#57 Question: What is the fourth commandment?
Answer: The fourth commandment
is, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor and do
all thy work, but the seventh is the sabbath of the Lord God; in it thou shalt
not do any work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant or thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, not thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in then is,
and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
hollowed it.”
#58 Question: What is required in the fourth commandment?
Answer: The fourth commandment
requires us the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his
word; expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself.”
Answer: From the beginning of
the world to the Resurrection, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be
the weekly sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to
the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.
Answer: The sabbath is to be
sanctified by a holy resting all that day; even from such worldly employments
and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the
public and private exercises of God Worship; except so much as it be taken up
in the works of necessity and mercy.
Answer: The fourth commandment
forbideth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and
profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by
unnecessary thoughts, words or works, about our worldly employments or
recreations.
Answer: The reasons annexed to
the Fourth Commandment are, God’s allowing us six days of the week for our own
employments, his challenging a special
propriety in the seventh, his own example, and his blessing the Sabbath Day.
