HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1862

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Concluded.)

THE SABBATH AND FIRST-DAY SINCE THE REFORMATION.

In 1607 an English first-day writer, John Sprint, gives the views of the Sabbath-keepers of that time, which, in truth, have been substantially the same in all ages:

"They allege reasons drawn, 1. From the precedence of the Sabbath before the law, and before the fall; the laws of which nature are immutable. 2. From the perpetuity of the moral law. 3. And from the large extent thereof appertaining to the Sabbath. 4. And of the cause of this precept which maketh it perpetual, which is the memorial and meditation of the works of God; which belong unto the Christians as well as unto the Jews."

John Thraske began to speak and write in favor of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord about the time that the "Book of Sports" for Sunday was published under the direction of the archbishop of Canterbury, and king James I, in 1618. He took high ground as to the sufficiency of the Scriptures to direct in all religious services, and the duty of the State to refrain from imposing anything contrary to the word of God. For this he was brought before the Star Chamber where a long discussion was held respecting the Sabbath. It was on this occasion that bishop Andrews first brought forward that now famous first-day argument, that the martyrs were first tested by the question, "Hast thou kept the Lord's day?"

Mr. Utter states the result of this examination as follows:

"Thraske was not turned from his opinion, and was censured in the Star Chamber. Paggitt's Heresiography says that he 'was sentenced, on account of his being a Sabbatarian, to be set upon the pillory at Westminster, and from thence to be whipt to the Fleet prison, there to remain a prisoner for three years. Mrs. Thraske, his wife, lay in Maiden Lane, and the Gatehouse prisons, fifteen years, where she died, for the same crime.'"

Mr. Utter continues this narrative as follows:

"Theophilus Brabourne, a learned minister of the gospel in the established church, wrote a book, which was printed in London in 1628, wherein he argued 'that the Lord's day is not the Sabbath-day by divine institution,' but 'that the seventh-day Sabbath is now in force.' Mr. Brabourne published another book in 1632, entitled, A Defense of that most ancient and sacred ordinance of God's, the Sabbath-day."

Of Brabourne's books a contemporary first-day writer, John Ley, thus speaks:

"If his books were as commonly read as they are cunningly penned to this purpose, many more might be taken in that snare at unawares, unless they were more soundly answered than yet they have been."

As Brabourne appealed to the king to use his authority for the restoration of the ancient Sabbath, his appeal gave occasion for the king to appoint Dr. White, the bishop of Ely, to the task of answering Brabourne's book. It also gave occasion, in part, to the preparation of Dr. Heylyn's Sabbath history; which shows that these works, which have been so often quoted in this, were not written in the interest of the Bible Sabbath. Brabourne was brought to trial before the archbishop of Canterbury, and the court of High Commission; and here the fear of man induced him to consent to the established church, though still partially adhering to his former views. As he is the only person known to the writer as having appealed to the civil power for the establishment of the Sabbath of the Lord, so is he also the only Sabbatarian known by him to have recanted when brought to trial. Other advocates of the Sabbath, however, arose:

"About this time Phillip Tandy began to promulgate in the north of England the same doctrine concerning the Sabbath. He was educated in the established church, of which he became a minister. Having changed his views respecting the mode of baptism and the day of the Sabbath, he abandoned that church, and 'became a mark for many shots.' He held several public disputes about his peculiar sentiments, and did much to propagate them. James Ockford was another early advocate in England of the claims of the seventh day as the Sabbath. He appears to have been well acquainted with the discussions in which Thraske and Brabourne had been engaged. Being dissatisfied with the pretended conviction of Brabourne, he wrote a book in defense of Sabbatarian views, entitled, 'The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment.' This book, published in the year 1642, was burnt by order of the authorities in the established church."

Mr. Francis Bampfield was a presbyter of the church of England. Crosby says of him:

"But being utterly unsatisfied in his conscience with the conditions of conformity, he took leave of his sorrowful and weeping congregation in 1662, and was quickly after imprisoned for worshiping God in his own family. So soon was his unshaken loyalty to the king forgotten, that he was more frequently imprisoned and exposed to greater hardships for his nonconformity, than most other dissenters."

Of his imprisonment Neal says:

"After the act of uniformity, he continued preaching, as he had opportunity, in private, till he was imprisoned for five days and nights, with twenty-five of his hearers, in one room, where they spent their time in religious exercises, but after some time he was released. Soon after, he was apprehended again, and lay nine years in Dorchester jail, though he was of unshaken loyalty to the king."

During his confinement "he preached," says Crosby, "sometimes every day, and gathered a church under his confinement. And when he was at liberty he ceased not to preach in the name of Jesus." After his release he went to London and preached with much success, where, being again apprehended, he was shut up in Newgate prison for life, where he died Feb. 16, 1683-4. "Bampfield," says Wood, "dying in the said prison of Newgate, . . . . . aged seventy years, his body was followed with a very great company of factious and schismatical people to his grave." This company was made up of the congregation gathered by him in London previous to his last imprisonment. Crosby says of him:

"All that knew him will acknowledge that he was a man of great piety. And he would in all probability have preserved the same character, with respect to his learning and judgment, had it not been for his opinion in two points, viz., that infants ought not to be baptized and that the Jewish Sabbath ought still to be kept."

Mr. Bampfield published a small work in behalf of the Sabbath, in which he says:

"The law of the seventh-day Sabbath was given before the law was proclaimed at Sinai, even from the creation, given to Adam, and in him to all the world. Ex. xvi, 24; Gen. ii, 3. . . . . The Lord Christ's obedience unto the fourth word in observing in his lifetime the seventh day as a weekly Sabbath-day, and no other day of the week as such, is a part of that perfect righteousness which every sound believer doth apply to himself in order to his being justified in the sight of God; and every such person is to conform unto Christ in all the acts of his obedience unto the ten words."

His brother, Mr. Thomas Bampfield, who had been

speaker in one of Cromwell's parliaments, wrote also in behalf of seventh-day observance, and was imprisoned for his religious principles in Rochester jail. About the time of Mr. Bampfield's first imprisonment, severe persecution arose against the Sabbath-keepers in London. Crosby thus bears testimony:

"It was about this time, A. D. 1661, that a congregation of Baptists holding the seventh day as a Sabbath, being assembled at their meeting-house in Bullsteak alley, the doors being open, about 5 o'clock p. m., whilst Mr. John James was preaching, one Justice Chard, with Mr. Wood, a headborough, came into the meeting-place. Wood commanded him in the king's name to be silent and come down, having spoken treason against the king. But Mr. James, taking little or no notice thereof, proceeded in his work. The headborough came nearer to him in the middle of the meeting-place, and commanded him again in the king's name to come down or else he would pull him down; whereupon the disturbance grew so great he could not proceed."

Mr. Utter continues this narrative as follows:

"Mr. James was examined and committed to Newgate on the testimony of several profligate witnesses, who accused him of speaking treasonable words against the king. His trial took place about a month afterward, at which he conducted himself in such a manner as to create much sympathy. He was, however, sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. This awful sentence did not dismay him in the least. He calmly said, 'Blessed be God whom man condemneth, God justifieth.' While he lay in prison, under sentence of death, many persons of distinction visited him, who were greatly affected by his piety and resignation, and offered to exert themselves to secure his pardon. But he seems to have had little hope of their success. Mrs. James, by advice of her friends, twice presented petitions to the king, setting forth the innocence of her husband, the character of the witnesses against him, and entreating his majesty to grant a pardon. In both instances she was repulsed with scoffs and ridicule. At the scaffold, on the day of his execution, Mr. James addressed the assembly in a very noble and affecting manner. Having finished his address, and kneeling down he thanked God for covenant mercies, and for conscious innocence; he prayed for the witnesses against him, for the executioner, for the people of God, for the removal of divisions, for the coming of Christ, for the spectators, and for himself, that he might enjoy a sense of God's favor and presence, and an entrance into glory. When he had ended, the executioner said, 'The Lord receive your soul;' to which Mr. James replied, 'I thank thee.' A friend observing in him, 'This is a happy day,' he answered, 'I bless God it is.' Then having thanked the sheriff for his courtesy, he said, 'Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.' . . . After he was dead his heart was taken out and burned, his quarters were affixed to the gates of the city, and his head was set up in Whitechapel on a pole opposite to the alley on which his meeting-house stood."

The famous Stennett family furnished, for four generations, a succession of able Sabbatarian ministers. Mr. Edward Stennett, the first of these, was born about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and after Mr. Bampfield's imprisonment and death, became the pastor of that church which he had gathered in London. Mr. Joseph Stennett is said to be the author of that choice hymn,

"Jesus, I my cross have taken."

Many other able men arose among the Sabbath-keepers in that century, and others have since arisen down to the present time. The laws of England during that century were very oppressive to all Dissenters from the established church, and bore exceedingly hard upon the Sabbath-keepers. Yet fine, imprisonment, and even capital punishment, would not have proved sufficient to suppress the Sabbath. It was in the house of its own friends that the Sabbath was wounded. In the seventeenth century eleven churches of Sabbatarians flourished in England, while many scattered Sabbath-keepers were to be found in various parts of that kingdom. Now but three of those churches are in existence. It was not the lack of able men among the Sabbath-keepers to defend the truth, nor the fierce assaults of their persecutors, that has reduced them to a handful. The fault is their own, not indeed for any disgraceful conduct on their part, but simply because they made the Sabbath of no practical importance, and lowered the standard of divine truth in this thing to the dust. The Sabbath-keeping ministers assumed the pastoral care of first-day churches, in some cases as their sole charge, in others they did this in connection with the oversight of Sabbatarian churches. The result need surprise no one; as both ministers and people said to all men, in thus acting, that the fourth commandment might be broken with impunity, the people took them at their word. Mr. Crosby, a first-day historian, sets this matter in a clear light:

"If the seventh day ought to be observed as the Christian Sabbath, then all congregations that observe the first day as such must be Sabbath-breakers. . . . I must leave those gentlemen on the contrary side to their own sentiments; and to vindicate the practice of becoming pastors to a people whom in their conscience they must believe to be breakers of the Sabbath."

Doubtless there have been noble exceptions to this course; but the body of English Sabbatarians for many years have failed to faithfully discharge the high trust committed to them.

The first Sabbatarian church in America was established at Newport, R. I. Forty-four years after the landing of the pilgrim fathers at Plymouth, the first Sabbath-keeper arrived at Newport from London, where he had in all probability been a member of the church of John James, who was martyred there three years before. Mr. Isaac Backus makes the following record:

"Stephen Mumford came over from London in 1664, and brought the opinion with him that the whole of the ten commandments, as they were delivered from mount Sinai, were moral and immutable; and that it was the anti-Christian power which thought to change times and laws, that changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Several members of the first church in Newport embraced this sentiment, and yet continued with the church for some years, until two men and their wives who had so done, turned back to the keeping of the first day again."

Mr. Utter says that in December, 1671,

"Stephen Mumford, William Hiscox, Samuel Hubbard, Roger Baxter, and three sisters, entered into church covenant together, thus forming the first Seventh-day Baptist church in America."

From that time to the present the Seventh-day Baptists have maintained their position before the world as the observers of the ancient Sabbath of the Bible, and have gradually extended their churches through a considerable portion of the American Union. Among them have arisen men of eminent talent and piety, who have defended the Sabbath in a variety of publications. Among these, one name—J. W. Morton—is particularly worthy of honorable mention. He was sent in 1847 a missionary to the island of Hayti by the Reformed Presbyterians. Here he came in contact with Sabbatarian publications, and after a serious examination became satisfied that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. As an honest man, what he saw to be truth he immediately obeyed, and returning home to be tried for his heresy, was ignominiously expelled from the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He has given to the world a valuable work, entitled, "Vindication of the True Sabbath," in which his experience is related.—The organ of the Seventh-day Baptists is the Recorder, published in Westerly, R. I.

The attention of Adventists was called to the Sabbath question by an essay on the subject from T. M. Preble, dated Feb. 13, 1845. After showing the claims of the Bible Sabbath, and the fact that it was changed to Sunday by the great apostasy, he remarks:

"Thus we see Dan. vii, 25, fulfilled, the little horn changing 'times and laws.' Therefore it appears to me that all who keep the first day for the Sabbath, are pope's Sunday-keepers, and God's Sabbath-breakers."

Elder Preble was led to embrace the Sabbath from an acquaintance with Sabbath-keepers in N. H., and he faithfully adhered to it for a season, but afterward adopted the view that there is no sacred time in the gospel dispensation. Mr. P. had however called the attention of other advent believers to this subject; and their interest in this divine institution was not transient as his had proved. Our venerable brother, Joseph Bates, immediately began to preach the Sabbath of the Lord, and also to publish tracts setting forth its claims. His labors have been untiring, and with the blessing of God he has been the means of bringing many to the knowledge and observance of the holy Sabbath. About the same time our esteemed and efficient brother, Elder James White, began to preach the Sabbath, and some three years after began to publish in its behalf. Beginning without resources, and with few friends, with toil, self-sacrifice, and anxious care, he has, with the blessing of God upon his efforts, been the means of establishing an efficient office of publication, now located at Battle Creek, Michigan, and of bringing many to the sacred observance of the Sabbath.

The Seventh-day Adventists believe that the proclamation of the ten commandments and of the prophecies relative to the last days, constitutes the Third Angel's Message of the book of Revelation. It has pleased God thus far to signally bless the preaching of these great truths, and at the present time a goodly number may be found observing the Sabbath of the Lord, and waiting for the advent of his Son from heaven.

The future is given to us in the prophetic Scriptures. From them we learn that our earth is reserved unto fire, and that from its ashes shall spring new heavens and earth, and ages of endless date. Over this glorified inheritance, the second Adam, the Lord of the Sabbath, shall bear rule, and under his precious protection the nations of them which are saved shall inherit the land forever. 2 Pet. iii; Isa. lxv; Rev. xxi; xxii. When the glory of the Lord shall thus fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, the Sabbath of the Most High is again and for the last time brought to view:

"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." Isa. lvi, 22, 23.

On this scripture Dr. Peter Akers has this important comment:

"The word rendered 'new moon' in this passage, both in the Hebrew, and the Greek of the Seventy, signifies month only, without respect to any particular day. By rendering it new moon, our translaters have assumed, without authority, that it means the first day of the month."

The reason for this monthly gathering to the New Jerusalem of all the host of the redeemed from every part of the new earth may be found in the language of the Apocalypse:

"And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing [literally, the service,] of the nations."—Rev. xxii, 1, 2.

The gathering of the nations that are saved to the presence of the Creator, from the whole face of the new earth on each successive Sabbath, attests the sacredness of the Sabbath even in that holy state, and sets the seal of the Most High to the perpetuity of that ancient institution.