DISCOURSE L 543 your further acquaintance with God, and things heavenly, tó your greater delight in him, to the mortification of sin, and growth of holiness, if there were no time devoted to religion, but merely that hour or two in the morning, or afternoon, while you are at church? How would the words of the preacher run off from your souls, like a stream of oil gliding over a marble, if there were no recollection to fix it in your memory ? How easily would Satan pluck up the good seed that was sown in the heart, if you join and assist him, by giving a loose immediately to the cares and delights of this life, and call them to break in upon you at the end of the sermon ? Howwould all your good thoughts and holy desires vanish away like a cloud, and ascend and be lost like a vapour on the morningdew ? A day of rest from the pleasures and toils of this life is necessary to render di- vine worship more effectual to our sanctification and salvation. We should therefore quit our heads and hands of worldly cares that day, that we may more easily converse with God and our own souls, and by secret and public devotion may be the better prepared for each other, in their turns, and improve more in religion by bothof them. We may reasonably conclude then, if Christ appointed the first day of the week for a season of the worship of God, he appointed it also to be a season of rest from the concernsand labours of this life, that his worship might be better performed, and the great ends of it behest secured. If it be enquired here, " why the first day of the seven was appointed for the christian sabbath, rather thanany ofthe others ?" It is usually answered, and with good reason, that when God reseedfront his work ofcreation, he appointed the seventh day for the ancient sabbath, to keep in mind the Creator of the world : and so when Christ rested from his works of redemption, he might appoint the first day, even the day, on which he arose from the grave, as most proper to keep the great work ofour redemp- tion in memory. That the fi'rst,dy of the weelcman observed by the apostles and first christians, in honour of the resurrection of Christ, is evident by its being called by a new and honourable name, the Lord's-day, as well as from other hints of scripture, and many plain and express assertions in the history of the pri- mitive church. You will say, why should not his birth, or his death, be as much a reason for pointing'out a new sabbath, as his resurrec- tion ? I answer, because neither the clay of his birth, nor his death, have such a name, or such honours put on it, as that of his resurrection : no apostles or churches have recom- mended it by their practice or example. Besides there are very great and learned men, who suppose that the apostle Paul in the fourthchapter to the Hebrews, proves a christian sabbath on this principle of Christ's finishing his work of redemption, and
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