Four Letters SIR MATTHEW HALE ΤΟ HIS CHILDREN. LETTER I. DIRECTIONS TOUCHING THE KEEPING OF THE LORD'S-DAY. LETTER II. DIRECTIONS TOUCHING RELIGION. LETTER III. CONCERNING THEIR SPEECH. LETTER IV. TO ONE OF HIS GRANDSONS AFTER HIS RECOVERY FROM THE SMALL-POX. VOL. I. LETTER I. DIRECTIONS TOUCHING THE KEEEPING OF THE LORD'S-DAY. CHILDREN, WHEN I laft lodged in this place, in my journey up to London, I fent you from hence divers inftructions concerning your speech, and how you should manage it, and required you to take copies of it, and to direct your practice according to it. I forgot to enquire of you, whether you had taken copies of it, but I hope you have; and I do again require you to be careful in obferving thofe and my former directions given to you, fome in writing, and many more by word of mouth. I have been careful that my example might be a vi fible direction to you; but if that hath been defective, or not fo full and clear a pattern of your imitation, especially in refpect of my different condition from yours, yet I am certain that thofe rules and directions which I have at feveral times given you, both in writing, and by word of mouth, have been found, and wholesome, and feasonable; and therefore I do expect that you should remember and practise them; and though your young years cannot yet, perchance, fee the reafon and use of them, yet affure yourselves time and experience will make you know the benefit of them. In advice given to young people, it fares with them as it doth with young children that are taught to read, or with young fchool-boys that learn their grammar rules; they learn their letters, and then they learn to fpell a fyllable, and then they learn to put together feveral fyllables to make up a word; or they learn to decline a noun, or to form a verb; and all this while they understand not to what end all this trouble is, nor what it means. But when they come to be able to read English, or to make a piece of Latin, or to conftrue a Latin author, then they find all thefe rudiments were very neceffary, and to good purpofe; for by this means they come to understand what others have written, and to know what they knew and wrote, and thereby improve their own knowledge and understanding. Juft fo it is with young people, in respect of counsel and inftruction, when the father, or the minifter, or fome wife and understanding man doth fometimes admonifh, fometimes chide and reprove, fometimes inftruct, they are apt to wonder why fo much ado, and what they mean, and it is troublefome and tedious, and feems impertinent; and they are ready to fay within themselves, that the time were better spent in riding, or hunting, or merriment, or gaming; but when they come to riper years, then they begin to find that those instructions of the ancients are of excellent ufe to manage the converfation, and to direct the actions, and to avoid inconveniencies, and mischiefs, and mifcarriages, to which they are subject without the help of thefe counfels. And therefore it hath been my practice to give you line upon line, and precept upon precept, to enable you to fteer and order your courfe of life through an evil and dangerous world; and to require you to be frequent in reading the Scriptures with due obfervation and understanding, which will make you wife for this life, and that which is to come. I am now come well to F., from whence I wrote to you my former inftructions concerning your words and speech; and I now intend to write fomething to week, which is our Chriftian Sabbath; that, as our Christian baptifm fucceeds the facrament of circumcifion, and as our Christian pafcha, the facrament of the Eucharift, fucceeded the Jewifh paffover, so our Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, fucceeds the Sabbath of the seventh day of the week; and that morality which was by Almighty God, under that covenant, confined to the feventh day, is, by the example of Christ and his apostles, to us Gentiles, transferred to the first day of the week; and that which would have been morally a violation of the morality of the Fourth Command under the Jewish Sabbath, is a violation of the fame Fourth Command, if done upon the Christian Sabbath; though the ftrictnefs and feverity enjoined to the Jews be not altogether the fame that is now required of Chriftians. And thus you have the reason of the obligation upon us Chriftians to obferve the first day of the week, because, by more than a human institution, the morality of the Fourth Command is transferred to the first day of the week, being our Christian Sabbath; and fo the Fourth Commandment is not abrogated, but only the day changed; and the morality of that Command only tranflated, not annulled. II. Concerning the fecond. It is certain that what is unlawful to be done upon another day, is much more unlawful upon this; as excefs and intemperance, and the like finful and unlawful actions. But further, there are many things that may be lawfully done on another day, which may not lawfully be done upon this; and many things that are not only lawful upon another day, but alfo fit and decent, which are yet unfit to be done upon this day. Upon other days we may and must employ ourselves in our fecular and ordinary callings; we may ufe bodily exercifes and recreations, as bowling, fhooting, hunting, and divers other recreations; we may ftudy human learning: but I hold thefe to be not only unfit, but unlawful to |