The Regulative Principle of Worship And Christmas

"...which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart."


"...God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, 
since he condemns by this one phrase, "I have not commanded them," 
whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed 
to condemn superstitions, than that they are not commanded by God: 
for when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own 
fancies, and attend not to his commands, they pervert true religion. 
And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious 
modes of worship, in which they absurdly exercise themselves, would 
fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists 
to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their 
own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well 
known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, 
that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they 
would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words 
then are very important, when he says, that God had commanded no such 
thing, and that it never came to his mind; as though he had said, that men 
assume too much wisdom, when they devise what he never 
required, nay, what he never knew."


--John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah 7:31