A59693:203
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 67.
They therefore who maintain that a seventh day is not moral, because it is but a circumstance of time, may as well abolish time to be moral, or any day to be moral, because a day (let it fall out when it will) is but a circumstance of time; which notwithstanding they account to be moral in this command; but we know that much morality lies in circumstances, and why a day sanctified may not be as much moral as a duty, I yet see not.
They therefore who maintaine that a seventh day is not morall, because it is but a circumstance of time, may as well abolish time to be morall, or any day to be morall, because a day (let it fall out when it will) is but a circumstance of time; which notwithstanding they account to be morall in this command; but we know that much morality lyes in circumstances, and why a day sanctified may not bee as much morall as a duty, I yet see not.
Thesis 68.
The Familists and Antinomians of late, like the Manichees §68of old, do make All days equally holy under the Gospel, and none to be observed more than another by virtue of any command of God, unless it be from some command of man to which the outward man they think should not stick to conform, or unless it be pro re nata, or upon several occasions, which special occasions are only to give the Alarums for Church meetings and public Christian Assemblies: an audacious assertion, cross to the very light of nature among the blind heathens, who have universally allowed the deity whom they ignorantly worshipped, the honour of some solemn days; cross to the verdict of popish Schoolmen and Prelatists, whose stomachs never stood much toward any Sabbath at all; cross to the scope of the Law of the Sabbath, which if it hath any general morality (not denied scarce to any of Moses Judicials,) surely one would think it should lie in the observation of some day or days, though not in a seventh day, for which now we do not contend. Cross also to the appointment of the Gospel, foretold by Isaiah and Ezekiel,