From the publication of Thomas Fuller's Church History of Britain in 1655 to the present, studies of Sabbatarianism have treated this doctrine as an important and controversial issue in the post-Reformation period. These studies portray Sabbatarianism as a puritan innovation, which that party introduced in an effort to reform the Church from below, having failed to convert the English Church to presbyterianism. This doctrinal ‘novelty’ is thought to have created a division between Church authorities and puritans by the end of Elizabeth's reign. By denying the importance of ancient or medieval precedents for ‘puritan’ Sabbatarianism and highlighting selected events in the Elizabethan and early Stuart period, these studies have provided a convincing account of ‘puritan’ doctrinal innovation and agitation for sabbatarian reforms.

When the outlines of these studies are compared, one cannot help noting that they draw their points of reference from the Laudian partisan, Peter Heylyn, in his History of the Sabbath, published in 1636. However, this Laudian summary of Sabbatarian developments in Elizabethan and Stuart England does not take into account much evidence that suggests a very different story.