A26918:601
The divine appointment of the Lords day proved as a separated day for holy…
The divine appointment of the Lords day proved as a separated day for holy worship, especially in the church assemblies, and consequently the cessation of the seventh day Sabbath : written for the satisfaction of some religious persons who are lately drawn into error or doubting in both these points / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
7. Accordingly we hold, that a change is now made of the sanctified day. Where note, 1. That we take not the seventh day, (no nor one day in ⟨p. 185⟩seven, though that be nothing to our Controversy) to be a Duty by the proper Law of Nature, but by a Positive Law: 2. That the seventh day is never called a Sabbath till Moses time, but only a Sanctified and blessed day; the word Sabbath being ever taken in Scripture for a day of Ceremonial Rest, as well as of spiritual Rest and Worship. 3. That Christ himself hath continued a seventh day, but changed the seventh day to the first; not as a Sabbath, that is, A day of Ceremonial Rest, for he hath ended all Sabbaths as shadows of things that were to come, even of rest which remained for the people of God, Heb. 4. 9. Col. 2. 16. And this is it which is incumbent upon us to prove, and I think I have fully proved already. 4. That having proved the thing done (the positive Law of the seventh day changed by the Holy Ghost to the first day) it concerneth us not much to give the reasons of Gods doings: But yet this reason may secondarily be observed: That God having made the whole frame of Nature very good, did thereby make it the glass in which he was to be seen by man, and the Book which he would have man chiefly study, for the knowledge of his Maker and his Will. But sin having introduced, disorder, confusion and a curse upon part of the Creation for mans sake, God purposed at once, both to notify to man, what he had done by sin, in bringing disorder and a curse upon the Creature, and blotting the Book of Nature which he should have chiefly used, and also that it was his good pleasure to set up a clearer Glass, even Christ Incarnate, in which man might see his Makers face, in a representation ⟨p. 186⟩suitable to our need; not now as smiling upon an Innocent man, nor as frowning on a guilty man, but as reconciled to Redeemed man; and to Write a Book in which his will should be more plainly read, than in the blotted Book of Nature: Yea in which he that in the Creature appeared most eminently in Power, might now appear most eminently in LOVE, even redeeming, reconciling, adopting, justifying and saving Love.