LXX. The sanctification of days and times is a token of that thankfulness and a part of that public honour which we owe to God for admirable benefits, whereof it doth not suffice that we keep a secret calendar, taking thereby our private occasions as we list ourselves to think how much God hath done for all men, but the days which are chosen out to serve as public memorials of such his mercies ought to be clothed with those outward robes of holiness whereby their difference from other days may be made sensible. But because time in itself as hath been already proved can receive no alteration, the hallowing of festival days must consist in the shape or countenance which we put upon the affairs that are incident into those days.
“This is the day which the Lord hath made,” saith the prophet David; “let us rejoice and be glad in it1.” So that generally offices and duties of religious2 joy are that wherein the hallowing of festival times consisteth3. The most natural testimonies of our rejoicing in God are first His praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of mind, secondly our comfort and delight expressed by a4 charitable largeness of somewhat more than common bounty, thirdly sequestration from ordinary labours, the toils and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness. Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three elements, Praise, and Bounty, and Rest.
Touching praise, forasmuch as the Jews, who alone knew the way how to magnify God aright, did commonly, as appeared by their wicked lives, more of custom and for fashion sake execute the services of their religion, than with hearty and true devotion (which God especially requireth) he therefore protesteth against their Sabboths5 and solemn days as being therewith much offended6.
Plentiful and liberal expense is required in them that abound, partly as a sign of their own joy in the goodness of God towards them, and partly as a mean whereby to refresh those poor and needy, who being especially at these times made partakers of relaxation and joy with others do the more religiously bless God7, whose great mercies were a cause thereof, and the more contentedly endure the burden of that hard estate wherein they continue.
Rest is the end of all motion, and the last perfection of all things that labour. Labours in us are journeys, and even in them which feel no weariness by any work, yet they are but ways whereby to come unto that which bringeth not happiness till it do bring rest. For as long as any thing which we desire is unattained, we rest not.
Let us not here take rest for idleness. They are idle whom the painfulness of action causeth to avoid those labours, whereunto both God and nature bindeth them: they rest which either cease from their work when they have brought it unto perfection, or else give over a meaner labour because a worthier and better is to be undertaken. God hath created nothing to be idle or ill employed.
As therefore man doth consist of different and distinct parts, every part endued with manifold abilities which all have their several ends and actions thereunto referred; so there is in this great variety of duties which belong to men that dependency and order, by means whereof the lower sustaining always the more excellent, and the higher perfecting the more base, they are in their times and seasons continued with most exquisite correspondence; labours of bodily and daily toil purchase freedom for actions of religious joy, which benefit these actions requite with the gift of desired rest: a thing most natural and fit to accompany the solemn festival duties of honour which are done to God.
For if those principal works of God, the memory whereof we use to celebrate at such times, be but certain tastes and says8 as it were of that final benefit, wherein our perfect felicity and bliss lieth folded up, seeing that the presence of the one doth direct our cogitations, thoughts, and desires towards the other, it giveth surely a kind of life and addeth inwardly no small delight to those so comfortable expectations, when the very outward countenance of that we presently do representeth after a sort that also whereunto we tend, as festival rest doth that celestial estate whereof the very heathens themselves9 which had not the means whereby to apprehend much did notwithstanding imagine that it needs must consist in rest, and have therefore taught that above the highest moveable sphere there is nothing which feeleth alteration, motion, or change, but all things immutable, unsubject to passion, blest with eternal continuance in a life of the highest perfection and of that complete abundant sufficiency within itself, which no possibility of want, maim, or defect can touch. Besides whereas ordinary labours are both in themselves painful, and base in comparison of festival services done to God, doth not the natural difference between them shew that the one as it were by way of submission and homage should surrender themselves to the other, wherewith they can neither easily concur, because painfulness and joy are opposite, nor decently, because while the mind hath just occasion to make her abode in the house of gladness, the weed of ordinary toil and travail becometh her not?
Wherefore even nature hath taught the heathens, and God the Jews, and Christ us, first that festival solemnities are a part of the public exercise of religion; secondly that praise, liberality and rest are as natural elements whereof solemnities consist. But these things the heathens converted to the honour of their false gods, and as they failed in the end itself, so neither could they discern rightly what form and measure religion therein should observe. Whereupon when the Israelites impiously followed so corrupt example, they are in every degree noted to have done amiss, their hymns or songs of praise were idolatry, their bounty excess, and their rest wantonness. Therefore the law of God which appointed them days of solemnity taught them likewise in what manner the same should be celebrated. According to the pattern of which institution, David10 establishing the state of religion ordained praise to be given unto God in the Sabboths, months, and appointed times, as their custom had been always before the Lord.
Now besides the times which God himself in the Law of Moyses particularly specifieth, there were through the wisdom of the Church certain other devised by occasion of like occurrents to those whereupon the former had risen, as namely that which Mardocheus and Hester11 did first celebrate in memory of the Lord’s most wonderful protection, when Haman had laid his inevitable plot to man’s thinking for the utter extirpation of the Jews even in one day. This they call the feast of Lots, because Haman had cast their life and their death as it were upon the hazard of a Lot. To this may be added that other also of Dedication mentioned in the tenth of St. John’s Gospel12, the institution whereof is declared in the history of the Maccabees13.
But forasmuch as their law by the coming of Christ is changed, and we thereunto no way bound, St. Paul although it were not his purpose to favour invectives against the special sanctification of days and times to the service of God and to the honour of Jesus Christ, doth notwithstanding bend his forces against that opinion which imposed on the Gentiles the yoke of Jewish legal observations, as if the whole world ought for ever and that upon pain of condemnation to keep and observe the same. Such as in this persuasion hallowed those Jewish Sabboths, the Apostle sharply reproveth saying14, “Ye observe days and months and times and years, I am in fear of you lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” Howbeit so far off was Tertullian from imagining how any man could possibly hereupon call in question such days as the Church of Christ doth observe15, that the observation of these days he useth for an argument whereby to prove it could not be the Apostle’s intent and meaning to condemn simply all observing of such times.
Generally therefore touching feasts in the Church of Christ, they have that profitable use whereof St. Augustine speaketh16, “By festival solemnities and set days we dedicate and sanctify to God the memory of his benefits, lest unthankful forgetfulness thereof should creep upon us in course of time.”
And concerning particulars, their Sabboth the Church hath changed into our Lord’s day, that as the one did continually bring to mind the former world finished by creation, so the other might keep us in perpetual remembrance of a far better world begun by him which came to restore all things, to make both heaven and earth new. For which cause they honoured the last day, we the first, in every seven throughout the year.
The rest of the days and times which we celebrate have relation all unto one head. We begin therefore our ecclesiastical year17 with the glorious Annunciation of his birth by angelical embassage18. There being hereunto added his blessed Nativity itself19, the mystery of his legal Circumcision the testification of his true incarnation by the Purification of her which brought him into the world, his Resurrection, his Ascension into heaven, the admirable sending down of his Spirit upon his chosen, and (which consequently ensued) the notice of that incomprehensible Trinity thereby given to the Church of God; again forasmuch as we know that Christ hath not only been manifested great in himself, but great in other his Saints also, the days of whose departure out of the world are to the Church of Christ as the birth and coronation days of kings or emperors, therefore especial choice being made of the very flower of all occasions in this kind, there are annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them which had the honour to suffer for his sake, before they had age and ability to know him; glorified in them which knowing him as Stephen, had the sight of that before death whereinto so acceptable death did lead; glorified in those sages of the East that came from far to adore him and were conducted by strange light; glorified in the second Elias of the world sent before him to prepare his way; glorified in every of those Apostles whom it pleased him to use as founders of his kingdom here; glorified in the Angels as in Michael; glorified in all those happy souls that are already possessed of heaven. Over and besides which number not great, the rest be but four other days heretofore annexed to the feast of Easter and Pentecost by reason of general Baptism usual at those two feasts, which also is the cause why they had not as other days any proper name given them. Their first institution was therefore through necessity, and their present continuance is now for the greater honour of the principals whereupon they still attend.
If it be then demanded whether we observe these times as being thereunto bound by force of divine law, or else by the only positive ordinances of the Church, I answer to this, that the very law of nature itself, which all men confess to be God’s law, requireth in general no less the sanctification of times, than of places, persons, and things unto God’s honour. For which cause it hath pleased him heretofore, as of the rest so of time likewise, to exact some parts by way of perpetual homage, never to be dispensed withal nor remitted; again to require some other parts of time with as strict exaction but for less continuance; and of the rest which were left arbitrary to accept what the Church shall in due consideration consecrate voluntarily unto like religious uses. Of the first kind amongst the Jews was the Sabboth day; of the second those feasts which are appointed by the law of Moyses; the feast of dedication invented by the Church standeth in the number of the last kind.
The moral law requiring therefore a seventh part throughout the age of the whole world to be that way employed, although with us the day be changed in regard of a new revolution begun by our Saviour Christ, yet the same proportion of time continueth which was before, because in reference to the benefit of creation and now much more of renovation thereunto added by him which was Prince of the world to come20, we are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which God’s immutable law doth exact for ever. The rest they say we ought to abolish, because the continuance of them doth nourish wicked superstition in the minds of men21; besides they are all abused by Papists the enemies of God, yea certain of them as Easter and Pentecost even by the Jews.
← Of Festival Days, and the natural causes of · Contents · Exceptions against our keeping of other fest →
Footnotes
-
Psalm cxviii. 24. ↩
-
[“Religions,” 1st ed.; “religious,” 1616. Cf. § 1.] ↩
-
“Grande videlicet officium focos et choros in publicum educere, vicatim epulari, civitatem tabernæ halitu [habitu edd.] obolefacere, vino lutum cogere, catervatim cursitare ad injurias, ad impudicitias, ad libidinis illecebras. Siccine exprimitur publicum gaudium per publicum dedecus?” Tertull. Apol. c. 35. “Dies festos Majestati altissimæ dedicatos nullis volumus voluptatibus occupari.” C. l. xii. tit. 12. l. 1. [Cod. Justin. lib. iii. tit. xii. lex 11ma. Leo and Anthem. Impp. (v. infr. p. 404, n. 3) p. 195.] Ἀντὶ τη̑ς πάλαι πομπείας καὶ αἰσχρουργίας καὶ αἰσχρορρημοσύνης σώϕρονες ἑορτάζονται πανηγύρεις, οὐ μέθην ἔχουσαι καὶ κω̑μον καὶ γέλωτα, ἀλλ’ ὕμνους θείους καὶ ἱερω̑ν λογίων ἀκρόασιν, καὶ προσευχὴν ἀξιεπαίνοις κοσμουμένην δακρύοις. Theod. ad Græc. Infidel. ser. [8. de Martyr. ad fin. tom. iv. p. 607. ed. Sirmond.] ↩
-
Τη̑ς γὰρ αὐτη̑ς ϕύσεώς ἐστιν εὐσεβη̑ τε εἰ̑ναι καὶ ϕιλάνθρωπον. Philo de Abraha. [vol. ii. p. 30. ed. Mang.] ↩
-
[“Sabboths,” 1st ed.] ↩
-
Isa. i. 13. ↩
-
Deut. xvi. 14; Nehem. viii. 9. ↩
-
[Cf. “Thy tongue some say of breeding breathes.” King Lear, V. iii. 143. See below, lxxi. 2 “assayes.”] 1887. ↩
-
Οὐδ’ ἔστιν οὐδενὸς οὐδεμία μεταβολὴ τω̑ν ὑπὲρ ἐξωτάτω [ὑπὸ τὴν ἐξωτάτω] ϕερομένην [τεταγμένων] ϕοράν· ἀλλ’ ἀναλλοίωτα καὶ ἀπαθη̑, τὴν ἀρίστην ἔχοντα ζωὴν καὶ τὴν αὐταρκεστάτην διατελει̑ τὸν ἅπαντα αἰω̑να. Arist. [de Cælo, lib. i. c. 9. t. 100.] ↩
-
1 Chron. xxiii. 31. ↩
-
Esther ix. 27. ↩
-
John x. 22. ↩
-
1 Macc. iv. 54. ↩
-
Gal. iv. 10. ↩
-
“Si omnem in totum devotionem temporum et dierum et mensium et annorum erasit Apostolus, cur Pascha celebramus annuo circulo in mense primo? Cur quinquaginta exinde diebus in omni exultatione decurrimus?” Lib. [de Jejun.] advers. Psych. [c. 14.] ↩
-
Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. cap. 3. [t. vii. 240. “Ei beneficiorum ejus solennitatibus festis et diebus statutis dicamus sacramusque memoriam, ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio.”] ↩
-
[The year began in Hooker’s time on March 25.] 1887. ↩
-
Luke i. 26. ↩
-
Luke ii. 21. ↩
-
[Cf. Vulgate tr. Is. ix. 5. “Pater futuri sæculi, Princeps pacis.”] 1887. ↩
-
[Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 538. “Holydays, &c. patched, if not altogether, yet the greatest piece, out of the Pope’s Portuise.” T. C. i. 119. al. 151. “M. Doctor saith, that so they be not used superstitiously, they may be commanded. I have shewed before that they were. If they were so indifferent as they are made, yet being kept of the Papists, which are the enemies of God, they ought to be abolished. And if it were as easy a matter to pull out the superstition of the observing of those holidays out of men’s hearts, as it is to protest and to teach that they are not commanded for any religion to be put in them, or for any to make conscience of the observing of them, as though there were some necessary worship of God in the keeping of them, then they were much more tolerable; but when as the continuance of them doth nourish wicked superstition in the minds of men, and that the doctrine which should remedy the superstition, through the fewness and scarcity of able ministers, cannot come to the most part of them which are infected with this disease, and that also where it is preached the fruit thereof is in part hindered, whilst the common people attend oftentimes rather to that which is done than to that which is taught; being a thing indifferent, as it is said, it ought to be abolished, as that which is not only not fittest to hold the people in the sincere worshipping of God, but also as that which keepeth them in their former blindness and corrupt opinions which they have conceived of such holidays.”] ↩