A63997:236
The Christian Sabbath defended against a crying evil in these times of the antisabitarians…
The Christian Sabbath defended against a crying evil in these times of the antisabitarians of our age: wherein is showed that the morality of the fourth Commandment is still in force to bind Christians unto the sanctification of the Sabbath day. Written by that learned assertor of the truth, William Twice D.D. late prolocutor to the Assembly of Divines.The Christian Sabbath defended against a crying evil in these times of the antisabitarians of our age: wherein is shewed that the morality of the fourth Commandement is still in force to bind Christians unto the sanctification of the Sabbath day. Written by that learned assertor of the truth, William Twisse D.D. late prolocutor to the Assembly of Divines.
London: printed for Thomas Pierrepont, 1652
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.
From their Doctrine pretended by him he proceeds to their practise, professing it to be devoid of any the least superstitious rigour; esteeming it to be a day left arbitrary, and therefore open to all lawful and honest recreations by which the mind may be refreshed, and the spirit quickened; as in Geneva all honest exercises, shooting in pieces, long Bows, cross Bows are used in the Sabbath day, and that both in the morning before and after the Sermon; And truly I do ⟨p. 146⟩not find my self prone to censure them for any superstition in this. But this author takes liberty to censure them for superstitious, who think these courses unlawful on the Sabbath Day. I make bold to call the Lords Day our Sabbath; because our Saviour plainly gives us to understand that we Christians should have one day in the week for our Sabbath, Ma. 24.20. as well as the Jews had; and secondly because the book of Homilies professeth that Sunday is our Sabbath. Nobis non licet esse tam disertis. We may not be so elegant as to censure them for profaning the Lords Day by these and such like courses. Yet the act of Parliament, 1. Caroli forbids any man to come out of his Parish on the Lords Day, about any sports and pastimes; which restraint tending to this end, namely to preserve the Sabbath from profanation, doth manifestly give us to understand that to come out of a mans parish on that day about any sports or pastimes is to profane the Sabbath: and seeing as before I have showed, that to come out of a mans parish on that day about such a work as doth not profane the Sabbath, is not to profane the Sabbath, as to hear a sermon, or to fetch a surgeon or Physician to a sick person in ease of necessity; but only to come out of a mans own Parish about such a work as doth profane the Sabbath, such a coming out of a mans own Parish on that day, and such alone doth profane the Sabbath; hence it followeth evidently that all manner of sports and pastimes on that day, are so many profanations of the Sabbath in the judgement of all the Prelates of this Kingdom, and of the whole Parliament.
From their Doctrine pretended by him hee proceedes to their practise, professing it to bee devoyd of any the least superstitious rigour; esteeming it to be a day left arbitrary, and therefore open to all lawfull and honest recreations by which the minde may be refreshed, and the spirit quickened; as in Geneva all honest exercises, shooting in pieces, long Bowes, crosse Bowes are used in the Sabbath day, and that both in the morning before and after the Sermon; And truly I doe