HISTORY OF THE SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

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History of the Sabbath by J.N Andrewsthe observance of Sunday, or to maintain that a divine appointment from Godseparated it from the other festivals. The first day could not do, for theirChristian experience was too deep for them not to know how greatly theweakness of human nature stands in need of regularly returning periods,devoted to the service of God. They therefore decided upon the latter." 1Thus much for the occasion of that wonderful discovery by which the Scriptures are made tosustain 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 ofthe week by the authority of the fourth commandment, are thus set forth by a candid first-dayhistorian, Lyman Coleman:"The true doctrine of the Christian Sabbath was first promulgated by anEnglish dissenter, the Rev. Nicholas Bound, D. D., of Norton, in the county ofSuffolk. About the year 1595, 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 bedevoted to God - that Christians are bound to rest on the Lord's day as much asthe Jews were on the Mosaic Sabbath, the commandment about rest beingmoral and perpetual; and that it was not lawful for persons to follow theirstudies or worldly business on that day, nor to use such pleasures andrecreations as are permitted on other days. This book spread with wonderfulrapidity. The doctrine which it propounded called forth from many hearts aready response, and the result was a most pleasing reformation in many partsof the kingdom. `It is almost incredible,' says Fuller, `how taking this doctrinewas, partly because of its own purity, and partly for the eminent piety of suchpersons as maintained it; so that the Lord's day, especially in corporations,began to be precisely kept; people becoming a law unto themselves, forbearingsuch sports as yet by statute permitted; yea, many rejoicing at their ownrestraint herein.' The law of the Sabbath was indeed a religious principle, afterwhich the Christian church had, for centuries, been darkly groping. Pious menof 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 keptthe Sabbath better than their principles required."Public sentiment, however, was still unsettled in regard to this new doctrinerespecting the Sabbath, though a few at first violently opposed it. `Learnedmen were much divided in their judgments about these Sabbatarian doctrines;some embraced them as ancient truths consonant to Scripture, long disused andneglected, now seasonably revived for the increase of piety. Others conceivedthem grounded on a wrong bottom; but because they tended to the manifestadvance of religion, it was a pity to oppose them; seeing none have just reasonto complain, being deceived unto their own good. But a third sort flatly fell outwith these propositions, as galling men's necks with a Jewish yoke against theliberty of Christians; that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had removed the rigorthereof, and allowed men lawful recreations; that this doctrine put an unequallustre on the Sunday, on set purpose to eclipse all other holy days, to thederogation of the authority of the church; that this strict observance was set upout of faction, to be a character of difference to brand all for libertines who didnot entertain it.' No open opposition, however, was at first manifested against276
Chapter Twenty Five – How and When Sunday Appropriated the Fourth Commandmentthe sentiments of Dr. Bound. No reply was attempted for several years, and`not so much as a feather of a quill in print did wag against him.'"His work was soon followed by several other treatises in defense of the samesentiments. `All the Puritans fell in with this doctrine, and distinguishedthemselves by spending that part of sacred time in public, family, and privatedevotion.' Even Dr. Heylyn certified the triumphant spread of those puritanicalsentiments respecting the Sabbath. . . ." `This doctrine,' he says, `carrying such a fair show of piety, at least in theopinion of the common people, and such as did not examine the true groundsof it, induced many to embrace and defend it; and in a very little time itbecame the most bewitching error and the most popular infatuation that everwas embraced by the people of England.' " 2Dr. Bound was not absolutely the inventor of the seventh-part-of-time theory; but he may besaid rather to have gathered up and combined the scattered hints of his predecessors, and tohave added to these something of his own production. His grounds for asserting Sunday to bethe Sabbath of the fourth commandment are these:"That which is natural, namely, that every seventh day should be kept holyunto the Lord, that still remaineth: that which is positive, namely, that daywhich was the seventh day from the creation, should be the Sabbath, or day ofrest, that is now changed in the church of God." 3He says that the meaning of the declaration, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thyGod," is this:"There must be one [day] of seven and not [one] of eight." 4But the special key to the whole theory is in the statement that the seventh day in thecommandment was "genus," that is to say, it was a kind of seventh day which comprehendedseveral species of seventh days, at least two. Thus he says:"So he maketh the seventh day to be genus in this commandment, and to beperpetual: and in it by virtue of the commandment to comprehend these twospecies or kinds: the Sabbath of the Jews and of the Gentiles, of the law and ofthe gospel: so that both of them were comprehended in the commandment,even as genus comprehendeth both his species." 5He enforces the first day by the fourth commandment, as follows:"So that we have not in the gospel a new commandment for the Sabbath,diverse from that that was in the law; but there is a diverse time appointed;namely, not the seventh day from the creation, but the day of Christ'sresurrection, and the seventh from that: both of them at several times beingcomprehended in the fourth commandment." 6He means to say that the fourth commandment enforces the seventh day from the creation tothe resurrection of Christ, and since that enforces a different seventh day, namely, the seventhfrom Christ's resurrection. Such is the perverse ingenuity by which men can evade the law ofGod and yet make it appear that they are faithfully observing it.277
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HISTORY OF THE SABBATHandFIRST DAY
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Chapter One - The CreationHISTORY O
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Chapter One - The CreationDr. Gill
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HISTORY OF THE SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

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