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upon the face of the ground. But now our first day is the manna-day, the only day that the churches of the New Testament, even of old, did gather manna in. But more of this

anon.

Nor will it out of mind but that it is a very high piece of ingratitude and of uncomely behaviour to deny the Son of God his day, the Lord's day, the day that he has made; and, as we have showed already, this first day of the week is it; yea, and a great piece of unmannerliness is it too for any, notwithstanding the old seventh day is so degraded as it is, to attempt to impose it on the Son of God-to impose a day upon him which yet Paul denies to be a branch of the ministration of the Spirit and of righteousness. Yea, to impose a part of that ministration which he says plainly was to be done away, for that a better ministration stript it of its glory, is a high attempt indeed.

Yet again the apostle smites the teachers of the law upon the mouth, saying, "They understand neither what they say nor whereof they affirm."

The seventh-day sabbath was indeed God's rest from the works of creation; but yet the rest that he found in what the first day of the week did produce, for Christ was born from the dead in it, more pleased him than did all the seventh days that ever the world brought forth; wherefore, as I said before, it cannot be but the well-bred Christian must set apart this day for solemn worship to God and to sanctify his name therein.

Must the Church of old be bound to remember that night in which they did come out of Egypt; must Jephthah's daughter have four days for the virgins of Israel yearly to lament her hard case in; yea, must two days be kept by the Church of old yearly for their being delivered from Haman's fury; and must not one to the world's end be kept by the saints for the Son of God their Redeemer, for all he has delivered them from a worse than Pharaoh or Haman, even from the devil, and death, and sin, and hell? O stupidity!

A day! say some-God forbid but he should have a day! But what day? Oh, the old day comprised within the bounds and bowels of the ministration of death.

And is this the love that thou hast to thy Redeemer, to keep that day to him for all the service that he hath done for thee, which has a natural tendency in it to draw thee off from the consideration of the works of thy

redemption to the creation of the world? O stupidity!

But why must he be imposed upon? Has he chosen that day? did he finish his work thereon? Is there, in all the New Testament of our Lord, from the day he rose from the dead to the end of his holy book, one syllable that signifies in the least the tenth part of such a thing? Where is the Scripture that saith that this Lord of the sabbath com. manded his Church, from that time, to do any part of church service thereon? Where do we find the churches to gather together thereon?

But why the seventh day? What is it, take but the shadow thereof away? Or what shadow now is left in it since its institution as to divine service is taken long since from it?

Is there any thing in the works that were done in that day more than shadow, or that in the least tends otherwise to put us in mind of Christ? and, he being come, what need have we of that shadow? And I say again, since that day was to be observed by a ceremonial method, and no way else, as we find, and since ceremonies are ceased, what way by divine appointment is there left to keep that old sabbath by Christians in?

If they say, Ceremonies are ceased, by the same argument so is the sanction of the day in which they were to be performed. I would gladly see the place, if it is to be found, where it is said that day retains its sanction which yet has lost that method of service which was of God appointed for the performance of worship to him thereon.

When Canaan worship fell the sanction of Canaan fell. When temple worship, and altar worship, and the sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood fell, down also came the things themselves. Likewise so when the service or shadow and ceremonies of the seventhday sabbath fell, the seventh-day sabbath fell likewise.

On the seventh-day sabbath, as I told you, manna was not to be found. But why? For that day was of Moses and of the ministration of death. But manna was not of him. "Moses," says Christ, "gave you not that bread from heaven." Moses, as was said, gave that sabbath in tables of stone, and God gave that manna from heaven. Christ nor his Father gives grace by the law, no not by that law in which is contained the old seventhday sabbath itself.

The law is not of faith; why then should

grace be by Christians expected by observation of the law? The law, even the law written and engraven in stones, enjoins perfect obedience thereto on pain of the curse of God. Nor can that part of it now under consideration, according as is required, be fulfilled by any man was the ceremony thereto belonging allowed to be laid aside. Never man yet did keep it perfectly, except he whose name is Jesus Christ; in him, therefore, we have kept it, and by him are set free from that law and brought under the ministration of the Spirit.

But why should we be bound to seek manna on that day on which God says 'none shall

be found?"

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Perhaps it will be said that the sanction of that day would not admit that manna should be gathered on it.

But that was not all, for on that day there was none to be found. And might I choose, I had rather sanctify that day to God on which I might gather this bread of God all day long than set my mind at all upon that in which no such bread was to be had.

The Lord's day, as was said, is to Christians the principal manna-day.

On this day, even on it, manna in the morning very early gathered was, by the disciples of our Lord, as newly springing out of the ground. The true bread of God, the sheaf of first fruits, which is Christ from the dead, was ordained to be waved before the Lord on the morrow after the sabbath, the day on which "our Lord ceased from his own work, as God did from his."

Now, therefore, the disciples found their green ears of corn indeed. Now they read life, both in and out of the sepulchre in which the Lord was laid. Now they could not come together, nor speak to one another, but either their Lord was with them or they had heart-inflaming tidings from him. Now cries one and says, The Lord is risen; and then another and says, He hath appeared to such and such.

Now come tidings to the eleven that their Women were early at the sepulchre, where they had a vision of angels that told them their Lord was risen: then comes another, and says, The Lord is risen indeed. Two also come from Emmaus and cry, We have seen the Lord; and by and by, while they were speaking, their Lord showed himself in the midst of them.

Now he calls to their mind some of the

eminent passages of his life, and eats and drinks in their presence, and opens the Scriptures to them; yea, and opens their understanding too, that their hearing might not be unprofitable to them; all which continued from early in the morning till late at night. Oh what a manna-day was this to the Church! And more than all this you will find, if you read but the four evangelists upon this subject.

Thus began the day after the sabbath, and thus it has continued through all ages to this very day. Never did the seventh-day sabbath yield manna to Christians. A new world was now begun with the poor Church of God, for so said the Lord of the sabbath, "Behold I make all things new." A new covenant! and why not then a new resting-day to the Church, or why must the old sabbath be joined to this new ministration? Let him that can show a reason for it.

Christians, if I have not been so large upon things as some might expect, know that my brevity on this subject is from consideration that much needs not be spoken thereto, and because I may have occasion to write a Second Part.

Christians, beware of being entangled with Old Testament ministrations, lest by one you be brought into many inconveniences.

I have observed that though the Jewish rites have lost their sanction, yet some that are weak in judgment do bring themselves into bondage by them. Yea, so high have some been car ried as to a pretended conscience to these that they have at last proceeded to circumcision, to many wives, and the observation of many bad things besides.

Yea, I have talked with some pretending to Christianity who have said, and affirmed as well as they could, that the Jewish sacrifices must up again.

But do you give no heed to these Jewish fables "that turn from the truth." Do you, I say, that love the Lord Jesus keep close to his Testament, his word, his Gospel, and observe his holy day.

And this caution in conclusion I would give to put a stop to this Jewish ceremony: to wit, that a seventh-day sabbath, pursued according to its imposition by law, (and I know not that it is imposed by the apostles,) leads to blood and stoning to death those that do but gather sticks thereon-a thing which no way becomes the Gospel, that ministration of the Spirit and of righteousness, nor yet the professors thereof

Nor can it with fairness be said that that sabbath day remains, though the law thereof is repealed, for confident I am that there is no more ground to make such a conclusion than there is to say that circumcision is still of force, though the law for cutting off the uncircumcised is by the Gospel made null and void.

I told you also in the epistle that if the fifth commandment was the first that was with promise, then it follows that the fourth, or that seventh-day sabbath, had no promise entailed to it; whence it follows that where you read in the prophet of a promise annexed to a sabbath, it is best to understand it of our Gospel sabbath.

Now, if it be asked, What promise is entailed to our first-day sabbath? I answer, the biggest of promises. For

First. The resurrection of Christ was tied by promise to this day, and to none other. He rose the third day after his death, and that was the first day of the week, according to what was forepromised in the Scriptures.

Second. That we should live before God by him is a promise to be fulfilled on this day: After two days he will revive us, and in the third day we shall live in his sight." Hos. vi. 2. See also Isa. xxvi. 19, and compare them again with 1 Cor. xv. 4.

Third. The great promise of the New Testament to wit, the pouring out of the Spirit-fixeth upon these days, and so he began in the most wonderful effusion of it upon Pentecost, which was the first day of the week, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

Nor could these three promises be fulfilled upon any other days, for that the Scripture had fixed them to the first day of the week.

I am of opinion that these things, though but briefly touched upon, cannot be fairly objected against, however they may be disrelished by some.

Nor can I believe that any part of our religion, as we are Christians, stands in not kindling of fires and not seething of victuals, or in binding of men not to stir out of those places on the seventh day in which, at the dawning thereof, they were found; and yet these are ordinances belonging to that seventh-day sabbath.

Certainly it must needs be an error to impose these things by divine authority upon New Testament believers, our worship standing now in things more weighty, spiritual, and heavenly.

Nor can it be proved, as I have hinted before, that this day was or is to be imposed without those ordinances, with others in other places mentioned and adjoined, for the sanction of that day, they being made necessary parts of that worship that was to be performed thereon.

I have charity for those that abuse themselves and their Lord by their preposterous zeal and affection for the continuing of this day in the churches; for I conclude that if they did either believe or think of the incoherence that this day with its rites and ceremonies has with the ministration of the Spirit, our New Testament ministration, they would not so stand in their own light as they do, nor so stiffly plead for a place for it in the churches of the Gentiles. But, as Paul insinuates in other cases, there is an aptness in men to be under the law because they do not hear it.

Nor will it out of my mind but if the seventh-day sabbath was by divine authority, and to be kept holy by the churches of the. Gentiles, it should not have so remained among the Jews, Christ's deadliest enemies, and been kept so much hid from the believers, his best friends. For who has retained the pretended sanction of that day from Christ's time quite down in the world but the Jews and a few Jewish Gentiles? (I will except some.) But, I say, since a sabbath is that without which the great worship of God under the Gospel cannot be well performed, how can it be thought that it should, as to the knowledge of it, be confined to so blasphemous a generation as the Jews, with whom that worship is not?

I will rather conclude that those Gentile professors that adhere thereto are Jewified, legalized, and so far gone back from the authority of God, who from such bondages has set his churches free.

I do at this time but hint upon things, reserving a fuller argument upon them for a time and place more fit; where and when I may perhaps also show some other wild notions of those that so stiffly cleave to this.

Meantime, I entreat those who are captivated with this opinion not to take it ill at my hand that I thus freely speak my mind. I entreat them also to peruse my book without prejudice to my person. The truth is, one thing that has moved me to this work is the shame that has covered the face of my soul when I have thought of the fictions and fancies that are growing among professors, and when I see each fiction turn itself to a faction, to the loss

of that good spirit of love and that oneness that formerly was with good men.

I doubt not but some unto whom this book may come have had seal from God that the first day of the week is to be sanctified by the Church to Jesus Christ; not only from his testimony, which is and should be the ground of our practice, but also for that the first conviction that the Holy Ghost made upon their consciences to make them known that they were sinners began with them for breaking this sabbath day; which day, by that same

Spirit was told them, was that now called the first day, and not the day before, (and the Holy Ghost doth not use to begin this work with a lie;) which first conviction the Spirit has followed so close, with other things tend ing to complete the same work, that the soul from so good a beginning could not rest until it found rest in Christ. Let this, then, to such be a second token that the Lord's day is by them to be kept in commemoration of their Lord and his resurrection, and of what he did on this day for their salvation. AMEN

MR. BUNYAN'S LAST SERMON.

PREACHED JULY, 1688.

Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.-Joux i. 13.

THE words have a dependence on what goes before, and therefore I must direct you to them for the right understanding of it. You have it thus: "He came to his own, but his own received him not; but as many as believed on him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name; which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God." In the words before you have two things:

First. Some of his own rejecting him when he offered himself to them.

Secondly. Others of his own receiving him and making him welcome; those that reject him he also passes by, but those that receive him, he gives them power to become the sons of God. Now, lest any one should look upon it as a good luck or fortune, says he, “They were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." They that did not receive him, they were only born of flesh and blood, but those that receive him, they have God to their Father, they receive the doctrine of Christ with a vehement desire.

First. I'll show you what he means by blood. They that believe are born to it as an heir is to an inheritance; they are born of God, not of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; not of blood-that is, not by generation-not born to the kingdom of heaven by the flesh; not because I am the son of a godly man or woman-that is meant by blood. He has made of one blood all nations, but when he says here, "Not of blood," he rejects all carnal privileges they did boast of. They boasted they were Abraham's seed. No, no, says he, it is not of blood; think not to say you have Abraham to your father; you must

be born of God if you go to the kingdom cf heaven.

Secondly. "Nor of the will of the flesh." What must we understand by that?

First. It is taken for those vehement inclinations that are in man to all manner of looseness; fulfilling the desires of the fleshthat must be understood here. Men are not made the children of God by fulfilling their lustful desires; it must be understood here in the best sense; there is not only in carnal men a will to be vile, but there is in them a will to be saved also, a will to go to heaven also. But this it will not do; it will not privilege a man in the things of the kingdom of God; natural desires after the things of another world, they are not an argument to prove a man shall go to heaven whenever he dies. I am not a freewiller, I do abhor it; yet there is not the wickedest man but he desires some time or other to be saved; he will read some time or other, or it may be pray; but this will not do: "It is not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that showeth mercy;" there is willing and running, and yet to no purpose. Rom. ix. 16. "Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, have not obtained it." Here I do not understand as if the apostle had denied a virtuous course of life to be the way to heaven, but that a man without grace, though he have natural gifts, yet he shall not obtain privilege to go to heaven and be the son of God. Though a man without grace may have a will to be saved, yet he cannot have that will God's way. Nature, it cannot know any thing but the things of nature; the things of God knows no man, but by the Spirit of God; unless the Spirit of God be in you, it will leave you on this side the gates of

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