Position of the Reformers Concerning the Sabbath and First-Day.
By John Nevins Andrews
DR. HESSEY illustrates Calvin's ideas of Sunday observance by the following incident:— “Knox was the intimate friend of Calvin—visited Calvin, and, it is said, on one occasion found him enjoying the recreation of bowls on Sunday.” Without doubt Calvin was acting in exact harmony with his ideas of the nature of the Sunday festival. But the famous case of Michael Servetus furnishes us a still more pointed illustration of his views of the sacredness of that day. Servetus was arrested in Geneva on the personal application of John Calvin to the magistrates of that city. Such is the statement of Theodore Beza, the life-long friend of Calvin. Beza's translator adds to this fact the following remarkable statement:— “Promptness induced him to have this heresearch arrested on a Sunday.” The same fact is stated by Robinson:— “While he waited for a boat to cross the lake in his way to Zurich, by some means Calvin got intelligence of his arrival; and although it was on a Sunday, yet he prevailed upon the chief syndic to arrest and imprison him. On that day by the laws of Geneva no person could be arrested except for a capital crime; but this difficulty was easily removed, for John Calvin pretended that Servetus was a heretic, and that heresy was a capital crime.” “The doctor was arrested and imprisoned on Sunday the thirteenth of August [A. D. 1553]. That very day he was brought into court.” Calvin's own words respecting the arrest are these:— “I will not deny but that he was made prisoner upon my application.” The warmest friends of first-day sacredness will not deny that the least sinful part of this transaction was that it occurred on Sunday. Nevertheless the fact that Calvin caused the arrest of Servetus on that day shows that he had no conviction that the day possessed any inherent sacredness. John Barclay, a learned man of Scotch descent, and a moderate Roman Catholic, who was born soon after the death of Calvin, and whose early life was spent in eastern France, not very remote from Geneva, published the statement that Calvin and his friends at Geneva488“Debated whether the reformed, for the purpose of estranging themselves more completely from the Romish church, should not adopt Thursday as the Christian Sabbath.” Another reason assigned by Calvin for this proposed change was, “That it would be a proper instance of Christian liberty.” This statement has been credited by many learned Protestants, some of whom must be acknowledged as men of candor and judgment. But Dr. Twisse discredits Barclay because he did not name the individuals with whom Calvin consulted, and produce them as witnesses; and because that King James I. of England at one time suspected Barclay of treachery toward him. But no such crime was ever proved, nor does it appear that the king continued always to hold him in that light. His veracity has never been impeached. The statement of Barclay may possibly be incorrect, but it is not inconsistent with Calvin's doctrine that the church is not tied to a festival that should come once in seven days, even as Tyndale said that they could change the Sabbath into Monday or could “make every tenth day holy day, only if we see cause why,” and it is in perfect harmony with Calvin's idea of Sunday sacredness as shown in his acts already noticed. Like the other reformers, Calvin is not always consistent with himself in his statements. Nevertheless, he has his judgment concerning the several texts which are used to prove the change of the Sabbath, and also respecting the theory that the commandment may be used to enforce, not the seventh day, but one day in seven, and it is fatal to the modern first-day doctrine. John Knox, the great Scottish reformer, was the intimate friend of Calvin, with whom he lived at Geneva during a portion of his exile from Scotland. Though the foundation of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was laid by Knox, or rather by Calvin, for Knox carried out Calvin's system, and though that church is now very strict in the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, yet Knox himself was of Calvin's mind as to the obligation of that day. The original Confession of Faith of that church was drawn up by Knox in A. D. 1560. In that document Knox states the duties of the first table of the law as follows:— “To have one God, to worship and honor him; to call upon him in all our troubles; to reverence his holy name; to hear his word; to believe the same; to communicate with his holy sacraments, are the works of the first table.” It is plain that Knox believed the Sabbath commandment to have been stricken out of the first table. Dr. Hessey, after speaking of certain references to Sunday in a subsequent work of his, makes this statement respecting the present doctrine of the Sabbath in the Presbyterian Church:— “On the whole, whatever the language held at present in Scotland may be, it is certainly not owing to the great man whom the Scotch regard as the apostle of the Reformation in their country.” That church now holds Sunday to be the divinely authorized memorial of the resurrection of Christ, enforced by the authority of the fourth commandment. But not thus was it held by Calvin and Knox. A British writer states the condition of things with respect to Sunday in Scotland about the year 1601:— “At the commencement of the seventeenth century, tailors, shoemakers, and bakers in Aberdeen were accustomed to work till eight or nine every Sunday morning. While violation of the prescribed ritual observances was punished by fine, the exclusive consecration of the Sunday which subsequently prevailed was then unknown. Indeed, there were regular ‘play Sundays’ in Scotland till the end of the sixteenth century.” But the Presbyterian Church, after Knox's time, effected an entire change with respect to Sunday observance. The same writer says:— “The Presbyterian Kirk introduced into Scotland the Judaical observance of the Sabbath [Sunday], retaining with some inconsistency the Sunday festival of the Catholic Church, while rejecting all the other feasts which its authority had consecrated.” Dr. Hessey shows the method of doing this. He says:— “Of course some difficulties had to be got over. The Sabbath was the seventh day, Sunday was the first day of the week. But an ingenious theory that one day in seven was the essence of the fourth commandment speedily reconciled them to this.” The circumstances under which this new doctrine was framed, the name of its author, and the date of its publication, will be given in their place. That the body of the reformers should have failed to recognize the authority of the fourth commandment, and that they did not turn men from the Romish festivals to the Sabbath of the Lord, is a matter of regret rather than of surprise. The impropriety of making them the standard of divine truth is forcibly set forth in the following language:— “Luther and Calvin reformed many abuses, especially the discipline of the church, and also some gross corruptions in doctrine; but they left other things of far greater moment just as they found them. . . . It was great merit in them to go as far as they did, and it is not they but we who are to blame if their authority induce us to go no further. We should rather imitate them in the boldness and spirit with which they called in question and rectified so many long-established errors; and availing ourselves of their labors, make further progress than they were able to do. Little reason have we to allege their name, authority, and example, when they did a great deal and we do nothing at all. In this we are not imitating them, but those who opposed and counteracted them, willing to keep things as they were.”