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A88550
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The Lord's-day to be kept holy Asserted in a familiar conference betwixt two friends about the unlawfulness of exercising their trades or ordinary callings on that day. Published for the use of ignorant people, to prevent the prophanation of that holy day. Licens'd, July 19. 1694. Edward Cooke·
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1694
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Wing L3060C; ESTC R224912
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8,431
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16
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the Lords-day that did not move the good Man or make him mistrust God's Providence And as God loves to reward his Servants in a visible manner so in this Case to let the besotted world see what happiness they miss in not serving him for the Scene here soon altered and in a little time his Customers began to come again in greater numbers than they went away and he had so great a Trade on the week-days that himself said he desired no greater so long as he lived I might have given a fuller Account of this good Man but it would take up too much of our time at present S. Truly Mr. B. I wish there were more such Men as this you speak of for indeed he had a better Faith than I have B. Truly your Wish is good but wishing will not do the work of God therefore strive to make your self what you desire others to be and in this degenerate Age shew your self an Example to others for God delights in a Free-will Offering and expects his Servants should wait upon him in the midst of Difficulties If we will give ourselves time to consider his wages are infinitely beyond our labour our Task is short but our Rest will be long and the reward of Obedience will be great though the besotted world will not see it S. 'T is something strange if it is so great a Sin as you speak of that so many hundreds of Alehouses Taverns and Coffee-houses should be so much frequented and they not see the greatness of this Sin though some of them are counted honest Men. B. It is strange as you say that so many should do it and not see the greatness of the Sin though I am apt to believe they do but their Interest keeps them from believing in good earnest however if they cannot or will not see their Sin that 's no Example for you and I as I told you before though Ten thousand do it that doth not take off the Sin You see some hundreds will cozen and swear and be drunk yet all this while the Sin is great for it is said They shall not inhabit the new Jerusalem And so here the Commandment is plain for on the Lord's-day Thou shalt not do any manner of Work except Works of Necessity Mercy or Charity neither thou and thy Son and thy Daughter thy Man-servant and thy Maid-servant and thy Cattel and the Stranger that is within thy Gates For let me tell you the Sin is greater and aggravating so much the more in being done by a multitude which we are not to follow to do Evil. And though you think some of them Honest Men that do so yet they may be Carnal and if so the Apostle tells us The Carnal Man cannot conceive the things of the Spirit of God neither doth he know them because they are spiritually discerned You will find all good Men in every Age have lookt upon it as a Sin and some Hundreds have writ against it also the Laws of the Land are levelled against it but I wish they were put more in execution against all those Men that profane the Sabbath It is not long since our Gracious QUEEN did send a Letter to the Justices of Middlesex I believe you may remember it to put the Laws in execution against prophaning the Lord's-day and other Sins And in the Order which the Justices put out They were to punish all Persons that frequented either Ale-houses Taverns or Coffee-houses as well out of Divine Service as in And that none should expose their Goods to Sale on the Lord's-day This put me in mind of a Friend of mine who was walking along the Streets at that time and seeing a Woman exposing her Fruit and Herbs to Sale he spoke to her of the ill Consequence of it and told her She ought to go to Church and serve God The Woman reply'd She took more Money on the Lord's-day than any day of the week and she could not live if she did not do it My Friend said he to the good woman if you would but keep the Lord's-day as you ought and not sell your things on that day but shut up your Cellar and go to Church and serve God and when you come home spend your time in reading the Word of God using Prayer and rendring Praises to him for all his Mercies In so doing you need not doubt but God will be infinitely kind and send a blessing upon your Labour the rest of the Week which you cannot expect while you make a market-Market-day of his Sabbath The woman accepted of his Counsel took in her things shut up her doors and went to Church My Friend call'd upon the poor woman some time after and she was glad to see him and thanked him for his good Advice saying She had found his words true for ever since she had kept the Sabbath-day she sold more things on Mondays and Tuesdays than before she used to do all the week S. Your Friend I think did very well I wish others would do the same for this Story of yours puts me in mind of a Book that I have of Sir Matthew Hales's where he saith something to this effect if I am not mistaken If you please I 'll fetch the Book and read that Passage to you B. I Pray do if it be not too great a trouble for you S. The Passage is this 't is in a Letter to his Children Because I have by long and sound Experience found that the due observance of this Day meaning the Lord's-day and the Duties of it have been of singular Comfort and Advantage to me and I doubt not but it will prove so to you God Almighty is Lord of our Time and lends it to us and it is but just we should consecrate this part of that Time to him so I have found by a strict and diligent Observation that a due Observation of this Day hath ever had joined to it a Blessing upon the rest of my Time and the week that hath so begun hath been blessed and prosperous to me On the other side when I have been negligent of the Duties of this Day the rest of the week hath been unsuccessful and unhappy to my own secular Employment so that I could easily make an Estimate of my Successes in my own secular Employments the week following by the manner of my passing of this day and this I do not write lightly or inconsiderably but upon a long and sound Observation and Experience because I find in the world much Loosness and Apostacy from their Duty People begin to be Cold and Careless in it allowing themselves Sports and Recreations and Secular Imployments in it without any necessity which is a sad Spectacle and an ill presage It concerns me therefore that am your Father as much as I may to rescue you from that Sin which the Examples of others and the Inclinations and Inconsiderateness of Youth is otherwise apt to lead you into I will read
THE Lord's-Day TO BE KEPT HOLY Asserted in a Familiar Conference BETWIXT TWO FRIENDS About the Unlawfulness of Exercising their Trades or Ordinary Callings on that Day Published for the Use of Ignorant People to prevent the Prophanation of that Holy Day LICENS'D July 19. 1694. Edward Cooke LONDON Printed for William Marshal at the Bible in Newgate-street 1694. THE LORD's-DAY TO BE KEPT HOLY c. â⦠SIR A good Morning to you How do you do to day I have made bold to visit you this Morning hoping I have not broke the ââ¦ds of our Friendship in my Reproof last Night ââ¦he exercising of your Trade on the Lord's-Day ââ¦ed I was a little concern'd our Dispute hapned so ãâã last Night that we could not come to a Concluâ⦠which occasions my coming this Morning â⦠Mr. B. I am glad to see you this Morning with ââ¦y heart and for my part I am so far from breakââ¦e Bonds of Friendship with you that I heartily ãâã you for your mild Reproof though I cannot be ââ¦our mind nor think it so great a Sin as you ãâã of for was I convinced it is a Sin I would ãâã exercising my Trade on that day for the ââ¦e â⦠Truly Mr. S. I think our heavenly Father hath ââ¦ough to convince you and I that it is a Sin in these words Remember thou keep Holy the Sabbatâ⦠Because it was commanded by God to Adam iâ⦠Innocency and if it was necessary for our firâ⦠rents to have and keep a Sabbath day to serve Gâ⦠their state of Perfection much more need theiââ¦ââ¦sterity to keep the Lord's-day in this state of Coââ¦tion And seeing that God himself keeps this ãâã Holy How can that Man be Holy that doth wâ⦠profane it by following his ordinary Calliâ⦠Trade on that day Besides You see that God ãâã placed this Commandment in the middle of the ãâã Tables with a watch-word of solemn preparatioâ⦠it Remember that thou keep Holy the Sabbath-day if this was to be kept above all the rest because ãâã keeping of it is the best help to the keeping aâ⦠rest S. Mr. B. In all this you say very well but lâ⦠tell you That Christ is Lord of the Sabbath and ãâã remitted the rigor of Moses's Law for it 's said ãâã Sabbath was made for Man B. In this Mr. S. you make for me and noâ⦠your self 't is true indeed The Sabbath was mâ⦠Man But not to follow his Trade or spenâ⦠time in Tipling at Alehouses or Taverns It ãâã made for Man to buy the Bread of Heaven and ãâã Water of Life 't is a Market day for our Soul ãâã we may buy the Food of Angels the Wine oâ⦠Sacrament and the Milk of the Word of Goâ⦠feed our Souls which is to be had without ãâã and without price And as you say Christ is Loâ⦠the Sabbath which ought to make us admire the ââ¦derful work of our Redemption he being Loâ⦠â⦠Day we ought to spend our Time in his Service ââ¦d keep the Day to him who rose on this Day from ââ¦e Dead that we may raise our Minds and Souls to ââ¦wness of Life and make all our Works spiritual ãâã saith the Lord by the Prophet Isa 58. the 13thââ¦d 14th verses And call the Sabbath a delight the ââ¦y of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not ãâã thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure ãâã speaking thine own words Then shalt thou delight ãâã self in the Lord and I will cause thee to ride ââ¦on the high places of the earth and feed thee with the ââ¦ritage of Jacob thy father for the mouth of the ââ¦rd hath spoken it And I think I may say God hath writ it over and âver again with his own Fingers in Tables of Stone âo signify his Authority and Perpetuity of it for all ââ¦at God wrote were moral and perpetual Commandââ¦nts and these are reckoned Ten in number if this âere taken away by Christ or was now but an abroââ¦ed Ceremony then there would be but Nine Comâandments But to end this Controversy Christ proâesseth in Matth. 5.17 That he came not to destroy the âoral Law but as the Learned Dr. Hammond paraââ¦aseth upon it to repair and make up whatsoever ââ¦s any ways wanting insomuch that our Saviour ãâã again in the 19th verse Whosoever therefore ãâã break one of these least Commandments and shall ãâã men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of ââ¦ven Or be despised and rejected by God in ââ¦e day of Judgment according to the said Paraââ¦rase S. Indeed Mr B. you have almost convinced me âut if I should leave off Trading on this day others âill not and so I shall lose my Customers it being so much practised or else I would leave off foâ⦠future B. I am glad Mr. S. to hear this ingenuous Cââ¦fession from you but am sorry you should mistrâ⦠God's Providence when it is in him we live and moâ⦠and have all our Being for let me tell you plainâ⦠that this will avail but little in the last day we mâ⦠not answer there when God calls us to account foâ⦠the breach of this day that we feared losing oâ⦠Trade or did it to get a Livelihood this will not ââ¦cuse the breaking of the Commandments And ãâã others will do it that will be no Excuse for me ãâã if Ten thousand break a Commandment that wâ⦠not give me a Dispensation and make me guiltlesâ⦠others doing of it is no Argument that it is no Sâ⦠therefore that must not be my Rule to go by wâ⦠am obliged by my Baptismal Vow to fight againâ⦠the World and all appearance of Evil. Where Goâ⦠commands it is my Duty to obey and not fear wâ⦠the world will say or the losing my Trade bâ⦠do my Duty to him and leave the Event to hâ⦠Providence as Abraham did in the offering ãâã his Son and I think it will not be amiss to sheâ you an Instance of God's Providence in such a Case aâ yours is It was to a Friend of mine some time since I think it not proper to mention his Name he was a Baker by Trade but ever thought it unlawful to heat his Oven on the Lord's-day so that he did not do it and being importuned by several to heat it he would not yield but went to some pious and learned Divines to know whether it was Lawful or no they told him it was not except in Cases of Necessity but neither he nor they thought it needful for him or his Servants to work on that day to bake Puddings or Bread since it was so plain a Breach of the Fourth Commandment The Baker being a good Man did not raise these silly Objections of losing his Trade which you and other Men seem to do he loved to discharge his Duty to God and in so doing left the Event to his Providence And tho some of his Customers left him because he would not bake Puddings or sell Bread on