There is no excuse so trivial, that will not pass upon some men’s consciences to excuse their attendance at the public worship of God.  Some are so unfortunate as to be always indisposed on the Lord’s day, and think nothing so unwholesome as the air of a church.  Others have their affairs so oddly contrived, as to be always unluckily prevented by business.  With some it is a great mark of wit, and deep understanding, to stay at home on Sundays.  Others again discover strange fits of laziness, that seize them, particularly on that day, and confine them to their beds.  Others are absent out of mere contempt of religion.  And, lastly, there are not a few who look upon it as a day of rest, and therefore claim the privilege of their castle, to keep the Sabbath by eating, drinking, and sleeping, after the toil and labour of the week.  Now in all this the worst circumstance is, that these persons are such whose companies are most required, and who stand most in need of a physician.

But of all misbehaviour, none is comparable to that of those who come here to sleep; opium is not so stupifying to many persons as an afternoon sermon.  Perpetual custom hath so brought it about, that the words, of whatever preacher, become only a sort of uniform sound at a distance, than which nothing is more effectual to lull the senses.  For, that it is the very sound of the sermon which bindeth up their faculties, is manifest from hence, because they all awake so very regularly as soon as it ceaseth, and with much devotion receive the blessing, dozed and besotted with indecencies I am ashamed to repeat.

One cause of this neglect is, a heart set upon worldly things.  Men whose minds are much enslaved to earthly affairs all the week, cannot disengage or break the chain of their thoughts so suddenly, as to apply to a discourse that is wholly foreign to what they have most at heart.  Tell an usurer of charity, and mercy, and restitution, you talk to the deaf; his heart and soul, with all his senses, are got among his bags, or he is gravely asleep, and dreaming of a mortgage.  Tell a man of business, that the cares of the world choke the good seed; that we must not encumber ourselves with much serving; that the salvation of his soul is the one thing necessary.  You see, indeed, the shape of a man before you, but his faculties are all gone off among clients and papers, thinking how to defend a bad cause, or find flaws in a good one; or, he weareth out the time in drowsy nods.

There are many who place abundance of merit in going to church, although it be with no other prospect but that of being well entertained, wherein if they happen to fail, they return wholly disappointed.  Hence it is become an impertinent vein among people of all sorts to hunt after what they call a good sermon, as if it were a matter of pastime and diversion.

This indecent sloth is very much owing to that luxury and excess men usually practise upon this day, by which half the service thereof is turned to sin; men dividing the time between God and their bellies, when, after a gluttonous meal, their senses dozed and stupified, they retire to God’s house to sleep out the afternoon.  Surely, brethren, these things ought not so to be.