THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT ...

"REMEMBER THE SEVENTH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY"

Scottish Churchmen have, in modern times, made a great deal of fuss as regards `Keeping Sunday Special` with their insistence on `Lord`s Day` (Sunday) observance etc.. especially in the Highlands and Islands; And although the Message of Salvation has been well-embedded in the Scottish nation for almost 2.000 years, this deep devotion to sunday as the Sabbath by the mainly Presbyterian Faith would have been both unknown and foreign to their Spiritual Forefathers 1.000 years ago.

In fact those Spiritual and physical forefathers fought a severe and long battle with the Romish religion against being being forced to observe Sunday as the Sabbath. Those earlier `presbyterians` truly believed in `Sola Scripture`and not in the tradition of a foreign and Romish religion.

Yet, strangely, modern-day Scottish preachers always seem to take delight in scoffing at the Pharisees who were scolded by Yah`shua for making the Word of Elohim `of no effect` by their added on non-biblical traditions, yet seemingly fail to realize that they too have fallen into the same trap of making that same Word of Elohim, (7th Day Sabbath), ineffective by their unscriptural Traditions (Sunday Observance) and thus unwittingly and ironically they scoff at ...

THEIR FOREFATHERS WHO HELD FAST TO THE 7TH DAY SABBATH

How strange that today, their offspring, who have the true freedom to hold to, and observe the True Sabbath, without persecution or having to suffer death, choose to accept the unbiblical, foreign, and romish tradition which their forefathers so fiercly rejected.

              "THE SABBATH ACROSS THE CENTURIES"

YOU WILL BE ASTONISHED!!!

You will be astonished to discover that the Apostles and early disciples, (contrary to much of what you have been taught in your `church`), never forsook or changed the Sabbath Day from the 7th day of the week to the 1st day of the week. No, in fact, throughout the Middle, and the Far-East, Western Europe, and especially Scotland and Ireland in particular, 7th day Shabbat-keeping was observed by all the Early Believers and by our Scottish and Irish forebears nationwide until ruthlessly prohibited by Queen Margaret (wife of King Malcolm Canmore) of Scotland in the 11th century. And even long after her prohibition of the 7th day Sabbath, Scottish and Irish Christians along with millions of European and Far-East Christians held on to the 7th. Day Sabbath until well into the 17th Century. Yes..that`s right...your deeply devout, Scottish and Irish ancestors worked on Sunday but hallowed the 7th Day (Saturday) as a Command from Yah`weh, as did the Jewish people. ("SIX days shalt thou labour, and do all your work: but the 7th day (saturday) is the Sabbath of Yah`weh your Elohim, in it you shall not do any work..." )

And in fact, Sunday was never officially recognised as the `Sabbath` in Scotland until the 17th century

Pre-Reformation Scotland NEVER referred to Sunday as the Sabbath Day

So, surprising as it may be, Sunday Observance as a national institution is a fairly recent development in our Ancient Land of Scotland

Scotland:

 "Margaret of Scotland in 1069 attempted to bring ruin to Columba's spiritual descendants by moving against those who observed the seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday."

T. R. Barnett `Margaret of Scotland: Queen and Saint,` (p. 97).

Scotland:
"They held that Saturday was properly the Sabbath on which they abstained from work." `Celtic Scotland,` Vol. 2 (p. 350)

Scotland:
"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a sabbatical manner...These things Margaret abolished."

`A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation` (Vol.1: p. 96)

Scotland And Ireland:
"T. Ratcliffe Barnett, in his book on the fervent Catholic Queen of Scotland who in 1060 was first to attempt the ruin of Columba's brethren, writes: 'In this matter the Scots had perhaps kept up the traditional usage of the ancient Irish Church which observed Saturday instead of Sunday as the day of rest.'"  

 T.R.Barnett, "Margaret of Scotland: Queen and Saint," (p.97)

Queen Margaret (Hungarian-born) was a deeply devout member of the Romish Religion and a devout servant of the Pope.

In this study we shall also take you through 20 Centuries of historical references to the 7th Day being observed as the True, Set-Apart Shabbat.

THE SEVENTH DAY SHABBAT

CONTRARY TO THE TEACHING OF MUCH OF MODERN CHRISTENDOM THERE IS NOT ONE SINGLE SCRIPTURE, TEXT OR VERSE IN THE FIRST OR RENEWED COVENANT THAT DECLARES THAT YAHUWEH WOULD CHANGE THE SET-APART DAY OF SHABBAT FROM THE SEVENTH DAY TO THE FIRST DAY. NEITHER IS THERE ANY SCRIPTURE OR TEXT THAT SHOWS THAT THE EARLY SHLICHIM OF YAH`SHUA SET APART SHABBAT AS THE 1ST DAY OF THE WEEK RATHER THAN THE 7TH DAY.

INDEED EVERY RELEVANT SCRIPTURE TESTIFIES THAT ALL THE TALMIDIM OF YAH`SHUA WERE FOUND IN THE SYNAGOGUE ON THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT, AS YAH`SHUA EXPECTED THEM TO BE (SEE MATTITYAHU CH.5:17-19) HONOURING THE WHOLE TORAH)

IN FACT, YAHUWEH REMINDED HIS PEOPLE THAT THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT WAS A `FOREVER` INSTITUTION.

IN SCRIPTURE AFTER SCRIPTURE IN THE FIRST COVENANT YAH`WEH INSTRUCTS HIS PEOPLE TO, "REMEMBER THE SEVENTH DAY TO KEEP IT KADOSH" (HOLY..SET-APART).

HE REMINDS HIS PEOPLE THAT THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT WOULD CONTINUE LE-OLAM-VAED..FOR EVER AND EVER....

AND IN FACT ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WOULD KEEP THIS TORAH- ACKNOWLEDGED SHABBAT DURING THE MILLENNIAL RULERSHIP OF YA`SHUA HAMOSHIACH AS DECLARED IN YA`SHAYAHU (ISAIAH) CH. 2:1-5 AND CH.66:21-24 AND WOULD CONTINUE TO DO SO THROUGHOUT ETERNITY..LE-OLAM-VAED UNENDING... ..FOREVER..

AND SINCE ALL BELIEVERS IN YAHSHUA ARE GRAFTED INTO THE OLIVE TREE AND BECOME CITIZENS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF YAH`SAR`EL IT IS INCUMBENT UPON THEM ALL THAT THEY...

 FORSAKE THE 1ST DAY (SUNDAY) AS THE SET-APART SHABBAT AND JOIN WITH ALL YAHUDAH AND ALL TORAH- OBSERVANT EPHRAIM YAH`SAR`EL IN SHOMERING THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT.

FOR HOW CAN 2 (INDIVIDUALS) WALK TOGETHER EXCEPT THEY BE AGREED? THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT WE CANNOT OR SHOULD NOT WORSHIP YAH`WEH ON THE 1ST DAY OF THE WEEK...NO..IT IS TO DECLARE THAT WE NOT ONLY HONOUR AND SHOMER YAHWEH EVERY DAY, BUT THAT WE ALSO RESPECT, LOVE AND HONOUR HIS SET-APART 7TH DAY SHABBAT AS HE HAS COMMANDED US FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.

FOR, CONCERNING THE SEVENTH DAY, IT IS WRITTEN THAT "ELOHIM RESTED, BLESSED AND SANCTIFIED THE SEVENTH DAY" -

 THERE IS NO REFERENCE ANYWHERE IN THE WHOLE BIBLE THAT HE BESTOWED A SPECIFIC LIKE-BLESSING OR HALLOWED THE 1ST DAY.

 IN FACT HE WORKED ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. (BERESHEIT/GENESIS CH. 1 vs 1-5).

FOR THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT IS NOT A "JEWISH SHABBAT" BUT THE "SHABBAT OF YAH`WEH" AS DECLARED IN THE 4TH COMMANDMENT IN THE SCROLL OF SHEMOTH/EXODUS CH. 20:8-11, AND WAS FIRST INSTITUTED AT THE ENDING OF THE 6 DAYS OF CREATION, (BERESHEITH CH.2:1-3) ...

2.500 YEARS BEFORE THE GIVING OF TORAH AND THE BIRTHING OF THE NATION OF YAH`SAR`EL ON HAR SINIYAH.

SOME HAVE SAID THAT ELOHIM MADE THE 7TH DAY SHABBAT FOR THE `JEW` AND THE 1ST DAY `SHABBAT` FOR THE `CHURCH`. THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF LYING AND TWISTING THE VERY HOLY WORD OF OUR ELOHIM YAHWEH, FOR ELOHIM DOES NOT HAVE 2 BODIES AS SOME ASSERT...IE..A TORAH OBSERVANT, SHABBAT KEEPING, KASHRUT-OBEYING, JEWISH `BODY` AND ANOTHER AS A TORAH-REJECTING, SHABBAT-BREAKING, PIG-EATING, CHRISTIAN `BODY`.

HOW INCONSISTANT THAT WOULD BE.

NO....CONTRARY TO CHRISTENDOM`S ASSERTIONS...

YAH`WEH HAS BUT ONE BODY....YAH`SAR`EL.

AND THOUGH SOME HYSTERICALLY PROCLAIM THAT YAH`WEH BIRTHED AN ENTITY CALLED THE `CHURCH` ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST ALMOST 2.000 YEARS AGO, AND THAT THIS ENTITY CALLED THE`CHURCH` HAS NO NEED OF BEING TORAH-OBSERVANT OR 7TH DAY SHABBAT-KEEPERS, WE DISCOVER THAT WITH TRUE, THOROUGH AND HONEST BIBLICAL EXEGESIS, THAT THAT ASSERTION IS BUILT UPON LIES AND DELIBERATE DECEIT AT THE WORST OR A MISUNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE AT THE BEST.

YAHWEH BIRTHED HIS ONE AND ONLY BODY, THE CONGREGATION OF YAH`SAR`EL ON MOUNT SINIYAH 1.500 YEARS BEFORE THE TALMIDIM OF YAH`SHUA RECEIVED THE OUTPOURING OF RUACH HAKODESH ON THE FEAST OF SHAVUOT. ON THAT OCCASION ON HAR SINIYAH, THE HOLY MOUNT SHOOK GREATLY AS THUNDERINGS AND LIGHTENINGS ENCOMPASSED IT, THE SHOFAR SOUNDED LOUD AND LONG, THE VOICE OF YAHUWEH WAS HEARD, PILLARS OF FIRE AND CLOUDS OF SMOKE THAT SURROUNDED THE GREAT MOUNT WERE SEEN. THE AWESOME PRESENCE OF YAHUWEH ELOHIM WAS MANIFESTED TO HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE IN A CLOUD OF THICK DARKNESS.

THE GREAT COMMISSION WAS GIVEN..THE DELIVERING OF TORAH TO HIS PEOPLE..WRITTEN ON TABLETS OF STONE (SIGNIFYING THEIR `FOREVERNESS`) BY THE VERY FINGER OF ELOHIM.

WHAT HAPPENED EXACTLY 1.500 YEARS LATER AT YAHRUSHALEM ON THAT FEAST OF SHAVUOT (PENTECOST) WAS THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHETIC UTTERANCE DELIVERED FROM THE MOUTHS OF THE NEVIIM YOEL AND YIRMEYAHU. 50 DAYS AFTER THE IMPALATION OF MOSHIACH, DEVOUT MEN - YAH`SAR`ELITES - OUT OF ALL NATIONS WERE GATHERED AT THIS MOST SOLEMN FEAST AS COMMANDED BY TORAH.

AND WHAT HAD HAPPENED 1.500 YEARS EARLIER ON HAR SINIYAH HAPPENED AGAIN AT HAR HA-BEIT... YAH`SAR`EL WAS AGAIN GATHERED AT THE APPOINTED PLACE OF WORSHIP FOR THE MOED SHAVUOT (DEVARIM CH.16:9-16; WAYIQRA CH.23:15-21; LUKA CH.24:49; MAASIH SHLICHIM CH.2)......

`WHEN THERE CAME A ROARING SOUND FROM THE SHAMAYIM AND FILLED THE WHOLE HA-BEIT (HOUSE OF THE TEMPLE) WHERE THEY WERE SITTING... AND TONGUES OF FIRE SAT UPON EACH OF THEM AND THEY WERE FILLED WITH RUACH HAKODESH AND BEGAN SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGES.....THE MIGHTY WIND... THE PILLAR OF FIRE..... DIFFUSING FIRE INTO EACH ONE... THE THUNDERINGS/LANGUAGES WERE SPOKEN BY THE UNLEARNED TALMIDIM OF YASHUA AND UNDERSTOOD BY ALL WHO HAD GATHERED THERE AT THE TEMPLE MOUNT`

(THE SAGES TEACH THAT THE THUNDERINGS IN MOSES TIME WERE THE 70 KNOWN LANGUAGES OF THE NATIONS BEING SOUNDED FROM HEAVEN).

THE NAVI YOEL (CH.2:23-32) HAD PROPHESIED THAT...

"YOUR (YAH`SAR`EL`S) SONS AND YOUR (YAH`SAR`EL`S) DAUGHTERS, YOUR (YAH`SAR`EL`S) SERVANTS AND YOUR (YAH`SAR`EL`S) MAID-SERVANTS WOULD RECEIVE THE OUTPOURING OF RUACH HAKODESH"

......NOTHING...NOT ONE WORD ABOUT BIRTHING A NEW ENTITY CALLED THE `CHURCH`...

NOTHING...NOT ONE WORD ABOUT REJECTING TORAH OBSERVANCE ...

AND NOTHING...NOT ONE WORD ABOUT CHANGING SHABBAT FROM THE 7TH DAY TO THE 1ST DAY.... NOT EVEN ONE SINGLE WORD.

IF EVER THERE WAS TO BE A DEFINING MOMENT WHEN YAHUWEH WOULD MAKE SUCH MOMENTOUS CHANGES TO HIS ALREADY DECLARED `ETERNAL WORD` SURELY THIS WOULD BE IT...WHEN THE GREAT ST. PETER, ANOINTED BY THE MIGHTY HOLY GHOST WOULD BE PROCLAIMING A SO-CALLED `NEW WAY`.

BUT IT DID NOT HAPPEN....THIS GREAT APOSTLE AND DEVOUT TORAH-KEEPING JEW, ST PETER, DECLARED WHAT THE ANCIENT YAH`SAREL NEVIIM HAD ALREADY PROPHESIED WOULD COME TO PASS...A RE-AFFIRMATION OF THAT ANCIENT PATHWAY, THE TORAH...A RENEWED LIVING WAY....

YES, THE FULFILMENT OF NAVI YIRMEYAHU`S PROPHETIC UTTERANCE... (CH.31:31-37)

 "THE DAYS ARE COMING... WHEN I WILL PUT MY TORAH IN THEIR INWARD PARTS AND WRITE IT UPON THEIR HEARTS" ...

 AGAIN NOT ONE SINGLE WORD ABOUT ABOLISHING TORAH...IN FACT THE EXACT OPPOSITE...TORAH WAS TO BE WRITTEN, NO LONGER ON TABLETS OF STONE, BUT UPON THEIR INWARD PARTS (NEVER-DYING SOUL) AND FLESHLY HEARTS....

RATHER THAN IT`S REJECTION, TORAH WITH IT`S KASHRUT CODE AND 7TH  DAY SHABBAT OBSERVANCE WAS NOW ENCODED IN THE HEART OF BLOOD-WASHED YAH`SAR`EL AND FOREVER.

SO WHAT WE DISCOVER HAPPENED ON THE DAY OF SHAVUOT (PENTECOST) WAS NOT THE BIRTHING OF A SEPARATE ENTITY TO YAH`SAR`EL..NO..RATHER IT WAS THE CONFIRMATION THAT YAH`SAR`EL IS EVER YAHUWEH`S ONLY SET-APART PEOPLE, NOW BLOOD-WASHED BY THE SACRIFICE OF MOSHIACH YAH`SHUA, AND FOREVER INFUSED WITH RUACH HAKODESH  SO THAT THEY, BY YAHUWEH`S RUACH COULD NOW OBSERVE TORAH OUT AMONG THE AKROBUSTIA-GOYIM AS THEY WENT EVERYWHERE SPREADING THE BESORAH OF YAHUSHUA HAMOSHIACH. FOR THIS WAS THEIR CALLING..TO GO AND FIND AND BRING HOME THE ``LOST` SHEEP OF BEIT YAH`SAR`EL... (AS YAH`SHUA HAD DECLARED IN MATTITYAHU CH.10 AND MAASEH SHLICHIM CH.1:8)... THAT SAME SHEEP WHO 700 YEARS EARLIER HAD BEEN TAKEN CAPTIVE BY ASSYRIA AND SCATTERED AMONG THE NATIONS, TO THE POINT THAT THEY BECAME `LOST` AMONG THE GOYIM AND NO LONGER A TORAH-OBSERVANT PEOPLE, (READ THE STORY IN THE SCROLL OF THE NAVI HOSHEA).

ONE NEEDS TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THAT IF YAHUWEH HAD WANTED THE GENTILES TO BE NON-TORAH OBSERVANT, TO BE SUNDAY-KEEPERS, TO BE PERMITTED TO EAT PIG-MEAT, TO REJECT TORAH, THEN WHY DID HE NOT INAUGERATE `PENTECOST` ON BEN NEVIS IN SCOTLAND, OR SNOWDONIA IN WALES, OR LUDGATE HILL IN LONDON?? WHY ON EARTH WOULD HE CHOOSE JEWS IN JERUSALEM ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT WHO WERE DEEPLY TORAH-OBSERVANT AND HAD BEEN FOR MILLENNIA, AND WHO HAD BEEN TOLD BY YAHUWEH TO INSTRUCT THE NATIONS IN HIS TORAH, THROUGHOUT THE FIRST COVENANT WRITINGS...AND IF HE HAD WANTED THE GENTILES TO BE TORAH-BREAKERS WHY DID THE APOSTLES, PAUL, PETER, JAMES, PHILIP, STEPHEN ALL CONTINUE TO OBSERVE TORAH THROUGHOUT THE RENEWED COVENANT WRITINGS AND ENCOURAGED ALL NEW BELIEVERS IN YAHUSHUA TO FOLLOW THE PRECEPTS AND TEACHINGS OF TORAH?? (ACTS15 vs 14-21)

THE BITTER TRUTH... OR AS OTHERS WOULD SAY.. THE JOYOUS PROCLAMATION IS THAT NOT ONLY WERE THE EARLY (1ST CENTURY) TALMIDIM OF YAH`SHUA TORAH OBSERVANT BUT HISTORY ABUNDANTLY TESTIFIES THAT MULTITUDES FROM ALL NATIONS, (FROM JAPAN IN THE FAR EAST TO IRELAND IN THE WEST) WHO BECAME BLOOD-WASHED FOLLOWERS OF YAH`SHUA WERE STRICT TORAH-OBSERVANT 7TH DAY SHABBAT-KEEPERS THROUGHOUT EVERY CENTURY RIGHT UP TO THE PRESENT DAY.

Church Leaders often remind their congregants that when an individual embraces Yah`shua as their Moshiach they are entering into an eternal `covenant` with their Redeemer, a covenant, they say that is as valid as that of marriage vows and that the individual is committed to obeying these vows.

How strange then, when these same Church Leaders will tell their Followers that the Terms of the Eternal Marriage Covenant given by Yahuweh to His People thousands of years ago has been annulled and aborted so that the 7th Day is no longer the Sabbath Day, but that the 1st day is now the Sabbath.

 And even if we were to admit that the Church Leaders are correct on this all important issue, which the Eternal Elohim said was a `forever and ever, perpetual, throughout all your generations `covenant` (hebrew: Le-olam vaed) what`s to say then, that the Renewed Covenant promises of `Life Everlasting in Yahushua` won`t be changed by the same Elohim in future?

When the Jewish Rabbi and Redeemer Yahushua Ha-Moshiach, the Lion of the Tribe of Yahudah, The Root and Offspring of David, `The King of the Jews` returns, what think ye, of the day He will observe as Shabbat?...On the `christian` Sunday?...or will He obey, think ye, Yahuweh`s Eternal Covenant, the Seventh Day Shabbat??.....

Take into consideration, that He is the Living Torah (St John Ch:1)..."And the Torah became Flesh and Dwelt amongst us." And that He declared, "I do always the will of my Abba."

For the answer read Yeshayahu (Isaiah) ch. 66 vs. 22-23.

Or what is a Jew to do when he receives the Jewish, Torah-observant Yah`shua as his Moshiach? Is he to reject his 7th Day Sabbath which his Elohim has told him is for perpetual generations, in favour of a non-biblical `christian sunday-sabbath`??

What kind of confusion and foolishness is this that the `Church` has entered into??

Can it be said that the Word no longer `Liveth and Abideth?` once one has received Yah`shua as his Moshiach?

No, for it is written, "For ever, O Yah`weh, Your Word is settled (hebrew: d`varcha nitzen -`fixed`) in Heaven.

In fact, if truth be told, there is not even one verse in the whole of Sacred Scripture to indicate in any way that the Sabbath day has changed from one day to another.

I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

The disciples kept the 7th day Shabbat 84 times in the Book of Acts

How, do you think, should we keep the Shabbat?

Let us now look at the Pronouncements of the various Denominations as regards the 7th Day, whether they consider it to be the TRUE SHABBAT or otherwise:

CONFESSION TIME

ALTHOUGH YOUR VICAR, PRIEST OR PASTOR WILL TELL YOU FROM THE PULPIT THAT SUNDAY IS THE SABBATH DAY, IN THEIR HEART THEY KNOW THAT THIS IS UNTRUE AND THAT THERE IS NO BIBLICAL BASIS FOR THIS CLAIM; FURTHERMORE, THEY ARE PROBABLY AWARE OF THE OFFICIAL LINE TAKEN BY THEIR DENOMINATIONAL HIERARCHY!

SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN:

Professor James C. Moffatt, D.D., Professor of Church History at Princeton University, says: "It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour. They obeyed the fourth Commandment literally upon the Seventh Day"                                                  

`The Church in Scotland,` p.140

"The Sabbath is part of the decalogue -- the Ten Commandments, This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution. ... Until therefore it can be shown that the whole Moral Law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand. ... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath."     T.C.BLAKE, `Theology Condensed` (pp. 474, 475).

"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the Law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, constant and uniform."                                                                         

John Calvin, `Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels` (vol.1 p. 277).

The Scottish Celtic Church
"In this latter instance they seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath".   W.T. Skene, "Adamnan Life of St. Columba" (p.96) 1874

"Our Saturday. The custom to call the Lord's Day (Sunday) Sabbath did not commence until a thousand years later"                                                        Adamnan's "Life of Columba" (Dublin, 1857), p. 230 (Editor`s note)

"Having continued his labours in Scotland thirty-four years, he (St Columba) clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the 9th day of the month of June, said to his disciple Diermit: "This day is called the Sabbath, that is the Rest Day, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labours.'"

 `Butler's Lives of the Saints`(Vol.1: A.D. 597) `St. Columba` (p.762 Columba) (Dr. Butler's Description Of St Columba`s Death)

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, we might argue for its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and ever-lasting" Thomas Chalmers, D. D., `Sermons`, (vol.1: p. 51.)

ANGLICAN:

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. . . Into the rest of Sunday (i.e., Sunday as a day of rest and worship) no divine law enters. . . . The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of Sunday".                                     Canon Eyton, `The Ten Commandments`.

"Where are we told in Scripture that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day. . . .The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it."                 

  Isaac Williams, D. D., `Plain Sermons on the Catechism`, (vol.1, pp. 334-336).

"We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of one holy Catholic Church."                                     Bishop Seymour, `Why We Keep Sunday` (Article 12).

EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN:

"There is no direct scriptural authority for designating Sunday as the Sabbath Day"    Dr. D. H. Lucas, `Christian Oracle`, Jan.23, 1890.

"I do not believe that the Lord's day (sunday) came in the room (place) of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the Oracles that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room (place) of it"               

 Alexander Campbell, `Washington Reporter`, Oct. 8, 1821. (Church of Christ)

BAPTIST:

"We believe that the law of God is the eternal and imperishable rule of His moral government" Baptist Church Manual.

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God. ... The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought. ... Not one of the ten words (command-ments) is of merely racial significance. ... The Sabbath was established originally (long before Moses) in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam."                                                     

 `Adult Quarterly`, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug.15, 1931

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. .... It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. ... Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament -- absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.

"To me (it) seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them. upon the Sabbath question ... never alluded to any transference of the day; also that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!"                Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of `The Baptist Manual` (still in print), in a `paper` read before New York ministers' conference held Nov.13, 1893.

CONGREGATIONALIST: (UNITED REFORMED CHURCH)

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament to change the Sabbath Day from the 7th day of the week to the 1st day of the week"               `Buck's Theological Dictionary`.
"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without authority in the New Testament." Dr. Lyrnan Abbott, `Christian Union`, Jan.19, 1882.

LUTHERAN:

"I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments. ... Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity abrogate sin also."       Martin Luther, `Spiritual Antichrist` ( pp. 71- 72.)

"They (the Catholics) allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appear, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the Church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments.   Martin Luther, `Augsburg Confession of Faith` (Art. 28: Par. 9)

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the Seventh Day had to be kept by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that Sunday is the divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce the Sabbatical observance of Sunday by so-called blue laws. ... These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect."

John T. Mueller, `Sabbath or Sunday?` (pp.15, 16).

METHODIST:

"....but the Moral Law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away. ... The Moral Law stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law. ... Every part of this Law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages."         

 John Wesley, `Sermons on Several Occasions` (2 vol. ed., vol.1, pp. 221, 222).

 
"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not only for the Hebrews, but for all men."     B. 0. Haven, `Pillars of Truth` (p. 88).

"The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor named Constantine (312-327 AD). This emperor made Sunday the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the Sun.                

 `Sunday School Advocate` (Dec. 31, 1921).

MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE:

"When Christ was on earth He did nothing to set it (the Sabbath) aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was -- in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age"                                     

Dwight L. Moody, `Weighed and Wanting` (p. 46).    

"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth Commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the Law on the Tables of Stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one Commandment has been done away when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?"
Dwight L. Moody, `Weighed and Wanting` (p. 47).

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: SCOTLAND & IRELAND

"We seem to see here (in Scotland) an allusion to the custom, observed in the early monastic Church of Ireland, of keeping the day of rest on Saturday, or the Sabbath"                         

History of the Catholic Church in Scotland,` (Vol.1: p. 86), by Catholic historian Bellesheim.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH (WORLDWIDE

"From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, and that Sunday, as the Lord's day, she had handed down as a tradition: and the entire Protestant world has accepted it as tradition, for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it. Therefore that which you have accepted as your rule of faith, inadequate as it of course is, as well as your Sunday, you have accepted on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church." 

D. B. Ray, `The Papal Controversy`, 1892 (p. 179)

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The Catholic church says: `No. by my divine power I abolish the Sabbath Day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.`...and lo! the entire civilised world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church" 

 W.T. Enright, C.S.S.R. in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884.

"The Catholic Church for over 1000 years, before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday. ... The Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church. ... without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world."     `The Catholic Mirror`, Sept.23, 1893.

"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we (Catholics) never sanctify."

James, Cardinal Gibbons, `The Faith of Our Fathers` (p. 11)

"Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible."

James, Cardinal Gibbons, `Catholic Mirror` (Dec. 23, 1893)

"Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the Commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the Seventh Day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the (Catholic) church outside the Bible."                               `Catholic Virginian`, Oct. 3, 1947.

"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. ... From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first."                                          

`Catholic Press`, Sydney, Australia, August 25, 1900.

"Sunday is founded, not on Scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no Scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday."

 `Catholic Record`, September 17, 1893.

"If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian, then the Seventh-day Adventist is right in keeping Saturday with the Jew. But the Catholics learn what to believe and do from the divine, infallible authority....the Catholic Church."  

Bertrand Conway `Question Box`, p. 179.

Father Walter Drum says: "They (the Protestants) deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason. ... The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance. ... The author of the Sunday law ... is the Catholic Church."                        

 `Ecclesiastical Review`, February, 1911

`The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore affirms:                                                      "Be sure of it, your Seventh-day Adventist friends are telling you the truth, when they say that it was the Catholic church which changed the day of worship from the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. ... If Protestantism would follow the Bible, they would worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic church. During the first three centuries practice and tradition had consecrated the Sunday to the worship of God."                                                Reply in a Letter to Mrs. Ashby, February 10, 1920.

---------------------------

THE FOLLOWING 2 ARTICLES ARE AN EXCHANGE OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN J.L.DAY OF THOMASTON, GEORGIA, USA, AND PETER R TRAMER, EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC EXTENSION MAGAZINE, REPLYING UNDER AUTHORITY FROM POPE PIUS X1, MAY 1934.

`Thomaston, Georgia

May 22, 1934

Pope Pius XI
Rome, Italy

Dear Sir:
Is the accusation true that Protestants accuse you of? They say you changed the Seventh Day Sabbath to the so-called Christian Sunday: identical with the First Day of the week. If so, when did you make the change and by what authority?

Yours very truly,

J. L. Day (Signed)`

BENEATHE IS THE REPLY FROM THE EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC EXTENSION MAGAZINE TO J.L.DAY  :

`THE CATHOLIC EXTENSION MAGAZINE
180 Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois
(Under the Blessing of Pope Pius XI)

Dear Sir:

Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts.

(1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.

(2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith.

Besides the Bible, we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say this church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide men through life, has the right to change the Ceremonial Laws of the Old Testament; and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday.

We frankly say "Yes, the Church made the change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance the Friday abstinence, the un-married priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulations of Catholic marriages; and a thousand other laws.

(3) We also say that of all the Protestants, the Seventh-day Adventists are the only group that reason correctly and are consistent with their teachings. It is always somewhat laughable to see the Protestant Churches, in pulpit and legislature, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in the Bible.

With Best Wishes,

Peter R. Tramer,

Editor (signed)` 

___________________________

　 ROME BANS THE TRUE SABBATH IN SCOTLAND IN 1069 !!

Queen Margaret, Catholic queen of Malcolm Canmore (King of Scotland) bans the observance of the Biblical 7th Day Sabbath, once held in Scotland for 1.000 years.

And Institutes the Roman Catholic 1st Day of the week as the sabbath day.

The following notes were taken from the:

 `HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH NATION`

(Author)  REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D.,

HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. ANDREW ELLIOT, EDINBURGH. (1886).

(CHAPTER 13: PP.140-153)

(ON THE QUESTION OF THE 7th DAY SABBATH OR SUNDAY OBSERVANCE)

Start of Quotes:

A.D. 1069 QUEEN MARGARET—                                                             CONFERENCE WITH THE CULDEE (CELTIC CHURCH) PASTORS.

"We again leave the stricken field—the battle of the warrior with its garments rolled in blood—and enter the royal closet, where we find in full and energetic play those subtle forces which do more to mould the character of a people and fix their destinies, than the the sword which are carried on with so much noise, and fill so large a space in history.

The combatants before us are no mailed warriors who wear iron visor and wield steel glaive. On the contrary, there stands before us a royal lady, queenly in air as in station, comely in person, and sweet and gracious in manner.

Around her is a group of pale-faced and soft-voiced ecclesiastics, of courtly manners and foreign aspect: and standing in a row, face to face with them, is a small body of Columban clergy, grave-featured men, in the usual habits of their sacred order.

They are dressed in cowl, grey woollen robe, and sandals. Their speech is Gaelic. It is their mother tongue.

The place where this company has assembled is the Malcolm Tower at Dunfermline. Strength and not magnificence has been consulted in the erection of this keep. It is strong, massive, and square, and its walls, which are of great thickness, are built of hewn blocks. Its site adds to it strength and security. It is placed on a rocky plateau, around which on the west and the south, nature, as if in foresight that here the kings of Scotia were one day to dwell, has dug a formidable ravine, seventy feet in depth, its face bristling with rocks and its bottom the bed of a summer rivulet, which in winter grows into a torrent, and thunders along with loud rough roar.

Behind it, landward, rises a clump of trees, tall and strong of stem, as if to bar the advance of foe, and shade with their summer foliage the royal inmates of the "forest tower." It was every way fit for the dwelling of a king in unsettled times, and yet it was only the beginning of what was soon to grow into a magnificent palace and a sumptuous monastery, and which, after sheltering four Scottish kings, have left their broken and ruined walls as memorials to our day of the style in which our monarchs were housed in the eleventh century.

Nevertheless the Queen of Malcolm Canmore put her hand to the work of reforming the Scottish Church.

We return to the council in the Palace of Dunfermline, convoked by her husband’s orders, to "travail" in this matter.

It was composed of a few Culdee (Celtic) pastors on the one side, and three English ecclesiastics on the other, chosen and dispatched by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Margaret’s request.

The archbishop, himselfa learned disputant, knew the right men to send on a mission of this sort, where a kingdom was to be won to the papal interest.

The Queen came to the front in the debate, but as she could speak only Saxon, and the Culdees understood no language but Gaelic, Malcolm, who could speak both languages with equal facility, acted as interpreter. The conference lasted three days. Margaret soon let it be seen that what she aimed at was a reformation on the model of Canterbury, that is of Rome.

The restoration of the ancient Scottish Church was not what she desired. What she sought and hoped to accomplish was rather its overthrow, and the erection of a foreign ecclesiasticism in it`s room  

"Observing," says Bishop Turgot, "that many practices existed among the Scottish nation which were contrary to the rule of the right faith (Catholic), and the holy customs of the universal church, she caused frequent councils to be held in order that by some means or other, she might, through the gift of Christ, bring back into the way of truth those who had gone astray. 

Among these councils the most important is that in which for three days she, with a very few of her friends, combated the defenders of a perverse system with the sword of the Spirit, that is to say, with the Word of God. It seemed as if a second Helena were there present."

As regards the points raised in the debate, Bishop Turgot gives with considerable fulness and force the defections charged upon the Columban clergy, but he omits to give with equal fulness their explanations and defences.

He permits Queen Margaret and her Saxon assessors to be heard, but he shuts the mouths of the Culdee pastors, or affords them liberty of reply to only the extent of bowing assent.

It may be very judicious in Bishop Turgot thus to enjoin silence upon one of the parties, in a conference lasting for three days it is absurd to suppose that the spokesman were all on one side. Still the fact that a debate took place is itself a most important admission, as we shall immediately see.

The points raised were these: uniformity of rite, the Lenten fast, the observance of the Sabbath, the practice of marriage, the celebration of the eucharist, and the time of the observance of Easter. The Scottish Church and her clergy were charged on all these points, as being in error, and needing to be "brought back into the way of truth."

Is not this a clear admission that the Columban Church in the end of the eleventh century still occupied separate ground from Rome? that she refused to receive the Roman laws and customs, and that she was not subject to the Roman jurisdiction, but on the contrary maintained her ancient independence? And does it not cut the ground from beneath the feet of those who assert that the Scottish Church by this time was, and had for some centuries previous, been one with the Church of Rome in doctrine and worship?

Surely Queen Margaret would not have convoked a conference to bring about a union between two churches if they were already one and the same? A more decided proof there could not be of the eleventh century.

Let us look a little more closely at the points of difference between the two churches as they were brought out in this discussion.

The Queen opened the conference by insisting on uniformity of rite as essential to uniformity of doctrine. "All who serve God in one faith with the Catholic Church," said Margaret, "ought not to vary from that church by new or far-fetched usages." and no church has so often contradicted it by her example as the Roman Church. Within her pale an iron uniformity of rite has always existed with a boundless latitude of opinion.

But the point to be noted here is that Margaret’s remonstrance carries in it that neither in rite nor in faith did the Columban Church and the Roman Church agree.

The Queen next charged the Culdees with having fallen into grievous heterodoxy in the matter of the Lenten fast. "Our Lord fasted forty days," Margaret urged, "so does the Roman Church; but the Scots by refusing to fast on the Sabbaths in Lent, shortening their fast to thirty-six days." Margaret told them that they sinned in so abbreviating this fast. Margaret, if any one, had a right to call the Culdees to repent of this heinous transgression, seeing she herself was so very exemplary in the observance of the duty of fasting.

According to Turgot, the pastors professed penitence and a promised amendment.

We very much doubt the accuracy of Turgot’s statement on this head.

The historic presumption is against the bishop. The Culdee pastors were not likely to profess penitence or promise amendment in a matter in which they stood fully acquitted in the eyes of their Church. It is important to observe here that the Scottish Church followed the Eastern usages in their fasts and festivals, and by the ordinances of the Eastern Church all fasts were severely prohibited on Sabbath (Saturday) and the Lord’s Day (Sunday).

Besides, "fasting" was not the supremely meritorious observance in the eyes of the Culdees which it was in those of Queen Margaret. Even granting that they were not able to take full advantage of the liberty which the Gospel gives to Christians, especially in the matter of bodily mortifications and ceremonial observances, they would not have burdened their consciences, we are disposed to think, with a day more or a day less in the matter, or regarded themselves and their fellow church members as shut out of the kingdom of heaven because they fasted thirty-six days only instead of forty, in the holy season of Lent.

After this came up the question of Culdee observance, or rather neglect, of the Lord’s Day. "It was another custom of theirs," says Turgot, "to neglect the reverence due to the Lord’s Day by devoting themselves to every kind of worldly business upon it, just as they did upon other days."

It startles one to hear that the Columban clergy had sunk so low on this vital point. If they had turned the day of sacred rest into a day of ordinary labour: if they yoked the plough, worked the scythe, carried home the harvest, and did all their work on that day, as the words of Turgot appear to imply, they verily deserved the sharpest censure which Margaret could administer.

The matter, however, is susceptible of a satisfactory explanation. The practices of the Eastern and Western Churches differed very considerably as regards the keeping of the Sabbath, or rather as regards the day observed by them as that of holy rest and worship.

Saturday was the Sabbath or Holy Day of the Eastern Church: not indeed to the entire exclusion of the first day of the week, on which it was their custom to sing hymns and celebrate divine service. The Western Church observed the Lord’s Day or Sunday.

Britain, including Scotland, received its first evangelisation from the East, and it continued to follow generally the usages of the Eastern Church. The historian Socrates, speaking of the usual times of the public meeting of the members of the Eastern Church, called the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day, that is Saturday and Sunday, "the weekly festivals on which the congregation was wont to meet in the church for the performance of divine services.

In the Irish Church we come on traces of this custom, that is, of the observance of Saturday as the day of weekly rest and worship.

We find such traces also in the history of the Scottish Church.

A well-known instance is that of Columba, as related by Adamnan. `Being come to his last day, he said this day is named the Sabbath, which means rest; and this day I shall enter into my rest.` He died as he had foretold, on Saturday, at midnight. This aspect of the matter completely exonerates the Columban clergy from the rather serious accusation, for which it seems at the first blush, which Turgot preferred against them, and serves to bring out the fact that the Culdees claimed relationship with an older church than Rome.

The Roman Church followed the Western usage, that is, it observed, not the seventh but the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, the day of resurrection, as the day of rest and holy worship.

What Margaret wished was to get the Culdees to adopt this practice, and so break them into conformity with the Roman and Western Church."

_____ 

This conference in the royal palace of Dunfermline was emphatically the "hour of temptation" to Scotland and her Church.

Whether shall the faith of Iona or the authority of Rome henceforth govern the land? Shall Scotland forget her past? Shall she say that Columba was an impostor? That the glory of Iona was an illusion and a mockery, and that only now had the true light risen upon the Scots? This was the question to which Scotland was invited to return an answer in the royal chamber at Dunfermline. All that royal authority, queenly blandishment, ecclesiastical prestige, and trained dialect skill could do to overawe the Culdee pastors and influence their decision was done.

To abide by Iona was to incur the frown of power, and invite a future dark with persecution.To go over to Rome was to open the road to preferment and honour. The temptation in Eden seemed to have renewed itself in the conference chamber of Dunfermline.

The Culdees had been led, as it were, into a garden in which grew all manner of fruits pleasant to the eye and sweet to the taste of ambitious ecclesiastics. They were shown in prospect, dignities, titles, princedoms, bishoprics, emoluments, in short, all the golden fruits which adorn the trees that flourish on the Seven Hills, and drink of the waters of the Tiber.

What fascination and enchantment must the goodly show now summoned up before their eyes have possessed for these unsophisticated pastors, "these dwellers beyond the bounds of the habitable world!"

They were invited to pluck and eat, and were assured that in the day that they did so, their eyes would be opened and they would understand all mysteries and be replenished with celestial potencies and heavenly graces.

The Temptress was a queen. We see her hold out the golden apple. Will the Culdees accept it? When the curtain falls on the scene, the religion of Rome is seen to be that of the Scottish court, but not as yet that of the Scottish nation."

End of Quotes

 ______

Early Scottish Believers not only observed the Jewish Saturday-Sabbath for well over 1.000 years but observed the Jewish Passover unswervingly on the 14th Day of Nisan along with all Orthodox Jewry for 1.000 years also, until in 1069........  

THE ROMISH RELIGION FORCES THE CELTIC CHURCH TO OBSERVE EASTER INSTEAD OF THE JEWISH PASSOVER..

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS TAKEN FROM:

"HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH NATION"                                                                  (Author)  REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D., 

HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. ANDREW ELLIOT, EDINBURGH. (1886) 

Start of Quotes:  

`(ON THE QUESTION OF THE PASSOVER / EASTER DATE)

(CHAPTER 14: PP 159-164)

"We must turn for a few moments to another matter. The controversy respecting Easter is one of the more famous in ecclesiastical history. It was eminently one of the battlegrounds between the Eastern and Western Churches in the early centuries.

The controversy reached Scotland in the eighth century, having been brought hither by the Romanizers from Canterbury, who wished to impose their mode of celebration upon the Columban clergy. It was the door by which the followers of Columba would enter the great Western Church. But as the majority of the Columbites had no desire to be included in the pale, or to have any close connection with the Roman bishop, they declined compliance with a rite which was universally interpreted as a badge of Roman servitude.

The controversy was therefore as hotly waged almost in Scotland as in the churches of Asia and Europe. It is necessary we should under-stand a little of the merits of this question.

All Christians commemorate the resurrection of our Lord when they observe the Sabbath or first day of the week as a day of sacred rest and holy worship. Many Christians account that, in the observance of the weekly Sabbath, they discharge all the obligations laid upon them in this matter in the New Testament.

But since the second century the Church, in addition to this weekly celebration, has commemorated the resurrection of our Lord in a grand annual festival, after the example of the Jews, who kept their Passover once a year, in commemoration of their birth as a nation in their deliverance from Egyptians bondage.

It was judged decorous that this festival should be observed by all Christian churches through-out the world on the same day. It was at this point that division and strife entered.

The Eastern Church kept Easter (Passover) on the same day on which the Jews had celebrated the Passover; that is, they kept it on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox, even though that day should be an ordinary weekday.

The Western Church, (Catholic) on the other hand, observed Easter on a Sabbath, or first day of the week, that being the day on which our Lord rose, and never on a weekday.

The first Sabbath after the fourteenth day of the vernal or paschal moon was the day of Western observance.

The Eastern Church pleaded the example of the Jews, who kept the Passover only on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, but the Western Church refused the authority of that example, and denounced the Eastern Christians for celebrating the resurrection on what they deemed the wrong day, as almost a heinous offenders as if they had denied the fact of the resurrection altogether.

Conferences were held between the Eastern and Western Churches, embassies were exchanged, ex-communications were threatened, but the scandal of two different celebrations was not removed.

The war went on till Constantine ascended the throne, and got a decree passed in the Council of Nice, ordaining that henceforth Easter should be observed East and West only on Sabbath, or first day of the week.

Even yet perfect conformity was not attained. A new point emerged, which continued for some centuries to agitate all Christendom, and baffle all attempts to find a basis of adjustment.

The authority of the Council of Nice could not control the laws that regulate the "times and seasons," and make them work in harmony with their decree.

It required no great knowledge of the motions of the heavenly bodies to perceive that only once in a long cycle of years would the anni-versary of our Lord’s resurrection fall on precisely the same day; and unless the "time" of Easter was made moveable, according to a rule, in exact correspondence with the planet-ary laws, Christians, whether in the East or in the West, could not have the satisfaction of thinking that oftener than once or twice in their lifetime it was in their power to celebrate Easter on the true day, and enjoy the fulness of its orthodox benefits.

It might happen to them to be right once in a cycle of nineteen years, or once in a cycle of eighty-four years, but more they dared not hope for. How was the rule to be determined by which the churches were to walk?

What cycle of years must elapse before the Easter full moon would fall on the same day? The astronomical science at the service of the age was hardly sufficient to enable the men of that time to answer this question. Nevertheless, repeated attempts were made to discover a cycle which should remove all discrepancies and unite the Church East and West in a grand celebration that should remove for ever this scandal.

The Church of Rome thought she had discovered the basis of correct paschal celebration in a cycle of eight-four years. She followed this computation down to the sixth century. She found, however, after this long observance, that after all she was in error. The moons would not revolve according to her canon as they ought and would have done had her canon been infallibly accurate.

But it was not infallibly accurate. The council which decreed the infallibility was as yet thirteen centuries below the horizon.

The celebrations of the Eastern and Western Churches were not harmonised, nor the war between them ended. Victor of Aquitane next approached the problem. He made trial of his skill in reconciling the Roman and Alexandrine methods of computation. He came nearer the mark than any of his predecessors, but even his canon of the paschal moons did not extinguish all discrepancies, nor reconcile the two churches.

A solution, however, was not despaired of. In the year 567 Dionysius the Less drew up a paschal table on the basis of a nineteen years’ cycle, which had the merit of extinguishing all inaccuracies and discrepancies.

It was accepted by Rome and the churches of the East, and from this time the war languished and finally expired, and now was seen the imposing spectacle of all Christians throughout the world keeping the festival of Easter on the same day, and bearing united testimony to the great fact of the Resurrection of our Lord—the cornerstone of Christianity.

But (according to Margaret) there were certain benighted or obstinate men in the heretical North (of Scotland) who still clung to their old customs, and walked contrary in this matter to the universal (Catholic) Church. The Scots had received their Christianity from the East, and along with it the "time" of Easter celebration.

They were Quartodecimans, as the phrase was, that is, Fourteenth-day men. Their practices corresponded with the Paschal table of Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea in Syria, who had, in the year 277, drawn up a canon on the basis of the nineteen years cycle in which the 19th March was considered as the vernal equinox.

But this displeased that Church which called herself the "Mother and Mistress of all Churches." She could not tolerate the slightest deviation from her own practice, and accordingly sent, as we have seen, her agents to the Scots, with her "scissors" in the one hand, and her "paschal tables" in the other, to impose upon them uniformity.

Possibly the Columban clergy would not have offered any very stout resistance to either the new "tonsure" or the new "Easter" had it not been for the sense which Rome put upon these matters. They were the symbols of submission, and therefore the "elders" of the Scots would not permit Rome to shear their heads, or to dictate to them in the matter of Easter.

They had been free till now, and they would maintain their freedom. The battle between Iona and Rome had come to centre here.

These were the two articles of the rising or falling of the Columban Church. We have seen Colman, whom Bede acknowledges to have been "a great bishop, and an eloquent preacher," demit his office as abbot of Lindisferne, and his brother evangelists quit their mission fields in Northumbria rather than submit to these compromising customs.

Rome followed them into their own country only to meet a like rebuff. When she issued her commands through King Naiton, we have seen the Pictish clergy rise up in a body and leave their country rather than own Rome as their Mistress.

When Adamnan sought to draw the elders of Iona into these new paths, they at once repudiated his proposals, and disowned him as their abbot.

When Egbert in 717 visited Iona on a like errand, hiding his dishonest purpose under a great show of sanctity, he prevailed, it is true, on the inmates of the monastery who had come to fill the places once occupied by worthier men, to conform to the Roman Easter, and, in two years after, to receive the coronal or Roman tonsure.

Thus the paschal tables and the scissors of the Pope triumphed in the parent institution, but the victory here was of small account.

The sceptre had departed from Iona before these degenerate "elders" did obeisance to the Roman Bishop. Iona was no longer the guiding and governing power it had been in the sixth and seventh centuries. The real Iona—the life, the piety, the independence which the symbolic term "Iona" expressed—had passed over to the daughter Institutions on the mainland, which stood upright when the parent institution fell.

Iona was now a house divided against itself; it had two abbots, as Rome at times had two popes. The din of dissension was oftener heard within it than the chant of psalm. It sought to serve two masters by mingling the traditions of Columba with the customs of the Pope. It dragged out an unhonoured existence till the end of the century.

Its abbots followed each other rapidly to the grave. Popish historians have toiled to discover and record their names. It is a fruitless labour in which we shall not follow them.

Scotland owes these men nothing, and is willing to forget them.

While the parent institution had become like a tree whose sap is dried up and whose leaf is withered, the branches that had shot out from it in its flourishing age were spreading wide and far over the kingdoms.

In what land of northern Europe were the Culdee missionaries at that time not to be met with? Iona, the true Iona, was not the monastery, or the island, or the little company of "elders’ now wearing the Roman tonsure; it was the great army of preachers who were traversing France, and Germany, and the Rhine provinces, and invading even Italy, and maintaining a great and successful war against the pagan darkness from which certain of these countries had not yet emerged, as also against the papal darkness which was creeping over others.

In giving this army of evangelists to Christendom, what a mighty service had Iona rendered to the world! For this end had Iona been raised up. Its work was now accomplished. Corruption had now seized upon the parent stock; and if it had become unsightly, and leafless, and had ceased to produce, who that remembered Columba, and the "elders" of Iona’s golden age, but would have said, "Let that defunct institution be removed from the sight of men."

That fiat went forth to cut down the barren tree. Across the sea came the Viking to execute this sentence. He did so in cruel fashion as his manner was.

In 795 the Danes fell upon Iona and devastated it. In 802 their hordes returned, and it was burned to the ground. It was the original wooden monastery which Columba and his twelve companions had reared on their first arrival in the island that was now given to the flames.

Four years later (806) the Danes paid Iona another visit and dealt it its final blow. Abbot Cellach alone escaped to tell the people of Ireland that  "the famous monastery of Columba was fallen, was fallen, and now was nothing more than a heap of ashes."   `

End of Quotes

The above notes were taken from the                                                               "HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH NATION"                                                                     REV. J. A. WYLIE, LLD                                                                                        HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. ANDREW ELLIOT, EDINBURGH. 1886. 

`(ON THE QUESTION OF THE SABBATH / PASSOVER / EASTER DATE)` 

(CHAPTER 14: PP 140-164)

____________

The Torah Of Yahweh
The Ten Commandments 

Comparing the Ten Commandments of the First and Renewed Brit with that of the Roman Catholic Church

In this  next step of this study we shall  take you through 20 Centuries of many historical references to the 7th Day being observed as the True, Set-Apart Shabbat.

THE SABBATH ACROSS THE CENTURIES

IN THE BEGINNING:

Institution Of The Sabbath

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the Seventh Day God ended his work which he made; and he rested on the Seventh Day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the Seventh Day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."  Genesis 2 vs 1-3

^{1st. Century Sabbath Observance}

Jesus
"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." St. Luke 4:16

Jesus
"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."       

St. Matthew 19:16-17

Jesus
"But pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day." St. Matthew 24:20
Jesus asked his disciples to pray that in the flight from the doomed city of Jerusalem they would not have to flee on the Sabbath day. This flight took place in 70 A.D.  (40 years after the Cross).

His Followers
"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." St. Luke 23:56

The Disciples kept the 7th day Shabbat 84 times in the Book of Acts

Paul
"And Paul, as his manner was went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures" Acts 17:2

Paul And Gentiles
"And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And the next Sabbath came almost the whole city together to hear the Word of God." Acts 13:42, 44.

John
"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1:10 (Mark 2:28, Isa.58:13, Ex.20:10, clearly show the Sabbath to be the Lord's day).

Josephus (1st Century Jewish Historian)
"There is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the Barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come!" :, M`Clatchie:"Notes and Queries on China and Japan" (edited by Dennys), Vol 4, Nos 7, 8, p.100.

Philo (Greek Philosopher and Historian)
Declares the seventh day to be a festival (Sacred day), not of this or of that city, but of the universe. M'Clatchie,Notes and Queries, Vol. 4, 99

Socrates: "For almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries (Lord's supper) on the Sabbath of every week." Socrates Scholasticus, Eccl. History

Eusebius: "Then the spiritual seed of Abraham [Christians] fled to Pella, on the other side of Jordan, where they found a safe place of refuge, and could serve their Master and keep His Sabbath." Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History.

Philo, the philosopher and historian, affirms that this Sabbath was on the seventh-day of the week.
"It is certain that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed (together with the celebration of the Lord's day) by the Christians of the East Church, above three hundred years after our Saviour's death."
"A Learned Treatise of the Sabbath," p. 77

2nd Century Sabbath Observance

EARLY CHRISTIANS: "The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but they derived this practice from the Apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to the purpose." "Dialogues on the Lord's Day," p. 189. London: 1701, By Dr. T.H. Morer (A Church of England divine).

EARLY CHRISTIANS
"...The Sabbath was a strong tie which united them with the life of the whole people, and in keeping the Sabbath holy they followed not only the example but also the command of Jesus."
"Geschichte des Sonntags," pp.13, 14

"The Gentile Christians observed also the Sabbath,                                                                                                                                                                         "Gieseler's "Church History," Vol.1, ch. 2, par. 30, 93.

Early Christians
"The primitive Christians did keep the Sabbath of the Jews;...therefore the Christians, for a long time together, did keep their conventions upon the Sabbath, in which some portions of the law were read: and this continued till the time of the Laodicean council."                               

  The Whole Works` of Jeremy Taylor, Vol. IX,p. 416 (R. Heber's Edition, Vol XII, p. 416).

Early Church

"It is certain that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed (together with the celebration of the Lord's day) by the Christians of the East Church, above three hundred years after our Saviour's death." `A Learned Treatise of the Sabbath,` (p. 77):..

Note: By the "Lord's day" here the writer means Sunday and not the true Sabbath," which the Bible says is the Sabbath. This quotation shows Sunday coming into use in the early centuries soon after the death of the Apostles. Paul the Apostle foretold a great "falling away" from the Truth that would take place soon after his death.

2nd, 3rd, & 4th Centuries: "From the apostles' time until the (Roman Catholic) Council of Laodicea (364 AD), the holy observation of the Jews' Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors: yea, notwith-standing the decree of the council against it."                       

   John Ley, Sunday A Sabbath, (page 163) London, 1640.

3rd Century Sabbath Observance

PALESTINE TO INDIA (CHURCH OF THE EAST)

 "As early as 225 A.D. there existed large Sabbath-keeping bishoprics or conferences of the Church of the East stretching from Palestine to India."

Early spread of Christianity` vol. 10 page 460.

INDIA "The Seventh-Day Sabbath was...solemnised by Christ, the Apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did in manner quite abolish the observations of it." ` Dissertation on the Lord's Day,` pp. 33, 34

EGYPT (OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRUS) (200-250 A.D.)
"Except ye make the sabbath a real sabbath (sabbatize the Sabbath, Greek), ye shall not see the Father."
"The Oxyrhynchus Papyri," Pt:1:page 3; Logion 2: verso 4-11 (London Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898).

EARLY CHRISTIANS "Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of Him who ceased from His work of creation, but ceased not from His work of provid-ence: it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for idleness of the hands."
"The Anti-Nicene Fathers," Vol 7,p. 413. From "Constitutions of the Holy Apostles," a document of the 3rd and 4th Centuries.

AFRICA (ALEXANDRIA) ORIGEN
"After the festival (Sunday) of the unceasing sacrifice (the crucifixion) is put the second festival of the Sabbath, and it is fitting for whoever is righteous among the saints to keep also the festival of the Sabbath. There remaineth therefore a sabbatismus, that is, a keeping of the Sabbath, to the people of God (Hebrews 4:9)

 "Homily on Numbers 23," par.4, in Migne, "Patrologia Graeca," Vol. 12,cols. 749, 750.

INDIA (BUDDHIST CONTROVERSY), 220 A.D.
`The Kushan Dynasty of North India called a famous council of Buddhist priests at Vaisalia to bring uniformity among the Buddhist monks on the observance of their weekly Sabbath. Some had been so impressed by the writings of the Old Testament that they had begun to keep holy the Sabbath.`

Lloyd, "The Creed of Half Japan," p. 23.

4th Century Sabbath Observance

ORIENT AND MOST OF WORLD "The ancient Christians were very careful in the observance of Saturday, or the Seventh Day...It is plain that all the Oriental churches, and the greatest part of the world, observed the Sabbath as a festival...Athanasius likewise tells us that they held religious assembles on the Sabbath, not because they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, Epiphanius says the same."

 "Antiquities of the Christian Church," Vol.II Book XX, chap. 3, sec.1, 66. 1137, 1138.

ABYSSINIA & CHINA
"In the last half of that century St. Ambrose of Milan stated officially that the Abyssinian bishop, Museus, had 'traveled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres' (China). For more than seventeen centuries the Abyssinian Church continued to sanctify Saturday as the holy day of the fourth commandment." Ambrose, De Moribus, Brachmanorium Opera Omnia, 1132, found in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol.17, pp.1131,1132.

ARABIA, PERSIA, INDIA, CHINA "Mingana proves that in 370 A.D. Abyssinian Christianity (a Sabbath keeping church) was so popular that its famous director, Musacus, travelled extensively in the East promoting the church in Arabia, Persia, India and China." "Truth Triumphant,"p.308 (Footnote 27).

ITALY-MILAN "Ambrose, the celebrated bishop of Milan, said that when he was in Milan he observed Saturday, but when in Rome observed Sunday. This gave rise to the proverb, 'When you are in Rome, do as Rome does."

Heylyn, "The History of the Sabbath (1612)

Spain - Council Elvira (A.D.305) Canon 26 of the Council of Elvira reveals that the Church of Spain at that time kept Saturday, the Seventh Day as Sabbath. "As to fasting every Sabbath: Resolved, that the error be corrected of fasting every Sabbath." This resolution of the council is in direct opposition to the policy the church at Rome had inaugurated, that of commanding Sabbath as a fast day in order to humiliate the Sabbath and make it repugnant to the people.

SPAIN
"It is a point of further interest to note that in north-eastern Spain near the city of Barcelona is a city called Sabadell,(meaning Sabbath) in a district originally inhabited by a people called both `Valldenses` and `Sabbatati`. (Sabbatarians)

PERSIA- A.D.335-375 (40 YEARS PERSECUTION UNDER SHAPUR II). The popular complaint against the Christians: "They despise our sungod, they have divine services on Saturday, they desecrate the sacred the earth by burying their dead in it." "Truth Triumphant," p.170.

PERSIA - A.D.335-375 "They despise our sun-god. Did not Zoroaster, the sainted founder of our divine beliefs, institute Sunday one thousand years ago in honour of the sun and supplant the Sabbath of the Old Testament. Yet these Christians have divine services on Saturday."

O'Leary, "The Syriac Church and Fathers," pp.83, 84.

COUNCIL OF LAODICEA - A.D.364 "On Saturday the Gospels and other portions of the Scripture shall be read aloud." Canon 16: "Christians shall not Judaize (observe the Saturday Sabbath) and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day;" Canon 29: "But the Lord's day (Sunday) they shall especially honor, and as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day."

Hefele's "Councils," Vol. 2, b.6

"The Christian Sunday was not made a `day of rest` until Constantine decreed it in 321 AD"

Ralph P Martin `How The First Christians Worshipped`-EERDMAN`S HANDBOOK TO THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY (1977) P.122

ABBYSSINIA "For more than 17 centuries the Abyssinian Church continued to sanctify Saturday as the holy day of the 4th commandment."

Ambrose de Morbius.

ITALY AND THE EAST
"It was the practice generally of the Easterne Churches; and some churches of the west...For in the Church of Millaine (Milan);...it seems the Saturday was held in a farre esteeme... Not that the Easterne Churches, or any of the rest which observed that day, were inclined to Iudaisme (Judaism); but that they came together on the Sabbath day, to worship Iesus (Jesus) Christ the Lord of the Sabbath." "History of the Sabbath" (original spelling retained), Part 2, par. 5, pp.73, 74. London: 1636. Dr. Heylyn.

5th Century Sabbath Observance

THE WORLD "For, although almost all churches throughout the world celebrated the sacred mysteries (the Lord's Supper) on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this."

The footnote which accompanies the foregoing quotation explains the use of the word "Sabbath."

It says: "That is, upon the Saturday. It should be observed, that Sunday is never called the Sabbath by the ancient Fathers and historians."

Socrates, "Ecclestical History," Book 5, chap. 22, p. 289.

CONSTANTINOPLE "The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria" Socrates,

"Ecclesiastical History," Book 7, chap.19.

The World Augustine, Bishop Of Hippo (North Africa) Augustine shows here that the Sabbath (Saturday) was observed in his day "in the greater part of the Christian world," and his testimony in this respect is all the more valuable because he himself was an earnest and consistent Sunday-keeper.

See "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," 1st Series, Vol.1, pp. 353, 354.

"Down even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian Church."

`Ancient Christianity Exemplified,` Lyman Coleman, ch. 26, sec. 2, p. 527.

"In Jerome's day (420 A.D.) the devoutest Christians did ordinary work on Sunday." Treatise of the Sabbath Day," by Dr. White, Lord Bishop of Ely, p. 219.

AFRICA Augustine deplores the fact that in 2 neighbouring churches in Africa, one observes the 7th Day Sabbath, another fasts on it. (despises it)

Dr Peter Heylyn, `The History of the Sabbath` p.416

ABBYSYNIA - CHURCH OF THE EAST "Mingana shows that in 410, Isaac, supreme director of the Church of the East, held a world council,- stimulated, some think, by the trip of Musacus, - attended by eastern delegates from forty Grand Metropolitan divisions. In 411 he (Isaac) appointed a Metropolitan Director for China. These churches were sanctifying the Seventh Day."

J. F. Colthart, The Sabbath Through The Centuries, p. 11.

FRANCE
"Wherefore, except Vespers and Nocturns, there are no public services among them in the day except on Saturday (Sabbath) and Sunday."

John Cassian, A French monk, "Institutes," Book 3, ch. 2.

SPAIN (400 A.D.)
"Ambrose sanctified the Seventh Day as the Sabbath (as he himself says). Ambrose had great influence in Spain, which was also observing the Saturday Sabbath." Truth Triumphant, p. 68.

Sidonius: (Speaking Of King Theodoric Of The Goths) : 454-526 AD

"It is a fact that it was formerly the custom in the East to keep the Sabbath in the same manner as the Lord's day (sunday) and to hold sacred assemblies: while on the other hand, the people of the West, contending for the Lord's day have neglected the celebration of the Sabbath."

`Apollinaries Sidonli Epistolae,` lib.1, 2; Migne, 57.

EGYPT
"There are several cities and villages in Egypt where, contrary to the usage established elsewhere, the people meet together on Sabbath evenings, and, although they have dined previously, partake of the mysteries."

Sozomen. "Ecclesiastical History" Book 7, ch. 19

Abyssinia - Remnants of Philip's Evangelism
"In the last half of that century St. Ambrose of Milan stated officially that the Abyssinian bishop, Museus, had 'travelled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres' (China). For more than seventeen centuries the Abyssinian Church continued to sanctify Saturday as the holy day of the fourth commandment.` `Ambrose, DeMoribus, Brachmanorium Opera Ominia`, 1132, found in Migne, Patrologia Latima, Vol.17, pp.1131,1132.

6th Century Sabbath Observance

SCOTTISH CHURCH "In this latter instance they (the Scottish Church) seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labours."

W.T.Skene, "Adamnan's Life of St. Columba" 1874, p.96.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND "We seem to see here an allusion to the custom, observed in the early monastic Church of Ireland, of keeping the day of rest on Saturday, or the Sabbath."

History of the Catholic Church in Scotland," Vol.1, p. 86, by Catholic historian Bellesheim.

SCOTLAND - Columba
`Having continued his labours in Scotland thirty-four years, he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the month of June, said to his disciple Diermit: "This day is called the Sabbath, that is the rest day, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labours."

"Butler's Lives of the Saints," Vol.1, A.D. 597, art. "St. Columba" p. 762

Columba (Re Dr. Butler's Description Of His Death) The editor of the best biography of Columbia says in a foot-note: "Our Saturday. The custom to call the Lord's day Sabbath did not commence until a thousand years later"

Adamnans "Life of Columba" (Dublin, 1857), p. 230.

7th Century Sabbath Observance

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND "It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of week."

James C. Moffatt, "The Church in Scotland," p.140.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND "The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate (R.C.) and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday." Flick, "The Rise of Mediaeval Church," p. 237

ROME Gregory I (A.D. 590-640) wrote against "Roman citizens (who) forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day."

`Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers,` Second Series, Vol, XIII, p.13, epist. 1

ROME (POPE GREGORY I, A.D.590 TO 604) "Gregory, bishop by the grace of God to his well-beloved sons, the Roman citizens: It has come to me that certain men of perverse spirit have disseminated among you things depraved and opposed to the holy faith, so that they forbid anything to be done on the day of the Sabbath. What shall I call them except preachers of anti-Christ?" Epistles, b.13:1

ROME (POPE GREGORY I) Declared that "When anti-Christ should come he would keep Saturday as the Sabbath"

 "Epistles of Gregory I, "b 13, epist.1. found in "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers."

"Moreover, this same Pope Gregory had issued an official pronouncement against a section of the city of Rome itself because the Christian believers there rested and worshipped on the Sabbath Day"

"Epistles of Gregory I, "b 13, epist.1. found in "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers."

8th Century Sabbath Observance

COUNCIL OF FRIAUL, ITALY - A.D. 791 (CANON 13) "We command all Christians to observe the Lord's day to be held not in honour of the past Sabbath, but on account of that holy night of the first of the week called the Lord's day. When speaking of that Sabbath which the Jews observe, the last day of the week, and which also our peasants observe.." Mansi, 13, 851

PERSIA AND MESOPOTAMIA "The hills of Persia and the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates re- echoed their songs of praise. They reaped their harvests and paid their tithes. They repaired (went) to their churches on the Sabbath day for the worship of God."

"Real Encyclopaedie fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche," art. "Nestorianer";

INDIA, CHINA, PERSIA, ETC "Widespread and enduring was the observance of the Seventh-Day Sabbath among the believers of the Church of the East and the St. Thomas Christians of India, who never were connected with Rome. It also was maintained among those bodies which broke off from Rome after the Council of Chalcedon namely, the Abyssinians, the Jacobites, the Maronites, and the Armenians"

Schaff-Herzog, The New Enclopadia of Religious Knowledge," art. "Nestorians";

COUNCIL OF LIFTINAE, BELGIUM-A.D.745(ATTENDED BY POPE BONIFACE ) "The third allocution of this council warns against the observance of the Sabbath, referring to the decree of the council of Laodicea"

Dr. Hefele, Counciliengfesch, 3, 512, sec. 362

CHINA: In A.D. 781  `the famous China Monument was inscribed in marble to tell of the growth of Christianity in China at that time. The inscription, consisting of 763 words, was unearthed in 1625 near the city of Changan and now stands in the "Forest of Tablets," in Changan. The following extract from the stone shows that the Sabbath was observed: "On the Seventh Day we offer sacrifices, after having purified our hearts, and received absolution for our sins. This religion, so perfect and so excellent, is difficult to name, but it enlightens darkness by its brilliant precepts."`

Christianity in China, M. I'Abbe Huc, Vol. I, ch.2, pp. 48, 49

9th Century Sabbath Observance

BULGARIA "Bulgaria in the early season of its evangelization had been taught that no work should be performed on the Sabbath."

Responsa Nicolai Papae I and Con-Consulta Bulllllgarorum, Responsum 10, found in Mansi, Sacrorum Concilorum Nova et Amplissima Colectio, Vol.15; p. 406; also Hefele, Conciliengeschicte, Vol.4, sec. 478

BULGARIA Pope Nicholas I, in answer to letter from Bogaris, ruling prince of Bulgaria. "Ques. 6-Bathing is allowed on Sunday. Ques. 10-One is to cease from work on Sunday, but not also on the Sabbath"

The Bulgarians had been accustomed to rest on the Sabbath(Saturday). Pope Nicholas writes against this practice. Hefele, 4,346- 352, sec. 478 CONSTANTINOPLE Photius, Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (in counter-synod that deposed Nicolas), thus accused Papacy. "Against the canons, they induced the Bulgarians to fast on the Sabbath."

Photius, vonKard, Hergenrother, 1, 643

ATHINGIANS Cardinal Hergenrother says that they stood in intimate relation with Emperor Michael II (821-829) and testifies that they observed the Sabbath.  `Kirchengeschichte, 1, 527`

BULGARIA "Pope Nicholas I, in the ninth century, sent the ruling prince of Bulgaria a long document saying in it that one is to cease from work on Sunday, but not on the Sabbath. The head of the Greek Church, offended at the interference of the Papacy, declared the Pope ex-communicated."

Truth Triumphant, p. 232

INDIA AND ABYSSINIA "Widespread and enduring was the observance of the Seventh Day Sabbath among the Believers of the Church of the East and the St. Thomas Christians of India. It was also maintained by the Abyssinians."

10th Century Sabbath Observance

SCOTLAND  "They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner."          `A history of Scotland from the Roman Occupation,` Vol. I, p.96. Andrew Lang

Church Of The East - Kurdistan "The Nestorians eat no pork and keep the Sabbath. They believe in neither auricular confession nor purgatory."

Schaff-Herzog, "The New Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge," art. "Nestorians."

Waldenses "And because they observed no other day of rest but the Sabbath days, they called them Insabathas, as much as to say, as they observed no Sabbath."                     Luther's "Fore-Runners" (original spelling), PP. 7, 8

Waldenses `Roman Catholic writers try to evade the apostolic origin of the Waldenses, so as to make it appear that the Roman (Church) is the only apostolic church, and that all others are later novelties. And for this reason they try to make out that the Waldenses (Sabbath-keepers) originated with Peter Waldo of the twelfth century` "Some Protestants, on this occasion, have fallen into the snare that was set for them...It is absolutely false, that these churches (Sabbatarians) were ever founded by Peter Waldo...it is a pure forgery."                 Dr. Peter Allix: Ancient Church of Piedmont, pp.192, Oxford: 1821

Waldenses "It is not true, that Waldo gave this name to the inhabitants of the valleys: they were called Waldenses, or Vaudes, before his time, from the valleys in which they dwelt." Ibid., p. 182

Waldenses "On the other hand, he "was called Valdus, or Waldo, because he received his religious notions from the inhabitants of the valleys"

History of the Christian Church, William Jones, Vol II, p.2

11th Century Sabbath Observance

SCOTLAND
They held that Saturday was properly the Sabbath on which they abstained from work. `Celtic Scotland,` Vol. 2, p. 350

SCOTLAND

 "It was another custom of theirs (the Scots) to neglect the reverence due to the Lord's day, (Sunday) by devoting themselves to every kind of worldly business upon it, just as they did upon other days. That this was contrary to the (catholic) law, she (Queen Margaret) proved to them as well by reason as by authority. 'Let us venerate the Lord's day,' said she, 'because of the resurrection of our Lord, which happened upon that day, and let us no longer do servile works upon it; bearing in mind that upon this day we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory affirms-the-same."                             Life of Saint Margaret, Turgot, p. 49 (British Museum Library)

SCOTLAND

"Margaret of Scotland in 1060 attempted to bring ruin to Columba's spiritual descendants by moving against those who observed the Seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday."

 T. R. Barnett in Margaret of Scotland; Queen and Saint, p. 97.

SCOTLAND

 "Her next point was that they did not duly reverence the Lord's day, but in this latter instance they seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early Church of Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labours." W.T.Skene commenting upon the work of Queen Margaret.       "Celtic Scotland," Vol.2, p. 349

SCOTLAND

 "They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a sabbatical manner... These things (Queen) Margaret abolished."

A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation," Vol.1, p. 96.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND

 "In this matter the Scots had perhaps kept up the traditional usage of the ancient Irish Church which observed Saturday instead of Sunday as the day of rest."

T.R.Barnett,"Margaret of Scotland: Queen and Saint," p.97. (T. Ratcliffe Barnett on the fervent Catholic Queen of Scotland who in 1060 was first to attempt the ruin of Columba's brethren)

COUNCIL OF CLERMONT "During the first crusade, Pope Urban II decreed at the council of Clermont (A.D.1095) that the Sabbath should be abolished" History of the Sabbath, p.672

CONSTANTINOPLE "Because you observe the Sabbath with the Jews and the Lord's Day with us, you seem to imitate with such observance the sect of Nazarenes."

Migne, "Patrologia Latina," Vol. 145, p.506; also Hergenroether, "Photius," Vol. 3, p.746.        (The Nazarenes were Torah-Observant followers of Jesus)

GREEK CHURCH "The observance of Saturday is, as everyone knows, the subject of a bitter dispute between the Greeks and the Latins."

Neale, "A History of the Holy Eastern Church," Vol 1, p. 731. (Referring to the separation of the Greek Church from the Latin (Roman) Church in 1054)

12th Century Sabbath Observance

LOMBARDY "Traces of Sabbath-keepers are found in the times of Gregory I, Gregory VII, and in the twelfth century in Lombardy."

Strong's Cyclopaedia, 1, 660

WALDENSES `Robinson gives an account of some of the Waldenses of the Alps, who were called Sabbati, Sabbatati, Insabbatati, but more frequently Inzabbatati. "One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord's day."

General History of the Baptist Denomination, Vol.II, P. 413

SPAIN--(Alphonse-of-Aragon) "Alphonse, king of Aragon, etc., to all archbishops, bishops and to all others...'We command you that heretics, to wit, Waldenses and Insabbathi, should be expelled away from the face of God and from all Catholics and ordered to depart from our kingdom" Marianse, Praefatio in Lucam Tudensem, found in "Macima Gibliotheca Veterum Patrum," Vol.25, p.190

HUNGARY FRANCE, ENGLAND, ITALY, GERMANY. (Referring to the Sabbath-keeping Pasagini) "The spread of heresy at this time is almost incredible. From Bulgaria to the Ebro, from northern France to the Tiber, every-where we meet them. Whole countries are infested, like Hungary and southern France; they abound in many other countries, in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands and even in England they put forth their efforts."

 Dr. Hahn, "Geschichte der Ketzer." 1, 13, 14

WALDENSES "Among the documents. we have by the same peoples, an explanation of the Ten Commandments dated by Boyer 1120. Observance of the Sabbath by ceasing from worldly labours, is enjoined."

Blair, History of the Waldenses, Vol.1, p. 220

WALES "There is much evidence that the Sabbath prevailed in Wales universally until A.D.1115, when the first Roman bishop was seated at St. David's. The old Welsh Sabbath-keeping churches did not even then altogether bow the knee to Rome, but fled to their-hiding-places."

Lewis, "Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America," Vol.1, p.29

FRANCE
"For twenty years Peter de Bruys stirred southern France. He especialy emphasised a day of worship that was recognized at that time among the Celtic churches of the British Isles, among the Paulicians, and in the great Church of the East namely, the 7th Day of the fourth commandment."

PASAGINI (Sabbath-keepers) The papal author, Bonacursus, wrote the following against the "Pasagaini": "Not a few, but many know what are the errors of those who are called Pasagini...First, they teach that we should obey the (7th Day) Sabbath. Furthermore, to increase their error, they condemn and reject all the Church Fathers, and the whole Roman-Church." D'Achery, Spicilegium I,f.211-214; Muratory, Antiq. med. aevi.5, f.152, Hahn, 3, 209

13th Century Sabbath Observance

Europe "The (Catholic) Inquisitors...[declare] that the sign of a Vaudois (Sabbath-keeping Waldenses of France), deemed worthy of death, was that he followed Christ and sought to obey the commandments of God."

History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages," H.C.Les.

WALDENSES "They "say that the blessed Pope Sylvester was the Antichrist of whom mention is made in the Epistles of St. Paul as having been the Son of Perdition. (They also say) that the Sabbath ought to be kept."

Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont," p.169 (by prominent Roman Catholic author writing about Waldenses)

FRANCE (Waldenses)
To destroy completely these heretics Pope Innocent III sent Dominican Inquisitors into France, and also Crusaders, promising "a plenary remission of all sins, to those who took on them the Crusade...against the Albigenses (Sabbath-keeping, Oneness Christians)."

HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION

FRANCE  `Thousands of God's people were tortured to death by the In-quisition, buried alive, burned to death, or hacked to pieces by the Crusaders. While devastating the city of Biterre the soldiers asked the Catholic leaders how they should know who were heretics; "Slay them all, for the Lord knows who is His.".... ` History of the Inquisition, pp. 96

FRANCE - KING LOUIS IX, 1229
Published the statute "Cupientes" in which he charges himself to clear Southern France from heretics as the Sabbath-keepers were called.

WALDENSES OF FRANCE "The heresy of the Vaudois, or poor people of Lyons, is of great antiquity, for some say that it has been continued down ever since the time of Pope Sylvester; and others, ever since that of the Apostles."                                The Roman Inquisitor, Reinerus Sacho, writing about 1230

FRANCE - Council Toulouse, 1229 Canons against Sabbath-keepers: "Canon 3.- The lords of the different districts shall have the villas, houses and woods diligently searched, and the hiding-places of the heretics (Sabbath-keepers) destroyed." Canon 14. - Lay members are not allowed to possess the books of either the Old or the New Testaments." Hefele, 5, 931, 962

EUROPE
"The Paulicians, Petrobusinas, Passaginians, Waldenses, Insabbatati were great Sabbath-keeping bodies of Europe down to 1250 A.D."

PASAGINIANS
Dr. Hahn says that if the Pasaginians referred to the 4th Commandment to support the Sabbath, the Roman priests answered, "The Sabbath symbolised the eternal rest of the saints."

MONGOLIA
"The Mongolian conquest did not injure the Church of the East (Sabbath-Keepers.) On the contrary, a number of the Mongolian princes and a larger number of Mongolian queens were members of this church."

14th Century Sabbath Observance

WALDENSES "That we are to worship one only God, who is able to help us, and not the Saints departed; that we ought to keep holy the Sabbath Day."

Luther's Fore-runners," p. 38

INSABBATI  "For centuries evangelical bodies, especially the Waldens-es, were called Insabbati because of Sabbath-keeping." Gui, Manueld' Inquisiteur

BOHEMIA, 1310 (Modern Czechoslovakia) "In 1310, two hundred years before Luther's thesis, the Bohemian brethern constituted one fourth of the population of Bohemia, and were in touch with the Waldenses who abounded in Austria, Lombardy, Bohemia, Northern Germany, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Moravia. Erasmus pointed out how strictly Bohemian Waldenses kept the Seventh Day Sabbath."

Armitage, "A History of the Baptists," p.313; Cox, "The Literature of the Sabbath Question," vol. 2, pp. 201-202

NORWAY `Then, too, in the `Catechism` that was used during the fourteenth century, the Sabbath commandment read thus; "Thou shalt not forget to keep the Seventh Day."  `Documents and Studies Concerning the History of the Lutheran Catechism in the Nordish Churches,` p.89. Christiania 1893

NORWAY  "Also "the priests have caused the people to keep Saturdays as Sundays."

Theological Periodicals for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Norway, Vol.1, p.184 Oslo

ENGLAND, HOLLAND, BOHEMIA "We wrote of the Sabbatarians in Bohemia, Transylvania, England and Holland between 1250 and 1600 A.D."

Truth Triumphant, Wilkinson, p.309

15th Century Sabbath Observance

ENGLAND (1401) English Parliament issues an Act (De Haeretico Comburendo 1401) against the Lollards (Torah-Observant Sabbath-Day-Keeping Believers) forbidding them to observe Biblical Injunctions and obey the Romish Doctrines or face being burnt alive.

`Documents of the Christian Church` Henry Bettenson, pp 251-255

ROME: 1442 (FEB.14TH) "TO ALL CATHOLIC CHURCHES" `It (the Roman Catholic Church) firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors.`
Pope Eugene IV, Papal Bull Cantate Domino, `The Sources of Catholic Dogma`, Translated by Roy J. Deferrari, from the Thirtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum, published by B. Herder Book Co., Copyright 1957, pages 228, 229 & 712.

RUSSIA (Council, Moscow, 1490) "The accused [Sabbath-keepers] were summoned; they openly acknowledged the new faith, and defended the same. The most eminent of them, the Secretary of State Kuritzyn, Ivan Maximow, Kassian, Archimandrite of the Fury Monastery of Novgorod, were condemned to death, and burned publicly in cages, at Moscow; Dec.-17,1503."

H.Sternberg, `Geschichte der Juden` (Leipsig, 1873), pp.117-122

BOHEMIA "Erasmus testifies that even as late as about 1500 these Bohemians not only kept the Seventh Day scrupulously, but also were called Sabbatarians."

Cox, `The Literature of the Sabbath Question,` Vol.2, pp.201, 202 `Truth Triumphant`, p.264

NORWAY (Church Council held at Bergen, August 22,1435) The first matter concerned a keeping holy of Saturday. It has come to the ears of the Archbishop that people in different places of the Kingdom had ventured the keeping holy of Saturday. It is strictly forbidden - it is stated - in the Church Law, for any one to keep or to adopt holy-days, outside of those which the Pope, Archbishop, or Bishops appoint."

The History of the Norwegian Church under Catholicism, R. Keyser, Vol.II, p. 488.Oslo: 1858

NORWAY, 1435 (Catholic Provincial Council at Bergen) "We are informed that some people in different districts of the Kingdom, have adopted and observed Saturday-keeping. It is severely forbidden - in Holy Church Canon - one and all to observe days excepting those which the Holy Pope, Archbishop or the Bishops command. Saturday-keeping must under no circumstances be permitted hereafter further than the church Canon commands. Therfore, we counsel all the friends of God throughout all Norway who want to be obedient towards the Holy Church to let this evil of Saturday-keeping alone; and the rest we forbid under penalty of severe Church punishment to keep Saturday holy." Dip. Norveg., 7, 397

NORWAY, 1436 (Church Conference at Oslo) "It is forbidden under the same penalty to keep Saturday holy by refraining from labour."

History of the Norwegian Church, p.401

FRANCE -Waldenses "Louis XII, King of France (1498-1515), being informed by the enemies of the Waldense inhabiting a part of the Province, that several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent the Master of Requests, and a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, to make inquiry into this matter. On their return they reported that they had visited all the parishes, but could not discover any traces of those crimes with which they were charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath Day, observed the Ordinance of Baptism, according to the Primitive Church, instructed their children in the articles of the Christian Faith, and the Commandments of God. The King having heard the report of his commisioners, said with an oath that they were better men than himself or his people"               

History of the Christian Church, Vol.II, pp. 71, 72, third edition. London: 1818

INDIA
`Separated from the Western world for a thousand years, they were naturally ignorant of many novelties introduced by the Councils and Decrees of the Lateran.` "We are Christians, and not idolaters," was their expressive reply when required to do homage to the image of the Virgin Mary.'"

16th Century Sabbath Observance

ENGLAND "In the reign of Elizabeth, it occurred to many conscientious and independent thinkers (as it previously had done to some Protestants in Bohemia) that the fourth commandment required of them the observance, not of the first, but of the specified 'Seventh' Day of the week."

Chamber`s Cyclopaedia, article "Sabbath," Vol. 8, p. 462, 1537

SWEDEN "This zeal for Saturday-keeping continued for a long time: even little things which might strengthen the practice were followed"

Bishop Anjou, "Svenska Kirkans Historia after Motetthiers, Upsala

LICHENSTEIN FAMILY Estates in Austria, Bohemia, Morovia, Hungary. (Lichtenstein in the Rhine Valley wasn't their country until the end of the 7th century)."The Sabbatarians teach that the outward Sabbath, i.e. Saturday, still must be observed, They say that Sunday is the Pope's invention." Refutation of Sabbath, by Wolfgang Capito, published 1599

BOHEMIA (the Bohemian Brethren) "I find from a passage in Erasmus that at the early period of the Reformation when he wrote, there were Sabbatarians in Bohemia, who not only kept the Seventh Day, but were said to be ...scrupulous in resting on it."

Literature of the Sabbath Question, R. Cox, Vol. II, pp. 201, 202

HISTORIAN'S LIST OF CHURCHES (16th Century) "Sabbatarians, so called because they reject the observance of the Lord's day as not commanded in Scripture, they consider the Sabbath alone to be holy, as God rested on that day and commanded to keep it holy and to rest on it."         A. Ross (Historian)

GERMANY -Dr. Esk (while refuting the Reformers) "However, the church has transferred the observance (of the Sabbath Day) from Saturday to Sunday by virtue of her own power, without Scripture."

Dr. Esk's "Enchiridion," 1533, pp.78,79

PRINCES OF LICHTENSTEIN (Europe) "About the year 1520 many of these Sabbath-keepers found shelter on the estate of Lord Leonhardt of Lichtenstein who held to the observance of the true Sabbath."

J.N.Andrews, History of the Sabbath, p. 649

INDIA "The famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier, called for the Inquisition, which was set up in Goa, India, in 1560, to check the 'Jewish wickedness '(of-Sabbath-keeping-Christians)."

Adeney, "The Greek and Eastern Churches," pps.527, 528

NORWAY-1544 "Some of you, contrary to the warning, keep Saturday. You ought to be severely punished. Whoever shall be found keeping Saturday, must pay a fine of ten marks."

`History of King Christian the Third,`  Niels Krag and S. Stephanius.

AUSTRIA "Sabbatarians now exist in Austria."

DR MARTIN LUTHER, `Lectures on Genesis,` A.D.1523-27 ABYSSINIA--A.D. 1534 (Abyssinian legate at court of Lisbon) "It is not therefore, in imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to Christ and His holy apostles, that we observe the (Sabbath) Day."

Geddes's "Church History of Ethiopia," pp. 87-88

DR. MARTIN LUTHER "God blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it to Himself. God willed that this command concerning the Sabbath should remain. He willed that on the Seventh Day the Word should be preached."

Commentary on Genesis, Vol.1, pp.138-140

BAPTISTS  "Some Baptists have suffered torture because they would not rest when others kept Sunday, for they declared it to be the holiday and law-of-Antichrist."                Baptist Theological Manual

FINLAND-Dec. 6,1554

(Letter of King Gustavus Vasa I, of Sweden to the people of Finland)

"Some time ago we heard that some people in Finland had fallen into a great error and observed the Seventh Day, called Saturday."

State Library at Helsingfors, Reichsregister, Vom J., 1554, Teil B.B. leaf 1120, pp.175-180a

SWITZERLAND "The observance of the Sabbath is a part of the moral law. It has been kept holy since the beginning of the world."

Noted Swiss writer, R. Hospinian, 1592

HOLLAND AND GERMANY `Barbara of Thiers, who was executed in 1529, declared: "God has commanded us to rest on the seventh day." Another martyr, Christina Tolingerin, is mentioned thus: "Concerning holy days and Sundays, she said: "In six days the Lord made the world, on the Seventh Day he rested. The other holy days have been instituted by popes, cardinals, and archbishops.'"

Martyrology of the Churches of Christ, commonly called Baptists, during the era of the Reformation, from the Dutch of T.J. Van Bright:London:1850,1, pp.113-4.

17th Century Sabbath Observance

ENGLAND-1618 "At last for teaching only five days in the week, and resting upon Saturday she was carried to the new prison in Maiden Lane, a place then appointed for the restraint of several other persons of different opinions from the Church of England. Mrs. Traske lay fifteen or sixteen years a prisoner for her opinion about the Saturday-Sabbath."

Pagitt's "Heresiography." p.196

ENGLAND-1668 "Here in England are about nIne or ten churches that keep the Sabbath, besides many scattered disciples, who have eminently preserved it."                                    Stennet's letters, 1668 and 1670. Cox, Sab.,1, 268

HUNGARY, RUMANIA
"But as they rejected Sunday and rested on the Sabbath, Prince Sigmond Bathory ordered their persecution. Pechi advanced to position of Chancellor of State and next in line to Throne of Transylvania. He studied his Bible, and composed a number of hymns, mostly in honour of the Sabbath." Pechi was arrested and died in 1640.

SWEDEN AND FINLAND

"We can trace these opinions over almost the whole extent of Sweden of that day - from Finland and northern Sweden. "In the district of Upsala the farmers kept Saturday in place of Sunday. "About the year 1625 this religious tendency became so pronounced in these countries that not only large numbers of the common people began to keep Saturday as the rest day, but even many priests did the same."

`History of the Swedish Church, Vol.I, p.256`

MUSCOVIT RUSSIAN CHURCH

"They solemnize Saturday (the old Sabbath)".      

Samuel Purchase- "His Pilgrims." Vol. I, p. 350

INDIA (Jacobites)-1625

 "They kept Saturday holy. They have solemn service on Saturdays"            ` Pilgrimmes, Part 2, p.1269`

AMERICA-1664

Stephen Mumford, the first Sabbath-keeper in America came from London in 1664.

History of the Seventh-day Baptist Gen. Conf. by Jas. Bailey, pp. 237, 238. (The 7th-day Baptist continue to exist, and now have their home office in Jaynesville, Wisconsin.)

AMERICA-1671

(Seventh-day Baptists) "Broke from Baptist Church in order to keep Sabbath."        `Bailey's History, pp. 9,10`

ENGLAND:

King Charles I, 1647 (when querying the Parliament Commissioners) "For it will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is no longer to be kept, or turned into the Sunday wherefore it must be the Church's authority that changed the one and instituted the other.                   Cox, "Sabbath Laws," p.333

ENGLAND-

John Milton "It will surely be far safer to observe the Seventh Day, according to express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjecture to adopt the First (day) ."      Sabbath Literature 2, 46-54

ENGLAND "Upon the publication of the 'Book of Sports' in 1618 a violent controversy arose among English divines (Church of England) on two points: first, whether the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was in force; and, secondly, on what ground the first day of the week was entitled to be observed as 'the Sabbath."       Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, art. "Sabbatarians." p.602

ETHIOPIA-1604 (Catholic) Jesuits tried to induce the Abyssinian church to accept Roman Catholicism. They influenced King Zadenghel to propose to submit to the Papacy (A.D.1604). "Prohibiting all his subjects, upon severe penalties, to observe Saturday any longer."

Geddes's "Church History of Ethiopia." p.311, also Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," ch. 47

BOHEMIA, MORAVIA, SWITZERLAND, GERMANY

"One of the counsellors and lords of the court was John Gerendi, head of the Sabbatarians, a people who did not keep Sunday, but Saturday."  

 Lamy, "The History of Socinianism." p. 60

TELEGRAPH PRINT, NAPIER
The inscription on the monument over the grave of Dr. Peter Chamberlain, physician to King James and Queen Anne, King Charles I and Queen Katherine says that Dr. Chamberlain was... "a Christian keeping the commandment of God and the faith of Jesus, being baptised about the year 1648, and keeping the Seventh Day for the Sabbath above thirty-two years."

ENGLAND

"About 100 Sabbath keeping churches, mostly independent, flourished in England in the 17th and 18th centuries."

Dr. Brian W. Ball, `The Seventh-Day Men, Sabbatarians and Sabbatarianism in England and Wales, 1600-1800,` Clarendon Press, Oxford University, 1994.

America 1603-1680

"The pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, ... speaking against the God of heaven,thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition.”

Roger Williams, First Baptist pastor in America (1603-1683) -- `The Bloody Tenet of Persecution` quoted in L. E. Froom, `The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers` vol. 3, p. 52. Emphasis supplied.

18th Century Sabbath Observance

ABYSSINIA "The Jacobites assembled on the Sabbath Day, before the Domical day, in the temple, and kept that day, as do also the Abyssinians as we have seen from the confession of their faith by the Ethiopian King Claudius."                              Abundacnus, 'Historia Jacobatarum,"p.118-9 (18th Century)

RUMANIA, 1760 (and what is today) YUGOSLAVIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA "Joseph II's edict of tolerance did not apply to the Sabbatarians, some of whom again lost all of their possessions." "Catholic priests aided by soldiers forcing them to accept Romanism nominally, and compelling the remainder to labour on the Sabbath and to attend church on Sunday ,- these were the methods employed for two hundred fifty years to turn the Sabbatarians."        `Jahrgang` CH: 2 P. 254

GERMANY-Tennhardt of Nuremberg "He holds strictly to the doctrine of the Sabbath, because it is one of the ten commandments."

Bengel's "Leban und Wirken,"

Burk, p.579 He himself says: "It cannot be shown that Sunday has taken the place of the Sabbath" (P.366) "...the Lord God has sanctified the last day of the week. Antichrist, on the other hand, has appointed the first day of the week."                                       Ki Auszug aus Tennhardt's "Schriften," P.49 (printed 1712)

BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA (Today Czechoslovakia). Their history from 1635 to 1867 is thus described by Adolf Dux: "The condition of the Sabbatarians was dreadful. Their books and writings had to be delivered to the Karlsburg Consistory to become the spoils of flames." Aus Ungarn, pp. 289-291. Leipzig, 1850

HOLLAND AND GERMANY "Dr. Cornelius stated of East Friesland, that when Baptists were numerous, "Sunday and holidays were not observed," (for they were Sabbath-keepers).

Der Anteil Ostfrieslands and Ref. Muenster," 1852, pp l29, 34

MORAVIA-Count Zinzendorf In 1738 Zinzendorf wrote of his keeping the Sabbath thus: "That I have employed the Sabbath for rest many years already, and our Sunday for the proclamation of the gospel."

Budingsche Sammlung, Sec. 8, p. 224. Leipzig, 1742

AMERICA, 1741 -Moravian Brethren (after Zinzendorf arrived from Europe). "As a special instance it deserves to be noticed that he is resolved with the church at Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) to observe the seventh day as rest day. Id., pp. 5, 1421, 1422

AMERICA "But before Zinzendorf and the Moravians at Bethlehem (Penn-sylvania) thus began the observance of the Sabbath and prospered, there was a small body of German Sabbath-keepers in Pennsylvania."

See Rupp's "History of Religious Denominations in the United States," pp.109- 123

"The Abyssinians and many continental Europeans, especially in Romania, Bohemia, Moravia, Holland and Germany continued to keep the Sabbath. Wherever the church of Rome predominated these Sabbatarians suffered confiscation of property, fines, imprisonment and execution."   Coltheart, p. 26.

19th Century Sabbath Observance

RUSSIA "But the majority moved to the Crimea and the Caucasus, where they remain true to their doctrine in spite of persecution until this present time. The people call them Subotniki, or Sabbatarians"

Sternberg, "Geschichte der Juden in Polen," p.124

CHINA "At this time Hung prohibited the use of opium, and even tobacco, and all intoxicating drinks, and the Sabbath was religiously observed."

The Ti-Ping Revolution," by Llin-Le, and officer among them, Vol. 1, pp.6-48, 84.

"The Seventh Day is most religiously and strictly observed. The Taiping Sabbath is kept upon our Saturday."

The Ti-Ping Revolution," by Llin-Le, and officer among them, Vol. 1; P. 319

CHINA `The Taipings when asked why they observed the Seventh Day Sabbath, replied that it was, first, because the Bible taught it, and, second, because their ancestors observed it as a day of worship.`

`A Critical History of the Sabbath and the Sunday.`

INDIA AND PERSIA "Besides, they maintain the solemn observance of Christian worship throughout our Empire, on the Seventh Day."

Christian Researches in Asia, p.143

DENMARK Pastor M.A. Sommer began observing the Seventh Day, and wrote in his church paper. "Indovet Kristendom" No.5,1875 an impressive article about the true Sabbath. In a letter to Elder John G.Matteson, he says: "Among the Baptists here in Denmark there is a great agitation regarding the Sabbath commandment; This agitation was not without effect; ...However, I am probably the only preacher in Denmark who stands so near to the Adventists and who for many years has proclaimed Christ's second coming."   `Advent Tidente`, May, 1875

SWEDEN (Baptists) "We will now endeavour to show that the sanctification of the Sabbath has its foundation and its origin in a law which God at creation itself established for the whole world, and as a consequence thereof is binding on all men in all ages"

Evangelisten (The Evangelist). Stockholm, May 30 to August 15,1863 (organ of the Swedish Baptist Church)

AMERICA, 1845 "Thus we see Dan. 7, 25, fulfilled, the little horn changing 'times and laws. 'Therefore it appears to me that all who keep the first day for the Sabbath are Pope's Sunday-keepers and God's Sabbath-breakers." Elder T.M. Preble, Feb.13, 1845

AMERICA (Seventh-day Adventists and Sabbatarian Church of God)
After the "Great Disappointment" of 1844, Adventists encountered 7th-day Baptists, and learned of the Sabbath. The Sabbatarian Adventists became two groups. Those who believed Ellen G. White to be a prophetess became the Seventh-day Adventists. The other group became known as the Sabbatarian Church of God. Both groups have propagated widely the keeping of the 7th-day Sabbath. (ABCOG is an independent Sabbatarian Church of God congregation.)

20th Century Sabbath Observance

Baptist Convention
"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God.... But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the other six. . . . The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought.... The six days of labour and the rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God's toil and rest in the creation. . . . No one of the ten words is of merely racial significance.... The Sabbath was established originally (long before Moses) in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after the six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam."-

Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug. 15, 1937.

Roman Catholic
“It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church.”

Catholic Priest, Father Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, NJ ‘News’ on March 18, 1903.

Roman Catholic
"The (Romish) Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. xix) condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians."

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Commandments of God, Volume IV, © 1908 by Robert Appleton Company - Online Edition © 1999 by Kevin Knight, Nihil Obstat - Remy Lafort, Censor Imprimatur - +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, page 153.

Roman Catholic
'Deny the authority of the (Catholic) Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third - (Protestant Fourth) - Commandment of God... The Church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.''       Catholic Record, September 1, 1923.

Roman Catholic
“If Protestants would follow the Bible, they would worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.”

Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter dated February 10, 1920.

Episcopal
"The Bible commandment says on the Seventh-Day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday."

Phillip Carrington, quoted in Toronto Daily Star, Oct 26, 1949: Anglican Archbishop of Quebec, spoke the above in a message on this subject delivered to a packed assembly of clergymen. It was widely reported at the time in the news media.

Lutheran
"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish Sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possesion of the church. We have seen that the Christian of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both."

The Sunday Problem, a study book by the Lutheran Church (1923) p.36

Church of Christ
"But we do not find any direct command from God, or instruction from the risen Christ, or admonition from the early apostles, that the first day is to be substituted for the Seventh Day Sabbath." "Let us be clear on this point. Though to the Christian 'that day, the first day of the week' is the most memorable of all days ... there is no command or warrant in the New Testament for observing it as a holy day." "The Roman Church selected the first day of the week in honour of the resurrection of Christ."

Bible Standard, May, 1916, Auckland, New Zealand.

ANGLICAN / EPISCOPAL CHURCH "Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. ...That is Saturday!"

P. Carrington, Archbishop of Quebec, Oct. 27, 1949.

Smithsonian Institute
"The evaluation of Sunday, the traditionally accepted day of the resurrection of Christ, has varied greatly throughout the centuries of the Christian Era. From time to time it has been confused with the Seventh Day of the week, the Sabbath. English ­speaking peoples have been the most consistent in perpetuating the erroneous assumption that the obligation of the fourth commandment has passed over to Sunday. In popular speech, Sunday is frequently, but erroneously, spoken of as the Sabbath."-

F. M. SETZLER, Head Curator, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institute, from a letter dated Sept. 1, 1949.

21st. Century Sabbath Observance

"There are more than ten million Sabbath-keeping Christians worldwide among more than  500 denominations and thousands of independent Sabbath-keeping congregations."

"And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the LORD." Isaiah 66:23


"Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for My Salvation (Yahushua) is near to come, and My Righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep My Sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My Covenant; Even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My Covenant; Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My House of Prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon Mine altar; for Mine House shall be called an House of prayer for all people." Isaiah 56:1-7


"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, `Til heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-20

"If ye love Me, keep my Commandments." John 14:15

"Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men." Acts 5:29


"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Revelation 22:11-14

"The Sabbath is part of the decalogue -- the Ten Commandments, This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution. ... Until therefore it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand. ... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath."     Theology Condensed...Thomas Blake; D.D. pp. 474/ 475 (Presbyterian)

Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the Seventh Day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.

SHEMOTH CH.20 vs. 8-11 :

TORAH COMMAND (4th. COMMAND OF THE DECALOGUE)

 YAH`SHUA HAMOSHIACH: MATTITYAHU CH.5 vs. 17-19 : .......

"THINK NOT THAT I AM COME TO WEAKEN OR DESTROY THE TORAH, OR THE NEVIIM: I HAVE NOT COME TO WEAKEN OR DESTROY, BUT TO COMPLETELY REVEAL IT IN ITS INTENDED FULNESS, FOR TRULY I SAY TO YOU, UNTIL THE CURRENT SHAMAYIM AND EARTH PASS AWAY, NOT ONE YUD, OR ONE NEKUDAH, SHALL BY ANY MEANS PASS FROM THE TORAH, UNTIL ALL BE FULFILLED. WHOEVER THEREFORE SHALL BREAK, OR WEAKEN ONE OF THE LEAST TORAH COMMANDMENTS, AND SHALL TEACH MEN SO, HE SHALL BE CALLED THE LEAST IN THE MALCHUT HA SHAMAYIM: BUT WHOEVER SHALL DO AND TEACH THE COMMANDS, THE SAME SHALL BE CALLED GREAT IN THE MALCHUT HA SHAMAYIM"

YAH`SHUA HAMOSHIACH: MATTITYAHU CH.5 vs. 17-19.

`THE TORAH OF YAHUWEH IS PERFECT,

 CONVERTING THE SOUL,

 THE TESTIMONY OF YAHUWEH IS SURE,

 MAKING WISE THE SIMPLE`…

 AND IN KEEPING OF THEM

 THERE IS GREAT REWARD.` TEHILLIM CH.19 vs. 7-11.

`O HOW I LOVE YOUR TORAH,

 IT IS MY MEDITATION ALL THE DAY;

 YOU THROUGH YOUR MITZVOTH

 HAVE MADE ME WISER THAN MY ENEMIES ` TEHILLIM CH.119 vs.97/98.

　`GREAT SHALOM HAVE THOSE WHO LOVE YOUR TORAH, AND NOTHING SHALL OFFEND THEM`     TEHILLIM CH. 119 vs. 165

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HALLOW THE SABBATH DAY

 Words & Music: Philip P Bliss, 1870

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/mid/h/a/p/hail_happy_morning.mid

To Listen To Melody, Click  Above Link ...

Hail happy morning, hail, holy day,

Calling from earthly labours away,

Sweet words of wisdom,

Glad songs of joy

Now be our best employ.

Refrain:

Sing once more the happy, happy song,

While the golden moments roll along,

“Come to the temple, come, come away,

Hallow the Sabbath day.”

Emblem of heaven, sweet day of rest,

 In thy “remembrance,” may we be blessed.

So may our songs and lives ever say,

“Hallow the Sabbath day.”

Refrain

Rest from our labours,

Rest from our cares,

Rest in our praises, rest in our prayers,

The commandment would we obey,

“Hallow the Sabbath day.”

Refrain

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