“And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month… even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord… And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord… The altar also was rent…”
1 Kings 12:32-13:6
“Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Mark 7:7
“But now, after that ye have known God… how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you…”
Gal. 4:9-11
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Subsection
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Order of Contents
Where to Start?
Rom. 14:5-6?
Articles 16+
Books 5
Quotes 2
History 5
. Early Church
Church: Able to Call Thanksgiving Days & Mid-Week Services
Annual Thanksgiving Days
Civil Holidays & Birthdays
2nd Helvetic Confession
Evangelical Feast Days: Beneficial?
Latin 6
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Where to Start?
Quotes
James Durham
A Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments (Dallas, TX: Naphtali Press), 2nd Commandment, pp. 108-9
“…consider, that this [second] command [of the 10 Commandments] is… broken… When something is added to his service, which He has not commanded; and this is superstition and will-worship largely so taken. Of this kind are… [6] More holy days than God has instituted…
Again, this command is practically broken… When worship or service under the gospel… is without a divine warrant tied to such a time only; as Christmas (commonly called Yule), Easter, Pasch [Passover], etc. which is an observing of times that God has not appointed. [Gal. 4:9-11]”
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William Ames 1633
A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship, vol. 2 (1633; rep. Puritan Reprints, 2010), Section 32, ‘Concerning the Lord’s Day, Temples and Ceremonial Festivals’, p. 359
“Concerning ceremonial festivals of man’s making, our practice cannot be objected, because we observe none. We take occasion of hearing and praying upon any day when occasion is offered. We say (with [Rudolph] Hospinian [d. 1626], [in Latin] Of Christian Festivals, ch. 2 [1611/74]) ‘Not the day, but the Word of God… puts us in mind of the nativity, resurrection and ascension of Christ.'”
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Sermon
McCurley, Robert – A Holy God & Holy Days, an audio sermon, 53 min., the transcription is also provided, 91 paragraphs
McCurley analyzes what the Bible has to say about Christmas.
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Article
Bart, Paul – 8 Reasons Christian Holidays Should not be Observed (2016) 42 paragraphs
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Book
Schwertley, Brian –The Regulative Principle of Worship & Christmas Buy (2003) 106 pp.
This is an excellent Biblical defense of the historic, reformed position that the Bible forbids making up one’s own religiously-significant holidays, and that the practice of such is not indifferent (Gen. 2:3; 1 Kings 12:32-13:5; Matt 15:9). Appendix 1 is 19 pages of quotes from Church history demonstrating that this is the historic, reformed position.
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What about Rom. 14:5-6? “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
That Days of Christian Remembrance may be Encompassed in Rom. 14 (Recommended)
Article
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – “Romans 14 & 1 Corinthians 8: Foods & Days” in “Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), pp. 34-38
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That Rom. 14 Only Encompassed Mosaic Holy Days & therefore it does Not Apply to Days of Christian Remembrance (Not Recommended)
Quotes
Order of
Gillespie
Williamson
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1600’s
George Gillespie
English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 1, ch. 8, ‘That Festival Days take away our Christian Liberty, proved out of the Gospel’, pp. 25-26
“[Col. 2] verse. 17, What should we do with the shadow, when we have the body? another, verse 20, Why should we be subject to human ordinances, since through Christ we are dead to them, and have nothing ado with them?
Now, by the same reasons are our holy-days to be condemned as taking away Christian liberty; and so that which the apostle says, does militate as well against them as against any other holy-days: for whereas it might be thought that the apostle does not condemn all holy-days, because both he permits others to observe days, Rom. 14:5, and he himself also did observe one of the Jewish feasts, Acts 18:21.
It is easily answered that our holy-days have no warrant from these places except our opposites will say that they esteem their festival days holier than other days, and that they observe the Jewish festivities, neither of which they do aknowledge; and if they did, yet they must consider that which the apostle either said or did hereanent, is to be expounded and understood of bearing with the weak Jews, whom he permitted to esteeme one day above another, and for whose cause he did in his own practice, thus far apply himself to their infirmity at [???] time, when they could not possibly be as yet fully and throughly instructed concerning Christian liberty and the abrogation of the Ceremonial Law, because the Gospel was as yet not fully propagated: and when the Mosaical rites were like a dead man not yet buried, as Augustine’s simile runs.
So that all this can make nothing for holy-days after the full promulgation of the Gospel, and after that the Jewish ceremonies are not only dead, but also buried, and so deadly to be used by us. Hence it is, that the apostle will not bear with the observation days in Christian Churches, who have known God as he speaks.
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The apostle comports with the observation of days in the weak Jews, who understood not the fullness of the Christian liberty, especially, since those days having had the honor to be once appointed by God Himself, were to be honorably buried: but the same apostle reproves the Galatians who had attained to this liberty, and had once left off the observation of days.
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Now for confutation of this forged exposition of those places of the apostle… The [Romanist] Rhemists affirm that the apostle condemns only Jewish days [in Col. 2 & Gal. 4], but not Christian days, and that we do falsely interpret his words against their holy-days. [Thomas] Cartwright answers them that if Paul condemned the observing of feasts which God Himself instituted, then much more does He condemn the observation of feasts of man’s devising… for he [Paul] condemnes that observation of days which had crept into the Church of Galatia, which was not Jewish nor typical, seeing the Galatians, believing that Christ was already come, could not keep them as figures of his coming, as the Jews did, but rather as memorials that He was already come, says Cartwright.”
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1900’s
G.I. Williamson, ‘The Scriptural Regulative Principle of Worship’ n.d.
“[5] Paul’s rebuke of the Galatians.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians there is a clear mention of unauthorized worship.
“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain” (Gal. 4:9-11).
The people to whom Paul wrote this letter were probably observing the special days and seasons appointed by God in the Old Testament ceremonial system (Ex. 23:14-17, 34:18, etc.). But, if that is the case, it only makes the force of the Apostle’s objection all the stronger when applied to special days that God never commanded. When Christ came the Old Testament ceremonial system of worship was superseded. Included in this were the annual sacred days, and even the Jewish Sabbaths. For the Galatians to go on celebrating these days was to act as if they were still waiting for the advent of the Messiah.
You can readily see the application. If the Apostle found it necessary to say this to people who continued to observe days which had once been commanded, but were now obsolete, what would he say to people, today, who observe special holy days that God never commanded?¹
¹ Calvin’s Commentaries, 21:125:
“Do we wonder that Paul should be afraid that he had labored in vain, that the gospel would henceforth be of no service? And since that very description of impiety is now supported by Popery, what sort of Christ or what sort of gospel does it retain? So far as respects the binding of consciences, they enforce the observance of days with not less severity than was done by Moses. They consider holidays, not less than the false prophets did, to be a part of the worship of God… The Papists must therefore be held equally censurable with the false apostles; and with this additional aggravation, that, while the former proposed to keep those days which had been appointed by the law of God, the latter enjoy days, rashly stamped with their own seal, to be observed as most holy.”
At this point — in order to avoid misunderstanding — we also need to take note of Paul’s teaching in Romans 14. Here the Apostle instructed the strong to be patient with the weak, because the weak did not yet understand the liberty they had in Jesus. As a matter of fact they were no longer under any obligation to observe even the special days that God had once appointed through Moses. But the problem was that some of the members of the Church in Rome did not yet understand this.
And, as long as it was only a particular member of the Church who was afflicted with this lamentable weakness, Paul was willing to patiently bear with him. He was willing, in other words, to tolerate church membership for a person who felt constrained — by a misinformed conscience — to observe these days.
In Galatians 4[:9-11], however, the Apostle had a different concern in view. In this instance the Church as a whole had submitted itself to a yoke of bondage. The Galatian church, as a corporate body, had yielded to the demands of ‘the weak’ by observing these days. And when this happened the Apostle was quite uncompromising in his opposition. The reason is that it is wrong for the Church to include in its corporate worship anything that Christ has not commanded.
It is one thing, in other words, to tolerate weakness in individual members. But it is something else again when this errant view is imposed on the whole congregation. Yet this is exactly what we see today in most Reformed Churches.”
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Articles
1500’s
Bucer, Martin – ‘Why we Abolish Feast Days’ in Grounds & Reasons from Scripture for the Changes about the Lord’s Supper, called the ‘Mass’, Baptism, Feast Days & Images tr. by AI by Sollie J. Van Rensburg (1525), pp. 52-57 German See also ch. X, ‘Why We have Abolished Holy Days’ (1524) 9 pp. in Ground & Reason ed. Ottomar Cypris Buy (2017), pp. 159-68
This was the first, major reformed treatise on worship, which gave the ground and reason for the first reformed worship services of the Reformation, as they held them in Strasbourg, Germany.
“…one of the most significant documents in the history of Reformed worship.” – Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old
“We cannot deny that the old fathers were ill advised when they retained a few holy days for the sake of those who loved the world too much, hoping that they would hear some portion of the Word of God.” – Bucer, p. 165
Viret, Pierre – Dialogue 3, ‘Anniversaries, or Years’ Minds’ in The Christian Disputations… Dialogue-wise tr. John Brooke (d. 1571; London: East, 1579), pp. 114-74 Index
This is about the yearly celebration of saints’ days.
Cartwright, Thomas – pt. 2, ch. 1, ‘Of Holy Days’ in The Rest of the Second Reply of Thomas Cartwright Against Master Doctor Whitgift’s Second Answer Touching the Church Discipline (Basel, 1577), pp. 188-199
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1600’s
Calderwood, David
‘Reasons Against Festival Days’ (1619) 64 paragraphs from Perth Assembly (1619)
‘Propositions on Indifferent Things & Ceremonies in Worship’ trans. T. Fentiman (1623; RBO, 2021)
Calderwood (1575–1650) was a Scottish minister and arch-presbyterian. This section of Calderwood is taken from his large Latin work refuting the polity of the Church of England being sought to be imposed on Scotland.
Specifically, these propositions were set against the Articles of Perth (1618) which had instituted in the Church of Scotland (1) kneeling in receiving Communion, (2) observing religious festival days (such as Christmas, Easter, etc.), (3) episcopal confirmation of youth, and (4 & 5) administering baptism and the Lord’s Supper in private places.
Calderwood’s propositions are solid, timeless and are pardigmatic of classical presbyterianism.
William Ames – Section 32, ‘Concerning the Lord’s Day, Temples and Ceremonial Festivals’ in A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship, vol. 2 (1633; rep. Puritan Reprints, 2010), pp. 358-360.
Gillespie, George – A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies... (1637)
pt. 1
ch. 7, ‘That [Imposed] Festival Days Take Away our Liberty which God has Given us, Proved: & First Out of the Law’, pp. 20-24
ch. 8, ‘That [Imposed] Festival Days Take Away our Christian Liberty, Proved out of the Gospel’, pp. 25-31
ch. 9, ‘Showing the Weakness of Some Pretences which our Opposites Use for Holy-days’, pp. 31-36
pt. 3
“Thomas Mockett (or Mocket) (1602-1670), was a studious theologian, Reformed preacher of the Gospel, and scholarly puritan divine during the era of Westminster. Edmund Calamy describes him as, “a very pious, and humble man.”
Mockett’s argument in this work is directed to well-meaning Christians who are defiling the Regulative Principle – that God alone determines the manner and time in which sinners are to approach him. Writing against the, “observation of Christ’s nativity,” Mockett shows the Christian how he is to reject, whole-heartily, adding Christ into Christmas as a religious or worship observance.” – Matthew McMahon
Mather, Samuel – ‘3. There were the days of Purim…’ (1668) in ‘The Gospel of the Feast of Trumpets’ in The Figures or Types of the Old Testament, by which Christ and the Heavenly Things of the Gospel were preached and shadowed to the people of God of Old: Explained and improved in sundry sermons (London, 1705), pp. 440-1
Mather (1626-1671) was a New England puritan and was the son of Richard Mather and the brother of Increase Mather.
Turretin, Francis – 15. ‘Whether it belongs to the faith in the New Testament that besides the Lord’s Day there are other festival days properly so called whose celebration is necessary per se and by reason of mystery, not by reason of order or ecclesiastical polity only. We deny against the papists.’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1994), vol. 2, 11th Topic, pp. 100-104
Rule, Gilbert – sect. 9, ‘Of Holy Days of Human Institution’ in The Good Old Way Defended… (Edinburgh: 1697), pp. 203-45
Rule was a Scottish divine-right presbyterian.
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1800’s
Miller, Samuel
‘Presbyterians do not Observe Holy Days’ (1835) 14 paragraphs from his Presbyterianism the Truly Primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Church of Christ, pp. 73-78
‘Letter on Christmas Observance’ (1828) 7 paragraphs, this letter is addressed to a secular commercial advertiser
Bannerman, James – ‘Ecclesiastical Holidays’ in The Church of Christ: a treatise on the nature, powers, ordinances, discipline, and government of the Christian Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868), vol. 1, pp. 406–420 hosted at RenoPres
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2000’s
Silversides, David – ‘Why No Christmas or Easter?’ 16 paragraphs
Williamson, G.I.
‘Is Christmas Scriptural?’ n.d. 8 paragraphs in the New Horizons magazine of the O.P.C.
‘A Defense of Calvinn’s Rejection of Christmas’ 2013 11 paragraphs in The Aquila Report
McMahon, C. Matthew – ‘Easter: the Devil’s Holiday’ 30 paragraphs
The Pope Says the Entire Christian Calendar is Wrong, being a news article, Nov. 12th, 2012 at Business Insider
Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church – ‘Why Don’t We Use the Church Calendar?’ (2017) 8 paragraphs Marietta, Georgia
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Books
1600’s
Gillespie, George – A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies Buy (1637) 372 pp.
A main focus of this book is against the unBiblical, English-Popish holy days that were being attempted to be pushed on Scotland in 1637. Gillespie thoroughly demonstrates that such cannot be participated in under the pretense of ‘adiaphora’, or of them being indifferent and circumstantial.
For an excerpt from this work, see the short section on ‘Popish Ceremonies are Proved to be Idolatrous Because They are Monuments of Past Idolatry’ and the longer section here.
Collinges, John – Responsoria Ad Erratica Piscatoris. Or a Caveat for Old & New Profaneness. By Way of Reply to Two Over-confident Pamphlets… in which Answer the Several Opinions of Epiphanius, Syslyga, Beroaldus, Scaliger, Sethus Calvisius, etc. for the Day of Christ’s Birth, are Propounded & Examined, & it is Fully Proved that the Direct Day Cannot be Determined. The Question Also, Concerning the Observation of Christmas-Day, is Debated & it is Fully Proved that it is Not (as Mr. [Edward] Fisher & Others, Falsely Say) Grounded on Scripture, Nor Can the Observation of it be Proved for 360 Years After Christ. Mr. Fisher’s Proof Also from Clement: Constitut. Telesphorus, Theophilus, Cyprian, is Found False & Spurious & His Judgment Contrary to the Reformed Churches, who Never Thought it Sin to Work on Christmas-Day, Nor that it was Equal with the Lord’s Day. His Lewd Positions also Concerning the Sabboth are Plainly Confuted, and His Self- Contradictions Discovered. The Power of Magistrates and Churches in Constituting Holy-days in Thesi, and this Day in Hypothesi, is Debated, and Our Parliament & Assembly Justified in Abolishing the Day. Dr. [Henry] Hammond’s More Sober Vindication of the Day… is (in Short Appendix) Examined & Found Insufficient Ref (Tomlins, 1653) 144 pp.
Collinges was an English puritan.
Cawdrey, Daniel
Diatribe Triplex, or, A Threefold Exercitation Concerning 1. Superstition, 2. Will-worship, 3. Christmas Festival, with the Reverend & Learned Dr. Hammond (London, 1654) Buy
Cawdrey was a presbyterian and Westminster divine. Henry Hammond was an Arminian Anglican.
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1700’s
Bruce, Archibald – Annus Secularis: or the British Jubilee: Or a Review of the Act of the General Assembly, Appointing the 5th of November, 1788, as an Anniversary-thanksgiving, in commemoration of the Revolution in 1688; Wherein also the Doctrine & History, the Origin, Progress & Tendency of Religious Festivals, in Ancient & Modern Times, Both in a Religious & Moral View, are Particularly Considered Buy (1788) 231 pp.
This work “…is a rejection of anniversary religious festivals; Bruce insists on a biblical warrant for any observance introduced into worship, reviews the history of opposition to religious holidays by the Reformed churches, and observes the effect of such commemorations in the decline of Churches into unscriptural symbolism and idolatry.” – Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology
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2000’s
Schwertley, Brian – The Regulative Principle of Worship & Christmas Buy (2003) 106 pp.
This is an excellent Biblical defense of the historic, reformed position that the Bible forbids making up one’s own religiously-significant holidays, and that the practice of such is not indifferent (Gen. 2:3; 1 Kings 12:32-13:5; Matt 15:9). Appendix 1 is 19 pages of quotes from Church history demonstrating that this is the historic, reformed position.
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Quotes
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, pp. 413-17
“But the hardest part of the question is whether it be lawful to keep days as holy in celebrating the memorial of Christ’s nativity, circumcision, fasting, transfiguration, ascension and such like? And the great reasons of the doubt are:
1. Because the occasions of these holy days were existent in the apostles’ days: and therefore if God would have had such days observed, he could as easily and fitly have done it by his apostles in the Scripture, as he did other the like things.
2. And this is a business that if it were necessary, [it] would be equally necessary to all ages and parts of the catholic Church. And therefore it cannot be necessary, but it must be the matter of a universal law. And God has made no such law in Scripture: and so Scripture sufficiency, as the catholic rule of Faith and universal divine obedience, is utterly overthrown: which if we grant, and turn Papists today, we shall have as strong temptations to make us turn infidels tomorrow, so poor is their evidence for the supplemental traditional Law of God.
3. And God Himself has already appointed a day for the same purposes as these are pretended for. For the Lord’s Day is to commemorate the Resurrection, as the great triumphant act of the Redeemer, implying all the rest of his works: so that though it be principally for the Resurrection above any single work of Christ, yet also for all the work of redemption: And the whole is on that day to be commemorated with holy joy and praise. Now when God Himself has set apart one day in every week to commemorate the whole work of redemption, it seems an accusing of his institutions of insufficiency, to come after Him to mend them, and say we must have an anniversary day for this or that part of the work.
4. The Fourth Commandment being one of the Decalogue, seems to be of so high a nature, that man is not to presume to make the like. Else why may we not turn the Ten Commandments into twenty or a hundred? But it seems a doing the same or of like nature to what God has done in the Fourth Commandment, if any will make a necessary stated holy day to the universal Church.
5. And it seems also that these holy days (excepting Easter and Whitsuntide and other Lord’s days) are but of later introduction. Many passages of antiquity seem to intimate that Christmas day itself was not of many hundred years after Christ. I remember not any before Gregory Nazianzene that seem to speak of it. The allegations out of spurious authors, and that of later date, such as the counterfeit Clement, Dionysius, Cyprian, etc. are brought to deceive and not to convince.
6. Yea more, the time was a matter of controversy among the Churches of the East and West, for many hundred years after Christ, Epiphanius and the Churches of Judaea and all those Eastern parts took the sixth of January to be the day (see Casaubon’s Exercitation on this and Cloppenburg more fully in this). Chrysostom says it was but ten years before he wrote that homily that the Church at Constantinople was persuaded by them at Rome to change their account of the day: And is it possible that, when for about four hundred years or more the Churches were utterly disagreed of the day, that it was then commonly kept as a holy day? The keeping of it would sure have kept a common knowledge of the day: Or at least the difference of observation would have raised contention, as the difference about Easter did: can any believe that the famous Council of Nicea and the vigilant emperor that were so exceeding impatient of a diversity of observations of Easter would have let a diverse observation of Christmas alone without once thinking or speaking of it when they were gathered about the like work if the Church had commonly observed it then as a holy day? Or was the Church of Judaea where Christ arose in any likelihood to have lost the true account of the day if it had been observed by apostolical tradition from the beginning?
7. And it seems that God did purposely deny us the observation of this day in that He has certainly kept the time unknown to the world. The confidence of some bewrays but their ignorance. Chronologers are never like to be agreed of the year, much less of the month or day; some think we are four years too late, some two years, etc. Many think that Christ was born about October (as Scaliger, Broughton, Beroaldus, etc.) and many still hold to the old Eastern opinion for the epiphany being the nativity, on Jan. 6, and others are for other times; but none are certain of the time.
8. Sure we are, where there is no Law, there is no transgression: but here is no Law of God commanding Christmas day or the other holy days; therefore there is no transgression in not keeping them. And then:
9. It is not so sure that there is no transgression in keeping them: therefore the surer side is to be taken.
10. And it seems strange that we find not so much as any ancient general Council making any mention of Christmas or such days (though of the martyrs’ days some do). All these reasons (which I run over hastily) and many more (which for brevity I pretermit) do seem to make it a very hard question whether the keeping of this sort of holy days be lawful.
§47. And it is not to be much stuck at, that a day to Christ does seem more necessary and pious than a day in commemoration of a martyr, or a particular mercy: For in the highest parts of God’s worship, God has left man least to do as to legislation and decisions: and usurpations here are far most dangerous. A weekly day is somewhat more than an anniversary: And yet I think there is few of the contrary minded but would doubt whether man might impose on the Church the observation of another weekly holy day in commemoration of Christ’s nativity. The worship of God is a more excellent and necessary thing than the veneration due to a worthy person; and yet we have not so much liberty to make new ways of worshiping God as of veneration to men. So is it here, though even the days that are for the memorial of the saints are ultimately for the honor of God; yet those that are set apart directly and immediately to commemorate the work of redemption, are relatively much higher, and therefore seem to be more exempted from the determination of human laws.
§. 48. By this and much more I am fully satisfied:
1. That the keeping of these days is a thing of itself unnecessary:
2. And that there being none on earth that can justly pretend to a power of universal government over the whole catholic Church, it is certain that none on earth can bind the catholic Church to such observances…
3. And even in a single church, or a province, or nation, I am satisfied that it is a great sin for magistrates or pastors to force all that scruple it to the observation of these days, and to lay the unity or peace of their churches on it, and to cast out, censure, reproach, or punish them that dare not obey such impositions for fear of sinning against God. And it is a most disingenuous thing to insinuate and put into the minds of men accusations of the impiety of the dissenters; and to persuade the world that it is irreligiousness, or humorous singularity, when it is so known a thing to all that know them that the persons that scruple or disown these days do ordinarily walk in uprightness and the fear of God in other matters, and profess that it is only a fear of breaking the laws of God that keeps them from conformity to the will of others: and that they are reproached by the multitude of the observers of these days for their spending the Lord’s Day in holy exercises, which the reproachers spend too much in idleness, sensuality or profaness; and it is not long since many of them were cast out of the ministerial service or suspended, for not reading a book authorizing dancing and other recreations on the Lord’s day. In a word, to reproach them as Precisians and puritans for the strictness of their lives, and yet at the same time to persuade men that they are ungodly for not keeping holy days, or not kneeling at the sacrament, is not ingenuous dealing, and draws too near the manners of the pagans, who called the Christians ungodly because they durst not offer their sacrifices, and when they dragged them to the judgment-seats, they cried Tollite impios [‘Take away the impious’], as if themselves were the godly men: I compare not the matter of the causes here, but only the temper of the persons and manner and justice of proceedings.
§49. And yet for all this I am resolved, if I live where such holy days as these are observed, to censure no man for observing them, nor would I deny them liberty to follow their judgments, if I had the power of their liberties; provided they use not reproach and violence to others, and seek not to deprive them of their liberties. Paul has so long ago decided these cases, Rom. 14 & 15, that if men would be ruled by the Word of God, the controversy were, as to the troublesome part of it, at an end. They that through weakness observe a day to the Lord that is not commanded them of God, should not judge their brethren that observe it not: and they that observe it not, should not despise or set at naught their weaker (though censorious) brethren that observe it; but everyone should be fully persuaded in his own mind. The Holy Ghost has decided the case that we should here bear with one another.
§50. Yea more, I would not only give men their liberty in this, but if I lived under a government that peremptorily commanded it, I would observe the outward rest of such a holy day, and I would preach on it, and join with the assemblies in God’s worship on it. Yea I would thus observe the day, rather than offend a weak brother, or hinder any man’s salvation, much more rather than I would make any division in the Church. I think in as great matters as this did Paul condescend when he circumcised Timothy and resolved to eat no flesh while he lived rather than offend his brother, and to become all things to all men for their good. Where a thing is evil but by accident, the greatest accidents must weigh down the less. I may lawfully obey and use the day, when another does unlawfully command it: And I think this is the true case.”
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The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 58, p. 294
“Yea there are among you now many things of a lower [superstitious] nature, which some dare scarce plainly say God commands or forbids, and yet they are censorious enough about them:
…That it is not lawful to preach or hear a sermon upon a human holiday.”
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The History of Religious Holidays
On the Whole of Church History
Article
Reed, Kevin – Christmas: an Historical Survey Regarding its Origins & Opposition to it 107 paragraphs
On the Early Church
Article
Ames, William – pp. 82-84 of A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship… (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633), ch. 1, section 17
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Quote
George Gillespie
English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 3, ch. 6, p. 98
“Bishop Andrewes will have the feast of Easter drawn from that place 1 Cor. 5:8, where he says there is not only a warrant, but an order for the keeping of it, and he will have it out of doubt that this feast is of apostolical institution, because after the times of the apostles, when there was a contention about the manner of keeping Easter, it was agreed upon by all that it should be kept, and when the one side alleged for them St. John [for keeping it on Passover], and the other St. Peter [for keeping it on the Lord’s Day], it was acknowledged by both that the feast was apostolical.
I answer, the testimony of Socrates [a church historian in the early Church] deserves more credit than the Bishop’s naked conclusion. ‘I am of opinion,’ says Socrates (bk. 5, ch. 22), ‘that as many other things crept in of custom in sundry places, so the feast of Easter to have prevailed among all people, of a certain private custom and observation.’
But whereas B. Lindsay in defense of B. Andrewes, replies that Socrates propounds this for his own opinion only, I answer that Socrates in that chapter proves his opinion from the very same ground, which B. Andrewes wrests, to prove that this Feast is Apostolical. For while as in that hot controversy about the keeping of Easter, they of the East alleged John the apostle for their author, and they of the west alleged Peter and Paul for themselves; Yet (says Socrates), there is none that can show in writing any testimony of theirs, for confirmation and proof of their custom. And hereby I do gather that the celebration of the Feast of Easter came up more of custom than by any law or canon.”
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On the Reformation
Article
Coldwell, Chris – John Calvin & Holy Days 16 paragraphs
Calvin is one who is sometimes quoted as allowing for extra-Biblical holy days. The truth of the matter is that Geneva at certain points tolerated such holy days due to pressure from the civil magistrate and in bearing long with infirmities in the Church till they could be further reformed and removed. When Calvin does speak his mind, he disapproves of them, as George Gillespie argues (who is cited in the article).
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On America
Articles
Coldwell, Chris & Andy Webb – American Presbyterianism & the Religious Observance of Christmas (2015) 45 pp.
Christmas used to be outlawed by the American puritans as part of the false worship of Roman Catholicism. In the early 1800′s Samuel Miller could still write, “Presbyterians do not observe holy days.” By the mid to late-1800′s the tide began to turn. How did this happen? Was greater light derived from the scriptures? Or was it due to worldliness and backsliding? Read here to find out why.
Webb, Andrew – Why Do Presbyterians Observe Holy Days? no date 11 pp.
An excellent historical survey of America’s early opposition to the Christ-mass and its subsequent decline in the mid-1800’s into the contemporary era.
Williams, Daniel K. – ‘Unitarians & Episcopalians Created American Christmas’ (2022) 34 paragraphs in Christianity Today
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What About the Church being Able to Call Days of Thanksgiving & Mid-Week
Services?
Order of Contents
Article 1
Quotes 3
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Article
1600’s
Gillespie, George – Sections 6-7, pp. 22-24 of pt. 1, ch. 7 of English Popish Ceremonies (1637)
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Quotes
Order of
Gillespie
Baxter
Rule
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George Gillespie
English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 3, ch. 1
pp. 6-7
“…as Didoclavius [David Calderwood] observes (Altar of Damascus, ch. 10, p. 878), aliud est deputare, aliud dedicare, aliud sanctificare; Designation or deputation is when a man appoints a thing for such a use, still reserving power and right to put it to another use, if he please; so the Church appoints times and hours for preaching upon the week days, yet reserving power to employ those times otherwise when she shall think fit.
Dedication is when a man so devotes a thing to some pious or civil use that he denudes himself of all right and title which thereafter he might claim unto it: as when a man dedicates a sum of money for the building of an exchange, a judgment-hall, etc. or a parcel of ground for a Church, a Church-yard, a glebe, a school, a hospital; he can claim no longer right to the dedicated thing.
Sanctification is the setting apart of a thing for a holy or religious use in such sort that thereafter it may be put to no other use, Prov. 20:25.
Now, whereas times set apart for ordinary and weekly preaching are only designed by the Church for this end and purpose, so that they are not holy, but only for the present they are applied to a holy use; neither is the worship appointed as convenient or beseeming for those times, but the times are appointed as convenient for the worship: festival days are holy both by dedication and consecration of them.”
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pp. 12-13
“5. By their fruits shall we know them; look whether they give so much liberty to others and take so much to themselves upon their holy days for staying from the public worship and attending wordly business, as they do at the diets of weekly and ordinary preaching: yet they would make the simple believe that their holy days are only appointed to be kept as those ordinary times set apart for divine service on the week-days.
Nay, moreover, let it be observed, whether or not they keep the festival days more carefully, and urge the keeping of them more earnestly than the Lord’s own day. Those prelates that will not abase themselves to preach upon ordinary Sabbaths, think the high holy days worthy of their sermons. They have been also often seen to travel upon the Lord’s Day, whereas they hold it religion to travel upon a holy day. And whereas they can digest the common profanation of the Lord’s Day and not challenge it, they cannot away with the not observing of their festivities.”
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Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, p. 412
“§46. 6. And as for holy days, there is great difference between them: Those are liable to most question that are obtruded on the Church with the greatest confidence. As for such days as are appointed upon some emergent occasions that arose since Scripture was indited, and are not common to all times and places of the Church, there is no more question whether the magistrate may command them, or the pastors agree upon them, than whether a lecture-day, or fast-day, or thanksgiving-day may be commanded or agreed on: some time for God’s worship besides the Lord’s Day must be appointed: And God having not told us which, the magistrate may, on fit occasions.
And this is no derogation from the sufficiency of Scripture: For the occasion of the day was not existent when the Scripture was written: such occasions are various according to the various state of the Church in several ages and countries. And therefore to keep an anniversary day of thanksgiving, such as we keep on the fifth of November for our deliverance from the Papists’ powder plot, is no more questionable than to keep a lecture.”
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Gilbert Rule
The Good Old Way Defended… (Edinburgh: 1697), sect. 9, pp. 205-6
“5. It is one question whether a day may be set apart for commemoration of some mystery of our religion, by men, and as a part of God’s worship. And another whether such days may be set apart for worshipping God merely as a piece of good order and policy. The first the Papists are for: the other most of our prelatists own, though some of them differ little from the Papists in this matter.
6. The question is not whether a day may be set apart occasionally for religious worship: that is, when any special providence gives occasion for fasting and humiliation or for thanksgiving and rejoicing: seeing in that case there is a special providential call to that solemn work: but whether a day may be set apart to be observed constantly and as it recurs every year.
The one makes a difference between that day of the year and other days and exempts it altogether and constantly from civil use, the other does not so; the one makes a difference among days, the other makes the difference only in the works or dispensations of God which occasion such work on that day and not on another. All that the Church does in the one case, is, whereas the present providence calls to the work, as it is expressed, Isa. 22:12. The Church only determines the circumstance of time, which must be done: in the other, the Church determines more than a necessary circumstance, viz. that there shall be such a solemnity, which the Lord has not enjoined; neither do we doubt, but that the Church may appoint recurrent days for solemn worship, to wit, while the present providence that calls to such work continues. Weekly or monthly fasts may be appointed under a lasting calamity or threatening.”
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Annual Days of Thanksgiving may be Lawful
Quotes
Order of
Baxter
Poole
Corbet
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1600’s
Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 58, p. 294
“Yea there are among you now many things of a lower [superstitious] nature, which some dare scarce plainly say God commands or forbids, and yet they are censorious enough about them:
…That it is unlawful to keep any anniversary day of humiliation or thanksgiving of man’s appointment.”
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Matthew Poole
Annotations on John 10, v. 22
“Magistrates certainly have a power to appoint public days, yea, annual days of thanksgivings, for mercies never to be forgotten. Indeed they cannot make a day holy, so as it shall be a sin against God to labor in it, or to use any pleasures (as in the case of the sabbath); but they may command the public worship of God to be performed on particular days, and men ought to attend it when with convenience they can; only they ought to take care that such days be not spent in luxury and profaneness, and that they be for signal providences, and not so multiplied, and frequently renewing, as that the service of them degenerate into mere matter of form.
Whether Christ went up in order to the feast [of dedication], or because of the great concourse of people he knew would be there at that time, cannot be determined.”
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John Corbet
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Latin Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 1, pt. 1, bk. 2, tract 4
3. Of Public Thanksgivings, Feasts and Good-Days 995
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On Civil Holidays, Birthdays & Other Festivals
Article
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – section 6, ‘Whether it be lawful to solemnize the birthday of any man’ in 7. ‘The Fourth Precept: of Sanctifying the Sabbath Day’ in The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 2, p. 377
“But to celebrate solemnly the day of a man’s birth, it has been a custom of all nations: and in my judgment, it is not done amiss, so that there be used a godly modesty. Surely it is a notable gift that we may be reckoned among the number of God’s creatures.
And who doubts, but that it is well done, to give thanks unto God for it, and in thanksgiving to testify the joyfulness of mind by an outward token of some modest banket? The use of honest pleasures is such, as they have always godliness joined with them.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht, 1659), vol. 3
95. Appendix: ‘On the Gentiles’ First Day of January, Birthdays & Civil Festivals’, pp. 1281-1314
100. ‘On the Fortieth [Lent] & Bacchanalian Festivals’, pp. 1383-91
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What about the 2nd Helvetic Confession (1566)?
The 2nd Helvetic Confession (1566), a binding document of the reformed Swiss churches (see Wiki for background info) states in 24.3:
“If in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord’s nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly. But we do not approve of feasts instituted for men and for saints.”
While James Dennison, Jr. says that the 2nd Helvetic Confession was ‘the most widely received of the sixteenth century Reformed confessions,’ (Reformed Confessions, vol. 2, p. 809) yet he says that the only churches that ‘adopted it as a standard of their own’ besides the Swiss churches were the reformed Churches of Hungary and Eastern Europe (which never were the most reformed), and hence the Confession did not have binding status in other Reformation churches.
When the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland sent a letter to Theodore Beza approving the Confession in 1566, they made this notable exception:
“This one thing, however, we can scarcely refrain from mentioning, with regard to what is written in the 24th chapter of the aforesaid Confession concerning the ‘festival of our Lord’s nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples,’ that these festivals at the present time obtain no place among us; for we dare not religiously celebrate any other feast-day than what the divine oracles have prescribed. Everything else, as we have said, we teach, approve, and most willingly embrace.”
– Works of John Knox, vol. 6, pp. 547-8
Other streams of reformed churches that got rid of religious holidays altogether included the English puritans following Thomas Cartwright’s 1580’s Directory of Worship, much of the Netherlands (pre-Synod-of-Dort), and of course the Westminster Assembly in its Directory for Public Worship.
Where religious holidays do come up in Reformed Church history, R. Andrew Myers observes:
“…it is evident that there are no arguments to be made on behalf of observing unBiblical holidays on the grounds of the Regulative Principle of Worship. Neither [Henry] Bullinger, nor [Francis] Turretin, nor [the Synod of] Dort, nor anyone else that I have read who approved of select unBiblical holidays ever tries to justify them except on the basis of “Christian liberty or edification,” and not rather on the principle of divine warrant or command in worship.
The Reformed who did approve of unBiblical holidays generally allowed for a shorter ecclesiastical calendar than the Roman Church, and tried to curtail certain “abuses,” but nevertheless were unable to point to any divine authorization for setting apart feast days.
Reformed Church history does show, however, that wherever the Regulative Principle of Worship governed ecclesiastical worship, the more purely Reformed churches excluded an ecclesiastical calendar filled with holidays which were invented by the mind of man and confined themselves to the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and providential days of thanksgiving and fasting.”
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But are Not Evangelical Feast Days Beneficial?
George Gillespie
English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 2, ch. 2, ‘Against those of our Opposites who plead for the Ceremonies as things Expedient’, pp. 13-14
“Tilen sets out the expediency of holy-days for imprinting in the minds of people the sense and knowledge of the benefits of redemption.
Answer: 1. There is no mean so good for this purpose as catechizing and preaching, out of season and in season. 2. What could he say unto them who have attained his end without his mean? I find people better instructed and made more sensible of those benefits where the feasts are not kept, than where they are. 3. Think they their people sufficiently instructed in the grounds of religion when they hear of the nativity, passion, etc. What course will they take for instructing them in other principles of faith? Why do they not keep one way, and institute a holy-day for every particular head of catechism?
But Bishop Lindsey thinks yet to let us see a greater expediency for observing holy-days. Certainely says he, nothing is so powerful to abolish profaneness and to root out superstition of men’s hearts, as the exercise of divine worship in preaching, praying and thanksgiving, chiefly then when the superstitious conceits of merit and necessity are most pregnant in the heads of people, as doubtless they are when the set times of solemnities return; for then it is meet to lance the oposterne when it is ripe.
Answer: This is a very bad cure and is not only to heal the wound of the people slightly [Jer. 6:14], but to make it the more inveterate and festered. I might object that little or nothing is preached or spoken by him and his companions at the revolution of those festivities against the superstitious keeping of them; but though they should speake as much as can be against this superstition, their lancing being in word only, and not in deed, the recidivation will prove worse than the disease. The best lancing of the oposterne were not to observe them at all, or to preach against them, which are tried to work this effect more powerfully than the bishop’s cure has done: for all know, that there is none so free of this superstition as those who observe not the holy-days.”
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In Latin
Articles
1600’s
Hospinian, Rudolf – ‘Excerpts Unfurled out of the Book of Christian Feasts [1611], by Rudolph Hospinian, on the Feast Day of St. Martin’ appended to Gottlieb Samuel Treuer, Untersuchung Des Ursprungs und der Bedeutung Des Märtens-Mannes Wobey aus den Urkunden… (Helmstadt, 1733), pp. 83-94
Voet, Gisbert
93. On the Sabbath Day & Festival Days 1227
94. pt. 2 1252-81
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96. Appendix: On the Festivals & Quasi-Festivals Observed outside the Papacy 1314-46
Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663)
vol. 1, pt. 1, bk. 2, tract 4
3. Of Public Thanksgivings, Feasts & Good-Days 995
vol. 2, pt. 1, bk. 4, Tract 4, Of the External Requisites and Adjuncts of Sacred Practices, Section 3, Of Utensils & Other Adjuncts of Church-Buildings
6. Of Dedications [of Church-Buildings and Anniversary Feasts] 960
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Book
1600’s
Hospinian, Rudolf – Of Christian Festivals, that is, of the Origin, Continuation, Ceremonies & Rituals of the Festival Days of Christians (1611; Geneva, 1674)
Hospinian (1547-1626). “Not the day, but the Word of God… puts us in mind of the nativity, resurrection and ascension of Christ.” – Ch. 2
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The Continental View
Order of
Articles 2
Quotes 2
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Articles
1500’s
Bucer, Martin – On the Reign of Christ tr. Satre & Pauck in Melanchthon & Bucer in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19 (1550; 1557; London: SCM Press LTD, 1969)
bk. 1, pp. 252-53 (with fn. 61) of ch. 11, ‘Setting Aside Certain Times for the Worship of God’
Note that this was a change from his earlier position in his Ground & Reason (1524), above.
bk. 2, ch. 10, ‘The Second Law: the Sanctification of Holy Days’ 280-83
Zanchi, Girolamo – Excursus on Festivals, pt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in his Commentary on Col. 2:17
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Quotes
Order of
Calvin
Beza
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1500’s
John Calvin
Commentary on Galatians 4:10
“When certain days are represented as holy in themselves, when one day is distinguished from another on religious grounds, when holy days are reckoned a part of divine worship, then days are improperly observed. The Jewish Sabbath, new moons, and other festivals, were earnestly pressed by the false apostles, because they had been appointed by the law. When we, in the present age, intake a distinction of days, we do not represent them as necessary, and thus lay a snare for the conscience; we do not reckon one day to be more holy than another; we do not make days to be the same thing with religion and the worship of God; but merely attend to the preservation of order and harmony. The observance of days among us is a free service, and void of all superstition.”
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Theodore Beza
A Brief & Pithy Sum of the Christian Faith made in Form of a Confession (London, 1562), ch. 5, 39. Of marriage, of fasting and of the difference of days and meats, pp. 119-20
“Concerning the distinction or difference of days, we say that it is a beastly superstition to esteem one day more holy than another, or to think that abstaining from work were a thing of itself that pleases God. Notwithstanding among the seven days we observe and keep one, according to the commandment of God, for to bestow it to hear the Word of God in the congregation, and principally to dedicate and give ourselves to learn and understand our duties towards God, and towards our neighbors. Thus we spend the Sunday.
And concerning other festival days, we have put away as many as is possible for us: knowing the abuse that has come thereby, and the little need that Christendom has of them. Yet nevertheless, because there be certain days dedicated to the mysteries of our redemption, we use the Christian liberty, and have respect to that which either may hurt, or serve to the edification of the Church, according to the circumstance of time, place, and persons.”
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“and Aaron made proclamation, and said, ‘Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.’ And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘…thy people… have corrupted themselves;”
Ex. 32:5-7
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