The Divine Appointment of the Lords Day, Postscript – Errata
Postscript.
IT is long since the foregoing Treatise was promised to a Person of Honourable Rank, who was enclined to the Jewish Sabbath; but before it was finished, or well begun, I had a sight of a Treatise on the same subject, by the late Reverend Worthy Servant of Christ Mr. Hughes of Plimouth, which enclined me to take my promised work as unnecessary. But yet some reasons moved me to reassume it. Near two Moneths after it went from me to the Press, the said Treatise of Mr. Hughes first, and after another on the same subject by Dr. I. Owen came abroad. Yet do I not reverse mine, because many Witnesses in an Age of Enmity and Neglect, can be no injury to a truth so serviceable to the Cause of Christianity, and the prosperity of the Church, and the good of souls. Though if I were one that took the Churches prosperity to consist in the Riches, Grandeur, Ease and Domination of Empire of Papal Pastors, rather than in the humble, holy, heavenly, self-denying imitation of a Crucified Christ, I would have forborn a subject which is all for our preparation for a Heavenly Sabbatism, and carrieth men above the sensual Rest of Fleshly men, and therefore is so much disrelished by them, Rom. 8. 6, 7, 8. But supposing it my duty to do what I have done, I think meet to advertise the Reader, that when several men treat of the same subject, though they speak the same things in the main, yet usually each of them bringeth some considerable light, which is omitted by the rest: And as the same Spirit sets them all on work, so all together give suller evidence to the truth, than any one of them alone. And I hope the Concourse of these three Tractates doth prognosticate, that (though the Devil hath so contrived the business for the Prophane, that like Papists, they will hear and read none, but those that are not like to change them; yet) God will awaken the sober and serious believers of this Age, to a more holy and fruitful improvement of his day; which will greatly tend to the encrease of real Godliness, and consequently to the recovery of the dying hopes of this apostatizing and divided Age.
But that which moveth me to write this Postscript, is to acquaint thee, for the prevention of scandal by any seeming differences in our Writings, 1. That it cannot be expected, that all who plead the same Cause, should say just the same things for it, for matter and manner of argumentation.
2. That if I own the Name Sabbath less than some others, and adhere more to the name of the Lords Day, I do not thereby oppose the use of the name of Sabbath absolutely; nor is that in it self a Controversie about the Matter, but the Name, which though not contemptible, yet is of far less moment than the Thing.
3. That if I make not use of so many Old Testament Texts as some others, I do not thereby deny the usefulness of them, nor call you off from the consideration of any argumentation or evidence thence offered you.
4. That if I seem to be more for the cessation of Moses Law than some others, even of that part which was written in Stone, yet no part of the Law of Nature is thereby denyed by me any more than by any of them; And they that are angry with me, for writing so much against the Antinomians, should not also be angry with me for going no further from them, than the force of Truth constraineth me.
5. That you must pardon me for my purposely avoiding the name of the [Moral Law] Mr. Cawdry and Mr. Palmer who have written most largely of the Sabbath, have told you the reason. I love not such names, as are not fitted to the nature of things, but are fitted to signifie almost what the Speaker pleaseth.
I know no Law which is not formally Moral, as being Regula actionum Moralium. And men may if they will, as well confine the signification of the word [Law] it self, as of a [Moral Law] Nor doth use it self sufficiently notifie the distinguishing signification of it: For one meaneth by that name, all the Law of Nature as such. Another meaneth only so much of the Law of Nature as is common to all mankind. Another meaneth all Positive Laws of supernatural Revelation, which are perpetual and universal, as well as the Law of Nature. Therefore without finding fault with others, it sufficeth me to distinguish Laws by such names as plainly signifie the intended difference. And though by the Law of Nature, I mean not formally the same thing that some others do, I have sufficiently opened my sense and the reasons of it, in my Reasons of the Christian Religion.
6. That they who say, that the Old Covenant, or the Covenant of Works made by Moses with the Jews is abrogate or ceased, and the Decalogue as a part of, or belonging to that Covenant, do say the same thing that I do, when I maintain that the Decalogue and whole Law as Mosaical is ceased, but that all the Natural part is by Christ assumed into his Law or Covenant of Grace. For it is the same thing which is denominated the Law (of Moses, or of Christ) from the preceptive part, and and a Covenant from the terms, or sanction, especially the Promissory part. Nor is there any part of the Law of Moses, which was not a part of the Mosaical Covenant. And if the Form cease which denominateth, the Being and denomination ceaseeth, and all the parts as parts of that which ceaseth. So that if the Covenant of Works made with the Jews cease (which Camero calleth a third or middle Covenant, and several men do variously denominate, but the Scripture calleth the old, or former Covenant, or Testament, or Disposition) then all the Law as part of that Covenant ceaseth: And that is as much as to say also that it ceaseth as meerly Mosaical, or Political to the Jews. And then the Argument is vain, This or that word was written in the Tables of Stone: Therefore it is of perpetual obligation. For as it was written in Stone, it was Mosaical, and is done away; and under the New Covenant all that is Natural and Continued, shall by the Spirit be written upon the Heart; whence sin at first did obliterate it.
7. That as the Rest of God in the Creation is described by a Cessation from his work, with a complacency in the goodness of it: but Christs Rest is described more by Vital Activity and Operation, than by Cessation from work, even his Triumphant Resurrection as the Conquest of Death, and beginning of a New Life: so I think the Old Sabbath is more described by such Corporeal Rest, or Cessation from work, which was partly Ceremonial, or a signifying shadow, and that the word Sabbath is never used in the Scripture, but for such a day of Ceremonial Rest (though including holy Worship). But that the Lords day and its due observation is more described by spiritual Activity and Operation, in the spiritual Resurrection of the soul, and its new Life to God; And that the Bodily Rest is no longer Ceremonial or shadowy, but fitted to the promoting and subserving of the spiritual Activity and Complacency in God and holy exercises of the mind, as the body it self is to the service of the soul.
8. That I am not ignorant that many of the English Divines long ago expound Matth. 24. 20. of the Christian Sabbath, and Col. 2. 16. as exclusive of the Jewish Weekly Sabbath: But so do not most Expositors, for which I think they give very good reasons, which I will not stand here to repeat.
9. That I intended not a full and elaborate Treatise of the Lords Day, but a brief Explication of that Method of proof which I conceive most easie and convincing, and fittest for the use of doubting Christians; who are many of them lost in doubts in the multitude and obscurity of arguments from the Old Testament: when I think that the speedy and satisfactory dispatch of the Controversie is best made by a plain proof of the Institution of Christ by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles; which I thought to have shewed in two or three Sheets, but that the necessity of producing some evidence of the fact, and answering other mens Objections, drew it out to greater length. And my method required me to say more of the practice of Antiquity, than some other mens. But again, I must give notice that Dr. T. Ysoungs Dies Dominica is the Book which I agree with in the Method and Middle way of determining this Controversie, and which I take to be the strongest written of it: And that I omit most which he hath, as taking mine but as an Appendix to his, and desire him that will write against mine, to answer both together, or else I shall suppose his work to be undone.
ERRATA.
PAge 19 Line 23 and 24 for there put the…. p 21 l 20 Blo…t out (of the Conclusion) p 30 l 10 for Pentecost r Passov…. p 35 l. 4 r (Canon. Council. Trul.) p 181 l 13 r George Walker. And in my Defence of the Principles of Love the Errata being not gathered, the Reader is desired Part: 2. page 92 line 3 for the Verb to read the Word.
FINIS.
End of the text · Richard Baxter, The Divine Appointment of the Lords Day (1671)