Now there was a measure and certain number of holy days, which were distinguished, and very wisely ordered: first into seven-nights4, whereof every one had in it one sabbath, that was the seventh day: then into months; for the first day of every month was holy to the Lord, and was called the feast of the new moon: and lastly, they were divided into yearly feasts, which returned once every year at an appointed season: of that sort of feasts there were three in number, the passover, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles. Besides these, there were also other made holy days, which God had not commanded, but were received by the church
[[ septimanas, Lat.]; [6 vel calendas, Lat.] [6 The Latin is, et septimi mensis; and (the feast) of the seventh]
[month. ] 11 [BULLINGER, 11.]]
to the glory of God and remembrance of his great benefits. For the feast of lots, which they called Purim, and was brought in by Mardocheus, was received of all the church, as is to be seen in the ninth of Esther. The feast of dedication was ordained by Judas Maccabeus, with the consent of all the church, in memory that the temple was restored and the people delivered from the tyranny of king Antiochus, as is to be read in the fourth chapter of the first book of Mac-
39. cabees: and Christ our Lord did honour that feast of dedication with an holy sermon. Moreover, there were solemn fastings appointed to be kept among the people of God: as in the fifth month, wherein the city was set on fire; in the seventh month, wherein Godolias was slain; and in the tenth month, wherein Hierusalem was besieged: of which fastings the prophet Zachary speaketh in his seventh and eighth 20 chapters: and in the time of Esther a fast was ordained in the month Adar, for a remembrance of the calamity which was wrought, or rather purposed, against the Jews by the wicked Aman.
Of the sabbath, and the signification thereof, I spake a little above, and in another place also, where I expounded the ten commandments!. The sabbath was observed by a natural? and divine law ever from the first creation of the world, and is the chief of all other holy days. For it was not then first ordained by Moses, when the ten commandments were given by God from heaven: for the keeping of the sabbath was received of the saints immediately from the beginning of the world. And therefore we read that the Lord in the commandments did say: “Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath-day.” And before the law was given, there is evident mention made of the sabbath in the sixteenth of Exodus, and the second of Genesis.
The second kind of holy days was the new moons, which were solemnized in the beginning of every month, Mention is made of them in the x. and xxviii. chapters of the book of Numbers, 1 Samuel xx., Psalm Ixxxi., Ezekiel xlvi., and 2 Chronicles ii. That solemnization is reported to have been
[1 See Vol. 1. Dec. 2. Serm. 1v.] [2 quasi naturali, Lat.] [8 a sanctis, Lat. ] [4 Secundum genus Sabbati sive feriarum sunt calendz vel neo-]
[meniz, id est novilunia. Lat. ]]
ordained in remembrance of the light created; to admonish the people not to ascribe the months to Janus or Mars, or any other planet, but to the one and holy God, the maker, governor, and ruler of all things and seasons. Moreover, it was a sign of the reparation or renewing of faithful minds by the heavenly illumination: that we Christians may truly and in deed solemnize the new moon, when, being brought forth of darkness into light by the Son of God, we walk as becometh the children of light, and reject the works of the devil and darkness.
The third kind of holy days doth contain the feasts that return once every year; of which I find to be three: the passover, the pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles”. Now the Lord’s will was, that in these three feasts there should be general assemblies and solemn meetings in the holy place, to wit, at the tabernacle, and, after the tabernacle, at Salomon’s temple. For thus saith Moses in Deuteronomy: “Thrice in the year shall every male appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he hath chosen; that is, in the feast of sweet bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: neither shall he appear empty in the sight of the Lord; every one according to the gift of his hand and according to the blessing of the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee:” that is to say, every man shall offer to the Lord according as he can, and according to the measure of riches which the Lord hath given him. Now those three solemn feasts were divided into three several months, most apt to journey and to travel in. In the spring time was the passover holden, when first the corn began to spindle? or turn into ears. About harvest, when the first work belonging to husbandry was done and finished, they kept the feast of pentecost. And lastly, when all their fruits were in, they went up to the feast of tabernacles. And so many went to it as possibly could go. Some are of opinion, that they, which had once in the year appeared before the Lord, were dispensed withal, and might lawfully tarry at home at the other two feast-times. But I think verily that religious men did
[6 divo vel, Lat.; god or.] - [6 soli, Lat.; only, ed. 1577.] [7 festum mensis septimi, Lat.; the feast of the seventh month. ] So the marg. of Auth. Ver.]]
[4 [9 to shoot into a long small stalk, Johnson’s Dict.] 1 11---9]
seldom times use such dispensations. The Lord in one place promiseth that he will defend and keep the bounds and substance of them that travel to seek his name. Howsoever those dispensations were admitted, yet this is most sure, as appeareth by all histories, that at those feasts were very great assemblies’.
Now the feast of passover was called by many names? but especially it was termed the feast of sweet, or unleavened, bread: for by the space of seven whole days they fed upon unleavened bread. The ceremonies of that feast, with the sacrifices that were to be offered thereat, are at large described in the twelfth of Exodus, and twenty-third of Leviticus. In that feast was eaten the paschal lamb, in no other place but at the tabernacle, or afterward at the temple, Deut. xvi., for a remembrance of that notable deliverance of Israel and all the faithful out of the Egyptian servitude and slavery. In that feast God would have the first-fruits of their land offered unto him, in token of the manna wherewith he fed their fathers. Moreover, that feast did signify that passing over and delivering of the faithful, which in the shedding of of blood was accomplished by Christ. Whereupon the apostle said, Christ our passover is offered up.” 1 Cor. v. But of the passover I will speak more in my next sermon. ὦ The pentecost was also called the feast of weeks, and new “corn; for at that feast was set forth shew-bread made of the new year’s corn. They reckoned from the next day after the passover seven weeks, that is, fifty days; and upon the fiftieth day they did celebrate the memory of the law of God, revealed and given by God himself from heaven unto his people Israel. For the fiftieth day of their departure out of Egypt we read that the Lord himself spake to them at the mount Sinai, and gave to them the law of the ten commandments: so that the pentecost was a memorial, that, as then, the church was illuminated with the very word of God. And that old pentecost was a figure of the day wherein Christ the Lord, being the end of the law, did send the Holy Ghost upon his disciples, and did illuminate his spouse the church? [ conciones fuisse longe frequentissimas, Lat.]
[2 See below, page 182.];
[83 two loaves, Levit. xxiii. 16, 17.]
[6 universam ecclesiam, Lat.—his spouse, not in Lat.]
me EE a a - ΧΟ͂Ν - ” - v.] THE CEREMONIAL LAWS OF GOD. 165 The ceremonies belonging to this feast are expressed by Moses in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus.
They kept the feast of tabernacles in the seventh month, as Moses commanded in Deuteronomy, saying: When thou hast gathered in the crop of thy land and vineyards, then shalt thou keep the feast of tabernacles by the space of seven days: and thou shalt be merry in thy holy day, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy manservant, and thy maidservant, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. Seven days shalt thou keep holy unto the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord hath chosen to himself; because the Lord thy God hath given thee happy success in all thy fruits, and in all the work of thy hands. See therefore that thou rejoice.” Moreover, the manner of this feast, solemnly celebrated, is to be read in the eighth chapter of Nehemias, where, whosoever looketh, he shall find it described at the full.
Now this feast of tabernacles of the seventh month was divided into four solemnities. For the first day of the month was the feast of trumpets, or sounding of trumpets; which was a memorial of those troublesome wars, which the people did happily achieve, by the help and aid of God, against the Amalekites?, and all other their heathen enemies. And by that feast was signified, that the whole life of man upon the earth is a continual warfare.
Upon the tenth day of the same month was held the feast of cleansing. In that feast the priest, in a solemn form of
[words, began to confess aloud the people’s sins; and every]
[man, quietly following in the same words, did recite them pri-]
[vately to himself, and in his mind did quietly speak unto the]
[Lord?. To those confessions was added the ceremony used]
[with the scape-goat, and the sacrifice, which is at large set]
[down in the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus. And so were [6 de area tua et de torculari tuo, Lat. and Marg. of Auth. Ver.;]
[thy floor and thy winepress.] [6 Bullinger here recounts the chief religious anniversaries of the]
[seventh month, Tisri, in which also the feast of tabernacles occurred:]
[coherent enim inter se festa quatuor, as he says in his Comment. in]
[Joan. Lib. 1v. fol. 78. Tigur. 1556.) [7 primo quidem, Lat.; in the first instance.] [8 deinde vero, Lat.; and afterwards. ] [9 Levit. xvi. 21. See Lightfoot’s Temple Service, chap. xv.]]
the sins of the people cleansed: which was a type of the cleansing that should be through Christ; who, being once offered, did with the only sacrifice of his body take away the sins of all the world. It did also contain the doctrine of true repentance. of Upon the fifteenth day began the feast of tabernacles. For by the space of seven whole days, that is, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second, the people dwelt in tabernacles. The end of this ceremony the scripture doth declare to be, that the posterity should know that the Lord did place their forefathers in tabernacles: whereby they were put in mind of the good that he did to them while they were in the wilderness. For they were kept forty years in the wilderness, so that they lacked neither victuals nor clothing. And by that feast we are warned that the life of this world is but as a stage, and that we have no abiding place to stay for ever, but are still looking for the world to come; as the apostle Paul taught us, 2 Cor. v., Heb. xiii.
The fourth feast of this month was held upon the twentysecond day, and was called the congregation, or assembly. Upon that day was gathered the offering and stipend given to the ministry, for reparations of the temple, for the cost of sacrifices, and maintenance of the ministry!. It is thought that in that feast was sung the eighty-fourth Psalm: “How pleasant are thy tabernacles,” &ec., and certain other Psalms called Torculares Psalmi, which they did use. Thus much hitherto concerning the feasts that fall out once in every year. of Here also I think it necessary to make mention of the year of jubilee. Now this year of jubilee was every fiftieth as it fell by course, which is at large described, with all the ceremonies belonging thereunto, in the twenty-fifth of Leviticus. It was declared to all the people in the land of promise by the sound of a trumpet made of a ram’s horn, with a proclamation of freedom to all them that were wrapped in servitude or bondage.
In that jubilee was contained very evidently the mystery
[[ For this statement Bullinger refers, in his Comment. in Joan,]
[Lib. 1v. fol. 78, to Lev. xxiii. and Numb. xxix. ] [2 Psal. viii., Lxxx., and Lxxxiii., as they are numbered in the Vul-]
[gate, bear the title, Pro torcularibus, for the presses (Douay Bible):]
[the title in our Auth. Ver. is upon Gittith.]]
of Christ our Lord, who declared to us the meaning of that ceremony out of the sixty-first chapter of the prophecy of Esay, in St Luke’s Gospel, chap. iv., where he saith, that he is he that doth indeed proclaim the jubilee, the true freedom and acceptable year of the Lord. Now he hath pronounced remission and freedom to all the faithful, not with a trumpet made of a ram’s horn, but with the gospel. For by the mercy of God in the merit of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, all debts or sins are forgiven to all the faithful that live upon the face of all the earth, upon condition that we, whose sins are forgiven, should likewise forgive the trespasses of them that offend us. And in Christ, verily, we have? the true and everlasting rest, that shall never fail us. By Christ we have return granted us to our possession or country? from whence we were fallen, that is, to heaven, the place of the faithful.
Thus much have I said of the holy time or holy days, as briefly as possibly I could. The rest is at the full to be seen in the twenty-third of Exodus, Levit. xxiii.,, Numb. xxviii. and xxix., Deut. xvi. That which is behind touching this argument (I mean, touching the Jewish ceremonies) I will by God’s leave make an end of in the next sermon. Now let us make our humble prayers and supplications unto God, ἕο. OF THE SACRAMENTS OF THE JEWS; OF THEIR SUNDRY SORTS OF SACRIFICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER
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