should be so common among men, when even the devils believe and tremble! I hope posterity will account it so odious as hardly to believe that ever there were men, and so many men, even in England, who used to deride the name, word, providence, and worship of God, and make serious regard of God and religion the common scorn; and familiarly to wish, by way of imprecation, as a by-word, 'God damn me,' and to swear by the name, the wounds, and blood of God.

14. Lastly, another way of taking God's name in vain, is by an unholy, irreverent tossing of it in common talk, in jest, and on every ludicrous occasion. Plays and play books use it; it is made an ordinary accident to all common and profane discourse; beggars profanely beg by it; children cry by it; 'O God,' and ' O Lord,' is become an interjection.

Q. 7. Why do we take ordinary, light swearing, specially by God, or by sacred things, to be a sure sign of a wicked man?

A. Because it showeth a predominant habit of profaneness; that the man liveth without the reverence of God's holiness, majesty, knowledge, and presence, and is hardened into a senselessness or contempt of God, and of his dreadful judgment, as if he derided God, or dared him; or as if he did believe that there is no God that heareth him. To live in the fear of God, and subjection to his government, is the property of every godly

man.

Q. 8. What is meant by the words, "The Lord will not hold him guiltless?"

A. God will not leave him unpunished, nor account this as a small offence: he himself will be revenged for this sin.

Q. 9. Why is this threatening annexed more to this commandment than to others?

A. Because this sin is, 1. An immediate injury to God, while it expressly fathereth lies and other sin on him; it doth, as we may say, engage him to vindicate himself. When rulers or usurpers pretend that God authoriseth them to do mischief, and fight against himself; when persecutors and corrupters of religion pretend God's interest and will for all, that it is for order, unity, government, and obedience for the church, that they corrupt, destroy, silence, and tyrannise; they invite God to cast the lie and cruelty back on them, which they would father upon him, and to turn their canons, prisons, and inquisitions, and other devilish plagues of the world, upon the author, in disowning them himself.

2. And they that by perjury, hypocrisy, false doctrine, and the rest of the forementioned sins, do appeal to God, and make him openly the author of all, do thereby, as it were, summon God to revenge. As they said to Paul," Hast thou appealed to Cæsar? To Cæsar shalt thou go:" so it may be said to the perjured, the hypocrite, the usurper, the false judge, &c., 'Hast thou appealed to God, and do you father on him your lies, cruelties, tyrannies, and usurpations, and false doctrines? To God shall you go, who will undertake the cause which you cast upon him, and will judge the secrets of men's hearts, as he did Ananias and Sapphira's.' If men sin under the laws of men, God requireth magistrates to judge them: but if they appeal to God, or, by falsehood, escape the judgment of man, they more inme- 、 diately cast themselves on the justice of God; and it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands who is a consuming fire: God is the avenger especially on such."

Q. 10. Is it meant of God's vengeance in this life, or in the next?

A. In both usually profanation of God's name and holy things, especially by perjury, and by fathering cruelty and wickedness on God, is more notably punished by him in this life. Though such may seem to prosper for awhile, God usually overtaketh them here, and their sins do find them out: but if they escape such bodily punishment here, they are usually more dreadfully forsaken of grace than other men, and heap up wrath against the day of wrath.

I will only add, in the conclusion, that even true Christians should take great care lest their very thoughts of God, and their prayers and speaking of him, should be customary and dead, and like their thoughts and talk of common things, and in some degree of taking of God's name in vain.

CHAP. XXXVII.

Of the Fourth Commandment.

Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the fourth commandment?
A. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy six days

"Deut. xxii. 43; 1 Thess. iv. 6; Rom. xii. 19; Heb. x. 30, and xii. 29; Isa. xxxv. 4; xlvii. 3; lxi. 2; lxiii. 4, and i. 24; Luke xviii. 7, 8.

shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.3

Q. 2. Why doth Deut. v. repeat it in so different words? A. Because the words are but for the sense, and they being kept in the ark as written in stone, and safe from alteration, Moses, in Deut. v., gave them the sense, and added some of his own explication; and nothing is altered to obscure the sense.

Q. 3. Which day is it which was called the Sabbath in this commandment?

A. The seventh, commonly called, from the heathen custom, Saturday.

Q. 4. Why was that day made the Sabbath?

A. God having made the world in six days' space, seeing all good, and very good, rested in his own complacency; and appointed the seventh day every week to be separated as holy, to worship and praise him the Great Creator, as his glorious perfections shine forth in his works.

Q. 5. What is meant by God's resting from his work?

A. Not that he had been at any labour or weariness therein; but, 1, That he finished the creation. 2. That he was pleased in it as good. 3. And that he would have it be a day of holy, pleasant rest to man.

Q. 6. What is meant by keeping holy the Sabbath day? A. Separating it to the holy worship and praise of the Creator, and resting to that end from unnecessary, bodily labour. Q. 7. What doth the word "remember" signify?

A. 1. First, it is an awakening caveat, to bid us take special care that we break not this commandment. 2. And then that we must prepare, before it comes, to avoid the things that would hinder us in the duty, and to be fit for its performance.

Q. 8. Why is "remember" put before this more than before the rest of the commandments?

A. Because, 1. Being but of positive institution, and not naturally known to man, as other duties are, they had need of a positive excitation and remembrance. And 2. It is of great im

* Exod. xx. 10, 11, and xxxi. 17; Heb. iv, 4.

y Gen. ii, 2, 3,

p ortance to the constant and acceptable worship, and the avoiding of impediments, to keep close to the due time which God hath appointed for it and to violate it, tendeth to atheistical ungodliness.

Q. 9. Why is it called "The Sabbath of the Lord thy God?" A. Because, 1. God did institute and separate it. 2. And it is separated to the honour and worship of God.

Q. 10. When and how did God institute and separate it?

A. Fundamentally by his own resting from the work of creation but immediately by his declaring to Adam his will for the sanctifying of that day, which is expressed Gen. ii. 3.

Q. 11. Some think that the Sabbath was not instituted till man had sinned, and Christ was promised, and so God rested in Christ?

A. When the text adjoineth it close to the creation, and giveth that only as the reason of it (that God ended his works which he had made, and rested from them), this is human, corrupting presumption.

Q. 12. But some think the Sabbath was first instituted in the Wilderness, when they were forbid to gather manna?

A. It is not there mentioned as newly instituted, and it is mentioned Gen. ii. 2, 3, and then instituted with the reason of it: "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his works which God created and made." And the same reason is repeated in the fourth commandment.

Q. 13. Is this commandment of the law of nature as are the rest?

A. It was more of the law of nature to Adam than to us; his nature knowing otherwise than ours, both when God ended his works, and how beautiful they were before the curse. It is now of the law of nature (that is, known by natural light without other revelation). 1. That God should be worshipped. 2. That societies should assemble to do it together. 3. That some set time should be separated, statedly to that use. 4. That it should be done with the whole heart, without worldly diversions or distractions.

But I know nothing in nature alone from whence a man can prove that, 1. It must be either just one day in seven. 2. Or, just what day of the seven it must be. 3. Nor just what de

gree of rest is necessary. Though reason may discern that one day in seven is a very convenient proportion.

Q. 14. Are the words "Six days shalt thou labour," &c., a command, or only a license?

A. They are not only a license, but a command to man,' to live in an ordinary calling, or lawful course of labour, according to each one's ability and place, and diligently to exercise it, and not spend time in idleness: and the ordinary time is here assigned thereto.

Q. 15. Then how can it be lawful to spend any of the week days in religious exercises, any more than to spend any part of the Sabbath day in labour?

A. All labours are to be done as the service of God, and as a means to holy and everlasting ends; and therefore it is implied still that God be sought, and remembered, and honoured in all; as our eating and drinking is our duty, but to be done to the glory of God, and therefore with the seeking of his blessing, and returning him our thanks."

Q. 16. But is it lawful, then, to separate whole days either weekly, or monthly, or yearly, to religious exercises, when God hath commanded us to labour on them?

A. As God's command of resting on the Sabbath is but the stating of the ordinary times; supposing an exception of extraordinary cases; (as in time of war, of fire, of dispersing plagues, of hot persecution, &c.; as circumcision was omitted in the wilderness forty years;) so this command to labour six days doth state our ordinary time, but with suppposed exception of extraordinary occasions for days of humiliation and thanksgiving. And all God's commands, suppose that when two duties meet together, and cannot both be then done, the greater must ever be preferred: and therefore saving the life of a man, or a beast, yea, feeding and watering beasts, labouring in temple service, &c., were to be preferred before the rest of the Sabbath: and so when our necessity or profit make religious exercises more to our good, and so a greater duty, (as lectures, fasts, &c.,) we must prefer them to our ordinary labour. For as the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, so were the other days."

z 1 Thess. iv. 11; 2 Thess. iii. 10-12; Prov. xviii. 9; Matt. xxv. 26; Rom. xii. 11.

* Prov. xxxi. 27; Ezek. xvi. 41; 1 Tim. v. 13; Matt. xx. 6.

b Esth. ix. 26, 28, 31.