The Doctrine of the Sabbath — Thomas Shepard

The Doctrine of the Sabbath · Thomas Shepard

The generall CONTENTS of the Theses concerning the Morality of the Sabbath.

1. GOD is the superiour disposer of mans time.

Thes. 1

2. Man who is made next to God, and to return to his rest at the end of the larger circle of his life, is to return to him at the end of the lesser circle of eve…y week.

Thes. 7

3. What a Moral Law is not.

10, 11

4. How a Divine Law may be said to be Moral

5. What a Moral law is strictly taken.

6. A Moral Law considered in a strict sense is not good meerly because commanded, but is therefore commanded because it is good.

7. What is that goodnesse in a Moral Law for which it is commanded.

8. By what Rules may that goodnesse be known, which are foure.

24, 25

9 Divers consectaries flowing from the description of a Moral Law.

1. That Divine determination of something in a Law doth not alway take away the morality of it.

2. That those are not Moral laws only, which are known to all men by the light of corrupt nature.

3. That the whole Decalogue in all the parts of it is the Moral Law of God: Thes. 30. where Objections are answered to.

10. Three sorts of Laws which were among the Jewes, Moral, Ceremonial, Judicial.

11. The true state of the Question whether the Sabbath be a Moral or Ceremonial Law.

12. The agreement on all hands how far the Law of the Sabbath is Moral.

13. Something general is agreed on, and whether it lies under this general, viz. a seventh day.

14. The chief means of resolving this controversie in opening the meaning of the fourth Commandment.

15. The things which are Moral in the fourth Commandment, are either primarily or secundarily moral.

16. Those things which are primarily & generally moral in the forth Commandment, are 3. 1. A time of worship. 2. A day. 3. A 7^th day determined.

17. Not the worship it self, but only the solemne time of it is required in the fourth Commandment.

18. How holy duties are for time.

19. Instituted worship is not directly required in the fourth, but in the second Commandment, wherein the meaning of the second Commandment is occasionally cleared against Wallaeus.

20. If the moral worship it self be not required herein, much lesse is the whole ceremonial worship.

21. Neither the publike worship only, nor Jewish holy dayes required in this fourth Commandment

22. Not a part of a day, but a whole day is moral by the fourth Commandment.

23. Gods wisdome did rather choose a whole day together for special worship then borrow a part of every day.

24. The sin of Familists and others who allow God no special day, but make all dayes equal.

25. How any day is said to be holy, and that though all places are alike holy, yet all dayes are not therefore alike holy.

69, 70

26. Answer to such Scriptures as seem to make all dayes alike holy under the New Testament.

72, 73. to 79

27. The chief reason why some abolish the day of the Sabbath in the fourth Commandment, is because they abandon the whole Decalogue it self as any Rule of life unto his people.

28. An inward Sabbath may well consist with a Sabbath day.

29. The great controversie whether the Law be a rule of life to a beleever, discussed in sundry Theses.

30. The Spirit is not the rule of life.

31. Not the will of Gods Decree, but the will of his command is the rule of life.

32. The fundamental Errour of Antinomians.

33. The rule of the Law is kept in Christ as matter of our justification, not sanctification.

34. How Christ is our Sanctification as well as our Justification.

35. Duties of Christian thankfulnesse to God were not performed by Christ for beleevers under that notion of thankfulnesse, but by way of merit.

36. Whether a beleever is to act in vertue of a command.

37. The sin of those who affirme that Christian obedience is not to be put forth by vertue of a command.

100

38. To act by vertue of a Commandment, and by vertue of Gods Spirit, are subordinate one to another.

101

39. Whether the Law is our rule as given by Moses on mount Sinai, or only as it is given by Christ on mount Sion.

102

40. How Works and Law-duties are sometime commended and sometime condemned

105, 106

41. The new creature how it is under the Law.

107

42. How the children of God under the Old Testament were under the Law as a Schoolmaster, and not those of the New.

108

43. How the Gospel requires doing, and how not, and about conditional promises in the Gospel.

110

44. Various motives to obedience from the Law and Gospel, from God as a Creator, and from Christ as a Redeemer, do not vary the Rule.

111

45. Unbelief is not the only sin.

112

46. Three evils arising from their Doctrine who deny the Directive use of the moral Law.

113

47. The sin of such as deny the humbling work of the Law under Gospel ministrations.

114

48. Their Errour who will not have a Christian pray for pardon of sin, or mourn for sin.

115

49. Whether Sanctification be a doubtful evidence, and may not be a just evidence, and whe…er the Gospel and all the promises of it belong to a sinner as a sinner, and whether sight of corruption be (by the Gospel) the setled evidence of salvation as some plead for.

117

50. Whether the first evidence be without the being, or only the seeing of grace.

118

51. The true grounds of evidencing Gods love in Christ, cleared.

119.

52. Not only a day, nor only a Sabbath day, but a seventh day determined is the last thing generally moral in the fourth Commandment.

120.122

53. That which is particularly moral herein, is this or that particular seventh day.

123

54. The morality of a Sabbath may be as strongly and easily urged from the Commandment of observing that particular seventh day from the creation, as the morality of a day.

125

55. It is not in mans liberty to take any one of the seven dayes in a week to be the Christian Sabbath.

126

56. A determined time is here required, but not what nature, but what counsel shall determine, and consequently this or that seventh day.

130

57. The force of Gods example in resting the seventh, and working six dayes, how far it extends.

132

58. No reason that God must have a seventh yeer, because he will have a seventh day

134

59. How a circumstance of time is capable of morality.

137

60. The Law of the Sabbath is a Homogeneal part of the Moral Law, and is therefore Moral: and whether it be Moral in respect of the letter.

138

61. Whether the Decalogue is said to be the Moral Law in respect of the greater part only.

139

62. The Law of the Sabbath hath equal glory with all the other nine Morals, and hath therefore equal morality.

140

63. The Sabbath was given as a moral law to man in innocency.

151

64. The Sabbath said to be sanctified, Gen. 2 not meerly in a way of Destination or Anticipation.

162

65. Adam in innocency might need a Sabbath.

174

66. No types of Christ given to man in innocency.

177

67. The Sabbath was no type in respect of its original institution.

178

68. The Heathens by the light of corrupt nature had some kind of knowledge of the Sabbath.

189

69. The Law of nature diversly taken, and what it is.

194

70. No argument to prove the Sabbath ceremonial, because Christ appointed no special day for the Lords Supper.

198

71. No argument to prove the Sabbath ceremonial, because it is reckoned among the ceremonials.

199

72. Christ is not said to be the Lord of the Sabbath, because it was ceremonial.

200

73. Though the Sahbath be made for man, yet it is not therefore ceremonial.

201

74. A fond distinction of the Sabbath in sensu mystico & literali.

202

75. Although we are bound to rest every day from sin, yet we are not therefore to make every day a Sabbath.

203

76. The Sabbath was not proper to the Jewes, because they only were able (as some say) to observe the exact time of it.

204

77. An answer to M. Carpenters and Heylins new invented argument against the morality of the Sabbath.

206

FINIS.

PART. I. The Morality of the Sabbath.

Wherin the chief Arguments used by Gomarus, Mr. Primrose, Mr. Ironside, Mr. Broad, with sundry others against it, are briefly answered, the reasons for it more fully cleared:

Wherein also the great Controversie, whether the whole Moral Law contained in the Decalogue be a Rule of life to a Beleever, is occasionally and distinctly handled.

THE MORALITY OF THE SABBATH.

Thesis 1.

TIme is one of the most precious blessings, which worthlesse man in this world enjoyes, a jewell of inestimable worth, a golden stream dissolving, and as it were, continually running downe by us, out of one eternity into another; yet seldome taken notice of untill it is quite passed away from us; Man (saith Solomon) knowes not his time, Eccles. 9.12. It is therefore most just and meet, that he who hath the disposing of all other things lesse precious and momentous, should also be the supreme Lord and disposer of all our times.

Thesis 2.

He who is the disposer of all our times, is the soveraigne Lord of our persons also, and is therefore the utmost and last end of both: for if our persons and all our times bee of him, they are then to be improved for him, as he sees most meer.

Thesis 3.

Now although all creatures in the world, are of God, and for God, so that being of him, they receive their being from him as their first efficient, and being for him, are therefore *Deus qu… principium dat esso qua finis firmat & stabilit esse datum: Gibbe…. de lib. Dei & creat.preserved and governed by him, as their utmost end; yet no other inferiour visible creature is set so near to God, and consequently is not in that manner for God, as man is.

Thesis 4.

For although all inferiour creatures are made lastly for God, yet they are made nextly for man; but man havin… nothing better than himselfe, between him and God, therefore made, both lastly and nextly for God, and hence is, that no inferiour Creature, which comes out and issu…eth from God, hath such a reflux and returne againe bac… unto God, as man hath; because, in and by this reflux an… returne into him, mans immortall being is eternally pre…served, like water running into the Sea againe, from whence it first came.

Thesis 5.

For whatever is set next, and as it were contiguous to e…ternall, is eternall; Omne contiguum ae…erno spirituali est a…ternum (say some) and hence it is that the soule is eternall because it is made nextly for God, and as it were con…tiguous to him. The body also shall bee eternall, be…cause contiguous to the eternall soule: But no other in…feriour Creatures are thus eternall: For although they b… made nextly for man, yet so, as that they are firstly for th… body, which is of it selfe mortall, and not eternall, an… therefore not being contiguous to that which is spirituall… eternall, are not so themselves▪ and the reason of this i… because all inferiour Creatures, as they come out from God, so their motion is toward man, for whom they a… nextly made,Field of the Church, chap. 2. and they go out strait forward from God as it were in a strait line toward man, to the last end an… terme of which strait line when they are come, in the ser…vice of man, they then cannot proceed any further, and d… therefore perish and cease to be, without reflecting, or re…turning back againe immediately unto God. But ma… being made immediately and nextly for God, hath therfor… his motion so toward God, as that he returnes immediatel… unto him againe, and is not led in a strait line, but led (… it were) about in a circular motion, and hence returning immediately to him, he is hereby eternally preserved i… him, for whom he is immediately made, and unto whom h… is nextly contiguous, as hath been said.

Thesis 6.

Now although in this returne of man to God, (suppo…sing it to be internall, regular and spirituall) mans blesse… being once lost is hereby recovered and preserved in God yet when man is left unto himselfe, the motions of his soul out of this circle, in straying from God, are innumerable and would be endlesse, if God who set him next unto him selfe, did not some time or other, recall, returne, and …ead him back again (as it were in a heavenly circle) into himself.

Thesis 7.

Look therefore as when man hath run his race, finished his course, and passed through the bigger and larger circle of his life, he then returnes unto his eternall rest; so it … contrived and ordered by divine wisdom, as that he shall …n a speciall manner returne unto and into his rest once …t least within the lesser and smaller circle of every week, …hat so his perfect blessednesse to come might be foretasted every Sabbath day, and so be begun here: that looke as man standing in innocency, had cause thus to returne …rom the pleasant labours of his weekly paradise imployments, (as shall be shewn in due place) so man fallen, much more from his toilsome and wearisome labours, to this his rest again: And therefore, as because all creatures were made for man, man was therefore made in the last place after them; so man being made for God and his worship, thence it is that the Sabbath (wherein man was to draw most neare unto God) was appointed after the creation of man, as *Tu hic ord… nem considera, alia creantur prepter hominem, ideo post illa co…ditur homo. Homo vero ad Dei cultum, ideo statem post illius creationem Sabbathi benedictio, & sanctificatio inducitur. Pet Mart. in prac 4 m.Peter Martyr observes: For although man is not made for the Sabbath meerly in respect of the outward rest of it, as the Pharisees dreamed, yet hee is made for the Sabbath in respect of God in it, and the holinesse of it, to both which then the soule is to have its weekly revolution back againe, as into that Rest, which is the end of all our lives, labour, and in speciall of all our weekly labour and work.

Thesis 8.

As therefore our blessed rest in the fruition of God at the end and period of our lives, is no ceremony, but a glorious privilege, and a morall duty, it being our closing with our utmost end to which we are called: so it cannot be that such a Law which cals and commands man in this life to returne to the same rest for substance every Sabbath day, should bee a ceremoniall, but rather a Morall and perpetuall Law: unlesse it should appeare that this weekly Sabbath like the other annuall Sabbath, hath been ordained and instituted principally for some ceremonious ends, rather than to be a part, and indeed the beginning of our rest to come; there being little difference between this and that to come, but onelyonly this, that here our rest is but begun, there it is perfected; here it is interrupted by our weekly labours, there it is continued, here we are led into our rest by meanes and ordinances, but there we shall bee possessed with it, without our need of any helpe from them; our God who is our rest, being then become unto us immediately All in All.

Thesis 9.

Were it not for mans worke and labour ordained and appointed for him in this life, he should enjoy a continuall Sabbath, a perpetuall Rest. And therefore wee see, that when mans life is ended, his sunne set, and his worke done upon earth, nothing else remaines for him, but only to enter into his perpetuall and eternall Rest: All our time should be solemne and sacred to the Lord of time, if there were no common worke and labour h…re, which necessarily occasions common time; why then should any think that a weekly Sabbath is ceremoniall, when, were it not for this lifes labour, a perpetuall and continuall Sabbath would then be undoubtedly accounted morall. Its hard for any to thinke a servants awfull attendance on his Lord and Master at certaine speciall times not to bee morally due from him; who but for some more private and personall occassions allowed him to attend unto, should at all times continually be serving of him.

Thesis 10.

The word is foreign, and no Scripture phrase, and therfore not proper, fitly and fully to expresse the question in controversie, to wit, whether the fourth Commandment bee a morall precept. The best friends of this word finde it slippery, and can hardly tell what it is, and what they would have to be understood by it, and hence it is become a bone of much Contention, a fit mist, and swampe, for such to fight in, who desire so to contend with their Adversaries, as that themselves may not bee known, either where they are, or on what ground they stand: Yet it being a word generally taken up, and commonly used, it may not therefore be amisse, to follow the market measure, and to retaine the word with just and meet explications thereof.

Thesis 11.

They who describe a morall law, to bee such a law as is not typically ceremoniall, and therefore not durable, doe well and truely expresse what it is not, but they doe not positively expresse what it is.

Thesis 12.

Some describe and draw out the proportions of the morall law, by the law of nature, and so make it to bee that law, which every man is taught by the light of nature. That which is morally and universally just (say some) which reason, when it is not mis-led, and the inward law of nature dictateth, by common principles of honesty, or ought to dictate unto all men without any outward usher: It is that (say others) which may be proved not only just but necessary, by principles drawne from the light of nature, which all reasonable men, even in nature corrupted, have still in their hearts, which either they doe acknowledge, or may at least bee convinced of without the Scriptures, by principles still left in the hearts of all men. But this description seems too narrow: For 1. Although it be true that the law naturall is part of the law morall, yet if the law morall be resolved into the law of nature only, and the law of nature bee shrunke up and drawne into so narrow a compasse, as what the principles left in corrupt man onelyonly suggest and dictate; then it will necessarily follow, that many of those holy rules and principles are not the law of nature, which were the most perfect impressions of the law of nature, in mans first creation and perfection, but now by mans apostacy are obliterated and blotted out, unlesse any shall thinke worse than the blinde Papists, either that mans minde is not now corrupted by the fall, in losing any of the first impressions of innocent nature; or shall maintaine with them, that the Image of God (of which those first impressions were a part) was not naturall to man in that estate. 2. It will then follow that there is no morale discipline, (as they call it) that is, nothing morall by discipline informing, or positively morall, but onelyonly by nature dictating, which is crosse not onelyonly to the judgements, but solid Arguments of men judicious and most indifferent. 3. If that onelyonly is to be accounted morall which is so easily knowne of all men, by the light of nature corrupted, then the imperfect light of mans corrupt minde must bee the principall judge of that which is morall, rather than the perfect rule of morality contained in the Scripture, which Assertion would not a little advance corrupt and blinde Nature, and dethrone the perfection of the holy Scripture.

Thesis 13.

They who define a morall law, to be such a law as is perpetuall and universall, binding all persons in all ages and times, doe come somewhat nearer to the marke, and are not far off from the truth, and such a description is most plaine and obvious to such as are not curious: and in this sense our adversaries in this cause affirme the Sabbath not to be morall, meaning, that it is not a Law perpetuall and universall. Others on the contrary affirming that it is morall, intend thus much, that it is perpetuall and universall, a law which bindes all persons, all times, and in all ages, and herein lies the chiefe matter of controversie at this day. Now in what respect and how far forth the law of the Sabbath is perpetuall, shall be hereafter shewn; mean while it may not be amisse to enquire more narrowly into the nature of a morall law. For though a Law primarily morall is perpetuall, yet perpetuity seems to bee an adjunct rather than of the essence of a morall law, and the difficulty will still remaine untouch'd, viz. to know when a law is perpetuall, and what is internall and intrinsicall to such a law as makes it perpetuall or morall; whereinto I would not search, lest I should seem to affect curiosity, but that our criticall adversaries put us upon it, with whom there is nothing lost in case we… gaine nothing by wrastling a little with them upon their owne grounds, where for a while we shall come up to them.

Thesis 14.

A divine law may be said to be morall two wayes,

1. More largely and generally morall.

2. More strictly and specially morall.

Thesis 15.

A law generally morall is this, that the whole soveraign will of the Lord be done and submitted unto by every creature; and in this large sense every law of God whether ceremoniall, judiciall, or for speciall triall, may be said to be morall, because the soveraigne will of God is in all these lawes to be adored: It is a morall duty that Gods will be done, and hence it is that so far forth as the will of God is in them, so far forth to yield obedience to them is a morall duty, but the question is not about this morality, nor what things are thus morall.

Thesis 16.

A law more strictly and specially morall, which concernes the manners of all men, and of which wee now speake, may bee thus described, viz. It is such a Law, which is therefore commanded because it is good, and is not therefore good meerly because it is commanded.

The Doctrine of the Sabbath, Table of contents 1 – Thesis 16