That this feast was unduly instituted and
ungroundly, it may appear by conference of the dedication of the first
temple under Solomon, and of the second after the captivity returned from
Babylon. In which dedication, seeing there was no yearly remembrance by
solemnity of feasts, not so much as one day, it is evident that the yearly
celebration of this feast for eight days, was not compassed by that Spirit
that Solomon and the captivity were directed by; which Spirit, when it
dwelt more plentifully in Solomon, and in the prophets that stood at the
stern of the captivity's dedication, than it did in Judas, it was in him
so much the more presumptuous, as having a shorter leg than they, he durst
in that matter overstride them, and his rashness is so much the more
aggravated, as each of them, for the building of the whole temple, with
all the implements and furniture thereof, made no feast to renew the
annual memory, where Judas only for renewment of the altar, and of certain
other decayed places of the temple, instituted this great solemnity."

2. The feast of the dedication was not free of Pharisaical invention. For
as Tremellius observeth out of the Talmud,(851) _statuerunt sapientes
illius seculi, ut recurrentibus annis, octo illi dies, &c._ Yet albeit the
Pharisees were called _sapientes Israelis_, Bishop Lindsey will not grant
that they were the wise men of whom the Talmud speaketh; for, saith he, it
behoved those who appointed festivities, not only to be wise men, but men
of authority also.(852)

But what do we hear? Were not the Pharisees men of authority? Why, saith
not Christ they sat in Moses' chair? Matt. xxiii. 2. Saith not
Calvin,(853) _In ecclesiae regimene et scriptura interpretatione, haec secta
primatum tenebat_? Saith not Camero,(854) _cum Pharisaeorum praecipua esset
authoritas_ (_ut ubique docet Josephus_)? &c.

Doth not Josephus speak so much of their authority, that in one place he
saith,(855) _Nomen igitur regni, erat penes reginam (Alexandram) penes
Pharisaeos vero administratio_? And in another place,(856) _Erat enim
quaedam Judaeorum secta exactiorem patriae legis cognitionem sibi vendicans_?
&c. _Hi Pharisaei vocantur, genus hominuum astutum, arrogans, et interdum
regibus quoque infestum, ut eos etiam aperte impugnare non vereatur?_

There is nothing alleged which can prove the lawfulness of this feast of
the dedication.

It is but barely and boldly affirmed by Bishop Lindsey,(857) that the
Ph