3. It abuses God's Word, and misleads his people. It abuses his word by representing that the Word teaches what it does not teach, and that it fails to teach what it attempts to teach. It misleads his people, on one side, by pressing the fourth commandment to sustain the first day of the week, which it says nothing about, thus laying a yoke upon the people, requiring them to observe a day, in regard to which they will finally be asked, Who hath required this at your hands? On the other side, it misleads the people, by encouraging them to neglect a day which God hath sanctified; and commanded them to keep holy.
Such are some of the consequences of this false exposition of the fourth commandment. They affect both the sabbatic institution itself, and those whose duty it is to remember it. It is true that the persons who countenance such expositions are called very zealous and godly men; but this, instead of bettering the case, makes it worse. If they were enemies to the commandment, such things might be expected, and would be comparatively unimportant; but that the wound should be inflicted by its friends, aggravates the evil. There is occasion to tremble for some religious teachers, who profess great interest in the Sabbath, but who yet refuse to hear the truth in regard to it. Some such there are, who, if the truth be presented to them, instead of inquiring if these things are so, imitate the Jews of old who, when they were cut to the heart, gnashed on their reprover with their teeth; and when they could endure it no longer, "stoppped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord." Such would do well to inquire if they are not in this thing teaching error for truth, and their own traditions for the commandments of God.
Published by the American Sabbath Tract Society,
No. 9 Spruce-street, New-York.
THE
TRUE SABBATH
EMBRACED AND OBSERVED.
By Eld. SAMUEL DAVISON,
Many years a regular Baptist Minister; now Pastor of the Seventh day Baptist Church in Shiloh, New Jersey.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMER. SABBATH TRACT SOCIETY