Question 61

forbiddeth . . . profaning the day by idleness—“Freedom from all occupation, both physical and mental and moral, is indolence, and thoughtlessness, and apathy, which cannot possibly produce that sanctification which is the ulterior aim of all human aspirations. The rest of God is our prototype; but God watches and rules, and is a perfect Spirit at all times; to approach Him is the end of the Sabbath; but mental and moral indolence would remove us from Him; and the Sabbath, instead of being the greatest blessing of mankind, would be its greatest curse” (Kalisch). “To rest and not to sanctify is to keep the Sabbath of an ox or an ass” (Bp. Nicholson). Boswell tells us that Dr. Johnson, in his forty-sixth year, wrote in his journal the following scheme of life for Sunday: “Having lived not without an habitual reverence for the Sabbath, yet without that attention to its religious duties which Christianity requires: I resolve henceforth—1. To rise early, and in order to it, to go to sleep early on Saturday. 2. To use some extraordinary devotion in the morning. 3. To examine the tenor of my life, and particularly the last week; and to mark my advances in religion, or recessions from it. 4. To read the Scriptures methodically with such helps as are at hand. 5. To go to church twice. 6. To read books of divinity, either speculative or practical. 7. To instruct my family. 8. To wear off by meditation any worldly soil contracted in the week.”

“Absence of occupation is not rest;
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”—Cowper.

“To lie late, to go holidaying, to doze in pew or arm-chair, or smoke, is not resting. Such rest deserves not the name of rest when tried by the sacred standard of God’s fourth commandment” (Christina Rossetti).

unnecessary thoughts, words, or works—“This day was specially consecrated to devout occupation with holy thoughts. In earlier periods the people visited the prophets to listen to their instructions and exhortations (2 Kings iv. 23). It was also a day of holy assembly; the religious service was, especially in later times, most solemn, and in the synagogue the law was read to the congregation (Joseph. Antiq. xvi. 2. 4, Ap. i. 22; Luke iv. 16, 31; Acts xiii. 42, 44, xvi. 13). Even light, thoughtless, everyday conversations were avoided on Sabbath (see Gesenius on Isa. ii. 230). It was intended to induce the Israelite to reflect on the state of his soul, and on the nature of his conduct, and thus to be a day of self-examination, of true repentance, and internal reformation” (Kalisch).

worldly employments or recreations. Bunyan tells us in his “Life and Death of Mr. Badman,” that “even as a child that unhappy man could not endure the Lord’s day because of the holiness that did attend it. The beginning of the day was as if he were going to prison, except he could get out from his father and mother and lurk in bye-holes among his companions till holy duties were over.” Compare with Wordsworth’s Brothers:—

“And once I said,
As I remember, looking round upon these rocks
And hills on which we all of us were born,
That God who made the great book of the world
Would bless such piety—
Never did worthier lads break English bread:
The finest Sunday that the autumn saw,
With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,
Could never keep these boys away from church,
Or tempt them to an hour of Sabbath breach,
Leonard and James!”

Uses

1. The prophet Ezekiel said that the Sabbath in his day was a “sign” between Jehovah and His people, a sign whereby they might know that He acknowledged and sanctified them. And what the Sabbath was in his day, it remains still in our day. It is an infallible sign of the state of true religion in a land, in a church, in a family, and in a man’s own heart and life. It may be said of the Sabbath among divine institutions what Luther said of justification by faith among divine doctrines—it is the sign of a standing or falling church. There is perhaps no surer sign of a falling Christian than a growing neglect of Sabbath-day ordinances, and an indolent and profane abuse of its sacred and priceless hours. There is no bulwark that parents can build up around their children’s religion and morality like a well-kept Sabbath day; and there is no surer sign that a young man is declining from faith and personal religion than when he begins to find his own pleasure and do his own way on the Lord’s holy day. And conscience fastens with peculiar poignancy on the breaking of the Sabbath day. It is as if she instinctively saw that that day was the stronghold and the tower of her strength. Many of us, like young Bunyan, have been early awakened to a sense of sin through youthful acts of Sabbath-breaking. (See Grace Abounding, 20.)
2. “See that they have some profitable, moving book (beside the Bible) in each family; if they have not, persuade them to buy some of small price and great use. If they be not able to buy them, give them some, if you can; if you cannot, get some gentleman, or other rich persons that are willing to do good works, to do it, and engage them to read them at night when they have leisure, and especially on the Lord’s day. The life of religion lieth much in this, because poor people have no other free considerable time; and therefore if they lose this they lose all, and will remain brutish and ignorant. So should the master of the family every Lord’s day at night cause all his family to repeat the Catechism to him, and give him some account of what they have learned in public that day” (Baxter’s Reformed Pastor).