It also was maintained among those bodies which broke off from Rome after the Council of Chalcedon namely, the Abysinians, the Jacobites, the Maronites, and the Armenians." Schaff¾ Herzog, The New Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art. Nestorians; also Realencyclopadie fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, art. Nestorianer.
10th Century: Church of the East, Kurdistan. "The Nestorians eat no pork and keep the Sabbath. They believe in neither auricular confession nor purgatory." Schaff¾ Herzog, The New Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art. Nestorians.
11th Century: Scotland. "They held that Saturday was properly the Sabbath on which they abstained from work." Celtic Scotland, col. 2, 350.
12th Century: Wales. "There is much evidence that the Sabbath prevailed in Wales universally until A.D. 1115, when the first Roman bishop was seated at St. David’s. The Old Welsh Sabbath-keeping churches did not even then altogether bow the knee to Rome, but fled to their hiding places." Lewis, Seventh Day Baptist in Europe and America, vol. 1, 29.
13th Century: Waldenses of France. "The inquisitors . . . [declare] that the sign of a Vaudois, deemed worthy of death, was that the followed Christ, and sought to obey the commandments of God." History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, H.C. Lea, vol. 1.
"And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ . . . Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 12:17; 14:12.
15th Century: Norway. "We are informed that some people in different districts of the kingdom, have adopted and observed Saturday-keeping. It is severely forbidden¾ in the holy church canon¾ one and all to observe days excepting those which the holy Pope, archbishop, or the bishops command. Saturday-keeping must under no circumstances be permitted hereafter further than the church canon commands. Therefore, we counsel all the friends of God throughout all Norway who want to be obedient towards the holy church to let this evil of Saturday-keeping alone; and the rest we forbid under penalty of severe church punishment to keep Saturday holy.""
Catholic Provincial Council at Bergen, 1435. Dip. Noverg., 7, 397.
"He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, Shall persecute the saints of the Most High, And shall intend to change times and law." Daniel 7:25
THE SABBATH IN LATER HISTORY
16th Century: Council of Trent. "On the 18th of January, 1563, the Council of Trent ruled that Tradition is greater than Scripture, after a powerful speech by the Archbishop of Reggio, in which he said that the fact that the Church had changed the Fourth Commandment clearly proved that Tradition was greater than the Scripture." H.J. Holtzman, Kanon und Tradition, 1859 edition, 263.
Jesus replied, "Why do you also transgress the commandments of God because of your tradition? . . . Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Matthew 15:3, 6-9
Holland and Germany. "Barbara of Thiers, who was executed in 1529, declared: ‘God has commanded us to rest on the seventh day.’" Martyrology of the Churches of Christ, commonly called Baptists, during the era of the Reformation, from the Dutch of T.J. Van Bright, London 1850, 1, 113, 114.
Russia. "The accused [Sabbath-keepers] were summoned; they openly acknowledged the new faith, and defended the same. The most eminent of them, the secretary of state, Kuritzyn, Ivan Maximo, Kassian, archimandrite of the jury Monastery of Novgorod, were condemned to death, and burned publicly in cages, at Moscow, December 27, 1503." (Council, Moscow, 1503). H. Sternberf, Geschichte der Juden (Leipzig, 1873), 1117, 1122.
Sweden. "This zeal for Saturday-keeping continued for a long time; even little things which might strengthen the practice for keeping Sunday were punished." Bishop Anjou, Svenska Kirkans Historia efter Motet I Upsala.
Europe. About the year 1520 many of these Sabbath-keepers found shelter on the estate of Lord Leonhardt of Liechtenstein, "as princes of Lichtenstein held to the observance of the true Sabbath." History of the Sabbath, J. N. Andrews, 649.
India. "The famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier, called for the Inquisition, which was set up in Goa, India, in 1560, to check the ‘Jewish wickedness’ (Sabbath-keeping)." Adeney, The Greek and Eastern Churches, 527, 528.
Abyssinia. "It is not therefore, in imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to Christ and His holy apostles, that we observe that day." (Abyssinian legate at court of Lisbon, 1534). Geddes’ Church History of Ethiopia, 87, 88.
7th Century: England. "Here in England are about nine or ten churches that keep the Sabbath, besides many scattered disciples, who have been eminently preserved." Stennet’s letters, 1668 and 1670. Cox. Sab., 1, 268.
Dr. Peter Chamberlain. Dr. Peter Chamberlain was physician to King James and Queen Katherine. The inscription on the monument over his grave says Dr. Chamberlain was "a Christian, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, being baptised about the year 1648, and keeping the seventh day for the Sabbath above thirty-two years."
America. "Stephen Mumford, the first Sabbath-keeper in America came from London in 1644." History of the Seventh day Baptist General Conference by Jas. Bailey, 237, 238.
England. "It will surely be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to the express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjecture to adopt the first." John Milton, Sab. Lit., 2, 46-54.
18th Century: Romania. (1760). "Joseph II’s edict of tolerance did not apply to the Sabbatarians, some of whom again lost all their possessions." Jahrgang 2, 254.
Bohemia and Moravia. "The condition of the Sabbatarians [from 1635 to 1867] was dreadful. Their books and writings had to be delivered to the Karlsburg Consistory to become the spoil of flames." Adolf Dux, Aux Ungarn, 289-291, Leipzig, 1880.
America. Before Zinzendorf and the Moravians at Bethlehem thus began the observance of the Sabbath and prospered, there was a small body of German Sabbath-keepers in Pennsylvania. See Rupp’s History of Religious Denominations in the United States, 109-123.
19th Century to present: America. The Seventh-day Adventist movement was formed in 1844.
China. "The Taipings, when asked why they observed the seventh day Sabbath, replied that it was, first, because the Bible taught it, and second, because their ancestors observed it as a day of worship." A Critical History of the Sabbath and the Sunday.
Sweden. "We will now endeavor to show that the sanctification of the Sabbath has its foundation and its origin in a law which God at creation itself established for the whole world, and as a consequence thereof is binding on all men in all ages." May 30, 1863, p. 169. Evangelisten (The Evangelist) Stockholm, May 30 to August 15, 1863, (organ of the Swedish Baptist Church).
We gratefully acknowledge J. F. Coltheart, who personally consulted old manuscripts and the original sources of many of these quotations in the libraries and museums of Europe, Constantinople and the East.
HAS THE CALENDAR BEEN CHANGED?
How can we be absolutely sure that our seventh day today is still the Sabbath? Could the calendar have been changed? In over 100 languages of the world, the seventh day is still called Saturday the Sabbath. In Italy it is called Sabbato, in Spain Sabado, in Portugal Sabbado, in Russia Subbota, in Poland Sobota. All of these names mean "Sabbath" or "rest day" in their various languages. Except for those languages that have adopted the pagan names for the days of the week, the seventh day is still called the Sabbath, as the Lord named it at the time of the creation of the world.