7. Keeping the Sabbath day holy. It is a sure mark of an ungodly person to be a Sabbath-breaker, as a conscionableness to celebrate it to God's glory is both a mark and a work of godliness. It is the description of the godly eunuch, Isa. Ivi. 4, ' Thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant.' Mark, it is one of the chiefest things that is taken notice of there, the observation of God's own day. If you would exercise yourselves to godliness, this is a great means. Profaning the Lord's day is the cause of profaneness all the week after ; and so a careless keeping the Lord's day is the cause of the carelessness and formality you are guilty of in the business of religion. God hath -appointed this day for a repose for the soul, that, by a long uninterrupted continuance in worship, it might be more seasoned, and fit to converse with God all the week after. Dost thou love Christ ? then observe his day. Ignatius calls it the queen of days. The primitive christians were very careful of the Sabbath , they would run all hazards rather than not keep the Sabbath day. When they were accused as guilty of Sabbath-violation, they would answer, I am a christian, how can I choose but love the Lord's day ? This is the day wherein we do most solemnly and publicly profess the worship of God ; therefore it is to be celebrated with all care. Thus much for the description of godliness from the disposition of the heart, and the duties about which it is conversant.
II. I am to speak of the exercise of godliness: 1 Tim. iv. 7, 'Exercise thyself to godliness.' It must be exercised both in worship and conversation: 2"Peter iii. 11, 'What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness ? '
First, In worship. What is the part and office of godliness in worship ?
1. There must be a care that it be right. God will not be at the
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creatures' carving ; his honour is best kept up by his own institutions, and therefore he will accept nothing but what he requires. The woman of Samaria, as soon as she was converted, inquired after the right worship. Christ had convinced her of lewdness, and living in adultery : John iv. 18, ' The man thou now hast is not thy husband.' The great thing that troubled her was her present standing, and the super- stition she w-as nursed and brought up in : ver. 20, ' Our fathers worshipped in this mountain ; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.' As soon as men are awakened, that is the question ; they can no longer be content with their ignorant, senseless, careless, ceremonial worshipping of God, and say, Thus our fathers did ; this will not serve the conscience when it is a little stirred. It is said of the people of God, Jer. 1. 5, ' They shall ask the way to Sion with their faces thitherward.' Sion was the place of God's residence and solemn worship ; and it is the disposition of his people still to be inquisitive after the way to Sion, how God is worshipped. I speak not this to unsettle men, and to draw them to scepticism and irresolution, but partly that they might settle Ui3on better grounds than tradition, public consent, and the example of men. Cyprian observes that this is the reason men are so fickle, so inconstant, so soon off and on, they do not practise those things upon good grounds. None so incon- stant as they that practise things right and good, but not upon principles. And partly that men may not content themselves with a cheap worship, such as costs them nothing, as when they do not inquire about the grounds and reasons of what they do, or when they do but even as others do. We should be still searching ' and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord,' Eph. v. 10, and ' seek for knowledge as for silver, and search for her as for hid treasures,' Prov. iii. 4. It is a thing of great care and exactness to be a christian, to be right in God's worship. Usually men serve God at random and at peradventure; and if they be right, it is but a happy mistake ; they do not inquire and search, and so miss of a great deal of comfort, settlement, and experience in the way of God.
2. There is required constancy and zeal in the profession of God's worship. This is religion, to be zealous for God's institutions, to contend for the faith of the saints, and hate what is contrary to right worship and sound doctrine : Ps. cxix. 104, ' Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way ; ' and ver. 128, ' There- fore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way.' This is the effect of the knowledge of the truth, to hate all falsehood, idolatry, and superstition, as much as they love God's institutions, that they may not be entangled, and so either deceive others, or be deceived themselves, by the craft of them that lie in wait for such an enterprise. Whenever they hear or read any such doctrines, the heart nauseateth them ; there is a risking of heart not only against corruptions of manners, but falsehood of doctrine. But if men be indifferent, come what may come, Christ or antichrist, they care not greatly, their religion is Avorth nothing. If you do not hate lieresy and corruption in worship, there is no true religion or godliness in you. Heretics and men in a false way seldom hate one another though they differ in principles. Why ? Because they have not a love to truth.