A59693:440
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 146.
It is a truth as immovable as the pillars of Heaven, That God hath given to all men universally a rule of life to conduct them to their end: Now if the whole Decalogue be not it, what shall? The Gospel is the rule of our faith, but not of our spiritual life, which flows from faith, Gal. 2.20. Joh. 5.24. The law therefore is the rule of our life; now if nine of these be a complete rule without a tenth, exclude that one, and then who sees not an open gap made for all the rest to go out at also? For where will any man stop, if once this principle be laid, viz. That the whole law is not the rule of life? May not Papists blot out the second also, as some of Cassanders followers have done all but two; and as the Antinomians at this day do all? and have they not a good ground laid for it, who may hence safely say that the Decalogue is not a rule of life for all? Mr. Primrose, that he might keep himself from a broken head here, sends us for salve to the light of nature and the testimony of the Gospel, both which (saith he) maintain and confirm the morality of all the other Commandments, except this one of the Sabbath. But as it shall appear that the Law of the Sabbath hath confirmation from both (if this direction was sufficient and good) so it may be in the mean time considered why the Gentiles who were universal Idolaters, and therefore blotted out the light of nature (as Mr. Primrose confesseth) against the second Commandment, might not as well blot out much of that light of nature about the Sabbath also; and then how shall the light of nature be any sufficient discovery unto us of that which is moral and of that which is not?