serveth his Servant The onely true freedom is to serve the Lord For Godliness with Contentment is great Gain saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.6 yea it is profitable unto all things saith he having promise of the life which now is of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 How then can you justify or affirm it to be a vain needless thing to spend this time in the publick Worship and Service of God namely in the duties of Piety and exercises of Religion in hearing of the Word in offering up Prayers Praises to God celebrating it lauding his holy and glorious Name with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord Eph. 5.19 20. giving thanks alwaies for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ And especially and above all things giving thanks for this one thing I mean that inestimable benefit and unspeakable gift which God bestowed upon the World at this time And me thinks to this end and purpose we may very well encourage and stirr up our selves with the words of David and say as he doth Psal 69.31 32. I will praise the name of God with a Song and magnify it with thanksgiving this also shall please the Lord better than a Bullock which hath horns and hoofs yea this shall be as precious and odoriferous in his Nostrils and no less pleasing and acceptable in his sight than that right costly Spikenard which was spent to anoint our Saviour's feet withall although it be said of that That the whole House wherein our Saviour was at that time was filled and perfumed with the odour of the Oyntment Joh. 12.3 But the Reasons you alledge to prove it to be a vain and needless thing to observe this day are in the next place to be examined and considered the first whereof is this as you affirm it because God hath set apart a Sabbath the lord's-Lord's-day for this purpose to meditate upon God's Love in redeeming the World and this seems to be an indifferent good one yet you know or at the least cannot but know that the Sabbath or the Seventh day was at the first ordained sanctified and set apart onely in remembrance of the World's Creation as it appears in that passage or Conclusion of the fourth Commandment Exod. 20. For in six daies the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is Wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it For this Commandment is hedged in on every side lest we should break out from observing it with a Caveat and speciall Memorandum before it Remember c. and with two Reasons after one drawn from the Equity of the Law and the other taken from the Law-giver's or the Law-maker's own Example Six daies shalt thou labour As if God should speak thus If I permit thee six whole daies to follow thine own business thou mayest well afford me one onely for my own Service but six daies shalt thou labour and do all thine own work therefore hallow the Seventh in doing my work Six daies shalt thou labour whereupon both Reverend Calvin and that learned Gentleman B. Babington who was once Bishop of this Diocesse a man of no mean Note but of good Report both for Life and Learning do observe That these Words Six daies shalt thou labour c. are a permission or a remission of God's right who might challenge all rather than an absolute Commandment For as Judicious Perkins hath also delivered it in his Golden Chaine for a sound Orthodoxal and undeniable Thesis Catenâ aureâ cap. 13 The Church upon just occasion may separate some week daies also to the Service of the Lord and rest from Labour Joel 2.15 Blow the Trumpet in Zion sanctify a Fast call a solemn Assembly And as daies of publick Fasting for some great Judgment so daies of publick Rejoycing for some great Benefit are not unlawfull but exceeding commendable yea necessary And you cannot in Modesty and I hope you will not for Shame deny this to be the Truth for besides the ordinary Sabbath among the Jews they had their Sabbaths and their new Moons and appointed Feasts yea Almighty God himself ordained in the old Testament divers and sundry Feasts to put his People in mind of his great Benefits bestowed upon them Amongst the rest there were three solemn Festivals every year namely the Passover the Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles as we read in the 16th of Deuteronomy The Passover was instituted in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt's bondage Pentecost in remembrance of the Law given in Mount Sinui The Feast of Tabernacles in remembrance of Israel's dwelling in Tents forty years in the Wilderness Now as Hemingius observes in his Postil dom 1. post Epiph. instead of those three Jewish Feasts our Christian Church which may challenge as much Liberty as the Jewish if not more hath substituted Christmas in honour of Christ's Incarnation Easter in honour of Christ's Resurrection and Whitsuntide in honour of Christ's confirmation of the Gospel by sending unto us the Holy Ghost at that time So that we say according as St. Austin saith in his 108 Epist. cap. 1 Celebrantes Anniversariâ solemnitate Pascha reliquasque Christianas diêrum Festivitutes non observamus tempora sed quae illis significantur temporibiu i.e. In celebrating Easter and other Christian Feasts we do not so much observe the times as the things that are represented and signified unto us at those times If then it be granted as it cannot be denied according to your words that God hath set apart a Sabbath which is our Christian Sabbath and is called the Lord's Day because the Lord rose from death to life on that Day and that on this day in that respect we are to meditate on God's Love in redeeming the World if we must do this once every week in an ordinary course how much more may the Church and Spouse of Christ appoint and set apart one day in the year after an extraordinary manner to meditate and muse and think on his Love in redeeming her from the hands of all her Enemies for so indeed the holy Priest Zacharias tells us in his Song called Benedictus That this was the main End of our Redemption Luk. 1.74 that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our Life Whereupon I infer That if we must serve him all the daies of our life as he may justly challenge and require it at our hands in regard he hath redeemed us How much more ought we to meditate on his Love not onely once a week but also once in every year praise his most Holy Name after a more speciall and singular manner For at this time especially and particularly it may be said of Him as the Psalmist doth Psal 111.9 He sent Redemption unto his People He
sceleratus habendi At last the Iron-Age comes blustring in I' ch' latter times and fills the World with Sin All Shame and Truth and Faithfulnesse are gone Fraud and Deceipt Lords paramount alone Do rule By snares and violence men get Estates and all is Fish that comes to Net Which how truly it is verified every body may see if not as blind as Moles and may feel if not senslesse I shall now speak a word or two to some which raile at and preach down the Solemnity of this Time desire them to spend the time which they spend in burying Antiquity and lawful Customs in the Translating of many things which are not as yet translated and not to monopolize Knowledge I will name some places which are not as yet translated viz. Psal 56. To the Chief Musitian upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why could not they have translated it Super Columbam mutam remotis The dumb Dove in a far Country And I am perswaded that they durst not translate one Word when they looked on their own Coats Zeph. 1.4 I will cut off the names of the CHEMARIMS with the Priests meeting with the Word now and then in Hosea they translated it Priests but here it being joyned with the word PRIEST my Blades plaid the honest I should have said the selfish men and never translated it at all Tremelius and Junius give it a very honest and true Version Nomen Atratorum cum Sacerdotibus The Names of Black-Coats with the Priests I commend this Scripture to the serious considerations of our Rigid Presbyterians and when they look upon it let them do as the Peacock doth when he looks on his leggs I desire the Reader of this Book not to give credit to every one that speaks against Antiquity nor to carp at that which they cannot mend for I dare say and will affirm that the Authour here of hath written herein nothing but what is true nothing contrary to the Will of God to whose Protection I leave him The Almighty bless him prosper his studies For such is the desire and hopes of him who craves leave to subscribe himself Your Humble Servant and true admirer of your Christian Ingenuity Sincerity and Courage T. J. Courteous Reader MAny of our late Divines bring such poor weak Arguments against the Celebration of Christ's birth-day that I am almost ashamed to repeat any of them much less then will I trouble my self to answer them they being so ridiculous that if it were possible they would cause corpus rationis vacuum to laugh them to scorne Two or three I will repeat the first is of a Divine that brought a Rubrick or Almanack into the Pulpit to bury this Day and reads Arguments out of it to the People and tells them a tale of a rub without a bottome I am sure this Gentleman might have looked in a Jack-Dawes Nest and have found as good Arguments there as any he found in his Almanack Another Divine saith It is not onely a bad time but it is the worst of all times and thinks This ignis fatuus of his giddy brain is sufficient to lead men from the Truth But Alas I will be so bold as to deny his Proposition and I am sure he cannot prove it for he hath no more skill in arguing then a Cow hath in dancing The third Divine saith It is the Devil's day and therefore ought to be buryed and never to be celebrated But I reply thus His Body will descend into Orcus and his Name will be buryed in Oblivion long before this Day will be buryed for I doubt not but it will be celebrated as it ought to be untill there will be a period put unto all things I wish all Christian Readers of this Book happiness in this World and a Crown of Glory in that to come T. J. A BOX OF Spikenard Newly Broken The Question propounded by Richard B. which was the occasion of this Treatise Quest WHether the Nativity of Christ commonly called Christmas-day ought to be celebrated R. B. denyeth it and endeavours to prove the contrary His Arguments are these 14 following Arg. 1. There is nothing in the World a Duty which God hath not made a Duty But God never made this a Duty Ergo it is no Duty Arg. 2. If I should observe this Day I am afraid lest I should deny the perfection of the Scriptures Arg. 3. I am fearful lest by doing so I should arrogate the making of a Day to my self for if I should do so much as in me lyeth I should make a Day to my self Arg. 4. I am fearful lest by so doing I should set up a Day against God Arg. 5. It is the Devil's policy to imitate God and when he will be holy he will be holyer then God and when he seeth God will have a Sabbath to be kept then he will set up a Day and he will have a Christmas Day to be kept and he will have his Pictures in the Church-windows and the Crosse made on the Childrens foreheads in Baptism Arg. 6. I am fearful lest I should be condemned for accusing God for want of Wisdom and so make my self wiser then God as though he knew not what should be done as well as I and so derogate from the Wisdome of God Arg. 7. I am fearful of being more inexcusable for my sin Arg. 8. It seemeth to me a vain and needlesse thing First because God hath set apart a Sabbath the Lords Day for this purpose to meditate upon God's love in redeeming the World Secondly Because I never heard a good Argument for it Arg. 9. It is an impossibility to keep it and God never made an impossibility a duty no man knoweth certainly on which day Christ was born Arg. 10. I observe God hides things purposely from us to see whether we will do any thing on our own heads Arg. 11. It hath not bin the practise of Christian Churches to observe it Arg. 12. In all doubtfull Cases a man ought to go on the surest side Now I am sure It is no sin not to keep it but am not sure It is no sin to keep it Arg. 13. This time ought not to be celebrated for there is more sin committed in these 12 Dayes then is in all the year after in Drunkennesse Gluttony c. Arg. 14. God blesseth his own Day the Sabbath but hath not blessed this with successe Here followeth the Answer of Thomas M. to the forerecited Questions and Arguments and herein the honour of Christ his Nativity is Vindicated or the Solemnity of his Birth-day which is commonly called christmas-Christmas-day avowed and averred i. e. justified and maintained to be lawful and good Even in this Answer to fourteen arrogant Arguments or weak Linsey-Woolsy Reasons which have been of late eventilated and divulged in writing to the contrary Answer to the first Argument You may remember that the first Argument runneth thus There is nothing in the World a duty which
Rule and Reason you may as well say It is impossible to keep the Sabbath day H. Wolphii Chronol lib. 2 p. 1. p. 92. For the Commandement doth not say remember to keep holy the seventh day next following the sixth day of the Creation or this or that seventh day but indefinitely remember that thou keep holy a seventh day And to speak properly as we take a day for the distinction of time called either a day natural consisting of twenty four hours or a day artificial consisting of twelve hours from Sun-rising to Sun-setting and withall consider the Sun standing still at noon in Joshua's time the space of a whole day Josh 10.12 13. and the same going back ten degrees viz. five hours 2 Kâ—ng 26.11 almost half an arificial Day in Ezekias time the Jews themselves could not keep this Sabbath upon that precise and just distinction of time called at the first The seventh day from the Creation therefore in such difficult and doubtful Cases the best way is to be ordered and guided and resolved by the Judgment and Discipline and Direction of the Church wherein we live for she is our Mother saith Calvin Lib. Instit 4. C. 1. Sect. 4. forasmuch as there is no other entry into life unless she conceive us in her Womb unless she bring us forth unless she feed us with her Breasts and keep us under her Custody and Governance untill such time as being unclothed of mortal flesh we shall be like unto Angels Again in his Lib. 4. Cap. 10. Sect. 30. He saith of the Church and Church-Ordinances that in outward discipline and Ceremonies the will of God was not to prescribe each thing particularly what we ought to follow because he foresaw this to hang upon the State of times and did not think one form to be fit for all Ages herein we must fly to those general Rules which he hath given that thereby all those things should be tryed which the necessity of the Church shall require to be commanded for order and comeliness And forasmuch as he hath therefore taught nothing expresly because these things both are not necessary to Salvarion and according to the manners of every Nation and Age ought diversly to be applyed to the edifying of the Church therefore as the profit of the Church shall require though it might be thought convenient as well to change and abrogate those that be used as to institute new yet I grant it indeed and must needs confesse it That we ought not rashly nor oft nor for leight and trivial Causes to run to Innovation but what may hurt or edifie Charity shall best be judge which if we will suffer to be the Governess all shall be safe And in the next Section at the latter end thereof It is alwayes meet saith he for the publike worship and service of God that there be both certain dayes and appointed hours and a place fit to receive all if there be regard had of the preservation of peace For how great an occasion of scandal brawling and contention should the confusion of these things be if it were lawfull for every man as he listeth to change those things which belong to common State forasmuch as it will never come to pass that one and the same thing shall please all Men it being an old and true saying difficillimum est omnibus placere if things be left as it were at randome and in the middest to the choice of every Man to do what he pleaseth to have a Psalm and a Doctrine and a Revelation and an Interpretation by himself as the Apostle speaketh with a kind of Indignation and Increpation of them that used it 1 Cor. 14.26 If any man therefore do Carp and Cavil against us and herein will be more wise then he ought let him see himself by what reason he can defend his own preciseness to the Lord. As for us That saying of Paul ought to satisfie us If any man seem to be Schismatical and contentious we have no such use we have no such Custome nor the Churches of God 1 Cor. 11.16 Where we may perceive that that good Man and faithful Pastor of Geneva though he liked not the Masse yet he preached Christ sincerely and maintained and defended his Church and laboured by all means to preserve Tunicam ejus inconsutilem his seamlesse Coat to be without brack or breach Sector Schism Rent or Division at all but still to continue pure and undefiled without spot or wrinkle or any such thing I will then conclude and shut up this passage with the witty Sentences of St. Austin Contrarationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturas nemo Christianus contra ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserii And if we will be the Children of the Church as we professe our selves to be then let us hearken what the wise man saith Ecclus. 3.1 The Children of wisdome are the Church of the Righteous and their exercise is Obedience and Love Answer to the tenth Argument The words are these I observe God hides things on purpose from us to see whether we will do any things on our own heads I answer This Argument is derived de profundis and drawn or fetched ab absconditis secretis 'T is true and we cannot much deny it For He hideth or concealeth from us his Decree of Election and final Dereliction or Reprobation Rom. 9.13 because he will have Mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And this he doth because he would not have us like curious Bethshemites to pry into the Ark of his Secrets but rather to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 as the Apostle St. Paul speaks and as the other Apostle teacheth and exhorteth us 2 Pet. 1.10 to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure And now is this to be understood why surely thus if I be not deceived sure to God I need not I cannot 2 Tim. 2.19 the Foundation of God stands sure enough of it self and the Gifts and Calling of God are without Repentance Rom. 11.29 i. e. Sine mutatione stabiliter fixa sunt saith St. Austin they are irrevocable immutable and unchangeable but Sure to my own Soul I may I must by all means labour and endeavour to make and effect it or else this Precept is in vain of giving all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure Secondly He hideth the hour of every particular man's death and the day of the generall Judgment from us and reserveth them in the private Cabinet of his own Foreknowledgeship Act. 1.17 For it is not for us to know the times and the Seasons which the Father hath reserved in his own Power And this he doth for this very end as an ancient Father of the Primitive Church hath told us truly and especially Ideò latet ultimus dies ut observetur omnis dies It is to make us careful and watchful every day
the last verse If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Yet willingly would I add here one strange thing more or two which are no more strange then true as a Corollary and Appendix to the former which though they were not Synchronisms or things Contemporaneous with the Birth of Christ yet the People of our Nation and our own Countrymen can witnesse them to be true as I relate them The first is the Thorne at Glastenbury in Sommersetshire which was commonly called Joseph's Thorne which for many hundred years together even as it is to be thought since the first arriving of Joseph of Arimathea there which was within five years after the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus as that antient Historian of our Nation the Golden-mouthed Gildas reporteth this Thorne constantly budded and shewed forth its green leaves fair fresh and flourishing on this Day every year to the great admiration of all Spectators that came of purpose to behold it and this was no other then a Miracle and may serve for our confirmation in the faith of Him who for our sakes was contented to wear Coronam Spineam a Crown of Thornes Or it may well be supposed that ir flourished on this Day to testifie the truth of his Nativity and to signifie the flourishing Estate of the Gospel by Him which shall prosper and flourish manger the head and hatred of all Gain-sayers And although this Thorne be now as they say cut down by some spightful and malignant Zoilus yet those sufficient men of our parts who with their eyes have seen it and beheld it will still talk of it and tell it to their Children not for an old Wives Fable but for truth and one Gentleman among the rest of good rank and quality in these Parts who is a man well affected and devoted to the power and purity of Religion for that Thorn's sake having seen it doth strictly and carefully and conscionably keep this Day and is resolved to observe and keep it so long as he liveth The other rare and strange thing are the three pitts of Durham commonly called Hell kettles which are adjoyning near unto Darlington whose Waters are somewhat warm these are thought to come of an Earth-quake which happened in the year of Grace 1179. whereof the Chronicle of Tinmouth maketh mention whose record is this That on Christmasday at Oxen-Hall in the Territories of Darlington within the County of Durham the ground heaved aloft like unto a high Tower and so continued all that day as it were unmoveable untill the evening and then fell with so horrible a noise that it made the Neighbourhood-dwellers much afraid and the Earth swallowed it up and made in the same place three deep pits which are there to be seen for a Testimony unto this Day Here then we may apply that of the Psalmist and say Tremble thou Earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob which turned the hard Rock into a standing Water and the flint stone into a springing Well Psal 114.7 8. But whilst I am relling you a story of a Thorne-Tree and of deep pits of Water you bring me into another difficult and thorny question and plunge me as it were in a deep pit of non plus or nil ultra and into such a quick and and quagmire of troublesome meditation that I shall hardly get out of it the Quaery is this ninth following Answer to the ninth Argument The ninth Argument is this It is an impossibility to keep it and God never made an impossibility a Duty and that no man in the World knoweth certainly what day Christ was born on To this I answer although I first ingenuously confesse according to that Adage Davus sum ego non Oedipus for it is true which Chrysostome saith Praestat probâ ignoratione detineri quà m falsa opinione mancipari It is easier to plow in the plain then in the ground new-stocked better to write on a paper free from writing than on that which is full of lines and more easie to reach the simple then him that is opinionated of his own knowledge Better it is for a man and more commendable to confess a little ignorance then to boast of too much knowledge wherefore as Beza on that place in 1 Cor. 11.10 For this Cause ought the Woman to have power on her head because of the Angels gives no other note but this Quid hoc sit nondum mihi liquet wherein he confesseth he did not understand as yet what the Apostle meant by these words So if we should here yield and acknowledge that we do not certainly know what day Christ was born on Vaux yet As a late Starrgazing Speculator takes upon him in his Almanack to define the year of Christ his coming to Judgment but dare not precisely set down the day and hour of his coming So perhaps we shall here endeavour pro Nosse Posse to calculate and discover unto you the year when our Saviour Christ was born if not the day And for this I shall referr you to the Rhemists Marginal note on the second of Luke which reports unto us that in the year from the Creation of the World 3199 from Noah's flood 2957 from the Nativity of Abraham 2015 from Moses and the coming forth of the People of Israel out of Egypt 1510 from David anointed King 1032 from the first Olympias 800 from the building of Rome 752 Hebdomada 63 according to the prophecy of Daniel c. 9. that is in the year 440 or thereabout in the sixth age of the World when there was universal Peace in all the World the eternal God and son of the eternal Father meaning to Consecrate and Sanctifie the World with his most blessed coming being conceived of the Holy Ghost nine Months after his Conception Jesus Christ the Son of God is born in Bethlehem of Juda in the year of Caesar Augustus 42 Usuard in the Martyrol * And then why should not the 25 of Decem. be as solemnly observed and kept as the 5 of Nov. December 25 according to the common ancient supputation But it may be you will object against this because it comes from the Rhemists you will mislike it and disdain it yet nevertheless I say because it is not thwarted nor contradicted by Calvin nor Beza nor Fulke nor any other of our late Protestant Writers I see no just Cause or Reason why we should reject it but rather receive it Fide historicâ and believe it for truth as it is faithfully and exactly related by them for a sufficient Author and ancient Chronologer or Reporter of that which was nothing else but a true story and cannot be denyed or disproved yet put the Case here that we neither do nor cannot certainly know the Day whereon Christ was born therefore shall it be thought a thing impossible to keep it Then by the same