Conscientiously believing, that the Lord God does require of them, the consecration of the seventh day of the week, to be observed as the sabbath unto the Lord, and that He does not require any other day to be kept as holy time, they consider themselves entitled to the same privileges and immunities, on the remaining six days of the week, in all lawful occupations, which all other citizens enjoy agreeably to their faith and relying on the integrity of the provision of our Magna Charta, they have uniformly exercised that right until quite recently. Within a few years past, they have been prosecuted by malicious persons, not having the fear of God before them, nor actuated by any zeal for the cause of religion or good morals, for laboring, on their secluded farms and in their workshops, on the first day of the week; and this repeatedly and continually until forbearance was no longer a virtue, and religion as well as the cause of freedom, required them to assert their rights and demand their charter immunities, at the Halls of Justice. It was expected that the question would be decided by the Supreme Court of the State at its last May sessions; but not having a full Bench, (Judge Rodgers being absent on a trip to Europe,) the case was continued to next May term. Whatever that decision may be, it is proper, as part of the history of the churches of the United States, that this effort to maintain, unimpaired, the religious rights, always regarded as secured to every citizen of our happy Union, should be recorded for preservation in a work devoted to the history and exposition of the principles of every branch of the whole church; which is about to be stereotyped and become the standard book of reference, for time to come, in such matters: which we shall do in as brief a manner as is consistent with the magnitude of the subject.

Recognizing the injunction: "Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's;

and unto God the things which are God's; and respecting, equally, the admonition : "Be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, &c.," in so far that they do not contravene the Word of God, nor do damage to the conscience of the individual,—they have ever been distinguished as a peaceable and industrious portion of the community; yielding their willing service to all good order, and sharing, cheerfully, in bearing the burdens of the Government and sustaining the credit of the Commonwealth: but God and God alone, they maintain, is the Sovereign of their spirits; and He alone has power to prescribe religious service. The secular government they consider has nothing whatever to do with religious faith and religious duties. Such power has not been delegated to our State nor to the Federal Government. Men in forming a Constitution, especially in a republic, compound natural rights, to secure civil protection; but they never compromit religious faith and religious duties. They may be wrenched from them by arbitrary power, not by voluntary concession. Our Government is a government professing to be separated entirely from any ecclesiastical power or control. The rights of conscience are set apart under the elementary principles of the compact, and range not among the category of expedients, to secure the proper administration of secular affairs, which is the only legitimate province of civil government. There was no such traffic of religious liberty in organiz ing our government-there was no such barter of allegiance to the "King of Kings," to conciliate the arm of power, and place a task-master over us. Might is not right; neither does the accident of being a majo rity give any warrant to oppress the minority, however small that minority may be. No government established by voluntary association, has, ever, any right to transcend the powers delegated to it; not for any purpose, nor any assumed exigency. Therefore, they have no right to legislate in matters of religious faith; nor have they any right, from any pretext whatever, to abridge the religious freedom secured to them by the fundamental law of the land-the Bill of Rights and the ever glorious Constitution. By our Bill of Rights

and by our honored Constitution, the Seventh day Baptists, in common with all other citizens of our Republic, are secured in their religious rights-religious equality and religious privileges. That Constitution suffers no ban on any individual's religious principles-no preference to be given to any sect or party; yet by successive legislative enactments, many of the States have imposed fines and penalties, and Justices of the Peace have enforced them against freemen of the Republic, for exercising their constitutional right of worshipping Almighty God, on his own appointed, hallowed, sanctified day, and pursuing their honest avocations on the other six days of the week. Thus, the Seventh day Baptists, in violation of vested rights and immunities, have been arraigned before the civil magistrates of the land as evil doers and disturbers of the peace, and have repeatedly been fined as criminals. They are treated as outlaws, placed before the public in a false and unfavorable light, and forced to yield two-sevenths of their time to religious rest, while other denominations observe but one-seventh; and that not the day required by the Word of God: and strange inconsistency, their persecutors, proven, on trial, to be the greater violators of the statute-guilty of open, flagrant immoralities, reveling in vices and crimes, regardless of God or man, on the legalized restday, escape, and prosecute with impunity. Strange as it may appear, yet it is nevertheless the fact, that with such testimony before the Magistrate, the Seventh day Baptists are mulcted, and the vagabond escapes. Thus, under unjust enactments, the ungodly oppress, and the righteous suffer; and this in the land of boasted liberality of sentiment and charter rights -the land of vaunted liberty and equality. And thus they must suffer until the Constitution shall have been vindicated by the Supreme Bench.

By that ever glorious Constitution, our liberties, our religious equality and religious rights, are inviolably secured, and S secured that they cannot be shaken or wrested from us by any action of any State Legislature. The toleration of religion has never been conferred upon our Legislature. It is an inherent right, a

reserved right, in the people, in each individual himself, never delegated to the State Legislature, nor to the Congress of the Union. All toleration or attempts at toleration in matters of religious faith and practice, is not only, in our estimation, a usurpation, but the vilest tyranny; bccause it assumes the power to grant and to withhold religious privileges, which belong unto God alone. We deny that the State or the Federal Government have any power to legislate on the subject. The Constitution of the State (Pennsylvania,) declares: "that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishments or modes of worship;" and the Constitution of the United States ordains, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" and again: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, ANY THING IN THE CONSTITUTION OR LAWS OF ANY STATE TO THE CONTRARY NOTWITHSTANDING."

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What is the difference, we ask, of a State religion, which taxes a parish a few dollars to support the established Church, and taking fifty-two days every year of a freeman's precious time, who voluntarily and conscientiously devotes the time required of him by his Maker, according to the requirements of His Word,-to sacrifice to the sectarian prejudices of those who have usurped a preference? It is, we maintain, a preference" given to the Sunday sect-making an unjust and oppressive distinction among the members of the same republican family. Besides, these Sunday laws, with their fines and penalties, are hindrances to the reception of the truth; and if acquiesced in, must, eventually, destroy its promulga tion throughout the land. Under these unrighteous laws, it cannot have "free course." This preference to sect, and this restriction of privilege, are in direct violation of our charter immunities-are wanton infractions on the Constitution of the State, and of the General Government.

That this security was designed by the Constitution of the United States, we have

from the pen of the immortal Washington; who was the Presiding Officer of the Convention that framed that instrument. In a letter written to a First-day Baptist Church, in Virginia, bearing date August 4th, 1789, he emphatically remarks: "If I had the least idea of any difficulty resulting from the Constitution, adopted by the Convention of which I had the honor to be President, when it was framed, so as to endanger the rights of any religious denomination, I never should have attached my name to that instrument. If I had any idea that the General Government was so administered, that the liberty of conscience was endangered, I pray you be assured, that no man would be more willing than myself to revise and alter that part of it, so as to avoid all religious persecution. You can without doubt remember, that I have often expressed as my opinion, that every man who conducts himself as a good citizen, is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshipping God, according to the dictates of his conscience." And the House of Representatives of the United States, in the year, 1830, made the following declaration to the world on this point, in the celebrated Sunday Mail Report:

"We look in vain to that instrument for authority to say whether first day, or seventh day, or whether any day, has been made holy by the Almighty." "The Constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian; and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual, than that of a whole community. That representative who would violate this principle, would lose his delegated character, and forfeit the confidence of his constituents. If Congress should declare the first day of the weck holy, it would not convince the Jew nor the Sabbatarian. It would dissatisfy both, and consequently convert neither."

"If a solemn act of legislation shall in one point define the law of God, or point out to the citizen one religious duty, it may with equal propriety define every part of revelation, and enforce every religious obligation, even to the forms and ceremonies of worship, the endowments

of the church, and the support of the clergy." . . . . . "The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle, that man's relation to his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle, which nothing can eradicate." .

"It is the duty of the Government to afford to all, to Jew or Gentile-Pagan or Christian-the protection and advantage of our benignant institutions, on Sunday as well as every day of the week."

Thus, in violation of our clearly defined charter rights, we are despoiled of our sacred immunities, by the secular arm. Our moorings have been cut loose-we have been sent adrift-our only Ararat is the ever glorious Constitution. We are, therefore, found in the Courts of Justice, much against our own inclinations. Opposed as we are in principle to contention and conflict under ordinary circumstances, yet it now becomes our duty, an imperative duty, to maintain our rights with all our ability, especially as fidelity to our high calling involves the most sacred principles, and that the more imperatively as the integrity of the law of our Maker is concerned, and the peculiar privilege of honoring Him and His institutions is put in jeopardy. As His disciples, we are required to contend for "the faith once delivered to the Saints." In this matter, we are not our own-"We are bought with a price;"-We have pledged our allegiance to Heaven, and have to "fight the good fight of faith," like true" soldiers of the Cross." The Sovereign of the Universe has commanded us to: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: but the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt do no work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that

sectarian prejudices, we may never hope for the restoration of our rights, which have been wrested from us by unjust and iniquitous legislation. We have therefore been constrained to appeal to the Judicial tribunals, not from any circumstances of our own seeking, but in self-defence-in the last extremity, to save God's heritage from being trampled under foot by the secular power, and the observance of His own institution being suppressed by the machinations of man. We are, thus, called upon by the most sacred sense of duty, to resist these intolerable invasions on our rights. We owe it to ourselves, to human rights and to our Maker. Where is our religious liberty if not permitted to follow the dictates of our own consciences, freely, fully, in serving our Maker, but are forced to yield another sixth of our precious time, than that required by our legitimate Ruler, by the enactment of unequal and invidious State statutes? Where is our religious freedom, if compelled to cease from our inde feasible right of "the pursuit of happiness" and the maintenance of our families, by arbitrary and partial legislation? Our liberty is but the liberty of slaves-our freedom, but the freedom of the dungeon. If we prove recreant to our high trust, we are worthy of fines and shackles; and if we submit to the impious desecration of God's prerogatives and our own blood-bought privileges, we deserve the rack and the stake. We have, therefore, we repeat, been constrained to appeal to the highest tribunals of the land to regain our constitutional rights; without wishing, in the least, to disturb the peace of society or interfere with the rights of others, but being actuated solely by a sense of duty, to maintain the integrity of God's holy law, and preserve, unimpaired, the religious immunities of our happy country. Our trust is in God and the rectitude of our Judiciary. The Supreme Court cannot declare in the face of the world, that the American Republic does not tolerate Religious Freedom! They cannot, they never will stultify our Constitution and make our Government a laughing stock to all Europe-to the whole civilized world, by a decision at such variance with the genius of our institutions and

the professions of our boasted pretensions.

This is the position of our persecuted Society; and we have claimed the privilege of giving this portion of our history, as due to the whole church, as well as to ourselves: for they, knowing how to appreciate religious liberty, have a right to a candid exposition of our grievances, as a professing church, and as members of the same republican family. The great principle for which the seventh day People are contending-unfettered religious liberty-is alike dear to all the churches of the land: it belongs equally to all denominations, however large, or however small.-It underlies the whole system of Protestanism and of Republicanism, and is the only security for all the churches, and the whole church, against any usurpations of superiority of sect; which the ambition of an aspiring hierarchy may, at no distant day, assume, to bring into subjection all not of her own faith and not within her own pale; and whose aim may not only be to monopolize a universal ecclesiastical See, but to sway the secular arm and fill the Chair of State. Regarding the whole design of human government to be to protect the people, individually and collectively, in their respective rights, and to afford security to their persons and property, we protest against any power in our Legislature to pass any law relative to religious matters, other than a general law to secure all persons from molestation or wanton disturbance, at all times, when they assemble to worship Almighty God. Beyond this, any legislation is a usurpation of the fundamental law-the charter of our rights—the palladium of our liberties! Let it be permitted on one point, and where can any limit be interposed! We are therefore called upon as Christians and as Republicans, to take our stand and protest against every infringement on religious rights. As American Citizens, as Independent Freeman, as responsible Stewards of the glorious heritage bequeathed to us by the Fathers of the Revolution, we are called upon, to maintain, unimpaired, the' high privileges secured to us by the Constitution of the Republic. In conclusion, we reiterate, that we recognize the laws of the land in