“Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years,
he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday the
ninth of June said to his disciple Diermit: ‘This day is called
the Sabbath, that is, the day of rest, and such will it truly
be to me; for it will put an end to my labors.’”[874]
Another distinguished Catholic author gives us his dying words thus:—
“To-day is Saturday, the day which the Holy Scriptures call the
Sabbath, or rest. And it will be truly my day of rest, for it
shall be the last of my laborious life.”[875]
These words show, 1. That Columba believed that Saturday was the true
Bible Sabbath. 2. That he did not believe the Sabbath had been changed to
Sunday. 3. That this confession of faith respecting the Bible Sabbath was
made with evident satisfaction, though in view of immediate death. Did
any first-day man ever recur with pleasure on his death-bed to the fact
that Saturday is the Bible Sabbath?
But Gilfillan quotes these words of Columba as spoken in behalf of
Sunday! In giving a list of eminent men who have asserted the change of
the Sabbath, or who have called Sunday the Sabbath, and have taught that
it should be observed as a day of sacred rest, he brings in Columba
thus:—
“The testimony of Columba is specially interesting, as it
expresses the feelings of the heart at a moment which tests
the sincerity of faith, and the value of a creed: ‘This day,’
he said to his servant, ‘in the sacred volume is called the
Sabbath, that is, rest; and will indeed be a Sabbath to me,
for it is to me the last day of this toilsome life, the
day on which I am to rest (sabbatize), after all my labors
and troubles, for on this coming sacred night of the Lord
(_Dominica nocte_), at the midnight hour, I shall, as the
Scriptures speak, go the way of my fathers.’”[876]
But this day which Columba said “will indeed be a Sabbath to me” was not
Sunday but Saturday.
Among the dissenters from the Romish church in the period of the Dark
Ages, the first place perhaps is due to the Waldenses, both for their
antiquity and the wide extent of their influence and doctrine. Benedict
quotes from their enemies respecting the antiquity of their origin:—
“We have already observed from Claudius Seyssel, the popish
archbishop, that one Leo was charged with originating the
Waldensian heresy in the valleys, in the days of Constantine
the Great. When those severe measures emanated from the Emperor
Honorious against rebaptizers, the Baptists left the seat of
opulence and power, and sought retreats in the country, and in
the valleys of Piedmont; which last place in particular became
their retreat from imperial oppression.”[877]
Dean Waddington quotes the following from Rainer Saccho, a popish writer,
who had the best means of information respecting them:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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