A53694:219
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.
§. 14 When therefore we plead any thing to belong unto, or to proceed from the Law of Nature, it is no impeachment of our Assertion, to say, that it doth not appear so to the common Reason of mankind, or that right Reason hath not found it out or discovered it, provided it contain nothing repugnant thereunto. For it will never be universally agreed, what doth so appear to the common Reason of all, nor what is, hath been, or may be discovered thereby. And although it should be true, which some say, that Moral and Natural Duties depend on, and have their formal Reason from the Nature of God and Man, yet it doth not thence follow, that we do, or may, by the sole Light of Nature, know what doth so arise, with the due bounds and just consequences of it. But there is, as we shall see something yet farther required, in and unto the Law of Nature, which is the adequate Rule of all such Duties. I shall not therefore endeavour to prove that the mere Dictates of Reason do evince a Sacred Hebdomadal Rest; as knowing that the Law of Nature unto which we say it doth belong, doth not absolutely consist in them; nor did they ever since the Fall steadily and universally, as acted in men possessed of Reason, either comprehend or express, all that belongs thereunto.
§. 14 When therefore we plead any thing to belong unto, or to proceed from the Law of Nature, it is no impeachment of our Assertion, to say, that it doth not appear so to the common Reason of mankind, or that right Reason hath not found it out or discovered it, provided it contain nothing repugnant thereunto. For it will never be universally agreed, what doth so appear to the common Reason of all, nor what is, hath been, or may be discovered thereby. And although it should be true, which some say, that Moral and Natural Duties depend on, and have their formal Reason from the Nature of God and Man, yet it doth not thence follow, that we do, or may, by the sole Light of Nature, know what doth so arise, with the due bounds and just consequences of it. But there is, as we shall see something yet farther required, in and unto the Law of Nature, which is the adequate Rule of all such Duties. I shall not therefore endeavour to prove that the meer Dictates of Reason do evince a Sacred Hebdomadal Rest; as knowing that the Law of Nature unto which we say it doth belong, doth not absolutely consist in them; nor did they ever since the Fall steadily and universally, as acted in men possessed of Reason, either comprehend or express, all that belongs thereunto.