A Modest Plea for the Lords Day, Chapter 6
CHAP. VI. That the Seventh Day is repealed.
I Suppoſe I have ſaid enough to juſtifie the diſcharge of the Old Sabbath. The …cenſe which the fourth Commandment gives us to labour ſix dayes in the week, …vinceth us under no Obligation to keep more than one Sabbath: Now if the firſt day of the week, (as we have proved) be the Sabbath to be ſanctified, reaſon tells us the Jewiſh Sabbath is diſcharged. Though the Scripture no where ſaith to us, you ſhall not keep the Paſſeover, nor you ſhall not circumciſe, yet we underſtand our ſelves diſcharged of both, by the ſubſtitution of two other Goſpel Sacraments. It is the Lord will (according to the fourth Commandment) we ſhould not be under an obligation to keep two dayes in each week; and it is the Lords will, as we have proved, w… ſhould keep the firſt day of the week: wha… need we any further witneſs? But yet it be needfull, I think it is not hard t… evince it.
1. The Jewiſh Sabbath (as I have already proved) was never primarily require… in the Morall Law; but only by tho… ceremonial or temporary Laws given to th… Jews, which all acknowledge determine by the death of Chriſt, and the extinction of the Jewiſh Polity, and fell of cou… when that fell. The Ordinance for t… particular day of the week was but an O… dinance given to hold untill the time Reformation: but to add yet a little mor… it hath been told our Brethren, and I heartly wiſh they would deliberate upon it; Th… the Apoſtle, Rom. 14.5. blameth the … mans, that amongſt them, One man eſteem… one day above another. Gal. 4.10. he blam… them that they obſerved dayes, and month and times, and years. That the Apoſtle, …al. 2.16. cautioneth the Chriſtians, That … man ſhould judge them as to meat or drink, … in reſpect of an Holy-day, or a New-moon, … the Sabbath-day. That theſe Texts are … to be underſtood of the Lords day, is …dent,
1. Becauſe (as we have proved) the Apo…es themſelves, and the Chriſtian Churches …en obſerved it.
2. Becauſe the fourth Commandment, …d perpetually eſtabliſhed, 1. A Day: 2. A …venth Day to be ſanctified: Now the …poſtles words muſt be interpreted ſo as …t to loſe us one of the ten Command…ents.
3. Becauſe to interpret thoſe Texts of all other Jewiſh Holy-dayes, with an ex…tion only to the weekly Sabbath, ſeem… both an unreaſonable interpretation, too ſhort for the terms of the Texts. Ʋnreaſonable, it is an uſual rule, Ʋbi lex … diſtinguit, non eſt diſtinguendum; we …e no reaſon to diſtinguiſh where the rule …es no diſtinction, nor can any pretence reaſon be for limiting the ſenſe in that …oner: but to reconcile the Apoſtles Pre…t with the fourth Commandment, which may quickly be without ſuch a reſtriction according to what we have proved th… ſenſe of it. A Sabbath may remain, though that Sabbath be aboliſhed. 2. It ſeems alſo too ſhort. The Apoſtle to the Galatians uſeth four terms, Dayes, Months, Times, Years: Suppoſe by the years be meant th… yearly Feaſt of Atonement, or the years … Jubile; by Moneths, the New Moons; b… Times, their Feaſts of the Paſſeover, Pentecoſt &c. ſtill we want an interpretation for th… term Dayes, which certainly muſt be underſtood of the Jewiſh ſeventh Dayes, or Sabbaths returning every week.
4. What Mr. Warren obſerves is alſo very conſiderable, that all theſe Epiſtles wer… wrote to Churches much leven'd with Judaiſm; and under great temptations to it ſo that undoubtedly it was the Apoſtles intention by that term to declare the Chriſtians freedom from the old Sabbath, which alſo as it is plain from Deut. 5.15. ha… ſomething of a Type annexed unto it. Bu… enough hath been ſaid to prove the ol… Sabbath out of doors, if not by repeal, ye… by expiration, as being a temporary Ord… nance, and by the appointing of anoth… Sabbath in the ſtead of it.