A59693:199
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 65.
Secondly, not only a solemn time, but more particularly §65a solemn day, a whole day of worship is here also required by virtue of this fourth Command; and the Lord gives us good reason for it, that if he gives us many whole days for our own work, then (not some part of a day) but a day, a whole day, according to the reason and express words of the Commandment, should be marked out and set apart for his work and service: if that place, Isaiah 56.6, 7. will not demonstrate a seventh days Sabbath under the new Testament, yet ••sufficiently and fully clears the point in hand, viz. that a Sabbath day is to be observed by the sons of the stranger or Gentiles who are called strangers to the Common-wealth of Irsael, Ephesians 2.12. and indeed Wallaeus freely confesseth and proveth that a whole day is here required;1 and if a whole day, I hope none will think that the time ⟨p. 56⟩out of public Assemblies is common and profane, if a whole day be holy:2 and therefore Mr. Primrose tells us, that the Gentiles having no other law but the light of nature, have appointed set days, for the exercise of their religion, and that as the Jews had their set days, (which we know were whole days) so should Christians have theirs, for their public Assemblies under the Gospel; which I hope must be therefore whole days also: it is also considerable that if the three first Commandments requiring Gods worship, do consequently require some time for that worship (as being a necessary adjunct to all actions whether moral or civill, and without which they cannot be performed) then the fourth Command, must require somewhat more particularly than a time of worship: and therefore they that place the morality of the fourth Command in requiring only a time of worship (because say they a time of worship is necessary,) may upon this ground wholly and perfectly abolish the fourth Command as superfluous and needless, because such a time of worship is required in all other Commandments necessarily. They may also imagine as great a morality in the command of building the Temple the place of worship, because a place of worship is necessary as well as a time: it is not therefore a time, but such a time as is preserved in a day even in a whole day for worship which is here commanded.