PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. The word Sabbatarian, whether bestowed by their enemies as a term of opprobrium upon those who observed the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, or whether assumed by themselves, is, nevertheless, peculiarly appropriate, and very distinguishing of this particular tenet in their system of religious faith. Neither do we hesitate to employ it in a very extensive sense, as comprehending all those religious communities, whatever may be their names, modes of worship, or forms of ecclesiastical discipline, who refrain from secular employments upon the last day of the week, and observe the same as holy time. There cannot, therefore, be any impropriety in considering the Abyssinian and Armenian Churches as sabbatarian organizations, although the former has become greatly corrupted in worship and doctrine, and exhibits few traces of the purity and simplicity of primitive Christianity. We claim for sabbatarian institutions a very high antiquity, and a multitude of the most illustrious exemplars; from that grand sabbath proclaimed over the new-born world by the Eternal Father, and observed by angelic and seraphic intelligences, to its second ordainment amid the smoke and thunders of Sinai, and its subsequent observance by kings, priests, sages, and witnesses for the truth through so many ages, to Him, the Great High Priest of the Covenant, who sanctified the law and made it honourable. It is incontestable that our adorable Lord and his Apostles observed the seventh day of the week, and it was not until a long time subsequent to the close of their earthly pilgrimages that the reverence due to this holy time was transferred, in any Christian community, to the Dominical day. The first Christian church established in the world was founded at Jerusalem under the immediate superintendence of the Apostles. This church, which was the model of all those that were founded in the first century, was undoubtedly sabbatarian. In the second and third centuries, according to the testimony of Mosheim, it was very generally observed. During the fourth and in the commencement of the fifth centuries, it was almost universally solemnized, if the veracity of Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian, may be depended upon.