# Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath



## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 15, 2006)

Has anyone read _Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America_ (1977) by Winton U. Solberg? Thoughts?


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## Laura (Nov 15, 2006)

VirginiaHuguenot said:


> Has anyone read _Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America_ (1977) by Winton U. Solberg? Thoughts?



Ooh. Sounds good. The university library has it. I think I'll pick it up today and let you know later what I find.


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## NaphtaliPress (Nov 15, 2006)

Not sure of the rest of the work but Solberg got it wrong on Calvin and his supposed bowling on the Lord's day.
http://www.fpcr.org/blue_banner_articles/Calvin_Bowls_Postscript.htm
or the whole article is in PDF at the NP site:
http://www.naphtali.com/pdf_files.htm


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## Blueridge Believer (Nov 15, 2006)

NaphtaliPress said:


> Not sure of the rest of the work but Solberg got it wrong on Calvin and his supposed bowling on the Lord's day.
> http://www.fpcr.org/blue_banner_articles/Calvin_Bowls_Postscript.htm
> or the whole article is in PDF at the NP site:
> http://www.naphtali.com/pdf_files.htm




Everybody knows he wasn't bowling! He was playing touch football.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 15, 2006)

Laura said:


> Ooh. Sounds good. The university library has it. I think I'll pick it up today and let you know later what I find.



Kewl -- thanks Laura!


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## NaphtaliPress (Nov 15, 2006)

Blueridge reformer said:


> Everybody knows he wasn't bowling! He was playing touch football.


Nope; sorry. I know he wasn't doing that.


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## Blueridge Believer (Nov 15, 2006)

NaphtaliPress said:


> Nope; sorry. I know he wasn't doing that.




Just a little humor today, that's all brother!!!


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## NaphtaliPress (Nov 15, 2006)

Blueridge reformer said:


> Just a little humor today, that's all brother!!!


I know; but since Calvin himself viewed such activity as a profanation of the day, I just don't think it is funny joking about his personal piety. But I spent nearly 20,000 words to defend Calvin from such hypocrisy, so I'm biased on the subject.


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## PresReformed (Nov 15, 2006)

Andrew...I have the book and have read sections here and there, but not cover to cover yet. Winton is the man responsible for printing John Cotton's work on the Sabbath for the first time. I'm grateful that he did that and that he gave me permission to reprint it.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 15, 2006)

PresReformed said:


> Andrew...I have the book and have read sections here and there, but not cover to cover yet. Winton is the man responsible for printing John Cotton's work on the Sabbath for the first time. I'm grateful that he did that and that he gave me permission to reprint it.



Very interesting - thanks Greg! I know that Solberg reprinted John Cotton's work in 1982 but did not reprint the rebuttal from William Whately (who argued for a midnight-to-midnight Sabbath based on Scripture), which is said to have prevailed at the Emmanuel College disputation between the two on this subject. I would love to read them both side-by-side. 

By the way, when do you think Cotton's treatise on the Lord's Day was published? I think Solberg argues for 1611 but Tom Webster is more inclined to a later date, perhaps in the 1620's.


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## PresReformed (Nov 15, 2006)

VirginiaHuguenot said:


> By the way, when do you think Cotton's treatise on the Lord's Day was published? I think Solberg argues for 1611 but Tom Webster is more inclined to a later date, perhaps in the 1620's.



I'm not familiar with Tom Webster. Solberg's 1611 date is the only one that I was aware of. BTW "John Cotton on Psalmody and the Sabbath" is available now.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 15, 2006)

PresReformed said:


> I'm not familiar with Tom Webster. Solberg's 1611 date is the only one that I was aware of. BTW "John Cotton on Psalmody and the Sabbath" is available now.



Tom Webster of the University of Edinburgh commented on this issue in _Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: the Caroline Puritan Movement, c.1620-1643_, pp. 19-20:



> At some point between 1606 and 1612, John Cotton provided the key address in a conference [at Emmanuel College] on the topic of the beginning of the Sabbath. He proposed that there were Scriptural reasons for beginning Sabbath observance on Saturday night, his own practice, rather than on Sunday morning, the consensus position...On this occasion Cotton was answered at length by William Whately , apparently invited from his post in Banbury for the purpose. Equally significant is the fact that the conference appears to have been inconclusive; if Cotton was judged to have Scripture on his side, his practice did not prevail as the norm, and he does not appear to have changed his ways even if Whately was deemed to be more persuasive.[16]
> 
> [16]...According to Increase Mather, only John Dod and Arthur Hildersham among the mainstream held the same position as Cotton before the migration to New England, although one of the charges against Charles Chauncy in his High Commission trial of 1630 was that he had preached that the Sabbath began at sundown on Saturday evening: Increase Mather, 'To the Reader,' in Cotton Mather, _A Good Evening for the Best of Dayes_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1708); SP 16/164/40. Cotton's position prevailed in New England; it was already practised in Plymouth Colony: W.U. Solberg, _Redeem the Time: the Puritan Sabbath in Early America_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1977) pp. 111-13. Solberg has published Cotton's contribution to the debate but not Whately's in 'John Cotton's Treatise on the Duration of the Lord's Day,' _PCSM: Collections, Sibley's Heir 59_ (1982) pp. 505-22. He gives a date of 1611 without convincing reasons; my date is influenced by the tenure of Cotton as a fellow; if anything, the manuscript context suggests a later date -- the argument follows a tract by John Preston which makes possible a date in the 1620s.



I looking forward to getting my copy of John Cotton's treatises. Thanks for your work in republishing them, Greg!


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Feb 12, 2007)

The index of Prof. Solberg's files at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Archives (p. 8) shows some manuscript titles concerning the Puritan Sabbath that look intriguing.


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