WLC 121: Why is the word Remember set in the beginning of the Fourth Commandment?

Answer: The word Remember is set in the beginning of the Fourth Commandment1, partly, because of the great benefit of remembering it, we being thereby helped in our preparation to keep it2, and, in keeping it, better to keep all the rest of the commandments3, and to continue a thankful remembrance of the two great benefits of creation and redemption, which contain a short abridgment of religion4; and partly, because we are very ready to forget it5, for that there is less light of nature for it6, and yet it restrains our natural liberty in things at other times lawful7; that it comes but once in seven days, and many worldly businesses come between, and too often take off our minds from thinking of it, either to prepare for it, or to sanctify it8;and that Satan with his instruments much labor to blot out the glory, and even the memory of it, to bring in all irreligion and impiety.9

  1. Ex 20:8;
  2. Ex 16:23; Lk 23:54, 56; Mk 15:42; Neh 13:19;
  3. Ps 92 title, 13–14; Ezk 20:12, 19–20;
  4. Gen 2:2–3; Ps 118:22, 24; cf. Acts 4:10–11; Rev 1:10;
  5. Ezk 22:26;
  6. Neh 9:14;
  7. Ex 34:21;
  8. Dt 5:14–15; Amos 8:5;
  9. Lam 1:7; Jer 17:21–23; Neh 13:15–23.

 

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