A59693:537
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 190.
There wants not sufficient proof that the Gentiles generally §190practised and approved a seventh days Sabbath, and that it was highly honoured among them as very sacred: This truth both Tertullian, Eusebius, Josephus and Philo have formerly ⟨p. 170⟩affirmed; Aretus also, especially learned Rivet, have lately vindicated and made good against all the exceptions of Gomarus and others;1 insomuch as that the last refuge both of Gomarus and Primrose is this, viz. That all those Heathens who writ about the Sabbath and in honour of it, received not their light from nature, but from the writings of the Jewish Commonwealth, all those heathenish testimonies about the Sabbath, being published and writ long after the delivering of the law upon mount Sinai: And therefore they think this no argument to prove that this law was practised ever since the world began, or that it was known by the light of nature, by which it might be evinced to be moral: but by this answer we shall scarce know any thing to be according to the light of nature by the writings of the Heathens, for all their writings are since Moses time, if they be of any credit; but suppose they did not know it by the working power of the light of nature, yet if they approved of, and honoured this day when it was made known by other means, so that rhey knew it by the approving light of nature, as the authors alleged make good, its then sufficient to prove the seventh day moral, even by the light of nature: And although Seneca and some others scoffed at the Jewish Sabbaths, as if they lost the seventh part of their time thereby; yet we know that mens lusts will give them leave to scoff at that which yet their consciences chastise them for; beside I think those scoffs were not so much at the seventh day as at their ict and ceremonious observance thereof, as also of their seventh years, wherein its no wonder if that the light of nature should not so clearly see.