A53694:174
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.
Not to direct a thirsty person to a common Spring if uncircumcised. Whence was that Censure of Tacitus, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in Promptu, adversus omnes alios hostile odium. Faithful and merciful among themselves, towards all others they were acted with irreconcilable hatred; ⟨p. 109⟩which well expresseth what our Saviour charged them with, as a corrupt principle among them, Matth. 5. 43. Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. Into which two sorts they distributed all mankind; that is in their sense, their own Country-men and Strangers.
Not to direct a thirsty person to a common Spring if uncircumcised. Whence was that Censure of Tacitus, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in Promptu, adversus omnes alios hostile odium. Faithful and merciful among themselves, towards all others they were acted with irreconcilable hatred; ⟨p. 109⟩which well expresseth what our Saviour charged them with, as a corrupt principle among them, Matth. 5. 43. Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. Into which two sorts they distributed all mankind; that is in their sense, their own Countrey-men and Strangers.
Their corrupt and wicked conversation also made them a reproach, and their Religion contemned. So was it with them from their first Dispersion as God declares, Ezek. 36. 20. When they entered unto the Heathen whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, these are the people of the Lord. And their wickedness increased with their time; for they still learned the corrupt and evil Arts, with all ways of deceit, used in the Nations where they lived, until for the crimes of many, the whole Nation became the common hatred of mankind. And, that we may return from this Digression, this being the state of things then in the world, we may not wonder, if the Writers of those days were very supinely negligent, or maliciously envious, in reporting their Ways, Customs, and Religious Observances. And it is acknowledged that before those Times, the long course of Idolatry and Impiety wherein the whole world had been engaged, had utterly corrupted and lost the Tradition of a Sabbatical Rest. What Notices of it continued in former Ages, hath been before declared.