THE WALDENSES KEPT THE SABBATH
The Waldenses were a body of Christians who stood aloof from the church in its alliance with the secular power, and consequently remained free from many of the corruptions and Pagan notions which the heathens had incorporated into their religion when they came into the national church. Moshiem in his Church History, Vol.I, p. 352, says “They complained that the Roman Church had degenerated under Constantine the great, from its primitive purity and sanctity. They denied the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff.”
Robinson, in the History of Baptism, says, “They were called Sabbati and Sabbatati, so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept Saturday for the Lord’s day.”
Jones, in his Church History, says that because they would not observe saints’ days, they were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also.
A commissioner of Charles XII, of France, reported that he found among them none of the ceremonies, images, or signs, of the Romish Church, much less the crimes with which they were charged; on the contrary they kept the Sabbath-day, observed the ordinance of baptism according to the primitive church, and instructed their children in the articles of the Christian faith and commandments of God.
SUNDAY-KEEPING A HUMAN ORDINANCE.
In proof that the early church did not consider the first day sacred, we find, besides the testimony of the New Testament, that early ecclesiastical writers did not consider the keeping of Sunday an institution of divine appointment. In this respect there is a great difference between early and modern writers. Thus Wm. Tyndale, in the sixteenth century, said it was changed by men to put a difference between Christians and Jews. But as long as it has no sanction in the Bible, it is as if we should worship idols to put a difference between us and the Jews, who were forbidden idolatry in the same law that commanded to keep the Sabbath.
Bishop Cranmer, who was born in 1489, said they observed the Sunday according to the judgment or will of the magistrates; which is no better warrant than Daniel would have had to cease to worship God for the king’s order.
Melancthon, who wrote in behalf of the German Reformers, said it was not founded on any apostolical law, but rested solely on tradition; but our Saviour, when on the earth, sharply rebuked those superstitious ones who made void the commandment of God by their tradition. Does not Jesus in his gospel yet speak to us? Are not his words left on record for our instruction? Then let us leave traditions which lead us to transgress the commandment of God.
Eusebius, in the early part of the fourth century, said, “All things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day, [meaning thereby Sunday,] as more appropriately belonging to it, because it had a precedence, and is first in rank, and is more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath;” meaning thereby the seventh day. Upon this we remark, (1.) The seventh day was not and is not the Jewish Sabbath, but the Lord’s Sabbath. (2.) God put more honor upon the seventh day than upon the first day. (3.) Its sanctity did not depend upon its precedence in the week of days, but upon the express act of God, who hallowed the Sabbath, or seventh day. And (4.) the keeping of the Sabbath-day cannot with safety be made to rest on the will of man to the neglect of the commandment of God.
Sunday-keeping was enforced in the cities of the Roman Empire in A. D. 321, by Constantine, who still permitted labor in the country on that day. But in 538, when the civil power was transferred to the church, and Western Rome came under Papal rule, the council of Orleans prohibited the country labor also. It was not generally observed in the Eastern churches till some time after.
Neander, the learned and justly celebrated historian, says, “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from them and the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”
