A. D. 1584. “Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord’s day. A day therefore to be kept, by forbearing all worldly business, suits, contracts, carriages, &c., and by sanctifying the rest of mind and body, in the contemplation of God and things divine, we are to do nothing but works of charity, say prayers, and sing psalms.”[863] We have thus traced Sunday observance in the Catholic church down to a period subsequent to the Reformation. That it is an ordinance of man which has usurped the place of the Bible Sabbath is most distinctly confessed by the council last quoted. Yet they endeavor to make amends for their violation of the Sabbath by spending Sunday in charity, prayers, and psalms: a course too often adopted at the present time to excuse the violation of the fourth commandment. Who can read this long list of Sunday laws, not from the “one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy,” but from popes, emperors, and councils, without adopting the sentiment of Neander: “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance?” CHAPTER XXI. TRACES OF THE SABBATH DURING THE DARK AGES. The Dark Ages defined—Difficulty of tracing the people of God during this period—The Sabbath effectually suppressed in the Catholic church at the close of the fifth century—Sabbath-keepers in Rome about A. D. 600—The Culdees of Great Britain—Columba probably a Sabbath-keeper—The Waldenses—Their antiquity—Their wide extent—Their peculiarities—Sabbatarian character of a part of this people—Important facts respecting the Waldenses and the Romanists—Other bodies of Sabbatarians—The Cathari—The Arnoldistæ—The Passaginians—The Petrobruysians—Gregory VII. about A. D. 1074 condemns the Sabbath-keepers—The Sabbath in Constantinople in the eleventh century—A portion of the Anabaptists—Sabbatarians in Abyssinia and Ethiopia—The Armenians of the East Indies—The Sabbath retained through the Dark Ages by those who were not in the communion of the Romish church. With the accession of the Roman bishop to supremacy began the Dark Ages;[864] and as he increased in strength, the gloom of darkness settled with increasing intensity upon the world. The highest elevation of the papal power marks the latest point in the Dark Ages before the first gray dawn of twilight.[865] That power was providentially weakened preparatory to the reformation of the sixteenth century, when the light of advancing day began to manifestly dissipate the gross darkness which covered the earth. The difficulty of tracing the true people of God through this period is well set forth in the following language of Benedict:—