The Judgment of the Extent of Christs Death, Letter 4
A Learned Letter of the late Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Twisse, concerning the Sabbath, and observation of the Lords day.
Worthy Sir,
YOur Letter of the first of February came unto my hands the seventh of April, but, my journy to Dublin following thereupon, and my long stay in the City, (where the multiplicity of my publick and private employments would scarce afford me a breathing time) was such; that I was forced to defer my Answer thereunto, untill this short time of my retiring into the Countrey: Where, being now absent also from my Library: I can rather signifie unto you, how fully I concurre in judgement with those grounds, which you have so judiciously laid in that question of the Sabbath, than afford any great help unto you in the building, which you intend to raise thereupon. For when I gave my selfe unto the reading of the Fathers, I took no heed unto any thing that concerned this argument: as little dreaming that any such controversie would have arisen among us. Yet generally I do remember that the word Sabbatum in their writings doth denote our Saturday: although by Analogy from the manner of speech used by the Jewes, the term be sometimes transferred to denote our Christian festivities also, as Sirmondus the Jesuite observeth, out of Sidonius Apollinaris, (lib. 1. Epist. 2.) where, describeing the moderation of the Table of Theodorick, King of the Gothes upon the Eves, and the excesse on the Holy day following; he writeth of the one, that his convivium diebus profestis simile privato est, but of the other. De luxu autem illo Sabbatario narrationi meae supersedendum est, qui nec latentes potest latere personas. And because the foreign of the fourth Commandement pointeth at the Sabbath, as it was in the first institution, the seventh day from the Creation: therefore they held that Christians were not tied to the observance thereof. Whereupon you may observe, that S. Augustine in his speculum (in operum tomo 3o.) purposely selecting those things which appertained unto us Christians; doth wholly pretermit that precept, in the recital of the Commandements of the Decalogue; Not because the substance of the precept was absolutely abolished: but because it was in some parts held to be *Vid. Augustin. Praefat. in speculum.ceremonial, & the time afterwards was changed in the state of the New Testament, from the seventh to the first day of the week: as appeareth by the Authour of the 25 Sermon, de Tempore (in 10o tomo Operum Augustini:) and that place of Athanasius in homil. de semente, where he most plainly saith, touching the Sabbath, foreign. Whereupon Caesarius Arelatensis in his twelfth homily, doubted not to preach unto the people. Verè dico, Fratres, satis durum & prope nimis impium est, ut Christiani non habeant reverentiam diei Dominico, quam Judaei observare videntur in Sabbato, &c. Charles the Great in his Lawes, taketh it for granted, that our observation of the Lords day is founded upon the foreign of the fourth Commandement. Statuimus (saith he, aEdit. Lindebreg. pag. 842.libro 1o. Capitularium, cap. 81.) secundum quod & in lege Dominus praecepit, ut opera servilia diebus Dominicis non agantur; sicut & bonae memoriae genitor meus in suis Synodalibus edictis mandavit: And Lotharius likewise, in legibus Alemannorum, titulo 38. bIbid. pag. 373.Die Dominico nemo opera servilia praesumat facere: quia hoc lex prohibuit, & sacra scriptura in omnibus contradicit. Accommodating the Law of God touching the Sabbath unto our observation of the Lords day, by the self-same Analogy; that the Church of England now doth in her publick Prayer: Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this Law.
The Jewes commonly hold two things touching their Sabboth; as Menasses Ben-Israel sheweth in his eighth Probleme, de creatione; which be published at Amsterdam the last year. First, that the observation thereof was commanded onelyonly unto the aWhether the Proselyte, or foreign were tied thereunto, is handled in the Talmud of Jerusalem, Seder foreign, fol. 8. d of my edition.Israelies, (where he speaketh also of the seven precepts of the sons of Noah; which have need to be taken in a large extent, if we will have all the duties that the Heathen were tyed unto to be comprised therein) Secondly, that it was observed by the Patriarchs, before the coming out of Egypt. For that then the observation began, or that the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, or the Egyptians drowned upon the Sabbath; I suppose our good friend Mr. Mead will not be able to evince, either out of bCompare with Deut. 16. 12. 7.Deut. 5. 15 or out of any other Scripture whatsoever. And the Text, Genes. 2. 3. (as you well note) is so cleare for the ancient institution of the Sabbath, and so fully vindicated by D. Rivet from the exceptions of Gomarus; that I see no reason in the earth why any man should make doubt thereof: especially considering withall, that the very Gentiles, both civill and barbarous, both ancient and of latter dayes, as it were by an universal kind of tradition, retained the distinction of the seven dayes of the week, which if Dr. Heylin had read, so well proved as it is, by Rivetus and Salmasius, he would not have made such a conclusion as he doth: that because the Heathen (of the four great Monarchies at least) had no distinction of weeks, therefore Part. 1. cap. 4. pag. 83, 84. pag. 90.they could observe no Sabbath; whereas he might have found, that the distinction of the dayes of the week did reach etiam ad ipsos usque Sauromatas, for even of the Slavonians themselves (while they yet continued in their ancient Paganisme:) thus writeth Helmoldus, Chronic. Slavor. lib. 1. cap. 84. Illic secundâ feriâ populus terrae, cum flamine & regulo, convenire solebant propter judicia, the same order of the dayes of the week being retained by them, which Theophilus the old Bishop of Antioch noteth to have been observed by all mankind. foreign (saith he, lib. 2. ad Antolycum) foreign) confounding as it seemeth foreign with foreign, as also doth Lacta…tius, lib. 7 cap. 14.) foreign. Wherewith we may joyn that other place of Johannes Philoponus, foreign Lib. 7. Cap. ult. foreign foreign who, with shewing the cause thereof, thus shuts up the whole work. foreign.
We see it aThe variation of some rude American breaketh here no square no more than it doth in the unskilfull reckoning of their times. [They being meer Savages.almost generally observed in all Nations, though never so farre distant, and strangers one to another, that in their reckoning of Numbers, when they come to ten, they return to their Addition of 1. 2. and 3. again. If it should be demanded, how they did all come to agree upon this kind of Arithmetick; and not some place their period at 8. some at 12. some at 15? I suppose this could not be better resolved, than by saying they had this by tradition from the first Fathers that lived before the dispersion; and that this is not an improbable evidence of that truth propounded by the Apostle unto the Philosophers of Athens, Acts 17. 26. that God made of one bloud all Nations of men to dwell on all the face of the Earth. How more when we finde a farre greater agreement among the Nations, in the computation of the seven dayes of the week (the self-same day, which is accounted the first by one, being in like manner reckoned so by all; Notwithstanding, that great variety of differences: which is betwixt them in the ordering of their years and moneths:) how much more strongly, I say, may we conclude from hence, that the tradition of the seventh day was not of Moses, but of the Fathers, and did not begin with the Common-wealth of Israel, but was derived unto all Nations by lineal descent from the Sons of Noah?
Adde hereunto that those Heathens, who were strangers from the Common-wealth of Israel, though they made not the seventh day as Festival as the Jews did; yet did they attribute some holinesse to it, and gave it a peculiar honour above the other dayes of the week; wherein they retained some Relicks, and preserved still some clear foot-steps of the first institution. Quinetiam populi jam *This word was not well left out by Gomarus, in Investigat. p. 123. The Greek, S. foreign.olim, saith Josephus, (sub fin. lib. 2. contra Apion.) multùm nostram pietatem aemulantur: neque est civitas Graecorum ulla usquàm aut Barbarorum, nec ulla gens, ad quam septimanae, in qua vacamus, consuetudo minimè pervenerit; Jejuniaque & candelabra accensa, &c. of which Rite of lighting of Candles, or Lamps rather, mention also is made by Seneca in his 95th. Epistle: Accendere aliquam lucernam Sabbathis prohibeamus; quoniam nec lumine Dii egent, & ne homines quidem delectantur fuligine. And by Tertullian lib. 1. ad Nation. cap. 13. where he noteth also those to be the Sabbaths observed by the Nations, saying thus unto them. Qui solem & diem ejus nobis exprobratis, agnoscite vicinitatem: Non longè à Saturno & Sabbatis VESTRIS sumus, wherein though their devotion were somewhat like … of the Jewes, (which is all that those words of Josephus do import; Multum nostram pietatem aemulantur,) yet that it was not done by any late imitation of them, or with any relation at all to their observance; that other place of Tertullian doth seem to evince, in the 16th. Chapter of his Apologeticum. Aequè si diem solis laetitiae indulgemus, aliâ longè ratione quàm religione solis; secundo loco ab eis sumus qui diem Saturni otio & victui decernunt, exorbitantes & ipsi à Judaico more, aUpon these two words I ground the strength of the Argument: which will hold, notwithstanding the correction of Gottef…edus, out of that in libro, 1. ad Nationes cap. 13. Quod quidem facitis, exo…bitantes & ipsi à vestris ad altenas religiones.quem ignorant. And that they did not celebrate their Satturdayes, with that solemnity wherewith themselves did their annuall festivities, or the Jewes their weekly Sabbaths, may appear by the words of this same Author, in the 14th. Chapter of his book de Idololatriâ, thus speaking unto the Christian, (who observed 52 Lords dayes every year, whereas all the annual festivities of the Pagans put together, did come short of fifty.) Ethnicis semel annuus dies quisque festus est; tibi octavo quoque die. Excerpe singulas solemnitates nationum, & in ordinem texe; Pentecosten implere non potuerunt. And yet, as I said, that they accounted Satturday more holy, and requiring more respect from them than the other ordinary dayes of the week, may be seen by that of Tibullus. Eleg. 3. lib. 1.
Aut ego sum causatus aves, aut omina dira.
Saturni SACRA me tenuisse die.
And that of Lucian, aOper. Lucian. Graec… lat. pag. 893. edit. Paris. Ann. 1615.in his foreign, of boyes getting leave to play foreign, and that of Aelius Lampridius, touching Alexander Severus, using to go unto the Capitols and other Temples, upon the seventh day. Whereunto we may adde those verses of the ancient Greek Poets, alleadged by Clemens Alexandrinus, (lib. 5. Stromat.) and Eusebius (lib. 13. Praeparat. Evangelic.) which plainly shew that they were not ignorant, that the works of Creation were finished on the seventh day, for so much doth that verse of Linus intimate.
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And that of Homer.
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And that of Callimachus.
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The Israelites, by the Law of Moses, were not only to observe their weekly Sabbath every seventh day, but also their feast of weekes once in the year: Which although by the vulgar use of the Jewish nation it may now fall upon any day of the week, yet do the Samaritans untill this day constantly observe it on the first day of the week; which is our Sunday, For which they produce the Letter of the Law, Levit. 23. 15, 16. where the feast of the first fruits (otherwise called Pentecost, or the feast of weeks) is prescribed to be kept the morrow after the seventh Sabbath; which not they onelyonly, but also amongst our Christian Interpreters, Isychius and Rupertus do interpret to be the first day of the week. Planiùs, saith Isychius, Isych. lib. 6. in Levit. cap. 23. Vid. Lidya. De variis annorum formis, cap. 5.Legislator intentionem suam demonstrate volens, ab altero die Sabbati memor ari praecepit quinquaginta dies: Dominicum diem proculdubiò volens intelligi. Hic enim est altera dies Sabbati, (in hâc enim resurrectio facta est) qua hebdomadae numerantur septem, usque ad alterum diem expletionis hebdomadae. Dominicâ rursus die Pentecostes celebramus festivitatem, in quâ Sancti Spiritus adventum meruimus. ai. Consecuti sumus, (juxta usum loquendi veterum.)Where you may observe by the way, that although this Authour made a little bold to strain the signification of altera dies Sabbati, (which in Moses denoteth no more than the morrow after the Sabbath) yet he maketh no scruple to call the day of Christs Resurrection another Sabbath day, as in the Councel of Friuli also (If I greatly mistake not the matter) Concil. Forojuliens. cap. 13.you shall find Satturday called by the name of Sabbatum ultimum and the Lords day of Sabbatum primum, (with some allusion perhaps to that of St. Ambrose, in Psal. 47. Ubi Dominica dies caepit praecellere, quâ Dominus resurrexit; Sabbatum, quod primum erat secundum haberi caepit à primo,) not much unlike unto that, which Dr. bPart. 2. cap. 2. pag. 19. 1.Heylin himself noteth out of Scaliger of the Aethiopian Christians; that they call both of them by the name of Sabbaths: the one the first, the other the latter Sabbath; or in their own Language, the one Sanbath Sachristos, (i. e.) Christs Sabbath, the other Sanbath Judi, or the Jews Sabbath.
But touching the old Pentecost it is very considerable, that it is no where in Moses affixed unto any one certain day of the monethmonth, as all the rest of the feasts are: which is a very great presumption, that it was a moveable feast, and so cAgainst Doctor Heylin, part 2. cap. 1. pug. 14.varied, that it might alwayes fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbath. And if God so order the matter, that in the celebration of the feast of weeks the seventh should purposely be passed over, and that solemnity should be kept upon the first: what other thing may we imagine could be praesignified thereby, but that under the State of the Gospel the solemnity of the weekly service should be celebrated upon that day? That on that day the famous Pentecost in the 2. of the Acts was observed, is in a manner generally acknowledged by all: wherein the truth of all those that went before being accomplished, we may observe the type and the verity, concurring together in a wonderfull manner. At the time of the Passeover Christ our Passeover was slain for us: the whole Sabboth following 1 Cor. 5. 7.he rested in the grave. The next day after that Sabbath, the foreign, or sheaf of the first fruits of Levit. 23. 10, 11.the first (or barly) Harvest was offered unto God; and Christ rose from the dead, and became the first fruits of them that slept; many bodies 1 Cor. 15. 20. Matth. 27. 52, 53. Levit. 23. 15, 16, 17.of the Saints that slept, arising likewise after him. From thence was the count taken of the seven Sabbaths; and upon the more after the seventh Sabbath (which was our Lords day) was celebrated the feast of weeks, the day of the first fruits of the second (or wheat) Harvest: Numb. 28. 26. Exod. 34. 22.upon which day the Apostles having themselves received the first fruits of the spirit, begat three thousand Soules with the word of truth, and presented them as the first fruits of the Christian Church Acts 2. 1, 4, 5, 41. Jam. 1. 18. Revel. 14. 4.unto God, and unto the Lamb. And from that time forward doth Waldensis note that the Lords day was observed in the Christian Church in the place of the Sabbath. Quia inter legalia (saith he) tunc sublata Sabbati castodia fuit unum, planum est tunc intrâsse Dominicam loco ejus: sicut Baptisma Thom. Waldens. Doctrinal. Tom. 3. Tit. 16. c. 140.statim loco Circumcisionis. Adhuc enim superstes erat sanctus Johannes, qui diceret: Et fui in spiritu die Dominicâ, Apocal. 1. cùm de Dominicâ die ante Christi Resurrection nulla prorsùs mentio haberetur. Sed statim post missionem Spiritus sancti, lege novâ fulgente, in humano cultu sublatum est Sabbatum; & dies Dominicae Resurrectionis clarescebat Dominica.
The Revelation exhibited unto Revel. 7. 10.St. John upon the Lords day; is by Irenaeus (in his fifth book) referred unto the Empire of Domitian, or, as S. Hierome in his Catalogue more particularly doth expresse it, to the fourth yeare of his Reigne: Which answereth partly to the forty ninth, and partly to the ninty fifth year of our Lord, according to our vulgar computation; and was but eleven or twelve yeares before the time, when Ignatius did write his Epistles. Of whom then should we more certainly learn, what the Apostle meant by the Lords day, then from Ignatius? who was by the Apostles Acts 11. 26.themselves ordained Bishop of that Church, wherein the Disciples were first called Christians; and in his Epistle to the Magnesians clearly maketh the Lords day to be a weekly holy day, observed by Christians, in the room of the abrogated Sabbath of the Jews: than which, can we desire more? But here you are to know, beside the common edition, wherein the genuine Epistles of Ignatius are fouly depraved by a number of beggarly patches added unto his purple by later hands; there is an ancient Latine translation to bee found in the Library of Caies Colledge in Cambridge; which, although it be very rude, and corrupt both in many other, and in this very same place also of the Epistle to the Magnesians; yet is it free from these additaments, and in many respects to be preferred before the common Greek Copy, as well because it agreeth with the Citations of Eusebius, Athanasius, and Theodoret, and hath the sentences vouched by them out of Ignatius (and particularly that of the Eucharist, in the Epistle to the Smyrnians) which are not at all to be found in our Greek; and hath in a manner none of all those places in the true Epistles of Ignatius, against which exception hath been taken by our Divines: which addeth great strength to those exceptions of theirs, and sheweth that they were not made without good cause. Now in this Translation there is nothing to be found touching the Sabbath, and the Lords day in the Epistle to the Magnesians, but these words only. Non ampliùs sabbatizantes, sed secundùm Dominicam viventes, in quâ, & vita nostra orta est; whereunto these of our common Greeke may be made answerable. foreign aIt may be the three first syll ables of this word were wanting in the Greek Copy, which the Translator used; & thence came his viventes.foreign. all those other words alleadged by Dr. Heylin, (part. 2. pag. 43.) to prove that Ignatius would have both the Sabbath and the Lords day observed, being afterwards added by some later Grecian; who was afraid that the custome of keeping both dayes observed in his time should appear otherwise to be directly opposite to the sentence of Ignatius, whereas his main intention was to oppose the Ebionites of his owne time: who, as Eusebius witnesseth in the third book of his Ecclesiasticall History, did both keep the Sabbath with the Jewes, and also foreign. By whose imitation of the Church herein, the antiquity of the observation of the Lords day may be further confirmed: Ebion being known to have been St. Paul's Antagonist; and to have given out of himself, that he was one of those that brought the prices of their goods, and laid them down at the Apostles feet: as the universality of the observance may be gathered by the argument drawn from thence by Eusebius towards the end of his Oration of the praises of Constantine) to prove the preeminency of our Saviour Christ, above all the gods of the Heathen: because this prescript of his touching the celebration of this day was admitted and submitted unto, not within the Dominions of Constantine onelyonly, but also throughout the compasse of the whole world. *foreign.Quis n. (saith he) cunctis totius orbis terrarum incobis, seu terra seu mari illi sint, praescripserit ut singulis septimanis in unum convenientes diem Dominicum festum celebrarent; instituentque ut sicut corpora pascerent cibariis, sic animos Divinis Disciplinis refi…erent?
We see then that the Doctrine, which the true Ignatius received immediately from the hands of the Apostles, was the very same with that was delivered by the Fathers of the Councel of Laodicea, about 250 years after, (for the profs produced by the Authours, to whom my aD. White.Lord of Eli, pag. 73. refereth us, for having it to be held before the first Nicene, are nothing worth.) Non oportet Christianos Judaizare & in Sabbatho otiari; sed ipsos eo die operari, diem autem dominicum praeferentes otiari (si modo possint) ut Christianos: the contrary whereunto Pope Gregory the first (in Registr. lib. 11. Epist. 3. esteemeth to bee the Doctrine of the Preachers of Antichrist: qui veniens, diem Dominicum & Sabbatum ab omni opere faciet custodiri: which my Lord of Eli, pag. 219.) rendreth; upon the old Sabbath-day, or upon the Sunday: by a strange kinde of mistake turning the copulative into a disjunctive.