It is a singular spectacle to observe the course which the advocates of the first day Sabbath are compelled to adopt. After having proved the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, by a number of absurd inferences, which apparently settle that question to their satisfaction, they find themselves in an exceedingly awkward position. Sunday has now become the Sabbath, but where is the commandment that obliges men to keep it holy? Where is the precept which teaches men how to observe this new Sabbath? It will do very well for the advocates of Sunday to resort to the fathers for proof that the Sabbath has been changed to that day, but to produce from the fathers, the commandment for Sunday-keeping is rather too hazardous an imposition to be attempted.
What then shall be done? To acknowledge with frankness that God has never given any precept or commandment for the observance of this new Sabbath, would also be acknowledging that its observance is not a part of man's duty. Eccl. xii, 13. This therefore will not do. In this emergency a lucky expedient seems to have suggested itself. It was this: "Sunday has become the Sabbath, and as it lacks a commandment to enforce its observance, and must have one, we will employ the fourth commandment for this purpose. There can be no harm in this, for the commandment says 'Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,' and the seventh day has ceased to be the Sabbath, and therefore needs this commandment no longer while the first day of the week has become the Sabbath, and is in perishing need of something of this kind."
Whether the advocates of Sunday-observance hold any of this plausible reasoning with their own consciences or not, we are unable to determine with certainty. But with regard to the acts which they have performed, or rather attempted to perform, we are able to speak without hesitation. They have seized the Lord's Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, and stripped it of the fourth commandment, as the soldiers stripped Christ of his robe when they were about to crucify him. Having done this they consign the Sabbath of the Lord to destruction, and choosing in its stead the first day of the week, as the Jews chose Barabbas the robber, instead of Christ the Lord of the Sabbath, they array their new Sabbath in the stolen fourth commandment.
This conduct may enable Sunday-keepers to deceive those who employ their ministers to do their reading of the Bible, and their thinking for them. But God, let it be remembered, is not deceived by all this; and the day of judgment will show that men cannot mock God with impunity. Ministers of the gospel, and religious teachers, have so long and so generally taught men that Sunday was the Sabbath, and have repeated with so much assurance, the fourth commandment in support of the observance of that day, that the deception seems almost complete in the case of thousands. Take heed that no man deceive you.