Our Day Part 24

Our Saviour did not die To render null and void The law of the Most High, Which cannot be destroyed; But, bruised for us, our stripes He bore,-- We'll go in peace and sin no more.

--_R.F. Cottrell._

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES IN THE CORN-FIELDS

"The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Matt. 12:8.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RETURNING FROM THE SAVIOUR'S TOMB

"They returned,... and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56.]

GLIMPSES OF SABBATH KEEPING AFTER NEW TESTAMENT TIMES

Not at once did the innovation of Sunday observance set aside the Sabbath of the Lord in the practice of even the general church. And through history, when the general church had fallen away, we catch glimpses here and there of faithful witnesses to G.o.d's holy Sabbath truth.

First Centuries

An old English writer, Professor Brerewood, of Gresham College, London, put in shortest phrase what many writers say:

"They know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed by the Eastern churches three hundred years after our Saviour's pa.s.sion."--_"Treatise on the Sabbath," p. 77._

Fourth Century

Canon 29, of the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), shows that the ecclesiastical system was laboring to put an end to Sabbath keeping:

"Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Sat.u.r.day [the Sabbath], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day [as they called Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they be found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ."--_Hefele, "History of the Councils of the Church,"

Vol. II, book 6, sec. 93, canon 29._

Fifth Century

Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History shows Rome evidently leading in the effort to abolish any recognition whatever of the Sabbath:

"The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities, a.s.semble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day; which custom is never observed at Rome, or at Alexandria."--_Book 7, chap. 19._

Seventh Century

There were true Sabbath keepers in Rome itself, teaching the truth of G.o.d among the people, and bringing upon themselves the denunciation of Pope Gregory the Great, who wrote "to his most beloved sons the Roman citizens:"

"It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist?"--_"History of the Councils" (Labbe and Cossart), Vol. V, col. 1511; see also "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,"

Vol. XIII, book 13, epistle 1._

Eleventh Century

The Pope's legates at Constantinople (A.D. 1054) were called to discuss with Nicetas, "one of the most learned men at that time in the East," says Bower, whose position was "that the Sabbath ought to be kept holy, and that priests should be allowed to marry."--_"History of the Popes," Vol. II, p. 358._

The people of north Scotland, the ancient Culdee church founded by Columba and his followers, far removed from direct papal influence, was still keeping the seventh-day Sabbath in the eleventh century. Of this church Andrew Lang says in his "History of Scotland:"

"They worked on Sunday, but kept Sat.u.r.day in a Sabbatical manner."--_Volume I, p. 96._

Skene, in his cla.s.sic work, "Celtic Scotland," says of these Sabbath keepers:

"They seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland, by which they held Sat.u.r.day to be the Sabbath, on which they rested from all their labors."--_Book 2, chap. 8._

Margaret, of England, married Malcolm the Great, the Scottish king, in 1069. An ardent Catholic, Queen Margaret at once set about Romanizing the Celtic church. She called in the church leaders, and held long discussions with them. At last, with the help and authority of her royal husband, and quoting the instructions of "the blessed Pope Gregory," she succeeded in turning the ancient Culdee church in Scotland away from the Sabbath. (See "Life of St. Margaret," by Turgot, her confessor.)

Twelfth to Fourteenth Century

Among the numerous sects of southern Europe and the Alpine valleys, that were pursued and persecuted by Rome, were at least some who saw and obeyed the Sabbath truth. Thus, of one of these bodies, the historian Goldastus says:

"They were called Insabbatati, not because they were circ.u.mcised, but because they kept the Sabbath according to the Jewish law."--_"Deutsche Biographie," Vol. IX, art. "Goldast.,"

p. 327._

Fifteenth Century

Sabbath keepers in Norway drew the condemnation of a church council held in 1435:

"The archbishop and the clergy a.s.sembled in this provincial council at Bergen do decide that the keeping of Sat.u.r.day must never be permitted to exist, except as granted in the church law."--_Keyser's "Norske Kirkes Historie," Vol. II, p. 488._

Sixteenth Century

With the setting free of the Word of G.o.d by the Reformation, and the protest against the doctrine of papal tradition, mult.i.tudes saw that the Sunday inst.i.tution was not of divine origin; while not a few went farther, recognizing the claims of G.o.d's Sabbath. Moravia was a refuge, in those early Reformation days, for many believers in the Reformed doctrines, and among these were Sabbath-keeping Christians:

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALDENSES HUNTED BY THE ARMIES OF ROME

"Dest.i.tute, afflicted, tormented;... they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Heb. 11:37, 38.]

"Even most prominent men, as the princes of Lichtenstein, held to the observance of the true Sabbath. When persecution finally scattered them, the seeds of truth must have been sown by them in the different portions of the Continent which they visited.... We have found them [Sabbath keepers] in Bohemia.

They were also known in Silesia and Poland. Likewise they were in Holland and northern Germany.... There were at this time Sabbath keepers in France,... 'among whom were M. de la Roque, who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic bishop of Meaux.' That Sabbatarians again appeared in England by the time of the Reformation, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (A.D. 1533-1603), Dr. Chambers testifies in his Cyclopedia [art. 'Sabbath']."--_Andrews and Conradi, "History of the Sabbath," pp. 649, 650._

In this century also, Sabbath keepers appeared in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In 1554 King Gustavus Vasa, of Sweden, addressed a letter of remonstrance "to the common people in Finland," because so many were turning to keep the seventh day.

Seventeenth Century

There was much discussion in England over the authority for Sunday observance. When other church festivals were ignored, as Easter, King Charles I wanted to know why Sunday should be kept. He wrote: