The divine appointment of the Lords day proved as a separated day for holy…

IT is long since the foregoing Treatise was promised to a Person of Honourable Rank, who was inclined to the Jewish Sabbath; but before it was finished, or well begun, I had a sight of a Treatise on the same subject, by the late Reverend Worthy Servant of Christ Mr. Hughes of Plymouth, which inclined me to take my promised work as unnecessary. But yet some reasons moved me to reassume it. Near two Months after it went from me to the Press, the said Treatise of Mr. Hughes first, and after another on the same subject by ⟨p. 230⟩Dr. I. Owen came abroad. Yet do I not reverse mine, because many Witnesses in an Age of Enmity and Neglect, can be no injury to a truth so serviceable to the Cause of Christianity, and the prosperity of the Church, and the good of souls. Though if I were one that took the Churches prosperity to consist in the Riches, Grandeur, Ease and Domination of Empire of Papal Pastors, rather than in the humble, holy, heavenly, self-denying imitation of a Crucified Christ, I would have forborne a subject which is all for our preparation for a Heavenly Sabbatism, and carrieth men above the sensual Rest of Fleshly men, and therefore is so much disrelished by them, Rom. 8. 6, 7, 8. But supposing it my duty to do what I have done, I think meet to advertise the Reader, that when several men treat of the same subject, though they speak the same things in the main, yet usually each of them bringeth some considerable light, which is omitted by the rest: And as the same Spirit sets them all on work, so all together give fuller evidence to the truth, than any one of them alone. And I hope the Concourse ⟨p. 231⟩of these three Tractates doth prognosticate, that (though the Devil hath so contrived the business for the Profane, that like Papists, they will hear and read none, but those that are not like to change them; yet) God will awaken the sober and serious believers of this Age, to a more holy and fruitful improvement of his day; which will greatly tend to the increase of real Godliness, and consequently to the recovery of the dying hopes of this apostatizing and divided Age.

IT is long since the foregoing Treatise was promised to a Person of Honourable Rank, who was enclined to the Jewish Sabbath; but before it was finished, or well begun, I had a sight of a Treatise on the same subject, by the late Reverend Worthy Servant of Christ Mr. Hughes of Plimouth, which enclined me to take my promised work as unnecessary. But yet some reasons moved me to reassume it. Near two Moneths after it went from me to the Press, the said Treatise of Mr. Hughes first, and after another on the same subject by