The Rogerenes: some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of Connecticut

by John R. Bolles; Anna B. Williams

In page 5th sayth he: “The apostle doth not oppose the keeping one day in a week holy to God.” To which I answer, It is not what the apostle doth not oppose, but what the apostle commands, I Pet. 1, 16, “Be ye holy for I am holy.” An unholy man cannot do one holy act, no more than a corrupt tree can bring forth good fruit: but I have no where read in the books of the New Testament that we are commanded to keep one day more holy than another....

... And the next place, I shall shew that the first commandment that both the angel of God and Christ himself gave forth to his apostles was to make the first day of the week (the day of his resurrection) a day of labor by travelling out of one province into another.... Thus it appears that had they believed them that was sent by the angel of God and by Christ himself they should have set out on their journey early in the morning for Galilee, which was in another province, and by all probability more than one day’s journey, as appears in the 2nd chapter of Luke, which shews that Christ’s parents went a day’s journey towards Galilee before they missed him.... So that it appears that Christ had no regard to the day, otherwise than to make it a day of labor ... through their unbelief they were disobedient to the message that Christ sent them and did not make it a day of labor by travelling, as they were required by the angel of God and by Christ himself; which journey according to history was above 40 miles and the message was sent them in haste, to set out upon this journey, upon the first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection.

In page 6th he quotes Gen. 2, 2, 3, which speaks only of God’s resting from the works of creation, when all things were finished and “was very good” ... and this God’s Sabbath or rest from his works of creation had no evening or morning ascribed to it, because it was his eternal rest or Sabbath, all things being now finished. And it could be no Sabbath or rest to Adam, for he had done no work to rest from, for he was the finishing work, ... So that Adam in his first creation entered into God’s Sabbath and so continued, till he by sin brought labor upon himself ... and we have no account in Scripture of any Sabbath commanded or kept from Adam till Mose’s time, ... For when God delivered the two tables of the ten commandments, he gave Moses a particular account about the seventh-day sabbath, how it was a sign, as is seen Exod. 31, 12 etc. compared with the last verse.... And a sign is not the thing signified by it, any more than a shadow of a thing is the substance....

In page 19 he quotes ... “I was in spirit on the Lord’s day.”... that is, I was spiritualized on the Lord’s day of his revelation for that work he employed me in, but here is no account what day or days it was of the week or month, this God hath not revealed to us.... But for any to affect it to be on a first day of the week is presumption, seeing no such name in Scripture was imposed on the first day of the week in any other place of the Scripture....

In page 27, he quotes Acts 20, 7, “And upon the first day of the week” ... This text tells us the disciple’s coming together was to break bread; it does not say to celebrate a Sabbath, or give the day any pre-eminence above the five other working days ... the word breaking of bread is used in common eating, Acts 2, 46.—“breaking bread from house to house,”—Christ brake bread to two of his disciples and also when Christ fed 5000.... And in this place it is said they came together to break bread, and Paul was at that time tending a ship, as appears....

But as to the Lord’s Supper, it was always attended at supper time, ... It was first instituted by Christ at supper ... And Paul, the Gentile apostle, hath left it on record that he did deliver it to the Gentiles to be attended in the night, as appears I Cor. 11, 23.... The Gentile churches attended the time and season, tho’ they got into a disorderly way of partaking of it, yet they attended the season ... “For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper.”... So that we see this coming together to break bread, on the first day of the week, was not for preaching (but a feast of charity), for that was attended the night following (when the young man fell from the loft), nor for the Lord’s supper.

The following is at the end of the book containing the answer to Benjamin Wadsworth. The “questions” were written in New London prison at the time John Rogers was confined there on account of troubles arising out of the arrest and imprisonment of Sarah Bolles for a “matter of conscience.”

The following questions were presented as they are underwritten, but when I saw I could obtain no answer but persecution, I then presented them to a Superior Court in the colony New London, and from them to the next General Court in that Colony, and so to the Elders and Messengers of the churches of the Colony of Connecticut, requesting of them an answer, upon the consideration of the Confession of their own Faith and the good counsels there given, and printed in New London, in the year 1710. And here follows an account of some part of what I presented to them, taken out of the Confession of their own Faith.

In page 6. “First Counsel. That you be immovably and unchangeably agreed in the only sufficient and invariable rule of religion, which is the Holy Scriptures, the fixed canon, uncapable of addition and diminution. You ought to account nothing ancient that will not stand by this rule, nor anything new that will. Do not hold yourselves bound to unscriptural rites in religion, wherein custom itself doth many times misguide. Isai. 8, 20. To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

“Second Counsel. That you be determined by this rule in the whole of religion. That your faith be right and divine, that the Word of God must be the foundation of it and the authority of the Word the reason of it, etc. For an orthodox Christian to resolve his faith into education, instruction and the persuasion of others, is not an higher reason than a Papist, Mahometan or Pagan can produce for his religion.”