humble themselves by Abstinence as to the quantity and quality of their Food they knowing very well by the Unction of the Holy Ghost what we know by too sad experience that the generality of the people being left to Fast when they pleased would please to Fast seldom or never at all Nay moreover it follows hence that the Institution of set-days of Abstinence was not only well worthy of the Apostles but also that it cannot well be understood how they could be faithful to their charge of the Souls of the whole World and neglect by the proviso of such an Ordination to propagate to all Generations an Universal practice of Fasting amongst Christians For though it were granted that the Primitive Christians were so fervorous both in Piety to God and in Mortification to themselves as they neither stood in need of set Holy-days to invite them to their Prayers nor of set Fasts to invite them to Penitential works Every day was a Lords day to them so long and frequent were their devout Prayers and other spiritual Exercises the whole year was one continued Lent unto them so rigid was their daily Abstinence Although I say all this were granted to the Honour of the Primitive Christian fervor yet it lying upon the Apostles to secure all Christian practices not only for their own days but to all Generations as much as in them lay and they foreseeing by the light of the Holy Ghost how apt tepid Posterity would be to excuse themselves from all obligation of the hard and troublesome duty of Fasting upon any set-times had they been left free to Fast when and how they pleased this I say the H. Apostles foreseeing their very Office seems to have obliged them from the beginning to ordain not only certain Festival days but certain Fasting days also lest after-Generations should say Our Ancestors went to Heaven without Fasting-Lent or other set Fasts and why may not we And indeed had not the Holy and long Fast of Lent been instituted by the first planters of Christianity over all the World Provincial or General Councils would have found it too hard a task to have obliged all Christian Countrys to an observation so repugnant to the natural inclination of Man-kind And this consideration alone does not a little encline me to believe that the Apostles of our Lord Jesus did actually and indeed ordain the Christian Lent Fast. For is it a likely Story that the Apostles and Primitive Christians Fasted as seldom and in such a manner as our Non Conformists do only deferring their good Flesh-meal till three a Clock in the Afternoon for five or six times a year But when Christians in after-Ages grew cold in all Christian exercises they fell to Abstinence from flesh contenting themselves with less nourishing and less savory Viands towards the Evening three days every Quarter and forty days every Year besides the Eves of several Festivities and two days of Abstinence every week Is this I say a likely story Or is it not rather much more likely that the Holy Apostles all over the World taught their first Converts both by their Example and Doctrin to Fast very often and very strictly but after-Ages growing more languid as in all Christian exercises so especially in Fasting as hardest and most contradictory to flesh and blood at length they came to Fast so remisly even upon days of the very Apostles Ordination that they added to one full Meal about Noon a Collation at Night and that such a one too as would hardly have been allowed a Primitive Christian Faster for his whole dayes Refection I desire the impartial Reader would be pleased to consider which of these two is the more likely story and to encline accordingly towards the belief of Lents being an Apostolical Ordination Or did the Primitive Christians Fast indeed very often and very strictly urged hereunto by their extraordiuary fervor but without any extrinsical Law obliging them hereunto upon any set-days or times but in after-Generations the Primitive inward fervor being lost did Christians generally Fast seldom and very remisly which their Pastors observing and watching for their souls good Did they hereupon Ordain Lent and other Fasting days as an extrinsical help to recover in their languishing Flock the Primitive Christian practice of Fasting According to that of the Apostle The Law is not made for the Iust Man but for the Vnjust 1 Tim. 1. 8. This might not without some probability be surmized were it not contrary to all Ecclesiastical History which makes mention of Lent in the most Primitive times as I shall say hereafter But Efficaciously to prove the holy Fast of Lent was taught the Christian world by the Apostles of our B. Saviour I confess I was not present when St. Peter or S. Paul or any other of the Apostles Preached to their first Converts the observation of Lent Neither were you present I believe when S. Paul writ his Epistle to the Romans and yet I perswade my self you think you are able to satisfie any reasonable man that he did write it Then why may not I be able also to prove satisfactorily that the holy Apostles did teach the Observation of Lent though I was not present at any of their Sermons or Exhortations to that purpose Or perhaps will you say You matter not who writ the Epistle to the Romans Having diligently Read and perused it you fear not with all confidence to aver whosoever writ this Letter I am sure the Holy Ghost Indited it I know it by its very stile and its other intrinsecal Vertues there 's a Divine Character stamp'd upon it by which I clearly distinguish it from all human Writings and this suffices me to make me receive it as a rule of my Faith and Manners But this would be small satisfaction to a Pagan who doubts of the Divine Authority of that holy Epistle unless you could make him also discern that Sacred Impress which you say you so clearly distinguish take heed you do not mistake 'T is Education I fear has made both you and me bear that Reverence we do to that and whatsoever else Portion of holy Writ we receive Had we been Educated in Judaism in all likelihood we should have as little regarded the New Testament as we do now Mahomets Alcaron I could tell you also that I know by the nature of Lent it self it must be Instituted and first taught by Missionants sent from Heaven and enumerating the singular benefits that accrue to a devout soul Religiously observing of it I could moreover make even you or any other Non-observer of it as well as my self see it must needs at first come from a good Spirit that wished Man-kind well for that it so strangely conduces to the perfecting of human Nature and to the adorning of it with many excellent Vertues For example If I Fast to afflict and humble my self before God Almighty for my sins my Fasting is an act of Repentance If I eat
were so many Metropolitans and of so great Erudition and Learning as they were almost all able to dispute of Dogms to whom when their gathering together in one seemed to add a confidence of daring and decreeing something from themselves yet notwithstanding they would presume nothing arrogate nothing at all to themselves but take all possible heed lest they should deliver to their Posterity what themselves had not received from their Fathers and not only well disposed the matter for the present but also give example to them that were to come to wit that they should reverence the Dogms of Sacred Antiquity and condemn adinventa the additional inventions of prophane Novelty Had Abstinence from certain kind of Meats for 40. days before Easter been a Superstitious Novelty its manifest no Introducer of it could have perswaded it to a Christian Church thus principled as the Doctors of this Age were They would all unanimously have reclaimed nothing must be Innovated besides what has been delivered to us by our Ancestors Or was Lent first taught in the Age fore-going and were the present Pastors of this 5th Age in the actual belief and practice of it If so how possibly could they profess to be such Zelots for Antiquity and such Exploders of Novelty and yet themselves most Religious Observers of a Superstitious practice never heard of till it was of late invented by their immediate Progenitors And how would their Adversary Nestorius have upbraided them with it when they objected to him the Novelty of his Doctrin Or perhaps was Lent first introduced in the third Age But that could not be neither the Doctors of that Age being no less Zealous for delivered doctriâ—s and practices nor less Opposers of Novelties than the 5th Age as is manifest by the contest betwixt the Bishop of Carthage and the Bishop of Rome and his Collegues where the Assertors of Re-baptization wanted neither Wit nor Eloquence nor number nor verisimilitude of truth nor Oracles of the Divine Law but understood after a bad and a new manner as S. Vincent says chap. 9 10. How then came they to lose their cause S. Stephen and his Collegues reclaimed Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est Nothing is to be innovated besides what has been delivered to us Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage holding Rebaptization against the Divine Canon against the rule of the Universal Church against the sense of all his fellow-Priests against the Custom and Institutions of his Ancestors and hereby as S. Vincent observes giving a form of Sacriledge to all Hereticks this overthrew him This then was not an Age wherein to Introduce either Novel practices or Doctrins into the Church nor any other before S. Vincent For he tells us chap. 9. Mos iste c. That Custom has always flourished in the Church and by how much any one has been more Religious the more readily has he opposed new Inventions We have hereof plenty of examples every where And this manner of discoursing proves a Priori that had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty it could not possibly have been brought into the Christian Church for the first 500. years and yet its manifest by all the Christian Writes of the 4th and 5th Age that it was then Universally practised both in the Eastern and Western Church whence it follows that it is no Superstitious practice but true Christian Piety and was taught the World by the first planters of Christianity Although our Learned Adversaries deny not but that the prime Doctors and chief Champions of Christianity of the 4th and 5th Age were Zealous Observers and Preachers of the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent and for this cause appeal to the first 300. years yet for the satisfaction of others less Learned I have thought fit to Transcribe their Testimonies as they are cited by Bishop Gunning in his Learned Treatise in defence of the Paschal or Lent-Fast Hear then the Testimonies of the Christian Doctors of the 4th and 5th Century and if you have the least grain of Christian modesty dread to call that Superstition which so many Grave Fathers extol as singular Christian Piety S. Basil in his Sermons de Iejunio makes mention of Lent-Fast For he makes mention of five days Fasting together commanded to be observed by all degrees all over the world which returned by an orderly course Now in other his Contemporaries we find express mention of a Forty-days Fast nor was there ever by Christians Fasted five days consequently but in Lent and the reason he mentions five days is because the Grecians only Fasted five days in every week in Lent leaving out Saturday and Sunday Hear his own words Hom. 1. Let us as becomes Saints receive the days that are at hand not with a sad Soul but with a chearful affection Be not sad when thou art Cured Whoever amidst sumptuous Feasts and continual delights was made partaker of any Spiritual gift Moses that he might a second time receive the Law needed a second Fast. Doest thou not eat Flesh But thou eatest up thy Brother Doest thou abstain from Wine But thou doest not forbear to injure thy Neighbour Thou expectest the Evening before thou take thy refection but spends the whole day in Law-Courts Let not Drunkenness introduce thee to the mysteries of Fasting The Wrestler is exercised before he wrestle for the Prize the Faster is prepared to Fast by Temperance Do not as if thou would'st Revenge thy self on the days of Fasting or mock the Author of the Law lay up against these five days the Treasure of Surfetting Our Lord who has brought us to the recourse of this time give us as to Combatants throughout these days in which we are called out to Combate to declare the strength and Nerves of Continence Orat. 2. Fasting is at all times profitable to those who voluntarily undertake it but much more at this time when the denuntiation of Fasting is proclaimed all over the World Nor is there any Island nor Continent nor City nor Nation nor the farthest corner of the World where the Edict of Fasting is not heard S. Gregory Nazianzen Orat. 4. Christ Fasted a little before his Temptation we before the Paschal feast And Orat. 41 42. Yesterday I was Crucified with Christ to day I am as it were glorified with him S. Epiphanius In expositione fidei Catholicae The same Church has been wont to observe Lent continuing in Fastings But the 6. days of the week before Easter all the people continue in dry dyet using then Bread Salt and Water at the Evening Yet those that are very devout pass two three and four days and some the whole week untill Cock-crowing on Easter-day S. Ambrose in his book de Helia Jejunio A Lent is fasted with us all days except Saturday and the Lords-day And Serm. 25. Our Lord after he had fasted 40. days overcame the Devil not but that he could have overcome him before his fastings but that he might shew unto us that then
days within twenty should have been utterly destroyed I remember to have read how that the Primitive Christians to excite in their souls a more lively sense and apprehension of our B. Saviours humble Birth and painful Death were wont often to go to Bethlehem and Mount Calvary there to make their Prayers and Meditations reflecting and no doubt with a singular profit to their Souls that there their dear Redeemer was humbly born and here the same Redeemer pitiously died for them But the Devil envying these good Christians their so profitable Devotions by a cunning device thus thought to deterr them from them He suggested to the Pagans to set up the Statue of Adonis in the Stall of Bethlehem and the Statue of Venus on the Mount of Calvary so that the Devout Christians could not now go either to the one place or the other to help their Religious Piety without seeming superstitiously to worship Venus and Adonis A lively representation me-thinks this of the notorious abuse the same Devil has put upon us Christians in our yearly Observations of Christmas in memory of our Saviours Birth and weekly Observation of Friday in memory of his Death The Primitive Christians weekly observed the day of our Lords bitter Death and Passion afflicting their Souls for their sins with penitential sorrow and their bodies with rigorous Fasting both the quantity and quality of their Diet rather expelling Death than cherrishing Life The same first Christians yearly observed the time of their Lords Nativity but so Religiously as it was manifest their study was to fatten their souls with devout Meditations not to pamper their bodies with delicious fair The Devil envying the Church of Christ so great profit from the pious observation of these Holy Times he suggests to sensual Libertines so to prophane the Holy Time of Christmas with excessive Rioting that none could profess to keep it without playing the Debauche and so to abuse the Religious Fast of Friday and other times of Christian Abstinence by an intolerable excess in all sorts of Fish and Wine and dainty Comfitures that none could pretend to observe them without playing the Hypocrites professing to afflict their bodies with Austere Fasting when they pampered them by delicate Feasting But what Remedy Abandon the profane Abuse and recall the first Pious use Demolish the Statues of Venus and Adonis but help your Devotions still by Visiting the Sanctified places of our Lords Birth and Passion Though you must give me leave to tell you that I fear were the matter well examin'd it would be found that not others uncouth exotick manner of Fasting but our own Inordinate desire of eating when we will what we will and as much as we will that is of not Fasting at all is the true cause of our Cavilling at the Holy Fast of Lent and other times of Abstinence Let it be Some who pretend to Fast do nothing less abstaining indeed from Flesh but giving scope to their Sensuality in other things But they say Carpere vel noli vel meliora face Either do not carp at our Fasting or else Fast more strictly your selves And those who are so forward in Reproaching to their Neighbours their Mock-fasts I fear if they were obliged to Fast would find but difficulty enough even to fast so largely as they do whose Fastings they carpe at And though indeed you may find too too many Libertines who study by all means possible to avoyd the difficulty of Church-Fasts by excessive Drinking and intemperance in Meats not prohibited yet those of a better Conscience though they come far short of the rigor of the Primitive Christians in their Abstinence yet do so Fast as their fasting days are days of real Mortification unto them As for Libertins it s rather to be wondered they will deny themselves even to abstain from Flesh than that they take the liberty they do upon Fasting-days Do not so wholly fix your Eyes upon the Cockle as you take no notice at all of the good Corn. But to the Point undertaken to be proved How may one who with his soul desires nothing more than to observe most Religiously all Apostolical Ordinations be satisfied that the Holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus ordained the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent as a time of Abstinence and Humiliation for all Christians Let him throughly satisfie himself that Fasting is a Christian duty and has a singular force to cast out the Devil to obtain the Holy Ghost to appease the Allmighties just Anger and which shall have a singular reward in Heaven And moreover let him reflect if any Credit be to be given to the Old and New Scripture and to Eccesiastical History the more eminent any one has been for Piety and Sanctity the more exemplar have they been for Fasting and Abstinence Moyses Elias Daniel Iudith Anne great Fasters under the old Law St. Iohn Baptist our Blessed Saviour St. Mary Magdalen and all the Apostles under the Gospel St. Paul testifies of himself that he Fasted often Our B. Saviour assures us concerning all his Disciples that when he was taken from them they should Fast. To say nothing of our Basils Hieroms and Augustines c. whose Fasts were very frequent and very rigorous and yet we cannot without injury to the Apostolical Colledge surmise that those later Fathers of Christs Church should surpass either in Piety or Abstinence the first Planters of Christianity By which it is evident to every Christian Man that Fasting in general is very well becoming every good Christian and that he hardly deserves the name of a Christian who wanting neither health nor strength yet Fasts not at all And indeed if we examin the matter well we shall find that one great end of our Lord Jesus His coming into the World was to save us from our sins by Teaching by his Doctrin and by enabling us by his Example and other gracious Assistances fervourously to practise the propitiatory Humiliation of Fasting Our All-wise Mediator understanding very well that could he but bring us heartily to Repent us of our sins and to express the sincerity of our interior Contrition by exterior Humiliation or Fasting such was the genius of his Eternal Father that he could not but pardon us how great or how many soever our sins might be But on the contrary we refusing to Repent and that even in Sack-cloath and Ashes that is with such a Repentance as shows it self by some exterior acts or other no Prayers no Tears no Blood no Death of his could possibly obtain our pardon except we would Repent Perish we must and that Eternally But what conduces this to perswade Lent-Fast was appointed by the Apostles Very much For we having hence that Fasting is a necessary Christian duty and strangely conducing to save the World from sin it evidently follows it was well worthy the Apostles the better to secure so useful a practice to determin certain days every yeâ—r in which all Christians should be obliged to
less my self that I may have the more to give to those that are in Necessity my Fast is an act of Charity If I Fast the better to dispose my self for Prayer 't is an act of Religious Devotion If I Fast judging my self not worthy of any Delicacies nor of my fill of even the coursest Fare 't is an act of Humility and disposes my soul moreover as little to affect fine Cloaths or stately Dwellings as I do good Victuals and consequently moderates my desires of Money and Riches which are not desirable by corrupt Nature but for these or such like uses If I Fast that I may be better able to pay my Debts or provide my Children Portitions 't is an act of Justice and Christian paternal Piety If to moderate my inordinate Appetite of Meat and Drink 't is an act of Temperance In fine 't is hard to name a Virtue which Fasting does not strangely help to procure maintain and encrease And after all this can either Pagan or Christian deny the holy Fast of Lent to have a Divine Character stamp'd upon it and must it be still stigmatized with the ignominious brand of Superstition and Will-worship But how do I know assuredly the Apostles of our B. Saviour taught the Primitive Christians to Fast in Lent Am I able to produce a grand Jury of so many Venerable old Men who have been miraculously kept alive ever since and are ready to avouch as much upon solemn Oath No not I. How do I then know it Has an Angel appeared to me and told me as much No. How then Why how did the Israelites who lived above two thousand years after the Institution of the Sabbath know that God Almighty commanded their first Father Adam to keep it holy They had no book of it the Book of Genesis being written above two thousand years after by Moses I conceive they knew it thus Adam instantly upon God-Almighties Command set himself Religiously to observe that day and taught his Children to do so also his Children practised and taught their Children downwards till Moses his days Nor had any reason to doubt of the Divine Institution of that first holy day because it was not transmitted and recommended to them by a Book Nor would it have been a sufficient excuse for any one then to have pretended how could they be certain that some of their Ancestors betwixt them and Adam had not of their own head superstitiously devised a Religious observation of that day before all others unless they could have produced some positive evidence of such an Innovation In like manner I say concerning the holy Fast of Lent The Holy Apostles first taught the observation of it in the several Countrys where they Preached the Gospel their Converts fell to the practice of it and taught their Children in like manner and so one Generation another till our present days and this all over the Christian World Now unless Non-Conformists can shew when this burdensome precept of Fasting-Lent was imposed upon Christendom since the first planting of Christianity I cannot see how they can more excuse themselves from this Obligation than could the Israelites excuse themselves from the keeping of Saturday Sabbath which was ordained two thousand years before they were born and there was also as yet no written Word of God at all for any such observation But what proof can be brought that all intermediate Generations since the Apostles in several Christian Countrys have kept Lent A much stronger then Iacob could bring to prove to his Children that Saturday-Sabbath had been kept ever since Adam He could only produce the Testimony of the present Generation that so they had been taught by their Fathers and Grand-fathers time out of mind nor had they any Tradition amongst them of a later beginning of such an Observation Written Records Divine or Human he had none I besides the Testimony of those of the present Age in several Christian Countrys who affirm that they have Immemorially from the first planting of Christianity amongst them Religiously observed Lent will produce by and by Records of above a thousand years standing for its Apostolical Institution But positively to prove that the Apostles appointed Lent I argue thus Two hundred years agoe England France Spain Germany Italy and all the Eastern Church universally Fasted Lent as 't is evident by the Records and Annals of our own and those other Christian Countrys Therefore the Apostles taught Lent to their first Converts both in the Eastern and Western World where they Preached For it cannot be imagined that so many several Countrys Kings and Subjects Priests and People could by chance fall upon the yearly practice of Abstaining from flesh forty days before Easter Therefore they must either all at first be taught so by their first Masters of Christianity which is the Conclusion intended to be proved or some Universal Supream Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil must so have commanded them to do or some Preachers first in one Country and then in another must so have perswaded them to do in some Age since But no Annals of our own or other Christian Countrys make any mention of any such Preachers or any such Ordination made by any general Council Pope Prince or Emperor Nor yet have we or other Cbristian Countrys wanted Ecclesiastical Historiographers who in their Memorials have taken notice of far lesser matters than such an Innovation as this must needs have been had the Apostles taught the World no such Observance And the truth is 't is pure Ignorance in Ecclesiastical History and the works of the Primitive Fathers that makes so many waver in the Belief of the Apostolical Institution of Lent in which if they were well Conversant they could not possibly doubt of it Further Not only two hundred years ago but twelve hundred years agoe Lent was Universally observed in the whole Christian World both in the Eastern and Western Church as is manifest out of the pious works of the prime Pillars and Pastors of Christs Church in the fourth and fifth Century of Christianity Nor do the Opposers of Lent deny so much and therefore appeal to the first 300. years after our Saviour for which time and for which only they pretend the Christian worship was untainted and not infected with the Superstitious observation of Lent And no doubt they have a great deal of reason to think so Charitably of the Primitive Christians who for the first 300. years after our Saviour were all over the World sought after to death for their Religion that they would have a care to keep that Religion unspotted and teach the same faithfully to their Posterity which they were all ready every day to dye for and many of them actually did dye for Besides what a reproach would it be to our B. Saviour that his Church should be Universally over-run with Superstition within 300. years after his Death and yet Moses should be able so to establish a Religion as it
observance which was preparatory to the greatest Feast which was followed with the 50. days Solemnity Thus Philo contemporary of the Apostles concerning the Hebrew Christians in and about Alexandria where S. Mark was set Bishop by S. Peter I omit the Testimony of the 68. Canon of the Apostles for that Ecclesiastical Writers do not unanimously agree that those Canons at least all of them were made by the Apostles although the sixth General Councel Celebrated above a 1000. years agoe received and approved 85. of them There can be no doubt but they are very antient Bishop Gunning thinks they were made in the second Century by the Successors of the Apostles who in that Age were commonly as he says called Apostles The 68â—h Canon runs thus If any Bishop or Priest or Deacon or Lector or Cantor shall not Fast the sacred Lent Quadragesimam before Easter or Wednesday or Friday let him be deposed unless he be hindred by weakness of body But if he be a Laick let him be deprived of the Communion Indeed the Canon does not seem first to institute Lent but rather supposes it and urges its observance by inflicting a penalty upon Non-observers All which makes for my designed purpose for who could so early except the Apostles be the first Authors of such an Institution when as yet there had been no General Council except that of the Apostles at Hierusalem But have we no Scripture for the Observation of Lent Fast We have Scripture that our B. Saviour Fasted 40. days and we have also in Scripture that if any man says he is in Christ he ought to walk as he walk'd Moreover we have yet more express Scriptures as interpreted not by some one or two Fathers but by the whole body of Catholick Christians as Bishop Gunning well observes out of Tertullian cited above They that is the Catholick Christians who are called by him Psychici surely think that in the Gospel those days are determin'd for Fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away and a little after the Paschal Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away Those words then of our B. Lord in excuse of his Disciples not Fasting whilst he was with them Can you make the Children of the Bridegroom fast while the Bridegroom is with them But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them then shall they fast in those days Those words I say in the sense of the Primitive Church in the second Century were intended by our B. Saviour to signifie that Christians after his departure should Fast yearly upon Good-Friday the day of his death and the rest of the Pascal or Lent-Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away I add whether those words in those days did in the intention of our Saviour signifie Lent-Fast or no it 's evident had not the Primitive Christians Fasted Lent they would never have interpreted our Lords words as they did which is sufficient for my purpose to wit to evince that the most Primitive pure Church did Fast Lent And besides according to common sense who are more likely to understand aright our B. Saviours or his Apostles words they who lived in the next Age to them or we who live sixteen hundred years after Do we or any other Nation in the world understand our written Laws according to the sense a crafty witty Lawyer can wrest them to signifie or accordingly as they have been immemorially understood since the first making of them and as cases and disputes have by our Learned Judges been decided by them More-over suppose but only the Primitive Christians for whose sake the Holy Scriptures were written rightly understood them and let after Generations interpret the same Scriptures in the sense they were interpreted by their Ancestors and let this be their great enquiry how their Fore-elders understood them and its impossible they should ever be mis-understood but leave their Interpretation to every private mans sentiment and you open a gap to all Innovations and Heresies as Bishop Gunning judiciously observes Reason says he pag. 23. and experience and the direction of all Wise men in the Church of God Antient and Modern the House of Wisdom Councels Reverend Fathers and Writers and our Church in particular have directed and commanded us not to interpret the Scripture in things of publick concernment to the Churches rule of believing and doing but as we find it interpreted by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church as they had received it from those before them For that the leaving of every man to make any thing of any Text upon any device out of his own head to the founding of any new and strange Doctrin or Practice as necessary there from or to the opposing any constantly received Doctrin or Practice of the Church-Vniversal for in other matters they may happily with leave quietly abound in their own sense leaves all bold Innovators which can draw any disciples after them to be as much Law-givers to the Church by their uncontrolable Law interpreting as any Pope or Enthusiast can or need pretend to be and hath been and ever will be to the end of the World the ground of most Hâ—resies and Schisms brought into the Church by Men who departing from the teaching and stable Interpretation of the Church in their own Instability and Science falsly so called pervert the Scriptures to their own and others their obstinate followers destruction And indeed he who has so much Pride and Self-conceit as to prefer his own seeming sense of holy Scriptures before the sense which Holy Fathers and Christian. Doctors unanimously attest to have received from their Fore-elders is nextly disposed to vilifie and reject the whole Letter of Sacred Scriptures upon pretext of being uncertain whether the Letter now commonly owned and approved by the unanimous consent of Christian Doctors be indeed that Letter which was left the World by the Apostles But if a yearly Religious Observation of the Holy Fast of Lent be of such singular benefit and Spiritual advantage to all Christians and if also the Apostles of our Lord Jesus did recommend such an Observation to the several Countrys by them Converted to the Christian Faith how comes it to pass that none of all their Writings which have come to our hands makes express mention of it Hear Bishop Gunning p. 138. Ritual Observances being Visible and as it were legible in the Vniversal Churches constant practice needed not to be set down in her written rule Or those which are therein set down not necessarily so evidently but that they might need the Interpâ—etation of such the Churches practice And indeed whoever will impartially consider the nature of the Books of the New Testament will be so far from wondering that all the Rituals of Christianity are not expresly declared in them that he will rather wonder there is so much in them of the exterior Rites of Christian Religion as there is Had any
of the Sacred Christian Pen-men written a Book on purpose to declare the whole manner of Christian worship like Moyses his Exodus or Leviticus we might reasonably have expected an account what days Christians were to set apart for Fasting or Religious Feasting what Garments they were to use in time of Divine Worship c. Buâ— they only as is manifest writing Books for other intents and purposes by way of History for example or moral Exhortations and making mention only by the by of some of our Christian Rites as they occurred nothing can be more unreasonable then to expect in their said Writings an express clear mention of every Christian Ceremonial Observance The four Gospels are a History of our Blessed Saviours Life and Death who lived as to the external Rites of Religion according to the Jewish Law and so we cannot reasonably in any of them expect what Fasting or Festival days we Christians are to observe Indeed had the Act of the Apostles been intended as an exact Narration how the Apostles lived as to the whole course of their Life what days they kept Holy and what they Fasted c. We might reasonably have expected some mention there of Lent and Easter But that holy Book making mention only of some few particular passages of two or three of the Apostles lives the Apostles might well keep Lent and Easter too and teach them also to their first Converts and yet there be a profound silence of them in the Book of their Acts As for S. Iohn's Prophetical Book it were no ways proper in it to speak of Easter or Lent The rest of the New Testament are certain Epistles or Letters of Spiritual Counsels written by S. Paul or some other Apostle to particular persons or whole Cityes already instructed in the Christian way of worship But why they should needs make mention therein of Lent I understand not unless perchance the persons they wrote unto had been deficient in observing of it But does not S. Paul expresly decry the keeping of Lent in one of his Epistles and tell the Christians he wrote to he was afraid he had laboured in vain amongst them by reason of their superstitious Observations of Days and Times Gal. 4. v. 9 10. How are ye Converted again to weak and beggarly Elements which you will serve again Ye observe Days and Months and Times and Years I am afraid of you lest I should have laboured amongst you in vain Was then the Holy Apostle afraid lest the Galatians should leave Christianity and return to Judaism or Pagaism because of their observing Lent in memory of our Blessed Saviours Fasting 40. days or Easter in memory of his Resurrection Is this a likely Story Or is it not evident from the Context of their returning again to weak and poor Elements that because of their returning to the Observation of Iewish days commanded by Moses or Pagan days in honour of Iupiter Mars c. he was afraid they would relinquish the Gospel by them received and become Jews again or Pagans But does not the same Apostle 1 Tim. 4. tell us expresly that Abstinence from certain M 〈…〉 the Doctrin of Devils and that nothing which God has made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be rejected by us but eaten with thankfulness Now the Spi 〈…〉 eth expresly that in the later times some shall depart from the 〈…〉 heed to Seducing Spirits and Doctrins of Devils speaking 〈…〉 Hypocrisie having their Consciences scared with a hot Iron fo◠〈◊〉 to Marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God 〈…〉 to be received with Thanksgiving of them which believe and know the Truth For every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with Thanksgiving That we may rightly understand these words of S. Paul we must reflect that upon a double account we may abstain from certain Meats or Drinks First we may abstain from certain Meats as thinking them out of Error and Superstition naturally unclean and unholy And to teach Abstinence from certain Creatures upon such an account is deservedly called the Doctrin of Devils And with this Heresie the Manicheans are charged by S. Austin and other Fathers And that the Apostle meant such like Abstainers from certain Creatures is manifest by the reason he gives why Christians should not Abstain upon such an account to wit because every Creature of God is good and consequently we ought not to reject any as in themselves evil and unclean Secondly we may abstain from certain Meats or Drinks as less suitable to a time of Humiliation or appeasing of Almighty God for our sins by Penitential works of Fasting Weeping and Mourning or for some other Spiritual end And such an Abstinence as this is so far from being prohibited by S. Paul or any other of the Apostles that it is commended not only by the light of Nature but also by the Holy Scriptures and the examples of the Holiest Men that ever lived upon Earth Thus S. Tymothy Abstained from Wine continually for Mortification so that S. Paul thought fit to exhort him not always to drink water but to make use of a little Wine for his Stomack-sake and frequent infirmities Whereas had it been Superstition to abâ—â—ain from certain Creatures of God upon a Religious account he ought to have disswaded him from his Abstinence by telling him such an Abstinence from the good Creatures of God was the Doctrin of Devils Wil-worship c. Eating Flesh and drinking Wine are very Lawful and Laudable when done in their due and proper season but are no ways suitable to days or times when I am called upon by my lawful Superiors to appease God Almightys Anger for my own and others sins by Fasting Weeping and Mourning Hear not me but the Holy Prophet Isa. ch 22. v. 12 13 14. And in that way did the Lord God of Hosts call to Weeping and to mourning and to Baldness and to Girding with Sack-cloath And behold Ioy and Gladness slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall dye And it was revealed in mine Ears by the Lord of Hoasts surely this Iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye dye saith the Lord God of Hosts Now they seem not so much to be a-sleep as dead who hear not God Almighty crying out unto them and calling them to Fasting Weeping and Mourning this Holy and Penitential time of Lent after all the Authorities above-cited for its Apostolical Institution To say nothing of the abounding of all sorts of wickedness amongst us and the heavy Spiritual Plagues of blindness of mind and insensibility of Divine things which has seized upon us and no doubt call aloud for Penitential Humiliations But if Abstinence from certain Meats upon a Religious account be true Christian Piety what shall we say to S. Paul Rom. 14. v. 2. One believeth that he may eat all things another who is weak eateth Herbs and v. 6. He that eateth
Fasting and whatsoever most severe Mortifications in exchange for its intolerable eternal torments And no less gladly and willingly ought we to do or suffer any thing never so troublesome to flesh and blood to prevent our falling into the same state of immutable unsufferable misery Often and seriously to think of this to wit that except we Repent with Fasting Weeping and Mourning we must Perish and that eternally would make the most rigorous severity seem gentle and easie Otherwhiles let us call to mind the eternal joyful Easter a Religious devout Lent-Fast will end in And this will make us cry out with the great S. Paul The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us Whatsoever we can suffer by Fasting or whatsoever other Christian severity in this our time upon this Earth is light easie if compared with the immense weight of eternal glory which expects us in the other Life Courage therefore O my soul. Sigh Pray and Fast Heaven will make amends for all Si credis omnia patere si non pateris non credis c. O Christian Man says the Divine S. Crysostom If thou believest be willing to suffer all things if thou art not willing to suffer thou doest not believe for such and so great things are promised us that rather than fall short of them we ought to suffer a thousand deaths undoubtedly a few Lent-Fasts Immortality Glory a Kingdom an eternal Kingdom is proposed unto us To which Kingdom He who to teach us the way to it Fasted 40. days and 40. nights bring all devout Imitators of his Quadragesimal Fast. Amen FINIS A Postscript IF any one be offended at the proving of Lent to be an Apostolical Institution by the unanimous Tradition of all Christian Countrys they are desired to Reflect First how they would Tryumph had they a like Tradition but even of one Country for a Non observance of Set-Fasts And Secondly how that all Christian Churches agree that a Sacred Reverence is to be given to whatsoever Doctrins or Practâ—ces can be proved to be Apostolical by a truly universal unanimous Tradition But the dispute betwixt the Church of Rome and Church of England is whether certain Doctrins or Practices were indeed always every where by all or in a manner by all Christian Doctors acknowledged as Apostolical I say by all or in a manner by all for as Bishop Gunning well observes p. 132. he would in a dangerous degree disserve our common Christianity who would reject some Book of H. Scripture the Epistles for example of S. James and S. Jude or something for being a Tradition Apostolical for the positive possible Rejection of some one Socrates or other Ecclesiastical Writer or some one or a few Fathers against the known generality and consent of the rest of Antient Writers and immemorial witness or practice of whole Christian Countrys And the reason is manifest especially in our present particular matter of Practice Had the H. Apostles for example in the several Countrys they Converted to Christianity taught no such thing as Abstinence from certain Meats on Fasting-days nor no Set-Fasts on Friday or Lent but had positively taught that to observe Solemn Set-Fasts was Legal as the Heretick Aerius and that Abstinence from certain Meats was vain and unprofitable as the Heretick Jovinian according to S. Aug. l. de Ser. n. 35. 82. That some one or a few pretenders to Christianity should either be ignorant what was taught them by the Apostles or would wilfully teach otherwise than they had been taught is no wonder but that all the several Christian Countrys in the World should make a distinction of days and meats and this ever since they were Christians they positively unanimously attesting as much and all their most antient Records partly positively witnessing the same partly being silent as to any Innovation and yet no such thing should be taught them but rather the quite contrary by the first Planters of the Christian Faith amongst them this is impossible And whoever goes about to weaken the force of Vniversal Tradition rightly understood invalidates as much as in him lyes all revealed Religion It being impossible to know assuredly any Books as to all that 's contained in them to be Divine Revelations but by such a Tradition Concerning this see Bishop Gunning above Christo Jejunanti Gloria