What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment?

1. How many reasons are there annexed to this commandment?

FOUR; which are moe than to any of the rest.

2. Why are moe reasons annexed to this command than to any of the rest?

Because of the proneness of men to break it; and likewise that the violation thereof may be rendered the more inexcusable.

3. Which is the first reason?

It is [God’s allowing us six days of the week for our own employments]; in these words, Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work.

4. Wherein lies the strength of this reason?

It lies in this, that it would be most highly unreasonable and ungrateful, to grudge a seventh part of our time, in the more immediate service and worship of God; when he has been so liberal as to allow us six parts thereof, for our own secular and worldly affairs.

5. What similar instance of ingratitude may be given for the illustration hereof?

The sin of our first parents, in refusing to abstain from one tree, when they were allowed the free use of all the rest of the garden.

6. Is working six days in our own employment a precept properly belonging to this commandment?

No: it is properly a branch of the eighth commandment, but it is brought in here occasionally, to inforce the sacred observation of a seventh day, when God has been so bountiful, as to allow us six for our own occasions.

7. Which is the second reason annexed to this commandment?

It is [his challenging a special propriety in the seventh]; in these words, But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.

8. What is the force of this reason?

The force of it is this;—as that gracious God, who makes a grant of himself unto us in the covenant of promise, claims this day as his own, so it is our greatest privilege or happiness to have access unto, and communion with him thereon.

9. Wherein lies the privilege or happiness of communion with God on his own day?

In having a foretaste in grace here of what shall be more fully enjoyed in glory hereafter.

10. Which is the third reason?

It is [his own example]; in these words, For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.

11. Could not God have made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, in less time than the space of six days?

No doubt: he could have made all things, in the same beauty and perfection, wherein ever they appeared, in an instant of time, if he had pleased.

12. Why then did he take six days?

To fix the morality of six days for worldly labour, and of a seventh for holy rest; and both these by his own example.

13. But doth not the example of God’s resting the seventh day, oblige us still to observe the seventh day, in order from the creation, as the Sabbath?

No: because though moral examples bind always to the kind of the action, yet not always to every particular circumstance thereof.

14. What is the kind of the action which God’s example binds us unto?

It is to observe one day in seven for holy resting, either the last or first, as he shall appoint.

15. How can God’s example of resting on the seventh day, be an argument for our resting on the first?

Though the observation of a particular day in seven be MUTABLE; yet the duty of observing a seventh part of weekly time is MORAL, both by God’s precept and example.

16. Which is the fourth reason annexed to this commandment?

It is [his blessing the Sabbath-day]; in these words, Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.

17. In what sense may the Sabbath be said to be blessed?

Not only by God’s consecrating the day itself to an holy use; but by his blessing it to the true observers of it, and by his blessing them in it.

18. How doth God bless the Sabbath to the true observers of it?

By ordering it so in his providence, that the religious observation of the Sabbath shall be no detriment unto, but rather a furtherance of their lawful employments through the week; even as the profaning of it, draws a train of all miseries and woes after it.

19. How doth he bless them in it, or upon it?

By making it the happy season of a more plenteous communication of all spiritual blessings unto them.

20. What doth the illative particle WHEREFORE teach us?

That God’s resting on the Sabbath was the great reason of his setting it apart to be a day of holy rest unto us, that we might contemplate the works of God, both of creation and redemption, thereupon.