Verstegan says:—
“The most ancient Germans being pagans, and having appropriated their first day of the week to the peculiar adoration of the sun, whereof that day doth yet in our English tongue retain the name of Sunday, and appropriated the next day unto it unto the especial adoration of the moon, whereof it yet retaineth with us, the name of Monday; they ordained the next day to these most heavenly planets to the particular adoration of their great reputed god, Tuisco, whereof we do yet retain in our language the name of Tuesday.”[535]
The same author thus speaks concerning the idols of our Saxon ancestors:—
“Of these, though they had many, yet seven among the rest they especially appropriated unto the seven days of the week.... Unto the day dedicated unto the especial adoration of the idol of the sun, they gave the name of Sunday, as much as to say the sun’s day or the day of the sun. This idol was placed in a temple, and there adored and sacrificed unto, for that they believed that the sun in the firmament did with or in this idol correspond and co-operate.”[536]
Jennings makes this adoration of the sun more ancient than the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. For, in speaking of the time of that deliverance, he speaks of the Gentiles as,
“The idolatrous nations who in honor to their chief god, the sun, began their day at his rising.”[537]
He represents them also as setting apart Sunday in honor of the same object of adoration:—
“The day which the heathens in general consecrated to the worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, which, according to our computation, was the first day of the week.”[538]
The North British Review thus defends the introduction of this ancient heathen festival into the Christian church:—