A tract on the Sabbath-Day wherein the keeping of the first-day of the week a Sabbath is justified by a divine command and a double example contained in the Old and New Testament : with answers to the chiefest objections made by the Jewish seventh-day Sabbatharians and others / by Isaac Marlow.

SECT. V.

HEre I proceed to prove, That the Ten Commandments as such, are of themselves binding to all Men under the Go∣spel as a Rule of Holy Life. And first, Because the Moral Ex∣positions of them with sundry penalties (that were not only Ju∣daical, but are perpetual Appendixes to the Moral Law) given and commanded in the Books of Moses, are still to be obser∣ved, thô they are not all repeated again in the New Testa∣ment; for else neither by the Institution of God to Noah, that whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed, can a Mans life be spared for killing his Neighbour unawares: Nor in the sixth Command, Thou shalt not kill, have we any liberty to kill in lawful War, or Battel: Nor have we any bodily penalty prescribed for wilful murder, nor for a Witch, nor for steal∣ing, either in the Ten Commandments, or in the New Testa∣ment; so that we must either in these and other cases have re∣spect to the Moral Expositions, and those penal Appendixes of the Ten Commandments recorded in other places of Scripture

in the Old Testament, and consequently to the Commandments themse lves as binding to us, or else we are left to the uncertain dictates of Nature.

2. The Ten Commandments of themselves are binding to all Men as a Rule of Holy life, because the Explicatory precepts of the seventh Command, Thou shalt not commit Adultery, do in Levit. 18. chap. 19.29. Deut. 23.17. particularly explain and pro∣hibit Whoredom, Fornication and Incestnous Marriages as Mo∣ral branches of this Law: For the Gentiles which had not the written Law, were charged with them as immoral Evils, for which things God cast them out of the Land of Canaan. And therefore seeing that the substance of those Explicatory Pre∣cepts were morally binding to those Gentiles before the Law, and that they are generally acknowledged to be in force, thô they are not all of them expresly repeated, distinctly forbid∣den, nor explained in the Ten Commandments to be sin, nei∣ther by Jesus Christ, nor his Holy Apostles, except two of them in the New Testament, any otherwise than their forbidding of those Evils in general terms must have a natural reference to the particulars that are found in the Old Testamant and included as branches of the moral law: We may then as fairly conclude, that the seventh Commandment, and consequently the other nine, are of themselves binding to us as well as that those ex∣plicatory precepts or moral branches deduced from them should be still in force, without their particular Confirmation in the New Testament.

3. The ten Commandments are of themselves binding to us: For the Apostle faith Rom. 3.9. We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, viz. that the Gentiles that are not under the Law of Circumcision, are notwithstanding under the Works of the Moral Law, written in their Hearts by Nature, and the Jews are under the same Obligation tran∣scribed on Tables of Stone, and in other appendant Moral Pre∣cepts given to them by Moses. And the Apostle having proved that the Gentiles that were without the Law in Tables of stone, were under sin by the Law of Nature, Chap. 2.14, 15, 16. and the Jews by the law of Circumcision, ver. 25. does then from Chap. 3.9. to ver. 20. treat of all in general, and concludes that both Jews and Gentiles are all under the Law, viz. one and the same moral Obligation, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. And the Apostle farther ar∣guing

both of the Jews and Gentiles, concludeth with these words, Do we then make void the Law through faith? God forbid: yea we establish tie Law. And so doth the Apostle James, who wrote to his Bre∣thren the Jews, that had the Faith of Jesus Christ, saying, If ye fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self, ye do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offends in one point, he is guilty of all. From whence I observe, that the believing Jews were still under the Obligation of the Moral Law as a Rule of Holy Life, which of its self, or by its own Authority, is binding under the Gospel; for else if it had been abrogated by the New Testa∣ment Ministration, the Apostle would not have cited the Law of Moses out of the Old Testament as the Obligation of their Obedience, as the Apostle farther argueth in Ver. 11, 12. and exhorteth them so to speak and do, as they that shall be judged by the Law of liberty; that is as much as to say, that they should be judged by the Law, under the relief and benefit of the Grace of Christ in the Gospel: So then, if the believing Jews under the Gospel are made Transgressors by the Law of Moses, (as the Apostle sheweth) it is a clear Demonstration, that the Law is still of its self binding to them; and it being the same in substance as the Law written in the Heart of Man by Nature, (but in a fairer Copy delivered by the Jews to the Gentile Na∣tions now with the Gospel of Christ in the New Testament) it is also equally binding to us as to the Jews: For if the Jews by Faith in Christ are not brought from under the Obligation of the Moral Law, why then should the same Faith in the Gen∣tiles excuse them from it as a Rule.

4. Moreover, I shall farther add, that while the holy Apo∣stles are throwing down the Types and Shadowy Worship un∣der that legal Dispensation, yet they assert that the Law is good if a man use it lawfully, viz. as a Foundation of our Worship and Obedience to God, and just behaviour towards Man, which thrô Gospel Grace after the measure we have received, is, or ought to be put forth according to the several Moral branches of the Law, and the Divine Precepts and Patterns given to us in the New Testament. And therefore, we find the Holy Apostles, and Gospel Writers often proving and confirming the Moral part of their Doctrine by the Law, as appears in Ephes. 6.1, 2, 3. Children obey your Parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy

Father and Mother, (which is the first Commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

Here the Apostle confirms his Moral Doctrine to the Gentiles by the Authority of the fifth Commandment, or first with pro∣mise; which plainly shews, that it is of its self binding to us all under the Gospel, and he Moralizeth the Promise by saying Earth, instead of the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee: So that the Promise was not only to pertain to the Jews in the Land of Canaan, but was perpetually to continue to all the Gentiles: and so we may say in the aforesaid case of every one that killed a Man unawares, who was to flee into the City of Refuge, and continue there until the Death of the High-priest, that thô we have no such High-priest in Gospel days, yet the equity of that Law is still in force: But to return to our present business, we may farther find the Apostle proveth the moral part of his Do∣ctrine from the Commendments, Exod. 20. For in Rom. 13.8, 9, 10. we are exhorted to love one another, for, saith he, Love is the fulfilling of the law; and he briefly citeth five of the Ten Commandments to confirm the Duty of Love, which compre∣hendeth them all: And in Chap. 7.7, 12. What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the Law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet —Wherefore the law is holy, and the Commandment holy, and just, and good. Therefore surely this Moral Precept in par∣ticular, and others in general mentioned by the Apostle, are of themselves binding to us as a Rule of Holy life; for whatsoever Law is morally holy, just and good, as this particular precept is, by which the Apostle came to the knowledge of Sin, it is perpetually and universally binding to all Men, who have the substance of it written in their Hearts by Nature: So that from the Apostles making use of the Anthority of the Moral Law of Moses, to confirm his Doctrine, and from the Commendations of it in the New Testament, it clearly appears to be in force unto all Men now under the Gospel. And seeing the fourth Commandment in particular is delivered in such moral Terms, as doth not of its self bind us to the observation of the Sabbath after the Jewish Pattern, from Evening to Evening, any more than after our Christian pattern from Morning to Morning, which does answer that Very Precept, as well as theirs did from that single Law; we have then no reason to exclude the fourth Com∣mandment

from the rest of the Decalogue, but to believe it is equally Moral with the other nine, as will appear more patticu∣larly in the next ensuing Section.

Notes

• Exod. 21.12. 16, 18, 19, 22, 23. Chap. 22.1.5.18. 19. ch. 23.8. Levit. 20.15.16. Deut. 19.18, 19 Chap. 20.10. to 16.
• See the asore∣said Bapt••sts (and the other two) Confes. of Faith, where incestous Mar∣riages are asser∣ted to be un∣lawful, and forbidden in Levit. 18. thô we find in the N. Testament, only two of those incestous Marriages in Levit. 18. to be forbidden. Matth. 14.3, 4. and 1 Cor. 5.1.
• Chap. 3.29, 30, 31.
• James 2.8, 9. Chap. 2.1.
• 1 Tim. 1.8.
• Numb. 35.25.
• Rom. 2.14, 15.
• Matth. 5.19. James 2.8. Chap. 4.11. 1 Joh. 3.4.