Perkins On the Sabbath

[Blood-Bought Pilgrim]

Hey All,
I came across this interesting quote from Perkins in the middle of his commentary on Galatians regarding the Sabbath. The surrounding discussion is about the abiding validity of the OT Law, and he uses the Sabbath as an example. I'd be curious to hear how you would interpret what he says here, particularly the bolded portions. Is he expressing a view contrary to the major reformed confessions, or is it too vague to tell? Thanks!

"For example, in the commandment of the Sabbath, some things are moral, some ceremonial, some judicial. That in one day of seven there should be a holy rest, it is moral. Rest upon the seventh day from creation is ceremonial in respect of order. Strictness of rest from all labor is ceremonial in respect of the signification of rest from sin and rest in heaven. Therefore the particular day of rest and the manner of rest is abrogated.

 

[Polanus1561]

He is consistent re the strictness with Dort's view on the Sabbath
Ames was influenced by Perkins, and he was definitely influential to the Dort era theologians

1. There is in the fourth commandment of the divine law a ceremonial and a moral element.
2. The ceremonial element is the rest of the seventh day after creation, and the strict observance of that day imposed especially on the Jewish people.
3. The moral element consists in the fact that a certain definite day is set aside for worship and so much rest as is needful for worship and hallowed meditation.
4. The Sabbath of the Jews having been abolished, the day of the Lord must be solemnly hallowed by Christians.
5. Since the time of the apostles this day has always been observed by the old catholic church.
6. This day must be so consecrated to worship that on that day we rest from all servile works, except those which charity and present necessity require; and also from all such recreations as interfere with worship.

 

[Blood-Bought Pilgrim]

He is consistent re the strictness with Dort's view on the Sabbath
Ames was influenced by Perkins, and he was definitely influential to the Dort era theologians

1. There is in the fourth commandment of the divine law a ceremonial and a moral element.
2. The ceremonial element is the rest of the seventh day after creation, and the strict observance of that day imposed especially on the Jewish people.
3. The moral element consists in the fact that a certain definite day is set aside for worship and so much rest as is needful for worship and hallowed meditation.
4. The Sabbath of the Jews having been abolished, the day of the Lord must be solemnly hallowed by Christians.
5. Since the time of the apostles this day has always been observed by the old catholic church.
6. This day must be so consecrated to worship that on that day we rest from all servile works, except those which charity and present necessity require; and also from all such recreations as interfere with worship.

That last clause, "such recreations as interfere with worship" would seem to me to distinguish them from the Westminster view by at least a shade. Would you agree? I've heard varying arguments about whether or not the Continental view is actually different in any way from the Westminsterian view, but I have never felt able to adjudicate the issue.

 

[Polanus1561]

That last clause, "such recreations as interfere with worship" would seem to me to distinguish them from the Westminster view by at least a shade. Would you agree? I've heard varying arguments about whether or not the Continental view is actually different in any way from the Westminsterian view, but I have never felt able to adjudicate the issue.

I would say, a shade, yes.

But in application, both would look the same. The day is of worship and of rest, although recreation is not wholly rebuked here, the question would be how can a recreation not interfere in a worship-filled day?

 

[earl40]

I would say, a shade, yes.

But in application, both would look the same. The day is of worship and of rest, although recreation is not wholly rebuked here, the question would be how can a recreation not interfere in a worship-filled day?

Good question in that there is a difference in what worship is. Are we not to do all unto The Lord 7 days a week. This is a type of worship. Also we are to gather to worship as one to partake in official worship on Sunday. This is another type of worship.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Nicholas Bownd was the author of the first great puritan work on the fourth commandment that set the mold so to speak for all future works. His view, citing Heinrich Wolf, was that the Sabbath day “is not to be reckoned among the figures and ceremonies of the Jews, both because it was ordained in paradise before the fall of man for the worship of God, and also it is commanded in the Decalogue, which contains in it nothing ceremonial, nothing typical, nothing to be abrogated.” Nicholas Bownd, True Doctrine of the Sabbath (1595; 1606, NP&RHB, 2015), p. 67. Now, what others like Perkins call ceremonial he classes as ceremonial adjuncts or additions. As I noted on an older thread,
"The position of the puritans (the authors of the confessional view) stated this in different ways and on the surface could be seen as disagreeing in more than some incidentals (such as the execution of the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath). Bownd maintained the fourth commandment “containeth in it nothing ceremonial, nothing typical, nothing to be abrogated." Some of ceremonial strictness added under the Mosaic economy is abrogated, which is essentially what some other puritans mean in still maintaining a ceremonial aspect of the fourth commandment done away with. So you will still see puritans and later Sabbatarian theologians talking about a partly ceremonial aspect of the command. This as far as I see is the same as Bownd who prefers to maintain the thesis above while putting the partly ceremonial aspect under the idea of added ceremonial aids (which is also true of the second commandment and others as Bownd notes). This is from my intro analysis to Bownd's work:

It is also the case that Greenham and Bownd held similar views on a primary ‘innovation’ Primus assigns to Bownd, regarding the ceremonial aspect of the fourth commandment. Much is made of Bownd’s affirming that there is nothing ceremonial or typical in the ten commandments. As previously noted, in this he really is not innovating as he draws upon a statement of Heinrich Wolf’s in doing so, who maintained the Sabbath “is not to be reckoned among the figures and ceremonies of the Jews, both because it was ordained in paradise before the fall of man for the worship of God, and also it is commanded in the Decalogue, which contains in it nothing ceremonial, nothing typical, nothing to be abrogated.”74 Yet there were ceremonial or figurative aids added to the moral law under the old economy, such as the deliverance from Egypt added as another reason to rest under the fourth commandment as given in Deuteronomy 5. Greenham explained his distinction in moral and civil law in relation to this: “That I call morall, which doth informe mens manners either concerning their religion to God, or their duties unto man: that I meane figurative, which is added for a time in some respect to some persons for an help to that which is morall….”75

Bownd affirms this same figurative help or ceremonial addendum to the moral law:
So that the Jews having this reason to move them to this rest, besides the above mentioned, were more severely tied unto it than any other people; but yet so, that it was required at the hands of men, long before this cause was annexed unto it. And therefore though that is removed and taken away, yea and the people to whom it only appertained; yet notwithstanding the Sabbath and day of rest is not gone with them, but is still in its first virtue and ancient strength, which upon good grounds it had in the beginning. The which thing, that it might not seem strange unto us, we may consider the like almost in every moral precept; which though every one of them was from the beginning, yet as they were given to the people of the Jews, had certain things added unto them, as accessory helps to keep them in the better obedience of them; which now being taken away again, the first commandments themselves have lost nothing of their former authority, but do bind as much as ever they did.76
From p. CVI, Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or, The True Doctrine of the Sabbath (Naphtali Press and Reformation Heritage Books, 2016)."​

 

[Charles Johnson]

Hey All,
I came across this interesting quote from Perkins in the middle of his commentary on Galatians regarding the Sabbath. The surrounding discussion is about the abiding validity of the OT Law, and he uses the Sabbath as an example. I'd be curious to hear how you would interpret what he says here, particularly the bolded portions. Is he expressing a view contrary to the major reformed confessions, or is it too vague to tell? Thanks!

"For example, in the commandment of the Sabbath, some things are moral, some ceremonial, some judicial. That in one day of seven there should be a holy rest, it is moral. Rest upon the seventh day from creation is ceremonial in respect of order. Strictness of rest from all labor is ceremonial in respect of the signification of rest from sin and rest in heaven. Therefore the particular day of rest and the manner of rest is abrogated.

There's nothing in Perkin's quote that is inconsistent with the Westminster Confession.
The "strictness" of the Jews' rest in the Old Testament (don't make a fire, don't cook, etc) is not carried over to the New Testament. We all make lunch and dinner on Sunday.
That is the "manner of rest."