A59693:15
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.
And it cannot be denied but that the Sabbath (like many other precious appointments and truths of God) did shake off her dust, and put on her comely and beautiful garments, and hath been much honoured and magnified since the times of the Reformation; the doctrine and darkness of Popery (like that of the Pharisees) not only obscuring the Doctrine of Faith, but also of the Law and obedience of Faith, and so hath obscured this of the Sabbath; only herein they did excel their forefathers the Scribes and Pharisees, for these added their own superstitious resting from things needful and lawful to their merely external observation of the day; but they (unto their eternal observation of the name of the Day) added their abominable profanations to it, in May-games and May-poles, in sports and pastimes, in dancing and revellings, and so laid it level, and made it equal (in a manner) to the rest of their Holy days; that as they came to shuffle out the second Commandment almost out of the Decalogue, so in time they came to be blinded with that horror of darkness, as to translate the words of the Commandment ⟨image 4⟩into some of their Catechisms, Remember to keep the Holy Festivals, and therefore those Worthies of the Reformation who have contended for all that honour which is due to this day, are unjustly aspersed for pleading for a jewish and superstitious strictness, when the cause they handle is no other in truth, then to vindicate the Sabbath both in the Doctrine and observation of it from Papists profaneness;
And it cannot be denied but that the Sabbath (like many other precious appointments and truths of God) did shake off her dust, and put on her comely and beautifull garments, and hath been much honoured and magnified since the times of the Reformation; the doctrine and darknesse of Popery (like that of the Pharisees) not only obscuring the Doctrine of Faith, but also of the Law and obedience of Faith, and so hath obscured this of the Sabbath; only herein they did excell their forefathers the Scribes and Pharisees, for these added their own superstitious resting from things needfull and lawfull to their meerly externall observation of the day; but they (unto their eternall observation of the name of the Day) added their abominable prophanations to it, in May-games and May-poles, in sports and pastimes, in dancing and revellings, and so laid it level, and made it equall (in a manner) to the rest of their Holy dayes; that as they came to shuffle out the second Commandment almost out of the Decalogue, so in time they came to be blinded with that horrour of darknesse, as to translate the words of the Commandment