bath in the congregation, he found full enough. The custom was, to read a section of the law out of the Pentateuch, and after to illustrate, or confirm the same out of some parallel place amongst the prophets. That ended, if occasion were, and that the rulers of the synagogue did consent unto it, there was a word of exhortation made unto the people, conducing to obedience and the works of piety. So far, it is apparent by that passage in the Acts of the Apostles, touching Paul and Barnabas; that being at Antioch in Pisidia, on the Sabbath-day, “after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on."1 So far, our Saviour found no fault; but rather countenanced and confirmed the custom, by his gracious presence and example.

But in those rigid vanities and absurd traditions, by which the Scribes and Pharisees had abused the Sabbath, and made it of an ease, to become a drudgery; in those he thought it requisite to detect their follies, and ease the people of that bondage, which they in their proud humours had imposed upon them. The Pharisees had taught that it was unlawful on the Sabbath-day either to heal the impotent, or relieve the sick, or feed the hungry; but he confutes them in them all, both by his acts and by his disputations. Whatever he maintained by argument, he

1 Acts xiii. 15.

made good by practice. Did they accuse his followers of gathering corn upon the Sabbath, being then an hungred? He lets them know what David did in the same extremity. Their eating, or their gathering on the Sabbath-day, take you which you will, was not more blameable, nay not so blameable by the law, as David's eating of the shew-bread, which plainly was not to be eaten by any but the priest alone. His bidding of the impotent man to take up his bed and get him gone, which seemed so odious in their eyes, was it so great a toil as to walk round the walls of Jericho, and bear the ark upon their shoulders?—or any greater burden to their idle backs, than to lift up the ox, and set him free out of that dangerous ditch, into the which the hasty beast might fall as well upon the Sabbath as the other days? Should men take care of oxen, and not God of man? Not so. The Sabbath was not made for a lazy idol, which all the nations of the world should fall down and worship; but for the ease and comfort of the labouring man, that he might have some time to refresh his spirits. "The Sabbath," saith our Saviour, made for man ;" man was not made to serve the Sabbath. Nor had God so irrevocably spoke the word touching the sanctifying of the Sabbath, that he had left himself no power to repeal that law: "The Son of Man," even he that was the son both of God and man, "being Lord also of the Sabbath.”

1 Mark ii. 27.

66 was

Nay, it is rightly marked by some, that Christ our Saviour did more works of charity on the Sabbath-day, than on all days else. Not that there was some urgent and extreme necessity, either the cures to be performed that day, or the man to perish; for if we look into the story of our Saviour's actions, we find no such matter. It is true, that the centurion's son, and Peter's mother-in-law were even sick to death; and there might be some reason in it, why he should haste unto their cures on the Sabbath-day. But on the other side, the man that had the withered hand,' and the woman with her flux of blood eighteen years together,2-he that was troubled with the dropsy, and the poor wretch which was afflicted with the palsy,*in none of these was found any such necessity, but that the cure might have been respited to another day. What then? Shall it be thought our Saviour came to destroy the law? No. God forbid! Himself hath told us, that he came to fulfil it, rather. He came to let them understand the right meaning of it; that for the residue of time wherein it was to be in force, they might no longer be misled by the Scribes and Pharisees, and such blind guides as did abuse them.

Not then to take away the law; it was to last a little longer. He had not yet pronounced consummatum est—that the law was abrogated. Nor might it seem so proper for him to take away one Sabbath from us, which

1 Matt. xiii. 2 Luke xiii. 3 Luke xiv.

4 John v.

was rest from labour, until he had provided us with another, which was rest from sin. And to provide us such a Sabbath, was to cost him dearer than words and arguments. He healed us by his word before:-Now he must heal us by his stripes, or else no entrance into his rest-the eternal Sabbath.

That the Sabbath was to end with other legal ceremonies, is by this apparent; first, that it was an institute of Moses; and secondly, an institute peculiar to the Jewish nation; and therefore was to end with the law of Moses, and the state of Jewry. Fathers, there be good store, which affirm as much. And first for Justin Martyr: it is his chief scope and purpose in his conference with Trypho, to make it manifest and unquestionable, that as there was no use of circumcision before Abraham's time, nor of the Sabbath until Moses, so neither is there any use of them at this present time; that as it took beginning then, so it was now to have an end. Tertullian, in his argument against the Marcionites, draws out this conclusion: that God ordained the Sabbath upon special reasons, and as the times did then require; not that it should continue always. But he that speaks most fully to this point, is the great St. Austin. First, that the Sabbath is quite abrogated—the keeping of the Sabbath is taken utterly away in this time of grace. Secondly, that the Sabbath was not kept in the Church of Christ. "What is there" (saith the father) "in all the Deca

"logue, except the keeping of the Sabbath, "which is not punctually to be observed of every Christian ?" And thirdly, that it is not lawful for a Christian to observe the Sabbath. For, speaking of the law, how it was a pedagogue to bring us unto the knowledge of Christ, he adds, that "in those "institutes and ordinances which are not "lawful to be used by any Christian, such "as the Sabbath, circumcision, sacrifices, and "other such things, many great mysteries are "contained." And in another place, "He "that doth literally keep the Sabbath, savours "of the flesh; but to savour of the flesh is "death. Therefore, no Sabbath to be kept by the sons of life."

No Sabbath to be kept at all? We affirm not so. We know there is a CHRISTIAN SABBATH, a Sabbath figured out to us in the fourth commandment, which every Christian man must keep, that doth desire to enter into the rest of God. This is that Sabbath which the prophet Isaiah hath commended to us: "Blessed is the man that keepeth "the Sabbath from polluting it." What Sabbath is it, saith St. Hierom, that is here commanded? The following words, saith he, will inform us that," keeping our hands "from doing evil." The like spiritual Sabbath, doth the man of God prescribe unto us in the 58th chap. of his book. "If thou turn "away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing "thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the

1 Isaiah lvi. 2.