The Doctrine of the Sabbath, Thesis 80 – Thesis 82
Thesis 80.
The Sabbath (saith one) is perpetuall and morall, but not the Sabbath day, H. Den.the Sabbath (which some make continuall and inward onelyonly) is perpetually to be observed, but not the Sabbath day; a Sabbath is by Divine ordination, but a Sabbath day is to be observed onelyonly as a humane constitution. But they should doe well to consider, whether that which they call an inward continuall Sabbath be inconsistent with a speciall day; for I am sure that they under the old Testament were bound equally with us to observe a continuall Sabbath in resting from all sinne, and resting in God by Iesus Christ, Heb. 4.1, 2. yet this did not exempt them from observing a speciall day: A speciall day is a most powerfull meanes to Sabbatize every day; Why then may not a Sabbath and a Sabbath day consist together? An every day Sabbath is equally opposite to a time occasionally set, as to a set day, which the Commandment enjoyns; and therefore if it exempts a Christian from observing a set day, it sets him free also from all observation of any such set time; for if because a Christian Sabbath ought to bee continuall, and that therefore there ought to bee no set dayes, then there should not bee any occasionally set times for the worship of God, because these neither can be continuall; and if there ought to be no such set times, we may then bid good night to all the publick worship and glory of God in the world, like the men with one eye to him who put his other eye quite out: And if any here reply that there is not the like reason, because holy time and days are not necessary, but holy duties are necessary, and therefore require some occasionall set time for them: I answer, That let the difference be granted, yet that which I now dispute on is, this ground and supposition onelyonly, viz. That if all set dayes are to bee abandoned, because a Christians Sabbath ought to bee continuall and inward, then all occasionall set times also are to bee abandoned upon the same ground, because these cannot bee continuall and inward no more than the other: as for them who think no holy day necessary, but holy duties lawfull every day, we have already and shall hereafter cleare up more fully in its proper place: Mean while it is yet doubtfull to me, whether those who follow Master Saltmarsh and some others,Saltmarsh Sparkles of glory. p 265. will acknowledge the lawfulnesse of any occasionall set times for publick worship, of hearing the word and prayer, &c. For he makes the bosome of the Father to bee the Christian Sabbath, typified in the seventh day of the first Creation, and he makes the six dayes of worke to be a type, not onelyonly of the Lord Iesus in his active and fulfilling administrations while he was in the flesh, but also to be a figure of the Christian in bondage, or (to use his own words) of a Christian under active and working administrations, as those of the law and Gospel are, as all formes of worship, Duties, Graces, Prayer, Ordinances, &c. From whence it will follow (from his principles, for I know not his practice) that all formes of worship, Duties, Graces, Prayer, Ordinances, are then to cease, as types and shadowes and figures, when once the substance is come, to wit, when they come in this life to the highest attainment, which is the bosome of the Father, which bosome is the true Sabbath of a Christian man. Now I confesse that the bosome of God in Christ is our rest, and our All in All in heaven, and our sweet consolation and rest on earth, and that we are not to rest in any meanes, Ordinances, Graces, Duties, but to look beyond them all, and to be carried by them above them all, to him that is better than all, to God in Christ Jesus; but to make this bosome of God a kinde of canker-worme to fret and eat out the heart and being not only of all Sabbaths and Ordinances of worship, but also of all duties and graces of Gods Spirit, nay of Christ Jesus himself, as he is manifested in the flesh, and is an externall Mediator, whom *I. S.some lately have also cast into same box with the rest, Being sent onelyonly (as they think) to reveale, but not to procure the Fathers love of delight, and therefore is little else than a meere forme, and so to cease when the Father comes in the room of all formes, and so is All in All, This I dare say is such a high affront to the precious bloud of Christ, and his glorious Name and blessed Spirit of grace, that he who hath his Furnace in Zion, and his fire in Ierusalem, will not beare it long, without making their judgements and plagues (at least spirituall) exemplary and wonderfull, and leading them forth in such crooked wayes, with the workers of iniquity, when peace shall be upon Israel: Are these abstracted notions of a Deity (into the vision and contemplation of whose amazing glory (without seeing him as he is in Christ) a Christian (they say) must be plunged, lost, and swallowed up, and up to which hee must ascend, even to the unaproachable light) the true and onelyonly Sabbath? Are these (I say) the new and glorious light breaking out in these dayes, which this age must wait for? which are nothing else (upon narrow search) than Monkish imaginations, the goodly cob-webs of the brain-imagery of those idolatrous and superstitious hypocrites the Anchorites, Monks and Fryers; who to make the blinde and simple world admire and gaze upon them, gave it out hereby, like Simon Magus, that they were some great ones, even the very power and familiars of God. Surely in these times of distraction, warre and bloud, if ever the Lord called for sackcloth, humiliation, repentance, faith, graces, holinesse, precious esteem of Gods Ordinances, and of that Gospel which hath been the power of God to the salvation of thousands, now is the time; and must Gods people reject these things as their A. B. C? and must the new light of these times be the dreames and visions and slaverings of doting and deluded old Monks? Shall the simplicity of Gospel-ministery bee rejected, as a common thing, and shall Harphius his Theologia Mystica, Augustinus Elutherius, Iacob Behmen, Cusanus, Raimundus Sebund, Theologia Germanica, and such like Monk-admirers, be set up as the new lights and beacons on the mountaine of these elevated times? Surely (if so) God hath his time and wayes of putting a better relish to his precious Gospel, and the crosse of Christ, which was wont in Pauls time to be plainly preached, without such popish paintings, and wherein Gods people knew how to reconcile their swe… rest in the bosome of the Father, and their Sabbath day.
Thesis 81.
If sinne (which is the transgression of the law) bee the greatest evill, then holines (which is our conformity to the law) is our greatest good. If sin be mans greatest misery, then holinesse is mans greatest happinesse: It is therefore no bondage for a Christian to be bound to the observance of the law as his rule, because it onelyonly binds him fast to his greatest happinesse, and thereby directs and keeps him- safe from falling into the greatest misery and woe: and if the great designe of Christ in comming into the world, was not so much as to save man from affliction and sorrow (which are lesser evils) but chiefely from sinne (which is the greatest evill) then the chiefe end of his comming was not (as some imagine) to lift his people up into the love and abstracted speculation of the Father above the law of God: but into his owne bosome onelyonly, where only wee have fellowship with the Father above the Law of sinne.
Thesis 82.
The bloud of Christ was never shed to destroy all sense of sin and sight of sinne in Beleevers, and consequently all attendance to any rule of the law, by which means chiefely sinne comes to be seen: but he dyed rather to make them sensible of sinne, for if he dyed to save men from sin (as is evident, 1 Iohn 3.5. Tit. 3.14.) then hee dyed to make his people sensible of sinne, because hereby his peoples hearts are chiefely weaned and sever'd from it and saved out of it (as by hardnesse and unsensiblenesse of heart under it, they chiefely cleave to it and it to them) and therefore we know that godly sorrow workes repentance, never to be repented of, 2 Cor. 7.10. And that Pharaoh's hardnesse of heart strengthened him in his sin against God unto the last gasp, and hence it is also that the deepest and greatest spirit of mourning for sin is poured out upon Beleevers, after God hath poured out upon them the spirit of grace, as is evident, Zach. 12.10, 11. because the bloud of Christ which was shed for the killing of their sinne, now makes them sensible of their sinne, because it's now sprinkled and applyed to them, which it was not before, for they now see all their sins aggravated, being now not onelyonly sinnes against the law of God, but against the bloud and love of the Son of God: It is therefore a most accursed doctrine of some Libertines, who imagining that (through the bloudshed and righteousnes of Christ in their free justification) God sees no sinne in his justified people, that therefore themselves are to see no sinne, because now they are justified and washed with Christs bloud; and therefore lest they should be found out to bee grosse liars, they mince the matte…, they confesse that they may see sinne by the eye of sense and reason, but (faith being crosse to reason) they are therefore to see the quite contrary, and so to see no sinne in themselves by the eye of faith; from whence it followes that Christ shed his bloud to destroy all sight and sense of sin to the eye of faith, though not to the eye of reason, and thus as by the eye of faith they should see no sin, so (it will follow) that by the same bloud they are bound to see no law, no not so much as their rule, which as a rule is index sui & obliqui, and in revealing mans duty declares his sinne. I know that in beholding our free justification by the bloud of Christ, we are to exclude all law from our consciences as a covenant of life, not to see or feare any condemnation for sinne, or any sinne able to take away life: But will it hence follow that a justified person must see no sinne by the eye of faith, nor any law as his rule to walke by, to discover sinne? and is this the end and fruit of Christs death too? Surely this doctrine, if it be not blasphemous, yet it may be knowne to be very false and pernicious, by the old rule of judging false Doctrines, viz. if either they tend to extenuate sinne in man, or to vilifie the precious grace of Jesus Christ, as this Doctrine doth.