A59693:109
Theses Sabbaticæ, or, The doctrine of the Sabbath wherein the Sabbaths I. Morality, II.…
Theses Sabbaticæ, or, The doctrine of the Sabbath wherein the Sabbaths I. Morality, II. Change, III. Beginning. IV. Sanctification, are clearly discussed, which were first handled more largely in sundry sermons in Cambridge in New-England in opening of the Fourth Commandment : in unfolding whereof many scriptures are cleared, divers cases of conscience resolved, and the moral law as a rule of life to a believer, occasionally and distinctly handled / by Thomas Shepard ...Theses Sabbaticæ, or, The doctrine of the Sabbath wherein the Sabbaths I. Morality, II. Change, III. Beginning. IV. Sanctification, are clearly discussed, which were first handled more largely in sundry sermons in Cambridge in New-England in opening of the Fourth COmmandment : in unfolding whereof many scriptures are cleared, divers cases of conscience resolved, and the morall law as a rule of life to a believer, occasionally and distinctly handled / by Thomas Shepard ...
London: printed by T.R. and E.M. for John Rothwell, 1650
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.
Thesis 30.
If lastly, those things which are thus commanded because §30they are good, be moral, then the whole Decalogue may hence appear to be the moral law of God, because there is no one law in it, which is therefore good only because 'tis commanded, but is therefore commanded, because it is good and suitable to humane nature: When I say, suitable to humane nature, I do not mean humane nature considered absolutely, but relatively, either in relation to God, or relation unto man: for not only the light of nature, but of common sense also, bear witness that every precept of the second Table, wherein man is considered in relation to man, is thus far good: for how comely and good is it to honour Parents, to be tender of other mens lives and comforts, to preserve ones self and others from filthy pollutions, to do no wrong but all the good we can to other mens estates? &c. Nor do I think that any will question any one Commandment of this Table to be good and suitable to humane nature, unless it be some Nimrod or Brennus (that professed he knew no greater justice than for the stronger, like the bigger fishes of the Sea, to swallow up the lesser in case they be hungry) or some Turkish Tartar or Cannibal, or some surfeited Professor, transformed into some licentious opinionist, and so grown Master of his own Conscience, and that can audaciously out-face the very light of nature and common sense, through the righteous judgement of God blinding and hardening his heart: And if the Commandments of the second Table be thus far good in themselves, are not those of the first Table much more? Is love to man (when drawn out into all the six streams of the second Table) good in it self, and shall not love to God, drawn out in the four precepts of the first Table, as the Spring from whence all our love to man should flow, much more? Are the streams morally sweet, and is not the spring it self of the same nature? Love to God, and love to man are the common principles (saith Aquinas truly) of the law of nature; and all particular precepts (saith he perhaps unawares) are conclusions flowing from these principles, out of