Terminology Tuesday: SABBATARIANISM
The belief that the OT Sabbath commandment is natural, universal, and moral and continues to require that one specific day each week should be scrupulously devoted to rest and worship. Most literal Sabbatarians are those who worship on Saturday, as in orthodox and conservative Judaism, and groups such as the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Seventh-Day Baptists.
In the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition the term is used primarily for English and American Puritans who were Sunday Sabbatarians, that is, who observed Sunday as the NT Sabbath but still in conscious obedience to the fourth commandment of the OT Decalogue. The beginnings of this Sunday Sabbatarianlism were in the English Puritanism of the last two decades of the sixteenth century when an unusual number of lengthy treatises on the fourth commandment appeared, and questions of Sabbatha theology and Sabbath observance became matters of intense interest and debate in the Church of England.
An early Sabbath treatise was by Ruchard Greenham, pastor in Dry Drayton, one of the first Puritan parishes in England. But the classic statement and defense was by Greenham’s stepson, Nicholas Bound, in The Doctrine of the Sabbath (1595) and Sabbathum veteris (1606). The latter is 459 pages in length. This Sabbatarianism had three components: a conviction that the fourth commandment is moral, universal, and perpetually binding; that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath established by divine appointment and not merely church tradition; and that the entire day must be set aside for public and private worship and Christian service, with complete abstention from work and recreation. Bound found support in several Reformed continental theologians, for example, Girolamo Zanchi and Franciscus Junius. Bound’s works may indicate that the desire to develop and refine the doctrinal basis for strict Sabbath observance was prompted by a religious situation where church attendance was spasmodic and behavior in worship services unruly and chaotic.
Sabbatarianism, with its requirements for public and private worship, was also appealing because it correlated with the strong Puritan emphasis on preaching and family piety.Many Sabbatarian treatises appeared in early seventeenth century England along with others to refute the Sabbatarian position. King James’s Book of Sports (1618), which encouraged Sunday recreation, fueled the controversy. It was officially burned (1643), and shortly thereafter Sabbatarian doctrine was incorporated into the WCF. Strict Sabbath observance in England was enforced during the Interregnum.
In the American colonies, the Sabbath received heavy emphasis, especially in New England. Sabbatarianism led not only to ecclesiastical censure for Sabbath breaking but to civil laws forbidding Sunday work and recreation. Sunday legislation was universal throughout the colonies. It gradually gave way to forces of industrialization, urbanization, improved transportation, Sunday railway schedules, Sunday newspapers, and commercialized sports and recreation. Remnants of Sabbatarianism are still found in some smaller, more conservative denominations of the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition.
K. L. Parker, The English Sabbath (1988); J. H. Primus, “Calvin and the Puritan Sabbath,” in Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin (1976); and Holy Time (1989); W. Solberg, Redeem the Time (1977).
Primus, J. H. (1992). Sabbatarianism. In Encyclopedia of the Reformed faith (1st ed., p. 331). Louisville, KY; Edinburgh: Westminster/John Knox Press; Saint Andrew Press.
