A59693:81
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 21.
If it be demanded therefore, What is that goodness in a ⟨p. 11⟩moral law for which it is therefore commanded? The Answer is given by Vasques, Suarez, Smifinga, and most of the Schoolmen, and sundry of our own Writers, that it is nothing else, but That comely suitableness and meetness in the thing commanded unto humane nature as rational, or unto man as rational, and consequently unto every man. When I say,1 as Rational, I understand as Master Ironside doth, viz. as right reason neither blinded nor corrupted doth require. When I say as suitable to man, and consequently to every man, I hereby exclude all laws merely Judicial and Evangelical from being moral, the first of which are suitable to some men only, the other are not suitable to men as men, but to man as corrupt and fallen; and therefore bind not all men, but only those among whom they are sufficiently and actually promulgated, as is evident, Rom. 10.14 John. 15.22. But moral laws are suitable to all men, and have an inward meetness and congruity to be observed of all men: For look as when the Lord gives Laws to any particular nation, whether immediately by himself, or mediately by man, he ever makes them suitable to the peoples peace and good of that nation; so when he makes laws binding all mankind in all Nations, he makes them suitable to humane nature or all mankind therein. And look as national Laws bind not merely by the mere will of the Law-giver, but from the *