The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John…

As for Holidays, you may take it for granted, our Eliot would not persuade his Indians to any Stated ones. Even the Christmas-Festival it self, he knew to be a stranger unto the Apostolical Times; that the exquisite Vossius himself acknowledges, 'twas not Celebrated in the first or second Century: and that there is a Truth in the words of the great Chemnuius, Anniversarium Diem Natales Christi, celebratum fuisse, apud ve••stissimos nunquam legitur. He knew that if the Day of our Lords Nativity were to be observed, it should not be in December: that many Churches for divers Ages kept it not in December, but in January; that Chrysostom himself, about four hundred years after our Saviour, excuses the Novelty of the December season for it, and confesses it had not been kept above ten years at Constantinople: No, that it should be rather in September, in which Month the Jews kept the Feast that was a Type of our Lords Incarnation; and Solomon also •rought the Ark into the Temple; for our Lord wa• thirty years, old when he entered upon his public Ministry; and he continued in it three years and an half; Now his Death was in March, and it is easy then to calculate when his Birth ought to be. He knew, that indeed God had hid this Day as he ⟨p. 121⟩did the body of Moses, to prevent Idolatry; but that Antichrist had chose this day, to accommodate the Pagans in their Licentious and their Debauched Saturnalia; and that a Tertullian would not stick to say, Shall we Christians who have nothing to do with the Festivals of the Jews, which were once of Divine Institution, embrace the Saturnalia, of the Heathen? How do the Gentiles shame us, who are more true to their Religion, than we are to ours? None of them will observe the Lords-day, for fear lest they should be Christians; and shall not we then by observing their Festivals, fear lest we be made Ethnics? In fine, it was his opinion, That for us to have stated Holy Days which are not appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ, is a deep Reflection upon the Wisdom of that glorious Lord; and he brought up his Indians, in the principles which the old Waldenses had about such unwarrantable Holidays.

As for Holidays, you may take it for granted, our Eliot would not perswade his Indians to any Statted ones. Even the Christmas-Festival it self, he knew to be a stranger unto the Apostolical Times; that the exquisite Vossius himself acknowledges, 'twas not Celebrated in the first or second Century: and that there is a Truth in the words of the great Chemnuius, Anniversarium Diem Natales Christi, celebratum fuisse, apud vestissimos nunquam legitur. He knew that if the Day of our Lords Nativity were to be observed, it should not be in December: that many Churches for divers Ages kept it not in December, but in January; that Chrysostom himself, about four hundred years after our Saviour, excuses the Novelty of the December season for it, and confesses it had not been kept above ten years at Constantinople: No, that it should be rather in September, in which Month the Jews kept the Feast that was a Type of our Lords Incarnation; and Solomon also rought the Ark into the Temple; for our Lord wa thirty years, old when he entred upon his publick Ministry; and he continued in it three years and an half; Now his Death was in March, and it is easy then to calculate when his Birth ought to be. He knew, that indeed God had hid this Day as he