My Third Instance tho not so near a kin yet not altogether forreign to our business shall be of a sin of Commission against a most plain and positive Command in Levit. 17.3 where 't is said What man soever there be of the House of Israel that kills an Ox or Lamb or Goat in the Camp or that killeth it out of the Camp and bringeth it not to the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation to Offer an Offering to the Lord before the Tabernacle of the Lord Blood shall be imputed to that man he hath shed Blood and that man shall be cut off from among his People The same denunciation recurs in the 8 and 9 ver taking in also the Sojourner and Stranger Ye see the heinousness of the Offence It was as bad as Bloodshed or Murder to offer else where And yet according to some the High Places were frequented soon after the days of Joshua and continued till the most thorough reformation of Hezekiah and that space makes near upon Seven hundred years But it is infallibly certain that for Three hundred years to wit from Solomon to Hezekiah they did Sacrifice in High Places It is said of Solomon himself 1 Kings 3.3 Solomon loved the Lord walking in the ways of David his Father only he Sacrificed and burnt Incense in high places and the King went to Gibeon and Sacrificed there for that was a great High Place a Thousand Burnt-Offerings did Solomon offer upon that Altar that is a Thousand Murders did he Commit there according to the forecited Law unless ye will say it was enough to free him from such an imputation that the Tabernacle was there although the Ark the Symbol of God's presence was at Jerusalem So indeed it is in 2 Chron. c. 1. v. 3 4. I will not dispute the thing so far it is enough that he sinned in burning Incense either there or in other High Places of that there need be no doubt Nor was it his sin alone the People did so too 1 Kings 3.2 Ye cannot think Rehoboam and Abija discontinued those High Places when ye find it an abatement in the Characters of those two good Kings Asa and Jehosaphat 1 Kings 15.14 2 Chron. 15.17 and 20.33 that they were not taken away Jehoram was so far from removing the old that he made new ones c. 21.11 The same exception is made in the Character of Amaziah 2 Kings 14.4 and his Son Azariah c. 15.4 and his Son Jotham v. 35. But the High Places were not removed c. Ahaz exceeded Jehoram in multiplying those forbidden Places 2 Chron. 28.4 25. at last came resolute Hezekiah and he swept them all away Examin the particular Texts and ye will find that to Sacrifice and burn Incense in High Places was grown a National Custom insomuch that though totally removed by Hezekiah they were so restored by his Son Manasseh that notwithstanding his deep Repentance and earnest Reformation of all other things these stood still 2. Chron. 33.17 Nevertheless the People did Sacrifice still in the High Places yet unto the Lord their God only that is they were great Transgressors but not real Idolaters These are three great Instances of the deviation of that only then true Church from the Pattern in the Mount and yet how many Thousands of good and holy Men liv'd and died in the Communion thereof notwithstanding I say three great Instances and I may dare to challenge any Man living to give any one Instance of so gross corruption and declension from the Commands of our Lord in this our Church of England Surely none will alledge the Omission of the Womens Veil and the holy Kiss the Non-abstinence from Blood and the like which yet were Apostolical Institutions for by such Allegations they will accuse themselves and afford more matter of Argument against their own Superstition and Separation But I hasten and say Secondly Profaneness is another cause of the neglect of the Holy Festivals Too many there are that have a secret quarrel against all serious Religion howsoever they pretend highly for the present establishment this they do not because it is the best but because it is the present they have not that value for what is Relatively Holy as its Relation to God requires neither for Person nor Thing nor Place nor Time 1. As for Persons they make nothing to miscall and deride misreport and belibel them unseen and unheard Private Persons usurp Episcopal Authority and others do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superciliously mark and fault them that belong not to their Inspection and gladly receive an accusation against an Elder without any witnesses 2. And for Things Sacred they are ready upon all occasions to question dispute defalcate and intervert the dues of the Church as if there were no such sin as Sacrilege and they never heard of Ananias and Sapphira 3. The little esteem they have for Places is soon found when you come to crave their Benevolence for the building or repairing of them they are as ready as Judas to say Quorsum perditio haec 4ly and Lastly For Times all days are alike to them as appears by their neglect of the Prayers of the Church and other duties proper to them They are for the Festival but not for the Holy day for the Mirth but not for Religion of the time any farther than to keep their Credit and save their Purses and this brings to the Third cause of the neglect we complain of Covetousness under which we desire not to bring in the Day-labourer that hath as many Mouths to feed as there are days in the Week to work in nor the sweating Husbandman who must attend the seasons of Plowing and Sowing But those whose Trades and Imployments do allow them fair Intervals and Opportunities of attending Divine Worship These care not though the Church be shut if their Shops may stand open let others serve God they must serve their Customers and mind their Trade they spare not to say so There are 't is well known few Holy-days in the Year whereon there are not held some Marts and Fairs up and down the Country That of the Ascension of our Lord not excepted And there needs no bidding of these on the Sunday before nor Bells to toll the People to them thither they will flock and hasten without taking the Church in their way tho never so near it there they Buy and Sell and get gain it may be only go to see and be seen but must think of no other God to serve but the great Mammon Whether this Custom was begun by the Pardon-mongers that chose Sundays and other Holy-days to vend their Bulls and their Relicks on and so occasioning great Confluences of People in process of time Grants were obtain'd to Authorise and Perpetuate those Meetings which turn'd of themselves from the sale of seemingly holy to that of really useful things Or whatever were the cause it is certain if Fairs did not borrow their name from
soon angry we find how the Hypocrites in Esaias 58.2 Fasted for strife and debate and smote with the Fist of wickedness and exacted all their labours they brought forth their Bills and Bonds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Seventy have it whom the Arabick exactly follows and the Chaldee Syriack and other Interpreters agree thereto Although some of our Festival days are the common days of Payment of Rents and Debts yet we should not exact all our labours use our utmost rigor then upon failure Feasting uses to make Men placid and easie to be intreated and is then most pleasing to God as well as Fasting when Men deal their bread to the hungry and cover the naked and lodge the harbourless when they loose the bands of wickedness undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free and break every yoke moreover reconciling our selves to our Enemies and making up differences between Neighbours Catechising Children Visiting the Sick and all such works of Charity are proper works for a Holy day I need not tell you how Religious the first Christian Emperors were this way not only in giving but forgiving how at Easter they set all Prisoners at liberty except Traytors Murderers Ravishers of Women and such notorious Malefactors I could tell you how our Saxon Laws provided that no Man should be put to death upon the Lords day that the Ordeal Tryal should not be undergone upon any Feast or Fast day and took care for the relief of Prisoners every Lords day But these are things which no Man will gainsay and therefore I will pass on and come in the last place to enquire what are the causes of the great and general neglect of these days which the Lord hath made so signal and worthy to be observed I shall touch on three Superstition Profaneness and Covetousness First Superstition even the Superstition of those men that are most afraid of or most declame against Superstition their conceit is no less Superstitious than their Notation is fond in making it to be Quicquid super statutum I would ask them in this case what Statute have they that forbids the keeping of any other day besides the Lords day 1. If they say God is the Lord of time and he hath said Six days shalt thou labor I reply Those words are no part of the fourth Commandment I mean not of it as commanding but a permission incouraging the Observance of the thing commanded as if it were said the Lord allows you six days for your own business and may therefore more strictly require the seventh of you for his own service they are no more a Command than that in Gen. 3.19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread But the practice of the Objectors who have indicted Fasts and Thanksgivings on working days when and as often as they pleas'd is Confutation enough to the Objection But 2. They urge that to the Galat. 4.10 Ye observe days and months and times and years I reply again If the Context and Scope of the whole Epistle did not shew it plainly to be written to Judaising People those four words in the Text alledged would tell us the Apostle means the Jewish Festivals whereof they had four sorts But what is that to us that keep days in testification of our being Christians and disclaiming all Judaism and keep them not in imitation of the Jews no more than we do the Sabbath but rather in order to their invitation and bringing them over to the Christian Faith and to shew that Christ is greater than Moses But the great thing they insist on is 'T is against Gospel purity to have mixtures of Human Inventions with Divine Injunctions and this superstitious conceit is the great cause not only of this neglect but of Schism or unlawful Separation Ans I have already said To be thankful for benefits is a Law of Nature and no Human Invention and to give thanks yearly on those days whereon those Benefits were bestow'd rather than any other is so Natural hath so great a congruity in it that the Objectors themselves choose to do so But let them tell me is there any more of man in keeping an Easter-day than a Fifth of November in praising of God for the first planting of the Christian Religion than a late preservation of it But what Did they never hear of the Feast of Purim and that Feast of the Dedication whereat our Lord was present of the Seven days which King Solomon kept at the first Dedication of the Altar and the Seven days that King Hezekiah kept at the Feast of Unleavened bread over and above what the Law Commanded 2 Chron. 30.23 Of the four Fasts in Zech. 8.19 whereof but one was injoin'd But because they call us so often to the Pattern in the Mount we will take a View of that and shew you that the Israelites did not only Act super but contra statutum in several things yet no separation was made from Publick Communion with that Church and therefore every Imperfection can be no just cause of Separation nor every Supererogation I will give three notorious Instances whereof two concern Festivals The First shall be touching the Feast of Tabernacles whereof we read Nehem. 8.17 All the Congregation of them that were come again out of the Captivity made Booths and sate under the Booths for since the days of Joshua the Son of Nun unto that day had not the Children of Israel done so that is they had not kept the Feast of Tabernacles at least in that main circumstance of dwelling in Tents and Booths for a Thousand years together and that throughout the most flourishing time of that Church although it was expresly Commanded no less than four times in Moses It is a wonder how it came to pass that neither David nor Hezekiah nor Samuel nor Jehoiadah nor any other reforming King zealous Priest or inspired Prophet no answer by Vrim and Thummim corrected this neglect in so many Ages in all which time we find no secession made from the Church that then was My Second Instance shall be in a Holy year the Observation whereof is Commanded Levit. 25.2 c. When ye come into the Land which I give you then shall the Land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord thou shalt neither sow thy Seed nor prune thy Vineyard c. And now see the Omission in the Punishment threatned Levit. 26.34 c. inflicted 2 Chron. 36.21 untill the Land had injoyed her Sabbaths for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten Years So long the Babylonian Captivity lasted that the Land might rest and lie untill'd so many years as the Seventh or Sabbatick year had been unobserv'd Reckon and ye will find just Seventy sevens in four hundred ninety years so that for 490 years together they had broken the aforesaid Law to wit from the days of Samuel to the Captivity and yet no Separation all that while
The keeping of Holy Days Recommended in a SERMON PREACHED at HADHAM BEFORE THE Right Honorable and Right Reverend FATHER in GOD HENRY LORD Bishop OF LONDON c. AT His Lordships late Conference with his Clergy there By Thomas Leigh B. D. Vicar of Bishops STORTFORD LONDON Printed by H. Hills Jun. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1684. Cujus mandato Hoc quicquid est dudum aures multorum Nunc oculos omnium metuit Villae meae natalis Domino primario Vicariatûs quo ibidem fungor Patrono extraordinario Ecclesiae Londini quaquà patemus Trinobantes Antistiti Vigilantissimo Ecclesiae Anglicanae Lumini Columini Pietatis primaevae Cultori Eximio Reformatae Religionis Adsertori fortissimo Cleri sui Inspectori simul Speculo Vindici pariter ac Judici integerrimo HENRICO Praenobilis COMPTO Norum Familiae Summo Decori Ornamento Viro nullis non nominibus Honorando Me meáque omnia Quantâ licet demissione atque observantiâ LMQDDCQ T. L. Psalm 118.24 This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it THE Occasion of our present Meeting is to inquire into the reasons of setting apart and keeping certain days for the more special Worship of God which are therefore call'd Holy and into the reasons why they are no better kept The former I shall chiefly speak to from the words now read which the Jews understand of the Day of David's advancement to the Throne and accordingly the Chaldee Paraphrast renders the 22th ver thus The Builders despised the Youth that was among the Sons of Jesse and yet he deserv'd to be made King and Ruler and then brings in the Builders and the Sons of Jesse with others singing alternatim thus the Builders begin This is the Lords doing the Sons of Jesse answer It is marvellous in our eyes The Builders go on This is the day which the Lord hath made the Sons of Jesse Let us rejoyce and be glad in it The Builders again Save now we beseech thee O Lord then Jesse and his Wife O Lord we beseech thee send now prosperity and lastly David and Samuel and the whole Tribe of Judah are brought in bearing their parts in this Psalm of Thanksgiving And they had good reason to understand the Day spoken of to be the Day of David's coming to the Crown but we have greater to understand it of the Day of our Lord's Resurrection from the dead which was the Day whereon he began his Reign or the exercise of his Kingly Office For our Lord appropriates to himself those words of the 22d ver The stone which the Builders refus'd is become the head of the Corner Matt. 21.42 adding also the words of the 23. ver and St. Peter himself a great stone in that Building applies the same to our Lord after and upon account of his Resurrection Act. 4.11 1 Epistle 2.4 To which add the Hosanna and Benediction of the two following verses which were the Acclamations of the multitude when our Lord rode in Kinglike manner to Jerusalem Matt. 21.5 9. We have in the words the Constitution of a Holy or Festival day and the Celebration of it The Constitution This is the day which the Lord hath made The Celebration We will rejoyce and be glad in it First For the Constitution Here is the ground and reason for the ordaining and keeping of a Day Holy because it is that which the Lord hath made where by making 1. We don't understand the creating of a Day which is done by dividing the Darkness from the Light for so all days are of Gods making and made without any distinction of Festi Profesti Fasti Nefasti Holy and Unholy Lucky and Unlucky or any other differences than what the course of the Sun and the seasons of the year do necessarily cause 2. Nor do we understand here only Gods appointing of a Day to be kept for Religious purposes for that hath and may be done by man But We understand thereby the making of a Day signal and remarkable by some extraordinary deliverance or other Mercy bestow'd upon Mankind in general or some Nation or great body of Men in particular Such a Mercy such a Deliverance leaves a certain stamp or impression upon that Day whereon it was bestow'd as to make it be call'd a Holy day a High day a day of days a day more extraordinary and notable than its fellows Such was the day of David's Exaltation to the Throne a Day of great Mercy and Deliverance to the People of Israel and such was the Day of our Lord's Resurrection a Day of great Mercy and Deliverance to all mankind Such Days are if I may so call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Days of a singular make and which God hath as it were redeem'd and purchas'd to himself from the rest of the days of the year Grant me this ground to go upon and I shall hope to give you some tolerable account of the Institution of Holy days What I have to say shall be comprehended under a very few Heads First Upon this ground it is that we hear of no special Day set apart for above two thousand years unless that of the Sabbath For altho I doubt not but that as there were some days whereon the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord as we find twice in Job so there was also some time whereon the Sons of Men made their Religious addresses to Him And I understand when 't is said after the birth of Enos Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord thus Then men being increased into a multitude the Worship of God became more publick Yet I say we are not sure whether the time was fix'd and unalterable or whether chosen or commanded upon occasion We read of Holy Persons or Priests of Holy things as Sacrifices and Tithes and of Holy places often before the Deliverance out of Egypt but not of Holy times Altars several built by Noah Abraham Isaac and Jacob and several of them upon the score of Gods appearing to them when it might have been said to them as it was to Moses and Joshua upon the same account The ground whereon thou standest is Holy and they might have said as the Psalmist does here of a Day This is the Place which the Lord hath made that is signalised by his special appearance in a way of Mercy But no fix'd times because God for the first Two thousand years of the World had rather given publick tokens of his Justice and Displeasure than of his Goodness and Mercy as in the drowning of the Old World the burning of Sodom and the three neighbouring Cities the confounding of Tongues several Famines and Plagues The favours which God bestow'd at any time were only on single Persons or their Familes which although we need not doubt but they did most thankfully acknowledge yet if we grant they did