The fourth commandment: keeping the day holy

The sabbath is kept holy by resting all day in public and private worship, with room for works of necessity and mercy. The Catechism forbids neglecting or profaning it, and gives God's own reasons for it.

Samuel Colman, Sunday Morning, Going to Church, 1832 · Source

This week's questions

How is the sabbath to be sanctified? The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.
Question 60

What is forbidden in the fourth commandment? The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works, about our worldly employments or recreations.
Question 61

What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment? The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment are, God's allowing us six days of the week for our own employments, his challenging a special propriety in the seventh, his own example, and his blessing the sabbath day.
Question 62

Last week asked which day and why; these three questions ask how. Question 60 says what to do, Question 61 what not to do, and Question 62 why.

Rest, worship and mercy

Outside a log cabin a father reads the Bible aloud while the whole family, a pale invalid young woman, a grandmother and the children among them, sit and listen. — Thomas Faed, Sunday in the Backwoods of Canada, 1859 · Source

The rest of Question 60 is not an empty day but a day kept free for God. Even work and play that are lawful on other days are laid down (Exodus 20:8, 20:10). As Nehemiah shut the gates against sabbath trade (Nehemiah 13:15-19), the world's business is kept out, and the hours go to worship, public and private. Jesus kept the day so, as a proof text of Question 60 says:

As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath.
Luke 4:16

Public worship is the church coming before God together (Isaiah 66:23, Acts 20:7) for the Word, the sacraments and prayer; private worship is Scripture and prayer at home and alone. The Assembly's Directory for worship fills the hours between and after the services with reading and meditation, going over the sermon with the family and catechising them, prayer and psalms, visiting the sick and relieving the poor Directory. The Confession asks us first to prepare our hearts and order our affairs beforehand WCF 21.8.

The ‘works of necessity and mercy’ keep this rest from harming anyone. Healing on the sabbath, Jesus asked whether a man is not worth more than a sheep pulled from a pit: "Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:12). He loosed a woman bound for eighteen years on that day (Luke 13:15-16). The Larger Catechism sets such works within the day Q. 117, and Bede, the monk of Jarrow in northern England, gives the reason: "greater is the care to be taken of the health and life of a man, than the keeping of the sabbath" Bede.

Not a burden but a delight

Question 61's first proof text rebukes priests who disregarded God's sabbaths (Ezekiel 22:26). The question also guards against a day when the body rests and the heart is at the market. In the next proof text Amos hears traders asking, "When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat?" (Amos 8:5). Malachi rebukes worshippers who sniff at worship as a nuisance (Malachi 1:13), and the Larger Catechism forbids even our "being weary of" the day's duties Q. 119. Nor is idleness holy rest; as the English pastor Matthew Henry puts it, "Sloth and indolence may be a carnal, but not a holy rest" Matthew Henry. Yet Question 61's last proof text calls the day a delight:

If you turn your foot from breaking the Sabbath, from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the LORD’s holy day honorable, …
Isaiah 58:13

The promise follows: "then you will delight yourself in the LORD" (Isaiah 58:14). Question 62's reasons speak the same way. God gives us six days and keeps one, which the Larger Catechism calls the commandment's "equity" Q. 120. The six days are a calling to work, not a wait for rest (Exodus 20:9; see Vocation). God names the seventh day his own sabbath (Exodus 20:10), rested on it himself, and blessed it (20:11); in the Larger Catechism's words, he made it "a means of blessing to us in our sanctifying it".

The Westminster standards and the 1689 Confession 22.8 teach a strict day, resting even from worldly recreations, as many Puritans and the Scottish churches kept it. The Heidelberg Catechism puts its weight on the Word, the sacraments, prayer and alms on the day of rest Q. 103, and many continental churches that follow it have been less strict about recreation. Lutherans keep the day in Christian liberty Augsburg Confession, art. 28. Many Korean churches have long treasured keeping the Lord's Day whole, with no buying or selling and the day spent in worship and fellowship. All of them mean to give the resurrection day to the Lord.

Some cannot stop work on Sunday: nurses, soldiers, parents of the very young; and some Christians live where Sunday is a working day. Much of that work is itself necessity and mercy. Matthew Henry writes that believers kept from public worship "by necessity and not by choice" may look for comfort "in meditation and secret duties" Matthew Henry. Talk with your pastor about what the day can look like for you. Worship and the Lord's Day gives first steps, and Why should we rest? the meaning of rest.

To ponder this week

On a quiet village lane a young woman carrying a covered basket and wild flowers walks toward an old man sitting alone on a bench by his cottage wall, a church tower far off across the fields. — A neighbour on her way to an old man sitting alone on a Sunday afternoon

What will I lay down this Lord's Day so that I may rest and worship, and what work of mercy can I do on it? On Saturday, finish one task that would spill into Sunday; on the day itself, look in on someone who is sick or lonely. If you must work, pray on the way, and read a chapter slowly on your day off.

Practice

Practice 1 of 6
According to Question 60, what are we to rest from on the sabbath?
Practice 2 of 6
What did Jesus teach by healing on the sabbath?
Practice 3 of 6
Whom does Amos 8:5, a proof text of Question 61, describe?
Practice 4 of 6
What does Isaiah 58:13 call the sabbath?
Practice 5 of 6
Which of these is not one of the reasons Question 62 gives for the fourth commandment?
Practice 6 of 6
Which correctly describes how Reformed churches have kept the Lord's Day?

Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.

Source

Westminster Assembly, The Directory for the Public Worship of God 주일을 거룩히 지킴 / Of the Sanctification of the Lord's Day — 1645. The chapter on the Lord's day: order your business beforehand, keep the whole day holy with rest from unnecessary labour, from sports and pastimes and from worldly words and thoughts, and spend the time between and after public worship in reading, meditation, repeating sermons with the family and catechising them, prayer, singing psalms, visiting the sick, relieving the poor and other duties of piety, charity and mercy, counting the sabbath a delight.

Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds, the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Reformed confessions, the Fathers and classic commentary. They teach the Catechism as the Reformed churches' own, a week at a time, and present both sides where the Reformed differ, and other traditions' views, fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.