A59693:185
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 61.
First, Graven Images, after which the whole world almost §61hath been enticed, and gone a whoring from the true worship of God; were worshipped two ways: 1. Terminativè, i. When people terminated their worship upon the dumb Idols themselves, as if they were gods, without looking any further to any God more supreme and glorious: This is the sin of many of the ignorant sort of Papists by Bellarmine's own confession, as also many of the brutish sort of the blind heathens: And this kind of worship and Idolatry is directly forbidden, not in the second, but in the first Commandment; and that appears upon this undeniable ground, to wit, that if the first Commandment expressly enjoins us to have no other God but Jehovah, to trust in, pray to, love, fear no other God but Jehovah, then for any to have and worship such Images as their gods which are not Jehovah, is directly forbidden here: Hence therefore it undeniably follows, that by the making to our selves a graven Image, in the second Commandment, somewhat else must be understood then the worshipping of Images terminatively as gods. 2. Or else they were worshipped relativè, i. Relatively or in reference to the true God, as means and helps, In which, At which, and by which, the true God was worshipped: And thus the learned and well instructed Papists maintain their abominable worship of Images, whether graven or painted, crosses, crucifixes, &c. to be good and lawful; for say they, we do not worship, nor are we so senseless as to honour the Image, or Crucifix it self, but ⟨p. 48⟩only as helps to devotion, to carry our hearts to God and Christ, resembled by these Images: Thus also the Jews of old, they did never worship the Images themselves, but God in them and by them: They were not grown so soon, so extremely sottish, as to think that the golden Calf was the true God himself which brought them a few weeks before out of the land of Egypt, but it was a visible help to carry their hearts to God only, and therefore the Feast was proclaimed to Jehovah,