History of the Sabbath and first day of the week

by John Nevins Andrews

“For by inculcating to the people these new Sabbath speculations [concerning Sunday], teaching that that day only ‘was of God’s appointment, and all the rest observed in the church of England, a remnant of the will-worship in the church of Rome;’ the other holy days in this church established, were so shrewdly shaken that till this day they are not well recovered of the blow then given. Nor came this on the by or besides their purpose, but as a thing that specially was intended from the first beginning.”[1048]

In a former chapter, we called attention to the fact that Sunday can be maintained as a divine institution only by adopting the rule of faith acknowledged in the church of Rome, which is, the Bible with the traditions of the church added thereto. We have seen that in the sixteenth century the Presbyterians of England were brought to decide between giving up Sunday as a church festival and maintaining it as a divine institution by the Bible. They chose the latter course. Yet while apparently avoiding the charge of observing a Catholic festival, by claiming to prove the Sunday institution out of the Bible, the utterly unsatisfactory nature of the several inferences adduced from the Scriptures in support of that day, compelled them to resort to the traditions of the church, and to add these to their so-called biblical evidences in its behalf. It would be no worse to keep Sunday while frankly acknowledging it to be a festival of the Catholic church, not commanded in the Bible, than it is to profess that you observe it as a biblical institution, and then prove it to be such by adopting the rule of faith of the Romanists. Joaunes Perrone, an eminent Italian Catholic theologian, in an important doctrinal work, entitled, “Theological Lessons,” makes a very impressive statement respecting the acknowledgment of tradition by Protestant Sunday-keepers. In his chapter “Concerning the Necessity and Existence of Tradition,” he lays down the proposition that it is necessary to admit doctrines which we can prove only from tradition, and cannot sustain from the Holy Scriptures. Then he says:—

“It is not possible, indeed, if traditions of such character are rejected, that several doctrines, which the Protestants held with us since they withdrew from the Catholic church, could, in any possible manner, be established. The fact is placed beyond a venture of a doubt, for they themselves hold with us the validity of baptism administered by heretics or infidels, the validity also of infant baptism, the true form of baptism [sprinkling]; they held, too, that the law of abstaining from blood and anything strangled is not in force; also concerning the substitution of the Lord’s day for the Sabbath; besides those things which I have mentioned before, and not a few others.”[1049]

Dr. Bound’s theory of the seventh part of time has found general acceptance in all those churches which sprung from the church of Rome. Most forcibly did old Cotton Mather observe:—

“The reforming churches, flying from Rome, carried, some of them more, some of them less, all of them something, of Rome with them.”[1050]

One sacred treasure which they all drew from the venerable mother of harlots is the ancient festival of the sun. She had crushed out of her communion the Sabbath of the Lord, and having adopted the venerable day of the sun, had transformed it into the Lord’s day of the Christian church. The reformed, flying from her communion, and carrying with them this ancient festival, now found themselves able to justify its observance as being indeed the veritable Sabbath of the Lord! As the seamless coat of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, was torn from him before he was nailed to the cross, so has the fourth commandment been torn from the rest-day of the Lord, around which it was placed by the great Law-giver, and given to this papal Lord’s day; and this Barabbas the robber, thus arrayed in the stolen fourth commandment, has from that time to the present day, and with astonishing success, challenged the obedience of the world as the divinely appointed Sabbath of the most high God. Here we close the history of the Sunday festival, now fully transformed into the Christian Sabbath. A rapid survey of the history of English and American Sabbath-keepers will conclude this work.

CHAPTER XXVI.
ENGLISH SABBATH-KEEPERS.

English Sabbatarians in the sixteenth century—Their doctrines—John Trask for these doctrines pilloried, whipt, and imprisoned—He recants—Character of Mrs. Trask—Her crime—Her indomitable courage—She suffers fifteen years’ imprisonment, and dies in the prison—Principles of the Traskites—Brabourne writes in behalf of the seventh day—Appeals to King Charles I. to restore the ancient Sabbath—The king employs Dr. White to write against Brabourne, and Dr. Heylyn to write the History of the Sabbath—The king intimidates Brabourne and he recants—He returns again to the Sabbath—Philip Tandy—James Ockford writes “The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment”—His book burned—Edward Stennett—Wm. Sellers—Cruel Treatment of Francis Bampfield—Thomas Bampfield—Martyrdom of John James—How the Sabbath cause was prostrated in England.

Chambers speaks thus of Sabbath-keepers in the sixteenth century:—

“In the reign of Elizabeth, it occurred to many conscientious and independent thinkers (as it had previously done to some Protestants in Bohemia), that the fourth commandment required of them the observance, not of the first, but of the specified seventh day of the week, and a strict bodily rest, as a service then due to God; while others, though convinced that the day had been altered by divine authority, took up the same opinion as to the scriptural obligation to refrain from work. The former class became numerous enough to make a considerable figure for more than a century in England, under the title of ‘Sabbatarians’—a word now exchanged for the less ambiguous appellation of ‘Seventh-day Baptists.’”[1051]