Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 43.

THE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY. NO. 7.

Prominent in the long controversy between the Sabbath of the Lord and its rival, "the wild solar holiday of all pagan times," is the controversy that waged in England during the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Publications were written on all sides of the question. Some of the writers contended, and with truth, that Sunday was only a church day, with no sacredness attached to it; but they said as a church festival it ought to be kept, at least to the extent of attending church, etc. And the great mass of professed Christians so regarded it. Open markets were held even in the church-yards on that day, and all sorts of games and sports were in evidence after the services were over. Those who advocated this sort of Sunday keeping generally held that the seventh-day Sabbath was not binding upon Christians, admitting, at the same time, that the law was not abolished, and that there was no scripture authority for Sunday. Prominent among these writers were Dr. Francis White, Lord Bishop of Ely, of the Church of England, author of "A Treatise of the Sabbath Day, Containing a Defence of the Orthodoxall Doctrine of the Church of England, against Sabbatarian Novelty," 1635; and Peter Heylyn, D.D., a learned clergyman of the Church of England, author of "The History of the Sabbath in Two Books," 1636.

Others took the ground, now advocated by so many, that God only requires "a seventh part of time," which, before Christ, fell on the seventh day, but since on Sunday. This idea was started, or greatly elaborated, by Nicholas Bound, D.D., of Norton, England, a dissenter from the state church. About 1595 he published a work called "The True Doctrine of the Sabbath," in which he contended for a holy observance of Sunday according to the commandment. Other publications followed in the same line.

But this position respecting the law of God did not go far enough, and its effect was to lead men back to the true foundation, the law and word of God, which declare the seventh day to be the Sabbath of the Lord our God. There were at that very time Sabbath-keepers in England, previous to the opening of the seventeenth century, but the controversy had not grown to be widespread. Among the prominent writers in defence of the Sabbath of the Lord were John Trask (1618), Theophilus Brabourne (1628, 1632), Edward Stennett (1658), and others, men eminent for their enlightened zeal and devotion to God's truth. It was to meet Brabourne's work that Heylyn and White wrote their books at the command of the king. Trask, for preaching God's truth,

"was censured in the Star Chamber to be set upon the pillory at Westminster, and from thence to be whipped to the fleet, there to remain a prisoner."

This and the imprisonment of one year broke his spirit and he recanted. His wife, a noble, educated, and virtuous woman, was "a schoolteacher of superior excellence," but it was learned that she taught school

"only five days in the week, and resting upon Saturday, it being known upon what account she did it, she was carried to the new prison in Maiden Lane."

So says Pagitt, in his "Heresiography," page 209, London, 1661. She was counted a criminal because she kept the fourth commandment. She lay in prison for fifteen years, when death came to her release.

Brabourne was a learned minister of the established church. Tyranny and oppression were also brought against him. The same also was true of Stennett. Francis Bampfield, another able minister, was imprisoned in Newgate for life, and all his goods forfeited, for preaching the truth of the law of God. He died a martyr to his faith Feb. 16, 1683. His brother, who had been a speaker in one of Cromwell's Parliaments wrote also in behalf of seventh-day observance, and was imprisoned in Ilchester jail. Mr. James, for preaching the same truth, was, about the middle of this century (1661), sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered, which sentence was carried out by professed Christians. It was through such a baptism that the Christian Sabbath-keepers of the seventeenth century came. From such noble stock sprang the Seventh-day Baptists of America, who have bravely held aloft the banner of God's Sabbath truth to the present day.

Before us as we write are nine books written on the Sabbath question, pro and con, bearing the following dates: 1635, two of 1636, 1641, 1654, 1673, 1700, and two of 1724. All of these are bound books, yellow with age. They are silent evidence of the agitation which in that period existed, and faintly prophetic of the wider agitation incident to greater Biblical research in these our days. They also show that God had faithful witnesses for his truth in those days, even as in all preceding times. Now his truth is shining out from his word and the historic page clearer than ever before; and multitudes are in the valley of decision. May they decide aright.