After the destruction of Jerusalem, city and temple, these pro-
SECT. 82.] OF THE LORD’S DAY. 43]
fessing Jews fell into several distinct ways. Some of them, who, as is probable, had despised the heavenly warning of leaving the place, took up their lot amongst their unbelieving brethren, relin- quishing the profession of the gospel which they had made; not, it may be, with any express renunciation of Christ, but with a dis- regard of the gospel, which brought them not those good things they looked for: of which mind Josephus the historian seems to be one. These in time became a part of that apostate brood which have since continued in their enmity to the gospel, and into whose new and old superstitions they introduced sundry customs which they had learned among the Christians. Some absolutely relin- quished their old Judaism, and completely incorporated with the new Gentile churches, unto whom the promise and covenant of Abraham was transferred and made over. These were the genuine disciples of our great apostle. Others continued their profession of the gospel, but yet still thought themselves obliged unto the obser- vation of the law of Moses and all its institutions. Hereupon they continued in a distinct and separate state from the believers and churches of the Gentiles, and that for some ages, as some say to the days of Adrian. These, it may be, were they whom Eusebius out of Hegesippus calls MaoCadato, “ Masbotheei,” whom he reckons as a sect of the Jews, Histor. lib. iv. 22. The Jews call them *xn)aw19,— that is, “Sabbatarians;” which must be from some observation of the Sabbath in a distinct manner or for different reasons from them- selves. Buxtorf and our late learned lexicographer’ render ‘Nn\awn, by “Sabbatarii,” adding this explanation, “Qui secundum Christi doctrinam Sabbatum observabant,” by a mistake; for as they are reckoned unto the Jews by Hegesippus, so those who followed the doctrine of Christ did not sabbatize with the Jews, nor were ever called Sabbatarians by them. There was, indeed, a sort of persons among the Samaritans who are called Sabuzi, whom Epiphanius makes the third sect of them; but these were so called without any respect unto a sabbatical observation. ‘yaw the Jews call them,— that is, “ Septenarii,” from jn2¥; unless we shall think, with Drusius, that they were so denominated from Sebaia, who came along with Dosthai to settle the new inhabitants of Samaria. Epiphanius says no more of them but that they observed the feast of Pentecost in autumn, and the feast of Tabernacles in the spring, at the time of the Jews’ Passover; but this gives no account why they should be so called. But perhaps they got this appellation from their observation
1 By a peculiar use of the word “ late,’ our author here refers to Edmund Castell, the learned author of the “ Lexicon Heptaglotton,’ which was published only two years _ before this work on the Sabbath appeared. Castell survived Owen, and the word “late” refers, therefore, not to the decease of the former, but to the recent appearance of hig book.— Ep,
432 OF THE LORD’S DAY. [ EXERC. V.
of every day in the week between the Passover and the Pentecost, (that is for seven weeks, which began with the second day in the week of unleavened bread,) whereon the omer or sheaf of first-fruits was to be offered. But to return. After this many of them coa- lesced, and we hear no more of them. In the meantime, as there were great disputes and heats between the differing parties whilst the occasion of their difference continued, so the Gentile believers did in many things either condescend unto those of the Circumcision, or fell themselves in liking with their observances, and received them into practice. Hence it was that they embraced the paschal solem- nity, with some other festivals, and also in many places admitted the sacredness of the seventh-day Sabbath, though still observing, according to the institution of Christ and his apostles, the Lord’s day also. And it is not improbable that they might be induced the rather to continue these observations, that they might thereby give a public testimony of their faith against the Marcionites, who began early to blaspheme the Old Testament and the God thereof; which blasphemy they thought to condemn by this practice. And hence in those writings which are falsely ascribed to the apostles, but suited to those times, Can. 66, and Constitut. lib. vii. cap. xxiv., the obser- vation both of the Saturday and the Lord’s day is enjoined.
Others of these Jews about the same season constituted a sect by themselves, compounding a religion out of the law and gospel, with additions and interpretations of their own. These the ancients call Ebionites. Circumcision, with all the sabbaths, feasts, and rites of Moses, they retained from the law. That the Messiah was come, and that Jesus Christ was he, they admitted from the gospel; that he was only a mere man, not God and man in one person, they added of their own, yet in compliance with the sense and expec- tation of the corrupt and carnal part of the church of the Jews, whereof originally they were. And this sect is that which in a long tract of time hath brought forth Mohammedanism in the east; for the religion of the Mohammedans is nothing but that of the Ebionites, with a superaddition of the interests and fanatical brain-sick notions of the impostor himself.