PREFACE.

READER,

Ir thou think this Treatise both superfluous and defective, when so many larger have better done the work already, I shall not at all gainsay the latter, nor much the former. The reason of my writing it, was the necessity and request of some very upright, godly persons, who are lately fallen into doubt or error, in point of the Sabbath-day, conceiving, that because the fourth commandment was written in stone, it is wholly unchangeable, and consequently the Seventh-day Sabbath in force, and that the Lord's-day is not a day separated by God to holy worship. I knew that there was enough written on this subject long ago; But, 1. Much of it is in Latin. 2. Some writings which prove the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, do withal treat so loosely of the Lord's-day, as that they require a confutation in the latter, as well as a commendation for the former. 3. Some are so large, that the persons that I write for, will hardly be brought to read them. 4. Most go upon those grounds, which I take to be less clear; and build so much more than I can do on the fourth commandment and on many passages of the Old Testament, and plead so much for the old sabbatical notion and rest, that I fear this is the chief occasion of many people's errors; who when they find themselves in a wood of difficulties, and nothing plain and convincing that is pleaded with them, do therefore think it safest to stick to the old Jewish Sabbath. The friends and acquaintance of some of these persons importuning me, to take the plainest and nearest way to satisfy such honest doubters, I have here done it according to my judgment: not contending against any that go another way to work, but thinking myself that this is very clear and satisfactory; viz. to prove, 1. That Christ did commission his apostles to teach us all things which he commanded, and to settle orders in his church. 2.

And that he gave them his Spirit to enable them to do all this infallibly, by bringing all his words to their remembrance, and by leading them into all truth. 3. And that his apostles by this Spirit did de facto' separate the Lord'sday for holy worship, especially in church-assemblies, and declared the cessation of the Jewish Sabbaths. 4. And that as this change had the very same author as the holy Scriptures (the Holy Ghost in the apostles), so that fact hath the same kind of proof, that we have of the canon and the integrity and uncorruptness of the particular Scripture-books and texts: and that, if so much Scripture as mentioneth the keeping of the Lord's-day, expounded by the consent and practice of the universal church from the days of the apostles, (all keeping this day as holy, without the dissent of any one sect, or single person, that I remember to have read of,) I say, if history will not fully prove the point of fact, that this day was kept in the apostle's times, and consequently by their appointment, then the same proof will not serve to evince that any text of Scripture is canonical, and uncorrupted; nor can we think that any thing in the world, that is past, can have historical proof.

I have been put to say something particularly out of antiquity for this evidence of the fact, because it is that which I lay the greatest stress upon. But I have not done it so largely as might be done. 1. Because I would not lose the unlearned reader in a wood of history, nor overwhelm him instead of edifying him. 2. Because it is done already in Latin by Dr. Young in his "Dies Dominica" (under the name of Theophilus Loncardiensis); which I take to be the most moderate, sound, and strong Treatise on this subject that I have seen: though Mr. Cawdry and Palmer (jointly) have done well, and at greater length; and Mr. Eaton, Mr. Shephard, Dr. Bound, Wallæus, Rivet, and my dear friend Mr. George Abbot, against Broad, have said very much: and in their way, Dr. White, Dr. Heylin, Bishop Ironside, Mr. Brierwood, &c. 3. I chose most of the same citations which Dr. Heylin himself produceth, because he being the man that I am most put to defend myself against, his concessions are my advantage. 4. And if I had been willing, I could not have been so full in this as the subject will bespeak, because I have almost eleven years been separated from my library, and long from the neighbourhood of any one's else.

I much pity and wonder at those godly men, who are so much for stretching the words of Scripture, to a sense that other men cannot find in them, as that in the word Graven Images in the second commandment, they can find all set forms of prayer, all composed studied sermons, and all things about worship of man's invention to be images or idolatry; and yet they cannot find the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath in the express words of Col. ii. 16. nor the other texts which I have cited; nor can they find the institution of the Lord's-day in all the texts and evidences produced for it. But though Satan may somewhat disturb our concord, and tempt some men's charity to remissness, by these differences, he shall never keep them out of heaven, who worship God through Christ, by the Spirit, even in spirit and truth. Nor shall he, I hope, ever draw me to think such holy persons as herein differ from me, to be worse than myself, though I think them in this to be unhappily mistaken: much less to approve of their own separation from others, or of other men's condemning them as heretics, and inflicting severities upon them, for these their opinion's-sake.

THE

DIVINE APPOINTMENT

OF

THE LORD'S-DAY.

CHAPTER I.

THOUGH the principal thing desired by the inquirers is, That I would prove to them the cessation of the Seventhday Sabbath, yet because they cast off the Lord's-day, which I take to be a far greater error and sin than the observation of both days; and because that when I have proved the institution of the Lord's-day, I shall the more easily take them off the other, by proving that there are not two weekly days set apart by God for holy worship; therefore I will begin with the first question, Whether the Lord's-day, or first day of the week, be separated by God's institution for holy worship, especially in public church-conventions? Aff.

And here, for the right stating of the question, let it be noted, 1. That it is not the name of a Sabbath that we now meddle with, or stand upon. Let us agree in the thing, and we shall easily bear a difference about the name. Grant that it is 'a day separated by God's institution for holy assemblies and worship,' and then call it a Sabbath, or the Lord's-day, as you please; though for myself I add, that the 'Lord's-day' is the name that the Holy Ghost hath set upon it, and the name which the first churches principally used; and that they call it also sometimes by the name of the Christian Sabbath; but that is only analogically, as it is resembled to the Jewish Sabbath; and as they used the names Sacrifice and Altar, (I speak only 'de facto' how the ancients used these words,)