We have discovered that the Jewish Sabbath was not incorporated into the early Christian church. We have seen also that Jesus repudiated the Jewish Sabbath. That Paul, the founder of the church, also rejects the Sabbath; and that the early fathers did not observe it. That the great men of the middle ages repudiated it. It was left for the Puritans and Scotch Presbyterians to bewilder the undeveloped mind and poison the susceptible hearts of the people, by teaching the gloomy doctrines of Puritanism and Presbyterianism. Puritanism and Presbyterianism die hard. They still live. Their spirit is hostile to freedom. Talk to them of liberty and you will readily wake the remark, "Oh yes, we believe in liberty, but not in license." Now what does license mean with such people? Why it means that you shall conform to their religious notions and practices.
Especially must you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy; that is, you are at liberty to do just as you please, if you please to do as pleases them.
Protestants all agree upon the right of free conscience, the right to believe as one chooses (which however he never can do, because he must believe according to evidence).
It is the great boast of Protestantism that the individual has a free will (another error), and that he must search the scriptures, and decide for himself. They say every man has an open Bible put before him, and he must make up his own mind on the "truth of God." When he has made up his mind, and seeks to enter a church which is full of liberty, what do the officers of the church say to him? Do they tell him that his conscience is free and the Bible is an open book for him to read and interpret as he can? Oh, no! There is no free conscience, or open Bible business when one is getting into a church. On such occasions the candidate is taken by the proper officers into an ante room, and placed upon a Procrustean bed usually called a creed, and if he is the proper length, all right, but if not he must either be stretched or sawed off to the proper dimensions. And these are the people who have such a holy horror of license.
A friend of mine went once to buy a pup. The price was five dollars; but as there were three pups in the basket my friend said he would give five dollars for one if he could have his choice. "Oh yes, you can have your choice," said the owner, "if ye'll choose this pup" [pointing to the most inferior one in the basket]. So it is with the church; you can have all the liberty in the world to believe, if you believe the doctrines of this or that sect. You can have your own choice, if you choose to obey the priesthood. You can have all the liberty to think as freely as you can on all subjects, if you will never mention your thoughts. Here is what M. Guizot, an eminent Christian writer has to say about the liberty granted by the church: