The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order

Chapter 48 : The Sanctification of the Lord's Day
Paragraph 4 : The Day Kept Holy

48-4. The whole day is to be kept holy to the Lord; and to be employed in the public and private exercises of religion. Therefore, it is requisite, that there be a holy resting, all the day, from unnecessary labors; and an abstaining from those recreations which may be lawful on other days; and also, as much as possible, from worldly thoughts and conversation.

DIGEST :

BACKGROUND AND COMPARISON :
PCA 1973, Adopted text, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, p. 155
Continuing Presbyterian Church, Proposed Book of Church Order (1973), DfW, 1-2, p. 63
The whole day is to be kept holy to the Lord, and to be used for worship and rest. It is requisite, therefore, that the people abstain from recreations which are not in keeping with the sanctity of the day.

PCUS 1929, DfW, I-§304
The whole day is to be kept holy to the Lord, and to be used for worship and rest. It is requisite, therefore, that the people abstain from all unnecessary labor, and from recreations which are not in keeping with the sanctity of the day.

PCUS 1925, I-§304
PCUS 1894, I-II. (p. 99)
The whole day is to be kept holy to the Lord ; and to be employed in the public and private exercises of religion. Therefore, it is requisite, that there be a holy resting, all the day, from unnecessary labors ; and an abstaining from those recreations which may be lawful on other days ; and also, as much as possible, from worldly thoughts and conversation.

RPCES 1973, III-2
The entire day is to be commemorated as holy to the Lord, both in public and in private, as a day of divine worship and holy resting. To this end, it is requisite that there be a complete cessation from all unnecessary labors and an abstinence from those sports and forms of recreation which may be lawful on other days.

COMMENTARY
Morton H. Smith, Commentary on the Book of Church Order, 6th edition, 2007, p. 407-408.
The first sentence gives the positive principle of the Sabbath, namely, that the whole day be spent in public or private worship of God. In order to be able to do this, then we need to avoid our worldly work or recreations, and also as much as possible refrain from thinking about these matters, or talking about them. Isaiah 56:13-14
clearly teach this, "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, [and] the holy of Jehovah honorable; and shalt honor it, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words; then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah. And I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth. And I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father. For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." Again the Directory is fully in accord with the
Confession XXI, viii, Larger Catechisms Q. 117, 119 and Shorter Catechism 60, 61.