A47576:368
The Jewish Sabbath abrogated, or, The Saturday Sabbatarians confuted in two parts
The Jewish Sabbath abrogated, or, The Saturday Sabbatarians confuted in two parts : first, proving the abrogation of the old seventh-day Sabbath : secondly, that the Lord's-Day is of divine appointment : containing several sermons newly preached upon a special occasion, wherein are many new arguments not found in former authors / by Benjamin Keach.The Jewish Sabbath abrogated, or, The Saturday Sabbatarians confuted in two parts : first, proving the abrogation of the old seventh-day Sabbath : secondly, that the Lord's-Day is of divine appointment : containing several sermons newly preach'd upon a special occasion, wherein are many new arguments not found in former authors / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed by John Marshall, 1700
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.
But then, says he, If ye had known what that meaneth, I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless, vers. 7. What can he intend less than this; viz. If ye had known the difference between a pure moral Precept and such a Precept as is nothing more than a Sign, a Shadow, like those of Sacrifices, or a mere positive Law that I am Lord of, and can take away, and give another at my pleasure, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For tho all God's mere positive Precepts have great Sanctity in them, and ought carefully to be kept; yet when a simple moral Duty comes in competition with such as are but positive or ceremonial, the lesser must give place to the greater; as we commonly say, Of two evils choose the least.
But then, says he, If ye had known what that meaneth, I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless, vers. 7. What can he intend less than this; viz. If ye had known the difference between a pure moral Precept and such a Precept as is nothing more than a Sign, a Shadow, like those of Sacrifices, or a mere positive Law that I am Lord of, and can take away, and give another at my pleasure, you would not have condemn'd the guiltless. For tho all God's mere positive Precepts have great Sanctity in them, and ought carefully to be kept; yet when a simple moral Duty comes in competition with such as are but positive or ceremonial, the lesser must give place to the greater; as we commonly say, Of two evils choose the least.
But if the precise Seventh-day Sabbath was a pure moral Precept, equal with, and of the same nature of that Precept of showing Mercy, there had been no ground for our Lord thus to have answered the Jews: for if it had been ⟨p. 88⟩[…] ⟨p. 89⟩[…] ⟨p. 90⟩so, no doubt he would have said, I must indeed blame my Disciples, because they have broke one of God's righteous Precepts, whose Nature and Quality is above that of David's eating of Show-bread, or Sacrifices. But he who was the great Expounder of the Law, knew best the vast difference between a moral Precept, and such as their Sabbath and Sacrifices were.