Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	new_a	old_a	testament_n	3,965	5	8.0680	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04128	Seven questions of the sabbath briefly disputed, after the manner of the schooles Wherein such cases, and scruples, as are incident to this subject, are cleared, and resolved, by Gilbert Ironside B.D.	Ironside, Gilbert, 1588-1671.	1637 (1637)	STC 14268; ESTC S107435	185,984	324

The former no man will affirme and for the latter if ever any such impression of Gods holinesse were communicated to any day doubtlesse it was to the seventh from the Creation But this in the time of the Gospell is accounted but as other common daies If any man say it may receive its holinesse from man sure we are that all the men in the world cannot make any creature in the world to be formally holy Daies are well stiled holy by accident and in regard of their end and appointment because set a part for holy things and no otherwise And this agrees not only to the Lords-day but to all Holy-daies whatsoever and that equally being all set apart by the same authority of the Church To the foureteenth the publique worship is an especiall part of our serving of God and in this the Church is to hearken only un●● Christ her Soveraign Lord in regard of the 〈…〉 thereof but for ritualls and accidentals 〈…〉 liberty so all things be done decently and in order Who knowes not that the day wherein the worship is performed is meerely circumstantiall Only for orders sake least as b Hieron in Gal. 4. S. Hierom speaks the confused and unprescribed Assemblies should by degrees lessen the faith of men in Christ himselfe To the fifteenth it goes hard when to resolve a case of conscience men are forced to fly to Criticismes But if here a man should deny that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signify an exchange or putting of one thing in the room of another store of work would be cut out for Grammarians But this needs not for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to retract alter reverse as well as to exchange every man knowes We therefore grant that Christ hath brought in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having recalled and utterly abolished the Iewish Sabbath established in the letter of the fourth Commandement Furthermore I answere that if the exchange of the Priesthood had made only an exchange of the Law putting one thing in the roome of another Christian religion should now be as burthensome as the Iewish was heretofore in regard of the number though not for the quality of their observations which how absurd it is appears at first sight To the sixteenth we all acknowledge Christ to be the Lord of the Sabbath and of all things else in his Church The Iewish Sabbath also is abolished yet it followes not but this might be done by the authority of the Church For what doth he that is Lord in a house doe all things with his own hands In the house is nothing left to the power of wife and servants Christ indeed is Lord of the Church gives orders with his own mouth concerning things necessary and substantiall but he leaves ritualls and ceremonialls such as are time place manners of his worship to his wife and servants the Church and Magistrates To the seventeenth no man denies that * all things are become new so we take the rest of the text with us * 2. Cor. 5.17 old things are passed away for it was the passing of old things away which maketh all things to become new In the Gospell all things are become new no otherwise then the reformed religion is said to be new because it hath receded from the corruptions of Popery which had a long while stuck to the Church as an old ach lyes in the body The Ceremonies of Moses are vanished things themselves are exhibited and this is the novelty there spoken of But granting what the argument requireth that all things are become not only negatively but positively new as a new Testament a new and living way May not his spirit make other things new as new hearts new creatures May not the Church also make some thing new as new forme of goverment new exercise of publique worship with new circumstances thereof But as all things else are become new so I wish these men would leave their old abusing of Scripture and think of a new and better kind of reasoning To the eighteenth that Christ hath left his Church in worse estate then he found the Synagogue because he hath not burthened it with observations of dayes is a mystery in Divinity It is as if a man should say the Heire is in worst case when he is Lord of all then when being a Child he differed not from a servant because now he is no longer under Tutors and governours this is such a Paradox as few Wards will beleive To be freed from putting holynesse in dayes is part of the liberties of the Sonnes of God in which the Apostle wisheth * Gal. 5.1 vs to stand To the nineteenth To turne Iewes therefore in this poynt and upon this ground because they had a Sabbath of Gods owne appointing and we haue not were as great madnesse as for a Slaue that is once manumitted to returne unto bondage What if they had a day of Gods immediate appointment Had they not also Priests Vestments Sacrifices a set day of humiliation yearely c If it be best to turne Iewe in one why were it not so in all But this needes not for God hath hitherto and ever will giue vs our appointed Feasts though from men and by men as he giues vs Priests Altars Temples Sacrifices and all things belonging to his worship and service To the twentieth many things have the Lords name stampt upon them which never were of Gods immediate particular appointment Our Churches are called the houses of God our Communion-table the Lords table our Ministers the Lords Ministers yet are none of these of immediate institution from the Lord himselfe though all are such as appertaine to the Lords worship It is an old rule à nomine ad rem non valet argumentum from the name to the thing the argument doth conclude To the one and twentieth concerning our Saviours keeping of the Lords day with his Disciples as their Pastor after his resurrection enough hath already been spoken and the Scriptures alleadged haue been also cleared in which there is not any one footstep of an institution To the two and twentieth its most true that Christ after he was risen was fortie daies on the earth and conversed diverse times with his Disciples which times are particularly set downe in the history He gave them also instructions and commands but these are also upon record They were of two sorts either such as belong to their Apostolicall function as * Math. 28.19 to goe to all nations teaching and Baptizing having neither staffe nor scrip c. or some locall mandates as * Luk 24.49 to stay at Ierusalem till they received the promise These are all the commands of which I find Protestant c Per haec mādata quidam nihil aliud intelligunt quàm illud ipsum mandatum quod pòst clariùs exponit ne Hierosolymis discedant sed rectius alij de praedicando Evangelio c. Marl. in locum Interpreters

Lord vnlesse we also adde thereunto sundry actuall performances the time and manners whereof they also shew us If therefore any difference be it is that we must be wholy taken up with such performances during the whole Sabbath for 24. houres and turne meere Euchites upon the day which is not required in other dayes But that the Sabbath is of no such length hath been already declared and that God giues no such continuate taskes of holy performances shall I hope before we part be made evident Secondly d Finis non seper est de substantià praecepti neque secundùm veros Theologos cadit sub praecepto Med. Inst Non idem est finis praecepti id de quo praeceptum datur Aquin. 1.2 qu. 100. art 9. ad 2. the end is not comanded by that Law in which the meanes are prescribed for though the precept of the end include also the precept of the meanes yet not on the contrary This proposition is laid downe by the Moralists as an undoubted maxime and doth evidently appeare For example when we are commanded to heare the word we are not by the force there of commanded to beleeue in Christ Iesus yet * Rom. 10.17 Faith as saith the Apostle cometh by hearing That rule which commandeth to beate downe the body and to keepe it in subjection doth not require of vs the vertues of humility chastity c. but on the contrary these being the end require the other as the meanes But the law of sanctifying a holy Sabbath is a law of the meanes whereby we are taught and enabled to serue the Lord in the private duties of holinesse and to exercise in our selues the graces of faith hope loue c. This also is plaine of it selfe and requires no farther proofe For why doe we resort to the congregation on the Lords day But partly to be instructed by the word partly to be inflamed with the loue of God and zeale unto his service the whole weeke after as well as to tender him our publike homage in acknowledgement of his soveraigne dominion Thirdly no affirmatiue precepts are to be extended beyond that which the letter doth containe though it be otherwise in precepts which be negatiue For example honour thy father and mother when we know what it is to honour our Superiours we haue the whole latitude of this Law It is not so I say in negatiues as appeares by our Saviours confutation of the Pharisees glosses upon the seventh Commandement But the law of the Sabbath is an affirmatiue precept and prescribes the publique worship of God in the congregation therefore is not farther to be extended Fourthly if all duties of piety and mercy whatsoever were commanded by the law of the Sabbath then were there no difference at all between this and the other precepts of the Decalogue at least for that day so that upon one day of every weeke the other Commandements were needlesse and superfluous But this is not to be affirmed Ob. If any say that one and the same duty may be under divers precepts Resp I answer that though this be most true yet must we not confound the Law of God and make an intricate maze thereof to the entangling of mens consciences for the Decalogue is said to be ten words ten for their number words for their distinction I denie not that one and the same duty may be under divers precepts but then they are diversly considered as referred to divers ends The object of different commandements may be materially the same but formally distinct So temperance and sobriety may be both under the sixt and under the seventh precept under the sixt as meanes of preservation of breath under the seventh as the helps unto chastity and mortification But what formality can distinguish the duties of holinesse on the Lords day from the same duties on other daies I know not if you say to sanctifie the Sabbath the question is begged and so nothing said Fiftly were the whole practice of Religion both publique and private the duty of the Lords day then it would follow which is also affirmed that to obserue the Lords day were impossible to any man in the state of corruption For I think no man unlesse he be some braine-sick Perfectist will challenge to himselfe such a measure of holinesse though but for a day But that the law of the Lords day is thus impossible being not a Legall but Evangelicall observation of positiue command for all such are light yokes and easie burthens is utterly untrue Therefore c. Sixtly nothing but what is naturall and eternall is commanded in the fourth precept of the Decalogue binding us under the Gospell but that private and personall acts of religion should be performed by us precisely upon this or that day of publique worship in that manner as is required is not naturall and eternall binding us under the Gospell For the Law of nature prescribes only in generall not any thing for any time or day or manner in particular Seventhly that which is no where spoken of much lesse commanded in the new Testament bindes not the conscience of any under the Gospell but the private exercises of religion upon the Lords day are not spoken of much lesse commanded in the new Testament For then such commands were easily shewed all men would readily submit themselues thereunto Eightly this manner of observation seemeth to change the nature of the Lords day from being the Christian Feast and transformeth it rather into a day of Fast humiliation For let their doctrine of Sabbathizing be compared to the doctrine of fasting and we shall finde them the same saue only that a totall abstinence from all things wherein nature delighteth is required in the one but not so in the other But we must not metamorphize the Lords day which is and ought to be the Christian mans Festivall wherein he should not only inwardly but out wardly also rejoice in the Lord his God Ob. If any say that the true beleiver takes no greater comfort then in the exercises of humiliation nothing being so sweet unto him as the teares of contrition Resp I answer that what the * Heb. 12.11 Apostle speaketh of affliction in generall That afterwards it yeeldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousnesse to them that are exercised thereby is true also of the day of humiliation of the bruising of the soule in particular the affliction is one thing the fruit thereof another this ioyfull that for the present grievous and doth not so well sort with the nature of the Lords day Vpon which ground it was expresly forbidden the e Hoc ab omni ecclesiâ Orientali Occidentali observatum contra haereticos Can. Apost 61. Christians by Antiquity to fast upon the Lords day Ob. But is it not lawfull then for a man to repent and be converted unto God comming out of the state of sin into the state of grace through the troubles and anguishes