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When we think of "Sabbath" today, we think of taking a break or a sabbatical. When our ancestors "remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy," they took their lives in their hands.
The English Parliament of 1584-1585, on behalf of the
growing Puritan movement, passed a bill requiring strict observance of the
Sabbath (Sunday, the first day of the week), which forbade markets and fairs,
and recreation such as bear-baiting, hunting, hawking, and rowing barges—during
church services (either the afternoon wasn’t as much of an issue, or they
intended to take up the matter of the entire day at a later time). It was
discussed for eight days over two weeks before passing and being sent to the
Queen.
That this Bill concerning the Sabbath, as hath been
before observed, was long in passing the
two Houses, and much debated betwixt them, being committed, and Amendments
upon Amendments added unto it, which as appeareth in this place was the cause
of some Disputation between the Lords and the said Commons.
Queen Elizabeth I vetoed the bill, in line with her policy
of religious tolerance in her realm. (Though Catholics were still on the
Naughty List for decades to come.)
And yet at last when it was agreed on by both the said
Houses, it was dashed by her Majesty
at the last day of this Parliament, upon that prejudicated and ill followed
Principle (as may be conjectured) that she would suffer nothing to be altered
in matter of Religion or Ecclesiastical Government.
(That sounds like the parliamentary recorder/secretary disagreed with the Queen's decision!)
Puritan Nicholas Bownde wrote a scholarly book in 1595, True Doctrine of the Sabbath, urging Christians to sanctify the Sabbath as a day of meditation and spiritual exercises (morning and afternoon preaching services). These Sabbaths were meant to follow the Old Testament verses about keeping the Sabbath holy by not working or “doing your own pleasure” on that special day, as it was a moral imperative. They were to be solemn and sober, with no secular speech or acts. Queen Elizabeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury decreed that copies of the book be collected and burned in 1600 and 1601.
Puritan Nicholas Bownde wrote a scholarly book in 1595, True Doctrine of the Sabbath, urging Christians to sanctify the Sabbath as a day of meditation and spiritual exercises (morning and afternoon preaching services). These Sabbaths were meant to follow the Old Testament verses about keeping the Sabbath holy by not working or “doing your own pleasure” on that special day, as it was a moral imperative. They were to be solemn and sober, with no secular speech or acts. Queen Elizabeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury decreed that copies of the book be collected and burned in 1600 and 1601.
In 1601, the House of Commons passed a bill that only
restricted markets and fairs on Sundays, but the House of Lords killed it.
Queen Elizabeth died two years later, and King James I came to the throne. His
authority was threatened by Puritans and other Calvinist dissenters (like the
group who became the Pilgrims), whose influence was growing ever stronger and
whose sermons and pronouncements conflicted with the King’s authority. One of
his first acts was to commission a new version of the Bible which stressed the
sovereignty of God and the hierarchy of worldly kings and princes, and the
Authorized Version (or as many of us know it, the King James Version—KJV) was
published in 1611.
However, those dissenters continued to agitate all over England. In
1617-18, the King went on a progress through the country, holding courts and
meeting his subjects. One of the complaints he heard was that the usual work
week being Monday through Saturday, from dawn to dusk, people needed time for
recreation, markets, fun fairs, visiting family, and the like. People were
required to attend services on Sunday morning, but needed the afternoon break.
And the Puritans were stopping that by holding two long services on Sunday.
As answer to the problem of overwork and an unbalanced
life—and that should he need soldiers for war, they’d be puny and weak—King
James wrote The Book of Sports. In
modern terms, it uses three pages of 12-point, single-space type, so it wasn’t
large, but it was mighty! The book directed his subjects to go to church on Sunday
morning and religious holidays as required, but to spend the afternoon enjoying
life. He commanded that “no lawful recreation shall be barred to our good
people,” and listed appropriate activities for those days:
such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men,
leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation, nor from having of
May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances; and the setting up of May-poles and
other sports therewith used: so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without
impediment or neglect of divine service: and that women shall have leave to
carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old
custom; but withal we do here account still as prohibited all unlawful games to
be used upon Sundays only, as bear and bull-baitings, interludes and at all
times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling.
Really? Bowling? That could be because one objective was to win
the most points by knocking down the kingpin (was that seen as sedition?), or because
of this:
The Character of a Bowling-Alley and Bowling-Green A
Bowling-Green, or Bowling-Ally is a place where three things are thrown away
besides the Bowls, viz. Time, Money, and Curses, at the last ten for one.
Catholics and non-conformists were barred from Sunday
recreation because they didn’t attend approved Church of England services. Further,
the King commanded that The Book of
Sports be read in every church, and held the bishops, ministers, and
churchwardens accountable that it should be done “by the book.”
King James died in 1625, and the book was reissued several times by his son, Charles I. Charles and the Parliament were at odds
over authority and taxation, and the Scots and English churches were in
conflict with their respective archbishops, Spottiswoode and Laud. In an
attempt to control the Puritan (and other non-conformists) uprising, King
Charles decreed that The Book of Sports be
read again in all churches, and churches must conform to CofE’s Book
of Common Prayer—which was also a hated book.
If Puritan ministers would not conform, they were “silenced” (removed from the pulpit and not licensed to preach) and some were put
in prison. And prison could be a death sentence.
…the Bishop, and all other inferior churchmen and
churchwardens, shall for their parts be careful and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and convince and
reform them that are misled in religion, presenting them that will not conform
themselves, but obstinately stand out, to our Judges and Justices: whom we
likewise command to put the law in due execution against them.
However, there was a clause in Sports that many Puritan ministers latched onto.
...either constraining
them to conform themselves or to
leave the county.
Leave the country.
The thing is, the King didn't want them to leave the country because he would lose out on all that lovely tax base. If they sneaked out, they couldn’t go to Catholic France or Spain, and
Lutheran (pretty close to Catholic!) Germany
and Austria were at war with
France, Italy, and Spain. Some, like the Pilgrims of
Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, went to the Netherlands for ten years before they sailed to Plymouth. One of their
leaders, their pastor John Robinson, is my ancestor 12 generations back. His chapter on the first-day Sabbath, in his book, A Just and Necessary Apology, was published in 1625, the year he died.
For the vast majority of Puritans, though, there was no
place to go but America,
still under English rule, but a safe 3,000 miles by ocean journey away from the
King and archbishops.
Some ministers escaped the long arm of the law by hiding
with the help of sympathizers like the Earl of Lincoln—until the Earl was
imprisoned. The senior pastor of the Boston St. Botolph’s, Rev. John Cotton,
was one of the many ministers who had to hide before escaping to New England. Ten percent of the citizens of Boston, Lincolnshire,
emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony with or shortly after John Cotton went
there. (Cotton had been asked to come to Massachusetts
several times, but declined until he was pushed out of England by fear
of prison.)
William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson followed Rev. Cotton to Boston. William and Mary
Dyer were married in the Anglican church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, but in
1635 were admitted to the Puritan membership in Boston’s
First Church (and they were exiled from it in
1638).
Entire towns in Essex and many other counties emptied and
sailed to the new Boston
between 1630 and 1640. It’s estimated that about 35,000 people moved to New England during that decade. When the English Civil
Wars began, with Puritans in ascendancy, thousands of the emigrants moved back
to England. In May 1643, The Book of Sports was burned by angry Puritans.
 |
| Puritans now controlled the government, and they burned the hated "Book of Sports" in May 1643. |
People who had had such a threat of persecution and death
were deeply convicted of the truth of their beliefs. They followed the Ten
Commandments and other Old Testament laws to the letter, to prove to God that
they were worthy of salvation. The fourth commandment, to keep the Sabbath
holy, was one of the factors that caused their persecution in the first place. Obedience to God
was worth moving across the world, or dying for.
Both on the ships, and in New England,
they followed their stringent regulations about Sabbath-keeping. The English church holidays like Christmas
and Easter were prohibited, and people were expected to work as usual. Church services with required attendance were held morning and afternoon on Sundays. During
the Sabbath there was no alcohol consumption, no unseemly walking, no court or
corporal punishment, no work that could be done another day (like laundry or
beer brewing), no swimming, no buying or selling, no games or dances, no
unnecessary travel, no hunting or fishing. The music or literature was sacred,
never secular. Sabbath began at sundown on Saturday evening and ended during
the night before Monday.
I had ancestors in the Salem,
Massachusetts, area who emigrated
there as Puritans, fleeing The Book of
Sports style of Christianity. But at some point they converted to Baptist
beliefs and risked beatings, fines, and imprisonment. They
moved to New Jersey and formed a town and congregation there. They became
Sabbatarians (seventh-day/Saturday was their holy day) in the 1710s and shared
their Baptist minister with a first-day congregation. That branch stayed
Seventh-day Baptist from then until the 20th century.
Some people who are from, or still in, Sabbatarian
denominations (Seventh-day Adventist, Seventh-day Baptist, Church of God,
etc.) have experienced that list of prohibitions, and it doesn’t seem foreign
at all. Some see that 17th-century culture and marvel at the
legalism of the Puritans and their spiritual descendants. But perhaps we can
look at that strength of character, that integrity, that
obey-God-rather-than-men resolve, and admire them. We can remember that we
carry the DNA of those godly pioneers in our bodies and that moral fiber in our
culture.
All these people were
still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were
foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they
are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the
country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they
were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews
11:13-16 NIV.
Shortened URL: http://bit.ly/2orZZWg
Also published at: http://www.adventistreview.org/1703-32
____________
Christy K Robinson is author of
these books:
Shortened URL: http://bit.ly/2orZZWg
Also published at: http://www.adventistreview.org/1703-32
____________
And of these sites:
Discovering
Love (inspiration and service)
Rooting
for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer
(17th century culture and history of England and New England)
