THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1903. A 'SABBATH' CONTROVERSY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 41, 8 October 1903, Page 17

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1903. A ' SABBATH ' CONTROVERSY

ACTERIOLOOISTS tell us of a pestiferous microbe which is endowed with such amazing vitality that it will endure without wincing six months' imprisonment in a block of solid ice and stand boiling water for six hours on end before you can be sure that it has ' passed in its checks.' In the wide field of discussion the-re are fallacies as tenacious of life as that tough and enduring microscopic pest. One of these is the Sabbatarian fallacy. It is of Puritan growth and cultivation and shows itself once in a while— usually in a spasm of controversy and protest— in countries in which Puritan creeds or Puritan ideals are found among us ; it is at one time a protest against the signing of the Journal of our House of Representatives on the 'Sabbath ' morning ; at another, against the holding of an urgent Cabinet meeting on the ' Sabbath ' ; anon, against the running of trains on the ' Sabbath ' to suburban centres or church openings , and at frequent intervals the running of tramcars on the ' Sabbath ' day has been made the subject of hot denunciation and long-drawn controversy in every great centre of population in New Zealand. Auckland has just had its spasm of discussion and voting on this perennial topic, and the temper displayed was distinctly reminiscent of the swift exchange of fiery words and pleiocene skulls and chunks of old red sandstone that broke up the scientific society upon the Stanislow.

In every instance the word ' Sabbath ' is used as if it meant Sunday— a name which seems to be ' tapu ' to the average Puritan preacher and church adh.ere.nt. TJiey serenely forget that Sunday or Lord's Day is not the seventh, but the first day of the week ; that t(he Sabbatih is really the seventh day, or Saturday ; and that the application of the term Sabbath (without other addition) to the Christian Sunday is merely a bit of illinformed religious slang dating back only to the Sabbatarian Controversy and the hard awd unspacious Judais-

ing days that produced Praise-God-Barebones and Hew-Agog^pieces-before-the-Lord. Ministers of religion, in Auckland and elsewhere, might at least be expected at this time of day not to confound the Jewish Sabttath with the Christian Sunday. The precept of observing' the Sabbath (Saturday) was completely abrogated in the Christian Church. The Sacred Day of the New Dispensation, • theiLond's Day ' (Apoc. i., 10), was to be celebrated on tihat ' first day of the week ' on which the Saviour of the world rose from the dead. Sunday was the weekly feast of the Resurrection, as the Sabbath had been of the Creation. The observance of Sunday does not rest on the natural law. Neither is it commanded by any written positive Divine precept. \No regulations for its observance,' says the Presbyterian divine, Schaff, 'are laid down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined. ... The Lord's Day was not a continuation of the Jewish SabbaHh . , . . bwt a substitute for it.' Protestants accept the change from Saturday to Suriday on the sole authority of the Church's tradition which they afiect to despise, and in direct violation of their alleged ground-work principle :,« The Bible aad the Bible only.'

The Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) and the Christian Sunday differed widely in their chief purpose. The Sabbath was primarily a day of rest. The Sunday was over primarily a day of prayer and worship. The law of Sunday rest arose gradually, as a protection for the law of worship. Lecky's words on the change are worth quoting btare. He says, in this ' History of European Morals ' (viol, ii., -pp. 244-245) :— < The celebration of the fijrs,t day, of the week, in commemoration of the Resurrection, and as a period of religious exercises, dates from the earliest age of the Churoh, The Christian festival was carefully distinguished from the Jewish Sabb,ath, with which it never appears to have been confounded till the close of the sixteenth century ; but some Jewish converts, who considered the Jewish law to be still in force, observed both days. In general, however, the Christian festival alone was observed, and the Jewish Sabbatical obligation, as St. Paul most explicitly affirms, no longer rested upon the Christians. The grounds of the observance of Sunday were the manifest propriety and expediency of devoting a certain portion of time to devout exercises, the tradition which tiraced the sanctincation of Sunday to apjostolic times, and the right of the Church to appoint certain seasons to be kept holy by its members. When Christianity acquired an ascendancy in the Empire, its ptolicy on this subject was manifested in one of the laws of Constantine, which, without making any direct reference to religious motives, ordered that, " on the day of tjhe sun," no servile work should be performed except agfricultute, which, being dependant on the weather, could not, it was' thought, be reasonably postponed. Theodosius took a step further, and suppressed the public spectacles on that day. During the centuries that immediately followed the dissolution of the Roman Empire, the clergy devoted themselves with great and praisewarUhy zeal to the suppression of labor both on Sundays and on t,he other leading Church holidays. More than one law was made, forbidding all Sunday labor, and this prohibition was reiterated by Charlemagne in his Capitularies. Several Councils made decrees on the subject.' Tlhey laid down the obligation of spending the greater part of the day in devotional exercises, and forbade such work as would interfere with the due discharge of this sacred duty. Up to the change of religion in England, the people recognised the obligation of hearing Matins, Mass, and Vespers. Mass in those times was preceded by the public recitation of Matins— the whole function otocupying over two hours. The letter of the modern discipline is satisfied by simply hearing a Low Mass. But the spirit of the law requires something more than this. Prayer, good reading, instruction, etc., are duties which no one can neglect without danger to his soul. Innocent recreation is perfectly lawful in due moderation, and in due soittserjvience to the great end for wihich the Sunday observance is primarily intended.

The Puritan idea of tshe Sunday, so prevalent in Ofcago and Southland and other parts of New Zealand, has no warrant whatever either in the New Testament or in the history of the Church up to the days of the Reformation. Still more. The Puritan idea of the Sabbath was never known to the Jews. They are two things quite distinct and apart. Even the Pharisees did not prohibit a modicum of innocent recreation as such. ' The Puritan idea of a Christian Sabba,th,' says a recent writer, • was unknown to the first Reformers.' Even in Scotland we find tihe book of discipline drawn u)p by John Knox and five other ministers enforcing Sabbath observance ; and in 1562 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland petitioned the Queen to punish Sabbath-breakers. In England the Puritanical or Judaising doctrine -w,as developed and systematised by a learned Puritan clergyman, Dr. Nicholas Bownd, of Norton, in Suffolk. The Westminster Confession of 1647 was the fijist Creed which embodied this view.' In point of fact, some of the early Reformers were opposed to Sabbath observance as being Jewish, and abolished Sunday observance as being • Popish.' Luther and Zwingli both denied the obligation of keeping the Sunday holy. The Seoom4 Helvetic Confession (that of 1566) even went so far as to declare that there is no moral obligation to keep any day in the week holy ; and Beza condemns ' a Judiaical rest ' from work on the Lord's Day. John Calvin, the father of the Presbyterian creeds, was a most energetic anti-Sabbatarian. He devoted the Sunday to bowls anfd other games with his friends, and vigorously denounced ' the frivolities of false pTophets who, in later times, have instilled Jewish ideas into the people. Those who thus adhere to the Jewish institution (said he) go thrice as far as the Jews themselves in the gross and carnal sniper stition of Sabbatism.' Tyndale and others argued that the Reformers could, if they pleased, alter the Sunday's observance to Monday or any other day they might choose.- It is said that the Calvinists of Geneva once seriously entertained the idea of adopting Thursday —in opposition to the Catholic Suniday— as their day of refet. John Clayton, the intimate friend and mentor of John Wesley, wrote to the latter in July, 1733, that he kept both Saturday and Sunday.

Tyndale, Cranmer, Frith, Hooper, and the early English Reformers generally, never entertained the rigid ideas introduced by the English Puritans at a later date. John Knox, the leading spirit of the Scottish Reformation, proved himself a genial host on Sundays in the house which he had plundered from the last Abbot of Dumfermline. He argued that his Master feasted on the Sabteth, and he did not fear to do the same thing on Sunday. He also wiote letters on the Lord's Day. Chambers says that ' plays (religious subjects) were performed i(in Scotland) on Sundays, with the sanction of kirk-sessions as late as 1574.' The incorrect use of the word ' Sabbath ' to designate Sunday was apparently unknown to Knox. It is, in fact, quite unknown outside English-speaking countries. In rural England and Wales until a comparatively recent period, 9ports and pastimes took plaice after divine service in the churchyards, where provision was made by the churchwardens for ' fives ' and other games. Curious particulars in point are supplied in a book published by Mr. Elias Owen, M.A , F.S.A., a few years ago. Stricter ideas, however, prevailed at last. The old churchyard games disappeared. This epitaph may be said to have been written in the following quatrain, iwhkh was formerly to be seen on the wall of Llanfair churchyard, in Pembrokshire :— ' Whoever hare on Sunday Will practise playing ball, It may be before Monday The devil will have them all.'

The Church has ever recognised really necessary labor as legitimate on Sundays. So, in their own personal and domestic practice do our Puritan friends. The Church, moreover, never looked with unfriendly eye on a moderate amount of innocent amusement once the great object of

the Sunday rest had been secured— namely, its due and proper sanctification. Amusements that unfit the mind for religious duties are, naturally, unlawful on the 4 Sunday ; so is any such excess in amusement as would interfere with the increased prayer, good reading, insttuption, etc., without which the day is not properly sanptifieid. 1 A man is in a bad way,' says,a recent .writer, i if he makes a practice of hearing a Low Mass, and spending; the rest of the Sunday in frivolous recreation.' These things are worth bearing in mind. Our rigid Sabbatarian friends are certainly 1 illogical, their zeal indiscreet ;. but their failing in this matter has a decided leaning towards virtue's side, though it is unlikely ever to topple" over. We may learn a little from them. But we do not want to turn our homes once a week into so many prisons, nor the day of joy into one of long-faced misery. At the same time we do well to remember the Sunday, that it is the Lord's Day, and • in a reasonable and cheerful way to keep it holy.'