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I hope he means not to quarrel at the Holy Ghost’s language: Ezek. xxii. 26, “Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane;” Mal. i. 7, “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar;” ver. 12, “Ye have profaned it;” Matt. xxi. 13, “Ye have made it a den of thieves;” Matt. vii. 6, “Neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.”
Third, The Spirit-given message, the Word, the Bible studied and apprehended under the Holy Ghost’s illumination is given out to others with “enticing words of man’s wisdom,” and not in “demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” We need, and we are absolutely dependent upon the Spirit all along the line. He must teach us how to speak as well as what to speak.
That reformation is one part of the Holy Ghost’s intendment in that text, is Gualther’s opinion as well as mine, yet he thinks Gualther his own. Nay, I proved it from comparing scripture with scripture, which is the best way that I know to clear scripture. Why did he not answer my proofs?
I do not say that the Apostle there meaneth only of times of reformation, but this I say, that it holdeth true, and most manifestly, too, of times of reformation; and that this is not to be excluded, but to be taken in as a principal part of the Holy Ghost’s intendment in that scripture.
Sermon on Col. iii. 1, he saith, That “there is no day in the year so fit for a Christian to rise with Christ, and seek the things above, as Easter day.” Sermon on Job. ii. 19, he saith, That “the act of receiving Christ’s body is at no time so proper, so in season, as this very day.” Sermon on 1 Cor. xi. 16, he tells us out of Leo, “This is a peculiar that Easter day hath, that on it all the whole church obtaineth remission of their sins.” Sermon on Acts ii. 1-3, he saith of the feast of Pentecost, That “of all days we shall not go away from the Holy Ghost empty on this day, it is dies donorum his giving day.” Sermon on Eph. iv. 30, he saith, “This is the Holy Ghost’s day, and not for that originally so it was, but for that it is to be intended, ever he will do his own chief work upon his own chief feast, and opus diei, the day’s work upon the day itself.” Sermon on Psal. lxviii. 18, he saith, That “love will be best and soonest wrought by the sacrament of love upon Pentecost, the feast of love.” Sermon on Acts x. 34, 35, he saith, That the receiving of the Holy Ghost in a more ample measure is opus diei, “the proper work of this day.” Sermon on James i. 16, 17, he calls the gift of the Holy Ghost the gift of the day of Pentecost, and tells us that “the Holy Ghost, the most perfect gift of all, this day was, and any day may be, but chiefly this day, will be given to any that will desire.” Sermon on Luke iv. 18, he saith of the same feast, That “because of the benefit that fell on this time, the time itself it fell on, is, and cannot be but acceptable, even eo nomine, that at such a time such a benefit happened to us.” Much more of this stuff I might produce out of this prelate’s holiday sermons, which I supersede as more tedious than necessary; neither yet will I stay here to confute the errors of those and such like sentences of his; for my purpose is only to prove against Bishop Lindsey, that the festival days, whereabout we dispute, are not observed as circumstances of worship, for order and policy, but that, as the chief parts of God’s worship are placed in the celebration and keeping of the same, so are they kept and celebrated most superstitiously, as having certain sacred and mystical significations, and as holier in themselves than other days, because they were sanctified above other days by the extraordinary works and great benefits of God which happened upon them; so that the worship performed on them is even appropriated to them; all which is more than evident from those testimonies which I have in this place collected.
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