HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 20, 1862

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Continued.)

THE SABBATH AND FIRST-DAY SINCE THE REFORMATION.

THE great reformation of the sixteenth century arose from the bosom of the Catholic church itself. From that church the Sabbath had long been extirpated; and instead of that merciful institution ordained by the divine Lawgiver for the rest and refreshment of mankind, the papacy had ordained innumerable festivals, which, as a terrible burden, crushed the people to the earth. These festivals are thus enumerated by Dr. Heylyn:

"Those holy days as they were named particularly in pope Gregory's decretal, so was a perfect list made of them in the synod of Lyons, A. D. 1244, which being celebrated with a great concourse of people from all parts of Christendom, the canons and decrees thereof began forthwith to find a general admittance. The holy days allowed of there, were these that follow; viz., the feast of Christ's nativity, St. Stephen, St. John the evangelist, the Innocents, St. Sylvester, the circumcision of our Lord, the Epiphany, Easter, together with the week precedent, and the week succeeding, and three days in rogation week, the day of Christ's ascension, Whitsunday, with the two days after, St. John the Baptist, the feasts of all the twelve apostles, all the festivities of our Lady, St. Lawrence, all the Lord's days in the year, St. Michael the Archangel, All Saints, St. Martin's, the wakes, or dedication of particular churches, together with the feasts of such local or topical saints which some particular people had been pleased to honor with a day particular amongst themselves. On these and every one of them, the people were restrained as before was said from many several kinds of work, on pain of ecclesiastical censures to be laid on them which did offend, unless on some emergent causes, either of charity or necessity they were dispensed with so doing. . . . . . Peter de Ailly, cardinal of Cambray, in a discourse to the council of Constance [A. D. 1416] made public suit unto the fathers there assembled, that there might be a stop in that kind hereafter; as also that excepting Sundays and the greater festivals it might be lawful for the people, after the end of divine service to attend their business; the poor especially as having little time enough on the working days to get their living. But these were only the expressions of well wishing men. The popes were otherwise resolved, and did not only keep the holy days which they found established, in the same state in which they found them, but added others daily as they saw occasion. . . . . Thus stood it as before I said, both for the doctrine and the practice, till men began to look into the errors and abuses in the Roman church with a more serious eye than before they did."---Hist. Sab. part 2, chap. 6, secs. 3, 5.

Such was the state of things when the reformers began their labors. That they should give up these festivals and return to the observance of the ancient Sabbath, would be expecting too much of men educated in the bosom of the Romish church. Indeed, it ought not to surprise us that while they were constrained to strike down the authority of these festivals, they should nevertheless retain the most important of them in their observance. The reformers spoke on this matter as follows: The confession of the Swiss churches declares that,

"The observance of the Lord's day is founded not on any commandment of God, but on the authority of the church. And that the church may alter the day at pleasure."---Cox's Sabbath Laws, &c., p. 287.

We further learn that,

"In the Augsburg Confession which was drawn up by Melanchthon, to the question, 'What ought we to think of the Lord's day?' it is answered that the Lord's day, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other such holy days, ought to be kept because they were appointed by the church, that all things may be done in order; but that the observance of them is not to be thought necessary to salvation, nor the violation of them, if it be done without offense to others, to be regarded as a sin."---Id. ib.

Zwingle declared "that it was lawful on the Lord's day, after divine service, for any man to pursue his labors."---Id. ib. Beza taught that "no cessation of work on the Lord's day is required of Christians."---Id. p. 286. Bucer goes further yet, "and doth not only call it a superstition, but an apostasy from Christ to think that working on the Lord's day, in itself considered, is a sinful thing."---Id. ib. And Cranmer, in his catechism, published in 1548, says:

"We now keep no more the Sabbath on Saturday as the Jews do; but we observe the Sunday, and certain other days as the magistrates do judge convenient, whom in this thing we ought to obey." Id. p. 289.

Tyndale said:

"As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy only if we see cause why." Id. p. 287.

Calvin regarded the festival called the Lord's day as nothing but a human ordinance, and it is upon record that himself and his friends at Geneva "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." Heylyn's Hist. Sab. part 2, chap. 6, sec. 8.

It is a singular fact that the Presbyterian church which originated with Calvin, has since discovered that the Lord's day—which Calvin proposed to change from Sunday to Thursday, that the Reformed might not observe a Romish festival,—is a divinely authorized memorial of the resurrection, enforced by the authority of the fourth commandment. The date, the occasion and the discoverer himself of this important doctrine in modern theology, will be noticed 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 in 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." Cox's Sabbath Laws, &c., pp. 260.

Yet it is worthy of notice that at least one of the reformers of considerable prominence—Carlstadt—was a Sabbatarian. It is impossible to read the records of the reformation without the conviction that Carlstadt was desirous of a more thorough work of reformation than was Luther. And that while Luther was disposed to tolerate certain abuses lest the reformation should be endangered, Carlstadt was at all hazards for a complete return to the holy Scriptures. It is a matter of deep regret that a sharp contention separated these "illustrious defenders" of the reformation, as D'Aubigné calls them, from each other. For it is evident that if Carlstadt was carried to one extreme, Luther was no less so to the other. D'Aubigné pronounces them both "excellent" men, and says of Carlstadt:

"He was a sound Latin, Greek and Hebrew scholar, says Dr. Schoeur; and Luther acknowledges his superior erudition; endowed with an elevated mind, he sacrificed his reputation, his rank, his home, his very bread, to his convictions." History of the Reformation, book x, chap. vii.

His Sabbatarian character is attested by Dr. White, lord bishop of Ely:

"The same [the observance of the seventh day] likewise being revived in Luther's time by Carolastadius, Sternebergius, and by some sectaries among the Anabaptists, hath both then and ever since been censured as Jewish and heretical." Treatise of the Sabbath day, p. 8.

When the reformation had lifted the veil of darkness that covered the nations of Europe, Sabbath-keepers

were found in Transylvania, Germany, Holland, France and England. It was not the reformation which gave existence to these Sabbatarians, for the leaders of the reformation, as a body, were not friendly to such views. On the contrary these observers of the Sabbath appear to be remnants of the ancient Sabbath-keeping churches that had witnessed for the truth during the dark ages.

Transylvania, a country which now forms the eastern division of the Austrian empire, was in the sixteenth century, an independent principality. About the middle of that century the country was under the rule of Sigismund. The historian of the Baptists, Robinson, gives the following interesting record of events in that age and country:

"The prince received his first religious impressions under his chaplain Alexius, who was a Lutheran. On his removal he chose Francis Davidis to succeed him, and was by him further informed of the principles of the reformation. Davidis was a native of that extremely populous and well fortified town which is called Coloswar by the natives, and by others Claudiopolis. He was a man of learning, address, and piety, and reasoned in this part of his life more justly than many of his contemporaries. In 1563 his highness invited several learned foreigners to come into Transylvania for the purpose of helping forward reformation. . . . Several other foreigners, who had been persecuted elsewhere, sought refuge in this country, where persecution for religion was unknown. These refugees were Unitarian Baptists, and through their indefatigable industry and address the prince, the greatest part of the senate, a great number of ministers, and a multitude of the people went heartily into their plan of reformation. . . . In the end the Baptists became by far the most numerous party. While they formed their own churches according to the convictions of their members, they persecuted nobody, but allowed the same liberty to others, and great numbers of Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, resided in perfect freedom. . . . Davidis was a Unitarian Baptist minister, entrusted by his brethren with the superintendency of the churches in Transylvania. . . . He supposed the Jewish Sabbath not abrogated, and he therefore kept holy the seventh day. He believed also the doctrine of the millennium, and like an honest man, what he believed he taught. He was considered by the Transylvanian churches as an apostle, and had grown gray in their service; but the Catholics, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists, thought him a Turk, a blasphemer, and an atheist, and his Polish Baptist brethren said he was half a Jew. Had he been a whole Jew he ought not to have been imprisoned for his speculations. . . . By what means the Supreme Searcher of hearts only knows, but by some methods till then unknown in Transylvania, the old man was arrested, and by the senate condemned to die. He was imprisoned in the castle, and providence, by putting a period to his life there, saved his persecutors from the disgrace of a public execution. Many have been blamed, but perhaps the secret springs of this event may never be known till the Judge of the world maketh inquisition for blood." Eccl. Researches, chap. xvi.

The same writer enumerates many persons of distinction who were of the same views with Davidis. The ambassador Bequessius, general of the army; the princess, sister of prince John; the privy counselor Chaquies and the two Quendi; general Andrassi, and many others of high rank; Somers, the rector of the academy at Claudiopolis; Matthias Glicius, Adam Neussner, and Christian Franken, a professor in the academy at Claudiopolis.

"These," says Robinson, "were all of the same sentiments as Davidis, as were many more of different ranks who after his death in prison, defended his sentiments against Socinus. Palæologus was of the same mind; he had fled into Moravia, but was caught by the emperor, at the request of pope Gregory XIV., and carried to Rome where he was burnt for a heretic. He was an old man, and was terrified at first into a recantation, but he recollected himself and submitted to his fate like a Christian." Id. ib., p. 640.

We have a further record of Sabbatarians in Transylvania to the effect that in the time of Davidis,

"John Gerendi [was] head of the Sabbatarians, a people who did not keep Sunday but Saturday, and whose disciples took the name of Genoldists." Lamy's History of Socinianism, p. 60.

Mr. Maxon makes the following statement:

"We find that Sabbath-keepers appear in Germany late in the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century according to Ross' Picture of all Religions. By this we understand that their numbers were such as to lead to organization, and attract attention. A number of these formed a church, and emigrated to America, in the early settlement of this country." Maxon's Hist. Sab. p. 41.

Mr. Utter also makes a similar and further statement:

"Early in the sixteenth century there are traces of Sabbath-keepers in Germany. The Old Dutch Martyrology gives an account of a Baptist minister named Stephen Benedict, somewhat famous for baptizing during a severe persecution in Holland, who is supposed by good authorities to have kept the seventh day as the Sabbath. One of the persons baptized by him was Barbary von Thiers, wife of Hans Borzen, who was executed on the 16th of September, 1529. At her trial she declared her rejection of the idolatrous sacrament of the priest, and also the mass. 'Relative to Sunday and the holy days, she said the Lord God had commanded to rest the seventh day; in this she acquiesced, and it was her desire by the help and grace of God, to remain and die as she was, for it was the true faith and right way in Christ.' In France also there were Christians of this class, among whom was M. de la Roque, who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic bishop of Meaux." Manual of Seventh-day Baptists, p. 16.

The origin of the Sabbatarians of England cannot now be ascertained. Their observance of believers' baptism and the keeping of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, strongly attest their origin from the persecuted heretics of the dark ages, rather than from the reformers of the sixteenth century, who retained infant baptism and the festival of Sunday. That these heretics had long been numerous in England, is thus certified by Crosby:

"For in the time of William the Conqueror [A. D. 1070] and his son William Rufus, it appears that the Waldenses and their disciples out of France, Germany and Holland had their frequent recourse, and did abound in England. . . . . The Waldensian heresy, as the chronologer calls it, had, about A. D. 1080, generally corrupted all France, Italy and England."---Hist. English Baptists, vol. 2, pref. pp. 43, 44.

Mr. Maxon says of the English Sabbatarians:

"In England we find Sabbath-keepers very early. Dr. Chambers says: 'They arose in England in the sixteenth century; from which we understand that they then became a distinct denomination in that kingdom.'---Maxon's Hist. Sabbath, p. 42.

Mr. Benedict speaks thus of the origin of English Sabbatarians:

"At what time the Seventh-day Baptists began to form churches in this kingdom does not appear; but probably it was at an early period; and although their churches have never been numerous, yet there have been among them almost for two hundred years some very eminent men."---Gen. Hist. Bapt. Den. vol. 2, p. 412—418, ed. 1813.

The light of the reformation necessarily dissipates into thin air many of the most substantial arguments by which the Sunday festival had been built up during the dark ages. The roll that fell from heaven—the apparition of St. Peter—the relief of souls in purgatory, and even of the damned in hell—and many prodigies of fearful portent—none of these, nor all of them combined were likely longer to sustain the sacredness of the venerable day. True it was that when these were swept away there remained to sustain the festival of Sunday, the canons of councils, the edicts of kings and emperors, the decrees of the holy doctors of the church, and greatest of all, the imperious mandates of the Roman pontiff. Yet all of these could be adduced also in behalf of the innumerable festivals ordained by the same great apostate church. Such authority would answer for the Episcopalian who devoutly accepts of all these festivals; but for those who acknowledge the Bible only as the rule of faith, the case was different. In the latter part of the sixteenth century the Presbyterians and Episcopalians of England were involved in such a controversy as brought this matter to a point. The Episcopalians required men to observe all the festivals of the church; the Presbyterians observed Sunday, and rejected all the rest. The Episcopalians showed the inconsistency of this discrimination, inasmuch as the same church authority had ordained them all. As the Presbyterian rejected the authority of the church, he would not keep Sunday upon that ground, especially as it would involve the observance also of all the other festivals. They had to choose therefore between the giving up of Sunday entirely, and the defense of its observance by the Bible. There was indeed another and a nobler choice that they might have made, viz., to adopt the Sabbath of the Lord, but it was too humiliating for them to unite with those who retained that ancient and sacred institution. The issue of this struggle is thus related by a distinguished German theologian, Hengstenberg:

"The opinion that the Sabbath was transferred to the Sunday was first broached in its perfect form, and with all its consequences, in the controversy which was carried on in England between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. . . . . The Presbyterians were now in a position which compelled them either to give up an observance of the Sunday, or to maintain that a divine appointment from God separated it from the other festivals. . . . . They therefore decided upon the latter."---Hengstenberg's Lord's Day, p. 66.

Thus much for the occasion of that wonderful discovery by which the Scriptures are made to sustain the divine appointment of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. The date of the discovery, the name of the discoverer, and the manner in which he contrived to enforce the first day of the week by the authority of the fourth commandment are thus set forth by a candid first-day historian, Lyman Coleman:

"The true doctrine of the Christian Sabbath was first promulgated by an English dissenter, the Rev. Nicholas Bound, D. D., of Norton, in the County of Suffolk. About the year 1565, he published a famous book, entitled, 'Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti,' or the True Doctrine of the Sabbath. In this book he maintained 'that the seventh part of our time ought to be devoted to God—That Christians are bound to rest on the Lord's day as much as the Jews were on the Mosaic Sabbath, the commandment about not being moral and perpetual; and that it was not lawful for persons to follow their studies or worldly business on that day, nor to use such pleasures and recreations as are permitted on other days.' This book spread with wonderful rapidity. The doctrine which it propounded called forth from many hearts a ready response, and the result was a most pleasing reformation in many parts of the kingdom. 'It is almost incredible,' says Fuller, 'how taking the doctrine was, partly because of its own purity, and partly for the eminent piety of such persons as maintained it; so that the Lord's day, especially in corporations, began to be precisely kept, people becoming a law unto themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by statute permitted; yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint herein.' The law of the Sabbath was indeed a religious principle, after which the Christian church had, for centuries, been darkly groping. Pious men of every age had felt the necessity of divine authority for sanctifying the day. Their conscience had been in advance of their reason. Practically they had kept the Sabbath better than their principles required.

"Public sentiment, however, was still unsettled in regard to this new doctrine respecting the Sabbath, though a few at first violently opposed it. Learned men were much divided in their judgments about these Sabbatarian doctrines: some embraced them as ancient truths consonant to scripture, long disused and neglected, now seasonably revived for the increase of piety. Others conceived them grounded on a wrong bottom; but because they tended to the manifest advance of religion, it was a pity to oppose them; seeing none have just reason to complain, being deceived unto their own good. But a third sort flatly fell out with these propositions, as galling men's necks with a Jewish yoke against the liberty of Christians; that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had removed the rigor thereof, and allowed men lawful recreations; that this doctrine put an unequal luster on the Sunday, on set purpose to eclipse all other holy days, to the derogation of the authority of the church; that this strict observance was set up out of faction, to be a character of difference to brand all for libertines who did not entertain it. No open opposition, however, was at first manifested against the sentiments of Dr. Bound. No reply was attempted for several years.

"His work was soon followed by several other treatises in defense of the same sentiments. 'All the Puritans fell in with this doctrine, and distinguished themselves by spending that part of sacred time in public, family, and private devotion.' Even Dr. Heylyn testified the triumphant spread of those puritanical sentiments respecting the Sabbath. . . .

"'This doctrine,' he says, 'carrying such a fair show of piety, at least in the opinion of the common people, and such as did not examine the true grounds of it, induced many to embrace and defend it; and in a very little time it became the most bewitching error and the most popular infatuation that ever was embraced by the people of England."---Coleman's Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chap. xxvi, sec. 2; Heylyn's Hist. Sab. part 2, chap. 8, sec. 7; Neal's Hist. Puritans, vol. 1, chap. viii.

Such was the origin of the seventh-part-of-time theory, by which the seventh day is dropped out of the fourth commandment, and one day in seven slipped into

its place; a doctrine most opportunely framed at the very period when nothing else could save the venerable day of the sun. With the aid of this theory the Sunday of "Pope and Pagan" was able coolly to wrap itself in the fourth commandment, and then in the character of a divine institution to challenge obedience from all Bible Christians. It could now cast away the other frauds on which its very existence had depended, and support its authority by this one alone. It fastened itself once to the throne of the Roman empire, and during the whole period of the dark ages maintained its supremacy from the chair of St. Peter; but now it had anchored itself by the throne of the Most High. And thus a day which God "commanded not nor spake it, neither came it into" his "mind," was enjoined upon mankind with all the authority of his holy law. The immediate effect of Dr. Bound's work upon the existing controversy is thus described by an Episcopalian eye-witness, Dr. Heylyn:

"For by inculcating to the people these new Sabbath speculations [concerning Sunday], teaching that day only was of God's appointment, and all the rest observed in the church of England, a remnant of the old worship in the church of Rome; the other holy days in this church established, were so shrewdly shaken that till this day they are not well recovered of the blow then given. Nor came this on the by or besides their purpose, but as a thing that specially was intended from the first beginning." Hist. Sab., part 2, chap. 8, sec. 8.

Dr. Bound's theory of the seventh part of time has found general acceptance in all those churches which sprung from the church of Rome. Most forcibly did old Cotton Mather observe:

"The reforming churches, flying from Rome, carried, some of them more, some of them less, all of them something, of Rome with them." Backus' Hist. of the Baptists in New England, p. 63, ed. 1777.

One sacred treasure which they all drew from the venerable mother of harlots is the ancient festival of the sun. She had crushed out of her communion the Sabbath of the Lord, and having adopted the venerable day of the sun, had transformed it into the Lord's day of the Christian church. The reformed, flying from her communion, and carrying with them this ancient festival, now found themselves able to justify its observance as being indeed the veritable Sabbath of the Lord! As the seamless coat of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, was torn from him before he was nailed to the cross, so has the fourth commandment been torn from the rest-day of the Lord, around which it was placed by the great Law-giver, and given to this Papal Lord's day; and this Barabbas the robber, thus arrayed in the stolen fourth commandment, has from that time to the present day, and with astonishing success, challenged the obedience of the world as the divinely appointed Sabbath of Most High God. Here we close the history of the Sunday festival, now fully transformed into the Christian Sabbath. A rapid survey of the history of English and American Sabbath-keepers will conclude this subject. J. N. A.

(Concluded next week.)