“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

Gen. 2:3

“…the Sabbath…  my holy day…”

Isa. 58:13

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”

Acts 20:7

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Order of Contents

Articles  6+
Quotes  4
Daylight Only  3

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Articles

1500’s

Bownd, Nicholas – ‘The Sabbath is a Whole Day’  1595/1606  8 pp.  in The True Doctrine of the Sabbath  Buy  pp. 355-363  Here is the table of contents to the larger work with sizable excerpts.

“No book had more influence in confirming a Sabbatarian heart to Puritanism than that of the parson of St. Andrews, Norton, Suffolk, Nicholas Bownd.  The True Doctrine of the Sabbath was the first scholarly treatment defending the concept of the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day, later embodied in the Westminster Standards.” – bookflap

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1600’s

Widley, George – bk. 1, ch. 4, ‘That the whole Sabbath day is to be kept…’  in The Doctrine of the Sabbath…  (London, 1604), pp. 57-62

Widley (b. 1566 or 1567) was an English minister in Portsmouth, England.

Downame, John – bk. 3, ch. 39, section 1, ‘That we must spend the whole day in religious exercises’  in A Guide to Godliness or a Treatise of a Christian Life…  (London: Kingstone, 1622), pp. 383-84

Palmer, Herbert & Daniel Cawdrey – Ch. 5, ‘Some Time Indefinite, is not the Whole Moral Substance of the Fourth Commandment, but for Continuance, a Whole Day’  in Sabbathum Redivivum, or the Christian Sabbath Vindicated…  (1645), Pt. 2, p. 178 ff.

Shepard, Thomas – Theses 65-66  †1649  2 pp.  in Theses Sabbaticae, or the Doctrine of the Sabbath in Works, vol. 3, pp. 72-73

Shepard was a New England puritan.

Young, Thomas – ‘The Whole Lord’s Day is to be Sanctified unto God, and not only some part of it’  †1655  13 pp.  being ch. 6 of The Lord’s Day, pp. 77-90

Young was a Westminster divine.

Baxter, Richard – ‘Whether the Whole Day Should be Kept Holy: Objection & Answer’  †1691  2 pp.  in A Christian Directory, vol. 4, ‘Christian Economics’, ch. 18, pp. 242-44

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Quotes

Order of

Westminster
Gouge
Willison
Liddell

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1600’s

Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. 21.8

“This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

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William Gouge

The Sabbath’s Sanctification (1641) p. 2

“3 Q. Of how many hours does the Sabbath day consist?

A. Of four and twenty.  Gen. 2:3

The Sabbath is called the seventh day: so as it is a seventh part of the week: therefore so many hours as make up every of the other days (which are four and twenty) must be accounted to this day.

4 Q. Are all those hours to be sanctified?

A. Yes. Exod. 20:11

The Lord rested the whole seventh day: and all the time wherein He rested He sanctified.  Gen. 2:2,3

5 Q. How can all that time be sanctified?

A. 1. By observing things commanded.  Jer. 17:22

2. By observing things permitted. Exod. 12:16.”

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1700’s

John Willison

A Treatise Concerning the Sanctification of the Lord’s Day, p. 77-79:

Question VI:  What is that proportion of time which is to be sequestrated and allowed for the Sabbath day? and when doth it begin and end.

Answer:  The fourth command requires one day in every seven; by which we are not to understand only the artificial day from sun-rising to sun-setting, or from the break of day until the darkness of the night comes on, and think then the Sabbath is over, and that we are no longer bound to abstain from our own works; and far less are we to think that the Sabbath is no longer than the time of public worship doth last, and that we are at freedom from the work and duties of the Sabbath when that is over. This some say in words, and many more in their practice.

Answer:  I do not say that this is to be done without any intermission; for we do not this in following our employments on other days: a due proportion of every day is to be reserved for the natural support of our bodies, and particularly for moderate eating and sleeping, which are works of necessity, and must be allowed on the Sabbath, as well as other days; with this difference only, that whereas they are done on other days to enable us for labor, they are to be done on the Sabbath to strengthen us for holy duties; and so cannot properly be called our own works.  

Neither can the doing thereof be called a taking of God’s time to our own use, since this contributes to our better spending of God’s time, and is truly necessary for God’s service on the Sabbath. But, besides the time requisite for the works of necessity and mercy, the whole natural day as above described, is holy unto the Lord, and ought to be employed in religious duties; and not a part of the day only. Both Sabbath morning and Sabbath night, should be spent in prayer and praises, as is plain from the 92nd Psalm, which is entitled, “A psalm or song for the Sabbath day,” verse 1, and verse 2, we are told, that

“It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and show forth his loving kindness in the morning, and his faithfulness every night.”  

But more of this afterwards, when I come directly to treat of the sanctification of the Sabbath.  And, before I do this, I judge it necessary to answer some objections brought, against the morality of the Sabbath, and the change of the day.

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1900’s

On Eric Liddell

John Keddie, Running the Race: Eric Liddell, Olympic Champion & Missionary, pp. 100-101.  With respect to Eric Liddell’s refusal to run his scheduled Sunday race at the 1924 Olympics.  HT: Andrew Myers

“‘It was suggested to Liddell that the Continental Sunday finished at midday; he replied that ‘His Sunday lasted all day!’”

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That the Lord’s Day only encompasses the Daylight Hours (12 hours)

Order of

Article  1
Quotes  2

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Article

1600’s

Keach, Benjamin – ‘When the Lord’s Day Begins’  5 pp.  in The Jewish Sabbath Abrogated, or, The Saturday Sabbatarians Confuted…  (1700)

Keach was a calvinistic baptist.  He follows, and summarizes, Owen on the topic, who held that only daylight hours constituted the length of rest of the Sabbath.

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Quotes

Order of

Voet
Owen

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1600’s

Gisbert Voet

Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht, Johannis à Waesberge, 1659), vol. 3, ‘On the Sabbath & Feasts’, Problem III: Whether the Christian Sabbath Requires a Day of Twenty-Four Hours tr. AI by

“III. Whether the Christian Sabbath requires a day of twenty-four hours, or a νυχθήμερον [a night-and-day]?

[VI.C.1. The Thesis: The Day, Not the Night, Is Properly the Sabbath]

Answer: I see this asserted by some, but I require the reasons.  This is of the substance of the Sabbath: that a day of rest succeed six working days.  But those working days are the courses of the sun above the earth; nor does the night make a part thereof, according to that saying: “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day” (John 9:4), and John 11:9, and Psalm 104:22–23 [recte v. 22ff.].

Now that the Jews observed a night-and-day rest, and indeed beginning from evening, contributed nothing to its substantial sanctification and proportional partition of labor and rest.  For ordinary human labor is destined for the day—that is, that space of time which is distinct from the night—as from the passages John 9:4; Psalm 104 just cited, and from the common light of nature and universal experience, I judge to be evident.  Nor is it an objection that extraordinary cases of necessity sometimes require the labors of men both by night and by day.  The same we also freely concede concerning the nocturnal treatment and meditation of sacred things, or the prolongation thereof into the late hours of the night (Acts 20:9), a particular case so requiring.

But as it cannot be inferred thence that individual nights, equally as days, are to be spent in ordinary labours, excluding all sleep, so from the virtue of the partition prescribed in the Decalogue it cannot be inferred that the entire night preceding the Sabbath is ordinarily to be devoted to sacred exercises equally as the day.  Such sabbatizing would savor of the nocturnal vigils once introduced into the Church ἀλόγως [irrationally] from some extraordinary occasion, and afterward λογίως [rationally] abrogated—the remnants or surrogates of which still survive in Popery today.  Concerning which, see Hospinian, On Feasts, chapter 7.

[VI.C.2. Objection I: The Commencement of the Sabbath from Evening]

But perhaps someone will say: 1. Objection. The commencement of the Sabbath from the preceding evening was expressly enjoined upon the Israelites; therefore the night is equally the Sabbath of the Lord [Sabbathum Jehova] as the day is the day of the Lord [dies Domini].  Answer:

1. I grant that rest was enjoined—namely, rest and abstinence from ordinary labor—because this is the conditio sine qua non [condition without which not], or as it were the removing of the impediment to Sabbath preparation and observance.  For commonly men through the sleeplessness and labor of that night are rendered unfit for vigorously performing the exercises of piety on the following day, so that the Sabbath is to them more a burden, δύσβατον [hard to walk], than עֹנֶג [oneg], that is, delights (Isaiah 58:13).  But I deny that the sleep or rest of sleep was prohibited, and that a vigil and sanctification of that night through labor in divine worship and exercises of piety, both public and private, was enjoined.

2. Granting that rest itself was, by divine institution, a sacred part or a part of the sanctification of the Israelite Sabbath, and indeed equally through the night destined for sleep as through the day destined for the works of divine worship: yet it does not follow thence that this circumstantial and accessory element pertains to the substance of the weekly Sabbath instituted from the beginning of the world, and consequently is moral and immutable, by which we are bound equally as the Israelites.  It suffices that rest from labors be observed by us in general and materially, as a condition without which not—although it be not believed to be formally and properly holy, formally as a sacred rest from ordinary labor both negatively (by ceasing from work) and positively (through sleep) after the manner of an economical sanctity.

Whatever may be the case concerning rest under the Old Testament (about which I do not wish here anxiously to inquire), at least under the New Testament I judge that no rest from labour is to be adorned with the name of virtue, good work, and holiness in itself and of itself, but only in order to another thing—namely, that we may wholly and expressly devote ourselves to divine worship and sanctify that day with spiritual exercises.  And thus I judge that sufficient provision is made for the practice of Sabbath sanctification against all profanations—in the same manner as we judge, concerning the matter of religious fasting, about abstinence from food.  What, moreover, is commanded in the fourth precept concerning the rest of beasts of burden, that is ordered to the rest of men—without which the Sabbath cannot be solemnly sanctified or holily spent with spiritual works.

[VI.C.3. Objection II: The Consequence for Nations with Continuous Night]

2. Objection. Hence it would follow that no Sabbath whatsoever is to be kept for certain months by those nations for whom there is then a continuous night. But this is absurd.

Answer: This is the objection of Thomas Shepard, who in his English treatise entitled Theses Sabbaticae, pt. 2, inquires into the commencement of the Sabbath beyond other writers.  We deny the consequence.  For those nations can and ought, just as they separate their working days in those long darknesses from the nights or ordinary time of rest, so also separate and observe the seventh day as free from ordinary works and occupied with divine worship.  This simple opinion of mine on this question I think will satisfy those who are solely solicitous about the practice of piety and the Sabbath.”

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John Owen

An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with Preliminary Exercitations, 4 vols.  (London: Tegg, 1840), vol. 1, Exercitation 40, Practical Observance of the Lord’s Day, pp. 736-37

“8. Of the beginning and ending of the Sabbath — The first rule about time.

8. It may seem to some necessary that something should be premised concerning the measure or continuance of the day to be set apart to a holy rest to the Lord; but it being a matter of controversy, and to me, on the reasons to be mentioned afterwards, of no great importance, I shall not insist upon the examination of it, but only give my judgment in a word concerning it.

Some contend that it is a natural day, consisting of twenty-four hours, beginning with the evening of the preceding day, and ending with the same of its own.  And accordingly so was the church of Israel directed, Lev. 23:32, “From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath;” although that does not seem to be a general direction for the observation of the weekly Sabbath, but to regard only that particular extraordinary Sabbath which was then instituted, namely, the day of atonement, on the tenth day of the seventh month, verse 27.

However, suppose it to belong also to the weekly Sabbath, it is evidently an addition to the command, particularly suited to the Mosaical pedagogy, that the day might comprise the sacrifice of the preceding evening in the services of it; from an obedience whereunto we are freed by the gospel.

Neither can I subscribe to this opinion; and that because, —

(1.) In the description and limitation of the first original seven days, it is said of each of the six that it was constituted of an evening and a morning, but of the day of rest there is no such description; it is only called “the seventh day,” without any assignation of the preceding evening unto it.

(2.) A day of rest, according to rules of natural equity, ought to be proportioned to a day of work or labor, which God has granted to us for our own use. Now, this is to be reckoned from morning to evening:

Psalm 104:20-23: “Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep” (from whose yelling the night has its name in the Hebrew tongue.) “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.  The sun arises, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man goes forth unto his
work and to his labor until the evening.”

The day of labor is from the removal of darkness and the night, by the light of the sun, until the return of them again; which, allowing for the alterations of the day in the several seasons of the year, seems to be the just measure of our day of rest.

(3.) Our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his resurrection gave beginning and being to the especial day of holy rest under the gospel, rose not until “the morning of the first day of the week,” when the beamings of the light of the sun began to dispel the darkness of the night, or “when it dawned toward day,” as it is variously expressed by the evangelists.  This, with me, determines this whole matter.

(4.) Mere cessation from labor in the night seems to have no place in the spiritual rest of the gospel to be expressed on this day, nor to be by any thing distinguished from the nights of other days of the week.

(5.) Supposing Christians under the obligation of the direction given by Moses before mentioned, and it may entangle them in the anxious, scrupulous intrigues which the Jews are subject to about the beginning of the evening itself, about which their greatest masters are at variance; which things belong not to the economy of the gospel.  Upon the whole matter, I am inclined to judge, and do so, that the observation of the day is to be commensurate to the use of our natural strength on any other day, from morning to night.  And nothing is hereby lost that is needful to the due sanctification of it; for what is by some required as a part of its sanctification, is necessary and required as a due preparation thereunto.  This, therefore, is our first rule or direction : —

I. The first day of the week, or the Lord’s day, is to be set apart to the ends of a holy rest unto God, by every one, according as his natural strength will enable him to employ himself in his lawful occasions any other day of the week.

There is no such certain standard or measure for the observance of the duties of this day, as that every one who exceeds it should by it be cut short, or that those who, on important reasons, come short of it should be stretched out thereunto.  As God provided, in his services of old, that he who was not able to offer a bullock might offer a dove, with respect to their outward condition in the world; so here there is an allowance also for the natural temperaments and abilities of men.

Only, whereas if persons of old had pretended poverty, to save their charge in the procuring of an offering, it would not have been acceptable, yea, they would themselves have fallen under the curse of the deceiver; so no more will now a pretense of weakness or natural inability be any excuse to any for neglect or profaneness.  Otherwise, God requires of us, and accepts from us, “according to what we have, and not according to what we have not,” And we see it by experience, that some men’s natural spirits will carry them out to a continuance in the outward observance of duties much beyond, nay, double perhaps to what others are able, who yet may observe a holy Sabbath unto the Lord with acceptation.

And herein lies the spring of the accommodation of these duties to the sick, the aged, the young, the weak, or persons any way distempered.  “God knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust;” as also that that dust is more discomposed and weakly compacted in some than in others.  As thus the people gathered manna of old, some more, some less, “every man according to his appetite,” yet “he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack,” Exodus 16:17,18; so is every one in sincerity, according to his own ability, to endeavor the sanctifying of the name of God in the duties of this day, not being obliged by the examples or prescriptions of others, according to their own measures.”

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Psalm 92
A Psalm, or Song, for the Sabbath Day

“…To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night”

Ps. 92:2

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Related Pages

The Lord’s Day

Change to the First Day of the Week

When Does the Lord’s Day Begin?