A26918:399
The divine appointment of the Lords day proved as a separated day for holy…
The divine appointment of the Lords day proved as a separated day for holy worship, especially in the church assemblies, and consequently the cessation of the seventh day Sabbath : written for the satisfaction of some religious persons who are lately drawn into error or doubting in both these points / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
The Divine Appointment of the LORDS DAY, proved, as a separated Day… › Chapter 10
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Answ. 1. A sad Argument to be used by them that by racking of Rents do keep them in Poverty. They that cannot live without all those superfluities, which requireth many hundred pounds a Year to maintain them must for this gratifying pride and fleshly lusts, set such bargains to their poor Tenants, as that they confess they cannot live, without taking the Lords day to recreate them from the toil and weariness of their excessive labours: And will not God judge such self-condemning oppressors as these are?
Answ. 1. A sad Argument to be used by them that by racking of Rents do keep them in Poverty. They that cannot live without all those superfluities, which requireth many hundred pounds a Year to maintain them must for this gratifying pride and fleshly lusts, set such bargains to their poor Tenants, as that they confess they cannot live, without taking the Lords day to recreate them from the toile and weariness of their excessive labours: And will not God judge such self-condemning oppressours as these are?
2. But is this an Argument fit for the mouth of a Minister or any Christian, who knoweth how much the soul is more worth than the body? and Eternity more valuable than the pleasures of this little time? If Poverty deny the people liberty to play on the week days, doth it not as much deny them liberty to Pray, and to read the Scriptures, and to learn their Catechisms, and the Word of God? Surely it better beseemeth any man that believeth another life, a Heaven and a Hell, to say, Poor Labourers have so little time, to Learn, to Meditate, to Read, to Pray, on the week days, that if they do not follow it close upon the Lords day, they are like to perish in their ignorance: (For if the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, 2 Cor. 4. 3.) which do ⟨p. 119⟩you think it better to leave undone, if one of them must be left undone? Whether the learning of Gods Word, or the Pleasures and Recreations of the flesh?