A59693:169
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 53.
The worship it self therefore is not required in this §53Commandment, if only the time of worship be enjoined: and if ignorance or prejudice did not by ass and sway mens judgements from the naked and genuine meaning of each Commandment, it would soon appear that the whole worship of God it self, is contained in the three first Commandments, and therefore nothing left that could possibly be enjoined by the fourth, but only the time: I know a time of worship may in some respect be called worship, but the worship it self in all other respects is not required in this but in other Commandments; for in the first Commandment we are to have God to be our God, by love of him, trust to him, delight in him, &c. (which nature, as it were, calls for, if God be our God) then all that which we call natural worship, is required here: and if devised forms of worship be forbidden in the second Commandment, which are of humane invention and institution, then all Gods instituted worship must be commanded herein: and if vain and irreverent manner of worship be forbidden in the third Commandment, then all common worship as some call it, or rather all that holy and reverend manner of worship which we owe to God is required in the same command; and if all natural, instituted and common worship or holy manner of worship be required in the three first commands, I marvel then how any worship (any further then as a time of worship, may be called worship,) can be required in this fourth command, The time therefore, and not the worship it self is required herein: for if any worship be required, it's either the whole worship of God, or some special kind of worship; if the whole worship, then there should be no worship of God required directly in the three first Commandments, but the very same which is commanded in the fourth also, which gross Tautology is most absurd to imagine in the short sum of these ten words; but if any special kind of worship should be required and not the whole, then the Sabbath day is sanctified to some one kind of worship, rather then to the exercise of all kind of worship, which is most false and profane: for who will affirm that the Sabbath is to be sanctified, suppose by that kind of worship which is public, and not private also, by external, and not by internal worship also; by natural worship in love and fear God, &c.