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V.71. Exceptions against our keeping of other festival days besides the sabboth.

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LXXI. Touching Jews, their Easter and Pentecost have with ours as much affinity, as Philip the Apostle with Philip the Macedonian king. As for “imitation of Papists” and the “breeding of superstition,” they are now become such common guests that no man can think it discourteous to let them go as they came. The next is a rare observation and strange1. You shall find if you mark it (as it doth deserve to be noted well) that many thousands there are who if they have virtuously during those times behaved themselves, if their devotion and zeal in prayer have been fervent, their attention to the word of God such as all Christian men should yield, imagine that herein they have performed a good duty; which notwithstanding to think is a very dangerous error, inasmuch as the Apostle St. Paul hath taught that we ought not to keep our Easter as the Jews did for certain days, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth to feast continually, whereas this restraint of Easter to a certain number of days causeth us to rest for a short space in that near consideration of our duties which should be extended throughout the course of our whole lives, and so pulleth out of our minds the doctrine of Christ’s gospel ere we be aware2.

The doctrine of the gospel which here they mean or should mean is, that Christ having finished the law there is no Jewish paschal solemnity nor abstinence from sour bread now required at our hands, there is no leaven which we are bound to cast out but malice, sin, and wickedness, no bread but the food of sincere truth wherewith we are tied to celebrate our passover. And seeing no time of sin is granted us, neither any intermission of sound belief, it followeth that this kind of feasting ought to endure always. But how are standing festival solemnities against this?

That which the gospel of Christ requireth is the perpetuity of virtuous duties; not perpetuity of exercise or action, but disposition perpetual, and practice as oft as times and opportunities require. Just, valiant, liberal, temperate and holy men are they which can whensoever they will, and will whensoever they ought, execute what their several perfections import. If virtues did always cease to be when they cease to work, there should be nothing more pernicious to virtue than sleep: neither were it possible that men as Zachary and Elizabeth should in all the commandments of God walk unreprovable, or that the chain of our conversation should contain so many links of divine virtues as the Apostles in divers places have reckoned up, if in the exercise of each virtue perpetual continuance were exacted at our hands. Seeing therefore all things are done in time, and many offices are not possible at one and the same time to be discharged, duties of all sorts must have necessarily their several successions and seasons, in which respect the schoolmen3 have well and soundly determined that God’s affirmative laws and precepts, the laws that enjoin any actual duty, as prayer, alms, and the like, do bind us ad semper velle, but not ad semper agere; we are tied to iterate and resume them when need is, howbeit not to continue them without any intermission. Feasts whether God himself hath ordained them, or the Church by that authority which God hath given, they are of religion such public services as neither can nor ought to be continued otherwise than only by iteration.

Which iteration is a most effectual mean to bring unto full maturity and growth those seeds of godliness that these very men themselves do grant to be sown in the hearts of many thousands, during the while that such feasts are present. The constant habit of well doing is not gotten without the custom of doing well, neither can virtue be made perfect but by the manifold works of virtue often practised. Before the powers of our minds be brought unto some perfection our first assays and offers towards virtue must needs be raw, yet commendable because they tend unto ripeness. For which cause the wisdom of God hath commended especially this circumstance amongst others in solemn feasts, that to children and novices in religion they minister the first occasions to ask and inquire of God. Whereupon if there follow but so much piety as hath been mentioned, let the Church learn to further imbecility with prayer, “Preserve Lord these good and gracious beginnings that they suddenly dry not up like the morning dew, but may prosper and grow as the trees which rivers of waters keep always flourishing;” let all men’s acclamations be “Grace, grace unto it,” as to that first-laid corner-stone in Zerubbabel’s buildings4. For who hath despised the day of those things which are small5? Or how dare we take upon us to condemn that very thing which voluntarily we grant maketh us of nothing somewhat, seeing all we pretend against it is only that as yet this somewhat is not much? The days of solemnity which are but few cannot choose but soon finish that outward exercise of godliness which properly appertaineth to such times, howbeit men’s inward disposition to virtue they both augment for the present, and by their often returns bring also the same at the length unto that perfection which we most desire. So that although by their necessary short continuance they abridge the present exercise of piety in some kind, yet because by repetition they enlarge, strengthen and confirm the habits of all virtue, it remaineth that we honour, observe and keep them as ordinances many ways singularly profitable in God’s Church.

This exception being taken against holidays, for that they restrain the praises of God unto certain times, another followeth condemning restraint of men from their ordinary trades and labours at those times. It is not they say in the power of the Church to command rest6, because God hath left it to all men at liberty that if they think good to bestow six whole days in labour they may, neither is it more lawful for the Church to abridge any man of that liberty which God hath granted, than to take away the yoke which God hath laid upon them and to countermand what he doth expressly enjoin. They deny not but in times of public calamity, that men may the better assemble themselves to fast and pray, the Church “because it hath received commandment” from God to proclaim a prohibition from ordinary works, standeth bound to do it, as the Jews afflicted did in Babylon. But without some express commandment from God there is no power they say under heaven which may presume by any decree to restrain the liberty that God hath given.

Which opinion, albeit applied here no further than to this present cause, shaketh universally the fabric of government, tendeth to anarchy and mere confusion, dissolveth families, dissipatech colleges, corporations, armies, overthroweth kingdoms, churches, and whatsoever is now through the providence of God by authority and power upheld. For whereas God hath foreprized things of the greatest weight, and hath therein precisely defined as well that which every man must perform, as that which no man may attempt, leaving all sorts of men in the rest either to be guided by their own good discretion if they be free from subjection to others, or else to be ordered by such commandments and laws as proceed from those superiors under whom they live; the patrons of liberty have here made solemn proclamation that all such laws and commandments are void, inasmuch as every man is left to the freedom of his own mind in such things as are not either exacted or prohibited by the Law of God; and because only in these things the positive precepts of men have place, which precepts cannot possibly be given without some abridgment of their liberty to whom they are given, therefore if the father command the son, or the husband the wife, or the lord the servant, or the leader the soldier, or the prince the subject to go or stand, sleep or wake at such times as God himself in particular commandeth neither, they are to stand in defence of the freedom which God hath granted and to do as themselves list, knowing that men may as lawfully command them things utterly forbidden by the law of God, as tie them to any thing which the law of God leaveth free. The plain contradictory whereunto is infallibly certain. Those things which the law of God leaveth arbitrary and at liberty are all subject unto positive laws of men, which laws for the common benefit abridge particular men’s liberty in such things as far as the rules of equity will suffer. This we must either maintain, or else overturn the world and make every man his own commander. Seeing then that labour and rest upon any one day of the six throughout the year are granted free by the Law of God, how exempt we them from the force and power of ecclesiastical law, except we deprive the world of power to make any ordinance or law at all?

Besides is it probable that God should not only allow but command concurrency of rest with extraordinary occasions of doleful events befalling peradventure some one certain church, or not extending unto many, and not as much as permit or license the like, when piety triumphant with joy and gladness maketh solemn commemoration of God’s most rare and unwonted mercies, such especially as the whole race of mankind doth or might participate? Of vacation from labour in times of sorrow the only cause is for that the general public prayers of the whole Church and our own private businesses cannot both be followed at once: whereas of rest in the famous solemnities of public joy there is both this consideration the same, and also farther a kind of natural repugnancy, which maketh labours (as hath been proved) much more unfit to accompany festival praises of God than offices of humiliation and grief.

Again if we sift what they bring for proof and approbation of rest with fasting, doth it not in all respects as fully warrant and as strictly command rest, whensoever the Church hath equal reason by feasts and gladsome solemnities to testify public thankfulness towards God? I would know some cause, why those words of the prophet Joel7, “Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly,” which words were uttered to the Jews in misery and great distress, should more bind the Church to do at all times after the like in their like perplexities, than the words of Moyses to the same people in a time of joyful deliverance from misery8, “Remember this day,” may warrant any annual celebration of benefits no less importing the good of men; and also justify, as touching the manner and form thereof, what circumstance soever we imitate only in respect of natural fitness or decency, without any Jewish regard to ceremonies such as were properly theirs and are not by us expedient to be continued.

According to the rule of which general directions, taken from the law of God no less in the one than the other, the practice of the Church commended unto us in holy Scripture doth not only make for the justification of black and dismal days (as one of the Fathers termeth them) but plainly offereth itself to be followed by such ordinances (if occasion require) as that which Mardocheus did sometime devise, Hester9 what lay in her power help forward, and the rest of the Jews establish for perpetuity, namely that the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar should be every year kept throughout all generations as days of feasting and joy, wherein they would rest from bodily labour, and what by gifts of charity bestowed upon the poor, what by other liberal signs of amity and love, all testify their thankful minds towards God, which almost beyond possibility had delivered them all when they all were as men dead.

But this decree they say was divine not ecclesiastical10, as may appear in that there is another decree in another book of Scripture which decree is plain not to have proceeded from the Church’s authority but from the mouth of the prophet only; and as a poor simple man sometime was fully persuaded that if Pontius Pilate had not been a saint the Apostles would never have suffered his name to stand in the Creed, so these men have a strong opinion that because the book of Hester is canonical the decree of Hester cannot be possibly ecclesiastical. If it were, they ask how the Jews could bind themselves always to keep it, seeing ecclesiastical laws are mutable? As though the purposes of men might never intend constancy in that the nature whereof is subject to alteration. Doth the Scripture itself make mention of any divine commandment? Is the Scripture witness of more than only that Mardocheus was the author of this custom, that by letters written to his brethren the Jews throughout all provinces under Darius the king of Persia he gave them charge to celebrate yearly those two days for perpetual remembrance of God’s miraculous deliverance and mercy, that the Jews hereupon undertook to do it, and made it with general consent an order for perpetuity, that Hester secondly by her letters confirmed the same which Mardocheus had before decreed, and that finally the ordinance was written to remain for ever upon record? Did not the Jews in provinces abroad observe at the first the fourteenth day, the Jews in Susis the fifteenth? Were they not all reduced to a uniform order by means of those two decrees, and so every where three days kept, the first with fasting in memory of danger, the rest in token of deliverance as festival and joyful days? Was not the first of these three afterwards, the day of sorrow and heaviness, abrogated, when the same Church saw it meet that a better day, a day in memory of like deliverance out of the bloody hands of Nicanor, should succeed in the room thereof11?

But forasmuch as there is no end of answering fruitless oppositions, let it suffice men of sober minds to know that the law both of God and nature alloweth generally days of rest and festival solemnity to be observed by way of thankful and joyful remembrance, if such miraculous favours be shewed towards mankind as require the same; that such graces God hath bestowed upon his Church as well in later as in former times; that in some particulars when they have fallen out himself hath demanded his own honour, and in the rest hath left it to the wisdom of the Church directed by those precedents and enlightened by other means always to judge when the like is requisite12. About questions therefore concerning days and times our manner is not to stand at bay with the Church of God demanding wherefore the memory of Paul13 should be rather kept than the memory of Daniel14, we are content to imagine it may be perhaps true that the least in the kingdom of Christ is greater than the greatest of all the prophets of God that have gone before; we never yet saw cause to despair but that the simplest15 of the people might be taught the right construction of as great mysteries as the 16name of a saint’s day doth comprehend, although the times of the year go on in their wonted course; we had rather glorify and bless God for the fruit we daily behold reaped by such ordinances as his gracious Spirit maketh the ripe wisdom of this national church to bring forth, than vainly boast of our own peculiar and private inventions, as if the skill of profitable17 regiment had left her public habitation to dwell in retired manner with some few men of one livery; we make not our childish 18appeals sometimes from our own to foreign churches, sometime from both unto churches ancienter than both are, in effect always from all others to our own selves, but as becometh them that follow with all humility the ways of peace, we honour, reverence, and obey in the very next degree unto God the voice of the church of God wherein we live. They whose wits are too glorious to fall to so low an ebb, they which have risen and swollen so high that the walls of ordinary rivers are unable to keep them in, they whose wanton contentions in the cause whereof we have spoken do make all where they go a sea, even they at their highest float are constrained both to see and 19grant, that what their fancy will not yield to like their judgment cannot with reason condemn. Such is evermore the final victory of all truth, that they which have not the hearts to love her acknowledge that to hate her they have no cause.

Touching those festival days therefore which we now observe, their number being no way felt20 discommodious to the commonwealth, and their grounds such as hitherto hath been shewed; what remaineth but to keep them throughout all generations holy, severed by manifest notes of difference from other times, adorned with that which most may betoken true virtuous and celestial joy? To which intent because surcease from labour is necessary, yet not so necessary no not on the Sabboth or seventh day itself, but that rarer occasions in men’s particular affairs, subject to manifest detriment unless they be presently followed, may with very good conscience draw them sometimes aside from the ordinary rule, considering the favourable dispensation which our Lord and Saviour groundeth on this axiom, “Man was not made for the Sabboth but the Sabboth ordained for man21,” so far forth as concerneth ceremonies annexed to the principal sanctification thereof, howsoever the rigour of the law of Moyses may be thought to import the contrary, if we regard with what severity the violation of Sabboths hath been sometime punished22, a thing perhaps the more requisite at that instant, both because the Jews by reason of their long abode in a place of continual servile toil could not suddenly be weaned23 and drawn unto contrary offices without some strong impression of terror, and also for that there is nothing more needful than to punish with extremity the first transgressions of those laws that require a more exact observation for many ages to come; therefore as the Jews superstitiously addicted to their Sabboths’ rest for a long time24, not without danger to themselves and obloquy to their very law, did afterwards perceive and amend wisely their former error, not doubting that bodily labours are made by 25necessity venial, though otherwise, especially on that day, rest be more convenient; so at all times the voluntary scandalous contempt of that rest from labour wherewith publicly God is served we cannot too26 severely correct and bridle.

The emperor27 Constantine having with overgreat facility licensed Sundays’ labours in country villages, under that pretence whereof there may justly no doubt sometime consideration be had, namely lest any thing which God by his providence hath bestowed should miscarry not being taken in due time; Leo which afterwards saw that this ground would not bear so general and large indulgence as had been granted, doth by a contrary edict both reverse and severely censure his predecessor’s remissness, saying28, “We ordain according to the true meaning of the Holy Ghost and of the Apostles thereby directed, that on the sacred day wherein our own integrity was restored all do rest and surcease labour, that neither husbandman nor other on that day put their hands to forbidden works. For if the Jews did so much reverence their Sabboth which was but a shadow of ours, are not we which inhabit the light and truth of grace bound to honour that day which the Lord himself hath honoured and hath therein delivered us both from dishonour and from death? are we not bound to keep it singular and inviolable, well contenting ourselves with so liberal a grant of the rest, and not encroaching upon that one which God hath chosen to his own honour? Were it not rechless29 neglect of religion to make that very day common and to think we may do with it as with the rest?”

Imperial laws which had such care of hallowing especially our Lord’s day did not omit to provide that other30 festival times might be kept with vacation from labour, whether they were days appointed on the sudden as extraordinary occasions fell out, or days which were celebrated yearly for politic and civil considerations, or finally such days as Christian religion hath ordained in God’s Church.

The joy that setteth aside labour disperseth those things which labour gathereth. For gladness doth always rise from a kind of fruition and happiness, which happiness banisheth the cogitation of all want, it needeth nothing but only the bestowing of that it hath, inasmuch as the greatest felicity that felicity hath is to spread and enlarge itself; it cometh hereby to pass that the first effect of joyfulness is to rest, because it seeketh no more; the next, because it aboundeth, to give. The root of both is the glorious presence of that joy of mind which riseth from the manifold considerations of God’s unspeakable mercy, into which considerations we are led by occasion of sacred times.

For how could the Jewish congregations of old be put in mind by their weekly Sabboths what the world reaped through his goodness which did of nothing create the world; by their yearly Passover what farewell they took of the land of Egypt; by their Pentecost what ordinances, laws, and statutes their fathers received at the hands of God; by their feast of Tabernacles with what protection they journeyed from place to place through so many fears and hazards during the tedious time of forty years’ travail in the wilderness; by their annual solemnity of Lots, how near the whole seed of Israel was unto utter extirpation, when it pleased that great God which guideth all things in heaven and earth so to change the counsels and purposes of men, that the same hand which had signed a decree in the opinion both of them that granted and of them that procured it irrevocable, for the general massacre of man, woman, and child, became the buckler of their preservation that no one hair of their heads might be touched, the same days which had been set for the pouring out of so much innocent blood were made the days of their execution whose malice had contrived the plot thereof, and the selfsame persons that should have endured whatsoever violence and rage could offer were employed in the just revenge of cruelty to give unto bloodthirsty men the taste of their own cup; or how can the Church of Christ now endure to be so much called on and preached unto by that which every31 dominical day throughout the year, that which year by year so many festival times, if not commanded by the Apostles themselves32 whose care at that time was of greater things, yet instituted either by such universal authority as no man33, or at the least such as we with no reason may despise, do as sometime the holy angels did from heaven sing, “34Glory be unto God on high, peace on earth, towards men good-will,” (for this in effect is the very song that all Christian feasts do apply as their several occasions require,) how should the days and times continually thus inculcate what God hath done, and we refuse to agnize the benefit of such remembrances, that very benefit which caused Moyses to acknowledge those guides of day and night, the sun and moon which enlighten the world, not more profitable to nature by giving all things life, than they are to the Church of God by occasion of the use they have in regard of the appointed festival times? That which the head of all philosophers hath said of women35, “If they be good the half of the commonwealth is happy wherein they are,” the same we may fitly apply to times; well to celebrate these religious and sacred days is to spend the flower of our time happily. They are the splendour and outward dignity of our religion, forcible witnesses of ancient truth36, provocations to the exercise of all piety, shadows of our endless felicity in heaven, on earth everlasting records and memorials, wherein they which cannot be drawn to hearken unto that we teach, may only by looking upon that we do, in a manner read whatsoever we believe.

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Footnotes

  1. T. C. lib. i. p. 151. [120.] “If they had been never abused neither by the papists nor by the Jews, as they have been and are daily, yet such making of holidays is never without some great danger of bringing in some evil and corrupt opinions into the minds of men. I will use an example in one and that the chief of holidays and most generally and of longest time observed in the Church, which is the feast of Easter, which was kept of some more days of some fewer. How many thousands are there I will not say of the ignorant papists, but of those also which profess the gospel, which when they have celebrated those days with diligent heed taken unto their life, and with some earnest devotion in praying and hearing the word of God, do not by and by think that they have well celebrated the feast of Easter, and yet have they thus notably deceived themselves. For St. Paul teacheth (1 Cor. v. 8.) that the celebrating of the feast of the Christians’ Easter is not as the Jews’ was for certain days, but sheweth that we must keep this feast all the days of our life in the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth. By which we see that the observing of the feast of Easter for certain days in the year doth pull out of our minds ere ever we be aware the doctrine of the gospel, and causeth us to rest in that near consideration of our duties, for the space of a few days, which should be extended to all our life.” ↩

  2. [Whitg. Def. 539. “What? do you condemn the feast of Easter also? would you have it abrogated because it hath been abused? do you not know that the Apostles themselves observed it, and the Church ever sithence their time? read Euseb. v. 23. and you shall find it to be a tradition of the Apostles: peruse the 24th and 25th ch. of the same book, and you shall understand by the testimony of Polycrates, and all the other bishops in Asia, that Philip the Apostle, John the Evangelist, Polycarpus his scholar, and other bishops likewise of greatest antiquity kept solemnly the feast of Easter. But why should I labour to prove that that all histories, all ancient Fathers, all late writers, all learned men confess? … Surely you may as well reason that the Scriptures are not to be read, because that heretics have so greatly abused them.” T. C. iii. 189. “If it were a tradition of the Apostles, yet it was used of them as a thing indifferent; considering that the same story witnesseth that S. John the Apostle, together with the churches of Asia, did celebrate the Easter as the Jews were wont, upon the xivth day of the month. Now, if S. John himself, which departed not from the authority of the Scripture, did keep the Jews’ day, he gave sufficiently to understand that our Easter hath no authority from the Scriptures; for then he would have kept it also.” He seems to assume what cannot be so readily granted: viz. that the feast which St. John and the Asiatic churches observed was the Jewish passover, and not the Christian Easter on the same day as the passover.] ↩

  3. [E. g. Aquinas in Summa Theol. pars ii. 1. qu. 71. art. 5. p. 431. Ven. 1596. “Peccatum omissionis contrariatur præcepto affirmativo, quod obligat semper, sed non ad semper: et ideo solum pro tempore illo aliquis cessando ab actu peccat, pro quo præceptum affirmativum obligat.”] ↩

  4. [Zech. iv. 7.] ↩

  5. [Ver. 10.] ↩

  6. [Adm. ap. Whitg. 538, objecting to holidays, refers in the margin to Exod. xx. 9. And in the View of Popish Abuses subjoined to the first Adm. p. 11, occurs, “Days … . ascribed unto saints … . and kept holy, are contrary to the commandment of God, ‘Six days shalt thou labour.’ ” Whitg. Answer, ap. Def. 538. “I think the meaning of this commandment is not so to tie men to bodily labour, that they may not intermit the same to labour spiritually.”] T. C. lib. i. p. 152. [120.] “I confess that it is in the power of the Church to appoint so many days in the week or in the year (in the which the congregation shall assemble to hear the word of God and receive the sacraments and offer up prayers unto God) as it shall think good according to those rules which are before alleged. But that it hath power to make so many holidays as we have, wherein men are commanded to cease from their daily vocations of ploughing and exercising their handicrafts, that I deny to be in the power of the Church. For proof whereof I will take the fourth commandment, and no other interpretation of it than M. Doctor alloweth of, which is that God licenseth and leaveth it at the liberty of every man to work six days in the week, so that he rest the seventh day. Seeing therefore that the Lord hath left it to all men at liberty that they might labour if they think good six days, I say the Church nor no man can take this liberty away from them and drive them to a necessary rest of the body. And if it be lawful to abridge the liberty of the Church in this point, and instead that the Lord saith, ‘Six days thou mayest labour if thou wilt,’ to say, ‘Thou shalt not labour six days:’ I do not see why the Church may not as well, whereas the Lord saith ‘Thou shalt rest the seventh day,’ command that thou shalt not rest the seventh day. For if the Church may restrain the liberty which God hath given them it may take away the yoke also which God hath put upon them. And whereas you say that notwithstanding this fourth commandment the Jews had certain other feasts which they observed, indeed the Lord which gave this general law might make as many exceptions as he thought good, and so long as he thought good. But it followeth not because the Lord did it that therefore the Church may do it, unless it hath commandment and authority from God so to do. As when there is any general plague or judgment of God either upon the Church or coming towards it, the Lord commandeth in such a case (Joel ii. 15.) that they should sanctify a general fast and proclaim Ghnatsarah, which signifieth a prohibition or forbidding of ordinary works, and is the same Hebrew word wherewith those feast days are noted in the Law wherein they should rest. The reason of which commandment of the Lord was, that as they abstained that day as much as might be conveniently from meat, so they might abstain from their daily works, to the end they might bestow the whole day in hearing the word of God and humbling themselves in the congregation, confessing their faults and desiring the Lord to turn away from his fierce wrath. In this case the Church having commandment to make a holiday may and ought to do it, as the Church which was in Babylon did during the time of their captivity; but where it is destitute of a commandment, it may not presume by any decree to restrain that liberty which the Lord hath given.” [Whitgift’s Def. 541. “This doctrine of yours is very licentious, and tendeth too much to carnal and corporal liberty, and indeed is a very perilous doctrine for all states. Not one tittle in God’s word doth restrain either the magistrate or the Church from turning carnal liberty to the spiritual service of God, or bodily labour to divine worship.” Ibid. 542. To rest the seventh day is commanded; to labour six days is but permitted; he that forbiddeth rest on the seventh day doth directly against the commandment; so doth not he that restraineth men from bodily labour in any of the six days; and therefore the reason is not like.” T. C. iii. 193. The reason is like. For the authority is all one, to make it unlawful to work, when God hath made it lawful; and to make it lawful to labour, when God hath made it unlawful.”] ↩

  7. Joel ii. 15. ↩

  8. Exod. xiii. 3. ↩

  9. Esther ix. ↩

  10. T. C. lib. iii. p. 193. “The example out of Hester” [which had been alleged by Whitg. Def. 543.] “is no sufficient warrant for these feasts in question. For first as in other cases so in this case of days, the estate of Christians under the Gospel ought not to be so ceremonious as was theirs under the Law. Secondly that which was done there was done by a special direction of the Spirit of God, either through the ministry of the prophets which they had or by some other extraordinary means, which is not to be followed by us. This may appear by another place, (Zech. viii.) where the Jews changed their fasts into feasts only by the mouth of the Lord through the ministry of the prophet. For further proof whereof first I take the twenty-eighth verse,” [Esth. ix. 28.] “where it appeareth that this was an order to endure always, even as long as the other feast days which were instituted by the Lord himself. So that what abuses soever were of that feast, yet as a perpetual decree of God it ought to have remained: whereas our Churches can make no such decree, which may not upon change of times and other circumstances be altered. For the other proof hereof I take the last verse, for the Prophet contenteth not himself with that, that he had rehearsed the decree, as he doth sometimes the decree of profane kings, but addeth precisely that as soon as ever the decree was made it was registered in this book of Hester which is one of the books of the Canonical Scripture, declaring thereby in what esteem they had it. If it had been of no further authority than our decrees or than a canon of one of the councils, it had been presumption to have brought it into the library of the Holy Ghost. The sum of my answer is that this decree was divine and not ecclesiastical only.” ↩

  11. 2 Macc. xv. 36. ↩

  12. 1 Macc. iv. 55. [59.] ↩

  13. “Commemoratio Apostolicæ Passionis totius Christianitatis magistræ a cunctis jure celebratur.” Cod. lib. iii. tit. 12. l. 7. [p. 89.] ↩

  14. T. C. lib. i. p. 153. [121. “As we reason against the popish purgatory, that it is therefore naught, forasmuch as neither in the Old Testament nor in the New there is any mention of prayer at any time for the dead; so may it be reasoned against these holidays ordained for the remembrance of the saints, that for so much as the old people did never keep any feast or holiday for the remembrance either of Moyses or Daniel, or Job or Abraham or David, or any other, how holy and excellent soever they were; nor the Apostles nor the Churches in their time never instituted any, either to keep the remembrance of St. Stephen, or of the Virgin Mary, or of John Baptist, or of any other notable and rare personage; that the instituting and erecting of them now, and this attempt by the churches which followed … is not without some note of presumption.” Whitg. Def. 543. “Purgatory is made a matter of salvation or damnation, as all other doctrines of the popes be; and therefore a negative reason, such as you use, is sufficient enough to improve it. But holidays in our Church have no such necessity ascribed unto them.”The earliest clear instance of a saint’s day being kept is perhaps that of St. Polycarp, ad 169. See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, containing the account of his martyrdom, c. 18. Ἡμει̑ς ὕστερον ἀνελόμενοι τὰ τιμιώτερα λίθων πολυτελω̑ν καὶ δοκιμώτερα ὑπὲρ χρυσίον ὀστα̑ αὐτου̑, ἀπεθέμεθα ὅπου καὶ ἀκόλουθον ἠ̑ν· ἔνθα ὡς δυνατὸν ἡμι̑ν συναγομένοις, ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ χαρᾳ̑, παρέξει ὁ Κύριος ἐπιτελει̑ν τὴν του̑ μαρτυρίου αὐτου̑ ἡμέραν γενέθλιον, εἴς τε τὴν τω̑ν ἠθληκότων μνήμην, καὶ τω̑ν μελλόντων ἄσκησίν τε καὶ ἑτοιμασίαν. ap. Coteler. PP. Apost. t. ii. p. 202.] ↩

  15. T. C. lib. i. p. 153. [121.] “The people, when it is called St. Paul’s day or the blessed Virgin Mary’s day, can understand nothing thereby but that they are instituted to the honour of St. Paul or the Virgin Mary, unless they be otherwise taught. And if you say let them so be taught, I have answered that the teaching in this land cannot by any order which is yet taken come to the most part of those which have drunk this poison,” &c. ↩

  16. “Scilicet ignorant nos nec Christum unquam relinquere qui pro totius servandorum mundi salute passus est, nec alium quempiam colere posse. Nam hunc quidem tanquam Filium Dei adoramus, martyres vero tanquam discipulos et imitatores Domini digne propter insuperabilem in Regem ipsorum ac Præceptorem benevolentiam diligimus, quorum et nos consortes et discipulos fieri optamus.” Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 15. [from the Church of Smyrna’s letter (c. 17.) on the Martyrdom of S. Polycarp.] ↩

  17. T. C. lib. i. p. 153. [al. 121.] “As for all the commodities [we receive by them, whereby M. Doctor goeth about to prove the goodness and lawfulness of their institution; as that the Scriptures are there read and expounded, the patience of those saints in their persecution and martyrdom is to the edifying of the Church remembered and yearly renewed; I say that we might have all these commodities without all those dangers which I have spoken of, and without any keeping of yearly memory of those saints; and (as it falleth out) in better and more profitable sort. For as I said before of the keeping of Easter, … so these celebrations of the memories of saints and martyrs straighten our consideration of them unto those days, which should continually be thought of, and daily, as long as we live.” Whitg. Def. 546. “You might as well say, there ought to be no certain times appointed for the receiving of the holy communion, because the meditation of the death and passion of Christ, and the application of the same, is fettered to these certain days… . . The same might you say likewise of the Sabbath day.”] ↩

  18. T. C. lib. i. p. 154. [122. “As for M. Calvin, as the practice of him and the Church where he lived was and is, to admit no one holyday besides the Lord’s day, so can it not be shewed out of any part of his works, (as I think,) that he approved those holydays which are now in question.”“As touching M. Bucer’s, M. Bullinger’s, and Illyricus’ allowance of them” (which had been alleged by Whitg. Answ. ap. Def. 548.) “… that good leave they give the Churches to dissent from them in that point, I do take it granted unto me, being by the grace of God one of the Church.”“It is not to be denied but this keeping of holydays (especially of the Easter and Pentecost) are very ancient, and that these holydays for the remembrance of martyrs were used of long time: but these abuses were no ancienter than other were, grosser also than this was: … and therefore I appeal from these examples to the Scriptures, and to the examples of the perfectest Church that ever was: which was that in the Apostles’ times.” Bullinger’s statement is, “Adhuc in Ecclesia nostra Tigurina, Nativitatis, Circumcisionis, Resurrectionis et Ascensionis Domini, Missionisque sancti Spiritus, Deiparæ Virginis, Joannis Baptistæ, Magdalenæ, Stephani, et Apostolorum Domini festa celebramus; neminem interim eorum damnantes, qui post Dominicam aliam nesciunt festivitatem.” On Rom. xiv. p. 82.] ↩

  19. T. C. lib. i. p. 154. [122.] “We condemn not the church of England neither in this nor in other things which are meet to be reformed. For it is one thing to mislike, another thing to condemn; and it is one thing to condemn something in the Church and another thing to condemn the Church for it.” ↩

  20. Πολλὰς μὲν θυσίας πολλὰς δὲ καὶ ἱερομηνίας ἔπαυσε· τό τε γὰρ πλει̑στον του̑ ἔτους εἰς αὐτὰς ἀνηλίσκετο, καὶ τῳ̑ δημοσίῳ ζημία οὐκ ἐλαχίστη ἐγίγνετο. De Claudio dictum apud Dion. lib. lx. [c. 15. p. 676. ed. Han. 1606.] ↩

  21. Mark ii. 27. ↩

  22. Numb. xv. 32. ↩

  23. [“wained” . . Bodl. MS. and 1st ed.] ↩

  24. “Hi vacare consueti sunt septima die, et neque arma portare in prædictis diebus, neque terræ culturam contingere, neque alterius cujuspiam curam habere patiuntur, sed in templis extendentes manus adorare usque ad vesperam soliti sunt. Ingrediente vero in civitatem Ptolemæo Lago cum exercitu et multis hominibus, cum custodire debuerint civitatem, ipsis stultitiam observantibus provincia quidem dominum suscepit amarissimum, lex vero manifestata est malam habere solennitatem.” Agatharchid. apud Joseph. lib. i. contra Apion. [c. 22. ad fin.] Vide et Dion. lib. xxxvii. [p. 36 E.] ↩

  25. 1 Mac. ii. 40. ↩

  26. Neh. xiii. 15. ↩

  27. Cod. [Just.] lib. iii. tit. 12. l. 3. [p. 193. ed. Gothofred. 1688. “Omnes judices, urbanæque plebes, et cunctarum artium officia venerabili die solis quiescant. Ruri tamen positi, agrorum culturæ libere licenterque inserviant: quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis aut vineæ scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas cælesti provisione concessa.”] ↩

  28. Leo (v. p. 276. n. 1.) Constit. liv. [Ὁρίζομεν καὶ ἡμει̑ς ἃ τῳ̑ ἁγίῳ ἔδοξε Πνεύματι καὶ τοι̑ς ὑπ’ αὐτου̑ μεμυημένοις ἀποστόλοις, ὥστε πάντας ἐν τῃ̑ θείᾳ καὶ τὴν ἀϕθαρσίαν ἡμι̑ν ἐγκαινισμένῃ [ἐγκαινισαμένῃ] ἡμέρᾳ σχολάζειν ἀργήσεως, [ἐργασίας?] καὶ μήτε γεωργὸν μήτε τινὰ ἅπτεσθαι ἔργων ἐν ταύτῃ τω̑ν μὴ νενομισμένων· εἰ γὰρ οἱ πάλαι τὰς σκιὰς καὶ τοὺς τύπους τιμω̑ντες, διὰ τοσαύτης ἠ̑γον τιμη̑ς τὴν του̑ σαββάτου ἡμέραν ὡς παντελη̑ αὐτῃ̑ ἀπραξίαν διδόναι, πω̑ς εἰκὸς οὓς ἡ χάρις θεραπευτὰς ἔχει καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια, τούτους μὴ τιμᾳ̑ν τὴν ἡμέραν ἣ τὸ τίμιον παρὰ του̑ Δεσπότου ἐπλούτησε, καὶ ἡμα̑ς ἠλευθέρωσε τη̑ς ἐκ ϕθορα̑ς ἀτιμίας; ἢ πω̑ς οὐ παντελω̑ς ἀσυνείδητον, ἑπτὰ ἡμερω̑ν οὐσω̑ν, ὠ̑ν εἰς δεσποτικὴν τιμὴν ἀνει̑ται μία, [μὴ?] ἀρκει̑σθαι ἡμα̑ς ται̑ς ἔξω ἀποκεχρημένους εἰς ἔργα, ἀναϕαίρετον τῳ̑ Δεσπότῃ ἐκείνην τηρει̑ν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ταύτην κοινὴν ποιει̑σθαι, καὶ τω̑ν ἡμετέρων ἔργων νομίζειν καιρόν; p. 47. ed. Plantin. 1575. The text is translated from the Latin version of this.] ↩

  29. [Rechles … Bodl. MS.; rechlesse … A.; wretchlesse, 1616, 1622, 1662, 1676. Cf. Art. xvii. “wretchlessness of most unclean living;” reckless, K.] 1887. ↩

  30. C. (= Cod.) lib. iii. tit. 12. [l. 11.] “Dies festos [majestati altissimæ dedicatos nullis volumus voluptatibus occupari, nec ullis exactionum vexationibus profanari. Dominicum itaque diem ita semper honorabilem decernimus et venerandum, ut a cunctis executionibus excusetur; nulla quenquam urgeat admonitio, nulla fidejussionis flagitetur exactio, taceat apparitio, advocatio delitescat, sit ille dies a cognitionibus alienus, præconis horrida vox silescat, respirent a controversiis litigantes, et habeant fœderis intervallum, ad sese simul veniant adversarii non timentes, subeat animos vicaria pœnitudo, pacta conferant, transactiones loquantur. Nec hujus tamen religiosi diei otia relaxantes obscœnis quenquam patimur voluptatibus detineri. Nihil eodem die sibi vindicet scena theatralis, aut Circense certamen, aut ferarum lachrymosa spectacula; et si in nostrum ortum aut natalem celebranda solemnitas inciderit, differatur. Amissionem militiæ, proscriptionemque patrimonii sustinebit, si quis unquam hoc die festo spectaculis interesset, vel cujuscunque judicis apparitor, prætexta negotii publici seu privati, hæc, quæ hac lege statuta sunt, crediderit temeranda.” Const. Impp. Leon. et Anthem. ad 469.] ↩

  31. Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Apoc. i. 10. ↩

  32. “Apostolis propositum fuit non ut leges de festis diebus celebrandis sancirent, sed ut recte vivendi rationis et pietatis nobis auctores essent.” Socrat. Hist. lib. v. cap. 21. ↩

  33. “Quæ toto terrarum orbe servantur vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel conciliis generalibus quorum est saluberrima in Ecclesia auctoritas statuta esse intelligere licet; sicuti quod Domini passio et resurrectio et in cœlum ascensus et adventus Spiritus Sancti anniversaria solennitate celebrantur.” August. Epist. cxviii. [al. liv. c. 1. t. ii. 124.] ↩

  34. Luke ii. 14. ↩

  35. Arist. Rhet. i. 5, 20. Ὅσοις τὰ κατὰ γυναι̑κας ϕαυ̑λα, ὥσπερ Λακεδαιμονίοις, σχεδὸν κατὰ τὸ ἥμισυ οὐκ εὐδαιμονου̑σιν. Cf. Polit. ii. 9.] ↩

  36. [Smith’s Account of the Greek Church, 1680, p. 18. “Next to the miraculous and gracious providence of God, I ascribe the preservation of Christianity among them to the strict and religious observation of the festivals and fasts of the Church: this being the happy and blessed effect of those ancient and pious institutions, the total neglect of which would soon introduce ignorance and a sensible decay of piety and religion in other countries besides the Levant. This certainly is the chiefest preservative of religion in those eastern countries, against the poison of the Mahometan superstition. For children, and those of the most ordinary capacities, know the meaning of these holy solemnities, at which times they flock to church in great companies, and thereby retain the memory of our blessed Saviour’s birth, dying upon the cross, resurrection and ascension, and keep up the constant profession of their acknowledgment of the necessary and fundamental points of faith: as of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, and the like. And while they celebrate the sufferings and martyrdoms of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and other great saints, who laid down their lives most joyfully for his name, and underwent with unwearied and invincible patience all the torments and cruelties of their heathen persecutors, they take courage from such glorious examples, and are the better enabled to endure with less trouble and regret the miseries and hardships they daily struggle with.”] ↩

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