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

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

Having often been solicited to give an account of my conversion from the observance of what is commonly called the Lord's Day, or Sunday, to the observance of the ancient Sabbath of Jehovah, the seventh day of the week, I submit this brief narrative to public notice, not so much for the justification of my present practice, as in the hope that it may be the means of leading many other Christian people candidly to examine this subject, which, as it appears to me, is very essential to the restoration of primitive Christianity. The narrative derives its importance, not from the person of the narrator, but from the practical exhibition which it furnishes of the working of divine truth upon the mind.

THE TRUE SABBATH EMBRACED AND OBSERVED.

EARLY PREPOSSESSIONS.

My parents, and nearly all of my fainly connections, being members of Baptist churches, or attached to that denomination-and I having been a member of the same for above twenty-five years, and more than half that time an accredited minister among them-all my preferences and prepossessions were with their peculiarities as churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there was one characteristic doctrine of the Baptists which I esteemed above another, it was this: "We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by the inspiration of God, and are a perfect rule of faith and practice." I could say with the Psalmist, "My heart standeth in awe of thy word; for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name."

MATURED ATTACHMENTS.

I believed firmly, that if there was a Christian people upon the earth who had kept the primitive faith from the days of the apostles, and had never symbolized with the errors of the church of Rome in her idolatrous and adulterous course, that people was the Baptist denomination. If there was any thing in my religious privileges in which I gloried, it was in thinking that I had never been deceived by the working of that mystery of iniquity. I was sensible that the Baptists had errors among them; but I regarded them as the errors of fallible human nature, and not as departures from the constitucional doctrine and law of the Holy Scriptures

some of them superinduced by an unwatchful and familiar intercourse with our more erroneous Pedobaptist brethren, and hence mediately, though not directly, the effect of that great apostacy which was predicted as to come and deceive all nations. Holding these sentiments, I was ardently and conscientiously attached to that denomination, as the most scriptural people on earth. I did not doubt but that I should remain united with them in time, in death, and in eternal life.

REGARD FOR SCRIPTURAL CHRISTIANITY.

Notwithstanding my prepossessions and attachments, it has been my prevailing desire, from the time of my conversion, to be a Scriptural Christian; and since I became a teacher of others, I have felt a growing sense of obligation to know and teach the whole counsel of God aright. The words of the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples, saying, “Call no man master," "Call no man father," have for years been so deeply impressed upon my heart, that I have scrupulously refused to call myself a Fullerite, a Calvinist, an Armenian, or after any human name. Although I have my preferences in reading and approving the sentiments of great and good men, the Bible alone is my creed book.

FORMER SABBATH SENTIMENTS.

My former Sabbath sentiments were formed ac cording to the Puritan model. While a child, I learned Sutcliff's and Watts' Catechisms, in both of which it is taught, that the ten commandments are a rule of life to good men; and traditionally I was taught, that the Sabbath was charged from the seventh to the first day of the week in honor

of the resurrection of Christ; and I fully believed this was confirmed by the various references to the first day contained in the New Testament.

DISTURBED ABOUT THE SABBATH.

I was first disturbed about the Sabbath seven years ago, when a brother sent me a tract upon the subject, called the Investigator. I read it with considerable interest, and was much perplexed in attempting to satisfy myself with my own views, as I went along in the perusal of it. I wished then, that there had been something more explicit upon the subject of the change of the day than what I could find in the New Testament. Not questioning, however, but that it was divinely changed, I quieted, rather than satisfied, my mind with what I supposed to be abundant apostolic example; and I remarked, that if our Pedobaptist brethren could produce from the Scriptures as clear examples of infant baptism, as we could of keeping the first day of the week for a Sabbath, I would admit its validity. Although I would not dare to say so now, then it sufficed to quiet my mind.

I had no farther solicitude upon the subject, until about midsummer of 1843. At that time, as several professors of religion of my acquaintance did not regard the day as I thought the Lord's Day ought to be regarded, I conculded to preach a sermon upon the subject, and commenced preparing one. I had then recently purchased Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church during the First Three Centuries. I read this book with much satisfaction, as the work of an able and candid historian, who takes a philosophical view of the events and circumstances of society which operated to give character to those early ages of