A53694:278
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.
§. 50 An. (1.) The whole force of this Argument consists in this, that Time is but an Help, Instrument, or Circumstance of Worship, and therefore is not Moral Worship it self, nor a part of Moral Worship, nor can so be. But this Argument is not valid. For whatever God requires by his Command to be religiously observed, with immediate respect unto himself, is a Part of his Worship. And this Worship as to the kind of it, follows the Nature of the Law whereby it is commanded. If that Law be merely Positive, so is the Worship commanded; however it be a Duty required by the Law of Nature that we duly observe it, when it is commanded; for by the Law of Nature God is to be obeyed in all his Commands, of what sort soever they are. If that Law be Moral, so is the Duty required by it, and so is our Obedience unto it. The only way then to prove, that the Observation of Time is no part of Moral Worship, is this; namely, to manifest that the Law whereby it is required is Positive, and not Moral; for that it is required by Divine Command, of the one sort or the other, is now supposed. And on the other side, from the Consideration of the thing it self naturally, as that it is an Adjunct or Circumstance of other things, no consequence ariseth to the determination of the Nature of the Law whereby it is required.
§. 50 An. (1.) The whole force of this Argument consists in this, that Time is but an Help, Instrument, or Circumstance of Worship, and therefore is not Moral Worship it self, nor a part of Moral Worship, nor can so be. But this Argument is not valid. For whatever God requires by his Command to be religiously observed, with immediate respect unto himself, is a Part of his Worship. And this Worship as to the kind of it, follows the Nature of the Law whereby it is commanded. If that Law be meerly Positive, so is the Worship commanded; however it be a Duty required by the Law of Nature that we duly observe it, when it is commanded; for by the Law of Nature God is to be obeyed in all his Commands, of what sort soever they are. If that Law be Moral, so is the Duty required by it, and so is our Obedience unto it. The only way then to prove, that the Observation of Time is no part of Moral Worship, is this; namely, to manifest that the Law whereby it is required is Positive, and not Moral; for that it is required by Divine Command, of the one sort or the other, is now supposed. And on the other side, from the Consideration of the thing it self naturally, as that it is an Adjunct or Circumstance of other things, no consequence ariseth to the determination of the Nature of the Law whereby it is required.