These passages distinctly do away with the Sabbath, and place the observance of the Lord's day on the ground of human authority. In the books of some early authors who adopted those views, may be found frequent references to a difficulty which drove them to deny the perpetuity of the Sabbath. Bishop _White_, in 1635, says: "If the fourth commandment, concerning the keeping of the seventh day, is moral and perpetual, then it is not such in respect to the first and eighth day; for this precept requireth the observance of that one day only which it specifieth in that commandment." In speaking of the Lord's day, he says: "Every day of the week and of the year is the Lord's; and the Sunday is no more the Lord's by the law of the fourth commandment, than the Friday, for the Lord's day of that fourth commandment is the Saturday." From each of these quotations, it appears to have been felt to be inconsistent to admit the perpetuity of the Sabbath, without keeping the seventh day. But to come back to this ancient day, and keep it in company with Jews, seemed too great a change. Hence the abrogation of the institution was asserted, as the easiest way of escaping from the dilemma. John Milton, speaking of this difficulty, says: "If we under the Gospel are to regulate the time of our public worship by the prescriptions of the Decalogue, it will surely be far safer to observe _the seventh day_, according to the express command of God, than, on the authority of mere human conjecture, to adopt the _first_." Another influence which led to the rejection of the Sabbath by these men, was the view of it which was held by the Romish Church. When the leaders of the Reformation separated from that church, it was claimed that all her festival days, including Sundays, were holier than other days, not only in relation to the use made of them, but to a natural and _inherent holiness_ wherewith they thought them to be invested. In addition to this, many and hurtful restraints had been imposed upon the consciences of God's people, until these were days of _punishment_, rather than of holy pleasure and profit. Seeing these days perverted from their real design, and made the means of strengthening papal power, it is not surprising that they were discarded together. Anxious to escape one error, they fell into another equally dangerous.