DISTURBED ABOUT THE SABBATH.
I was first disturbed about the Sabbath seven years ago, when a brother sent me a tract upon the subject, called the Investigator. I read it with considerable interest, and was much perplexed in attempting to satisfy myself with my own views, as I went along in the perusal of it. I wished then, that there had been something more explicit upon the subject of the change of the day than what I could find in the New Testament. Not questioning, however, but that it was divinely changed, I quieted, rather than satisfied, my mind with what I supposed to be abundant apostolic example; and I remarked, that if our Pedobaptist brethren could produce from the Scriptures as clear examples of infant baptism, as we could of keeping the first day of the week for a Sabbath, I would admit its validity. Although I would not dare to say so now, then it sufficed to quiet my mind.
I had no farther solicitude upon the subject, until about midsummer of 1843. At that time, as several professors of religion of my acquaintance did not regard the day as I thought the Lord's Day ought to be regarded, I concluded to preach a sermon upon the subject, and commenced preparing one. I had then recently purchased Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church during the First Three Centuries. I read this book with much satisfaction, as the work of an able and candid historian, who takes a philosophical view of the events and circumstances of society which operated to give character to those early ages of church history. In the section on Christian Worship and Festivals, I was surprised to find the following statement, viz: "Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early indeed into the place of the Sabbath.... The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect—far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin." I was the more surprised at this statement, as I found Neander was not a Sabbath-keeper. He takes the high-church ground, acknowledging the right of the so-called apostolic or catholic church to alter or ordain the rites of Christian worship; which is indeed, the foundation principle of all Papal, Puseyite, and Pedobaptist observances. I saw clearly enough, that if Neander was right, I had no better foundation for Sunday-keeping than hierarchists have for their Easter, Ascension, and Christmas Festivals, which I had always repudiated; or than Pedobaptists have for sprinkling infants. I therefore determined to give the subject