KEEP the Sabbath. Make it not a day of work nor of pleasure, but of rest and of worship. The Bible says, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” Cease on that day from all unnecessary work. Let your families have rest also. Put on your best clothes—parents and children both—and after you have prayed in your closet and prayed with your family, then go to church, taking with you such of your family as are old enough. Don’t idle about on the Lord’s day. If there is a Sabbath-school, go to it yourselves, and take your children along with you. If you follow these rules, you will grow wiser and better. It is in this way that people are trained up for heaven.
These habits are, you see, all based on the Bible. It is God’s morality we are recommending. And yet, after you have done all these things, you have done nothing more than your duty. You must not make a religion out of these good habits. That is, you must not think that these are all that religion requires. Religion demands these, and something more. You must have “the broken heart,” sorrow for sin—sorrow before God, because you have broken his laws. Religion bids you turn from all sin—even sins of thought. It commands you to go to Jesus, that you may have your sins washed away in his precious blood. It tells you that you must put your whole trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation. Religion calls upon you to love Jesus, and from love to do whatsoever he hath commanded.
This is the inward experience of religion. But all the good habits we have been recommending are such as a religious person will practise. If a man pretends to be religious, and is a bad man in his outward conduct—if he loves to speak against his neighbors, or tells lies about them, or steals, or swears, or is impure, he is not a religious man; he is a hypocrite; and “that man’s religion,” the Bible says, “is vain.” We want you to be religious and moral both.