A26918:658
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.
5. If the very Reason of the day be not of natural, but of supernatural Revelation, then the sanctification of the day is not of natural, but supernatural revelation and obligation. But the former is certain. For no man breathing ever did or can prove by Nature, without supernatural Revelation, that God made and finished his works in six days, and rested the seventh. Aristotle had been like to have escaped his Opinion of the worlds eternity, if he could have found out this by nature.
5. If the very Reason of the day be not of natural, but of supernatural Revelation, then the sanctification of the day is not of natural, but supernatural revelation and obligation. But the former is certain. For no man breathing ever did or can prove by Nature, without supernatural Revelation, that God made and finished his works in six dayes, and rested the seventh. Aristotle had been like to have escaped his Opinion of the worlds eternity, if he could have found out this by nature.
6. The distinction of Weeks is not known by nature, to be any necessary measure of our time; Therefore much less, that the seventh day of the Week must be a Sabbath. The Antecedent is sufficiently proved, in that no man can give a cogent reason for the necessity of such a measure. And because it hath been unknown to a great part of the world. The Peruvians, Mexicans, and many such others knew not the measure of Weeks. And Heylin noteth out of Jos. Scaliger de Emend. Temp. li. 3. & 4. and Rossinus Antiq. and Dion, that neither the Chaldees, the Persians, Greeks, nor Romans did of old observe Weeks; and that the Romans measured their times by eights, as the Jews did by sevens. Hist. Sab. P. 1. Ch. 4. p. 83, 84. And p. 78. he citeth Dr. Bounds own words, p. 65. Ed. 2. confessing the like, citing Beroaldus for it as to the Roman custom. Yea, he asserteth that till near the time of Dionys. Exig. an. 500. they divided not their time into Weeks as now. In which he must ⟨p. 213⟩needs except the Christians and consequently the ruling powers since Constantine. And if they were so unsettled through the world in their measure by Months, as Bishop Usher at large openeth in his Dissert. de Macedonum & Asianorum Anno solari, (see especially his Ephemeris in the end, where all the days of each Month are named without Weeks) the other will be no won-wonder.