A53694:143
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred rest wherein the original of the Sabbath from the foundation of the world, the morality of the Fourth commandment with the change of the Seventh day are enquired into : together with an assertion of the divine institution of the Lord's Day, and practical directions for its due observation / by John Owen.
London: printed by R.W. for Nath. Ponder, 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.
Hanc vero praecepti mentem esse patet ex aliis Testimoniis Scripturae apertissime, in quibus Judaeis tantum datum esse Sabbatum constanter docetur. Exod. 16. 29. Videte quod Jehovah dedit vobis illud Sabbatum; idcirco dat vobis cibum bidui. Et Ezek. 20. 12. Sabbata dedi eis, ut essent signum inter me & ipsos ad sciendum me Jehovam sanctificare ipsos. Denique Neh. 9. 14. Sabbatum quoque sanctum notum fecisti eis; quum praecepta statutaque & leges praeciperes eis per Mosem servum tuum. In quibus locis uniformiter docetur tanta cum emphasi, per Mosem deum dedisse Judaeis Sabbatum, non ergo aliis gentibus datum fuit; aut ipsis etiam per Majores ipsorum ante illud tempus ab origine Mundi. Disquisit. cap. 2. p. 50.
An. It is by all confessed, that the Command of the Sabbath in the Renewal of it in the Wilderness, was accommodated unto the Pedagogical State of ⟨p. 91⟩the Church of the Israelites. There were also such Additions made unto it, in the manner of its Observance, and the sanction of it, as might adapt its Observation unto their Civil and Political Estate, or that Theocratical Government which was then erected amongst them. So was it to bear a part in that Ceremonial Instruction which God in all his dealings with them intended. To this End also the manner of the Delivery of the whole Law, and the Reservation of its Tables in the Ark were designed. And divers Expressions in the Explicatory part of the Decalogue have the same Reason and Foundation. For there is mention of Fathers and Children to the third and fourth Generation, and of their sins; of the Land given to the people of God in the fifth; of Servants and Handmaids in the tenth. Shall we therefore say, that the Moral Law was not before given unto mankind, because it had a peculiar Delivery for special Ends and Purposes unto the Jews? It is no Argument therefore, that this Command was not for the substance of it, given before to mankind in general, because it hath some Modifications added in the Decalogue to accommodate it to the present Church, and Civil State of the Hebrews, as likewise had the fifth command in particular.