A63997:68
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
THE DOCTRINE OF THE SABBATH DELIVERED in the Act at Oxenford, Anno… › Section 3: The third Section.
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.
But on the other side, as commonly the excess is more exorbitant than the defect; there wanted not some others, who thought they could not honour the Lords day sufficiently, unless they did affix as great a sanctity unto it, as the Jews did ⟨p. 32⟩unto their Sabbath. So that the change seemed to be only of the day; the superstition still remaining no less Jewish than before it was. These taught, as now some doe, moralem esse unius diei observationem in hebdomada, 1the keeping holy to the Lord one day in seven, to be the moral part of the fourth Commandment: which doctrine what else is it (so he proceeds, as here the Doctor so repeats it in his third section) then in contempt of the Jews to change the day; and to affix a greater sanctity to the day, than those ever did. As for himself, so far was he from favouring any such wayward fancy, that as John Barclay makes report, he had a consultation once, de transferenda solennitate Dominica in feriam quintam, to alter the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday. How true this is, I cannot say. But sure it is that Calvin took the Lords day to be an ecclesiastical and humane constitution only, Quem veteres in locum Sabbati subrogarunt, appointed by our Ancestors to supply the place of the Jewish Sabbath, and (as our Doctor tells us from him in his seventh section,) as alterable by the Church at this present time, as first it was, when from Saturday they translated it unto the Sunday. So that we see, that Calvin here resolves upon three Conclusions. First, that the keeping holy one day in seven, is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment. Secondly, that the day was changed from the last day of the week unto the first by this authority of the Church, and not by any divine Ordinance: And thirdly, that the day is yet alterable by the Church, as at first it was.
But on the other side, as commonly the excesse is more exorbitant than the defect; there wanted not some others, who thought they could not honour the Lords day sufficiently, unlesse they did affix as great a sanctitie unto it, as the Jewes did ⟨p. 32⟩unto their Sabbath. So that the change seemed to be onely of the day; the superstition still remaining no lesse Jewish than before it was. These taught, as now some doe, moralem esse unius diei observationem in hebdomada,