Wednesday, December 24, 2008

It's Christmass time again

Not one word of the below can be refuted by anyone in any church in Winston-Salem. The only response that would be made by the Christmas keepers is simply that George Gillespie is a raving lunatic. In my view, observing Christmas is incontrovertible proof that the Counter-Reformation has prevailed. The demonization of the Puritans that began with Nathaniel Hawthorne continues to this day. The reason for it is that the demonizers want to keep their "pearl of great price", which they call "Christmas". I find a never ending supply of irony in the fact that those who don't keep Christmas know what it is and those who do have no idea what it is. The real problem I see with Christmas keeping is if the Christmas keeper subscribes to the Westminster Confession because Christmas keeping is a clear violation of the Confession, as stated so succinctly by Commissioner Gilliespie. If you don't subscribe to the Confession, by all means put on the trinkets of the whore for you will not find the baggage of Babylon too heavy to carry.

"... by communicating with idolaters in their rites and ceremonies, we ourselves become guilty of idolatry; even as Ahaz, 2 Kings 16:10, was an idolater, eo ipso, that he took the pattern of an altar from idolaters. Forasmuch, then, as kneeling before the consecrated bread, the sign of the cross, surplice, festival days (like Christ-mass), bishopping, bowing down to the altar, administration of the sacraments in private places, etc., are the wares of Rome, the baggage of Babylon, the trinkets of the whore, the badges of Popery, the ensigns of Christ's enemies, and the very trophies of antichrist, -- we cannot conform, communicate and symbolise with the idolatrous Papists in the use of the same, without making ourselves idolaters by participation. Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon her the ornaments of the whore? Shall the Israel of God symbolise with her who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Shall the Lord's redeemed people wear the ensigns of their captivity? Shall the saints be seen with the mark of the beast? Shall the Christian church be like the antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the temple of God like the synagogue of Satan?"

- George Gillespie (Scottish Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly) from A Dispute Against English Popish Ceremonies

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