he who died and rose from the dead this day for us. O how delightful to think, this is the day my Redeemer lived again. Do others delight in the day of their birth, and shall not I delight in the day on which my Lord did live again.

8. It is a delight when we come on the Sabbath to get assurance, that we shall keep an everlasting Sabbath with God above: And if a transient enjoyment of God in a Sabbath here be so pleasant, how much more to have the full enjoyment of God on that Sabbath above to all eternity!

Quest. 3. Do not the special delights of the Sabbath excel all other delights, and wherein do they excel?

Ans. 1. They transcend them in their foundation; they are well founded, not on mistakes and delusions, as carnal delights and pleasures are, but on the sure word of God, that is unalterable, his wl-ordered covenant. Carnal men rejoice in fancies and delusions, but know not how matters are with them. If they knew how near hell and damnation they are; if they knew the shortness of their pleasures, and the length of their sorrows, they would have little heart to sport or laugh; nay, it would soon turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation.

2. Spiritual delights surpass them in reality; the pleasures of the wicked are but seeming and outward, but believers delights are real, hearty, and inward. In the midst of the laughter of the wicked, their hearts are sad; though their senses be some way tickled and affected, yet the heart is not. But with believers it is otherwise, Psalm_iv. 7. "Thou hast put more gladness in my heart," &c. Spiritual delight goes to the heart.

3. They are suitable delights, seeing they are intellectual. Carnal delights in drinking, sporting, &c. make men more like beasts than men. The beasts have pain and pleasure by their senses, but not sorrow nor delight, because these are intellectual. So the joy of carnal men is rather pleasure than delight; but the more intellectual and chaste our delights are, the more pure and suitable are they to the human nature: Yea, the more our delights are in loving, praising, and worshipping God on the Sabbath, they make us more like angels than men.

4. They surpass them in innocency. Carnal delights, the more we use them, the more we are ensnared by them;

they pervert the heart, disorder the mind, and indispose for duty: But spiritual delights have no such effect; they are so far from perverting or disordering, that they corroborate and strengthen the graces; they compose and purify the mind; they make sin the more odious, and fortify us the more against the baits of sense.

5. They excel them in security. Spiritual delights are pure like crystal streams, whereas carnal delights are embittered with fear, stings of conscience, and sense of guilt.

6. They excel them in strength and sweetness. There is delight in thinking on our temporal interests, but much more in thinking on Christ, and our interest in him, and the well ordered covenant: Yea, there is more delight in the hardest part of Sabbath-work, viz. in mortifying one sin or lust, than carnel men have in satisfying a thousand.

7. They are more profitable delights. There is more profit in one day, yea, one hour's communion with God, than in the worldly gains of a thousand market days. Oh! do men toil hard in labouring six days of the week for gains of the world, and will we not labour one day for that which endureth to everlasting life?

ever.

8. They are more satisfying than all worldly delights. Surely there is more satisfaction in the spiritual recreations of this day, than in all carnal sports and pastimes whatsoO what satisfaction is there in thinking on the work of redemption, and of all that Christ did and suffered for the accomplishment of it. What a pleasant recreation is it to find and feel the actings of love and desire to God, and to have a sense of God's love unto the soul; to meditate on the eternal sabbath of rest from sin, sickness, temptation, and all evil whatsoever, and of joining in the perfect love and praises of that blessed company above to all eternity?

9. They surpass them in this, that they end well, whereas carnal delights do not. Carnal delights are like the crackling of thorns under a pot; they make a great blaze and noise for a little, but then they go out in darkness; or, like the light of a candle, that doth shine for a little, but then goes out in a stinking snuff. So with carnal delights, they make way for sorrow, "for the end of that mirth is heaviness," according to Prov. xiv. 18. Carnal delight and recreations, especially on the Sabbath, leave a sting behind

them, whenever conscience is awakened, and these are the forerunners of hell.

Quest. 4. What are those things in the Sabbath we ought to delight in ?

Ans. 1. In the restraints which the Sabbath lays on us, in hindering us from our worldly employments and recreations, and from all the pleasures of sin; this we should delight in.

2. In the duties and services which the Sabbath obligeth us unto.

Quest. 5. What are those duties and services of the Sabbath, which we ought to delight in ?

Ans. 1. There are public services and duties which we should delight in; as in the hearing of the word, prayer, praises, and receiving of the sacraments.

2. Private duties, as reading of the word, prayer, meditation, Christian conference, mourning for sin, &c.

FINIS.