A63997:319
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.
Then coming to specify the proportion of time to be allowed hereunto, Oportet (saith hee) ut aliqua dies in septimana ad hujusmodi sanctificationem & latriam sit Deo dedicata. Et ut sic hoc praeceptum est stabile & aeternum, ut patebit. One day in the week must be dedicated unto God for this sanctification and worship, and thus the precept is stable and everlasting as it shall appear. In like manner Stella upon Luke 14. In the sanctification of the Sabbath there was something moral, and something ceremonial. It is moral to observe one day in the week; but that it should be this day or that day, this is ceremonial. Add to these Bellarmine de cultu sanctorum lib. 3. cap. 11. Jus divinum requirebat, ut unus dies hebdomadae dicaretur cultui divino. Thus we see these are directly for us; Aquinas and the schoolmen are not directly against us, (as hitherto it hath appeared,) no more then Zanchy, who yet is directly for us, as hath been showed. By the way, it doth not follow from any evidence, that either these or Tostatus have given, that the assigning of one day above another was ceremonial, taking this word (ceremonial) in proper speech: for 1. it may be accounted positive. 2. what have we to do with ceremonials (in proper speech) now under the Gospel, who yet do still observe one day in seven. 3. nay why may not that also justly be accounted moral, if God hath marked out that day we celebrate by some notable work, to be consecrated to the Lord, above others? especially according to Bishop Lake his grounds, namely that the work of ⟨p. 210⟩the day is the ground of hallowing the day: for proof whereof he appeals to the institution of all feasts both humane and divine. In this case, I should think there is no colour for suspicion of any Judaism; who those fathers are, who have pronounced (as here it is said) the fourth Commandment to be a ceremony, a shadow, and a figure only, here it is not mentioned, but delivered at large, but I find that Isychrius rejects from the Decalogue this precept for the observation of the Sabbath, esteeming it to be only ceremonial, opposed herein by Dominicus Bannes;1 Sed profecto fallitur quoth Bannes: for the precept is moral as touching the substance of the precept, to wit, that there be a certain time wherein a man ought to rest unto God, although the determination of such a time be not designed: