Do you keep the Christians' Sabbath or the Cows'?

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NaphtaliPress

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As Athanasius well observes, Non otij causa: “God did not give the Sabbath principally for rest, for then He commanded two lambs to be slain in the morning”—as we shall have occasion anon to show it more particularly—“and two in the evening; and that twelve loaves should be set upon the table with frankincense, etc. (Num 28:9; Lev. 24:6). If He had delighted in idleness, He would not have commanded so many things to be done upon the day of rest.”[1]

And truly if men did only rest upon this day, and had nothing else to do, their very cattle, even their ox and their ass might keep as good a Sabbath as they.
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[1] . Athanasius, Matt. 11 [sic]. See Num. 28:9 and Lev. 24:6. [The reference is an error (by the printer?). See rather: “Non enim principaliter ocij causa….” Cf. S. Athanasius–Dubia, De Sabbatis et Circumcisione, §1. PG 28, col. 134, §1. “Non enim otii præcipue causa….” Opera (1600; Gesuiti: Collegio Romano, 1601) 761.]

Nicholas Bownd, Sabbathum Veteris Et Novi Testamenti: or, The True Doctrine of the Sabbath (1606; Naphtali Press forthcoming, 2015) 302.
Bownd's work was the first scholarly (for the time) treatment of the Christian Sabbath, and while not the first to write (though' he lectured the material circa 1585) can fairly be called the father of subsequent Puritan works as he set a standard position, later codified in the Westminster Standards. The significance of this book for helping to spread, unify and establish the Purview would be difficult to overstate.
 
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