When Does the Lordsday Actually Begin? (No.3)

Question 50: Q. What other reason is there of the Lord’s day’s beginning in the morning?

Answer: Christ then rose. (Mark. 16: 2-9)

"Of Christ’s rising in the morning no question can be made, all the Evangelists agree in the narration thereof.  Now the Lord’s day being a memorial of Christ’s Resurrection, if it should begin in the evening, the memorial would be before the thing it self: which is absurd to imagine.  As all God’s works were finished before the first Sabbath, so all Christ’s sufferings before the Lord’s day.  His lying dead in the grave was a part of his suffering: therefore by his Resurrection was all ended.  With his Resurrection therefore must the Lord’s day begin.

      To make the evening before the Lord’s day a time of preparation thereunto, is a point of piety and prudence: but to make it a part of the Lord’s day is erroneous, and in many respects very inconvenient."

- William Gouge, The Sabbath’s Sanctification 

(London, 1641), pp 25-6.