should withdraw our selves from such It has been great encouragement and sweet satisfaction unto me for divers years that I have Christ and his Word his Will and his Law for me in this Holy Contest His ten Words or Commandments how perfect and complete how standing and unchangeable a Rule of life are they in all and every of the matters of Duty to be performed and of Sin to be avoided It was Jehovah Christ himself who by his Spirit from his Father wrote upon the two Tables the Words of the Covenant the ten Words or Precepts This Scripture more especially I undervalue not any of the rest though this have its signal remark cannot be broken This is a perfect Law These words Jehovah spake and he added no more Christ would not have us so much as think that he came to destroy to dissolve the Law he came not to dissolve but to fulfill He confirms it by an high Asseveration that till Heaven and Earth do pass one Jod or Chirek one either Consonant or Vowel or any thing else originally belonging thereunto shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments and such do the most of men compt the weekly Sabbath though misjudgingly and will teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whosoever shall do and teach men the same shall be called Great in the Kingdom of Heaven This Law is established This Law or Testimony is sure or faithful or firm or constant it endures for ever it is standing-abiding continuing firm yet and perpetually This is the Rule of the New Creature by this must we walk This is to be bound up and sealed among Christs Disciples To the Law and to the Testimony must we refer all our Controversies in Religion for Determination and Resolution If any speak not according to this Word it is because No morning-light is as yet in them Here is the full comprehensive of what is our Duty to do Where or for what no Law is there is no Transgression or neither a Transgression Sin is not imputed where is no Law for Sin is a Transgression of the Law Then a Soul is guilty when it sinneth against any of the Commandments of Jehova in what ought not to be done and shall do against any of them This Law of the Ten words was put into the Ark and this alone and nothing else but this put there in which it was so closed as that it was not to be taken out or changed having a Crown of gold by Jehovah's own appointment put round about it This particular Law of the weekly-seventh day-Sabbath has a special mark of remembrance fixt unto it at the very entrance into it This must not be forgotten to be kept Holy and the Works of our particular Functions are expresly prohibited to be done on it This seventh-Seventh-day must be sanctified as the weekly Sabbath of Jehovah our God because all and every of those weighty Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim the Law-maker the Law-giver himself hath assigned and rendred and no Reasons can be so demonstrative and convincing as those which he doth give who is only wise from whence to inforce and perswade Obedience to his Command in observing of a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy to him do properly belong and are applicable to the Seventh which is the last day in every Week in Order of time in the weekly returns of it As the weekly Sabbath-day and to no other day of the Week as such neither to the first second third fourth fifth or sixth day Six daies in the week we are to labour and the Seventh day in the same week is the Sabbath The Seventh-day the seventh-day has its peculiar Note of Honour put upon it There can be but one Seventh day in one Week in the weekly Order and Succession of the Seven days though each of the other foregoing six days in the week are one of seven or one of the seven daily parts of weekly time Every one of the other days of the week have another name as one the second the third the fourth the fifth the sixth Only the last day of the week is called the Seventh day and the Sabbath day Weeks will be to the worlds end concluded within the compass of Seven days One of Aelohims Reasons is because he rested upon the seventh day upon that and that only which is the last day in the week and upon no other day in the week as a weekly Sabbath-day This History of the Creation doth go this day over three times on or in the Seventh-day the Seventh-day the Seventh-day Aelohim rested and again a second time He rested Afterwards in Moses time a little before Christ's Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Seventh-day and the rest or Sabbath on it are several times mentioned the Seventh-day the Seventh-day the Seventh-day and a fourth time the Seventh-day The Rest of the Holy Sabbath or a Resting of Holy Rest for Sabbath signifies a Rest a Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath the People rested on it At the Promulgation of this Law this same Reason is resumed again For in six days Jehovah made the Heavens and the Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh-day and therefore His people ought to rest on the same day as the Holy-Sabbath-day The Scriptures do carry this further along after the Promulgation of it Six days shall men work but on the Seventh-day the Seventh-day a Sabbath a Sabbath of rest a Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath Jehovab rested on this day and refreshed himself Six days thou shalt work but on the seventh-day thou shalt rest thou shalt rest Six days shall work be done but on the Seventh-day there shall be to you an Holy-day a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah the seventh-day is the Sabbath of rest the Sabbath the seventh day is the Sabbath to Jehovah Thus also in the After-Prophets in Jeremiah's days Bear no burden on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day sanctifie the Sabbath-day to do no Work therein The Sabbath-day the Sabbath-day Thus in Nehemiah's time that zealous Reformer would not suffer Ware or any Victuals to be brought to be sold on the Sabbath-day on the Sabbath-day on the Holy-day the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath No burden shall be brought in on the Sabbath-day the Sabbath the Sabbath-day The New Testament also doth take special notice of this The Seventh-day has the name of Sabbath or of Rest given it there above threeâ—â—ore times They rested Christs followers were silent from the Works of their particular Functions the seventh-day The Seventh-day God did rest the seventh-day from all his Works None of all this is said of any other day of the week Particularly not of the first and therein the LORD Jesus
the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as observed not the seventh-day as such If it be thus then how nameless how Commandless how promiseless how threatless is the first day of the week as to this matter of the weekly-Sabbath-day Examine and search we the Scriptures in this case All the Scriptures through where the holy spirit speaks of a weekly-sabbath day the name and thing thereof that is of such a weekly-Sabbath-day is given only to the seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly-Sabbath-day On the seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day Aelohim Sabbatized he Sabbatized The seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day the seventh-day the rest of the Holy Sabbath a Sabbath the Sabbath the Sabbath the People rested on it The seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work The seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work In the seventh is the Sabbath of rest The seventh day a Sabbath of Rest The seventh day the Sabbath of rest Scores of times in the Scripture of the old testament the seventh day is called the Sabbath Several times also in the new Testament about threescore times The LORD Christ himself speaking Prophetically cals it the Sabbath-day Divers times in the Historie of the Acts of the Apostles after Christs Ascension to his Father Every Sabbath Paul reasoned in the Synagogue as his manner was No other day in the week is called the Sabbath-day This some of the most Learned amongst the adversaries of the seventh day having been convinced of and finding their labours fruitless in searching after the name Sabbath to be given to the first day of the week which is no where done they rather oppose the name Sabbath as not fit to be used now under the new-Testament-administration of Grace as applyed to the weekly seperated day for Holy rest and worship they reject it themselves that others too might the more abhor it by giving it an ill name miscalling it the Jewish-Sabbath So that these Enemies themselves being Judges they confess that all Churches do call the seventh day alone by the old name Sabbath It was the seventh this seventh day it is double-Articled on which God rested from all his works Consider further there is not all the Scriptures through any command given for the observation of any other day in the week asthe weekly-Sabbath-day but only the seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly return of it At the first Creation of this seventh day It was instituted for Adam to do it and observe it as the weekly Sabbath day Thus before the Law was proclaimed how long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws Jehovah hath given you the Sabbath Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day for to gather Manna or to do any other servile work So the People rested on the seventh day Thus at the time of Promulgation Remember or to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Six daies shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God In it thou shalt not do any work It expresseth both a precept what to do and a prohibition what not to do Keep the Sabbath to sanctifie it as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee Six daies shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God In it thou shalt not do any work So express is this word of the Law-giver himself After the proclaiming of this Law six daies thou shalt do thy work and on the seventh day thou shalt rest Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep said Jehovah ye shall keep the Sabbath six daies shall work be done but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest Six daies thou shalt work but on the seventh day thou shalt rest In Eating-time or Plough-time and in Harvest thou shalt rest during the seventh-day-Sabbath If any time had more colouraable plea for working than other the Ploughing-time and the Harvest-time were the seasons the one to prepare the Ground and to cast in the Seed the other to reap and gather in the Fruit and increase Tillage was necessary for Harvest Harvest was necessary for sustenance yet the holy rest of the Sabbath must not be broken for these The prohibition reached in the very letter of it against these times Again these are the words which Jehovah hath commanded that ye should do them six daies shall work be done but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah If any handy-work were to be spoken for as an exception to this general rule Tabernacle-work was the work yet this Law of the seventh-day-Sabbath must not be transgressed for the carrying on of such work for the preparing finishing and erecting of the Tabernacle though it were the appointed place under that dispensation of Grace for the publick Instituted worship and service of God Ye shall keep my Sabbath again ye shall keep my Sabbath and a third time in Leviticus ye shall keep my Sabbaths the like we have in the Books of the Prophets carry not forth any burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day nor do any work but ye shall hallow the Sabbath day according as I commanded your Fathers said Jehovah by Jeremiah to the People of God in his time much the same we have in Ezekiel bringing in the LORD thus bespeaking his People I Jehovah your God walk in my statutes observe my judgments and do them and Hallow my Sabbaths The same Prophetically in another place thus saith Adonai Jehovah the gate of the inner Court that looketh towards the East shall be shut the six working daies but on the Sabbath it shall be opened But the gate shall not be shut until the Evening The Prince shall offer the burnt Offering on the Sabbath-day Thus after the return from the Babylonish Captivity Zealous Nehemiah reproves the transgressors of this law and Command of the seventh day-Sabbath what Evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath-day I commanded and charged saith he This he did in pursuance of Jehovahs Express command and charge that no burden be brought in on the Sabbath day I said unto the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and come and keep the gates to sanctifie the Sabbath-day The same is mentioned in the New-Testament the holy Women had Rested on the Sabbath-day according to the Commandement They who were no friends to Christ could yet acknowledge this in the Principle for the matter of Right though they misjudged in a matter of Fact in point of practise and in a particular Case there are six daies in which men ought to work and not
the Week as a Weekly-Sabbath-day but only against and upon such as will not observe the seventh day which is the last day in every Week In the Book of Moses before the Proclaiming of the Law of the Ten words at Mount Sinai the Israelites were to gather Manna on the six foregoing daies of the Week and on the sixth day that sixth the day immediately before the Seventh that there could be no mistake of the day the bread of two daies one part whereof being kept for Food on the seventh day Sabbath did neither melt nor stink neither was any Worm therein yet notwithstanding this wonderful appearance of Jehovah for the sustenance and Food of his people who but a little before had murmured and complained for want of Bread there were of the People who went out on the Seventh day for to gather Manna and they found none Upon this Jehovah steps in with his prohibition and threatning and said unto Moses how long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws See for that Jehova hath given you the Sabbath this Sabbath this noted day therefore he giveth you on that sixth day the Bread of two daies abide ye every Man in his place let no man not a Man of you if you dare to transgress it will be to your hurt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Particle of Dehorting and of Deprecating go out of his place on this seventh day And that this seventh-day Sabbath might have the more confirming Sanction Jehovah Aelohim continues this miraculous way of seeding of his people for about Fourty years and takes order for the preserving of a Pot of this Manna to be laid up to the Faces of Jehovah to be kept for their generations for the better establishing of the Doctrine of Weeks and of the certainty and duty of observing the seventh-day-Sabbath which admirable appearing if we reckon it seven times over for every Week six times for the fall of Manna on the six foregoing daies of each Week and a seventh time for the preserving of that part of the double portion on the Seventh day which was gathered on the Sixth day the Number amounts to above fourteen Thousand times At the Promulgation of the Law there was a threatning in the Prohibition six daies thou shalt Labour but the seventh day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any Work So in Moses's repeating of this Law the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy Aelohim in it thou shalt not do any work if thou wilt boldly transgress it will be at thine own Peril After the solemn reviving and publishing of this Law every one that defiâ—eth the Sabbath shall surely be put to death For whosoever doth any Work therein that Soul shall be cutt off from amongst his people Six daies shall work be done but in the seventh the Sabbath of Rest or a Sabbath of Sabbatism Holiness to Jehovah who doing a work in the day of that Sabbath to die he shall die whosoever doth work on the seventh-day-Sabbath shall be put to death Thus saith Jehovah if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these my Commandments particularly if ye will not keep my Sabbaths I also will do this unto you And then followeth Threatning upon Threatning Curse upon Curse Thus f when Jehovah had by a judicial Law declared against wilful transgressors a Soul that would sin with an high hand whereby such an one did Reproach Jehovah for which that Soul was to be cut off from among his People because he had despised the word of Jehovah and had broken his Commandment that Soul was utterly to be cut off his Iniquity was to be upon him And notwithstanding this Denunciation one of the Children of Israel would be gathering of Wood upon the sabbath-Sabbath-day when those that found him thus Transgressing this Law and contemning this threatning had brought him unto Moses and Aaron and unto all the Congregation and they had put him in ward because it was not declared as to the particular kind of Death for the judicial Law was declared before as was but now mentioned should be done to him Hereupon Jehovah said to Moses that man shall surely be put to death All the Congregation shall stone him with Stones without the Camp And all the Congregation brought him without the Camp and stoned him with Stones and he died as Jehovah commanded Moses In the Book of the Prophets there is also a denouncing of Judgments against Profaners of the seventh-day-Sabbath Hear what Jehovah spake by the mouth of his servant Jeremiah thus said Jehovah unto me go and stand in the gate of the Children of the People whereby the Kings of Judah come in and by the which they go out and in all the Gates of Jerusalem and say unto them hear ye the word of Jehovah ye Kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that enter in by these Gates Thus saith Jehovah take heed to your selves and bear no Burden on the Sabbath-day nor bring in by the Gates of Jerusalem neither carry forth a Burden out of your Houses on the Sabbath-day neither do ye any work but Hallow the Sabbath-day as I commanded your Fathers but they obeyed not neither inclined their Ear but made their Neck stiff that they might not hear nor receive instruction And if you will not hearken unto me to Hallow the Sabbath day and not to bear a Burden even entring in at the Gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day then will I kindle a Fire in the Gates thereof and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and it shall not be quenched Let Ezekiel now speak from the LORD I saith Jehovah caused my people to go forth out of the Land of Egypt and brought them into the Wilderness and I gave them my statutes and shewed them my Judgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I Jehovah who Sanctifie them But the House of Israel rebelled against me in the Wilderness they walked not in my statutes and they despised my Judgments which if a Man do he shall even live in them This promise mentioned twice here implyeth the contrary death even death upon death death unto death threatned against not-doers particularly against not-doers not-Hallowers of the seventh-day-Sabbath and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted Then observe the LORD catched at this season of their provoking of him I said I would pour out my fury upon them in the Wilderness to consume them Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the Wilderness that I would not bring them into the Land which I had given them Flowing with Milk and Hony which are the Glory of all Lands Because they despised my Judgments and walked not in my Statutes but polluted my Sabbaths But I said unto their Children
old corrupt Principles the old crooked Rules the old selfish ends the old bad Frames the old uutoward Actings the erroneous mistakes the formality in Worship the old unscriptural Traditions the old Sins the old man's Conversion and such like These do pass away and all things contrary to these are become new A whole new man The Apostle speaks of what is peculiar to the New Creature in Christ as such For as for the old ceremonious Rites and their passing away even those that were not new Creatures but were carnal Professors of Christianity yet had these things passing away and they were put under a new Administation the new dispensation of Grace had Ordinances now in a more spiritual heavenly way and manner The passing away of old things here is of old things so far as they stand in opposition to the new Creature and unto that new life in and to Christ which now the converted person should live That as Christ so loved his people as to dye and rise again for them so should those in Christ thus evidence their Love to Christ by living no longer to themselves but unto him crucifying the old man mortifying the sins and lusts of that old man and vivifying or quickning the new man which was true in the Types and Figures before Christ was come born of the Virgin Mary and which is still true now after that Christ is come and ascended up into Glory But all this doth make nothing as to the passing away of the Law of the ten Words in all of them or in any one the least of them This is a distinct fort of Laws from the Typical Figuring Shadowy Institutions The Law of the ten Words as it always has been so is it now and still will be the Rule of the new Creature in Christ Jesus For what in one place is called the new Creatures Rule in another speaking to the same case is the keeping of the Commandments of God In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but a new Creature And as many as walk according to this Rule Peace be on them and Mercy and on the Israel of God The Israel of old had no saving benefit barely by the outward sign of Circumcision whereas God's Israel then who had the sign and the thing signified too they had the Mercy and Peace who were new Creatures united to the Messiah by Faith working by Love who had their hearts circumcised to love Jehovah their God who had sin subdued and lust mortified And the uncircumcision under the new Dispensation was not of any good avail without the new Birth without conjunction to and communion with it and if the Regenerate the new Born the new Created would evidence and approve themselves to be such and to be in Christ they must obey him and keep his Commandments But what is all this to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First Day of the Week To pass from one sort of Laws into another sort of Laws from the Law of figuring Types to the Law of the ten Words and to infer the passing away of any one of the Laws of the ten Words from the passing of Types into the Antitypes and of signifying Figures into their signified things is a transition from one kind to another a way of sophistical arguing of fallacious disputing captiously to over-reach the ignorant too credudulous vulgar and to defraud them of their right to the Truth As for that part of the Objection which doth speak of new Heavens and of new Earth pretended to be completed and finished on the Day of Christ's Resurrection from whence to conclude the passing away of the Seventh-day Sabbath to make room for a First-Day-weekly Sabbath it is so scriptureless so natureless so reasonless an inference that it should have been more preconsidered by this Arguer whether it do conclude and prove any thing but this that the Adversaries would fain have something or other that might carry a little colour and some shew with it if they know what For let it be pondered upon search and examination that all those places of Scripture which do speak of the new Heavens and the new Earth do relate to a further time for their full accomplishment than precisely to the Day of Christ's Resurrection That Prophesie in Isaiah hath an eye to the more large and spreading conversions of the two and ten Tribes in the latter days yet to come How was this then fulfilled on Christ's Resurrection-Day who of them was then converted what eminent new Creatorship was there then brought forth which might put any such signal remark upon the First Day of the Week as from thence to become the new weekly Sabbath When the most of the Disciples themselves did scarce believe him to be raised till after that Day was over And two Disciples with whom he had walked some Miles that Day had little belief of his Resurrection and little knowledge of him till he disappeared from them How few in comparison were brought in unto Christ and made new Creatures in all Christ's life time at his Death and Resurrection and forty Days after that till after his Ascension and after the pourings out of the Holy Spirit That forementioned Prophesie doth foretel that Nations shall be brought under the Jews Dominions when those new Heavens and new Earth shall appear This was not at the time of Christ's Resurrection-day nor ever since and they were then and have been since for sixteen hundred years or more so far Ruling over the Nations that they have been a scattered despised broken people without so much as any Political Kingly Government amongst themselves It foretels that those of Judah and of Israel should be gathered out of all Quarters East West North and South This also is behind yet unfulfilled That Euphrates would be dry Was this on Christ's Resurrection Day Or has it been since Is not this also yet to come upon their return to their own Land in the latter Days Will not their grand Enemy the Turk be then overthrown who has so long wrongfully possessed their Inheritance which when it is will be so great a work for the inhabited Earth to take notice of where the ear-report shall come or the eye-witnessing be that it will obscure the memory of former Acts. Another Prophesie by Isaiah doth fortel that at that time of the new Heavens and the new Earth the ten Tribes of Israel as well as the other two of Judah and of Benjamin shall according as to an express promise return home to their own Country and Land For Sharon was in Gilead which belonged to Manasseh The Valley of Achor was a parcel of the Tract of Jericho in the Tribe of Judah There will then be a new face of things in their glorious and blessed Renovation when there will be divers things accomplished which are not as yet fulfilled As
of the Scripture that do foretell of an Holy Righteous People in the purer Churches of the later days have respect unto this Law which is sealed in Christ's Disciples which is transcribed in their new Heart It is engraven on the Hearts and Minds of Christ's New Covenant people by the LORD the Spirit Anti-christ that lawless one will set himself most to persecute those Disciples of Christ who do stick closest to Christ in walking according to the Rule of this Law Both the Old Testament and also the New doth close with a Reviving and Inforcing of this Law and that under a terrible threatning of Excommunication against scandalous Transgressors of it and a dreadful Curse denounced against such as shall add to or take from it whereunto other Scriprures do well agree For the accomplishing of what John had in a Vision Believers do now wait even that the Temple of God may be open in Heaven in which Temple may be seen the Ark of his Testament or Covenant in which Ark there was nothing put but the Two Tables on which the Ten Words written with the finger of Aelohim This Law shall yet once again come forth out of Mount Sion This Law is one of the Great honourable things of Aelohim All the LORD'S Appearings in his way of Justice against Sin for Holiness is his Vindication of this Law And all his free Rewardings of his obedient people in his way of Righteous performing of Covenant Mercy is his Approbation of this Law for upon this bottom do all his Judicial Laws stand These later days do call for Advocates to plead the Cause of this Holy Righteous Law Antichrist now doth more appear to be the Anomous one The Antichristian party have mangled the ten Words for thus they publish them in their Psalters and Catechisms 1. I am the Lord God thou shalt have no other God but me 2. Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain 3. Remember to sanctifie the holy days 4. Honour thy father and mother 5. Thou shalt not kill 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery 7. Thou shalt not steal 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness 9. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours wife 10. Thou shalt not desire thy neighbours goods Here they wholly leave out the second Commandment They thrust the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath of Jehovah out of the Fourth Word and substitute their own unscriptural holy-days they turn the last Word into two They teach religious reverence to be done to Creatures as to Angels to Souls departed to the Cross c. they hold it lawful to be present at idolatrous service keeping a man's conscience to himself they teach Invocation of Saints they allow blasphemous Oaths they teach Will-worship Idolatry Superstitions and their fabulous feigned Traditions and such vows as are unwarrantable and unlawful they lay aside the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and set up days of mens inventing instituting and imposing dedicating them and the worship and service on them much to Creatures they hold that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in the Matters of Religion they exempt their Clergy from the jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate They absolve Inferiors from their subjection to Superiors They justifie Murthering of Princes and of others that promote not their Cause they tolerate Stewes they allow uncleanness to some persons as venial and scarce a sin They assert officious and sporting lyes to be lawful and justifiable if good may be attained by it They dispense with the whole Decalogue by Usurpation If the Pope command what Christ doth forbid or if he forbid what Christ doth command yet they require their people to obey them contrary to Christ's Law The sins of the later days are expressed by the name of Anomies which is often declared against in the New Testament as well as in the Old Violence to the Law and partiality in the Law is one great Article that will be brought in by way of charge against corrupt Teachers in the later days This is the great comprehensive sin which the LORD doth so much hate One Word for Law is used if I have not misreckoned abvoe one hundred and ninety times in the New Testament and another word for a commandment about seventy times And those who are nefarious not consentaneous to Laws Out laws and lawless ones are the gross erring ones in principle in practice or in both O how zealous was the LORD Christ for this Law of his How careful to have the whole of it all and every part of it to be safely kept He put it all into two comprehensive Precepts and there hung it up to stay it that none of it might fall to the ground or be lost All Religion conspireth into these two This is that way of Righteousness wherein Believers ought to be found walking Anomy Antinomianâ—sm lawlessness or a disowning and rejecting of the Law of the ten Words this is a description of sin as opposed to Holiness and Righteousness 1 John 34. Rom. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Anomy is that foul comprehensive evil which Christ doth hate Heb. 1. 9. To be reckoned amongst the Anomous ones is to be reckoned amongst the vilest and most notorlous of sinners Mar. 15. 28. Luk. 22. 37. They were Anomous hands which did crucifie Christ Act. 2. 23. Anomous works are grieving and vexing to the Righteous Soul of a Righteous Man 2 Pet. 2. 8. Anomy is that great Evil which Christ came to redeem his people from Tit. 2. 14. Anomy is that sin which all Christ's justified ones have freely forgiven unto them Rom. 4. 7. Heb. 8. 12. and 10. 17. Anomy doth lay aside that Rule by which we must judge of Good and of Evil of Sin and of Duty Rom. 4. 15. and 5. 30. It is one of Antichrists Names that he is the Anomous one 2 Thess 2. 8. Anomy is the hainous crime of the later days Mat. 24. 12. 2 Thess 2. 7 8. Anomous ones will be cast out of Fellowship and Communion in the purer Churches of the later-day-Glory Mat. 13. 41. Such as live and die working of this Anomy will at the last be shut out of the New City and the Heavenly Glory Mat. 23. and 23. 28 33. We must take one and all one and every one of the ten Words They are conjoyned into one body of the Law and must be so likewise in our Obedience It is as it were one copulative if you dissolve and break one you dissolve and break all and thereby violate his Authority who requires obedience to all and to every one of them All the ten Commandments is but one Commandment A Law Kingly A Law of Liberty A Law by which we must be obliged A Law by the works of which men must manifest their Faith to be of the right saving living-kind and by which Faith is made perfect The same Aelohim who spake one of the Laws of these ten Words
spake all and every one of them in a singular emiment manner at the Mount Sinai he spake at other Seasons but this Law was spoken with more solemnity of proclaiming This is that Law which the Apostate Angels were and are trangressors of Satan is the Evil one he sets himself up as a God to be worshiped which is against the first and second he is a blaspheming spirit against the third Word He keeps not the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath and tempts men to profane it against the fourth Words He has broken the Law of his Relation and tempts all both Superiors and Inferiors to break the established order according to the fifth Word Christ calls him a Murderer against the sixth Word An unclean spirit against the seventh Word He is a Thief a Robber a Stealer Robbs men of their holiness and happiness steals away the Word out of their hearts against the eighth Word He is a Lyar against the ninth Word A covetous craver of what is not his own And he sollicits men to covet what is their Neighbours against the tenth Word For this Decalogue is the Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness given to Angelical Natures who were summoned to appear at the solemn promulgation and proclaiming of this Law Even the Holy Spirits are doers of Jehovah's Commandments and they hearken unto the Voice of his Word And what is more yet this Law will be the perfect establish'd continud Law and Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness of the glorified ones for ever in Heaven How great therefore is there ignorance and how gross their mistake and dangerous their errour who daringly assert that this Law was temporay given only to one national people of Israel and some few more as if others were not under the obligation of it at least in part if not in whole Whereas it is a Kingly Law to which all mankind ought to be subject and conforming all being concern'd in this Law all being to be judged by this Law all sin and duty being to be measured by this Law There must an universal regard had to all and to every one of the Commands in the Decalogue both by Prince Minister and People There is a note of universality requiring Obedience to all these Commands and a word of singularity forbidding the breach and violation of any one of them Though Christ have Redeemed his people from the Curse of this Law yet not from the Rule of it the Redemption from the Curse of it doth still establish the Rule of it And as to this particular Law of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath there was a mixed multitude of others with the Israelites at the very time of proclaiming it And the Stranger yea the very Cattel are expresly comprehended within the bounds and in the very Letter of this Word and natural Reason for the observation thereof And if men will still be so adventurous in this age of clear Light and of shining discovery as to go on to do the labour and work of their particular Functions and Imployments on the Seventh-day there is no Word of God that doth dispense with this neither can any word of man bear them out in it against a direct prohibition The ten words or the Law of the Decalogue being that perfect Image and exact Sampler according to which all Mankind in the loyns of Adam were at the first created in all Wisdom Holiness and Righteousness as their finite Capacities could take in and it being still the Rule and Direction for the renewing and restoring of Wisdom Holiness and Righteousness in any of the sons and daughters of men it is therefore in a proper sense the Law of Nature and it being so it hath some foundation in the Humane Nature and so doth respect all Mankind Jew and Gentile Male and Female no Sex nor Age no Language nor People excepted which Law when proclaimed at Mount Sinai universally concerned all the men and women that then were since have been now are and that shall be in the after Generations the Head and Representative of us all was under the Direction and Obligation of this Law and so are all the Posterity of Adam Sin was in the World from Adam even unto Moses and Death was reigning in the World from Adam even unto Moses and the Law was existing in the World from Adam even unto Moses when it was a new promulgated for where the Law is not in being sin is not reckoned Thus was the first Adam the representing Type of all Mankind who had this complete Law concreated with the Humane Nature This Decalogical Holiness and Righteousness though not the very natural Essence and real Substance of the Humane Nature nor necessarily flowing from the very principles of that Humane Nature yet was a concreated perfection in him and a connatural suitableness to him it was implanted in Adam's heat which Law and Obedience thereunto was the greatest part of his resembling the Image and likeness of his Creators and Makers it being after the same Pattern a Law commanding all Good and forbidding all Evil a Law of hidden ages without limitation of any time place or person serving all times all places all persons being an absolute full Directory both before and since the Fall whether this Law were given outwardly by the Creator to Adam by word and voice is not now the matter of inquiry Let it suffice that it was given to Adam which all his Postery should conform unto It was continued in the Church all along as a Rule of Life so it was to Noah one of the Fathers of the Gentile Nations who was a just man perfect in his Generations walking with Aelohim and finding Grace in the Eyes of Jehovah he was a Preacher of Righteousness a very Holy Righteous Man and an Obedient Believer The Anomous or lawless times of the later days are compared to Noah's days in that corrupt age Thus also to Abraham who was the Father of many Gentile-Nations of a multitude of them this Abraham had an express full Testimony from the LORD himself that he was such a one as obeyed the voice of Jehovah and kept his charge his commandments and Laws which three words are the same that are afterwards used by which to express the ten Commandments the Judgement and the Statutes which God gave by Moses Aelohim knew Abraham how that he would command his sons and his house after him and they should keep the way of Jehovah to do Justice and Judgement Thus also to Moses and to those of his time before the promulgation of this Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai Jehovah Aelohim by Moses rebuked those who contrary to their LORD's commandment went out to seek food on the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath and he expresseth himself thus in his convincing reproof How long will ye refuse to keep my commandments and laws the same words again implying that that rebellious disobedient people did continue on to be transgressors
thereof for the glory of Aelohim The glory of Christ The good of the Elect and of the Believing The work of Creation in that one week of the Erected World was a glorious work every way perfect particularly of Man as Man That Sabbath which was thus from the beginning must still stand The first created Seventh-day-Sabbath is throughout the Scripture most natural according to the Scripture This alone and no other Day is the Sabbath in pure created Nature This Seventh in order has the natural name of Sabbath which the First second third fourth fifth and sixth have not The creation has a natural order The several works thereof having been so created in such due order in six distinct days doth carry that along with it in the very nature and order of their creation which would convince a natural conscience exercising right reason especially when the true information and clear discovery thereof is brought unto him by Scripture-revelation that the Creators wisdom doth shine forth in that order and that this self-evidencing light should be received entertained and improved with ready submission to its obliging Law which doth bind such a natural conscience to believe observe and obey it The first created time as to the weekly Sabbath was perfected and appointed in its proper prime pure and natural Created state and therefore the created order of the seven days of that one week must still keep their natural Names and so the last day of the week and no other is alone the seventh-day and the Sabbath-day Which day then cannot be altered unto a working-day Aelohim's Law must still be obeyed and his Example followed whilst Time has duration To carry the Sabbatizing rest from the seventh to the first day and the Labouring-service from the first to the seventh-day is contrary to the purest Created Nature There is not a translating either of the Work or of the Rest from one day of the week to another Aelohim would not have either of these to be separated from his from their appointed seasons It must abide to the End what was thus from the Beginning What the Holy Law of pure Nature doth confirm doth remain unmoved through all the Dispensations of Grace both of the Old and New-Testament-Administration This doth not destroy that which is pure and perfect in its natural created Being Scripture and Nature are in Harmonious Concord in this matter This seventh day is peculiarly sequestred by Aelohim for a Sabbath and has this Preeminence beyond all the rest the Vote and suffrage of Primitive Nature doth determine and conclude it to be so And what is Man that he attempts to change this Time and Law by a Devising of his own heart and to level this Honorable Day with the rest seeing it was the Institution of Aelohim in the very Forming of Created beings The Holy ends whereof were concreated uses natural and permanent for this portion of Time Which seventh day may not therefore be employed about the common ends uses and works of the six foregoing days of the Week Which six days in their order and names have their several distinct Existence as sense doth plainly demonstrate by the continued successive courses of Night and Day in their seasons At the first framing of Nature the very time it self of the seventh day was on that same day created and made an Holy Rest and was by Law and Sanction so declared The time it self of the seventh-day-Sabbath As such was and is and will be That distinct part of Time which was the object of Aelohim's blessing and sanctifying of it as the natural Weekly Sabbath to be a day of Holy Rest having Foundation in its own natural Existence This is manifestly evidenceable to every rational Man's revived nature and it is perfectly demonstrable by Scripture-revelation to every considering Believer who gives himself impartially to understand the substance and the end of Aelohim's creating of such a separated determinate portion of Time This is the true Doctrine and the Genuin meaning of the Weekly-Sabbath Man and this seventh-day-Sabbath being created in one and the same week will be coeval whilst Weeks do last They will live and stand together The fittedness of this Day was a Creating-Act The reason of which Day is of natural self-Manifestation and Obligation in which we are confirmed by Word-revelation This is the prime Make of it having its first rise with Created Nature and so is Perpetual and unchangeably fixed An Individual-Sabbath-day untransferrable to any other Day of the Week Sabbath-day and seventh-day are Connatural and Reciprocal Sabbath-worship and service must be done on the Day thereof All days of the week are not of equal accompt with God neither have they the same Honour Christ Himself hath put the Crown upon the Head of the Seventh-day and so let it enjoy its sole and lasting Royal Dignity It having a concreated Excellingness which will be and abide with it through the duration of the World A Primitive Constitution that must stand firm It is a distinct day and has a distinct word for it Thus let the Scriptural compleat Journal and its perfect Diary of that one Created Week in seven distinct days remain in its unmoveable Order And now if this Argument drawn from pure Primitive Created Nature be convincing and demonstrative let that Great Ratiocinator call to mind his Expressions I can consent saith he that all They take the seventh-day for the Sabbath who can prove it to be by meer natural evidence and in another place he thus writes This is the very hinge of all our Controversie For if this be once proved we shall easily consess that it he speaks of the Seventh-day-sabbath is not abrogated For Christ came not to abrogate any Law of Nature And further he writes That the great Laws of nature containing Man's Duty to God resulting from and manifested in our nature As related to God and in the nature of things or the works of God was still made the chief part of the Redeemer's Law So that this Law of nature whose sum is the love of God and of his Image is ever the Primitive unchangeable Law No title of this shall ever cease if Nature cease not The seventh-day thus speaks for it self and has its Creator and his word cogently pleading for it No other day of the week either in name or in nature is the Seventh-day The order of the Days is sensible from the first to the seventh He that can tell the days and knows their number understandeth that there must six go before in the same week ere he can come to the seventh A day which cannot be lost by all Mankind Will any apprehend that all and every of reasonable creatures have out slept just one whole day or more whereby this accompt is disturbed What colour is there for such an apprehension And if for Disputes sake such a groundless supposition were admitted yet the Day if thorowly searched after
would recover its ancient right Exact Astronomers have observed that natural days are not all of equal length whatever the vulgar of Philosophers have supposed to the contrary Let those improve their skill to advance this great secret in Created Nature with a particular eye unto the seventh-day-Sabbath Which alone should put a deciding end unto this Controversie Yet in regard this Thwart-over-Generation of vain affecters of Humane Wisdom doth expect some further accompt of this Matter by way of Argument unto Men although I bottom my judgment and practise upon Scripture-Revelation and Created Nature Let me present the Reader with somewhat of Expostulation and of reasoning the Case with such as do importunately call for it Was not the Seventh-day kept unlost and unchanged for about Four thousand years till Christs time Did not Christ in the days of his flesh keep the right seventh-day as the weekly Sabbath-day Is there any likelyhood that this last day of the week would be suffered either in all that time or since Christ's time to this week to be altered who has taken such care for its preservation both in Creation and in Providence and who has in his Word put so many proper marks of Note and Honour upon it Is it not affirmed by James some years after Christ's ascension that Moses from the Antient times hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day Is publick Custom universal of all Mankind in all ages of any force with these contradicting Opposers If so then Observe Do not most of those who name the Name of Christ and multitudes of Pagans with them observe the first day of the week as their weekly Holy-day which according to Ethnick Idolatry and Superstition they miscal Sunday Can he that proves which is the first day of the week but be able to tell which is the seventh if they keep the first right Then have we the true Seventh Have not the Indians their Sabbath on the fourth day of the week If theirs be still on the fourth day then how can the seventh day in Order be lost with them Do not the Mahumâ—dans keep the sixth day of the week as their weekly Festival If their day be the sixth the next immediately following day must be the seventh Have not the Jews all along and some Christians kept close to the seventh which is the last day in every week as the Weekly-Sabbath-day And how could all these so mis-reckon the seventh for any other day of the week How many Testimonies out of Authors could I cite for these If I would cram the Margin to cloy the Examiner of it Do not publick Tables witness this If these be searched in the Courts of Record and in Register-books will it not be found they distinguish and difference the Sabbath-day as the Seventh-day from that which they Name Sunday the first day of the week Have not the Councils by their Decrees still differenced these days as such a kind of Proof for the matter of Fact Do not Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances of Parliament keep alive the memory of these distinct days Do they not give the Name of Sabbath-day to the seventh the last day of the week Their freeing of a particular day of the week from all Executions from troubling any with any Summons from compelling any Man to bring forth his Surety from Apparitors or Serjeants speaking from Advocates pleading from Cryers crying Doth not this also speak it Have not some of their Acts the name of Sunday in the Title of the Act Do not many Law-processes require persons to appear on the Sabbath-day Are not some Statutes Penal upon common Laborers and Travellers on Sunday Are there not Injunctions by some on Rogation week as Superstition calls it to forbid the Solemnization of Marriage from the first day of the said week until Trinity-Sunday If any Common-Prayer book-man make this Objection against me he may take notice That the year when the LORD graciously led me into the observation of the Weekly seventh-day-Sabbath that It was the seventh-day in order of time from the Twenty fifth of March according to Vulgar Accompt which I observed and that twenty fifth day they suppose in their Calendar prefixt to the Church-Bibles and Common-Prayer-Book to be the very day when the year of the World began Let them look to their proof but according to that I observe the seventh day from the Creation So Easter-week Thus do men heathenishly mis-name days and weeks and months and years is by all such understood to be that week whereof Easter-day the Sunday is the first and so they reckon afterwards the first Sunday after Easter-week the second Sunday and so on So Whitsundayweek begins that week with Whitsunday And afterwards Trinity-Sunday the first second and so forth Sunday after Trinity Thus they observe the times for the keeping of their Sessions Do not dead Monuments and Tomb-stones keep alive the memory of the days of the Week when they have often engraved upon them that particular day of the Week when such or such a one dyed or was buried or had his Epitaph and Monument erected Do not Engravings at some Fountains and Springs speak this where the Owners have Recorded some known day of the week upon the Head-stones So also some Boundary stones or Mark-stones May we not often meet with this in Dictionaries and Lexicographers allowed by publick authority which do give other names to other day of the Week But the Seventh which is the last day they call the Sabbath-day The Day of Rest Do not Historians keep this Truth Company with their Judgment For a thousand years and upward say some when we meet with Sabbath in any Writer of what name soever it must be understood of no other day than this seventh-day So those whom they call the Antient Fathers generally style this last day of the Week Sabbath Are not Synods Councils and Canons of one and the same mind in this Do not the Records of this English Nation fully agree in this Many particular Instances of the seventh-days being called the Sabbath being to be found as those who are versed in those Histories do inform in the King's Exchequer in the Common-Pleas in the King's-Bench Chancery Chequer-Chamber and those of the house of Lords which is one of the Highest Courts of Record in this Kingdom all retaining the name of the day of Sabbath for the seventh-day This being the common phrase in the Courts of Westminster and the Latin processes do run in this style which is known to all observing Lawyers Sheriffs Atturneys Clerks and Solicitors Are not Tenures of Lands and of Estates Witnesses of this which are held conditionally upon paying or doing such a sum or such a thing upon such or such a day of the week whereby the number and order of Days cannot be lost Do not Conveyances Copies Leases Deeds concurr in this Which do specify
carnal compliance either with old Judaizers or with superstitious Pagans who had added divers of their own Ethnick corrupt mixtures of Idolatrous Worship which they gave to Sun Moon and Stars By the course and motion whereof Days Times Moons and Years were measured Gentile Philosophers having parcelled out the power of the only true God into the particular vertues of Elements and Creatures As the Lights in the Heavens Fire Water and Earth ascribing some portion of Deity to every one of these and so assigning a part of the Worship of God unto them too appointing times and seasons for their superstitious service These practices are blame worthy This were to go back either to the Old Testament dispensation or to return to their former Heathenish Rites which is three times rebuked and reproved What Again Again Backward But what is all this to the standing Law of the Seventh day Sabbath kept in an Holy Spiritual manner in obedience to Jehovah's command according to his Word Institution This is a matter of a distinct Nature from the other being a Law of another kind So that to lay aside all instituted natural seasons of Worship such as daily Evening and Morning Worship and weekly Sabbath Worship as some would infer from this place is in the issue to open a back-door for the main of Religion to be turned out at and to enforce it as others do from hence and from one Scripture more which they also wrest to the like wrong ill purpose as if it mattered not what day of the Week were kept or whether any day or no day at all So both were done to the LORD and we were now under no such particular Law This were to open a Gap to all superstition and prophaneness or to urge it as if we were now under no obligation of one special day in a Week but must keep every day of the week as Sabbath as some others Which is quite contrary to the whole Scripture and to the Word and Nature of a Sabbath-day Which is a cessation from the ordinary labour a resting from the common work of our particular Functions which to do on every day of the Week were a sin expresly against the Letter of the Law of the fourth word which doth command us to work six days To spend the day in the Instituted work of Jehovah Aelohim This under a pretence of being always in a Sabbath is to mislead them to be never in a Sabbath Or as other some to plead from hence that they may keep both first day and Seventh-day too as Sabbaths every week this also is directly against the precept For we must work the six foregoing days of the Week and rest on the Seventh We do declare against all and every of these mistakes and miscarriages both in principle and in practice in whomsoever they are found Paul is supposed by these Objectors to speak against the observing of that which comes under the expression of weak and poor Rudiments Elements or first beginnings Whereas the ten Words are not such These are a Kingly Law Obedience to these is the Liberty of Children whereas subjection to the other in comparison of this was sometimes the Bondage of Servants The ten Words are a Kingly Law of Liberty If it be objected that the Typical Figuring shadowy part annexed of old to the Seventh-day Sabbath to be then observed such as the two He-Lambs and such like was a part of these weak and poor Rudiments We acknowledge that these have received their perfection and accomplishment in Christ now come born of a Virgin So that in this part which was Typically superadded we are not now so to observe the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath by such Types and Figures but after that glorious spiritual Heavenly manner as becometh those who are under this New Testament dispensation and thus to keep it is no bondage to a renewed Heart The more excelling in Knowledge in Grace and in Experience that any is the more free will they be to this when once they are led aright into it Let that therefore which Paul saith in the twelfth verse be considered here Be ye as I am for I have been as ye are As if he had said I was once superstitious whilst a Pharisee fond of un-Scriptural Traditionary seasons days and observances or an observer of Scriptural times and institutions in an un-Scriptural un-Spiritual manner as ye but now I bring all to a Word-Rule and so should you If the Reader do diligently observe it in his going over of this Epistle he may find the Law of the ten words established as a rule of Life in the whole of it and by enumeration and induction in several particular commands of it though withal he set out the different manner of dispensing of Grace under the Old and New Testament This improved and applyed might also be an answer to that part of the Objection which is formed from wresting that other place to the Colossians The great drift scope and design of the Apostle in this second Chapter is to set up and establish Jesus Christ as Head LORD Law-giver and the great Exemplar Contrary unto which amongst others were these great opposers the maintainers and defenders of corrupt Philosophy whereby some did endeavour to make a prey of Souls through affectation of humane Wisdom and vain deception according to the Tradition of Men according to the Elements of the World and not according to Christ Another sort of Adversaries were the Advocates for humane Inventions the pleaders for the institutions and impositions of Men besides and against the Scriptures of Truth in the matters of Faith and of manners of Doctrine Worship Discipline Government and Conversation they were Will-worshippers Some others there were who were hot contenders for the keeping up of such Ceremonies as were once Shadows and Types of a Christ who was then to come to be born in the flesh of a Virgin These Typical Institutions were perfected in Christ when he thus came These shadows now passed into the body and substance of them Believers were now complete in their Head Christ in the tenth Verse and had the true grace of what was under Types and Shadows before in the eleventh and twelfth verses That Chirograph by Rites which before they had as it were written exhibited signed sealed and delivered was now blotted out or cancelled Which before was their act and deed in the fourteenth and fifteenth Verses As for what they object that two He-Lambs of the first year perfect were an annexed part of the worship on the Seventh day Sabbath and two tenth parts of fine flower for a Meat-offering mingled with Oyl and the Drink offering thereof the Burnt-offering of the Sabbath in his Sabbath As if therefore the Sabbath too were to be laid aside with these If there were any force in this arguing then we should lay aside all Religion and Worship For what was there under that
ground and evidence enough in the things themselves thus made and Light and Reason enough in the Humane Intellect of Rational Beings to discern and to improve this to the very same ends Both these had Primitive concreated self-evidence however sin now have darkned and defaced things The indication of these Duties were at the first true real sufficient Some worn Letters of which original Ingraving are yet still remaining to be read These Laws resulting from the Humane Nature and from that Relation which created Man doth stand in to his creating Maker The Obligation which doth arise from hence must continue as long as the Humane Nature doth continue For it is Essential to our Formation and constitution as we are reasonable men and women and so is unchangeably binding And he that would make any one Law of pure primitive Nature alterable doth thereby though it may be not designedly yet eventually heave at the overturning of all the Laws of Nature This Primigenial Holiness and Righteousness in created Man bearing exact conformity to the holy Righteous Nature of creating Aelobim And Christ's coming was not to dissolve any one Law of the Decalogue or any thing of the Obligation to any Law therein but to maintain these Laws and their obliging All mankind brought under convincing demonstrations from distinguishing taste of the difference of good and of evil should acknowledge all and every of those holy just and good Laws to have a clear congruity to their Natures Who of all mankind that has the due exercise of rational abilities but must acknowledge that we ought to love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves On which two Commandments hang all the Laws and the Prophets For which we have the Authority of the LORD Jesus Christ himself He being the Law-giver and Law-Interpreter too Further yet People in some Scriptures are the Elect and Believers Whether of Jews or of Gentiles Who are also absolutely called People The Nations which shall be converted to the Faith of the Gospel renouncing Antichrist and his corrupt principles and practices are some of this people These both under the Old and New Testament Administration had this Law of the ten Words written not only in the Scripture Revelation but also on the two Tables of the Mind and Heart by the holy Spirit Thus is the Law of the ten Words specially and distinguishingly given to new Creatures and thus it will be renewed in the purer Churches in the later Days In this sense the Rule and Direction for renewed Holiness and for the Works and Duties of Grace and of Sanctification is called The new Law or Commandment the same with the Old only renewed Next of Ceremonials These are sometimes called The Law of Degrees placed in external Rites and by some such other Expressions These Rites were used about outward fleshie things such as Meats Drinks Washings and the like These so far as they were Typical Figuring and Representative of a Christ who was then to come to be born of a Virgin and to shed his blood were perfected and accomplished in Christ when he was so born and had so suffered was risen and had ascended And they did peculiarly belong to the People under the former dispensation Of this nature were some Ceremonies annexed to the Weekly-seventh-day Sabbath By these holy rites the Church and People of God under that administration were differenced and discerned as a People holy to God distinct from other prophane Nations An Old Testament Ceremonie is set out in Scripture by Flesh a carnal Ordinance an hand-writing of death an Element of the World weak and egene an Exemplar of Heavenly things unstable An Intolerable Yoak A shadow and such like Which are not properly applicable to the Seventh-day-Sabbath as such If any say it is an Exemplar of the Sabbatism in Heaven and so a Ceremonious Type Let then the Type stand as I have said till we can come at the Antitype Ceremonies sometimes do set out the inward spiritual things Graces Duties Priviledges which they did signify and teach A Ceremonie has been and is a Sign of somewhat that is natural and so they have been annexed to natural Spiritual Duties As Evening and Morning worshipping of God had divers Ceremonial Observances So the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath Thus for Parents to give up themselves their Sons and Daughters to God is a natural dutie Yet this duty has Baptism even now under the new Testament-Ministration annexed to it Those things which are still of a concreated Spiritual Nature Were are and will be a duty The Epistle to the Hebrews is a Gospel-Exposition hereupon Though Multitudes of these Ceremonies were superadded to the Law of the ten Words as an Evangelical Explanation and Interpretation of them yet this doth not alter the true real nature of any of these ten words which are always a standing unalterable Rule of holy Righteous living As for the giving of this Law of the Ten words If this Law be considered As promulgated and proclaimed at Mount Sinai by Jehovah Aelohim thus there was somewhat in it which was a peculiar gift to the Israelitish Church and those who were proselyted to it beyond any other People As for the time when he brought them out of Egyptian bondage so for the place the Desert Jehovah gave them this in their Wildernesses condition At Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai in an Enemies Land that of the Amorites and of the Moabites Thus also For the persons They were those of that age who were then alive at that place who understood the Hebrew to whom He gave this Law So for the subservient Administrator by whose hand Jehovah Christ gave this Law to them Who was Moses there was Moses's a Ministery used in it Hence it is called the Law of Moses Moses wrote this Law in a Book Also for the manner of proclaiming With Trumpet Thunder Fire Audible Immediate voice of Aebolim himself and such like And thus too for the solemn imbodying of an whole nation into a Church-state These and some such other like were the peculiar Circumstances of that Promulgation in that day Yet is the Law still the same now The LORD Jesus Christ doth speak unto us even now in this Law of the ten Words What God did speak unto Moses He spake unto others in the days of Christs flesh when born of the Virgin Mary which was hundreds of Years after And these ten Words were written unto us If this Law be considered as the Law of nature so it was given to all mankind in Representative Adam As I have declared If it be looked on as Inwritten in the mind and Heart of the Regenerate by the Holy Spirit Thus it is peculiarly given to new Creatures As also I have manifested Thus I have laboured to clear and to
the Sign of Circumcision as a Seal of this Righteousness of Faith which was thus imputed to him Is not Abraham propounded as an Example to after-Believers in this being called the Father of all that believe in the Foot steps of whose Faith after-Believers are to walk For what was so counted to him for Righteousness was written not for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for the sake of Paul and of others in Paul's time and so still for our sakes in the present day to whom it shall be imputed namely to them that do believe in him what Moses doth speak of the Duties of the Law Paul doth interpret of the Faith of the Gospel It would fill up much paper to inlarge in all the other instances of the old Testament-Believers recorded in the new particularly in that eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews There is one Faith one and the same Doctrine of Faith to be believed and one and the same Grace of Faith by which men do believe for Justification and Salvation both under the Old and New Testament It was the open confession of Peter's Faith in one of the first Councils or Synods held in the New Testament when the Apostles and Elders were assembled together to debate some weighty Question of the Christian Religion We believe saith he by the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ to be saved in such manner as they also as the believing Fore-fathers under the Old Testament were merely through free Grace by Faith in Grace by Faith in Christ in his righteousness They by Faith in Christ who was then to come to be in due time born of the Virgin which was held forth in Types of old to this end We in Christ as the perfect Anti-type thus already come The Analogy of Faith in both Testaments should be attended unto by a diligent discerning Reader of the Word a due proportional collating of them between and to each other would discover the uniformness and well-agreingness of the Will of our LORD in them both by a particular right application and limitation of their Analogy the orderly regulation whereof must be made according to that measure and number of proportion which the different manner of dispensing doth call for and no further is it to be admitted as to any substantial and essential part of the Christian Religion there is a likeness of Word a sameness of Sense a oneness of intendment on them both unto which Analogy he must keep close who would give forth a true explication of sound Doctrine That Faith which is required and promised in the Covenant of Grace is for the substance of it one and the same Grace which is commanded in the Law of the ten Words and let it be further researched into by the ingenuous for the augment of this Spiritual Science Whether the Faith of Adam in his innocence I do not put here into this inquiry as to the special use and the proper object of it were not for the substance of the Grace one and the same with the New Covenant Grace of Faith Was not Adam in all things to give confident credence to all as to every Truth which Aelohim his Creator had revealed or should further reveal was he not bound to believe in the promised Messiah by the Law of Creation and of Nature as soon as ever Jehovah should reveal this to him The whole Scripture is profitable for this doctrine of the oneness and sameness of old and New Testament Faith and I am perswaded after some years research into the word of Truth about this matter and long experience suited thereunto that one great occasion at least if not cause of the Apostasies and Backslidings of some of the loose ungospel-like and ill-principled-conversation of others and of the practical Atheism and Infidelity of some others and of the doubts and fears and unprofitable walking of other some has been men's unscriptural unwarrantable setting up of so many different Religions in the Old and New Testament and the urging of some one or a few misunderstood misinterpreted Scriptures wrested and wryed to some particular purpose contrary to the drift and intent and scope of the whole Scripture besides which doth write about that Case Whereas the whole Scripture is uniform and harmonious speaking with one mouth one and the same thing The only difference between the Old and the New being in the mode of Administration as has been opened once and again Let me here further add seeing this Objector doth call this a New Law of Faith as a part of the the New Creation brought in and perfected particularly and only upon the first day of the Week and upon no other day as he pretends that this Grace of Faith was put into a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation for besides that if there had been no Law for this Faith under that Dispensation it had been no sin no transgression not to have believed with that Faith for sin is the transgression of some Law and I have shewn it was Christ manifesting himself to Moses in Egypt and in the wilderness whom the Israelites did so often tempt grieve provoke and not not believe But further Faith in that Jehovah Aelohim who proclaimed the ten words at Mount Sinai was a plain duty injoyned in the first word or command and that Promulgator I have proved to be the Messiah or Christ So that it was a duty actually to believe him to believe in him Faith in the Lawgiver is one of the ways and commandments of this Jehovah I had here given a dismiss unto this that I might hasten to the last particular but that I called to mind how another adversary of and objector against the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath had affirmed that the Decalogue had less in it than the Law of Nature and that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature Although if he had improved his own concession he might have seen how he tacitely gave an answer to his own Objection for he says That the chief Heads of Natutes Law are contained in the Decalogue He gives instances in divers particulars some of the chief of them in which he seems much to glory I shall examine In which he judgeth the Decalogue is defective such as the belief of the Soul to love our selves with a just and necessary Love to fame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation to deny all bodily Pleasure Profit Honour Liberty and Life for the securing of our Salvation Let the considerate Reader now spiritually according to the Word of Truth discern in these matters If the Scripture-rules of interpreting these ten Words Laws or Commands be observed allowed and applyed it will be manifest That they are a comprehensive as for other things so for the particulars specified so far as doth concern the discharge of Duty and the avoiding of Sin These general Laws do take
even in those Climates between seventy and ninety Degrees there is an equivalent space of time measured by hours days weeks months and years by which they overthrow most of the force of their own Argument God commanded no impossibility in Nature in requiring a determinate day in every week to be kept as a weekly Sabbath by man by all mankind though some daringly would infer the quite contrary We must take the Seventh-day as the Creator hath made and continued it to us The Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath is not bottomed upon Ethnick Philosophy which has corrupted the Principles of Astronomy and of Geometry of Theology and of Christianity but upon holy Scriptures and created Nature The Seventh-day Sabbath instituted and commanded in Paradise and renewed and re-inforced at Mount Horeb neither of which places were in the lesser Judaea or Canaan and therefore this Law of the fourth Word was not a local Precept of force no where but in that lesser Judaea and Canaan as some affirm this Seventh day Sabbath is such a kind of day as may be known kept and observed by men where-ever they should inhabit That day in every week which followeth the six foregoing known days of labour is none of ours it is the day of Jehovah he hath plainly pointed it out to us in this Law none need to say the knowledge hereof is hidden from us who shall ascend for us into Heaven and bring the knowledge thereof to us that we may know it and observe it it is clearly demonstrated to us by Aelohim himself we may not make the Sabbath-day the sixth day for then we should shew our selves unthankful in not receiving the LORD 's own bountiful allowance unto us of six days for labour in our particular Functions Neither are we to make it the eight day for then we incroach on the LORD's Right and are not contented with his liberal Grant of six days for our own employments It might be asked of these Objectors whether God have any Covenant People near the North Pole and South Pole if so whether they have not the Scriptures If they have how then can they so mingle Faith with several Scriptures if such a people have not Day and Night in their successive daily Seasons was not the whole Scripture fitted for all Mankind for all Nations for every rational Creature in those Nations to whomsoever the glad tydings of Salvation should come and did not the LORD hereby confirm the lasting establishedness of the Covenant of Grace Is there one Bible for temporate Zones and another Book for Poles and for the inhabitants thereabouts Day and Night were made for the Earth or Land The Heavenly Luminaries have a preaching Voice to all Languages and People night and day To be under the Sun is a phrase which signifieth to be in this inferiour World those that do live in this inhabited Earth are set out by being beholders of the Sun all who have eyes and will use them to that end the Sun is made for light by day and the Sun riseth upon the evil and the good There was a First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Day in every Week here in England from the beginning ever since it was dry Land and will be so to the Worlds end if it still continue dry Earth and therefore let us make use of such arguments as do concern our selves there has been always a day from one going in of the Sun to the next going in of the Sun here in this Island ever since it was an Island the created Sun was just in those very places of the firmament at those seasons of the year as to its setting or rising as it is now at the same seasons of the year by unvariable constancy in his ordinary course and our continued certain measure of Days by Divine Ordination in the revealed Word and in created Nature must be by the orderly regular Motion of the Sun Moon and Stars this being one great end of their Creation and these being made before man was Created so that as soon as man had a being he might measure his time this way though it was made known unto him by the LORD on what day of the week he was created and which was the Seventh-day Sabbath when Jehovah made a promise unto Abraham that should be fulfilled some hundreds of years after it is said that in the self-same day the Prophety was fulfilled so that there is a certain Rule of measuring of Time Oh how much is it to be lamented that although the Seventh day Sabbath be so evidently and plainly asserted through the whole Scripture yet multitudes who have and do own the Scriptures will not as yet receive this holy Law of Christ whilst there is any thing that doth but look like somewhat of an Objection against it they take up with every humane conjecture though besides and against the Word many there are who will rather boldly attempt to throw down all weekly Sabbaths than humbly submit and obedientially conform to Jehovah's determinate weekly time of the Seventh-day though Scripture and Nature have joyntly established it When the LORD threatned and accordingly executed it to drive his Israel in case of such provoking disobedience into strange Nations unto the utmost parts of the Heaven yet there they were under the Law and Obligation of the ten Words In Judaea it self or Canaan the lesser the breadth from East to West was generally fifty Miles to which if the Kingdom of Sihon and Og be added on the other side Jordan parcels of Canaan the larger and possessed by Ruben Gad and half Manasses the bredth reckoned to be eighty Miles which doth make some variation of minutes according to this objection and by the same reason made it impossible for them to keep as to the same minute parts of time with respect to the weekly Sabbath but as for the larger Canaan which the Israelitish and Judaick Kings subdued under their Dominion this had a much larger extent as has been in part shewed already their foot did tread and their coast was from the Wilderness and Lebanon from the River the River Euphrates and unto the hindmost Sea The Wilderness of Paran was the Southern part of Canaan Lebanon was a Mountain at the Northen bound Euphrates the great River was the Eastern border of their Territories the hindmost Sea or after Sea called by the Greek and Chaldee the Western Sea was the main or great Sea toward the going in of the Sun this was to the West their Western bound This was prophetied in Moses's and Jehovah's time and afterwards fulfilled in Solomon's days where the Nations subdued were to fear and to worship where the Sun and Moon went forth and went in in their successive courses the Chaldee doth interpret with the rising of the Sun and in the light of the Moon that is at Morning and at Evening as the twelve Tribes
Disciple from an Antichristian Synagogue and a Worshipper of the Beast are the keeping of the Commandments of God and the having the Testimony of Jesus Christ Much peace to them that love Jehovah's Law and to them no stumbling block This will be the everlasting Rule of the Holiness and Righteousness of glorified Ones in Heaven If some one will do he shall know of this Doctrine whether it be of God or not O the happy straight goings on of that man who fearing Jehovah who delighting greatly in his Commandments Christ is the Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that obey him and the Father gives his Spirit unto such How freely and delightfully could I here inlarge in the commendation of this excellent perfect Law How good how holy how just is this Law for the matter intrinsecally externally good and holy and just consonant to the eternal Justice and Holiness and Goodness which is in the LORD himself whose Authority is stamped upon this and as such is given forth from him unto us to be a Rule How can this be abrogated or changed which is so full and comprehensive of that Righteousness and Holiness which is the perfect Image of the pure unchangeable Jehovah Aelohim were we more throughly conformed to it in our natures and actions we should be tied to it and to the Commander of it with an everlasting love love beyond expression How can the obligation of its mandatory power be other than eternal and immutable O how good is it in its kindly effects inlightning converting restoring quickning comforting and many other ways operating upon the heart when the holy Spirit doth put life and power into mens hearts for these productions This way of obedience to the ten Words is the way of lasting of hidden age and of everlastingness that way which alone of all ways will continue and hold out to the utmost duration when all the ways of Anomous of lawless ones shall perish Christ's Disciples should evidence and manifest their love to him by their friendliness to his Law The Doctrines and the Precepts of this Rule the promises and the threatning of it do some way or other lead to Christ and have him for their scope and this under the old as well as new Administration were not the believing Israelites to look unto the covenanted Messiah and to act Faith upon him Were they not by all the Types and Figures and Shadows of him to make application of him to themselves and of themselves to him and and to confirm their expectation of his coming Was not this that which made all their prayers and other services acceptable their spiritual relation which they had unto him How could mercy be done unto thousands as the Letter of this Law doth include if we exclude this Messiah or Christ out of his own Laws as if he were not intended there The Administration of this Law was Evangelical in its great design and main intention Can a believer but highly prize Christ and esteem him precious when he doth so look into the glass of this Law as to view and loath the spots on the face of his nature and life the least of which this Law doth discover and will not hide any of his deformities nor cover his wrinckles nor paint his ugliness In this case how great are the benefits by Christ to the Believer who is made of God to the Believer Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption The more that a Beliver doth honour Christ the more will he be carried out in a Spirit of Love to delight in the Commands of Christ When Adam was most holy he was most obedient and when he was most obedient he was most acted by a principle of Love Thus the holy blessed Angels do all in obedience and love to Christ for they also are under this Law and at command Even the LORD Jesus Christ himself kept these Commandments of his Father and did abide in his Love his ready chearful obedience to his Father must have an eye to a commanding Law The Law of the ten Words though it include a perfect holiness in its requirements yet doth it not exclude an Advocating Mediator in its intendments O how will mens faces be covered with shame at the last when they shall be judged by that Law which now they so much contend against When the LORD had given forth the Law of the ten Words it is said Not hath he added He added no more commands of this Nature This was almost forty years after the promulgation of the Decalogue at Mount Sinai He hath not added he doth not add he will not add will still be a true saying relating to this no more commands of this kind and sort for they are but ten Words a perfect Law to which nothing is to be added and from which nothing is to be substracted In this Book of Deuteronomy Moses repeated the ten Words or Commandments and presseth to the observation of this Law confirming the whole of it with promises to the believing and obedient and with threatnings against the unperswadeable and transgressing And Christ himself a little before his death foretold of the continuance of the Seventh-day Sabbath calling it by the name of Sabbath well towards forty years after his death though for the advancement of Sabbath-learning I propound to the Vertuoso and the Ingenuoso of the times to consider Q. Whether that expression Mat. 24. 20. Pray ye that your flight be not in the Sabbath do not relate to all and every of those great periods of time the destruction of Jerusalem the down-fall of Antichrist and the Tribulation of that time which shall make way for the later-day-Glory this Seventh-day Sabbath will last as long as this world lasteth to the utmost end of it Thus Reader have I through Mercy and Grace somewhat traded according to my Talent received for the Honour of my LORD and of his Works Words and Law and for the promoting of Scripture-sciences and Arts. It is with him what entertainment he will give it in thy heart and what blessing he will there put upon it O the Excellency of this Word Knowledge The Wise of heart will receive Commands They will treasure up Knowledge to draw it out in season Wisdom is found in their lips To the mouth of their Vnderstanding shall they be praised The Well-advised will hearken unto Counsel and those that fear the Command shall prosper Whereas the proud will be always wrangling and contending Contemners of the Word will quickly be corrupted The Law the Doctrine the Institution of a wise man is a clear Vein and Fountain of Lifes and a good Understanding will give Grace A Scorner seeks Wisdom and finds it not but Knowledge is easie unto him that understands it It is facile it is obvious it freely presents it self it is soon learnt it is easily gettable quickly attained A Fool has
Christ is the great Exemplary Pattern for his Disciples to imitate and to follow he rested on that Seventh-day and therefore his people must also rest on the same seventh-day Thus he himself doth argue He was the First-seventh-day-Sabbath-Observer and under all the several Administrations of Grace He called upon his People to do the same In the days of his flesh here on earth after he was born of the Virgin Mary he through the Weeks of his life yielded Obedience unto this Command by keeping the Seventh-day as the weekly Sabbath-day and no other day in the weekly return as such And this was and is a part of that perfect Righteousness which every sound believer doth apply to himself as his Plea of Justification in the sight of God for his Sin of Sabbath-breaking and every such believer is to conform in Sanctification to Christ in all the Acts of Christs Obedience to this Law of the ten words He as his Custom was went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read He taught the people such as would give him the hearing on the Sabbath-days And whither shall we go to get our selves cloathed with Sabbath Righteousness but unto him putting on this Lord Jesus and making this Jehovah to be our Righteousness How can there be such an apt proper distinct suitable Sabbath-Righteousness from Christ applyed to the Soul but by those who make out after that weekly seventh-day-Sabbath-Righteousness which was in its perfection in Christ Those that observe any other day of the week as the weekly Sabbath cannot so directly go to Christ for such a days Righteousness not particularly for the First-days Righteousness as to a Sabbath which First day Christ all his life through never observed as the weekly Sabbath He has left us an example a Pattern a Copy such as Writing Masters do leave to their Scholars that we should follow his steps He that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked Because as he is so are we in this World if we keep to his Rule and Example for the Scripture speaks of things as they ought to be taking it for granted that they be so and they are so so far forth as Believers do act regularly like themselves as doth become them According to this Pattern we have Paul practising after Christs Ascension into Heaven on every Sabbath-day it was his Custom and Usage his constant Practice the same Expression that sets out Christs continued weekly observing of the Seventh-day-Sabbath that it was usual to him is affirmed also of that eminent Servant of his That it was also usual to this Paul O that the same might be truly testified of more in our Day of Leaders and of their People that Christ might hold such forth before others and say Here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus The Holy Seed of Christ and of his Church are such as keep these Commands of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ O the happy Progresses O the blessed goings on with a strait foot of such as do his Commandments A Second Reason of his affixing to this Holy Law of the weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath who is Wisdom essential Wisedoms All Wisdoms in one is this For that Aelohim blessed the Seventh which is the last day in the week that and that only and no other day of the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day Thus it was from the beginning and thus it is and will be to hidden ages of hidden ages The blessing is its peculiar Portion and what is Man that he will take away this Heritage of Blessing from the Seventh-day to endeavour to settle it on any other day on the first day particularly where the LORD himself never so gave and secured it The Seventh-day the Seventh-day Aelohim blessed the Seventh-day he hath blessed it he doth bless it and he will bless it and it shall be blessed O blessed day which Jehovah himself hath blessed so blessed This blessing was afterwards renewed revived solemnly openly declared at Mount Sinai and affix'd to the seventh-day Six days thou shalt labour but the seventh-day is the Sabbath In it thou shalt not do any work For six days Jehovah made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh-day Wherefore Jehovah blessed that day that Sabbath the blessing is gone forth for this Seventh-day-Sabbath irreversibly from the Mouth of Jehovah Mashiach himself It has his Applaud and approve for its due estimation and deserved renown its noble majestickness and Royal imperialness How many are the Prerogatives and Priviledges which he hath Conferred upon it Christ is the Seventh-daies-benedictor and benefactor This is the day which he hath Dedicated to the Instituted worship and service of Jehovah Aelohim A day greatly to be desired and delighted in by his Children Friends and Servants as a day of holy rest and of Heavenly joy A day of sweet converse between him and his Saints A day that calleth upon them for a singingshouting-triumphing-rejoycing-frame and therefore there is a peculiar Psalm fitted for this purpose to this end Thus is the Crown of special Benediction put upon the head of the Seventh-day and no other foregoing day of the Week is to share with it in this princely honour Isaiah that evangelical Prophecier and Preacher has from Jehovah Pronounced those Blessed even to admiration O the happy Progresses O the happy goings on of such that do keep this Sabbath and not prophane it They shall enjoy many a covenant-favour O how choice Spiritual blessings are there that do visit the Hearts of Holy observers of this Seventh-day-Sabbath under the New-Testament Administration O what a Blessed day did Christ make it to be unto some whose sick bodies he healed whose sinful Souls he pardoned whose sadned Spirits he comforted unto whom his Gracious words were converting and Restoring teaching and enlightning quickning and strengthning whom he met in Sabbath ordinances and gave them the Blessing of this separated day and how many a Soul had cause to bless the LORD for ever who so prospered Pauls labours on the Seventh-day-Sabbath for blessing for good to them Christ taught daily in the Temple and Paul was often in the Synagogues on the foregoing daies of the Week and much good was done thereby but the whole Scripture doth take peculiar notice of this That the Seventh-day as the Weekly Sabbath-day carried away the Sabbath-blessings which no other day in the week did though the LORD do bless his People every day yet not with Sabbath-blessings but only on the seventh-day Aelohim gave a Special Blessing an appropriated Blessing to this day above all the other daies So true and good is that saying of Christ still That this Sabbath was made for Adam for Man for a blessing to him every way for his cheifest and choicest good It was Christs counsel to
on the Sabbath In obedience to this Law and Command of Christ it was that Paul preached and the People heard the word of God on this sabbath-Sabbath-day some years after Christ was Ascended up into Glory Whither can the Observers of the First day as the Weekly Sabbath-day go to find out Commands in the whole Scripture for their day One of the adversaries of the seventh-day-Sabbath who appeared in Writing against a Letter of another to him upon his own desire which conteined some reasons and Scriptures for the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath He in delivering his Judgment concerning the First day upon this Question whether there be any Express word for the Institution of the first day of the week to be observed as the Lords-day the day for his Weekly Sabbath has these passages we might say that it might be Instituted though it be not Recorded he meaneth in the Scriptures When and where and again t is acknowledged saith he we have no express word in so many letters and Words or Syllables for the Institution of the First day of seven And a Third time what if it should be said that he that is that Jesus Christ the Mediator did according to his Power actually change the day though when and how it be not recorded And a Fourth time why might he not Institute this he intends the first day although it be not expressed when or where and though it be not recorded Observe here thou who readest this with a desire to have the mind of Christ in this matter Suppose in the serious tenderness of thy Heart thou shouldest enquire of this Answerer whether there be any Institution of the First day of the week to be Observed as the Weekly Sabbath-day under the New-Testament in the Room of the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath and he should say there may be an Institution of the First day of the Week as the Weekly-Sabbath-day though it be not recorded Suppose thou shouldest further ask when for the time might this Institution be if it were at all And he should reply there might be an Institution though it be not recorded when for the time Put case thou demand of him further where for the Place might this supposed Institution be And he should tell thee there might be an Institution though it be not Recorded where for the place Upon this thou further propoundest this to him how is this pretended Institution for the occasion or manner that I might be somewhat Directed in my practise if it were manifested to be my Duty to observe the first day as the weekly Sabbath-day To which he should return thee these words there might be an Institution though it be not recorded how for the occasion or manner Can such answers as these give thee any Convincing Demonstration or satisfying Evidence What After all thy Trading in Sabbath-Religion wilt thou at last be sent thou knowest not whether to pretended unwritten verities for thy Religion Art thou under any Obligations of Conscience in these matters to beleive further than what is written Can thy spiritual Appetite savour in such Cases what is not written As for any other Framed Fancyed Forged Grounds of Instituting the First day as the weekly Sabbath-day from pretended practise of the Apostles for this end in this or any other Author I meet with or from what other Reasons Conjecturally unscripturally suggested it will be spoken unto in its place Only here is one part of the fore-mentioned passage which I would write somewhat about lest the force of the answerers Arguing should be thought to be passed by unobserved which is that expression according to his Power whereby the answerer intends that Jesus Christ as Mediator had Power to Change the Weekly Sabbath from the Seventh which is the last day to the First day of the Week What Power the LORD Jesus Christ as Mediator has received I thankfully acknowledge and through Mercy and Grace purchased by him for me and freely richly given from the Father to me in the supplies of the holy Spirit I have been for several years an applyer of a liver upon and somewhat an Improver of though I find great cause to be deeply humbled for that I have put it to no better use As for the Power of Christ considering him as mediator we have it from his own Mouth in his life time that the Father had given all Judgment unto the Son That the Father hath given unto Christ Power to do Judgment because he is the Son of Man that the Father hath given all things into his hand And a little before his death that the Father gave him power of all Flesh And after his Resurrection that unto him all Authoritative Power was given in Heaven and on Earth This is my Faith and my Food Yet withal it must be considered that Christ as Mediator was one put into Office by his Father and sent by him in a delegated Function having his proper work assigned him And thus his Power was Limited Let us search whether the whole Scripture be profitable for this In the Law of Moses there is a Prophesie that Jehovah the Aelohim of his People would raise up unto them a Prophet meaning the LORD Jesus Christ as is manifest by a collation of those other Scriptures which do so interpret this from the midst of them of their Brethren like unto Moses unto him they were to hearken and I said Jehovah the Father will give my words into his Mouth and he shall speak unto the People all that I shall Command him And it shall come to pass that the Man who will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him Remark here It was the Father who raised up Christ to this Office of being a Prophet they were the Fathers words which were given into Christs Mouth and Christ was to speak unto the People all that which the Father should Command him They must be the Fathers words and it must be in the Fathers Name that Christ was to speak To this Clause in the Commission must Christ keep close And accordingly so he did In the Book of the after-Prophets you may read Jehovah the Father thus speaking concerning his Son Christ behold my servant whom I uphold mine Elect my Soul delighteth I have given my spirit upon him he shall bring forth Judgment to the Nations Christ as Mediator was his Fathers Servant he took upon him the Form of a Servant and the Servant must keep close to the will and word and Command of him whose Servant he is especially in this case where all and every of the words and wills and Commands of the Father are Holy just and good And it is fore told of Christ that he would when he had a bodie Prepared for and taken to him thus bespeak his Father I take pleasure O my Aelohim to do thy well-pleasing thy will as Christ else where in the history of
in the Wilderness Hallow my Sabbaths Notwithstanding the Children rebelled against me they polluted my Sabbaths Then I said observe he takes notice a second time of this time of the Provocation was given him by them this way I would pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the Wilderness The like we have in another place of the same Prophet her Priests speaking of Jerusalem have violated my Law and have profaned my Holy things They have put no difference between the Holy and Profane neither have they shewed between the unclean and the Clean and have hid their Eyes from my Sabbaths even administrators about Holy things do some times hide their Eyes from Jehovahs Sabbaths and I am profaned among them Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them I have Consumed them with the Fire of my wrath their own way have I recompenced upon their heads saith Adonai Jehovah Such a passage we also find in the Prophecie by Amos hear this O ye who saying when will the Sabbath be gone they thought the seventh day the longest day in the Week that we may set forth wheat making the Ephah Small and the Shekel great and perverting the Balances of deceit Jehovah hath sworn by the Excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works Shall not the Land tremble for this and every one mourn that dwelleth therein I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your Songs into Lamentation I will send a Famine of hearing the words of Jehovah Thus after that the People of God had returned from Babylonish captivity in Nehemiahs time when the Sabbath was profaned he as a Magistrate reproves and threatens those in Judah whom he saw treading Winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and lading Asses as also Wine Grapes and Figs and all Burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day And I testified in the day wherein they sold victuals there dwelt men of Tyre also therein which brought Fish and all manner of ware and sold on the Sabbath unto the Children of Judah and in Jerusalem Then I saith he contended with the Nobles of Judah and said unto them what Evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath-day Did not your Fathers thus and did not our God bring all this Evil upon us and upon this City Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath Upon this he commands that there should no Burden be brought in on the Sabbath day And when the Merchants and the Sellers of all kind of Ware lodged within Jerusalem once or twice then he testified against them and said unto them why lodge ye before the Wall If ye do again I will lay hands on you From that time forth came they not on the Sabbath And he Commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should come to keep the Gates to Sanctifie the Sabbath-day For an improvement of this kind of Learning let the Studious search the Scriptures whether both the First and the second Temple were not burnt and the People captived in the one and fleeing into the other both these on the seventh-day-Sabbath And whether the First great Ejection and unchurching of the Jews were not also on the seventh-day-Sabbath and the Gospel more carried over to the Gentiles Having thus carried this Doctrine and Duty concerning the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath through the whole Scripture with that arguing convincingness which is clear and evident to plain unprejudiced Judgments and understandings though so full a Testimony should suffice yet that I may the better make way for the answering of somewhat that may look a little like Objection I shall add this to the rest for a further Confirmation that Aelohim hath put this Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath into Created Nature The Human nature in the First Adam was made and framed to the Perfection of Holiness and of Righteousness in the Ten words which Ten words I take to be the only certain vniversal perfect summary and Comprehensive of that which is the Law of Nature in Mankind A full exact Copie draught and Transcript of the Law of Creation in the heart of Adam the Proclaimed and now Written word the same for sum and for substance which had a living Concreated impression on that Heart and mind of his As the true unchangeable Original-Law being not only the declared will but also agreeing with the Holy nature or Essence and being of the Creator himself an Holy just and good Law no waies differing from the Law which was given to and put into the Humane nature in the uprightness and integrity The purity and perfection of that Humane Nature This Law particularly of the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath and the due observation thereof was a part of this Law of Nature as it lay evidently in that Established order of Aelohims Creating the foregoing six daies of that one week the rule and pattern of all after-weeks being the working days and the seventh the last day of that Week being the weekly-Sabbath-day Such being the method which Aelohim used in the production of his Creatures on the several six daies and the disposal of his and of Mans Rest on the Seventh day Thus standeth the Relation in the weekly succession of daies which Aelohim made to be in the true nature of these Created existences really whilst the World stands to be instructive unto all mankind of what is his natural will and mans natural Duty There was in this Primitive Ordination a full evidence and a convincing Demonstration of Aelohims pleasure herein by his appointing a sufficiencie of light about this matter both in the Created nature of daies and of works and Rest respectively in those daies to give Adam to see and know what he ought to do what daies to work in and what day to rest on and also Innate in Adam himself for his instruction thereby discerningly to understand and Faithfully to improve this for the designed end true use and proper purposes Some notions of this Law as well as of the others of the Ten words are still retained and kept in man even though now fallen and in his corrupt state and renewing Grace doth restore in part to the first Created Holiness and Righteousness Aelohim Created Adam in his own Image In the Image of Aelohim Created he him And we are to put on the New man which according to God is Created in Righteousness and Holiness of Truth which is renewed unto knowledge according to the Image of him that Created him And the whole of this is still in being carefully faithfully unalterably preserved not only by Revelation in the Scriptures of Truth but also by Primitive Creation and Providential Continuation in the true Nature and in the real Existence of the things themselves All and every of the daies and Weeks that have been are and will be since the first Created Week in their ordinary revolutions and
successive courses are as the daies and week of that one Created week were At the First Creation was this Law given to Adam in respect of his humane Nature and in him given to all the World of Humane Creatures Even adversaries themselves in their Writings against the seventh-day-Sabbath have confessed that the Law given to Adam from the beginning is unalterable and therefore remains still in full force so that all men to the Worlds end are bound to yield obedience thereunto and that the Rest of the seventh-day-Sabbath was entred into from the Foundation of the World Christ himself the Creator rested the seventh day from all his works and that Aelohims resting on that Seventh-day-Sabbath doth necessarily imply Mans Resting on that day as well as Gods resting God's entring into that rest being the ground of Man's rest at the same time which they prove from Heb. 4. 3 4. The created nature of it as the seventh day and the cogent reason of it as the Weekly Sabbath-day not being peculiar to the Israelites but common to the Gentiles the Command is not proper to one of these only excluding the other but doth belong unto both the LORD 's resting on it which gave such occasion to his Blessing and Sanctifying of it has an Universal preceptive respect to Adam and to his whole Posterity it is a common Instruction and a general Command unto all men in all ages to labour in their particular callings functions and employments on those six fore-going days of the Week wherein Jehovah Aelohim made the Heavens and the Earth and to cease and rest from such labour on the seventh-day because in it He Sabbatized or rested from all his work This Law was made and it came with Authority in the beginning of the Created World and it shall continue and last to the end of the World Adam the Father of Nations and of Generations was put under the obligation of it and so are all his Off-spring from first to last throughout all Nations in all Generations Every Man has a teaching light and law of Nature which he doth carry about with and in him and is born and bred together with him There are still some reliques and remainders as dark Letters in an old Monument of those Holy Just Good and spiritual Laws of the Ten Words still to preserve and keep alive the memory of Man's first created Honour and Dignity His Rectitude and Uprightness as also for some other ends Though those seeds are corrupted now Natural right reason will teach men that seeing all men in all Nations do measure their time by Weeks and their Weeks by seven days they should besides what part they separate of their time as due unto God every day set apart one whole day of every week unto their Maker who has allowed them so liberal a portion of time wherein to provide for themselves and for their families there being no other proportion of time that can so well provide both for the worship and service of God every day as Evening and Morning of every day and every week as the whole Seventh which is the last day and also for the necessities of all Families as that which remaineth of the several six fore-going days of the Week and that is so well fitted to all functions and Callings and Employments There is that in every man who has the due exercise of his right reason that will directly answer unto this especially when compared with these created beings and more especially yet when having the advantage of Scripture-revelation The light and law of Nature when cleared up will tell men that all mens labour and motion being in order to Rest and Rest being the perfection and end of Labour into which labour and work and motion do pass that therefore the seventh which is the last day in every week is the most fit and proper whole day for a weekly religious rest unto the Creator for his Worship service and honour The natural reasonableness of this Command for observing the seventh-day-Sabbath doth suggest That Man and Beast should have his Resting-day every week The Ass that poor beast so much used to burdens and drudgery on other days must rest and the Stranger be refreshed on the weekly seventh-day-Sabbath That word in the Original which doth set our conventions for Worship to those who do understand it and who will make a diligent observation and due improvement of it would inform them that they may with their own eyes discern something of this in the motion of those Heavenly lights which would instruct men that set times of their Creator's appointing for solemn Assembling and for his instituted Service are directed to and pointed at by those Great Luminaries which the All-wise Aelohim hath set up in the Heavens As for many other good purposes so also particularly for this Great and Holy end This naturalness of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath should make all the judgments and wills of grown reasonable Creatures to bend and to bow before it and should for ever stop the mouth of all gain-sayers never more to speak or write or print a word against that which is so Legible in its own created Existence Pure Primitive nature in Scripture is put sometimes for the essence of a being or for the Essential Properties of it Thus the Goddy-nature is His Essence His unchangeable Being a lively resemblance unto which communicable properties in Him such as His Wisdom Goodness Truth Holiness and such like are impartable to rational creatures especially to new creatures For otherwise as for His very Essentiality This is incommunicable to any meer Creature Hence as to Creatures Nature is put for the person or thing it self Indeed or In-truth really so For the essence and being of a Creature for that which is Concreated born with a Creature Connatural with it For that which is proper Genuine and Innate For the Natural Law particularly Aelohim will not change what He did create to be pure and good naturally essentially so It is the Seventh-days proper nature to be the Weekly-Sabbath This Seventh-day and the Weekly-Sabbath were Concreated It was so made and ordained according to pure Primitive Creation When the first pure created state of what Aelohim made was defaced by sin much of his doing in the World is to bring back to that Original purity and goodness Therefore the work of Redemption is set out by Creation and for the same reason it is called a renewed Creation So is his work of Preservation of and of Providence over his creatures So will his work of Regeneration and of Conversion still be Thus also his constituting of his Church Thus also his work of Instauration and of Renovation of the Heavens and of the Earth This work of first Creation by the creating Messiah is the rule and Standard the pattern and exemplar to which all must be brought It is as to the final cause
of the Gospel to be expressed on this day the First day he speaks of nor to be any thing distinguished from the Night of other Days of the week So writes a Learned Man Thus we have a kind of half Holy-day set up by a Man in the room of an whole Seventh-days-weekly-Sabbath Created and Instituted by Jehovah Aelohim But what part of Time shall we reckon that Night-time to It must belong either to Working-day or Sabbath-day If to Sabbath-day-time then it is a part of the time of a Sabbath-day If to Working-day-time then we have more time than Six Working-days in one Week which is contrary to Scripture-revelation and to Created Nature For the Evening is as Natural to the Created Days as the Morning The Creator Himself did some of his works in the Night As Particularly He created Darkness in the beginning of the Evening of the one Day in the first Week of the created World and the night-part of every one of the Large days and it is the Commendation of a Virtuosa-Woman that she and her Houshold do work some part of the Night Whereas we are expresly forbid to do any Work of our particular Functions on the Seventh-day-Sabbath all that kind of work is supposed to be done on the six foregoing days of the Week and I have before shewed that the Night-part as well as the Day-part belongs to the Weekly Sabbath-day And how doth this Assertion of that learned Man agree with another Affirmation of his so often repeated in that Book of his that That part of Time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven If so Then how can this Learned Man and his Followers in This well groundedly expect Acceptance with God When the seventh-part of Time is not observed as the Weekly-Sabbath but one half of that Seventh part is cut off by him quite contrary unto what God has declared and determined in the Fourth Commandment This incoherence and inconsistence doth bewray the Darkness and doubtfulness that is upon the Minds and Hearts of the most Learned Opposers of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath What will become of Jehovah's Laws and Prescriptions if Men take such an Unwarranted Liberty at one blow to cut off the half of the Weekly-Sabbath contrary to the LORD's Appointments and contrary too unto their own Concessions and Assertions especially also when on this piece of a pretended Sabbath they give such a Loose to carnal Hearts as to leave any to be a Rule unto themselves for their words works and actions upon this half part of a day of Rest as if all others were Men of a Legal Spirit and were Judaizing Sabbatizers that will be exact according to the Scripture-rules of the good old way in these Matters Who sees not what an Unscriptural liberty even good men will be too prone to allow themselves if once they apprehend that this is referred unto themselves to judg Determinately of Where doth the whole Scripture leave any Man or Men to be rules unto themselves Must we not in all these Cases be Directed Determined and Judged by the Word Here again My heart would be at work in sweet thoughts and in raised affections towards a dear Redeemer who has done and suffered so much for his unworthy Creature that my Heart and Head and Hand may cease a while from giving answering Solutions to Fallacious arguings O how full how sutable a good is here Thou who readest this canst thou truly say this Redeemer is my Redeemer this Mediator hath loved me and hath given himself for me Redemption is wrought out and finished by Christ for me He will perfect it in me as well as for me All the just demands of the Father are fully satisfied by the Son of His love In the vertue of his Satisfaction and Intercession I will go to the Father and expect Audience and Assistance Acceptance and a Blessing O how well will it go with them and with their Cause who have Christ for their Advocate How sure is that Covenant of Grace which hath Christ for the Surety The Reader now may expect that I say something to that part of the Objection which doth suppose the work of Redemption to have been finished on the day of Christ's Resurrection So that He being then Gloriously Manifested to have Rested from it the Objectors think that Christ might have good cause to Honour the First day of the Week above any other day as the Weekly-Sabbath-day Here is Mens Thinking and Reasoning but the serious Inquirer doth look for Christ's Instituting and Commanding which he can never find in the Word as to the First-days being the Weekly Sabbath-day Redemption in the whole and in all and every of the parts of it and in all and every of the Fruits and effects of it I beleivingly confess praise and apply according to those growing measures of Scripture light and of saving Graces which the LORD hath graciously given me therein about this Both those great works of Jehovah-Christ Creation-work and Redemption-work are highly to be valued and one of them should not be set against the other let them both be brought in Creation-work and Redemption work too as proper matter for Meditation conference and Praise whereby the Seventh-day-Sabbath may be Celebrated and Sanctifyed in the Weekly returns of it The observationâ— of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is inforced by the Lawgiver himself to be kept holy to Jehovah by an argument drawn from Salvation-work from Redemption work The LORD Jesus Christ who is Redeemer was Creator too as I have clearly proved from self-evidencing-Scriptures It was he that Rested from his works of Creation Blessing Sanctifying and keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath in the First week of the World Jehovah Christ as Mediator did himself at Mount Sinai Proclaim this Law of the Ten words whereof this of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is one It is he who is our one and our only Lewgiver It is he whose Voice then shook the Earth at that Mount It is he who was from his Father an Angel by delegated Office sent for this as for many other purposes to be with Moses in the Wilderness It is he who wrote this Law of the Ten words in the two Tables It is he who brought his People Israel out of Egypt and gave them this Law of the Seventh-day-sabbath It is he who came down upon that Mount attended gloriously with ten thousands of his holy Angels and promulgated this Law That Sixty Eighth Psalm doth evidently to a spiritual discerner commend Christ in his glorious Excellencies as to his wonderful person as to his wise Government and Gratious Administration particularly to the Israelites in their Journey out of Aegypt in giving them to Inherit the promised Land in confounding of their Foes all which Favours and Blessings to his Covenant people are set out to be the
Fruit of Christs Mediating for them with his Father He their Saviour and their God and the God of their Past-Present-and After-Salvarions who would make of their Posterity a Glorious new Christian Church in the latter daies As for Redemption-work it doth confirm the Law of the Ten words in the Type And the antitype must answer to the Type The Israel of God were to do the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath and to keep it Holy to Jehovah their Saviour and Redeemer and so are believers under the New-Testament-Dispensation the Saviour himself this Redeemer having so observed it all his life through in the daies of his Flesh here on Earth when Born of the Virgin Mary The Ark which was one of the principal of all the Holy things of God and for which the Tabernacle mainly was set up which did Sanctifie the place where it did Rest this Ark had nothing in it but the two Tables of the Covenant And this Ark was a Type of Christ who had this Law in his Heart And did in his own Person Confirm it to every Letter and part of it by his Doctrine and Practice when more Familiarly Conversant here amongst men It was Christ as Mediator who appeared as man unto Abraham Moses Zechariah and others under that former Administration These works of Redemption were in the Types then and as for the Actual Perfecting and Accomplishing of these in the Person of the Mediator himself when he took to his Godhead the seed of Abraham and was made of the seed of David according to the Flesh and was made of a Woman these works may be said to take their beginning as to this of perfecting and accomplishing them in the antitype upon Christs First thus manifesting of himself in the Flesh And they were further carried on by him in his Life so declared by his Father and attested by his Spirit His Life was a Continued fulfilling of Redeeming-types And as for his Death upon the Cross there just before his giving up the Spirit and commending it into the hands of his Father he himself said it is Finished or accomplished or perfected namely for so much and for fo far he having but a little before on the same day of his Death in his Prayer to his Father declared that he had finished the work which the Father gave him to do This work of Reconciliation and Redemption Thus accomplishing it and perfecting the Types by steps and degrees Some Remainders whereof are further Fulfilled at his 〈◊〉 Resurrection Which also it self was a great work Yet was not this all For these works of Reconciliation and of Redemption had yet a further filling up and a more through perfecting when Forty daies from his rising again he ascended up into Heaven Where he appeared as the great High-Priest of his Peoples Holy profession as the Antitype with Blood and with Incense in that Holy of Holies having his satisfaction and intercession Further in his Glorious Person Actually accepted by his Father which was Typified of Old by the High-Priests entering into the Holy of Holies once every year upon the Atonement day or day of Expiation of which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives an account of its being perfected and fulfilled in Christ To this Ascension of His into the Highest Heavens and his sitting there at the Right Hand of his Father where he appears for his People and intercedes on their behalf in a way suted to his Glorious Majesty in so raised an Exaltation to this doth belong his putting down of the Levitical Priesthood which was a shadow and Type and Figure of the Heavenly Priesthood of Christ and must now upon Christs Ascending and session give way and place to the Truth to the true antitype the High Priest being got into Heaven For whilst Christ was upon Earth the Levitical Priesthood continued at least as to some parts of their Office When the Reader puts all this together and sees how the Redemption-work was for so many years together before Christs Resurrection perfecting and accomplishing and finds Christ Travelling upon the day of his Rising with Two Disciples to Emmaus which was from Jerusalem about Sixty Furlongs which in Common Computation is about seven Miles and a half at least seven Miles too long a Journey for the weekly Sabbath day especially when it was a going off from a greater assembling at Jerusalem the Publick appointed place of worship and this about a private business to a little Village an Example not to be followed upon a pretended new Instituted weekly-Sabbath-day And withal the Reader observes that some part of Redeeming-work was actually compleated by Christ in a way of fulfilling of a Redeeming-Type which work was not done by him before either in his Birth or Life in his Death or Resurrection it will be time for him ponderingly to think on his waies and to turn his feet unto Jehovahs Testimonies to make hast and not to slacken to entertain his Commandments particularly this of the weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath To set this right precept before him and no longer to put away this Institution of Aelohim from him Which is so full and plain and clear through the whole Scripture and no further to wander on misled by mens darkning-conjectures who would still keep up a day of their own setting up up the First day of the week which as to this of a weekly Sabbath-day is a Creationless and Scriptureless Restingless Blessingless and Sanctifyingless Nameless Thingless Commandless Promiseless and Threatless-day none of those being for it but all for the Seventh day The adversary being driven out of this hold seeks refuge for his First day Sabbath in some other Scriptures cited in the Margin which yet will not allow him Countenance and Warrant For say they the good Apostles met on the First day the day of Christs Resurrection which they then observed as the weekly-Sabbath-day in memory of his Resurrection and of his compleating the works of Redemption on that day Christ taught the two Disciples on that day of his Rising on the same day he appeared to the Disciples and instructed them and did eat with them thus assembled and Blessed them The next First day of the week he chose to appear to them again And those Apostles Christ did Commission as his principal Church Ministers to teach the Churches all his Doctrine and to deliver them all his Commands and orders and so to settle and guide the first Churches Which Apostles did actually separate and appoint the First day of the week for Holy Worship especially in Church-assemblies They themselves frequently meeting upon that day for that end and enjoyning the Churches of their Plantation so to do who obeyed them in this The First day is mentioned as the day of the Disciples assembling to break Bread which though they did it oft on other daies yet no day else was peculiarly appointed for
and they were at that meeting where Christ appeared to the Eleven The Sun was gone in before that time So that if this pretended Historical Hint be mistaken by those Objectors so then is the next also which they alledg of a second appearing as to the particular day of it the place it self doth expresly confute their assertion For that appearing was after eight Days After observe which could not therefore be that very day which they name Not the first day by their own Computation Besides what cogency is there in this kind of arguing from Christ's appearing to the Disciples For he appeared often to them in the forty days between his Resurrection and Ascension and once when they were Fishing which is no weekly-Sabbath-days-work and employment at which time also Christ did eat somewhat of what Fish they had taken Upon a due long serious Consideration of the whole of this matter There appears nothing to me not the least shew or colour of any sound Scriptural reasoning in all these Allegations which men in Reputation have been by a Traditionary Religion in this so fond of What a great way about do they go quite out of any Scripture-path to fetch in something that might look like an Argument with those who take up such matters of humane invention upon Trust from their misguiders who in this teach them to Err in a Dark-walk where they see not how nor whither they go and then tell them that the mind of Christ in this is a great Deep and not so easie for plain Understandings presently to fathom Whereas we who are brought under the New Testament-Administration of Grace are put into a state of clearer Light than those were in who were under the former Dispensation Doctrines Duties Graces Priviledges do shine forth in more Glory before us as the Apostle doth argue in the second of his Epistles to the Church at Corinth the design of which passage is to shew the New-Testament-Glory to be excelling They of old had a veil on their Ministration by Figures Types and Shadows whereas we now do at least we may and should behold things with unveiled Face As for the Laws of the Ten words particularly this of the Weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath they are clear as the Light And therefore the Holy Scriptures of Truth do give them that Name of Light of self-evidencing and clear-shining are they containing Commandments so right in all things so enlightening the eyes of mens understanding though otherwise they be but simple silly and weak the very opening entrance or door of which Word doth give light to make the silly ones to be understanding ones especially when the Commandment comes in the Demonstration of the Spirit and with Power and former pre-conceptions and prejudices are laid aside A Law so guiding the Obeyers of it to walk in such paths of Rightness a Law so true so holy so just so good so spiritual so perfect such a Law of Liberty setting a renewed enlarged heart so free to run in its Way A Law so comprehensive a Law so formed in right humane Nature being at the first concreated with it A Law so convincingly opening it self and its true mind and its proper meaning and so fully expounded throughout the whole Scripture which is a large exposition upon it insomuch as that all the rest of the Word so far as concerns Duties to be performed and sins to be avoided is but as it were Jehovah Aelohims Commentary upon and Interpretation of it So that here Those of an inquiring Spirit are led safely out of the Maze of those perplexing difficulties which the Objectors reasoning about the necessariness of human Histories to make up a full evidence of the Scriptures in the matter of the first day would hurry them into and such diligent re-searchers are brought into a plain way and the Good Old way or the way of hidden Ages or of Eternity The Words of this Law do carry a plain Evidence in them As all the rest so particularly the fourth Word or Command concerning the weekly-seventh-day-Sabbath It has in it self a common and familiar understanding the sense and meaning whereof doth appear at the very first sight It is but hear or read and every man that is endued with Reason and will exercise it without any prepossession or imposings will forthwith conceive aright of it That the weekly-Sabbath-day is the Seventh-day That the Seventh-day is the weekly-Sabbath-day This Objector doth assert it That it is agreed on that the Passover that year when Christ was cruciâ—yed fell on the Sabbath-day It must here be his meaning the Seventh which is the last day of the week which he takes to be the First day of that Feast of unleavened bread On which the Paschal Lamb according to Institution was to be eaten which was not the First day of the Week but the Seventh Upon this Supposition I would thus questioningly argue either Christ that year kept the very day of Passover according to Institution or not if Christ kept the true Passover-day as I do not at all doubt but that he did for he was to fulfill all righteous Observances and accordingly he did It being the Work which his Father gave him to do and which he finished The Antitype directly answering in every thing with great exactness to the Type And the History in the written Word which doth report this matter of Fact in Christ doth expresly call that day on which he did with his Disciples eat the Paschal Lamb the Passover-day as the Scriptures in the Margin will undeniably prove and he dying the same day which was the Passover-day If this be granted by this Opposer to be the Weekly Seventh-day-Sabbath what then becomes of all the rest of his arguing and pleading for the First day which according unto this Supposition was not that particular day of the Week on which Christ arose from the dead For according to this that First day was the next immediate day after his death and could in no Sense be called the Third day on which he rose again If he say That the true Passover-day which not Christ but the Jews kept was the day next after the death of Christ we call for an Answer to the forecited Scriptures in the Margin and expect a Word-proof for what he asserts Although if that could be cleared yet has it no Rightness or Forcibleness of arguing in it to demonstrate what it is brought for as to a First-day-Sabbath But if those Scriptures do in so many express Words give the day of Christs being apprehended and condemned and crucified and killed the First day of unleavened bread and the Passover-day whilst we have the Scripture thus speaking we have no cause to be moved at what Humane Authorities and Church-Histories do record to the contrary And this has now brought me to an Examination of the validity or invalidity of Church-histories and of humane Authorities in these matters Though
word and referreth all to this He who is of a diligent observing inquiring Spirit and is versed in this kind of the Historical part of human learning in Ecclesiastical Centuriators may meet with enough to take him off from doting on such fallible Authorities which are not a sure ground of judging in matters either of Doctrine or of Fact In the matter of Doctrine how common is it for one to affirm what another of them doth contradict as about the Millennium or the Thousand years Reign with many more instances that might be given as about Free Grace and about Free will about Bishops and Presbyters about the vision of God whether the Souls of departed Saints be Blessed with it till the Judgment of the great day or not with such like Which of those now shall carry away the state of the question In some Cases the Major party often went the wrong way as in the Rites and Ceremonies of Baptism and of Prayer and in many Feasts and Fasts and divers such humane inventions by which they added their own corrupt mixtures to Christs Pure institutions As for the Churches in the first centuries after the Apostles how shall we be ascertained that they were the most pure and perfect Churches seeing some of those that were of Apostolical plantation did so apostatize make such a sudden defection from the Gospel-purity and were so much corrupted in the Apostles own times as those particularly of Coriuth and Galatia and some of the Seven Churches of Asia And how is it possible for to come at a sure undoubtedness of knowing what was the universal Judgment and practise by uniform consent of those Churches in the first hundreds of years after the New-Testament canon or rule was Written Were there no learned and Godly men such as were counted Fathers in the Churches from whom we receive no Writings at all May not some of their Writings have been lost Are there not false copies of the writings of some of them Are they not supposititious and counterfeit and corrupt Do they not vary widely in their Interpretations of one and the same Scripture How can these uncertainties be a firm Ground and sure evidence of the Authenticall meaning of the word of God How unconcluding and unsatisfying also is their Testimony in the matters of fact when one of equal Antientness and Authority doth gainsay another or when some greater Authorities as some of them were esteemed would step in over rule and when they charge one another with misreports and mistakes how Sandy a foundation is there here for any Spiritual discerner to build upon take one or two instances some in the History of Christs life do expresly Record that he was near Fifty years old when he was put to death whereas others of them in their Chronologies do with equal confidence write that he was then but about thirty and three years of age So also about the particular Language wherein the New Testament was first spoken and written Nor is the Original of erring from hence that men know not the Counsels of the Sanhedrin or the sayings of the Antient Fathers The Scriptures do mention such decrees of Councils and such applauded sayings of the antients and those by such who counted themselves the only and the whole Church of God as were quite contrary to Christs mind in his word such as perverted and wronged his Word Such as made it a sufficient cause of unsynagoguing of excommunicating for any Man to confess that Jesus was the Christ which yet was one of the plainest and greatest truths and Duties such as passed into a Law and accordingly were commands given forth that the Apostles should not upon pain of Imprisonment or of worse than that speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus Shall we be determined by such humane Councils as these By such Councils as sometimes Clash one with another So it was a long while between the Councils of the Eastern and Western Churches By such Councils as sometimes reverse their own decrees and then make quite contrary Canons It is the Scripture-Canon to which we must resort This is the strait established unerring rule which we must measure our all by and in all things walk by and that our Hearts may be the more awed by the Authority of this it behoves us to eye Christ in his present providential goings with the Golden measuring-Reed or Line in his hand to trie and examine Churches and particular Disciples their states frames and Actings their principles Rules and ends their Constitutions Ordinances and Growth whether they be according to him and his Word or not Neither is this a spring of errour that we do not know nor own unwritten verities as Scripture-Supplements to be received by the People from their Leaders upon trust without tryal If a Doctrine be brought to us we must see whether what is written in the word of the LORD be for it or not and accordingly either receive or reject it What is written is that which doth call for our Faith We must not favour about that which hath been written So should the place in the Margin be read Paul would not say or speak one thing besides or without the word by Moses and the Prophets what was authorized and warranted by their writings Beleivers are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone of it How shall we know that That which is unwritten is Beleivable verity healthfull Doctrine wholesome sound truth How shall our Hearts get to be out of doubt that it is so Nor doth errour arise from hence that men do not know nor approve of the Judgment opinion and practise of those who are reputed the Learned and the Godly in the present Age held forth in their Commentaries Treatises and Actings Sound sincere beleivers do often Experience that Jehovah through his Commandments doth make them wiser than their Enemies they have more understanding than all their teachers because they Love his Law and make his Testimonies their meditation The LORD Christ has declared against those be they otherwise of never so great a Name and in never so much reputation amongst men who dissolve one of the least of his Commands in the Law of his Ten words and do teach men so And how much is it to be lamented that any of the teachers of others have their hands so deep in this Trespass as to preach or to print any thing against this Glorious perfect Law and the great Honourable things thereof God is making the wisdom of the wise to perish bringing to nought the understanding of the intelligent when it doth oppose Christ and his word and Law Whilst precepts of men are taught the People by their civil and Church-Guides and are made the rule of fearing and of Serving Jehovah he will proceed to deal Wonderfully with such a people and marvellously For the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their men of understanding shall hide it self though they hide their Counsels never so deep Where is the wise where is the Scribe Where is the Inquirer of this Age Hath not God made Foolish the wisdom of this world which doth measure and judge of the truths and things of God by unscriptural Rules How do such Arguers say then we are wise and the Law of Jehovah is with us Lo certainly in vain worketh the false pen of the Scribes There will be a time when such wise men will be ashamed affrighted and taken Behold they have rejected the word of Jehovah Wisdom-what to them They steal away the word from Aelohim's People which word would be Wheat wholsome nourishing Bread and Food to them and bring unscriptural empty Chaff in the room but these are not ready Scribes in the Law as Ezra was Even a Paul himself is no further to be hearkened unto and followed than he speaks according to the word and is a Follower of Christ Neither doth Errour arise from hence that men do not know or conform to National establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of worship in their humanely-invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Liturgies it has been one of the main Occasions of most of the persecutions that have been carryed on by Adversaries against the Church and People of God in all Ages the inventing Instituting and imposing of unscriptural modes and forms of Worship exclusive of all other which are Regular according to the word and then framing it into a Law with inflicted penalties upon all Non-Conformists And what strong Rationalists do some take themselves to be in pleading and arguing for this and producing many humane Authorities in Church-Histories for this and there want not flatterers at Court who perswade Governours that the main of their Authority and power doth consist in determining of such matters of Indifferency as they miscall them That the appointing of times and seasons and daies for publick worship is left wholly in the Hand and power of the Magistrate and that the way of maintaining peace and preserving Religion in the Land is to enforce uniformity in the service and worship of God according to such National Statutes by seeing mulcts to be inflicted on all Recusants and dissenters Whereas Christ tells us that it is vain worship such humane-traditionary-Worship teaching Doctrines the commandments of men And that every such Plantation in the matters of Corrupt both Doctrine and worship which is not of his Fathers Planting shall be rooted up The LORD reproves the People when they keep Idolatrous superstitious Statutes Too much advantage has been given by the Non-Conformists in their writings and conferences against the Formalists and ceremonialists in that they have not in downright express Terms condemned all humanely-invented-instituted-imposed forms and ceremonies in the matters of Worship as sinful and unlawful especially when they enjoyn them as exclusive of other worship where these are not conformed unto and when they impose them as necessary terms of Church Communion whereas they are expresly in the very letter and meaning of the second Commandment forbidden For we are not to make unto our selves all Form any Form every such Form which men of their own head and out of the device of their own brain do thus make unto themselves and so to others also is under a plain prohibition by this Holy righteous just and good law of the LORD How many have been brought into Courts and Condemned sentenced and fined and Imprisoned as Routers Rioters ill-behaviour'd Schismatical Seditious Turbulent ones for conforming to Christs Laws and for not conforming to the customes and Laws of the Land but doing contrary to mans decrees because they Worship God according to his institutions but not according to mens Ordinances Whereas we are expresly charged not to give our selves to such commandments of men as turn away the truth from us or would turn us away from the Truth And yet they urge a mis-translated Scripture as if we must submit to every Ordinance of man Whereas it is to every humane Creature There is an Honour due to all men as men to some more than to others to the King as superior as having Authority over and above others and to others in their Inferiour places It is because or for the word that Persecution ariseth For the Receiving of this word and a conforming unto it by the Disciples of Christ that they are hated of the World If National establishments were the Rule and measure of Truth and errour were to be judged of by a contrariety to that Then the same thing would be one while Truth and another while Errour when National establishments do upon turns of times and changes of Laws make contradictory Decrees So it was in the Reigns of the Kings of Judah One sets up Idolatry another pulls it down One commands Right Worship according to Institution Another brings in corrupt mixtures Such interchangeable vicissitudes there were in the daies of Abaz Hezekiah Manasseh and Josiah They are to be avoided who ever they be that do cause divisions and offences contrary to received-Scripture-doctrine Then do men err when they go astray from Jehovah's Commandments from his precepts from his statutes They are Humane lies that cause men to erre and to despise the Law of Aelohim Errour proceeds from not knowing and not observing all his Commandments then do a People err in their Hearts when they have not known his waies Unscriptural Establishments in the matters of worship are the work of Errours Further yet neither do men err therefore because they do not know man-invented-Arts and sciences of Philosophical knowledges and of University-humane-learning Nicodemus was a master of Arts and a Doctor of Sciences and yet he greatly erred in the necessary Doctrine of Regeneration Paul greatly erred from the great Truths of the Christian Religion whilst he sat at the feet of Gamaliel a Pharisee a Doctor of the Law held in esteem by all the People one of the Chief in the privy Council of the Jews This Grave tutor of Paul perfectly instructed his attentive diligent Pupil in that kind of Pharisaical Learning and way of Worship and he was a sharpwitted Disciple But when the LORD Christ Revealed himself to and in Paul now he saw how much he had erred from saving Truth and Paul a Convert differed much in his Apprehensions from Paul a Pharisee All other knowledge now in comparison with right Scripture-knowledge with the eminent Excellency of the knowledg of Jesus Christ and of him Crucifyed and of the way of Justification and of Salvation by Faith in him and in his Blood and in his Righteousness he Judgeth as nothing as Dung as Loss as Dogs meat And he saw the gross mistakes of the Learned-University-men at Athens endeavouring to convince them of their Infidel-Errours Antichristian mistakes and Philosophical-falsehoods Now he commends to
did shadow forth Salvation through Faith in Christ and that Believers of the Posterity of Noah should be Heirs by Faith of the righteousness of Christ which was in this Type made a special Free Covenant with them whilst the unbelieving and unperswadable the impenitent and disobedient living and dying such would perish and be destroyed After the Flood Noah thus saved builds an Altar to Jehovah which was a Figure of Christ by whom we are to offer the Sacrifice of Praise always unto God as is interpreted in the Epistle to the Hebrews It is Christ the spiritual Altar who doth sanctifie the offering and the gift On this Altar which Noah did build Noah offered up burnt Offerings of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl The LORD Christ was hereby Typified who performed his Office of Mediation as in all the other parts of it so in the discharge of his Priestly Function offering up of himself a propitiatory Sacrifice to God his Father more especially for those whom the Father gave unto him This he did by the everlasting Spirit without spot This was signified hereby expiation and the doing away of sin by the slain Sacrifices of Christ himself Jehovah smelled a smell of rest in what Noah did graciously accepting of the Sacrifice thus offered and again makes a Covenant with Noah of rich Mercy in Christ by and through whom Believers should be freed from the Curse For another confirmation of this gracious Promise the LORD makes it sure unto Believers by a sign He gives them a visible Token at some Seasons for the encouragement of his peoples Faith that when they saw him giving his Bow in the Cloud they might believe that he would remember his Covenant that they might rest on him and on his faithfulness in the true performance of the Word of his Grace This Covenant made with Noah that there should not be any more a Flood to destroy the Earth doth the Prophet Isaiah apply to the Covenant of Grace made with Believers in Christ confirmed by Oath For as he swore that the Waters of Noah should no more go over the Earth so he hath sworn that he will be no more angry with his Covenant-people nor rebuke them And the Rainbow which is a visible sign of his special Favour is both in Ezekiels Vision and in the Visions of John in the Revelation used as a sign of Grace from God to his people in Christ It was a gracious Testimony of Christ's glorious Majesty This Covenant of Grace was afterward renewed to Abraham and that several times wherein Jehovah did promise to bless him and to bless all the Families of the Earth in him in the promised Seed in Christ Abraham is called The father of all believers The LORD Christ appeared unto Abraham about eight times unto Isaac about three times and unto Jacob about seven times for the more establishing incouragement of Faith in his Promises so many we have upon written Record This free gracious Covenant and Promise doth Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians affirm improve and apply It was sealed by Circumcision to Abraham and that which was sealed was the Righteousness of Faith and his Faith was therein confirmed by Jehovah's Oath as the Scriptures in divers places have recorded It was full of Mercy and Favour and Jehovah forgets it not but as he hath remembred so he doth and will remember for his people this his holy Covenant The Covenant of the Law proclaimed afterwards at Mount Sinai could not disanul this Covenant with Abraham which was confirmed afore of God in respect of Christ as Paul argues with many convincing Arguments especially two if this be well considered that there was a Covenant of Grace in that Covenant at Mount Sinai which Jehovah the Aelohim of his people did then and there strike with his people at Horeb. The Typical Signs and Shadowing Figures delivered more privately there unto Moses together with the many annexed gracious Promises relating thereunto with respect to Priest Sacrifices Altar and such like do cast a clearer shining Light upon this before the Eyes of every Spiritual Discerner that will diligently compare the New Testament Commentary particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews upon that part of Moses's Book where the Veil that was upon the Face is taken off And if further this may also be demonstrated concerning the Law of the ten Words which was proclaimed with more open Solemnity and glorious Majesty that this also has in it the same Covenant of Grace the Kingly Law will then the more commend it self to the hearts of all the Disciples of Christ This Law has in the Scriptures the Name and the Thing of a Covenant of Grace It is called a Covenant such an one as has Grà ce in it For if we consider it as having the supperadded Law of Types and of Figures annexed to it So this Covenant was not dedicated without Blood The patterns of heavenly things were purified by the Blood of Sacrifices whereby Christ was held forth as confirming the Promises to Believers by his own Blood The Prophet Haggai makes mention of this Covenant made with them in Christ And Paul in declaring the Priviledges and Advantages of that People doth reckon up these that they were the adopted people of God the Ark of the Covenant in which the ten Words was put were amongst them was their Glory all full of Grace there were the Covenants the two Tables of them the Law-giving and the Instituted-worship was theirs and so were the Promises too which went along together with those other favours So that to be estranged from the Citizenship of Israel was to be strangers to the Covenants of Promise The Words there spoken are called The Words of the Covenant The two Tables on which the Words were written by the Finger of Aelohim himself have the name of the Tables of the Covenant of the Testimony of the Tables of the Testimony The Ark into which the Law of the ten Words and this only was put is honoured with the Title of the Ark of the Covenant the Ark of the Testimony covered over with Mercy and crowned round about with Gold and Grace The Tabernacle in which this Ark was treasured up and kept is said to be the Tabernacle of the Testimony O how full of Grace is all this Consider well who was the Law-giver Jehovah Aelohim from the Father in the holy Spirit by the LORD Christ spake with lively voice faces in faces and this unto all the people It was this Christ who was Administrator and Dispenser at Mount Sinai He was the Proclaimer of his own Kingly Law there as hath been already proved by the Scriptures It was he whom the Father gave for a Covenant of the people He who is the Mediator of the Covenant He who was the Angel of the Covenant He who was the
from Heaven and they drank of Christ in their Water from the Rock By the Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ they did believe to be saved the same way as Believers do now Peter put no difference between them and us but only in the manner of dispensing What shall I say more of all the Signs and Seals under that Administration of the free favour of Jehovah Aelohim towards his Covenant people What was all this but a Gospel-Teaching an applying of the Covenant Take but off the Veil from them and they appear much with a face of shining Grace Was not the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's death under that dispensation of Grace He was the Lamb slâ—in from the Foundation of the World so he is said to be in the Revelation Christ's satisfaction and intercession was available for his Covenant people in Moses's time The Book it self wherein Moses did write all the Words of Jehovah is called The Book of the Covenant This Book on the Altar was sprinkled with blood to be sanctified thereby which blood is also called The blood of the Covenant The people also were sprinkled with the blood of the Covenant in the sprinkling of the twelve Pillars which did represent them that is the twelve Tribes This Covenant or Testament at Horeb as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews hath observed and declared was not dedicate without blood These were Patterns Anti-types and the Types must answer the one to the other of the heavenly things and they were purified by the blood of those Sacrifices signifying that the LORD Christ by his death should sanctifie his people unto himself by the blood of the New Testament in a clearer manner of dispensing and fuller measure of accomplishing though otherways one and the same Covenant of Grace Moses called upon the people to behold this which Scripture is explained in what is written to the Hebrews this is the Blood of the Covenant or of the Testament which God hath commanded unto you Thus was the Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament confirmed by the Blood of Beasts exactly answering unto the same Covenant of Grace under the New Testament which was confirmed by the Blood of Christ There was free remission of sins acceptation of the person and of the service for in the through Christ then as there is now All the Prophets do give witness unto Christ that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins This doth further appear in Moses's repeating over in the latter part of his Book the same Covenant which Jehovah Aelohim made with his people at Sinai wherein he doth at large discover how much rich Grace and free Love a God in Christ had manifested towards that people in Covenant with him The Book commonly called Deuteronomy is a second Declaration of the same Covenant of Grace repeated renewed with their Children renewed with Israel the same made before only with some clearer Revelation of Christ and of Blessings by him and of inlarged explained promises It was the same Covenant of Grace which was also solemnly renewed with and by the people of God at their return from the Captivity of Babylon as may be seen in the Records of Ezra and of Nehemiah The same Covenant of Grace also which the LORD makes with his people in Christ now And the same which he will revive and renew with the new formed created people in the latter days Who shall not so break Covenant as those Israelites in the Wilderness of old did but shall be more stedfast and faithful to God who will be so graciously in Covenant with them Those promises in Jeremiah repeated in the Epistle to the Hebrews are if not peculiarly yet at least chiefly made to the house of Israel the ten Tribes as well as Judah have their part in them Ephraim setting out the Israelites of the ten Tribes They shall come from the North and be generally called an innumerable multitude they shall dwell in their Cities in their own Country their City of Jerusalem shall be re-edified their Estate shall be flourishing and happy to perpetual continuance with such other things as were never yet throughly fulfilled Which cannot be meant of their coming out of the Captivity at Babel The promises relating to the New Testament Dispensation And all this shall be in the last days by which words this great Mystery is usually expressed This will yet further be evidently demonstrated in that this Prophetie and Promise was renewed and revived several years after Christs Ascension into Heaven as is clear by the mention of it in that Epistle to the Hebrews and in several places of the Revelation For the contrary to all this was some few years in the same generation or age after Christ's death the Jew 's were unchurched the City and the Temple were destroyed according to Christ's foretelling in what is written in that Book of his Generation All and every of the particulars expressed in the renewed Covenant were before under that Dispensation in Moses's time They are also now made good unto this present Dispensation according to the manner and measure of Administration as the All-wise God saw and sees fit which will be more clearly manifested and more fully accomplished in the last times And with this Prophetie both the Old and New Testament are closed Let all and every of the Particulars pass under a Scripture-Examination Will Christ give his Laws in the mind of his people and write them in their hearts So he did under the Old Testament-dispensation The same thing was fulfilled towards and in a Covenant-people then Thus in Moses's Writings Jehovah Aelohim speaks to his People these words The Ten Words written in the Two Tables of Stone which I commanding thee this day shall be in thy heart These are the fleshly Tables wherein they shall be written Thus the Psalmist in his time in his describing the Just man saith The Law of his God is in his heart it shall not stagger his steps The Prophet Isaiah thus sets out the people of God They are a People in whose heart is this Law It was Solomon's advice in his Proverbs My Son forget not my Law but let thine heart keep my Commandments Write them upon the table of thine heart And again a second time in another place My Son keep my sayings and lay up my Commandment with thee Keep my Commandments and live write them upon the table of thine heart Hath the LORD promised that he will be for or to a God to his people This was performed under the Old Testament I have already shewed that it is expresly put into the Ten Words several times In Moses's time Jehova's people had avouched or had made to say him to be unto them for a God They owned and acknowledged him to be thus in Covenant with them for the confirming of their Faith and for the increase of their Obedience I
Jehovah forgivest the iniquity of my sin To this agreeth that of Isaiah who brings in Jehovah himself thus speaking I I for my self blot out thy transgressions and remember not thy sin And the same Prophet doth record it of Hezekiah that he thankfully acknowledged this Thou O Jehovah hast cast behind thy back all my sins And that was the same which Isaiah had experienced in his own case Thus speaks the Prophet Micah in an holy triumphing manner Who is a mighty God like unto thee Forgiving iniquity and passing by the transgression of the remnant of his Inberitance Thou wilt cast all their sins into the bottom of the Sea And long before him this was revealed to Moses when Jehovah proclaimed this to be part of his Name He who forgiving iniquity and trespass and sin How often was this Truth preached over in the Sacrifices for Sin offerings and in their Typical Washings and Purifications and such like which held forth this in the spiritual meaning of them And Christ appointed some who in their Function by Office were to teach Jacob his Judgments and Israel his Law to shew them what those Truths and Things were that were so shadowed out by those Figures Thus also was not the Sanctification or Holiness of a Covenant-people The Declared Will of Jehovah Aelohim Is not the Command express in Moses's Book Ye shall sanctifie your selves and be holy for I Jehovah your God And ye shall keep my statutes and do them I Jehovah who sanctifie Ye shall set to it to be holy and ye shall be holy for I holy Has he not put that honour upon them by calling them Saints His Saints An holy People in Covenant with him How many ways did he preach this Doctrine to them The Priests must be Holy the Levites Holy the Prophets Holy the People Holy the Convocation Holy the Sabbath Holy the Place of Worship Holy the City Jerusalem is named Holy the House Holy the Mount Holy the Land Holy the Garments Holy the Tabernacle Holy the Temple Holy the Scriptures Holy the Law Holy the Covenant Holy Did not their whole Burnt-Offerings call upon them to be sanctified throughout their whole intire Spirit and Soul and Body to be kept unblamable Did not the Precepts to abstain from prohibited Pollutions and to use prescribed cleansings in case of contracted uncleanness speak the same Truth Was not the Law of the ten Words a comprehensive perfect Doctrine of all Holiness and Righteousness And are not the Sermons of the faithful Prophets full of Dehortations from sin and of Exhortations to Holiness If thou wouldest be instructed in the Doctrine of the Resurrection Did not the LORD Christ himself prove and teach this out of the saying of Jehovah Aelohim unto Moses in the Bush I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but the God of living From whence he doth infer that though Abraham Isaac and Jacob were dead as to their body yet they were still alive in their Spirit and Soul which bodies were parts of them and therefore their bodies should in time rise again For hereby it was evident that there is another life after this is ended which those departed Saints that were dead as to this life had their shares and parts in So that God not only was heretofore but still now is and will be their God after their death The Bodies of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob shall rise and therefore the bodies of the dead shall rise they shall live again whereas now they are dead and therefore they shall arise For he is their God now they are dead and therefore they shall live again though now they be dead For God is not the God of the dead who are so dead that they shall never live again So that he declaring himself to be their God ever since they were dead it must unanswerably follow as convincingly concluding that their bodies shall live again With what a clear judgement and holy confidence doth Job speak the same truth I know said he that my Redeemer living and that the latter one shall rise upon the dust Therefore after I shall awake and that the worms have digged through this yet in my fiesh I shall see God Whom I shall behold to me and mine eyes have seen and not a stranger My reins are consumed within my bosom Was not Christ's Resurrection plaintly taught in the sixteenth Psalm Where Christ himself doth thus express his sure hope of rising again from death the third day My flesh shall dwell in considence for thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol Thou wilt not give thy gracious Saint to see corruption doth not Peter so interpret this And did not Paul so explain and apply this And if the head be raised must not the members of that body to which the head is so nearly related in union and in fellowship be raised also Hath not David left behind him a lively Testimony of his firm belief of this in his day and time When he set out the different apprehensions that he had concerning his expressed happiness in another better hâ—â— and world from what the unbelieving men of this World had They those mortal men of this transitory World they counted their good things to be their part and portion here in this life I saith he as if he all past into this this was his Belief this was Hope this his Portion this his Happiness I in justice shall view thy faces shall be satisfied when I shall awake with thy image There would be a day when he should awake out of the dust of the Earth from the sleep of death when he should see and know plainly and perfectly and bear the Image of the Heavenly The Psalmist speaks of a Morning when those that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake and rise He believed that Aelohim would redeem his soul from the hands of Sheol because he would receive him A glorious Testimony of his belief of a Resurrection Daniel in his Prophetick Spirit speaks of a time when many of them that sleep in the dusty Earth shall awake some unto everlasting life and some unto reproach and shame everlasting Which doth also point to a Day of Judgement following of this Resurrection Though Daniel in this place doth not seem to speak of the last general Resurrection yet hereby insinuating the Doctrine thereof According as Enoch also the seventh from Adam is recorded by Jude to have Prophetyed Behold the LORD hath come with his holy ten thousands to do judgement against all and convincingly to reprove all those corrupt Worshippers of them concerning all those their works of corrupt worship which they have impiously done and of all their hards which they have spoken against the LORD who sinners worshiping corruptly The wicked shall not stand up in judgement as is
Which is a standing unchangeable Rule of Life uniform and always one and the same They were written once and a second time in Tables of Stone by Jehovah Christ which doth shew amongst somewhat else their renewed durableness It was the Writing of Aelohim and the Record of them is to remain for ever So that a due difference must be put between this weekly Seventh-day Sabbath as it is such a standing established Rule of Life in created Nature one of the ten Words and between some Typical Institutions and superadded Rites and Figuring Shadows afterwards annexed to this Sabbath There is a plain evident difference between these two sorts of Laws Let Moses be heard concerning this in what he said to the Israelites Jehovah declared unto you his Covenant which he commanded you to do the ten Words observe these are distinctly expressed and severed from the Figuring Laws and he wrote them upon two Tables of Stone and Jehovah commanded me at that time to teach you Statutes and Iudgements that ye may do them in the Land whither ye are going over to possess it May we not discern here that Moses doth put a clear difference between the Laws of the ten Words which were publickly openly spoken and given by the LORD Christ in his own Royal Person from his Father to all the people and were written with the Finger of his own Spirit between these and those other shadowy Ordinances which were privately spoken to Moses only and by him and by his Ministery brought to the people and written by him These figuring Statutes admitted of a change and yet the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath doth remain unchangeable a perpetual Law And if any think that there is yet further any thing significative annexed to this day by Jehovah's Institution of Christ's second coming and of the heavenly Sabbatism then let that so far when any will clear it up from Scripture stand firm and unmoved till that time If the naturalness and self evidence of the Law of the ten Words were to receive a change because of superadded Institutions fitted to that Dispensation particularly as to Signs then the naturalness and self evidene of every one of them by this kind of arguing were to receive a change Was there not a Law for Fringes by the Institution of Jehovah Aelohim himself throughout the Generations of the Israelites for this end that they might see and remember all his Commandments This outward Rite was a memorative Sign or a religious Sign to help their memories and to further their sanctification To lead them unto a continual remembrance and practice of all the Law of the ten Words Thus also their Phylacteries were for a Sign upon their Hand and for a Memorial between their eyes that Jehovah's Law might be in their Mouth This was a Typical Memorial or Monument Which is the proper meaning of the Original Word By this outward Sign Jehovah Aelohim would have them to apply all their serious study and all their careful practice unto the keeping of all and every of the Laws of the ten Words All the outward Rites of the Ceremonial Laws were Signs typical Figures and significant Shadows instituted of God as Seals and Pledges to assure Believers of Christ and of those good things which his Faithful Obedient Perswadable ones have in and by him A due difference therefore should be put between Signs and Figures Signs and Shadows For although in the general and in common there be somewhat of a Sign in Figures and Shadows yet every Sign is not a Figure and Shadow but has somewhat particularly specially distinct A Figure doth set out and foreshew some Truth Duty Grace or Priviledge which is afterwards more clearly to be revealed though even then to be known believed done acted and injoyed A Shadow doth give some dark resemblance and it is a betokener of a Body which is to come in the place thereof and is in the appointed season to be exhibited whereas a Sign as it doth in some instances point out somewhat which is yet afterward to be looked for so in other cases it doth assure Believers of somewhat that is already gone and performed and in somewhat else it may stand and be joyned together with that which is signified thereby and be of special usefulness at one and the same present time The Ark wherein was nothing but only the ten Words in two Tables and the propitiatory Covering which was over the Ark were Types Figures and Shadows of Christ So that if Ceremonial Annexes should make void the Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath that way of arguing would lay aside and make void all the other Laws of these ten Words Sanctification is either that which was natural and concreated at the first and is now restored to and inwrought in some a spiritual transforming-Sanctification whereby the LORD doth regenerate and renew his People by the Power and Grace of his holy Spirit The Seventh-day Sabbath duely observed and well filled up having a suitable growing knowledge of and obedience to the rest of the revealed Will of God summarily comprehended in the ten Words would be a notifyingtestifying-certifying Sign of this Sanctification as has been shewn Or it is a Ritual Ceremonial Sanctification whereby under the former Dispensation in the use of some outward Rites and Ceremonies some persons and things which had some ways contracted some uncleanness were sanctified or purified which were typical and significative of in ward spiritual transforming Sanctification and of real inwrought Holiness and Purity Of this sort of Signs were their Blood sprinklings their Water-washings and such like Baptism is such a Sign under the new Dispensation Thus the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath if it be taken under this consideration as it had under the Old Testament Administration divers Ceremonial Laws added unto it both for preparation before and for cleansing in and after in some cases in this respect that which was superadded to it was a Sign of Sanctification to the Israelitish Church beyond any other people unless others came in and embraced the same true Religion and then there was one Law for the Israelite and for the Stranger When the Forreigner or Sojourner did leave the Worship of Idols and other heathenish practices of the Infidel World Thus that people were injoyned some out ward ceremonial Sanctifyings for the reviving of the Law of the ten Words But these Figures and Shadows made no real change upon the fourth Word the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath as neither did they upon any other of the ten Words Or Sanctification is the separating of somewhat from a common use and destinating and setting of it apart for some special singular holy Use Thus in several Scriptures some persons were Sanctified as the Administrators about holy things the Israelitish people which is also applied to the chosen Vessels Sanctification in this sense was applyed to the Tabernacle Temple Altar
in more particulars than is commonly observed for the particulars are expressed by some word or other in the general Law which by collating of other Scriptures in the Original words and phrases doth evidently demonstrate this which is well worth the noting and improving for the advancement of this decalogue-Science The definition of every one of the ten Words is so fully and comprehensively fitted as they take in all the Laws of Natural Holiness and Righteousness So that we may say with the Psalmist In all perfection I have seen an end but thy commandment O Jehovah is very large O how I love thy Law To believe that the Soul is what Scripture and Nature do say that it is is comprehended in the Decalogue The Maker and Giver of this Law is the best Interpreter of it When the Lawyer asked Christ which was the great Commandment in the Law The LORD Jesus answered him Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thine understanding and with all thy strength This is the first and the great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self On these two Commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets Observe here Is not the Soul particularly taken notice of in the expression And that too as a distinct essential constitutive part of man from the spirit and body And is not this a Word to be believed Is it not plain here that the Scripture Doctrine of the Soul is to be believed And this as comprehended within the due bounds of the Decalogue That Christ doth here speak of the Law of the ten words is evident by collating of other Scriptures which do historically relate the same thing where the Preface Hear O Israel doth shew that it is meant of this Law of the ten words seeing there is a particular enumeration of several of the ten Words in express terms Which ten Words do summarily contain the whole Doctrine of Holiness and of Righteousness whatsoever the Law and the Prophets do speak of And how much is there in these concerning the Doctrine of the Soul This exposition of the Law-maker himself is a sufficient warranting of this interpretation For he doth make the sum of the first Table to which the four first words do belong to be the loving of Jehovah our Aelohim with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our might And the sum of the second Table which takes in the six last words to be Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And the expressions which Christ doth use are remarkable the whole Heart the whole Soul the whole Strength the whole Mind which words do take in the whole Power and Powers of the inner and outer man The whole strength doth more properly set out the might of the Body in the external Members Limbs and Parts of it The whole Heart doth express all the Inwards of the bodily fleshy part of man The whole Mind doth call for the Vigour and Activity the light and life of the Spirit of Man The spirit of a Man is naturally Luminous and has Light enough in it to demonstrate his Being to be distinct from the respiring faculty in Man So that the whole in his All and in every part of him is concerned and engaged in this Love And all these words thus put together do discover and declare that this Law of the Ten Words doth extend to Spirit Soul and Body both the External and Internal parts of the Body which three do constitute and make up a complete Man And the LORD can make this good use of this part of the Answer to put the Readers upon further Inquiries into the Word of Truth after the true nature and proper difference of their Spirits Souls and Bodies and what the distinct duties of each are and wherein they must all joyntly agree in obeying this precept of Love The Fourth Word doth declare Jehovah Aelohim to be the Maker of the Heavens and of the Earth and of all things that are therein and the Soul of Man is one of these things which he created and made It is of the Law of Nature agreeably to the Word to believe that souls are and that there is a Maker of them And that it is a duty both to get more of the knowledge of our souls and with our souls to love and honour the Creator of them To love our selves with a just and necessary Love as such is of the Law of Nature He that doth it not is a Self Murderer he doth kill somewhat or other of himself which is against the express Letter of the Sixth Word Those that by sinning against and hating of the LORD Christ are Oppressors Wrongers Abusers of their own Souls and love death they do that by which they bring death and destruction upon themselves and so do not discharge that duty which under and for him they owe unto themselves To love our Neighbour as our selues is of the Law of Nature in the Decalogue which is the sense that the Law-giver himself doth give of his own Law This Objector himself doth acknowledge all the Duties of self-love to be deeply written in Man's Nature but in this he doth mistake in that he saith That all the Duties of self love as such are passed by as supposed in Moses's Decalogue In the way men should use more tenderness in their expressions about these holy Laws of Christ upon which he himself doth put so much honour This Adversary doth sometimes call it a Jewish Law and here Moses's Decalogue when he had before and after written so much diminitively about these ten Words whereas the Scriptures do name them with more honour the Words of the Covenant the ten Words the ten Words which Jehovah spake which he gave unto Moses Moses called them the ten Words of Jehovah's Covenant which Jehovah wrote upon two Tables of Stone with many more of such glorious Names and Titles But to my matter in hand If these Duties of self love are supposed where are they supposed if not in this present comprehensive Law which doth include all Duties Christ's Rules of Interpreting do expresly take in self-love making this commanded Duty of self-love to be the measure of our Love to our Neighbour the one must be regulated by the other according to the Word In his own Commentary upon his own Law he doth affirm all the Law and the Prophets to make a regular Love to our selves to be the measure of our Love to others This Law of self-love is not then so passed by but that in express terms if we will take Christ for an Interpreter it is a Duty required in the Law of the ten Words Both Old and New Testament do speak one and the same thing in this matter And men will never be thorowly true right lovers of
themselves till their hearts and lives in a way of growing conformity both in knowledge and in obedience be more and better reconciled to this Law of the ten Words Pure Primitive Created Natural Word self-love is eminent in an Universal Obedience unto all the Holy Righteous Just Laws of Jehrvah Aelohim They are good Laws good to the observer of them The LORD doth use this Argument whereby to prevail with true right self-lovers keep all my Commandments for thy good Thy the benefit and the advantage will be thy own Thy Obedience thereby will be profitable to thy self Every one of the ten Words being directed to men in the Second Person doth stir up their natural regular self-love Thou shalt or Thou shalt not It is thy own great concern For there is a lawful regular self-love as there is a sinful carnal self-love This also doth take in somewhat of another Instance of this Objector about taking greatest care to save our Souls above our Bodies For the Chain and the order Lines of Love is held forth in the Decalogue The Honour and the Glory of Jehovah Aelohim being commanded and commended in the first Table and then the Salvation and good of our selves and next to this the Salvation and good of others As has been already opened Further to tame and mortifie all our fleshly Lusts in order to our Salvation Is not this also precepted in the Decalogue Where any Duty is there commanded do not also the means pointed thereunto pass under precept Thus where any sin is forbidden are not there also the causes and occasions of such a sin forbidden And are not there also the means instituted for the avoyding such a sin injoyned Are not Lusts and Corruptions the whole old man of them the original indwelling sin which is the root and the corrupt Fountain whence all other sins and corruptions do spring and flow are not these forbidden in the Law of the ten Words Doth not Paul evidently argue this in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans If we do not through the spirit mortifie the deeds of the body Is not this one way of self-murder forbidden in the sixth Word or Law And where a sin is forbidden is not the contrary Duty there commanded Are we not by virtue of this and of other of these Laws to forbear those acts of Gluttony Drunkenness Adultery and such like as they tend to our own damnation Where the express charges for mortification are given to us do they not evidently refer to the particular Laws of the ten Words Mortifie your members which are upon the Earth Fornication Uncleanness against the seventh Word Passion against the sixth Word Evil Concupiseence against the seventh Word in its limited restrained sense against the whole of this Law in a large sense Covetousness against the tenth VVord Which is Idolatry against the first Word We must put off all these Anger Wrath Malice against the sixth Word Blasphemy against the third Word when belched out against Jehovah against the ninth VVord when spoken evilly against our Neighbour Filthy communication out of our Mouths against the seventh VVord Lie not one to another against the ninth VVord Husbands be not bitter against your VVives Fathers give not ill words to your Children Servants do not wrong against the fifth VVord Do not not the Law and the Prophets under the old Administration call for the ploughing up of the sallow Ground for Circumcising themselves to Jehovah for taking away the Foreskin of their Hearts with other such like expressions And do these set out the mortification of the lusts VVhat was much of the Typical whole Burnt-offering but the mortifying and killing of sin So that as this is a Duty under the New so also it is a Duty under the Old And if so it must be by virtue of one or other of the ten VVords for on these do all the Law and the Prophets the whole Old Testament hang as to matters of commands or Prohibitions though it take in other matters too To deny all bodily Pleasure Profit Honour Liberty and Life for the securing of our Salvation regular self-love as it is a Law of Nature doth dictate and is a great part of that which the LORD Jesus Christ in that cutting of the ten VVords into two Comprehensives of them doth call the second Commandment For Love to the Honour of Jehovah Aelohim is the first and chief Commandment and must be mainly put forth in this case though it were to the parting with our any thing our all Are there not eminent Examples of this under the Old Testament which have an honourable Record in the New Did not Noah go far in this of self denyal when he opposed all that corrupt age VVhen he condemned the whole VVorld of sinful mankind as he could reach them and was not this to the saving not only of his house but of his soul VVas not Abraham eminent in this when he left his own Country and his Fathers House and at a call from the LORD went out not knowing whither he went to sojourn in a strange Country where he was in great danger And when at a word from the LORD he was ready to offer up his Isaac his only begotton beloved Son of whom it was said In Isaac shall the seed be called to thee Did not Moses excel here in when by Faith being grown big he refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter was not this a denying all bodily honour when he by Faith chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to have the Temporary Injoyment or Delight of sin VVas not this to deny all bodily pleasure when he by Faith esteemed the reproach of or for Christ observe there was a Christ then and Moses rejoyced in his being persecuted for Christ's sake because great was his reward in Heaven which is an answer to another Instance of this Objector greater riches than the Treasures in Egypt VVas not this to deny all profit when he by Faith forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he was constant as seeing him who is invisible VVas not this to deny all bodily liberty and life And were not these for the securing of his Salvation Is it not expresly spoken of him that Moses had respect unto the Recompence of Reward Did not he believe that there was an Heaven where the glorified Saints will be perfectly blessed in the Knowledge Love and Fruition of God VVhich doth also return a confutation to another Instance of the Objector VVas not Moses under some VVord-Law for all this Must not this Faith have some Word from Jehovah to bottom upon O how honourable are these things of this glorious Law This puts me on towards the closing of my great undertaking which is to shew That The Old Law of the ten Words is still the same both to Jew and Gentile It was the
of this holy Law of the ten Words particularly to be breakers of that Law of the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath so that these Laws were well known to the Church and people of God by a long continued handing of them down by Posterity from Age to Age though practical Anomy or lawlessness had too much crept in and corrupted them of that Generation who neglected and broke them especially whilst bond-slaves in Egypt Afterwards when this Law was proclaimed and commanded at Mount Horeb where was a great mixture a miscellaneous multitude of Israelites and Gentiles who were present at that Mount and the stranger is expresly named in the very Letter of the Fourth Word or Command so that he also was under the obligation to yield obedience unto the Law of the Seventh day Sabbath The mind of man having by sin covered over with thick darkness ignorance errour and long diâ—use evil inclinations to Vice having much depraved and blinded the Understanding The LORD in words of his own mouth proclaimed this Law that it might be a manifest Testimony to mankind that natural Notions and Novelties of the Law concerning the difference between Good and Evil Duty and Sin were divinely ingrafted into the Nature of Mankind and were consentaneous unto this Eternal Rule of Holiness and of Righteousness which is in Aelohim He instaurs and restores the intire knowledge of his Will in his Law by this solemn promulgation that those old Letters of it which were much worn and defaced in the decayed Monuments of corrupt hearts might be more deeply ingraven and more plainly read again that what men had observed he by his own speaking Voice and writing Finger might rightly explain thus interposing his own Royal Authority to beget an inward testimony in their own consciences for the justness and equity of his holy righteous Law that all Mankind might be convinced of their sin and misery and might thereby be awakened to make out after a remedy otherwise they would be left altogether without excuse Upon the second of the Trumpets at Mount Sinai all Mankind was bound to make diligent inquiry after that which the LORD who is the King of Nations there spake so that they are all under his Law and are all bound thereunto being all concerned to take notice of the promulgation thereof by Royal Proclamation though more especially given forth at that place of Sinai It is not unworthy of serious consideration what a tonourous loud voice that was which not only all the Israelites did hear who yet were about six hundred thousand men a multitude that took up a great space of ground when Aelohim spake all the Words of the Decalogue This voice was also accompanied with a sound of Trumpets so exceeding loud as that the Lord could make all Mankind then alive to hear it such a sound shall go forth in the last day Besides all this what tempests were there at that solemnity what smoke what fire yea what thunderings and what an Earth-quake Such as might shake all the Inhabitants of the Earth at once and make them take notice of it For not only did Mount Sinai or Horeb quake greatly but that expression of Mount Sinai also doth shew that other parts of the Earth were shaken too The Earth was then shaken as the Earth shall be shaken at Christ's coming in the later days when all Nations shall be shaken or moved or made to tremble all and every one of them so shaken as the Heavens then will all of them at once All the Earth is bid to rejoyce at Jehovah's reigning which is described by his solemn giving of the Law which the Church is to rejoyce at and this is applyed unto Christ all the inhabited World was then enlightned all the Earth saw and trembled he then and their declared himself to be LORD of the whole Earth in giving forth this Kingly Law Thus this glorious Law-giver himself descended from Heaven with a shout his Charriot being twice ten thousand thousands of Angels the LORD being with them at Sinai in the Sanctuary and when he ascended to on high he led captive a Captivity he had taken Gifts unto Adam observe so is the Original word or in Adam which Paul doth explain to be men all Adam's posterity particularly from that time and also the rebellious to dwell with that God This Law universally concerneth all for in Christ all are one and whoever they were of the Heathen Nations that came into the Church of God in that day and were obedient unto all the Laws of Jehovah they had a part with Israel in all the holy things of God the Strangers themselves were under a Promise of having an allotted Inheritance in the Holy Land together with the Tribes of Israel There were the same privileges to the Obedient to the Stranger as to the Home-born The same judgments executed upon Transgressors of the Law of the Ten Words were he the one or the other All Nations under Heaven heard report of Israel and of the LORD 's appearing for them and giving them his holy Law Let the Reader further observe how it was afterwards when Solomon built the Temple at his dedicating of it he put the Stranger into his Prayer as well as the Israelite And this wise just Judge especially whilst his heart was right with the LORD judged according to this Law of the ten Words and the judicials annexed thereunto Solomon had his Dominion from Sea to Sea and from the River unto the ends of the Land they that dwelt in dry places kneeled before him and his Enemies licked the dust The Kings of Tharshish and of the Isles rendred an oblation the Kings of Sheba and Seba offered a present and all Kings bowed down to him all Nations served him he reigned over all Kingdoms who were someways under his subjection being herein a Type of Christ so that Solomon was a kind of Universal Monarch upon Earth ruling and governing by Jehovah's Laws Consider what the Office and Work of the Prophets was after Solomon's time even to preach Commentaries and Sermons upon this Law of the ten Words directing transgressors unto the Messiah to procure pardon and reconciliation And these Prophets especially some of them had not only the Israel of God put into their Embasse and Commission but also the Gentile Nations and Kingdoms and People let Jeremiah be one eminent instance of this when the LORD did set over the Nations and other the Kingdom according unto that Word which he brought or sent to them from Jehovah and according as they yielded obedience or not unto this Law of Jehovah so they were either built and planted or plucked up and broken down spoiled and destroyed All those Nations unto whom Jehovah sent Jeremiah with a word of Prophety were many not Jerusalem and Judah the Kings thereof the Princes thereof but also Pharaoh King of Egypt and his Servants and his Princes and
all his People and all the mingled People and all the Kings of the Land of Vz and all the Kings of the Land of the Philistines and Ashkelon and Azzah and Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod Edom and Moab and the Children of Ammon and all the Kings of Tyrus and all the Kings of Zidon and the Kings of the Isles which beyond the Sea Dedan and Tema and Buz and all that in the utmost corners and all the Kings of Arabia and all the Kings of the mingled people that dwell in the Desert and all the Kings of Zimri and all the Kings of Elam and all the Kings of Medes and all the Kings of the North far and near one with another and all the Kingdoms of the World which upon the face of the Earth and the King of Sheshach The LORD had a controversie with the Nations and he pleaded with all flesh with all men by this man's Ministery the cracking sound and the terrible noise whereof went East West North and South to the ends of the Earth and that strife in Judgement which the LORD had against them was because they transgressed this holy righteous just Law of his and were not the Gentiles also then under the obligation and direction of this Law Now that I am upon somewhat of the Historical part of this Narration let me here add some passages both before and after the time wherein Jeremiah did live Let us go back as far as Noah who found Grace in the Eyes of Jehovah who was a just man perfect in his Generations and who walked with God Jehovah himself giving of him this Testimony he was one who was intire in his obedience to all the Laws of God in his life and conversation and he was heir of the Justice or Righteousness which is by Faith and was a Preacher of the same Doctrine of Justification in the sight of God by Faith in the Messiah This Noah was the Father of those Nations and Peoples who after the Floud did multiply and spread and inhabit the Earth and by this means the Laws of Jehovah were made known throughout the world and thus also was the Church scattered and dispersed in several places more especially in the days of his Son Shem there were visible Church-societies and publick Church-meetings called The Tents of Shem. In and about Abraham's time who was also Father of many Nations in his Family the Church of God shined forth in its glorious lustre and comly beauty he was one of whom the LORD himself hath witnessed that he obeyed the voice of Jehovah and kept his Charge his Statutes and his Laws Jehovah knew him that he would command his sons and his house after him and they should keep the way of Jehovah to do Justice and Judgement Such care would he take to make known unto others the Commands of Jehovah And about Abraham's time Job and his friends were not strangers to the Laws of the LORD though dwelling a great way off in the Land of Vz off from Abraham they also had their Congregations for true pure Worship Job declaring against Idolatry and observing instituted times for solemn Worship and he answered for himself against the false accusations charged upon him by Eliphaz that his foot had held the right path of Jehovah his way did Job keep and not turn away and the Laws of his lips he did not cast off Job did lay up the Words of his Mouth more than his daily bread whereby it doth appear that those parts were not strangers to Jehovah's Laws those more particularly which in some respects are more the Laws of his Lips and the words of his Mouth Further full home to Moses's time and in his days we have foot-steps of the Laws of the true Religion even amongst those who were none of Israels off spring Balaam of Syria in Mesopotamia had a gift of Prophety and knew the Law of Jehovah and being a publick Teacher did spread the knowledge of it about in Assemblies Examine we the Captives of the LORD's People besides some other smaller scatterings There was one Captivity of the ten Tribes by Salmanassar King of Assyria who planted those Israelites in Hala and Habor by the River of Gozan and in the Cities of the Medes whither this great Conqueror and mighty Monarch did transplant them making them to dwell in places far remote from their own Land where they communicated the Knowledge of the Laws of Jehovah Here was a great dispersion of that Nation we find not that any considerable part of these ever returned to dwell again in their own Country being placed here by the Assyrian in Parthia Media and Persia there or thereabouts they still dwelt in the days of Christ and in the time of the Apostles Another Captivity was of the two other Tribes Judah and Benjamin by Nebuchadnezzer King of Babylon more than one hundred years after the former Israel was first in the Apostasie and yet Judah would not take warning At the seventy years end many of these two Tribes returned to Jerusalem and dwelt in their own Land again building again the Temple being encouraged thereto by Cyrus re-erecting their City and restoring their Common-wealth This also lasted till Christ's time and some years after yet many of the Jews staid behind in Babylon great numbers had well accommodated dwellings and were loath to leave their Habitations though in a stranger Land where Historians tell us they had their Academies Schools and Doctors these two were numerous dispersions beyond the River Euphrates A third Captivity by a Grecian King of divers after the return from Babylon whose off-spring were carried Captives into Egypt where that King reigned whom he planted in Alexandria and the places thereabouts who had their Synagogues there Let us take the account from Scripture Record A few Days a Week or thereabouts after Christ's Ascension there were met together of them at the Pentecosts Feast when men of several Nations Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judaea and Cappadocia in Poutus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt and the parts of Lybia about Cyrene and stranger-Romans both Jews and Proselytes Cretes and Arabians devout men out of every Nation under Heaven observe every Nation under Heaven to that these dispersions were more or less in all Nations besides the last Captivity by Titus almost forty years after Christ's Ascension insomuch as that in almost every City of the Gentiles whither the Apostles travelled and came to preach Christ and the glad tydings of Salvation by him there were Jews who had their Synagogues James doth direct his Epistle to the twelve Tribes scattered abroad and Peter doth inscribe his unto those of the dispersion in Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia he salutes them from Babylon which was their Metropolis from all which put together it is evident that Jehovah's Laws were published throughout the inhabited
World made known in every Nation to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews all Mankind being concerned therein as to their Eternal Estate so that if as Adversaries have confessed it were the Gentiles Duty to observe the Law of the ten Words as soon as these were made known unto them which have so much of self-evidence in them commending themselves to every man's conscience at first view we take then their own concession and would improve what they grant for their own conviction that seeing besides what was made manifest to Gentile Nations of these Laws before Moses's time there were many present at the very time of Promulgation of the Decalogue of Mount Sinai and who knows how many more might hear the sound of Christ's Voice at that time and there was one and the same Law to Israelite and to Gentile and seeing in the after-dispersions of the Israelites and Jews unto the several Nations into all Nations these Laws were published abroad among the Gentiles that therefore the Gentiles also who had or at least might have had the knowledge of these Laws were under the obligatory power of them Come we now to the New Testament This doth not run in the stile nor carry the form of enacting new Laws which were never before but as to the Matter in hand it doth confirm and established the Old Law of the ten Word This was the constant Doctrine of Christ when he spake to this subject This Decalogical Doctrine and Rule of Life was not at all disanulled or any way dissolved by this Lawgiver but he made it to stand firmly in his place and to preach the good old Gospel of Reconciliation through his Name he being that very Messiah who was foretold of should come in the flesh born of a Virgin and to declare the sound old Doctrine of Faith for the comfort of such converted Souls as turned from sin to a Saviour and so obtained Justification and Salvation by Faith in Christ which was the same in all ages of the Church under the several dispensations of Grace unto all and upon all that believe which Truth hath Testimony from the Law and from the Prophets This Law of the ten Words the Apostles by Commission from the LORD Jesus Christ commend and command to all rational Creature as a Rule of Life in their Preaching and Uniting to the Gentile Nations not as by way of new constituting and re-enacting of Laws as if they had been no Laws to them before but reviving and re-inforcing of these old Laws upon their Conscience and this they often bring in especially Paul sometimes to prove a Doctrine othertimes convincingly to reprove for a sin or reformingly to correct some Error or Vice or chastizingly to instruct some Duty of Holiness and Righteousness according as the particular occasions for these were taking it for granted that they were a Directory for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews The Apostles when they preached to Jew or Gentile before the New Testament was written were it a Doctrine or a Duty or what else which they pressed upon the hearers still they proved what they taught out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament as that which did and doth bind I speak of the Law of the ten Words both Jew and Gentile this was a part of that word-foundation on which all the Jewish and Gentile Churches were built Examine we some passages in the Epistles to this end There were Gentiles in the Church at Rome and Paul in his writing to them doth evidently declare That they were under the Obligation of those Commandments which were delivered from God by Moses giving particular instances in several of the Laws of the ten Words as the Marginal references will inform And commending of this Law in the general at large There were Gentiles in the Church at Corinth and Paul in his first Epistle to them doth convince them both of sin and duty from what was written in the Law of Moses There were Gentiles in the Church of Galatia yet Paul doth convince them of their guilt and cursedness whilst they were in their sinful state from those things which were written in the Book of the Law and sheweth them the necessity of Faith as to Justification which he proveth out of the writings of an Old Testament Prophet and as for Love he declares unto them that all the Law is fulfilled in one Word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self which was the same Doctrine with that of Moses and of Christ There were Gentiles in the Church at Ephesus yet was that Church built upon the foundation of the Prophets of the Old Testament whose writings were much of them a Commentary upon the Law of the ten Words as well as under the Apostles of the New he urgeth upon them obedience to the Decalogical Law and particularly doth single one out of the Ten about honouring of the Father and the Mother which was the first Commandment of the second Table with promise An industrious Reader and a diligent observer may quickly carry this through the New Testament and spare me the further labour by his own unprejudiced ingenuity The Gentiles as well as the Jews are in their natural corrupt state in Sin and under the Curse which sin is a Transgression of this Law The Light of Nature in the Gentiles especially when rightly and throughly informed by the Word of God approves of every one of the Laws of the ten Words There is but one only Lawgiver who has mere and direct Empire over the consciences of all Mankind even Jehovah Aelohim who is able to save and to destroy according as men obey him or not And there is one only perfect Rule of Life to which all thoughts words and actions should be conformed and by which we shall be judged at that last Great Day even the Word of God the ten Words summarily this is the chief the principle the supreme Directory Whatsoever is written in the heart of the Pagans so far as it is right is concordant unto this Law The Will of the LORD concerning what is or is not to be done which way soever he has revealed it to all or to any of Mankind is still the same with this holy righteous Law when ever he has signified to man what his requirements from man in these matters are Unto his Will must the will of all Mankind be conformed all Mankind is always bound to will that which God would have them to will all Mankind who have the use and the exercise of right Reason cannot but acknowledge that the two great comprehensive Summaries of the ten Words do bind them all which are To love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbour as our selves all are reduced to this bipartite Universal Law Though the LORD variously reveal his Will and his Word for
particular subject especially by one that is acquainted with the Original Hebrew and the several words and phrases under that dispensation that do speak to this case The Churches of Aelohim had in all ages such as were gifted graced called by Office to preach the Word and to Administer Signs and Seals Before Moses's time the Ordinary Ministers were the first born of Families into whose place afterwards the Priests and the Levites succeeded Enoch was a Prophet Noah was a Preacher Abraham was a Prophet The Priests and the Levites were the Pastors and the Teachers And Paul under the New Testament doth set out the Ministerial Office now by such expressions as were borrowed from the Ministerial Office under the Old Publick Officers in the Work of the Ministery now are such as perform the holy Office of the New Testament Priesthood Ministerial Workmen if they would not be ashamed should rightly divide the Word of Truth The cutting of the Burnt-offering into its pieces did Figure the Work of the Ministery in the New Testament Church It might not be a confused or disordered mangling it must be done into the Natural pieces The Prophesies concerning the Ministery of the New Testament are set out by the Ministery of the Old The Levites did serve the Priests about Tabernacle and Temple worship but were not to come near the Sanctuary nor the Altar The Elders laid their hands upon the Levites in setting them apart for the Ministery and Service How aptly is this applicable in a New Testament Church If you consider Deacons under this Dispensation as having this to be a part of their Office to provide for and to distribute to the poor Thus also were some of the Levites imployed in such Ordinary Ministeries of distrubution of the Church-Treasure overseeing the holy things and the Work of Jehovah too Neither was the Old Testament without its Diaconesses its ministring Women whose Ministery and Service was used by the Church These are the particular instances of this Objector to every one of which I have brought some Testimonies out of the Old Testament As for Rules about Church-Offices under the New Dispensation a discerning eye may see now the New Testament is written that Christ and his Apostles did in their teaching much refer their hearers unto the Analogy of Faith under the Old Testament The stile of the New doth not carry along with it a form of enacting such new Laws and new Rules of which there was not any thing at all under the Old Administration But we find Christ confirming the old Laws of the ten Words accomplishing the old Types and fulfilling the foregoing Prophesies concerning himself Interpreting the meaning of the Types and setting up the Anti-types in the room of them And where he doth bring in Laws it is occasionally either to open their meaning or to prove somewhat thereby or from thence to exhort correct instruct some way or other to apply it to the present case declaring himself to be one and the same Law-giver that was of Old Whereby he doth demonstrate that the Old Testament is still to be a Rule under the New The difference between them being only in the divers form and manner of dispensing as will be more shewn hereafter The regulation now is to be made according to that proportion which the new Administration doth call for and the old Rules must be new applyed which as to the matter now here under Question have a clearer Revelation and a more spiritual Dispensing So that the New Testament Word is much the Old Testament Scripture gone over again in more clearness fulness perfection spirituality glory and heavenliness The Old and the New Testament-Will of God are not contrary Wills but one and the same Will diversified only in some particulars of the manner of administring the new Will is the old Will revived and cleared and confirmed and so put into a more heavenly form There is a well measured equality between the Old and the New a well agreeing sameness of word and there should be a true proportioned collation of both Testaments each with other All and every of Christ's Institutions had ever a word of his to warrant them even in the times of the Apostles a word written about such Institutions in the Old Testament in Type Prophesie or some such like way and a Word spoken by Christ before the New Testament was written referring to the foregoing Patterns of them in the Old which word afterwards also was put into the New Testament Scripture whereas we know no word from Christ either in the Old Testament or New for the first day being a weekly day separated and appointed for a day of Holy Worship in the room of the Seventh day Sabbath Thus far this Author himself doth acknowledge that the first day was not instituted by Scripture all the Old Testament through which did not contain its Institution so that the Believers of that age in Christ's time had no written word at for any such observance of the first day any where all their Bible through Let this concession be improved by the wise and discerning the serious and the considering Reader However therefore the matter of fact may have been afterwards reported in Humane Histories we expect that the matter of Right be proved from God-inspired Scriptures Whatever this Author do say that this being the common usage of so observing the first day in the Apostles times by them and by the Churches of their Plantation and that therefore there was no such need of putting this pretended matter of fact into Scripture History it appears hereby how broken this Reed of his Assertion is which he would have all the Christian World to lean upon After several years serious diligent search I cannot find any such common usage no not so much as one particular instance that either any one of the Apostles themselves or any one of the Churches of their planting did ever so much as once so observe the first day as the weekly Sabbath-day Although if that could be proved it doth not yet determine this case upon our hearts who do expect Scripture Institutions Commands Prophecies Promises and such like appointments as have harmonious consent of the whole Scripture besides that speaks of that matter if there had been any such great change of the weekly Sabbath-day as is pretended If the force of this Authors arguing do lye there how evident is it that there was great need of writing such a Matter of Fact that had so weighty a case of so great consequence in it It is the common practice of all the wise part of mankind to take along with them sufficient credible witnesses of it such whose Testimony will upon occasion stand firm in Law when they first take actual possession of some great Estate of a rich Inheritance settled upon them and upon theirs that shall come after them and to set it down in
writing and to keep the Records of it well attested especially when another doth claim a former Title for some hundreds of years As this of the seventh-day Sabbath did for some thousands of years for some ages beyond the memory of man and when they could not but foresee that their Title would be so much called in question and controverted and especially too where the Matter of Fact is pretended as it is by this Author so much to prove the Matter of Right All Matters of Fact that do pass into Historical Writing are fittest to be written in the same age wherein they were done as being then better known in their circumstances by sensible demonstrations which cannot be so well discerned in after ages How fond are Traditionists of unscriptural humane Antiquities and Universalities Whereas Errors have been ancient even as long full home to the times of the Apostles Even then did the Mystery of iniquity begin to work there were even then many Antichrists and Malignant Assemblies and when the Antichrist shall be revealed there would be a great Apostasie and Defection from the Truth The Revelation hath foretold that all the World would go a whoring after the Beast and would worship the Beast and the Dragon that gave him power yet are these some of their Notes of a visible Church Antiquity and Universality which that they might be the sooner imposed upon the hoodwinck'd credulous World have another vain pretence going along with them altogether as unscriptural and vain as they that is that the Church cannot err And they falsly call their particular Romish Synagogue the Catholick Church I expectingly believe and hopingly wait for a coming day when our plain tender sincere upright-hearted people will be undeceived and no longer to suffer themselves to be deluded and imposed upon by such confident Assertions as this Objector doth bring them As if that which beyond all doubt must assure them that de facto the first day was by the Apostles separated for holy Worship especially in publick Church Assemblies is the full and unquestionable expository evidence of the practice of all the Churches in the World since the very days of the Apostles For so has this Learned Author affirmed Reader bethink thy self what thy Faith must resolve it self into if it will follow this misguiding How can such believers as never traded in this kind of humane Learning ever come to undoubted assurance about the matter How can they be fully ascertained of this who were never versed nor are ever like to be neither are under any such obligation by any Scripture Precept to be throughly versed and understandingly read in all and every of the Writings of all and every of the Ecclesiastical Histories that do write about this Or if it were possible and facible that they could compass this of which I can see no end who yet have more helps and advantages this way than the most How can they unquessionably be confirmed in this perswasion that there never was any one Church of Christ that did escape the Humane Church-Record and History And if so who can tell them but that that particular Church might be of a different judgement and practice What doth this kind of arguing in this Author mean What would it have our people to resolve their satisfaction and assurance concerning the pretended first day Sabbath into that report which their humane fallible Guides do make unto them of this without their tryal of it The Word of Christ doth call upon them to try the spirits whether they be of God and to prove all things that are thus brought them by Teachers by the Scripture-canon and Touch stone as the one and the only infallible Rule What a kind of Faith is that which is a trusting of fallible men without tryal a depending upon Humane Authorities without Scripture Evidence The God-inspired Authority of Christ and of his Word is fully attested within the holy Scriptures own bounds and needs not step out to Humane Histories Authorities and Traditions However this Author would buz into the ear such amazing expressions as this that it is impossible it should be otherwise than as such Humane Historie doth record of the practice of all the Churches since the times of the Apostles and that this Testimony is infallible Humane History and that part of it which they call Ecclesiastical History however it be a pleasant study and an employ someways in its place profitable yet of all kinds of Scientifick Learning is one of the weakest common places of arguing and the least convincing for demonstration because it doth resolve its probations into the fallible Testimonies of lying men and so doth not cannot give any firm full satisfaction to an inquiring Spirit and studious Mind who will still be doubtful and afraid how he doth bottom his Faith in so weighty a case as is now before him upon such an unsure and unsafe ground as he can build no firmness of belief and certainty of knowledge upon even the uncertain witness of deceivable men what their eyes and ears and tongues and pens have reported to us who are so many hundred years come into the World after they were dead and gone that way of disputing therefore which this mighty man of Humane Reason has walked in to find out some place if he could where to make his First day Sabbath cause to stand is such a by-path as doth mislead his Reader into bogs where he cannot settle and stay with any good confidence and sound comfort Such arguments may take with over credulous minds and with passive intellects who through idleness and guile of spirit in a matter which would ingage them in so much of self-denyal and of cross bearing had rather use another man's writings and reasonings than be at the pains of studying of the Scriptures and of exercising their own understanding What has at large been written in trying this Objectors spirit upon the former Scriptures in an answer also to the next mentioned by him in the Revelation which he calleth another Historical hint of the New Testament How can a change of the weekly Sabbath-day from one day to another from the seventh to the first be soundly proved from this other Scripture where he that is of a serious spirit and doth diligently inquire after word-satisfaction about this matter cannot find either Sabbath or First day either in terms plainly expressed or clearly implyed or necessarily inferred in this place or in the context or in the design of the Holy Spirit here or by comparing of it with other places of Scripture Those that would lay the foundation of so great a change should see their Scripture grounds to be more evident convincing and firm What one Word is there in this Scripture that doth warrant any new Instition from Christ for the observing of the First day as the weekly Sabbath-day What one word is there here of command so to observe the First day What one word