And here follows a copy of my request to Court Elders and Messengers, wrote under the above questions as it is here.
My request to you is, That you will be pleased to see that an answer to my questions may be returned, by you or your elders, as you will answer it before God, the judge of Heaven and earth, and that we may not be compelled by the Authority to offer to God in divine worship that which he hath not commanded, against our consciences, and contrary to the Confession of your own Faith; and if God hath commanded the first day of the week to be kept for a Sabbath, to quote to us the place in Scripture where it is so commanded, and send it to us: And if there be no command of God for it in the Holy Scriptures, and only your own law in your Law Book, and your minister’s doctrine for it, then I desire you to read and consider what is written, Mat. 15, 7th, 8th and 9th verses, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
New London, the 7th of the third month, 1721. From him that wishes you well, and desires to see your salvation and not your destruction.
But I could obtain no answer from them; “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” John 3, 20.
And now my request to you, the said Courts, Elders and Messengers, is, in the presence and view of the world, to shew us chapter and verse, or verses, where God’s command is which commands the keeping the first day of the week for a Sabbath, by which you are not in the same danger Nadab and Abihu was, that we may escape with you; for I can find no such commandment throughout the whole Bible: For you, in the Confession of your Faith, set before us the great danger we are in, if we offer to God that in divine worship which he hath not commanded; not only the loss of our lives, as Nadab and Abihu did theirs, but eternal damnation also; as appears in your “Confessions of Faith,” Page 7, and in your second Counsel (before quoted).
Upon this consideration, I request this favor of you, so that we may venture in with you in keeping of it, by a commandment from God, if you know of any, for this will be more for your honour than to compel us against our own consciences (and your own counsels) by your own law, accompanied with your whips, stocks, fines and imprisonments; which hitherto you have been using to compel us to offer in divine worship that which God hath not commanded; and besides this, we are ashamed (I do not say you) to pretend to be “orthodox Christians” and “to resolve our faith into education, instruction, and the persuasion of others,” seeing you say in your “Confession,” page 6, that “this is no higher reason than a Papist, Mahometan or pagan can produce for his religion;” for we would not be like such spoken of in Zeph. 3, 5, “The unjust knoweth no shame.”
Thus it appears nakedly before your eyes, and to your consciences, that either your Counsels, in the Confession of your Faith, is very erroneous, or else your first day Sabbath, if it have no command of God for it, which I can find nowhere throughout the whole Bible—and that which can be found nowhere may well be concluded not to be at all. And the said Counsels in the Confession of your Faith is so substantially grounded on the holy Scriptures that I think it most safe to conclude that it is your Sabbath that is erroneous and idolatry (except you have a commandment of God for it) by the Confession of your own Faith.
I having been treating upon your Sabbath, the foundation almost of all your worship, which is the works of your own hands, by your own Confession, except you can find a commandment of God for it....
The following from “A Midnight Cry,” by John Rogers, Sr.
I desire that these following things may be well considered.