Puritan Sabbatarianism

While John Calvin's theology of the fourth commandment differed from that of the Puritans, he believed that Christians were commanded to cease from labor and recreation to devote the entire day to worship. The Genevan Consistory during the time of Calvin regularly interviewed people for working or engaging in recreation considered inappropriate for spiritual refreshment such as hunting, dancing, banqueting, playing tennis or billiards, or bowling skittles on Sundays. During the Vestarian controversy, Reformers were spurred to develop the regulative principle of worship, a fundamental article that no corporate worship is permissible that does not have the sanction of Scripture, whether stated explicitly, or derived by a necessary deduction from Scripture. By the 17th century, Puritans had applied the regulative principle to devote first-day Sabbath entirely to God, indulging in neither the labors nor the recreations common to the other six days. ==History==

game on a Sunday, despite the urging of a Unitarian preacher. Sunday Sabbatarianism as jure divino or divinely ordained command, in contrast to non-Sabbatarian and antinomian reliance on Christian liberty, thus was a closely linked development to the regulative principle amongst English Protestants over the 17th century. Puritan Sabbatarianism is enshrined in its most mature expression, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), in the Calvinist theological tradition (Chapter 21, Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day, sections 7–8): The third sermon regards the proper keeping of Sabbath: "We are strictly to abstain from being outwardly engaged in any worldly thing, either worldly business or recreations," because "the sabbath-day is an accepted time, a day of salvation, a time wherein God especially loves to be sought, and loves to be found." accordingly suggests that "television, reading of newspapers and magazines, and engaging in sports and excursions ... are not proper to the Sabbath because 'Sabbath' means to cease from these things in order to give one day exclusively to worship and the reading of God's Word, etc." The cessation described entails all engrossing activities of the six days of the week, whether employment or recreations, and thus specifically excludes ceasing only from work while continuing favorite recreations. Williamson affirms striving toward holiness, calling it a lofty goal to avoid "even thoughts and words about our worldly employments or recreations." Though modern expression of Puritan Sabbath has been caricatured as being boring, organisations that promote Sabbaths as joyous, delightful appointments include Day One Christian Ministries. Historical theologian R. Scott Clark has criticized the idea that distinct "Puritan" and "Continental" views on the Sabbath exist, instead arguing that the Reformed have historically agreed that recreation is prohibited on Sunday. In the United States throughout the nineteenth century, Protestant moralists organized the "Sabbath reform" that pushed for stricter Sunday keeping. Their efforts prompted the enforcement of Sunday laws (often called blue laws) that legally barred a variety of activities on Sundays. The enforcement of Sunday laws gave rise to substantial church-state debates as well as minority-rights movements fueled by the resistance of Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, Catholics, and other religious minorities. == Civil Law ==

In 1671, the Province of Massachusetts Bay codified the following law with respect to the Sunday Sabbath in its charter: ==See also==