FIRST DAY OBSERVANCE INTRODUCED INTO GREAT BRITAIN

First day observance in this country being derived from England, mainly, we are interested in learning the origin of the observance in that country. As the great body of the professed church drink from this stream, a knowledge of its fountain head is of much value. The “History of the Sabbath” testifies to the point:RCSK 29.1

The observance of the first day was not so early in England and in Scotland as in most other parts of the Roman Empire. According to Heylyn, there were Christian societies established in Scotland as early as A.D. 435; and it is supposed that the gospel was preached in England in the first century by St. Paul. For many ages after Christianity was received in those kingdoms, they paid no respect to the first day. Binius, a Catholic writer, in the second volume of his works, give some account of the bringing into use of the Dominical day [Sunday] in Scotland, as late as A.D. 1203. “This year,” he says, “a council was held in Scotland concerning the introduction of the Lord’s day, which council was held in 1203, in the time of Pope Innocent III.,” and he quotes as his authority Roger Hoveden, Matth. Paris, and Lucius’ Eccl. Hist. He says, “By this council it was enacted that it should be holy time from the twelfth hour on Saturday noon until Monday.”RCSK 29.2

Boethius (de Scotis, page 344,) says, “In 1203, William, king of Scotland, called a council of the principal of his kingdom, by which it was decreed, that Saturday, from the twelfth hour at noon, should be holy, that they should do no profane work, and this they should observe until Monday.”RCSK 29.3

Binius says that in 1201, Eustachius, Abbot of Flay, came to England, and therein preached from city to city, and from place to place. He prohibited using markets on Dominical days; and for this he professed to have a special command from heaven. The history of this singular document, entitled, A holy Command of the Dominical Day, the pious Abbot stated to be this: “It came from Heaven to Jerusalem, and was found on St. Simon’s tomb in Golgotha. And the Lord commanded this epistle, which for three days and three nights men looked upon, and falling to the earth, prayed for God’s mercy. And after the third hour, the patriarch stood up; and Akarias the archbishop stretched out his mitre, and they took the holy epistle of God and found it thus written.”RCSK 29.4

“I, the Lord, who commanded you that ye should observe the Dominical Day, and ye have not kept it, and ye have not repented of your sins, as I said by my gospel, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away; I have caused repentance unto life to be preached unto you, and ye have not believed; I sent pagans against you, who shed your blood, yet ye believed not; and because ye kept not the Dominical day, for a few days ye had famine; but I soon gave you plenty, and afterwards ye did worse; I will again, that none from the ninth hour of the Sabbath until the rising of the sun on Monday, do work any thing unless what is good, which if any do, let him amend by repentance; and if ye be not obedient to this command, amen, I say unto you, and I swear unto you by my seat, and throne, and cherubims, who keep my holy seat, because I will not change any thing by another epistle; but I will open the heavens, and for rain I will rain upon you stones, and logs of wood, and hot water by night, and none may be able to prevent, but that I may destroy all wicked men. This I say unto you, ye shall die the death, because of the Dominical holy day and other festivals of my saints which ye have not kept. I will send unto you beasts having the heads of lions, the hair of women, and tails of camels; and they shall be so hunger-starved that they shall devour your flesh, and ye shall desire to flee to the sepulchres of the dead, and hide you for fear of the beasts; and I will take away the light of the sun from your eyes; and I will send upon you darkness, that without seeing ye may kill one another, and I will take away my face from you, and will not show you mercy; for I will burn the bodies and hearts of all who keep not the Dominical holy day. Hear my voice, lest ye parish in the land because of the Dominical holy day. Now know ye, that ye are safe by the prayers of my most holy mother Mary, and of my holy angels who daily pray for you. I gave you the law from Mount Sinai, which ye have not kept. For you I was born into the world, and my festivals ye have not known; the Dominical day of my resurrection ye have not kept; I swear to you by my right hand, unless ye keep the Dominical day and the festivals of my saints, I will send pagans to kill you.”RCSK 30.1

Provided with this new command from heaven, “Eustachius preached in various parts of England against the desecration of the Dominical day, and other festivals; and gave the people absolution upon condition that they hereafter reverence the Dominical day, and the festivals of the saints.” And the people vowed to God, that thereafter they would neither buy nor sell any thing but food on Sunday. “Then,” says Binius, “the enemy of man, envying the admonitions of this holy man, put it into the heart of the king and nobility of England, to command that all who should keep the aforesaid traditions, and chiefly all who had cast down the markets for things vendible upon the Dominical day, should be brought to the king’s court to make satisfaction about observing the Dominical day.”RCSK 30.2

Binius relates many miraculous things that occurred on the Sabbath to those that labored after the ninth hour (i.e. after three o’clock in the afternoon) of the seventh day, or Saturday. He says, that upon a certain Sabbath, after the nine hour, a carpenter, for making a wooden pin, was struck with the palsy; and a woman, for knitting on the Sabbath, after the ninth hour, was also struck with the palsy. A man baked bread, and when he broke it to eat, blood came out. Another, grinding corn, blood came in a great stream instead of meal, while the wheel of his mill stood still against a vehement impulse of water. Heated ovens refused to bake bread, if heated after the ninth hour of the Sabbath; and dough, left unbaked, out of respect to Eustachius’ new doctrine, was found on Monday well baked without the aid of fire. These fables were industriously propagated throughout the kingdom; “yet the people,” says Binius, “fearing kingly and human power more than divine, returned as a dog to his own vomit, to keep markets of saleable things upon the Dominical day.”RCSK 31.1

Mr. Bampfield, in his Enquiry, page 3, says,” The king and princes of England, in 1203, would not agree to change the Sabbath, and keep the first day, by this authority. This was in the time of King John, against whom the popish clergy had a great pique for not honoring their prelacy and the monks, by one of whom he was finally poisoned.”RCSK 31.2

Binius (Councils, cent. 13,) states that King John of England, in 1208, in the tenth year of his reign, for not submitting to popish impositions upon his prerogatives was excommunicated by the Pope, and his kingdom interdicted, which occasioned so much trouble at home and abroad, that it forced him at last to lay down his crown at the feet of Mandulphus, the Pope’s agent. After he was thus humbled by the excommunication and interdiction, the king, in the fifteenth year of his reign, by writ, removed the market of the city of Exon from Sunday, on which it was held, to Monday. The market of Launceston was removed from the first to the fifth day of the week. In the second and third years of Henry III. many other markets were removed from the first to other days of the week, which the King at first would not permit. He also issued a writ which permitted the removal of markets from the first day to other days without special license.RCSK 31.3

The Parliament of England met on Sundays until the time of Richard II., who adjourned it from that to the following day.RCSK 31.4

In 1203, according to Boethius, “a council was held in Scotland to inaugurate the king, and concerning the feast of the Sabbath; and there came also a legate from the Pope, with a sword and purple hat, and indulgences and privileges to the young king. It was also there decreed, that Saturday, from the twelfth hour at noon, should be holy.” The Magdeburgenses say that this Council was about the observance of the Dominical day newly brought in, and that they ordained that it should be holy from the twelfth hour of Saturday even till Monday.”RCSK 32.1

Binius says, “A synod was held in Oxford, A.D. 1223, by Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, where they determined that the Dominical day be kept with all veneration, and a fast upon the Sabbath.”RCSK 32.2