Musculus: It is not in our power to make holy at our pleasure the things that God has not sanctified

[NaphtaliPress]

Yet I do not see (be it far from me that I should obstinately contend with any) where the Lord has given any authority to His Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctify any day, except that which He has sanctified Himself.98 For I hold this with other learned men as a principle in divinity, that it belongs only to God to sanctify the day, as it belongs to him [sic Him, missed one] to sanctify any other thing to His own worship. Deus est qui sanctificat, says Musculus.

It is God that does sanctify; that is, who of common or profane things makes holy; it is our duty religiously to observe according to His Word the things that are sanctified of Him. Nostræ potestatis non est sanctificare. It is not in our power to make holy at our pleasure the things that God has not sanctified; if any man shall attempt it, he not only therein is superstitious and not religious, but also therein challenges that to himself by rashness, that cannot be excused, which belongs only unto God.99

Nicholas Bownd, Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or The True Doctrine of the Sabbath (Naphtali Press and Reformation Heritage Books, 2015, ), p. 89.​

 

[jwithnell]

What's weighing on my mind is the way the OT makes so many memorials and remembrances, but the NT makes only one: remember Jesus' death until he comes. It seems a stark contrast between the new and old covenants. Often speaking against church "holidays" brings a charge of over-reacting against Romanism, yet the silence of the Scriptures seems definitive.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

It does get the charge of overreacting; which is strange, since it so characterized the Reformed (initially) and certainly the Presbyterians (and puritans) as to be a distinguishing characteristic, i.e. Sabbatarian and against the old pretended holy days of the Roman church.