Not long after his arrival in London for the Westminster Assembly, George Gillespie had the occasion to preach or lecture on the subjection of whether Christmas day ought to be observed on December 24, 1643. The following are two extracts from the introduction to the surviving brief notes on his oration in the forthcoming v2 of the Shorter Writings of George Gillespie (Naphtali Press Special Editions, Reformation Heritage Books). If I may add a brief promo, if you have an interest in seeing works like this produced, consider becoming a sponsor of NPSE (sponsorship underwrites the cost of producing critical text of puritan works, new translations of old reformed works, etc. We are not quite halfway to the financial target for the fourth series year for 2023. See the website (https://www.naphtali.com/npse-2/) or the all in one place explanation and means of sponsoring at this promo page: https://tinyurl.com/2njtmfjc).
Whether to preach on Christmas in 1643?
George Gillespie did not just randomly pitch upon the subject of “Why Christmas Day should not be Observed” for his December 24, 1643 address. The minutes of the Westminster Assembly do not survive for December 21, 1643 to February 14, 1644, but John Lightfoot records the following for the session on Friday, December 22.
After this vote, was a proposal made by some, ‘That the Assembly would determine whether there should be any sermon upon Christmas-day’: but it was waived to treat of it, because we are not yet come to it. Then was there some question how long we should adjourn, and some few would have had us to have sitten on Christmas-day; but it was more generally thought otherwise; and so we adjourned till after the fast, viz. till Thursday. In the afternoon, the city-ministers met together to consult whether they should preach on Christmas-day, or no. Among them there were only Mr. Calamy, Mr. Newcomen, and myself, of the Assembly. And when Mr. Calamy began to incline that there should be no sermon on that day, and was like to sway the company that way, I took him aside, and desired him to consider seriously upon these things. 1. That one sermon preached at the feast of the dedication, which had but a human original, John x. 2. That the thing in itself was not unlawful. 3. That letting the day utterly fall without a sermon, would most certainly breed a tumult. 4. That it is but this one day, for the next we hope will be resolved upon about it by authority. 5. That he, being an Assembly-man, and advising them, would bring an odium undeserved upon the Assembly. With these things I prevailed with him to change his mind; and so he also prevailed with the company; and it was put to the question, and voted affirmatively, only some four or five gainsaying, that they would preach, but withal resolving generally to cry down superstition of the day.[1]
The agreement which Lightfoot reasoned from Calamy would seem to cast some doubt that Calamy would have immediately had Gillespie preach against observing the day at St. Mary Aldermanbury. However, it likely would have been arranged before the meeting on the 22nd and if so it would seem as unlikely the invitation would have been rescinded. So it remains a possibility that Boothby could have heard Gillespie at St. Mary Aldermanbury. As to the controversy, Baillie records this same matter brought up on Friday, December 22, giving the Scottish point of view. In an undated letter “For Scotland” but with a postscript dated January 1, 1644, he writes,
On Friday [i.e. Dec. 22] I moved Mr. Henderson to go to the Assembly; for else he purposed to have stayed at home that day; that as all of us stoutly had preached against their Christmass, so we might in private solist [importune] our acquaintance of the Assembly, and speak something of it in public; that for the discountenancing of that superstition, it were good the Assembly should not adjourn, but sit on Monday, their Christmas day. We found sundry willing to follow our advice, but the most resolved to preach that day, till the Parliament should reform it in an orderly way; so, to our small [little] contentment, the Assembly was adjourned from Friday till Thursday next: yet we prevailed with our friends of the Lower House to carry it so in Parliament, that both Houses did profane that holy day, by sitting on it, to our joy, and some of the Assembly’s shame. On Wednesday we kept the solemn fast. Mr. Henderson did preach to the House of Commons as most gracious, wise, and learned sermon, which you will see in print. Mr. Rutherford is desired by them to preach the next fast day [2]
According to Baillie it appears that the Scots may well have been among those behind the raising of the question in the assembly and that some discussion did take place in the assembly on the question and not just in the afternoon meeting where the only assemblymen present were Newcomen, Calamy and Lightfoot, though he may have been drawing from knowledge he gained of that meeting in his report. While there was some “joy” that the parliament did not take Christmas day off, the Scottish ministers were clearly “little content” the assembly took a Christmas break. It is in this context that two days later on the Lord’s Day, December, 24, 1643, that Gillespie preached a sermon or lectured on the topic of “Why Christmas should not be observed.”
As Lightfoot suggested, the subject did come up again the next year and during the debates the assembly had concerning a Directory for the Public Worship of God. Lightfoot notes the following: “Thursday, Dec. 19 [1644].], Then was there a motion made, and order accordingly, that some of our members should be sent to the Houses, to desire them to give an order, that the next fast-day might be solemnly kept, because the people will be ready to neglect it, being Christmas-day.”[3] The minutes omit the actual concern that the fast would be neglected for the accustomed holiday.[4] Neal gives greater background,
But that which occasioned the greatest disturbance over the whole nation, was an order of both houses relating to Christmas-day. Dr. Lightfoot says, the London ministers met together last year to consult whether they should preach on that day; and one of considerable name and authority opposed it, and was near prevailing with the rest, when the doctor convinced them so far of the lawfulness and expediency of it, that the question being put it was carried in the affirmative with only four or five dissenting voices. But this year it happening to fall on the monthly fast,[5] so that either the fast or the festival must be omitted, the parliament, after some debate, thought it most agreeable to the present circumstances of the nation to go on with fasting and prayer; and therefore published the following order:
“Die Jovis 19 Dec. 1644. Whereas some doubts have been raised, whether the next fast shall be celebrated, because it falls on the day which heretofore was usually called the feast of the nativity of our Saviour; the lords and commons in parliament assembled do order and ordain, that public notice be given, that the fast appointed to be kept the last Wednesday in every month ought to be observed, till it be otherwise ordered by both houses; and that this day in particular is to be kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to the life which Christ led here on earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls, for the sanctifying and saving whereof, Christ was pleased both to take a human life, and to lay it down again.”
Conclusion
In 1644, when the subject of the holy day had come up again with the regular fast falling on December 25, Edmund Calamy preached the fast sermon for the House of Lords.[6] He concluded, paralleling some of what George Gillespie briefly noted the prior year,
This day is the day which is commonly called The Feast of Christ’s Nativity, or Christmas day: A day that hath been heretofore much abused to superstition and profaneness. It is not easy to reckon whether the superstition hath been greater, or the profaneness. I have known some that have preferred Christmas day before the Lord’s Day, and have cried down the Lord’s Day, and cried up Christmas day. I have known those that would be sure to receive the sacrament upon Christmas day, though they did not receive it all the year after. This and much more was the superstition of the day. And the profaneness was as great. Old Father Latimer saith in one of his sermons, That the Devil had more service in the twelve Christmas holy days (as they were called) then God had all the yeare after.[7] Seneca saith of his time, Olim December mensis erat, nunc annus est.[8] There are some that though they did not play at cards all the year long, yet they must play at Christmas; thereby, it seems, to keep in memory the birth of Christ. This and much more hath been the profanation of this feast. And truly I think that the superstition and profanation of this day is so rooted into it, as that there is no way to reform it but by dealing with it as Hezekiah did with the brazen serpent. This year God by a providence hath buried this feast in a fast, and I hope it will never rise again. You have set out (Right Honourable) a strict order for the keeping of it, and you are here this day to observe your own order, and I hope you will do it strictly. The necessity of the times are great. Never more need of prayer and fasting. The Lord give us grace to be humbled in this day of humiliation for all our own, and England’s sins; and especially for the old superstition, and profanation of this feast: always remembering upon such days as these, Isa. 22. 12, 13, 14. [“And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of hosts.”
[1] . John Lightfoot, “Journal of the Assembly of Divines,” The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot, volume 13 (London: 1824), pp. 91–92.
[2] . Letters & Journals, 2.120. Spelling modernized. The sermons noted are Alexander Henderson, Fast Sermon to the House of Commons, December 27, 1643 (text: Ezra 7:23) and Samuel Rutherford, Fast Sermon to the House of Commons, January 31, 1643/44 (text: Daniel 6:26). See Sermons Preached before the English Houses of Parliament by the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 1643–1645 (Naphtali Press, 2011).
[3] . Lightfoot, 13.344.
[4] . Van Dixhoorn, 3.484.
[5] . Writing about an ordinance prohibiting public diversions and recreations during England’s civil war, Neal explains, “The set times of humiliation mentioned in the ordinance refers to the monthly fast appointed by the king, at the request of the parliament [January 8, 1641], on account of the Irish insurrection and massacre, to be observed every last Wednesday in the month, as long as the calamities of that nation should require it. But when the king set up his standard at Nottingham, the two houses, apprehending that England was now to be the seat of war, published an ordinance for the more strict observation of this fast, in order to implore a divine blessing upon the consultations of parliament, and to deprecate the calamities that threatened this nation.” Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans, 3 vols. (1837), 2.155.
[6] . Edmund Calamy, An indictment against England because of her selfe-murdering divisions (London: Meredith, 1645), pp. 40–41.
[7] . Edmund Calamy is paraphrasing from Hugh Latimer’s second sermon before a convocation of the clergy in 1536. Cotton Mather seems to have picked up this paraphrase in his denunciation of Christmas in 1712, and this seems to be the source in modern citations of the saying, which do not actually cite from Latimer (e.g. Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas [New York: A Division of Random House, Inc. Vintage Books, 1997], p. 7).
Hugh Latimer’s words to the clergy in 1536 were: “Do ye see nothing in our holidays? of which very few were made at the first, and they to set forth goodness, virtue, and honesty: but sithens, in some places, there is neither mean nor measure in making new holidays, as who should say, this one thing is serving of God, to make this law, that no man may work. But what doth the people on these holidays? Do they give themselves to godliness, or else ungodliness? See ye nothing, brethren? If you see not, yet God seeth. God seeth all the whole holidays to be spent miserably in drunkenness, in glossing, in strife, in envy, in dancing, dicing, idlenes, and gluttony. He seeth all this, and threatenth punishment for it. He seeth it, which neither is deceived in seeing, nor deceiveth when he threateneth. Thus men serve the devil; for God is not thus served, albeit ye say ye serve God. No, the devil hath more service done unto him on one holiday, than on many working days.” Emphasis added. Sermons by Hugh Latimer, edited for the Parker Society by George Elwes Corrie (Cambridge, 1844), pp. 52–53.
Cotton renders the saying as, “Yea, the zealous Martyr Latymer complained, That Men dishonour Christ more in the Twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve Months of the Year besides.” Cotton Mather, Grace defended. A censure on the ungodliness, by which the glorious grace of God, is too commonly abused. A sermon preached on the twenty fifth day of December, 1712. Containing some seasonable admonitions of piety. And concluded, with a brief dissertation on that case, whether the penitent thief on the cross, be an example of one repenting at the last hour, and on such a repentance received unto mercy? (Boston: Printed by B. Green, for Samuel Gerrish, at his shop in Marlborough Street, 1712), p. 20.
[8] . “Once December was a month, now it is a year.” “... qui dixit olim mensem Decembrem fuisse, nunc annum.” Seneca ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, trans. Richard M. Gummere, The Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, [1925]), pp. 116, 117.
Whether to preach on Christmas in 1643?
George Gillespie did not just randomly pitch upon the subject of “Why Christmas Day should not be Observed” for his December 24, 1643 address. The minutes of the Westminster Assembly do not survive for December 21, 1643 to February 14, 1644, but John Lightfoot records the following for the session on Friday, December 22.
After this vote, was a proposal made by some, ‘That the Assembly would determine whether there should be any sermon upon Christmas-day’: but it was waived to treat of it, because we are not yet come to it. Then was there some question how long we should adjourn, and some few would have had us to have sitten on Christmas-day; but it was more generally thought otherwise; and so we adjourned till after the fast, viz. till Thursday. In the afternoon, the city-ministers met together to consult whether they should preach on Christmas-day, or no. Among them there were only Mr. Calamy, Mr. Newcomen, and myself, of the Assembly. And when Mr. Calamy began to incline that there should be no sermon on that day, and was like to sway the company that way, I took him aside, and desired him to consider seriously upon these things. 1. That one sermon preached at the feast of the dedication, which had but a human original, John x. 2. That the thing in itself was not unlawful. 3. That letting the day utterly fall without a sermon, would most certainly breed a tumult. 4. That it is but this one day, for the next we hope will be resolved upon about it by authority. 5. That he, being an Assembly-man, and advising them, would bring an odium undeserved upon the Assembly. With these things I prevailed with him to change his mind; and so he also prevailed with the company; and it was put to the question, and voted affirmatively, only some four or five gainsaying, that they would preach, but withal resolving generally to cry down superstition of the day.[1]
The agreement which Lightfoot reasoned from Calamy would seem to cast some doubt that Calamy would have immediately had Gillespie preach against observing the day at St. Mary Aldermanbury. However, it likely would have been arranged before the meeting on the 22nd and if so it would seem as unlikely the invitation would have been rescinded. So it remains a possibility that Boothby could have heard Gillespie at St. Mary Aldermanbury. As to the controversy, Baillie records this same matter brought up on Friday, December 22, giving the Scottish point of view. In an undated letter “For Scotland” but with a postscript dated January 1, 1644, he writes,
On Friday [i.e. Dec. 22] I moved Mr. Henderson to go to the Assembly; for else he purposed to have stayed at home that day; that as all of us stoutly had preached against their Christmass, so we might in private solist [importune] our acquaintance of the Assembly, and speak something of it in public; that for the discountenancing of that superstition, it were good the Assembly should not adjourn, but sit on Monday, their Christmas day. We found sundry willing to follow our advice, but the most resolved to preach that day, till the Parliament should reform it in an orderly way; so, to our small [little] contentment, the Assembly was adjourned from Friday till Thursday next: yet we prevailed with our friends of the Lower House to carry it so in Parliament, that both Houses did profane that holy day, by sitting on it, to our joy, and some of the Assembly’s shame. On Wednesday we kept the solemn fast. Mr. Henderson did preach to the House of Commons as most gracious, wise, and learned sermon, which you will see in print. Mr. Rutherford is desired by them to preach the next fast day [2]
According to Baillie it appears that the Scots may well have been among those behind the raising of the question in the assembly and that some discussion did take place in the assembly on the question and not just in the afternoon meeting where the only assemblymen present were Newcomen, Calamy and Lightfoot, though he may have been drawing from knowledge he gained of that meeting in his report. While there was some “joy” that the parliament did not take Christmas day off, the Scottish ministers were clearly “little content” the assembly took a Christmas break. It is in this context that two days later on the Lord’s Day, December, 24, 1643, that Gillespie preached a sermon or lectured on the topic of “Why Christmas should not be observed.”
As Lightfoot suggested, the subject did come up again the next year and during the debates the assembly had concerning a Directory for the Public Worship of God. Lightfoot notes the following: “Thursday, Dec. 19 [1644].], Then was there a motion made, and order accordingly, that some of our members should be sent to the Houses, to desire them to give an order, that the next fast-day might be solemnly kept, because the people will be ready to neglect it, being Christmas-day.”[3] The minutes omit the actual concern that the fast would be neglected for the accustomed holiday.[4] Neal gives greater background,
But that which occasioned the greatest disturbance over the whole nation, was an order of both houses relating to Christmas-day. Dr. Lightfoot says, the London ministers met together last year to consult whether they should preach on that day; and one of considerable name and authority opposed it, and was near prevailing with the rest, when the doctor convinced them so far of the lawfulness and expediency of it, that the question being put it was carried in the affirmative with only four or five dissenting voices. But this year it happening to fall on the monthly fast,[5] so that either the fast or the festival must be omitted, the parliament, after some debate, thought it most agreeable to the present circumstances of the nation to go on with fasting and prayer; and therefore published the following order:
“Die Jovis 19 Dec. 1644. Whereas some doubts have been raised, whether the next fast shall be celebrated, because it falls on the day which heretofore was usually called the feast of the nativity of our Saviour; the lords and commons in parliament assembled do order and ordain, that public notice be given, that the fast appointed to be kept the last Wednesday in every month ought to be observed, till it be otherwise ordered by both houses; and that this day in particular is to be kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to the life which Christ led here on earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls, for the sanctifying and saving whereof, Christ was pleased both to take a human life, and to lay it down again.”
Conclusion
In 1644, when the subject of the holy day had come up again with the regular fast falling on December 25, Edmund Calamy preached the fast sermon for the House of Lords.[6] He concluded, paralleling some of what George Gillespie briefly noted the prior year,
This day is the day which is commonly called The Feast of Christ’s Nativity, or Christmas day: A day that hath been heretofore much abused to superstition and profaneness. It is not easy to reckon whether the superstition hath been greater, or the profaneness. I have known some that have preferred Christmas day before the Lord’s Day, and have cried down the Lord’s Day, and cried up Christmas day. I have known those that would be sure to receive the sacrament upon Christmas day, though they did not receive it all the year after. This and much more was the superstition of the day. And the profaneness was as great. Old Father Latimer saith in one of his sermons, That the Devil had more service in the twelve Christmas holy days (as they were called) then God had all the yeare after.[7] Seneca saith of his time, Olim December mensis erat, nunc annus est.[8] There are some that though they did not play at cards all the year long, yet they must play at Christmas; thereby, it seems, to keep in memory the birth of Christ. This and much more hath been the profanation of this feast. And truly I think that the superstition and profanation of this day is so rooted into it, as that there is no way to reform it but by dealing with it as Hezekiah did with the brazen serpent. This year God by a providence hath buried this feast in a fast, and I hope it will never rise again. You have set out (Right Honourable) a strict order for the keeping of it, and you are here this day to observe your own order, and I hope you will do it strictly. The necessity of the times are great. Never more need of prayer and fasting. The Lord give us grace to be humbled in this day of humiliation for all our own, and England’s sins; and especially for the old superstition, and profanation of this feast: always remembering upon such days as these, Isa. 22. 12, 13, 14. [“And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of hosts.”
[1] . John Lightfoot, “Journal of the Assembly of Divines,” The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot, volume 13 (London: 1824), pp. 91–92.
[2] . Letters & Journals, 2.120. Spelling modernized. The sermons noted are Alexander Henderson, Fast Sermon to the House of Commons, December 27, 1643 (text: Ezra 7:23) and Samuel Rutherford, Fast Sermon to the House of Commons, January 31, 1643/44 (text: Daniel 6:26). See Sermons Preached before the English Houses of Parliament by the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 1643–1645 (Naphtali Press, 2011).
[3] . Lightfoot, 13.344.
[4] . Van Dixhoorn, 3.484.
[5] . Writing about an ordinance prohibiting public diversions and recreations during England’s civil war, Neal explains, “The set times of humiliation mentioned in the ordinance refers to the monthly fast appointed by the king, at the request of the parliament [January 8, 1641], on account of the Irish insurrection and massacre, to be observed every last Wednesday in the month, as long as the calamities of that nation should require it. But when the king set up his standard at Nottingham, the two houses, apprehending that England was now to be the seat of war, published an ordinance for the more strict observation of this fast, in order to implore a divine blessing upon the consultations of parliament, and to deprecate the calamities that threatened this nation.” Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans, 3 vols. (1837), 2.155.
[6] . Edmund Calamy, An indictment against England because of her selfe-murdering divisions (London: Meredith, 1645), pp. 40–41.
[7] . Edmund Calamy is paraphrasing from Hugh Latimer’s second sermon before a convocation of the clergy in 1536. Cotton Mather seems to have picked up this paraphrase in his denunciation of Christmas in 1712, and this seems to be the source in modern citations of the saying, which do not actually cite from Latimer (e.g. Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas [New York: A Division of Random House, Inc. Vintage Books, 1997], p. 7).
Hugh Latimer’s words to the clergy in 1536 were: “Do ye see nothing in our holidays? of which very few were made at the first, and they to set forth goodness, virtue, and honesty: but sithens, in some places, there is neither mean nor measure in making new holidays, as who should say, this one thing is serving of God, to make this law, that no man may work. But what doth the people on these holidays? Do they give themselves to godliness, or else ungodliness? See ye nothing, brethren? If you see not, yet God seeth. God seeth all the whole holidays to be spent miserably in drunkenness, in glossing, in strife, in envy, in dancing, dicing, idlenes, and gluttony. He seeth all this, and threatenth punishment for it. He seeth it, which neither is deceived in seeing, nor deceiveth when he threateneth. Thus men serve the devil; for God is not thus served, albeit ye say ye serve God. No, the devil hath more service done unto him on one holiday, than on many working days.” Emphasis added. Sermons by Hugh Latimer, edited for the Parker Society by George Elwes Corrie (Cambridge, 1844), pp. 52–53.
Cotton renders the saying as, “Yea, the zealous Martyr Latymer complained, That Men dishonour Christ more in the Twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve Months of the Year besides.” Cotton Mather, Grace defended. A censure on the ungodliness, by which the glorious grace of God, is too commonly abused. A sermon preached on the twenty fifth day of December, 1712. Containing some seasonable admonitions of piety. And concluded, with a brief dissertation on that case, whether the penitent thief on the cross, be an example of one repenting at the last hour, and on such a repentance received unto mercy? (Boston: Printed by B. Green, for Samuel Gerrish, at his shop in Marlborough Street, 1712), p. 20.
[8] . “Once December was a month, now it is a year.” “... qui dixit olim mensem Decembrem fuisse, nunc annum.” Seneca ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, trans. Richard M. Gummere, The Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, [1925]), pp. 116, 117.
