A53694:270
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.
6. The Observation of the Sabbath is pressed on the Church, on the same Grounds, and with the same Promises, as the greatest and most indispensable ⟨p. 192⟩Moral Duties; and together with them opposed unto those Fasts which belonged unto Ceremonial Institutions. To this purpose is the Nature and Use of it at large discoursed, Isa. 58. v. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
6. The Observation of the Sabbath is pressed on the Church, on the same Grounds, and with the same Promises, as the greatest and most indispensible ⟨p. 192⟩Moral Duties; and together with them opposed unto those Fasts which belonged unto Ceremonial Institutions. To this purpose is the Nature and Use of it at large discoursed, Isa. 58. v. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
§. 46 Now it is assuredly worth our Enquiry, what are the just Reasons of the Preference of the Sabbath above all Positive Institutions, both by the place given unto it in the Decalogue, as also on the account of the other especial Instances insisted on. Suppose the Command of it to be Ceremonial, and one of these two Reasons, or both of them must be alleged as the cause hereof. For this Exaltation of it must arise, either from the Excellency of it in it self and service, or the Excellency of its signification, or from both of them jointly. But these things cannot be pleaded or made use of unto the purpose intended. For the service of it, as it was observed among the Jews, it is now earnestly pleaded, that it consisted in mere Bodily Rest, which is scarcely to be reckoned as any part of Divine Service at all. What is farther in it, is said to be only a mere Circumstance of Time, not in any thing better than that of Place, which had an Arbitrary Determination also for a season. It cannot therefore be thus exalted and preferred above all other Ordinances of Worship upon the account of its service, seeing it is apprehended to be only a mere Adjunct of other services, which were therefore more worthy than it, as every thing which is for it self, is more worthy than that which is only for another. And take it absolutely, Place is a more Noble Circumstance than Time in this