Sabbatarianism

SABBATARIANISM IS the view that insists that one day of each week must be reserved for religious observance as prescribed by the Old Testament Sabbath Law. The sabbatarians' main thesis is simple: The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments, and the Ten Commandments do not correspond to a temporary ceremonial law but are to be regarded as eternally significant moral law. However, a distinction is to be made between strict or literal sabbatarianism and semi-sabbatarianism. Strict or literal sabbatarianism contends that God's directive concerning the Sabbath Law is natural, universal, and moral.

Consequently, the Sabbath requires humankind to abstain from all labor except for those tasks necessary for the welfare of the society. In this view, the seventh day, the literal Sabbath, is the only day on which the requirements of this law can be met. Historically, we see a trend toward sabbatarianism in the Eastern Church during the 4th century and the Irish church during the 6th century when in effect a dual recognition of both Sabbath and Sunday was stressed. It was not until the Reformation, however, that sabbatarianism found a more profound and semi-institutionalized form. This is despite the fact that in his “Letter against the Sabbatarians,” Luther openly opposed the doctrine, pointing out the legalistic pitfalls inherent in the view. John Calvin also agreed with Luther's stance on the meaning and observance of Sabbath.

The development of Judaizing the Sabbath day as done by strict sabbatarianism is first illustrated in the history of a sect of sabbatarians: Socinians, founded in Transylvania in Hungary toward the end of the 16th century. Their first principle, which led them to separate from the rest of the Unitarian body, was their belief that the day of rest must be observed along with the Jews on the seventh day of the week and not on the Christian Sunday. The greater part of this particular sabbatarian sect joined the Orthodox Jews in 1874, thus carrying out in practice the Judaizing principle of their founders to its full extent.

Although there does not seem to be any immediate or obvious connection between the observance of the seventh day and the rejection of infant baptism, these two practices are often found together. Thus, sabbatarianism made many recruits among the Mennonite Anabaptists in Holland and among the English Baptists who, much as they differ on other points of doctrine, agreed in the rejection of paedo-baptism. It is presumably a result of the contact with Anabaptism that sabbatarianism also developed an association with heavily dissenting views on political or social questions.

The most conspicuous of English Sabbatarian Baptists was Francis Bampfield (d. 1683), brother of a Devonshire baronet and originally a clergyman of the [Page 854]English Church. He was the author of several works and ministered to a congregation of Sabbatarian Baptists in London, England. In the British Isles, although the greater number of sabbatarians have originated from the Baptists, one of the most notable of them was associated with the Wesleyan Methodists. This was the prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), like Bampfield a native of Devonshire, who composed many spiritual poems and prophetical writings and became the mother of a sect of sabbatarians, also known as Southcottians or Joannas. Southcott's disciples confidently awaited the birth of the promised Messiah whom the prophetess of 64 was to bring into the world, despite the fact that she eventually died of the disease, which had given a false appearance of pregnancy.

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