaryprovidence or ordinarily depending on providence which is to be reverenced Hence though the weather and season be rainy yet it is not lawful to cut down or gather in Corn on the Sabbath their hazard in this ease being common and from an ordinary immediate providence yet suppose that
a River were carrying away Corn or that Winds were like to blow them into the Sea it were lawful in such a case to endeavour to prevent that and preserve them because 1. that cometh by some more then ordinary dispensation of providence in the weather and affecteth and putteth in hazard this Corn more then others 2. Because there is no probability of recovering these in an ordinary way though the weather should alter but there is hope of gathering in of such as are in the fields without that reach of hazard if the Lord alter the season 4. Such as are for carnal pleasure or civil ends thus playing gaming much laughing c. being our own works more especially our own pleasure are unlawful on that day 5. Consider that all things are prohibited which marr the end of the day and are not consistent with the duties thereof such are buying selling c. out of the cases of pressing necessity folks cannot be spiritually taken up and with these also so playing and gaming is no less consistent with praying reading conferring c. then ploughing or such like yea is much more indisposing for it and so we do necessarily thereby incapacitate our selves for the duties of the day 6. All things are forbidden which consist not with this rest and the duties of worship called for from our selves and others thus unnecessary journeying walking even suppose one could or should be exercised in meditation is not resting as is required much less is gadding in companies in the street or fields to the neglect of secret and family duties In a word whatever is not religious and spiritual exercise or furthering or helping unto what is so out of the excepted cases much more whatever is sinful scandalous or unsuitable on other dayes or doth divert from or indispose for the duties of holiness and the worship of God on that day is inconsistent with this rest and so prohibited for This rest is not primarily commanded and required for it self but as conducing and subordinate unto the performing of holy duties in it therefore our rest is to be regulated so as may best contribute to that scope and whatever marreth that though it should not be work strictly but idleness carnalness or playing and gaming and sporting yet its a breach of this rest for 1. That is no religious duty nor 2. tending as a necessary help to it nor 3. is rest commanded that we should pley in it but that we should sanctifie it and 4. playing or sporting cannot be called sanctifying the day otherwayes we might have mo Sabbaths then one and the prophanest would love them best 5. playing separateth not the Sabbath from other dayes more then work doeth for men play in all 6. playing is neither a religious duty it being amongst the most irreligious and prophane nor a duty of necessity for easing of weariness which doth not here come by any bodily toyl and labour but if there be any from being exercised in spiritual duties which therefore change and variety will through Gods blessing do so as the person may be born out in them nor is there any place for it except some duty be neglected therefore its inconsistent with this We come to the second way of considering the sanctification required here and that is by comparing it with that strictness called for from the Jews and to which they were tyed We speak not here of Ceremonials for so their whole service might be more burdensome then ours and particularly their Sabbath-services because they were doubled on that day but of moral duties and in that respect we say that the tye and obligation unto the sanctification of this day is equal and alike unto us with them which is clear in particulars for 1. It tyeth us now to as long time to wit a natural day of twenty four hours as it did them then 2. It restraineth from work and requireth holy rest now as much as then for whatever work then struck against the Letter or purpose and scope of the Command and marred holy duties doth so still 3. It requireth positive sanctification by holy duties as preaching prayer meditation c. and alloweth not idleness nor indulgeth time to other unnecessary works 4. It requireth as spiritual a manner and as spiritual a frame in performing of them now as then For 1. If the Command be moral then is there no change in moral duties for it is the same Command to us that it was to them save in ceremonial things 2. If the same things were allowed to them which are allowed to us and if no more be allowed to be done by us then was allowed to be done by them on the Sabbath then the observation in its strictness is equal but the first is true for works of piety mercy and necessity are allowed to us and so were they to them as by Christs reasoning against them as being here superstitious may appear yea 3. our allowances are taken from the practise of Christ and his reasonings with the Pharisees who in these disputes aimed not to shew that more was lawful by his coming then was before but to shew what then was lawful though they ignorantly or wilfully misunderstood the Command for even then God allowed mercy rather then sacrifice c. which places most clearly warrant us in our practise 4. The Service we have now is as spiritual and without all doubt the promise of the spirit for keeping up in holy duties as large as formerly and therefore our improving of it should be no less Before we proceed there are some Scriptures which seem to thwart with and to be cross to this to which we would speak a little for clearing of them as namely Exod. 16. 23 29. and Exod. 35. 3. where it would seem that going out of the place dressing of meat and kindling of fire were forbidden which are allowed to us To which we say 1. That we speak of the meaning of this fourth Command if any more was forbidden them by peculiar judicial Laws that contradicteth not our assertion these may be abrogated while this command standeth But 2 We conceive that as to these things gathering of sticks kindling of fire dressing meat c. no more is allowed unto us then unto them that is all unnecessary labour in and about these is unlawful to us now and all necessary labour in and about them was allowed unto and lawful for them as may be gathered from Christs practise and his reasoning with the Jews and from the allowance which was to their Beasts In the third place then we say that these Scriptures cannot be literally and universally understood for it cannot be thought that they went not out of the place kindled no fire dressed no meat in any case yea the allowance for their necessity and Christs going in and partaking when invited on the Sabbath-day Luke 14. It s like to somewhat that was prepared that day with his defending of his Disciples
practise in plucking ears of Corn and rubbing them as it is Luke 6 1. which was a sort of preparing and dressing of that meat insinuate the contrary neither can any thing be gathered from that place Exod. 16. 23. against dressing of meat simply but rather the contrary for the Manna that remained over what was dressed on the sixth day was to be laid up till the seventh day or the Sabbath but not till the day after the Sabbath and will it not suppose that they behooved then to dress it on the Sabbath as on other dayes by boyling at least for as to grinding of it at Mills or other wayes there was no necessity for that on the Sabbath out of some extraordinary Case or else they had needlesly laid it up and so behoved to have fires to dress it with And therefore that of not dressing meat of not kindling fire c. must be of what is unnecessary and for servile works or making gain in mens ordinary particular callings But to the third way if any should inquire what more holiness is called for o◠can be win at on the Sabbath then a Believer is called unto on other dayes he being called to endeavour to be perfectly holy every day I Answer Although he be called to be perfectly holy yet not in the holiness of immediate Worship throughout every day He is to be perfectly holy on other dayes according to the duties and imployments of these dayes but on the Lords day he is called to be holy according to the imployments of that day and its duties The Lords people of old were indeed called to perfect holiness all the week over but singularly to sanctifie the Sabbath as a part of their universal holiness 2. Though all the parts of every day should be spent holily yet some parts more especially as what parts are spent in Prayer reading the Scripture c. and somewhat more is required of these who are called to it on a Fasting day then on other dayes even so on the Sabbath 3. There is a difference betwixt a person living holily in the general and a person who is holy in sanctifying the Lords day though a man should be holy every day yet is he not to sanctifie every day which is required on this day whereof we shall now speak This dayes sanctification then we conceive to consist in these 1. That there is more abstractedness not onely from sinful things but even from lawful temporal things required on that day then on other days a spiritual frame of heart separating and setting apart a man from ordinary thoughts Hence we may say that as the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifyeth unclean as well as common so a common or every day frame o◠Spirit will be found unclean for the Sabbath there must therefore be another frame of heart different from an ilk a day-frame and suited to that day 2. This day is to be sanctifyed in respect of the Exercises of it beyond other days and that necessarily whereas on some other dayes we may be taken up in some duties of worship arbitrarily but here necessarily And men may and ought to be holy on other dayes in their plowing and other works but there their Holiness is to be in immediate worship to God in some thing relating to that alway such as praying reading hearing conferring meditating c. 3. The sanctification of this day lyeth in this that it must be wholly sanctified but parts of other dayes are ordinarily used in religious Service but this whole day is to be used so a man should be this whole day throughout as in the time of praying on other dayes 4. Duties would be multiplyed that day more secret and private Prayer Reading c. and more publick Worship even as there were double Sacrifices that day under the Law though there were Sacrifices all dayes 5. There would be in the duties of this day more intenseness of Spirit and a further degree of spiritual affections then in these duties of other dayes because this day is purposely set apart for that end and by continuance in duties we may attain to more of a spiritual frame and because not onely the Exercises of Worship praying reading and hearing c. call to Holiness on this day as they do on other dayes but even the very day it self doth call to it even as on a solemn day of humiliation men ought to be more affected and deeply humbled then on other dayes though daily they should repent and be humbled because that day is solemnly set apart for it so ought our worship to be more intense and solemn this day suitable unto it wherein we are as it were dyeted for insisting and persisting in duties of worship where as these duties in this respect and in comparison are on other days but as starts worship is here some way the only work of that day 6. There would be more heavenliness and spiritual sence breathed after that day in the frame of the heart it would be near God and the work of the day would be delightsome and sweet the Sabbath would as it is Isaiah 58. be called a delight and we would endeavour as it is Heb. 4. to enter into his rest to pass through the outward rest into his to be within his chambers yea even in his arms as it were all that day 7. There would be that day more divineness in our Holiness to speak so a sort of Majesty by ordinary in our walk looking like the Sabbath and like the God of the Sabbath There would be an exulting in God that day we would endeavour to have our hearts in a special manner warm in the Exercise of love to him and to be much in praising of him our Whole worship would more absolutely and immediately be aimed and levelled at the honour and glory of God as the end of it then on other ordinary days wherein our prayers and other pieces of worship may more immediately respect our own Case and need but on this day Gods Honour as the end more immediately whatever our own Case be and that both in heart within and in the nature of our Exercises without this is to call the Sabbath of the Lord honourable to honour and glorifie him therein as it is Is 58. a special Majesty being in that days worship by levealling it with extraordinary singleness at Gods praise even as his name is hallowed or sanctified in Heaven by Angels and perfected Saints Hence It 's good to give thanks unto thy Name c. beginneth that Psalm of Praise for the sabbath-Sabbath-day to wit the 92. These Duties then that further his praise are more especially for that day 8. All these reach both words and thoughts nothing to the hindrance of these is to be admitted neither there are none of our words and thoughts that day but they would in a special manner be Gods and in it we should be spent as his and endeavour to
be spiritually edifying and sutable watch over your eyes that carnal or wordly looks steal you not away nor distemper your hearts but especially over your hearts that they we are not out of a spiritual frame 8. When ye come to the place of publick worship if it be a while a beginning be still watchful and the nearer ye come to it the more watchful for temptations will be very ready to divert or discompose there would be a frequent intermixture of ejaculatory prayers in reference to every thing equisite for attaining and intertaining this composedness 9. When publick worship beginneth study to be as Cornelious was Acts 10 present to joyn in prayer and praise to hear what God will say to receive it to lay it up in your hearts to be sutably affected with it and to resolve through grace to practise it for blessed are they only who hear the word and do it and this would be with delight aming aright at the end of the Ordinances whatever they be whereof we spoke somewhat on the second Comandment 10. When the publick worship is as to it's first diet closed let not your minds turn carnal but depart reverently from it chearing your selves in God fixing the convictions exhortations directions instructions c. in your mind as ye have met with them and be ruminating rather on these then beginning to gaze oâ— discourse with others on subjects that are not spiritual and to edification 11. As soon as ye can win go in secret and seek to have these things fastned and riveted betwixt God and you and let that be your first work and let the little time that interveneth betwixt the diets of publick worship till you return be spent sutably to the day and the end of the duties thereof 12. When all the publick worship is ended then ye would do according to the preceding tenth Direction ye would withal retire a while in secret and reflect on your carriage in publick and also see what good may be gotten of the day and if there be any misses neglects or failings observed as if there be a diligent search there will no doubt be then be humbled seek pardon through Christ and resolve through grace to help these afterward consider what was said and like the noble Bereans Acts 17. put it to the tryal for your confirmation by your considering and examining the Scriptures cited or spoken of and endeavour yet more to have your hearts affected in secret with them 13. Then call your Families and come together after secret seeking of God and 1. be inquiring of one another what is remembred that all being put together ye may be helpful by your memories one to another 2. ye would do this not as if it were enough to tell over the words but that the Doctrines and their Uses may be fixed and ye affected with them Therefore 3. ye would do this with other duties of reading singing and spiritual conference as the occasion of it shal offer with prayer to God before and after being thus exercised â—ill ye go again in secret to close the day as ye began 14 Duties of Charity would be done contributions made liberally according to our ability and relief sent to others as we know their need which also would be inquired after 15. Indeavoure to have the heart in a right frame to close the day with reflecting on our carriage throughout it fearing to lye down with guilt unpardoned and without some special fruit of the duties of the day hast not to go to rest sooner that night then on other nights on design that you may be sooner at work the nixt day which smelleth strong of wearying of the Sabbath and of longing to have it at an end of which the Lord complained of old Amos 8. 5. study to lye down with thoughts as you arose leaving your selves in his arms with respect to the eternal Sabbath that is coming 3. When the Sabbath is past and the next day cometh cast not by all thoughts of it instantly but begin your work as having just now ended the Sabbath fearing to let the relish of it wear away and indeavouring in your carriage through the Week to retain the stamp and impression of it especially beware to go to your Callings with a Sabbath dayes guiltiness on you O indeavour by all means to have that removed hand all the Week through have one eye to the Sabbath past and another to the Sabbath coming having still that sounding in your ears remember the Sabbath or the Lord day to keep it holy dieting your souls as it were all along the Week for a course of communion with God in the duties of the next Sabbath It will be now easie to know when this command is transgressed which was the sixth way proposed of considering the sanctification of the Sabbath to wit oppositively or negatively which is done 1 by committing any thing contrary to the rest or sanctification of it 2. by omitting any of the things which are required for the right sanctifying of it 3. by an unsuitable frame of heart as to the due manner of performing any of these duties required We will find the weight of this command yet more fully by considering it's reasons how it'sexplicated and pressed This is done 1. by laying down the equity and extent of it v. 9. 10. 2. by pressing it from God's example As to the first v. 9. Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work These words may be looked on 1. As an obliging concession which is indeed very liberal as if the Lord had said all dayes are mine yet I have given thee Six to do all thy work and labour that thou hast to do therefore give me the Seventh It is but a small retribution for Six to return a Seventh 2 As a restriction thou shalt do whatever work thou hast to do within the Six dayes but none of it on the Seventh 3. As a command whereby God distributeth our time and commandeth Six for our work and the Seventh for his And thus these words forbid idleness and command lawful diligence in these Six dayes which we conceive here to be implyed 1 Because God is not carving out what time we may be idle in but what time we should imploy in our own lawful works as well as in his for it cannot be thought that he giveth us Six to be idle on It must therefore be to work on seeing as our life should be taken up in doing either what more immediately concerneth our selves or what more immediatly concerneth God so the scope of this command being to proportion our time betwixt these two what is allowed for either of them must imply an improving of it for that very end 2 The opposition also will confirm this These Six dayes are to be applyed to our work as the Seventh is to be applyed to Gods which is more then a permission and if the negative part be imperative in it thou shalt
Col. 4. 2. or when we meet with some special occasion or Dispensation pointing out to us this or that as a duty called for such a Providence invites us to the practise of that duty for though Providences will not make these things to become duties which are not duties yet they will serve to time and circumstantiate duties that lye on us by vertue of affirmative Precepts 4. Some special occasions and times are set down in the Word as for praying Morning and Evening for hearing the Word on Sabbath days and in these and other the like duties the examples of the Saints so recorded for imitation in Scripture would be observed as a Copy and patern 5. When they have not such inconveniences with them as cross and hinder other Moral duties of Edification love c. for if they do that they must yield and give place to these but if no other duty be called for then they ought to be done for we should be in some duty And though such dnties be in themselves Moral suppose praying hearing and such others which might be instanced yet the timing of them or going about them at such a time and in such a manner is not Moral simply but as these are by circumstances called for 6. When without sin such a duty cannot be omitted and although there be not any inward exercise of mind or frame of spirit sutable thereto yet the Conscience calls for it or there is some on special occasion or other that puts us to it 3. Observe that this Rule of Negatives tying ad semper or obliging in all circumstances of time is not to be understood but where the matter is Moral therefore we would distinguish again betwixt negative Morals and negative Positives for Positives whether negative or affirmative give still place to Morals As for instance that part of the fourth Commandment is negative In it that is one the seventh day â—â—ou shalt do no manner of work yet sometimes when necessity calls for it some manner of works is lawful on that day because it is only a negative Positive and not a negative Moral And so David's eating of Shew-bread was against a negative Command though not against a negative Moral but a negative Positive 4. Take this Rule that in all Commands joyntly and severally we would have special respect unto the scope God aims at by them all in general or by such a Command in particular now the general scope is 2 Cor. 7. 1. 1. Pet. 1. 15. 16 perfect and absolute holiness even as he is holy and therefore whatever he requires he requires that it be absolutely perfect in its kind as that our love to him be with the whole heart c. and so our love to others be as to our selves our Chastity and Purity all must be absolute see 1 Tim. 1. 5. This Rule will teach us what we are to aim and level at And whatever Exposition of the Commandments comes not up to this scope is no doubt defective and by this Rule only can we be helped to the right meaning of every Commandment for each of them has its peculiar scope both as to the duties it requires and sins it condemns And by this Rule it is that our Lord Christ whose Exposition with that of the Prophets is best draws in the least and smallest branches of filthiness to the seventh Commandment which dischargeth all things contrary to perfect and compleat Purity 5. The fifth Rule is that the Law is spiritual Rom. 7. 14. and that not only outward obedience to such duties or outward abstinence from such sinful acts is called for but the Law having a spiritual meaning calls for spiritual service and that in these three 1. As it requires spiritual duties such as Faith Fear Love to God and â—â— others right habits as well as right affections and outward actions and therefoâ—â— Paul to prove the spirituality of the Law instanceth in the habit of Lust Rom. 7. â—â— a thing thereby discharged 2. The Law is spiritual in that the obligation thereof reaches to the Spirite and very inwards of the Heart affections and thoughts as welâ— as to the outward man the love it requires is love with all the Soul Heart and Mind Hence there is Heart-Idolatry Murder and Adultery as well as outward therein condemned 3. It is spiritual in respect of the manner it requires as to all outward duties that they be done to a spiritual end from a spiritual principle and in a spirital way opposite to the carnal way to which the unrenewed heart of man is inclined in which sense we are commanded to walk in the spirit Gal. 5. 16. and so praying and praising which this Law calls for is praying and praising in the spirit 1 Corinth 14 vers 14 15 16. 6. A sixth Rule is that beside the duty expressed there is more implyed in the affirmative Commands and beside the sin pitched on there is more forbidden in the negative Precepts even all duties and sins of these kinds in whatsoever degree As for example in the affirmative Commands 1. Where the duty is commanded all the means that may further it are commanded likewise Hence under care to preserve our Brother Levit. 19. 17. 18. it is commanded that we should reprove him c. 2. Where any thing is commanded as a duty all duties of that kind are commanded as keeping holy the Lords Day is commanded in the fourth Commandment there hearing praying watchfulness all the Week over and all things belonging unto the Worship of God that day such as Tythes that is maintenance for a Ministry calling of fit Ministers bulding Churches c. are required though they be not all duties of that day 3. Where a duty is required the owning and suitable avowing of the duty is required also and so believing in God and the profession of Faith are required in the same Commandment Rom. 10. 10. 4. Where the duty of one Relation is repuired as of Childrens subjection there is required the duty of the other Relation as of Parents yea and also of all under that name Again in negative Precept observe 1. Where great sins are forbidden all the lesser of that sort are forbidden also as under Adultery Murder and Idolatry all light obscene Whorish words wanton looks unchaste thoughts revenge rash anger wordly affections c. are forbidden and they are comprehended and prohibited under the grossest terms to make them the more detestable odious and dreadfull 2. All means that may prevent these sins are commanded and all snares or occasions or incitements to them are prohibited 3. Where any sin is forbidden there the least scandal about it or the least appearance of the guilt of committing it is forbidden also for God will have his people holy and shining in holiness unspotted and without scandal and abstaining not only from all evil but from all appearance of it 1 Thess 5. 22. 4. We are not only forbidden the committing of such
sins our selves delighting in them and inclining to them but accounting light or little of them in others yea we are commanded and ought to mourn for them when committed by them 7. The seventh Rule is whatever duty lies upon others we are commanded in our places to further them in it as Masters are to further their Servants Husbands their Wives one Neighbour another by advice direction incouragement prayer and other helps as in the fourth Commandment is clear where the Servants duty the Strangers is imposed on the Master and whatever sin is discharged in our selves we are discharged any manner of way to partake in the same with others whether by advice example connivance ministring occasion or by sporting and laughing at it in â—hem for so the Rule is 1 Tim. 5. 22. Keep thy self pure partake not of other mens â—ins Men may be free themselves as to their own personal breaches and yet highâ—y partake of others breaches of the Law 8. The breach of one Commandment virtually breaks all there is such a connexion and linking together of the Commandments that if the Authority of God be â—lighted in one it is so in all Jam. 2. 10. 1. John 4. 20. 9. On thing may in divers respects as an end or means be commanded or forbidden in many yea in all the Commandments as ignorance and drunkenness are because they disable for all duties and dispose to all sins Of this kind is idleness also and so knowledge sobriety watchfulness c. are commanded in all the Commandments for without these men are unfitted and incapacitated for performing any commanded duty 10. The tenth and last Rule is the Law is holy just and good therefore the least motion against it or discontentment with it is sin Rom. 7. 12. In sum take these few watch-words concerning the obligation of the Law 1. That it obligeth to all duties and to all sorts of duties publick private to God to others and to our selves and that words actions gestures yea thoughts and the least motions of the heart come under its obligation his Commandment is exceeding broad so that there is nothing so little but it ought to be ruled by this Word and that in all persons of all Ranks whether as to doing or suffering 2. That it obligeth to the right manner of duties as well as to the matter and to every thing that belongeth to duties and thus in its true extent it reacheth to the forbidding of all the sins that are contrary to duties commanded 3. That it obligeth the whole man the outward in deeds words gestures and appearances or shews the inward in the understanding will affections memory consciences and so it requires that the mind will and whole nature be sanctified and conform to all these Commands 5. That it obligeth to obedience in all these alwayes and in the highest degree so that the least disconformity in habit or act is a transgression the obedience it requires is perfect in all these respects that not only there must be no breach of any of these Commands directly much lese a continuance in a breach but that also 1. There must be no appearance of breaking them 1 Thes 3. 2. 2. There must be no consent to break them though it come not forth to act Matth. 5. 28. There must be no casting our selves in the way of any temptation or snare whereby we may be inticed or occasioned to speak so to break them as Davil was by his looking on a woman 2 Sam. 11. 2. which Job guards against Job 31. Vers 1 4. there must be no corrupt motion affection or inclination to evil even where it gets not assent there must be no tickling of delight in the thing though the heart dare not consent to act it nor any discontentment with the restraint that keepeth from such a thing or secret wishing that such a thing were lavvful but on the contrary we must account every commanded thing right Psalm 119. 128. 5. The involuntary motions of the mind which never get assent to any of these evils nor are delighted in yet even these are prohibited by this Law because they flow from a corrupt Fountain and are the Evidences of disconformity to Gods Image in our nature and they ought not so much as to be in us Hence doth the Apostle complain of lust Rom. 7. though resisted by him 6. It teacheth not only to streams of actual corruption but to the Fountain of original sin whereby we entertain within us the seed and incentives unto actual evils that contradict this holy Law By all which we may see what holiness it calls for and how often if we were examined in all the Commands by these Rules we would be found defective and faulty and what matter of humiliation and repentance we may have for what is past and what challenges we may have hereafter from this Law with what need of continual applications to the Blood of Sprinkling and of Washings in that open Fountain to the House of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness and what need of endeavours to have our steps ordered more exactly according to it Before we close the Preface I shall first add two distinctions more then two more Rules 3. Give you some Scriptures for your memories cause 4. Give some directions or helps to those who make conscience to study this Law 5. Answer and clear a special case 1. Then ye would distinguish betwixt this Law as given to Adam and as given to Israel for as given to him it was a Covenant of Works but as given to them it 's a Covenant of Grace and so from us now it calls for Gospel-duties as Faith in Christ 1 Tim. 1. 5. Repentance Hope in God c. and although it call for legal duties yet in a Gospel manner therefore we are in the first Commandment commanded to have God for our God which cannot be by sinners obeyed but in Christ Jesus the Covenant of Works being broken and the tye of Friendship thereby between God and Man made void so that now men as to that Covenant are without God in the World and without Christ and the Promises Ephes 2. 12. 13. And so our having God for our God which is pointed at in the Preface to the Commandments and Christ for our Saviour and closing with his Righteousness and the Promises of the Covenant which are all Yea and Amen in him must go together 2. Distinguish betwixt the divers Administrations of the Covenant of Grace and of the Law in respect of Positives falling under the second Commandment for that Commandment tyed the Israelites before Christ to Circumcision Sacrifices the seventh day of the Week and other Ceremonies agreeable to the Administration of the Law and Covenant of Grace then but now it forbiddeth them to us and requireth other duties for the Priest-hood being changed there is of necessity a change also of the Laws belonging thereto yet that Commandment as a part
do not so effect them and yet even these know the reasons that are made use of against the sinfulness of it which maketh me think there is something directly against Conscience and Purity in these sinful actions or motions To conclude sure we are this Opinion is not unsuitable to the end of the Law and that absolute Purity and Angelical Holiness God calleth for in it namely that not only when we are awake we are to be still with him but that our sleep should not break our Communion with him And certainly it is most safe for man to humble himself under the sense of his sinful nature and the sad necessity of sinning both waking and sleeping he hath brought on himself that thereby he may the better press on himself the necessity of a Mediator for Righteousness which are the great ends and uses of the Law We come now more particurarly to the words which the Lord himself spok concerning the number of these Commandments and general scope of them as hath been said there is no question but there be four things we would speak a little to for further clearing of the Text before we come to speak particularly to the first Commandment The first is whether these words I am thâ— Lord thy God c. be a part of the first Commandment or a Preface to all the Ten Answ We think it is a ground laid down for pressing and drawing forth our obedience to all the Commandments yet it hath relation more especially to the first Commandment as the negative expression there cleareth which is Thâ—â— shalt have no other godâ— before 〈◊〉 that is no other then Me what Me even Me the Lord thy God that brought thee â—ut of the Land of Egypt So then there is a special relation betwixt this Commandment and the Preface as including the positive part of this negative Commandment and it doth especially clear these three things 1. What is the right object of worship it is Jehova Elohim the Lord that sheweth the Unity of the Divine Essence for so â—â—hovah being a word in the singular number is ordinarely look't on as pointing out this then Eloâ—im which is a word in the plural number speaketh the plurality of Persons in the God head so that the Lord commanding and requiring obedience here is one God and three Persous 2. It cleareth what is the right Channel in which our service should run it is in the Channel of the Covenant our obedience is to be directed not to God abstractly considered but to God as our God I am the Lord thy God saith he and thy God by Covenant so the expression is Deut. 28. 58. That thou mâ—â—st fear this glorious and fearful Name THE LORD THY GOD. This maketh our service and worship sweet and kindly and without this relation there can be no acceptable service performed by sinful man to God and that relation that by the Covenant of Works once stood betwixt them being broken it saith it must be made up again which only can be done in Christ and it saith also that this relation to God in him and obedience to the Law can consist well together 3. It cleareth what is the right and great motive of obedience to wit the benefit of Redemption love and thankfulness upon that account constraining to the performing of these duties that are commanded that they may be done willingly and in a chearful manner Secondly It may be asked why the second Commandment and the fourth Commandment have reasons pressing obedience annexed to them which none of the other hath at least expresly set down by the Lord Answ This may be a reason because all the other Commandments are by the Law of Nature determined in mens Consciences and the sins against them are by Natures Light seen to be evil but the substance of these two to wit what way he will be worshipped in externals and on what day as the solemn time of worship being determined by Gods positive Law they are not so impressed on mens Consciences as the duties required in the other Commandments are therefore the Lord addeth reasons to each of these to perswade to the obedience of them as to the second I am a jealous God and therefore will not admit of any the least appearance of declining from me even in externals and to the fourth keep the Sabbath day for I have put a difference betwixt it and other dayes though before there was none which is further amplified in the Text Now by this reason which is also given by the School-men it may appear that the second Commandment concerning outward worship according to our way of distinguishing them iâ— distinct from the first which requireth the inward worship due to God for the first Commandment is Moral-Natural and can never be altered and has as much impression on a Natural Conscience as any and therefore according to this ground needed no reason Thirdly It may be observed also that some Commandments have Promises added to them which others have not not that any Commandment wants implied incouragements but in some they are expressed as in the second He sheweth mercy to thousands c. and in the fifth That thy days may be long c. The reason given why Promises are particularly expressed in these two is that obedience to these two seemeth to bring most hurt to men and is most contrary to their corrupt wills and affections it seemeth not so prejucidial nor is it so obnoxious to the hatred of the World that men love God and fear him in their hearts c. as it is outwardly to confess him before men and that by adhering close to the true manner of worshipping him This maketh men obnoxious to persecutions crosses losses c. to be seriously taken up in the externals of godliness sometimes bringeth much prejudice with it and is to many troublesome and so to be obedient to Superiours and tender of Inferiourâ— is not easily condescended unto therefore God to counterbalance the difficulties that accompany the obedience of these two Commandments hath added Promises to them the more to incourage and stir up to the obedience of them The fourth thing we would take notice of is that some Commandments have threatnings expressed in them which others have not as the second and the third not that any Commandment wanteth implied threatnings but the reason is because men ordinarily count light of the breach of these two Commandments if they be as they think honest at the heart though they be very negligent and careless in many outward things and though in the manner of worship they be very slight and perfunctorious yet if it be to the true God they think the less of it And so also men are given to count very light of reverent using Gods Holy Name therefore he hath put a threatning to both these Commandments to make men know he will not so easily pass them as men oft-times imagine and that all these three
outward Receiving as if that made us some way acceptable to God 4. When there is a superstitious blind preferring of them to and with the prejudice of all other Ordinances so that one will neglect Preaching and Prayer long but must have Baptism and the Communion 5. When there is a preferring of the outward Ordinance to Christ and the thing signifyed that is when men seek more to have the Baptism of Water then the Baptism of the Spirit and the External Communion more then the inward in which any Heaven that is to be found in the Ordinances lyeth and when men are more commoved for wanting the Sacrament once then for wanting Christ often and long 6. Coming unto and going from the External Ordinances neglecting him and without dependance upon him who giveth the blessing and thinking that then all is well enough seeing they were present at the Ordinance 7. Going far off for the partaking of a Sacrament to the prejudice of necessary Moral Duties called for at that time 8. Placeing more in them then in works of Mercy and Charity or doating on them to the neglect of those 9. When they are accounted so holy as if they might not be given where Christ alloweth them to be given or as if that wronged them when they are not Administrated in some consecrate place as if one place were now under the Gospel more holy then another 10. Adding to Christs Institution in the way of Administration as if what he hath appointed because it is common and ordinary were base and too low for them Again they get too little esteem 1 When people use them as bare and empty signs without respect to their due ends 2. When there is not that Reverence given to God in them as ought to be according to his command when we are about so holy and so solemn pieces of Worship 3. When men carnally and without preparation and observation can hazard on them as common things 4. When Gods Grace and Goodness in condescending in them to us is not admired and blessed 5. When they are not pondered and studied that we may know them 6 Want of delight in them 7. Carelesness of them whether we have them or want them 8. Corrupting the Lords Institution in our manner of going about them either adding to it or diminishing from it or changing it as if men might do so 9. Little zeal to keep them pure 10. Neglecting the occasions of them when we may have them with some little pains 11. Accounting them better when Administrated by one Minister then when by another or esteeming little of them because dispensed by some men though lawful Ministers as if men added any worth to the Ordinance of God 12. Never actually laying weight on any of them or drawing comfort from them or less then should have been done 13. Not wishing and praying that others may have good of them 14. Not fearing the wronging of them by multitudes who partake of them and not endeavouring to have abuses of that kind helped but making them common to all indifferently and promiscuously 15. When Folk fear not the breaking of their ingagements in them 16. When men hang the Fruit of them on the Administerers intention or on the grace of them that are Joynt-partakers with them 17. When there is little Zeal against the Errours that wrong them as when they are denyed by Anabaptists and when they are corrupted as in the Masse To come particularly to Baptism we may consider 1. The sins of those who seek it for their Children 2. The sins of these who Administer it 3. The sins of on-lookers especially those who are called to be Witnesses 4. The sins of those who are baptized The Parents or Presenters of Children to Baptism fail before in the time and after the Administration of this Ordinance First before 1. By not serious minding that which is to be done 2. Not considering the Childs condition as needing Christ in that Ordinance Nor 3. The end of that Ordinance 4. Miskenning Christ and not going first to him for conferring the things and blessings signified 5. Not praying for the Child for the Minister and for a Blessing on the Ordinance 6. Not blessing God that there is a Covenant of Grace that taketh in our Children not offering them to be ingaged and received in it 7. Not minding the most simple and edifying way of going about it but walking by other Rules 8. Needless delaying of it for carnal ends 9. Being more desirous of the Sign then of the Thing signifyed Secondly When we come to it we sin First Not seeking to have our own Covenant with God by which we have this priviledge of bringing our Children to Baptism renewed and made sure 2. Not considering by what right we claim it to our Children 3. Not repenting of our own Breaches of Covenant noâ— wondering that God keepeth with us who have often broken to him 4. Not coming with the exercise of fear and reverence 5. Waiting on it oft-times without attention or minding our Duty in what is spoken 6. Promising for the fashion when we ingage for the Childrens Education and wthout either Judgement or Resolute purpose to perform 7. Being ignorant of what is said or done 8. Not concurring in Prayer for the blessing 9. Not undertaking in Christs strength to perform the Duties called for Thirdly After the Administration of Baptism we fail First In forgetting all our engagements 2. In growing careless to maintain any suitable frame and falling carnally in our Mirth on such occasions 3. Not being much in Prayer for the Children nor insisting or continuing in Prayer for the blessing 4. Not being Faithful according to our ingagements in Educating them 1. In knowledge that they may be so trained up as to know what God is 2. In the fear of God pressing it upon them by frequent Exhortations 3. In giving them good Example 4. In giving them seasonable Correction but rather sparing them though to their hurt when there is cause of Correction 5. Being also unfaithful in not seriously minding them of their ingagements by Baptism And 6. Much more by giving them evil Example 7. Conniving at their faults 8. Advising them to what is sinful or sending them where they may meet with snares or suffering them to go there 9. Providing for them the things of this Life without respect to that Life which is to come 10. Not enabling our selves that we may discharge our Duty to them 11. Not insisting to press those things upon them that concern their Souls alwayes thinking it is enough that sometimes they be spoken to 12. Never purposely stirred up and driven by that Tye to see for their good Nor 13. Repenting our many short comings Nor 14. Lamenting for what we see sinfull in them when they follow not faithful advice These are things that would carefully be looked unto both by Fathers and Mothers and all such as engage for the Christian Education of the Children whom
Officers School-masters and Teachers I charge you to endeavour to prevent this sin in your selves and others It is sad that the Children of many are brought up in it the most part live in it our Streets are more full of it then the Streets of Heathens Advert to this charge every soul Or 3. I charge you to appear before this great and dreadful God who will not accompt any such guiltless and to Answer to Him for it The Fourth Commandment Exod. 20. verse 8. 9. 10 11. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy Work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any Work Thou not thy Son nor thy Daughter thy Man-servant nor thy Maid servant nor thy Cattel nor thy Stranger that is within thy Gates for in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and Hallowed it THe Lord in his infinite Wisdome and goodness hath so far consulted mans infirmity as to sum up his Duty in these Ten Commands called Ten Words that thereby his darkness and dulness by sin might be helped by an easie abbreviation The first Command therefore containeth mans duty to God in immediate Worship requiring that the onely true God should be worship'd The second stinteth and limiteth men to that worship alone which he pâ—rscribeth The third Commandeth Reverencing of him in all his Ordinances and a reverent manner of going about them This Fourth pointeth out the Time which most solemnly the Lord will have set apart for his Worship that so He who is both Lord of us and of our time may shew what share he has reserved as a Tribute due to himself who hath liberally vouchsafed on us the rest which time is not to be understood exclusively as if he would have onely that spent in worship there being no exclusive determination of the frequency of the exercises of worship or duration of them in Scripture that is to say that they shall be so long and so often and no longer nor oftner but that he will precisely have this time as an acknowledgement from us even as when he gave Adam the use of all the Trees in the Garden he reserved one so when he giveth six dayes to us he keepeth a seventh for himself This Command is placed in a manner betwixt the two Tables because it is a transition as it were from the one to the other and containeth in it duties of immediate Service to God and of Charity towards men and so in some sort serveth to reconcile if we may speak so the two Tables and to knit them together that so their harmony may be the more clearly seen It is also more largely and fully set down for plurality and variety of expressions and words then any other in either of the Tables yet hath it notwithstanding been in all times in a special manner assaulted and set upon and endeavours used to overturn it Satan aiming sometimes to darken the meaning of it sometimes to loose from the strict tye of observing it and that not onely by old Sabbatarians Anti-sabbatarians and corrupt School men but even by those whom God hath made Orthodox in the main And especially by a Generation in these dayes who having a hatred at all Ordinances and at all the Commands of the Decalogue yet do especially vent it against this Command because in it is contained a main foundation of Godliness As it is wonderfully great presumption for men to assault and set upon Gods Authority even where he hath strengthned himself as it were most by more full explication and more large and particular pressing of duty and forbidding of the contrary sin as he hath done in this Command more then in any of all the rest So it will be necessary before we can speak to the practical part of piety comprehended in it concerning the sanctification of the Christian Sabbath or Lords day either in the negative or positive part of it to speak doctrinally for clearing of the precept to these three 1. Whether this Command be moral and do oblige us in its Letter as other Commands do 2. What is the particular morality of it and the literal meaning of the words 3. How our Lords day standeth in reference to this Command and whether thereby the same sanctification be required as to it though its institution arise from another ground then is required to the Seventh-day Sabbath Somewhat of all these must needs be spoken unto and we begin to speak first of its morality before we speak of its meaning because all dependeth on this both in respect of exposition and practise for if it be not moral and perpetually binding it 's not necessary either to explicate it or to study and press the practise of it but if it be found to be moral then no doubt it concerneth us and requireth the same moral sanctification of a day now as it did before Our Assertion then in reference to this is that The duty of setting apart and sanctifying of a portion of time as it is limited in the fourth Command for Gods service as it recurreth is moral and the Obligation thereunto perpetual even as in the duties of the other Commands the obligation to this being no more dissolved then to those though there may be difference in the degree of the obligation which they lay on in respect of the matter contained in them my meaning in a word is that a day oâ— one of seven is as necessary to be kept holy unto God now upon supposition of his determining the particular day as it is necessary to hold and keep up the worship prescribed by God neither without sin can another day be put in the room of it more then other worship can be substituted in the place of divinely prescribed worship for the time is set and fixt by the fourth Command pointing at a solemne and chief time as the woâ—ship it self is by the second For clearing of this consider 1. That we mean not here moral-natural as if without any positive Law such a thing had been binding no but moral-positive that is laid on by a Command which is standing unrepealed and so bindeth by vertue of the authority of the Law-giver as several other commands and precepts do as namely those concerning Sacraments belonging to the second Command and those concerning one Wife and forbidden degrees of Marriage belonging to the seventh which being so often broken by many Saints and dispensed with in some cases cannot be thought to be morally naturally since the Lord dispenseth not so in these nor can it be thought in reason that his Servants would have been ignorant of such a natural thing It is then moral-positive that we mean to wit that which is binding by a positive Law 2. Consider in this question that there is a
themselves but as taking burden on them for all under them and within their Families to endeavour the sanctifying of the Lords day with them and by them as well as by themselves whereby the extent of this Command is clearly and earnestly holden forth in more express terms then in any other of all the Commands though this be implyed in them also 8. The observation of it is pressed and encouraged unto by a special blessing which He hath annexed to the time set a part by himself He blessed it that is He made and still maketh it useful and refreshing as a special blessing to his people who keep his Ordinances seeking Him therein this day has a double portion and increase beside any other day for his peoples Repose Edification Comfort finding of His Presence c. And to say now that this Solemn time were not moral were to rob the Church of a great blessing seeing this day set a part by God for his Service hath the blessing beyond any other day commanded on it and in the experience of his People often hath it been found to be so 9. It is specially and singularly ushered in with a Memento or Remember which is not expressed in any other Command and Shall we think that where God saith Remember there is nothing to be taken notice of or shall we think that it saith not Remember now as well as then and if so Who can warrantably forget that which he biddeth remember which is not to keep the Seventh day but the Sabbath holy unto the Lord And may not all these Characters put together in one Command so many not being to be found in all the other Commands if put together May not all these I say convince us that it is the Lords purpose to have this Command standing obligatory in its substance to the end of the world Which is so pressed that if there be little help from Natures light to determine the day or to press its observation it may be strongly born in by the more clear and weighty reasons And so we come to the fourth way proposed for making out the morality of this Command which is by adducing some Arguments drawn from Scripture The first whereof is If the Law bind under the New Testament not only in respect of its matter as its natural nor only as it is repeated in the New Testament but also by vertue of the Authority enacting it then this Law of the fourth Command though not explicitly determined by nature and though it were not mentioned particularly in the New Testament must be binding also for it hath that same Authority But the first is true and is acknowledged generally by Divines excepting a few and is clear by Christ and his Apostles their citing of it as supposing it to be binding Therefore the last must be true also 2. Arg. If this Command be founded on moral grounds then it self must be moral But the grounds on which it is founded are moral Ergo c. 1. It is moral that God should have a solemn and chief set-time 2. That he himself and none other should determine that time seeing no other could do it and bless it 3. These reasons in the Command it self dividing time into six parts of it to us and a seventh part to God and Gods resting after six days working with his making only seven dayes in the week and employing six of them to work c. these reasons I say are all moral and binding now as before 3. Arg. If all moral duties be contained in the ten Commands then this Command must needs be moral But the first is true Ergo c. This Command containeth a moral duty which is in none of the preceeding Commands to wit the stinting and determining of the solemn and chief time to be set a part for Gods worship to be one day of seven It is true Time is commanded to be allowed to Gods worship in those other Commands wherein the duties of worship themselves are commanded for worship cannot be performed more then any other duty without some time but that the chief time should be so much and so often is onely determined in this Command from which it appeareth 1. That an indefinit time of worship or for it is not the morality of this Command because this followeth necessarily as being supposed needful for the performance of every positive duty contained in the other Commands its morality therefore must be The determining of that definit time 2. We may hence see a reason why there is no new Command for this in the New Testament because this standeth in the Law neither are Thou shalt not Swear Kill c mentioned as new Commands more then this so that had they not been mentioned in the New Testament as some are not yet had they still obliged It is just so as to this and the reason why they are mentioned may be supposed to be because the main fault about them was defect and short coming but in this it was excess which our Lord also regulateth by holding forth the right observance of it and clearing what was wrong and so is supposed to confirm what he repealeth not 4. Arg. If it be not free for men to carve out Gods solemn chief time of worship at their pleasure then is this Command moral for that liberty is restrained by this Command and no other But it is not free for them to choose what time they please or to carve it out This seemeth to be only questionable which is therefore thus confirmed If it â—e frâ—e to men to carve out what solemn and chief time is to be given to and set apart for Gods worship then either it is free to them to choose no time at all or it is free for them to choose a longer or a shorter then this But neither of these can be said not the first as is clear not the second because it will not so quadrate with the end for if the time be shorter it incroacheth on Gods due if it be longer it incroacheth on Gods concession of six dayes to work in If it be shorter it incroacheth on Gods due as is said and our souls good if longer it incroacheth on our temporal calling and Can any restrain man when God giveth him liberty Again If it be free to men so to cut and carve at pleasure on the solemn and chief time for Gods worship it s either free for all men together to agree on a day even one and the same or its free for each Country or each man to choose what day they please but neither of these are either possible or practicable to edification therefore must the day he determined to them and if so then sure by this Command And so it s still binding and cannot in that respect be altered without sin which was the thing to be proved 5. Arg. That there is a morality in a seventh day we may argue from four famous and
the family which Persons in secret perform and so Family-worship will be a worshipping of God beside what is in publick and secret in a Domestick and family-relation jointly Thirdly That this Command requireth such a family-worship distinct from publick and secret and something to be performed in worshipping of God amongst persons of related which is not required of others may thus be made out 1. The thing called for in this Command is certainly worship yea immediate worship it being a Command of the first Table and such a thing as the sanctifying of the Sabbath 2. This Command taketh in all Domestick Relations Parents Children Sonâ— and Daughters Masters and Servants Men or VVomen yea and Strangers that may be for the time or on that day sojourning there these are all constituent Members of a Family 3. The thing required of them is not simply rest from labour for 1. That is commanded for the Beasts lest men should be hindered from or interrupted in their holy rest by their waiting on them and none will say we hope that there is no more required as to Children or Servants then as to the Beasts 2. Under the Negative Thou shalt do no work is included the Affirmative Thou shalt sanctifie that day to the Lord. 3. The same Duty is required of all alike in some respect thou Father and thou Son thou Master and thou Servant and if worship be called for from the Father and Master for the sanctifying of that day so it must be also from the Child and Servant 4. The manner of performing this Worship of sanctifying the Lords day in Holy duties is required not only to be in publick nor only in secret but by the Members of each Family joyntly and apart from other Families For 1. It cannot be understood to require worship only in publick together because 1. there may be in some cases no access to publick worship and yet the Command of sanctifying the Lords day lyeth still on and no doubt by Families 2. Waiting on publick worship is but one piece of sanctifying the Lords day and that but in apart of it therefore there must be some other thing included here 2. It cannot be understood of the Master of the Family his putting the Members of the Family separatly to seek and worship God and of his own going about Holy duties himself apart For 1. Though that be worship yet is it not worship from persons in such a Relation or Family worship more then if they were not in such a Relation or of such a Family and though it might be said that such and such persons sanctified the Sebbath yet could it not be said that the Family as such did it even as Families or persons seeking God in secret could not be exonered thereby as to their being in the Congregation nor their serving of God be so accepted as Congre gational service if they met not together when they might Just so it is here yea as it lyeth by this Command on a Congregation and a Minister to sanctifie the Lords day and to come together for that end so doth it lye on the Family and Master of it 2. By this Command there is more required then secret or solitary sanctifying of the Sabbath even a peculiar sanctification of it within one Family distinct from another I say 1. more then solitary worship because the Lords saying thou without repeating Son Daughter c. had been sufficient to have laid it on all separately for themselves the enumeration therefore of the whole Members of a Family must import some other thing for the former is implyed in all Commands as Thou shalt not kill that is as far as in thee lyeth thou nor thy Son c. There must I say be something more understood by the peculiar enumeration pressed in this fourth Command I say 2. Even a peculiar worship because it 's something laid on by this Command which is holden within Gates or doors and neither goeth to the Congregation nor to the persons of other Families at least ordinarily but reacheth the Members of such a Family who are within such a Mans Gates or Doors therefore it must be a distinct Family-worship mainly performed by that Family together 3. The thing required here is not only worship simply but worship as from a member of such a Family therefore it is not solitary worship for seeking of God and moral duties in secret still agree to persons in all places and Families alike but this draweth a line as it were betwixt Families and so divides one Family from another yet maketh the duty more obliging to these within such a Mans Gates or Doors then others without Doors therefore it must be joynt-worship for apart or as concerning secret worship all are every where alike obliged 4. If by this Command something more in the worship of this day be required of a person that is a member of a Family in reference to that Family then there is required of one who is not a member of such a Family or is required of that person in reference to another Family whereof he is not a member then it requireth a distinct Family-worship for no other thing can be understood but a joynt going about the sanctifying of that day in a stricter and nearer way of Communion amongst the members of that Family then with persons and Families in and to whom they are not so interested and related 5. If secret and publick worship were onely required in this Command then should we equally and alike sanctifie the Lords day with other Families and persons not of that Family whereof we are members for in these we joyn alike for them and with them but there is some peculiar thing required here which will not agree to be performed by all alike therefore it is Family-worship that must be here required 6. This Command requireth of Masters suppose them to be Ministers or Magistrates another way of sanctifying the Sabbath and worshipping of God in and with their Families then it doth in reference to other Families the Command being so particular to him and to all that are within his Gates or Doors and members of his Family speaketh this clearly But except it be joynt going about of duties with them there can be no other thing understood to be required for 1. One may exhort another 2. All come in publick together 3. By the Masters example after the publick they all withdraw or should at least to secret exercises 4. Magistrates and Ministers may Command other Families to sanctifie that day What is peculiar then as to their own Families but to joyn with them in duties of worship 7. If there were not Domestick-worship required on this day then except it were in publick Members of a Family could not converse together for they cannot converse together in doing their own works or in speaking their own words their fellowship therefore must be in exercises of worship and so that must needs be
required in this Command 8. Some other thing is required by this Command of a member of a Family which seeketh God then of a person in an heathenish Family or some other thing is required from so many persons joyned together as members in one Family then from such persons suppose them to be scattered from one another amongst heathenish Families certainly where Husband Wife Children and Servants are Christians and Professors of the same true Religion there is some other thing required of them then where onely the Husband the Wife the Child or the Servant is so but if they were scattered and became parts or members of diverse families among Heathens they would be obliged to seek God apart therefore no less but much more is joint-seeking of God required of them when they are united together as members of one family 9. This Command when it mentioneth all within his Gates or Doors requireth some other thing of a Master when at home with his family then when he is withdrawn from them But a Master at a distance may command all in his family to worship God and pray to God for them and so may they all if they were scattered worship God secretly therefore when they are together there is some other thing required of them by this Command which is no doubt To worship God together 10. The duties that are to be performed on this day will require this such as instructing one another exhorting admonishing comforting strengthening one another and talking to or conferring with one another of the Word Deut. 6. verse 7. 8. Which cannot be denied to be duties called for on this day and yet they cannot be done but by joint concurring together in that work and therefore it concludeth strongly that family-worship at least on the Lords-day is commanded here and if families be called to worship God jointly on the Lords-day by the worship competent for that day then by proportion are they also called to worship him jointly on other dayes by the worship suitable to them there being the like ground for all 11. And lastly that which is required of families is such a worship as ought to be performed by them supposing there were no publick worship nor yet any other family worshipping him in the World So Joshua resoâ—veth Chap. 24. 15. I and my House will serve the Lord and sanctifie His Sabbath that being a special piece of His service what-ever ye will do but if there were no worshipping of God in all the World but in one family then ought that worship to be joint according to that same word of Joshua's I and my House otherwise we behooved to say that there might be a plurality of worshippers of God in the World and yet without any joyning together in worship which were in it self absurd and contrary to Joshua's Religious Resolution It being thus made out by this Command that there is such a worship as family-worship and that it is commanded we shall consider in the next place how the Scriptures do otherways hold it out 1. Then consider that where the Scriptures speak of eminently Godly men they speak of them as making conscience of this and take notice of their honouring of God in their families as a special part of their eminency So Abraham Genes 18. verse 19. Joshua 24. 15. Job in the first Chapter of his Book and David Psalm 101. are noted It must then be a commanded and commendable duty which is so particularly remarked in them 2. Ye will find it almost in all parts of Scripture as Genes 18. Exod. 12. Dout. 6. Joshua 24. Job 1. Psalm 101. and Psalm 30. At the Dedication of Davids House which was not sure without some peculiar worship and craving of Gods blessing even as in other cases those who had builded Houses were to Dedicate them or to Consecrate them and wherefore because they were hoven in a manner and as it were offered to the Lord for seeking and worshipping Him in them So Altars Numb 7. 84. were said to be Dedicated when they were set apart for Gods service and Consecrated for that use So Neheâ— 12. 27. the Walls were Dedicated and the Levites brought out for that end which Dedication no doubt had a Religious use and Will any think that they began with Prayer or praise as David did and left off such Exercises afterward see also 2 Sam. 6. 20. where mention is made oâ— Davids blessing his House Esther and the Maids of her House and the rest of the Jews in their several Families fasted and prayed We see it spoken of by the Prophets as Jer. 10. ult and Zech. 12. 12. and that as a Prophesie of the Converts carriage under the New Testament We find it also mentioned 1 Tim. 3. 4. and 5. v. 8 and Titus 1. 6. 3. Ye will see it thus practised and pressed before the Flood God was honoured and worshipped in families after it before the Law by Abraham Iob and others in their Families under it there was the Observation of it and that by peculiar Ordinances as namely by the Passover yea it is mentioned and that most expresly in the very Law as is said it was kept up under the Captivity and after the return renewed by Zachariah especially yea it is also renewed in the New Testament whereby it appeareth to be of very special Observation from all which it is not a little commended to us 4. If we consider the many wayes whereby the Scriptures press this duty it will be found that there is hardly any duty more cleared and pressed then it It s pressed 1. By Command 2. By examples of Godly-men held forth as Paterns for imitation 3. By promises made to it and 4. By blessings conferred on the conscientious practisers of it Genes 18. Deut. 11. verse 18. 19. 20. 21. 5. As evidencing sincerity Genes 18. Ioshua 24. 6. As making Folks lyable to the curse and wrath of God when neglected Ierem. 10. 25. 7. As a fruit of the Spirit and as a companion of true repentance Zach. 12. 8. As a specially commending and adorning qualification of persons that have it and scandalous where it is wanting and as declaring one unmeet for publick charge Gen. 18. 1. Tim. 3. 4. Tit. 1. 6. Hence the Argument runneth strong That duty which in Scripturs is commanded by many examples commended and by other motives pressed the neglect whereof bringeth guilt and offence upon the persons neglecting is no doubt a necessary duty but Family-worship is such therefore it is a necessary duty 1 That it is commanded what we have said from this fourth Command may sufficiently make it out yet we further add Deut. 6. 7. 8. and Deut. 11. 18. 19. In which two places it is clear that observing of the Law is not onely to be studied by a Master of a Family himself alone but that the Religious duties of frequent speaking of it diligent teaching of it whetting and pressing of it on his Family
defects they should make up this or in such a Case the most fit and best qualified in the family ought to be pitched on for this From what hath been said Family-worship appeareth to be so convincingly clear necessary and important a duty that any Objections or Scruples that can be moved against it most needs be but of little weight and importance and may be easily solved and satisfied It will not therefore be needful to condescend particularly on them And as for the advantages that wait on the conscientious and suitable practise of this duty they are many a few whereof we shall very briefly touch upon As 1. It hath Gods special approbation testimony and commendation and he hath a great delight and complacency in the diligent and faithful Practisers of it Genes 18. verse 19. 2. It advanceth to a high degree of familiarity with God and is attended with sweet Communications of his mind as himself thinketh fit ibid. comparing verse 19 with verse 17. and 18. 3. It is readily and often followed with success more or less towards the spiritual good and edification of Servants and Children either in the Masters life time or when he is gone Gen. 18. v. 19. Abraham will command his children and houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord they shall keep is emphatick and observable and with promised blessings on the Master or head of the Family ibid. That the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he bath spoken of him 4. It is a notable mean of the propagation and encrease of the knowledge of God O what plenty of the growth of the knowledge of God might and would be in the Church if all Masters of Families made Conscience of Family-duties and particularly of catechising and instructing them in the knowledge of the principles of Religion And what can one Minister do as to this alone in a numerous Congregation if all or most Masters of Families be negligent who yet must answer to God for the Souls of their Children and Servants as well as the Minister must for the Souls of all under his Charge these being under their Charge as well as the other are under his as is clear from this same Command 5. It very much furthers through Gods blessing all the family for profiting by the Ministry of the Word and for joyning in publick duties of Worship as is obvious 6. It procureth or at least is a fit hopeful and promising mean for procuring a suitable discharge of all sorts of Duties called for from the several Members of the family in their respective capacities 7. It is notably contributive through Gods blessing for preventing many publick scandals in the Church whereby the Name of God is much dishonoured and the profession thereof disgraced 8. The ruling of a mans own house well doth not a little fit him that is otherwise qualified for it and called to it for ruling in the house of God 1 Tim. 3. 4. And by proportion for other publick Employments whereof he is capable and to which he is called 9. It is waited with sweetly smiling quieting and satisfying Reflexions in a strait and particularly at death and failings in it let be utter neglects are waited then with sad and bitter challenges as may be gathered from Davids last words 2 Sam. 23. 5. Although my house be not so with God c. The contrary prejudices either of the utter neglect or of the careless and overly performance of these family-duties may be easily discovered by the due consideration of these fore-mentioned and other such like advantages And from all that is said on this Subject the horrid aggravations of the grievous sin of neglecting family worship so clearly commanded so much commended and pressed so much practised by the Saints held forth to be so advantagious in its practise and so prejudicial and severely threatned in its neglect cannot be but at first view obvious to any that will but with ordinary seriousness take notice of them Having cleared that this Command is moral not as to the setting a part of time for duty which every Command supposeth but of so much time particularly stinted and defined in the Command We come now to see what is specially commanded here the Command divideth it self in a Mandat or mandatory part in the first words thereof and in an amplicatory part wherein it is more fully cleared and pressed The 1. is Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctifie it or keep it holy for the opening up and winning at the clear meaning whereof we would consider three words The first is what it is to remember or as it is infinitively set down remembring to remember this is prefixed and would look rather like the inferring of something commanded already then the new instituting of a command and so indeed it seemeth to suppose a day formerly institute and set apart for God as was hinted before which by this Command his people are put to mind It doth beside import these four with a respect it were to four times First A constant and continued duty at all times and in all dayes that is that we would remember that God has set apart a seventh day for himself and therefore every day we would remember to cast our Affairs so as they may not be impediments to us in the sanctifying of that day and we would endeavour alwayes to keep our hearts in such a frame as we may not be discomposed when that day shall come and this affirmative part of this Command bindeth semper or alway and its negative ad semper on other dayes as well as on the Sabbath 2. It importeth a timely preparing for the Sabbath when it is a coming or when it draweth near this remembring it calleth for something to be done in reference to it before it come a man by this is obliged to endeavour to have a frame of heart that he may be ready to meet the Sabbath and enter kindly to the duties of it when it shal come or otherways if it come on him while he is in his common or course frame and not fitted for it it will say he has not been remembring it before it came 3. Remembring importeth an intenseness and seriousness in going about the duties of the day when it cometh and that it should be with all carefulness sanctified and that men should be mindful of the duties called for lest their hearts divert from them or slacken bensil and grow formal in them whereby mens inclination to forget this duty or to be superficial in it is much hinted at this word we take to be moral being a mean for furthering the great duty aimed at of sanctifying the Lords-day or Sabbath coming 4. Remembring may import this that the Sabbath even when it is past should not be soon forgotten but that we should look on the Sabbath past to remember it lest by loosing the fruits of it when it is by we make our selves guilty of prophaning
People of God is the serious Desire of Noble Madam Your Ladyships much Obliged and Devoted Servant for Christs sake TO THE CHRISTIAN READER THE subject matter of this Treatise must without all controversie be passing excellent it being not only a portion of Divinely-inspired Scripture but such portion of it as is the Moral Law the most straight infallible perfect an perpetually binding rule of life and manners that short summary and abrid gment of all called for duties and forbidden sins whatever Sâ—â—inions with whom Anabaptists and Arminian-Remonstrants on the matter joyn hands on a woeful design to transform the Gospel into a new Law or Covenant of Works that thereby in place of the righteousness of Faith and righteousness of Works may be established by their alledged Supplements and Amendments of and Addiâ—aments to it to be made in the New Testament and Papists by their vainly boasted-of Works of Super-eâ—ogation and Counsels of Perfection whereby they would have the Law out done by doing more than it requireth audaciously averr to the contrary even these Ten-words afterward contracted by the Lord Christ into two Words or Commandments immediatly pronounced by God himself and twice written with his own finger on Tables of stone comprising a great many various matters and purposes so that it may without any the least hesitation or Hyperbole be asserted There was never so much matter and marrow with so much admirably-holy cunning compended couched and conveyed in so few words by the most Laconick concise sententious and singularly significant spokesman in the World And no wonder since it is He that gave men tongues and taught them to speak that speaketh here who hath infinitly beyond the most expert of them being all but Battologists and Bablers beside Him the art of speaking much marvellously much in few words and would even in this have us according to our measure humbly to imitate him And no doubt it is one of the many moe and more grosse evidences of the declension of this Generation from the ancient lovely and laudable simplicity that many men forgetting that God at first appointed words to be the external signs of the internal conceptions of their minds and foolishly fancing that because they love and admire to hear themselves talk others do or are obliged to do so affect to multiply words if not without knowledge yet without necessity and with vast disproportion to the matter And whereas a few of their words rightly disposed might sufficiently serve to bring us to the very outmost border and boundary of their conceptions and also to make suitable impressions of them all the end of words yet ere we can come that length we must needs wear away our time and weary our selves in wandring through the wast Wilderness of the unnecessary and superfluous remainder of them And this doth usher in or rather is ushered in by other piece of neighbour-vanity whereby men wearing of wonted and long worn words though sufficiently significant grow fond upon â—ovel new coyn'd and never before heard of ones stretching their wit if supperfluity of words though both nâ—w and neat be worthy to be placed amongst the productions of wit for thereby we are made never a whit the wiser nor more knowing and putting their invention on the Tenters to find out no new matter but nâ—w words whereby often old plain and obvious matters are intricated and obâ—cured at least to more ordinary Readers and Hearers a notable perversion of the end of words for which the instituter of them will call to an account neither are they satisfied with such curi sity in coaâ—ser and more commâ—n matters but this Alien and Foâ—raign yea even Romantick and wanton stilâ— of language is introduced into and malepartly obtruded upon Theologickâ— and most sublimely spiritual purposes whether discoursed by vive voyce or committed to writing which ought I grant to be spoke as becometh the Oracles of God with a grave appositness of phrase keeping some proportion with the Majesty of the matter that they may not be exposed to contâ—mpt by any unbecoming incongruity or baseness by which it cometh to pass to the inspeakable prejudice and obstruction of Edification that many in their niceness nâ—useating form of simple and sound words are ready to â—iss and hoâ—â— off the Theater of the Church the most precious and profitable points of Truth though abundantly beautiful Majestick and powerful in their own native spiritual simplicity â—s unfit to act their part and as being but dull and blunt things if not altogether unworthy to be owned and received as truths if they appear not whether in the Pulpit or Press cloathed with this strange and gaudiâ— attire with this Comedians Coat dressed up with the Feathers of Arrogant humane Eloquence and be daubed with this Rethorick and affectedly belaboured Elegancy of speech which our truly manly and magnanimous Christian-Author did undervalue And no great wonder since even the Heathen moral Philosopher Senecâ— did look at it as scarce worthy of a man for writing to his Lucilâ—us he willeth him in stead of being busied about words to cause himself have a feeling of the substance thereof in his heart and to think those whom he seeth to have an affected and laboured kind of speech to have their spirits occupied about vain things comparing such to diverse young mâ—n well trimmed and frizliâ— who seem as they were newly come out of a box from which kind of men nothing firm nor generous is to be expected And further affirmeth that a vertuous man speaketh more remisâ—y but more securely and whatever he saith â—ath more confidence in it than curiosity that speech being the Image of the mind if a man disguise and polish it too curiously it is a token that the speaker is an Hypocrit and little worth And that it is no manly Ornament to speak affectedly nay this hath of late with other extravagancies risen to such a prodigious hight amongst the wisdom of words or word-wisdom Monopolizing men of this age that if the great Apostle Paul who spoke wisdom though not of this sâ—rt nor of this world amongst them that were perfect and did upon design not from any defect decline all wisdom of words all inticing words of mens wisdom and excellency of speech that the cross of Christ might not be made of none â—ffâ—ct and that the faith of his hearers might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God and who loved to speak in the Demonstration of the Spirit and of power wherein the Kingdom of God consistâ—th and not in wordâ—â— if that great Apostle were now Preaching he would probably be looked at by such words and wiâ—e heads as but a weak man and of rude and contemptible speech as he was by the big talking Doctors of the Church of Corinth if not amere Bableâ— as he was by the Philosophers and Orators at Athens The subject matter I say of this Treatise must needs be most excellent being
what is displeasing to him that may know sin and how to eschew it and may be stirred up to repentance when they have fallen into it this being the Laws property that thereby is the knowledge of sin Rom. 7. 7. and so likewise the knowledge of duty therefore it is summed in so few words that it may be the more easily brought into and retained in the memories and hearts of his people For which cause also of old and late has it always been recommended both in the Word Deut. 5. 1. and in all Catechisms to be learned as a Rule of mens walking and yet so comprehensive is it that without pains and diligence to come to the understanding thereof men cannot but come short of the great scop thereof The third is the great ignorance that is amongst not a few of the meaning of the useful and excellent Scripture and especially in this secure time many not knowing they break the Commandments when they break them at least in many material things and this draweth with it these sad effects 1. That there are few convictions of sin 2. Little repentance for sin 3. Much security presumption confidence in self-righteousness and the like upon which the ignorance of this Scripture hath great influence even as amongst the Jews the ignorance of its Spiritually made many neglect the chief part of holiness and proudly settle on self-righteousness and slight Christ the Mediator as we may see in Pauls example Rom. 7. 9. and this was one reason why our Lord expounded it that by it sinners might see more the necessity of a Mediator who is the end of the Law for righteousness to all that believe Rom. 10. 4. And as these effects are palpable at this time so we conceive it useful to follow the same remedy this evil being not only amongest the prophane but amongst the most formal and civil who stumble at this stone yea many believers are often so much taken with cases and light in Doctrinal truths that they heed not snfficiently the meaning of the Law whereby their convictions of sin tenderness in practise constant exercise of repentance and daily fresh applications to the Blood of Sprinkling are much impeded And although it may seem not so to suit the nature of this exercise for it would be noticed that the Author delievered this Doctrine of the Law in several Lectures on the Sabbath-morning before Sermon in which time he formerly used to read and expound a Chapter of the Holy Scriptures or a considerable portion thereof which Lectures are not now distinguished because of the close connection of the purposes yet considering the foresaid reasons and the nature of this excellent Scripture which cannot hastily be passed through it having much in few words and therefore requiring some convenient time for explication consideriing the weight of it and its usefulness for all sorts of hearers we are confident it will agree well with the end of this Eexercise which is the end of opening all Scripture to wit peoples instruction and edification to insist a little thereon Our purpose is not to aim at any great accuracy nor to multiply questions and digressions nor to insist in application and use but plainly and shortly as we are able to give you the meaning of the Law of God 1. By holding forth the Native Duties required every Commandment 2. The sins which properly oppose and contradict each Commandment that by these we may have some direction and help in duty and some spur to repentance at least a furtherance in the work of Conviction that so by it we may be led to Christ Jesus who is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that belives Rom. 104. which is the principal intent of this Law as it was given to Israel To make way for the Exposition we shall 1. Lay down some Conclusions which arise from the Preface 2. Give you some ordinary distinctions 3. Clear and confirm some Rules or Observations useful for understanding of the whole Law The first Conclusion that we take for granted is that this Law as 't is Moral doth tye even Christians and Believers now as well as of old which appears from this that he who is God the Law-giver here Acts 7. 38. is the Angel Christ and 't is his Word as is clear vers 30. 31. as also the matter of it being connatural to Adam it did bind before the Law was given and that obligatory force cannot be seprated from its nature though the exercise of Right Reason in Nature be much obliterate since the Fall therefore Christ was so far from destroying this Law in its Authority and Paul so far from making it void by the Doctrine of Faith that our Lord tells he came to fulfill it Matt. 5. 17. and Paul shews that his preaching of Faith was to establish it Rom. 3. 31. which truth being confirmed by them both in their Practise and Doctrine sheweth that the breach of the holy Law of God is no less sinful to us now then it was to them before us The second Conclusion is that though this Law and obedience thereto lye on Christians and be called for from them yet it is not laid on them as a Covenant of Works or that by which they are to seek or expect Justification no but on the contrary to overturn self-righteousness by this Doctrine which manifesteth sin and of it self worketh wrath which is also clear in that he is here called Our God which he cannot be to sinners but by Grace And also it appears from the Lords owning of this sinful people as his and his adjoyning to this Law so many Ceremonies and Sacrifices which point out and lead to Christ and from his adding the Law on Mount Sinai as a help to the Covenant made with Abraham Genes 17. which was a Covenant of Grace and was never altered as to its substance in which the people of Israel as his Seed was comprehended therefore it appears that this was never the Lords intent in covenanting thus with his people that they should expect righteousness and life by the adjoyned Law but only that it should be useful in the Hand of Grace to mak the former Covenant with Abraham effectual So then though we be bound to obey the Law we are not to seek righteousness or life by the duties therein enjoyned The third Conclusion is that both Ministers in preaching and people in practising of this Law would carry with subordination to Christ and that the duties called for here are to be performed as a part of the Covenant of Grace and of the obligation that lyeth upon us thereby so all our obedience to God ought still to run in that Channel If we ask how these two differ to wit the performing the duties of the Law as running in the Channel of the Covenant of Grace and the performing of them as running in the Channel of the Covenant of Works or how we are to go
about the duties of the Law with subordination to Christ and his Grace I answer they differ in these four things which shew that these duties are not onely to be done but to be done in a way consistent with and flowing from Grace which also follows from this that in the Preface to the Commandments he stileth and holdeth himself forth as Redeemer to be the object of our duty and the motive of it 1. They differ I say first in the End or account upon which they are performed we are not to perform duties that life pardon or enjoying of God may be meritoriously obtained by them but to testifie our respect to him who hath provided these freely for us that we should not rest in duties which are engraven on these Covenant-Blessings 2. They differ in the Principile by which we act them 't is not in our own strength as the works of the first Covenant were to be performed but in the strength of Grace and by vertue of the promises of Sanctification comprehended in the second Covenant 2 Cor. 7. 1. 3. They differ as to the manner of their acceptation duties by the first Covenant are to abide their tryal upon the account of their own worth and the inherent perfection that is in them and accordingly will be accepted or rejected as they are conform or disconform to the perfect Rule of Gods Law but by the second Covenant the acceptation of our performances prayers praises are founded on Christs Righteousness and Gods mercy in him in whom only are they sweet-smelling Sacrifices and accepted as our persons are for he hath made us to be accepted as to both only in the beloved Ephes 1. 4. 4. They differ in respect of the motive from which they proceed or the great motive of our obedience in the Covenant of Grace is not fear of threatnings and wrath in case of disobedience which by the Covenant of Works is the main thing sways men to duties noâ— is it a purchase of Heaven to themselves by their holiness which also by that Covenant is a predominant motive of mens obedience but it is love and gratitude and that not simply to God as Creator but as Redeemer as the Text here sheweth I brought thee out of the House of Bondage it is that we may set forth the praises of him who called us and that we may glorifie him that has bought us where Duties have these qualifications they are consistent with Grace and subservient to it but when those are wanting or excluded Christ is wronged and men turn legal and in so far fall from and overturn Grace These Conclusions as necessary Caveats being laid down we shall propose these distinctions for clearing of them 1. We would distinguish betwixt a Law and a Covenant or betwixt this Law considered as a Law and as a Covenant a Law doth necessarily imply no more then 1. To direct 2 To command inforcing that obedience by Authority a Covenant doth further necessarily imply promises made upon some condition or threatnings added if such a condition be not performed now this Law may be considered without the consideration of a Covenant for it was free to God to have added or not to have added promises and the threatnings upon supposition the Law had been kept might never have taken effect but the first two are essential to the Law the last two to Believers are made void throngh Christ in which sense it is said that by him we are freed from the Law as a Covenant so that Believers life depends not on the promises annexed to the Law nor are they in danger by the threatning adjoyned to it Hence we are to advert when the Covenant of Works is spoken of that by it is not meaned this Law simply but the Law propounded as the condition of obtaining life by the obedience of it in which respect it was only so formally given to Adam This then is the first destinction betwixt the Law and the Covenant of Works 2. Distinguish betwixt these Ten Commandments simply and strictly taken in the matter of them and more complexly in their full Administration with Preface Promises Sacrifices c in the first sense they are a Law having the matter but not the form of the Covenant of Works so Moses by it is said to describe such righteousness as the Covenant of Works doth require yet he doth not propond it as the righteousness they were to relye on but his scope is to put them to a Mediators by revealing sin through the Law Rom. 10. 3. In the second sense it is a Covenant of Grace that same in substance with the Covenant made with Abraham and with the Covenant made with Believers now but differing in its Administration 3. Distinguish betwixt Gods intention in giving and the Believers in Israel their making use of this Law and the carnal multitude among that people their way of receiving it and corrupt abusing it contray to the Lords mind In the first sense it was a Covenant of Grace in the second it turned to be a Covenant of Works to them and therefore it is that the Lord rejects as we may see Jsaiah 1. 13. 66. 2. 3. Jer. 7. 22. their Sacrifices and Services as not commanded because rested on by them to the prejudice of Grace and contrary to the strain and scope of this Law complexly considered 4. Distinguish betwixt the Moral and Ceremonial and Judicial Law the first concerns manners and the right ordering of a Godly Conversation and because these things are of perpetual equity and rectitude the obligation of this Law as to that is perpetual and therefore in the exponding of it these two terms Moral and of Perpetual Authority are all one and to be taken so 2. The Judical Law is for regulating outward Society for Government and doth generally excepting what was peculiar to the people of Israel agree with the Moral Law this as given to them is not perpetual their policy being at an end 3 The Ceremonial Law is in Ceremonies Types and Shadows pointing at a Saviour to come this is also abrogate the substance being come but there is this difference that the Judicial Law is but Mortua dead and may where 't is thought fit with the fore-going caution be used under the New Testament but the Ceremonial Law is Mortifera deadly and cannot without falling from grace Gal. 5. 2 4. be revived 5. When we speak of things Moral we are to distinguish between things Naturally Moral that is such as love to God and our Neighbour and such-like which have an innate rectitude and holiness in them which cannot be separate from them and things positively Moral that have their obligation by a special positive superadded Sanction sothat their rectitude flows not from the nature of the things themselves as in the former As for instance in the fourth Commandment it is naturally Moral that God should be woshipped Nature teacheth it but that he is to be worshipped
Hearing in that which we pray for 20. Being more desirous of Liberty in publick then in private 21. Fretting when we are put or kept under Bonds 22. Growing vain and light when it goeth well with us and turning carnal and unwatchful when we get liberty 23. Impertinent use-making of Scripture-words either ignorantly or vainly 24. A secret expectation of something for our Prayer and so resting upon the work done as if there were merit in it 25. Using expressions not easily understood 26. Using undecent gestures and scurrile expressions 27. Not observing Gods dispensation to us nor his dealing with our souls in the time of Prayer that we may conform our suits accordingly as we find many of the Saints have done who end in Songs after they had begun sadly 28. Not praying with fervency for Christs Kingdom and for Jews and Gentils 29. Exercising gifts rather then grace when we pray These are Sins upon the Speakers part Next ye should consider the sins of them that joyn And beside what is general and common in the duty of praying we fail often in joyning And 1. In this that many think When another prayeth they need not pray but let the Speaker be doing alone 2. When we observe not what is spoken that we may go alongst in what he prayeth for and be upon our watch that we may joyn and that we may do it in judgement 3. The mind waving or wavering and we hearing but not praying 4. Censuring the words or gestures of the Speaker 5. Fixing our eyes or minds on some other things and giving way to other thoughts that may divert from joyning 6. Sleeping in time of Prayer 7. Confusedness in that exercise and not distinctly joyning with what agreeth to our selves and our own case nor with what agreeth to others joyning with it for them 8. More cold and indifferent in what concerneth others then in what concerneth our selves 9. More careless of being heard and answered when we speak not as if we were less concerned thinking it enough to be present although in our heart we joyn not and not being affected with the prayer of another nor acting Faith in it we soon weary when others pray 10. Not being edified by the praying of another nor taking up our sins in his Confessions nor our duty in his Petitions 11. Much Hypocrisie in such duties while we seem to be joyning but are doing nothing 12. Not endeavouring to have affections suitable to what is spoken stirred up in us 13. Not praying that the Speaker may be suitably guided and helped in bringing forth Petitions that may answer our wants 14. More indifferent that another who speaketh as mouth for the rest want liberty then when we are put to speak our selves although it be Gods Ordinance 15. Not rightly touched with any expression we cannot joyn with but rather stumbling at it 16. Our being ignorant of the meaning of many expressions through our own fault so that we cannot joyn in them 17. Muttering words of our own and not joyning with what is said 18. Indistinctness in consenting or saying Amen at the close Thirdly After Prayer both Speaker and Joyners fail 1. That they watch not over their hearts but soon return to other things as if then they might take liberty 2. Not waiting for an answer nor observing whether Prayers be answered or not 3. Not being thankful for Answers when they come Nor 4. Intreating and pressing for an answer if it be delayed 5. Not reflecting on our failings whether in speaking or joyning 6. Not remembring what we have uttered in Prayer but presently returning to a carriage that is very unlike those things we have been speaking before Him 7. Not keeping up a frame for new opportunities of Prayer 8. Not pressing after a constant walk with God betwixt occasions of Prayer 9. Resting on Prayer after we have done and thinking something of it if we seem to have been helped to Pray 10. Carnally heartless and displeased if it hath been otherwise 11. Not being humbled for the sinfulness and defects of our Prayers 12. Not having recourse by Faith to the Blood of sprinkling for pardon of these sinful defects We are to consider how men break this Command in Praise and Thanksgiving And here there is failing in general 1. In the utter neglect of this necessary duty alace what of that duty do we in secret and yet it is singularly for Gods honour and as clear a duty as Prayer 2. In mocking praise often by prophaning Psalms for our carnal mirth 3. In neglecting and slighting of it though not altogether yet by unfrequent going about it 4. In accounting it to be almost no duty at all and in being but little challenged for slighting of it or for irreverent using of it Secondly We sin before we go about this duty 1. In not preparing for it 2. In not praying for the Spirit to fit and enable us to Praise 1 Cor. 14. 15. and for a fixed heart for that work Psalm 108. 1. 3. In our not aiming at a spiritual disposition for such a spiritual duty 4. In our not endeavouring for a right impression of the Majesty of God And 5. For clearness of our interest in him And 6 For an impression of the excellency of his way and meaning of his Word all which are exceeding necessary unto the right performance of this duty and without them we cannot Praise suitably Thirdly We are guilty of many faults in the time of praising 1. Doing it without respect to Gods glory and for the fashion only 2. Hypocrisie not praising him with the whole heart performing it only with the lips when the heart is away 3. Ignorance when we want understanding of the words we express 4. No suitable impression of Gods greatness and goodness upon our hearts when we praise 5. Not aiming at Communion with God in this duty as desiring minding and hoping to praise him for ever 6. Not being taken up with Spiritual and Heavenly delight in him and in the work of his praise 7. Lightness laughing or mainly affecting of and carnally doting upon some tone or voyce more then being suitably affected with the matter and making melody in the heart to the Lord. 8. Forgetting what we do sing and not knowing or considering what it is we sing the heart not being present nor fixed 9. Not being constrained by love to praise but some custome or natural Conscience constraining us to it 10. Not offering up our praises in and through Christ Jesus Heb. 13. v. 15. 11. Soon satisfied in our praising as if we were little troubled to be fitted for it and because little of our selves lyeth in it we are the less careful how we discharge it but stint and limit our selves to some certain customary matter which puts us to few prayers before and makes but few challenges after 12. Not intermixing ejaculatory prayers in our praisings 13. Much Hypocrisie when we sing the cases of others or their thoughts
dealing with God before hand to be enabled for this duty and helped in it and that both for our selves and others 7. When we are not endeavouring to be in good terms with God and studying to be clear as to that before we come to put up suits to him 8. When we neglect Christ and turn legal in it 9. When we do not separate our selves from all other affairs â—â—mously the night before 10. When we are lazie in rising so timely that day as should be 11. When we do not if it be secret labour to be unseen in it to any 12. Not setting our selves seriously to it Dan. 9. 3. abstracting our selves from diversions and rousing up our selves for it Secondly In the time of Fasting we sin First By Eating unnecessarily though it be little as we may sin by not eating when not eating disableth us in Duties yet the Body ought to be in such a measure affected as may uot hinder us in Prayer but many scarce suffer it to be touched or in the least measure affected or afflicted with Abstinence 2. In Lightness of Apparel or such fineness in it as they make use of on other dayes 3. In Gestures looking light like Laughing and in such a carriage as is very unsuitable for that day 4. In Hypocrisie there being a more seeming weightedness and heaviness then really there is 5. In having wrong ends before us As first To seem holy 2. To carry on some Temporal or Politick Design as Jezabel did against Naboth to get his Vineyard 3. To get advantage of some other and to make some finister Designs digest and go down the better as Isaiah 58. verse 4. To smite with the Fist of wickedness as under pretence of Long Prayers to take the more Liberty to injure others 4. For Strife and Debate and strengthening of Factions and Parties 6. We sin here by neglecting Works of Mercy 7. By taking pains in Works Lawful on others dayes Exacting all our Labour or a part of it which is unbecoming on that day 8. By taking delight in Temporal things finding our own pleasures 9. By words or thoughts of Lawful things diverting us from the Work of the day 10. By wearying of it as a burden Not calling it a Delight 11. By wishing it were over that we might be at our work or pastime again Amos 8. 5. 12. By negligence in Prayer or not being frequent and fervent in it nor pertinent to that day and the end of it for there should be in all these something on a Fast-day suitable to it and which is called for on that day more then on other dayes 13. By not joyning seriously with others when they pray especially in particulars which concern others 14. By little Mourning or Heart-melting especially in secret Duties which on that day would be more frequent more serious and affecting then on other dayes that day being set apart for it And if private we should be more abstracted even from ordinary Refreshments and Mirth then upon a Sabbath and the frame of the Heart would be then more humble mournful and denyed to otherwise-Lawful Comforts 15. By little of the Exercise of Repentance or sense of Sin that day for humbling the Heart in the sense of our own Vileness and loathing of our selves 16. By little suitable uptaking of God in his Holyness Displeasure against Sin c Which on that day is in an especial way called for 17. By not distinct Covenant with him and ingaging to him against our seen Evils and Defects a Fast-day would be a Covenanting-day as we see in Ezra and Nehemiah 18. By being defective in Reading and Meditating on what may humble us but much more when by Looks Words or Thoughts we marr the right frame and set of our Hearts 19. By Resting on Fasting or being Legal in it 20. By not minding the proâ—â—ting of others noâ— Sympathizing with their wants and case nor being careful to see those of our Family or Charge observant of it 21. By nor abstaining from the Marriage Bed 1 Cor. 7. â—erse 5. Thirdly We sin after fasting 1. Soon returning to other thoughts 2. Letting any frame we had attained slack and wear out 3. Forgetting our Confessions and Engagements and falling to former Sins and neglecting these Duties to which we have engaged 4. Being rigid with others we have to do with 5. Not insisting in Prayer for those things we aimed at in fasting 6. Not trying and observing if any thing we prayed for hath been obtained 7. Not Reflecting upon our carriage in it that we may know how it was discharged 8. Not humbled under our many short-comings and failings in it 9. Glad when it was done because that Restraint is taken off our carnal Humours 10. Sitting down and resting on that we have done as if all were done 11. Thinking our selves something better by our outward performance 12. Being vain of it if it be well to our Sense 13. Being unwatchful after it and not studying suitableness in our following carriage so that it iâ— but the hanging down of the Head â—or a day These Particulars applyed to our own Hearts may be useful for our Conviction and Humiliation Ah! Who can say I am clean All of us are guilty either by neglecting such Duties or by thus and thus going about them unsuitably from these Sins we may read also the contrary Duties or Qualifications that are required for the right discharge of these Duties The preventing of these Sins will bring in the Duties called for and the right manner of going about them Otherwise the going about these Duties without the manner requisite is but as it were the making of some Image for our selves in the Lords worship which he has not commanded and so he may say Is it such a Fast that I have chosen Isai 58. 5. or Is it such a Prayer I called for and Who hath required these things at your hands Isai 1. 12. These Questions which the Lord putteth to our Conscience will make many Prayers and Praises and much worship that now seemeth to be in great Bings or Heaps come down to a small bulk when they are thus fanned â—ifted and searched by this Seive and all those things casten which are found to be Breaches of this Command We come now to the manner how this Command is pressed which is First By a Reason Secondly By a Commination Thirdly By a Promise All which speak a readiness in men to fail in this Command and a special notice that God taketh of the Duties required in it and of the Sins forbidden in it Men might readily say What needeth so much Rigidity in the manner of worship and If it be to the true God though it have in it some mixture of those things which have been formerly abused it is noâ— much to be stood upon The Lord therefore in pressing it addeth this Reason I am a jealous God saith he that will not only have my Church and Spouse Honest and
Oaths and Promises solemnly when Authority calleth us to it 2. When the Edification or Satisfaction of another in private calleth for it There are sometimes when a Christian may be Yea is called to it for gaining Credit to something that the other is called to believe to interpose reverently the Oath of God as Jacob did to Laban 3. One in secret may thus ingage himself to God in Lawful and necessary things As David I have sworn that I will keep thy righteous judgements Yet in the third place all these Oaths would still be with these Qualifications mentioned Jerem. 4. 2. First in Truth namely the two-fold Truth before mentioned 2. In Judgement that is with Knowledge and Deliberation minding and understanding what it is we swear 3. With righteousness or justice that is That it be in things that are according to the Law of Equity as well as Piety neither wronging God nor others by our Oaths for Oaths are in themselves still Vincula â—quitatis and not iniquitatis Bonds of Equity and Justice and not of Iniquity and Injustice There are also to be observed these Tacite or Express Conditions in all Promissory Oaths and sometimes it is fit to express them and sometimes not If God will and if nothing intervene to hinder Jam. 4. If I live and health permit As much as in them lyeth they shall aim at it if some impossibility intervene not 3. So far as the fulfilling of this shall be Lawful for it can onely tye to Lawful things and Lawful means and courses and this is especially to be understood of Indefinite Oaths 4 While things stand so but if the Case alter Essentially and men turn Enemies to the Kingdome or Common-wealth to whom we were by Oath obliged to give or sell some-what that we know would be made use of to the Probable ruine or hazard thereof then it s not in our power Salvâ potestate superioris It may be asked How we shall judge of Indefinite Oaths such as Souldiers give to their Officers to be obedient to them or of Oaths in things which are indistinct and the matter not obvious as Oaths in Colledges Incorporations Towns c. Where the things sworn are Complex Answ These cannot altogether be condemned 1. Because though a man have not yea cannot have a particular and distinct knowledge of all Particulars yet he understandeth such Oaths as binding to all necessary and lawful things as the general Condition requireth 2. Because he taketh the Oath for the end and in the sense that it is Commonly taken which bindeth in the Essential things pertaining to the being of that Incorporation but taketh not in every particular strictly By what is said then We may 1. Condemn Oaths in Trivial things as Oaths in Complements when men swear they will not go one before an other That men are wellcome to their Houses That they will not let them go so soon That they shall drink so much though it may not be to Excess That they shall return some petty thing they have borrowed and the like 2. Rash Promises such as are hastily and unadvisedly or doubtingly made But ere we come to Particulars let us consider what is condemned as Perjury which is the highest Degree There are these several sorts of Perjury mentioned some whereof are more direct and immediate some more mediate and indirect The first sort of Perjury is When one upon Oath asserteth as a Truth that which he knoweth is not a Truth or doubteth of it or is mistaken in it through his own negligence not being certain that it is as he sayeth whether he affirm or deny Thus Naboths false witnesses were guilty and many other Instances may be adduced The second is When one promiseth something which he mindeth not to perform and confirmeth that with an Oath he is no doubt Perjured because there is not a correspondent verity betwixt his Oath and his purpose The third is When men promise and intend for the time to perform yet upon no just ground fail afterwards in performing what they have sworn This is Perjury because there is not Truth in fulfilling the thing sworn according to the Oath These are direct Perjuries More largely again a man may be said to forswear himself 1. When he sweareth to perform a thing which is simply impossible especially while he knoweth it to be so For as the former is not a swearing in Judgement and Truth so this is a prophane and wicked swearing against Light and Judgement of a manifest lye and falshood So that betwixt his Promise to perform such a thing and the performance there is implyed a Contradiction As for one to swear to be to morrow at Rome who is to day at Glasgow the very swearing is forswearing 2. When one sweareth an unlawful or wicked thing or confirmeth it with an Oath like those forty that swore to kill Paul especially if that Oath be contrary to some Duty which lyeth formerly by Oath on the Person swearing For that is not to swear in Righteousness and Justice Beside that it draweth on a necessity either of breaking that Oath and â—o of being perjured or of going on to fulfill it and so of being doubly perjured 3. Men are forsworn and perjured when they fulfill a wicked Oath as Herod did Matth. 14 in beheading John the Baptist for though he seemed not to over-turn and make void his own Oath but to keep it Yet this as also the former over-turneth and maketh void the scope and Nature of an Oath in general and is a plain Contradiction to it and maketh an Oath which should be Vinculum Aequâ—tatis a Bond of Equity there being Nulla Obligation but ad Officium no Obligation but to Duty to be Vinculum Iniquitatis a Bond of Iniquity And so thwaâ—teth with the very end wherefore such Oaths are appointed In which respect David did better in not executing his rash Oath but keeping the general scope of all Oaths when he refused not to hearken to Abigails Counsel even to the Non-performance of what he had sworn It may be Questioned here Whether one man may be accessary to anothers Perjury if he constrain him to swear of whom he hath a suspition that he will forswear Answ Distinguish 1. The matter in which if it be of grave Concernment or of little Moment 2. Distinguish betwixt the Publickness and Privacy of it 3. Distinguish betwixt Parties as betwixt a Judge who is to decide and a Party that is the Pursuer We say then 1. A Party pursuing in a Particular of his own Concernment especially if it be of no great Concernment may Yea should forbear pressing such a Person to swear both for sparing the Party and for respect to the Name of God since he can hardly in this Case be very hopefull to gain by it 2. We say notwithstanding in some Cases that the Judge may admit such to swear especially in Publick scandals 1. Because none can certainly know but God may
speak out something more then Temporary in this Duty of setting a Seventh day a part for God for we speak not yet of the particular day 3. Look to it in all times and states of the Church and ye will find it remarkably Characterized with a special Observation As 1. In innocency it 's instituted and set a part from others and blessed and Heb. 4. It is called the rest from the beginning of the World 2. Before the Law was given the Sanctification of iâ— was intimated as necessary 3. In the giving of the Law it is remembred a Command given to us for remembring it 4. After the Law it is urged by the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah and kept by the Godly Psal 92. 5. In the time or after the time of the Captivity the breach of it is reproved Ezek. 20. And its Observation restored by Godly Nehemiah Hitherto there is no difficulty the pinch will lye in this If the Scriptures speak of it as belonging to the days of the Gospel In which for making of it out 1. We have these hints Acts 20 7. 1. Cor. 16. 2. Where Christians going abouâ— the Moral Duties of the Sabbath is especially observed to be upon one day peculiarly 2. That Title of the direct appropriating of a Day to the Lord Rev. 1. 1â— Which places will fall in to be considered particularly when we come to the laâ—â— question Besides these we may produce three places to prove a Sabbath as belonging to the New Testament though not the very Day used or observed for the Sabbath in the Old and this will be enough to make out the Assertion two of them are Prophesies the third of them is in the Gospel The first prophesie is it the 66. Chap. of Isaiah verse 23. The second is in Ezekiels Description of the Neâ— Temple Chap. 43. 44 45 46 c. Where 1. It is clear that these places relate to the Dayes of the Gospel as none can deny but they do so eminently 2. It is clear that though they Prophesie of the Services of the Gospel under the names of Sacrifices c. proper to the Old Testament Administration and of the Sanctified and set a part time of the Gospel under the Name of Sabbath which theâ— was determined and whereto men were then bound by the fourth Command as they were to Sacrifices by the second yet these Prophesies infer not by vertue of the fourth Command the very same Day to be under the Gospel which was under the Law more then the same Services by vertue of the second which none wiâ—â— deny to be in force notwithstanding of the change of Services and there is as little reason to deny the fourth to be still in force as to its substance notwithstanding oâ— the change of the particular day Yet Thirdly it is clear that from the mentioning of these services this will follow that there should be set and fixed Ordinances and a way of worship in the New Testament as well as in the Old and that there should be a solemn chief set-time for the Sabbath which men ought to sanctifie and that they should no more admit any other times not so set apart into a parity with it then they were to admit any service or Worship not allowed by God or that was contrary to the second Command for if any thing be clear in them this is clear that they speak first of services then of solemn times and Sabbaths and of the one after the other which must certainly infer that both external services and a solemn chief time for them do belong to the New Testament Hence it is that many Divines from that Prophesie of Ezekiel do draw conclusions for sundry things out of those places as 1. Concerning the necessity and continuance of a standing Ministry and though Ministers now be neither Priests nor Levites yet say they it followeth clearly that there will be a Ministry because such are spoken of there 2. Concerning the necessity of and a Warrant for Church-Discipline and separating not only doctrinally but disciplinarily the precious from the vile and debarring of those who are Morally unclean from the Ordinances because these things say they are Typified in the substance by the Porters being set to keep the Doors and by the charge given to the Priests 3. Anent the continuance of a Church and of the Ordinances of Word Sacraments c. And the Congregating of Christians to attend these though there shall be no material or Typical Temple because of the Moâ—al things there being expressed and prophesied of under the names of the old Levitical services yet could not a warrant be inferr'd from them for these and that Jure Divine if the things were not Morally to bind which were so signiâ—â—â—d Hence I argue if the sanctifying of a Sabbath as a piece of worship to God be prophesied of to belong to the New Testament then are we bound to the sanctification of a Sabbath as a necessary duty but the continuance of sanctifying a Sabbath unto God is specially prophesied of and fore-told as a piece of worship under the New Testament Ergo c. The third place is Matth. 24. 20. Pray that your flight be not in the Winter neither on the Sabbath-day where the Lord insinuateth that as travelling is troublesome to the Body in Winter so would it be to the minds of the Godly for he is now speaking to his Disciples alone to Travel on that day specially and solemnly set â—part for Gods worship now if there were no Sabbath to continue after Christs Ascension or if it were not to be sanctified there would be no occasion of this grief and trouble that they behoved to Travel on the Sabbath and durst not tarry â—â—ll that day were by-past and so no cause to put up this Prayer which yet by our Lords Exhortation seemeth to infer that the Sabbath was to be as certain in its time as the Winter And doubtless this cannot be meaned of the Jewish-Sabbath For 1. That was to be abolished shortly 2. Travelling on the Jewish-Sabbath was to be no cause of grief unto them if indeed all dayes were alike neither would it be scrupled in such a case by the Apostles to whom he now speaketh 3. Besides if no Sabbath were to be it had been better and clearer to say Stand not and grieve not to Travel anâ— day but his words imply the just contrary that â—here was to be a solemn Sabbath 4. He mentioneth the Sabbath-day only and not the other Festivals of the Jews which were to be kept holy also and by this he distinguisheth the ordinary Sabbath from those other dayes and opposeth it to many as being now the only Holy-day on which they should eschew if possible to travel and would therefore pray to have it prevented for in the New Testament the Sabbath spoken of as the solemn time for worship is ever meaned of the weekly Sabbath and other Holy dayes are called the
added for pressing the observation of it or for explaining its meaning The precept strictly is Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy It saith Remember the Sabbath or the Holy reâ—â— what-ever day it shall be on and so it is said in the close that He rested the seventh day but that He blessed the Sabbath Drawing it still from the seventh precisely to the Sabbath Even as in the second Command This is 1. commanded in special that no Image be made then 2. This in general that all Gods Commandment concerning his worship even such as were Ceremonial for the time should be observed with whatever others should be given So here this fourth commandeth expresly one of the seven because the Recurrency of that time is bounded and generally whatever seventh the Lord shall be pleased to pitch on We have said the more on this because it doth not only clear the true scope of the Command but sheweth the necessity of the observation of that time which the Lord hath sanctified for himself 3. We should put a difference also betwixt Ceremonial and Mutable All the Judicial Laws are Mutable and the Decalogue it self in respect of its Curse and as it was a Covenant giving life is actually changed and abolished Yet is not for that to be reputed Ceremonial and not Obligatory Though all Ceremonials be mutable yet all mutables are not Ceremonial Besides this change is not in the matter Why may not therefore the seventh day in order which was observed from the Creation to the Resurrection of Christ be changed to the first day of the week which is a seventh day in number still without abolishing the morality of the fourth Command Amongst other things in this Command there is more express mention of the whole Families joyning in this duty then is in other Commands Therefore it being a concerning-duty to us and a special thing included in the Command we shall speak to that Point concerning Family worship before we speak of the second general proposed about the particular morality of this Command and the meaning of the words of it that ye may see that it is no invention of Men when ye are called to it and when it is pressed upon you We shall here 1. shew you that This Command holdeth forth a Family or Domestick Worship 2. We shall confirm it more largely from other Scriptures and grounds of Reason 3. We shall shew wherein it consisteth in particular and on whom it mainly lyeth to be discharged 4. We shall shew the advantages of conscientious discharging of it and the Prejudices of neglecting it with the Aggravations of that sin That there is such a thing as Family-worship included in this Command will be clear by considering 1. What worship to God in general is 2. What Family-worship is 3. What this Command requireth 1. By worship is understood some Tribute payed by the reasonable Creature to God as the great and soveraign Lord Creator whether it be immediatly and directly payed and performed to him as prayer and praise or for him and at his Command and for his honour as preaching hearing and receiving of Sacraments which are worship when rightly gone about In a word we call that worship more strictly and properly which is a duty of the first Table and cometh in as commanded in it for the honour of God and not for our own or others external profit which though commanded in the second Table cannot be so properly called worship much less Immediate worship Thus Teaching others the Duties of Piety may be worship when teaching the Duties of any other ordinary calling is not 2. We call that Family-worship which is to be performed by such and such Relations or by all the constituent members of the Family jointly And so it differeth 1. From secret or solitary Worship which one performeth alone to and before God 2. From publick Worship which one performeth by joyning in a Congregation of many Families together 3. From that worship performed occasionally in mutual fellowship amongst Believers or professors of divers Families For 1. That may not be ordinary as this nor so frequent 2. That is free to this or that Believer as they shall choose or as occasions do cast them to be together This is not at choice but is necessary as to the same persons 3. This is performed by vertue of domestick relations and not of Christian only 4. This may have and should have an Authority-Domestick in its regulation For a Master of a family may authoritatively command the members of the family to pray keep the Sabbath c. and may suitably correct for the neglect of those duties whereas that other is by Christian Communion and Admonition onely Ye will see this Family-worship clear 1. By considering the Jews eating of the Pass-over Where there was 1. Secret worship no question apart 2. There was publick-worship a holy convocation the first day and the last But 3. There was peculiarly a Family-worship or if the family was little two joyned together for eating the pass-over within the House wherein all the members of that family or of those two little families that were circumcised were necessarily to be present and to be joyners this is Family-worship 2. By considering Psalm 101. compared with other Scriptures where ye have 1. David mentioning his private carriage and longing for God and walking in a perfect way 2. His publick carriage as a Magistrate in cutting off the wicked from the City of God as ye have 3. Elsewhere his publick-worship as Psalm 122. 1. and 2 Sam. 6. 4. His fellowship with all the Godly being a Companion to them that feared God Psalm 119. verse 63. Yet fifthly and lastly Ye have a walk within his House with a perfect heart mentioned there as contradistinct from all which must infer some religious performances of duties or exercise of worship in his House in reference to that station as well as in private or in publick yea a joynt-exercise because it is such an exercise as he performed onely at home in his House whereas had it been praying for them or any thing that otherwise he might have done apart he needed not go home to them for performing of it Yet 2 Sam. 6. verse 20. when the publick worship is done he goeth home to bless his House which manifestly sheweth a peculiar duty performed by him in his Family according as he resolved in that 101. Psalm 3. It will yet further appear that there is such a thing and some way what it is by considering Zach. 12. from verse 10. to the last where there is first A publick mourning of the whole Land 2. Of several families together Families shall mourn then 3. Families apart 4. Their Wifes apart and so every particular Person in secret In which place it is clear 1. That there is a worship of families besides publick and secret worship 2. That that worship includeth the same duties jointly performed by the members of
was added as aspecial solemnity of these solemn times and therefore the example or instance of these will not be concludent here to the prejudice of what we assert but rather to the contrary seeing there is a particular excepting of them from the ordinary rule and the particular intimation of their beginning in the evening will rather confirm our assertion that the ordinary Sabbaths did begin in the morning 4. It s not questioned if on the evening before people should be preparing for the Sabbath following we said that this is included in the word remember but if we speak of the Sabbath to begin at the evening before then it will be comprehended as a part of the very day and so it will conclude the work or observation of the day to close at the next evening We conceive especially to us Christians the day is to begin in the morning as is said and to continue till the next morning for which we reason thus Arg. 1. As other dayes begin or as dayes began at the first so must this but days ordinarily begin in the morning Ergo c. If the first six of Moses's reckoning begin so then this beginneth so also but they do begin so which may be cleared from Gen. 1. where the evening and the morning make the first day after the Creation 1. If there the morning and the evening do fully divide the natural day then the morning must go before the evening every morning being for its own evening But they do divide the natural day all being comprehended under six dayes Ergo c. the consequence is clear to natural sense for the fore-noon which is the morning must be before the afternoon which is the evening the ascending of the Sun is sure before its declining and seeing the morning natural to speak so of the natural day is from the twelfth hour at night this must be the beginning of the day Again the question then being onely whether to reckon the evening or the morning first it would seem necessary to reckon the morning first for if the evening be first that evening must either be 1. the evening of a day preceeding morning seeing every evening supposeth a morning to go before it in proper speech and I suppose the History of the Creation Genes 1. is not set down in metaphorical terms or 2. it must be an evening without a morning and that in proper speech here used is absurd and seems also to be as impossible in nature to wit that there should be a consequent and posterior evening or afternoon without a preceeding morning or forenoon as that there should be an effect without a cause or 3. it must be the evening following its own morning and so that morning must be lost proceeding the first evening recorded Gen. 1. The evening and the morning were the first day which to affirm would not onely be absurd but would also manifestly fasten the loss of a dayes time on the Scriptures calculation and it seemeth hard in all speech and Scripture-phrase to put evening before its own morning seeing there must be both morning and evening in each day neither doth the Scriptute speak any way of evening but when its drawing towards night which still supposeth the morning of that same day to be passed or else we must divide the day in the middle of the Artificial day and make the natural day begin at twelve of the noon day which will be as much against the Scripture phrase that reckoneth still the whole Artificial day as belonging to one natutal day the Artificial day and night being the two parts of one whole natural day All the force of the opposite reason is this the evening is first named Ergo it is first Answ Moses his scope is not to shew what part of one day is before another but to divide one day from another and to shew what goeth to make a whole day to wit an evening and a morning not a morning alone but an evening added to the morning which preceeded that made the first second third day c. as one would reckon thus there is a whole day because there is both evening and morning In this account its most suitable to begin with the evening because it presupposeth the morning and being added to it cannot but be a day whereas it is not so proper to say morning with the evening as evening now added to its morning compleateth the first day and evening now being past as the morning before God did put a period by and with the evening to the First day it being the evening that compleateth the day and divideth it from the following day and not the morning as one would say the afternoon with the forenoon maketh a compleat day and the afternoon or evening is first named because 1. the day is not compleat without it seeing it compleateth it 2. because the day cannot be extended beyond it now the first day is closed because the evening of it is come Arg. 2. What time of the day God began his rest we must begin ours but he began his in the morning of the seventh day the Artificial night having intervened betwixt that and the sixth which is clear for 1. Gods resting this day is more then his resting in the other nights of the six dayes it being granted by all that he made nothing in the night 2. There had not otherwise been any intermission betwixt his labour and his rest which is yet supposed by distinguishing the dayes Again if by vertue of the command of a day to be sanctified we should begin the night or the evening before then these two or three absurdities would follow 1. Then we would confound the preparation by the word remember and the day together 2. Then we Christians might also by vertue of the concession of six dayes for work begin to work the night before Monday as the Jews on this supposition might have begun their work the night before Sunday 3. Then we were almost no sooner to begin the sanctifying of the day then to break it off for rest and when its sanctification is closed as soon to fall to our ordidinary callings Arg. 3. If by this Command a whole natural day is to be employed for duties of Worship as another day is employed in our ordinary Callings then is it to begin in the morning the antecedent will not be denyed the consequent is thus made good if men account all the labour of their working time from one nights rest to another to belong to one day then must they begin in the morning or else they must account what they work after the first evening to belong to another day but that way of reckoning was never heard of the twelth hour belonging to that same day with the first hour Again if by this Command a whole artificial day together that is our waking and working time betwixt two nights be to be employed for Gods
at least it would be peculiar to them And by Christs rising in the morning is changed 2. It 's pressed peculiarly on the account of Gods redeeming them from Egypt they had that to think on that sometime they were where they got not liberty to rest any day therefore should they ease their Servants as it is Deut. 5. 14. 15. This holdeth especially if it was on the seventh day that their freedom from Egypt began Exod. 12. which was after that made the first day of their year that is the morrow after they did eat the Passover as it s made probable by some 3. It was peculiarly discovered to them by Gods raining Manna from Heaven six dayes and by his with holding it from them the seventh 4 It was peculiarly accompanied with special Ceremonial services beyond other dayes 5 God 's manner of dealing with them before Christ was to press duties by temporal and external advantages expresly and more implicitly by spiritual mercies therefore it was most agreeable to that way and time to press the seventh day on them which minded them of the benefit of Creation but it 's otherwise with the Church under the Gospel Hence their Sacraments had respect externally to their deliverance from Egypt and temporal things whereas ours have respect purely to what is spiritual 6 The Apostle Col. 2. 16. taketh in their Sabbaths with their other dayes and though he take not in all dayes alike yet it can hardly be denyed but their seventh-day Sabbath cometh in there where all the Jewish times are put together Therefore it would seem there is a type not in the Command but in that day though not properly yet accidentally in respect of its worship end application c. complexly taken and that therefore this seventh day Sabbath is expired at least if not repealed seeing that dayes and times kept by the Jews are enumerate with their other Services which were antiquated even as when the Apostle condemneth difference about meat or drink his meaning is not to condemn what difference is made in the Lords Supper in the New Testament but what is from the Old so may the same be said of dayes It s their old difference he cryeth down Propos 3. As its meet that the day of Worship under the Gospel should â—e another then what was under the Law and should therefore be changed so it s meet that the change should be into the First day of the week and to no other day For 1. No other day has been honoured with so many Gospel priviledges as 1. With Christs Resurrection Matth. 28. It was the First day of his victory and rest 2. With Christs appearing twice at least on it to his Disciples singling it out from other dayes or his appearing is for no purpose particularly recorded by the Evangelist John to have been on that day if there were not something remarkable in it beside what is in another day 3. The Spirits giving at Pentecost Acts 2. will be found to be on the First day of the week now no other day can claim so many priviledges and so many wayes relate to Christ 2. If the ground upon which the seventh day under the Law was preferred during that World do in this renewing of the World agree onely to the first day of the week then is the first day to succeed but these grounds proportionally agree onely to the first day under the Gospel which agreed to the seventh under the Law Ergo. That which made the seventh day preferrable was 1. That God had ended all his works on the sixth and rested the seventh It was the first day after the Creation so the first day of the Week is that day on which Christ rose having perfected the work of Redemption and obtained victory over death under whose power some way for a time his body was before that and was thereby manifestly declared to be the Son of God to wit by his Resurrection from the dead Rom. 1. 4. 2. The force of the example will hold here God made the World in six dayes and rested the seventh therefore rest ye with him so Christ having for a time suffered fully overcame the first day and began his estate of exaltation therefore rest with him and rejoyce that day it being the beginning of this new joy full World 3. No other day can be substituted in place of the old seventh day reserving intire the morality of this Command therefore it must be this that is put in the place of that for this Command requireth 1. one day of every seven allowing six of every seven to work and that together Now if the day had gone beyond the Sabbath ensuing it had not been one day of seven if it had been the second third or fourth day then the six working dayes had not gone together But now the first being appointed for God next to the seventh God hath his part or tribute called for and then came six working dayes together unto us of that same week and so still they run God hath One and we have Six of the same week If it be here objected that this way the new World is begun with a Sabbath whereas the Sabbath closed and ended the old World Answ 1. Thus God hath no loss of what he required for this way no week wanteth its Sabbath 2. It s most suitable that the old World should end in a Sabbath and the new begin in a Sabbath that so the worship of the new which most distinctly discovereth the change might the more immediately and convincingly preach the change which could not so well have been done iâ— working dayes of both had met together or a working day of the one and the Sabbath of the other 3. Though the old Sabbath was the seventh in order from the Creation yet it was the first day after mans Creation God beginning as it were and entring him with that even so when men are brought into this new World or change God will begin it with gladness and joy to them Propos 4. The day of solemn publick worship required to be observed by this Command was really changed from the seventh or last day to the first day of the week according to the former grounds That it was really changed may be made out by these 1. That the Apostles and primitive Christians after Christs Resurrection and Ascension had their solemn day for meeting to worship God yet neither did they by themselves together in practise keep the seventh nor by command appointed it to be kept nor gave it the title of the Lords-day It s true that often they kept it in a sort with the Jews as they did Pentecost for the opportunity of the multitude coming together on these dayes or to bury it with honour as they did practise for a time several of the Jewish Rites antiquated for their gaining and till they were fully informed of their abolition but in constituted Churches of the Gentiles we
never read that they kept it but another day 2. The Apostles and primitive Christians kept and esteemed the first day for their solemn day beyond and above all dayes yea and it onely as the Christian Sabbath For 1. on that day they used to meet ordinarily and that not occasionally but purposely and determinately as John 20. verse 19. and 26. which is clearly the first day 2. They are purposely together and not for fear for fear scattereth but while they are together they do for fear shut the doors being very probably led from the news of the Resurrection to be together and so gain verse 26. they meet and Christ with them And though it may possibly be that on other dayes they met yet doubtless this holdeth forth something peculiar to this day and some Lesson to be taken from it That 1. Christs coming to them is especially trysted on that day and that while they are together 2. That when they met at any other time ere he came to them its never said they were or came together the second third or fourth day of the week but on the first and wherefore doth the Holy Ghost record that day or their meeting on that day when he omitteth the naming of other dayes but that that day in its Exercises may be especially taken notice of and though other dayes had been much alike in Exercises to them yet the recording of this day so often and omitting the other intimateth a difference sure they are not alike in this so much for the 20. of John which is the first place of Scripture we make use of The second is Acts 2. 1 2. Here they are said to be all with one accord in one place when Pentecost came where its clear 1. That Pentecost was on the first day of the week for it was the fiftieth day after the Feast of unleavened bread Now according to the Jews account their Passover day was on the Sabbath called John 19. 31. an high Sabbath in which Christ lay all the day in the grave as appeareth for that day is called their preparation for the Feast wherein Christ suffered which is our Friday reckon now what will be the fiftieth day after or Pentecost and it will be found to be the first day of the week And it s not only observable for their meeting but for Gods sending the Spirit on them as a special blessing of that day and his countenancing of their worshipping him on it according to his promise 2. It is clear that they did meet together on this day 3. That this meeting together was not a daily or ordinary meeting together for John 21. we see they went to Fishing and no question sometimes they went asunder for verse 1. It s marked as a thing not ordinary to every day that on that day they were altogether in one place 4. It was not a meeting in reference to the Pentecost feast For 1. They onely are together distinct from the People 2. It s not in the Temple but in some other House fit for their meeting together at publick Worship it must be therefore because that day was the time of their solemn meeting even their Christian Sabbath The third place is Acts 20. 7. And upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them c. where it is clear 1. That this meeting was for publick Worship as the breaking of Bread and Preaching intimateth 2. That there is some observableness in this Circumstance that it was on the first day of the week and that that day is mentioned rather then any of the former six dayes in which he had been there at Troas though its more then probable they had meetings and preaching on them also but this is the onely and great difference that their meetings on these dayes were occasional and it may be but partial to speak so but the solemn chief fixt meeting of all was usually and ordinarily on the first day 3. This coming together on that day for these ends is spoken of as a thing that was not new nor occasional but as their customary constant known Practise they came together purposely to break and to wait on other Ordinances 4. It s clear that by special applying of these Exercises to that day and by mentioning of the day for that end that that day was their most solemn day and that the old seventh day was not so at least necessarily imployed by them 5. Neither is it like That Paul who was ready to depart would have stayed for the first day of the week if there had not been some solemn worship in that or that he would have passed the old seventh-day Sabbath especially to marring of his other occasions had they been equal if more sanctification had been required in it then in the first day of the week or that he would have so much insisted in religious publick worship on that day if the former seventh had been imployed in that service but here the Church being constituted of believing Gentiles there is no mention of the old Sabbath but as of another common day of the week Yea 6. Pauls spending this whole day in that service and continuing his Sermon till midnight yet accounting it still one day in solemn meeting doth confirm this day to be more then an ordinary day or then other dayes of the week as being specially dedicated to these Services and Exercises and totally spent in them 7. It s said that the Disciples came together they were not sent for that day but they came together being called and accustomed so to do on that day and as being put to these duties by the day as the proper Exercises in which it is to be spent Hence we may argue If the Apostles and primitive Christians did observe the First day of the week as their prime and chief time for solemn publick Worship and did pass over the old seventh day then is the day changed from the seventh to the First day of the week but the first is cleared by the former Instances Ergo c And if these meetings on that First day were not such as used to be formerly on the seventh day I desire to know a reason 1. Why their meetings on that day should be particularly recorded rather then their meetings on any other day and then 2. Why the one is so oft mentioned and the other never to wit that they met the second third day c. of the week Or 3. If their meeting on this First day now after Christs Ascension be not like his going to the Synagogue on the seventh day Sabbath and doing such and such things on the Sabbath that day being most frequently mentioned before whereas now there is deep silence of that day and the first day is recorded in its room neither can the Scriptures speaking of the one and silence in the other be for no purpose or for any other
purpose And as the practise of the Church holdeth out the change of the day so doth the Title given Rev. 1. 10 to the first day of the week to wit the Lords day confirm the same whence we argue If the Title which by the Lord and his people was given to the seventh-day Sabbath under the Old Testament and under which and by which he claimeth a seventh-day in this Command If I say that Title in the New Testament be not given unto the seventh but unto the First day of the week then is the day changed from the seventh day to the First and the First falleth now under this command as the seventh formerly did but the former is true the First is styled as the seventh was and as this Command styleth and claimeth the day to the Lord to be observed for him therefore now is the Sabbath changed from the seventh day to the First day of the Week The Titles whereby the Sabbath is distinguished from other dayes and peculiarly claimed and marked by God as his and that in this same Command must certainly evidence that day which he hath set apart and doth claim as he applyeth them And therefore if these Titles be given and applyed to the first day now it must needs shew a succeeding of that day unto the former seventh for during the Observation of the seventh day these Titles were not nay could not be applyed to the First no day being then the Lords but the seventh Now we find that the seventh-day Sabbath is in the Old Testament styled by the Lord under these Titles and so claimed by him 1. It s called here the Sabbath of the Lord or to the Lord that 's the Lords as contra distinguished from the six dayes he hath given unto us a day that he hath right to and not we therefore called the Lords Sabbath 2. Isaiah 58. 3. It s claimed by the Lord as his my holy day which is so called 1. to distinguish it from other days 2. To stamp it with the Lords mark in respect of its use for it is not to be applyed to our use but to his own it being his in a special manner But in the New Testament after Christs resurrection the seventh day is not so styled and claimed but the first day of the week is Rev. 1 10. I was saith John in the Spirit on the Lords day In which place these things are clear 1. That after Christs Ascension there was a peculiar day belonging to the Lord beside and beyond other days 2. That it was not the old Sabbath for 1. Johns scope being particularly to clear the time of the Vision by the Circumstance of the day the particular day as distinct from other dayes to call the Sabbath then used amongst the Jews the Lords day had more obscured it then cleared it yea 2. In that it s called the Lord according to the phrase of the New Testament it supposeth some relation to Christ the Mediator as being derived from him which cannot be said of the seventh day Sabbath 3. That it was not any indefinite day of the Lord For 1. there is great odds betwixt the Lords day and the day of the Lord the former looketh to a constant special right and peculiar interest that God hath in that day beside other dayes even as when the seventh day was called his Day before the Temple his Temple the prescribed Service his Service and the Sacrament of the Supper his Supper c. 2. That day would be still dark to the Church if it were indefinite contrary to Johns scope 4. That it is and must be such a day as was commonly set apart by Christians to God as his and that with respect to Christ the Mediator and such a day as was known to them And by the former practises it is clear that this day is the first day of the week being the Lord Christs day who now having conquered death and gotten the victory He doth therefore claim this day as a tribute to him This being clear that no other day can claim this title and that the First day hath good ground to claim it we may put it out of question that it is the First day or no day or if it were not the First that to no purpose were the designation of that day inserted seeing to no other day hath it been applyed nor can it be applyed This truth has been uncontroverted in all Antiquity and almost by all Writers till of late Gomarus beginneth to question it as Rivet cleareth on this Command against him Now supposing it as unquestionable that this is the very First day we are to inquire if the title applyed to this day be the same with that in the Command and which usually was given to the old seventh-day Sabbath or that then Lords day And it is clear 1. That this title claimeth this day to God as his Day it being possessively exprest as when we say the Lords Throne the Lords Altar the Lords Sabbath c. 2. It contra-distinguisheth that day from other dayes as if they were not so the Lords but ours like that in the Command Six dayes shalt thou labour c. but the seventh is the Lords so it s the Lords in a peculiar way we having lesser right to imploy that day for our own use then any other day and this claim of the First day to the Lords inferreth a condescension or dispensation whereby the last day becometh ours for had there been two dayes belonging to him one day could not have been peculiarly called his in which respect 1 Cor. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper is distinguished from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their own Supper even so the Lords day is distinguished from other dayes 3. It layeth on a necessity of using it for the Lord and not for our selves because it s his and will infer the same moral duties and ends which the Command obligeth to 4. It will infer an appointment of Christs whereby he appropriateth that day to his service and claimeth it to himself why because he calleth it his even as in the fourth Command there is no express institution of the seventh day yet because the sev nth was called the Lords and in his former way and dispensations intimated as a day to be kept for him therefore it 's understood and taken for granted by the Jews to be instituted seeing he calleth it his so may we conclude here that there is an institution and appointment of the First day to be the Lords because it s claimed by him as his although no such plain express institution be of it as of other Ordinances it being clear that the institution of dayes is left more generally to be gathered From all which we may gather the couclusion to wit that the First day of the week is stiled by the same peculiar Titles claimed by the Lord expresly as his right and due and upon as valid grounds
separation from other dayes but all that is called the Lords is his after this manner Ergo Let the minor be confirmed these three wayes 1. By looking to what is called the Lords generally in the Old Testament as his House his Altar his Priests his Tithes c. are they not still his because by him separate for distinct uses in his worship 2. By looking more particularly how the seventh day was called his day or the Sabbath his is not this the reason because it was appointed by him for his worship beside other dayes And can any reason agree better to this 3. By looking how any thing is called the Lords in the New Testament there is no other or better phrase or designation to try by then that 1 Cor. 11. 20 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even as this first day called the Lords day is opposed to our dayes or common days and that is called the Lords Supper because instituted by him for such and such spiritual ends and uses And therefore there can be no better ground gotten for shewing why this is called the Lords day beside others then by comparing it with other Scriptures and if in other things that phrase import a Divine institution why not in this I do not mean that this is an institution or that it will prove that there must be a clear and express institution shewn but I mean this that it will inferr there is one and that it is Divine seeing God is to choose and not we We might here again produce the four Witnesses already attested for the morality of this fourth Command to wit 1. the general practise of primitive Christians 2. their general opinion and judgement 3. mens Consciences 4. the dispensations of God which will also all clearly depone in this about the change of the day Propos 6. Although we know not the peremptory and precise time when this day was instituted and the very first day sanctified nor whether it was immediately by Christ or mediately from him by the Apostles instituted which is of no great concernment to the main of its institution yet we think it most probable that our Lord did from the very day of his Resurrection either himself institute it while as Acts 1. v. 3 he taught them what concerned the Kingdom of God or did inspire his Apostles to observe it from that time forth Because 1. If it was not then instituted the Church had for some time wanted a Sabbath the seventh-day Sabbath being expired by the Resurrection 2. The reason moving the change and preferring the first day before others as in a nearer capacity of sanctification for that end was from that time forth 3. The Apostles practise of meeting and Christs keeping with them hath been from the first change even on the first two first dayes of the week John 20. verse 19. 26. 4. All the practises and other grounds whereby the change is evidenced suppose still the institution to preceed which maketh it appear to be very ancient And so we resume and close these six propositions 1. The day may be changed from the last to the first 2. It s meet it should be so and there is good reason for it 3. It can onely be to one first 4. It s so changed actually 5. It s change is not by Humane but by Divine institution 6. It s institution seemeth to be from the rise of the Gospel Church and the very day of Christs Resurrection Hence we infer 1. good warrant even Gods warrant for imploying the seventh-day to our selves seeing God seeketh but one day in seven and now has chosen and claimeth the first 2. Gods warrant for sanctifying the first day Sabbath or the Lords day as his institution 3. That the Lords day is to be sanctified by us Christians and that by vertue of this Command as the seventh-day was by the Jews on its grounds We come now to speak of the sanctification of this day which is the main thing and for which all the rest is intended we shall first consider the precept and then 2. the reasons whereby it is inforced The precept is sanctify it or keep it holy sanctifying of it is twice mentioned in this Command 1. In the end it s said God hallowed or sanctified it that is by separation destination and appointment for holy uses and as a part of worship so he sanctified the Temple Altar c. not by infusing any holiness in them but by appointing them for holy uses Thus onely God can sanctifie a day or any other thing so as to make it a part of worship and no man or power on Earth whatsomever can do that 1. In the precept it self we are commanded to sanctifie it that is by the application of it unto the uses wherefore he hath set it apart thus we sanctify what he hath sanctified when we use it and imploy it according to his appointment And so we are to consider the sanctifying of this day in these duties called for from us on it This sanctification is two wayes set down 3. In its cessation and rest separating it from other uses and so keeping it from the common uses to which other dayes may and use to be applied 1. In its special application to and imployment in holy uses For clearness we shall consider this sanctification 1. In respect of its rest what we are to abstain from 2. Comparatively with that strictness called for from the Jews 3. Eminently what is required more as to holiness this day then on other dayes wherein also the Lords people should be holy and wherein this goeth beyond these 4. Positively in what duties it should be taken up 5. Complexly in respect of what is called for to the right sanctifying of that day before it come on in the time of it and after it is past and that in publick and private and by all relations Master Servant c. and throughout the whole man thoughts words and deeds and throughout the whole day 6 Oppositively or negatively what are the breaches of this Command and the aggravations of these sins which break it First then we consider it in its rest which is required and because there are extreams some giving it too little as the Jews did before the captivity some too much even to being superstitious as the Jews after the Captivity and the Scribes and Pharisees particularly in Christs time did streaching this rest too far We must therefore consider it more narrowly and particularly for quieting of our Consciences for the Jews are by the Prophets Ezek. 20. Jerem. 17. and by Christ Matth. 12. reproved for both extreams respectively We do then in this matter assert first That there is a rest required here which is extensive to a mans words thoughts and actions whereby many things lawful on other dayes become unlawful on this day Yet 2. we assert That by this rest all sort of actions are not
be within view of Heaven to make some Essay of glorified Saints exercise there and to have the Sabbath as a little preludy of that everlasting Sabbath and rest in the bosom of God The Fourth way of considering this sanctification is positively to wit as to the Duties wherein the Sabbath is to be spent which are shortly all duties of immediate worship whether they be inward as meditation self-examination heart prayer either ejaculatory or more continued heart-sorrow for sins c. or outward as vocal prayer and singing of Psalms reading the Scriptures and other pious Books hearing the word c. or whether they secret which may be both inward and outward or private in Families as reading of the word conferring on it repeating Sermons praying together c. or publick as joyning with the Congregation in prayers and praises hearing the word read and the sense given hearing of Sermons participating of the Sacraments when dispensed joyning in solemn humiliations and thanks givings when they fall necessarily or more conveniently to be on the Sabbath All which and such like are proper duties for that day to which liberal laying up and giving for the relief of the poor according to ability and as God blesseth every man would be added as a suitable dnty of it though it be no duty of immediate worship The fifth way is to consider the sanctification of the Sabbath complexly before it come when it 's come and after it's past 1. Then the night before not secluding a suitable remembrance throughout the week remember it 1. by timous leaving of worldly business it 's a great incroachment on the Sabbath thought too too usual to continue longer at work the night before then any other night of the week as if folks would gain the day of rest out of Saturnsdays night and Mondays morning 2 By not suffering this little times leaving of work to be idly spent but being taken up with endeavours 1. To abstract mind the 2. To from other works as well as the hand and to have the heart put in a lively frame mind the work of the day which is coming and to have a suitablenss to it If ye ask what suitableness we have to it Answ Endeavour 1. to be as if ye were about to meet God to tryst as if it were visibly with him and solemnly to treat and enter in marriage with him 2. To be like Heaven and in a special manner in some sort to imitate God as if ye were already entered into his rest and had rested from your own works 3. To be as if ye were to dye and to step into Eternity for this resting should mind us of that and was and is still specially appointed though yet no Ceremony to mind us of Gods separating of us from others for himself that we may rest eternally with him Then 3. for furthering of this look back on the Week past and endeavour to have things clear before the Sabbath come and all by-gone quarrels removed that theremay be no standing controversies against you to begin the Sabbath with 4. Pray with special solemn seriousness in reference to that day that ye may have peace for what is past that ye may be in a right frame for the day that the Minister may be helped to speak as it becometh that others may be fitted to heare and joyn that the Word and other Ordinances may be richly blest of God and that the mercy of having the Ordinances may be minded with praise to the gracious giver of them and suitably improved 2. When the morning of that sweet and desirable day cometh after we have fallen asleep in a special manner as it were in the Lords arms the night before and left our selves there 1. we would timely begin the work and beware that either carnal thoughts get in or the time be idly slepped over but I say we would begine the work early for it 's for that end appointed and sinful thoughts will not be kept out but by filling the room otherwayes with what is spiritualy profitably Shew forth Gods loving kindness in the morning saith the Psam for the Sabbath to wit the 92. Let therefore the Meditation of somewhat of these or such like begin with us even when we are making ready 1. somewhat of God himself whose day it is 2. of heaven and that happiness that is there 3. of the works of God who gave us and all the world a being and who only preserveth the same 4. of Christs redemption and as closed and perfected on this day which especially should be minded that so thinking of our many and great obligations and of the misery we had been in had not that work of Redemption intervened we may begin the day with a due impression of Gods greatness and goodness of our own sinfulness weakness and misery and of this blessed remedy and out-gate 2. We would address our selves to solemn prayer in secret and that at greater length then on other dayes and with persisting in inwith special petitions relating to the day with all the seriousnese may win it 3 We would take a view of our own hearts to see how and where we left the night before and endeavour to have clearness betwixt the Lord and us as to our state and otherwayes maintained and renewed if it was or attained if it was not 4. Too much time would not be spent in adorning of busking or folks bodies or in making other provisions for them but as the whole of it would be taken up in duties of worship as we have before shewed so some part of it would be set apart for secret reading yea for secret praising thanksgiving and singing an exercise not unbecoming that day as that fore-cited Psalm for the Sabbath day sheweth 5. If thou be the Head of a Family or livest in fellowship with others then the family is gravely to be brought together and every particular member is to joyn with the rest And here also prayers and other religious duties are to be doubled according to the ceremonial doubling of Sacrifices on the Seventh-day-Sabbath under the Law for in secret in families and in publick there would be more that day then in other dayes 6. Care and inspection would be taken so far as men can reach that by none in the Society neither secret nor private duties be neglected nor publick duties abstained from but that each may stir up one another and more especially those whose places lead them to it to the sutable sanctification of the day in all the duties of it and withal it would be looked to that none of the family be suffered to stay at home unnecessarily from the publick worship or to be absent from the family worship 7. Timely that ye be not by haste discomposed come to publick-modestly apparrelled it's a shame to see how gaudily some come to publick worship on the Lords day grave in your walk wary and circumspect in you words that they
not work then the positive Six dayes shalt thou work may well be understood so also 3. Gods example will press it for we are to follow it not only in resting on the Seventh but also in working in the Six dayes as he did 4. Working these Six dayes cometh in as a mean to further and fit for the sanctification of the Seventh for so a man putteth by his business and has the more freedom for the rest on the Seventh whereas idlense often sinfull necessitateth to the breach of it and to a desire that it may be gone Amos 8. 5. And thus idleness is reproved here and diligence commanded under one consideration to wit as the remove of the former and practise of the later do capacitate us to give God his due on his own day when it cometh Even as they are also included in the eight Command Thou shalt not steal for as idleness becometh a snare and temptation to a man to steal and hindereth him from works of Charity and suitable diligence in the works of his lawful Calling readily preventeth the one and capactiateth for the other So is it here for it 's not unusual that the same sin and duty may be forbidden and commanded in diverse commands upon diuerse considerations And this agreeth well both with the words and scope of this command And 5. according to the holy and wise oeconomy of Gods goodness our labour may be commanded to mak his rest to be to us the more relishing and refreshing The tenth Verse containeth three things for explication 1. The Lords claim of the Seventh day as having reserved that to himself it 's his it 's to him and by him for him separated from other dayes 2. Aconsequent flowing from this Therefore that day is not to be imployed to any of our own works no not the least No manner of work no word no thought nor deed of any such sort under whatsoever pretext beside the excepted cases 3. It 's extension as to all relations so to all ranks Parent and Child Master and Servant c. yea it 's thou for thy self and for all thou hast the oversight and charge of Sons Servants Strangers yea and Beasts not that they are capable of sanctifying a day more then the Beasts in Nineveh were of religious fasting Jonah 3. yet this sheweth what ought to be the Masters care it being for his use that Beasts are put to work God injoyneth all wayes of abstaining from every thing that is a mans own work on the Sabbath and will have him solemn in it In a word All within thy gates looketh not only to Masters and all in their families or within their doors but to Magistrates and Governours and all within their Jurisdiction Gates being the place of Judgment used in Scripture to shew the extent as well as seat of power that they should see to their sanctifying of this day and the falling of any under them is their sin when they endeavour not to prevent and amend it And thus Nehemiah understood this command Neh. 13. when he put forth his power not only in contending with the native Nobles but even against Strangers for restraining them from violating this day Hence we gather 1 That idleness is a sin and that they will hardly give God his due on the Seventh day who are not diligent in the duties of some lawful calling and station for Gods honour and others good through the Six dayes of the Week and indeed this is often seen that such are lazie and careless and idle on that day passing it over even as they do other dayes without any difference at all except it be that they come to Church 2. We gather that humane whether Ecclesiastick or Civil appointment of ordinary fixed days for worship throughout the whole day beside the Sabbath will not agree with this command allowing men six for labour It 's true God might Soveraignly limit men but where he hath given liberty if it were but by concession who can restrain Concerning dayes therefore we lay down these four 1. That there can be no solemn seeting apart of any day to any creature thus Saints dayes are unlawful for the Sabbath or day of rest is to the Lord and to none other it being a peculiar piece of worship to him who hath divided time betwixt his worship and our work And although men should keep the day and alter the worship yet this is a taking of that which was once abused and never enjoyned for to apply it to God and wanteth not offence even as the retaining of other things in worship which have been abused and are not necessary is offensive 2. No man can institute any day even to the true God as apart of worship so as to bind consciences to it or to equal it with this day That is apart of Gods royal prerogative and a thing peculiar to him to sanctifie and bless a day 3. Even those dayes which are pretended to be set apart to and for God and yet not as apart of worship cannot be imposed in a constant and ordinary way as Anniversary dayes and feasts are because by an ordinary rule God hath given to man Six dayes for work except in extrordinary cases he shall please to call for some part of them again 4. Yet extrordinarily upon occasions of Humiliation or of Joy and Thanksgiving dayes for that time may be set apart for God without wronging this concession even as in extrordinary times we may work and not rest on the Sabbath day though ordinarily we may not This proportioning of time therefore is for the ordinary rule but yet admitteth of the exception of extraordinary cases 3. We gather that Masters and Parents ought to have a special oversight of their own Children and Families in the worshipping of God and that especially in reference to the sanctifying of this day and that there is a special communion in worshipping of God amongst the several relations of a Family 4. We gather that Magistrates and all who have power over others ought to see to the restraining of Vice and to the performing of outward duties particularly such as relate to the sanctification of the Sabbath as well as to abstain from and to do such and such things themselves in their own persons in and by these over whom they have power and that it 's no less scandalous and sinful for a Magistrate not to see that sin he crushed that the Sabbath be sanctified and the Ordinances of Religion be entertained and received and reverenced in and by those over whom he hath charge then if he committed such sins himself then if he discountenanced the Ordinances and break the Sabbath himself or sufferred his own family or himself to be without the worship of God Why because these are within his gates and he is to account for them He is to rule for God and their good which is mainly spiritual he is to be a terrour to evil doers
as well as to be an incouragement to them that do well and men are according to their places and parts to be forth-coming for God and the good of others And yet this cannot be called a constraining or forcing of Consciences for a Magistrate or Master thus to restrain these who are under them it 's but the using of that power which God hath committed to them to make men to do their duty and to abstain from dishonouring God and the punishing of them if they do other wayes in which respect he beareth not the Sword in vain The 2. and main reason followeth v. 11. wherein this command is three ways pressed also 1. By Gods example who during the space of six days wrought though he might as easily have made all in one day and rested the Seventh and not before the Seventh on which he wrought none even so it becometh men to do seeing he intended this for their imitation and for that end doth propose it here Gods rest on the Seventh is not absolute and in every respect for John 5. 17. he worketh hitherto that is in the works of Providence sustaining preserving and governing the Creatures made by him and their Actions but all things needful for the perfecting of the world were then made and finished Whence by the way we may gather that not only all Creatures were made Angels even these that since turned Devils c. but that they were made within the Six days of Creation when Heaven Earth Sea and all that was in them was made Therefore all our works that are necessary to be done in the six working days would be done and ended that we may rest on the Sabbath as he did The 2. way is by his blessing of it God blessed the Sabbath day which is to be understood not simply in respect of the day which is not properly capable of blessing but in respect of the true observers of it he blesseth it to them and he blesseth them in it which may be in these three 1. That the rest of that day shal not prejudge them in their weeks work but that their labour shal be therefore blessed so that they shal miss nothing by observing that day as the Lord blessed the Seventh year whereon they rested and yet notwithstanding they were as when they laboured Lev. 25. 20. 21. 22. and it 's like that if we will compare such as make Conscience to sanctifie the Sabbath with others who think and seem to gain by breaking of it this will be found at the years end to be verified 2. That the Lord hath set a part that day for a Spiritual blessing and the Communication of it to his people so the Bread and Wine are blessed in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be a mean of conveying Spiritual blessings to the worthy receivers Isa 56. and Psal 92. 3. That God will abundantly manifest his gracious presence and multiply his spiritual blessings that day upon it's due observers more then on other days wherein he is also sought as there is this day a double worship both in respect of the Duty and of the day whereon it 's done so there shall be a double blessing beyond what is on other days in which respect even prayers in and towards the Temple while it stood by divine appointment as a separate place from others had a blessing beyond prayers in other places and thus Christ blessed the loaves and the few small fishes John 6. when he made them by multiplication on the matter to feed far beyond their ordinary proportionableness so service on this day groweth in it's blessing hence we may see an usual connexion betwixt Universal thriving in Religion Grace and Piety and suitable obedience to this command in the tender sanctification of the Sabbath and withall a reason why so few make progress in godliness even little keeping holy the Sabbath as they ought The 3. way is by his hallowing it wherefore be hallowed it or sanctified it that is per â—odum â—â—stinandi or by way of appointing of it for holy uses and separating it from other days as is said The inference wherefore as to the hallowing pointeth at the reason or end wherefore God did it to wit that there might thereby be an excitement left to men to imitate God and that men might not only have Gods command but his example also to bind this duty on him If it be asked here why God will have a day set apart for holy Exercises beside other days It may be answered 1. It 's meet that God be acknowledged Lord of our time by this Tribut being reserved to himself 2. Because men having but a finite understanding beside the now corruption of it connot be intensely taken up with spiritual and heavenly things and with temporal and earthly things both at once or at the same instant for even Adam in innocency could not do that therefore the Lord hath graciously set apart a day for mans help in that 3. It 's to teach man that his chief end is to converse with God and to live with him and that he ought to cary in his own affairs along the week and order things so as the Sabbath may be duly sanctified when it shal come in that sweet soul reposing converse with him 4. To shew man wherein his happiness consisteth it 's even in this to walk and converse with God and to be in his worship this is his rest 5. To shew the excellency of Religion and of the Works of Piety or of Gods Worship above mens Employments in earthly and wordly things It was a Sabbath to Adam in innocency to be abstracted from his labour for the worship of God the one is mens toyl the other is mens spiritual rest and ease far contrary to that which men in the world ordinarily think and judge We see now how great and grievous a sin it is to break this command and with what care this day should be hallowed For 1. It 's a Command of the first Table and so the breach of it is in some respect more then murther Adultery Stealing c it 's included in the first and great Commandement 2. Amongst all the commands of the first Table yea all the commands this religious observance of the Sabbath is most forcibly pressed with more reasons and with more full and particular explication Because 1. All the commands hang some way on this and obedience is ordinarily given to them with the same readiness as this day is employed in Gods Service 2. It keepeth life as it were in all the rest and when men are cold in this so are they in all the rest 3. This tryeth men in theirlove to God best If indeed his company and service be more delighted in thenthe World And is a notable indication of the frame of the soul it maketh proof both of their state and frame as men are usually and habitually on the Sabbath so in effect are they
as to these 3. No breach of any command hath more aggravations for 1. It is against reason and equity when God hath given us so many and so good reasons for it 2. It 's high Ingratitude the Sabbath being a Mercy and a great Mercy indeed it is to be priviledged with access to converse with God a whole day of every week in duties of worship 3. It 's against Love God's Love hath instituted it and our Love should in a special manner vent it self to him on it 4. It 's cruelty against our selves for the Sabbath kept holy is backed with the promise of of a special blessing and we by this sin prejudge our selves of that yea the Sabbath rightly spent is a mean both of holiness and of nearness to God of conformity to him and of communion with him it promoteth both So that it is eminently verified here that these who sin against this command sin against and forsake their own Mercy 4. No sin doth more evidence universal untenderness and as it 's a sin in it self so it evidenceth especially when gross a very sinful and some way Atheistical frame and disposition as may be gathered from Neh. 13. Yea. 5. It occasioneth and breedeth other sins it habituateth to sinning and hardneth against challenges so that men ordinarily become very gross and loose and fall in scandalous sins who neglect the sanctification of the Sabbath which is the quickner and fomenter some way of all duties and knitteth the two Tables of the Law together hence it cometh to pass that we often hear men that have turned to be very loose gross and scandalous and some of them on Scaffolds and at Gibbets cry out of Sabbath breaking imputing the one to the other as a main cause for by this sin men grow stout against challenges and formal in secret duties and so at length sit quite up 6 No sin hath more sharp challenges for it and more sad Judgements avenging it then sins against this command have there been any men deeply challenged for sin or at death whether ordinary or violent brought to express and utter their challenges but sins against this command have been main ones The slighting of the Lords Sabbath made Jerusalem to be burnt with fire Jer. 17. last for this sin they are threatned with terrible plagues Ezek. 20 21. 24. not only in temporal things â— 23. but with spiritual plagues to which they are given up v. 25. 26. You know that a man was stoned for gathering of sticks on the Sabbath Num. 15. see also Exod. 16. 28. and Ezek. 22. 8. where the Lord accounteth Sabbath-breaking a refusing to keep his Commandements and Laws and a despissing of his holy things O is it possible that a man can be well that breaketh the Sabbath or to whom it is not a delight If any should ask here if indeed the breaches of this command be greater sins then the breaches of the commands of the second Table and if so if God will be avenged on these severely For Answer premitting this one word that in comparing breaches of the commands of the two Tables we would compare sins of a like nature together that is sins of presumption with sins of presumption and sins of infirmity with sins of infirmity we say that a presumptuous sin against the fourth Command if it were but to go unnecessarily to the door or to gather sticks is a greater sin then a presumptuous murther because it striketh more immediately against God And that a sin of infirmity against the fourth command is greater then a sin of Infirmity against the sixth Yet we grant that presumptuous Murther is a greater sin then a sin of in firmity against the fourth command because presumption and high handedness in the manner of sinning in a sin little on the matter comparatively daâ—eth God as it were and striketh immediately against him and so is an additional high aggravation of it beside What it is in the nature of it And though our censures against presumptuous breaches of the Sabbath which are now as great sins as formerly as is clear from what is just now said be often more mitigated now under the Gospel neither was it as we conceive ordinary to stone the presumptuous prophaneners of the Sabbath even amongst the Jews yet will this be no good reasoning men do not now execute punishments upon Transgressours of the first Table as on Transgressours of the second therefore Transgressions of the second Table are greater sins then Transgressions of the commands of the first for so we would be in hazard to postpone all the Laws or Commands of the first Table to these of the second but we are to consider that temporal punishments are heightened or lessened according as the peace and order of civil Societies may be more or less therein concerned so that it is not by these measures that we are to make the estimate of the greatness or smalness of sins in the sight of God and in order to his righteous and absolute judgments and therefore it`s enough that we enquire what God hath done and will do and what sinners may expect from him however men may over-look and pass them by yet before God they are often taken notice of and plagued even in this life and will be for ever hereafter if they repent not We may now therefore in the close exhort beseech obtest and charge you all as in the sight of God who is a severe avenger of them that ye would be aware of the sins whereby this command is transgressed Particularly guard against 1. Not preparing for it or not remembring of it many prophane the Sabbath ere they come to publick yea before it come in some respect 2 Carnal thoughts and a common frame of heart yea even to speak so a particular frame that looketh but to our own condition or case As not stirring it self to be over and above that to be affected with God and his glorious works of Creation and Redemption to give him praise for his marvellous goodness on that day there is alass generally little delight and praise in his worship even on his own holy day 3. General unedifying discourses of the news of the time of health and other things not necessary to that day 4. Little profiting under the Gospel and not growing in knowledge and practise many a Sabbath is thus prophaned few getting or seeking the blessing of it or on it 5. Going to the fields and visiting of Neighbours to put off a piece of time that so much time may be saved on other dayes of the Week wherein many men think they have more to do and not seeking to edifie or to be edified when they visit Certainly by this going abroad and runing up and down the streets unnecessarily ye indispose your selves ye offend others and tempt them to follow you ye slight either duties in your families or in secret or it may be both in a great measure I suppose
others even in the cases wherein these do require the preference 2. When it is terminated on the wrong object as when they run out in the immoderate pursuit of bodily and temporal things caring more if not only for the body neglecting the better part 3. When it is laid out for the pleasing of corrupt self and the making of provision for the Flesh to fulfil its Lusts Rom. 13. 14. Self love under these considerations is corrupt and to be guarded against Answ 2. Self love or love to our self is allowable when qualified with the following properties 1. When it is subservient and subordinate to higher ends and can hazard it self and deny it self for Gods honour for a publick good yea and in some cases out of respect to the good of others also so a righteous man should and when at himself will do much though with his own hazard for a Christian friend for the safety or edification of the Godly or in defence of the inte rest of Christ 2. When it is drawen out after spiritual things and it 's on these mostly that pains are taken as how to grow in grace to have a good conscience to have the soul saved sin mortified c. 3. when outward things are desired for the former ends as when we pray Give us this day our daily bread that we may promove these ends being willing to want them when they may not stand with these ends and desiring life means c. in so far only as they may be useful for the attainment of them As the first self-love marreth duties to God and thwarteth with them so the second advanceth them and sweyeth strongly yet sweetly to them Again This Command is the first in order of the second Table and is peculiarly backed with a promise to shew the concernment of the duty called for the scope of it being to regulate that respect which each on oweth to another that they may give each other due honour as the first effect of love and the great band of all the other commands and enjoyned duties of the second Table God being pleased to provide for that respect and honour that is due from one man to another as well as for the security of their persons and estates yea in some respect he preferreth this Command to wit that one hurt not another in their honour and estimation to these other relating to their persons and estates and therefore he requireth honour in the first place and afterward injoyneth the duties of not killing not stealing c. And although every man doth love respect and estimation among others yet there is nothing wherein more liberally and even prodigally men incroach upon one another then by the neglect and denyal of this duty and by the contrary sin though it be most directly op posite to love and that general equity commanded whereby we should Do to others as we would have them to do to us Therefore we conceive the Lord hath preferred this to the other five Commands and hath so backed it with a promise and also set it down positively Honour thy Father c. for this end that we may know it is not enough not to despise them if they be not also positively honoured by us even as it is not enough not to prophane the Lords day by common and unnecessary works if we do not positively sanctifie it And it is not for nought that this duty is so much pressed being a main bond of Christian and Civil Fellowship keeping folks within the just bounds and limits which God hath set unto them If it be asked What this duty of honouring our Neighbour doth include Answ It doth include these five things 1. Respect to our Neighbours person 2. to his place 3. to his qualifications either as he is furnished with natural or moral abilities or as he is gracious 4. to his accidental furniture in externals a riches credit with others c. so David honoured Nabal 5. in respect of mens actions as they deserve or as they have done or atchieved any thing where by good cometh or may come to the Church or Commonwealth Honour includeth the giving respect to onr Neighbour in all these If it be asked If and how honour differeth from love Answ It differeth from love in that love properly considereth men more generally as they are capable of good which we wish unto them but this considereth them more particularly as so and so qualified and having such and such things in them deserving respect for honour being bearing of testimony to something worthy of respect in such a one it doth first consider what is worthy of honour in the person that so it may bear a testimony truly according as it findeth ground If it be asked Whether ontward expressive evidences of honour are alwayes to be given to the persons honoured Answ Although indeed in honouring of God there needeth not alwayes an external expressive evidence of it as for instance a man may in the croud of Company honour God by ejaculatory Prayer without such external expression as Nehemiah did in the presence of the King and Queen cap. 2. v. 4. yet honour given to others must not only have the acknowledging of something worthy of estimation within that it degenerate not into dissimulation as the ordinary complementing strain doth but must also have expressions without to bear witness unto that which is within in gesture words or other wayes as men are called to the giving of them If it be asked What honour doth import and what may be comprehended under it Answ Under honour are comprehended 1 Charitable constructions of mens actions whereby what is doubtful is exponed to the best It will not nor ought not I grant determin a man to esteem every man gracious whom he knoweth not to be prophane nor every thing to be truth spoken by him which he knoweth not to be false But 1. it will keep a man from running into the extream of contrary judging of him as wicked false carnal natural graceless a lamentable ill amongst even good people too ready often to give such designations and epithes to their Neighbours whether inferiour or superiour to them on very little ground and sometimes to persons who without breach of charity may be supposed for true Religion not to be much if any thing at all short of themselves or such an one as some may call him even though he know nothing of his goodness yet because he knoweth not his evil he forbeareth to conclude so harshly of him 2. It will make him live with him as to him at least negatively gracious and accept of what he saith for truth not knowing any thing to the contrary in so far as Christian prudence will permit him and thus far a charitable construction will lead us in reference to our Neighbour for we are not bound positively without ground to determine a thing to be right or wrong or a man gracious or wicked when
rules There is also respect to be had to Christian liberty where by Gods goodness men have allovvance to make use of these things not only for necessity but for refreshing also and the vertue of temperance and sobriety as all other vertues doth not consist in an indivisible point so that a man is to eat and drink so much and neither less nor more without any latitude the Lord hath not so streightned the consciences of his people but hath left bounds in sobriety that we may come and go upon providing these bounds be not exceeded Neither is every satisfaction or delight in meat or drink to be condemned seeing it is natural but such as degenerateth and becometh carnal We would therefore inquire into the sinfulness thereof and because there is a great affinity betwixt these two evils of Gluttony and Drunkenness we may speak of them together for brevities sake we suppose then 1. That both gluttony and drunkenness are sinfull and that both in the use of meat and drink men may several wayes fail the many prohibitions and commands that are in the Word for ordering us in the use of meat and drink 1 Cor. 10. 31. VVhether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the glory of God Rom. 13. 14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof And Rom. 14. 20. For meat destroy not the work of God all things indeed are pure but is evil for that man who eateth with offence Prov. 23. 20 21. Be not amongst wine-bibbers amongst riâ—tus eaters of flesh For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags The many reproofs that there are for exceeding in both Ezek. 16. 49. Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her in her daughters neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy Luke 16. 19. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linnen and fared sumptuously every day with several other places And the many sad Judgments which have been inflicted as well as threatned for them Deut. 21. 20. And they shall say unto the Elders of his City This our Son is stubborn and rebellious he will not obey our voice he is a glutton and a drunkard Prov. 23. 21. For the drunkard and â—he glutton shall come to poverty and drowsiuess shall clothe a man with râ—gs with the desperate effects following on them as Prov. 23. v. 29 32. VVho hath woe who hath sorrow who hath contentions who hath babbling who hath wounds without cause vvho hath redness of eyes At the last it bitteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder c. will put it out of question that they are not only sinful but so in an high degree Yea if we consider the ends for which God hath given us the use of these creatures which excess inverteth and marreth to wit his honour and the good of our selves and others the rules he hath given to regulate us in the use of them the holy frame he calleth for from us at all times the difference that should be betwixt his people and the men of the world in the use of these things we will find this excess in the use of these enjoyments to be sinful and no less contrary to the holy nature and law of God and to that holiness and sobriety that should be in a Christian then fornication and other uncleannesses are therefore there is no sin hath more woes pronounced by the Holy Ghost against it then drunkenness a woe being ever almost joyned with it nor more shame attending it so that of old drunkards drank in the night 1 Thess 5. as being ashamed of it thought now alas many are drunk in the day and some in the morning and even such as are addicted to it are with great difficulty recovered Prov. 23. ult 2. We suppose also that these sins may be and sometimes are separated and divided for one may be guilty of excess in meat or of gluttony who may be free of drunkenness and contrarily It is the saying of a holy man Aug. lib. 10. confess cap. 17. Drunkenness O Lord is far from me but gluttony hath often prevailed over me And therefore we are not here to account our selves free when both these ills cannot be charged on us it is often incident to men who think themselves sober to be much more watchful against drunkenness then gluttony yea and usual for some to excite and put others much more on to exceed in eating then they dare do in drinking as if there were not that same hazard in the one that is in the other and as if one and the same rule were not given for both 3. We do also suppose that there is not one way only whereby men may become guilty of both these sins but there are many wayes and also degrees thereof and though all be not alike gross yet all are sinful Therefore we would 1. consider these evils in divers respects Then 2. lay down and fix some general limits which we are not to pass 3. Instance some slighted particulars For Gluttony in general there is a Latin verse Praepropere laute nimis ardâ—nter studiose In which five words there are five wayes of being guilty of it 1. By hasting that is desiring meat and drink before it be convenient thus eating and drinking in course not for hunger or thirst but for custome good fellowship carnal pleasure c. is gluttony and is cursed by the Holy Ghost Eccles 10. 16 17. VVoe to thee O Land c. here drinking and eating are tyed to their seasons 2. By delicacie in the kind or quality as when meat and drink are excessive for costliness or fineness lavishly provided as Feasts very ordinarily are Prov. 30. 8. So of the rich glutton it is said be faired delicately every day Luke 16. 19. 3. In the quantity by too much when eating is exceeded in even to indisposition for the duties of our general Christian and of our particular callings not to the strengthening us for them Eccles 10. 17. 4. In the manner viz. too ardently when meat is desired with a sort of lust Prov. 23. 3. 20 21. 5. In the preparing of meat viz. studiously that is when it is too riotously dressed for pleasing mens carnal appetite and taste or pallat by the fineness of it and othere curiosities of that kind More particularly we may sin either in the excesâ— of meat and drink when we go without just bounds or in the defect which may as well marr the end to wit Gods glory and our fitness for duty as excess may therefore doth Paul exhort Timothy to the use of a little wine as needful for him 2. Consider the sin of Gluttony in the matter of that which we eat and drink thus some may
it were asked here how we may pitch or settle on a just price It is hard to answer this question to full conviction and satisfaction yet a man would consider 1. What he himself having knowledge of the goods would give for such and such corn cloath beasts or whatever it be if he hath or had use for them or were to buy them 2. What men of knowledge do judge such a thing to be worth and what may be the price of it if the price be by Authority regulated it setteth it self 3. What such a thing doth generally cost amongst those that are judicious and conscientious 4. What he would give for the like possibly again when this is away allowing fit gain In sum there are thâ—ee sorts of prices the 1. Is rigid when men must have what they will for their Ware The 2. is eâ—sie this is only at some times when it is called for but it is not alway necessary and selling thus in such cases is an honest giving which men are not always at least obliged â—o The 3. is pretium medium or the middle or modest price which is betwixt the two and in no extream yet when any question is whether this much or that much is to be taken It is safest carving on the side that lyeth next our selves 5. A man would consider how he would proceed in that bargain so as he might have peace if he were just now to die and what he durst adventure on in that case let him do the same in all his bargains Amongst the many and great uses of riches some of them concern our selves some of them others and there lyeth no less necessity upon us to shew mercy for the supply of others then to pay our debt or supply our selves and to a man in case for it God hath not left the one indifferent more then the other For clearing of which we would consider that God who is the great owner and absolute proprietor of the Creatures and who distributed them to men according to his pleasure hath distributed riches to some as it were to Stewards to be made use of for his houshold as may be gathered from Luke 16. 10 11 12. Hence it is not left arbitrary to men to give alms or not as they think meet but it lyeth on them as an absolute duty Hence also we may see what a sin it is to be altogether neglective of it or deficient in it 1. It is a stealing and theft as is implyed Ephes 4. 28. 2. It is perfidiousness and unfaithfulness in a trust committed to us Luke 16. 9. c. 3. It is cruelty and murther and hating of our brother 1 John 3. vers 15. and 17. compared and indeed if it be intolerable in a mans Steward intrusted with that which the family should be provided with to apply to his own use what should entertain them or to spend it on himself it being both stealth unfaithfulness and cruelty so is it no less intolerable in this case see Prov. 11. 14. 25. This giving of â—lms rightly qualified is highly accounted of in Scripture and assigned as the mark of a righteous man Psalm 119. 9. noticed and commended in a special manner at the day of Judgment Matth. 25 30. c. commanded as a duty Dout. 15. 7 11 14. 21. and 26. 11. c. and much pressed and insisted on 2 Cor. 8 9. and scarcely will we find in all the Scripture one particular duty about which two whole Chapters together are spent but this which holdeth out the great complacency the Lord hath in the single and suitable practise of it it being there deservedly set down and insisted upon as a sure evidence of the reality of our professed subjection to the Gospel Let us see then 1. wherein it consisteth 2. who is the object of it â—3 who is to give 4. how for manner and measure it is to be given 1. Alms is not every giving for that may be of debt or it may be to a rich man or one that hath no need out of pride or for the fashion but 1 there is a needy object from which we can expect nothing again to this we are to give alms 2. There is a doing it upon the account of the Command as thereby honouring our Maker and testifying our love to Christ which is to do it to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Matth 10. 41 4â— it taketh in all supply as meat drink visiting them vindicating them comforting them by lending giving forgiving of any thing that is owing c 2. The object neighbour is large but it is the needy one onely that is to be looked to Ephes 4. â—8 and Deut. 15. 11. And the poor ones who may be considered 1. As to the degree of their need three wayes 1. Need that is common and such as folks may fend with it 2. that is pinching when they fend with difficulty 3. that is extream when they cannot subsist In the first cafe men are to give out of their abundance 2 Cor. 8. 14. and need not straiten themselves for the supply of such poor In the second they ought to straiten themselves that they may be in case to supply others as when they have two coats give one Luke 3 vers 11. In the third they would straiten themselves though it were to sell all and divide it which the Apostle calleth 2 Corinth 8. 3. a doing beyond power which is not alwayes called for 2. Consider them either as able to work and by idleness occasioningt heir own need as many beggars and loiterers though of better rank do these are not objects of Charity 2 Thess 3. 11. it is their own fault they want or 2. as having able and rich friends such as Parents Children Kinsfolk c. The Church and proportionally particular persons ought not to be burthened with these 1 Tim. 5. 16. or 3. as wanting all comforts and as weak Levit. 25. 47. the Apostle calleth them desolate 1 Tim. 5. 10. These are proper objects of Charity and Alms. 3. Consider them either 1. as of kin and related to us and nature teacheth us to begin here first and to supply the necessity of these or 2. as gracious or 3. as our flesh and as men here we should do good to all though especially to the houshold of Faith Galat. 6. 10. proportioning notwithstanding our charity according to our tyes for a man may give a natural and unregenerate Child more then a regenerate neighbour yet he is to supply both if he be able 3. But who should give Answ All having a competencie of their own and power of it those who have nothing are not called to it neither also Children and Wives they being in some respect not in power or capacity to distribute except so far as the allowance of their station goeth for the relation of Wife Son c. giveth some latitude in some things wherein it is supposed that the Husband
great difference betwixt these two to say the seventh-day Sabbath which the Jews kept is moral and to say the fourâ—h Command is moral the one may be and is abolished because another is brought in its room The other to wit the Command may stand and doth stand because it tyeth morally to a seventh day but such a seventh day as the Lord should successively discover to be chosen by him and though the seventh be changed yet one of seven is still reserved 3. There is need to distinguish betwixt the moral substance of a Command and some ceremonial appendices belonging to it So the fourth Command might thea possibly have had something ceremonial in the seventh day or in the manner used of sanctifying that seventh day which now is gone as double Sacrifice c. or in its reasons whereby it is pressed as there is something peculiar to that People in the Preface to all the Commands as there was in the Sacraments of the old Law belonging to the second Command yet both a Sabbath-day and Sacraments may be and are very necessary and moral in the Church it is not then every thing hinging on this Command as proper to that administration and so but accidental to the sanctifying of a Sabbath that we plead for but this is it we plead for that the Command is as to its main scope matter and substance moral-positive and that it standeth as still binding and obliging unto us and cannot without sin be neglected or omitted it might be enough here to say that if this Command were never repealed in the substance of it noâ— did never exspire by any other thing succeeding in its place then it must needs be still binding for certainly it was once as obligatory-proclaimed by the Law-giver himself and was never since in its substance repealed nor is it exspired or found hurtfull in its nature but is as necessary now as then it is true the seventh day Sabbath is repealed by instituting and substituting the first day Sabbath or Lords day in its place but that doth rather qualifie the Command then repeal it for 1. It saith that a day â—s moral and necessary 2. It saith a day of seven is moral and necessary which is all we say and why necessary as agreeable to this Command no doubt whence we may Argue if the substance of this Command be kept even when the particular day is changed then is the Command moral which this very change confirmeth but the former is true as is clear in experience therefore it followeth that the Law stands unrepealed for its palpable that the day as to its number or frequency and duration with the manner of sanctifying of it belongs to the substance of the Commandment but what day as to its order first second or seventh doth not because the first cometh in immediately upon Religion Gods Honour and the good of Souls which the other doth not This Argument will stand good against all who acknowledge this Law to have been once given by God till they can evidence a repeal To speak somewhat more particularly to this the way we shal make out the morality of it is by considering 1. How the Scripture speaketh of it in general 2. How it speaketh of the Decalogue 3. How it speaketh of this Command in particular 4. By adducing some Scriptural Arguments for it As for the 1. To wit the Scriptures speaking of it in general we say If the Scripture speak as frequently in clearing the fourth Command or the Sabbath which is the morality of it and press it as seriously and that in reference to all times of the Church as it doth any other moral duty then for substance this Command is moral and perpetually binding for that seemeth to be the Character whereby most safely to conclude concerning a Command to consider how the Scripture speaketh of it but the Scripture doth as often mention and is as much and as serious in pressing of that Command and that in reference to all states of the Church as of any other Ergo c. We shall make out this by shewing 1. its frequency in mentioning of it 2. It s seriousness in pressing it 3. It s asserting of it as belonging to all times and states of the Church 1. Look through all the Scriptures and ye will find the sanctifying of a Sabbath mentioned as first Genes 2. beginneth with the very first seventh after the Creation then it is spoken of Exod. 16. before the Law was given then Exod. 20. it is contained expressy in the Law and that by a particular and special Command in the first Table thereof and is often after repeated Exod. 31. and Levit. 23. v 3. where it is set down as the first feast before all the extraordinary ones which preference can be for no other reason but because of its perpetuity yea it is made a rule or pattern by which the extraordinary Sabbaths or Feasts in their sanctification are to be regulate again it is repeated Deut. 5. with the rest of the Commands and in the Historical part of Scripture as Nehemiah 9. 13. It is also mentioned in the Psalms the 92. Psalm being peculiarly intituled a Psalm or Song â—et the Sabbath day The Prophets again do not forget it see Isai 56 58. Jerem. 17. and Ezek. 20. 22. In the New Testament the sanctifying of a day or Sabbath is mentioned in the Evangelists Matth. 24. 20. Luke 23. 56. Acts 13. 14 15. 21. and 20. 7. in the Epistles as 1 Cor. 16. and in the Revel chap. 1. verse 10. As if all had purposely concurred for making out the concernment and perpetuity of this duty 2. Consider how weightily seriously and pressingly the Scripture speaketh of â—t first it is spoken of Gen. 2. as backed with a reason 2. Through the Law the sanctification of it in particular is described 3. It is spoken of as a mercy and singular priviledge that God gave to his people Exod. 16. 19. Neb. 9 14. and Ezek. 〈◊〉 12 4 Many promises containing many blessings are made to the conscientious and right keepers of it Isa 56 58. 5. The breach of it is severely threatned and plagued Numb 15. Neb. 13. Jer. 17. and Ezek. 20. 6 Many examples of the Godly their care in keeping it are set down see Nehem. 13. Luk. 23. 56. Act. 20. 7. aâ—d Rev. 1. 10. 7. The duties of it are particularly set down as Heaâ—ing Praying Reading delighting in God works of mercy c. 8. It is in the Old Testament claimed by God as his own day not ours My Holy day Isa 58 13 and Nehem. 9. 14 it is acknowledged by the People to be His while they â—ay Thine holy Sabbath which property is asserted of that Holy day as being Gods besides other dayes Rev. 1 10. â—nd this is asserted also in this same Command where it is called the Sabbath of the Lord in opposition to or contradistinction from the other six dayes all which seemeth to