“THE WORK OF A COMMONWEALTH’S MINISTRY, AND WHY ONE DAY IN SEVEN
     MAY BE A DAY OF REST FROM LABOR.

“If there were good Laws and the People be ignorant of them, it would be as bad for the Commonwealth as if there were no Laws at all.  Therefore it is very rational and good that one day in seven be still set apart, for three reasons: 

     “First, That the People in such a Parish may generally meet
     together to see one another’s faces, and beget or preserve
     fellowship in friendly love.

     “Secondly, To be a day of rest, or cessation from labor; so that
     they may have some bodily rest for themselves and cattle.

“Thirdly, That he who is chosen Minister (for that year) in that Parish may read to the People three things.  First, the affairs of the whole Land, as it is brought in by the Post-Master.  Secondly, to read the Law of the Common-wealth, not only to strengthen the memory of the ancients, but that the young people also, who are not grown up to ripeness of experience, may be instructed to know when they do well and when they do ill.  For the Law of a Land hath the power of Freedom and Bondage, life and death, in its hand, therefore the necessary knowledge to be known; and he is the best Prophet that acquaints men therewith, that as men grow up in years they may be able to defend the Laws and Government of the Land.  But these Laws shall not be expounded by the Reader; for to expound a plain Law, as if a man would put a better meaning than the letter itself, produces two evils:  First, the pure Law and the minds of the people will be thereby confounded, for multitude of words darken knowledge.  Secondly, the reader will be puffed up in pride to contemn the Law-makers, and in time that will prove the father and nurse of tyranny, as at this day is manifested by our Ministry.”

WHAT SHALL BE SPOKEN OF.

     “But because the minds of people generally love discourses,
     therefore, that the wits of men, both old and young, may be
     exercised, there may be speeches made in a threefold nature: 

“First, To declare the acts and passages of former ages and governments, setting forth the benefit of freedom by well-ordered Governments, as in Israel’s Commonwealth, and the troubles and bondage which hath always attended oppression and oppressors, as the State of Pharaoh and other tyrant kings, who said the Earth and People were theirs, and only at their disposal.

“Secondly, Speeches may be made of all Arts and Sciences, some one day some another, as in Physics, Chyrurgery, Astrology, Astronomy, Navigation, Husbandry, and such like.  And in these speeches may be unfolded the nature of all herbs and plants, from the Hysop to the Cedar, as Solomon writ of.  Likewise men may come to see into the nature of the fixed and wandering