Those I reckon guilty of profaning the Lord’s day, and to them in the name of God direct this paper, who neglect the appointed work of that day, and who violate the prescribed rest of that day.

1. It is a profanation of the Lord’s day, and a breach of the law of it, to neglect and omit the proper duty and business of that day, which is the immediate service and worship of our God. If we leave undone that which on this day ought to be done, we are transgressors; for omissions are sins, and must come into judgment.

That the eternal God is to be solemnly and religiously adored by the children of men, and that we are all bound, by acts of piety and devotion, to give unto him the glory due unto his name, and pay our homage to him, none will question who really believe that there is a God, who is a being infinitely perfect and blessed, and the fountain of all being and blessedness, our Creator, Owner, Ruler, and Benefactor, on whom we have a necessary and constant dependence, and to whom we lie under the highest obligations imaginable. Never did reasonable creatures speak more unreasonably than they did who said, “What is the Almighty that we should serve him?” Job 21:15.

Something of this work ought to be done every day; no day must pass without some solemn acts of religious worship, both morning and evening; when we address ourselves to the work of the day, and when we compose ourselves to the rest of the night, we ought actually to acknowledge God, both by our prayers and praises, as our Protector, Guide, and Benefactor. “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work;” and is this no part of our work? Is it not the most needful and excellent work we have to do? Those who live without daily worship live without God in the world. As God allows us time for works of necessity and mercy out of his day, so we ought to allow time for works of piety and devotion out of our days, else we are not only undutiful, but very ungrateful.

But besides the morning and evening sacrifice, which the duty of every day requires, the wisdom of God, for the preserving and securing of divine worship in the world, has instituted and appointed a particular time for the special solemnities of it, which is one day in seven. The body of a seventh day, that is, the working hours of it, are by this institution appointed to be spent in the acts of religion and devotion, as the other days of the week are intended for secular business, and the works of our particular calling.

Now this instrumental part of religion, (give me leave to call it so,) though it be not equally necessary, with the essentials of it, the love of God, and faith in Christ, yet it is undoubtedly necessary, both as a duty in obedience to the divine law, which requires us thus to consecrate a seventh day to the services of religion, and as a means of keeping up communion with God in holy ordinances, and preparing ourselves, by his grace, for the vision and fruition of him. It is so necessary, that revealed religion, and with it all religion, would in all probability have been lost and forgotten long ere this if it had not been kept up by the observation of Sabbaths.

Now, forasmuch as it is the work of the Lord’s day to worship God, not only in public solemn assemblies, which we ought conscientiously to attend upon both the former and the latter part of the day, but in secret and in our families, morning, evening, and at noon, those do certainly profane the day who do not spend the best part of it, and much more those who scarce spend any part of it, in pious exercises; either not attending on them at all, or with such a constant and allowed carelessness and indifference as discovers a great contempt of the God they pretend to honour.

Those profane this sacred day who waste the precious hours of its morning in sleep and sloth, and proud and needless dressing, and the rest of the day in idle chat and perfect sauntering, as if Sabbath time hung upon their hands and they knew not what to do with it, nor how to idle it away and pass it off fast enough, till they have that which is their heart’s desire, “When will the Sabbath be gone?”

Such as these, how innocent soever they may think themselves, are to be counted Sabbath-breakers, who, instead of keeping the Sabbath day, lose it, and throw it away, and wilfully suffer it to run waste; and instead of sanctifying it, and advancing it above other times, vilify it, and make it the most idle, insignificant, and unprofitable day of the week; for the days that are spent in worldly business serve to some purpose, but this, that should be spent in the business of religion, being trifled away, and the work of it undone, serves to no purpose.

2. It is a profanation of the Lord’s day to violate and break in upon the holy rest of that day, and to do that from which we are bound up and restrained by the law of the day, in order to our more close application to that which is the work of the day. On that day we are to rest both from those worldly employments of our particular callings which on other days are our duty, and the work of the day, and from those sports and recreations which on other days are lawful, as the entertainment of our spare hours, and the preparatives for our busy ones; from both we are to rest on the Lord’s day; for certainly carnal pleasure is as great an enemy to spiritual joy as the sorrow of the world is, and sport is as inconsistent with the Sabbath rest as labour is.

Rest from worldly business on the Sabbath day was, under the Old Testament, more primarily required as a duty, and a great stress laid upon it, according to the nature of that dispensation; to all the purposes of this rest we are not now so strictly tied up as the Jews then were: but it is still secondarily requisite as a means, in order to the due performance of the work of the day; and so far it is a duty.

Then, when the more solemn worship of God was appropriated to one place, where the ark was, the place which God chose to put his name there, which the people were appointed generally to attend but thrice a year, the rest of those who were at a distance was required and accepted as a tacit joining with the temple service on the Sabbath day; by a strict cessation from other work they testified an implicit concurrence in that work. But now, under the gospel, we are not so confined to one place as they then were; it is God’s will that men pray every where, and that in every place the spiritual incense be offered; we have now larger opportunities and better helps for doing the work and enjoying the comforts of that day than they then had; and therefore, now the bare rest from worldly labour is not in itself so much a sanctification of the Sabbath as it was then. Yet we cannot think ourselves less obliged than they were to rest from worldly employments and recreation, as far as that rest will contribute to our attendance on the work of the day with more solemnity, and with greater freedom and closeness of application, and without distinction.

Those, therefore, undoubtedly profane the Lord’s day, who absent themselves from the public worship of God, either the former or the latter part of the day, that they may underhand follow their callings, settle their accounts, drive bargains, push on journeys, make visits, or the like, unless when the occasion is urgent, and mercy comes to take place of sacrifice.

Yet, not they only are guilty of the breach of the Sabbath rest, who spend that part of the day, which we call “church time,” in worldly employments and recreations; but they also who spend the time before, between, and after public worship, so as either to intrench upon that full scope of time that they ought to take on that day, for their secret and family worship, and to abridge themselves of that, or so as to unfit themselves and put themselves out of frame for holy duties, or obstruct their profiting by them, do violate the Sabbath rest. Works of necessity, which yet ought not to be a self-created necessity, we are allowed time for, the body must be fed, and clothed, and rested, that it may be fit to serve the soul in the service of God on this day. But no more of the time than is convenient for these must be alienated from the business of the day; if it be, we break in upon the appointed rest.

Those who go to their shops and exercise their trades openly or secretly on the Lord’s day, thereby show that they mind the world more than God, and that they are more solicitous for the meat that perishes, than for that which endures to eternal life; and those who go to the ale-house, or follow their sports, and divert themselves or others with idle walking and talking, show that they mind the flesh more than God, and that they are wholly taken up with the mere animal life, and wretchedly estranged from the principles, powers, and pleasures of the spiritual and divine life.

If any pretend that they can perform the work of the Lord’s day well enough, though they do not observe the rest of the day, they suppose themselves wiser than God, who has instituted the Sabbath rest in order to the better and more solemn management of the Sabbath work, both public and private.

We find now who are chargeable with the sin of profaning the Lord’s day; let the conscience of every one that is guilty herein deal faithfully with him in the reading of this, and say, “Thou art the man;” thou art the man, the woman, that makest the day of the Lord either a day of idleness, or a day of worldly business, and dost not spend it in the service of God and communion with him. Either thou dost not diligently attend the public worship in its season, or but one part of the day, or without any just cause stayest at home, or walkest abroad, when thou shouldst be in the holy convocation; or, if thou go to church for fashion sake, thou thinkest when that service is over thou hast no more to do, and dost not spend the remaining part of the day as thou oughtest, in prayer, reading, meditation, and other religious exercises, alone and with thy family. God’s time, which is devoted to him, and should be employed for him, thou givest to the world, and thy worldly business, or, which is perhaps more common, to the body, and to the ease and pleasure of it, and to the entertainments of a vain and foolish conversation. Art thou verily guilty in these or any of these things? This paper comes with an humble request to thee, that thou wouldst consider thy ways and amend them.

This is one of those sins which the public attempts for the reformation of manners at this day are levelled against, at least in some instances of it; and justly, for the profanation of God’s Sabbaths, which he is very jealous for the honour of, is a sin that brings judgments upon a land perhaps as soon as any other. It is a sin that “kindles fires in the gates of Jerusalem,” Jer. 17:27, a sin that “brings yet more wrath upon Israel,” Neh. 13:17, 18. And therefore all who wish well to the public peace, and those especially who are intrusted with the preservation of it, are concerned in interest, as well as duty, to take care of the due sanctification of the Sabbath, so far as it falls within their cognizance, so that whatever guilt of this kind particular persons may contract, it may not become national.

Now, in our dealing with this sin, as we have this advantage, that we are not struggling with the violent impetus of a particular lust, appetite, or passion, which is commonly deaf to reason and expostulation, so, on the other hand, we labour under this difficulty, that they who are guilty of this sin, are commonly more ready to insist upon their own justification, than any other sort of sinners. It is a way that seems right, and they who walk in it say, “They have done no wickedness;” and not only so, but they are forward to censure and condemn those who allow not themselves the same latitude, as needlessly and superstitiously precise.

I should transgress the designed limits of this paper if I should enter into the dispute concerning the perpetual obligation of the fourth commandment, which, as to the substance of it, the keeping of one day in seven holy to God, is, I hope, no dispute with us, since we are all agreed to pray to God to “have mercy upon us,” and “incline our hearts to keep this law.”

I shall therefore only in a few lines, that I may hasten to what I principally intend, endeavour to make out the divine appointment of the Christian Sabbath, as a day of holy rest in order to holy work, by these three steps:—

(1.) It appears by the light of nature that there must be some such day observed. If God is to be worshipped by us solemnly and in comfort, there must be some fixed and stated times for the doing of it, the designation of which is necessary both to preserve the thing itself, and to put a solemnity upon it.

The Gentiles had days set apart to the honour of their gods, which they spent, accordingly, in rest from worldly labour, and, by the solemnities of their religion, looking upon those as peculiar days, distinguished from and dignified above other days. Does not even nature teach men thus to own God the Lord of time, and to constitute opportunities for the public solemn worship of him? Now, if all people will thus walk in the name of their god, should not we walk in like manner in the name of the Lord our God? Mic. 4:5.

(2.) It appears by the Old Testament that one day in seven should be thus religiously observed. It is plain that a Sabbath was instituted from the beginning, it was a positive institution in paradise, as marriage was; the former necessary to the preserving of the church and sacred fellowship, as the latter to the support of families and human fellowship, Gen. 2:2, 3; when the Scripture says expressly there, “that God rested on the seventh day,” and that “he blessed and sanctified it because he so rested,” we wrest the Scripture if we suppose it recorded there as a thing done long after. By this management the plainest evidence of Scripture may be turned off and evaded. To suppose that Sabbaths were not kept in the patriarchal age, because no mention is made of them in the history of that age, is absurd; since we have a record of the institution of the Sabbath in the beginning, and an account of the religious observation of a Sabbath before the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai, viz. when the manna was given, Exod. 16:23, 26. As at the first planting of religion in the world, so now at the revival of it out of its ruins in Egypt, one of the first things taken care of is the Sabbath, and it is spoken of, not as a new institution, but as an old law, which, when Moses had notified the day to them, they having lost their reckoning in Egypt, they are sharply rebuked for the violation of, ver. 28, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?”

The first word of the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day,” plainly shows that it was the revival of an old commandment, which had been forgotten, viz. That one day in seven should be sanctified to God. It is the solemn declaration of an ancient institution, and is of perpetual obligation, that the seventh day, not the seventh from the creation, which in the revolution of so many ages, we cannot be infallibly certain of, but the seventh day, after six days worldly labour, is the “Sabbath of the Lord our God,” and is so to be sanctified. And though God rested the seventh day from the creation, yet in the fourth commandment it is not said he blessed the seventh day, or a Sabbath day, in that proportion of time, and sanctified it: and this part of the blessing of Abraham’s seed comes upon the Gentiles through faith.

Very much stress was laid, in the times of the Old Testament, upon the observation of the Sabbath, more than on any institution purely ceremonial: and the Old Testament prophecies, that point at gospel times, make it part of the description of converted strangers, that they make conscience of keeping the Sabbath from polluting it, Isa. 56:6.

(3.) It appears by the New Testament that the first day of the week should be observed and sanctified as a Christian Sabbath. It is evident to any who read the New Testament without prejudice.

[1.] That a weekly Sabbath is to be religiously observed in the Christian church. We not only find no repeal of the fourth commandment in the New Testament, nor any reason for the repeal of it; but, on the contrary, we find it expounded by our Saviour, and vindicated from the corrupt glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees, who, as in other things they were profanely loose, so in this they were superstitiously strict. Several occasions Christ took to show that works of necessity and mercy are no violations of the Sabbath rest; as Luke 13:14; John 5:18; 9:14; and especially Matt. 12:1ff. Had the law of the fourth commandment been to expire presently our Saviour would not have been so careful to explain it; but it is plain he designed to settle a point which would afterwards be of use to his church, and to teach us that our Christian Sabbath, though it is under the direction of the fourth commandment, yet, it is not under the arbitrary injunctions of the Jewish elders.

Our Saviour has likewise told us that the Sabbath was made for man, and not for the Jews only; and that he himself was “Lord of the Sabbath day,” that is, that it should be in a special manner his day, and devoted to him. He likewise supposed the continuance of a Sabbath, to be so religiously observed by his disciples, at the very time of the destruction of Jerusalem, which put a final period to all the peculiarities of the Jewish economy, that he bids them pray that their then flight might not be in the winter, nor on the Sabbath day, Matt. 24:20. And the apostle, Heb. 4:9, plainly speaks of a Sabbath, or day of rest which God instituted when he had finished the work of creation.

[2.] It is likewise evident that the day which the Christian church has in all ages observed, and does still, which is commonly reckoned the first day of the week, is the day which it is the will of Christ we should observe as our Christian Sabbath. It is certain that the apostles were authorised and appointed to teach the churches of Christ those things pertaining to the kingdom of God wherein he had instructed them; the Spirit was poured out upon them to enable them rightly and duly to execute their commission, so as to answer all the great ends of it. Now, it is plain that the apostles and first Christians did religiously observe the first day of the week as the day of their solemn assemblies for divine worship, Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2, and that with a regard to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This they called “The Lord’s day,” Rev. 1:10, as a day that answers all the intentions of a weekly Sabbath; as such it has been received and observed by the churches of Christ. “It is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it,” Ps. 118:24.

What there was in the Old Testament Sabbath, which was typical, has had and will have its accomplishment in the spiritual and eternal rest of true believers; but that which was the main scope of the fourth commandment, that the seventh day, after six days’ labour, should be kept holy to God, remains in full force. But now, under the New Testament, a greater stress is laid upon the holy work of the day than upon the holy rest, and upon the rest only in order to the work, and worship, and the ends of it. When the church was in its infancy and childhood it was dealt with accordingly; a bodily rest was then mainly insisted on as the sanctification of the Sabbath, which was so called because it was a day of rest, for so Sabbath signifies. But now, under the gospel, the church is grown up to full age, and, therefore, now more notice is taken of the business to which the day is devoted, viz. joy in God, Ps. 118:24, communion with Christ, John 20:19, 26, and with the Spirit, Rev. 1:10, and with our fellow Christians, Acts 20:7. And as to the rest, this general rule is to be observed, that nothing be done to derogate from the solemnity and honour of the day, and to lay it common with other days, nor any thing to divert us from, or distract us in, any part of the work of the day. Yet, still it is not improper to call it the Christian Sabbath, because it is a day of rest from the world, and rest in God.

Having thus endeavoured to set this matter in a true and convincing light, I come now to reason the case a little with the consciences of those who make light of the Lord’s day. Those I mean who spend it, or any part of it, in idleness, sport, tippling, or secular business, and turn their backs upon the public worship of God in religious assemblies; or, if not that, yet, either wholly neglect, or very carelessly and superficially perform, their secret and family worship. And oh that I could offer something now, which, by the grace of God, might help to convince and awaken such.

I will take it for granted, sirs, that you have not abandoned religion, that you are not desirous to disengage yourselves from its sacred bonds, nor willing to disclaim its joys and hopes; you are not arrived to that desperate resolution of living without God in the world; no, it is not come to that with you. You have not renounced the Christian faith, nor abjured your baptismal covenant, nor by searing your consciences as with a hot iron, marked them for the devil and hell; what I shall say will have little influence upon those who are of such a character as this; but, “to you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men;” not to such incarnate devils: I speak to those who I hope have some sense of religion, and of whose consciences God has still some hold.

Give me leave, therefore, to recommend to your serious consideration the two great intentions and designs of the Lord’s day, which are, as far as lies in you, defeated and frustrated by your profanation of it, and your constant neglect of the duties of it.

The Lord’s day was appointed to be kept holy and religiously observed,

I. For the glory and honour of God.

II. For the good and happiness of man. So that all those who profane the Lord’s day do a great dishonour to God to whom it is dedicated, and no less an injury to themselves, for whose benefit and comfort it was intended.

I. In profaning the Lord’s day you sin against heaven, and put a daring affront upon the divine authority and grace. Here let me speak boldly, let me speak warmly, as an advocate for God. I beseech you consider seriously what I have to say, and give me your patient hearing while I reason with you.

You are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and it is your honour and privilege that you are so; you say you adhere to it, and you would not for all the world be unbaptized, nor renounce your Christian name. Suffer me then a little to expostulate with you upon the acknowledged principles of your baptism, which, I think, you are not true to while you continue to profane the Lord’s day as you do.

1. Have you no regard to the Eternal God, even the Father, that made you and all the world? The Sabbath was first ordained to be celebrated by the reasonable creatures in this lower world, for in the upper world they keep an everlasting Sabbath, to the honour of the great Creator, as a standing memorial of the finishing of the work of creation; that in the observance of it we may give him praise for the wonders we see in all the creatures, and may give him thanks for the favours and comforts we receive by them. This is specified in the fourth commandment, as the ground of that ancient institution, which bore date before the entrance of sin into the world.

The Author and spring of all the movements of time justly claims to be the Lord of time, and he has wisely appointed one day in seven to be consecrated to him, as an acknowledgment that he is so, and that our times are both from his hand and in his hand. And dare you sacrilegiously rob him of this tribute, and demand to have even this also, as well as the rest of the days of the week, at your own disposal, to be given away to the world and the flesh?

Consider, sirs, you are God’s creatures, and the work of his hands; you are his reasonable creatures, the priests of the visible creation, the collectors of his praises, to gather them in from the inferior creatures, which do all praise him objectively, and to pay them in by actual adorations. For this noble purpose you were endued with noble powers, those of reason; you were taught more than the beasts of the earth, and were made wiser than the fowls of heaven. All the supports and comforts of your lives are likewise the creatures of God’s power, and the gifts of his providence; so that you are bound both in duty and gratitude to serve and praise him. And dare you then prostitute that time to the world and the flesh which is consecrated to the honour of your great Lord, the author of your beings, the protector of your lives, and the giver of all your comforts? You do thus in effect say to the Almighty, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways,” like those impudent sinners, Job 21:14. And “do ye thus requite the Lord, oh foolish creatures and unwise?” Oh faithless creatures and unjust?

In your idle walks on the Lord’s day, and the diversion you take abroad, while you find your own pleasure in them, I wonder how you can look either to the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the ornaments of either, and not be ashamed to think, that when they observe their time of serving you, and contributing to your comfort, in the proper season of the day, the proper season of the year, according to the law of their Creator, you do not observe your time of serving God, and contributing to his praise, according to the law given you, but are playing abroad when you should be praying at home. The sun does the work of the day in its day, but you do not. The stork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and comes in her season to wait upon you; but you observe not the time God has appointed for your approaches to him. To say, can we not meditate, and praise our Creator, like Isaac, in the fields as well as in our closets, is no good reply to this reproof, unless your own hearts can witness for you, that indeed you do so, which I fear they cannot; for your walks are plainly chosen to befriend your diversion by society, not to befriend your devotion by solitude.

When you spend any part of the Lord’s day in the alehouse or tavern, do not the good creatures of God, which there you abuse, upbraid you with the basest ingratitude, that when you have been receiving the comfort of those gifts of God’s bounty the rest of the days of the week, you grudge to spend the Lord’s day in humble and thankful acknowledgments of the goodness of God to the whole creation, and to you in particular. Do all God’s works praise him every day, and will you think much this day, to join with his saints in blessing him? Ps. 145:10.

Was it the will of God that his glorious rest from the work of creation, wherein the Eternal Mind took a complacency in the copies of its own wisdom, and the products of its own power, should be thus commemorated here on earth, by a holy rest every seventh day from worldly employments, while it is continually celebrated in heaven, by those blessed spirits there, who rest not day nor night from praising him? And will you in effect tell him to his face, that it does not deserve such a frequent and solemn commemoration? And is the will and law of the eternal God nothing with you? Is his authority and honour of so small account in your eyes? Shall the service of the flesh, to which you are not debtors, be preferred before the service of your God, to whom you are infinitely indebted?

You have your lives from God, your bodies, your souls, all your powers, and all your comforts, and therefore you ought to be his subjects, and to pay him tribute; you are his tenants, and must not withhold his rent: this is his tribute, this is his rent. Sabbath time is demanded as his part of your time; let this then that is his due be justly and faithfully paid him in full: for “will a man rob God?” Your receivings from him are rich and constant; grudge him not these poor returns in their season.

2. Have you no regard to the Lord Jesus who redeemed you, and who gave his life a ransom for many? The New Testament Sabbath, being observed on the first day of the week, is without doubt designed particularly for the honour of Christ, and to be celebrated as an abiding memorial of his resurrection from the dead, by which he was declared to be the Son of God with power, and our accepted surety; for as by dying he paid our debt, for he was delivered for our offences, so by his resurrection he took our acquittance, for he was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4:25. The advancement of that despised stone to be the head of the corner was that which made this day remarkable, Ps. 118:22, 24; and they who despise this dignified, distinguished day, do in effect still trample upon that exalted stone. It is for the Redeemer’s sake that it is called, “The Lord’s day,” an honourable title, and we ought to call it so, that we may show we look upon it as “holy of the Lord and honourable,” and may so honour it. It bears Christ’s image, and his superscription; we ought, therefore, to render to him the things that are his.

You are called Christians; you profess relation to the blessed Jesus; you are baptized into his name, and wear his livery, and you say you hope to be saved by him; you are enrolled among his followers, and you have in his house, and within his walls, a place and a name; and can you find in your hearts, so treacherously, and so very disingenuously, to alienate from him any part of that time which he claims a special property in? Shall he to whom you owe your all be defrauded of that little which he demands of you? You name Christ’s name, you do well; but you contradict yourselves, and will be found liars and dissemblers if you dare to profane his day, and grudge to spend it in his service to his praise.

Let me beg of you seriously to consider how much you are indebted to the Redeemer; from what a bondage, to what a liberty, and at what an expense, you were redeemed; think what were the kind intentions of the Redeemer’s love, and what the blessed fruits of his undertaking; and you will see that you owe him even your ownselves, all you are, all you have, all you can do, all little enough, and too little; and will you then grudge him the whole of his own day which is instituted in remembrance of that blessed work for which we are so much indebted, and should be ever studying what we shall render?

As the Old Testament Sabbath was appointed to be a solemn memorial, not so much of the work of creation itself as of the finishing of it, so the Christian Sabbath was appointed to preserve in remembrance Christ’s resurrection, which gave the finishing stroke to his undertaking on earth. Now, consider, if he had not finished his undertaking what had become of us? If he had left it no other could have taken it up; if he that laid the foundation stone, as the Author of our faith, had not brought forth the top-stone, as the Finisher of it, we had been undone, for ever undone. Unworthy, therefore, for ever unworthy, art thou of an interest in and benefit by this undertaking, if really thou make so light a matter as thou seemest to do of that weekly solemnity in which the remembrance of it is celebrated, not only for the advancing of the Redeemer’s honour, but for the advancing of the Redeemer’s designs and interests.

Let me therefore, with all earnestness, beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, if you have any regard to the sweet and blessed name of Jesus, into which you were baptized; that name which is above every name, and which is as ointment poured forth; that name which is your strong tower, and your best plea for the best blessings; have a conscientious regard to that day which bears his name. As ever you hope to see the face of Christ with comfort, and expect he shall stand your friend in the day of your extremity, testify your veneration for him now, by a veneration for his day, and dare not to break in upon that sacred rest, which is instituted to his honour, nor trifle away any of those precious hours which he expects and requires should be employed in his service.

Shall we think one day in seven too much, when eternity itself will be too little, to be spent in the joyful contemplations, and thankful praises, of the height and depth, the length and breadth, of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge? Do the holy angels attend the Redeemer with their constant adorations, and praise him without intermission? and shall we who are more immediately interested in, and benefited by, his undertaking, convert to other purposes any of those few hours of the week which are consecrated to his praise? Is our Lord Jesus continually appearing in heaven for us, always mindful of our concerns there, and shall we make thus light of his glory, and care so little to appear before him, and before the world for him? Might but the love of Christ command us, and that love constrain us, surely we should love the Lord’s day for his sake whose day it is, would bid it welcome, and call it a delight.

3. Have you no regard to the blessed Spirit of grace, into whose name also you were baptized, and in honour of whom the Christian Sabbath is celebrated? The first day of the week was observed by the disciples as a day of solemn meeting from the very day that Christ rose, for we find them together again that day seven-night, probably by his appointment, John 20:26. The day of Pentecost that year fell on the first day of the week, and on that day they were together in a solemn meeting, all with one accord in one place, when the Spirit descended upon them, Acts 2:1ff.

Now the pouring out of the Spirit was the great promise of the New Testament, as the incarnation of Christ was of the Old Testament, and was a gift to the church no less necessary and valuable than the resurrection of Christ. He rose to carry on the good work in us, without which we could have no benefit by his mediation. The influences and operations of the Spirit are as necessary to our salvation as the satisfaction and intercession of the Son. When Christ rose he retired to heaven, to receive his kingdom and to prepare ours; but when he sent the Spirit, he did in effect return to his church on earth; for thus the want of his bodily presence was supplied, abundantly to the advantage of his disciples. It was expedient for us that he should go away, that he might send the Comforter, John 16:7.

To the descent of the Spirit we owe those gifts of tongues which spread the gospel to distant nations, and to ours among the rest; and those inspired writings which propagated the gospel to after ages, and will perpetuate it to the end of time. Without this the earth, even within the church’s pale, had been still a wilderness and a barren land; for it is only the pouring out of the Spirit upon us from on high that turns the wilderness into a fruitful field, Isa. 32:15. To the gift of the Holy Ghost is owing the conviction of conscience, the regeneration of the soul, its progress and advances in holiness, and all those consolations of God which are our songs in the house of our pilgrimage: had not the Spirit been given to apply the redemption, we had never been the better for Christ’s purchase of it.

Now it is in remembrance of these gifts given to men, after the Redeemer was ascended on high, that we celebrate the Lord’s day; and therefore, to the right sanctification of it, it is necessary that we be in the Spirit, Rev. 1:10; that is, that we compose ourselves into a spiritual frame, and submit ourselves to the Spirit’s workings. The greatest honour we can do to the Spirit is to walk after the Spirit. We then give glory to the Holy Ghost when we diligently attend to that word which was given by his inspiration, and lay our souls under the commanding power and influence of it; when we pray in the Holy Ghost, under the conduct of the Spirit of adoption, teaching us to cry, Abba, Father; and when we carefully hearken to the checks, and follow the dictates, of a well-informed conscience. Thus the Sabbath must be sanctified to the praise of the blessed Spirit.

And is it nothing to you who profane the Lord’s day that thereby you reflect dishonour upon the eternal Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and who with the Father and the Son together is and ought to be worshipped and glorified on the Lord’s day? You struggle against him who is given to strive with you for your good; you check your Monitor, you resist your Sanctifier, and grieve your Comforter.

Do you not indeed think it worth your while to spend so many hours every week, as the working part of the Lord’s day amounts to, in the joyful, thankful commemoration of so great a blessing bestowed upon the church, which still remains a real benefit to all its ministers, and to all its members, and is the quickening root of all their fruitfulness and flourishing?

It was on the first day of the first week of time that the blessed Spirit moved upon the face of the waters to produce a world, a world of beauty and plenty, out of confusion and emptiness; and it was upon the first day of another week that he descended on the apostles, and inspired them to produce a church; justly, therefore, is the first day of the week consecrated to the honour of that Divine Person, to whom we owe both our being, and our new-being, in order to our well-being. Profane not that then which is thus sanctified, to the praise of the great Sanctifier. How can you expect the comfort of his sacred influences if thus you violate and break in upon his sacred interests? Our Saviour speaks of an affront put upon the Holy Ghost as more criminal, more dangerous, and of more fatal consequence to the sinner, than an affront put upon the Lord Jesus himself, Matt. 12:31, 32. Not as if every sin against the Holy Ghost contracted the indelible stain of an unpardonable sin, God forbid! but it is intimated that there is a peculiar malignity and provocation in those sins which put a slight upon the blessed Spirit, as this certainly does, which not only profanes the time which is sacred to his honour, but neglects the opportunity of receiving his promised gifts in the way of instituted ordinances.

If there be, therefore, any fellowship of the Spirit, value it, improve it, be not strangers to it. As ever you look for any comfort from the Holy Ghost, living or dying, here or hereafter, call it not a task, and a burthen, and a weariness, to separate yourselves from the world one day in a week to an attendance upon the Spirit, that you may give honour to him, and may receive grace and comfort from him; but rejoice in those stated opportunities, not only of professing but of improving, your faith in the Holy Ghost.

You see, brethren, how great and honourable, how holy and reverend, these names are by which we plead with you, and beseech you not to profane the Lord’s day. I am willing to hope that in what you do you intend not an affront to the eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; you still honour God with your lips, and call yourselves by his name; but whether you intend it so or no, you see it is with good reason so interpreted. Every contempt of the day of the Lord is, if not designedly, yet constructively, a contempt of him who is the Lord of the day; and so he will resent it, and reckon for it, for in the matters of his worship the Lord whose name is Jealous “is a jealous God.” I beseech you, therefore, brethren, for the sake of the blessed God, whose you are, and whom you are bound to serve, and to whom you are accountable, if you have any respect to the honour of his name, and the interests of his kingdom, and desire of his favour and grace, or any dread of his wrath and curse, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, for it is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” Do not alienate to the world and the flesh any of those precious minutes which he challenges a special property in; but by a double care and diligence for the future, endeavour to make restitution of those which by your neglects hitherto you have embezzled. God fills up your time with mercy, look upon yourselves, therefore, as bound in gratitude to fill up his time with duty; so shall God have the praise and you the comfort.

II. In profaning the Lord’s day you sin against your own souls, and throw away that good and benefit which is designed both to others and to yourselves by the institution of it. Our Saviour has told us that “the Sabbath was made for man,” and it is reckoned among the favours God showed to his Israel, that he made known unto them his holy Sabbath, Neh. 9:14. And if the Old Testament Sabbath was so great a privilege, much more is our Christian Sabbath so, for the New Testament begins with a proclamation of good-will toward men. If the ministration of death was glorious, much more the ministration of the Spirit. We solicit you for your own good, and beg of you to consider for what end the Lord’s day was appointed in your favours, and if you will but consult yourselves, and the comfort of your own souls, you will study to comply with the intentions of it; if thou be wise herein thou shalt be wise for thyself.

1. The Lord’s day was appointed for the benefit of the church and Christian societies. It was wisely designed, that by the religious observance of that day, and a visible difference made between it and other days, a face of religion and godliness might be kept up, and a profession of Christianity maintained, published, and propagated. This is the show of that substance; and though the show without the substance, the form of godliness without the power of it, will not avail particular persons that rest in it, yet it is for the advantage of the church in general, and helps to support it in the world.

It would have been hard for all Christian churches, by a common consent among themselves only, to have agreed upon such a badge and token of the communion of saints as the solemnizing of the Lord’s day is; and therefore the wisdom of the church’s Head and Lawgiver has appointed it. Thus still the Sabbath is a sign, a distinguishing sign, as it was to Israel of old, Exod. 31:13. In the primitive times when a Christian was examined by the heathen judges, “Hast thou kept the Lord’s day?” his answer was, “I am a Christian;” intimating, that being a Christian he durst not do otherwise. By this might all men know who were Christ’s disciples; it was one of the badges of their profession; so that in sanctifying the Lord’s day we testify our relation to, and concurrence with, all that in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Since all Christians cannot possibly meet in one and the same place, by meeting thus on one and the same day, and that the Lord’s day, they testify their communion with each other in faith, hope, and love, and that though they are many, yet they are one. Those, therefore, who violate and profane the Lord’s day, do as much as lies in them to thwart and defeat this intention.

I beseech you consider it seriously, you are baptized into the great body, and by virtue of that you are called Christians, and it is your honour; but unworthy, for ever unworthy, are you of that honour, while you manifestly do disservice to the Christian name and cause, stain the beauty of its profession, stop the progress of its interest, and endanger the cutting off of the entail of it, by putting the Lord’s day upon a level with other days, and in effect trampling upon it as a common thing: hereby you pluck up some of the best ranges of the church’s pale, and lay all in common. Take away the conscience of Sabbath sanctification, and you open a gap at which all religion quite runs out, and an inundation of wickedness breaks in of course; they who make no difference between God’s day and other days, will not long make any difference between God’s name and other names, and between God’s book and other books. If Sabbaths be generally neglected, Bibles and ministers, and other institutions, will not be duly prized; and if these hedges of religion be broken down, religion itself will soon become an easy prey to the boar of the wood, and the wild beast of the forest.

And is it nothing to you whether the Lord Jesus has a church in the world or no? and whether his religion has a place and an interest among men or no? Are you indeed in confederacy with those who have said, “Come and let us cut off the Christian religion, that the name of it may be no more in remembrance,” Ps. 83:3, 4. Certainly if all should make as light of the Lord’s day as you do, it would come to this in a little time; the light of the gospel would be put out, its coal would be quenched, and there would remain to it neither root nor branch. If these outworks be betrayed to the enemy, the main forts cannot long be maintained; but the gates of hell will prevail against the church.

Let me, therefore, beg of you for the church’s sake, as you value its being and welfare, its continuance and prosperity in the world, if you have any regard to its bleeding cause, to its dying interests, and would help to revive it, do what you can to support the honour of the Lord’s day. Let not Sion’s friends deal treacherously with her, nor betray her to those who seek her ruin; let them not join with her enemies in mocking at her Sabbaths; for if those fall into contempt, and the sanctification of them be disused, she soon sits solitary, becomes as a widow, and all her beauty is departed from her. I refer to those complaints, Lam. 1:1, 2, 6, 7. You would willingly see the good of Jerusalem, and religion in a flourishing state; help then to maintain the honour of God’s Sabbaths, and thereby show before the churches your professed subjection to the gospel of Christ.

2. The Lord’s day was appointed for the weaning of us from this present world, and the taking off of our affections from the things of it, by giving a stop and pause once a week to our secular pursuits; and we lose this benefit of it if we neglect it, and violate the appointed rest of that day. It is certain that much of the power of godliness lies in our living above the world, and being dead to it; those are Christians indeed who look upon the things that are seen with a holy indifference and contempt, as those who know their felicity and portion lie in the things that are not seen.

But it would be very hard, and even impossible, to attain to this heavenly mind, if we were to be constantly in the crowd and hurry of worldly employments and recreations, and in an uninterrupted converse with the things of sense and time: if every day were to be entirely for the world, without any intermission, every thought and intent of the heart will be for it too, and the whole soul will be plunged and lost in it.

And, therefore, he who knows our frame, and that we are, in mind as well as body, dust, apt to move toward the dust of this earth, and to mingle with it; he who knows where we dwell, even where Satan’s seat is, the prince of this world, Rev. 2:13, has wisely and graciously appointed us some rest from our worldly pursuits. His providence has appointed us the natural rest of every evening, which calls us in from our work and labour, and gives us some advantageous minutes, if we have but wisdom to improve them, for retirement into ourselves, and reflection upon ourselves; for communing with our own hearts, and meditating on God and his word. But this is not all; his grace has also provided for us the instituted rest of every Sabbath, which gives us a longer breathing time; that while our hands rest from the business of the world, our minds may rest from the cares of it, and so we may be saved from the inordinate love of it.

Six days thou shalt labour and do all thy work, all that work that must be done for the body thou carriest about with thee, that may be supported, and for the world thou livest in, that thou mayest pass comfortably through it; but thou must shortly put off this body, and bid adieu to this world; and therefore, one day in seven thou shalt rest from this work and labour, and lay it aside, that thou mayest recall thy thoughts and affections from the world and the body; and so learn to sit loose to them, and by these frequent acts confirm the habit of heavenly-mindedness. By our weekly retirements from the world, it will be made the more easy to us always to live above the world, as those who are strangers and sojourners in it.

And do you not find, sirs, that there is need of such pauses, such parenthesis, as these? Do you not find the world encroaching upon you, and gaining ground in your hearts? Do you not experience the insinuating nature of these present things, even of care and toil about them, which are strangely bewitching; and that by constant converse with the things of the earth, we grow in love with them and become earthly? And will you not then take the advantage which this institution gives you, to recover the ground you lose all the week, by a total cessation of worldly business on the Lord’s day? By a close application of yourselves to the proper business and pleasure of the Lord’s day, you will find yourselves so well employed, and so well entertained by your religion, that you will look with a holy contempt upon the employments and entertainments of the world.

Let me add under this head, that your accustoming of yourselves to a strict retirement from the world on the Lord’s day will make your final removal out of it at death more easy and less formidable. Brethren, you are dying, your souls are continually in your hands; death will shortly seal up your hands, it will cut off all your purposes, and put a full stop to all your pursuits; yet a little while, and the place that knows you will know you no more; yet a little while, and you must bid an eternal farewell to your houses and lands, your farms and merchandise, and this will be a hard task if you never knew what it was to intermit these cares and pleasures. If you will not think it worth your while to leave them at the bottom of the hill while you go up to worship, with a purpose to return to them again, as Abraham, Gen. 22:5, what a difficulty will it be to you to leave them not to return to them again! You cannot find in your hearts to keep from your shops or sports, to lay aside your worldly business and diversions, one day in seven; how then will you persuade yourselves willingly to quit all at death? which yet you must do whether you will or no. We must forsake these things shortly; to prepare us for which it is good for us, at least as often as God hath appointed us, to forget them now, and lay aside the thoughts of them. If we would make a virtue of the necessity we shall be under of leaving the world when we die, let us make a necessity of the virtue of retiring from the world, and putting off the care and business of it, every Lord’s day.

3. The Lord’s day was appointed for our communion and fellowship with God, with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, and we are enemies to ourselves if we neglect to improve it for this purpose; we are on that day not only called off from the world, but called up into the “holiest,” into which, by the blood of Jesus, we have access with humble boldness. We are invited from on high, “Come up hither,” to the highest degrees of comfort and honour that man on earth is capable of, and will you choose to tarry below, to converse with earthly things, when you are invited to a conversation with things heavenly and divine? How much soever this may seem a paradox to those who are strangers to the life of God, and to the power of godliness, all who are serious and devout know what it is.

This is a day in which we are with all humility to make visits to God, and with all reverence and observance to receive visits from him; to hear what he speaks to us out of his word, and to speak to him by prayer. This is the proper conversation of that day, for this it was instituted and intended; and therefore to spend it in idle visits, and in impertinent talk, either foolish in itself, and which would be culpable any day, or, at least, in that which is foreign to the business of this day, is to put a great slight upon God Almighty, and upon the provision he has made for our communion with him. It is as if a prince or some great or wise man should invite you into his company, offer to entertain you with the most pleasant and edifying discourse, and appoint a time and place for the interview, and you should leave him, and turn your back upon him, to go and talk with some idle beggar or buffoon at the door. Would not this justly be construed an intolerable affront? Would you not blush to think that you should ever be guilty of such a piece of rudeness? Would you not expect to be forbidden the house and presence of the person you had thus slighted? Yet you do ten thousand times worse than this when you trifle away that day in common conversation and business which God has appointed you to spend in communion with himself, according as your opportunities are.

The whole life of a Christian ought to be a life of communion with God; our eyes must be ever toward the Lord, we must walk with him, and set him always before us, and in all our ways we must acknowledge him. Now, in order to the keeping up of this habitual regard to God, wherein consists so much of the power of godliness, it is requisite that we be frequent and constant at stated times in the solemn acts of devotion. We contract an acquaintance with our friends, and an affection for them, by being often in their company, interchanging knowledge and love; thus our acquaintance with God is cultivated by religious worship, and without that it withers and dies, and comes to nothing. The divine life is supported and maintained by the receiving and digesting of the bread of life, and not otherwise.

Communion with God is in short this: it is to admit into our minds the discoveries God has been pleased to make of himself, and of his will and grace, and to dwell upon them in our thoughts, and to make returns of agreeable affections and motions of soul suited to those discoveries. It is to delight ourselves in the pleasing contemplation of the beauty, bounty, and benignity of our God, and to employ ourselves in the pious exercises of faith, love, and resignation to him, and in the joyful praises of his name.

And is one day in seven too much to be spent in such work as this? Or shall we break in upon the bounds which the divine law has set about that mountain on which God has promised to come down, and lay it common with the wilderness? Should we not rather wish that every day were a Sabbath day, and that we might always dwell in God’s house, with them who are there still praising him?

If we did indeed love God as we ought, with all our heart and soul, we would not say when we have been attending upon him two or three hours in public worship, now we have surely done enough for this day, when we are invited, encouraged, and appointed still to continue our communion with him, still to feast upon his holy word, and repeat our addresses at the throne of grace in our closets and families. Would we be so soon weary of an intimate conversation with a friend we love and take pleasure in? No, with such a friend we contrive how to prolong the time of conversation, and when the hours of sitting together are expired, we stand together, and, as those who are loath to part, bid often farewell, and we add to this a walk together for further discourses. “Is this thy kindness to thy friend,” and wilt thou say of communion with thy God, “Behold what a weariness is it?” and contrive excuses to contract it, to break it off, or cut it short?

Reading the Holy Bible and other good books, repetition, catechising, singing psalms, praying, praising, profitable discourse; these are the exercises which, if they meet with a heart piously and devoutly affected toward God, will furnish us with such a pleasing variety of good works, to fill up those hours of the Lord’s day which are not spent in public worship, or in works of necessity and mercy, and will turn so much to our advantage that we shall complain of nothing so much as the speedy returns of the Sabbath evening, and the shadows thereof. Did we call the Sabbath a delight, as we ought, and the work of it a pleasure, we would be ready to say, “Sun, stand thou still upon this Gibeon,” let the day be prolonged, and the minutes of it doubled, for “it is good to be here,” here let us “make tabernacles;” or rather let us endeavour, by the grace of God, to do a double work in a single day, and long to be there where we shall spend an everlasting Sabbath in communion with God, a Sabbath that will have no night at the end of it, nor any week-day to come after it.

You who trifle away Sabbath time, I beseech you consider this seriously; “Seemeth it a small thing to you that the God of Israel” has “separated you to bring you near to himself?” That he has not only admitted you into covenant, but invited you into communion with himself? And is this a favour that must go a-begging with you, and that after all the court it makes to you, you will not be persuaded to accept of? And shall the conversation of a vain companion in an ale-house or tavern, the entertainments of a coffee-house, or an idle walk into the fields, be preferred before the honour and pleasure of communion with God in Christ! And will you indeed choose these broken cisterns rather than the fountain of living waters; these lying vanities rather than your own mercies? God in mercy open your eyes and show you your folly! Would David rather be a door-keeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness! and will you rather be door-keepers, slaves, and drudges, in the tents of wickedness, than dwell in liberty, ease, and honour in the house of your God?

Oh that I could now prevail with you to look upon it as your main business on the Lord’s day, from the beginning to the end of the day, to converse with God, and to mind it accordingly. If God will condescend to meet with you in your secret, as well as public, addresses to him, and has appointed you a set time for them, be not you so rude to him, and so unjust to yourselves, as to neglect them, or make but a short and slighting business of them.

4. The Lord’s day was appointed for furtherance and increase in holiness, and the carrying on of the work of sanctification in us; in the due performance of the work of the Lord’s day, and the due observance of its rest. In order thereunto there is not only the pleasure of maintaining communion with God, but the real benefit of increasing our conformity to him. This profit we shall have if we pray to him and keep his ordinances; while thus we behold the glory of the Lord, we are through grace changed into the same image. By worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness we come to be partakers of his holiness, and so the beauty of the Lord our God is upon us. And is it not worth while to oblige ourselves to the strictest and most careful observance of the Lord’s day, in prospect of those advantages by it?

The Sabbath day is a market day, a harvest day for the soul; it is an opportunity,—it is a time fitted for the doing of that which cannot be done at all, or not so well done, at another time: now, if this day be suffered to run waste, and other business minded than that which is the proper work of the day, our souls cannot but be miserably impoverished and neglected, and the vineyards we are made keepers of cannot but be like the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding. While you make no conscience of keeping the Sabbath day, and improving the precious minutes of it, no wonder that you are ignorant in the things of God, fools, or at least but babes in knowledge, for that is the time of getting understanding; no wonder that your lusts and corruptions are so strong as they are, and you so unable to resist Satan’s temptations, your graces so weak, and you so unready to every good word and work; for when you should be furnishing yourselves with what is needful for the support of your spiritual life, and the carrying on of your spiritual warfare, you are doing something else that is not only foreign and impertinent, but prejudicial and inconsistent.

Solomon has long since pronounced it, not only as the sentence of a wise king, but of a righteous God, that he who sleeps or plays in harvest is a “son that causeth shame,” and when he “begs in winter he shall have nothing.” This is your character, and this, if you do not repent and amend your doings, will be your case. If at last you perish eternally, under the power of a vain and carnal mind, and go down to hell in impenitence and unbelief, your contempt and profanation of the Lord’s day will greatly aggravate your condemnation; because your due improvement of that sacred day would have been a means to prevent your coming to that place of torment without a messenger sent to you from the dead.

Sirs, it is better to think of this now, when lost Sabbaths may be redeemed by an after care and diligence, than remember it in the bottomless pit, when the reflection upon it will but pour oil into the flames, and it will be too late to retrieve the precious hours that you are now so prodigal of. Oh what a cutting, what a killing remembrance will it be hereafter, to think, if I had spent that time on the Lord’s day in reading and meditation, in prayer and praise, and the study of the Scriptures, and other religious exercises, public, private, and secret, which I spent in tippling, or sporting, or working at my calling, or in idle or unprofitable conversation, I might have got that knowledge and grace, and kept up that communion with God which would not only have prevented my misery in this land of darkness, but would have prepared me for the inheritance of the saints in light! If I had been as eager to get wisdom as I was to get wealth, and as solicitous and industrious to please God as I was to gratify my own sensual appetite, and to recommend myself to a vain world, I might have been eternally happy, and equal to the angels of light, who am now likely to be for ever miserable, a companion with devils, and a sharer with them in their endless pains and horrors.

Then, oh then, thou wouldst give a thousand worlds, if thou hadst them, for one of those days of the Son of man thou art now so prodigal of. But the impassable gulf between thee and that grace which is now offered thee will then be immovably fixed, the bridge of mercy will then be drawn, and the door of hope will be shut for ever. Sabbaths cannot then be recalled, nor will the offers of life be made thee any more; now God calls and thou wilt not hear, then thou shalt call and he will not hear. Thou art now called once a-week to rest; to rest from the world, and rest in God; but thou callest even this rest a weariness, and snuffest at it; justly, therefore, will he swear in his wrath that thou shalt never enter into that rest of which this is a type, and if thou be shut out from it thy condition will be for ever restless. Surely thy heart is desperately hardened if this consideration make no impression on thee.

5. The Lord’s day was appointed to be an earnest and sign of our everlasting rest; the rest that remains for the people of God. It is intended to remind us of heaven, to fit us for heaven, and to give some comfortable pledges and foretastes of the joys and glories of that blessed state to all those who have their conversation in heaven, and their affections set upon things above. These are the days of heaven, and if heaven be an everlasting Sabbath, surely Sabbaths are a heaven upon earth, in them the “tabernacle of God is with men.”

And have you no value for eternal life, sirs, no concern about it? Is heaven nothing to you, or not worth the thinking of? Do you indeed despise the pleasant land, and prefer Egypt’s garlic and onions before Canaan’s milk and honey, and a mess of pottage before such a birthright and the privileges of it? Your profanation and contempt of the Lord’s day plainly says that you do so, and according to your choice you shall have your lot “so shall your doom be.”

You say you hope to be saved; but what ground have you for those hopes while you plainly show that you neglect this great salvation, by your neglect to commemorate Christ’s resurrection, by which it was wrought out, and your neglect to improve the means of grace by which you are prepared for it? If you had indeed any good hope of eternal life you would not think much to spend one day in seven in the joyful contemplation of it, and in getting yourselves ready for it.

You say you hope to go to heaven; but what pleasure can you take in the expectations of an everlasting Sabbath, and of the employments and enjoyments of that world, when you are so soon weary of these short Sabbaths which are types of that, and are ready to say, “When will they be gone?” What pleasure can it be to you to be for ever with the Lord, to whom it is a pain and a penance to be an hour or two with him now? What happiness will it be to you to dwell in his house, and to be still praising him in heaven, who, by your good-will, would be never praising him on earth, but grudge the few minutes that are so employed? Heaven will not be heaven to a Sabbath-breaker, for there is no idle company, no vain sports, no foolish mirth or unprofitable chat there; and these are his delights now, which he prefers before that communion with God, which is both the work and bliss of that world. All who shall go to heaven hereafter begin their heaven now; as in other things, so, particularly, in their cheerful conscientious observance of the Lord’s day.

And now lay all this together, and then tell me if there be not a great deal of reason why you should keep holy the Sabbath day, “call it a delight, holy of the Lord,” and therefore truly honourable, and why you should therefore honour and sanctify him on that day; not doing your own ways but his; not finding your own pleasure, but aiming to please God; not speaking your own words as on other days, but speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, Isa. 58:13.

Can the entanglements of custom, company, carnal pleasure, or worldly profit, be more powerful with you than all those sacred cords and bonds? Can the pleasing of a customer, the obliging of a friend, much less the gratifying of a base lust, balance the displeasing of God, the dishonouring of Christ, and the wronging of your own souls? I beseech you to consider it seriously, and be wise for yourselves.

After these considerations which I have urged surely I need not insist upon any other. I am confident the reigning love of God in your hearts, and a deep and serious concern about your precious souls and their eternal welfare, will furnish you with considerations sufficient to oblige you to as much strictness and care in the sanctification of the Lord’s day as the word of God requires, and as is necessary to answer the intentions of the institution: and more than this we do not insist on. Think much of that of the Pharisees, which though blasphemously misapplied to the Saviour, was grounded upon a great truth; “This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day,” John 9:16.

Will it be to any purpose to suggest this further consideration to you; That the way to prosper in your affairs all the week, and to have the blessing of God upon you in them, is to make conscience of the Lord’s day? That truly great and good man, the Lord Chief Justice Hale, writes very solemnly to his children; “I have found by a strict and diligent observation, that a due observance of the duties of the Lord’s day hath ever had joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my time, and the week that hath been so begun hath been blessed and prosperous to me; and on the other side, when I have been negligent of the duties of this day, the rest of the week hath been unsuccessful and unhappy to my own secular employments the week following. This I write,” saith he, “not lightly or inconsiderately, but upon long and sound observation and experience.”¹

Shall I remind you how much it will be for your credit with all wise and good people? Those who honour God he will honour. Shall I tell you with what comfort you may lie down at night in the close of a Sabbath, after you have carefully done the work of the day in its day? Yea, thou “shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.” Especially, think how sweet and easy your reflections upon well-spent Sabbaths will be when you come to die, and with what pleasure you will then look forward upon the everlasting Sabbath you hope to keep within the veil.

Wonder not that I am thus earnest with you in this matter; I see how much depends upon it, and I persuade as one who desires and hopes to prevail with you; let me not be disappointed, as you value the glory of your Creator, the honour of your Redeemer, and your own comfort and happiness in both worlds. I beseech you, “Remember the Sabbath day,” the Christian Sabbath, “to keep it holy.” Most certainly true that saying is which I have somewhere met with; “That the stream of all religion runs either deep or shallow according as the banks of the Sabbath are kept up or neglected.”