Sabbath Observed in England
The Seventh Day Baptists of England arose late in the sixteenth century and were often severely persecuted by other Protestants. Their observance of the Sabbath was explained in a U.S. Bereau of the Census report: “From the earliest periods of the Christian church there have been those who claimed, in respect to the Sabbath, that Christ simply discarded the false restrictions with which the Pharisees had burdened and perverted the Sabbath, but that otherwise He preserved it in its full significance. Accordingly, they have held that loyalty to the law of God and to the ordinances and example of Christ required continuance of the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. Although the Apostolic church and some branches of it in every period since Chist have observed the seventh dayf o the week as the Sabbath, and practiced immersion, Seventh Day Baptists do not claim an unbroken succession in the matter of church organization before the Reformation. At the time of the Reformation, when the Bible was accepted as the supreme authority on all questions of faith and conduct, the question of the Sabbath again came to the front, and a considerable number forsook the observance of Sunday and accepted the seventh day as the Sabbath” (S. Bereau of the Census Report, 1936, vol, 2, part 1, pp. 163-165).
