[1485] This statement, which is made also in other Protestant Confessions and in the Irish Articles (No. 80; see Vol. III. p. 540), does not unchurch the Church of Rome, or declare her ordinances invalid; for Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and there is a material difference between the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, as there is between the Jewish hierarchy and the people of Israel.
[1486] Presbyterians therefore act in perfect consistency with their Confession if they take a leading part in all Bible Societies, Tract Societies, the Evangelical Alliance, and other catholic societies. They are among the most liberal of orthodox denominations in the support of these societies.
[1487] See pp. 281, 376, 455, 601, 639, 641, 645.
[1488] History of the Later Puritans, p. 84. He then quotes the questions of the Shorter Catechism on the Sacraments.
[1489] Introduction to Minutes, p. lxviii.
[1490] The most recent manifestation of the national American sentiment was the closing of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876) on the Lord's day.
[1491] There is a tradition that Knox once called on Calvin on Sunday, and found him enjoying the recreation of bowling on a green. Knox himself on one occasion had one or two friends taking supper with him on Sunday night, and no doubt considered this innocent (see Randolph's letter to Cecil, Nov. 30, 1562, quoted by Hessey, Bampton Lectures on Sunday, Lond. 1860, p. 270). On the other hand, it is a fact that the designation of 'Sabbath' for Sunday, and the enumeration of 'the breaking of the Sabbath' among the grosser sins, originated with Knox, or at all events in Scotland at his time. The First Book of Discipline, which was drawn up by Knox and five other ministers, abolishes Christmas, Circumcision, and Epiphany, 'because they have no assurance in God's Word,' but enjoins the observance of Sunday in these words: 'The Sabbath must be kept strictly in all towns, both forenoon and afternoon, for hearing of the Word; at afternoon upon the Sabbath, the Catechism shall be taught, the children examined, and the baptism ministered. Public prayers shall be used upon the Sabbath, as well afternoon as before, when sermons can not be had.' The third General Assembly resolved, July 4, 1562, to petition the queen for the punishing of Sabbath-breaking and all the vices which are 'commanded to be punished by the law of God, and yet not by the law of the realm.' Similar acts occur in the Assemblies of 1575, 1590, and 1596. See Gilfillan's work on the Sabbath, and Appendix D to Mitchell's tract on the Westminster Confession, pp. 53 sqq.
[1492] Eccles. Polity, Bk. V. ch. 70, sec. 9. The fifth book came out in 1597, two years after Bownd's book. Ussher, Leighton, Pearson, Beveridge, Cecil, and other leading divines of the Church of England take the same ground on the perpetuity of the fourth commandment, and so far agree with the Puritan theory. But the Puritan practice in Scotland and New England often runs into Judaizing excesses.
[1493] He was a graduate of Cambridge, was suspended with others in 1583 for some act of non-conformity, and died in 1607. Isaac Walton states (in his Life of Hooker) that he was offered by Whitgift the mastership of the Temple, but this seems inconsistent with the Archbishop's hostility to his book. Bownd wrote also The Holy Exercise of Fasting (1604); A Storehouse of Comfort for the Afflicted (1604); and a sermon on the Unbelief of Thomas for the Comfort of all who desire to believe, which armeth us against Despair in the Hour of Death (1608). There is a biographical sketch of Bownd in Brook's Lives of the Puritans, Vol. II. pp. 171-176.
[1494] The first edition of Bownd's book appeared in 1595, and was dedicated to the Earl of Essex (see the title in Vol. V. p. 211 of Fuller's Church History, Brewer's ed.). The second and enlarged edition of 1606 was dedicated to the Bishop of Norwich and the Dean of Ely, and bears the following characteristic title (which somewhat differs from the title of the first): 'Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or, The True Doctrine of the Sabbath, held and practised of the Church of God, both before and under the Law, and in the time of the Gospel: Plainly laid forth and soundly proved by testimonies both of Holy Scripture and also of old and new Ecclesiastical Writers, Fathers and Councils, and Laws of all sorts, both civil, canon, and common. Declaring first from what things God would have us straitly to rest upon the Lord's day, and then by what means we ought publicly and privately to sanctify the same. Together with the sundry Abuses of men in both these kinds, and how they ought to be reformed. Divided into two Books by Nicolas Bownd, Doctor of Divinity; and now by him the second time perused, and enlarged with an Interpretation of sundry points belonging to the Sabbath, and a more ample proof of such things as have been gainsaid or doubted of by some divines of our time, and a more full Answer unto certain objections made against the same: with some other things not impertinent to this argument.' London, 1606, 4to, pp. 479. Having been unable to obtain this rare work, I copied the title from Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question (in 2 vols. Edinb. 1865), Vol. I. p. 145. There is a copy in the Bodleian Library, and another in the library of the University of Edinburgh. Cox himself is opposed to the Puritan theory, and holds the Church of England responsible for originating it by requiring the fourth commandment to be read and responded to in the Liturgy. Of Bownd's book he says: 'In the treatise bearing this long title the Sabbatarian opinions of the Puritans, which afterwards found more precise expression in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and are now maintained by the Evangelical sects in this country, were for the first time broadly and prominently asserted in Christendom.' Fuller gives a full account of the contents, Vol. V. pp. 211 sqq. His editor, Brewer, says that Bownd's book 'is written in a truly Christian spirit, and ought by no means to be considered as the fruit of Puritan principles.' The accounts of Collier (Eccl. Hist. Vol. VII. pp. 182 sqq.), Neal (Vol. I. pp. 208 sq.), and Hesse (Sunday, pp. 276 sqq.) are drawn from Fuller.
[1495] Quoted by Hessey, p. 281.
[1496] Vol. V. pp. 214 sqq.
[1497] The chief writers against the Puritan theory were Thomas Rogers, Bancroft's chaplain (in his Preface to the Articles); and afterwards Bishop White of Ely (A Treatise of the Sabbath-Day . . . against Sabbatarian Novelty, Lond. 1635); Peter Heylin, Laud's chaplain (The History of the Sabbath, Lond. 2d ed. 1636); and Dr. John Pocklington (Sunday no Sabbath, Lond. 1636). See extracts from their works by Cox, 1.c. Vol. I. pp. 166 sqq. White and Heylin wrote at the request of Laud. Bishop Prideaux (1622), Bishop Cosin (1635), and Dr. Young (1639) took a more moderate view. Richard Baxter (1671), though strongly leaning to the Puritanic side, tried to mediate between the strict Sabbath theory and the ecclesiastical Sunday theory, and maintained the joyous rather than the penitential character of the Lord's day. See Hessey, pp. 288 sq.
[1498] Fuller, pp. 218, 219.
[1499] Of the first edition no copy is known to exist. The second edition, of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum, bears the title: 'The Kings | Maiesties | Declaration to | His Subjects, | Concerning | lawfull Sports to | bee vsed. | Imprinted at London by | Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings | most Excellent Maiesties And by | the Assignes of John Bill. | M.DC.XXXIII.' 4to, 24 pp. This edition has been reprinted on tinted paper, in exact imitation of the original, at London (Bernard Quaritch), 15 Piccadilly, 1860. The Long Parliament, in 1643, ordered the book to be burned by the common hangman, in Cheapside and other places.
[1500] 'Our expresse pleasure therefore is, that. . . no lawfull Recreation shall bee barred to Our good People, which shall not tend to the breach of Our aforesayd Lawes, and Canons of Our Church: which to expresse more particularly, Our pleasure is, That the Bishop, and all other inferiour Churchmen, and Churchwardens, shall for their parts bee carefull and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and conuince and reforme them that are mis-led in Religion, presenting them that will not conforme themselues, but obstinately stand out to Our Judges and Iustices: Whom We likewise command to put the Law in due execution against them. 'Our pleasure likewise is, That the Bishop of that Diocesse take the like straight order with all the Puritanes and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conforme themselues, or to leaue the Country according to the Lawes of Our Kingdome, and Canons of Our Church, and so to strike equally on both hands, against the contemners of Our Authority, and aduersaries of Our Church. And as for Our good peoples lawfull Recreation, Our pleasure likewise is, That after the end of Diuine Seruice, Our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation, Such as dauncing, either men or women, Archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmelesse Recreation, nor from hauing of May-Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting vp of May-poles & other sports therewith vsed, so as the same be had in due & conuenient time, without impediment or neglect of Diuine Seruice.'--Book of Sports, pp. 8 sqq.
[1501] Fuller says (Vol. V. p. 452): 'When this declaration was brought abroad, it is not so hard to believe as sad to recount what grief and distraction thereby was occasioned in many honest men's hearts.'
[1502] Prynne says: 'How many hundred godly ministers have been suspended from their ministry, sequestered, driven from their livings, excommunicated, prosecuted in the High Commission, and forced to leave the kingdom, for not publishing this declaration, is experimentally known to all men.' For particulars, see Neal, Vol. I. pp. 312 sqq.
[1503] Comp. my essay on the Anglo-American Sabbath. New York, 1863.