Certain queries, Proposed by the KING, To the Lords and Commons Commissioners from the Honourable Houses of Parliament, attending his Majesty at Holdenby, the 23 of this instant April, 1647. touching the celebration of the feast of EASTER.  
With an Answer thereunto, given and presented to his Majesty by Sir JAMES HARRINGTON Knight and baronet a Commissioner there.  
LONDON, Printed for John Giles, April 27. 1647.   

I desire to be Resolved of this Question Why the new Reformers discharges the keeping of Easter?  
The reason for this Query is, 
 I Conceive the Celebration of this Feast was instituted by the same authority, which changed the Jewish Sabbath into the Lord's Day or Sunday, for it will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is discharged to be kept, or turned into the Sunday, wherefore it must be the church's authority that changed the one and instituted the other; Therefore My opinion is that those who will not keep this Feast, may as well return to the observation of Saturday and refuse the weekly Sunday; when any can show Me that herein I am in an error I shall not be ashamed to confess and amend it. Tell when you know my mind,  
C. REX.   

May it please Your MAjESTY,  
I Cannot but from the blessed Example of our Saviour (who was in his Age a new Reformer of old errors, viz. The false glosses of the Scribes and Pharises, Mat. 5. 20.) but account all such Reformers in our times, blessed also; but for the keeping of Easter although I know not any Ordinance of Parliament discharging it; yet with submission to better judgements, I in all dutifulness conceive that Your majesty's Reason upon which Your Queery is built, hath a great mistake even in the foundation of it, You being pleased to lay this for a ground that the change of the Sabbath, and the Institution of Easter are by one and the same equal authority and ecclesiastical Decree, which with Your majesty's favour I cannot yield to, for I humbly conceive that the change of the Jewish Sabbath (the commemoration of the work of the Creation) unto the Lord's day, the remembrance of that greaterwork (the work of Redemption finished upon this day of the Lord's Resurrection) was by no less than by Divine authority, because the keeping of one day in seven as a Sabbath to God, was not only sanctified and set a part by God's own example in the Creation, Gen. 2. ver. 3. and accordingly observed by the Israelites many weeks before the Law was given Ex. 16. ver. 23. but is one of the ten commandments delivered by God's own voice, on Mount Sinai, Written by his own finger in Tables of stone, commanded by himself to be put into the ark of the Covenant, which decalogue or ten commandments, are also by our blessed Saviour in his Sermon upon the Mount, declared to be the rule of his people's moral obedience unto the end of the World, Mat. 5. 17. And in the following part of that Sermon, wherein he vindicates the Law from the corrupt glosses of the Scribes and Pharises; He instances only in moral duties and moral laws, from all which Divines generally infer that the Decalogue is to continue in force unto the world's end; And therefore it seems most apparent that no authority that is inferior to that which appointed the seventh day from the Creation to be the Sabbath, could abrogate that day and appoint another day to be used instead of it, because neither the Law of Nature nor the holy Scripture doth anywhere give the least intimation, that any human power may change any of the commandments of God, and indeed so many absurdities would follow upon such an assertion, that I am confident Your Majejesty will not own it; It remains therefore that the change of the day must needs be the work of Christ himself, or of his Apostles, who were Divinely inspired, Acts 15. 21. And to prove that it was so, viz. That by Divine institution, the Lord's day now succeeds in the room of the Jewish Sabbath, I shall use no other Arguments than those which I find in learned Bishop Andrew's his Speech in the Star Chamber at the Censure of Mr. Traske; who expressly saith, that it hath ever been the church's Doctrine that Christ made an end of all sabbaths by his Sabbath in the Grave; And that presently the Lord's Day came in the place of it, And that according to Austin's judgement, The Lord's Day is declared to be the Christian Sabbath by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which the said Bishop not only saith, but proveth by these Arguments, first because he then began the new world Heb. 1. 2. by whom he made the world, the first world which ended with his burial, the second world or new creation which began with his resurrection; secondly because the four Evangelists say Christ rose una Sabbatorum, that is the first day of the week; thirdly the Apostles kept their holy meetings on that day, to Preach and Pray and Celebrate the Lord's Supper, Act. 20. 7. fourthly the day is called the Lord's day, not only in the Apostles time, but by the Apostle John himself, Revel. 1. 10. And he further adds that this epithet (Dominicum) in the Scripture is only applied to these two, the Lord's day and the Lord's Supper, to show that they are both to be taken alike in the Scripture: fifthly he saith we have not only example but express precept for it, 1 Cor. 16. 2. that upon the first day of the week which was the day of their Assembly, than collections o● oblations should be made; and lastly he affirms that in all ages of the Church this day was observed; To this I may add our saviour's rest upon that day from his works, Heb. 4▪ 10. His often visiting his Apostles during the forty days after his resurrection, upon that day speaking of the things appertaining to the kingdom of God, Act. 1. 3. Now what more material thing was there to be declared to them then this, the change of the Sabbath, and the appointing a set time for his worship, he accordingly appearing thrice upon the first day of the week, besides his being seen of the women, Mat. 28. 9 to teach and instruct his Disciples, first to the two Disciples that went to Emmaus, Luk. 24. 15. secondly to the Apostles when Thomas was absent, John. 20. ver. 19 and the third time when Thomas was present, John. 20. 26. As also observe that those wonderful and extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were poured out according to his promise upon the Apostles and Church (then) met together, Act. 2. 1. The day of Penticost being the morrow after the seventh Sabbath, to be accounted from the day of the sheaf-offering, Levit. 23. 15. by all which he seems to have honoured and set apart that day above others for his service; lastly this being a principal institution might probably be one of those decrees ordained by the Apostles as well as that concerning the sacrament, 1 Cor. 11. 34. and delivered by Paul to the Churches in all the Cities through which he passed, Act. 16. ve. 4. But for the observation of Easter to be an annual festival to Christians I find nothing in the holy Scripture, and your majesty is pleased to place it only upon the church's authority; And although I will not contend about the church's power of Institution of such things as are simply indifferent, yet I suppose I may boldly assert that such things as are instituted only by ecclesiastical Authority, having no footsteps in the Scripture, may be by ecclesiastical Authority be altered and laid aside.  
Your majesty's most loyal subject and humble servant.  
FINIS.