The Christian Sabbath defended against a crying evil in these times of the antisabitarians…

Of any Minister or Pastor in the Church of England that §2maintains us Christians to be obliged to the observation and sanctification of the Jewish Sabbath, or of any Sabbath that is a shadow of things to come, the body whereof is of Christ, I never heard or read. Yet for some hundred years in the §3Primitive Church, not the Lords day only, but the seventh day also was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth and Gomarus confesseth, and Rivet also, that we are bound in conscience under the Gospel, to allow for Gods service a better proportion of time, than the Jews did under the law, rather than a worse. And further it is well known, that besides the weekly Sabbath, there was variety of observation of times amongst the Jews, and divers of them called Sabbaths also, as some think, not one whereof was mentioned in the Decalogue, or pronounced by the Lord from Mount Sinai, as the fourth Commandment was, for the sanctifying of the weekly Sabbath. So that this Prefacer every way showeth miserable looseness in his discourse. And if Ebion and Cerinthus, and Apollinaris, how wretched heretics soever did still enforce the sanctification of the Jewish Sabbath, (whose wretchedness yet consisted not so much in enforcing this, as in enforcing all the ceremonies of Moses; the Jewish Sabbath long after Corinthus continuing to be observed by many pious Christians, as Baronius observeth & others, and Saint Paul doth oppose all such doctrine and practise in these passages of his here mentioned: did not this Author know that upon these very passages of Saint Paul, the Anabaptists and Socinians, as vile heretics as Ebion and Cerinthus, and Apollinaris, for their blood have gone so far, as not only to overthrow the observation of the Jewish Sabbath, but the sanctifying of the Lords day also. The opinion ⟨image 18⟩of the law ceremonial standing still in force (which indeed was the opinion of the heretics mentioned) is I confess, a dangerous point, and such as not only seemed (as this Prefacer minceth it, out of what degree of wisdom or providence I know not) to confirm the Jews in their incredulity, but indeed justly might confirm them; nor only occasion, but justly cause also others, to make question of our Saviours coming in the flesh;

Of any Minister or Pastor in the Church of England that