A THOROUGH EXAMINATION.
I commenced with human authors, and read Fuller, Buck, Doddridge, Paley, Wilson, Humphrey, Nevins, Kingsbury, Phelps, Whateley, and others; and I was astonished to find every one of them admitting, that there is no express command, precept, or passage of Scripture, to authorize the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. They all attempt to support the practice by inferences and analogical reasonings from particular events. Not having veneration large enough to bow to their great names and acute reasonings, I was landed upon a lonely shore, without pilot or compass, with no guide but the truthful chart of Revelation. As I had often vowed in my heart to the Lord, that I would be a Bible Christian so far as I could discover the meaning of the divine Word, or know the revealed will of God; and had more than once told my Pedobaptist friends, when accused of sectarianism, that I would leave all for the truth's sake, if I could discover that I was wrong; I was greatly perplexed, for I found a great fact—The Sabbath was changed. The greater part of the world, the most estimable of Christians, do keep their weekly Sabbath on the first day! Can they all be wrong? I conversed with some, and found them more inconsistent in their reasons than the authors I read. For a time, to sanction the change of the Sabbath, I took what may properly be called prelatical ground. It may be stated as follows, viz: "The thing exists; and in the New Testament we find some things which appear to us so like it, that, we conclude this and they are identical; though we cannot find the particulars of the change. And besides, we find some occurrences mentioned in the New Testament which seemingly happened in accordance with it and which afford reasons for it, and so we think, they should be considered satisfactory evidences of the change existing at the time." But my confidence in this fact was overturned by discovering another great fact, viz: That the first day was not honored as a Sabbath during the first two centuries of the Christian era; and that when it did come to be so observed, it was not on the considerations that are now alledged, but on what appeared to me a wicked reason—mere spite to the Jews. I therefore commenced anew,