Saturday, July 6, 2024

The Sabbath vs. Sunday debate in 1622

"A BOOK called An Antidote, or Treatise of Thirty Controversies (1622), by Sylvester Norris, intended as a reply to the writings of Dr. Faulk, Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Field, and others, the author speaks thus: 

"I The Word of God commands the seventh day to be the Sabbath of our Lord, and to be kept holy; you [Protestants,] without any precept of scripture change it to the first day of the week, only authorized by our traditions
Divers English Puritans oppose against this point, that the observation of the first day is proved out of Scripture, where it is said the first day of the week Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10
Q: Have they not spun a fair thread, in quoting these places? If we should produce no better for purgatory and prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might have good cause indeed to laugh us to scorn; 
Q: for where is it written that these were Sabbath days in which those meetings were kept? 
Q: Or where is it ordained they should be always observed? 
Q: Or, which is the sum of all, where is it decreed that the observation of the first day should abrogate or abolish the sanctifying of the seventh day which God commanded everlastingly to be kept holy? 
Not one of those is expressed in the written word of God."

In this extract the Papists justly charge the Protestants of changing the keeping of the seventh day, to the first day of the week, without any precept of scripture, “only authorized by their traditions.” 
James White