Boston on Christmas Day, draws parallel to 1 Kings 12:33

[NaphtaliPress]

“Since Christ is presented to us as a child born, then see well how you entertain the honour done you, in the Prince of Peace being upon his birth presented to you. Some at this season pretend to honour his birth, by observing a day they count the day of it. But where is the divine appointment of that day? is it not like Jeroboam’s feast? 1 Kings 12:33, ‘So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel, and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.’ And can men soberly think, that their feasting, eating, and drinking, as usual on that day, does indeed honour Christ?” Thomas Boston, “Christ Presented to Mankind Sinners. Isaiah 9:6, Unto us a Child is born, in The Whole Works of the Late Reverend Thomas Boston (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1851), 10.185.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

I know. It’s a national holiday and folks are able to gather and be with friends and loved ones. I did last night. Folks do so without any particular regard to this day as holy and devoted to Christ (who was surely not born on this date or at this time of year). But let’s not pretend today is a holy day. It’s treating it as such that makes Boston’s parallel apt. We are no more commanded to set aside days, nor does the church have to power to make it sacred or holy, in the New Testament, any more than Jeroboam had the authority to erect new days more politically convenient to him in the Old.

 

[Northern Crofter]

We are no more commanded to set aside days, nor does the church have to power to make it sacred or holy, in the New Testament, any more than Jeroboam had the authority to erect new days more politically convenient to him in the Old.

What of The Directory of Publick Worship section "Concerning the Observation of Days of Publick Thanksgiving" - or in the Appendix ("Touching Days and Places for Publick Worship") where is states "...it is lawful and necessary, upon special emergent occasions, to separate a day or days for publick fasting or thanksgiving, as the several eminent and extraordinary dispensations of God’s providence shall administer cause and opportunity to his people." Doesn't "separate a day" the idea of holy/set apart? Or are you just referring to not making a particular day holy in the calendar year after year?

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Doesn't "separate a day" the idea of holy/set apart? Or are you just referring to not making a particular day holy in the calendar year after year?

That's part of it but I would point to Gillespie's argumentation how holiness/specialness (not just setting apart) is invested in the pretended holy days.