SECT. 1, 2.] PRACTICAL OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD’S DAY. 437
EXERCITATION VI. THE PRACTICAL OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD’S DAY.
1. Practice the end of instruction and learning. 2. Practical observation of the Sabbath handled by many. 3. Complaints concerning too much rigour and strictness in directions for the observation of the Sabbath. 4. Extremes to be avoided in directions of sacred duties—Extreme of the Pharisees. 5. The worse extreme of others, in giving liberty to sin. 6. Mistakes in directions about the observation of the Lord’s day. 7. General directions unto that purpose proposed. 8. Of the beginning and ending of the Sabbath—The first rule about time. 9. The frame of spirit required under the gospel in the observation of the Lord’s day. 10. Rules and principles for its due observation. 11. Duties required thereunto of twosorts. 12. Preparatory duties, their necessity and nature. 13. Particular account of them. 14. Meditation. 15. Supplication. 16. Instruction. 17. Duties of the day itself. 18. Of public duties. 19. What refreshments and labour consistent with them. 20. Of private duties.
1. Ir remains that something be briefly offered which may direct a practice suitable unto the principles laid down and pleaded; for this is the end of all sacred truth and all instruction therein. This that great rule of our blessed Saviour both teacheth us and obligeth us to an answerable duty, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them,” John xiii. 17;—words so filled with his wisdom, that happy are they in whose hearts they are always abiding. The end, then, of our learning Scripture truths, is to obtain such an idea of them in our minds as may direct us unto a suitable practice. Without this they are to us of no use, or of none that is good. ‘H yvaiors guow Knowledge without practice puffeth, not buildeth up. For, as Austin speaks with reference unto these words, Con. Faust. Man. lib. xv. cap. viii., “ Multa quibusdam sunt noxia, quamvis non sint mala.” Things not evil, yea, good in themselves, may be hurtful unto others. And nothing is useful but as it is directed to its proper end. This practice is unto sacred truth.
2. I confess our endeavours herein may seem less necessary than in the foregoing discourses; for there are many treatises on this part of our present subject extant in our own language, and in the hands of those who esteem themselves concerned in these things, With some they meet, indeed, with no other entertainment than the posts did that were sent by Hezekiah through Ephraim, Manasseh, and Zebulun, to invite them unto the passover;—they are laughed to scorn and mocked at, 2 Chron. xxx. 10. “But Wisdom is justified of her children.” Unto some they are of great use, and in great esteem; and, for the most part, in the main of their design they do agree. So that the truth in them is established in the mouths of many witnesses, without danger of dividing the minds of men about it.
433 PRACTICAL OBSERVANCE [ EXERC. VI.
But yet I cannot take myself to be discharged hereby from the con- sideration of this concern also of a sacred rest under the gospel, the nature of our design requiring it. And there are yet important directions for the right sanctifying of the name of God, in and by the due observance of a day of sacred rest, which I have not taken notice to have been insisted on by others; and whereas a due im- provement may be expected of the peculiar principles before dis- cussed, I shall go through this part of the work also.
3. Besides, there are not a few complaints, and those managed, at least some of them, by persons of sobriety and learning, pretend- ing also a real care for the preservation and due observance of all duties of piety and religion, that there hath been some excess in the directions of many given about the due sanctification of the Lord's day. And there is no small danger of mistakes on this hand, whilst therein is a pretence of zeal and devotion to give them countenance. Of this nature some men do judge some rigorous prescriptions to be which have been given in this matter. And they say that a great disadvantage unto religion hath ensued hereon: for it is pretended that they are such as are beyond the constitution of human nature to comply withal; of which kind God certainly requires nothing at our hands, Hence it is pleaded, that men finding themselves no way able to come unto a satisfaction, in answer unto the severe directions for duties and the manner of their performance which by some are rigorously prescribed, have taken occasion to seek for relief by re- jecting the whole command; which, if duly interpreted in such a condescension as they were capable of a compliance withal, they would have adhered unto. On this account men have found out various inventions, to colour their weariness of that strict course of duty which they were bound unto. Hence have some taken up a plea that every day is to them a Sabbath, that so they might not keep any; some, that there is no such thing as a sacred rest on any day required of us by the authority of Christ, and therefore that all directions for the manner of the observance of such a day are to no purpose. And many by degrees have declined from that strictness which they could not come up unto a delight in, until they have utterly lost all sense of duty towards God in this matter. And these things are true; only the reasons of them are not agreed on.