Councils Favoring Sunday

It would weary the mind of the reader were we to give a list of all these, and what they said concerning this pet institution of the Church of Rome. We will, however, mention a few of the Roman Catholic councils.ChSa 127.1

The first Council of Orleans, AD. 507, “obliged themselves and successors to be always at church on the Lord’s day.” The third Council of Orleans, AD. 538, required agricultural labor to be laid aside on the Lord’s day, “in order that the people may not be prevented from attending church.”ChSa 127.2

In 538 another council was held at Mascon, a town in Burgundy, because “Christian people very much neglect and slight the Lord’s day,” giving themselves to common work etc. The bishops warned them against such practices, and commanded them to keep the Lord’s day.ChSa 127.3

About a year later another council was held in Narbonne, which forbade all persons from doing any work on the Lord’s day, on penalty of a “fine if a freeman,” or of “being lashed if a servant.”ChSa 127.4

In 654 a council was held at Chalons, another in England in 692, also one in 747, one in Bavaria in 772, again one in England in 784. Five councils were called by Charlemagne in the year 813, and one was held in Rome in 826. In all of these, strong efforts were made to build up the Sunday sacredness. Many others were also held for the same purpose.ChSa 127.5

But as these laws failed to accomplish all that the Catholics desired, and Sunday was still but poorly kept, they had recourse to miracles, a very popular argument with the Roman Church. Gregory of Tours, AD. 570, furnishes several. A husbandman went out to plow on the Lord’s day, and trying to clean his plow with an iron, “the iron stuck fast to his hand for two years.... to his exceeding great pain and shame.” Some were killed by lightning for working on that day. Others were seized with convulsions. Apparitions appeared to kings, charging them to enforce Sunday sacredness. A miller was at one time grinding corn on Sunday, and instead of the usual production of meal, a torrent of blood came forth. At another time a woman was trying to bake her bread upon this venerable day, but upon putting it in the oven, it remained only dough. It was said of the souls in purgatory that on every:ChSa 127.6

“Lord’s day they were manumitted from their pains, and fluttered up and down the lake Avernus in the shape of birds.”-Heylyn’s History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 5, section 2.ChSa 128.1