Calvin in the Hands of the Philistines: Or Did Calvin Bowl on the Sabbath?

By Chris Coldwell

The older PDF version is available here. Copyright © 1998; 2007 by Chris Coldwell

Thus it is that history is falsified and good men slandered

— David Hay Fleming

Introduction

Calvin’s View of Sports and Pastimes on the Lord’s Day

1. The 20th Century – Recent use of the bowling tale

— Christopher Hill and Gary North

— Did Calvin Want to Change the Lord’s Day to Thursday or Friday?

— John T. McNeill

2. The 19th Century – The anecdote appears in literature

— David Hay Fleming

— Isaac Disraeli

— Gilfillan and Cox

3. The 17th Century – Searching for earlier references

— Sabbath Literature and Geography books

— Peter Heylyn and the Practice of Geneva

— Heylyn Answered

— Richard Baxter

— The Practice of Bowling

— John Laud

4. The 16th Century – Alymer bowls and Knox visits Geneva

— John Aylmer

— Knox in Geneva and Calvin’s 34th Deuteronomy Sermon

Conclusion

Bibliography

Postscript

 

 

Did Calvin Bowl on the Sabbath?1

 

Introduction

A remarkably durable anecdote about John Calvin, the great Protestant Reformer of Geneva, is often related by those critical of the Puritan view of the Sabbath.2 The goal seems to be to demonstrate that the Reformers were not tainted with that ‘pharisaical’ of strictness in observance of the Lord’s day – particularly respecting abstinence from otherwise lawful sports and recreations on that day. One Lord’s Day, it is said, the Scottish Reformer John Knox, paid a visit to his friend Calvin in Geneva. The grave Scot found, to his surprise, as the telling would seem to indicate,3 the austere Reformer of Geneva engaged in a game of bowls.4

There appears to be no good reason for the tale’s durability.5 It has been repeated and used uncritically by Seventh-day Adventist apologists,6 Calvin scholars who should know better, as well as by anti-Sabbatarian writers. Even when the tenuous origin of the tale is clearly evident to some of these authors, they still have boldly gone on to draw conclusions from it as if it were factual. Much of this no doubt is due to partisan bias against Calvin, or against strict views of Sabbath keeping, or both. However, surely those who hold to the Reformed faith, and hold the Reformer in esteem, would hesitate to assume as true a tale which runs counter to Calvin’s published opinion? If the Reformer believed that sports and recreations on the Lord’s day were permissible, then this tale would be merely a curiosity. Since that was not his belief, giving countenance to the tale leaves him vulnerable to the charge of inconsistency if not hypocrisy.

It is important to demonstrate the dubious nature of this tale as it clearly affects how some interpret Calvin’s views. And while this article may not settle the issue once and for all, an attempt has been made to draw together as much material as possible to support this conclusion. No doubt some will think the amount of data gathered is excessive, but the tale’s persistence calls for it. And, as one author cited later writes regarding another matter, “it is a shame not to know the whole of a small thing.”

After briefly rehearsing Calvin’s view of sports and pastimes on the Lord’s day, this article will survey the relevant literature. The reasons for focusing mainly on English literature are practical ones. The author is not familiar enough with French or Latin to facilitate an easy compassing of that literature. While this may appear to be a significant oversight, as the main source for the bowling anecdote traces it to a local tradition in Geneva, this very fact also raises a strong probability that no evidence exists to be found that would substantiate the tale.

But the English literature is important to survey because the anecdote has spread and received currency since the 19th century in British and American works on the Sabbath. Also, the controversy over the Puritan Sabbath in England created an environment that produced events and literature that have more than a tangential bearing on determining the verity of the tale. The Puritans made appeals to Calvin’s position against recreation on Lord’s days. Those accused of breaking the Sabbath by bowling, made counter-appeals to the permissive practice of Geneva. And there is an apparent reference at the time of the Westminster Assembly to Calvin bowling on the Lord’s day. So there is plenty of material in the English literature to cover. Moving primarily backward in time, this will require reviewing:

1. The 20th Century – Recent use of the bowling tale.

2. The 19th Century – The anecdote appears in literature.

3. The 17th Century – Searching for earlier references to this tale.

4. The 16th Century – Aylmer bowls, and Knox Visits Geneva.

Calvin’s View of Sports and Pastimes on the Lord’s Day

Calvin’s view of the fourth commandment is well summarized by James T. Dennison:

On John Calvin’s doctrine of the fourth commandment see especially Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, viii. 28-34. The three points of his Sabbath doctrine are: (1) Sabbath is a figure of spiritual rest in Christ; (2) Sabbath serves as a day for public worship; (3) Sabbath serves as a day of rest for servants and beasts. Perhaps the best study of Calvin’s view is Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.’s unpublished Th. M. thesis, Calvin and the Sabbath (Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1962). Calvin’s view may be called a ‘practical Sabbatarianism’ – an evaluation supported by the recent investigation of John H. Primus … although Primus avoids the phrase.7

In his several writings on this topic, John Primus has probably done the most in recent times to set the record straight on Calvin and Lord’s Day observance.8 He demonstrates clearly from Calvin’s 34th Sermon on Deuteronomy that while Calvin’s doctrine of the fourth commandment differs from that of the Puritans, the ethic of how one is to observe the day is similar.9 Primus writes, “Calvin calls for a literal, physical cessation of daily labor on the Lord’s Day, not as an end in itself, but to provide time for worship of God. Recreational activity should also be suspended, for such activity interferes with worship as certainly as daily labor does. ‘If we spend the Lord’s day in making good cheer, and in playing and gaming, is that a good honouring of God? Nay, is it not a mockery, yea and a very unhallowing of his name?’”10 Calvin

argues that the Sabbath should be used not only for public worship and “hearing of sermons,” but also that “we should apply the rest of the time to the praising of God.” By “the rest of the time” he apparently means the rest of the day of worship, at least, the remainder of our waking hours. To use the Lord’s Day to full advantage will aid us in the continued reflection on God’s works, which is required throughout the week. It will “fashion and polish” us for the giving of thanks to God “upon the Monday and all the week after.” Conversely, if men desecrate the Lord’s Day they are likely to “play the beasts all the week after.” So we should not only publicly hear the sermon, but privately reflect on it. We must digest it and “bend all our wits to consider the gracious things that God hath done for us.” Calvin calls on God’s people to “dedicate that day wholly unto the him so as we may be utterly withdrawn from the world.” Even though we need not “keep the ceremony so straight as it was under the bondage of the law,” it is important for us to “consider how our Lord requireth to have this day bestowed in nothing else, but in hearing of his word, in making common prayer, in making confession of our faith, and in having the use of the Sacraments.”11

According to Calvin’s 34th sermon from Deuteronomy, recreations and games are to be put away for the entire Lord’s day. If the bowling anecdote is true, we must wonder if Calvin practiced what he preached? However, it is hoped the following survey will show that little credit should be placed in this story, at least until some firm evidence surfaces that indicates the story is more than hearsay. It would be idle speculation to use the tale to form some opinion of Calvin’s character. Certainly it should not be used to demonstrate his view of Lord’s day observance, when he clearly has preached contrary to the looser practice the tale has been used to support. We must rely on Calvin’s own words, not on what amounts to an urban legend, which may merely be a very old lie.

 

1. The 20th Century – Recent use of the bowling tale

The “bowling story” has made its way into the Sabbath literature, often with the presumption that it is fact, and this not just in the less critical sort, but among the more scholarly as well. Some of the earlier writers at least give reference back to the 19th century authors who are the source for the use of the tale today. However, apparently a less careful approach is more common nowadays.

For instance, David Katz writes:12 “Calvin made a point of playing at bowls on Sunday to demonstrate his own attitude to the question.” Katz’s support for this is Robert Cox’s The Whole Doctrine of Calvin about the Sabbath (Edinburgh, 1860), p. 91.13 However, Cox does not mention the bowling tale. Nor does he there refer to the general practice of Geneva alleged by some to infer this claim. As this paper hopefully will demonstrate, there is no strong evidence to support the event even occurred, let alone that Calvin was consciously condemning stricter observance in doing such a thing. This kind of bold appeal to the tale is unfortunately more common than one would expect among scholars and those who unquestioningly rely upon them.

Christopher Hill and Gary North

An instance of this is found in an appendix Gary North authored for R. J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law. He writes, Calvin “went lawn bowling after church on Sunday, a fact which later sabbatarians [sic] have chosen to ignore.”14 For support North cites Christopher Hill’s Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England. Hill’s exact statement is:

So when Bownde published his notorious book in 1595, he was only extending a thesis on which there had previously been considerable agreement. His position, like that of Greenham, was substantially that of Calvin. The fact that Calvin had played bowls on Sunday worried some of the more zealous Sabbatarians, who did not approve of bishops who in this followed Calvin’s example.”15

North accepts as gospel the latter statement that Calvin bowled on the Lord’s day, but objects to the close association of Calvin with the Puritan view. He writes:16

Hill erroneously attributes the later Puritan sabbatarian position to Calvin, although he is forced to admit that Calvin’s willingness to bowl on Sunday worried more zealous sabbatarians. Unlike Knappen, Hill shows little sign of having read Calvin’s own writings on the sabbath. He writes in a footnote on the same page that “[Richard] Baxter was also a little uneasy in his attempts to explain away Calvin’s and Beza’s laxness.” Hill, ibid., p. 170. It is perhaps understandable that Hill, as a Marxist scholar specializing in 17th-century English history, would not be familiar with the details of Calvin’s writings. There is no excuse for the statement by Professor John Murray of Westminster Seminary, in a desperate attempt to avoid the thrust of Calvin’s view of the sabbath, that Calvin’s views have simply been misinterpreted. Murray’s Scottish heritage just will not conform to Calvin’s “lax” teachings, so he has chosen to rewrite Calvin. See Murray’s letter to the editor, The Presbyterian Guardian, June, 1969.

North’s anti-Sabbatarian bravado rings hollow, and demonstrates a shallow grasp of the relevant literature. This criticism of Murray is rather shameless.17 Unlike North, the professor knew something about the literature on this subject.18 Patrick Fairbairn and James Gilfillan were making the case that Calvin’s view of the Sabbath had been misunderstood nearly 150 years ago. The position was long established when Murray made his comment, and has since received thorough attention by Calvin scholars such as John Primus.

North also places undo confidence in Knappen,19 who himself places too much confidence in the anti-Sabbatarian, Episcopalian authors such as Pocklington and Cooper (see footnote 45). As they should not be relied upon without great care, neither should Knappen, who blunders greatly in giving credit to Pocklington’s easily refuted report, that Calvin once had a consultation about changing the Lord’s day to Thursday. Hill makes this error as well (see below).20

As far as Hill’s statement, North has it exactly backwards! Actually, Hill is wrong in giving credit to the idea that Calvin bowled on the Lord’s day, and right in connecting the similarities between Calvin’s view and that of the Puritans.

If Hill is taken to mean that the Puritan view and Calvin’s are in all points “substantially” the same, then he is obviously wrong. However, it is clear Hill is dealing with the notion of the Sabbath as a day set aside for worship, not to idleness or a mere carnal rest. In that regard, the two views are essentially the same. One need only read the quotations made from Calvin and Bownd to see this is what Hill is comparing.21

True, Hill may not have been as familiar as necessary with Calvin’s writings to avoid some mistakes. He was obviously not familiar enough with Calvin’s Deuteronomy sermons to see the inconsistency in assuming Calvin bowled on the Lord’s day. This is strange to say the least, as some of the authors Hill cites directly contradict the idea that Calvin allowed recreations on the Lord’s day, citing these sermons as proof.22

It is unclear whether Hill is extrapolating Calvin’s bowling practice from the alleged general practice of Geneva, or was led to make that deduction by knowledge of the bowling anecdote. He does not reference the tale at all, or any of the usual sources that cite it, nor does he provide any direct evidence for proving the “fact” that Calvin bowled on Sundays. His references are to works by Laud, Heylyn and Cooper, which, again, only allege a general practice in Geneva.23 Baxter is also noted, but there is nothing in his work on the Sabbath directly accusing Calvin himself of loose practices, but rather the opposite.24

Hill refers to a quote in Marchant’s, The Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York, which reads, “One interesting attestation was that he had said that ‘it is not lawful to do anything on the Sabbath day whatsoever Mr. Calvin had said to the contrary.’” This obviously has reference to Calvin’s writings and not to some rumor of what he may have done on the Lord’s day. The he is one John Crosse, who Marchant believed reflected a “more popular and slightly less decorous Puritanism, which sometimes came under mild criticism.” “Crosse was a complete nonconformist.” It was alleged against him (1617-18) that:

John Crosse hath publicly and privately taught and defended or maintained all or most of the erroneous opinions following, viz. that all unpreaching ministers are dumb dogs, and damned persons and whosoever goeth to hear them cannot be saved; Item that no preacher sanctifies the Sabbath unless he preach twice every Sabbath. Item, that it is not lawful to dress meat or do any such thing on the Sabbath day….25

The earlier Puritans had distanced themselves from the similar excesses of language in the Martin Marprelate tracts. Most if not all the Puritans writing about the Sabbath, would have disagreed with the extreme view expressed here, including Nicholas Bownd.26

The remaining reference Hill makes is to the Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley.27 She writes to her son, “I am halfe of an opinion to put your brothers out to scoule. They continue still stife in theare opinions; and in my aprehention upon samale ground. My feare is least we should falle into the same error as Calluin did, whoo was so ernest in oposeing the popisch hollydays that he intrenched upon the holy Saboth, so I feare we shall be so ernest in beateing downe theare to much villifyeing of the Common Prayer Booke, that we shall say more for it than euer we intended.”28

This kind statement is not unique, that the Reformers overreacted against the Sabbath in their dislike for holy days.29 However, even assuming that weight should be given the Lady’s opinion, it is unclear what is in view in this “entrenching.” There is really nothing in the statement that should lead one to conclude Calvin would have bowled on the Lord’s day contrary to his preaching from Deuteronomy.

It matters little whether Hill is merely concluding Calvin bowled on Lord’s days based upon the alleged general practice of Geneva, or whether he also was aware of the bowling anecdote. A knowledge of Calvin’s statements in the Deuteronomy sermons should have given as much pause to draw the inference from the alleged practice in general, as it should in attributing any truth to the myth itself.

 

Did Calvin Want to Change the Lord’s Day to Thursday or Friday?

As indicated earlier, Hill takes Pocklington’s charge much too seriously that Calvin wanted to move the Lord’s day to Thursday.30 This is another tale often repeated that needs to be laid aside. In this case, Calvin actually has responded to a similar charge that he wanted to move the Lord’s day to Friday. He writes, “But a more serious charge is involved in the rumor that they have diligently spread about, of my intentions to transfer the Lord’s day to the Friday. The truth is, that, for my part, I have never shown the least sign of lusting after such innovations, but very much the contrary.”31

John T. McNeill

It is truly disappointing to find a Calvinist scholar such as John T. McNeill, also making uncritical use of the bowling incident and drawing conclusions regarding Calvin’s character from it. McNeill writes, “He not infrequently joined in a game of quoits; a chance visitor reported that John Knox, calling at his house once on a Sunday, found him playing bowls.”32

McNeill provides no clear reference for the tale in The History and Character of Calvinism. The manner of the book is to have little if any footnoting, referring the reader to a long list of sources in the back. A partial check of most all the works in English, and a few of the many French works (such as Doumergue), did not turn up a reference to the bowling anecdote. Apparently, either Doumergue33 or Williston Walker34 is McNeill’s source for Calvin’s playing quiots. Walker writes:

Sometimes, chiefly when urged by his friends, he would play a simple game, quoits, in his garden, or “clef” on the table in his living room. … But his few recreations were briefly enjoyed.

For these facts Walker references the life of Calvin by Nicholas Colladon.35 He then cites Emile Doumergue, who references the same. “Doumergue, iii, 527-563, has made the utmost possible of this side of Calvin’s character. In the game of clef the keys were pushed on a table, the aim being to bring each contestant’s nearest to the further edge without falling off.” Doumergue, who “has made the utmost possible of this side of Calvin’s character,” does not mention the bowling incident in the section referenced by Walker, dealing with “Calvin at Home.” Nor does he mention it under his comments on the fourth commandment in volume four of his monumental work. In the places cited in Vie de Calvin par Nicolas Colladon, there is no mention of bowls on the Lord’s day. Regarding Calvin playing games, Doumergue writes:

And Beza adds a last trait, which completes the others: Calvin did not retreat before the familiarity of games. Without doubt, after his meals, most often he walked a quarter hour, a half-hour at most, in the room, chatting with whomever kept him company, then he retreated to his closet to study. But when his “familiar friends” incited him, when “it came to pass and in familiar company,” he recreated in playing “pallet, keys, or other sorts of lawful game by our laws and not proscribed in this republic.”36

Unfortunately, McNeill has proved to be a perpetuator of this Calvin myth. His stature as a Calvin scholar evidently lends to an uncritical acceptance of the bowling anecdote as fact. Raymond Blacketer writes regarding Calvin’s view of recreation and the Sabbath:

John T. McNeill reports that Calvin was known to occasionally take some brief time for himself in order to engage in various forms of amusement, even on the Lord’s day! … Given the strict and too often legalistic Sabbatarian tendencies of Calvinism, John Calvin’s actual view of the Lord’s day stands in striking contrast. Later Calvinistic tradition and teaching with regard to the “Christian Sabbath” does not at all reflect what the Reformer actually taught regarding the Lord’s Day. John Calvin was no Sabbatarian.37

Blacketer cites John Primus for his contention that Calvin was no Sabbatarian. But in making the above statement, he clearly ignored the demonstration by Primus that Calvin’s ethic of Lord’s day observance amounted to a “practical” Sabbatarianism, to use Dennison’s phrase.

Clearly scholars such as McNeill and Hill have directly or indirectly given credibility to this anecdote, which has led lesser men to simply repeat it, who in turn are uncritically relied upon by others. In this way the tale lives from one generation to the next. This uncritical acceptance and reliance on the bowling story is what makes tracing its history so necessary.

 

2. The 19th Century – The anecdote appears in literature.

While it is possibly an old tale in some form or fashion, it is not till the 19th century that the bowling anecdote debuts in English literature, in Isaac Disraeli’s Life of Charles the First.38 From there it found its way into the Sabbath literature of the mid-19th century, and as shown, has continued to be regularly referenced since that time.

David Hay Fleming

Early in the 20th century, David Hay Fleming pointed out some of the ways this doubtful tale was spread. In his Knox in the Hands of the Philistines, Hay Fleming reviewed William Law Mathieson’s Politics and Religion: a Study in Scottish History from the Reformation to the Revolution (Glasgow, 1902). It seems those who would put their hands to twist Calvin to support their bias toward a looser view of Sabbath-keeping were not bashful about attempting the same with the Scottish Reformer. Hay Fleming writes:39

Mr. Mathieson has a strong antipathy to what he calls ‘grim Sabbatarianism;’ and, in attempting to show that Knox was not imbued with it, he has betrayed the superficial nature of his own acquaintance with the history of the period. He says: “Knox on Sunday evening visited Calvin during a game of bowls, and with several other guests enjoyed the hospitality of Randolph.” His authority for this statement is Dean Stanley’s Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, p. 99. On turning to Dean Stanley, it will be found that his words are: “He supped with Randolph on one Sunday evening, and visited Calvin during a game of bowls on another;” and that the Dean’s authority is Hessey’s Bampton Lectures, v. 269, 270.40 On examining the passage in Hessey thus indicated, it will be found that Knox did not partake of Randolph’s hospitality, but that he and the Duke [of Chatelherault] partook of Knox’s. So far as the question of Sabbath observance is concerned, it is immaterial in whose house they met; but if Mr. Mathieson had been acquainted with Randolph’s letter, which has been printed in extenso both by Stevenson and Wright, he would have escaped this error, and would probably have hesitated before he adduced this little supper-party as a proof of Knox’s disregard for the Sabbath. Had he turned up Hessey he would have found that Dean Stanley has magnified the bowling incident. Hessey’s words are: “Knox was the intimate friend of Calvin – visited Calvin, and, it is said, on one occasion found him enjoying the recreation of bowls on Sunday.” As his authority Hessey quotes Disraeli as saying: “At Geneva a tradition exists, that when John Knox visited Calvin on a Sunday, he found his austere coadjutor bowling on a green.” Neither by Hessey nor Disraeli is it implied that Knox expected to find Calvin so engaged; and for the story there is no higher authority than late local tradition. Both Dean Stanley and Mr. Mathieson have been far outstripped by a learned Scotsman, who, in a recent article, introduced the statement that Knox occasionally took part in a round of golf on Sabbath afternoon. On being asked for his authority, the writer frankly acknowledged that he had none; but declined to delete the statement, because, as he thought, it helped to lighten an article which was too technical to be generally interesting! Thus it is that history is falsified and good men slandered.

Mathieson and Stanley opposed what Mathieson referred to as grim Sabbatarianism. To recast Knox to their point of view, they distort one historical account, the supper with Randolph, and overstate the verity of the bowling story, which the secondary source (Hessey) and the original source (Disraeli) clearly portrayed as hearsay, though they certainly did not treat it as such.

Isaac Disraeli

As noted, Isaac Disraeli receives the credit (or blame) for bringing this doubtful tale into anti-Sabbatarian literature. The following is Disraeli’s comment in context:41

Calvin deemed the Sabbath to have been a Jewish ordinance, limited to that sacred people with their other ceremonial laws, and only typical of the spiritual repose of the advent of Christ, which abolished the grosser, rejected its rigours, and reproaches those whose Sabbatical superstitions were carnal and gross as the Jewish.42 At Geneva a tradition exists, that when John Knox visited Calvin on a Sunday, he found his austere coadjutor bowling on a green. At this day, and in that place, a Calvinist preacher after his Sunday sermon will take his seat at the card-table. Some of our early Puritans who had taken refuge in Holland, after ten years in vain pressing for the observance of the Sabbatic Sunday, resolved to leave the country where they had been kindly received and went “to the ends of earth” among the wildernesses of America, to observe “the Lord’s day” with the Jewish rigours.43 When Laud was charged on his trial for the revival of the Book of Sports allowed on that day, he thought it prudent to deny that he had been the suggester; he however professed his judgment in its favour, alleging the practice of their own favourite church of Geneva.44

It may surprise us that two of the great friends of Calvin, closely connected with him, and with his system, should have espoused a very opposite doctrine. Knox in Scotland after Sunday having been for 1554 years classed among the festival days, both in the Greek and the Latin churches, as the Anti-sabbatarians maintain, Knox no longer calling this day the Lord’s-day, but taking some Jew for its godfather, named it the Sabbath, and thus disguised its nature and custom..45 Knox acquired many advocates in England. Whittingham the Puritan Dean of Durham, who had resided at Geneva … likewise differed with his brother, and on his return home appears to have had his mind imbued with a full portion of the spirit of his Scottish friend. This redoubtable Puritan evinced his zeal by defacing the antique monuments in Durham Cathedral, and converting the stone coffins of the Priors of Durham into horse-troughs. Whittingham was a rigid Sabbatarian…

No unbiased historian here! Disraeli’s work is firmly anti-Puritan, anti-Calvin, anti-Presbyterian and outspokenly anti-Sabbatarian. The author has three chapters on the Sabbath controversy in the third volume of his work.46 Disraeli’s distaste for Calvin and his “horrible theology” is exhibited in footnote 7. His anti-Calvinism is displayed fully in an earlier chapter, Critical History of the Puritans: Of the Political Character of Calvin.47

Disraeli’s vehemence exceeds, if possible, that of the prelatical polemicist Peter Heylyn (see below), who seems to be his teacher in these things, as the vitriol they pour forth is very similar. In any event, he clearly states that the bowling tale is a local tradition. However, as others do after him, Disraeli failed to consider the Deuteronomy sermons, and uses this ‘local legend’ to bolster his anti-Sabbatarian sentiments. Thus the “bowling anecdote” had a less than auspicious entrance into the Sabbath literature.48

Gilfillan and Cox

Some forty years before Mathieson and Hay Fleming wrote, two other men took sides on this issue of supposed lax Sabbath observance on the part of Knox and Calvin (and the Reformers in general). James Gilfillan and Robert Cox both wrote detailed surveys of the literature on the Sabbath controversy. Gilfillan’s The Sabbath viewed in the light of Reason, Revelation, and History, with Sketches of its Literature (New York, [1862]), argued that the Reformers had a more strict practice than was commonly noted. Cox took the opposite view in his The Literature of the Sabbath Question (Edinburgh, 1865, 2 vols). These two surveys are very commonly cited in Sabbath and anti-Sabbath literature. Cox had previously written, The Whole Doctrine of Calvin about the Sabbath (Edinburgh, 1860) and Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties considered in relation to their natural and scriptural grounds, and to the principles of religious liberty (Edinburgh, 1853).

The title of Cox’s first work, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, is a bit misleading. It is really a short article with some very long appendices. The article is titled “A Plea for Sunday Trains on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.” Cox was a shareholder in this railway and acted as secretary for a group of Scottish and English shareholders who petitioned the company to follow other railroads in opening on Sundays.. He was an anti-Sabbatarian in his views, and believed in a broad religious toleration.49

In his Whole Doctrine Cox compiled all the statements pertinent to Calvin’s view on the Sabbath question from his Commentaries, Institutes and Genevan Catechism. Surely, it must have been of some embarrassment to Cox, after titling this book, The Whole Doctrine of Calvin about the Sabbath, to find (supposedly via Gilfillan’s book50 ) that he had made a serious omission in not including quotations from the Deuteronomy sermons. He tried to correct this oversight in his later book surveying the literature, but chose rather to complain that Gilfillan should have said the sermons were published after Calvin’s death,51 than admit to the significance of the oversight.52

Cox was decidedly partial in his reading of Calvin’s statements in these sermons. In the appendix to volume one of his Literature of the Sabbath Question, he reproduces a “characteristic passage” from the 34th sermon (since the sermons were so rare). He quotes Calvin “… we must consider (as I said afore) how our Lord requires to have this day bestowed in nothing else but in hearing of his Word, in making common prayer, in making confession of our faith, and in having the use of the sacraments.” Cox not only refused to own the seriousness of his missing the sermons the first time around, he clearly was unwilling to grant the significance of these statements, particularly the phrase “in nothing else.” Indeed he is willing to overlook (evidently as uncharacteristic) the significant citation by Gilfillan which occurred a few pages earlier (see footnote 13), and apparently was unwilling to confront the implications it held for his view of Calvin.

A careful analysis and refutation of Cox’s work is way beyond the scope of this article. But more to the point at hand, it is significant to this survey that neither Cox nor Gilfillan mention the bowling anecdote. This may have been because they would not give cognizance to something so unsubstantiated.53 Cox does chide those who ignorantly repeated another statement by Disraeli,54 as he was strongly in disagreement with the idea that Knox was the father of the Puritan Sabbath, and he makes as much as Mathieson did of Knox’s supper party with Randolph.55

While there is related literature that is of some interest to examine, the only other reference to directly link Calvin to lawn bowling on the Lord’s day prior to Disraeli, appears at the time of the Westminster Assembly. Except for one work noticed below, the entire 18th century is passed over.

 

3. The 17th Century –Searching for earlier references.

As was said previously, it appears the anecdote dates from an earlier time than it first appears in print in the English literature. The earliest apparent reference to the tale may be in the Notes of Debates and Proceedings of The Assembly of Divines and Other Commissioners at Westminster, by George Gillespie.56 Recorded there are Gillespie’s notes of “Debates in the Sub-Committee Respecting the Directory” [of Worship]. Halfway under the notes for June 5, 1644, in a discussion of qualifications for admittance to the Lord’s Supper, Gillespie writes:

For qualification of those that are to be admitted [to the Lord’s Table], because there was nothing positively concerning their conversation, it was added, That they shall be of an approved conversation [i.e. manner of life.].

Mr. Goodwin objected, Moral Christians have all that is here expressed, and that there ought [to be] somewhat more, which may be judged grace in the judgment of charity; and that he thinks the ordinance more profaned heretofore by persons than it hath been by all the superstitious; that a man is to be judged, according to his inward principle professed, rather than by any outward duty, else one should call in question whether Calvin were a godly man, because he played at the bowls on the Lord’s day; that the word gives us rules to judge, not only of ourselves, but of others.

He offered this clause, That they be such as profess a work of faith and regeneration.

I said, Many presumptuous sinners will profess this, and many weak believers will not profess it, and that it seems he hath no doubting Christians in his congregation.

Mr. Henderson offered this, That they be such as are conceived, in the judgment of charity, to be walking in the way of Christ.

Then he and Mr. Marshall offered thus, And who give just ground, in the judgment of charity, to conceive that there is wrought in them the work of faith and regeneration.

The particular discussion is not important to the scope of this article (the difference between the Independents and Presbyterians about basing church membership upon regeneration seemingly spilling over into this question on qualifications for coming to the Lord’s Table). As for the comment on Calvin, all that really can be said is that Goodwin may be building an argument upon the supposition that the story is true. But did he believe the tale to be true? Did he intend it as a real example or a fictitious one? Is this evidence of a strong oral tradition for the tale at this date? Who can say for sure? Unfortunately, Gillespie doesn’t make any comment on the tale, but sticks to briefly recording the main points in discussion. Note the tale does not include Knox, so it is not even clear if this is the same story. It may really be the case that Goodwin is making a sarcastic reference to the claims by Laud and others at the time, that they were merely following the alleged general practice of Geneva in allowing recreations on the Lord’s day. It is a very interesting coincidence that on June 11th, a few days following this subcommittee meeting, Laud utters just such a justification in the session of his trial that took place on that day.57

One may be tempted to posit that this could be the source for the tale. However, these minutes long remained in manuscript, and were not published until 1846, two hundred years after the fact. And this writer has found no reference to Goodwin’s comment in what little in print there is of this controversy. As was said earlier, it appears to be the case, that aside from Goodwin’s questionable reference, the tale did not enter into print until the 19th century via Disraeli. However, to try and verify this, other literature needs to be surveyed.

Sabbath Literature and Geography books

Pouring over every 17th century title would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, and would be a questionable use of one’s time. However, limiting the search to two types of literature provided the best chance of uncovering any reference, or pertinent material related to this tale. This does not rule out the possibility the tale is repeated in other literature, but silence in these two groupings would be rather significant. The two types of literature are: 1. Books regarding the Sabbath. 2. Geographies of the period that discuss Geneva.

1. The Sabbath controversy exploded into the English literature in the late 16th century with the publication of Nicholas Bownd’s works. 58 It is true the “Puritan” view had earlier proponents,59 but Bownd’s book proved to be the landmark work, and most historians pinpoint the beginning of the “Sabbath controversies” in England with him. A minute and exhaustive review of the Puritan Sabbath literature would expand the length and work required for this article beyond reason. As it is, none of the major early works in favor of the Sabbath mention the bowling anecdote.60 Additionally, it is not mentioned in any of the Sabbatarian books following the lifting of the press ban that began with the reissue of the Books of Sports.61 However, lest a Sabbatarian book was missed here or there, it is not as critical to search every one of these, as the likelihood of the tale being mentioned is greater in the anti-Sabbath literature. Of particular interest among the anti-Sabbatarian works are those published between 1633 and 1640, as they ostensibly are a defense of the Second Book of Sports. Significantly, none of the anti-Sabbatarian books printed between 1605 and 1667, mention the tale, including this important group.62

Generally the focus of the Sabbath controversy in the latter half of the 17th century shifted away from the strictness of observance, to the day of observance. With the Saturday Sabbath writers coming more into prominence, the likelihood of the tale receiving notice diminishes.63

Peter Heylyn and the Practice of Geneva

2. While the bowling tale is not mentioned in any of the works surveyed, one author defended Sabbath recreations by appealing to the general practice of Geneva. Peter Heylyn, a defender of the Book of Sports, does this in his preface to Prideaux’s The Doctrine of the Sabbath, and in his own work, History of the Sabbath. He also repeats it in his two geography books, and in his History of the Presbyterians.64 In the preface to Prideaux he says:

Even in Geneva itself, according as it is related in the enlargement of Boterus by Robert Johnson, All honest exercises, shooting in pieces, long bows, crossbows, etc. are used on the Sabbath day and that both in the morning before and after sermon: neither do ministers find fault therewith, so that they hinder not from hearing of the word at the time appointed.65

The source of Heylyn’s comment about crossbows and shooting on the Lord’s day is from a geography of the late 16th century by Giovanni Botero (translated by Robert Johnson, who added material, including that covering Geneva). The comment by Johnson is:66

The town is very well peopled, especially with women; insomuch as they commonly say, that there are three women for one man, yielding this for a reason, that the wars have consumed their men, they reckon some 16,000 of all sorts….

All honest exercises, as shooting pieces, crossbows, longbows, etc. are used on the Sabbath day, and that in the morning both before and after the sermon, neither do the ministers find any fault therewith, so that they hinder not from hearing the word at the appointed time.

Other geographies of the time do not mention this, but do point out, as does Johnson, the constant danger Geneva faced from her enemies.67 Geneva survived some serious attacks, the most famous of which occurred in 1602. An attack that began on Saturday night and Sunday morning was successfully turned back, and the captured enemy were executed that Sunday afternoon. Geneva still celebrates this victory, the Escalade, as a major holiday. Duval in his geography remarks that “Geneva is the best fortified city of all [those in the area], keeping a very exact guard for the preservation of their liberty and that of religion which is reformed.”68 Clarke relates that the citizens of Geneva successfully repulsed an attack by quickly getting to their arms, and remarks, and “this hot Camiscado hath made them of Geneva stay better upon their guard ever since.”69

As indicated above, Peter Heylyn also authored two geographies, where he again repeated the claim by Johnson.70 He writes: “They allow in this city all manner of honest recreations upon Sundays.”71 “In respect hereof though the ministers are very strict in forbidding dancing, and have writ many tracts against it; yet to give some content to the common people (who have not leisure to attend it at other times) they allow all manlike exercises on the Lord’s day, as shooting in pieces, long bows, crossbows, and the like, and that too in the morning both before and after sermon; so it be no impediment to them from coming to the church at the times appointed.”72

Much like Disraeli, Heylyn wears his bias openly, and the characterization in his geography of the discipline and practice of Geneva is outrageous.73The Archbishop of Armaugh, James Ussher no less, had this heavy criticism of his geography:74

… but that either that the Articles of Ireland were ever called in, or any articles or canons at all were ever here confirmed by Act of Parliament may well be reckoned among Dr. Hylin’s fancies which show what little credit he deserves in his Geography, when he brings us news of the remote parts of the world, that tells us so many untruths of things so lately, and so publicly acted in his neighbor nation.

Much later, Andrew Le Mercier, pastor of the French church in Boston in his account of Geneva, writes regarding Heylyn:75

I do not wonder at all that popish writers, when they treat of Geneva, are very partial and invent a multitude of falsehoods and absurdities; because they hate its religion … On the other hand I cannot but wonder that some Protestant English writers have writ with so much passion, ignorance and partiality against the church and the place, when in their geopraphie books they have mentioned it, as when a certain author, dead long ago, saith, that the people expelled the Bishop: and gives to understand, that they are hypocrites, when he says that their discipline is the fruit of faction …

Le Mercier wrote in 1732, and according to his preface, relied on Spon’s geography.76 But he had also been to Geneva earlier in his life. He does not mention the bowling anecdote, but affirms: “I have been more particular in this description because I think that it is a shame not to know the whole of a small thing; and that it may please some persons who can never find such circumstances in other books. I must add, that the peasants are trained upon the Sabbath day, which I leave the Reader to judge whether it be a laudable practice.”77

Heylyn Answered

Heylyn drew the attention of many of the Puritan authors who chose to write on the Sabbath after the freedom of the press was restored. In answer to his appeal to the practice of Geneva for Lord’s day recreation, it was objected that it was very unseemly to plead the example of Geneva when they themselves saw the evil of such, since at the Synod of Dort such recreations were condemned.78 Twisse believed Heylyn drew an unwarranted implication from the list of activities reported by Johnson,79 and thought the activities mentioned were no more than might be pleaded as necessary for the defense of a city that was in constant peril.80 The report that Twisse had was that only the youth practiced shooting in the evening, and no more.

Twisse’s report brings out the partisan nature in the accounts regarding the practice of Geneva. A difficulty for the prelates, who depended upon Heylyn’s account from Johnson, is that it is obvious that Geneva’s practice did not remain static. The practice of the city apparently changed greatly between the time of Johnson’s report, through the early 17th century via Dort, to the time of Twisse around 1640.

In addition to these faults found in Heylyn, the Puritans also appealed to Calvin’s views in response to the alleged practice of Geneva. Twisse found it difficult to believe Heylyn’s report, writing:

And I have cause to come but slowly to the believing hereof, because it is Calvin’s doctrine concerning the Sabbath, that albeit under the gospel we are not bound to so rigorous a rest as the Jews were, yet that still we are obliged to abstain from all other works, as they are Avocamenta à sacris studiis & meditationibus, Avocations from holy studies and meditations; and their ministers, I should think do not well if they fail to mind them hereof, unless both they and the people are fallen from Calvin’s doctrine in this point, in which case I see no just cause why any should choke us therewith, but give us as much liberty to dissent from him in the doctrine of the Sabbath, as they of Geneva take unto themselves.81

George Hakewill,82 explicitly brings Calvin’s Deuteronomy sermons into the argument against recreations on the Lord’s day:

Some reformed Churches in other parts may perchance give way to the use of them on the Lord’s day, which in them is somewhat the more excusable, because they have none other holy days, though for my own part I think it better if they had, yet that the very same Pastors of those churches who admitted or connived at the use of such manlike exercises, as severely cried down effeminate sports on that day, let one speak for all: “If we employ the Sunday,” says Calvin, “to make good cheer, to sport ourselves, to go to games and pastimes, shall God in this be honored, is it not a mockery? Is this an unhallowing of his Name?” [In Deut. 5, Sermon 34).83

Richard Baxter

Of all the Puritan authors answering Heylyn, Richard Baxter appears to assume the most fault to Calvin for supposedly allowing others to do more on the Lord’s day than he should have. However, he provides no references to any statements by Calvin to substantiate this,84 and more to the point, there seems an implicit denial that Calvin himself had a more lax observance of the Lord’s day:

Obj: But by all this you seem to cast a great reproach on Calvin, Beza, and most of the great divines of the foreign churches, who have not been so strict for the observation of the Lord’s day.

Answ. Let these things be observed by the impartial reader. 1. It cannot be proved to be most of them, that were so faulty herein as the objection intimates. Many of them have written much for the holy spending of the day. 2. It must be noted, that it is a superstitious ceremonious sabbatizin