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?