200 YEARS OF SABBATH KEEPING IN AUSTRALIA A paper presented by Bruce Dean, Pastor, United Church of God, at the Friends of the Sabbath Conference held in Sydney, 5–8 July 1996. Contents Our Beginnings ..................................................................................... 2 The Jews................................................................................................ 2 The Seventh-Day Adventists ................................................................ 3 The Remnant Church of God................................................................ 5 The Worldwide Church of God ............................................................ 5 The Church of God (Seventh Day)....................................................... 6 The Churches of God............................................................................ 6 Seventh Day Baptists............................................................................ 6 Personal Experience.............................................................................. 7 Hebrews 12: 1–2 ................................................................................... 8 Extra Information?................................................................................ 8 2 200 Years of Sabbath Keeping in Australia My aim is to outline the history of sabbath The Jews keeping in Australia. My personal history is very Australian: my family came out from There were at least eight and possibly fourteen England early in the 1800’s; we were at the Jews on the First Fleet. Indeed, Jews continued Eureka stockade, my grandfather was shot at to arrive on every convict ship until transporta- Gallipoli, and my father served in New Guinea tion was stopped on the east coast in 1840. during WWII. Between 1790 and 1850 Britain experienced an influx of continental Jews who proved unable to Our Beginnings increase their material position. Jewish law prohibited them from working on the Sabbath, From Britain and Scotland we have much mate- and hence they were excluded from accepting rial on the history of sabbath keeping, and on positions as servants or factory workers, or tak- how it moved across the Atlantic to the settle- ing up trade apprenticeships. Many became ments in Rhode Island and thence into different criminals out of their desperate need to put food groups and parts of America. on the table. Australia’s history is not as religious in com- The majority of Jewish convicts were trans- plexion as that of America, nor for that matter ported for theft or pickpocketing, and hardly as that of our neighbours in New Zealand. We any at all for crimes of violence. During the need to remember also that in Australia religion convict era more than 1,000 Jews came to is very personal matter. There has been since Australia. the First Fleet great cynicism towards organised religion. For these reasons data on Australian All convicts, regardless of their denomination, religious history is sketchy and difficult to find. were forced by the Governor’s ordinance to at- tend services of the Church of England. Every Settlement of Australia began in 1783 by cour- Sunday morning they were assembled and tesy of the transportation system under which marched off to church. Failure to attend resulted convicted criminals were punished by being in immediate and often harsh punishment. sent to overseas territories either for life or a Colonial punishment registers note many flog- shorter term. (Transportation was finally abol- gings inflicted on Jewish convicts (and others) ished in 1857.) Sir Joseph Banks had travelled for failure to attend services. with Cook on his journey to Australia in 1770, and after the loss of the American colonies it The convicts resented this treatment of course, was he who recommended Australia as a penal and the first church in the colony was no sooner settlement. built than the convicts burnt it to the ground! The First Fleet consisted of three store ships, six In 1810 Samuel Marsden described to the convict transports, an armed tender and a London Society for the Propagation of the flagship. It carried 1,473 people under Captain Gospel how “Roman Catholics and Jews and Arthur Phillip including 778 prisoners, 192 of persons of all persuasions send their children to them women, and other ranks with 30 wives public schools where they all are instructed in and 12 children. It arrived in Port Jackson in the principles of our established religion.” January 1788. In June 1790 the Second Fleet arrived with 1,000 convicts ,and the Third Fleet By 1820 a few hundred Jewish convicts had ar- arrived in 1791 with 1,900 convicts. rived in NSW. Their children were brought up as Anglicans as the colonial government was opposed to encouraging religious diversity. In spite of their comparatively large numbers, the introduction of regular Jewish services and 3 200 Years of Sabbath Keeping in Australia other aspects of communal life had to wait until Till time shall have an end the arrival in the 1820’s of free Jewish settlers When Jesus calls my dust shall rise from England. When the last trumpet sound The Holy Brotherhood was formed in 1820 to With millions more ascend the skies bury the dead. There were some sporadic By angels guarded round. Jewish services held in private homes around this time. In 1828 Abraham Polack, a Jewish We do not know who had this written, whether emancipist, wrote to Governor Sir Ralph it was Flowers, a chaplain or a family member, Darling requesting a place of worship in but it is evident that the knowledge of the return Elizabeth Street “wherein divine service can be of Jesus to the earth was understood. celebrated because the Jews are the only denomination who at present are without it.” The Southern Australian of June 23, 1842 car- Governor Darling refused. ried a reported of a Millerite camp meeting in New York state attended by 6,000 people. It In 1828 Phillip Joseph Cohen was authorised by also reported their belief in the End coming the British Chief Rabbi to perform marriages, between 21 March 1843 and 21 March 1844. and he began regular Sabbath services at his home in George Street. The Jewish community In 1844 Pastors Jacob Abbott and Thomas grew in numbers and by 1830 they needed to Playford were teaching the Second Advent. hire rooms for services. The first minister, Rabbi Rose, arrived in 1835. What about the Sabbath? A major change came in 1836 with the passage Before 1885 the sole voice was Alexander of Sir Richard Bourke’s Church Act which ac- Dickson who had earlier left Melbourne with knowledged the existence of Christian denomi- Miss Hannah More, an American missionary nations other than Church of England. Under teacher who had toiled in Sierra Leone. During this Act all Christian sects were entitled to re- her holidays in America she was given a copy ceive government assistance for the purchase of of Pastor John Andrew’s History of the Sabbath land, construction of church buildings and the and other literature. She shared it with employment of clergy. The Jewish community Alexander Dickson. opened a synagogue in 1844. In 1864 she wrote to the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald: “Thank God I now see clearly The Seventh-Day Adventists that the seventh-day is the Sabbath of the Lord The concept of the return of Christ to the earth my God and am keeping it according to the seems to go right back to early stages of belief commandment. Mr Dickson also is keeping in Australia. Chiselled into a Van Diemen’s it.… I do not know of any others on the coast Land tombstone are these words: who keep the seventh day.… Your people may now consider that you have a wholehearted Sacred To the memory of Seventh Day Adventist here, waiting with you Robert Flowers for that blessed appearing of Him whom we Late Private of H. M. 96 Reg love and adore and purpose to worship ever- more.” died July 12, 1845 Aged 36 years More returned to America while Dickson re- turned to Melbourne. While not a baptised I left my nation and my home member of the Adventist movement, he en- My country to defend deavoured to persuade contacts in Melbourne of I here shall lay till the last day his new-found Sabbath convictions. He spent a 4 200 Years of Sabbath Keeping in Australia portion of his considerable wealth on tracts for “As soon as a few persons had become inter- his evangelism. Interest was aroused and some ested in the truth by Bible readings and personal people did accept Saturday as the Sabbath, but labour, we met with the most bitter opposition later abandoned their stand. from ministers, people and the press.… One Lutheran preacher advertised quite extensively In 1884 Stephen Haskell, the California Tract that he would expose Adventism by giving the Society President and his secretary, Miss Anna history of its rise and what the object of these Ingels, arranged for Signs of the Times to be men was in coming from America. Ministers posted to names selected randomly from colo- from various denominations seemed to take nial directories. Mrs Sarah Adair of Melbourne pride in ‘exposing’ those Adventists who came was one of those selected, who later became a from America. One threatened to discipline any church member, as was Mr John Henry member of his church who permitted one of us Stockton, one of the first to worship with the to enter his house. He said we had no business pioneer missionary party of Seventh-Day to enter their houses unless we first consulted Adventists. him.” It is interesting how things haven’t changed They had little success. On one occasion out of much over the years: we will learn soon how sheer frustration Pastor Corliss spiked a tract the truth of the Sabbath 70 years later was onto an iron railing fence. It was found by a Mr mailed out from California. Miller, a printer, whose interest was aroused by the subject of the tract, entitled “Which Day Do The teaching of the Sabbath as the Biblical Day You keep, and Why?” of rest and rejuvenation and a command of God began to flourish in Australia after Adventists in These two gentlemen and the pastors decided to America sent the first official party to Australia hold a public debate on the matter at a Mutual in 1885.