Puritan Sabbatarianism

[7] The Genevan Consistory during the time of Calvin regularly interviewed people for working or engaging in recreation considered inappropriate for spiritual refreshment such as hunting, dancing, banqueting, playing tennis or billiards, or bowling skittles on Sundays.

[1] Sunday Sabbatarianism as jure divino or divinely ordained command, in contrast to non-Sabbatarian and antinomian reliance on Christian liberty, thus was a closely linked development to the regulative principle amongst English Protestants over the 17th century.

[8] Puritan Sabbatarianism is enshrined in its most mature expression, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), in the Calvinist theological tradition (Chapter 21, Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day, sections 7–8):[10] 7.

The enforcement of Sunday laws gave rise to substantial church-state debates as well as minority-rights movements fueled by the resistance of Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, Catholics, and other religious minorities.

[16] In 1671, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, codified the following law with respect to the Sunday Sabbath in its charter:[17] That whosoever shall profane the Lords-day, by doing unnecessary servile work, by unnecessary travailing, or by sports and recreations, he or they that so transgress, shall forfeit for every such default forty shillings, or be publickly whipt: But if it clearly appear that the sin was profoundly, Presumptuously and with a high hand committed, against the known Command and Authority of the blessed God, such a person therein despising and reproaching the Lord, shall be put to death or grievously punished at the Judgement of the Court.