Two reasons Puritans and Presbyterians rejected the old pretended holy days

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The reason Presbyterians and other nonconformists of the puritan era rejected the church calendar was not just because the church has no power to create holy times, but because the system of days was itself a monument of idolatry and retaining it would amongst other ill things, entice back to the corruptions rejected at the Reformation. Call this the brazen serpent principle. Even on the continent the churches understood this principle* and when the pretended holy days were retained by magistrates and stubborn people (according to Gisbert Voetius, 1589–1676), the goal was to minimize them and eventually get out from under them altogether. And they were always supposed to be voluntary. This was Voetius’s view and he was not only at Dordt, but he was in charge of various matters relating to the synod, took care of the archives for it, and was involved in the approval of the church order. So his views on why the few feast days were retained is not inconsequential. Voetius lived until 1676 and with the Nadere Reformatie sought to reduce the use of such days. On the Presbyterian side, when such days were reintroduced it was not on the basis of the retention in the Reformed churches. Presbyterians historically “go” full liturgical and against their basic confessional principles. This is the history of the reintroduction of days in the Presbyterian church.

*The phrase or idea of “monuments of idolatry” can be found in The Debrecen Synod (1567), The Synod at Szikszo (1568), The Nassau Confession (1578) and Bremen Consensus (1595), Westminster Larger Catechism 108. Calvin does not use the term in his tract against Cassander (see his Tricky Middler tract, The Confessional Presbyterian v8), but he articulates it well. For full background to the argument see Gillespie on monuments of idolatry, (PDF at link),http://www.naphtali.com/articles/ge...n-the-rule-for-purging-monuments-of-idolatry/
 
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