ever church-orders they settled for all the churches universally, they settled them by the infallible guidance of that Spirit.'

But this few Christians will deny, except some Papists, who would bring down apostolical constitutions to a lower rank and rate, that the Pope and General Council may be capable of laying claim to the like themselves; and so may make as many more laws for the church as they please, and pretend such an authority for it as the apostles did for theirs. By which pretence many would make too little distinction between God's laws given by his Spirit, and the laws of a pope and popish council, and call them all but The laws of the church.' Whereas there is no universal head of the church but Christ, who hath reserved universal legislation to himself alone, to be performed by himself personally, and by his advocate, the Holy Ghost, in his authorised and infallibly inspired apostles, who were the promulgators and recorders of them; all following pastors, being but (as the Jewish priests were to Moses and the prophets) the preservers, the expositors, and the appliers of the law.

CHAPTER VII.

QUEST. 2. Whether the Seventh-day-Sabbath should be still kept by Christians, as of Divine Obligation? Neg.

I SHALL here premise, That as some superstition is less dangerous than profaneness (though it be troublesome, and have ill consequents), so the error of them who keep both days, as of Divine appointment, is much less dangerous than theirs that keep none: yea, and less dangerous, I think, than theirs who reject the Lord's-day, and keep the seventh day only. Because these latter are guilty of two sins, the rejecting of the right day, and the keeping of the wrong; but the other are guilty but of one, the keeping of the wrong day. Besides, that if it were not done, with a superstitious conceit (that it is God's law) in some cases a day may be voluntarily set apart for holy duties, as days of thanksgiving and humiliation now are.

But yet, though the rejecting of the Lord's-day be the

greater fault (and I have no uncharitable censures of them that through weakness keep both days), I must conclude it as the truth, that We are not obliged to the observation of the Saturday, or Seventh-day as a Sabbath, or separated day of holy worship.

Arg. I. That day's observations which we are not obliged to, either by the law of nature, the positive law given to Adam, the positive law given to Noah, the law of Moses, or the law of Christ incarnate, we are not obliged to by any law of God (as distinct from human laws); but such is the observation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath; therefore we are not obliged to the observation of it by any law of God.

The minor I must prove by parts (for I think none will deny the sufficient enumeration in the minor).

And, 1. That the law of nature bindeth us not to the Seventh day, or any one day of the seven more than other, appeareth, 1. In the nature and reason of the thing; there is nothing in nature to evidence it to us to be God's will. 2. By every Christian's experience: no man findeth himself convinced of any such thing by mere nature. 3. By all the world's experience: no man can say that a man of that opinion can bring any cogent evidence or argument from nature alone to convince another, that the Seventh day must be the Sabbath. Nor is it any where received as a law of nature, but only as a tradition among some few heathens, and as a law positive by the Jews, and some few Christians. I am not solicitous to prosecute this argument any further; because I can consent that all they take the Seventh day for the Sabbath, who can prove it to be so by mere natural evidence, which will not be done.

II. That the positive law made to Adam (before or after the fall), or to Noah, bindeth not us to keep the Seventh day as a Sabbath, is proved.

1. Because we are under a more perfect subsequent law; which being in force, the former more imperfect ceaseth. As the force of the promise of the incarnation of Christ is ceased by his incarnation, and so is the precept which bound men to believe that he should de futuro' be incarnate; and the law of sacrificing (which Abel doubtless received from Adam, though one of late would make it to be but will worship); so also is the Sabbath-day, as giving place to the day in which our redemption is primarily com

memorated, as the imperfect is done away when that which is more perfect cometh.

2. Because that the law of Christ containeth an express revocation of the Seventh-day Sabbath, as shall be shewn

anon.

3. Because God never required two days in the seven to be kept as holy; therefore the first day being proved to be of Divine institution, the cessation of the seventh is thereby proved for to keep two days is contrary to the command which they themselves do build upon, which obligeth us to sanctify a Sabbath, and labour six days.

4. And when it is not probable that most or many infidels are bound to Adam's day, for want of notice (at least); for no law can bind without promulgation (though I now pass by the question, how far a promulgation of a positive law to our first parents may be said to bind their posterity, that have no intermediate notice). It seemeth less probable that Christians should be bound by it, who have a more perfect law promulgated to them.

5. Nor is it probable that Christ and his apostles, and all the following pastors of the churches, would have passed by this positive law to Adam without any mention of it, if our universal obligation had been thence to be collected. Nay, I never yet heard a Sabbatarian plead this law, any otherwise than as supposed to be implied or exemplified in the fourth commandment.

III. And that the fouth commandment of Moses's law bindeth us not to the Seventh-day Sabbath is proved.

1. Because that Moses's law never bound any to it but the Jews, and those proselytes that made themselves inhabitants of their land, or voluntarily subjected themselves to their policy. For Moses was ruler of none but the Jews, nor a legislator or deputed officer from God to any other nation. The decalogue was but part of the Jewish law, if you consider it not as it is written in nature, but in tables of stone and the Jewish law was given as a law to no other people but to them. It was a national law, as they were a peculiar people and holy nation. So that even in Moses's days it bound no other nations of the world. Therefore it needed not any abrogation to the Gentiles, but a declaration that it did not bind them.

2. The whole law of Moses, formally as such, is ceased or abrogated by Christ. I say, As such; because, materially, the same things that are in that law, may be the matter of the law of nature, and of the law of Christ of which more anon. That the whole law of Moses as such is abrogated, is most clearly proved, 1. By the frequent arguings of Paul, who ever speaketh of that law as ceased, without excepting any part; and Christ saith, Luke xvi. 16: The law and the prophets were until John, that is, were the chief doctrine of the church till then. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth cometh by Jesus Christ." (John i. 17.) No Jew would have understood this, if the word law had not contained the decalogue. So John vii. 19. 23; Acts xv. 5. 24. It was the whole law of Moses, as such, which by circumcision they would have bound men to. (Gal. v. 3.) The Gentiles are said to "sin without law," even when they broke the law of nature, meaning, without the law of Moses. (Rom. ii. 12, 14-16.). In all these following places it is not part but the whole law of Moses, which Paul excludeth (which I ever acknowledged to the Antinomians, though they take me for their too great adversary). Rom. iii. 19-21. 27, 28. 31; iv. 13—16; v. 13, 20; vii. 4-8. 16; ix. 4. 31, 32; x. 5: Gal. ii. 16. 19. 21; iii. 2. 10-13. 19. 21. 24; iv. 21; v. 3, 4. 14. 23; vi. 13: Eph. ii. 15: Phil. iii. 6. 9: Heb. vii. 11, 12. 19; ix. 19; x. 28: 1 Cor. ix. 21.

2. More particularly there are some texts which express the cessation of the decalogue as it was in Moses's law. "Not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heartBut if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which was to be done away (or is done away).” (2 Cor. iii. 7.) They that say the glory, and not the law, is here said to be done away, speak against the plain scope of the text; for the glory of Moses's face, and the glorious manner of deliverance ceased in a few days, which is not the cessation here intended, but as Dr. Hammond speaketh it, 'That glory and that law so gloriously delivered, is done away.' And this the eleventh verse more fully expresseth, "For if that which is done away was glorious (or, by glory), much more that which remaineth is glorious (or, in

glory)," so that as it is not only the glory, but the glorious Law, Gospel, or Testament which is said to remain, so it is not only the glory, but the law which was delivered by glory, which is expressly said to be done away: and this is the law which was written in stone. Nothing but partial violence can evade the force of this text.

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Under it (the Levitical priesthood) the people received the law——And the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect; but the bringing in of a better hopeBut so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament." (Heb. vii. 11, 12. 18. 22.) In all this it is plain that it is the whole frame of the Mosaical law that is changed, and the New Testament set up in its stead.

"Neither was the first dedicated without blood; for when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law," &c. (Heb. ix. 18, 19.) Here the law, which is before said to be changed, is said to contain every precept.

And Eph. ii. 15. "It is the law of commandments contained in ordinances," which Christ abolished in his flesh; which cannot be exclusive of the chief part of that law.

Object. This is the doctrine of the Antinomians, that the law is abrogated, even the moral law.'

Answ. It is the doctrine of the true Antinomians that we are under no Divine law, neither of nature nor of Christ; but it is the doctrine of Paul and all Christians, that the Jewish Mosaical law, as such, is abolished.

Object.' But do not all divines say that the moral law is of perpetual obligation?'

Answ. Yes; because it is God's law of nature, and also the law of Christ.

Object. But do not most say that the decalogue written in stone, is the moral law, and of perpetual obligation?'

Answ. Yes; for by the word moral they mean natural, and so take moral, not in the large sense as it signifieth a law 'de moribus,' as all laws are whatsoever, but in a narrower sense, as signifying, that which by nature is of universal and perpetual obligation. So that they mean not that it is perpetual as it is Moses's law, and written in stone formally,