A59693:196
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 63.
If therefore the moral worship it self, whether public, external or private, be not directly required in this fourth §63Command, much less is the whole Ceremonial worship here enjoined,1 as Master Primrose maintains, for the whole Ceremonial worship, both in Sacrifices, Ceremonies, Type•, &c. was significant, and were, as I may so say, Gods Images, or media cultus, means of worship, by carrying the mind and heart to God, by their special significations, and therefore were instituted worship, and therefore directly contained under the second, and therefore not under the fourth Command: And if there be but nine Commandments which are moral, and this one (by his reckoning) is to be ceremonial, and the head of all ceremonials, and that therefore unto it all ceremonial worship is to appertain, then the observation of a Sabbath is the greatest Ceremony, according as we see in all other Commandments, the lesser sins are condemned under the grosser, as anger under murder, and lust under adultery; and inferior duties under the chief and principal, as honouring the aged and Masters, &c. under honouring of parents; and so if all Ceremonials are referred to this, then the Sabbath is the grossest and greatest ceremony one of them; and if so, then 'tis a greater sin to sanctify a Sabbath at any time, than to observe new moons and other festivals, which are less Ceremonial, and are therefore wholly cashiered, because ceremonial; and if so, why then doth Master Primrose tell us, That the Sabbath is moral for substance, principal scope and end, and that its unmeet for us to observe fewer days than the Jews, in respect of weekly Sabbaths? Why is not the name and memorial of the Sabbath abandoned wholly and utterly accursed from off the face of the earth, as well as new moons and other Jewish festivals, which upon his principles are less ceremonial than the weekly Sabbath? It may be an audacious Familist, whose Conscience is grown Iron, and whose brow is brass, through a conceit of his immunity from, and ⟨p. 54⟩