A TRACT ON THE Sabbath-Day. Wherein the keeping of the First-day of the Week a Sabbath is justified, BY A Divine COMMAND AND A Double EXAMPLE CONTAINED In the Old and New TESTAMENT. With Answers to the Chiefest Objections, made by the Jewish seventh-day Sabbatharians and others. By ISAAC MARLOWE. London, Printed by J. A. and are to be Sold by H. Barnard at the Bible in the Poultry, and by Hannah Smith at the Bible in Aldersgate-street, 1693/4. THE Author's EPISTLE. Christian Reader, WHEN first my Thoughts were exercised in drawing up some Reasons, to justify our keeping the first day of the Week a Sabbath; they were only designed for Private Use and to serve a particular Occasion, that called for them. But since the Providence of God, has lead my Meditations farther into this Subject from other Considerations, and by means of a Book lately Published by Mr. Tho. Bampfield for pressing the seventh day (or Saturday) Sabbath as the Duty of all Christians to keep Holy in Obedience to God's command: I have Thought it needful to present this Treatise, for the establishing of those that are unsettled in their Minds about it, and for their Advantage who through the tolderness of their Consciences are exposed to divers difficulties, because they cannot see that Liberty to be lawful, which others take in making the Jewish Sabbath a working day. To help therefore those sincere Christians (though but few in number) that are entangled with this Yoke of Bondage; I have considered diver. Authors on their seventh-day Sabbath, as besides the two Books of Mr. Edw. Stennets, Mr. H. Soursby and Mr. M. smith's Mr. William. Sellers, Mr. Theophilus Brabourn, and the aforesaid Mr. Tho. Bampfields two late Treatises, which though I have not directed the following Discourse in Answer to any one of them (except in some particulars) yet the Ingenious Reader may find, I have taken Notice of the Chiefest Grounds and Arguments for their Sabbath contained in them all. And if the Lord will graciously bless my well-meant endeavours for their right Information, and hereby remove that bar between them and others, or if any Benefit shall be received from this Improvement of my Talon, I desire He may have the Praise to whom alone it is due. However, though we or others may differ in some particulars, through the various Sense we have of the Mind of God revealed in his Word; yet as through the Grace of Christ, we abhor that which is Evil, and cleave to that which is good, with a Holy Detesta ●n of all apparent Transgressions of the Law, consistent with Love and Pity to men's Persons; and as we are Children of one Father, and Coheirs of Eternal Life through Faith in Christ that worketh by Love, we ought to be united in kind Affections to one another. And were our differences managed more in Brotherly Charity, and by the gracious Conduct of the Holy Spirit, controversial Discourses would be more acceptable, the Reputation of Religion and our mutual Peace and Love would be better preserved; which as I speak this more in general, than desighing any particular Reflection on my aforesaid Brethren, so I desire always myself to watch, and labour to abound in this Grace of Love, which is the Bond of Perfection. To Conclude, I have in the following Tract not only made the best Improvement I can of several things that others have wrote before me, but as the Lord hath enlightened my Understanding, I have added such Matters, which I believe may be useful to clear the Case in hand, hoping he will graciously Bless my Labour to your Advantage. I. M. THE CONTENTS. Sect. I. OF the use of the Word Moral, Page 1. Sect. II. Of Gods revealing the first Sabbath to Adam, Gen. 2. 2, 3. which was then sanctified for Man, before Israel observed their seventh-day Sabbath in the Wilderness, and was no Anticipation of the Order of Moses History, Page 3. Sect. III Treateth of the Law. 1. Showing wherein the House of Israel were more concerned in Sinai's Covenant than other Nations, Page 5. 2. That the Israelites were not absolutely tied to stand or fall Eternally by that Covenant, without relief in Christ for the Elect, Page. 6. 3. Of the Ten Commandments, and of their binding quality to the Gentiles, Page 7. Sect. iv Cleareth a Proposition. 1. Showing that the Gentiles were not absolutely required to keep the whole Ceremonial Law, Page 9 2. That there is Reason to believe, the Gentiles before the Law had some Divine Revelation of the Will of God, how they should worship him, and that they were required to Sacrifice slain Beasts, Page 10, 11, 12. Sect. V In four Paragraphs proveth the Ten Commandments to be morally binding to all Nations, Page 12, etc. Sect. VI. Treateth of the Morality of the fourth Commandment, Page 16. And of the Reasons why the Sabbath was first sanctified in the Name of the Seventh-day, and not of the first-day Sabbath, which it may be so called, respecting its proper Nature, immediate end, and principal use first to Man, Page 17. Sect. VII. Sheweth that the Jewish Sabbath is Ceremonial, and not morally binding to all Nations. 1. Because it was a Covenant Memorial of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, Page 19 2. Because it is abolished, Colos. 2.16, 17. Page 19 3. From the Order and Necessity of Nature, wherein is showed the Alterations of the accounts of Years, Page 21. And of Days, Page 23. As also the Interruption of the orderly Course of the Day, Page 29. And the impossibility of all Nations observing the Sabbath after the Jewish Pattern, because in some Places, and Parts of the Year, there is no Sun-settings, nor Sunrising for several Days and Weeks Time together, Page 31, 32, etc. Sect. VIII. Sheweth that Israel's first Sabbath in the Wilderness, was not a fixed Pattern that all men should originally have six working days before their Sabbath, and not their Sabbath before their six working days, Page 34. Sect. IX. Containeth some Instances of particular Cases in the New Testament, in which we are referred to the Pattern in our first Parents, which serveth to justify our doing the like, to justify our Observation of the first-day Sabbath, Page 36. Sect. X. Explaineth the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath, Page 38. Sect. XI. Treateth of the Types and Shadows that were of the Gospel first-day Sabbath under the Law, Page 40. Sect. XII. Sheweth that Christ arose from the Dead on the first-day of the Jewish Week, Page 42. 2. That he appeared to his Disciples on the first-day of the Week, Page 45. 3. The Apostle ordered the Churches to make Collections for the Saints on the first day of the Week, Ibid. And 4. He broke Bread with the Church of Troas on the first day of the Week, who on that day came together for that end, Page 46. Whereto is added a brief Historical account, that soon after St. John's writing, the first-day of the Week was called the Lords day in Distinction to the Jewish Sabbath, Page 47. Sect. XIII. Sheweth the ancient Observation of the first day of the Week called Sunday by the Heathens. And that there is greater Reason to believe it is (rather than the Jewish Sabbath) the Old seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation, tho' neither the one nor the other can be assured of the same, Page 47. Sect. XIV. Containeth a brief Discourse, showing wherein our first day Sabbath answers the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath, better than the Jewish Sabbath doth, Page 50. And also showeth the time of Day when our Christian Sabbath should begin, and the Reasons why we had no Positive Command left us in the New Testament to observe the first day of the Week a Sabbath, Page 52, etc. With a Discourse of the Morality of Adam's Pattern, Page 56. And of Gods accepting the first of Time, Page 58. Lastly, Answers to the Chiefest Objections made against our keeping the first day Sabbath. A TRACT ON THE Sabbath-Day. WHEREIN The keeping of the First Day of the Week a Sabbath is justified by an Institution of God, and a double Example contained in the Old and New Testament. THAT we have both a Precept and a double Example to justify the keeping of the first day of the week, a Sabbath, I have here to produce from the Holy Scriptures. The Precept is in the Fourth Commandment, founded on God's first sanctifying the Sabbath-day, and we have the Example of Christ's Disciples, with the primitive Gospel Churches in the New Testament, and of Adam to his Posterity, all which I shall prove and explain as followeth. SECT. I. First, That the Reader may not be under any mistake about the use I make of the word Moral throughout this Treatise, I shall here acquaint him, that in its self it belongeth to Manners, Civility or Behaviour, properly to the Actions of Man, only as he is Man: And so by some the Moral Law is taken for the Law, Light, or Instinct of Nature which Adam had in the State of Innocency; which although this be true, yet I also make a larger use of the word: For as no Man knoweth by Nature the extent of Adam's light in all particulars, for his Obedience when he was in Innocency, and therefore cannot describe the whole of that Law of Nature: And as I suppose the prohibition to him not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, will not be denied by any to have been binding for all his posterity as Men; so we must have recourse to Divine Revelation for the better understanding our Moral and universal Duty to God, since the Law of Nature is so much obliterated in us through the fall. And therefore because of the darkness and depravity of our Minds, we have the substance of the Law of Nature given to us in written Precents, which may be called Moral, as they are not Ceremonial, but perpetually and universally binding to all Men for their Obedience unto God, and also Institutions by Divine Revelation, as being now a more full discovery to us of the Mind of God first implanted in our innocent Parents, than we retain in our Natures, or can recover in our fall. So that when I speak of the Moral Law, or of Morality, it must be taken as the Adjunct Matter governs it in either sense, of the Law or Light of Nature alone in the State of Innocency, or contained in those transcribed Precepts of the Ten Commandments, as the substance thereof in general Heads, and in those other Precepts that morally do explain them, which I shall only take notice of wherein I am concerned, and not collect and reserr them all to their proper Heads. In brief, I use the word Moral in common to those things that are of universal and perpetual Concern to all Mankind for their Obedience to God as their Creator: For as to the case before us, seeing it's said, that God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: We cannot say that Adam by his pure Light of Nature alone knew that it was meetest to have but six working days, and no less, as 5, 7, or 8 together to one Sabbath, but that from God's Example revealed to him, the light of Adam's Nature told him that it was most meet for him to divide his time like his Creator, and so it became the Moral Duty of Men as Men to have no more nor less than six working or common days to one Sabbath. SECT. II. TO proceed on the Subject Matter of this Treatise, I shall here recite the first Foundation Scripture for keeping the seventh day Sabbath, as a boundary to six working days, and briefly Note something of the Nature and Quality of the Text, Gen. 2.2, 3. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made. It is here said, God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; that is, he made it a happy and holy day, by setting it apart from common use for Man to worship him, and he appointed it to be a rest for Adam by Revelation, as he did that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for otherwise Adam could not by his Light of Nature alone know the time which had passed before he was Created, nor could he understand the Mind of God as it was in God himself, and therefore the knowledge Adam had of God's sanctifying the seventh day Sabbath, was by Supernatural Revelation to him. And this I presume none will deny, for a time for Man to abstain or rest from his own business, to exert his solemn Worship to God, is morally implanted in the Heart of Man by Nature, and surely God did not conceal from Adam the meetest time when he sanctified the first seventh day of the World for that end. Besides, before that God had form Eve, Gen. 2.7.8.— 15. he put Adam into the Garden of Eden to dress it, and to keep it; and therefore Adam being appointed to do this business, he might have applied himself thereto immediately after Eve was form and brought to him, if he had not received the knowledge of God's sanctifying the seventh Day, yea then it had been lawful for him to have worked on God's Sabbath, if it had not been revealed to him. Moreover, Our Saviour puts this matter clearly out of doubt, because he refers the making of the Sabbath (not to the first Institution of it at the gathering of Manna in the Wilderness, but) to the time of God's creating Man, Mark 2.27. saying, The Sabbath was made for Man, and not Man for the Sabbath; that is, the Sabbath was not first made, and then Man for the sake of the Sabbath, but Man was first Created, and then the Sabbath was sanctified for his Happiness, as the blessing of it signifieth. God's bare ceasing from Work did not make it for Man, but his Sanctifying it, or setting that time apart from the common use of Man for the service and worship of his Creator, and then we have reason to believe he did immediately reveal the knowledge of it to Adam, that he might answer the design of God in sanctifying the seventh day for him, and to make it a pattern for aster Ages. But some have said, That the sanctifying of the seventh-day Sabbath, on which God rested from his Work of Creation, was written by way of Anticipation of the Order of time in Moses Sacred History, and so though God rested the seventh day from all his Works, yet the Sabbath was not sanctified for Man till after Israel's coming out of Egypt. Answer. This is a weak and groundless Notion that some have taken up, as will appear from the proper sense of the Text, and the Reasons following. For 1. It's said, That on the seventh day God ended his Work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made. From whence it's plain, that God's seventh day on which he rested from his Work of Creation, was that same seventh day on which he ended his Work, else how could it be said he rested from his work on the seventh day, if his seventh day rest was not immediately aster it was ended? 2. It's said, God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made. Now what seventh day can this be, which God blessed and sanctified, but the same seventh day on which he ended his Work, from which sense for any to invert the Text, is a gross and paspable wrong to it; for God sanctified [〈◊〉] because in [〈◊〉] he [had] rested from all his Work. Note it well, that seventh day in which God [had] rested before Moses wrote this History, was the same he sanctified, that Man should bond his six working days with a Sabbath. 3. No Anticipation is to be put upon any Text of Scripture, unless a just necessity compel it, H. Scursby Discovise of the Sabbath, Page 23. 2●. for otherwise the order of History may be inverted at men's pleasures: And therefore the reason why Anticipations are allowed in any Text of Scripture, is because there is some necessity or other arising to preserve the verity, or sense of Scripture; but there is no such thing to be pleaded in this case: Therefore no Anticipation to be intruded on the Text. 4. Anticipations are only to be allowed in any Text, when either the same, or some other Text discovers that so it is: but we presume no such thing can be assigned relating to the thing under consideration; therefore none is here to be admitted. SECT. III. HERE I come to open and explain the Law of God which commandeth the seventh day to be observed; and because I find that some have taken up an Opinion, and (I conceive for the sake of nothing else but to escape the Arguments which some have drawn from the fourth Commandment, for keeping the Jewish seventh day Sabbath) do assert that there is nothing of the Law as given on Mount Sinai binding to us under the Gospel, or that nothing of it is obliging to us but what is given forth again, and confirmed to us in the New Testament. To remove therefore this mistake, and to demonstrate that the Ten Commandments are of themselves binding to all both Jews and Gentiles, as a Rule of Holy Life, thò not as a Covenant of Justification, for so they are done away in Christ, I shall discourse the more largely of the Law of God, and the Decalogue in general, and then of the fourth Commandment in particular. And 1. I shall here premise, Numb. 15.14, 15, 16. Ex. d. 12.43, 48 49. Deut. 5.27. Chap. 4 37, 38. Chap. 7 6, 7, 8. Chap. 9.5. Heb. 3.1, 2. that the House of Israel (with the Proselytes joined to them by Circumcision, having all one Law) were peculiarly concerned in Sina●'s Covenant more than other Nations: For God having loved their Father's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he therefore chose their Seed aster them, and delivered them out of Egypt to intrust them, with his Oracles and Counsels for all the World. And to this end he renewed the Law of Nature at Mount Sinai, and directed it peculiarly unto them, and brought them under it as a visible Covenant of Works, requiring their perfect Obedience thereunto, and to his whole revealed Will in the Ceremonial precepts added to it. And so the Israelites being thus separated from all Nations, and under a special Obligation of Ceremonial and Typical service; and having a Sacred Record of the Law of Nature, with the Promises and Prophecies of the Messiah that was to come, exod. 19.6. Isa. 43.10. Heb. 9.9, 23. ch. 10.1. transcribed by Moses and delivered to them, they became the Ministers of the certain knowledge of them to all Nations, farther witnessing to the Messiah in the Types and Shadows of the Law, and by the writings of other Prophets that were among them: Gen. 12.3. chap. 26.4. Galat 3.16. Zach. 10.4. Jer. 23.5, 6. chap. 11.1. Micah 5.2. Gen. 49.10. Isa. 53. Psal. 16.10. Psal. 68.18. Joel 2.28, 29. That Christ should come of the Seed of Abraham, of the Tribe of Judah, of the House of David, and should be born in Bethlehem of Judea; that the Sceptre ●●ould not departed from Judah till Shiloh came, of his Susserings, Resurrection, Ascension, and of the Ministration of the Spirit, etc. to point unto all the World where and when they should look for the true Messiah, and how they should know him when he came: So that herein the Jews were peculiarly concerned in Sinai's Covenant, that under its Obligations, and their trust of the Oracles of God together with it, the Messiah should be declared, and in the Typical service of the visible Covenant of Works, they should Minister as Witnesses of the Grace of God in Christ to the Gentile Nations. 2. But though the Jews with the Gentile Proselytes that put themselves under their Covenant of Works by Circumcision were under a peculiar Obligation of the whole Mosaical L●w; yet they were not so absolutely tied up unto this Covenant of Works, Deut. 4.13. as to be wholly concluded by it unto their Eternal State; for God did not bring that People absolutely under it in all the rigour of it, according to its whole Law and tenor, so as to stand or fall, absolutely by it Promises or Threaten, for the promise of Grace in Christ being given upon the first entrance of Sin into the World, and renewed to Abraham 430 Years before the giving of the Law to his posterity, Gal. 3.16, 17. there was a blessed relief and Salvation provided therein for the Elect that betook themselves unto it, and made use of it against the Curse and Threaten annexed to the first Covenant, broken in and by our first Parents, and to our Personal Transgressions of the Law: So that though the Israelites were under a special Obligation of persect Obedience to Sinai's Covenant of Works, yet there was another Covenant before confirmed of God in Christ ministered with it and by it, that the Elect by Faith beholding Christ as their perfect High Priest and complete Propitiation, through the Veil and Shadowy Dispensation of the Law, might be relieved from its Curse by Reason of its weakness, through the Flesh that could not keep it. Rom. 8.3. 3. The Decalogue or Ten Commandments, being declared with a particular Direction unto Israel, ●●●de th● Obligation of Obedience to them as so promulgated on Mount Stu●i, to belong unto them as general Heads, not only o●t●●e Mo●d branches of the Law in other Precepts given by Moses, b●t also of the Typical and Ceremonial branches thereof; which being appropriated and suited only to that prelent State of the Jewish Church, did Entitle the Moral Law particularly unto them as a Covenant of Works, which to us is only an Everlasting Rule, as declarative of the Will of God, and the substance of the Law of our Creation. And therefore is any mean, that the Decalogue as given on Mount Sinai is not binding to us, as it was (as I hinted before) directed peculiarly to Israel as a Covenant connexed and related to the Ceremonial Law, or as the Foundation of their Obedience to the Typical and Shadowy (as well as other Moral Precepts and) Commandments tied to it under that Temporary Dispensation; then we do agree, that it is not so binding to us under the Gospel. But as the Law given to Israel on Mount Sinai, was the Substance of the Law of Nature in our first Parents, or of Creation again renewed in Tables of Stone, and committed to Israel as the declarative Will of God, so it was for the use of the Gentiles also. For seeing our Sin and depravity of Nature through the fall, does not weaken the Authority of God's Law over us; Ephes. 2.3. Rom. 2.14, 15, 16. chap. 3.19. and that the Gentiles as well as the Jews, before the Law was given to Israel, were under its Obligations, as written in their Hearts by Nature, Gods delivering a fairer Copy of it by Moses, than what remained in us since the fall, could no ways weaken but strengthen the Obligation of it unto us all, as being alike under it by Nature. Moreover as the Moral Law written in Tables of Stone was the declarative Will of God, strengthening the Obligation of the same Law written in the Heart of Man by Nature; so Christ in the Gospel does not any ways dissolve, but much strengtheneth this Obligation to us all. And to this agreeth, the Assemblies, the Congregational Churches, and also the Baptists Confession of Faith, recommended by the Messengers of, and concerned for upwards of one hundred Baptised Congregations, denying Arminianism; wherein Chap. 19 are the following Words: Rom. 2.14, 15. Deut. 10.4. Rom. 13.8, 9, 10. James 2.8, 10, 11, 12. Matth. 5.17, 18, 19 Rom. 3.31. Heb. 2.1. 1 Cor. 9.8, 9, 10. The same Law that was first written in the Heart of Man, continued to be a perfect Rule of Righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in Ten Commandments, and written in two Tables;— the Moral Law doth for ever bind all, as well justified Persons as others, to the Obedience thereos;— neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this Obligation.— Besides this Law, commonly called Moral, God was pleased to give to the People of Israel Ceremonial Laws;— to them also he gave sundry Judicial Laws, which expired together with the State of that People, not obliging any Now by Virtue of that Institution, their general Equity only being of Moral Use. So that here is the concurring Testimony of the three aforesaid Confessions of Faith, that the Moral Law or Ten Commandments, doth for ever bind all Persons to the Obedience thereof. 4. Rom. 5.20. Chap. 7.23. Psal. 19.7, 8. Prov. 6.23. Gal. 3.23, 24, 25. It appears from the Holy Scripture, that one chief end of Gods giving the Law and recording of it by Moses, was That the Offence might abound, and that Sin by the Commandment might become exceeding Sinful. That is, the Law being a clearer Light than what remains in our Natures since the fall, it worketh the clearer and fuller Conviction of Sin upon our Minds; and so it was our Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, by she●ing us an absolute necessity of laying hold on the Relief provided for us in him, That we might be justified by Eaith. And this being declared in the New Testament, as one universal end of Gods giving the Law, it was then designed for the use of both Jews and Gentiles. And 5. The Decalogue's peculiar Direction to Israel, was no more an Exclusion of the Gentiles from its Moral Use and Instruction, than the Promise of the Messiah, and Gods command that Israel should hearken unto him in all things, had no respect unto the Gentiles: And therefore as the Gentiles came by the certain Knowledge of the Promises and Prophecies of the Messiah, Gen. 3.15. Chap. 49.10. Chap. 22.18. Gal. 3.8, 14, 16. Rom. 4.9, 10, 11. Deut. 18.15, 19 by the House of Abraham and the sacred Record of Moses; of the Promise made to our first Parerts, of jacob's Prophecy, That unto Shiloh, should the gathering of the People be: Of the Blessing of the Gentiles, through Faith in Christ, Abraham's Seed; and of the command of God, that Isra●● should hearken unto him, and his threaten to those that ●●use to hear him: So by the same means, viz. by the Books of Moses, whereby the Gentiles had the certain Knowledge of the Messiah that was to come, they had also the Knowledge of the Law. And seeing there is no Reason to think, that God designed his discovery of the Messiah, and the Record made of him in the Books of Moses, should be only for the Use and Benefit of the House of Israel; and that after Noah and the following Ancient Fathers (who lived so many vundred Years to hand down the Knowledge they had received) were Dead, and the World (as well as the Church) was more increased, that the Gentiles should be still left without any other ground of Faith, than at best the uncertain Traditions of their short-lived and Idolatrous Fathers; but that these also, who had an Interest in the Messiah, respecting the call of the Elect that were among them, should also have an Interest in and to the Use and Benefit of all the general Promises and Prophecies of him that were delivered to the Jews: So consequently the Law and Matter of Instruction contained in the Legal Covenant, relating to the clearer Convictons of Sins against the Moral Law, and to the discovery of Christ for their Relief and Salvation from the Penalty of the Curse thereof, being recorded together with those Promises and Prophecies of Christ, was then for the Use and Benefit of the Gentiles also; they being by Nature brought under the Obligation of Obedience to the Moral Law, though they were at Liberty from most of the Ceremonial Service of it, that was teaching and instructive to them. SECT. iv HEre I shall speak to a Proposition, which is, that the Law of Nature, and the same in the written Moral Law of Moses obligeth all men to worship God (tho' after what manner he is pleased to be worshipped is not perfectly known, but by the Revelation of it to them,) and then it followeth, that either the Gentiles in the time of the Law, were bound to worship God according to the Ceremonial Precepts of Moses, or had some other ways the Will of God revealed to them. 1. To the first, we have Reason to believe, that the Gentiles were lest to their own Liberty, and were not absolutely required to observe the whole Ceremonial Law of Moses: For as I cannot sinned a command for it, Deut. 16.16. Exod. 34.23. so many Nations were at too great a distance; for all their Males according to the Commandment, to go up three times a Year to appear before the Lord at Jerusalem, 1 Kings 11.36. Dent. 12.5, 6, etc. the City which he had chosen to put his Name there. Nor could some Northern People observe their Sabbaths, according to the Precepts from Evening to Evening, of which more hereafter; and whatever may be said for the Proselytes that dwelled in Canaan, yet those Gemtles that inhabited other countries', could not properly make the acknowledgement required in the Law, Deut. 2●. 3, 9 viz. That they were come unto the Country, which the Lord swore unto their Fathers for to give them; and it was impossible for all the World to inhabit in so small a Country as the Land of Canaan, for it could not bear them. And therefore our present business is to consider what the Gentiles were obliged to in Point of Worship, before and under the Dispensation of the Law of Moses. Which 2. Seeing the Gentiles were not absolutely required to renew the Law of Nature delivered on Mount Sinai, as a Visible and External Covenant, intailing the Ceremonial Worship of God delivered to the Jews, but were to receive the Moral Law on the Obligation of Nature as a Rule of Holy Life, whereby they were under an Obligation of some Divine Worship; which forasmuch as it could not be of the whole Ceremonial Law of Moses, and that the Light of humane Nature alone, could not discover the Will of God for their perfect Obedience therein: We have then Reason to believe, that the Gentiles before the Law had some Precepts of God or Divine Revelation given to them how they should worship him; and that these were handed down unto Posterity, I deny not: but the Light of Nature might show them, it was their Duty to Pray and Praise God, and to Teach or Declare to one another what they knew of him; but yet (through the Corruption and Depravity of our Nature by the fall) we find by Experience, that notwithstanding we have the Additional Light of the Holy Scriptures, there are different Apprehensions amongst Men about the manner of performing these Moral Duties, and then we have much more Reason to conclude, that the Light of Nature itself is an uncertain Guide; and therefore it is rational to believe, that the Gentiles before and under the Law had some Information of the Will of God concerning their Worship of him, which was handed down from Adam, and then from Noah after the Flood, who were both public Fathers of all Nations Jews, and Gentiles. Gen. 6.2, etc. Levit. 18.24. For the Scriptures show, that the Sons of God were reproved for taking Wives of all which they chose; and that God charged the old Inhabitants of Canaan before the Law with Sin, for those unjust Copulations forbidden in the Law; for which the Lord cast them out of the Land before the Children of Israel (for though he might wink at it in the Patriarches, Gen. 26.34, 3● Chap. 28.1, 2, 8. who to escape the wicked Idolaters of their Day, it is likely were under some necessity of Marrying within the bounds of Consanguinity, yet had he not revealed his Will against such Incestuous Marriages, they could not have been charged as Sin upon them: For where there is no Law, Rom. 5. 1●. there is no Transgression. And therefore we have from hence some ground to believe, that God did not leave the old Gentiles without some discovery how he would be also worshipped: Especially considering that Enoch was a Holy Prophet, of whom it's testified, That he pleased God; Heb. 11.5. and that Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness to the old World; that Shem the Son of Noah (of whom it's witnessed, that the Lord God, Gen. 9.26. compare Gen. 11. with chap. 24.67. chap. 25.7, 20. See Ainsw. on Gen. 24.62. and on chap. 14.18. 2 Pet. 2.5, 7, 8, 9 was Shems' God) was a live in Isaac's time, and is thought to be that Melchizedeck King of Salem, and Priest of the most high God, who blessed Abraham, and that Lot who was not concerned with Abraham in the Covenant of Circumcision was a Godly Righteous Man, for no doubt they were true Worshippers of God in their Families, and taught others to do the like, being great Lights and Witnesses of the Ways and Will of God in their Generations. Moreover, As the Law of Nature obliged the old Gentiles to Worship God, so we find they were taught how to Exert their Obedience to it in Offering Sacrifices unto him, which had a Tipical respect to the Sacrifice of Christ. For it is believed, from the Coats of Skin which God made to cloth Adam and Eve, that they were of the Beasts that God taught Adam to Sacrifice, which agreeth with what Mr. Ainsworth saith on Gen. 4.3. That the Hebrew Doctors say, it is a Tradition by the hand of all, 1 Chron. 21.22, 26. and 22.1. 2 Chron. 3.1. Gen. 22.9. Gen. 8.20. that the place wherein David and Solomon built an Altar— was the place where Abraham builded an Altar and bound Isaac upon it— and where Noah builded after he came out of the Ark, and that was the Altar upon which Cain and Abel offered: And on it Adam the first Man offered an Offering after he was Created. See Dutch Annot. on Job 1.1.3. and chap. 2.11. See Mr. Caryl on Job 1. and chap. 2. And we find that Jobs three Friends (as it seemeth by the hand of Job as their Priest, who were all four Gentiles, or separated from Abrabams' Seed in the Line of Isaac and Jacob, and were not with their Seed taken into God's peculiar Covenant with them) were commanded of God to offer Sacrisices: See Ainsw. on Gen. 4.3. Job 42.8, 9 1 Sam. 13.12. Gen. 8.20, 21. Exod 18.1, 9 to 13. Num. 23.1. to 6 Judg. 13.17, 19 1 Chron. 16.1, 2, 7. Judas 14.15. 2 Pet. 2.5. 1 Pet. 3.18, 19, 20. Heb. 7.1, 6, 7. 2 Pet. 1.21. So that sacrificing of Beasts were required of the Gentiles, and as Ainsworth saith, was used of Israel, and all Nations till the coming of Christ. And it is evident, that the public and solemn manner of making Prayers and Supplications to God both by the Jews and Gentiles, was with sacrifices of Beasts, and after this manner they also offered their praises and thanksgivings. And as for preaching, it is recorded, that Enoch prophesied, and Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness; and the Spirit of God in him preached to the old World, and in Melchisedeck blessed Abraham: From all which it is plainly manifest, that there was a Revelation of the Will of God for his Worship and Service, (and also for the sanctifying of the seventh day Sabbath, before the Ministration of Moses Law) whereby the Gentiles were directed how to exert their particular Obedience in answer to the general Obligation of the Light of Nature, which being more fairly transcribed by Moses, was still the Rule of the Gentiles, obliging them to Worship God according to the Revelation of his Will they had received before the Law, confirmed in the Law, and to the new discovery of it afterwards by the Gospel. SECT. V HEre I proceed to prove, Exod. 21.12. 16, 18, 19, 22, 23. Chap. 22.1.5.18. 19 ch. 23.8. Levit. 20.15.16. Deut. 19.18, 19 Chap. 20.10. to 16. That the Ten Commandments as such, are of themselves binding to all Men under the Gospel as a Rule of Holy Life. And first, Because the Moral Expositions of them with sundry penalties (that were not only Judaical, but are perpetual Appendices to the Moral Law) given and commanded in the Books of Moses, are still to be observed, though they are not all repeated again in the New Testament; for else neither by the Institution of God to Noah, that whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, can a Man's life be spared for killing his Neighbour unawares: Nor in the sixth Command, Thou shalt not kill, have we any liberty to kill in lawful War, or Battle: Nor have we any bodily penalty prescribed for wilful murder, nor for a Witch, nor for stealing, either in the Ten Commandments, or in the New Testament; so that we must either in these and other cases have respect to the Moral Expositions, and those penal Appendices of the Ten Commandments recorded in other places of Scripture in the Old Testament, and consequently to the Commandments themse lves as binding to us, or else we are left to the uncertain dictates of Nature. 2. The Ten Commandments of themselves are binding to all Men as a Rule of Holy life, because the Explicatory precepts of the seventh Command, Thou shalt not commit Adultery, do in Levit. 18. chap. 19.29. Deut. 23.17. particularly explain and prohibit Whoredom, Fornication and Incestnous Marriages as Moral branches of this Law: For the Gentiles which had not the written Law, were charged with them as immoral Evils, for which things God cast them out of the Land of Canaan. And therefore seeing that the substance of those Explicatory Precepts were morally binding to those Gentiles before the Law, See the aforesaid Bapt●sts (and the other two) Confess. of Faith, where incestous Marriages are asserted to be unlawful, and forbidden in Levit. 18. though we find in the N. Testament, only two of those incestous Marriages in Levit. 18. to be forbidden. Matth. 14.3, 4. and 1 Cor. 5.1. and that they are generally acknowledged to be in force, though they are not all of them expressly repeated, distinctly forbidden, nor explained in the Ten Commandments to be sin, neither by Jesus Christ, nor his Holy Apostles, except two of them in the New Testament, any otherwise than their forbidding of those Evils in general terms must have a natural reference to the particulars that are found in the Old Testamant and included as branches of the moral law: We may then as fairly conclude, that the seventh Commandment, and consequently the other nine, are of themselves binding to us as well as that those explicatory precepts or moral branches deduced from them should be still in force, without their particular Confirmation in the New Testament. 3. The ten Commandments are of themselves binding to us: For the Apostle faith Rom. 3.9. We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, viz. that the Gentiles that are not under the Law of Circumcision, are notwithstanding under the Works of the Moral Law, written in their Hearts by Nature, and the Jews are under the same Obligation transcribed on Tables of Stone, and in other appendent Moral Precepts given to them by Moses. And the Apostle having proved that the Gentiles that were without the Law in Tables of stone, were under sin by the Law of Nature, Chap. 2.14, 15, 16. and the Jews by the law of Circumcision, ver. 25. does then from Chap. 3.9. to ver. 20. treat of all in general, and concludes that both Jews and Gentiles are all under the Law, viz. one and the same moral Obligation, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. And the Apostle farther arguing both of the Jews and Gentiles, concludeth with these words, Do we then make void the Law through faith? Chap. 3.29, 30, 31. God forbidden: yea we establish tie Law. And so doth the Apostle James, who wrote to his Brethren the Jews, that had the Faith of Jesus Christ, saying, If ye fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture, James 2.8, 9 Chap. 2.1. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offends in one point, he is guilty of all. From whence I observe, that the believing Jews were still under the Obligation of the Moral Law as a Rule of Holy Life, which of its self, or by its own Authority, is binding under the Gospel; for else if it had been abrogated by the New Testament Ministration, the Apostle would not have cited the Law of Moses out of the Old Testament as the Obligation of their Obedience, as the Apostle farther argueth in Ver. 11, 12. and exhorteth them so to speak and do, as they that shall be judged by the Law of liberty; that is as much as to say, that they should be judged by the Law, under the relief and benefit of the Grace of Christ in the Gospel: So then, if the believing Jews under the Gospel are made Transgressor's by the Law of Moses, (as the Apostle showeth) it is a clear Demonstration, that the Law is still of its self binding to them; and it being the same in substance as the Law written in the Heart of Man by Nature, (but in a fairer Copy delivered by the Jews to the Gentile Nations now with the Gospel of Christ in the New Testament) it is also equally binding to us as to the Jews: For if the Jews by Faith in Christ are not brought from under the Obligation of the Moral Law, why then should the same Faith in the Gentiles excuse them from it as a Rule. 4. Moreover, I shall farther add, that while the holy Apostles are throwing down the Types and Shadowy Worship under that legal Dispensation, 1 Tim. 1.8. yet they assert that the Law is good if a man use it lawfully, viz. as a Foundation of our Worship and Obedience to God, and just behaviour towards Man, which through Gospel Grace after the measure we have received, is, or aught to be put forth according to the several Moral branches of the Law, and the Divine Precepts and Patterns given to us in the New Testament. And therefore, we find the Holy Apostles, and Gospel Writers often proving and confirming the Moral part of their Doctrine by the Law, as appears in Ephes. 6.1, 2, 3. Children obey your Parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy Father and Mother, (which is the first Commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Here the Apostle confirms his Moral Doctrine to the Gentiles by the Authority of the fifth Commandment, or first with promise; which plainly shows, that it is of its self binding to us all under the Gospel, and he Moralizeth the Promise by saying Earth, instead of the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee: So that the Promise was not only to pertain to the Jews in the Land of Canaan, but was perpetually to continue to all the Gentiles: and so we may say in the aforesaid case of every one that killed a Man unawares, who was to flee into the City of Refuge, and continue there until the Death of the Highpriest, Numb. 35.25. that though we have no such Highpriest in Gospel days, yet the equity of that Law is still in force: But to return to our present business, we may farther find the Apostle proveth the moral part of his Doctrine from the Commendments, Exod. 20. For in Rom. 13.8, 9, 10. we are exhorted to love one another, for, saith he, Love is the fulfilling of the law; and he briefly citeth five of the Ten Commandments to confirm the Duty of Love, which comprehendeth them all: And in Chap. 7.7, 12. What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbidden. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the Law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet— Wherefore the law is holy, and the Commandment holy, and just, and good. Therefore surely this Moral Precept in particular, and others in general mentioned by the Apostle, are of themselves binding to us as a Rule of Holy life; for whatsoever Law is morally holy, just and good, as this particular precept is, by which the Apostle came to the knowledge of Sin, it is perpetually and universally binding to all Men, Rom. 2.14, 15. who have the substance of it written in their Hearts by Nature: So that from the Apostles making use of the Authority of the Moral Law of Moses, to confirm his Doctrine, Matth. 5.19. James 2.8. Chap. 4.11. 1 Joh. 3.4. and from the Commendations of it in the New Testament, it clearly appears to be in force unto all Men now under the Gospel. And seeing the fourth Commandment in particular is delivered in such moral Terms, as doth not of its self bind us to the observation of the Sabbath after the Jewish Pattern, from Evening to Evening, any more than after our Christian pattern from Morning to Morning, which does answer that Very Precept, as well as theirs did from that single Law; we have then no reason to exclude the fourth Commandment from the rest of the Decalogue, but to believe it is equally Moral with the other nine, as will appear more patticularly in the next ensuing Section. SECT. VI TO proceed therefore on the fourth Commandment, I shall here recite Exod. 20.9, 10, 11. Six shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work— For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, the Sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. 1. That this Commandment is morally binding to both Jews and Gentiles, is evident, because it is in substance the same with God's sanctifying the seventh day for Man, Gen. 2. And if the Sabbath be not from thence perpetually binding to all Nations, but restrained to the posterity of the Jews, then by the same Rule the Gentiles had no interest in the promise of the Woman's Seed, Gen. 3.15. or the Messiah, that should bruise the Serpent's Head, as then made to our first Parents; and therefore, as I believe, it will be granted by all Christians, that the Gentiles as well as the Jews had an interest in the first promise as then made, viz. in the Original discovery of the Messiah, as well as in those after promises that are the fruits and effects of it: So in like manner we have also ground to believe, that the first sanctifying of the Sabbath-day, was from thence (and is also from the fourth Commandment) morally binding of its self to both Jews and Gentiles; for if we question the one, we may also doubt of the other. 2. The End of the fourth Commandment showeth it to be a Moral Precept, for a time of rest is naturally moral, and by the example of God and his sanctifying the seventh day to every six working days, it is also become morally and perpetually binding for all Men to keep the seventh day Sabbath, as a boundary to neither more nor less than six working days together; and therefore for any to deny the same in the fourth Commandment, is in effect to deny the World their sixed Sabbath; for though the Gospel first-day Sabbath hath a new Sanctity, yet it is founded on the old Law, and Gods sanctifying of the seventh day for Man from the beginning; or else it is left very dubious, whether we are bound to keep any fixed day of Rest at all; but as there is the same Moral reason for a Sabbath as was before, so we have reason to conclude, that the same Law in the fourth Commandment is morally binding to us all. 3. I shall offer some Reasons, for satisfaction wherefore I believe the Lord was pleased to sanctify the Sabbath, and to deliver the fourth Command to observe it under the name of the seventh day, rather than of the first day Sabbath. And 1. Because althô Man abstained from work on the first day after he was completely form, yet seeing God gave the Sanctity to the Day, for a Memorial of his Creation, and for Man to worship him, there was reason that the day should answer the memorial of his finishing of, and ceasing from the work of Creation, rather than of Adam's solemn entering upon his subordinate Dominion under God, viz. in Honour to the Creator rather than to the Creature. 2. Tho' Adam rested, or rather abstained from Work on God's Sabbath before he had passed six working days, that he might perform his moral Worship to God, (before he dressed the Garden, or meddled in his own Affairs) and praise him for the Lordship he had received over the Creatures which God had made; and so with respect to the chief Moral end for which the Sabbath was first made for Man, it might have properly been called the first day Sabbath throughout all Generations; yet seeing God had also designed the Sabbath to be a figure of a greater rest, (in the seventh thousand years of the World, Heb. 4.3.10. Rev. 20.4, 5, 7. as it is believed by many Christians) it therefore could not have been so glorious a Type, if it had been delivered to us under the name of the First day: So that the Sabbath-day was appointed in the name of the seventh day, not to deny Adam's Moral Obedience, in keeping his first day Sabbath, before his six working days, to be a pattern to his posterity, or that Adam's first Sabbath could not properly be called afterwards successively Man's first days Sabbath, but because the seventh day of God's Rest, and so considered, as after Man's six working days did better suit the Memorial of God's Creation and Rest, and the Typical uses of the Sabbath day. 3. The Sabbath was commanded in the Name of the seventh day and not of the first, because though God abstained from Work before the Creation, yet it could not be said he Rested, Ceased or Abstained from Work a day before a Day was made, or there was time measured by a day. So that the necessity of Nature placed God's Sabbath after his Creation days, but there was not the like necessity that Adam should have his Sabbath before his six working days; and therefore seeing that God sanctified the seventh day, on which he ceased from his Works of Creation with respect to Man, that Man should abstain from his Work to Worship him, Mal. 3.6. Isal. 40.28. Heb. 13.8. and not because that God himself had need of rest (for he fainteth not, nor is weary, neither is the most high changeable or subject to accidents in his Nature.) Then the seventh-day Sabbath bore this Name from the Necessity of Nature in God's Example of measuring time, more than from its proper Nature, immediate End and principal Use to Man, for in all these respects, Adam's first Sabbath was his first days Sabbath. 4. The Sabbath was expressly sanctified in Gen. 2.2, 3. and in the fourth Command in these Words [the] seventh day, and not [a] seventh day, to preserve the constant Order of our six Working days together, and that men should not choose any one day in the Week, and at their own Pleasures alter the Sabbath to any different day, as to the first day in one Week, and the second or third, etc. in the Weeks following: so as they keep one or a day in seven in every Week. Moreover it is not said [a] but [the] seventh-day, to prevent men's Alteration of it to any other day than what we have a Pattern for in the Holy Scriptures, that as it was to bind Adam and others after him, to the Observation of [the] seventh-day successively after his first days Sabbath without Alteration, so it was to oblige Israel to keep [the] seventh-day Sabbath successively after their first Sabbath in the Wilderness without a change, and to tie us, that forasmuch as the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath is abrogated in the New Testament, as you may see afterwards in this Treatise; and that we have a Pattern left us to observe the first day of the Jewish Week, that from thence we should keep our Christian Sabbath successively on [the] seventh-day, after its first taking place by the abolishing of the Jewish Sabbath in the New Testament without Alteration, Colos. 2.16, 17 as Adam and the Israelits did after their first days Sabbath, which if the Sabbath in Gen. 2.2, 3. and in the fourth Command had been sanctified in the express Words of [a] seventh-day, and not of [the] seventh-day, it might have occasioned Doubts and Confusions about the Observation of the aforesaid several Sabbaths, but it being expressly commanded in these Words [the seventh-day] it does signify the Mind of God so clearly, as both to prevent such Confusions, and yet to preserve the Moral Law in the Fourth Commandment unviolated under the change that hath been made of the Sabbath. SECT. VII. HEre I shall prove both from the Holy Scriptures and the Course and Necessity of Nature, that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath is Ceremonial, and not Morally binding to all Nations. And 1. This appeareth, in that it was not only a sign to Israel, as our Gospel Sabbath considered, as the seventh-day is to us, that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, Exod. 31.13, 14, 15, 16, 17. and on the seventh-day he rested; but it was also a Sign and a Covenant throughout their Generations, that they should remember that Israel was a Servant in the Land of Egypt, and that the Lord their God brought them out thence through a Mighty hand and by a stretched out Arm; Deut. 5.15. Therefore (saith Moses) the Lord their God commanded them to keep the Sabbath-day. So then as their Sabbath was a Sign of their deliverance out of Egypt (with respect to their Beginning and Ending of it, from Evening to Evening, thereby to suit their other new days Beginning from their first Passover Evening, and so to keep that deliverance in fresher Memory) it is Ceremonial, and ceaseth as other Sabbaths and Memorials of that Deliverance have done, by the coming of Jesus Christ. 2. The old Jewish seventh-day Sabbath is proved to be Ceremonial, by the Apostles Words, Col. 2.16, 17. Let no Man therefore judge you in Meat or in Drink, or in respect of an Holiday, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in part of a Feast, or of the New Moon, or of the Sabbath-days: Which are a shadow of things to come, but the Body is of Christ. For as the Holiday or Feast-days, New Moon and Sabbaths herein mentioned, must be taken for those written by Moses and given to Israel, because those only (and not the Heathen Idolatrous holidays) were given of God as Types and Shadows of good things to come, so the Sabbath-days there distinctly expressed from other holidays appointed for the Observation of Israel, must be taken for their weekly seventh-days Sabbath, and the two Verses plainly comprehends all their Sabbaths and holidays to be but Shadows of Things to come. But (saith the Text) the Body is of Christ. Object. But some do say, the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Sabbaths here ought to be rendered Weeks, as the same Greek Word is rendered, John 20.19. Luke 24.1. Mark 16.2. Matth. 28.1. Answer. The Word Sabbath, in Greek Sabbaton, used in those places, is not there translated Week, for any other Reason than because it was customary to call the days of the Week, the days of the Sabbath, as the Greek Word Sabbaton properly signifies, but in the Text, Col. 2.16. the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of the Sabbaths (for so it is in the Greek, and not Sabbath-days as we translate it) is not their joined, as in those other places, to express any particular day of the Week, but stands singly of its self for Sabbaths; and therefore can only be understood of the Sabbath-days themselves, which the Word properly signifies, and cannot be otherwise understood, but at least comprehensively of the seventh-day weekly Sabbath, because other Holy or Feast-days are in the same verse expressly named distinctly by themselves. So then seeing the seventh-day Sabbath is included with the New Moon, and other Holy or Feast-days, as Shadows of Gofpel things, it was also abolished with them; and there is the like Ceremonial Reason for it, as there is for those other holidays, Gal. 3. to v. 4. Chap. 4.3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 21. Chap. 5.1. to 5. Chap. 6.12, 13. Feasts, and New Moon expressed with it; it being a Sign of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt. And considering also, that the Apostle saith to the Galatians (who after they had been converted from the Idolatry of the Heathens to the Christian Faith, desired to be under the Law, and were turning to those weak and beggarly Elements) Ye observe Days, and Months, and Times, and Years, I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in Vain. I do therefore conclude, that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath is abrogated with their other holidays and Times. For to imagine that our Lord Jesus, who is faithful over his own House, Heb. 3.6. should by his Apostle so reprove the Observation of the Jewish Days and Times in general, and Name their Sabbaths distinctly from other holidays, and describe them all to be but shadows, which are to be done away and changed with the Priesthood, Heb. 7.12. without one word of Exception in the New Testament, to confirm the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath for our Observation; nor to leave us one Example of any Christian Churches Custom to meet on that day, but on the first Day of the Week, and yet to require us to keep their Sabbath, is groundless and irrational to believe. 3. I come to prove the Jewish seventh day Sabbath to be Ceremonial, and not Morally binding to all Nations, from the Necessity of Nature, which renders it impracticable in divers Countries; and in Order thereunto, I shall first Premise four things. 1. It was commanded Israel, that they should celebrate their Sabbaths from Evening to Evening; Leu. 23.32. and if after the Jewish Pattern, the Sabbath must begin and end at Evening in every part of the World, then in some parts of it the Sabbath would begin when it endeth in other places, and so it could not be God's design to bind all men to keep their Sabbath at one Point of Time prefixed to the Children of Israel in the Wilderness, or in the Land of Canaan. 2. The Mosaical seventh-day Sabbath could not be the same Successive seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation, if this were either successively kept before their Egyptian Bondage by the Ancient Fathers; or if these Patriarches began and ended their Days and Weeks successively in the same Order of Time from the Creation. For God was pleased (to the end, as it is believed, that he might more effectually draw his People from the Idolatry of the Heathen) to alter the account of the beginning and ending of their days and years in sacred things, to what it was before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt, and to what was afterwards observed by them in Civil things, and this appears by the Evidence of divers Authors, and from the Testimony of the Sacred Scriptures. And 1. We find in Scripture, that the account of the beginning and ending of the Year was altered to the Jews at their coming out of the Land of Egypt, Exod. 12.2, 8. This Month (viz. Abib) shall be unto you the beginning of Months: it shall be the first Month of the Year to you; Exod. ch. 13.3, 4. which Month is partly in our March and partly in April. Thus their Sacred Year began, but their Civil Year began after their Ingathering of the Fruits of the Field, Exod. 23.16. Chap. 34.22. Levit. 25.89. for than it is said to be the End of the Year in their seventh Month of Tisri or Ethanim, partly in our September and October, for on the tenth day of this Month was the Trumpet blown to begin their fiftieth year of Jubilee. And this Mr. Ainsworth noteth on Gen. 7.11. where he saith. The second Month, to wit, of the Year agreeable in part to that we call October. For the End and Revolution of the Year was about the Month which we call September, Exod. 23.16. and 34.22. and so the New Year than began: This was after called the Month of Enthanim, 1 Kings 8.2. where the Chaldee paraphraseth, that they called it of Old the First Month, but now (saith he) it is the seventh month, for the Year changed the beginning of it Ecclesiastically, upon the coming of Israel out of Egypt, see Euod. 12.2. and Levit. 23.39. compared with Exod. 23.16. And Mr. Ainsworth farther saith on Exod. 12.2. By Reason of this their going out of Egypt, the Year which before began in September, Exod. 23.16. hath his beginning to the Jews Ecclesiastically in Abib, or March; but for the Jubilees, and Civil Affairs, it began as it had done before, Levit. 25.8, 9, 10. And to this agreeth Mr. Pools and the Dutch Annotations, on Exod. 12.2. And Mr. Godwyn in his Moses and Aaron, page 85. 86. and Mr. Charnock in his Works, Vol. 2. page 853. saith, It is probable that from the Creation the Year began in September, the Autumnal Equinox, the Fruit being on the Trees at the Creation; but now God order the beginning of the Year from the time of this first Passeover— which was in March, the Vernal Equinox. Lastly, Mr. And. Willet in his Hexapla on Exod. 12.2. speaking of this alteration of the Year, agreeth with others, that the Jews Ecclesiastical Year began in their first Month called Abib, and that their Civil Year began in their seventh Month; yet his Opinion is, that this Sacred Year began in renovation of the former account discontinued in Egypt, but he citeth Josephus, to whom (saith he) consenteth Perertus, Simler, that the Hebrews always before this time, held the seventh Month to be the first Month, as they did afterwards for the computation of Jubilee, and for other Civil Matters. As to Josephus, Mr. Willet gives his sense out of his Book, in the Greek, Latin, or some other Tongue; for our late English Translation hath either from a corrupt Copy, or default in the Translator, or Printer, an apparent Error, viz. December is put instead of September, or as the Year began before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt. 2. I find there was also an alteration made of the Account of the beginning and ending of their days, to what they were before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt, or before their Bondage. 1. For though it's said, Gen. 1.2, 3, 5. That darkness was upon the face of the deep— And God said, Let there be-light, and there was light— and the evening and the morning was the first day: Yet from hence there is no sufficient ground to conclude, Mr. Tho. Chasie in his Tract on the Sabbath, p. 4. saith, The first things God made was day and night, or light and darkness— There was in Nature before, though not in time, a mixed or confused darkness which Moses called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Arias Montanus correcting Pagnin, translateth and calleth it Caligo; it was neither perfect day, nor perfect Night. that the Night was created before the day: for Mr. Chasie observes, that the Hebrew word signifieth a mixed darkness, neither perfect Day, nor perfect Night; and its rational to believe that those words In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, should be taken for God's creating the matter of the Heavens and the Earth before their form. As it's said, The Earth was without form, and void, and darkness (or gloominess) was upon the face of the deep: And then the light and darkness was mixed and confused together; and so if the order of expression of Gods perfecting any piece of the Creation, does carry any precedency in order of time, than the Daylight did Originally go before its Night; but I conceive that neither of them was perfectly form before the other, for it's said, ver. 4. that God divided the light from the darkness, which plainly showeth they were mixed together, and that he separated the Day from the Night, that they should no more be mixed and confused together, as they were before, but should be distinctly placed in the two Hemispheres, successively to circulate round the Heavens. So that at the same time when the Light was separated into one Hemisphere, or half part of the Heavens, the Darkness was placed in the other, and therefore neither of them were perfectly form before the other in time. It's true, Isal. 45.7. Moses was under a necessity to set either the Evening, or the Morning, or the Light or Darkness, first in the account of the order of God's Creation, which he wrote after the change of the account of the day: And therefore lest he should seem to dislike the Alteration which God had then but newly made, of the beginning and euding of the account of the Natural Day for Sacred things, he named the Evening before the Morning in the History of the Creation. But yet we may plainly see that as the light was put (though not precreated) before the darkness in the account of the first days Work of Creation; and as it's said, That God made two great lights, Gen. 1.3.10.18. the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night— to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: So the light was counted afterwards for the former part of the Natural Day, which consisteth of a Daylight and its Night, or the revolution of the Sun in twenty four hours time. For, 2. We find that God created the Fowls of the Air on the fifth day, and the Beasts and , and every creeping thing of the Earth on the sixth day, and made Adam, and put him into the Garden of Eden, and then brought them to him, that he should give them Names, before that God had caused a deep Sleep to fall upon him, (while he took out one of his Ribs) and form Eve, and brought her unto him: It is therefore rational to believe, seeing it must necessarily take up time to name the Creatures, and that Adam could not so well behold them in the Night as in the Day, to distinguish every little Bird, and every Fowl of the Air, and all the , and every Beast and creeping thing from each other, to give them proper Names, and to know them again by sight, that he was form in the daylight of that Hemisphere, and that he spent the remaining part of it in that affair, and that his sleep was in the following Night, as the most proper time for it, and then from this foot of account after Eve was form, at the Conclusion of the sixth days work of Creation, both Adam and Eve first entered on God's seventh and their first day Sabbath at the beginning of the daylight, or morning of the day, to adore and worship God. For as they had no need of the Night to sleep in, for that they were newly made, and fresh in the Strength and Perfection of their Nature, Gen. 1.27, 28. and as it best became our First Parents for the Lordship they received of God over the Creatures which he had made, immediately to Attribute their Worship to him: So it was most proper they should have first the Daylight to behold the Beauty of the Creation, thereby to be excited from the Objects of their Eyes, together with the Light of their Understandings, to glorify God on the first sanctified Day of his Rest from all his Works. So that it is Rational to believe, that Adam began his first First-day Sabbath with the morning or Daylight, and consequently the following working days, and Sabbath-days were all so to begin, and successively to continue to others after him; and according to this, it's said a Exod. 10.13. Chap. 13.21. Leu. 8.35. Deut. 28.66. Job 26.10. Jer. 33.20. in Gen. 7.4. I will cause it to rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights: And so in Ver. 12. Forty days and forty nights. And Moses was in the Mount forty days and forty nights: Exod. 24.18. And in Gen. 8.6. At the end of forty days. From which last place it is observable, as well as from many other Scriptures, b Gen. 8.10, 12 Chap. 17.12. Exod. 21.21. Numb. 14.34. that the Day and Night together, is commonly called Day, which is the most excellent part of that which is called the Natural Day of twenty four hours, and therefore God might also give it the precedency, in respect to its revolution, with its Night originally unto Man. 3. Leaving what I have already said of the beginning of the Natural Day, to the serious Consideration of those that desire Information herein, hoping it may be of use to them, I proceed to bring in other Scripture Evidence also, to prove, that before the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt, or were in bondage there, the Daylight, See Purchas Pilgrimage, Page 118. lib 2.77. Emend. Tem. lib. 1. Ainsworth on Gen. 10.10. Ezek. 23.15. Dan. 1.1, 2. Ains. Gen. 1.5. See Mr. G. Hugh's Analytical Exposit. of Genesis, on Chap. 1.9. Gen. 10.8, 9, 10. Gen. 11.27, 28, 31. and not the Night was counted for the former part of the Natural Day: As Purchas tells us, citing Pliny, and Scal. That the Babilovians began their Natural Day of twenty four hours at the rising of the Sun, the Egyptian and Romish Priests at Midnight. Ainsworth and Mr. Hugh's also say, that the Chaldeans counted the beginning of the Day at San rising. Now as for Babylon, in Hebrew Babel, the Metropolis of the Chaldeans, it was first built by Nimrod, before Abraham and Lot's time, who were Chaldeans born, and it is plain from the Sacred Scriptures, that Lots and Abraham's Generations reckoned their Natural days after the manner of the Chaldeans, to begin with the Daylight, and not the Night, as appears in Gen. 19 33, 34. And they made their Father drink Wine that night— and the firstborn went in and lay with her Father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my Father: let us make him drink Wine this night also. And in Gen. 31.26, 29, 36, 42. And Laban said to Jacob— the God of your Father spoke unto me yesternight— And Jacob answered, God hath seen my Afflictions, and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight. The Hebrew word in these three places for yesternight, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emesh, heri, sero, Yesterday late in the Evening, Pagnin. Praterita Nocte, last Night— Arias Montanus, Hesternâ Nocte, Yesterdaynight. Buxtorf, Leigh. Crit. Robertson's Lex. etc. Some add Evening, or Yester Evening, which is sometimes put for the whole Night, as in the History of the Creation, Gen. the Evening and the Morning is put for the Day and Night, but that the Hebrew word Emesh does properly signify Yesternight, is farther evidenced, because the Hebrews have another word for Yesterday, viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Temol, Exod. 5.14. 1 Sam. 20.27. 2 Sam. 15.20. Job 8.9. Psal. 90.4. See Pagnin. Arias Montan. Buxtorf, Leigh, Crit. etc. And the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ghnereb, or Ereb, is properly the Evening, and betokens the mixing of Light with Darkness after the Sun is set: So that the word Emesh signifieth, as it is rightly translated in our English Bibles, See Ainsw. Gen. 1.5. Leigh Gett. and as Ainsworth readeth it, Yesternight, or Yesterdayright, which is the same. Moreover, this word in Gen. 19.34. cannot be otherwise understood, without an apparent wrong to the Sacred Scripture. For it's said, Ver. 33. And they made their Father drink Wine that night, and the firstborn went in, and lay with her Father, viz. that same Night.— And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my Father; let us make him drink Wine this Night also— And they made their Father drink Wine that Night also. Now let it be duly considered that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lailah, which is properly Night, is in the Context used in those three places, and that the word Lailah, Night, in Ver. 33. does undeniably confirm the word Emesh, in ver. 34. to be there put for Yesternight, and not for Yesterday, or Yesterday Evening, because the Hebrew word Lailah, Night, is used in the foregoing Verse, to express that same time, and [Night] which is called [Yesternight.] Besides, the following words, this Night also, does also farther imply, that the word Emesh is put for Yesternight: So that beside the proper signification of the word, the rendering of it according to our common English Translation, is confirmed with a threefold Evidence, viz. 1. That the Hebrew Tongue has other words to express Yesterday and Evening. 2. That the following Context does imply that Emesh is put for Yesternight. And 3. That the same time called Yesternight, ver. 34. is called Night, ver. 33. So that in Lots and jacob's time by the Morrow next following to Yesternight, it appears the Daylight was counted for the former part of the Natural Day. 4. This is farther evident, for when at Night they spoke of the Daylight following, they used not to say to day, or this Day, but to Morrow, or the Morrow after, Numb. 33.3. They departed from Ramese in the first month, Exod. 12.6, 8, 10. Dent. 10.6. Mark 14.17. Matth. 16.20. on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the Passeover; which was killed on the fourteenth day at Even, and prepared at the going down of the Sun, and was eaten within that Night, and not in the Evening, as our Saviour showeth how the Passeover was to be kept according to Law; for it's said, In the Evening he cometh with the twelve: And when the Even was come, he sat down with them, Matth. 26.26. 1 Cor. 11.23. and as they were eating it, he instituted the Holy Supper, as 'tis said, The same Night in which he was betrayed: According as it was expressly commanded that the Passeover should be eaten in, or within that Night which belonged to the fourteenth day, as they reckoned their days for Civil things; for after the Lord had passed over the Children of Israel, and smote the firstborn of Egypt at Midnight, Exod. 11.29, etc. 37, 38. Numb. 1.1, 2, 45, 46. and Pharaoh and all his Servants were risen, and had called Moses and Aaron, and bid them and the Children of Israel with their Flocks and Herds to be gone, and 600000 Footmen, besides Women and Children could departed, though they were in some readiness, yet it is rational to believe, it musts needs be in the next. Daylight; and to confirm this, we find they were expesly commanded that none of them should go out of the Door of his house until the Morning, viz. of the morrow after the Night, Exod. 12. 2●. called the fifteenth day, and therefore it did neither belong to the Passover Night, nor the fourteenth day. But from this Passeover, the account of the Natural Day was altered, and by God's Appointment was put back a whole Night, for the Passeover was killed and prepared on the fourteenth day at Evening, from whence the first day of unleavened Bread began, and the Feast continued till the one and twentieth day at Evening, which is just seven days according to the Commandment, Exod. 12.17, 18, 19 But yet observe in Levit. 23.6. and Numb. 28.17. it is said, that on the fifteenth day is the Feast of unleavened Bread seven days, which to reckon it to begin from the morrow, or next morning after the Passeover, as before is showed Numb. 33.3. on account of their Civil days, like as was reckoned in Lot and Jacob's time, would come short a whole night of the seven days appointed from the fourteenth day at Even till the one and twentieth day at Even: And therefore I see no other way to make up the full seven days, than to begin their fifteenth Sacred Day, at or after the Evening and end of their Civil or common fourteenth artificial Day of Daylight, which cuts off its following Night belonging to it, and so puts that Night to the following Daylight, and thereby maketh a new Sacred fifteenth day of the Night of the Civil fourteenth day, and the Daylight of the Civil fifteenth Day put together; and from thence in an orderly Succession their Sacred time was measured for the due observing of those Feasts, Sabbaths, and holidays which God commanded the Children of Israel. But for their Civil Affairs, they still accounted their days from Morning to Morning, as in 1 Sam. 19.10. And David fled and escaped that night. Saul also sent Messengers unto David's house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: And Michal David's wife told him saying, If thou save not thy life to night, to morrow thou shalt be slain: from which Scripture it plainly appears, that after that night, the nex Morning or Daylight was accounted the Morrow, which was another Day, and not belonging to the Night going before. And to this Mr. Tho. Godwin witnesseth in his Book, called Moses and Aaron, page 80. where he tells us, That the Jews Natural Day was twofold: Civil, a working Day, which was destined for Civil Businesses and Works. This (saith he) began at Sunrising, and held till the next Sunrising, Matth. 28.1. Or Sacred, a Festival, or holiday, destined for Holy Exercises: This began at Sunset, and continued till the next Sunset. From all which both Sacred and Humane Evidence, I shall make this Inference, That if the Patriarches before and after the Flood, and the House of Israel successively had either kept the same precise seventh day Sabbath from the Creation, or had reckoned the time of their beginning and ending of their Days and Weeks precisely and successively from thence, (althô their Sabbath might not have been duly observed in their bondage,) then the Jewish Sabbath from Evening to Evening, after the Alteration of the account of the day, could not be the precise successive seventh day from the Creation. And seeing the Scripture is silent in fixing the Jewish seventh day, or any other Day as that precise successive seventh day, we cannot tell which is the same successive seventh day from the first seventh day of Rest which God Sanctified. 3. I premise, That if the Reasons I have given for Adam's beginning his first Sabbath day in the Morning with the Daylight in that Hemisphere of the Garden of Eden, should be counted by our Opponents too weak to draw a conclusion for a pattern to justify us in beginning our Sabbath in the Morning, and any should still hold the keeping of the Sabbath from Evening to Evening to be successively from the Creation, than we have this to argue against their Opinion, That as they have no Scripture for it, so the Sun was not made till the fourth day of the Creation; and we know not in what part of that day it was Sunrising or Sunsetting, or Noon or Midnight in any Horizon or Hemisphere, except we acknowledge that Adam began his first Sabbath with the Morning, and then it follows that a little before the fourth day was ended, it was about as much before the beginning of the fifth day with the Morning or Sunrising in Eden, otherwise as it cannot then be known where the seventh day of God's Rest (which had the same successive proportion of time as the six days of Creation) was bounded with the rising and setting of the Sun, but that when God's seventh day of Rest after his sixth day of Creation began and ended any where, it began and ended every where at the same instant season, and it was not where then any other than the seventh day, which began in some places at Evening, in others at Morning, in others at Midnight, in others at Noon, and in some or other places at all hours of the Day and Night, and the Revolution of the Light and Darkness, was the Day which is called Natural, in distinction to that which is by some called the Artificial Day, or Daylight only. There cannot therefore from the first seventh day of God's Rest be any footing of account to measure out to us the time of day for the beginning of our Day, nor consequently for the beginning and ending of our Sabbath-day, for that it is not known to us where the Sun was when that seventh day of God's Rest first began, unless we give way to what hath been clearly demonstrated from the Scripture, that the Sun arose, or was about rising then to Paradise; and to believe, as there is reason for it, that Adam had that whole Daylight sanctified which preceded the Night of his Sabbath. 4. It is very clear that God did never design the Law and Institution of the Sabbath to Israel in the Wilderness, to bind either Jews or Gentiles to the observation of the precise orderly Succession of their seventh day Sabbath, as from the Creation to the end of the World; because we find that God himself did afterwards make an interruption of the Natural Order of the account of Time, when the Sun was brought backward ten degrees in the Dial of Ahaz, and when it stood still in the midst of Heaver about a whole Day. 1. As to the Suns going backward ten degrees, Isai. 38.8. See his Book, Page 157.158 Mr. Weems in his Christian Synagogue, has made a draught of Ahaz Dial, and explained the matter, telling us that that Day was prolonged twenty two hours, reckoning the ten degrees or divisions on the Dial to be five hours backward, and then the Suns going forward again, is 5 hours more, with twelve hours, is twenty two hours Daylight in all. 2. It is said, Josh. 10.13. So the Sun stood still in the midst of Heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Now if we duly consider this place, it seems by the Sun's standing still in the midst of Heaven, that it stood still in the Meridian, or Noon-tide of Canaan about a whole day; and add to the time of its standing still the half, or that part of the Day that was passed before, and that followed after, when the Sun moved forwards to its going down, and then that Day or Daylight continued twenty four hours, or was about as long as the Day and Night together: and so if the Jews did reckon all that large Daylight to belong to the preceding Night, than the beginning of their next Sabbath fell later than its usual course about twelve hours' time, and if they divided that long Daylight, and put half of it to the former, and half of it to the following Night, than they did thereby alter the beginning of their Natural Day for Sacred things, and reckon that last twelve hours of Daylight for the former part of the Day belonging to the following Night, but such a succession of days for Sacred things, was against the Command of God for the Time and Order of beginning and ending all their Sabbaths and holidays. But instead of these, if any should yet say, That when the Sun had continued in their Hemisphere about twenty four hours time, the Natural Course of the Night being altered, and its time spent by the long duration of that Day, God was pleased in an instant either to pass the Sun through their Antipode Hemisphere, or suddenly to turn it backward, and make it Sunrising to the Israelites in the Land of Canaan. I Answer, That if thus it was, that in an instant the Sun was passed through their Horizon, and the Antipode Hemisphere, than they reckoned the first twelve hours of that long Daylight of twenty four hours for one Artificial Day, or Daylight, and the last twelve hours' Day instead of Night, adding one to its preceding Night, and the other instead of a Night to the following Daylight, and so did bring their days into their former course again. But as this would have been a greater Miracle than the former, which was only a stop to the Course of Nature for a time, so there is reason to believe that if it had been so, the Holy Ghost would have recorded it in the Scripture, and Josephus would not have omitted the Notice of it in his History, where he speaks of this larger Day than ordinary. And as to the last, if the Sun had been suddenly turned backward to make it Sunrising in the Land of Canaan, than it could not have been so properly said, that the Sun hasted not to go down about a whole day: For if the Sun had been suddenly put backward from its place of setting to its place of rising, than the Sun had only hasted from its standing still to the place of its going down, and went not down, till a daylight and a halfs-time after it stood still in the midst of Heaven, contrary to the plain meaning of the Text. And if we say the Sun was turned backwards from the place it stood still, or from thence was passed in an instant through their Antipode Hemisphere to its place of rising, or which ever way we reckon from that time the Account of the natural course of the Day and Night to settle; the Jews could not possibly fall into their due Order of Time again, as successively from their former Custom to begin their Sabbaths at Even, according to the Law, unless it were settled by a greater Miracle than the standing still of the Sun. But if we reckon, as there is the greatest Reason for it, and it is most natural and fairly employed in the Text, that after the Sun had stood still about a whole day, or twelve hours, it than continued its natural course to go down, and add to it the ten hours of the Suns going backward and returning in the Dial of Ahaz (which twenty two hours together being computed after the Jewish Custom of some of their Days-light or Artificial-days, may make a full day and night's time) and then the Jewish Sabbath fell later than its former precise Order of Saccession, by near or full a whole days time. So that their weekly seventh-day Sabbath after these Afterations of days had but about two hours (possibly no time at all) in the time, which by an orderly Succession should have been their Sabbath, and the other twenty two hours (and possibly their whole Sabbath-day) was in the Time, if it had not been so interrupted of the first day of their Week, by an orderly Succession from their first Sabbath in the Wilderness. And therefore it is apparent, that neither the Moral Law nor the Ceremonial Precept for their Sabbath, was designed to bind us to the Observation of the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation; for if it had, God would never have so interrupted the course of Nature, and his own Design and Institution unto Men. 5. Having premised these things, I proceed to show, that the course of Nature maketh it impossible for all Nations to observe the seventh-day Sabbath after the Jewish Pattern. 1. Sir Jonus Moor saith, See his S●sem of the Ma●●maticks, Pa●● 48. that the Government of Wardhus is in seventy and seventy one Degrees. And there they have the continual Presence of the Sun for many days together in the Summer, and in the Winter they are as long without the Sun in their Horizon or Hemisphere. 2. See his Pilgrimage, Page 431, 432, 433. Parchas gives us a large account of the Northern Parts of the World, and tells us, that the Samoyeds about the Banks of Pechore are in Subjection to the Moscovites, and that in the Year 1611. Josias Logan wintered at the Town of Postozera, and there observed, that on December eleventh he could see but the way of the Sun Beams; on the thirteenth the Beams but not the Sun: Which (its there said) on Christmas day he saw rising at South and by West, and setting at South West and by South, not wholly elevated from the Horizon, but all the way the nether part of the Sun seeming just and even with it. Now this Town of Postozera I find in Speeds Maps and Description of the World, to be but just over the Arctic Circle, which is in about sixty six Degrees and half. So that Wardbus before mentioned, being about four Degrees nearer the Pole, has more of the continual Presence of the Sun in Summer, and is a longer time without it in the Winter. But to return to Purchas History, he farther tells us, that the Hollanders in the Year 1594. scent to discover a way to Cathay and China by the North-East, that William Barentz was the Chief Pilot for this Discovery. The next Year the last of August, they had Speech with the Samoyeds, who know no God. The Sun (whose Presence they are long deprived of in the Winter, which is recompensed in their Nightless Summer) is worshipped amongst them, and when the Sun is declining out of their sight, the Moon or North-Star is his Receiver or Successor (if you will) in that Tribute of their Devotions. Moreover the aforesaid Author saith, that they (viz. the Hollanders) learned of certain Muscovites, that the Inhabitants of Nova Zemla, had neither Religion, ●or Civility prescribed them by any Law, but worshipped the Sun, Moon, and North-Star: And that in the Year 1596, there were sent other two Ships to prosecute this Discovery, and after many dreadful Combats with the Ice, and one of the Ships departing from the other, they were forced to Winter in Nova Zemla, where they endured a continual Night of many Weeks, wherein neither the Sun nor any of his Courtly Train, the least Rays to be the Harbingers of his desired Presence, did present themselves to their Eyes, from the fourth of November, till the seven and twentieth of January they saw no Sun. Our Author farther addeth in Page 740, 741. That Henry Hudson, 1607. discovered farther North towards the Pole— he found himself in eighty Degrees, where they felt it hot, and drank Water to Cool their thirst, they saw Land to eighty two Degrees and farther— It is, saith he, colder in sixty two Degrees, than in nine or ten Degrees more northerly towards the North Eest— hence it is, that those parts hear (and perhaps under) the Pole are habitable; Under the Pole there is but one day and one Night in one whol● Yea●, for it is half a Year Niala, and half a Year day together. In Gre●il●●d (saith he) are no People. But Green or G●oon land is another place. the continuance of the Sun's Presence in the Summer, Hearing and Warming with lively Cherishment all Creatures; and in the Winter, by his obliqne Motion, leaving so long a Twilight; and the increased Light of the Moon, the Sun's great and diligent Lieutenant, the brightness of the Stars, and whiteness of the Snow, not Suffering them to be quite forlorn in darkness. Moreover he farther saith, in Page 743. (speaking of James Hall's Voyages to Groenland) that he sound their Winter Houses built with Whales-bone, covered with Earth; and Vaults two-yards deep under the Earth, Square.— Up within the Land, they have a King carried on men's Shoulders. The next Year he sailed thither the third Time, and in a fourth Voyage 1612. was slain there by a Savage. And he tells us in his Margin, that this Voyage was written by William Boffin. Allen Sellows of Red●iff, told me (saith he) Hall was slain in seventy six Degrees. I have given the Reader the larger account of those Northern Parts, that he may receive the fuller Satisfaction, that there are Inhabitants in those Countries that have several Weeks of Day together in the Summer, and of Nights together in the Winter: and Mr. Chafie saith, That in places near either of the Poles, See his Tract on the Sabbath Page 18. and 24. where it is commonly Daylight for many days together; from Sunsetting to Sunsetting in those places cannot properly be termed a Day, having in it many Revolutions of the Sun— And in the North of Russia, and of the King of Denmark's and— Swedens Countries, where the Sun maketh many Revolutions, at some seasons of the Year between his Rising and Setting, Men cannot count their Week by Horizontal days, (that is, from Sunrising to Sunrising, or from Sunsetting to Sunsetting) but they do and have counted their Weeks by Meridional days: Which is the time from Midnight to Midnight, or from Noon to Noon with any People. See Mr. Chasic Page 7.9. And therefore if the Sabbath must be kept from Evening to Evening in all the World, after the Jewish pattern, then in some remote Northern parts their Horizontal day from Evening to Evening in some parts of their Year is as long as many of ours, yea many Weeks of our Days must pass before they can keep their seventh-day Sabbath, to reckon their days from Evening to Evening, and so for great part of their Year they cannot follow the Example of Israel's Sabbath. Besides, if the Moral Law be only so binding then both Men and Beasts in some part of their Year are the more exposed to hard bondage, and the Relief and Equity of the Law is not alike to all Nations. And therefore seeing the Jewish Pattern cannot be binding to all Nations, to begin their Sabbath at one and the same precise time of Day, nor can universally preserve the equal Reason or Equity of the Law, it was not designed of God to answer the Moral Law. SECT. VIII. HEre I come to demonstrate from God's first appointing the Sabbath to Israel in the Wilderness, that we have no certain Pattern from thence, that all men should Originally and Precisely have six working days before their Sabbath. For 1. We do not find that the Children of Israel had observed their Sabbath from their coming out of Egypt, until they gathered Manna. We read nothing of it before, but that when they had gathered twice as much Manna on the sixth day, all the Rulers of the Congregation came and told Moses (which is a Demonstration that they were ignorant of the Reason, why the People doubled their Portion on the sixth day.) And Moses said unto them, Exod. 16.23. This is that which the Lord hath said, To Morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord. And in ver. 25. It is called a Sabbath unto the Lord. So that it may be computed, 〈◊〉. 1. etc. they had more than five Weeks time, besides what they had in Egypt of working days together without a Sabbath, and then their Sabbath when it was first commanded them was not their seventh-day, after no more than their six working days; but may be called their first-day Sabbath for setting up its Observation to Israel in the Wilderness, and herein it did not Answer God's Example of creating the World in six days, and resting on the seventh-day which he then sanctified. And a Confirmation of this may be fairly drawn from Mr. Bampfields' own Confession, who pleading for the Jewish Sabbath, in his Reply to Dr. Wallis, pag. 15. saith: That he sees to Reason, why a new Epocha from Exod. 16.23, 30. should be imagined, unless it be, because it is so plain a Proof of the Israelites observing the seventh-day Sabbath before the Law of Sinai, in Obedience to the Law, Gen. 2.2, 3.— And if there were no New Epocha in Exod. 16. then it seems agreed that the seventh-day was never altered, and in Page 16. he also saith: So I think we are thus far safe, that from Gen. 2. to Exod. 20. there was no new Epocha of days— there was no Intermission of the days by chance. Now though I differ from Mr. Bampfield, having clearly proved that the Account of the days were altered for Ecclesiastical Things from the first Passover, yet I shall make some use of his Words, viz. That by his thus asserting, there was no new Epocha Exod. 16. to alter the Sabbath from the Creation, I conceive he does consequentially Confirm what I ha●e said, that the six days of gathering Manna, was no Pattern to fix six working days to go Originally before the Sabbath; for if the Israelites gathering Manna six days and resting the seventh, was no new Epocha, notable Event or new Original for setting up their seventh-day Sabbath; then their six days of gathering Manna could not be an Epocha, for the sixing of their six working days Originally before their Sabbath, for if it be not an Epocha to the one it cannot be so to the other. And if (as he saith) it was no Epocha for altering the Sabbath-day, than there was no need of it, as an Epocha to direct them to keep the right Sabbath day; when if it were so (as he also saith) that the Israelites in Egypt were no strangers to it, and that it was not forgotten but well known to them. And so it consequently follows from his Assertions, that there was also no need of the Israelites gathering Manna six days to be an Epocha to six their six working days before their Sabbath. 2. The Reason of the fourth Command to keep the seventh-day Sabbath is, For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, the Sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh-day: Wherefore the Lord Blessed the Sabbath-day, and Hallowed it. Now this Reason for the Observation of the Sabbath on the seventh-day, does destroy its Moral Limitation to the seventh-day appointed to Israel next after the sixth day on which they gathered Manna, as a Pattern fixing their six working days before their Sabbath; because we are referred by it to the Pattern in the beginning, when God's seventh-day Sabbath was Man's first-day Sabbath, and not to the time of gathering Manna, nor of Israel's coming out of Egypt; which last appeareth from other places of Scripture to be the Reason of the Ceremonial beginning and ending of their Sabbath from Evening to Evening. It's true, that seventh-day appointed in the Wilderness did answer the Moral Precept of the fourth Commandment, but yet mistake me not: It is not found to Answer it simply, because it was that very seventh-day then appointed, or simply for that very days-sake, without regard to their Deliverance out of Egypt; and that new Appointment (for if another seventh-day had been fised for their Sabbath, it had answered the command as well as that) but because that same seventh-day was appointed to them a boundary successively before and after their six working days, nor did this command Morally-limit them to keep the same precise seventh-day successively from the Creation (for such a Limitation is not in this Precept nor in any other place in the Holy Scriptures) but it tieth the Sabbath to the seventh-day as a boundary to their, or our, or any Nations six working days, or to the first-day before and after them, which answereth the same Law. SECT. IX. I Shall here Instance some particular Cases in the New Testament, in which we are referred to the Pattern in our first Parents, which may serve as Examples to juslifie our doing the like for the Observation of the Sabbath-day, as 1. It is said, in 1 Tim. 2.11, 12, 13. Let the Woman learn in Silence with all Subjection. But I suffer not a Woman to 〈◊〉, nor to usurp Authority over the Man, but to be in Silence. For Adam was first form, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the Woman being deceived was in the Transgression. And 1 Cor. 14.34. Let your Women keep Silence in the Churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under Obedience, as also saith the Law. In these two Scriptures there are two Moral Reasons given, and one Command mentioned for women's Subjection unto the Men. 1. Because Adam had the Priority of being form before Eve, and he having her Original Humane Substance first in himself, had thereby a natural Precedency to her Free and Voluntary Subjection. But 〈◊〉 The Woman being first deceived and in the Transgression, she fell thereby under a more absolute Law of Obedience to her Husband, Gen. 3.16. Unto the Woman he said— thy desire shall be to thy (or as it is in our Margin, Subject to thy) Husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now from hence we may clearly see, how the Apostle confirms his Doctrine from the Order of Nature in our first Parents, and the Institution of God to them; and if these are of Moral Use and Perpetually binding for our Obedience, than we have Reason to believe that Gods sanctifying the first seventh-day-Sabbath, and the Order of Adam and Eve, keeping of it before their six working days, is also of Moral use unto us. 2. I shall show, that an express Law of Moses is not only Abrogated by the Authority of Jesus Christ, but he justifies the doing of it by the Moral Pattern in our first Parents, as may be seen in Mark 10.2, 3, 4. And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a Man to put away his Wife? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a Bill of Divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your Heart, he wrote you this Precept. But from the beginning of the Creation, God made them Male and Female. For this cause shall a man leave his Father and Mother, and cleave to his Wife; and they twain shall be one Flesh— what therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.— And he saith unto them, whosoever shall put away his Wife (Matthew saith except it be for Fornication) and Mary another, committeth Adultery against her. 1. To prevent any mistake about this Precept of Divorcement, and to confirm what I may conclude from our Saviour's Words before recited, I shall consider the Original Transcript of it, in Deut. 24.1. When a Man hath taken a Wife, and married her, and it come to pass, that she find no favour in his Eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness (in our Margin, it is matter of Nakedness) in her; then let him write her a Bill of Divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his House. And here I shall note, that this matter of Uncleanness or Nakedness, is not to be understood of Adultery or Whoredom. For the Dutch Annotations say, that the Hebrew Word signifieth Nakedness or Scandalousness of any thing wherein the Husband taketh dislike to her, except Whoredom or Fornication. And Mr. Ainsworth saith, It is any thing of Shame or Ignominy, as the Greek translateth a Shameful (or Uncomely) thing; and he also saith, that this is thought of some not to be meant of Adultery, for which she was to die, if it were proved; but of some evil thing in her Conditions or Actions which displeased her Husband. Deut. 22.22. So the Phrase was used in Deut. 23.14. for that which was uncleanly and unseemly. 2. The Sense of our Saviour's Words clearly showeth, that this Law of Divorcement was designed for other Matters than for Whoredom or Fornication; for our Lord [owning Moses Precept of Sufferance] to put away their Wives, excepts against it, unless it be in the Case of Fornication; which if it were so limited under the Law, than Moses Sufferance was nothing but what our Saviour still alloweth, and Christ's Prohibition was nothing at all. This being Premised, it now follows that our Lord maketh that Adultery under the Gospel, that was not accounted so under the Law. And from the Moral Pattern in Adam and Eve, he Abrogateth the Use and Authority of Moses Precept, for suffering Men to put away their Wives for smaller Causes than Fornication; and if the Pattern in our first Parents was of such Moral use as to justify our Saviour's abolishing of a written Precept of Moses, we have then Reason also to believe that their Example, or the Order of time of their first observing the Sabbath-day that was sanctified for them, is of Moral use to us, we also having the Jewish Sabbath Abrogated by Christ's Authority in the New Testament. SECT. X. HAving opened and explained the two Foundation Scriptures for our keeping the Sabbath-day, and proved the fourth Commandment to be Morally binding to all Nations; and that the Jewish Pattern for the Sabbath is only Judaical and Ceremonial, and also that from the Israelites first observing their Sabbath in the Wilderness, we have no certain Pattern for having six working days Originally before our Sabbath: And having given some New Testament Instances of divers Cases, warranted and reform by the Pattern in our first Parents, to show that their Example of keeping their first Sabbath is also of Moral use to us: I shall here speak something farther, to explain the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath, which I have already largely showed, See Page 24. began with the Morning Daylight, as our Christian Sabbath doth. And therefore I have only here to add, That it cannot be supposed, but that seeing God rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it for Man, that he also rested, Gen. 2.3, 15, 18. Mark 2.27 and was not allowed on that same day to dress the Garden of Eden, which was his appointed Work in Innocency: For if Adam had liberty to dress the Garden on the Day of God's Rest, and was bound to begin his Sabbath after his six working days, or days wherein he might dress the Garden precisely after God's Example, than he did keep his Sabbath on the sixth day after God's Sabbath, and not on that seventh day successively, which God had sanctified: And if he kept no Sabbath till the next seventh day after God's seventh day of Rest, than Adam had seven days in which he might dress the Garden before his Sabbath; so that Adam must either have kept another seventh day than that precise successive seventh day which God had sanctified, viz. the sixth day from God's Sabbath, or have seven working days before his first Sabbath, contrary to God's Example, or else begin his Sabbath before his working days; and than it follows, that God's seventh day Sabbath after his six days of Creation, was Man's First day Sabbath before his six working days, and after them the same successive seventh day next following God's seventh day Sabbath, was also Man's seventh day Sabbath too. And so the sanctifying of the seventh day in Gen. 2. and accordingly in the Moral Law, which was afterwards given forth to Israel, was answered under the Name either of the first or seventh day Sabbath. And farther to explain this Matter, God's seventh day Rest after his six Creation days, was not designed for a Pattern to Man, that he should also have first six working days before he kept his Sabbath, for then God would either have Created Adam with some other things in the beginning of his first days Work, and have put him in a Capacity to do some business the six Creation days, and then to rest the seventh day on which God rested, or else some other way have ordered six working days Originally for Man before his Sabbath; but seeing it was otherwise, it therefore followeth, that God's seventh day Sabbath was only a Pattern for Man's dividing and counting his time, and for bounding his six working days, that he should not have more working days until a Sabbath, nor be at Liberty, so often as he pleaseth to make any one day in seven his weekly Sabbath, viz. to rest on the seventh day in one week, and on the sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second, or first day in the next week after, which would have tended to confusion: but that Man should have six working days together, and no more, bounded before and after with a Sabbath, as it was in Adam's Pattern. And thus our Gospel first-day Sabbath answereth the design of God in sanctifying and commanding the observation of the seventh day, because it is a boundary before and after to our six working days. Moreover, As I shown before, it could not be said that God rested [a] on the day, or on [the first] day before the Creation, or time was measured by a Day, and therefore the necessity of the Order of Nature placed God's Sabbath after his six Creation days, but there was not the like necessity that the same day of Rest which was also made Adam's Sabbath, should be before his six working days: So that it was fixed by the Lord in the Original Order of Adam and Eves time, that we should have such a Pattern, that not only answereth the principal End of a Sabbath, but all Ends, and suiteth with the alteration of it, and with God's Example too as after Adam's six working days. And though Adam's First-day of Rest, or abstinence from his own Business was on God's seventh day Sabbath; yet seeing that Man's Original Sabbath was not appointed to be kept after God's Example of working six days first before his Sabbath, we have reason to believe that we also are not to follow it farther than we find by the Example of our first Parents, that he designed it should be of use to us. But that Adam's Pattern was to explain the Mind of God in sanctifying the seventh day, which I believe cannot rationally be denied, nor that it should be of Moral use to us, to justify our keeping of the Sabbath after the Gospel Pattern, to answer the design of God in the Moral Precept, and in his first sanctifying of the seventh day against this Exception, that it cannot be said to be Originally introduced by only six working days, after God's Example of making the World, seeing our First Parents did not follow it in this particular. SECT. XI. HAving thus far treated on the Sabbath Day, I shall now proceed to show, that there is a first day to be observed holy under the Gospel, from the Types and Shadows of it under the Law; for all the 〈…〉, and the Law, prophesied until John, Heb. 9.23. Colos. 2.16, 17 and was a shadow of 〈◊〉 my things under the Gospel: And as other things were typed out und●●●he legal Administration, so also the Gospel First-day Sabbath was typed forth under the Law; as it's said, the Feast of Tabernacles, and ingathering of the Fruits of the Land shall be for seven days unto the lord On the first day shall be an holy Convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Levit. 23.34. to 40. Seven days ye shall offer an Offering made by fire unto the Lord: on the eighth day shall be an holy Convocation unto you, and ye shall offer an Offering made by fire unto the Lord; it is a solemn assembly, and ye shall do no servile work therein— on the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath, Ver. 10.15.16, 21. — ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest— And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering seven Sabbaths shall be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meat-offering unto the Lord— and ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, Levit. 25.3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. etc. that it may be an holy Convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein.— Six years thou shalt sow thy Field, and— prane thy Vineyard,— But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the Land— and thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto the— forty and nine years then shalt thou cause the Trumpet of the Jubilee to sound— and ye shall hollow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof— ye shall not sow, neither reap— it shall be holy unto you. That some of these days were appointed as Memorials of Israel's coming out of Egypt, is plainly showed in the Scriptures, and of the Jubilee, besides what is expressed of it: Some have thought, that it was a Memorial of their rest and first settlement in the Land of Canaan, but yet I conceive there was a farther meaning in them, viz. as Types and Shadows of Gospel things: For the seventh day Sabbath, though it was first appointed for a Moral End, and to preserve the Memorial of God's making the World in six days, and resting on the seventh, Exod. 31.15 16, 17. Heb. 4.9. Rev. 20.4, 5, 7. and was also afterwards a sign of Israel's deliverance out of Egypt, yet we find the Apostle makes a farther use of it as the Foundation Type, from whence he proveth there remaineth a Rest to the People of God, which to answer the Types and the Apostles reasoning in this Scripture, is taken for the seventh thousand years of the World. So then to follow this instance, we may thus argue, that those solemn Convocations on the legal first and eighth day, and their fiftieth day, which if you mind the Text was a first day Sabbath, next ensuing one of their legal Sabbaths; a plain and clear Type of our Gospel first-day Sabbath, that should commence next after one of their Jewish Sabbaths: And so their fiftieth Year of Jubilee which followed a seventh Year Sabbath, may figure to us, that as after seven Sabbaths of Weeks they had a first days Sabbath, and as after the seven Sabbaths of seven years, and all those legal and external Bondages of Persons and Things, there should come a time of release by sound of Trumpet with a first Year Jubilee Sabbath; so after all the bondage of the legal Administration, there should come a time of Gospel liberty, Rom. 10.18. proclaimed by the Gospel, with a first days Gospel Sabbath. Thus you see how these Types and Shadows under the Law does figure out our Gospel first days Sabbath, as far, if not farther than many Types does usually suit with Antitypes: but as they have often exceptions in their parallels, so they are not of themselves positive Proofs but illustrations of Gospel things, which seeing we have the Examples of the Primitive Christian Churches keeping their Sabbath on the First day following the Jews Seventh-day Sabbath, or on the first day of their Week, which does fairly and fully answer those Typical Sabbaths under the Law, that are not applicable to any other Scripture observed Times under the Gospel, nor to our Eternal Rest, for that is not doubted to be a Rest from Labour, and a time of Liberty; nor can it be typed to us by Time, because it is Eternal, or by an Eighth day. Seeing there is a Time or Day of General Judgement of Wicked Men, between the seventh thousand years of the World as some believe, and Eternal Rest, then surely the Typical first Days and Years Sabbaths under the Law, does bare the greater Evidence to our first day Sabbath under the Gospel: However, I have no dependence on these Shadows for the Justification of our First days Sabbath, but on the substantial Law of God, and Adam's Pattern answering the first Sanctification of it, to which I shall here add the Example of Christ's Disciples, and the Primitive Churches in the New Testament. SECT. XII. HEre I come to demonstrate the ground we have in the New Testament for our keeping the First day of the Week a Sabbath. And 1. I shall premise, That Christ arose from the Dead on the First day of the Jewish Week, which is frequently called in the Greek Tongue, The one of the Sabbaths, after their mode of Speech agreeing to the custom of the Hebrews, See Dutch Annot. on Mat. 28.1. Luke 24.1. John 20.1. See Dutch Annot. on Gen. 1 5. and on 1 Cor. 16.2. who sometimes set [one] for [first] as may be seen in Gen. 1.5. Chap. 8.5. Numb. 29.1. Dan. 9.1. So that we must read the Greek The one of the Sabbaths, for the First day of the Week, as it is translated in our English Bibles, agreeing to the Greek in Mark 16.9. Now when Jesus was risen early, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, on the first of the Sabbath, or (as it is in our English) on the first day of the week. As Luke 18.12. I fast twice in the Sabbath, that is, twice in the Week. And the Truth of our Translation is farther confirmed, because it's said, In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, towards the first day of the week, Luke 23 53, 54. to the end. Chap. 14.1. etc. Mark 15.42. John 19.31. Luke 24.13, 15, 21. 1 Cor. 15.4. See Mr. John Weemse his Christian Synagogue. Page 75, 81. John 19.14. Christ arose from the dead: For he was crucified the day before the Jewish Sabbath, and on the Sabbath it's said, the Women which followed Jesus from Galilee rested according to the Commandment, and very early on the First day of the Week they came to Christ's Sepulchre, and he was risen, which was on the third day after he was Crucified according to the Scriptures. Now it was the Custom and corrupt Tradition of the Jews when the Passeover Sabbath fell on the day before their weekly seventh day Sabbath, they made but one Sabbath, and kept their Passeover on their seventh day Sabbath, as we find they did when Christ was laid in the Grave, and therefore that Sabbath day being a double Sabbath, was called an High Day. And the first day after, on which Christ arose from the dead, was no Jewish Sabbath, but only the First day of their Week; for there are two things that do evidently and clearly show, that the one of the Sabbaths in the Greek cannot be taken for any one of the Jewish Sabbath-days, but for the first day of their Week: First, Because that seeing Christ arose from the Dead on the next day after the Passeover Sabbath, (as it was then corruptly observed by the Jews) and that the Passeover Feast had but two Sabbaths, viz. Exod. 12.14. to 19 on the first and seventh day of unleavened Bread, than forasmuch as Christ lay in the Grave their Passeover Sabbath, the Day following on which he arose could not be one of their Passeover Sabbaths. Secondly, It cannot be denied but that Christ did eat the Passeover with his Disciples on the right day according to the Commandment, which after our vulgar speech was on Thursday Night, or in the former part of the Jews sixth day, and on Friday, or their sixth day, which was according to the Law the first day of their Passeover Sabbath, he was crucified; and there being no other Passeover Sabbath wherein the Jews were forbidden to work till the seventh day of the Passeover Feast, it must then follow, that the Sabbath on which the Women rested, as it's said, according to the Commandment, being the next day after the first true Passeover Sabbath, was undeniably the Jews weekly seventh day Sabbath, and the day next ensuing called The one of the Sabbaths, and the first of the Sabbath on which Christ arose from the dead, must of necessity be understood of the First day of the Jewish Week after their seventh-day Sabbath, and from thence the Christians observe their First day Sabbath wherein they solemnly worship God. And to this I shall cite the Confession and Testimony of Mr. Theophilus Brabourn in his Discourse upon the Sabbath day, See his Book Pag: 68 wherein he labours to justify the keeping of the seventh day, Saturday Sabbath, saith he, Remember Saturday to keep it holy, etc. Now that Sabbath day was a proper Name of one of their Week days, is apparent to all, since they counted all the other six days of the Week by the Sabbath day; thus the seventh and last day of the Week they (viz. the Jews) called Sabbath-day; the first-day of the Week, our Sunday, they called the first of the Sabbath the second day of the Week, our Monday, they called the second of the Sabbath, our Tuesday the third of the Sabbath, etc. So that the clear Confession of the Saturday Sabbatharians themselves does confirm that which is undeniably manifest in the Holy Scriptures, that the first of the Sabbath (which is so called Mar● 16.9. and is the same as one of the Sabbaths, in the other Evangelists, as hath been showed) is the Name of the First day of the Jewish Week, See his Reply ●age 28. as it is also owned by Mr. Bampfield. 2. This First day Sabbath at its first founding by the Resurrection of Christ, thó it broke the Order of the Jewish working days among the Christians, by taking their first day for our Sabbath, and their Sabbath into the Christians six working or common days, yet there was no breach of the Moral Law respecting the Order of the six working days, considered as being bounded before and after with a Sabbath, for the Jewish Sabbath after their six working days being followed with a New Sabbath, made two Sabbaths together, but this neither broke the Order of the six working days before the Jewish Sabbath, nor of the six working days after the Christian Sabbath, Luke 23.56. nay nor before it; because we must suppose that the Christians at that time kept both the Sabbaths, and did not reckon the Jewish Sabbath, as a common day before the Resurrection of the Lord. So that at the first sounding of our Christian Sabbath, it was bounded with six Jewish working days, and their Sabbath before, and six working days with the seventh-day of Christian Sabbath after i●, and is as much our seventh-day Sabbath after our six working days, as Adam's seventh day Sabbath was after his six working days; which Sabbath, when it was first sounded on God's seventh-day of Rest, was also Adam's first-day Sabbath. From whence I observe, that the Christians Sabbath considered, as both their first and seventh-day Sabbath, is like as it was in the beginning, to which Christ refers us in other things for a Pattern to answer the Moral Law, and to make void the Ceremonial Addition to it, as hath been showed: And now since the abolishing of all Ceremonial Things in the Law of Moses, that we have a Pattern for the Sabbath given to us by the Practice of the Holy Apostles and the Primitive Churches in the New Testament, appears as followeth. 1. After Christ arose from the Dead, Luke 14.1.9, 10, 13, 33, 36. on the first day of the Week, he appeared unto his Disciples and the eleven Apostles, who were gathered together on the same day. John 10.1.19.26. And after eight days Jesus appeared again to his Disciples that were Assembled, which was on the next first-day, being the eighth day; for it was the custom of the Hebrews, after this manner to express this day-week, or this day seven-night, as we have an Instance in 2 Chron. 10.5, 12. And he said unto them, come again unto me after three days, and the People departed. So Jeroboam and all the People came to Rehoboam on the third day. Which Example plainly shows, that after three days, was on the third day; and so here in the Evangelist after eight days, was on the eighth day, or after eight days were come, and not after they were passed on the ninth day, as it is also clearly explained in Mark 8.31. The Son of Man must suffer— and be killed, and after three days rise again. For Christ arose from the Dead, not after, but on the third day after he was Crucified. And to this present day the Hollanders in their Vulgar Discourse, express this day Week after the same manner, saying Over eight days; so that the Disciples were assembled also on the second first day of the Week after the Resurrection of our Lord, who appeared to them on that day also. 3. The Apostle ordered and appointed the Churches of the Galatians and Corinthians, to make their Collections for the Saints on the first day of the Week, 1 Cor. 16.12. which business had no temporary Reason in it to limit the doing of it to that day; and therefore it is a clear Demonstration, that it was the accustomed day of their Assembling together to worship God, and for such Church Affairs; otherwise it's rational to believe the Apostle would have rather left them at Liberty to do it on any day; which Example of this Nature having something of an Institution in it, some have thought it is a sufficient warrant of its self, to justify our keeping of the first day of the Week a Sabbath. 4. In Acts 20.6, 7, 11. It is said, that Paul abode at Troas seven days. And upon the first day of the Week, when the Disciples came together to break Bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to departed on the Morrow, and continued his Speech until Midnight.— When he therefore was come up again, and had broken Bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. First, I observe from this Scripture, that Paul abode there seven days, in which time we hear nothing of his Preaching or of the Disciples coming together, till on the first day of the Week, which was the last of the seven days; so that Paul came thither on the second day of the Week, and tarried till the usual day of their Assembling together, otherwise he need not have straitened himself for time, so as to preach till Midnight, when he was to departed at break of day; but that it may rationally be concluded, that he could not conveniently see the Church in a full Assembly before their usual appointed Time on the first day of the Week. Secondly, Then they came together to break Bread, viz to eat the Lords Supper, for so the same Expression is universally understood in Acts 2.42. So that on the first day of the Week, the Church of Troas Assembled to hear the Word of God, and to solemnize the Ordinances of Jesus Christ; which pattern together with the Example of his Disciples before mentioned (and the occasion of the change of the Jewish Sabbath) answering the Precept of the Moral Law founded on the first sanctifying of the Sabbath, with the Observation of the first and seventh-day Sabbath by Adam, is a sufficient warrant for the keeping of our first-day Sabbath, there being both a Precept and a double Example that justifieth our Observation of it. And this I conceive to be the same day which St. John calls the Lord's day, as Dr. Wallis shows, See his Defence of the Christian Sabbath in Answer to Mr. Thomas Bampfield, Page 48. that we have the more Reason so to presume, because we find it so called by others, very soon after St. John's time— as Ignatius, who was not only Contemporary with him, but was a Disciple or Scholar of St. John— now Ignatius in his Epistle to the Magnesians, even according to the genuine Edition published by Bishop Vsh●● out of an Ancient Manuscript (not that which is justly suspected to be interpolated) he doth earnestly exhort them not to Judaize, but to live as Christians,— not any longer observing the Jewish Sabbath, but the Lords day, on which Christ our Life risen again. It is manifest therefore (saith he, as may be there further seen) that within eight or ten Years after St. John's writing, the Lords day did not signify the Jewish Sabbath, but the first day of the Week, on which our Saviour risen again; and that it was then observed in contradistinction to the Jewish Sabbath,— he also adds, the evidence of Justin Martyr, and farther saith— that Dominica or dies Dominicus hath been so used, not only by the Ancient Christian Writers, Ignatius, Clement, Ireneus, Origen, Tertullian, etc. but by the Councils and Church History all along. Now this Historical Testimony of Ignatius, etc. that the Lords day was accounted from St. John's time, the first day of the Week, is the more to be regarded; seeing Mr. Bampfield in his Reply to the Doctor's Book, does not (as I can find) in the least invalidate the Reputation, or any ways deny the Truth of the aforesaid History. SECT. XIII. HEre I shall observe, that the first day Sabbath which I have been treating of, is asserted by many Authors to be (as its Heathen Name, viz. Sunday, that is still in Vulgar use does witness) the same successive day which the Gentiles from great Antiquity have observed as the chief day of their Week in worship to the Sun, See Dr. Nath. H●lmes his Essay concerning the Sabbath. Chap. 7.8, 9 as Dr. H●lmes showeth how anciently the Sun was worshipped, Jerem. 43.12, 13. He shall break also the Images of Bethshemesh (which in our Marginal Notes is translated the House of the Sun) that is in the Land of Egypt; and the Houses of the Gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with Fire. And Gen. 41.45. And pharaoh called joseph's name Zaphnath-Paaneah: and he gave him to Wife Asenath the Daughter of Potipherah Priest of On; which he translates from the Septuagint, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priest of the City of the Sun. And he citeth divers Authors, as Jo. Gr. Assyr. Monarch. idem Biblian. to show that Nimrod having given to the Sun (his greatest God) the Name of Baal; Nim●od Gen. 10.8. was the Father of Belus. See Mr. Tho. Chasi● on the Sabbath, Page 29. he afterwards assumed that Name to himself. And ●elus giving to their greatest God, the Sun, the Name of Jove (the Contract of J●l●vah) the said Belus afterwards took that Name to himself; and was called Jove Bel. I shall add, that the S●●●, and Moon, and the Host of Heaven were worshipped by the Gentiles before Israel's coming out of Egypt, as seemeth by the strict command given to them, and the Penalty of Death to any Man or Woman that should worship the Sun and Moon, Deut. 17.2, See Mr. Tho. Chasie on the Sabbath. Chap. 15. 3, etc. Also Mr. Chafie proves from divers Authors, that the Heathens did of old Worship the Sun, and that the weekly day, to wit, the seventh-day of every Week, with the Gentiles, which they call the day of the Sun, or Sunday, was the very same day which we call the Lords day. Moreover Mr. Tho. Bampfield in his Reply to Doctor Walls, page 56, 57 saith, That Mr. Chafie tells us, page 40. That to take off the Israelites from this Idolatry, (viz. of worshipping the Sun) the Lord used this means for one, that they should not have the day of the Sun (that is Sunday) for the day of his Worship, but the day before, (that is, the Seventh day) which (saith Mr. Bampfield) I think refers to the Time of the sixteenth or twentieth of Exodus, which (saith he) proves not only the Observation of the seventh-day by the Israelites, but of Sunday by the Heathens, and that very Anciently, and that continually in the Weekly Circulation of days to this day.— And Mr. chafie ninth and fifteenth Chapters saith Mr. Bampfield, I think might give satisfaction, that all Nations of Note under Heaven worshipped the Sun, and that very anciently, as far back at least as the Time of Moses, and that upon Sunday— and that weekly. Now all the Use I intent to make hereof is, that our first day Sabbath (according to the Opinion of some Persons, and to what Mr. Bampfield approveth of in Mr. chafie Book) stands fairest to be the successive seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation of the World; See Dr. H. Essay on the Sabbath. Page 78.79.82. Gen 12.8. Chap. 13.4. as Dr. Holme● saith, We know that Idolaters were always the Apes (as Divines call them) of true Religion. As because Abraham builded an Altar on the Mountain near Bethel, and planted a Grove in Beersheba, and prepared all things at Gods command to offer up his Son Isaac: Therefore Idolaters planted Groves and worshipped in high Places their Idols, Gen. 21.33. Chap. 22. and made their Children to pass through the Fire to them; and therefore (saith he) nothing can be more probable, than that the seventh-day with the ancient Patria●●ks, was no other but that which afterwards was the Sunday, or Day of, or to the Sun with the 〈◊〉, and from them was called Sunday by other Nations also. To which I add, that the Astronomers say, the measure of our days, by the Revolutions of the Sun in a whole Years time, differs between five and six hours from the Revolutions of the Stars; which make a day every fourth or Leap Year, and yet that the odd Minutes in which their Measure differs, being short of a day in four Years, loseth near a day in one hundred Years; and we know not which way, or that any one Method of keeping the Account of the Age of the World, has been constantly and successively used from the Creation thereof to this present day; nor how much time we have lost the Knowledge of, for want of the exact Account of the Ages of the first Patriarches, etc. unto Months and Days, which are omitted in the Scriptures; so that we cannot tell so much as the precise Year of the Creation of the World; as our Astronomers tell us, that according to Verity is 0000, viz. it is not known. Collected in the 〈…〉 Eus●●tus 〈◊〉 ●●nicon, 〈◊〉 552. 〈◊〉 in 1619. And in Eusebius we have divers Authors mentioned, that in their Account of the Year of the World when Christ was born, they differ many hundred Years from each other. Yet the precise Succession of Weeks of seven Days and seven Nights bounded with as many Rise and Setting of the Sun are more eastly preserved; and from God's Example of six working days with a Sabbath were observed by Adam, who at first had no other measure to meet out his Age and Time, and by Noah, Gen 8.10, 12. and were successively handed down by Tradition to Laban, who said to Jacob, fulfil her Week, and so forwards unto Posterity; Gen. 29.27, 〈◊〉 28. and this way the precise Succession of the Sabbath might possibly have been handed down to us from the Creation. But seeing there hath been an Interruption of the orderly course of Nature, and that the Sacred Scriptures do not any ways confirm it to us, nor six the Jewish Sabbath as that precise successive seventh-day (but rather gives us ground to believe that if the precise Succession of the first seventh-day Sabbath was preserved among the Gentiles in Worship to their Idols, or to the Sun before Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt) that seeing God to keep those People from the Idolatry of Egypt and other Nations, did appoint them a new beginning of their Year, and to begin their days at Evening, which before began in the Morning: I say, this rather gives us ground to think, that God did appoint their Sabbath to be kept on a different day also, to what it was before: therefore we may from hence perceive, that th● neither the Jews nor do I believe the Christians can justify their seventh or first day Sabbath on this Foundation, as being the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation, yet our first-day Sabbath standeth fairest for it. SECT. XIV. I Shall here make some Comparisons of the Gospel first-day Sabbath, with the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath; and show the disparity of the Jewish seventh-day, and also treat of the first day Sabbaths beginning in the Morning, with some other Matters; and then proceed to Answer the chiefest Objections I find against our keeping the first or Lordsday a Sabbath. And 1. Our first-day Sabbath better answered the Pattern of our first Parents keeping their Sabbath, than the Jewish Sabbath did; Gen. 1.27, 28. for that after Eve was completely form about the end of the sixth Creation day, as Adam first entered upon his Subordinate Lordship, which God had given him over the Creatures which he had made, and on his first day in the Earthly Paradise, on his first-day Sabbath: So our Lord Jesus, though his Soul was in the Paradise of Heaven, John 20.17. when his Body was in the Grave, yet he was not completely there in Soul and Body too, till he was raised on the first-day of his Ascension in our Nature, far above all Principalities and Powers, to take Possession of his purchased Inheritance and Kingdom to be increased without end. So that herein our first-day Sabbath did Originally answer Adam's first Sabbath, better than the Jewish seventh-day did in the Wilderness. 2. As Adam and Eves Sabbath was Originally their first-day Sabbath, and after their six working days their seventh-day Sabbath too: So our Gospel Sabbath is the Image or Likeness of it, more than the Jewish Sabbath is; for though their seventh-day may be called their first-day Sabbath, respecting their Original keeping it in the Wilderness; yet the Scripture does not show, that it was their first-day Sabbath, from so precise an Epocha of Time (or notable Event) of their Deliverance out of Egypt, as our Gospel Sabbath is from the precise Epocha of the Purchase of our Spiritual and Eternal Salvation; from whence it is a more proper first-day Sabbath, and bears a greater likeness to Adam's Pattern (which had its precise Epocha of Time) than the Jewish Sabbath does from its Original. For though the Jewish Sabbath, was appointed to bare the Memorial of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, yet the Scripture does not show, that it took its Original from the Epocha of the Passover, or from the Red Sea; but contrariwise I find, that Israel came unto the Wilderness of Sin,— on the fifteenth day of the second Month after their departing out of the Land of Egypt; and the following Words are: Exod. 10.1, 2, 3, 11, 12. ●er. 5, 22, 23. And the whole Congregation of the Children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron (for Bread)— And the Lord spoke unto Moses saying— at Even ye shall cat Flesh, and in the Morning ye shall be filled with Bread: Now their first Sabbath in the Wilderness was not till the day after their sixth day of gathering Manna, and from this account; See Mr. Weemse Christian Synagogue. Page 9●. if we reckon as the Jews did their Lunar Year, according to Mr. Weemse ●rogromma of the Hebrew Calendar, that the first Month Nisan (or Abib) hath thirty days, and then reckoning the fifteenth day of this Month on which they departed out of Egypt, unto the fifteenth day of their second Month, and add this day to their six days of gathering Manna with their first Sabbath, it makes together thirty eight days; and so their first Sabbath fell on the third day, after five Weeks time from their departing out of Egypt, and took not its Original from that Epocha, nor any other precise Epocha as a first-day Sabbath; for if any should insist on their gathering Manna six days as an Epocha (which I have showed, was not so for fixing their six working days Precisely and Originally before their Sabbath) it would only render it a seventh-day Sabbath Originally in the Wilderness, and so it could not answer Adam's Pattern of his first-day Sabbath, nor be like it in its Epocha from the perfecting of the first Adam, as our first-day Sabbath was from its Epocha of the perfecting the second Adam. 3. If it should be yet thought (though there is no Reason for it) that the Jewish Sabbath was originally fised to the Israelites in the Wilderness, as following their six working days: I have this to say, that if so, then Israel kept their Sabbath therein (after a Ceremonial Precept) contrary to Adam's Pattern in keeping his first-day Sabbath before his six working days; but as for our first-day Sabbath, we are justified in keeping it by the Example of Christ's Disciples and the Primitive Churches, and the more because as it was changed from the Jewish Sabbath, it is our first-day Sabbath before our six working days, and so it better agrees with Adam's Pattern, than the Jewish Sabbath then can do. 4. If it should be said (as I acknowledge it may) that the Jewish Sabbath may be called their first-day Sabbath, respecting their first observing it in the Wilderness, as a boundary before and after their six working days; and so by Imitation does answer the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath: I have this to Answer, that yet the Jewith Sabbath did not imitate Adam's Pattern, as our Christian Sabbath doth in beginning it with the Morning Day light; for the Jews began their Sabbath at Even contrary to Adam's Pattern, as there is Reason from Scripture to believe. And if it be objected, that the Pattern of Adam, respecting the beginning of his Sabbath in the Morning, is not plainly expressed, but drawn by Interence from the Scripture; but the Jewish Pattern is expressly commanded, and therefore there is better ground of the two to observe the Sabbath after the Pattern in the Mosaical Precept. I answer, 1. It is not expressy said, that Adam's first Sabbath was his first-days Sabbath. Mark 2.27. But yet seeing Christ hath said, the Sabbath was made for Man, and that none can deny, but that Adam was bound in Duty to God to observe Gods seventh day Sabbath, wherein he rested from his Works of Creation, than we may insist on the sufficiency of our Evidence for Adam's beginning his Sabbath in the Morning; it being so rationally inserred, though it is not in Words expressed in the Scriptures. 2. It hath been showed, how our Lord made void the Mesaical Precept of Divorcement, and justified the doing of it by the Moral Pattern in our first Parents; tho' it was not by any express Word of God, nor by so clear an evidence from Adam and Eves being one Fresh, that he nor his Posterity (but by a special permission of God) should not put away their Wives, except for Fornication; as there is Reason to believe that Adam began his Sabbath in the Morning day light. And therefore, tho' Christ might have abolished that Precept without setting a Moral Pattern against it, yet his justifying the doing of it from thence, 2 Tim 3.16. is an Example to be of use to us in other Cases. 3. We have greater Reason to begin our Sabbath in the Morning in every Country, where it can be so observed, after the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath (and the Reason of its change in the New Testament) tho' his beginning of it so is but inferred from the Scripture, and not expressed in it, rather than to begin it after the Jewish Precept at Evening; for were this universally binding, it could not being a Positive Command, accommodate the Necessity of Nature, for the different beginning and ending of the Sabbath, as the Pattern in Adam and the New Testament Example doth. And this I conceive to be one chief Reason, that the Jewish Sabbath is abrogated, and that we have only the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath left us, by rational Inference from the Scripture; and the Reason of the change of the Sabbath in the New Testament, for our beginning of it in the Morning, and that we have not any command fixing of it, as it was to Israel. For 1. That would have either bound us to the precise Point of Time of its beginning in the Lard of Canaan, and then the Memorial of Christ's Resurrection early in the Morning, had not been signified by its beginning in other Nations, remote from their Borders; for in some places it must then begin at Noon, etc. and so its daylight there had been divided, and the Service of God destructed, and our worldly Affairs too much intruding on the meetest time for solemn Worship. Or 2. Such a command to six the beginning of the Sabbath, would have required it univerfally to begin in the Morning, or at the dawning of the Day, which is inconsistent with the course of Nature for many Weeks together in some Northern Parts of the World. And therefore, that those People should not be obliged by any Law to keep such a Sabbath, which they are not capable constantly to observe; God was pleased to leave only the Moral Precept of the fourth command, founded on his first sanctifying of the Sabbath to be binding to us all; that those Northern People should answer it, by beginning their Sabbath with the first and seventh-day, or proportionable Division of a day, bounding before and after their six working days, and allow it the same Proportion of Time, and should preserve the Memorial of the Resurrection of Christ, by observing the first day of the Week, from, and in Distinction to the Jewish seventh-day, as near as they can to Answer the Example of the Primitive Churches in the New Testament. And that we and all others, that have constantly our natural days with Evenings and Mornings twenty four hours long, should answer the same Moral Law after the Gospel Pattern, and as precisely as we can to begin our first-days Sabbaths early, or at the dawning of the Morning in every Nation. For if we, and all other such Nations should be tied successively to begin our Sabbath at the very precise Point of Time, of the d●wning of the first-day in Jerusalem, to contemporize with them in the Land of Canaan, where our Lord afore from the Dead; then they must either in other Countries Eastward to the Sun from the Land of Canaan, begin their Christian Sabbath later in their Daylight, or Westward from them sooner in their Night, than they should in Judea; and so in the Compass of the whole World, Eastward or Westward, there would be a beginning and ending of the Sabbath near a day and night, differing in their Time of day to the dawning of the day in the Land of Canaan; and by this means in some parts of the World, the Christian Sabbath would begin at Noon, at Evening, and at all hours of the Day and Night; and so except in that very spot in and about the Land of Canaan, they would lose its Memorial of Christ's Resurrection at the Dawning of the Day. But if other Countries Eastward and Westward from Canaan, begin as they ought their first-days Sabbath like them at the same time of the day, than they must either begin their first day sooner or later than the first day began in Canaan; and so in the Compass of the World Eastward or Westward, it must begin and end in all Hours of the Jewish seventh or second day of the Week, and in some place their first-day must be in the same time and contemporize with their seventh * Or within a very small time of it: viz. of their seventh or second-day. or in some place with their second-day † Or within a very small time of it: viz. of their seventh or second-day. in the Land of Canaan. And therefore seeing the Sabbath cannot be begun universally, both at the precise Point of Time and Time of day as it should begin in the Land of Canaan, to contemporize with them there: And considering that Adam's Sabbath was not only designed for the Moral end of Man's ab●inence from Work, for a time of solemn Worship to God, but that it had its Memorial of the Creation; and that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath afterwards bearing that Memorial, was also appointed for floral Ends, and for a Ceremonial Memorial that rendered it uncapable of being a universal Pattern; and that the Memorial of Christ's Purchase of our Spiritual and Eternal Salvation should be preferred before that of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, than we ought to observe our Christian Sabbath as much as can be to Answer thereunto the end of its chinge; which may be done by all Nations (including those Northern People) keeping their first-day Sabbath in Distinction to and from the Jewish seventh day. And as for its beginning early in the Morning or at the dawning of the Day, the Scriptures show that so it began in Judea, Matth. 28.1. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn (or as John 20.1. While it was yet dark, i. e. not light day) towards the first-day of the Week, came Mary Magdalen, and the other Marry, to see the Sepulchre, etc. And in Mark 16.2. It's said, they came unto the Sepulchre at the rising of the Sun, and ver. 9 Now when Jesus was risen early, the first-day of the Week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalen,— and said unto her, John 20 1●. Touch me not: for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my Brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. And therefore seeing the Evangelists have Recorded the Time of the dawning and Sun rising of the Day, to the History and Circumstances of Christ's Resurrection, and that we find he was then but newly riten, because he had not yet ascended unto the Father when Mary first saw him: We have then greater Reason to six the beginning of our first-day Sabbath in all Nations, where we can, at the dawning of the day expressed in the Scripture, to bare the fuller Memortal of the Resurrection of our Lord, than at any other time of the day. And this we may strengthen from the Example of the Jews beginning their Sabbath in the Evening, here in England and in other Nations, though our Evenings here differ, and in other Nations are farther from the precise Time of the Evening in the Land of Canaan; and their Reason for it is taken from the Precept of Moses which bindeth them to celebrate their Sabbaths from Evening to Evening. Leu. 23.32. Exod. 12, 18, 19 And therefore seeing God was pleased under the Type of the Gospel Salvation, Church and Sabbath, to require the Memorial of that Deliverance, by beginning their Sabbath in the Evening, as the most proper time to bear its lively remembrance, and that from thence they conclude, it best answereth the express command of God, and his End and Design in fixing the Jewish Sabbath to begin at Evening in the Land of Canaan, for them to begin it so in other Countries also, rather than to begin it at the precise Point of time of its beginning in Canaan, and differ in the Time of day, than we have Reason from the Type and their Example to begin our first-day Sabbath, rather at the dawning of the day in all the World, where we can, than at the precise Point of Time at a different time of day to contemporize in all places. And whatever the Jewish Sabbatharians may invent to say from the Necessity of the Course of Nature in those Northern (or Southern) Parts, against the beginning of our first-days Sabbath early in the Morning, or at the dawning of the day in all other Parts of the World; the same Arguments will equally serve against the beginning of their Sabbath in the Evening, where it can be so observed; so that they cannot gain the least Advantage by opposing us, in beginning our Christian Sabbath early in the Morning, unless they can first invalid and disprove the Authority we bring for our keeping the first-day itself, that it does not answer the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath, the Moral Law in the fourth Commandment, and the Example of Christ's Disciples, and the Primitive Churches, with all the ends of a Sabbath, which is a task too hard for them. And seeing the Scriptures showeth by the Resurrection of our Lord, that our Sabbath should begin at the dawning of the first-day of the Week, it must consequently not end till the dawning of the second-day. Mark 15.42. Luke 23.54. See Mr. Heemse Christ. Synagogue. Page 74. Who tells us the Jews had three Preparations to their Sabba●h Succeeding each other. And from the Custom of the Jews to make Preparations for their Sabbath, the preceding Time from twelve a Clock on Saturday Night (vulgarly so called) till the dawning of the first-day, it that time be not spent in our Night's rest, it should be employed to prepare our Minds for the Worship and Service of God on the approaching Sabbath day. But to proceed, That I may remove any doubts, that may yet arise about the usefulness of the Pattern of Adam's Sabbath to us under the Gospel, I shall add something to demonstrate how far it is of a Moral Nature: for seeing I have forborn to call it a Moral Pattern, because no one Pattern respecting the beginning and ending of the Sabbath can be wholly alike universally so to all Nations; I think it's therefore needful to explain the Moral use that is to be made of Adam's Sabbath, that so whatever different Apprehensions there may be about the use of the Word Mortal ●o adam's Pattern, the thing itself may be understood, and the Controversy may not be fomented about Words, which some have made the Subject of much Discourse, when they have not been able to Confute the thing that was plainly intended by them. 1. Therefore as I shown, Page 2. that from Gods sanctifying the seventh-day for Man, the Light of Adam's Nature taught him, that it was most meet to divide his time like his Creator; and so it became the Moral Duty of Men as Men, to have no more nor less than six working days to one Sabbath. 2. See Page 24. I have also shown the Reason we have from Scripture to believe, that after Adam's first sleep in the Night, when the Hamane Nature was completely form, and Eve was brought to him at the end of the sixth Creation day, their Sabbath began with the Morning day light of the seventh-day, and the first day after the finishing of the Creation; which seeing the Order of Gods Working and Rest, and the Original Moral Duty of Man (when the Humane Nature was completely form) to offer the first of Time to the Praise of his Creator before he served himself, did first begin the Sabbath with the daylight unto Man; we have then Reason to conclude, that such a Sabbath is most morally to be observed by the World, as no other Sabbath can more universally suit with the Course of Nature in the greatest part of it. Indeed God can by his Prerogative, and as I have showed, did dispense with the Alteration of the Sabbath from this first Pattern by a Law to Israel, as he did by the Precept of Divorcement dispense with the Moral Pattern in Adam and Eve, that none should put away his Wife for the causes allowed afterwards by a Ceremonial Law; but this we find did not at all destroy the Moral Use and Binding Quality of the Pattern in our first Parents after Christ was come, and so it is with the first Pattern of the Sabbath, which no doubt was binding to others after Adam, as precisely to observe the same day, as near to the orderly Succession of the same time, as could be, according to the allowance of the Course of Nature in every Climate wherein they dwelled. It's true, it may be said we cannot keep the Sabbath from our Knowledge, that we observe the same precise Succession and Order of Time as Adam did, and others in the first Ages did or should do in their feveral Countries. But then as God was pleased, Exod. 13.2, 12, to 16. insig●d of the firstborn of the Children of Israel (which were the Lords) to require and accept of the Levites for his Service, Exod. 34.19, 20. Numb. 3.41, to the end. Chap. 8.16, etc. Levit. 27.25, 26, etc. Chap. 22.29, 30. Deut. 12.6. but still kept up the Memory of his Right by Causing afterwards the Israelites to acknowledge it in paying Redemption Money for their firstborn of Man, and unclean Beasts, and did still require the firstborn of clean Beasts to be offered to him: So likewise the Practice of Christ's Disciples and the Primitive Churches, shows us, that the first of Time from the work of purchasing our Redemption, bearing the Image of the first of Adam's and Eves Time from the Creation, is most acceptable to God; and after the aforesaid Example of God's Command and Allowance to Israel, concerning their firstborn, we should likewise offer it as God accepteth of it, instead of the same precise Succession of Time from the Creation in Memorial thereof, and of the purchase of Man's Salvation. And it is rational to conclude, that seeing the beginning of the day was changed upon the account of the Type, a day might well be changed upon the account of the Antitype. If this in the Figure was reckoned worthy of such Note, that the account of the days beginning from the Creation with the Daylight, most give place to the Memorial of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, so as that their days must begin at Evening, the substance of this Figure appearing, might well be the Cause of the Change of a Day, and of a Typical Memorial to its Spiritual and Gospel Memorial in our first-days Sabbath. To close this Matter, seeing the Moral Law requireth the seventh or first-day a boundary to our six working days, and that the Precept for the Jewish Pattern is abtogated in the New Testament, Nature itself also taking away its binding quality to all Nations, because it cannot accommodate its necessity; how then can we answer the fourth Command, so well as by keeping such a Sabbath, that every way agreeth with that Moral Precept, that also suiteth with, and is justified by the Morality of Adam's Sabbath, the end of its change from the Jewish seventh-day, and the Example of Christ's Disciples with the Primitive Churches, which doubtless we are bound to follow in Obedience to the fourth Command, as we observe their Examples in Obedience to other Precepts: As for instance, laying on of Hands, for Confirmation of Elders (or Church Officers) and consummating their Ordination, is a Diulne Rite, which is the Duty of all Complete and Orderly Gospel Churches, Authoritatively to Practise Ordination of Elders, being Instituted in Titus 1.5. but yet the manner of completing this Institution is no otherwise known, nor practised by us (as I can find) but from the Examples of the Apostles and Primitive Churches, Acts 14.23, 26. with Chap. 13.1, 2, 3. Chap. 6.1, to 7. Objections Answered. Object. 1. THE Psalmist saith, Psal. 147.19, 20. He showeth his Word anto Jacob, his Statutes and his Judgements unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any Natton: and as for his Judgements they have not known them. Answer: This Scripture is no ways repugnant, to what I have said of the Use and Benefit of the Law of Moses to the Gentiles. For we find the Israelites had continual Wars with the Heathens round about them, and the old Inhabitants of Canaan were not wholly subdued till Joab, David's Servant, 1 Chron. 11.4, etc. Chap. 19.20. took the Castle of Jebus, which is Jerusalem, or about the latter end of David's days: So that till they had obtained Peace and Rest, and became in Repute and Honour in salomon's Reign, it cannot rationally be supposed that any Gentile Nation (for the Text excludes not single Persons) had a full and distiuct Knowledge of Moses Law, with the Statutes and Judgements therein contained. Nay tho' the Gentiles had an Interest in the Uso and Benefit of the Law, and were to seek after the Knowledge of the Oracles of God committed to the Jews; yet such was their hatred against them, and love to gross Idolatry, that till about two hundred eighty Years before the Nativity of christ, See Josephus Book 12. Ch. 2. Ptolemy Philadelphus' King of Egypt, had caused the Law to be translated into Greek by the Seventy two Interpreters, it was never as I can find translated out of the Hebrew Tongue. So that as David rightly said, that God had not dealt so with any Nation, viz. with any other Nation besldes Israel; so as to show them his Oracles under a peculiar Obligation in trust for others also, He having designed to pour the Water out of jacob's Buckets; it is likewise also Evident, Numb. 24.7. that no Gentile Nation then● in David's Time had a full and distinct Knowledge of God's Laws, tho' respecting the particular Election of God among them, they might by some means or other receive the true and saving Knowledge of the Messiah through their converse with the Jews. Object. 2. Some may say, the Apostle in Rom. 14.5. seemeth to leave the keeping of days to our own Liberty; and also in 2 Cor. 3.7, 8. Coloss. 2.14. he seemeth to abolish the binding quality of the Ten Commandments, as given on Mount Sinai, and therefore it is doubtful, whether we are under any Obligation to keep a Sabbath or Day of Rest at all. Answer, 1. To Rom. 14.5. One Man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every Man be fully persuaded in his own Mind. Whatever some may imagine from this Scripture, yet seeing Adam in Paradise had his Sabbath, for the solemn worship of God, Levit. 23.3. and Israel had their Sabbath for the same end, and to rest from their work and labour, there being still the same Moral Use and Necessity of Nature for a Sabbath; there is Reason to believe, that such a day is to be observed as well now, and in after Ages, as it was before. And considering the undeniable Evidence, that hath been given to prove the Decalogue to be Morally binding to us under the Gospel, there is a necessity for the Preservation of the Concord of Holy Writ to give such an Exposition of this Text of Scripture, as will both suit and agree with the Letter of it and the binding quality of other Scriptures to keep a Sabbath-day. To proceed therefore, the Apostle surely would not have singled forth the first-day of the Week (on which the Churches were wont to have their Assemblies) as the properest time to make their Collection for the Saints: Nor would the Apostle John have called it the Lords day (as hath been showed from History) if it had not been a sanctified day for Holy Use, neither would the Holy Ghost have Recorded the Disciples gathering together on the two first-days after the Resurrection of Christ, nor that the Church of Troas came together on the first day of the Week, to solemnize the Gospel Ordinances of Divine Worship, as the only Examples to answer the Moral Law in the fourth Commandment. If the same Spirit of Truth in the Apostle had here designed to make every day alike Common. 2. If the Apostle in this Scripture had so designed, he would not have cited so many Precepts of the Ten Commandments in Chap. 13.9. of the same Epistle, and have said of the rest of them, as binding to the Romans, to confirm his Moral Doctrine, That if there be any other Commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. And therefore seeing, he doth so plainly discover the binding quality of the Ten Commandments to the Gentile Christians; there is no Reason to conceive, he should dissolve the Obligation of any one of them in the following Chapter; considering that the Liberty there mentioned of esteeming or not esteeming of Days, is not there referred or applied, as having Retation to the Moral Observation of the sourth Command. 3. The Apostle would not have abolished (as hath been showed) the Jewish Feasts, Holy days and Sabbaths, Colos. 2.16, 17. nor have said to the Galatians, Ye observe Days, Gal. 4.10. and Months, and Times, and Years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in Vain. If he or any other by Christ's Authority, had given absolute Liberty for Christians to observe the Jewish Holy days. And therefore the sense of this Text, which is freest from all Exceptions; is, That the Apostle neither giveth us Liberty to slight the Observation of the seventh-day required of us in the fourth Commandment, as the Bond of the Gospel Pattern; nor yet doth give us absolute Liberty to observe the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath, and their other holidays; but he is teaching us, how we should bear with one another in indifferent Matters, as the eating of Herbs, and esteeming of Jewish days: That in Case a Brother should be so weak as that after he is converted from the Jewish Religion to the Christian Faith, he should still retain some esteem of their Holy days, yet being sound in all the Essential Principles to Salvation, and in the constituted Order of a Regular Gospel Church, his Communion is not to be refused; Ver. 1. but here let the Reader well observe, that my meaning is not, that any Church should receive such a Christian into full Communion with them at the Lords Table, that holdeth and maketh our first-day Sabbath only as a common day to him (for this in the Judgement of a Church according to Scripture Rule, bringeth him under the guilt of Sin, and the Church should not partake of it, by their holding such full Communion with him.) But the Apostle means, that in Case a Converted Jew as he is there treating of, such a one as maketh a difference between Meats to be Clean and Unclean, Ver. 14 1● if he should still esteem some of their Holy days, yet if he also keepeth the first-day Sabbath Holy unto the Lord, the Church in such a Case should be tender of grieving his weak Conscience, by Continual and Uncharitable Disputations with him about the Matter wherein he is not clearly enlightened, so as to give him an occasion to stumble and shall at the Offence. For seeing he Conscientiously keepeth Holy the first-day Sabbath, Gal. 4.13, 15, 20, 21, 23. for his retaining an esteem for some Jewish Holy days, (so they be kept to the Lord in Christian Worship and not for Jewish Sacrifices or such things which betoken Christ's not being yet come and fully exhibited in the Flesh) we are not to deny Communion at the Lords Table with such a Brother, seeing he neither observeth the Jewish days to uphold their worship, contrary to the Prohibition of Legal Ceremonies under the Gospel Dispensation, nor can any ways be charged with disorders in Ordinances, or in Matters Essentially pertaining to the Regular Constitution of a Gospel Church. And that this is the Mind of Christ in the Text appeareth in two things, (1.) Because the Apostle joineth this Liberty of Regarding, or not Regarding of days with Eating or not Eating of Meats, as things of a like indifferent Nature; but the Keeping or not Keeping of the Weekly Sabbath, hath been fully proved to be no indisserent thing, but an absolute Duty; and therefore it is none of the Subject Matter included in the Apostles Words. (2.) He intended to give no Liberty to observe the Jewish days for Legal Ceremonial Worship; for this under the Gospel would not be counted a keeping of a day to the Lord, but not a keeping of it to him; and so as the Apostle argueth, it is not a keeping of a day at all. And thus having opened this Scripture, and given the sense of the Apostles Words in Reconciliation to the Authority of other Places, that are binding to us for the Observation of the Sabbath day, I shall leave it to the serious Consideration of the Impartial Reader. Answer 2. To the Objection from 2 Cor. 3.7. where the Apostle saith, But if the Ministration of Death, written and ongraven in Stones was glorious, so that the Children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the Face of Moses, for the Glory of his Countenance, which Glory was to be done away, how shall not the Ministration of the Spirit be rather Glorious. In Answer to this Scripture, I shall Note, that in the preceding and following Verses, the Apostle is signifying the different and exceeding Glory of the Ministration of the quickening Spirit in the Gospel, to the Ministration of Death in the Law; and he telleth us, that the Glory of the Ministration of Death, had no Glory in respect to the Ministration of Righteousness that excelleth it in Glory: So that, that which was to be done away, does not appear to be the binding quality of the Ten Commandments, as a Rule of Holy Life or the Commandments themselves, but the Renown of their glorious manner of Ministration to Israel, (which is incomparable to the Revelation of the Grace of God in the Gospel) with their power of final Condemnation, to those that lay hold of, and have an Interest in the Ministration of Righteousness by Jesus Christ. Answer 3. To the Objection, from Coloss. 2.14. Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his Cross: Here some may also think, the Apostle hath abolished the binding quality of the Ten Commandments: but it otherwise appeareth from the Reasons following. And 1. I shall here recite the Dutch Annotations on this Scripture: say they, Having blotted out, [that is, dashed through and expunged, or wholly razed out, as we speak] the hand-writing which was against us, [the Greek word Cheirographon,] i. e. Handwriting, some do take here for a Writing written with Gods own hand in Tables of Stone, as the Law of the Ten Commandments was, Exod. 34. ●. and this is by them understood of the Moral Law, or of the Ten Commandments, which are said to be against us, in respect of their strict requiring of perfect Obedience; or in default thereof, by Reason of its Curse, which Christ hath born for us on the Cross, and delivered us from it, Gal. 3.10, 13. But seeing the Apostle here properly sets himself against the Observation of Circumcision and other Ceremonies, therefore this Handwriting is here to be understood of the Law of the Ceremonies of the old Testament, which are called, an Handwriting that was against us, because the same were as an Engagement or Bond of Debt, whereby indeed Men daily acknowledge their Trespasses and Debts before God, but notwithstanding were never discharged by the outward Performance of the same, as Paul declares, Heb. 10.1. As this Word Cheirographon or Handwriting is also taken in the Greek Text, T●b. 5.3. and 9.3. This appears also by comparing this place with Eph. 2.14, 15. where this Word Handwriting in Institutions, is called the Law of Commandments in Institutions, which Word Dogmasi, i. e. Ordinances or Institutions, is not where in God's Word used for the Law of the Ten Commandments, nor yet the Word Dogmatizes, the Ver. 20. And that which is there added by Paul proves this also clearly. For the Moral Law, properly, maketh no Enmity betwixt Jews and Gemiles, seeing that is also written in Nature, Rom. 2.14. but it is only the Ceremonial Law, by which this Difference and Enmity betwixt these Nations is occasioned as is noted there. Neither can it be well said of the Moral Law, That Christ hath taken it away by his Death, to free us wholly from the Observation thereof, as Paul's intent here is to prove. For althô we are by Christ delivered from the Curse and Rigid Observation of the Moral Law, nevertheless we remain obliged to the Observation thereof, as the Rule of Thankfulness which we own unto God for our Deliverance. To this I shall here add, Levit. 11. Deut. 14.21. Acts 10.12, etc. Rom. 14.14. Luke 15.2. John 4.9. That the Ceremonial Law was against the Gentiles, as a Wall of Partition that kept them more separated from the Jews, than under the Gospel Administration. For 1. There was a difference in Meats that were forbidden to the Jews by the Law of Moses, but were lawful for the Gentiles to eat, and this did occasion some Separation of the Jews from them. Deut. 7.3. Ezra 9.1, 2, 14, etc. Chap. 10. 2. The Jews were not to take them Wives of the Heathens, nor join Affinity with other Nations round about them. 3. Josh. 14 & 15. Levit. 25.25. Rom. 9.27. Gal. 3.14, 17, 29. The Land of Canaan was given and divided by Lot to the Children of Israel for an Inheritance, and they were not to sell their Possessions for a longer time than the Year of Jubilee. So that the Gentiles could not inherit the Land with them, but were separated as Strangers and Sojourners. 4. Dent. 14.1, 2. Rom. 9.4, 5. Tho' according to the Election of God in the Covenant of Grace, there were a remnant of literal Israel saved, as the Seed of Christ; yet as they were a Nation in the peculiar Covenant of Circumcision, they were all accounted the Children of God above all the Nations that were upon the Earth; Isa. 56. in so much as the Prophet showeth that the Sons of the Strangers, who laid hold on the Righteousness to be revealed, and of God's Covenant, (viz. of Grace in Christ) were under such Discouragements as to say, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his People. 2 Cor. 3.13, 14, 15. For the Law being such a Veil, that the Children of Israel coald not steadfastly look unto the end of that which is abolished, was also a Cloud on the Minds of the Gentiles; though the Lord was pleased to enlighten a Remnant of them, so as to discern his Grace in Christ through that shadowy Dispensation. But the Knowledge of the Oracles of God, which the Elect then sought after amongst the Jews; now since the breaking down of the middle Wall of Partition, Math. 28.19. is sent by Christ's Commission, and more clearly opened and revealed by the Ministry of the Gospel to all Nations: Ephes. 3.4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same Body, and partakers of the Promise in Christ by the Gospel. So that the Legal Covenant or Handwriting of (Ceremonial) Ordinances mentioned in the Text, though it was neither a Bar against the Proselyting of the Gentiles, if they would to the Jews Religion, nor did so blind their Minds, as to hinder a Remnant of them from laying hold on Christ by Faith; yet as it added nothing simply of itself to the Salvation of their Souls, by reason they could attain the Knowledge of the Oracles of God, without putting themselves absolutely under the Covenant of Circumcision, therefore it was a means to keep them out of the Visible Church-state, and was such a Wall of Partition and Veil upon their Understandings, as in great measure did hid the Mystery of Christ: Which the Apostle saith in other Ages, was not made known unto the Sons of Men, as it is now revealed unto his Holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit— Whereof (saith he) I was made a Minister— that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ. Object. 3. A Jew Travelling from Canaan Westward round the World, pieceth every day in length, but loseth in the Compass of the whole Globe a day in Tale; so that when he cometh home, the first-day in Canaan is by his account but the seventh-day; and contrariwise if he Traveleth round the World Eastward, he loseth in the length of his days, but gaineth a day in Tale; so that by his account the first day in Canaan falleth to be his second day at his return; from whence some have argued, that neither a Law nor Example can bind us universally to the Observation of any one Day, and therefore if it were agreed amongst men, any day of the Week, or one day in seven may be made our seventh-day Sabbath, boundary to six working days, and so would answer the Moral Law. Answer, 1. The Question is, Whether the Moral Law bindeth us to keep the seventh-day, which men may appoint at their own pleasures, or the seventh-day that we are directed unto in the Holy Scriptures. Phil. 3.17. 2 Thes. 3.9. Surely we ought to exert our Obedience to God's Precepts after the Examples of those that are set forth to be an Example to us. I say not that we should follow them in all things they ever did, but in all things they did which were essential to answer any Moral or Gospel Precept given for our Practice, and consequently in this particular of the first-day Sabbath. For seeing the Ceremonial Precept for the Sabbath is abrogated, and the Course of Nature maketh it impossible to be morally binding to all Nations; we have then no other Directions, how to answer the Moral Law, but the Gospel Pattern justified by the Example of our first Parents; and therefore we having a positive Law to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, we are under a necessity to make that our Pattern. For tho' the Apostle did go into the Jews Synagogues, and there pre●●●hed the Gospel on their seventh-day Sabbath, 2 Tim. 4.2. as the meetest time to Convert both the Jews and Gentiles who assembled together on that day: Yet we no where sinned in Scripture, that the Apostles, Disciples of Christ, and Primitive Churches did of choice set apart that day, but the first day of the Week for Gospel Service; and this being Recorded as the only Example of the Gospel Church's Obedience to the Moral Law, in this particular of the Sabbath, surely it is lest for our Directions, whatever is otherwise handed down by Humane History as the Practice of some Christians; for the Scriptures snew, that divers were under mistakes and errors, Acts 15.1, etc. Gal. 2.12. Ch. 4.21. and Ch. 3 and very Subject to Judaize even in the Apostles days. 2. Mr. Chasie saith, That Mr. Ironside also, from the Diversity of Meridian's, proveth that one and the same day cannot be universally kept, and therefore never commanded the whole Church. One and the same day (saith he) could not possibly be observed a Sabbath by all the Jews, in the East parts and West parts 〈◊〉 of Judea, and in Babylon, and in Rome, by Reason of their Diversity of Longitudes. And if it be supposed to be but two or three 〈◊〉 difference of Longitudes, yet will that difference make the days as truly to differ from being the same, as will an hundred and three, though it will not make them so much to differ. But altho' this be true, and the Law of Moses for fixing the Jewish Sabbath to begin at Even in the Wilderness, and in the Land of Canaan, was never designed to bind the Israelites to that which is impossible, viz. to begin their Sabbaths both at the same time of day, and at the precise Point of Time to contemporize in all places where they sojourned; yet it doth not from hence follow, as some have argued, that such differences of days do free us, from all Obligations to keep any one particular day; so that if Christians agree upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, or any other day of the Week, to make it the seventh-day Sabbath after our six working days, it does answer the Mind of God in the Moral Law, as well as by keeping our first-day Sabbath. For although (as I have proved) the Jewish Sabbath being by Law to begin at Even, was therefore never designed for a universal Pattern to all Nations; yet who will say, that it was not a Pattern for the Jews in all places that had Evenings, where they did sojourn, and where the days have no Evenings for many Revolutions of the Sun, there was no Provision made for their Sabbath in the Ceremonial Law which they were under. For God had placed Israel within other Nations, and required all their Males three times a Year to appear before him in Jerusalem. And therefore, Dem. 16.16. they were not to sojourn so far amongst the Heathens as those Northern (or Southern) Parts, while they were a free and peculiar Kingdom of Priests to God. Exod. 19.5, 6. So then notwithstanding the Ceremonial Precept for the Sabbath was neither designed to oblige the Heathens In those Northern Countries, if they were then inhabited, nor could by Reason of the difference of their days accommodate the Jews to keep their Sabbaths there: Yet if that Law was binding at all, under the least Alteration of their Day (as I think none can doubt of that, nor consequently that it was obliging to the Jews in other parts of the World also, where the days differed more in Point of Time, to begin their Sabbaths at Evening, with allowance to comply with the Necessity of the Course of Nature) I say then, seeing that Ceremonial Precept was binding under such Alterations of their day, it must be granted that it obliged them not to vary from one another in the time of keeping their Sabbath, farther than the Necessity of Nature did compel them for the beginning and ending of it at the time prefixed by the Law. Otherwise if their Law did not so restrain them, it was of no force nor use to them, and consequently if the Gospel Pattern for us to keep the first day Sabbath, be any Pattern at all for us to follow, as I have showed it is, it doth then oblige us to observe it, with no farther Allowance to alter the day, than to accommodate the Necessity of Nature in every Country where we dwell. Object. 4. Tho' God's seventh-day Sabbath, on which he rested after his six Creation days, was Adam's first-day Sabbath of Abstinence from work before his six working days; yet that was properly Gods own Sabbath on which he rested, and not adam's, because he could not be said to rest before he had any working days; and therefore, though Adam abstained from work on God's Sabbath, yet the Moral end of God's Example, fixed Adam's first Sabbath to begin on the next seventh day after the Sabbath on which God had rested from his Work of Creation. Answer, 1. Adam was either allowed to dress the Garden on God's seventh-day of Rest, which he sanctified, and so to have seven working days, as hath been said, before he could rest on the next successive seventh-day, or have his seventh-day rest a day before it; which I believe none will affirm, or else he was bound in Duty to keep his Sabbath before his six working days on God's seventh-day of rest, and then it was Adam's Sabbath also; Mark 2.27. as Christ plainly tells us, That the Sabbath was made for Man, and not Man for the Sabbath. 2. There is two Moral Reasons for Man to Sabbatise or keep a Sabbath. The one is to abstain from work, that he may devote himself to Worship his Creator; the other is to rest and refresh himself from his Toil and Labour. Now altho' many Men have not toiled themselves in any Work, and so have no need of a rest to refresh their Bodies; yet such are bound to keep the Sabbath as well as others, in ceasing from finding their own Pleasure, and speaking their own Words, and to Honour God on his Holy Day, Isa. 58.13. So then, tho' Adam and Eve had not passed one working day, before they had God's seventh-day Sabbath made for them; yet it was their Moral Duty to abstain from Work, and to Dedicate that very day, to Attribute their Praise and Worship to him. For we find by Abel's Offering the Firstlings of his Flock, Gen. 4.4. which was afterwards required of Israel with all the first Fruits of the Land of Canaan, that the first of all our Increase is most acceptable to God; and so by the same Rule, was the first of Time after the Creation. And when Adam was put into the Garden of Eden, and had seen all the and Beasts of the Field, and the Fowls of the Air; and after that had Eve brought to him, which God had form for a help Meet for him; and had taken a little view of the Works of God in the Heavens, and on the Earth, and of his own Happy Estate and Lordship over the Creatures: Then surely it was his Moral Duty, before he served himself in any Work or Business of his own, most solemnly to Praise and Glorify God for Creating him after his own Image, and making him Lord over all the Earth. And this seemeth to have been the Work of Man and Angels, from Job 38.7. When the Morning Stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for Joy. For though it may be doubted what these Morning Stars are, and how they sang; yet the Sons of God most properly were the Angels and Man, who bear the greatest Likeness and Image of their Creator; of those then it's said they all shouted for Joy; and I observe from the Text, that as this could not be precisely at the same instant, when the Foundations of the Earth were laid, but rather when the Works of Creation were finished; because neither the Natural Stars nor Mankind were then form: So there is no Reason to understand the Text of any Time after the fall of Man, for then the Enmity of the Evil Angels against God, would rather excite them to Curse, than to Rejoice and Praise him for his Works. It's true the Word [all] is sometimes taken for a part, and not the whole; but not here, for when God had finished his Work on the sixth-day, He saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. So that neither Man nor Angels were then fallen, nor before this Solemn Acclamation of Joy, for that would have been a Check unto it. Besides, we find nothing mentioned in the Text of Redemption-Grace, but of the Works of Creation; and therefore, we have the greatest Reason to refer it to a Time of solemnising the Praises of God, between the finishing of the Creation, and the Fall; and there is Reason to believe, that so it was; for why should we imagine, that God should Create all things very good and in Perfection, and never receive their perfect Homage and Praise. It is therefore rational to believe, that God did not suffer sin to Marr the Perfection of his Works, till all was finished and did show forth his Praise. And then if Man had a time in Persection to solemnize the Praise of his Creator, when could it best be done, but in the sanctified time of Abstinence from his own business? Mr. H. Soursby and Mr. M. Smith in their Book, Page 67. say the Seventh day was a Paradise Institution. for though his Mind was then Pure, and served God always; yet why did God sanctify the Sabbath for Man in Innocency (as it is confessed by our seventh-day Sabbatharians) if it was not principally for his solemn Worship; for though he had work appointed in Innocency, to dress and keep the Garden of Eden, yet it was not toilsome but delight some to him; for Adam's eating his Bread in Sorrow, and with the Sweat of his Face, came by the Curse that fell upon him for his Sin; seeing therefore the Sabbath at its first sanctifying, was not principally Hallowed for Man to rest and refresh his weary Body, which became one Moral end of it through the Accident of Sin foreseen by God; but that it was first sanctified for Man to abstain from Work, most solemnly to worship his Creator before he served in his own Affairs; and considering God himself had no need of a Day of Rest, for he fainteth not, nor is weary; and so his Declaration of it was for the Sake of Man to exert his worship to him; we may then conclude that Adam's first Sabbath was most properly fixed before his six working days, to answer the Prime and Chief end of Hallowing of it, after such manner as best became our first Parents in the State of Innocency. Object. 5. But some may say, Tho' by Adam's first keeping his Sabbath, we have no Example for beginning our Sabbath, originally after our six working days, yet the six days in which Israel first gathered Manna was to settle the keeping of their Sabbath, as after their six working days, and not before them. Answer 1. Tho gathering Manna six days before their first Sabbath in the Wilderness, is not where assigned as a fixing their first Sabbath, after no more than six working days. But it rather appears, as to Man an Accidental thing: For we find that God first gave the People Manna upon their murmuring, because of hunger. Besides, if God had designed to six six working days before their first Sabbath, it would better have suited such an end, for God to have sanctified the seventh-day from their first Passover, or from the Red Sea, when they were delivered from Pharaohs pursuing of them; but notwithstanding Israel were freed from the fear of their Enemies, and had nothing, as I can find, to hinder their resting on the next seventh-day after, yet if we reckon the day on which Moses and the Children of Israel sang and danced before the Lord for Joy of their Deliverance; and the three days they were in the Wilderness of Shur, and after that their coming to Morah, and their Encamping after that at Elim by the twelve Wells of Water and seventy Palm Trees, from whence they removed unto the Wilderness of Sin, where they murmured for Bread; and also count unto the day of their gathering Manna, we cannot rationally allow so little as seven days time, and yet it was the seventh-day after all this, which was their first Sabbath in the Wilderness, in which time from their coming from the Red Sea, they might have had at least two seventh-day Sabbaths; and therefore I see no Reason to believe, that their gathering Manna six days before their Sabbath, was designed of God as a fixing six working days before their first Sabbath, seeing neither the Scripture does so assign it, nor that the Lord did appoint either the first seventh-day, after their first Passover, or after their Deliverance from the Red Sea, to be their Sabbath; but suffered them to break such an Order, by having more than six working days unto their first Sabbath after their Deliverance. 2. If the Lord had designed to make the Sabbath next after the first six days of Israel's gathering Manna, a Pattern for all Nations to have answered the Moral Law; in keeping the same seventh-day Sabbath precisely and successively from that Original Point of Time, he would not have absolutely limited the beginning and ending of it, to be observed from Evening to Evening, but would have lest the beginning and ending thereof to other Times of the Day and Night, as would suit with every Nation, and render them capable to answer the Moral End and Equity of the Law. Object. 6. The Lord on Mount Sinai made known unto Isratl his Holy Sabbath, Nehem. 9.13, 14. and therefore his Sabbath was not altered. Answer, The Word [his] Holy Sabbath, no more confirmeth the Sabbath made known to Israel, to be the precise successive seventh-day Sabbath from the Creation, than Gods giving those people at the same Place (as it is there expressed) right Judgements and good Statutes, etc. called in Psalm 147.19. a showing his Word unto Jacob, his Statutis and his Judgements unto Israel: Must be taken in a limited Sense, of the Will of God implanted in our first Parent's Nature, or delivered to them, or ●o Noah, or Abraham by Revelation, in Distinction to and Exclusion of the Ceremonial Precepts of the Law. And therefore, as we have no Reason, so to limit his Statutes and his Judgements, so there is no Reason to understand [his] Sabbaths in a limited sense of the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation; but of his Sabbath instituted in the Wilderness, as well as his Word, Statutes and Judgements, or whole Will there appointed, which was not so made known before to any Nation. Object. 7. The Sabbath was instituted and fised to Israel in the Wilderness, before the Law was given on Mount Sinai; and therefore it did not pertain unto it, as a Molaical new day; but as it was sanctified from the Creation it was then restored, and soon after repeated and confirmed again in the fourth Commandment. Answer 1. I have already showed, that Adam's Sabbath and the days afterwards, began with the Morning daylight. And that after Israel's departure out of Egypt, the account of their days for their Sabbaths and Holy things, were changed from what they were reckoned before, in adam's, Lots, jacob's and Laban's time. So that by that account of the beginning and ending of their days, the Jewish Sabbath could not be the precise successive seventh-day rest from the Creation. And considering, it was never assigned in Scripture to be the same, but rather another day, to draw the Israelites from the Idolatry of the Heathens, who worshipped the Sun on our first-day, called therefore Sunday, which is believed to be most likely the old seventh-day from the Creation. And also seeing, the Lord himself interrupted the orderly Course of Nature, and consequently the precise Succession of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath: There is therefore no Reason to think, that the Sabbath fixed to Israel in the Wilderness was the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation. 2. Tho' the Sabbath was given to Israel before the Law was promulgated on Mount Sinai, yet it follows not, that therefore it was that old precise seventh-day; for if this should pass for sufficient proof thereof, than we may say the Month of Abib, Exod. 12.2, 14, etc. Ver. 49. Chap. 13.2, 4. etc. which was commanded to be the first Month of the Year to Israel, was counted the first Month of the Year before: And that the Institutions for the Passover, and the Feast of unleavened Bread: That one Law should be to him that is home-born, and to the Stranger that sojourned among them: That Israel should sanctify all their firstborn of Man and unclean Beasts, as well as of clean Beasts, that these as well as their Sabbath-day by the same rule, were all of an ancienter date than their Deliverance out of Egypt, because they were commanded before the Law was given on Mount Sinai. 3. From those Words, Exod. 16.27, 28. which were spoken upon the going out of some of the People to gather Manna on their first Sabbath: Saying, How long resuse ye to keep my Commandments and my Laws? We have no Reason to believe, that the same duy was known to them for the Sabbath-day, before that present time of their gathering 〈◊〉, for the Laws and Comu●●ments of God are there expressed in the Plural Number; and therefore, the Lords comp●●●●ing of Isra●●, former disobedience, must have respect to some other Laws and Commandments made before, Chap. 15.25, 26. and 18.15, 16. or to their Murmur, Chap. 14.11, 12. Chap. 15.24. and 16.3, 8 and to the breach of his Law in leaving some of the Maun● till the Morning, vo. 19, 20. all which were before the Lord compleined in the Text of the ●●ople, for going forth on the first Sabbath. And therefore, this Scripture hath nothing in it, to prove that Isra●ls Sabbath in the Wilderness was the old pre●ise successive Sabbath known to them and broken by them before. Nor doth the Cantion given in the fourth Commandment, to [Remember] the Sabbath day to keep it Holy show the same, for so it's said, Exod. 13.3. Remember this day in which ye came out from Egypt. Besides 'tis said, Exod. 16.29. See for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, (called a Sabbath, ver. 25.) therefore he giveth you on the sixth-day the Bread of two days. Exod. 13.22. So that by the Rulers coming before to tell Moses of the People's gathering the Bread of two days, as if they knew not of the Sabbath to be the Reason of it, till Moses told them of it in his Answer to them; wherein he first made mention of their Sabbath, and also, because 'tis there said to be [given] to them, as a day they had not known for a day of Rest before, it appears, therefore to be a new day, but newly given, and not the old preeise successive seventh-day from the Creation. Object. 8. The Reason for the Sabbath in the fourth Command showeth us, and also, because 'tis there called, The Sabbath of the Lord thy God, therefore it was the precise successive seventh-day from the Creation. Answer 1. The Reason for the Sabbath in the fourth Command, is, For in six days the Lord made Heavon and Earth, the Sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh-day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and ballowed it. Now though this resers us to the Pattern in the beginning, yet it followeth not, that therefore this Precept fised the old precise successive seventh-day to Israel. For 1. It is not assigned to be the same, nor doth it appear, that the reference was made to the first Pattern for that end. But that as God had six Creation days together, and then his Sabbath, so after his Example, they should also have six working days, and no more together to one Sabbath or Lords day. For it is not ours, for common use, but to rest and refresh ourselves to worship and serve the Lord; Isa. 58.13. and therefore 'tis called [his] Holy day, as other things are called [his] that were set apart from common use to his Service; yea tho' they were not the very same from the Original, Ezra 6.16, 17. Zach. 6.14. and 7.2, 3. Exod. 13.2, 12, 13, 15. Chap. 12.29, 30. ●evit. 27.8. as 1. The new Temple builded in Ezra's time, was called the House of God, and Temple of the Lord; though it was not the same which Solomon builded. 2. The firstborn among the Children of Israel, both of Men and of Beasts were sanctified and set apart to the Lord, and are said to be his, and yet the same in kind, was not always required of them for his Service; for tho' they were to Sacrifice all the firstborn to the Lord, being Males (except the firstborn of Man, which they redeemed) yet they were also allowed to redeem an unclean Beast according to the Estimation of the Priest, and to be at Liberty either to redeem an Ass with a Lamb or break his Neck. And so we sinned in the Case of the seventh-day Sabbath given to Israel in the Wilderness, Exod. 20.10. Josh. 10.13. Isa. 38.8. Chap. 58.13. that tho' after our English Translation, 'tis said in the sourth Command to be the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; yet nevertheless, after the Interruption of the orderly course of the Night and Day, and consequently of the Sabbath-day too, it was called Gods Holy Day, and therefore, we cannot say that, because the Sabbath given to Israel in the Wilderness, is called the Sabbath of the Lord, therefore there is ground to believe it was the same precise successive seventh-day from the Creation. 2. Mr. Ainsworth Translateth the Hebrew Text, Exod. 16.23. To Morrow is the Sabbatism the Sabbath of Holiness [too] Jehovah. And ver. 25. It is the Sabbath to day [unto] Jehov●th. And L●vit. 23.3. But in the seventh shall be [a] Sabbath of Sabbatism. And Deut. Mr. Rebertsons Gate to the Holy Tongue, Page 110. See Mr. Hughes in his Analitical Exposition. 5.13. But the seventh-day is [a] Sabbath [too] Jehovah thy God. And Exod. 20.10. But the seventh-day is [a] Sabbath [too] Jehovah thy God. Which two last places, Ari. Montanus reads, Et die septimo Sabbathum Domino Deo ●uo. And Mr. Will. Robertson translateth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laihovah Elobecha [too] the Lord thy God: and Mr. Hughet, on Exod. 16.23. reads it, To Morrow is the Sabbatism, the Sabbath of Holiness [too] Jehovah, ver. 25. For the Sabbath [too] Jehovah is to day, and Chap. 20.10. But the seventh-day is [a] Sabbath [too] Jehovah thy God. And Mr. Pools Annotations reads the last place, Exod. 20.10. Or [too] the Lord, (i. e.) Conscerated to his Use, Honour, and Service. And therefore, seeing that our English Translations read in the fourth Commandment, the Sabbath of the Lord is [a] Sabbath [too] Jehovah; there is nothing that hath the least Appearance of Demonstration, that the Sabbath day instituted in the Wilderness was the same precise successive seventh-day from the Creation. Object. 9 It does not appear, that the Sabbath as to its first Original was Typical, or instituted to prefigure any thing that was Future, for the Law of it was before the sirst Promise of Christ in the state of Innocency, wherein there was no respect unto the Mediation of Christ. And therefore the Sabbath could not be abolished in the New Testament as a shadow of things to come. Answer, Gen. 2.9. Prov. 3.18. Luke 23.43. Rev. 2.7. Chap. 22.2, 14. The Tree of Life in the midst of the earthly Paradise was also before the fall of Man, and the first Promise of Christ; and yet both of them were Types of the Spiritual Tree of Life in the Heavenly Paradise. So that tho' the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and the Sabbath Originally before the fall, were not known to Adam as Figures of Future Things in Christ; yet from the Counsel and Foreknowledge of God, they were designed as Shadows of things to come. For in the Covenant with his Eternal Son before the Foundation of the World, Ephel. 1.4, 11 having Chosen and Predestinated a Select number of Mankind, to inherit an Heavenly Paradise; he also disposed and ordered all things to accommodate the Declaration of his Counsel to fallen Man, with Shadows of those Heavenly Things that were to come. And therefore, there is no Reason to deny the day of God's rest from the Work of his Creation, to be more than for a Memorial of it; but to believe it was also designed of God before the fall, to be of Typical Use to Man, as appeareth, Heb. 4. 2. In Answer to this Objection, I have this farther to say, that whatever may be thought of the Original Sabbath from the Creation; yet the Sabbath days in Colos. 2.16. cannot be denied to be the Jewish Sabbaths, and of these the Apostle saith, they are a Shadow of things to come, but the Body is of Christ, and therefore the shadows are done away. Object. 10. Seeing the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath did answer the Moral Law, and yet you say, it is abrogated under the Gospel, Colos. 2.16. Then either its Typicah●ess or Significative Nature, as it is a Sh●●ow or was a Memerial of Isra●h Deliverance out of Egypt, is only abolished, and not the day itself, or else a Branch of the Moral Law itself is re●ealed. Answer: I have showed before, that the seventh-day Sabbath must at least be comprehended in the Prohibition of Sabbaths, as a shadow of things to come, and have already cleared this Scripture, Colos. 2.16. from divers Exceptions that may seem to weaken its Authority from abrogating the Jewish Sabbath; yet because I sinned Mr. Brabourne has laboured with all his might to stifle that which I conceive is the Mind of the Holy Ghost in it, I shall therefore clear it from other things, that may possibly puzzle the Minds of some weak Christians. And 1. It's there said, Let no Man therefore judge you in Meat o● in Drink, or in respect of an Holy Day, (Gr. of a Feast) or of the New Moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come; but the Body is of Christ. Here, as was mentioned before, Sabbaths, are distinctly expressed from the New Moon, and Feasts, or other Jewish Holy days, that were or had also Sabbaths, and were observed under the Law; and therefore their weekly seventh-day Sabbath must at least be comprehended in the Word Sabbaths, and equally prohibited with the New Moon, and other sel●ival Sabbaths that were then observed. 2. It appeareth, the Jewish seventh-day was a shadow of things to come, in that it was a Sign and Memorial of Israth Deliverance out of E●ypt; for that Deliverance with all its Memorials was a Type of our Salvation by Jesus Christ, and o● the Gospel Signs and Memorials of it; for it's said, That all the Prophets, 〈◊〉 11.13. and the Law prophesud until John. 3. Tho' the change of the J●●ish seventh day, into the Christion sirst-day Sabbath, (in Distinction to tiei●s,) was Typed out by the eighth or sust day, and by the Year of Jubilee under the Law; as I have showed, yet our Clai●●ion Salbath considered as our seventh-day to our six working days, was also shadowed by the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath. 4. It this will not fatissie, I have also this to say, That we find nothing applied in the New Testament, as the Antitype of the New Moon. It's true, there is something signified or shadowed to us by the New Moon, Isa. 66.23. And by the Feast of Tabernacles, Zach. 14.16. which places both relate to Christ's Glorious Kingdom yet to come, and not to our present Gospel-day; but yet we cannot certainly say, what the New Moon and Feast of Tabernacles does particularly shadow to us: Howbeit from thence it's plain, that the New Moon is a shadow of something yet to come, and seeing the Apostle saith so too, and comprehends the seventh-day Sabbath with it; we can no more deny his forbidding all Men not to judge (or censure) the Christians for not observing the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath, than for not observing their New Moons, and other Holy days; and for any to except the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath out of this Prohibition, because they sinned no present Gospel Antitype shadowed by it, expressly applied to it in the New Testament; will give equal Liberty for others to except against the Prohibition of observing their New Moons. And therefore, seeing those Typical days and times of the New Moon, and Feast of Tabernacles, that were not evident shadows of present, but of suture Gospel things, are not to be kept in our Gospel days, as Signs and Memorials of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, or for any other Reason; and yet the Record of them in Scripture does retain their Typical and Shadowy Significations; then surely we have equal Reason to conclude, that in Case it were granted (as it is not) that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath was no shadow of any present Gospel thing; yet as a Sign and Memorial of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, and also as a shadow of suture things, it is not to be observed, tho' the Record of it in Scripture, does still retain a shadowy Signification; and is so of Use to us. 5. T●● some have sound out a more, cunning Distinction, than an Explanation of Truth, batteen the typicalness or significative Nature of the Jewish Sabbith, and the Sabbath or day itself; yet this cov●●ing may castly be removed, and their mistake Corrected; for tho' the Pypical use o● their Sabbath to future things still temaineth on sacred Record, and is not wronged by transferring the same Typical Signification to be born also by our actual keeping the 〈◊〉- day Sabbath, as the seventh-day Sabbath also; yet it is the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath, the day itself that is abolished, as other things were, that were Memorials of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt; which respecting their seventh-day Sabbath, was in their beginning and ending of it From Evening to Evening, to answer their new day from the Sacrisice of their first Passover, thereby weekly (and dailytoo) to keep that deliverance in fresher Memory, and so the significative Nature of the day respecting an actual and practical bearing up the Memory of that Deliverance could not be removed, unless the Sabbath day itself were altered in its beginning and ending; which was to cease with their Church-state, and to give way to our Gospel Memorials of the greater deliverance, when our Spiritual Redemption and Eternal Salvation was purchased by Jesus Christ. 6. The Jewish Sabbath its self is abrogated, without a repeal of any part of the Moral Law, or Ten Commandments, or any Moral Branch of that Law; tho' the keeping of it by the Jews did answer and fulfil it in the fourth Command. For as I have noted, the fourth Command of its self, does not require the Sabbath to begin and end from Evening to Evening; so it consequently follows, it does not of its self limit the keeping of that very day; but this was done by another Ceremonial Precept, which till it was abrogated, tho' it answered the Moral Law, as being their seventh-day boundary to their six working days; yet it does not therefore follow, that it was of its self of a Moral Nature; for than we must also say, that all other Ceremonial Precepts are Moral, and all the Jewish Worship is Moral; for nothing was required contrary to the Ten Commandments, but for Israel's putting forth their Obedience to them; which was to be exerted according to the revealed Will of God, in all the other Appendent both Moral and Ceremonial Precepts and Branches of the Decalogue. So that the prohibiting of the Sabbath, according to the Jewish Pattern is no repeal of any Part or Moral Branch of the Ten Commandments, but is only an Abrogation of a Ceremonial Precept that pertained to it, during the shadowy Dispensation of the Law. Object. 11. Here I shall answer to something I find in Mr. Edward Stennet's Book of the seventh-day Sabbath, Page 47. concerning those Countries where they have so much day together in the Summer, and Night together in the Winter. Saith he, the Psalmist saith, Psal. 74.20. The dark places of the Earth, are full of the Habitations of Cruelty; That is (saith he) they are the places by Divine Appointment for the cruel Wild Beasts, and not for Man, except they will become like Beasts; for as David saith, There is no Sperch nor Language under Heaven, where the Voice of Day and Night is not heard, Psal. 19.2, 3. So that if there be any Speech or Language under Heaven, that hear not the Voice of Day and Night, they are gone out of that orderly State which they were in, in David's Time, and so ought to return again into such countries', where they may be in a Capacity to serve God, and live under the means of Grace; for men ought to sorsake all that this World affords, rather than Sin against God; and if so, than men may well forsake their dark places, and come to the Light; for men's Habitations ought to stoop to God's Law, and not God's Law to their Habitations. Answer 1. The Psalmist faith, Psal. 74. 1●, 20, 21. O deliver not the Soul of thy Turtle Dove unto the Multitude of the Wicked, forget not the Congregation of thy Poor for ever. Have respect unto the Covenant: For the dark places of the Earth are full of the Habitations of Cruelty. O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the Poor and Needy Praise thy Name. This is a Prayer pleaded from the Covenant, that the oppressed Turtle Dove, and Congregation of God's Poor might be delivered from the wicked; for saith the Psalmist, The dark places of the Earth are full of the Habitations of Cruelty. As if he should say, O deliver thy Poor and Needy in those places of the Earth, that are dark with Blind and Cruel Inhabitants that oppress them; for as there is not one Word of Wild Beasts mentioned in the Text, or any Agreement of its connexed Matter, to imply the darkness of place to be understood, for want of the Light of the Sun and the Natural Day: So those countries' are no more described to us, by being called dark places, than if they were called the Light places of the Earth: Because they have the same Proportion of Light together more than other Countries have in the Summer, as they have of Darkness together in the Winter; and in the whole Year they have equal Light and Darkness to other places. And therefore, as it cannot be proved by any other Scripture, that by dark places in the Text are meant those countries'; but that the matter connexed to the Text, implies it to and expounds it of dark Persons, if it were granted, as it is not, that by dark places is meant those countries', it is sufficient to invalidate all that is there said by Mr. Stennet against our proving that the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath from Evening to Evening is not moral, ●●●ding to all Nations; for the inhabitants of such countries' having no Sun nor Day for several Weeks in W●●ter, not any Night not Evening for several Weeks in Summer; they mast of Ne●●shty guide their ●une, and bound their Sabbaths some other ways, Us. In Summer the account of their Time must be preserv●●, and their height measled and divided into their height days o● twenty so●● hours by their Meridian; and in Winter Ast●o●●mers say when the Sun is absent from them for several Weeks, they may preserve the account of Time, and Measure, and divide their Darkness into dark days of twenty four hours by the help of the Sta●s: And by Clocks or Glasses of Sand, as we do our hours of the Day and Night. So that, tho' their Sabbath may be duly kept with the same Proportion of Time as we do in our Nation, yet seeing it cannot there be observed after the Jewish Pattern, from Evening to Evening; that Precept was therefore never designed for all Nations to exert their Obedience by it to the Moral Law. 2. See Mr. Edw. Stennets Book on the seventh-day, in Page 47. I now come to speak to the other Text, Psalm 19.2, 3. which the Author thus citeth, saith he, David faith, There is no Speech, nor Language under Heaven, where the Voice of Day and Night is not heard. But he hath not dealt ingeniously with this Scripture, so to transpose the matter in citing of it, to make it savour his Cause, contrary to its true Order and Sense, as it lies in the Holy Bible; for the Psalmist saith, Vor. 1.2, 3. The Heavens declare the Glory of God: and the Firmament showeth his handy Work. Day unto Day m●●reth Speech, and Night unto Night showeth Knowledge. There as no Speech nor Language, where their Voice is not heard. Their Line is gone out through all the Earth, and their Words to the ●nd of the World. Now let the Reader consider, whether this place of Scripture hath any thing in into his purpose; surely if it be duly considered, it will appear strongly against him; for if those Words, There is no Speech, nor Language where their Voice is not heard, relate to the two preceding Verses, than we must understand them of the Voice of God's handiwork in the Creation, and orderly abiding of the Firmament, and Ordinances of the Heavens, and Day and Night, or Light and Darkness, which declare the glorious Wisdom and Power of God to every People, according to the Situation of their Countries throughout the World; but if those Words are expounded, as they are most prope●●; connexed to the following Verse, than the Apostle in Rom. 10. Rom 10.15, 16 17 18. Math. 28.19. applies them to the Preathing of the Gospel to the ends of the World, and the Lord hath promised in Isa. 66.19. (which relates to a different Time after the sust Promulga ●on of the Gospel, and therefore may reach to those Blind and ignorant Not●here People, we are treating of) that 〈…〉 escape to I arshish, Pull, and 〈◊〉, etc. and to the 〈◊〉 a at o●●, that have not heard of his Name, nor seen his Glory; and the, shall declare his Glory among the Gemtles. So that the Word of the Gospel, and consequently the Moral Law in the Old testament annexed to it, and confirmed by it, was to be 〈◊〉 to men's Habitations; for tho' all Nations shall go up to the Mo●●●ain o● the Lords House, Isa. 2.3. Is● 60.1, 2, 3, etc. yet this shall be either their vol●●●●●, Act to 〈◊〉 their Knowledge of his ways, from the extrandinary Light that shall 〈◊〉 o● the Tribes of Israel, when they shall be returned into their own Land, in the Time of Christ's Globous Kingdom here on E●●th, or to do subjective Homage every, car, once a year, Zach. 14 like to the other Text, Isa. 66.23 where its 〈◊〉, Teat 〈…〉 new Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to 〈◊〉, sha● all Plesh come to norship before me, saith the Lord: And whatever is intended by this monthly worship, to be in the future Glotions Time of Christ's Kingdom; yet as we have nothing of it now in the New Testament, and so this Text can no ways prove, that any Nation should in our present day, remove their Habitations to another Country; so it cannot be taken, that all Nations should assemble into one place, once a Month, or every Sabbath; for thus they cannot appear before the Lord but once a year, and I Question, if it be then required of every individual Person; but of some of all Nations (as it cannot be monthly shictly considered) or rather of all those Nations only that came against J●rusalem, as it is expressly said, Z●●h. 14.16. And I do not sinned it otherwise, that Men should now or then remove their Habitations into any Country, or the Land of Canaan, unto the Gospel; for as this can never be, until it comes first into the places where they are, to convince them and bring them over to the Obedience of it; so the end of the Gospel for a successive Conversion of Souls, and beinging of all Nations into Subjection to Chrills Righteous and Visible Kingdom, cannot be accomplished, unless the Christians of those Countries remain inhabitants therein. And for any to imagine, that God should send a Moral Pattern by an Institution to men in general, which is impossible to be observed by all Mankind in every Country under Heaven, without the least Exception, to accommodate the Necessity of the Course of Nature, is both against the Nature of such a Precept, the Righteousness of God, and the Equiey of his Law. But to conclude this Answer, I shall make this remark on the Author's Words before recited. That seeing, he saith, That they ought to return again into such C●umreys, where they may be in a Capacity to serve God— for men's Habitations ought to stoop to God's Law, and not God's Law to their Habitations. It is plain, he granteth the Law for the seventh-day Sabbath, or the fourth Command, which he Treats of, as binding us to the Observation of the Jewish Sabbath, cannot be kept in those Countries after their Pattern from Evening to Evening, and then it must needs be Ceremonial, and the Moral keeping of that command, is for them and us to observe our seventh-day, after our six working days, or our first-day before them, as near as can be, to answer the Gospel Pattern. Object. 12. Tho' the Sun stood still in Joshua's time about a whole day, and its going backward and sorward ten Degrees or Divisions in Abaz Dial, might lose ten hours account of Time; so that after these Interruptions of the orderly Course of the Sun, their Sabbath began and ended near or about a whole days time later than they should have done, if there had not been such an Interruption in the Order of Nature; yet those longer days than ordinary were counted but for days, and so the seventh-day was the seventh-day still successively from their first Sabbath. Answer, Although some have thus argued that the seventh-day was the seventh-day still, Josh. 10.13. Isa. 38.8. See Page 29. yet after those Interruptions of the orderly course of the Sun (if we count its ten Degrees or Divisions of going backward, and then forward again, to be ten hours lengthening of that day, as there is the greatest Reason to believe that so it was) then the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath fell near or about a days time later than their precise orderly Succession of Time would have placed it from their first Sabbath, as was showed before. And farther, as their seventh-day Sabbaths could not after those Interruptions he properly counted the precise orderly successive Sabbaths from the Creation, or its Institution in the Wilderness; so if this should be allowed as it is objected, than we may also say (in those Northern parts, where the days are sometimes lengthened (by the Sun's continuing in their Hemisphere more than twenty four hours time) unto Days, Weeks, and Months) that we are still to reckon them but for days, (contrary to the Custom of those People, See Mr. T. Chasie cited, Page 33. and the length of days, and weeks, in God's Pattern of meafuring time,) but after this account their days will differ in length of Time, Days, Weeks, and Months from one another; and so, tho' they have the orderly Succession of the Setting and Rise of the Sun, according to the orderly Course of Nature in those places; yet the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath cannot possibly this way be successively kept precisely in Proportion of Time there, like as it was in Canaan, and other parts of the World. So that for any to argue for the precise Succession of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath (from their first keeping it, or from the Creation) after those Interruptions of the orderly course of the Day, will consequently tend to draw us into great Confusions about the Sabbath, and to maintain that in Name which is not properly so in Nature. Object. 13. The journeying of the two Disciples to Emmaus, Luke ●4. 13. and back again was near fifteen Miles, which is more than a Sabbath days journey, how then could their Travelling consist with the keeping of that first-day of the Week a Sabbath? Answer 1. We sinned Christ reproved them for their unbelief, and if this will not be allowed, as inclusive for their journeying from Jerusalem, when they should have continued in Faith with the eleven Apostles, tha● were there gathered together, than I may farther add, that it cannot be proved, whether their journey was then Lawful or Unlawful; for though it be not lawful on the Sabbath-day to journey at all on the account of any common or worldly Business of our own, yet there may possibly be a Moral necessity to journey on the Sabbath-day without Sin, as it may be for the saving a Persons Life, and therefore, we cannot conclude, that the two Disciples sinned in Travelling on the first Christian Sabbath, or did thereby make it a common day, unless we knew the occasion of it. 2. Those two Disciples were not of the number of the Eleven Disciples or Apostles of our Lord, which were themselves then but weak in Faith, and in the Knowledge of Gospel things; and therefore it is the less to be wondered at, if those two Disciples did not observe that day a Sabbath, when they doubted of the occasion of it, viz. the Resurrection of Christ, till he appeared to them, which he also did to the Eleven, Luke 24.33. Math. 28.8. and others (who were waiting together on that day) for the Confirmation of their Faith. Object. 14 The Jews reckoned their days to begin at Evening, and therefore the Church of 〈◊〉, Acts 20.7. came together to break Bread on the begi●●●● of the first day of the Week, viz. on Saturday Night (〈◊〉 so called) after the Jewish Sabbath was over, and the next Morning Paul did go a soot to Asses, where he had appo●●ted his Companions to meet him with the Ship. So that Paul and his Company traveled on the first day of the Week, and therefore tho' he preached and broke Bread on it the Night before, yet he kept it not as a Sabbath. Answer, It's true, the Jews were appointed to keep their Sacred days from Evening to Evening, or from Sun set to Sun set, as Mr. See his Reply to Dr. Wallis Page 28.29,30. Josh. 10.26, 27. Prov. 〈…〉 Mark 1.32. Chap. 13.35. Ba●pfield largely proves, that the Evening belonging to the days of the Week, began at Sunset, and is called the twilight. And also Mose● dated Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt, from the Sacrifice of the Passover at Even, at the going doan of the Sun. But yet I have clearly proved, that the days before and after that Deliverance, were also reckoned from Morning to Morning, as in Math. 28.1. In the ●nd of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first-day of the Week. From whence its plain, that the first-day of the Week on which Christ arose from the Dead, was counted by the Evange list according to their Civil days, not to begin till the dawning of the Day or Sunrising, and agreeable to Mr. Bampfields' Discourse against the first-days beginning at Midnight, after the Roman account, it must necessarily follow, that the first-day, Acts 20.7, 11. must be reckoned to begin with the Morning daylight. For it's said, Upon the first-day of the Week, when the Disciples came together to break Bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to departed on the Morrow, and contina●d his Speech until Midnight.— When he therefore— had broken Bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And here I observe, that the Morning in which Paul departed was the Morrow, which betokens another day; and therefore it was no part of the first day of the Week. So that it is not only undeniably clear from the Text itself, that the Night in which Paul preached, was part of the first-day, belonging to the preceding daylight joining to it; but it's also evident, that the first day of the Week began in the Morning before, and not on that Evening in which the Apostle preached; and so it appears, that the Morrow on which Paul traveled was the second day of the Week; and the Text clearly proves, that on the day before, being the first day of the Week, Paul with the Church of Troas Assembled to solemnize the Ordinances of the Gospel, as on the Sabbath day. Object. 15. It's said, Math. 12.40. As ●onas was three days and three Nights in the Whale's belly: So shall the Sun of man be three days and three Nights in the Heart of the Earth. And this seemeth to disagree with other places of Scripture concerning the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Answer, 1. It cannot be thought, St. Matthew or the other Evangelists faw any Discord in the Testimony they bore of Christ, or that the three Days and three Nights expressed by our Saviour, should be repugnant to the other Evangelsts undeniable Evidence, that Christ was not in the Grave three Nights. Now to reconcile this Difficulty, I shall cite Dr. Hammond on the Text; saith he, The way of Interpreting this place, must be taken from a Figure, which expresseth one whole thing by two parts of it. Thus the Heavens and the Earth, in St. Peter, 2 Pet. 3.7. signify the World— and so Christ is said to be three Days and three Nights in the Earth, though the first natural Day he was not in the Grave any part of the Night, but the latter part of the Friday, all Saturday, and so much of Sunday as until the Sun approached their Horizon— And as it is practised in the business of Circumcision, This of Circumcision is al●● affirmed by Mr. W●●m●● in his Christ S●nag. Page 114. which was precifely observed the eighth day, if the Child were born in one day, though but half an hour before the end of it, that is, before the beginning or Evening of the next, that half hour was counted for one of the eight days, (because, say they, legal days are not accounted from Time to Time, or from Hour to Hour,— Thus when Luke 9.28. 'Tis said about eight days after, Math. 17.1. and Mark 9.2. 'Tis after six Days, that is, after six Days complete, the first and the last being not complete, and so though numbered by one, yet omitted by two Evangelists. And accordingly the space of those very three days of Christ's lying in the Grave until his Resurrection are, when it is Prophetically mentioned in Hosea 6. ● said to be after two days. 2. The Dutch Annotations also say of those three Days and three Nights: For a part of the Days is here taken whole days and nights, like that is Customary with the Hebrews— see Esth. 4.16. compared with Chap. 5.1. And so they take it after the Romanists, reckoning that the days began and ended on the Midnight, and so it falleth yet clearer. To which I shall add this brief Note, That seeing 'tis said, As Ionas was three Days and three Nights, etc. so Christ should be three days and three Nights, etc. 'Tis thought from our Saviour's Words, that sonas was not completely three Nights in the Whale's Belly, but as Christ was in the Grave. Object. 16. Christ's Body rested in the Grave on the Jews Sabbath, and his Soul in Paraaice, and therefore he never intended by his Death to make it a common work-day. Answer, Luke 2.21. Gal. 4.4. Math. 5.17, 18. As Christ was born a Jew and was Circumcised, and came to fulfil the whole Law; so every Jot and Little of it was rulsilled by him; and therefore, he always observed the Jewish Sabbath, and if his Body being in the Grave, and his Soul in Paradise should in some Sense be taken for a rest (in Comparison of what he laboured under before for our Redemption) yet than it must be only so considered with respect to the Law, t●● our Justification was completely Purchased by the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead; Rom. 4.25. ● Cor. 15.17, 18. who was delivered (that is to be Crucisied) for our Offences, and was raised again for our Justification. And the Apostle also saith, That if Christ be not raised your Faith is vain; ye are yet in your Sins: Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. So that, though the Veil of the Temple was Rend at his Passion as a Sign that there was thereby a Rent made in the Types and Shadows of Heavenly Things which was then making void, yet the Heavenly Things themselves were not completely purchased for us until the Body of Christ was raised for our Justification: Heb. 9.12. And then as the Apostle saith, By his own Blood he entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained Eternal Redemption for us. Now therefore, though Christ's being in the Grave should be called a Comparative Rest, to what he suffered on the Cross; yet it cannot be understood of his Ceasing from the Work of purchasing our Redemption, until the Omnipotency of his Divine Nature was put forth in losing him from the Pains of Death, Heb. 2.10. Chap. 5.9. and Chap. 11.40. Acts 2.24. or part of the Sentence of the Law, and raising his Body to Life again, for till then the New Creation was not perfected in the second Adam. And then on the first day of the Week, having ceased from this Work, and so rested, it was thereby sanctified in stead of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath, which was then to be abolished, as all other Legal Ceremonial Things were. And the Gospel first and seventh day Sabbath taking its place was to answer the Moral Law, and to bear the Type of the Rest that remaineth to the People of God, as also principally the Memorial of Christ's Resurrection, and to continue our Sabbath unto his second Personal Coming. To close this Treatise, seeing we are obliged to keep the first day of the Week a Sabbath or Day of Rest from our worldly Business, to worship and serve God with all our Hearts, and with all our Minds; let all men stand in awe, and fear to profane his Holy day, Nen. 13.17, 18. Ezek. 20.13. Isa. 56.2, 6, 7. lest they bring the Wrath of the Lord upon us, as it fell on Judah and Israel for that Transgression of the Law. And let us labour more in Love and Respect to his Commandments, for the Blessing entailed on the due observers of it; for it's said, Blessed is the Man that doth this, and the Son of Man that layeth hold on it: that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it.— Also the Sons of the Stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to Serve him, and to Love the Name of the Lord, to be his Servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my Covenant: Even them will I bring to my Holy Mountain, and make them joyful in my House of Prayer.— And if thou turn away thy Foot from the Sabbath, 〈◊〉. ●8. 1. from doing thy Pleasure on my Holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the Holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt Honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own Pleasure, nor speaking thine own Words. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the High Places of the Earth, and feed thee with the Heritage of Jacob thy Father; for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. And he will surely fulfil his Promises, Heb. 4. ●. Rom. 8. 1●. to 2●. and in his Time will give his chosen the great Rest that remaineth for them; which is typed forth by the Legal and Gospel seventh-days Sabbaths: When the whole Creation that groaneth and traveleth in Pain, shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the Glorious Liberty of the Children of God. When the whole Earth shall be at Rost and Quiet, Isa. 14.7. and shall break forth into Singing, for the Meek shall inherit the Earth: and shall delight themselves in the abundance of Peace. O house of Israel, Psal 37. 1●. Isa. 2.5. Heb. 4.1. Cham 3.18, 1 Eph●l. 4.1. Isa. 3.14. come ye and let us walk in the Light of the Lord: And fear, lest a Promise being lest us of entering into his Rest, any of us should seem to come short of it through ●●helief. And let us labour to walk more worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called: That so, when the Sinners in Sum shall be asraid & seat fullness, shall surprise the Hypocrite: And men's Hearts shall fail them, for fear, and for looking after those Things which are coming upon the Earth; 〈…〉 M●th. 2●. 〈◊〉 we may enter into the Chambers of God, and shalt the Door about us, until the Indignation be overpast, and be accounted worthy to escape all those things, and to enter into the Joy of our Lord. FINIS. ADVERTISEMENT. There is now Printed a Book Entitled, A Treatise of the Holy Tria unity, in two Parts: The First 〈◊〉 the Deity of 〈◊〉 Ch●●st and ●●e Holy Spirit, in the Unity of ●●sence with God the 〈…〉 The See 〈◊〉 Defence of the 〈◊〉, answereth the ●●●efest Objections made against this Doctri●●. By I. M. Chap. I. THe Case is brielly stated. Chap. II. Shows that there is but one God, the C●●● for and Former of all things. Chap. III. Afferteth a Plurality of Divine Subs●●●ences. Chap. IU. Of the Father. Chap. V Proveth the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. By his Names. 2. That God in the Old Testament in divers Places is Christ in the New. 3. By seven particular Texts of Holy Scriptures. 4. That Christ pre-existed his Incarnation in his Divine Nature, and is no Angel incarnate, but is Coeternal with the Father. 5. His Deity is proved by his Works. And 6. By Divine Worship given to him. Chap. VI Proveth the Deity of the Holy Ghost. 1. That he is a Divine Person. 2. His Deity is asserted from several Texts of Scripture. 3. By his Works. 4. By Divine Worship given to him. Chap. VII. Proveth the Unity of the Holy Trinity. Chap. VIII. Containeth some Explications of the Holy Trinunity. 1. Of the Essential Being of God. 2. O● the Divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 3. Of the Distinctions of the Divine Nature and the Persons, and some Shadows by way of Comparison of the incomparable and inconceivable Being of God, and of the Union of Christ's two Natures. PART II. Chap. I. Answereth Objections against the Scriptural Proofs of Christ's Deity. Chap. II. Answers to Objections drawn from several Texts of Scriptures. Chap. III. Answers to several Arguments against the Deity of Christ. Chap. IV. Answers to several Objections against the Scriptures, that prove the Deity of the Holy Ghost. Chap. V Answers to some Objections drawn from divers Scriptures to disprove the Deity of the Holy Spirit. Chap. VI Answers to some Scriptures from whence our Adversaries assert that the Father only is the true God. With a general Answer and Conclusion. Price bound one ●●●ling.