A59693:487
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 168.
If God sanctified and commanded Adam to sanctify the §168Sabbath, it was either that he himself should observe it personally, or successively in his posterity also: now there is no reason to think that this is a command peculiarly binding Adam himself only, there being the same cause for his posterity to observe a Sabbath, as himself had, which was Gods example of labour and rest; and if this was given to his posterity also then it was a moral duty, and not a point of mere order proper to Adam to attend unto: yet Mr. Primrose for fear lest he should shoot short in one of his answers,1 wherein he tells us, that it did derogate much from the excellency of Adams condition to have any one day for God appointed unto him:2 yet here notwithstanding he tells us, that if God ⟨p. 156⟩had appointed such a day, it was no moral thing, nor yet a ceremony directing to Christ, but only as a point of order, which God was pleased then to subject him unto: and that a man may as well conclude that it was a moral thing to serve God in Eden, because it was a place which God had appointed Adam to serve him in, as the seventh day to be moral because it was the time thereof: but this assertion is but a mere [Greek or Hebrew]; for the text tells us expressly, that God did both bless and sanctify the Seventh day in a special manner, as a thing of common concernment, but is never said to bless and sanctify the place of Eden. All men in Adam were made in the image of God, and was there but one thing in innocency wherein God made himself eminently exemplary in labour and rest? & shall we think that that one thing was rather a point of order proper to Adam, then a part of Gods image common to all? the appointment of that royal seat of Eden, was an act of heavenly bounty, and therefore might well be proper to him in that estate; but the appointment of the time for Gods special honour, was an act of justice, made and built upon a rule of common equity, as may appear out of the second edition of this Law in the fourth Commandment, and therefore might well be morally binding unto all, and not a point of mere order only for Adam to observe.