SO AN HUMBLE ATTEMPT, Etc. ished away ? 1 am well assured there are some members of the national church, that pay a most religious regard to the day of Christ and his resurrection : but there are multitudes that make but little account of it, especially when divine service is ended. Are you careful, my friends, to distinguish yourselves from those your looser neighbours in this matter ? Or do you give your- selves up to vain amusementsand impertinencies on the Lord's- day, or to trifling and formal visits ; and thus deprive two fami- lies at once of the 'serious improvement of what you and they have heard in public worship ? Are youcareful to spend as much time as you can in the worship of God through Jesus Christ, and in the concerns of your eternal welfare, either in the closet and retirement, or with some pious companions ? Or do you lavish away the evening in familiar 'forms of complaisance and ceremony, entertainment and diversion, without a word of God and religion, or recollecting thesermons of the day for your mu- tual increase of knowledge andgrace? I shall not detain you here to enter into a,debate about the morality of The sabbath, or the abolition of it among other Jewishceremonies, or the changes of it from the seventh to the first day of the week : I shall not stay to enquire what degree of holiness belongs to, each part of the day, or to the seventh part of time; but these three things, I think, I 'may lay flown for certain truths: 1. If there had not been sufficient commission given by the authority of Christ for appointing the first day rf the week, which was the day of his resurrection, to be the constant season of solemn assemblies for Christian worship, I am persuaded the apostles would not so frequently have chosen out and fixed that clay for the public ordinances of preaching, and praying, and breaking of bread. Now it is evident from the NeW Testament they practised this,' and appointed it in the churches which were converted to the christian faith: I add further, nor would it have been so universal and distinguishing a'mark of a christian in those primitive times to be an observer of the Lord's-day ; nor would it have been so early and so universally practised by all the christian world after the example of the apostles, which is sufficiently manifest in the ancient histories of the church : It is certain therefore that thiswas the day appointed to the primitive church for their religious assemblies by apostolic practice and di- rection, and it is most reasonably inferred they had the authority of Christ for it. 2. If there had been such a season as one clay in seven maintained and continued for a day of public devotion through the christian nations, considering the opposition ,of rulers, the vicious course of the world, and the negligence of Christians, it is pretty certain that the cares andlabours or pleasures of life,
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