Excommunicated by A. S. Hutchins

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 8, 1859

Excommunicated.

By A. S. Hutchins

Bro. Smith : Not long since I clipped the following from the Exeter News Letter, Aug. 1, 1859:

"Excommunicated.—During the last week a member of Dr. Cheever's church in N. Y., was excommunicated for asserting that there is no authority in the New Testament for keeping Sunday after the manner of the Jewish Sabbath."

This shows the Dr's. manner of disposing of his members who dare express an opinion against scriptural authority for Sunday-keeping. Why not take the Bible and show the member the chapter and verse where we are bound to remember the First-day to keep it holy? Why does not some learned man find it, if it is there? Is the first-day anywhere called the Sabbath in the Bible? A preacher told me, a few days since, he did not know that it was. But I have heard him call it the Sabbath several times since. Is this right? It is easy to call the first-day the Sabbath, but to prove it, is quite another thing. The more the learned and the unlearned try to sustain Sunday, the more blindness and darkness they manifest. Their arguments and efforts on this point, remind me of what the father said of his dwarf son, "His greatness," said he, "consists in his littleness."

A. S. Hutchins.