George Gillespie on the misconstrued appeal to Romans 14 for justification of Christmas, Easter, and all false holydays

“[Col. 2] verse. 17, What should we do with the shadow, when we have the body? another, verse 20, Why should we be subject to human ordinances, since through Christ we are dead to them, and have nothing ado with them?

Now, by the same reasons are our holy-days to be condemned as taking away Christian liberty; and so that which the apostle says, does militate as well against them as against any other holy-days: for whereas it might be thought that the apostle does not condemn all holy-days, because both he permits others to observe days, Rom. 14:5, and he himself also did observe one of the Jewish feasts, Acts 18:21.

It is easily answered that our holy-days have no warrant from these places except our opposites will say that they esteem their festival days holier than other days, and that they observe the Jewish festivities, neither of which they do aknowledge; and if they did, yet they must consider that which the apostle either said or did hereanent, is to be expounded and understood of bearing with the weak Jews, whom he permitted to esteeme one day above another, and for whose cause he did in his own practice, thus far apply himself to their infirmity, when they could not possibly be as yet fully and throughly instructed concerning Christian liberty and the abrogation of the Ceremonial Law, because the Gospel was as yet not fully propagated: and when the Mosaical rites were like a dead man not yet buried, as Augustine’s simile runs.

So that all this can make nothing for holy-days after the full promulgation of the Gospel, and after that the Jewish ceremonies are not only dead, but also buried, and so deadly to be used by us. Hence it is, that the apostle will not bear with the observation days in Christian Churches, who have known God as he speaks.…

The apostle comports with the observation of days in the weak Jews, who understood not the fullness of the Christian liberty, especially, since those days having had the honor to be once appointed by God Himself, were to be honorably buried: but the same apostle reproves the Galatians who had attained to this liberty, and had once left off the observation of days.…

Now for confutation of this forged exposition of those places of the apostle… The [Romanist] Rhemists affirm that the apostle condemns only Jewish days [in Col. 2 & Gal. 4], but not Christian days, and that we do falsely interpret his words against their holy-days. [Thomas] Cartwright answers them that if Paul condemned the observing of feasts which God Himself instituted, then much more does He condemn the observation of feasts of man’s devising… for he [Paul] condemnes that observation of days which had crept into the Church of Galatia, which was not Jewish nor typical, seeing the Galatians, believing that Christ was already come, could not keep them as figures of his coming, as the Jews did, but rather as memorials that He was already come, says Cartwright.”

George Gillespie, English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 1, ch. 8, ‘That Festival Days take away our Christian Liberty, proved out of the Gospel’, pp. 25-26

John L. Girardeau on the Regulative Principle

But whatever others may think or do, Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers. Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again, none were more comprehensive, far reaching and profoundly reforming than this. It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice, and demanded the restoration of the true.

Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Luther’s failure to apply it to the full. Calvin enforced it more fully. The great French Protestant Church, with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery, gave it a grand application, and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it. John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church, and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans.

Alas! that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian Churches of England, Scotland and America. What remains but that those who still see it, and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself, should continue to utter, however feebly, however inoperatively, their unchanging testimony to its truth? It is the acropolis of the Church’s liberties, the palladium of her purity. That gone, nothing will be left to hope, but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day. Then-we are entitled to expect-a more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the Church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves.

John L. Girardeau, Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church, pg. 16

George Gillespie on simplicity of worship

Musculus reprehends bishops for departing from the apostolical and most ancient simplicity, and for adding ceremonies unto ceremonies in a worldly splendor and spectability show whereas the worship of God ought to be pure and simple. The policy then, which is most simple and single, and least lustered with the pomp and bravery of ceremonies, cannot but be most expedient for edification. The king’s daughter is most like herself when she is all glorious within, not without (Ps. 45:13), and the kingdom of God appears best what it is when it comes not with observation (Luke 17:20, 21). But superstition (says Camero), the mother of ceremonies, is lavish and prodigal: spiritual whoredom, as it is, it has this common with the bodily: both of them must have their paintings, their trinkets, their inveiglements.

Secondly, the ceremonies are impediments to the inward and spiritual worship, because they are fleshly and external. In the second commandment are forbidden all rites which are inharmonious with the spiritual worship of God. “The kingdom of God is within you,” says Christ (Luke 17:21). Now, if the apostle (1 Tim. 4:8) says that bodily exercise, such as fasting, watching, etc., which are requisite as helps and furtherance to the humiliation of the soul, does but profit a little, then may we say of our unnecessary and unprofitable ceremonies that they are exceedingly nocent (criminal) and harmful to true and spiritual worship. The apostle is not speaking of plays and pastimes, as Bellarmine would have us to think. Who can believe that Timothy was so much addicted to play, that the apostle had need to admonish him that such exercise profits little? He is speaking, then, of such bodily exercises as in those primitive times were used religiously, as fasting, watching, lying on the ground, and such like; and he would have Timothy rather to exercise himself to the life and power of godliness, and to substantial worship, than to any of these outward things. Neither does the apostle condemn only the superstitious use of these exercises, as Calvin well observes. otherwise he would condemn them entirely: whereas he does only extenuate and derogate from them, saying that they profit little.

George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies, pp. 89-90

George Gillespie on the difference between the apostles circumstantial observance of ceremonies and ours

His [Mr. Sprint’s] principal reason is, That the Apostles by direction of the Holy Ghost , and upon reasons common and perpetual equity, did practice themselves, and caused others to practice, yea advised and injoyned (as matters good and necessary to be done) Ceremonies so inconvenient and evil in many main and material respects, as the Ceremonies injoyned and prescribed in the Church of England are supposed to be; whence he would have it to follow, that to suffer deprivation for refusing to conforme to the Ceremonies of the Church of England, is contrary to the doctrine and practice of the apostles.

Ans. These Jewish Ceremonies in the use and practice of the Apostles. were no ways evil and inconvenient, as himselfe every where confesseth; whereas therefore he tells us, that those Ceremonies were abused to superstition, were of mistical signification, and observed as parts of God’s worship, swerving from the general rules of God’s word , not profitable for order, decencie, and edification, offensive many ways, and infringing Christian liberty he runnes at random all the while: for these things agree not to the Jewish Ceremonies, as they were rightly used by the Apostles themselves, and by others at their advise, but only as they were superstitiously used with opinion of necessity by the obstinate Jews, and by the false teachers, who impugned Christian liberty. So that all that can followe upon Mr. Sprints Argument, is this, That notwithstanding of the evils and inconveniences which follow upon certaine Ceremonies in the superstitious abuse of them by others, yet if in our practice they have a necessary or expedient use, then (after the example of the Apostles) we may well conforme unto them. Now all this cometh not near the point, which Mr. Sprint undertaketh to prove, namely, That granting the controverted Ceremonies to be in our use and practice of the same, many wayes evil and inconvenient, yet to suffer deprivation for refusing to conforme to the same, is contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles.

And as touching the companion instituted betwixt our controverted Ceremonies, and these antiquated Ceremonies of the Jews , practiced and prescribed by the Apostles , after the ascension of Christ, and before the full promulgation of the Gospel , many evils there be in ours which could not be found in theirs. For,

1. Ours, have no necessary use and might well be spared: Theirs, had a necessary use for avoiding of scandal, Acts 15.28.

2. Ours, produce manifold inconveniences (whereof we are to speak hereafter) in our use and practice of the same , which is prescribed : Theirs, in the use and practice of the same, which was injoyned by the Apostles, were most expedient, for winning of the obstinate Jews, 1 Cor 9.20. &: for keeping of the weake, 1 Cor. 9.22. And for teaching the right use of Christian liberty, to such as were strong in the faith, both among the believing Jews and converted Gentiles, Rom. 4 &c, 1 Cor. 8 & 10.

3. Ours, are proven to be in their nature unlawful: Theirs, were (during the foresaid space) in their nature indifferent, Rom 14.6, Gal 6.15.

4. Ours, are imposed and observed as parts of God’s Worship (which we will prove afterward:) Theirs, not so, for where read we that (during the foresaid space) any holiness was placed in them by the Apostles?

5. Ours, have certaine mistical significations Theirs, not so: for it is nowhere to be read, that the Apostles either practiced or prescribed them as significative resemblances of any mystery of the Kingdome of God.

6. Ours, make us (though unnecessary) like unto Idolaters in their Idalatrous actions: Theirs, not so.

7. Ours, are imposed with a necessity both of practice and opinion, even out of the case of Scandal: Theirs, not so.

8. Ours, are pressed by naked will and Authority: Theirs, by such special grounds of momentaneous reason, as made the practice of the same necessary for a certaine time, whither the Apostles had injoyned it or not.

9. Ours, are urged even upon such, as in their consciences judge them to be unlawful: Theirs, not so.

10. Ours, have no better original than humane and Anti-Christian invention. Theirs, had their original from God’s owne institution.

11. Ours, are the accursed monuments of Popish Idolatrie, to be ejected with detestation: Theirs, were the memorials of Mosaical policy, to be buried with honour.

12. Ours, are pressed by such pretended reasons, as make them ever and everywhere necessary: Theirs, by such reasons, as did only conclude a necessity of using them at sometimes, and in some place.

13. Ours, are urged after the full promulgation of the Gospel, and acknowledgement of Christian liberty: Theirs, before the same.

14. Ours, are urged with the carelesse neglect of pressing more necessary duties: Theirs, not so. These and other differences betwixt the controverted, and Jewish Ceremonies, doe so break the backe of Mr. Sprint’s argument, that there is no healing of it againe.

George Gillespie, A dispute against the English-Popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland: wherein not only our own arguments against the same are strongly confirmed, but likewise the answers and defences of our opposites, such as Hooker, Mortoune, Burges, Sprint, Paybody, Andrewes, Saravia, Tilen, Spotswood, Lindsey, Forbesse, &c. particularly confuted, 1637.

William Cunningham on the creed commonly called the Apostle’s disproportionate exaltation

Nay, it is well known that Arians, who deny the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost, have no hesitation in expressing their concurrence in the Creed, and even appeal to the common use of it in early times, as showing that a profession of belief in the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost, was not required in the primitive church. The conclusion which they draw is unfounded. It can be satisfactorily proved that the doctrine of the Trinity was generally held in the primitive church from the age of the apostles, although it is also certain that, before the Arians and other heretics openly opposed it, some Christian writers did not speak with so much precision and accuracy on these points as were used by subsequent authors ; and that on the same ground it was not so prominently and explicitly set forth in the public profession of the church. It is also true that the Apostles’ Creed, and indeed all the ancient creeds, are plainly constructed upon a plan which insinuates, or rather countenances, the doctrine of the Trinity, as they are all based upon the apostolic commission embodying a requirement to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Still it cannot be said that the Apostles’ Creed excludes the Arian view with anything like explicitness ; and it is certain that we have creeds composed by Arians in the fourth century, which do speak of the dignity of our Lord and Saviour, so far as the mere words employed are concerned, in a far higher strain than the Apostles’ Creed does.

These considerations are quite sufficient of themselves to prove that the Apostles’ Creed, as it is called, is not entitled to much respect, and is not fitted to be of much use, as a summary of the leading doctrines of Christianity. A document which may be honestly assented to by Papists and Arians, by the adherents of the great apostasy and by the opposers of the divinity of our Saviour, can be of no real utility as a directory, or as an element or bond of union among the churches of Christ. And while it is so brief and general as to be no adequate protest or protection against error, it does not contain any statement of some important truths essential to a right comprehension of the scheme of Christian doctrine and the way of salvation. It is quite true that, under the different articles of the Creed, or even under any of the earlier creeds which contained merely a brief profession of faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we might bring in, as many authors have done, an explanation of all the leading doctrines taught us in Scripture ; but it is not the less true that they are not stated in the document itself, and that there is nothing in its words which is fitted to bring them to our notice..

..I think it is much to be regretted that so very inadequate and defective a summary of the leading principles of Christianity as the Apostles’ Creed, — possessed of no authority, and having no extrinsic claims to respect, — should have been exalted to such a place of prominence and influence in the worship and services of the church of Christ ; and I have no doubt that this has operated injuriously in leading to the disregard of some important articles of Christian doctrine, which are not embodied in it, but which are of fundamental importance. Even in the third century, we find the doctrines of grace, — the true principles of the gospel which unfold the scriptural method of salvation, — were thrown into the background, were little attended to, and not very distinctly understood; while the attention of the church in the fourth century was almost entirely engrossed by controversial speculations about the Trinity and the person of Christ ; and it is, I believe, in some measure from the same cause — i.e., having the Apostles’ Creed pressed upon men’s attention in the ordinary public services of the church, as a summary of Christian doctrine, entitled to great deference and respect — that we are to account for the ignorance and indifference respecting the great principles of evangelical truth by which so large a proportion of the ordinary attenders upon the services of the Church of England have been usually characterized, — a result aided, no doubt, by the peculiar character and complexion of the other two creeds which are also sanctioned by her articles, and which are sometimes, though not so frequently, used in her public service — the Nicene and the Athanasian.

Cunningham, William; Historical theology : a review of the principal doctrinal discussions in the Christian church since the apostolic age; 1863, pp. 89-93