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Order of Contents
Article 1
Quotes 2
Confession 1
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Article
1500’s
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.
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Quotes
Order of
Church of Scotland
Baxter
Presbyterians & Independents
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1500’s
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Letter to Theodore Beza approving the 2nd Helvetic Confession in 1566; Works of John Knox, vol. 6, pp. 547-8
“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.”
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1600’s
Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, p. 412-15
Ҥ46. 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.
Nor for my part do I make any scruple to keep a day in remembrance of any eminent servant of Christ, or martyr, to praise God for their doctrine or example, and honor their memorial.”
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The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 58, ‘Take heed of superstition, and observe well the circular course of zealous superstition…’, p. 280
“The most of the persons whom the Papists now keep holy days for were very religious godly people: And the zealous reli∣gious people of that age did think that the honoring of the memories of the martyrs was a great means to invite the infidels to Christianity and to encourage the weak to stick to Christ: and therefore they kept the days of their martyrdom in thanksgiving to God and in honor of them.
The wicked of that age hated and persecuted both the martyrs and them that honored them. In the next age, religion being uppermost in the world, the wicked did turn hypocrites and keep holy days for the honor of their names whom their forefathers murdered.
At last when it was observed that the Papists who burned the living saints were the greatest honorers of the dead, the most religious people turned quite to dislike and reject those very days which their predecessors had set up in thanksgiving to God for the doctrine, example and constancy of the martyrs.”
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The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), ch. 3, p. 11
“But those [leading English presbyterian and congregationalist ministers] that were called by the king, and one another, 1660 and 1661, to treat of concord, and that assembled at Sion College, and elsewhere about it, did openly make known their minds: And I think they meddled not against any of these things following, by any accusation of them as sinful:
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V. They never accused the use of holy days, as days of thanksgiving to God for giving such holy apostles to the Church and whose memory we honorable commemorate.”
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Leading English & Presbyterian Ministers
The Grand Debate between the most reverend Bishops & the Presbyterian Divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as Commissioners for the Review & Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer... (London, 1661)
‘Exceptions’, p. 4
“VI. That the religious observation of saints days appointed [by the Anglican Book of Common Prayer] to be kept as holy days, and the vigils thereof, without any foundations (as we conceive) in Scripture, may be omitted; that if any be retained they may be called festival and not holy days, nor made equal with the Lord’s Day, nor have any peculiar service appointed for them, nor that the people be upon such days enforced wholly to abstain from work; and that the names of all others not inserted in the calendar which are not in the first and second Books [of Common Prayer] of Edward VI, may be left out.”
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‘The Papers’, pp. 70-71
“[Bishops:] ‘The observation of saints’ days is not as of divine, but ecclesiastical institution, and therefore it is not necessary that they should have any other ground in Scripture than all other institutions of the same nature, so that they be agreeable to the Scripture in the general end, for the promoting piety; and the observation of them was ancient, as appears by the rituals and liturgies, and by the joint consent of antiquity, and by the ancient translation of the Bible, as the Syriac and Ethiopic, where the lessons appointed for holy-days are noted and set down, the former of which was made near the apostles’ times. Besides, our Saviour Himself kept a feast of the Church’s institution, viz. the Feast of the Dedication, St. Jn. 12:22.
The choice end of these days being not feasting, but the exercise of holy duties: they are fitter called holy-days than festivals, and though they be all of like-nature, it does not follow that they are equal; The people may be dispensed with for their work after the service, as authority pleases. The other names are left in the calendar, not that they should be so kept as holy-days, but they are useful for the preservation of their memories and for other reasons, as for leases, law-days, etc.’
Reply: The antiquity of the translations mentioned is far from being of determinate certainty: we rather wish than hope that the Syriac could be proved to be made near the apostles’ times; But however, the things being confessed of human institution, and no foreign power having any authority to command his Majesty’s subjects, and so the imposition being only by our own governors, we humbly crave that they may be left indifferent, and the unity or peace of the Church, or liberty of the ministers not laid upon them.”
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Confessions
1500’s
2nd Helvetic Confession (1566)
ch. 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.”
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