“ But that the great importance of the Sabbatic Institution may be more distinctly felt, let it be blotted out from existence. Not only let the day which God himself "sanctified and blessed," be disregarded; but let there be no day whatever devoted as a season of rest and religious improvement. Let every thing which has the least semblance of the Sabbatic rest be annihilated. What now is the state of morals? What kind of order prevails in society? Why, men are not ashamed when they commit abomination, neither can they blush. They can glory in their shame, and hell seems to be let loose. ”

“ When you advocate the observance of a day of rest on the ground of expediency, we are persuaded that you do so in view of the bearing you perceive it to have upon the well being of mankind. But still the question will arise, Has the gospel less regard to the well being of mankind than the law had? Look at the humanity of the sabbatic institution. How necessary that both man and beast should rest one day in seven. How evident that they cannot endure uninterrupted toil. How perfectly well established, that, if doomed to constant labor, they sink under the premature exhaustion of their powers. ”

“ Can anything give dignity to the sacred day, as founded in the essential relation of man to his Maker and Redeemer, if this sublime language does not? Every idea of sanctification, every sense of importance from a sign of a covenant between God and man, every sanction derived from the awful punishment of death, unite to impress upon us the duty; whilst the proportion noted between the working days and the day of rest, and the reason drawn from the order of creation, extend the obligation to every human being. ”

“ The Sabbath was not made for man, for man as a genus, as a race, unless it was made for every individual of the race; for the first, and for the last man; for the first generation, and for every other. The Sabbath, then, must have existed from the beginning, and is as old as the human race. Our Lord says, moreover, 'The Sabbath was made for man.' He says not, the Jewish Sabbath, or the Christian Sabbath, but the Sabbath, the common, the universal one, which belongs to mankind. Is this not the very language to denote a universal and perpetual institution? ”

“ Why do men hate with such perfect hatred what Jehovah made, and blessed, and sanctified, before {17-13} sin had entered into the world? Why should this daughter of Innocence be spurned, from every door, and loaded with the damning reproach of Judaism, while her twin sister, Marriage, sucks the breasts, and is dandled upon the knees of Orthodoxy? Why should I be ranked with thieves and murderers, for believing that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord my God?" ”

“ It is not for a few to go through with the solemn act of dedicating themselves, while the rest make it a mere holiday, in which they look on, as boys witness the manouverings of soldiers on parade day. But all the sons and daughters of Adam—for all are alike the workmanship of the Divine Being—are equally bound to direct their eyes and their hearts to Him who made them, and to say, "Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." ”

“ But to dismiss all further argument concerning the distinction between moral and positive duties, let it be admitted that the Sabbath is a positive institution in the very strictest sense; let it be admitted to be nothing more than an arbitrary appointment, having no foundation in the natural and primary relation of man to his Creator—it must nevertheless remain in force so long as that dispensation lasts to which it is peculiar. Hence it must still be in force; for the dispensation to which it belongs, is the dispensation of nature itself. ”

“ If the New Dispensation actually has abrogated the Sabbath, we do not believe that it is expedient to observe it. We cannot believe, however, that an institution so important to the civilization, refinement, and religious prosperity of mankind, has been abrogated. We refer you to our publications, and to the publications of those who have, in common with us, defended the perpetuity of the sabbatic law; and we entreat you to reconsider your ground. The doctrine of expediency! What a fruitful source of corruption has it been to the church of God! ”

“ We disclaim all right of human government to exercise over, or fetter in the least, the religious rights of any being. Might is not right, neither does the accident of being a majority give any, claim to trample on the rights of the minority. It is a usurpation of authority to oppress the minority, or set at naught their indefeasible rights. In civil affairs we respect the authorities that be, but in religious service, resent being forced to keep the commandments of men. ”

“ Applauding their spirit, we know that you will agree with us in the sentiment, that the preservation of that liberty which they achieved and perpetuated in our ever-glorious Constitution, is the highest civil duty which we owe to ourselves, to our posterity, and to our nation. All but coercionists will agree with us, that the preservation of our religious liberty is a sacred duty, which we owe alike to the cause of truth and our political happiness. ”

“ Both God and man will bear witness, in the day of final reckoning, that you have trampled down, by the resistless force of an overwhelming majority, one who was endeavoring with both hands to hold up the standard of the great Covenant God of our fathers. But though for the present cast down, I am not dismayed. The Sabbath of the Lord God is a richer treasure than the richest you can either give or take away. ”

“ Yet for this I am declared to be the "least in the kingdom of heaven," and no longer worthy of a seat at the table of Him who said, that "one jot or one tittle" should in no wise pass from the law.
Blessed be God! it is a light thing to be judged of man's judgment. But I confess that sometimes my blood runs cold, when I think of this solemn declaration of the same "Lord of the Sabbath," (John 12:48,) "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." "Never man spake like this man." ”

“ The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle, that man's relation to his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. ”

“ If they heed not these monitions, they do but feel some aching void, some uneasy distress, wholly unlike those peaceful feelings which result from a due improvement of the season. Whatever be a man's theory, he feels better when he sanctifies one day in seven to the Lord: his body feels better—his soul feels better. This feeling is not one which grows out of the airy visions of a distempered brain; but it is one which is capable of being resolved into solid arguments.
Without a Sabbath, it would be utterly impossible to promote the interests of religion. ”

“ The time cannot be far distant, when those who, "as touching the election, are beloved for the fathers' sakes," shall be called to behold the glory of God, in the face of Him they have so long rejected. But in order to this, a voice from the divine word cries, "Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people." Have Christians seriously considered what this stumbling-block is? For our own part, we are persuaded that nothing can be more justly called by this name, than the general abandonment, on the part of Christians, of the Sabbath of the Lord. ”

“ The laws for the observance of the first day are in fact a union of Church and State. It is not pretended that they are designed to subserve directly a political or civil object. It is altogether a religious object which they subserve. It becomes every friend of equal rights, as he loves the Constitution of his country, to oppose these infractions of its just principles, until equal liberty is secured to all citizens by statutory provisions, as by the fundamental laws of the nation.
Our opponents often remind us of their pretence, that we are under no more restrictions than other citizens ”

“ Forbearance is no longer a virtue. A succession of abuses and usurpations of our rights, has compelled us to take measures to resist, with all the legal means in our power, and with all that we can honorably acquire, whatever laws abridge the rights or coerce the consciences of ourselves or our fellow-citizens on religious or sectarian considerations. Appealing to Jehovah and his holy law for the rectitude of our principles and the righteousness of our cause, we have implored, and shall continue to implore, the interposition of his Providence to succeed our efforts. ”

“ Those who acknowledge the necessity of any Sabbath whatever, consider the observance of it a duty devolving upon men irrespective of their connection with the church, binding them in the isolated and individual capacity, even though church privileges were altogether out of the question. Were an individual abiding in some lone cavern of the Rocky Mountains, or roaming the uninhabited and trackless wastes of the earth, far, far from scenes of busy life, the law of God still binds him "to remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." ”

“ We might as well argue that the New Testament belonged merely to the primitive Christians, because it was delivered directly to them, and constituted the rule of their conduct and the basis of their hopes. Yea, we might as well suppose that no nation except the Jews were bound not to have any other gods before the Lord, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness, as to suppose that the Decalogue was purely of a national character, and binding merely on that people during their continuance as a national church. ”

“ The argument that proves the Sabbath law not to be ceremonial, proves the same of the day. Did the Sabbath law originate in Paradise, when man was innocent, and had no need of a Redeemer? So did the day. It was then sanctified and blessed. Does the Sabbath law take cognizance of the relation on which all the precepts of the moral law are founded, viz. the relation we sustain to God as creatures to Creator? So does the day. It is a memorial of this relation, and of the rest entered into by God after he, by his work, had established the relation. ”

“ For though he has been created anew in Christ Jesus,—the principle of holiness being thus re-implanted—yet has he a harder task to live holy to the Lord, inasmuch as there is "a law in his members warring against the law of his mind," "the flesh lusting against the spirit." Therefore he needs all the aid the Sabbath can bring to his soul. He needs "the restoring, the awakening day—the day of recovery and reformation—the day that brings him back to recollection, to seriousness, to penitence, to prayer." ”

“ If the Lord charge man with robbery in withholding perishable tithes and offerings, and curse him for that delinquency, how much greater, think ye, must be the condemnation of those who set at naught his prerogative to institute and ordain the service of the sanctuary? He alone has the right to impose religious ordinances; and it is but the reasonable service of his creatures to obey, implicitly, his righteous mandates—the sacred injunction, to hallow and sanctify his holy Sabbath. "Will a man rob God?" ”

“ We might multiply cases to illustrate our argument, but it is needless. Every instance of departure from God's law, we believe, will be found to have originated in selfishness. But that manner of keeping the day which looks at our own interest, rather than the honor of God, can in no way be called "keeping it holy." For if it is holy, it is consecrated to the Lord, not to ourselves. But in all the foregoing instances, it is manifest, the individual looks first to himself. Such selfishness is idolatry, and is the very spirit that governs the carnal mind. ”

“ We approach you in the belief that "open rebuke is better than secret love"—that "faithful are the wounds of a friend"—and that we "should admonish one another daily, and so much the more as we see the day approaching." We feel bound to exert ourselves in this cause, in the belief that "our labor will not be in vain in the Lord," that the church is "coming up out of the wilderness," and that we live in the dawn of a brighter day, in a period of the world when the scriptures and the providences of God concur in affording the highest encouragement to the faithful advocates of truth and duty. ”

“ Third—The Sabbath law is perpetual, "binding all men in all ages."
Fourth—The seventh day was the only weekly Sabbath for at least four thousand years.
Lord, sanctify us by thy truth. May the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, whom thou sendest in the name of thy Son our Lord, abide in us and preside in this controversy. May he teach us all things, and bring all things to our remembrance. May all bitterness, and wrath, and malice, and evil-speaking, be far from us; and may we love one another with pure hearts fervently—for Christ's sake. Amen.
CHAPTER I.
First Reason. ”

“ It seems to men befitting the ends of a weekly Sabbath, under the Christian dispensation, to observe the first rather than the seventh day, and hence a change is inferred, without any express authority from God to that effect; as though it were lawful to change a divine institution when it appears to us that greater reasons exist for a change, than for its unamended continuance—a principle which would justify all the innovations and extravagancies of Popery. But no such power is given unto men. ”

“ How much more vast the work of Redemption is than that of creation, we pretend not to say, as we are not able to measure the extent of either. To say which work makes the most powerful impression upon our minds, and fills us with more sublime ideas, is more easy. But that is no criterion by which to judge of their relative magnitude. Let it even be conceded that Redemption exceeds in glory the work of creation, still, whence do we derive those powers by which we estimate its glory? ”