"Christmas was not celebrated by the apostolic church. It was not celebrated during the first few centuries of the church. As late as A.D. 245, Origen (Hom. 8 on Leviticus) repudiated ...the idea of keeping the birthday of Christ, "as if he were a king Pharaoh." By the middle of the 4th century, many churches in the Latin west were celebrating Christmas. During the 5th century, Christmas became an official Roman Catholic holy day. In A.D. 534, Christmas was recognized as an official holy day by the Roman state.The reason that Christmas became a church holy day has nothing to do with the Bible. The Bible does not give the date of Christ's birth. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to celebrate Christmas. Christmas (as well as many other pagan practices) was adopted by the Roman church as a missionary strategy." - The Regulative Principle of Worship and Christmas by Brian Schwertley FREE BOOK at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/CHRISTMAS.htm or on the Puritan Hard Drive http://www.PuritanDownloads.com/swrb-puritan-hard-drive.html.
The Regulative Principle of Worship is God's ordained law for worship... You see there is no neutrality in the way in which we approach God in worship. Either we approach the living God according to His revealed Word (i.e. the Regulative Principle of Worship), or we approach Him according to our revealed word. Someone's word is going to expressly guide us in worship. The only question is, whose word will guide us? God's or man's? - Greg Price, Foundation For Reformation: The Regulative Principle Of Worship, free online at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/REFORMATION-RPW-GP.htm.
Abrogation of Festivals. On Sunday 16 November 1550, after the election of the lieutenant in the general Council, an edict was also announced respecting the abrogation of all the festivals, with the exception of Sundays, which God had ordained. – Register of the Company of Pastors (Geneva, 1550).
In 1899, the General Assembly of the PCUS was overtured to give a "pronounced and explicit deliverance" against the recognition of "Christmas and Easter as religious days." Even at this late date, the answer came back in a solid manner: "There is no warrant in Scripture for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holydays, rather the contrary (see Gal. 4:9-11; Col. 2:16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." - Kevin Reed, Christmas: An Historical Survey Regarding Its Origins and Opposition to It (Free Online Book at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/Xmas_ch2.htm) Why No Christmas Or Easter? by David Silversides (Web, Article)
"... by communicating with idolaters in their rites and ceremonies, we ourselves become guilty of idolatry; even as Ahaz, 2 Kings 16:10, was an idolater, eo ipso, that he took the pattern of an altar from idolaters. Forasmuch, then, as kneeling before the consecrated bread, the sign of the cross, surplice, festival days, bishopping, bowing down to the altar, administration of the sacraments in private places, etc., are the wares of Rome, the baggage of Babylon, the trinkets of the whore, the badges of Popery, the ensigns of Christ's enemies, and the very trophies of antichrist, -- we cannot conform, communicate and symbolise with the idolatrous Papists in the use of the same, without making ourselves idolaters by participation.
Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon her the ornaments of the whore?
Shall the Israel of God symbolise with her who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt?
Shall the Lord's redeemed people wear the ensigns of their captivity?
Shall the saints be seen with the mark of the beast?
Shall the Christian church be like the antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the temple of God like the synagogue of Satan?"
- George Gillespie (Scottish Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly), A Dispute Against English Popish Ceremonies, volume one in Gillespie's Works on the Puritan Hard Drive at http://www.PuritanDownloads.com/swrb-puritan-hard-drive.html, p. 80.
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