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
his Dsiciples that when troublous times would be some years after his Ascending into the highest Heavens they would be much in Prayer that upon the Enemies Invading their Land their flight might not be on the Sabbath lest they should be hindered from or disturbed in the Blessings of that seventh-day which alone has the Name of the Weekly Sabbath Thus is the whole Scripture profitable for the clearing and confirming of these two Reasons of Christs Assigning as I am now also further to manifest that it is so for his third Reason which is this because Aelohim sanctified the seventh which is the last day in every week that and that only and no other day of the week as the Weekly Sabbath-day Thus at the First Creation and Institution the seventh day the seventh-day the seventh-day Aelohim sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which he Created for to make or to do He hath sanctified this same seventh-day he doth and he will sanctifie it setting it apart as the only weekly Sabbath-day for Spiritual services and for other holy ends he segregated it from all prophane common employments and usages and dedicated it to his own peculiar worship It was not to be reckoned nor counted amongst vulgar daies but was to be had and held as solemn and sacred holy and honourable desirable and delightful He hath put a difference between this seventh day and other daies by way of Excellency in a dignifying manner by appropriating and â—evering of it in the special holiness thereof from ordinary foregoing week-daies that are but of a common rank that it may be singularly filled up as becometh the sanctity or holiness of it By this derived or relative sanctity it is the peculiar appropriate day of Jehovah â—lohim He has separated Ordinances for his separated People on this separated day O how holy is Jehovahs seventh-day-sabbath on which he would have his Worshippers to be so Holy All here in this History of the Creation is actual and real Anticipations here have no such place as those pretend who would have this sanctification of the seventh day as a Weekly Sabbath to be only in Aelohims Decree and destination as if it took not place actually till the proclaiming of the Law at Mount-Sinai which was above two thousand years after for this Scripture as others also collated with it do evidently shew that it was thus set apart from the beginning of the World from Adams time and so downwards This History doth treat of Existences of Beings in their Created nature As Aelohim rested on that day Actually and it was made for Adam and for his posterity for that purpose and end that he and they might sanctifie it and that it might be a blessed day to him and to them The Creator and maker of daies did put apart the seventh-day from all and from every of other daies for peculiar uses and Ends. The Proof is convincing enough to the Ingenious and unprejudiced that the sanctification of the seventh-day-Sabbath was before the promulgation of it at Sinai Moses speaks of it as of a thing known using the same reasons and grounds of equity and much in the same words which Aelohim himself used in the proclaiming and referring to the first institution of labouring on the six fore going daies and Sabbatizing on the seventh where the seventh day is mentioned four times and Sabbath Sabbatism Rest Rested about six times declaring that in times past of old Jehovah had given the Sabbath for this end that in it there should be a ceasing from ordinary Labour and accordingly the People rested on the seventh-day-Sabbath at Mount-Sinai the promulgator of this Law himself delivers his mind to be still the same in much plainness of speech six daies thou shalt labour but the seventh day is the Sabbath in it thou shalt not do any work for six daies Jehovah made the Heavens and the Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day wherefore Jehovah hallowed the Sabbath day he sacrated it consecrated it sanctified it restored it to its holy use he spiritually distinguished it from the other foregoing six daies of the week Setting it apart for his more solemn worship and instituted service And thus you may carry this sanctification of it through the rest of the Scriptures that do treat on this subject for the People of God all along were Sabbath-keepers and Aelohim-worshippers They remembred this as that word of memoir and of remark bringing in this Law upon their hearts as of special observance The sanctification of the sabbath doth set out sometimes the whole worship of God for where this is duly observed it doth promote all other religion and it is put Prophetically by Isaiah for the spiritual worship under the New Testament dispensation it was instituted to the end that solemn service might be performed to the LORD therein therefore did his People hold publick conventions on the seventh day-Sabbath when they assembled to read to Interpret and to hear the word of Jehovah Aelohim And these were stated ordinances on every such day Then they put up their publick requests and made Prayers to the LORD they then pleasantly sang songs to him they had spiritual conferences holy Arguings heavenly meditations merciful actings It being a day of spiritual delight of heavenly joy and of high praising Then they offered up instituted sacrifices unto him to the honour of his name Which sacrifices now under this administration are spiritual glorious heavenly accepttable to God by Jesus Christ Thus and in such like holy services is it to be sanctified by us The seventh-day-Sabbath is therefore said to be holy unto the LORD's People as it is holy in its Institution and holy unto Aelohim And now is it not great and good reason that these reasons of Aelohims own giving should have a convincing-cogency and winning perswasiveness upon our hearts to yield obedience unto this holy Law of his which is every way so designed and fitted for our own Good I pass on to some other spiritual proofs of this After long and serious search into the whole scripture about this matter I find that all the Scriptures through where the holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the seventh which is the last day of the week in the weekly revolutions and returns and successive courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly-Sabbath-day That there is no Command given for the Observation of any other day in the week as the weekly-Sabbath-day but only of the seventh day That there is no promise made to the observing of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the seventh day and that there is no threatning either Denounced against or executed upon any that have not observed any other day in
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΣΑΒΒΑΤΙΚΗ ΗΜΕΡΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septima dies Dies Desiderabilis SABBATUM JEHOVAE The Seventh-Day-Sabbath the Desirable-Day The closing completing DAY of that FIRST Created Week WHICH Was is and will be the just Measure of all succeeding Weeks in their successive Courses BOTH For Working in the six foregoing DAYS and for Rest in the Seventh which is the Last Day by an unchangeable LAW of well-established Order Both in the REVEALED WORD AND IN CREATED NATURE The SECOND PART By FRANCIS BAMPFIELD Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE Second Part OF THIS TREATISE ATransition from the First to the Second Part Page 1 2 3 Of the Seventh-Day p. 3 4 Q. Whether the Seventh-day which is the last Day in every Week in the weekly Revolutions and orderly Returns thereof have been from the Beginning and so continued to be all the Old Testament-administration of Grace thorow and be so under the New Testament dispensation of Grace all along to this Age of the Church and will be so to the End of the World the weekly Sabbath day 4 The Answer at large given to this Inquiry is in the Affirmative that it is so from 4 to 149 Vnder this Answer are divers particular useful Truths and Duties opened As that the Seventh-day was Created for to be the weekly Sabbath the last day of the week being that Seventh and no other day of the week so Thus it was in the Primitive Creation 4 5 6 7 Which matter is resolved into a Scripture Determination 4 5 6 7 That all the Reasons which Jehovah Aelohim doth give for the due Observation of a weekly Sabbath do belong to to the Seventh which is the last day in every week and to no other day of the week as such 7 8 9 10 That Aelohim rested from his Works of the foregoing six days of the week on the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day Which Seventh day Sabbath righteousness in Christ is that Righteousness which a Believer is to apply himself to cover his Sabbath-unrighteousness 7 8 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 8 9 That Aelohim sanctified 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 9 10 That all the Scriptures thorow where the Holy Spirit doth speak of a weekly Sabbath-day there the name and thing of a weekly Sabbath is given only to the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly Revolutions and successive Courses of it and to no other day of the week as a weekly Sabbath-day Page 10 11 That no Command is given for the observation of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 11 to 15 Where is also further discovered that pretended unwritten Institutions for a First-day weekly Sabbath are a false deceitful wrong cooked rule which we may neither measure nor walk by 12 13 That Christ as Mediator had it not in Commission from his Father to change the weekly Sabbath-day from the Seventh to the First 13 14 15 That there is no Promise made to the observing of any other day in the week as the weekly Sabbath-day but only of the Seventh-day which is the last day in the week in the weekly returns of it 15 16 That there is no threatning all the Scriptures thorow either denounced against or executed upon any that shall not observe any other day in 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 16 to 19 That Aelohim bath put this weekly Seventh-day Sabbath into Created Nature by a standing unchangeable Law 19 20 21 22 Here is declared what is meant by Nature in Scripture 20 21 22 Where also seeing it is called for by some as an argument to men is disoovered That this particular Seventh-day which we now count to be the last day of the week is the Seventh-day by the Judgement and Tradition of such Historical Records as many are so fond of although we do bottom our judgment and practice upon Scripture Revelation and created Nature 22 23 24 25 Objections against this Seventh-day Sabbath are answered from 25 to 147 Here is proved that it was not a seventh part of weekly time or a seventh day But the Seventh-day the last day in every week this and this only is the weekly Sabbath-day having a special honour put upon it by Aelohim himself by notes of Demonstration by particles by pronouns by praepositions all significant in their places to point out the Seventh-day to be the only certain known determinate fixed particular unchangeable day of the weekly Sabbath where the emphatickness of the Hebrew Ha is asserted 25 to 33 It is further evidenced that what is in the English Transsation in seven places of the New Testament the first day of the week is in every one of them in the Greek one of the Sabbaths in propriety of speech and so its colourable pretence for a First day weekly Sabbath is convincingly reprehended as Scriptureless from 33 to 45 That five of these seven places mentioned in the four Evangelists relate to the Paschal Sabbaths and not to the weekly Sabbath 33 to 41 That Believers in the times of Christ and of his Apostles before the New Testament was written could find nothing in all their Scriptures of the Old Testament for a pretended First day Sabbath 32 33 That in one place where it is The first of the Sabbath this speaks nothing to any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day but has a quite another meaning both in the significancy and in the intendment of that phrase 35 36. 37 38 That the weekly Sabbath under the New Testament is not barely or no more than an half-holy-day between Sun rising and Sun set but that it is an whole Seventh-day from Evening to Evening 38 That Christ's Redemption Work as well as his Creation Work has established the Seventh-day to be still the weekly Sabbath day 39 40 That Acts 20. 7. is no firm ground to bottom the pretended First day Sabbath upon 41 42 43 Neither is 1 Cor. 16. 2. 43 44 That the eleven Disciples did not meet on Christs Resurrection Day as a newweekly Sabbath day in memory of that Rising 45 That the weekly Sabbath under the new Dispensation is not left so much in the dark and deep as some pretend but is clearly the Seventh-day in the plain Precept as of old 46 47 That the true stating of the Matter of right in this Question about the weekly Sabbath doth not depend upon Ecclesiastical History Page 47 to p. 62 That mens cause of
erring of their great erring about this Controversie as in many other weighty Cases is because they know not the Scriptures nor the Power of God put forth in a word-way 48 That the cause of mens erring is not therefore because they do not know and acknowledge and own either the Magistral dictates of Humane Rabbies 48 Or the Ancient Records of Vncanonical Church-Histories and Traditions of men 48 49 Or the Councils of the Sanhedrim and the sayings of the ancient Fathers 49 50 Or unwritten verities to be as Scripture Supplements to be received by the people from their Leaders upon trust without tryal 50 Or the judgement opinion and practice of of those who are reputed the Learned and the Godly in the present Age 50 Or the Natio-al Establishments in the matters of Doctrine and of Worship in their humanely invented and imposed confessions of Faith and stinted Leiturgies 50 51 Or man-invented-Arts and Sciences of Philosophical Knowledges and of university humane Learning 51 52 Or the innate or acquired powers of mens own rational Intellect and Will 52 Or Natural Experiments and fleshy sensations 52 53 Or the unscriptural Impulses of Speculative Enthusiasts 53 Or the doubtful questioning of unsettled Scepticks 54 55 That our Faith is not to be resolved into the Authority of fallible men but into the infallible veracity of the truthful Aelohim 54 to 62 That the Old Testament Types and Figures did contain New Testament Institutions as to particular Churches Seals of the Covenant Presbyters Deacons Diaconesses 58 59 60 That Revel 1. 10. Doth not prove any change of the weekly Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day of the week 62 to 65 Neither doth Psalm 118. 22-26 65 66 67 Neither doth Act 2. 1 2 c. 67 Nor Ezek. 43 25 26 27. 68 Nor Heb. 4. 9 10 68 to 145 Here the plain meaning and scope of this passage in the Epislle to the Hebrews is given 68. 69 70 Here is further shewn that the Day expressed in the ninety fifth Psalm and referred unto by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not to be understood of the First day of the week as the weekly Sabbath-day 70 71 72 That the rest spoken of in this is not meant of the Weekly Sabbath Rest 72 73 74 to 77 Where is opened the significancy of the Word Sabbatism in the Graek 〈◊〉 towed from Hebrew Origination as many other Greek words are 74 to 77 That the He mentioned in one passage of this part of this Epistle is meant of the Believer 75 76 77 That the parallel between Workers Works and Rest doth not hold in some things and where in it doth hold is discovered 77 78 79 80 Here is shewn what are the works which Believers do rest from when they enter into this Sabbatism 79 80 The force of the conjunction For is shewn 80 81 As also what the import of the change of of the number from the plural to the singular is 81 82 And how this Rest is both God's Rest and the Believers Rest too 82 83 Here is further manifested that it is a mistake to go about to found a pretended First day Sabbath upon the New Creation as if it precisely began on the Day of Christ's Resurrection 83 to 145 It is Premised that it is a choice Priviledge and a special Liberty which Believers do injoy under the New Testament Administration of Grace 84 85 Where also some objections that do wrest Galat. 4. 9 10. and Colos 2. 8 16 17. are answered 85 86 87 And that the LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under the Old as well as New Testament Dispensation of Grace 87 88 The particulars are here instanced in What the old things are which pass away and what the things are which do become new 88 89 to 92 The renewing of the Covenant in the latter days is spoken to 92. 93 That there was a Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament Administration is asserted and evidenced from the Scriptures Page 93 to pag. 101 And that the whole of the Christian Religion for Doctrines Graces Duties Priviledges and such like parts of that Religion is one and the same under both the Old and New Testament 101 to 108 And in what sense the Seventh-day Sabbath is some ways a sign of this 108 to 116 The new Worship was Typically signified in the Figuring pattern of the Old This is also demonstrated 116 to 120 And that the Law of Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation 120 to 123 And that it is an errour to affirm that the Decalogue has less in it than the Law of Nature At also that therefore it was never intended for a mere or perfect Transcript of the Law of Nature 123 Vnder this is discovered That to this Decalogue it doth belong to believe that the Soul is 124 And to love our selves with a just and necessary Love 124 125 And to take greatest care to save our souls above our bodies 125 And to tame and mortifie all our fleshly lusts in order to our Salvation 125 126 And to deny all bodily pleasure profits honour liberty and life for the securing of our Salvation 126 The Old Law of the Ten Words is proved in the Word of Truth to be still the same both to Jew and Gentile It was the Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the new Difference of Horizons and of Climates makes no change of the Law of the Seventh-day Sabbath 126 to 147 The Ingenuous Reader is earnestly desired to correct the Errours in Printing especially those that do much disturb the sense and quite alter the meaning Errours in the Margin are thus to be corrected in the Second Part. For g Gen. page 5. line 1. read g Gen. 2. 2. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 6. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 1 Cor. 15. 3 14. p. 6. l. 17 18. r. 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. f. 17 19. p. 7 l. 11. r. 17. 10. f. Acts 13 24. p. 11. l. 11. r. Acts 13. 14. f. 58. 13. p. 15. l. 16. r. 58. 12. f. Cor. 1. 16. p. 21. l. 35. r. Col. 1. 16. f. Gen. 28. p. 21. l. 40. r. Gen. 1. 28. f. Heb. 7 8. p. 21. l. 41. r. Heb. 2. 7 8. f. Aclum p. 27. l. 25. r. Atrium f. 3. 12. p. 30 l 34. r. 3. 12. 〈◊〉 f. 33 34. p. 31. l. 28. r. 32 33. f. 12 19 p. 31. l. 43. r. 13 19 f. Gnatrereth p. 35. l. 16. r. Gnetzereth f. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 14. r. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 36. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 37. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. pag. 110. to pag. 120. of this Treatise p. 38. l. 11 12 13. r. pag. 91. to page 103. of the first Part 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
some particular known day Do not Commissions to Judges and to other Officers meet with this sense by their Dates Do not Charters to Corporations express some special day of Grants Are not Fairs and Markets held upon certain days of the week agreeing with the present Accompt as the reckoning now is Search the records of Marriages Nativities Deaths Burials in Ecclesiastical Register-books and is not the memory of Days preserved there Do not Compacts Covenants Agreements between party and party Wills and Testaments speak the certain knowledg of Days Do not Day-labourers keep to this Accompt Do not Ephemeries Diaries Hemerologies Calendars Almanacks Astronomies assent and consent to this same What further Evidence is now needful in this case of a matter of Fact for the satisfying of them who will keep a Weekly-Sabbath-day Holy unto Jehovah As an act of Faith with an eye to his Promise as an Act of Fear with an eye to his Threatning Sandys in his Travels being a narrow inquirer into the state of other Nations and Kingdoms doth relate this concerning the matters of Religion in the Eastern parts that there is a Christian Empire of the Aethiopians that did still in his time Celebrate Saturday as well as the Sunday as he useth the old Ethnick Phrases and Purchas writes of the Abyssines as Subject to Peter and Paul and especially to Christ that they observed the Saturday Sabbath The Melchites or Syrians are said to Celebrate Divine Service as solemnly on the Sabbath day as on the Dominical day as they call the First day Some Christian Churches have forbid Fasting on both these days Many more Historical records of this may an Ingenious Industrious Reader of such books Collect that would further Inform himself about this Sufficient to me is Scripture Authority warranted in created Nature Having now gone thorow my great Task and undertaking in asserting and proving thorow the whole Scriptures by Aelohim's own assigned Reasons by other Scripture Arguments and by Created Nature and Established Order the Seventh-day which is the last day of the week to be the Weekly Sabbath-day should not every Mouth be stopped from gain-saying of it Yet the plainests clearest Truths have been opposed and so is this Some rise up against it and object that no special Honour is put by the LORD and by his Word upon the seventh day more than upon any other day of the week and that it is but A seventh not The seventh And that that part of time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven and that one day in seven hath and must have a natural priority unto the seventh-day because say such the seventh day is one of the seven Whereas such should have more deliberately considered that one day of seven was not before the seventh day in order of time It could not be truly affirmed of any one day that it was one of seven before the seventh day was Created For when the one day was so named there was but that one day so but two on the second day but three on the third day but four on the fourth but five on the fifth but six on the sixth day till the seventh had its natural Existence and it s created being and untill then no one of the fore-going days of the Week could be called one in seven For till then there were not seven and the seventh day is the last number of days and the only seventh in the days of the Week So that here is a stop made and we go no further forward As to the natural created Order and accompt of a Week and therefore that exception and objection which some do bring in against this from ten Lambs any of which may be the tenth according as they may run out is nothing pertinent and applicable to the present matter For the days of every week do not run voluntarily at their pleasure which can be before or behind as they will to go backward or forward when they list but they keep their created order in this successive continued weekly course by a well-established natural unalterable Law although in the exception and objection this should be noted that when the ten Lambs were run out they had each distinct names and the last was the only tenth and no other but the last That particular day of the week is the Weekly Sabbath-day which alone As to this of the weekly-Sabbath has proper marks of Note and of Honour put upon it As Jehovah's own peculiar day which he has culled out from all the rest of the days of the week for his created ends and instituted purposes There is not any one Insignificant word or letter in the whole Book of God All that he has spoken and given to his people is of good use The LORD Jesus Christ has confirmed his Law of the Ten Words to a Letter a Consonant a Vowel a Particle a Point These things amongst others I have commended to their serious Observation who do understand the Original or will take so much pains as to learn the notes of Demonstration and their Significancy which may the LORD blessing it be gotten with a little Industry one is to observe well the first place in the Scriptures where the Doctrine and Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath is taught here is a Note of Demonstration importing The This or That and it is three times joyned to the word Seventh which particular day of the Week the Last day Aelohim Rested on Blessed and Sanctifyed as the Weekly-Sabbath-day The seventh and a second time The Seventh and a third time The seventh and three times there is a Letter an Inseparable joyned Preposition signifying In Which would carry the discerning obedient Observer of the Weekly-Sabbath-day into the Possession and enjoyment the Duties and Priviledges of that set Seventh-day Besides another Particle there which doth here put a great force upon the signification as That day That Seventh The Note of Demonstration in this Place doth point out a certain known Determinate Fixed Particular Unchangeable day in every Week in that First Created Week and in the after Successive Returns of that last day in every Week as the Weekly Sabbath-day Because this is the First place in the Holy Scriptures where this Note of Demonstration is put to this word Seventh And this was an Eminent Remarkable thing pointed at this seventh day as the day of Weekly Rest And all and every of the foregoing daies of the Week of this Created World have a distinct observable put upon them and therefore so has this also Especially the Seventh day being the most remarkable day in divers respects that was in all the Week Here was a thing certain to be known and to be taken special notice of that was thus Demonstrated and Notificated The Subject matter compared with that which doth go before doth eminently point out as it
Order to the Glorifying of Jehovah This special Mark is put upon this day to distinguish it from all and every of the other daies of the Week to note the Importance of it and to signify the Antiquity of it It being as old of as Antient constitution as the very first Week of this Created World which Aelahim did expresly command to be observed as a distinct separate Sanctifyed day it being the Last day in the Week And therefore his people have need to remember it that when the time did come about in its Weekly returns it might not be forgotten and neglected as neither its natural Equity There being the same Reasons now as ever which the Lawgiver himself has repeated and revived in the Fourth word or Command which doth set out the weight of this precept and the necessity of Mans obedience unto it The Three former Commandements or words of the First Table are much in order unto this to Remember the Seventh-day-Sabbath For if this be not kept Holy those Foregoing three will be broken as Scripture and experience doth prove Let several other expressions in this Fourth word be yet further Considered with seriousness For besides many other Peculiar Honours which the Adored Almighties the great Law giver hath put upon this Law of the Ten words in some respects beyond any other part of the whole Scripture take we notice of what doth follow more specially and particularly as to the Fourth word about the Law of the Weekly Sabbath This Fourth Command hath Double Accents and particularly that word Seventh which do call upon the understanding Reader for this special Noting of some singular matter in this Law about the Seventh-day-Sabbath There are Four of these forementioned Notes of Demonstration put before that particular day of the Week two of them before the word Sabbath and two other of them before the word Seventh that all may mark it which is the day and what a kind of day it should be observed to be This Demonstrating Note being prefixt when the speech is of a thing certain and known And therefore it is called by some skilfull Hebricians a prefix of Knowledge of the Knowledge of that particular thing Besides two other Particles which do put a great significancy upon that day that particular day And moreover there is one Letter put before the word day In a day that Seventh which doth lead and direct the Observer of the Weekly Sabbath into that particular day the Last day of every week keeping him within the limited bounds thereof to mind and to doe what the one and the only LORD over the Conscience and Lawgiver to the Soul hath appointed him to If any where in the Scriptures of Truth this Note of Demonstration have a more Remarkable Significancy it is in this Law of the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath both at the first Creation and Institution of it and as it is one of those Ten words which alone of All the word of God was more signally written by the Finger of the Law-giver himself Which Ten words are so few and yet with all so full and Comprehensive particularly this of the Fourth word That Particle being a sign which alwaies by hastning is referred to the following word with which it is Construed doth in this place signifie a particular certain day noting an excelling thing known to All to whom the speech is directed This Aeth is twice prefixed to the seventh-day-Sabbath that Jom the day is four times mentioned That Author whom I answer in this doth so far acknowledge the Emphitie Prefix that he saith it may possibly denote an Excellency in the thing it self But his may and may possibly are Diminutive uncertain Termes doing injury to this Scripture which by those Prefixes joyned with the other special remarks doth and must certainly not only denote an Excellency in the thing it self the weekly Sabbath but also tends expresly to the determination of the certain day thereof the seventh which is the last in Order of every Week A case so clear to an impartial Judgment that one who has written both against Seventh-day and First-day-Sabbath yet confesseth And he passeth for a potent Ratiocinator that the day of Gods Rest was that particular Sabbath which Jehovah gave at Mount Sinai It is not A Sabbath but The Sabbath even that which God sanctified and it is as antient as the first week of the Creation the Sabbath must be the same with the seventh Thus he There might be a large enumeration of many particular words in Hebrew which are of common universal use such as no institute custom or consent of men has imposed upon things but created Nature it self by a secret instinct and impulse has assigned to and imprinted on real beings thus as to the present case this Hebrew letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heh doth take its name from that gesture which generally all mankind do express when they do demonstrate a person or thing Hea Hin Hinnea in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek En Ecoe in Latin As when we see a Man that has Hou in Hebrew that is Substance Wealth Riches we crie with some admiration Ha Ho or Hah there goes such a Rich Man and we are ready to point him out with a Finger for that doth please such Men when they are so noted by others The Demonstrative Letter is Consignificative and is not idle in the beginning of those words but doth Super-add a certain signification to them What colour of Reason can there be to exclude the Notificativeness here This being a word or Command so express so weighty so significant with such an Awakening word set at the beginning of it and there being such need that Jehovahs Instituted time for his Weekly-Sabbath-worship be determinately fixed and certainly known How great care should men in Reputation for Learning and for Godliness take whose words with many do go for Oracles and whose mistakes too often do grosly impose upon ignorant understandings of the vulgar and upon the Lazy minds of Semi-Scholars who are loath to be at the pains to satisfie themselves by a diligent search but take up things over credulously upon trust without tryal As this Learned man is an Opposer of those prefixes in the Hebrew so also of the Prepositive Articles in the Greek as if these also were sometimes Redundant thereby Insinuating that it is so in this case Whereas there is much of significancy in those which are Emphatical and Deictical noting some certain thing in a Limited sense not indefinitely That the prepositive Articles in the Greek are not insignificantly redundant but demonstratively Emphatical is an assertion capable of clear proof As also that they are so in this particular Case relating to the Seventh-day-Sabbath as I have already discovered And I am now to give it forth to the Reader in some other Cases For this Objector doth not afford us any Light by which wee might discern when
it Disciples and believers at Christian-assemblies were not to come empty on the first day of the week but were on that day to deposite what they brought in to the Treasury of the Church And this has been the practice of all the Christian Churches in the World since the Apostles daies For which there is the Evidence of Church-history in this matter of Fact into which Humane Authority this must be resolved For this evidence of this Churches Vniversal constant usage is a full and sufficient proof of the matter of Fact That the First day was set apart by the Apostles for Holy worship especially in the publick Church assemblies They that will deny the Validity of this Historical evidence do by consequence betray the Christian Faith or give away or deny the necessary means of proving the truth of it and of many great particulars of Religion For without this Historical evidence we cannot make good the Authority of any one single verse or text of Scripture which we shall alledg because we are not certain of that particular Text or words whether it have been altered or added or corrupted by the Fraud of the Hereticks or the partiality of some Christians or the oversight of Scribes c. thus these objecters The Spirit of these Objecters is now to be tryed whether it be according to Christ and the word of Christ or not Which shall be done by a strict examination of the two Comprehensive particulars more especially whether the Scriptures alledged be truly Translated and rightly Interpreted and meetly applyed as to the present Case in hand either for matter of Fact or for matter of Right And whether Human Church Histories be of such Authority with reference to the certainty and verity of Scripture and of the Christian Faith and Religion conteined therein As for those expressions in our last English Translation of the First day of the week in the places cited I have shewn before that the words in the propriety of speech according to the truth of Grammar-etymology in their proper significancy and regimen of syntax are one of the Sabbaths the Notation of which Phrase in its plain meaning exactly agreeing with the real Nature of the thing punctually set out by it it has been discovered and proved that as to those places in the Evangelists it was one of the Paschal Sabbaths which doth speak nothing as to any substituting of the First day of the week in the room of the Seventh day as the Weekly Sabbath now which is the pretence of our Opposers As neither do the other Scriptures cited where that Expression is used once in the Acts of the Apostles and another time in the first Epistle to the Corinthians for one of the Sabbaths In that place of the Acts was one of those Seven Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost as will be evident to an unprejudiced diligent Comparer of the Scriptures cited in the Margin which is quite another thing from what the adversaries do urge it for And as for the evidence of this there is express mention made both of the feast of unleavened Bread which was the Passover-Feast in the verse immediately going before the place cited and also of Pentecost in nine verses after relating to that season in the same year within the compass of which two Feasts inclusively were seven Sabbaths upon one of which that meeting was of Paul with the Disciples Which doth hold forth a clear Truth contrary to what it is alledged for As for what Paul did more after that Sabbath day was over at the going in of the Sun when another day came on which was meerly occasional he being in a preparedness to depart on the next day after the Sabbath Such as his continuing of his speech till midnight his raising up Eutychus his eating of Brèad his talking with them a long while even till break of day then departing So long Preaching and conference all the Night long is not to be enforced as a necessary Sabbath-duty the Scriptures no where so enjoyning it and if this objector would assert it so far at least as till the midnight according to his account of an whole day in England from midnight to midnight which I have shewn in this treatise to be no right reckoning but contrary to the word of truth Let him and the other learned man whom I answered but a little before who shuts out the night-part from being any part of the weekly-Sabbath-day let them I say if they can find no better work for their time contend about that matter This Night-part belonging to the after day-part as making up the whole next day after the Sabbath was not observed by Paul as the weekly-Sabbath for you may there Read how some of the Disciples went before to ship and sayled to Assos there intending to take in Paul For so had he appointed minding himself to go afoot And when he met with them at Assos they took him in and came to Mytilene this was no Weekly-Sabbath-work no necessity nor mercy enforcing or warranting them thereunto As for the breaking of Bread whether that expressed in the seventh or the other in the eleventh verse if it were admitted to be used in the Administration and participation of the LORD's Supper yet this objector himself doth affirm that it was often done by Apostles and Disciples on other daies of the week than on that which he so earnestly contends for And whereas he doth assert that no day else but only the First day of the Week was peculiarly appointed for breaking of Bread in that ordinance Whither shall we go for a warrant and proof of this We find no such appointment by our LORD in the Scriptures and the Objector cannot but acknowledg that our LORD Jesus Christ did institute and administer it at the first appointing and dispensing of that New-Testament ordinance of the supper on another day of the Week than the first day For the Objector affirms elsewhere that the passover day in that year was the Weekly-Seventh-day-Sabbath and Paul doth expresly say that it was the same Night in which he was betrayed then it was that he took the Bread and the Cup in this LORDly Supper And this did Paul receive from the LORD and so did deliver it unto that Corinthian-Church of Saints as that word-Rule by which they were to reform their abuses which had crept in amongst them as to that ordinance particularly and according unto which they were exactly to measure all their Administrations If this Objector do urge humane Authorities without Scripture-evidence we shall shew the vanity and weakness the incogency and unconvincingness of that empty Plea after a while Reader exercise thy discerning here Is there any thing in this place that speaks at all of any change of the weekly-Sabbath from the Seventh to the first day of the Week do either the significancy of the words or the intendment of the place or the force of
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
preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles as if this had scarce been their duty though it were expresly put into their Commission from the mouth of Christ Till Peter was righter informed by a Vision from Heaven The written word of Christ has an Authority above and beyond the Authority and Testimony of the most eminent Apostles or Angels of Heaven If a Paul had brought his own word contrary to Christs word what were Pauls saying It must be rejected and in that the hearers were to carry themselves towards Paul as if he had been an excommunicate If a Prophet bring a word contradictory to the word of the LORD he should not be hearkened unto If an Angel from Heaven speak otherwise than the God of Angels and would teach disobedience against the word of Jehovah Fellowship should not be kept up with him It is one erroneous part of Antichristianism to set up the Testimony of men or the Authority of the Church in the seat of Christ and of his written word The The Antichrist is the Anomous one the Lawless one the Antinomian And Anomy or Lawlesness or Antinomianism is the great comprehensive sin of the Latter daies And they are Lawless ones that are the erring seducing ones Men as to their Church state have their foundation and bottom their existence and life under a God in Christ from the written word of Christ whereas these Scriptures of Truth have not their groundwork and being from any meer man or men Church or Churches A Church is made up of Believers as the prefaces of the Epistles to the Churches do shew and Believers must have a word to sound and to live upon All true doctrines are to be fetched hence and to be grounded and proved here The Conventions of Pagans and the Synagogues of Sutan are not owned as Churches of Christ because they are not according to Christ and the word of Christ Men though passing into never-so-noted-a-Church-way yet may actually be in process of time so Obstinate in Heresies so Idolatrous in Worship and so scandalous in profaneness as to cease to be a true-Scripture-Church and must be separated from The Christian Church at Rome in Pauls time has another manner of Character given of it in his Epistle to them than the Satanical Synagogue at Rome has by John in the Revelation who saw in a Vision the foul Apostasie thereof Separation in such Cases is holy and a duty The holy Scriptures of Truth do not give a Sovereign Authority to the Testimony of men they did not send us to humane Witness to Church History to unwritten Tradition to fetch Credibility to it It is the Glorious excellency of this Word of Christ to be the one and the only rule of Judging in all Cases both here now and at the Last Judgment day Which no Testimony of men is honoured withal The whole Scripture is God-inspired whose Testimony is the greatest and the most Credible so are not the after-humane-Testimonies Traditions Histories and Authorities The Books of Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy as commonly now called are more Antient than all other written printed bookes The true pure Word of God is of greatest Authority mens Writings are a Postscript The Grace of sound and of Saving Faith must have Almighty Power Infallible truthfulness unchangeable faithfulness and infinite Wisdom to bottom and to build firmly upon A Believers assent and consent to the Infallible Authority of the written word hath been is and may be brought forth without mens-Testimony History Tradition and Authority Many have been made to believe this before they came to any such Human helps and who neither knew read or considered such Church Histories and Traditions which therefore could not be the cause immediate Adequate and Efficient thereof Where the word it self doth work effectually and savingly in a believing heart there it is embraceingly recieved not the word of man but as it is in truth the word of God Saving Faith cannot bottom upon mens Testimonies which humane Writers will still be needing further Arguments and Testimonies to confirm it The Testimony of man can never of it self perswade and enable savingly to credit the infallible Authority of the written word till the Holy Spirit do infuse sound saving Faith and call and draw it forth into Act Though the other pretended cause of Humane Testimonies and Authorities be put into act yet this effect of sound believing doth not follow Many remain Infidels under the highest esteem and strongest perswasions of Church-Histories and of mens Testimonies and some tempted Saints yet cannot be cured of their unbelieving Fears and of their distrustful doubts by any humane Tradition History or Authority till the Spirit and word of Christ from the Father do come with Demonstration and with Power Saving Faith is Supernatural which mens Testimony from Extrascriptural Arguments is not they do each differ in their whole kind and one cannot be in another The best read Historians and other wise learned men of the World are not the soonest brought to assent and consent to the Authority of the word by the force of any or of all humane Arguments If this Faith which is greater in its self and in its Spiritual effects could be inwrought by mens Testimony then other particular objects of Faith or Truths or things to be beleived which are less Such as are the several Doctrines about Spiritual Eternals Invisibles but not these and therefore neither that also Even as to matters of Fact past besides knowing of them by Inspiration Voice or Visions and by natural causes arguing from them to the effects by humane Report which is called History or Tradition they may be known some other waies when they are needful to be known Matters of Fact past have been and still may be known by lots which where the Case and Cause do call for it is a way of natural appeal to the allknowing God Thus was Achans matter of past fact known and thus also was Jonathans past Fact discovered And thus also in the tryal of Jealousie past Facts of works of darkness in Adulterous Acts were brought to light by an Oath of Execration taken by the suspected party and a solemn address thereupon made to the Heart-searching all-knowing Aelohim And this also I would propound to the Ingenious and Studious for the advance and Augment of this best of Sciences Scripture-knowledges whether by lots and Oathes of Execration natural Appeals solemn-Addresses and by miracles other waies the truthfulness of Scripture-revelation would not yet under the present dispensation of Grace For I revive not any of the Old Testament Figures Types and shadows about any of these then used be thus still confirmed were a Spirit of Faith mingled with a word of Faith put into the prayer of Faith As for Humane report the experience that we have had of our own day and time doth inform us how partial men are in these
of Promise made to the observers of the First day as such What one word of threatning against any that do not so observe the First day as the weekly Sabbath day and if there be not any one word here for the First day either as to Institution or Command or Promise or Threating how can any observer keep it aright either in Faith or Obedience in Hope or Fear The direct plain meaning of this Scripture is if I mis-judge not that this day doth evidently relate to that providential Day of the LORD Christ's appearing in the fulfilling of this Prophesie who appeared to John as LORD pleading the Cause of his Kingly Lordly Office which has been too long and too far invaded by the Kings and Lords of the Earth who have not inforced Christ's Laws nor made them to be the Rule of Government but usurped an unscriptural authority over mens consciences and souls How Lordly a Day therefore will it be when Christ will recover and exercise his Power and his Right Those great things which this ever-blessed LORD of Glory would do in the latter ages were represented to John from Christ by an Angel in a way of Prophetical Revelation This manifestation by Vision and by Voice was after such a manner as if the thing had been acted and performed before and to John's senses By comparing of this passage with some other passages in the same book of Revelation relating to the same matter he that doth diligently mark and wisely observe and rightly understand may see that this Lordly Day is the great Providential Day of that God that Almighty One a name several times given to Christ in this Book There are several parts of this great comprehensive large Vision and there are several seasons of their fulfillings and accordingly several days in this great Day Ezekiel doth mention one part of this Prophesie that will last seven years The LORD Jesus Christ will come and come in several Judgements on several Hours Days Weeks Months and Years It is one of his Names to be such a one as is coming and he is called the coming King And his Kingdom is a coming Kingdom and the age of this is said to be a coming Age and the World to come a coming World In every age of the Church of Christ there were fulfillings of this in part Those in John's time had somewhat of this Lordly Day who therefore were to behold Christ's coming This was partly Historical before John's death when Christ came in his admirable way of wonderful providence to destroy Jerusalem according as was foretold in other Scriptures and partly Prophetical to be accomplished in the several ages after John's time John saw this Day in a Vision and speaks of it with a double confirmation John was made to be in the Spirit on that Lordly Day An expression of which he had experience as is mentioned in other places of this Book The Article added that Lordly Day doth determine but indefinitely There is no such certain particular Day of the Week pointed out so to our understanding on what Day of the Week it will begin or on what Day of the Week it will end This is not the design at least not as to the pretended change of the Weekly Sabbath-day It was that Lordly Day of Christ's coming when he would convert and recover the chosen remnant of those of Israel and of Judah and destroy the Rebellious and the unbelieving among them If men will be limiting of this day to any one determinate definite particular day of the week what one day has such a plea as the Seventh-day Sabbath Seeing for the dreadfully executed Judgement part of it as the first Temple was destroyed being burnt with fire on the tenth day of the fifth Moon which day according to Jeremiah's Prophesie is granted even by many adversaries to be the Seventh-day Sabbath he told the Jews before it came to pass that their Temple would be burnt with Fire if they profaned the Sabbath of Jehovah Answerable unto which is that passage in another Prophet who on the same day of the same Moon reproved Sabbath-breaking when the Elders came to inquire what the mind of the LORD was And as the second Temple was under the like threatning from the mouth of the LORD Christ himself putting them upon earnest importunate Prayer lest otherwise that terrible destruction brake in upon them on the Sabbath the Seventh-day Sabbath Those who are sond of Ecclesiastical Histories may find it recorded in them that the second Temple was actually destroyed according to this Prophetical threatning of our LORD on the seventh-day Sabbath The change of Jehovah's Ordinance of which mens changing of his Seventh day Sabbath is one is soretold in Isaiah with respect to the later ages of the World to be one great provoking Cause of his sending of Judgements upon the rebellious and unfaithful World when keepers of his Seventh-day Sabbath shall have his holy Arm revealed for their Salvation Some of the first great rejections of the unbelieving Jews in a way of Church censure after Christ's ascending on high were occasionally and deservedly by their prophane blaspheming miscarriage on the Seventh day Sabbath of which some account hath been given before So that if a particular day of the week in the weekly returns of it were here designedly pointed at what day can plead and claim a fairer Title and Right unto it than the Seventh-day which is the Sabbath of or to Jehovah or to the LORD Jehovah is the chief choice Name of the Eternal Ever blessed Self-being the Being of beings as that Name doth signifie And that Word which in the Greek doth answer to this Hebrew Name Jehovah some do draw from a word that doth signifie I am which they constantly render LORD So that Jehovah in the Old Testament is often rendred by this Word in the New which we do translate LORD That which in the Old is Hear O Israel Jehovah our Aelohim Jehovah One is in the new Hear O Israel The LORD that God of ours is one LORD Thus also the Hebrew Text doth sometimes but Adonai supporting LORD for Jehovah Thus that whith in one Psalm is I will confess thee among the peoples O Jehovah is in another Psalm I will confess thee among the peoples O LORD Further Christ Jesus saith of himself that he is LORD of the Sabbath of that Seventh-day Sabbath which he created commanded and observed being a keeper of his Fathers Commandments whereof this of the Seventh-day Sabbath was one Those that do relie on the judgement and authorities of men about the meaning of this expression may consider that Ecclesiastical Historians do relate that John and his followers the Eastern Asiatick Churches did keep the Passover on the Seventh-day not pressing the observation of the first day for the celebration of the Passover as
the Western Churches did Further as in Low-Dutch the seventh Day is named Rust-dagh that is the Day of Sabbath or of Rest so in Teutonick or High Dutch or the German Tongue which is an ancient Nation and Language the last Day the seventh Day of the Week is called Samstag as if Schemtag that is the LORD's Day or the Day of the LORD It is further yet observable as to this that the Visions of Ezekiel and those of John well agreeing in many particulars which a diligent comparer may easily observe Ezekiel's Visions were on the fifth day of the fourth Moon which some affirm to have been the Seventh day Sabbath Jehovah's Day But upon the whole it is the first answer that I more stick unto namely that the Lordly Day is that great Providential Day when he will more visibly appear as King and LORD Whereas some do object that this word in Greek Lordly is applyed but to one thing more in the New Testament which is the Supper called the Lordly Supper or LORD's Supper or the Supper of the LORD What can there rationally necessarily convincingly be inferred from thence as to any establishing of the first day of the week in the room of the seventh as the weekly Sabbath in this place of the Revelation The Lordly Supper or Lordy Supper is expresly mentioned Whereas here is no express mention of the first Day as a Sabbath day not either of the words First or Sabbath nor their sense and meaning in the Text or Context nor any where else in all this Book or in the whole Scripture The Lordly Supper is so called in that it was instituted by our LORD It is to his Honour a Lordly Feast one great design and end of it being to exalt Christ in his Lordship and to shew forth the Death of this LORD till he came in his Lordly appearance in the later Day This Ordinance was received of the LORD by Paul It was the LORD who Instituted it It sets out the LORD's Death The Cup is called the Cup of the LORD The LORD's Body we read of also there Which Supper is not fixed to the first day of the Week The first Institution Administration and Participation of it was on another Day of the Week on the Passion Day on the Passover Day which is called a Sabbath For a further discovery that a Day in some Scriptures is used for a larger space of time than from one going in of the Sun on one day to the next going in of the Sun on the next day consider that in the Scriptures day doth sometimes set out the time of Christ's Reign and glorious Power The day of judging of his grand Adversaries John saw this in the Vision as if the time had been then present Will not that be a Lordly Day when Christ will glorifie and magnifie his Office of King and of LORD in the utter destruction of Enemies and in the eminent salvation of Friends It is called the Day of Christ the Day and Kingdom of God the presence of coming of Christ Do not these expressions significantly declare some glorious shining season of Christ's Lordly appearing It is named the Day of Jehovah about six and twenty times and in some of those places the Day of the Vengeance and of the Anger of Jehovah and the Day of Jehovah's Battel The great and terrible and dreadful Day of Jehovah the same expressions which are used in this Book of the Revelation And the Day of the LORD is mentioned five times expresly in the New Testament In which also it is set out by divers words that doth intend the same thing as his Day that is the Day of this LORD Christ who will then be revealed in his Lordly Power and Glory That Day pointing out that Age when these things should be The Day that Day The Days in the plural Number as being more than one and of longer continuance That great conspicuous Day of the LORD The Day of the LORD Jesus The times and the seasons which do relate to this Day of the LORD The Day approaching the last hour It is observed that in all Languages this Word Day doth sometimes signifie judgement here on Earth Hence a Days man or Umpire to judge between party and party Mans day and the Judgement of Men The Day that is the Judgement or trial shall declare Hence Day is sometimes put for the time of destruction Day doth sometimes denote a long continued duration as the Day of the Age or the Day of Eternity Other times Day points out the time of Grace and of Salvation And now upon this occasion having shewn that Day doth not always in all Scriptures point out any one particular Day of the Week distinctly from and in opposition to the rest of the Days of the Week I have here some fair opportunity to write a little about one other Scripture which some do urge to put a colour upon their first Day as if it did point out the first Day of the Week as the eminent transcendent determinate definite day of Christ's compleating the Work of Redemption on his Resurrection Day which say they was then and from thenceforth to be observed as the weekly Sabbath day in the room of the Seventh Thus they As to what doth concern Christ's Resurrection as also how and when he compleated the Work of Redemption I have written already and I am now to consider this Scripture which is mentioned by all and every of the four Evangelists In which Historical-fulfilling it is evident that much and the main of this Prophetical passage was fulfilled according to the Letter before Christ's Resurrection and upon another Day of the Week than that first Day of the Week for which it is so brought and pressed although if it could be proved to be otherwise yet doth it no way determine this Case about a pretended change of the weekly Sabbath from one Day of the Week to another from the Seventh to the First The chief men of the Jews who were counted the Builders did more notoriously refuse Christ the Head Corner Stone when being put to their choice they actually openly declaredly preferred a Barabbas who was a seditious Murderer before an innocent holy Jesus and this on a Day of solemn Judicature when the Judge Pilate sat upon Christ either for life or for death which also was by a joynt consent of chief Priests and Rulers and People who cry out all at once Away with this man and release unto us Barabbas This was before that Christ was crucified Also after his Death before his Resurrection the chief Priests and the Pharisees do call him a Deceiver and this before Pilate which was another refusing and rejecting of Christ Thus according as was Prophesied in that Psalm that the Builders would refuse that Stone which was to become for Head to the Corner so accordingly did they act as at many
Believers are said to Rest from What the force of the Conjunction is in this place What the change of the Number from the Plural to the Singular may import As for the meaning and scope of this Scripture in this Epistle The Considerate Reader is desired after his serious seeking of the LORD by the prayer of Faith to be taught of Him and to be led into the Truth diligently to observe how the Aim and Design of this Epistle in this part of it is to confirm and establish the professing Hebrews in the Faith and Doctrine of the LORD Jesus Christ which would be the better done if they hearkened unto what Christ had said in a both Historical and Prophetical Psalm to this purpose and to caution and charge them against an evil heart of Unbelief that would fall off from the Living God and harden them through the seducingness of that sin that he might the more speedily and thorowly awaken and quicken them up to attend unto and to follow his spiritual and wholsome Counsel which was so seasonable in such a time when they were so persecuted for their Discipleship to Christ He sheweth what dangerous Evils were near and what great Mischiefs would follow if they did give way to their unbelief distrust and carnal fear they would then backslide from their Heavenly Calling and from their Holy Profession And if they did live and did in such a state of unbelief and of unperswadedness of unrepentingness and of disobedience they would be shut out of that Spiritual Heavenly Eternal Rest of God in Christ And that his manner of Arguing might be the more convincing and prevailing he brings a strong evident proof of it out of one of the Psalms it being that Scripture which the Author of this Epistle doth Comment upon and expound here Where the Holy Spirit by the Prophet David who penned that Psalm for him having exhorted the Israel of God to laud Jehovah the Messiah The Rock of His people's Salvation and to obey His Voice whilst the Day of His Grace and of their life did last Earnestly dehorting those of his Time and Age from that unbelief which would have an hardening effect upon their heart and exclude them out of Aelohim's Heavenly Rest As the like prevailing unbelief and hardness and disobedience and unperswadableness had shut out many of their Fore fathers out of that Canaan-Rest which was a Type of the Heavenly Rest the Figure of a Better Rest in a Better Country For the preventing of which Exclusion that his speech might come with the more weight upon their spirits David doth bring in Aelohim himself exhorting the people that they would not follow the bad Example of their Fore-fathers who were not of a Teachable Mind nor of a Practical Understanding nor of an Inclinable Will nor of an Obedient Carriage and so die away in their Wilderness-state This dreadful Example he makes use of to awe the Christian Hebrews in his Day unto an abiding stâ—dfast in the Christian Religion lest otherwise they also did fall after the same Example of unbelief and of disobedience and so loytered behind and came not safe-full-home to the Heavenly Rest That the forcibleness of his right Arguing words might not be abated by any who would be Replying that there were other Rests besides the Heavenly Rest which also were spoken of in the Word of God as if it may be the Psalmist spake of one or other of those Rests and not of that Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest therefore he reckons up several kinds of Rests There was the Rest of the Seventh-day Sabbath This the Prophet David did not particularly mean in that Psalm because this Rest of the Seventh-day Sabbath was from the foundation of the World the last day of the first created Week Which therefore being from the beginning thus honoured both by Aelohim's Word and in its own Created Nature must remain the Weekly Sabbath-Day to the end of the World And this Rest as to the outward part at least of keeping the Seventh day as the only Weekly Sabbath-day they in David's time had already actually entred upon in the Weekly returns of it Further There was the Rest of and in Canaâ—n which is called the Rest of Jehovah and expresly the Rest where after their Travels and Journcyings their Warrings and Conquests Jehovah Christ gave Rest unto his people Jerusalem in Canaan has more particularly and specially the Name of the Rest he doth declare that neither was this the Râ—ll which David threatned the unbelieving and disobedient in his time to be shut out of For David and they had been and then actually were in Canaan that promised Land of outward Rest Jehovah Christ by his servant Joshua had led their Fore-fathers into that Rest long before some hundreds of years ago before David's Day David therefore speaketh of another Day after those things in a prophetical manner and of another Rest than either of the two forementioned the Seventh-day Sabbath Rest or the Canaan Rest neither could it be meant of any other Rest by any Enumeration of any other particular but only of the Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest of and with a God in Christ If any thought that that passage in the Psalm might be understood of any other Rest but this Heavenly one the Author of this Epistle would readily have demonstrated the mistake The Rest that David spake of out of which Jehovah Christ from his Father by his Spirit in his Word threatned confirmingly by an Oath to shut the unbelieving and unrepenting the disobedient and the unperswadable they living and dying such was such a Rest as those who were in a state of unbelief were not actually possessed of A Rest in a Promise a Rest yet further to come offered and tendered unto them set plainly and openly in a Wor. Revelation before them if they did not by their own affected ignorance and wilful transgression exclude themselves out of it A Rest into which sound Believers had entred did and should enter and so cease from their own works Seeing therefore that there yet further remaineth such a Rest so glorious a Sabbatism for the people of God he presseth the professing Hebrews to study and endeavour how to enter into this promised Rest by yielding the due Obedience of Faith in and unto Christ Having thus opened and applyed the Scriptures that we might look the deeper and see the clearer into the sense and scope of it I am next to shew that the Day to Day or this Day expressed in the Psalm and referred unto in the Epistle is not to be understood of the First Day of the Week in the weekly returns of it so as to shut out all and every of the other Days of the Week and particularly as to this of Rest excluding the Seventh day from being the weekly Sabbath for Christians to observe under
were shut out of that Rest which the Psalmist doth speak of was not their not entring into the Observation and Rest of the First Day which was none either of their Duty or Privilege They had no Law for the keeping of any other Day but only the Seventh and of what there is no Law there is no Transgression for Sin is the Transgression of the Law but their Sin was hardening of their Heart through unbelief and unperswadeableness and disobedience contrary to Christ's Mind and Will in His Word and by His messengers These in David's time had no Ground to expect to enjoy the Rest of a pretended New day of Weekly Sabbath under the New Testament Dispensation It is therefore from Day to Day in a continued Succession of Days Christ's Command to hearken to His Voice is an Actual Command given forth by Him to His People every Day which would more set this out if it were rendred Participially in the Present Tenses as it is in several Scriptures It doth deoote the Continuedness of the Command as the Successiveness of the Day As the Day is mistaken by the Objector so also is the Rest The Rest spoken of in this Epistle brought thither out of that Psalm is not meant either there or here of the Weekly-Sabbath-Rest As to the First Day of the Week in opposition to the Seventh let the following Arguments be exactly weighed in the Scripture ballance One is because the People in David's time were not bound to make out after the First-Day-Rest not being under any obligation to keep the First Day of the Week as their Weekly Day of Rest or Sabbath The Law of the Seventh-Day Sabbath was upon them as was shewed but a few lines before Further The Rest mentioned in both these places in that Psalm and in this Epistle was such a Rest as the people to whom David and the Author of this Epistle did write this had not as yet Then entred into they were not possessed of it whilst they remained in a State of unbelief neither ever would if they passed into the other World in that State of Unbelief impenitence disobedience and unperswadableness What Rest can then be named for the People of David's Time as is proved in the fore cited place of this Epistle in the Margin to enter into but only that Spiritual Eternal Rest of with and in Jehovah the Messiah As for the Rest of the Weekly-Sabbath That was from the Foundation of the World when God Rested from All His Works on the Seventh Day and accordingly blessed and sanctified that Particular Day as the Day of the Weekly Sabbath The Syriack and the Aethiopick Languages do express the Seventh Day by the word Sabbath in the fourth Verse of this fourth Chapter And this Rest at least as to the outward part of it was Entred upon by the Israelites in David's time and by their Forefathers long before The Rest mentioned in the forecited places of this Epistle is such a Rest as he and others had a Probability as well as Possibility though with difficulty and studiousness to enter yet into unless by their own unbelief and hardening of their Heart they did fall short of it Let Vs fear Vs He includes Himself Whereas if the First-day-rest pretended from hence to be the Christians Weekly-Sabbath had been the Rest here meant what difficulty or studiousness was there as to their entring upon this so far at least as to the External Duty and Privilege and especially as to the particular Case of the Author of this Epistle and of other of the Believing among those Hebrews in his Day who are supposed by these Objecters to have already entred upon the First-Day-Rest that is pretended which Author so earnestly exhorted the Hebrews to Enter upon the same Rest For we are to observe that he joyneth himself with the Hebrews to quicken up himself as well as them unto an Holy Fear lest he and they otherwise fell short of the Promised Rest through want of due diligence and through careless negligence though he himself reckon himself among the Believers He inforceth his exhortation by this Argument amongst others in the fourteenth Verse of the third Chapter drawn from a very profitable effect of it even from the consortship and society and fellowship that such will have with Christ in that heavenly inheritance if they retain firm even unto the end that beginning of confidence or subsistence by which Faith is described in this Epistle As for any partakership of Christ in a way of conformity to him with respect to the observation of weekly Sabbath-day it could have no relation to the First Day of the Week which Day Christ observed not as a Sabbath but through the whole of his life kept the Seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day The great Design of this Epistle the same thing which doth run all the Scripture through where occasion is given and taken to speak of this matter is to prove that a state of unbelief lived layn and dyed in will shut the guilty of it out of the sweet satisfying injoyment of the True Spiritual Eternal Heavenly Rest For to this particular purpose is it that he fetcheth his proof out of that Psalm confirming what he had said by the Testimony of David shewing that the Psaimist by that Rest could mean nothing else and nothing less but the Spiritual Eternal heavenly Rest there being no other Rest left out of which the unbelieving were threatned to be shut in that Psalm called so great a Salvation in the third Verse of the second Chapter of this Epistle The Rest of the weekly Sabbath had been entred upon already and as for the Canaan Rest that was some ages before David's Time entred upon and into by the surviving Israelites under the leading of Joshuah or Jesus or if you will of Jeshuang or Jesus by Joshuah Whereas the Rest promised here in the first verse of the fourth Chapter was such a Rest as Joshuah did not bring the Israelites into in the eighth Verse though he led them into Canaan the Type of it as the causal conjunction doth evidently prove which is an Answer to a tacit Objection if any did say that Joshua had placed the Fathers in that Rest As for that Canaan Rest it was actually possest by David and the Israelites of his Day This Land of Canaan is called the Land of Immanuel Isai 8. 8. that is of Christ because it was a sign of the Heavenly Inheritance obtained by Christ Heb. 11. 9 11. The Rest therefore that David speaks of must be a Rest yet to come The other Rests particularly mentioned having been already then entred into a Rest which they should fear they might be shut out from a Rest not past but yet to come This Epistle speaks of Believers entring into this promised Rest after their working season is at an end appears by comparing some Verses in
therefore and the comparative like as in the seventh Verse of the third Chapter relating to the twelfth Verse of the same Chapter doth shew the exhortation to be inforced upon the Believer therefore as the Holy Spirit exhorteth you to believe and obey the Voice of Christ so look to it that you do believe and obey his Voice The reason is strong from an example of old because your Fathers who contemned the Voice of Christ and did not contemper the word with Faith were frustrated of the Heavenly rest The reason of which consequence is seeing there is the like reason of you and of them For both to you and them it was Evangelized in the second Verse of the fourth Chapter The whole drift of the Discourse from the seventh Verse of the third Chapter to the eleventh Verse of the fourth Chapter doth respect a professing people that would pass for the people of God and be accounted Travellers towards the promised Heavenly rest which none but the believing perswadeable obedient true spiritual Israel of God would enter into The Sabbatism or rest spoken of in the first third ninth tenth and eleventh verses of this fourth Chapter is a rest that remaineth in the sixth and ninth verses of the same Chapter A rest that was before them towards which they were travelling and short of which they should fear lest they came by their loytering behind in the first Verse A rest that in the time of the Authour of this Epistle when he wrote this was as to himself and the believing people of God then alive before them and they were left behind it as yet short of it Into which they were not as then so fully entred but they were under a promise or expectation thereof And the same may be said of his believing people who are now alive in the present day whilst it is called to day There is a promised rest which they should have in their eye which they are not as yet so thorowly passed into Of which that place in the Psalm was a Typical prediction The rest here is a rest yet in the promise yet to come and hoped for attainable enterable and enjoyable if unperswadeableness hinder not The Eleventh verse doth again introduce and enforce the principal exhortation by way of rational inferehee and by a doubled Argument Therefore let us study to enter into that rest that not any one sall by the same example of disobedience If we believe and obey Christ's Voice we shall then enter into it but if not we shall be shut out from it as those were who died away in their unperswadeableness The whole Context both in this place and in the Psalm doth evidently demonstrate that the rest here treated of and foretold by David is such a rest as out of which the unbelieving unperswadeable and disobedient living and dying such would be shut and into which the believing perswadeable and obedient such a people of God should enter and none but such Which therefore cannot be ineant of a pretended first day of weekly rest For if that had been the rest the believing had already actually entred into not only the outward but also the inward rest and even the unbelieving had actually entred into the outward part of that rest had they so far observed it as the weekly Sabbath Whereas the Israelites in Type in Moses's time had not entred so much as into the outward part of the Type of it That is to say not those of them who were above twenty years of Age when the Spies returned from searching the Land All except Joshuah and Caleb died short of Canaan that were above that number of years whether Believers or unbelievers All the Promises and the Threatnings the Exhortations and the Cautions and such like that are made use of in all this Discourse do plainly relate to a prosessing people according as they believe or believe not and so do enter or not enter into this rest As for what doth concern the parallel wherein it doth not hold and wherein it doth hold I shall open now my thoughts The Parallel here is not between God the Father as Creator and his Son Christ as Redeemer though there are some others that would have it so For the LORD Jesus himself the Christ the Mediator was the Creator not excluding the Father nor the Holy Spirit As I have proved before in this Treatise and have here again put some of the Scriptures into the Margin which the Reader may examine if he have need The Authour of this Epistle doth industriously prove and promote this great Truth of Christ's Jehovah ship or God-ship by his Creator-ship as well as by other Arguments from Scripture That God who is spoken of in the tenth verse of this fourth Chapter of this Epistle to the Hebrews is the same Christ by whom the Father made the Worlds the Ages He was the LORD in the beginning who laid the Foundation of the Earth and the works of whose hands the Heavens were as is declared in the second and tenth Verses of the first Chapter the same God who built all things in the fourth verse of the third Chapter Which doth make way for the following discourse concerning his rest and entring or not entring into it as Christian Professors did believe and obey or not As this Objector himself doth elsewhere confess upon the tenth Verse of the third Chapter that Christ is so brought in as God and expresly called God to make way for this following discourse about works and rest The same God whose voice from his Father by his Spirit in his Word the Israelites of Old and the Hebrews in this Authour's time were called upon to hearken unto in the seventh and fifteenth Verses of that third Chapter The same living God from whom they should take heed lest by an evil Heart of unbelief in them they did depart in the twelfth Verse Which the Authour doth expresly interpret of Christ in the fourteenth Verse The same God who was tempted provoked grieved disbelieved by the Israelites in the Wilderness in the eighth ninth tenth sixteenth and seventeenth Verses of this third Chapter which also is confirmed elsewhere in the Word the same God who did rest the Seventh-day from all his Works which were finished from the foundation of the World in the third and fourth Verses of the fourth Chapter The same God who has a people more pecularly belonging unto him in the ninth Verse The same God whose Word is quick and powerful or living and active and sharper than any two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and of Spirit and of the Joynts or Nerves and Marrow and is a critical discerner or a Critick of the imaginations and thoughts of the Heart in the twelfth Verse hold forth also in other Scriptures The same God who is the great high Priest of his People passed into the Heavens as into the full Rest
Instruments Meats and to other things It is also applyed to the Seventh-day Sabbath which Aelohim did sanctifie for holy Uses and to no other day of the whole week as such at the first Creation according to the Nature of its Essence in the order of its being before those after superadded Ceremonies and Shadows So that in this sense Right Reason would inform all reasonable men and women in the World that the Seventh the last day in every week has a concreated adaptness to be a day of holy Rest for the worship of their Maker and that they themselves should be an holy people separated to the service of the holy God Though his Church and People are thus sanctified and severed from other people by Jehovah in a peculiar especial manner his Elect yet more especially As for the Law of the ten Words if we look upon it in its superadded Ceremonies and some such other intermixed Annexes so it had somewhat peculiarly belonging to the Israelitish Church and people in Moses's time and to those of other Nations who were prosâ—lited to that Ceremonial Typical way under that Administration Whereas we under the New Testament have another manner of Dispensation of the same Grace in a more spiritual heavenly glorious way Although this Typical Figuring part made no real change even of old upon the Law of the ten Words If this be considered as it is an absolute and perfect Rule of Life comprehending all duties whatsoever and being that Image and Samplar unto which all mankind at the beginning in their representative Head were created in Wisdom in Holiness and in Righteousness which was afterwards promulgated and proclaimed by Jehovah Christ with a Covenant of Grace intermingled so it is that Law of Nature which inlightned Intellect or right Reason doth teach some notions whereof are still retained even now in man's fallen corrupted estate There are some Seeds of those Eternal Truths and Things some common principles of good and of evil both for the knowledge of God and of his Service and for those Duties which we owe unto our selves and unto our Neighbours This is born and bred with reasonable man every one doth carry it about with him every one coming into this World is inlightned therewithal which Remnants of this Law do serve for many good uses and purposes in civil converse amongst men and for some other ends In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath is given to the whole World All mankind had it in their common representative the first Adam clearly fully perfectly and have still some Relicks of it left within them by the Law of Nature in the Light of Reason demonstrated by concreated Principles the foundations and grounds of which are knowable by Humane Intellect In this sense the Law of the ten Words particularly that of the weekly Seventh day Sabbath is given to the whole World all mankind had it in their common representative and have still some indwelling Notions of it left within them This Law in some parts of the natural Duties of it may yet by the Institution of Jehovah Aelohim be a sign of some mystical thing signified which doth make any real change in the natural Duty it self this standing still in its due force as before but it may have something further significant in it by the LORD 's special appointment As the State Duty and Priviledge of Marriage in the fifth and seventh Words Instituted in Paradise doth figure the great Mystery of that Mystical Union which is between Christ and his Church People come next to be considered People are sometimes in some Scriptures more especially taken for the Israelites and the Jews These are sometimes in the plural Number called Peoples This People had some peculiar Priviledges beyond other Peoples particularly as to the kingly manner of proclaiming and revealing the Law of the ten Words more in their sight and hearing at Mount Horeb and as to some things afterwards annexed to it which was the Pattern in the Mount Thus Jehovah's holy Sabbath was made known unto the Israelites after another manner than to other Nations Whilst they walked by this Rule of Life they were a wise and prudent people But when they transgressed greatly they were a rebellious people The Israelitish people so constituted as it then was are called The people of God The people of the God of Abraham These had some distinguishing favours in that day People in some other Scriptures are some times taken for all Nations besides Israel and besides those other Lands who were brought over to the true Religion Thus the Uncircumcised Nations strangers from the Covenant of God Indels profane and ungodly they also are called People and the People of the Earth and the abominable People Though these whilst such did not share in choice special Church-Priviledges yet some ways they had the Law of the ten words and amongst others the Law of the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath particularly As this Law of the Decalogue is the natural concreated Law There are divers Records in Humane Authors for those to search after who are curious in such Disquisitions which do evidence that the Seventh-day Sabbath was generally observed by the Pagans as the weekly Holy Day The remaining Relicks of their Natural Life and Right Reason dictating the equity of this Law which also might be traditioned down to them The Pagan Idolaters so far conforming to the Laws and Practice of the Church of God They acknowledged the Seventh-day as more holy and owned its Rest from labour And the Ethnick Doctors in this way of teaching would Philosophize only on the Seventh-day Sabbath Then did they frequent their Temples and then some of them sung their Hymns to their Idol God These Precepts of the Decalogue were the Law of our Creation they are the natural Dictates of the Humane Essence in its rational Exercise ingraft Notions concreated Characters wrought into the essential composition of our natural Being the Sanction whereof has more or less a living impression in the Humane Existence The very order of the Days in the first created Week did teach the observation in the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath and made it a part of the Law of Nature Aelobim's Method in the Creatures Production which did so dispose of his Works and of his Rest hath confirmed this Order in laying its foundation in created Beings And this is a very forcible way of right arguing used by the LORD himself in his Word in divers cases The six forgoing Days of the Week for Work and the seventh the last Day of the Week for Rest These were from the beginning of the Creation Designed they were thus originally appointed by the Creator himself and so laid as a standing Law upon the Rational Creatures The natural equity whereof man's Representative in Adam readily submitted and subjected and conformed to there being both
distinguish that which the Objector did tumble into a confused heap and then from thence he drew wrong inferences He should better have bethought himself that when he would speak of the nature and Essence of a thing as particularly of a Sign or Ceremony and doth so define it that according to his own philosophical way all definitions of any thing should be universal or universally agreeing to the thing defined where-ever it is found it must be universally affirmed of that thing where-ever it hath a Being Whereas it is discovered that there is a Sign of Sanctification which yet is not so in his sense There are some natural Signs of this of sanctified Seasons separate for holy Services The Heavenly Luminaries were are and will be such Signs There is a notifying testifying-certifying Sign of Sanctification Both these the Weekly Seventh-day Sabbath has been is and will be It doth bespeak Holiness in the Nature and Being in the Name and Thing of it to the due observers of it and therefore doth widely differ from that which is meerly Ceremonial And both these Signs are Signs to all mankind O how special a gift was this Law of the k Seventh day Sabbath A choice favour One of the precious Mercies as to the Law To have all holy Rest even here in and with the LORD For unto this doth it Call To lodge in the bosom and heart of the Messiah O how delightful O how good O how pleasant I now return unto a further passage in a former another from this last Objector The next Particular to be demonstrated is that the new Worship was Typically signified in the figuring Pattern of old So that neither doth this make any change at all upon the weekly Sabbath to make it pass from one day of the Week unto another from the seventh to the first For as for that Typical Figuring Worship which was a part of the Pattern under that Administration in Types Shadows Figures and Rites which was performed on the Seventh-day Sabbath that way of Worship by Sacrifices of Lambs by Meat and Drink offerings Incense and such like as to this part these were perfected and accomplished in and by Christ when born of the Virgin Mary when living dying rising ascending But the Seventh-day Sabbath stands firm as one of the ten Words which are another sort of Laws that do abide for ever This Epistle to the Hebrews doth expresly affirm that the Spiritual Heavenly things of this New Testament of Glory were in the Pattern under the Old The parts of Worship now were then only in a more shadowy figuring manner and therefore you may find the same things as well as words transferred out of the Old into the New Testament Only spiritualized in the new As Priest Propitiatory Altar Sacrifices Offerings Incense and many such like Had this Ingager on the side for the cause of the first Day given instances in any particulars of VVorship in the place where he speaks of new VVorship it might have been discovered that the same was in the Pattern of Old to which Types then the Antitypes now do directly exactly answer If a skilful experienced Believer would write an exact Commentary upon the first second third fourth fifth and sixteenth Chapters of Levitious not now to mention much more in that Book and in Exodus Numbers and Deuteronomy and take off the Veil from them and give forth the true intended spiritual significant meaning of them by a collating of other suitable Scriptures particularly in the New Testament Every spiritual Discerner may quickly see there was Gospel-worship even then only differently for the manner dispensed The Ceremonies of old were Types and Figures and Shadows instituted of Jehovah Aelohim for these ends amongst others to be signifying Seals of the assurance of Christ's coming in the fulness of time to accomplish them and of those good things which Believers had then have now and shall have in after time in and by him whether they were Administrators of holy Things or particular Saints or the Saints generally all of them These were of old Signs and Seals of Regeneration of Justification of Sanctification of Acceptaon of Salvation and of eternal Life they were shadows of good things to come which shadows did continue until the time of correction at the coming of Christ in the Flesh born of the Virgin Mary which Christ was the Body of these things themselves the express form the summary substance of them They were now to pass into the spiritual things signified as those Typical Figuring signifying sealing Ordinances and Institutions of the New Testament Dispensation of Grace Baptism and the Supper of the LORD do really to believing partakers of them represent glorious things and will do so till Christ come to make all things new The forementioned time of correction did then eminently begin when Christ first openly shewed himself to be the same Messiah the same God manifested in the flesh for he was born a Saviour Of whom all the Prophets had foretold And it had still a further progress as he passed further on in his life fulfilling all Righteous Observances as afterwards by his Death and Resurrection The thorough perfection of which time of correction was when he ascended up into the Heavens The Holy of Holies there So that if we speak of God thus manifested in the flesh thus was Redemption Work in the Antitype carried on the complete finishing thereof was upon Christ's going up to his Father from Earth to Heaven For then and not till then was the thorough completed consummation of the Old Testament Administration and then and not till then was the full perfect initiation of the New Testament Dispensation as the Author of this Epistle to the Hebrews doth expresly declare it If men will lay any more stress and weight in their arguing about this to any particular time and day then the very form and the true Existence and real Essence and the consummating Consecration of that Priesthood of Christ which did set an end to and did put down the Aaronical and Levitical Priesthood before which the whole of the Antitypical Work of Redemption so far as it did relate to the Priestly Office of Christ the Mediator between God and Man was not perfectly filled up This doth stand and consist in those things which do belong unto the Ascension of our LORD Jesus Christ into Glory For whilst Christ was on Earth there were other Priests which offered gifts according to the Law of the Pattern who did serve unto the Pattern and Shadow of Heavenly things of Heaven it self and so long Christ had not the former typical Priesthood so unchangeably unpassingly to any other passing into him as the Antitype so long as he remained on Earth he was not such an High Priest as the Author of this Epistle doth plainly word it into which Heaven Christ did therefore ascend to
a Virgin was a Law under the Old Administration And to believe actually in that particular person this Christ when come in the Flesh as so born of the Virgin Mary is a Law of the New Testament yet so as that this Quateneity as so born of the Virgin Mary is one part of the New Testament Ministration properly as such and so in that respect doth belong to another matter And thus in some places Faith doth set out the New Dispensation of Grace The short and plain is this Faith in the Messiah or in Christ was a Law under the Old Testament-dispensation or it was then a commanded Duty to believe in Christ which was to be done in obedience to a Law of Jehovah Aelohim For the Advancement of this sort of profitable Learning I propound these following Inquiries which if well cleared up from Scripture might bring in some considerable Augment to this Holy Science Q. Whether there be not convincing evidence in the Word of Truth that fallen Adam and Eve did actually repent and believe in the Messiah for Justification Acceptation and Salvation Q. What Names are there in the Old Testament given to Christ which do set him out as Mediator as Saviour as the Justifier of his people and as being their Righteousness Q. What Types and Figures and Shadows were there of this Doctrine of Faith in the Messiah under old Testament Dispensation Q. Whether if all the Hebrew expressions were put together that in the Old Testament are expressive * descriptions of Faith Trust Hope Expectation in the New with all the Synonyma's and Phrases referring to this subject matter it would not discover much of lively Faith in the Saints under that former Dispensation That Faith was a Law under the Old Testament Dispensation I thus demonstrate both in the general significancy of the word grounded on the Almightness and Faithfulness of Jehovah Aelohim and also in the special acceptaon it for closing with applying of relying on Jehovah the Messiah and his Righteousness for justification in the sight of God In its general significancy it has a firm Foundation a rockie bottom even the Power and Truth of the omnipotent unchangeable Jehovah a God of ability to perform and of veracity to fulfil what he has spoken and promised Every Word and Truth of God revealed is the general and common object of Faith A lively working belief of this though seemingly but in the general yet has great influence upon the special actings of justifying Faith for the Scriptures do give us instances of too much and too often questioning the Power and Fidelity of Aelohim in his Word and Promises in some particular trying Cases as long hiding of his Faces great withdrawing delay of fulfilling of Propheties and Promises not answering of Prayer carrying himself as one angry at the very Prayers of his people much conflicting with and yet frequent foyling by some particular bewailed confessed corruption under violent temptations the LORD 's seeming forsaking of his Churches and people his shining upon and prospering of the Enemies of the LORD and of his people his seeming to act contrary in his works from what he covenanteth in his Word with more of this kind But I suppose that it is the notion of Faith in its special acceptation that is intended by this pretended new Law of Faith in this Objection That this Faith in Christ is now in more clearness spiritualness evidence growingness heavenlyness for the manner and degrees of it we thankfully and admiringly acknowledge to the praise of God of rich Grace and of free Love who has brought us under this new and more glorious Administration But there was the same Grace of Faith in Truth and in reality for its Nature and Essence in the savingness and justifyingness of it for the kind and specifickness of it under the Old This we also affirm was it not this saving and justifying Faith which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews do speak of when he said The just by faith shall live Those who are justified counted just by Faith in Christ applying him and his Righteousness shall live that life of Grace and of Comfort of support and stay of waiting and of dependance here which shall pass into an eternal life of Glory of full Vision Injoyment and Happiness And was not this Testimony brought out of the Old Testament which is used once and again and a third time in the new And in every one of the places in the new it is applyed with respect to Justification by Faith in Christ So in the Epistle to the Romans the Righteousness of God of Christ who was God as well as Man for the complete satisfactory righteousness of such an one did we stand in need of is revealed in the same Gospel of Christ from Faith to Faith as it is written But the just by faith shall live That Righteousness by which a Believer doth stand justified before the Judgement Seat of God and can be no other Righteousness but only the Righteousness of Christ this is a free gift from the Father and is through the inworking of the holy Spirit by Faith imputed to Believers The like sense it has in that passage of the Epistle to the Galatians that no man by the Law is justified before God is mentioned for the just by faith shall live referring again to that place in Habakkuk whereby to prove justification by Faith in Christ only as the Context doth evidently declare And thus in the formentioned passage to the Hebrews having in the last verse but one of the tenth Chapter cited that Scripture in the Old Testament the Author proceeds in the first verse of the eleventh Chapter to describe the true spiritual Nature of saving justifying Faith and he gives particular Instances and Examples of the Saints of old who acted this Faith Was it not by this Faith in the promised Seed of the Woman in Christ that Abels person and Sacrifice was acceptable to God and by which he obtained witness that he was Righteous and so justified in the sight of God Was it not by this Faith that Enoch pleased God who gave him this Testimony and was therefore honoured with the priviledge of walking with God here and then of Gods taking him away to himself Was it not by this Faith that Noah prepared the Ark as a Type of Christ by which he became an heir of the Righteousness which is according to Faith Of which Righteousness of Justification by Faith in the Messiah Noab was Preacher to others Was it not by this Faith that Abraham was justified Did not he believe God Jebovah the Messiah who appeared to him And was it not accounted to him for Righteousness And is not this brought in by Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians to prove the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in Christ by his Righteousness imputed to the Believer Did not Abraham receive
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-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
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
Rule of Obedience to them under the Old Testament as unto God in Christ and is still so a Rule unto us under the New In my entrance upon this I must express my aâ—horrence of that bold daringness in some who charge the LORD Jesus Christ himself with being in his life-time a counâ—enancer of some breaches of the Seventh-day Sabbath Thus flying in the face not only of this holy Law but also of the Supreme Lawgiver They give two Instances one in the twelfth of Matthew and the beginning of that Chapter the other in the fifth Chapter of John the ninth tenth and so on to the sixteenth Verse As to the the former concerning Christ's Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn and eating on the Seventh-day and Christ's pleading their Cause Consider well their Case in all the Circumstances of it They did what was lawful on the Seventh day it being a needful refreshing of their outer man thereby to strengthen for Sabbath-worship and Service where other provision was wanting a work of Mercy as Christ shewed it to be an action tending towards the Sanctification of the Sabbath and not bringing any Duty thereof It was according to what the Law of Jehovah did allow in the two last Verses of the twenty third Chapter of Deuteronomy which had foundation in right Nature and in just Equity amongst all Mankind who did allow this in a case of present necessity And this Christ's doth further exemplifie in a like case of David Concerning the later Where Christ healed the man diseased and bid him To take up his bed and walk And this on the Sabbath-day The diseased man was there on his bed in the way of his cure a cure was lawful on the Sabbath-day a doing good on such a day a work of necessity and of mercy and so lawful This was a Work that the diseased man could not foresee or prevent before the Sabbath came nor being healed was he to delay it till the Sabbath was over left he had lost that of his goods which his duty was so to preserve the Creator on the Seventh-day Sabbath preserved his Creatutes which he had made on the six foregoing days of the same week It was a publick Testimony of the truth of the Cure and of the power of the Healer who as God-man spake the cure It was an act of Faith and of Obedience in him who was whole and did not hinder any Sabbath-worship For you may find him in the Temple in the fourteenth Verse Having already proved that the LORD Jesus Christ was Admininistrator under the Old Testament and that he was the Promulgator of the Law of the ten Words at Mount Sinai who was to be believed and obeyed in that Day as well as now and that the end of the Law also the great design drift purport and meaning of it was Christ for Righteousness to every one that believeth That which is now upon my hand to defend and maintain is that it is still a Rule of Obedience now unto the New Testament for the confutation of Anomy or Antinomianism This Law of the ten Words was confirmed by the express Doctrine of our LORD Jesus Christ when he took to his God-head the Humane Nature born of the Virgin Mary and dwelt here on Earth and conversed with men for some years particularly in his Sermon at the Mount So that as he was the Proclaimer of them at Mount Sinai Thus also was he here again at the Mount the Preacher and Confirmer of them in the faithful discharge of his Kingly Prophetick Office He would not have any Disciple of his so much as to give way unto any one thought that he came to dissolve any of the least commands of this Law of the ten Words the least Consonant or Vowel or Point whatsoever it was that was originally this of Christ's own giving and writing from his Father by his Spirit in his Word Nothing not the least part of it was in any wise to pass from it Who-ever he were that did loose or dissolve one of these least Commandments more especial too if he did further teach men so such an one was not in a fiâ—â—edness for the New Testament Church-state which is set out by the Kingdom of Heaven He was neither to be admitted into this State where it was known or if he unawares crept in yet being discovered he was not to continue in that state without the exercise of Church Discipline And that Christ doth speak of this Law of the Ten Words is manifest for he doth give particular instances of particular Commands in the Decalogue Of the Sixth Word or Command in the one and twentieth Verses of that fifth Chapter of the Second or Fourth Words or Commands though set out after the manner of the Old Testament Dispensation which at that time was not so fully perfected and accomplished as I have shewed else where in the twenty third and twenty fourth Verses of that fifth Chapter where the manner of Worship and the times and seasons of Worship are spoken to and of Of the Seventh Word in the twenty seventh Verse and onwards to the end of the thirty second Verse Of the Third Word in the thirty third Verse and so forward to the thirty seventh Verse Of the First Word in the nineteenth Verse and further even to the end of the sixth Chapter If thou be a discerning unprejudiced Reader it is but open thy Bible and read those three Chapters and thou wilt conclude with me that this Sermon is Christ's reviving of and Commentary upon the Law of the Ten Words making this to be the Doctrinal Foundation upon which wise Believers are to bottom and to build The same Truth and Duties which are here taught and commanded by Christ are the same which the Prophets of old did commend to the people and which Moses also did deliver as may be seen in the Citations in the margin It was by this Law of the Decalogue that Christ doth prove the truth of his Doctrines and the equity of his Commands It is Christ's obedience unto the Law of the Ten Words wherein he propoundeth and setteth himself as a Pattern and Example for Believers to imitate and to follow him This Law of the Ten Words is affirmed in the New Testament to be in its own nature an Holy Just Good Spiritual Law a Perfect Law commanding all good and forbidding all evil All and every sin is a transgression of one or other of the Ten Words which are still the Believer's light to guide his steps aright in those straight ways wherein he is to walk The Apostles in the History of their Acts and in the Epistles which they sent to the Christian Churches are full of this Doctrine which doth constantly attend their preaching of that great Truth of Justification by faith in Christ particularly even as to the Laws of the Second Table The Prophesies
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