a proper frame for celebrating this day of the Lord. And therefore (a) seek to impress on your minds a sense of the divine institution of this day, that ye may observe it in obedience to God. The holy women 66 re ted on the sabbath, according to the commandment," Luke xxiii. 56. "He who regardeth the day must regard it to the Lord," Rom. xiv. 6. We shall not otherwise regard it in faith, and then we sin, Rom. xiv. 23. (b) Long for the day of the Lord, because God hath blessed and hallowed it. On this day he gives his blessed and holy institutions, with which he blesseth and makes us holy, he gives also his Spirit, delights and rejoices his people in his house of prayer, he accepts our burntofferings and sacrifices on his altar, and we delight ourselves in the Lord. Hear how desirous David was of the public institutions of the Lord, and imitate his example, Psalm xxvii. 4. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple " See also how he panted and longed for this, Psalm xlii. lxiii. Ixxxiv. and cxxii. (c) Finish all your work seasonably before the sabbath, that ye may betake yourselves early to your nightly rest, and may thus celebrate the day of the Lord with a mind freed from all earthly cares, and refreshed with moderate sleep. When Abraham will go up into the mountain in order to "worship, his young men and the ass must abide below," Gen. xxii. 5. (d)" Betake not yourselves to your nightly rest, until ye have first thought with sorrow and humiliation on your backslidings from the Lord, during the former days of the week, have confessed them to the Lord, and obtained reconciliation and peace with him, by heartily embracing his Son, that ye may with David, "lay yourselves down in peace and s'eep, and the Lord may make you dwell safely," Psalm iv. 3. This would bring your souls to a most proper frame for keeping the day of the Lord, in a manner acceptable to him.

2. In order that we may conduct ourselves properly on this day, we must not only abstain altogether from our daily work, as we have shown before, and not only come diligently to the church of God, that we may attend on the public worship; but we must also endeavour (a) to obtain the influences of the Spirit of the Lord, that we may be thereby enlightened, enlivened, sanctified, and rendered active. We ought therefore to pray to the Lord with David, Psalm xliii. 3 "O send out thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles." (b) We ought also to exercise ourselves before and after public worship,

one while in secret, and then with our households, in contemplating God's great works of creation and redemption, in praying over them, in speaking and singing of them. Hear how the holy man expresseth himself in his psalm for the sabbathday, when he saith, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep," &c. Psalm xcii. 4, 5. This would render "the sabbath a delight to us, and the Lord, who is to be honored would be sanctified,"* Isaiah lviii. 13. Yea, we should, after the example of God,"rest and be refreshed," Exod. xxxi. 18, and with John, Rev. i. 10, "be in the Spirit on the Lord's day."

3. But it behooves us, in order to show that we are not satisfied with the mere work, to make a suitable improvement of the sabbath after it is ended. And it would therefore be proper, to recollect wherein we had misbehaved, that we might humble ourselves; what blessing God had bestowed on us, that we might reflect on it, with the clean animals feed anew on it, and hear twice, what God speaks once," Psalm lxii, . We should then retain the blessing of the sabbathday, and a relish for it, and we should derive nourishment from it the whole week, yea, our lives long, we should rest from our wicked works, suffer the Lord to work in us by his Spirit, and thus begin here on earth the everlasting sabbath.

Before I conclude, I must add, (a) that every one ought to keep the sabbath; the magistrates also, not only for themselves, but also for their subjects, "who are in their gates," that they may cause them to rest. O! that they were inflamed with such a spirit of zeal, as Nehemiah, Neh. xiii. 15-22. Parents ought also to keep the sabbath, and to see that their children and servants keep it, as the Lawgiver enjoineth in this fourth commandment. (b) Let none think that the sabbath requires a more holy worship than the other days: all our daily works, yea, our "eating and drinking" ought to be directed "to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31. But the sabbath requires a worship of a different kind, we must then worship in a solemn manner, and in public. Neither must we imagine that resting is in itself pleasing to God, for it is not agreable to him, unless we direct it to the worship of the Lord:" Bodily exercise profiteth indeed but little but godliness is profitable to all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come," 1 Tim. iv. 8. (c) Do not busy yourselves neither with many trifling questions, which minister disputation, as, may I not do this or that on

* We have rendered this passage according to the Dutch translation.

the Lord's day? for this will render your tender minds too scrupulous, or too lax. "From this doting about questions and strifes of words cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings," as Paul speaks, I Tim. vi. 4, 5. According to the counsel of Eliphas, Job xxii. 21, 22. "Acquaint now yourselves with the Lord, receive the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in your hearts," desiring only to inquire concerning and to do the will of God: "The Lord will then give you counsel, your reins will instruct yon in the night seasons," as David experienced, Psalm xvi. 7. This will afford you an abundant sabbath, or rest of mind, and the Lord God will grant you an everlasting and a most blissful sabbath; for, as the apostle saith, Hebr. iv. 9, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." Amen.

THE

FIFTH COMMANDMENT

EXPLAINED.

XXXIX. LORD'S DAY.

Exodus xx. 12. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth

thee.

Q. 104. What doth God require in the fifth command ?

A. That I show all honour, love and fidelity to my father and mother, and all in authority over me, and submit myself to their good instruction and correction, with due obedience: and also patiently bear with their weaknessess and infirmities, since it pleases God to govern us by their hand.

OVE is the fulfilling of the law," thus speaks Paul, Rom. xiii. 10. He speaks of the love of our neighbour; for he had said, vs. 8. "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." But how can he say this? must we not love God also, and more than our neighbour? Surely the command to love God is, as Jesus declares, "the first and great commandment," Matt. xxii. 37. But it is not so strange, that the love ●f our neighbour is the fulfilling of the law; for when this love is

properly exercised, it proceeds from a heart that is filled with love to God, and it is active for the sake and the love of God, and so the love of our neighbour is the evidence and proof of our love to God. Therefore the apostle, whom Jesus loved, saith, 1 John iv. 20, “ If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he bath not seen ?" He then who loves God, cannot say that he fulfills the law, unless he love his brother also; for as the same beloved of the Lord saith, 1 John iv. 20. "This commandment have we received of him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also."

Therefore as we have exhorted every one to love God in our discourses on the commands of the first table, so we will also show how we must fulfil the law by loving our neighbour, according to the commands of the second table of the law. In which the duty of children to love their parents is commanded in the first place, because we are obliged to them most of all next to God: and because we must understand by our parents likewise all who are set over us, as will appear, and so this command secures the four following commards from transgression; for when the higher powers are honoured, then murderers, adulterers, thieves and liars will also be restrained.

Two particulars require our consideration here:

I. The demand of this commandment, and then

II. The promise annexed to enforce the observation of the com- mandment.

I. It hath not pleased God, according to his exalted wisdom, to create all men at once, but of one blood, and thus to cause one to proceed from another, that one might cleave to another, as his fellowman, in love, and that children might be subject to their parents, and a good order be established in human society, and God's supreme authority over his creatures be represented. Therefore the great Lawgiver saith, "Honour thy father and thy mother."

God chooseth that we should honour our mother as well as our father. As the mother is subject to the dominion of the father, converses most familiarly with the children, and manifests her love to the children generally more than the father, she will also usually be less reverenced by the children than the father. The Lord will nevertheless not suffer this, but commands us to love our mother as well as our father. The children are indeed the flesh and blood of the mother as well as of the father. We must surely honour our nother no less than our father, for she carries her children in her