NEXT CHAPTER - HELP - GR VIDEOS - GR YOUTUBE - TWITTER - SD1 YOUTUBE    

For you, my Brethren, and beloved in our Lord and Savior, as I do willingly believe that you have entertained these Tenets upon mispersuasion; not out of any ill intentions to the Church, your Mother; and that it is an error in your judgments only, not of your affections: so, upon that belief, have I spared no pains, as much as in me is, to remove that error and rectify what is amiss in your opinion. I hope you are not of those men, Quos non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris, who either hate to be reformed; or have so far espoused a quarrel that neither truth nor reason can divorce them from it. Nor would I gladly you should be of their resolutions, Qui volunt id verum esse quod credunt, nolunt id credere quod verum est; who are more apt to think all true which themselves believe, than to be persuaded to believe such things as are true indeed. In confidence whereof, as I was first induced to compose this Historie; so, in continuance of those hopes, I have presumed to address it to you, to tender it to your perusal, and to submit it to your censure: that if you are not better furnished, you may learn from hence that you have trusted more unto other men than you had just reason. It is my chief endeavor, as it is my prayer, that possibly I may behold Jerusalem in prosperity all my life long. Nor doubt I, by the grace of God, to reduce some of you, at least, to such conformity with the practice of the Catholic Church; that even your hands may also labor in the advancement and promotion of that full prosperity which I do desire. This that I may the better do, I shall present you, as I said, with the true Story of the Sabbath: and therein lay before your eyes both what the Doctrine was, and what the practice, of all former times; and how it stands in both respects, with all God’s Churches at this present. First, for the Sabbath, I shall show you that it was not instituted by the Lord in Paradise, nor naturally imprinted in the soul of man, nor ever kept by any of the ancient Fathers before Moses’ time: and this, not generally said, and no more but so; but proved particularly and successively, in a continued descent of times and men. Next, that being given unto the Jews by Moses, it was not so observed or reckoned of as any of the Moral Precepts; but sometimes kept, and sometimes not; according as men’s private business, or the necessities of the State might give way unto it: and finally was for ever abrogated, with the other Ceremonies, at the destruction of the Temple. As for the Gentiles all this while, it shall hereby appear that they took no more notice of it (except a little, at the latter end of the Jewish State), than to deride both it, and all them that kept it. Then for the Lord’s day, that it was not instituted by our Savior Christ, commanded by the Apostles, or ordained first by any other authority than the voluntary consecration of it by the Church to Religious uses: and being consecrated to those uses, was not advanced to that esteem which it now enjoys, but leisurely and by degrees; partly by the Edicts of secular Princes; partly by Canons of particular Councils; and finally by the Decretals of several Popes, and Orders of inferior Prelates: and being so advanced, is subject still, as many Protestant Doctors say, to the Authority of the Church, to be retained or changed as the Church thinks fit. Finally that in all Ages heretofore, and in all Churches at this present, it neither was nor is esteemed of as a Sabbath day, nor reckoned of so near a kin to the former Sabbath: but that all such leisure times as were not destinate by the Church to God’s public service; men might apply their minds and bestow their thoughts, either about their business, or upon their pleasures such as are lawful in themselves, and not prohibited by those Powers under which they lived. Which showed and manifestly proved unto you, I doubt not but those Paper- walls, which have been raised heretofore to defend these Doctrines, how fair soever they may seem to the outward eye, and whatsoever colors have been laid upon them; will in the end appear unto you to be but Paper-walls indeed: some beaten down by the report only of those many Canons which have successively been mounted in the Church of God; either to fortify the Lord’s day, which itself did institute, or to cast down those Jewish fancies which some had labored to restore. Such passages as occurred concerning England, I purposely have deferred till the two last Chapters, that you may look upon the actions of our Ancestors with a clearer eye: both those who lived at the first planting of Religion; and those who had so great an hand in the reforming of the same. And yet not look upon them only, but by comparing your new Doctrines with those which were delivered in the former times: your severe practice, with the innocent liberty which they used amongst them: you may the better see your errors, and what strange incense you have offered in the Church of God. A way in which I have the rather made choice to walk, that by the practice of the Church in general you may the better judge of those Texts of Scripture which seem to you to so speak in the behalf of that new Divinity which you have preached unto the people: and by the practice of this Church particularly, it may with greater ease be showed you that you did never suck these Doctrines from your Mother’s breasts. A church, I dare be bold to say it, than which there is not any in the Christian World wherein the Lord’s day is observed with more due solemnity; nor that observance better countenanced by godly Laws and Constitutions; not any one which walks an evener and more equal way ‘twixt Superstition and Profaneness, than this most flourishing Church of England; however she be thought by you, deficient in so great a matter. It is an observation and a rule in Law; that custom is the best interpreter of a doubtful statute; and we are lessoned thereupon to cast our eyes, in all such questionable matters, unto the practice of the state in the selfsame case. Si de interpretatione laegis quaeritur, imprimis inspiciendum est, quo jure civitas retro, in juhusmodi casibus, usa fuit: Consuetudo enim optima interpretatio legis est. If you submit unto this rule and stand unto the Plea which you oft have made: I verily persuade myself that you will quickly find your error; and that withal you will discover how to abet a new and dangerous Doctrine, you have deserted the whole practice of the Christian Church, which for the space of 1600 years has been embraced and followed by all godly men. These are the hopes which we project unto ourselves. The cause of this our undertaking was your information; and the chief end we aim at is your reformation: Your selves, my Brethren, and your good, if I may procure it, are the occasion and the recompense of these poor endeavors: pretiumq; & causa laboris, in the Poets’ language. Nor would I, you should think it any blemish to your reputation, should you desert a cause which with so vehement affections you have erst maintained: or that the world would censure you of too deep a folly, should you retract what you have either taught or written in the times before. Rather the world and all good men shall praise both your integrity and ingenuity, in that you think it no disparagement to yield the better unto truth whensoever you find it. Being men, conceive it not impossible but that you may be in an error; and having erred, think it your greatest victory that you are conquered by the truth: which being mighty will prevail, and either here or elsewhere, enforce all of us to confess the great powers thereof. Saint Austin and the Cardinal, two as great Clerks as almost any in their times, have herein shewed the way unto you; one in his retractions, the other in his Recognitions: nor did it ever turn unto their disgrace. Therefore abandoning all such fond conceits as enemies unto the Truth, which I trust you seek, and above all things wish to find: let me beseech you to possess your souls with desire of knowledge; and that you would not shut your eyes against the tendrie of those truths, which either here or else-where are presented to you for your information. Which that you may the better do, I do adjure you in the name, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, to lay aside all prejudice which possibly you may be possessed withal, either in reference to the Argument or unto the Author: and to peruse this following Story with as much singleness of heart, and desire of truth, and invocation of God’s Spirit to find out the same, as was by me used in the writing of it. It is your welfare which I aim at, as before was said; your restitution to your functions, and reconciliation to the Church from which you are at point of falling: that we with you, and you with us, laying aside those jealousies and distrusts which commonly attend on divided minds; may join our hearts and hands together for the advancement of God’s Honor, and the Church’s peace. And God even our own God, shall give us his blessing. For others which shall read this Story, whether by you misguided, or yet left entire; I do desire them to take notice that there is none so much a stranger to good Arts and Learning, whom in this case and kind of writing, I dare not trust with the full cognizance of the cause herein related. In points of Law, when as the matter seems to be above the wit of common persons; or otherwise is so involved and intricate, that there has been no Precedent thereof in former times: it is put off to a demurrer, and argued by my Lords the Judges, with their best maturity of deliberation. But in a matter of fact, we put ourselves upon an ordinary Jury, not doubting, if the evidence proves fair, the Witnesses of faith unquestioned, and the Records without suspicion of imposture, but they will do their conscience, and find for Plaintiff or Defendant as the cause appears. So in the business now in hand, that part thereof which consists most of argument and strength of disputation, in the examining of those reasons which pro or Con have been alleged; are by me left to be discussed and weighed by them who either by their place are called, or by their learning are enabled to so great a business. But for the point of practice, which is a matter of fact, how long it was before the Sabbath was commanded, and how it was observed, being once commanded; how the Lord’s day has stood in the Christian Church, by what authority first instituted, in what kind regarded: these things are offered to the judgment and consideration of the meanest Reader. No man that is to be returned on the present Jury, but may be able to give up his verdict touching the title now in question; unless he come with passion and so will not hear, or else with prejudice and so will not value the evidence which is produced for his information. For my part, I shall deal ingenuously, as the cause requires, as of sworn counsel to the truth; not using any of the mysteries or Arts of pleading, but as the holy Fathers of the Church, the learned Writers of all Ages, the most renowned Divines of these latter times, and finally as the public Monuments and Records of most Nations christened have furnished me in this inquiry. What these, or any of them have herein either said or done, or otherwise left upon the Register for our direction, I shall lay down in order in their several times; either the times in which they lived, or whereof they writ: that so we may the better see the whole succession both of the Doctrine, and the practice of God’s Church, in the present business. And this with all integrity and sincere proceeding, not making use of any Author who has been probably suspected of fraud or forgery; nor dealing otherwise in this search than as becomes a man who aims at nothing more than God’s public service, and the conducting of God’s people in the ways of truth. This is the sum of what I had to say in this present Preface; beseeching God, the God of Truth, yea, the Truth itself, to give us all a right understanding, and a good will to do thereafter.

GOTO NEXT CHAPTER - SABBATH HISTORY INDEX & SEARCH