SECTION VI.
True natural religion, that which was common
to all nations and ages, did principally rely upon four great propositions; 1.
That there is one God; 2. That God is nothing of those things which we see; 3.
That God takes care of all things below, and governs all the world; 4. That he
is the great Creator of all things, without himself: and according to these
were framed the four first precepts of the decalogue. In the first, the unity
of the Godhead is expressly affirmed; in the second, his invisibility and
immateriality; in the third is affirmed God's government and providence, by
avenging them that swear falsely by his name, by which also his omniscience is
declared; in the fourth commandment, he proclaims himself the maker of heaven
and earth; for, in memory of God's rest from the work of six days, the seventh
was hallowed into a Sabbath, and the keeping it was confessing God to be the
great maker of heaven and earth; and consequently to this, it also was a
confession of his goodness, his omnipotence, and his wisdom, all which were
written with a sunbeam in the great book of the creature.
So long as the law of the Sabbath was bound upon
God's people, so long God would have that to be the solemn manner of confessing
these attributes; but when the priesthood being changed, there was a change
also of the law, the great duty remained unalterable in changed circumstances.
We are eternally bound to confess God Almighty to be the maker of heaven and
earth; but the manner of confessing it is changed from a rest, or a doing
nothing, to a speaking something, from a day to a symbol; from a ceremony to a
substance; from a Jewish rite to a Christian duty; we profess it in our creed,
we confess it in our lives; we describe it by every line of our life, by every
action of duty, by faith and trust and obedience: and we do also, upon great
reason, comply with the Jewish manner of confessing the creation, so far as it
is instrumental to a real duty. We keep one day in seven, and so confess the
manner and circumstance of the creation; and we rest also, that we may tend
holy duties; so imitating God's rest better than the Jew in Synesius, who lay
upon his face from evening to evening, and could not, by stripes or wounds, be
raised up to steer the ship in a great storm. God's rest was not a natural
cessation; he who could not labour could not be said to rest; but God's rest is
to be understood to be a beholding and a rejoicing in his work finished, and
therefore we truly represent God's rest when we confess and rejoice in God's
works and God's glory.
This the Christian church does upon every day,
but especially upon the Lord's day, which she hath set apart for this and all
other offices of religion, being determined to this day by the resurrection of
her dearest Lord, it being the first day of joy the church ever had. And now,
upon the Lord's day, we are not tied to the rest of the Sabbath, but to all the
work of the Sabbath; and we are to abstain from bodily labour, not because it
is a direct duty to us, as it was to the Jews; but because it is necessary, in
order to our duty, that we attend to the offices of religion.
The observation of the Lord's day differs nothing
from the observation of the Sabbath in the matter of religion, but in the
manner. They differ in the ceremony and external rite: rest, with them, was the
principal; with us, it is the accessory. They differ in the office or forms of
worship; for they were then to worship God as a creator and a gentle father; we
are to add to that, our Redeemer, and all his other excellences and mercies.
And, though we have more natural and proper reason to keep the Lord's day than
the Sabbath, yet the Jews had a divine commandment for their day, which we have
not for ours; but we have many commandments to do all that honour to God which
was intended in the fourth commandment; and the apostles appointed the first
day of the week for doing it in solemn assemblies. And the manner of
worshipping God, and doing him solemn honour and service upon this day, we may
best observe in the following measures:
1. When you go about to distinguish festival
days from common, do it not by lessening the devotion of ordinary days, that
the common devotion may seem bigger upon festivals; but, on every day, keep
your ordinary devotions entire, and enlarge upon the holy day.
2. Upon the Lord's day we must abstain from all
servile and laborious works, except such which are matters of necessity, of
common life, or of great charity; for these are permitted by that authority
which hath separated the day for holy uses. The Sabbath of the Jews, though
consisting principally in rest, and established by God, did yield to these. The
labour of love and the labours of religion were not against the reason and the
spirit of the commandment, for which the letter was decreed, and to which it
ought to minister. And, therefore, much more is it so on the Lord's day, where
the letter is wholly turned into spirit, and there is no commandment of God but
of spiritual and holy actions. The priests might kill their beasts, and dress
them for sacrifice; and Christ, though born under the law, might heal a sick
man; and the sick man might carry his bed to witness his recovery, and confess
the mercy, and leap and dance to God for joy; and an ox might be led to water,
and as ass be haled out of a ditch; and a man may take physic, and he may eat
meat, and therefore there were of necessity some to prepare and minister it;
and the performing these labours did not consist in minutes and just
determining stages; but they had, even then, a reasonable latitude; so only as
to exclude unnecessary labour, or such as did not minister to charity or
religion. And, therefore, this is to be enlarged in the gospel, whose Sabbath
or rest is but a circumstance, and accessory to the principal and spiritual
duties. Upon the Christian Sabbath necessity is to be served first, then
charity, and then religion; for this is to give place to charity, in great
instances, and the second to the first, in all, and in all cases God is to be
worshipped in spirit and in truth.
3. The Lord's day, being the remembrance of a
great blessing, must be a day of joy, festivity, spiritual rejoicing, and
thanksgiving; and therefore it is a proper work of the day to let your
devotions spend themselves in singing or reading psalms; in recounting the
great works of God; in remembering his mercies; in worshipping his excellences;
in celebrating his attributes; in admiring his person; in sending portions of
pleasant meat to them for whom nothing is provided; and in all the arts and
instruments of advancing God's glory, and the reputation of religion: in which
it were a great decency that a memorial of the resurrection should be inserted,
that the particular religion of the day be not swallowed up in the general. And
of this we may the more easily serve ourselves, by rising seasonably in the
morning to private devotion, and by retiring at the leisures and spaces of the
day not employed in public offices.
4.Fail not to be present at the public hours and
places of prayer, entering early and cheerfully, attending reverently and
devoutly, abiding patiently during the whole office, piously assisting at the
prayers, and gladly also hearing the sermon: and at no hand omitting to receive
the holy communion when it is offered, (unless some great reason excuse it,)
this being the great solemnity of thanksgiving, and a proper work of the
day.
5. After the solemnities are past, and in the
intervals between the morning and evening devotion, (as you shall find
opportunity,) visit sick persons, reconcile differences, do offices of
neighbourhood, inquire into the needs of the poor, especially housekeepers,
relieve them, as they shall need, and as you are able; for then we truly
rejoice in God, when we make our neighbours, the poor members of Christ,
rejoice together with us.
6. Whatsoever you are to do yourself, as
necessary, you are to take care that others also, who are under your charge, do
in their station and manner. Let your servants be called to church, and all
your family that can be spared from necessary and great household ministries;
those that cannot, let them go by turns, and be supplied otherwise, as well as
they may; and provide, on these days especially, that they be instructed in the
articles of faith and necessary parts of their duty.
7. Those who labour hard in the week must be
eased upon the Lord's day, such ease being a great charity and alms; but at no
hand must they be permitted to use any unlawful games, anything forbidden by
the laws, anything that is scandalous, or anything that is dangerous and apt to
mingle sin with it; no games prompting to wantonness, to drunkenness, to
quarrelling, to ridiculous and superstitions customs; but let their
refreshments be innocent and charitable and of good report, and not exclusive
of the duties of religion.
8. Beyond these bounds, because neither God nor
man hath passed any obligation upon us, we must preserve our Christian liberty,
and not suffer ourselves to be entangled with a yoke of bondage; for even a
good action may become a snare to us, if we make it an occasion of scruple by a
pretence of necessity, binding loads upon the conscience, not with the bands of
God, but of men, and of fancy, or of opinion, or of tyranny. Whatsoever is laid
upon us by the hands of man must be acted and accounted of by the measures of a
man; but our best measure is this: he keeps the Lord's day best, that keeps it
with most religion and with most charity.
9. What the church hath done in the article of
the resurrection, she hath in some measure done in the other articles of the
nativity, of the ascension, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost -
and so great blessings deserve an anniversary solemnity, since he is a very
unthankful person that does not often record them in the whole year, and esteem
them the ground of his hopes, the object of his faith, the comfort of his
troubles, and the great effluxes of the divine mercy, greater than all the
victories over our temporal enemies, for which all glad persons usually give
thanks. And if, with great reason, the memory of the resurrection does return
solemnly every week, it is but reason the other should return once a year. To
which I add, that the commemoration of the articles of our Creed, in solemn
days and offices, is a very excellent instrument to convey and imprint the
sense and memory of it upon the spirits of the most ignorant person. For as a
picture may with more fancy convey a story to a man than a plain narrative
either in word or writing, so a real reprentment and an office of remembrance,
and a day to declare it, is far more impressive than a picture, or any other
art of making and fixing imagery.
10. The memories of the saints are precious to
God, and therefore they ought also to be so to us; and such persons who serve
God by holy living, industrious preaching, and religious dying, ought to have
their names preserved in honour, and God be glorified in them, and their holy
doctrines and lives published and imitated; and we, by so doing, give testimony
to the article of the communion of saints. But in these cases, as every church
is to be sparing in the number of days, so also should she be temperate in her
injunctions, not imposing them but upon voluntary and unbusied persons, without
snare or burden. But the holy day is best kept by giving God thanks for the
excellent persons, apostles, or martyrs, we then remember, and by imitating
their lives - this all may do; and they that can also keep the solemnity must
do that too, when it is publicly enjoined.
The mixed Actions of Religion are, 1. Prayer;
2. Alms; 3. Repentance; 4. Receiving the blessed Sacrament.