Page:Brief inquiry into the origin and tendency of sacramental preaching-days (1).pdf/3

Rh the most distant resemblance to a modern

2. This practice did not originate with the Scottish Reformers, the founders of the Presbyterian in Scotland. In proportion as professors in vital religion, in that proportion do they  fond of external splendour and show— of  multiplicity of ceremonies and holy days, in. Accordingly we find, that, as vital godliness in the primitive churches, ceremonies and were introduced and multiplied, till, at, every trace of the primitive Christian disappeared; and the public profession of  becoming a mass of the most ludicrous — of the most childish rites, retained  of the religion of Heaven but the name. When the churches of the Reformation withdrew Rome, they brought away with them, and retain too many of those meretricious ornaments, which the man of sin arrayed the religion of. To the honour of the Scotch Reformers it be remarked, however, that they were in this in a great measure singular. They rejected unscriptural ceremonies and holy-days, and a mode of worship sufficiently simple, and adapted to all the ends of instruction and edification. Of such a religious festival, as is now called a occasion, they never dreamed. The for public worship, adopted by them, is  only silent on it, but inconsistent with it. Dr. in his Life of Melville, speaking of the of King James to establish a religious  to comemorate his escape from the  of the Earl of Gowrie, on the 5th of  1600; says, “This appointment was at  with the principles of the Church of, which, ever since the Reformation, had  and laid aside the observance of religious