A63997:328
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.
That Christ hath put away the shadow, 2. That he hath retained the light & spreads it further. As for the first we have heard the proportion of one day in seven allowed unto Gods service, to be called a ceremony, and consequently a shadow; But what this prefigured is not explained at all, nor ever hath been that ever I read or heard. Neither is this put away, but continueth still in the observation of the Lords day all the Christian world over; and I doubt not but it will continue to the end of the world. The restraint of the worship to the seventh day hath been also called a ceremony, but too too crudely and without all explication of what it figured: yet we willingly grant a fair prefiguration of somewhat concerning Christ is found in the seventh day acknowledged by the Ancients and by modern writers, both Papists and Protestants, both Lutherans and Calvinists; but that is not in reference to the worship restrained to that day, but in reference to the test, fairly representing Christs rest that day in his grave; and thereupon grounding the rigorous condition of the Jewish rest, which is the practise both of Papists & of Protestants so that the Sabbath is not taken away neither as touching some time, in general to be sanctified unto God, nor as touching the proportion of time in special, as of one day in seven; but only as touching the particular day which is changed into the Lords day: Our Saviour professing that a Sabbath still was to be kept of Christians, as Doctor Andrewes proveth out of Matth. 24 20. As for the second, to wit, the light that is said to be retained and spread wider then before; this is mere darkness unto me, for I cannot by any means comprehend the meaning of it: Neither is here any course taken to expound it, and bring us acquainted with the interpretation of it. Suppose by the light is meant ⟨p. 218⟩the thing prefigured; and that is devised to be a spiritual rest from sin.1 But this I hope the Prophets and holy servants of God under the Law were partakers of, together with the rest of the Sabbath and the sanctification of it, as well as we under the Gospel; and if the sanctification of the Sabbath (I speak of our Christian Sabbath, according to our Saviours language, Matth. 24.20.)