A53694:26
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.
And these Considerations have prevailed with me to cast my Mite into this Sanctuary, and to endeavour the right stating, and confirmation of that Doctrine, whereon so important a part of our Duty towards God doth depend, as is generally confessed, and will be found by Experience, that there doth on this concerning a Day of Sacred Rest.
§. 4 The Controversies about the Sabbath, (as we call it at present for Distinction sake, and to determine a subject of our Discourse) which have been publicly agitated, are Universal as unto all its concerns. Neither Name nor Thing is by all agreed on. For whereas most Christians acknowledge, (we may say all, for those by whom it is denied, are of no weight, nor scarce of any number) that a day on one account or other in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Time, is to be set apart to the public Worship of God, yet how that Day is ⟨p. 7⟩to be called, is not agreed amongst them. Neither is it granted, that it hath any Name affixed unto it, by any such means, that should cause it justly to be preferred unto any other, that men should arbitrarily consent to call it by. The Names which have been, and amongst some are still in use for its Denotation and Distinction, are the seventh Day, the Sabbath, the Lords Day, the first Day of the Week, Sunday; So was the Day now commonly observed, called of Old by the Graecians and Romans, before the Introduction of Religion into its Observation. And this Name some still retain, as a thing indifferent; others suppose it were better left unto utter disuse.
§. 4 The Controversies about the Sabbath, (as we call it at present for Distinction sake, and to determine a subject of our Discourse) which have been publickly agitated, are Universal as unto all its concerns. Neither Name nor Thing is by all agreed on. For whereas most Christians acknowledge, (we may say all, for those by whom it is denyed, are of no weight, nor scarce of any number) that a day on one account or other in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Time, is to be set apart to the publick Worship of God, yet how that Day is ⟨p. 7⟩