100 ABROGATION OF THE 8ABBATH. 



Tyndale. Calvin. Grotius. 



every seventh day, called the Sabbat or Satterday. But we 

 Christian men, in the New Testament, are not bonnd to such 

 commandments of Moses' s law, concerning differences of times, 

 days, and meats, but have liberty and freedom to nse other 

 days for our Sabbath days, therein to hear the word of God, 

 and keep an holy rest. And therefore, that the Christian 

 liberty may be kept and maintained, we now keep no more 

 the Sabbath or Saturday, as the Jews do, but observe the Sun- 

 day and certain other days as the magistrates do judge it con- 

 venient, whom, in this thing, we ought to obey/' {Catechis- 

 mus. The Commandments J) 



"As for the Saboth,'' says Tyndale, the translator and 

 martyr, " we be lordes over the Saboth, and may yet chaunge 

 it into the Monday or any other day, as we see neede, or we 

 may make two every weeke, if it were expedient, and one not 

 enough to teach the people. Neither was there any cause to 

 chaunge from the Saterday, than to put difference betwene us 

 and the Jewes, and least we should become servantes unto 

 the day after their superstition. Neither needed we any 

 holy-day at all, if the people myght be taught without it.^' 

 ( Tyndale s Works. Ansioer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue. 

 — Book i. chap. 25.) 



Calvin, after his able exposition of the true import of the 

 Sabbath law, adds : *' Thus vanish all the dreams of false pro- 

 phets who, in past ages, have infested the people with a Jew- 

 ish notion, affirming that nothing but the ceremonial part of 

 this commandment (which, according to them, is the appoint- 

 ment of Hhe seventh day') has been abrogated, but that the 

 moral part of it — that is, the observance of one day in seven 

 — still remains !" (^Instit. Lib. ii. cap. viii.) 



The learned Grotius, commenting on the fourth command- 

 ment, after referring to the sentiments of the Fathers, and the 

 enactments of Constantine, concludes : " These things refute 

 those who suppose that the first day of the week (that is the 

 Lord's day> was suhstituted in place of the Sabbath, for no 



