07095.2 - Analysis of The Confession - 2

§95.2. Analysis of the Westminster Confession -Part 2. THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

Ch. XXI., ’ Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,’ must be mentioned as (next to the Irish Articles) the first symbolical indorsement of what may be called the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath which was not taught by the Reformers and the Continental Confessions, but which has taken deep root in England, Scotland, and the United States, and has become the basis of a far stricter observance of the Lord’s day than exists in any other country. This observance is one of the most prominent national and social features of Anglo-American Christianity, and at once strikes the attention of every traveler. [SeeNote #1490] The way was gradually prepared for it. Calvin’s view of the authority of the fourth commandment was stricter than Luther’s, Knox’s view stricter than Calvin’s, and the Puritan view stricter than Knox’s. [SeeNote #1491] The Prayer-Book of the Church of England, by incorporating the responsive reading of the Decalogue in the regular service, kept alive in the minds of the people the perpetual obligation of the fourth commandment, and helped to create a public sentiment within the Church of England favorable to the Puritan theory, although practically great desecration prevailed during Elizabeth’s reign. The ’judicious’ Hooker, who was no Puritan, says: ’We are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which God’s immutable law doth exact forever. ’ [SeeNote #1492]

Towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign the Sabbath question assumed the importance and dignity of a national movement, and of a practical reformation which traveled from England to Scotland and from both countries to North America. The chief impulse to this movement was given in 1595 by Dr. Nicolas Bownd (or Bound ), [SeeNote #1493] a learned Puritan clergyman of Norton in Suffolk. He is not the originator, but the systematizer or first clear expounder of the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath, namely, that the Sabbath or weekly day of holy rest is a primitive institution of the benevolent Creator for the benefit of man, and that the fourth commandment as to its substance (that is, the keeping holy one day out of seven) is as perpetual in design and as binding upon the Christians as any other of the Ten Commandments, of which Christ said that not ’one jot or one tittle’ shall pass away till all be fulfilled. [SeeNote #1494] The work in which this theory was ably and earnestly vindicated proved to be a tract for the times. Heylin, a High-Church opponent, says ’that in a very little time it grew the most bewitching error, the most popular deceit that had ever been set on foot in the Church of England.’ [SeeNote #1495] Fuller dates from it ’the more solemn and strict observance of the Lord’s day,’ and gives the following description of the effect produced by it:

’It is almost incredible how taking this 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 to themselves, forbearing such sports as [were] yet by statute permitted; yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint therein. On this day the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler, the most skilful archer unbent his bow, counting all shooting besides the mark; May-games and Morris-dances grew out of request, and good reason that bells should be silenced from gingling about men’s legs, if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful; some of them were ashamed of their former pleasures, like children which, grown bigger, blushing themselves out of their rattles and whistles. Others forbore them for fear of their superiors, and many left them off out of a politic compliance, lest otherwise they should be accounted licentious.

’Yet 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 pity to oppose them, seeing none have just reason to complain being deceived into their own good. But a third sort flatly fell out with these positions, 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 lustre on the Sunday, on set purpose to eclipse all other holy days, to the derogation of the authority of the Church; that the strict observance was set up out of faction to be a character of difference, to brand all for libertines who did not entertain it.’ [SeeNote #1496] The Puritan Sabbath theory was denounced and assailed by the rising school of High-Churchism as a Sabbatarian heresy and a cunningly concealed attack on the authority of the Church of England, by substituting the Jewish Sabbath for the Christian Sunday and all the Church festivals. [SeeNote #1497] Attempts were made by Archbishop Whitgift in 1599, and by Chief Justice Popham in 1600, to suppress Bownd’s book and to destroy all the copies, but ’the more it was called in the more it was called on;’ its price was doubled, and ’though the book’s wings were clipped from flying abroad in print, it ran the faster from friend to friend in transcribed copies, and the Lord’s day, in most places, was most strictly observed. The more liberty people were offered the less they used it. . . . It was sport for them to refrain from sports. . . . Scarce any comment, catechism, or controversy was set forth by the stricter divines, wherein this doctrine (the diamond in this ring) was not largely pressed and proved; so that, as one saith, the Sabbath itself had no rest.’ [SeeNote #1498] At last King James 1:1-27. brought his royal authority to bear against the Puritan Sabbatarianism so called, and issued the famous ’Book of Sports,’ May 24, 1618, which was afterwards republished, with an additional order, by his son, Charles I., no doubt by advice of Archbishop Laud, Oct. 18, 1633. [SeeNote #1499] This curious production formally authorizes and commends the desecration of the evening of the Lord’s day by dancing, leaping, fencing, and other ’lawful recreations,’ on condition of observing the earlier part by strict outward conformity to the worship of the Church of England. [SeeNote #1500] The professed object of this indulgence to the common people was to check the progress of the Papists and Puritans (or ’Precisians’), and to make ’the bodies more able for war’ when his majesty should have ’occasion to use them.’ The court set the example of desecration by balls, masquerades, and plays on Sunday evening; and the rustics repaired from the house of worship to the ale-house or the village green to dance around the Maypole and to shoot at butts. To complete the folly, King James ordered the book to be read in every parish church, and threatened clergymen who refused to do so with severe punishment. King Charles repeated the order. But in both cases it became the source of great trouble and confusion. [SeeNote #1501] Several bishops disapproved of it. Archbishop Abbot (the Puritan predecessor of Laud) flatly forbade it to be read at Croydon. The Lord Mayor of London commanded the king’s own carriages to be stopped as they were passing through the city on a Sunday. James raged and swore, and countermanded the prohibition. The Lord Mayor yielded, with this answer: ’While I was in my power I did my duty, but that being taken away, it is my duty to obey.’ Some clergymen, after reading the book from the pulpit, followed it up by a sermon against it, or by reading the fourth commandment-’Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’-and added, ’This is the law of God, the other the injunction of man.’ Those who refused to read the royal Book of Sports were suspended from office and benefice, or even excommunicated by Laud and his sympathizing fellow-bishops. [SeeNote #1502] Many left England, and joined ’The pilgrim bands, who crossed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In his wide temple of the wilderness." This persecution of conscientious ministers for obeying God rather than men gave moral strength to the cause of Sabbath observance, and rooted it deeper in the affections of the people. It was one of the potent causes which overwhelmed Charles and Laud in common ruin. The sober and serious part of the nation were struck with a kind of horror that they should be invited by the highest authorities in Church and State to destroy the effect of public worship by a desecration of a portion of the day consecrated to religion. On the Sunday question Puritanism achieved at last a permanent triumph, and left its trace upon the Church of England and Scotland, which reappeared after the licentious period of the Restoration. For, although the Church of England, as a body, never committed itself to the Puritan Sabbath theory, it adopted at least the practice of a much stricter observance than had previously obtained under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, and would never exchange it for the Continental laxity, with its disastrous effects upon the attendance at public worship and the morals of the people. The Westminster Confession, without entering into details or sanctioning the incidental excesses of the Puritan practice, represents the Christian rest-day under its threefold aspect: (1) as a divine law of nature (jus divinum naturale ), rooted in the constitution of man, and hence instituted (together with marriage) at the creation, in the state of innocence, for the perpetual benefit of body and soul; (2) as a positive moral law (jus divinum positivum ), given through Moses, with reference to the primitive institution (’Remember’) and to the typical redemption of Israel from bondage; (3) as the commemoration of the new creation and finished redemption by the resurrection of Christ; hence the change from the last to the first day of the week, and its designation ’the Lord’s day’ (dies Dominica ). And it requires the day to be wholly devoted to the exercises of public and private worship and the duties of necessity and mercy. To this doctrine and practice the Presbyterian, Congregational, and other Churches in Scotland, England, and America have faithfully adhered to this day. Yea, twenty-seven years before it was formulated by the learned divines of Westminster, the Pilgrim Fathers of America had transplanted both theory and practice first to Holland, and, finding them unsafe there, to the wild soil of New England. Two days after their landing from the Mayflower (Dec. 22, 1620), forgetting the pressing necessities of physical food and shelter, the dreary cold of winter, the danger threatening from wild beasts and roaming savages, they celebrated their first Sunday in America on a barren rock and under the stormy sky of heaven, and, in the exercise of the general priesthood of believers, they offered the sacrifices of contrite hearts and the praises of devout lips to their God and Saviour, on his own appointed day of holy rest; not dreaming that they were the bearers of the hopes and destinies of a mighty future and the founders of a republic stretching across a continent and embracing millions of intelligent Christian freemen. [SeeNote #1503] The political articles of the Confession touching the power of the civil magistrate and the relation of Church and State will be discussed hereafter (§97) in connection with the subject of religious toleration and the changes which have been introduced in later editions.

Note #1463

Dr. M’Crie (Annals, p. 177) asserts without proof that the ’Westm. Conf. bears unmistakably the stamp of the Dutch theology in the sharp distinctions, logical forms, and judicial terms into which the reformed doctrine had gradually moulded itself under the red heat of the Arminian and Socinian controversies.’ This is an error if we look to the direct source. See below.

Note #1464 See pp. 658 and 662.

Note #1465 This agreement was first brought to light and set forth in detail by Prof. Mitchell, of St. Andrews, in the pamphlet above quoted, and also in the Introduction to the Minutes, p. 47.

Note #1466

Vol. II. p. 41.

Note #1467 The Lutheran symbols make no such distinction and give no list of the canonical books. They have no separate article on the Scriptures at all, beyond the important statement in the introduction to the Formula of Concord.

Note #1468

Thus we find that the Epistle to the Hebrews is named separately, and not included in ’fourteen Epistles of Paul,’ as in the Belgic Confession. Canonicity is not necessarily dependent on a traditional view of authorship or genuineness.

Note #1469

Ch. 1. 5: ’We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.’

Note #1470

While arguing against creeds and councils, Dean Stanley (in the Contemp. Rev. for Aug. 1874, p. 499) writes: ’Is there any single theological question which any council or synod has argued and decided with an ability equal to that of any of the great theologians, lay or clerical? The nearest approaches to it are the chapters on Justification in the Decrees of Trent, and on the Bible in the Westminster Confession. ’ Comp. also the remarks of Dr. Mitchell, Introd. to Minutes, p. 49.

Note #1471 The English and Scotch editions use the singular, some American editions the plural (as in the Catechisms). There was a dispute in the Assembly about decree and decrees. Several members were opposed to dividing the one, all-comprehending decree of God. Seaman said: ’All the odious doctrine of the Arminians is from their distinguishing of the decrees, but our divines say they are one and the same decree.’ Reynolds differed. See Minutes, p. 151. But both Catechisms in all editions have decrees (comprehended under the one purpose of God; see Shorter Catechism, Quest. 7).

Note #1472 The charge derives some plausibility from the fact that the supralapsarian Beza, by his Greek Testament and his Latin translation and notes, exerted a marked influence on the translators. It is supported chiefly by three passages. In Matthew 20:23, the words ’it shall be given ’ are unnecessarily inserted (after the precedent of the Geneva version). In Acts 2:47, we read, ’The Lord added to the Church such as should be saved ,’ instead of ’such as were being saved, or in the way of salvation’ (tous sōzomenous,not tous sôthçsomenous). In Hebrews 10:38 -’Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him’-any man is inserted, with Beza (’si quis se subduxerit’), to distinguish the subject of huposteilçtaifrom the dikaiosof the first clause, and to evade an argument against the perseverance of saints. But the case here is doubtful.

Note #1473

See the comparative table, pp. 762, 768. Ussher adhered to his views on predestination, which he had expressed in the Irish Articles. In his ’Method of the Christian Religion,’ written in his youth, but revised and republished shortly before his death, he has even a stronger passage on reprobation than the Westminster Confession, viz., ’Did God, then, before he made man, determine to save some and reject others? A. Yes, surely; before they had done either good or evil, God in his eternal counsel set some apart upon whom he would in time show the riches of his mercy, and determined to withhold the same from others, upon whom he would show the severity of his justice.’ See Vol. XI. of hisWorks;and Mitchell, p. 54. note.

Note #1474

Bradwardine’s treatise, De causa Dei adversus Pelagium, which leads even to supralapsarianism, was republished in London in 1618 by Archbishop Abbot, the Calvinistic predecessor of the anti Calvinistic Laud.

Note #1475 Ch. V. 4: ’God, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.’

Note #1476

Calamy said, in a sermon before the House of Commons: ’It is most certain that God is not the cause of any man’s damnation. He found us sinners in Adam, but made none sinners.’ In the debate on redemption in the Assembly, he stated: ’I am far from universal redemption in the Arminian sense, but I hold with our divines in the Synod of Dort that Christ did pay a price for all, [with] absolute intention for the elect, [with] conditional intention for the reprobate in case they do believe; that all men should be salvabiles, non obstante lapsu Adami; that Jesus Christ did not only die sufficiently for all, but God did intend, in giving of Christ, and Christ in giving himself did intend, to put all men in a state of salvation in case they do obey.’ . . . ’This universality of redemption does neither intrude upon either doctrine of special election or special grace’ (Minutes, p. 152). ’The difference is not in the offer, but in the application. For the word world [in John 3:16] signifies the whole world’ (p. 156). ’It can not be meant of the elect because of that whosoever believeth, and Mar. xvi., "Preach the Gospel to every creature"’ (p. 154). ’In the point of election I am for special election, and for reprobation I am for massa corrupta; . . . there is ea administratio of grace to the reprobate that they do willfully damn themselves ’ (p. 153). Seaman said: ’All in the first Adam were made liable to damnation, so all are liable to salvation in the second Adam. Every man was damnnabilis, so is every man salvabilis ’ (p. 154). Dr. Mitchell (pp. 56. sqq.) shows that Arrowsmith, Gataker, and other members of the Assembly, in their private writings, agreed with Calamy. His interpretation of kosmos,in John 3:16, is indeed the only tenable one, and seems to be favored by the exegetical tact of Calvin himself (in loc. ), for Calvin the exegete is more fair and free than Calvin the theologian. Dr. Arrowsmith, who was a member of the Committees on the Confession and on the Catechisms, in his explanation of Romans 9:22-23, justly presses the important difference between the passive katērtismenaand the active proçtoimasen ’I desire,’ he says, ’to have it punctually observed that the vessels of wrath are only said to be fitted to destruction, without naming by whom-God, Satan, or themselves; whereas, on the other side, God himself is expressly said to have prepared his chosen vessels of mercy unto glory. Which was purposely done (as I humbly conceive) to intimate a remarkable difference between election and preterition, in that election is a proper cause not only of salvation itself, but of all the graces which have any causal tendency thereunto, and therefore God is said to prepare his elect to glory; whereas negative reprobation is no proper cause either of damnation itself or of the sin that bringeth it, but an antecedent only; wherefore the non-elect are indeed said to be fitted to that destruction which their sins in conclusion bring upon them, but not by God. I call it a remarkable difference, because where it is once rightly apprehended and truly believed, it sufficeth to stop the mouth of one of those greatest calumnies and odiums which are usually cast upon our doctrine of predestination, viz., that God made sundry of his creatures on purpose to damn them-a thing which the rhetoric of our adversaries is wont to blow up to the highest pitch of aggravation. But it is soon blown away by such as can tell them, in the words of the excellent Dr. Davenant, "It is true that the elect are severally created to the end and intent that they may be glorified together with their head, Christ Jesus; but for the non-elect, we can not truly say that they are created to the end that they may be tormented with the devil and his angels. No man is created by God with a nature and quality fitting him to damnation. Yea, neither in the state of his innocency nor in the state of the fall and his corruption doth he receive any thing from God which is a proper and fit means of bringing him to his damnation."’-Chain of Principles , pp. 335, 336, etc., edition 1659 (quoted by Mitchell, p. lxi.).

Note #1477

Comp. Ch. IX. 1: ’God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil (Matthew 17:12;Deuteronomy 30:19).

Note #1478 The term atonement is not used in the Confession. The English Bible exceptionally renders Romans 5:11, katallagç(reconciliation ), by atonement , which in its old sense (=at-one-ment) means reconciliation , but is now equivalent to expiation, satisfaction (hilasmos). Redemption (apolutrôsis) is a wider term. This distinction should be kept in view in the explanation of the Confession.

Note #1479

Minutes , p. 153. The ablest modern defendants of a limited atonement, Drs. Cunningham and Hodge (see his Theology , Vol. II. pp. 544 sqq.), are as emphatic on the absolute sufficiency as Reynolds. Their arguments are chiefly logical; but logic depends on the premises, and is a two-edged sword which may be turned against them as well. For if the atonement be limited in design , it must be limited in the offer; or if unlimited in offer, the offer made to the non-elect must be insincere and hypocritical , which is inconsistent with the truthfulness and goodness of God. Every Calvinist preaches on the assumption that the offer of salvation is truly and sincerely extended to all his hearers, and that it is their own fault if they are not saved.

Note #1480

Compare the remarks of Mitchell, p. lvii., who considers the language of the Confession in Ch. III. compatible with the liberal view, while the other passage, strictly construed, excludes it, unless ’redemption’ be there taken in the sense of Baxter, as meaning ’that special redemption proper to the elect which was accompanied with an intention of actual application of the saving benefits in time.’ The difference of views came up again in the debate on the 68th question of the Larger Catechism. See Minutes , pp. 369, 392, 393.

Note #1481 See pp. 480 sqq.

Note #1482 Later federalists based the primitive covenant of works on Hosea 6:7. See p. 484.

Note #1483

De substantia fœderis gratuiti , etc. See a German version in Sudhoff’s Olevianus und Ursinus (Elberfeld, 1857), pp. 573 sqq.

Note #1484

Coccejus, or Koch, was at first Professor in Bremen (his native place), then at Franeker, 1636, and last at Leyden, 1649, where he died, 1669. His chief work, Summa doctrinæ de fœdere et testamento Dei, appeared in 1648 (a year after the Westminster Conf.) and again in 1653. It was the first attempt of a biblical and exegetical theology in distinction from the scholastic orthodoxy which then prevailed in Holland. Coccejus was denounced by the orthodox as a Judaizing and Pelagianizing heretic. Comp. the article Coccejus and his School , by Dr. Ebrard. in Herzog’s Real-Encykl. Vol. II. pp. 742 sqq.

Note #1485 This statement, which is made also in other Protestant Confessions and in the Irish Articles (No. 80; see Vol. III. p. 540), does not unchurch the Church of Rome, or declare her ordinances invalid; for Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and there is a material difference between the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, as there is between the Jewish hierarchy and the people of Israel.

Note #1486

Presbyterians therefore act in perfect consistency with their Confession if they take a leading part in all Bible Societies, Tract Societies, the Evangelical Alliance, and other catholic societies. They are among the most liberal of orthodox denominations in the support of these societies.

Note #1487 See pp. 281, 376, 455, 601, 639, 641, 645.

Note #1488 History of the Later Puritans , p. 84. He then quotes the questions of the Shorter Catechism on the Sacraments.

Note #1489 Introduction to Minutes , p. 68.

Note #1490 The most recent manifestation of the national American sentiment was the closing of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876) on the Lord’s day.

Note #1491

There is a tradition that Knox once called on Calvin on Sunday, and found him enjoying the recreation of bowling on a green. Knox himself on one occasion had one or two friends taking supper with him on Sunday night, and no doubt considered this innocent (see Randolph’s letter to Cecil, Nov. 30, 1562, quoted by Hessey, Bampton Lectures on Sunday , Lond. 1860, p. 270). On the other hand, it is a fact that the designation of ’Sabbath’ for Sunday, and the enumeration of ’the breaking of the Sabbath’ among the grosser sins, originated with Knox, or at all events in Scotland at his time. The First Book of Discipline , which was drawn up by Knox and five other ministers, abolishes Christmas, Circumcision, and Epiphany, ’because they have no assurance in God’s Word,’ but enjoins the observance of Sunday in these words: ’The Sabbath must be kept strictly in all towns, both forenoon and afternoon, for hearing of the Word; at afternoon upon the Sabbath, the Catechism shall be taught, the children examined, and the baptism ministered. Public prayers shall be used upon the Sabbath, as well afternoon as before, when sermons can not be had.’ The third General Assembly resolved, July 4, 1562, to petition the queen for the punishing of Sabbath-breaking and all the vices which are ’commanded to be punished by the law of God, and yet not by the law of the realm.’ Similar acts occur in the Assemblies of 1575, 1590, and 1596. See Gilfillan’s work on the Sabbath , and Appendix D to Mitchell’s tract on the Westminster Confession , pp. 53 sqq.

Note #1492

Ecc. Polity, Bk. V. ch. 70, sec. 9. The fifth book came out in 1597, two years after Bownd’s book. Ussher, Leighton, Pearson, Beveridge, Cecil, and other leading divines of the Church of England take the same ground on the perpetuity of the fourth commandment, and so far agree with the Puritan theory. But the Puritan practice in Scotland and New England often runs into Judaizing excesses.

Note #1493

He was a graduate of Cambridge, was suspended with others in 1583 for some act of non-conformity, and died in 1607. Isaac Walton states (in his Life of Hooker ) that he was offered by Whitgift the mastership of the Temple, but this seems inconsistent with the Archbishop’s hostility to his book. Bownd wrote also The Holy Exercise of Fasting (1604); A Storehouse of Comfort for the Afflicted (1604); and a sermon on the Unbelief of Thomas for the Comfort of all who desire to believe, which armeth us against Despair in the Hour of Death (1608). There is a biographical sketch of Bownd in Brook’s Lives of the Puritans , Vol. II. pp. 171-176.

Note #1494 The first edition of Bownd’s book appeared in 1595, and was dedicated to the Earl of Essex (see the title in Vol. V. p. 211 of Fuller’s Church History , Brewer’s ed.). The second and enlarged edition of 1606 was dedicated to the Bishop of Norwich and the Dean of Ely, and bears the following characteristic title (which somewhat differs from the title of the first):’Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or, The True Doctrine of the Sabbath, held and practised of the Church of God, both before and under the Law, and in the time of the Gospel: Plainly laid forth and soundly proved by testimonies both of Holy Scripture and also of old and new Ecclesiastical Writers, Fathers and Councils, and Laws of all sorts, both civil, canon, and common. Declaring first from what things God would have us straitly to rest upon the Lord’s day, and then by what means we ought publicly and privately to sanctify the same. Together with the sundry Abuses of men in both these kinds, and how they ought to be reformed. Divided into two Books by Nicolas Bownd , Doctor of Divinity; and now by him the second time perused, and enlarged with an Interpretation of sundry points belonging to the Sabbath, and a more ample proof of such things as have been gainsaid or doubted of by some divines of our time, and a more full Answer unto certain objections made against the same: with some other things not impertinent to this argument. ’ London, 1606, 4to, pp. 479. Having been unable to obtain this rare work, I copied the title from Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question (in 2 vols. Edinb. 1865), Vol. 1. p. 145. There is a copy in the Bodleian Library, and another in the library of the University of Edinburgh. Cox himself is opposed to the Puritan theory, and holds the Church of England responsible for originating it by requiring the fourth commandment to be read and responded to in the Liturgy. Of Bownd’s book he says: ’In the treatise bearing this long title the Sabbatarian opinions of the Puritans, which afterwards found more precise expression in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and are now maintained by the Evangelical sects in this country, were for the first time broadly and prominently asserted in Christendom.’ Fuller gives a full account of the contents, Vol. V. pp. 211 sqq. His editor, Brewer, says that Bownd’s book ’is written in a truly Christian spirit, and ought by no means to be considered as the fruit of Puritan principles.’ The accounts of Collier (Eccl. Hist. Vol. VII. pp. 182 sqq.), Neal (Vol. 1. pp. 208 sq.), and Hesse (Sunday , pp. 276 sqq.) are drawn from Fuller.

Note #1495 Quoted by Hessey, p. 281.

Note #1496 Vol. V. pp. 214 sqq.

Note #1497 The chief writers against the Puritan theory were Thomas Rogers , Bancroft’s chaplain (in his Preface to the Articles ); and afterwards Bishop White of Ely (A Treatise of the Sabbath-Day . . . against Sabbatarian Novelty , Lond. 1635); Peter Heylin , Laud’s chaplain (The History of the Sabbath , Lond. 2d ed. 1636); and Dr. John Pocklington (Sunday no Sabbath , Lond. 1636). See extracts from their works by Cox, 1.c. Vol. 1. pp. 166 sqq. White and Heylin wrote at the request of Laud. Bishop Prideaux (1622), Bishop Cosin (1635), and Dr. Young (1639) took a more moderate view. Richard Baxter (1671), though strongly leaning to the Puritanic side, tried to mediate between the strict Sabbath theory and the ecclesiastical Sunday theory, and maintained the joyous rather than the penitential character of the Lord’s day. See Hessey, pp. 288 sq.

Note #1498 Fuller, pp. 218, 219.

Note #1499 Of the first edition no copy is known to exist. The second edition, of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum, bears the title: ’The Kings | Maiesties | Declaration to | His Subjects , | Concerning | lawfull Sports to | bee vsed. | Imprinted at London by | Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings | most Excellent Maiesties And by | the Assignes of John Bill. | M.DC.XXXIII.’ 4to, 24 pp. This edition has been reprinted on tinted paper, in exact imitation of the original, at London (Bernard Quaritch), 15 Piccadilly, 1860. The Long Parliament, in 1643, ordered the book to be burned by the common hangman, in Cheapside and other places.

Note #1500

’Our expresse pleasure therefore is, that. . . no lawfull Recreation shall bee barred to Our good People, which shall not tend to the breach of Our aforesayd Lawes, and Canons of Our Church: which to expresse more particularly, Our pleasure is, That the Bishop, and all other inferiour Churchmen, and Churchwardens, shall for their parts bee carefull and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and conuince and reforme them that are mis-led in Religion, presenting them that will not conforme themselues, but obstinately stand out to Our Judges and Iustices: Whom We likewise command to put the Law in due execution against them. ’Our pleasure likewise is, That the Bishop of that Diocesse take the like straight order with all the Puritanes and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conforme themselues, or to leaue the Country according to the Lawes of Our Kingdome, and Canons of Our Church, and so to strike equally on both hands, against the contemners of Our Authority, and aduersaries of Our Church. And as for Our good peoples lawfull Recreation, Our pleasure likewise is, That after the end of Diuine Seruice, Our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation, Such as dauncing, either men or women, Archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmelesse Recreation, nor from hauing of May-Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting vp of May-poles & other sports therewith vsed, so as the same be had in due & conuenient time, without impediment or neglect of Diuine Seruice.’-Book of Sports, pp. 8 sqq.

Note #1501

Fuller says (Vol. V. p. 452): ’When this declaration was brought abroad, it is not so hard to believe as sad to recount what grief and distraction thereby was occasioned in many honest men’s hearts.’

Note #1502

Prynne says: ’How many hundred godly ministers have been suspended from their ministry, sequestered, driven from their livings, excommunicated, prosecuted in the High Commission, and forced to leave the kingdom, for not publishing this declaration, is experimentally known to all men.’ For particulars, see Neal, Vol. 1. pp. 312 sqq.

Note #1503 Comp. my essay on the Anglo-American Sabbath. New York, 1863.