DISCOUIISE I. 555 Answer. The holiness either of days or places, has very great degrees of difference in it. The land of Canaan was the holy land, because the people of God dwelt in it. Jerusalem was yet a more holy city, because God chose it for his habitation and his temple-worship. The inner courts of the temple were so holy, that the Gentiles might not walk in them ; and besides this, there was the holy place where 'none might enter but the priests ; and the most holy, where the high-priest only might appear, and that but once in a year. So it is also in times: there are several degrees of holiness in them. God blessed the seventh day in paradise and sanctified it, or made it holy, that is, sepa- rated it from the other days by a peculiar appointment for the rest of man, and the worshipof God ; so that the common labours of life were not to be continued or carried on upon that day. But it was a muchhigher degree of holiness that God put on the Jewish sabhath, by ordaining most peculiar ceremonies of wor- ship, and by a more absolute and rigorous command, of resting from every purposeof human life, which was not absolutely ne- cessary, and by severe penalties on the offender. Now all this Jewish holiness of times is abolished by the authority of Christ, and the writings of St. Paul under the gospel, as I have shown before. And indeed our Saviour seemed to give hints of this kind to the Jews, that the rigorous observance of the cere- monial sabbath was vanishing when he told them, the Son of manwas Lord of the sabbath ; Mark ii. 38: and bid the paralytic whom hehealed, take up hisbed and carry it, on the sabbath-day; John v. 8 -11. These Jewish sabbatisings being now abolished by many scriptures, and all their ceremonial holiness, I think the holiness of the Lord's clay, cannot rise higher that that ofthe paradisiacal sabbath before the Jewish ceremonies and holy things were intro duced ; for we have no such new order given us in the New Testament. If therefore we do but so far rest from the common business of life, as the due seasons of Christian worship require, in order to render that worshipmost useful to the public honour of our blessedLord, and to our own inward holiness and growth in grace, the chief designs of this day are complied with and ob- tained : Nor do I see any inconveniencein allowing that one day in seven, and particularly the Lord's -day, may have so much holiness as this in it ; since we suppose the chief parts of it are tb be separated from the common businesses of human life, inorder to worship God, and our risen Saviour, whose name the day bears ; while all .Jewish sabbatisms, and holy days, are abolished and renounced for ever. Question IV. If the observation of a holy sabbath; or one day in seven for worship and rest, be of such importance to pre- serve religion in the world, why is there not amore express and
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