1. We find in the above this expression: "If the first day has no divine example for its observance it is not enjoined upon us. This then is the first point to be settled." That is the very point we consider settled. It remains to be shown that we are wrong in this, or it is admitted that the first day is not enjoined upon us.
2. "Did Luke's calling the seventh day the Sabbath make that day a permanent Sabbath," &c.
Luke's calling it the Sabbath did not make it the Sabbath to be sure; for it was the Sabbath before; permanently established; and Luke speaks of it as such.
3, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink," &c. The remarks which follow this quotation above are to the point. If the supplied word, days, is omitted, it must be rendered sabbaths; for the word is in the plural; and the fact that it is plural is an important consideration; for it fixes its reference, not to the Sabbath of the Lord, but to the ceremonial sabbaths of the Jews. We find that the Jews had four ceremonial sabbaths. Lev. xxiii. God foretold by the Prophet that these should cease. Hos. ii, 11. This is what Paul is speaking of as is evident from the context. Col. ii, 14-17. This passage, therefore, has no reference to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; and if this is all that one "can find in the epistles" in favor of First-day, it is as groundless as the "baseless fabric of a vision."
4. The next quotation is 1 Cor, xvi, 2, and the conclusion is drawn that the first day was permanently set apart for church or congregational duties. The duties there enjoined are just the opposite of congregational duties. It is n' place in the congregation to take a review of business matters to see what can be devoted to purposes of charity, and the Lord says, Do not your alms before men. And certainly this is not the work for the Sabbath. Neither the Acts nor the epistles can determine what day is meant in Rev. i, 10. The Lord himself decided that, when he affirmed, The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Mark ii, 28.