If, by the blessing of God, I can happily persuade you thus to observe and improve the Lord's day, I am sure it will promote both your pleasure and your profit. Can it be a question with you, whether the God who made heaven and earth, or Satan, the god of this world, is the best master? Indeed I too well know the indisposition and averseness of the carnal mind to God and his ways. Hence the thought of many is, What a weariness is it? And, When will the sabbath be ended? Hence that open contempt and scorn, which is cast upon the sabbath, and upon public worship by many, both high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, old and young, men and women. To them the worship of God is tedious and disagreeable. They neither find pleasure in it, nor expect benefit from it. And therefore their attendance is not from choice, but from constraint. But the thoughts and the conduct of true Christians are very different. No day is so welcome to them as the Lord's day; not merely considered as a day of rest from labour; but because, having their heads and hearts freed from the cares and incumbrances of the world, it affords them opportunities of waiting upon God. And, brethren, you must allow that these persons are best qualified to judge of the question I have proposed, Whether is best, to walk in the ways of God, or in the ways of sin? For they have experienced both sides of the question. They have tried the pleasures of the world, and they have also tried the pleasures of religion. And they will readily assure you, that in their deliberate judgment, one day thus spent in devotion, and the exercises of religion, is preferable to a thousand days wasted in the vain and unsatisfying pleasures, which they sought in their former wicked practices [Ps. lxxxiv. 10.]. I have written thus largely upon the due observance of the Lord's day, because of that shameful, open, and general neglect, that daring profanation of the Sabbath, which abounds amongst us. It is well known, and it is matter of great grief and concern to me, that numbers of you pay not the least regard to this day. Numbers of you will not come to public worship at all, others but seldom, and then with much reluctance. And when spoken to, different persons frame different excuses, all which, when examined, amount to little more than a want of inclination.