now much more of renovation thereunto added by him which was Prince of the world to come, we are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven, a duty which God's immutable Law doth exact for ever. The rest, they say, we ought to abolish, because the continuance of them doth nourish wicked superstition in the minds of men; besides, they are all abused by Papists, the enemies of God; yea, certain of them, as Easter and Pentecost, even by the Jews.

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71. Touching Jews, their Easter and Pentecost have Excep with ours as much affinity as Philip the Apostle with Philip against the Macedonian King. As for imitation of Papists and our keepthe breeding of Superstition, they are now become such other common guests, that no man can think it discourteous to let them go as they came. The next is a rare observation sides the and strange; 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 the 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

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.' T. C. l. i. p. 151.

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our whole lives, and so pulleth out of our minds the doctrine of Christ's Gospel ere we be aware. 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 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 Schoolmen 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

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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 essays and offers towards virtue must needs be raw; yet commendable, because they tend unto ripeness. For which cause the Wisdom of God hath commanded, especially this circumstance amongst others in solemn Feasts, that to children and novices in Religion they minister the first occasion 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 buildings. For who hath despised the day of those things which are small? 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 rest, because God hath left it to all men at

• 'I confess, that it is in the power of the Church to appoint so many days in

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 degree to restrain the liberty that God had given. Which opinion, albeit applied here no further than to this present case, shaketh universally the fabric of government, tendeth to anarchy and merc confusion, dissolveth families, dissipateth Colleges, Cor

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 Commmandment, and no other interpretation of it, than Mr. 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 Fast-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 meats, 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.' T. C. 1. i. p. 152.

porations, 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 to the 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,