the Baptiz'd were upon the Confession of their Sins admitted and oblig'd to a course of Repentance for them as now the Jews very carefully Wash and Baptise themselves on the Eve of their Propitiation Day And thus our Saviour as he fulfill'd all Righteousness in submitting to that Baptism so he might likewise in complying with the Ceremony consequent to it and undertaking the Form of Humiliation for Sin He entering upon a solemn Fast as the Rest were to do though performing it in an extraordinary manner But to return to my subject whatever the fortune of this last Conjecture may be the Reader I hope will not be unwilling to allow that Forty days might have been always with the Jews a Penitential space of time that it is so look'd upon by them now and has been time out of Mind and that the Forty Days ending in the Day of Expiation are of the same nature § III. AND now I come to trace the Parallel which yet the Reader must have been drawing to himself before For if we do but consider their Propitiation Day as the Great commanded Fast determin'd by Moses and the Seven or nine before it as days sometime after generally agreed on to prepare and predispose for That and also some other Days afterwards added to those for the same purpose by the Devotion of succeeding times but in a various number at the Discretion of several Persons and Places and all these severally added out of the Forty which are to be reckon'd backwards from the Radical Fast and which comprehended a solemn space of Penitential Time This I say if we do but recollect we cannot at the same time but think that we have here an exact Pattern of our Christian Lent For when the Passion Day was once put for our Expiation Day as indeed such it was and I presume in the beginning was so esteem'd universally some Few days before it were then judg'd fit to be taken in for a Preparation (a) Part 1. Ch. 3. and those were most naturally taken which make up the Holy Week and which also in a little while absolutely Obtain'd (b) Ch. 5. At the same time to these Others were also added but discretionally as several Persons thought fit and several Churches directed and so many added by some as to make up the number Forty a number of Days that was always look'd upon as the most solemn for a Fast which those therefore reckon'd who did not altogether keep them and which gave Denomination consequently even to the Lesser Spaces that were fasted within them (c) Ch. 10. That is I suppose the Holy Week as soon as it came to be observ'd Universally to have answer'd the Seven or Ten Days of the Jews For it was not necessary that the Days should be precisely of the same Number though they were of the same Nature for that the Particular considerations of Christianity might otherwise determine as when they resolv'd to keep the Passion Day not upon the day of the Month but of the Week That Passion Week therefore was kept with more than ordinary strictness of Penitential Devotion and if the Sunday of it was exempted from Fasting it was because it had with us the privilege of a Sabbath for the Jews fast not their Sabbath of Penitence As there was too another apparent Conformity between the Jews and Eastern Christians in the observation of the Holy Saturday for whereas those Christians never fasted on any Saturday or Sabbath no more than the Jews yet on the Passion Saturday they always fasted as the Jews do likewise on that single Sabbath upon which their Expiation Day may fall Now this Holy Week which with the following Festival one was a time of Vacation in Courts of Justice by the Imperial Law (d) Part 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. under the Christian Emperours and might have had the same immunity before by Private Custom of the Church was in this too not unlike to that Penitential time of the Jews in which they Hear no Causes nor administer any Oaths (e) Buxt S. J. Cap. 25. And it is observable that when a Larger Lent came to be formally kept as that of Forty days was at least after the Council of Nice either by the Determination or Agreement of the Catholick Church that then in a little time the same Vacation was enlarg'd too and it became unlawful to give any Oaths during the whole Quadragesimal Season A Privilege that was after extended to other times of Publick Fasting as also of Festivity Such is the Correspondence between the Antepaschal Fast of the Christians and the Ante Propitiation Fast of the Jews and by that if I mistake not a good and rational Account is given of the Practice of the Antient Church why they first chose to keep such a Fast in general and yet notwithstanding differ'd in the Particular of its length every Church if not Person being left to their liberty therein why one Portion of its time the Passion Week came in a little while to be commonly observ'd and reputed more Holy as also why all the while there was such a Regard to Forty Days as that some fasted them in the Beginning others afterwards us'd their Name and all in some time endeavour'd to come as near the Number on either hand as the repetition of Weekly Periods would allow them p No one can be a Nazarite for less than Thirty Days and when a Jew makes the Vow simply and expresses not the Time Thirty days are understood So Maimon Tractat. de Nazeriatu Cap. 3. § 1 And this was the Rule antiently as appears by Josephus speaking of Bernice De Bello Judaic lib. 2. cap. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r Daill de Quadrag lib. 3. cap. 16. Hi Sacri Patrum Lus◠CHAP. V. § I. This Origination of Lent very Probable and its Observation a Testimony to our Lord 's Expiatory Sacrifice However § II. The Consideration of that Expiatory Sacrifice is a good reason for our observing the Passion Day and likewise § III. Some Preparatory time before it § I. A Very great Resemblance if I mistake not has appear'd between the Christian Fast of Good-Friday and the Jewish of their Propitiation Day in the Ground and Reason of the Observation in the Manner of the Abstinence and in the other Penitential Duties And likewise no less Similitude has been discover'd between the respective Preparatory Seasons in their Reason also and Manner and in the space of Time And this so near a Resemblance might of it self have perswaded us that it could not have arisen by chance and that if both the Pieces were not Copies the one was Drawn by the other and it would have been as plain also in ordinary presumption if one Observation must have been the Copy that the Jewish was the Original But all this grows more undeniable when we come to reflect that our Church it self was deriv'd from Theirs and most of its Offices Discipline
Paschal Letters agrees with the Practice of the Jews § III. The Ante-Paschal Preparation of Christians answers to a like Preparation of the Jews before their Day of Expiation § I. THE Festival which puts an end to Lent the Solemnity of Easter is known by all to be an Imitation of the Jewish Passover and the Resurrection-Sunday to have come in the place of that Great Day on which the Children of Israel were releas'd from their Aegyptian Bondage And it is known likewise (a) Vide Bucher de Pasch Jud. Cyclo Cap. 1. that in the appointing of this Paschal season the Christians followed for some time the Designation of the Jews and that afterwards when they found reason to regulate this matter by themselves they still kept to the same Mosaick Rule § II. Now when the Christians began to use a common Calculation of their own it was generally the work of the Bishop of Alexandria a place fam'd for Astronomical Learning to consider afore-hand on what day of the common Solar year the first month of the Lunar year would happen to be the next Spring and accordingly to ascertain the Easter Sunday which was to be the First Sunday after the fourteenth day of that First month This the Great Bishops of several parts learnt usually from him of Alexandria and timely notified to those of their Provinces that they might know when to begin their preparatory Devotions which attended that moveable Festival And this also was done as I conceive after the Example of the Jews For tho' when they were in their own Country the Lunar year was with them of common use yet they were still to learn when it should begin for the first New Moon was to be so plac'd in the Spring season that on the sixteenth day of it a Sheaf of the First-fruits of the Harvest might be presented before the Lord (b) Levit. 23.10 c. (c) Maim de Conseâ—r Calend. Cap. 4. Seld. de An. Civ Vet. Jud. Cap. 5. Such things therefore the Priests as in other Nations or the Sanhedrim as the Talmudists will have it were to consider and if the ordinary year of twelve Lunar Periods fell short they were to lengthen it out with the Addition of a thirteenth and whether they would make such an Intercalation or no it was fit they should signifie to the People (d) Maim Ibid. Seld. Libriejnsd Cap. 9. some convenient time before that a suitable Preparation might be made against that solemn Feast to which every Israelite was bound to repair Notice the Jews wanted that liv'd at any distance from Jerusalem to order their affairs so that their absence for some Weeks at that time from home might be less incommodious however to make ready any residue of Holy things that might be in their hands and were to be spent at Jerusalem to take care to have all their Family circumcis'd to Purify themselves if not to take up the Lamb to discharge the Vow of a Nazarite if they had any such upon them to provide and to offer any Eucharistical Sacrifice that might be due And for some of these reasons they commonly came up to the Temple before the Feast and the precedent Week had its peculiar Celebrity and probably all the fourteen days of that First Month were half Festival as hath been intimated above (e) Part 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. Now such a notice was likewise necessary for the Ante-Paschal Preparation the Christians us'd though in a contrary manner For they as we have seen (f) Part 1. Ch. 3. spent some time before in Fasting all of them both the Asiaticks and those who differ'd from them and though some fasted only one day yet others fasted two others more says Irenaeus and of them some Forty This indeed is the account Irenaeus gives of his own and Victor's side but in all probability the Asiatick manner of Fasting differ'd not from theirs in length of time For from that Apostolical Constitution cited by the Audaeans in Epiphanius it has appear'd not unlikely e that those also of the Asiatick manner opposing their Fasts to the Festivity of the Jews began therefore their Fasting at least a Week if not a Fortnight before the 14th day as the same Opposition might have directed them to have kept the 50 days after with great Joy § III. But in this contrary manner of observing the Antepaschal Season Opposition to the Jews was not primarily design'd neither was it further prosecuted by the Christians than they were lead to it by contrary Causes For what ever reason the Jews might have for their Pentecostal Sadness the Resurrection of Christ gave his Followers a greater for Joy and if the Jews did exult in the Death of their Messiah the Christians were certainly to lament it This Lamentation also of our Saviour's Death as it was not made in consideration of any loss by them sustain'd so neither did it arise out of Indignation against his Mortal Persecutors On his Passion-Day they Fasted and Griev'd for the Sin of the Jews by which he was put to Death but they bemoaned also their other Sins and the Sins of the whole World and more especially their own those for which he suffer'd and which were all the more guilty and more hateful causes of his Crucifixion In this Abhorrence of all Sin and Penitential Grief they spent the day of their Lord's Death and for the better performing this Duty then they prepar'd themselves by the Abstinence and Devotions of the Season before This was the Intention as well as Practice of the whole Church and this was their Antepaschal Preparation concurring at least in time with that of the Jews But the Christians agreed yet nearer with the Jews in this whole Action passing their time not indeed as the Jews then did in that very Season but as they did in another as solemn and in an occasion wholly alike to the present circumstances of the Christians that is the Church of Christ kept the Day of the Passion as the Jews did the Day of Expiation and prepar'd for the one just after the same manner as They did for the other For this is the Conjecture I now offer that as many Jewish Ordinancies were patterns to the Christians and as their Sabbath and Munday and Thursday were remov'd to our Sunday and Wednesday and Friday so their Expiation Day was transfer'd to our Passion Day accompanied as it us'd to be attended with all its Praevious Offices And this Parallel Tertullian we may remember in the name of the Catholicks has already suggested to us (g) Part 1. Ch. 4. § 2. though he did not speak it out when he tells us that the Fast of the tenth day of the Seventh Month is abolisht and at the same time that the Days on which our Saviour was taken away were now determin'd to that Duty This Conjecture I shall endeavour to approve by shewing first the Correspondence between the Expiation â—â—â—y of the Jews
might the Christians think fit to keep up a yearly memory of that their Sacrifice whose offering was once made and never to be reiterated but its efficacy is to endure for ever they likewise observing this Solemnity not with any Ritual Form but with such eternal Duties of Penitence and Supplication as are always incumbent upon us miserable Sinners which the Justice of God will perpetually require and his Goodness in our Saviour accept § III. THERE seems therefore to be reason enough from the nature of the Thing from that Mysterious Suffering of our Lord and the consequent Practise of his Primitive Servants to found the continued Solemnity of the Passion Day upon its correspondence with the Levitical Day of Propitiation Neither is it to be expected that I should justify the Parallel by producing any like Opinion of the first Christians to that we have seen of the Jews concerning the Necessity and Merit of the Observation of the Day when the one was observ'd only as Proper and Expedient though in the judgment probably of those who had the Spirit of God and the other as Positively commanded by God Himself And yet so far did the first Christians seem to regard the vertue of a Jewish Expiation Day in their Practise about their own that they still determin'd the ordinary stated Period of the Penances of ejected Brethren with the Penitence of Good Friday and the following Saturday both which were the Days of our Lord's Passion as if by that their Conversion was consummated and the Pardon of the Church intirely gain'd And when they readmitted Penitents on Maundy Thursday as was the Antient Usage of the Church of Rome and it may be of all others they did not therefore depart from this their Parallel with the Expiation Day but rather confirm'd it For the Jews as we have seen (g) Rep. 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. on the Eve of their Expiation relax their Sentences of Excommunication and admit all to the Office of the next Day and for the same reason the Christians might admit their Excommunicates to the Offices of both Passion Days and even those whom they did not afterwards suffer to continue in their Communion The office of the Passion Day or Days I mean which consisted in Confession and Supplication for it is very probable that in the earlier times the Reconcil'd Penitents were not admitted to the Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood until Easter-Day The Supper likewise which was us'd to be held solemnly on that Thursday though it is said to be in Imitation only of our Lord's Supper yet it may also have proceeded from the Practise of the Jews on their Expiation Eve which we mention'd above For they in the Conclusion of their Penitential Preparation towards the Propitiation Day do always make a Solemn Supper and think it as much their Duty to eat well on that Evening as on the Sabbath that being in their Opinion a Duty of the Afternoon as strict Fasting is the Duty of the following Day So agreeable was the Supper of Passion Thursday to the Supper of the Jews on the Eve of their Expiation and more agreeable than to the last Supper of our Blessed Lord which if we go by Jewish Custom was held after Night and in their reckoning therefore rather on the Friday than on the Thursday Agreeable I say as to the time for as to the Freedom of Eating I suppose it differ'd much from that Jewish Meal But those Asiaticks (h) Part 1. Ch. 1. §. 3. who differ'd from the other Churches both in their observing the 14th day with the Jews whatever day of the Week it should be and also in breaking off their Fast that day might possibly in this point have as much follow'd the Custom of the Jews for one Season as they did their Calculation for the other For those of Asia seem to be of the Opinion of which their Followers in Epiphanius (i) Part 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. lit m. certainly were and which many other Churches have also embrac'd that our Saviour suffer'd on the 15th day of Nisan neither is it likely that they did not Fast on that day notwithstanding they are said to have broke it off before for such a neglect no doubt could not have been pass'd over unobserv'd by their Adversaries and would have drawn upon them the censure of Victor more than either of the other differences and besides we know their now mention'd Followers did actually so fast i I suppose therefore that their Breaking off the Fast was not a Determination of it but an Interruption by such a Supper and that this their Meal was Formal and Full and in the nature of a Feast and so reputed whereas the Supper if any of the rest of the Christians was a sparing refreshment and such as in comparison with the other Meal did not seem to Discontinue the Abstinence of the Season as since it has not been thought to do To these lesser particulars by which some indications of a Propitiation Day may appear I shall lastly add another Custom to be read in the Ordo Romanus their custom of striking of Fire and lighting up their Candles very solemnly in the Evening of the same Passion Thursday For whatever other reason it may have had for its institution it does also very well correspond with the Usage of the Jews who take as we have observ'd very particular care to have their Candles ready against their Propitiation Eve with which that night their Synagogues are more than ordinarily enlightned And thus I have offer'd to shew the Resemblance our Passion-Day bears to the Jew's Expiation Day both in it self and some Rites of the Day immediately preceeding it I am now to go higher and to consider at large the whole Previous Season call'd commonly Lent how well it agrees with the like Preparatory Season of the Jews before their Day of Expiation CHAP. IV. § I. A Penitential Season with the Jews Preparatory to their Expiation Day some certain Days next before it kept Vniformly by All More also generally though in various numbers and Forty by many but the First of the Forty Vniversally observ'd § II. Forty Days a solemn space of Penitence in the Jewish Discipline § III. The Christian Lent compar'd with the Jewish § I. THAT the Jews had an Antepaschal Season if not of a Fortnight yet of a Week and particularly that the Sabbath of that Week was call'd the Great Sabbath we have observ'd before (a) P. 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. whence appear'd a Conformity between them and the Christians those especially who reckon'd by the days of the Month and not of the Week in point of Holy Time though the Devotions of the one were generally Festival and of the others altogether Penitential But when we once suppose the Day of our Lord's Passion to have been the Day of Expiation and come to consider the Preparatory time that usher'd in this solemn Day we then begin to
Passover Sect. II. The Notification of Easter by Paschal Letters agrees with the Practice of the Jews Sect. III. The Ante-Paschal Preparation of Christians answers to a like Preparation of the Jews before their Day of Expiation p. 389 Chap. II. Sect. I. The Sacrificial Performance on the Jewish Expiation Day Sect. II. Compar'd with that of our Saviour on his passion-Passion-Day p. 396 Chap. III. Sect. I. The Devotional Duty of the Jews on their Expiation Day Sect. II. Practis'd by Christians on the Passion Day Sect. III. Some Circumstances of the Eves of those Days Compar'd p. 406 Chap. IV. Sect. I. A Penitential Season with the Jews Preparatory to their Expiation Day some certain Days next before it kept Vniformly by All More also generally though in various numbers and Forty by many but the First of the Forty Vniversally observ'd Sect. II. Forty Days a solemn space of Penitence in the Jewish Discipline Sect. III. The Christian Lent compar'd with the Jewish p. 418 Chap. V. Sect. I. This Origination of Lent very Probable and its Observation a Testimony to our Lord 's Expiatory Sacrifice However Sect. II. The Consideration of that Expiatory Sacrifice is a good reason for our observing the Passion Day and likewise Sect. III. Some Preparatory time before it p. 431 Corrigenda Addenda PAge 7. line 21. dele that he may if c. p. 19. l. 15. dele in p. 30. l. 12. read Oris de Jej. p. 67. l. 23. r. Paschatis p. 68. l. 5. r. choose p. 69. after the 18. line add However I will venture to offer that the following Sabbatum continuatis may be understood of Saturday alone and without any Connexion with a Friday preceding and mean no more than the Passing it without food the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Dionys Alex See the next Ch. § 2. and Note e p. 75. l. 7. put § II. l. ult for Trusty Faithful p. 79. l. 12. put § III. p. 87. for n put p p. 122. l. 16. for Fast r. Fact p. 153. l. 6. c. Ch. I. to be reckon'd Ch. II. p. 224. l. 8. put in the Margin See Fig. I. l. 14. for impurer r. certain p. 229. l. 21. dele from him p. 231. l. 24. dele so p. 232. l. 6. after anon add n and in the Margin n. ch 9. p. 252. l. last save 3. for little r. tittle p. 267. l. 24. r. Ingenuous p. 317. l. 11. r. High Priests and are in some l. 12. for now r. also p. 323. l. 27. r. Pattern p. 326. l. 3. dele the second that p. 328. l. 26. r. Laps'd p. 336. l. 15. dele l l. 19 20. dele of some l. 20. r. l p. 381. l. last save 2 for from r. for p. 385. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 392. to p. 401. the Running Title to be as afterwards it is A Conjecture c. p. 403. l. 16. r. Depellendus ab Hominum consortio under a Niddui See pag. 232. lit b whose c. PART I. AN Historical Account OF THE Observation of LENT CHAP. I. Concerning the Festival of the Resurrection § I. The Weekly Festival or Sunday § II. The Yearly the many Differences about it § III. The Difference between the Asiatick Churches and the Others and the Proof thence in general for the Apostolical Antiquity of Easter § IV. In Particular from the Letters of Polycrates and Irenaeus LENT in the old Saxon is known to signifie the Spring and thence has been taken in common Language for the Spring-Fast or the Time of Humiliation generally observ'd by Christians before Easter And as it is a Season of Recollection and Repentance ending at that Festival of our Saviour's Resurrection and annually regulated by the Time of it so the Historical Knowledge of the one depends upon the other and the Fast cannot well be understood without the Feast be first settled and some Account of it premised § I. NOW the Feast of the Resurrection is of two Sorts either the Weekly the Lord's Day or the Yearly called Easter And as to the Weekly It is on all hands acknowledged to have been perpetually and universally observed ever since the beginning of Christianity It is particularly remembred in the New Testament as a Day for Christian Assemblies under the name of the (a) Acts 20.7.1 Cor. 16.2 First Day of the Week and in the Book of Revelation it is called (b) Rev. 1.10 the Lord's Day Pliny in his Relation he made to Trajan concerning the Christians of Bithynia about the Year of our Saviour 104 is supposed to have intended it when he says c They were us'd to meet together before Light on a Certain day And Justin Martyr d in his Apology about the Year 138 giving an account of the Day of their ordinary Assemblies expresses it to be Sunday So has the weekly Day of the Resurrection been all along kept Holy nor has any Christian Church ever censured or thought fit to set aside the Practice § II. AND if there has been constantly such a Weekly Memorial of the Resurrection we shall little doubt but it had too an Yearly Solemnity It is true there is not so early a mention of that Annual Festival neither is it likely that there should have been as much occasion for the Remembrance of what happened but once a Year as of that which was done every Week but neither has there been wanting very good Evidence for its great Antiquity a Dispute that arose about the Year 190 concerning the Time of keeping it giving us accidentally to know That such a Day had been always kept down from the Apostles time About the Time of the Weekly Feast the First Day there could be no Disagreement but about the Annual there might be very much For if all Nations of Christendom had then reckoned by the same kind of Year suppose by the Jewish which was Lunar and consisted of so many Revolutions of the Moon and besides if all had agreed That our Saviour arose on the 16th day of the first Month yet after all this there was a very obvious Question and which would frequently return Whether they should keep the Yearly Feast on that 16th day precisely whatever day of the Week it happened to be if on a Friday the Weekly Day of the Passion or whether they should not rather make the Yearly Remembrance to fall in with the Weekly and so keep it on some First day of the Week which should be near to that 16th day of the Month. This was the Variety which was actually the Occasion of that Debate I am now to mention Other Differences there might have been rais'd from the difference of Years and some were insisted on in after times which I shall here remark not for present use but to help the understanding of what may be hereafter incidentally mentioned For if all had agreed to celebrate the Annual Festival on the Sunday near to the Annual Day yet this Yearly Day must have been different
if they reckoned by different Years or by different Beginnings of the same sort of Year So those Montanists in Sozomen (e) Lib. 7. cap. 18. who went by the Solar Year and kept the Resurrection-day on some Sunday near the sixth of April would no more agree with those who placed it by the 14th day of the first Lunar Month of the Jews than the 14th day of the Moon 's Age would always be upon the same day of April And so those who agreed to use the Year of the Moon 's according to the Jewish Form might still differ among themselves if some followed the erroneous Calculation of their cotemporary Jews and begun their Year sooner than Moses had directed as the Christians of Cilicia Mesopotamia and Syria did before the Council of Nice and if others amending the Jewish Calendar stayed till the Aequinox according to the Original Appointment as the rest of the World did to whom those Easterns therefore by the direction of that Council in a little while conformed And further those who were so far agreed as to keep their Easter-day on a Sunday and to observe the same Reformed Jewish Year might yet differ in their placing of the Sunday in that Year Some as the Latines (f) Buch. in Victorii Can. Pasc c. 11. assigning it to the 16th day of the first Month on which day our Saviour was by them supposed to have arose and thenceforth to any of the six days after on which the Sunday should happen and some to the 15th day the first and great day of the Jewish Paschal Feast and thenceforward to any of the six days after of the same Jewish Solemnity a Practice to which the Western Church has since agreed as the Alexandrians used to do who supposing the Resurrection to have been on the 17th f might think they came near enough to it when the Sunday was never to be further from it than two days before or four after And some might allow it to be on the 14th day the day in which the Paschal Lamb was sacrificed as amongst others the old Brittish Inhabitants of our Isle were found to do who if they thought our Saviour to have risen on the 16th day placed their Easter-Sunday as exactly near it as the Alexandrians plac'd theirs and if they thought he rose on the 17th they were yet more exact than any and put it as near as was possible so as never to be more distant from it than three days either before or behind it For such Reasons our old Predecessors might have thought fit thus to keep their Easter however they were blamed by our Austin for it and afterwards call'd Hereticks and Quartodecimani a term of Dislike more justly given to those of whom we are going to speak and who occasion'd this too nice and too long Digression which the Reader therefore finds in another Letter that he may if he pleases pass it over § III. THE most likely Question to happen concerning the Place of the Yearly Resurrection-Day whether it should be always kept on a Sunday or no was the great Controversie between the Churches of Lesser Asia and Rome and in which all Christendom became ingag'd a Dispute managed by the Bishop of Rome too warmly but which has done so much good as to give occasion for the preserving some Records relating to this part of the History of Christianity by which we are certainly inform'd of the Great and Universal Antiquity of Easter and its preceding Fast. Those Asiatick Churches besides their singularity in breaking off their Fast on the 14th day celebrated the Solemnity of the Resurrection on a fixt day of the first Month of the Jews whatever day of the Week it prov'd to be and the rest of the Christian World if it happened not to be a Sunday observed it on some Sunday near it But both the Parties kept the Festival and each of them contended That it had been so kept in their several Churches from their first Plantation For about this Matter at the Request of Victor Bishop of Rome the several Bishops of Christendom met in their several Synods and all of them except those of Asia properly so called agreed on these two Points as deriv'd to them from Apostolical Tradition 1. That the Solemnity of our Saviour's Resurrection was not to be celebrated on any other day but the Lord's Day 2. And that the Paschal Fast ought not to be ended till that Day This was the Answer of all those Synods to the Questions in difference and the Returns of many of them are mentioned by Eusebius to have been extant in his time g The general Result of those Synodical Determinations which Eusebius gives us is sufficient to satisfie us That the Bishops of both sides were fully possess'd of the Apostolical Tradition of their different Customs of observing Easter And such an uniform Concurrence of so many venerable Persons from such distant Places about such a solemn and observable a Practice and at a time no more remote from the Age of the Apostles cannot but induce us to give credit to this their single Affirmation as it is by him Authentically reported For as to the time of this Dispute it is well judg'd to have been agitated about the Year 190 of our Lord's Birth not 160 after his Passion and Resurrection the Memorial of which we now speak of not much above 120 Years from the Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul nor above 90 after the Death of St. John § IV. GREAT Regard is therefore to be had to the Judgement of the whole Christian Church of that time which Eusebius summarily reports to us g of their Tradition concerning Easter Had indeed the several Answers the Bishops of the Provinces sent remain'd to our days or had Eusebius given us more Extracts of them we could not have fail'd of many remarkable Particularities alledged by them in Favour and Justification of this general Assertion But they are all lost neither was it agreeable to that Historian's purpose to fill his Books with Proofs for the Antiquity of this Solemnity a Matter in his days never doubted by any For which Reason neither does he give us out of them any Instances in Confirmation of that particular Usage in which the great part of the World agreed with Victor and which afterwards generally prevail'd He rather thought fit at a time when the Asiatick Custom was left off to preserve some little Account of what they had to say for their singular Fashion and even out of that little we shall be able to see how well the general Tradition was grounded Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus the chief of the Asiaticks in his Letter to Victor a Fragment of which Eusebius gives (h) Euseb Eccl. Hist 5.24 professes That they kept the true Day unfalsified and then says in answer I suppose to Victor who had boasted of the Sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul and other Saints from whose Authority he might have
their Propitiation-Day (n) Ibid. c. 5. §. 6. And in this manner not one but more days were sometime pass'd in a continual Fast as three days were by Esther (o) Esther 4.16 and the rest of the Jews of that time and as the forty were miraculously by Moses Elias and our Blessed Saviour And such a protracted Fast of two or three or more days was afterwards in Use with Christians especially before Easter as we shall find hereafter These are the several Kinds of Fasting a Duty all along observed by devout Men and acceptable to God under both Testaments whether as it was helpful to their Devotion or as it became a part of it It was helpful as it served medicinally to restrain the looser Appetites of the Flesh and to keep the Body under and as it gave Liberty and Ability to the Mind to Reflect and Consider and Attend either while they were actually assisting at Divine Service or preparing for some solemn part of It. It was too an Act of Worship it self either as it proceeded from a Sence of their Sins and of the Misery of their Condition from those Sins or as it was expressive of that Sence before God and intended to deprecate his Anger and to supplicate for his Mercy and Favour to which purpose it was accompanied with such Circumstances of an Afflicted Humbled State as were proper to raise Commiseration and obtain Relief Thus under the Old Testament they put on Sackcloth lay in Ashes mourn'd and wept and thus Esther is expressed by Jâ—sâ—phus p to have supplicated God as he says after the Custom of her Nation Casting her self down upon the Ground Putting on a Mourning Habit and Abstaining from Meat and Drink and all things Delightful for those three days Neither was the Practice of the first Christians much different from this of the Jews on the like occasion as we shall presently find § II. We have seen the various Manner of Fasting and proceed now to the Occasions and Times of Fasting in the Primitive Church That which I shall first mention was the Fast of a Penitent one who had committed after Baptism some grievous Sin and was excluded from the Assembly either by his own Conscience or by Publick Sentence and desired to be reconciled to God and the Church The Course of this their second Repentance was much more severe than of that before their Baptism it appeared so upon the sight of them as they are described by Tertullian then a Catholick and about the Year 200 q Neither Washed nor Trimmed Neglected and Vnclean taking no Delight in any thing living in the Roughness of Sackcloth and the Filth and Harshness of Ashes their Faces disfigured with Fasting For the Discipline they were under directed them as before he tells us at large in his manner of Style r To lye in Sackcloth and Ashes to disfigure their Body with a neglected Vncleanness and to deject their Mind with Grief All the while to use no other Meat or Drink but what is simple and natural Bread and Water not to satisfie the Appetite but to keep up Life and frequently to nourish and strengthen their Prayers with strict Fasting to Groan to Weep to Roar to the Lord their God day and night to fall down at the feet of the Presbyters to kneel to the Friends of God and to beg of all the Brotherhood to intercede for them Such was the rigorous Penance of lapsed Christians and their Fasting truly an Affliction of their Souls as it is termed in the Old Testament Another solemn Occasion of Fasting was the Profession of Repentance those made who were converted to the Faith and preparing to be Baptized Before the Reception of that Sacrament it was not only the Practice of the Candidates to Fast but of the whole Congregation with them as Justin Martyr in his admirable Apology has inform'd the Emperour and us He is supposed by Mr. Dodwell to have wrote no later than the Year 138 and there after he had given an account of our Faith he adds this Relation s As many as are perswaded and do believe that these things taught and said by us are true and promise to be able to live accordingly they are instructed to Pray and with Fasting to beg of God Remission of their Sins we Praying and Fasting together with them Then they are brought by us to the Place where Water is and are regenerated in the same manner of Regeneration wherewith we were regenerated before For in the name of the Father c. Such a Common Fast there was anciently at the Administration of this Sacrament that it could not be the work of every day of their Assembling but must have had some set time as we know the most solemn time was on Easter-Day those who were baptized into his Death then as it were rising up with him The whole Congregation having Fasted together with them before not only upon that particular Reason but upon a common Account as we shall immediately see And though the Fast and Humiliation of the other Penitent was proper to his Person and to be undertaken at any time whensoever he was sensible of his Offence yet there might too have been some more solemn time even for this Duty whether the Penance were injoin'd upon a notorious Sinner or something of it voluntarily undergone by a more secret Offender And no time could be more fit for this purpose than that in which the whole Congregation would join together in Prayer and Fasting for themselves and them such a time as the Season before Easter was in which all prepar'd more worthily to receive and some therefore strove to be again thought worthy in any degree to receive the solemn Communion of that Great Day Thus did the Fasting on both those occasions frequently take the opportunity to close in with the Fast before Easter an Observation I now only mention incidentally designing no more by the early Practice of these two occasional Fasts the one Publick and the other both Publick and Common than to prepare the Reader the easier to admit the great Antiquity of this both Publick and Universal Fast which we are now coming particularly to consider g Maimonides de Cultu Divino put out by Lud. de Viel Tract 2. Cap. 6. Because the Sacrifice of the Congregation belonged to all the Children of Israel and all of them could not assist it was provided of old that there should be chose â—it Men who should be present at them as Deputies of the whole Nation And as the Priests and Levites were divided into their Courses so were these each Course serving their Week and giving their Attendance either at the Temple iâ— they lived near it or else at the Synagogues of their Habitation Praying four times a day and Fasting the Mundays Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays of their Week Their meeting at these Prayers and their Attendance on this Duty was called a Station and they the Men of the
quae ipsae suos quidem dies habeant Quartae Feriae Sextae Passivè tamen currant neque sub lege Praecepti neque ultra supremam diei quando Orationes fere Hora Nona concludat de Petri exemplo quod Actis refertur Xerophagias vero novum affectati officii nomen proximum Ethnicae superstitioni quales castimoniae Apim Isidem magnam Matrem certorum eduliorum exceptione purisicant n Ibidem Cap. 13. Praescribitis constituta esse solennia huic Fidei Scripturis vel Traditione Majorum nihilque observationis amplius adjiciendum ob illicitum Innovationis State in isto gradu si potestis Ecce enim convenio vos praeter Pascha jejunantes citra n 2 illos dies quibus ablatus est Sponsus Stationum semijejunia interponentes vero interdum pane aqua victitantes ut cuique visum est n 2 The very Learned Dr. Beveridge in his Cod. Canon Apost Vindic. l. 3. c. 6. suggests That citra illos dies may well signifie the Season just before them and denote a larger Lent to have been kept by the Catholicks of that time That Meaning the Phrase will bear but I have not given the Translation according to it lest any one should complain That I produc'd a Testimony in a straitened though a very proper Sence which was capable of a larger o Quod si nova Conditio in Christo jam nova Solemnia esse debebunt Aut si omnem in totum devotionem temporum dierum mensium annorum erasit Apostolus Cur Pascha celebramus annuo circulo in Mense primo Cur quinquaginta exinde diebus in omni exultatione decurrimus Cur Stationibus Quartam Sextam Sabbati dicamus Jejuniis Parasceven p Quanquam vos etiant Sabbatum siquando continuatis nunquam nisi in Pascha jejunandum q secundum rationem alibi redditam p Parasceve by many is understood here to signifie Good-Friday in particular because of the ordinary Fridays as well as of Wednesdays mention is made before But the Word is never found to signifie after that manner in any other place and besides our Author has already spoke of the Pascha in the same Period and with him we know Dies Paschalis is Good-Friday as we may see in the next Testimony to this cited out of his Book de Orat. and here in the Close of this Passage the Saturday following is Sabbatum Paschae He seems therefore after he had mentioned the Yearly Solemnities of the Pascha and the Pentecost which begun on Easter-Day to come now to the Weekly and is understood by Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphan p. 358. to imply That as both Wednesdays and Fridays were the Days assign'd for Stationary-Meetings So the Fridays were appointed for Fasts supposing the Word Statio not so much to signifie the Half-Fast as the Assembling and the Jejunia to be much above those Semi-Fasts and of the stricter sort This is certain though Wednesdays and Fridays are joined together often yet Friday is at other times particularly remember'd and as the more solemn Day as you will see hereafter Ch. 5. § I. and Ch. 7. § I. And such a Sence the Words may carry if at that time all the Wednesdays and Fridays were Stationary and all the Fridays were fasted But if the Fridays were not always fasted but only held the most proper Days of all the Week for a Fast yet then there might remain a Sence apt enough after this manner How come we to appoint Wednesdays and Fridays as most proper for Stations and the Fridays as most proper for stricter Fasts And so the Christians might have chose a Friday as the Jews if they are to have a solemn Fast chose for it their Monday or Thursday All this is said upon this Passage as it is now read But if there were any Manuscripts to be consulted I should look after the Words Quartam Sextam Sabbati to see whether Sextam were not an Interpolation of some Copyist who had observed them above and thought they were wanting here q Mr. Daillé willing to have Montanus the Enlarger of the Ante-Paschal Fast would fain suppose the Two New Weeks of Fasting which he instituted to have been placed by him before Easter and for that purpose cannot allow That the Montanists fasted the Saturday before Easter because as we see out of Tertullian in the next Paragraph in those Two Weeks they fasted not the Saturdays But on the contrary we have learn'd from St. Jerome That those Two Weeks were Two New Lents note g and we have found too f 2 some Reason to think That their Lent before Easter was of Two other Weeks differing we suppose from such a Lent of the Catholicks only in this That it was injoin'd as by Divine Precept And besides this very place will not endure such an Interpretation easily For the Montanists are known to have declined Fasting on Saturdays as much as the Catholicks and upon that Account only the Sabbatum nunquam jejunandum nist in Paschate may be said by them as of their own Judgment and their own Practice It is too most reasonable to understand it in such a manner For here Tertullian speaks and not the Catholicks and must be therefore rather presumed to have given his Own than Their Opinion which Opinion besides he says was founded upon a Reason elsewhere given and to say elsewhere might be proper enough if the Reason was any where given by himself in some Treatise of his but it was too loose and uncertain if the Reason was given by some Catholick in general for where should one look for it And who was he that gave it To all this we may add That if a Catholick's Opinion were here express'd and his Reasons meant it would have been rather thus Quanquam vos etiam Sabbatum siquando continuatis in Paschate Jejunandum secundum rationem alibi redditam for the Fasting on the Saturday of them who did it but sometimes was to be the Doubt and to require a Reason though for Tertullian to give a Catholick's Reason and not to censure it would have been very unnecessary and very flat Faults not usual in his Style And on the other side if the Montanists Judgement is there spoke and they fasted not that Saturday but the Catholicks did it should then instead of nisi have been nec and conceived in this manner to the Reproach of the Catholicks Quanquam vos etiam Sabbatum siquando continuatis nunquam nec in Pascha jejunandum c. Such a Reproof of the Catholicks was likely from Tertullian and such a Reflexion is obliquely made in the Translation above which tells of the Catholicks That they too continue the Saturday but that they should only fast that Saturday and no other which yet some of them were used to do This is all true upon the common Supposition That Parasceve signifies Good-Friday in this place But if it be to be taken
for any Friday the Sence of the place is plain and Mr. Daillé hath nothing to say r Cap. 15. Quantula est enim apud nos Interdictio Ciborum Duas in anno Hebdomadas Xerophagiarum nec Totas exceptis scilicet Sabbatis Dominicis offerimus Deo s De Orat. cap. 14. Jam enim de abstinentia Osculi agnoscimur jejunantes Sed siqua ratio est ne tamen huic Praecepto reus sis potes domi si forte inter quos latere jejunium in totum non datur differre Pacem Vbicunque autem alibi operationem tuam abscondere potes debes meminisse Praecepti ita Disciplinae foris Consuetudini domi satisfacies Sic die Paschae quo communis quasi publica jejunii Religio est merito deponimus Osculum nibil curantes de occultando quod cum omnibus faciamus CHAP. V. § I. A Testimony from Origen for the Devotion of Fridays and of the Paschal Season and thence to Whitsuntide Another from him but of Ruffinus his Translation concerning the Fast of the Quadragesima or the Forty Season § II. A distinct Account of the Passion-Week from Dionysius of Alexandria about the middle of the Third Century § III. What were the first Paschal Solemnities mentioned by St. Cyprian and concerning the Passion-Week § I. THE Age in which we now are from the 200th to the 300th Year from our Saviour's Birth afforded not many Ecclesiastical Authors and of their Writings most is lost Neither was there any Dispute then in the Church about any thing relating to our Subject so that we are not to expect very much Light thence Hippolytus indeed as we have mentioned above wrote a large Treatise as it should seem concerning the Paschal Season Entituled A Declaration of the Times of Easter but of that as we have seen a very small Fragment is preserved Neither may be would it have conduc'd much more to our present Purpose than that Ancient Treatise which we have ascrib'd to St. Cyprian or that other of Anatolius which Bucherius has given us which are only Calculations of the Time in which Easter should be kept and not Accounts of the Duty and Season that was supposed to go before it The little help therefore we shall find will be from Origen and his Scholar Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria And from Origen we have but a transient mention of the Devotion of Fridays and of Easter and a doubtful one of the Season before it The first is in his Apology for the Christians against Celsus and there in Answer to an Accusation of our Religion as if it were ill-natur'd because the Christians did not join in the Festivals of those Times he replies that according to the excellent Saying of one of the Heathen To do ones Duty was to keep a Holy-day and that St. Paul had truly said ye observe days and months c. I am afraid of you But continues he a if any one shall object to us our Lord's-Days and Fridays and the Passover and Pentecost we reply That a Perfect Man being always conversant in the Words and Works and Thoughts of the True Lord makes every Day His and always keeps the Lord's-day And so being always in a Preparation of the True Life and always abstaining from Pleasure and keeping under the Body he always keeps the Preparation-Day Friday In such a manner he keeps the Passover passing from this Life to God and hastening to his City And thus he who can say with Truth We are Risen with Christ keeps the Pentecost But one of the Common Believers and not of the better kind who cannot or who will not keep every day a Holy-Day wants such sensible Images for his Remembrancers that he be not wholly deficient This Passage is Allegorical and like that of Clemens our Author's Master which we have cited above in Chap. 4. § I. and it is here given not only for a further Confirmation of the Practice of observing Fridays and Easter c. but that the Reader may the better judge of a Reflection he may find made by Socrates as if Origen had done wisely to turn the Passover into Allegory as he has done here but more largely in that his Homily upon Leviticus which we shall next mention For such Allegorical Speculations to which the Platonists were much inclin'd may be admitted to refine and spiritualize but not to evacuate the Letter This we find here where the Observation of the Lord's-days is allegoriz'd as well as of Fridays and of the Passover And we might give another Instance from the same Clemens of Alexandria who refines in the like manner upon the Ten Commandments (b) Strom. 6. versus Finem but when he assigns his Spiritual Meaning of Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Kill or Steal must not be therefore supposed to have set aside the Plain and Literal Sence Much more to our Design would that other Passage of Origen be which we find in his Tenth Homily on Levitisus where after he has enlarged in an Allegory against those who thought the propitiation-Propitiation-day of the Jews was to be kept by Christians he subjoins c But this we do not say to let loose the Restraints of Christian Abstinence For we have the Days of the Forty Season consecrated to Fasting and we have Wednesdays and Fridays in which we solemnly fast And here under that name of the Forty Season now first met with we should either understand a Lent of Forty Days or some number of Days denominated at least from Forty were we assured of our Authority and had we the Text of the Author and not the Translation of Ruffinus for it Ruffinus I know lies under an ill Name for Translating and has not the Reputation of any great Exactness but we have found reason to think that he did not do Irenaeus wrong and it may be he has been suspected here much more upon Design by those that are against Lent than he has been asserted by those that are for it However I shall be content at present that this Testimony at the second hand may pass for a Half-Proof both out of the just Confidence I have That within a little time it will appear we wanted not this single Evidence as also with a certain foresight that it will then become highly Credible and be seconded and supported by the whole Church In the mean time from a Letter of Dionysius a Scholar of Origen's and Bishop of Alexandria which chanc'd to escape the Fate all his other Writings have suffered and which was writ about the middle of this Age we may learn something more particular concerning the Fast of the Passion-Week We have seen above what a great Controversie had risen about the Day in which the Ante-Paschal Fast should end and some it seems in those Parts were now grown so curious as to desire to have the Hour determined if not the Minute proceeding upon that general Supposition That the Fast was to
end at the Time of our Saviour's Resurrection A Bishop of the Neighbourhood having been troubled about this Nicety sends to Dionysius the Famous Bishop of that Capital City for a Resolution and his Answer here follows d You wrote to me right Trusty and most excellent Son inquiring what Hour of Easter-Day the Fast should end For some Brethren you say think it ought to end at Cock-Crow and some the Evening before For the Brethren of Rome as they say wait for the Crowing of the Cock and those here you tell me are something sooner But you desire me to give you the exact Hour and that very precisely and scrupulously determin'd a thing troublesomely nice and in which it is easie to mistake This indeed will be agreed by all That we ought to begin our Festival Joy after our Saviour's Resurrection Humbling our Souls with Fasting till that time comes But you have proved in your Letter very well from the Holy Gospels That it is not very exactly determined there at what Hour it was that he arose Those places of the Gospels he then considers and infers thus That the Setting out and the Going of the Disciples to the Sepulchre was in the deep of the Morning and very early but that they spent in their Going and about the Sepulchre to Sun-Rising This says he being the State of that Case To those who are so scrupulous as to inquire for the very Hour or Half or Quarter of an Hour when to begin the Festival we Answer thus We blame those who make too much haste and give over before Midnight And those who hold out longer and continue till the Fourth Watch we commend But to those who leave off in the mean time as their Inclination or Ability has served them we are not severe For not to be nice about Hours the Six Days of Fasting themselves are not kept equally and alike by All. Some continuing without Food pass over e the whole Six Days some Two some Three some Four and some not One. Now to those who have endured such Passings over without Sustenance and grow unable to hold out and are ready to faint to them leave is to be given for an earlier Refreshment But if there be any who have been so far from thus passing over the preceding Four Days that they have not so much as fasted f nay it may be have feasted and then coming to the Two last and onely Days and passing over the Friday and Saturday think they do a great thing if they hold on to Day-Break As to these I cannot think that they have strove alike for the Mastery with those who had been engaged in the Exercise more Days before Here is from great and unquestionable Authority a very accurate Account of the Manner in which the Christians of Alexandria and that Country passed the Week before Easter Nor is it to be doubted but that those generally of other Places observed it with more than ordinary Abstinence though they might not come up to all this Austerity and though the Aegyptian Christians as well as Jews for so I take Philo's Essenes to have been may have been the greatest Fasters each of their own Religion Some we are told wholly abstain'd from Food or pass'd over all the Six Days some Four beginning with Wednesday some Three and some Two And these last did the least of those who pretended to Pass Over for he mentions none who thought fit to begin on the Saturday and so to pass over but One whole Day He mentions indeed some who pass'd over not so much as One but it is plain that these were very few in comparison of the Rest and it is besides observable that those who did not Pass over a day altogether might however in the Language of this Author have Fasted a day till the Evening and in this manner it is probable they that Pass'd not over one day did however Fast more than one and possibly all the Six in the self-same Manner in which we now keep the most solemn of our Fasts Such Abstinence was us'd in the Passion-Week at Alexandria and in probability in most other Churches for the Account of Dionysius begins with the mention of Rome and Other places and does not at all seem to appropriate the Practice to that single City When therefore St. Cyprian a Cotemporary and Correspondent of Dionysius speaks occasionally of the first Solemnities of the Passover which detained his Brethren the Bishops at their own Churches g we may very well understand them to be the Devotions of the Holy Week and suppose that the Season of Seven Days before Easter and Seven after which by the Law of Theodosius the Great was made a Vacation in the Courts of Justice h had been before kept holy by the pious Usage of the elder Christians And this will seem the less strange if we reflect upon the Practice of the Jews about the same Season We shall hereafter endeavour to shew that very much of the Christian Usages were derived from them and it will not be deny'd by any That our Easter answers in some sort to their Passover-Day and the Seven Holy-days after the one to the Seven after the other This is acknowledg'd but it is not improbable that the Days before Easter had some such regard too The Monday of that Week we have seen in the last Chapter was supposed to be the Day in which the High-Priests resolved on our Saviour's Death as it was appointed in their Law for the Day in which they were to single out their Paschal Lamb and this as we there observed may have seemed sufficient Reason to the Ancient Christians to begin their stricter Devotion then But it is besides observable and remarked by Theophylact i That the Jews commonly began to make Entertainments and commenced their Festivity the Day before that on which he supposes our Saviour was entertained at Bethany the sixth day before the Passover if they did not earlyer And this in the general is the more probable from the Appellation the Jews now give the Sabbath before the Passover calling it the Great Sabbath a Greatness I suppose in which the rest of the days of that Week had their share For as the Scripture tells us (k) John 11.55 That many came up before the Passover to purifie themselves and to offer Sacrifices for their Sins so too we may presume many came to pay the Peace-Offerings they had vow'd and of them the most solemn the Eucharistical were not capable by reason of their Leavened Bread which accompanied them (l) Levit. 7.13 to be offered on any of the latter seven days and made up therefore as we have reason to think the Solemnity of the Season before Now if those days before the Passover were thus distinguished among the Jews by their Festivity they might be among Christians as much distinguished by their Abstinence according to the Rule of that Apostolical Constitution produc'd by the Audaeans for
Occasion for such a mention the Church having been generally imployed hitherto either in Apologies for their Religion against the Heathens or the Defence of it against Heathenish Heresies or the suffering of Persecution for it But now in the next Age when Christianity comes to be owned and countenanced by the Government their Writings will be more frequent and more copious and express and amongst other Observations of our Religion we shall not fail to find sufficient Information of this after which we are inquiring But before we come to those happy Days the last fierce Persecution it self began by Diocletian in the East according to Baronius in the Year 302 and there continued by the Cruelty of those who governed that part of the Empire gave occasion for some sort of mention of Forty Days which it may be to our Purpose to observe Before the Persecution began and in the beginning of this Century the Episcopal Chair of that great Christian City Alexandria in which the above-nam'd Dionysius had sate was now fill'd by one Peter a very venerable Person Eminent for his Knowledge and Sanctity and who at last suffered Martyrdom in the Year 311. And upon the rising of this sharp Persecution the Christians had behaved themselves very differently some had endured to the last with admirable Constancy some yielded and deni'd their Religion after the suffering of grievous Torments some upon the offer of Torture after they had undergone the Pains of Imprisonment and some at the first Accusation Of those too who had not renounc'd some had escaped by Flight some by buying off the Prosecution and some by hiring Witnesses to attest to some Idolatrous Act of theirs which had been never done Of all these sorts there were many who desired to be re-admitted to the Communion of the Church and some had now long sought it with much Lamentation to whose various Circumstances different Rules were therefore to be suited such as this Peter after deliberation had with his Brethren delivered in a Discourse now lost but from which some Excerpts had been made in form of Canons and by that means preserved to us The first Canon as Zonaras and Balsamon give it is thus a Whereas now the fourth Easter is come upon this Persecution it may suffice for those who were accused and imprisoned and indured insufferable Tortures and intolerable scourgings and many other grievous Cruelties but after all were betrayed by the Weakness of the Flesh for those I say though they were not admitted into Communion at first by reason of that their great Apostasie yet because they strove much and resisted a long while for they fell not upon Choice but were betrayed by the Weakness of the Flesh and because they bear still in their Bodies the Marks of their Lord and some of them have been mourning these three Years for these I say it may suffice That a Penance of Other Forty Days to be reckon'd from after their Admission should be additionally inflicted on them for their Admonition which Forty days tho' our Saviour had fasted after Baptism yet He was tempted of the Devil in which they too being exercised super abundantly and more earnestly sober may watch unto Prayer continually meditating on that Answer given by our Lord when he was urged by the Tempter to fall down and worship him Get thee behind me Satan for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve This is the first Canon and for the better understanding of it we only add That the second imposes another Year's Penance upon those who had suffered the Pain and Misery of Imprisonment but did not resist Torture and that the third puts those off to the End of another Year for Trial and not till then to receive their Sentence who out of Fear and Cowardliness had yielded presently § II. Forty Days of Fasting and strict Devotion are here singularly and eminently mentioned but in what part of the Year they were plac'd it is not here certainly determined If by the fourth Easter is come as I have render'd it may be understood is now coming and the Bishop's Discourse may be dated before Easter those Forty Days would then be in all probability before Easter too and the very Lent which we are now looking after They must undoubtedly have some near Aspect upon Easter For why else is it mentioned and the Years of Persecution reckoned by it And no time was so proper to re-admit Penitents solemnly to Christian Communion as this of the Passover when the Pardon of our Sins was recogniz'd by the solemn Memory of our Saviour's Death on the Friday and the Holy Communion the Sacrament of his Death was so solemnly frequented on the Sunday neither was any Season of the Year more fit for the stricter Humiliation of the Penitent than that on which all good Christians were ready to join in something of the like Devotion For this Reason we may justly suppose St. Cyprian (b) Ep. 56. Edit Oxon. was consulted before Easter about the same Case the Reconciliation of those who had been Penitents three Years that if he had answered favourably they might have been admitted at the approaching Festival So have we under this Supposition a Lent of Forty Days for Penitents at least to be kept throughout by them and with great Severity while the rest beginning as early and using such Abstinence as their Discretion directed and the Necessities of their Conscience required equalled generally the Austerities even of those at the latter End And this way if we are allowed to conceive the Canon the Other Forty Days there mentioned may then respect the former Three Lents that had gone before except any one would rather understand that one particular Lent to be intimated which had been kept by these Christians just before they were Baptized which too was done generally at Easter and which they were now ordered to keep in the same manner again before they should be again received into the Church And thus the Forty Penitential Days will be the very Forty Days of Lent if we suppose the Synod to be held before Easter as the Nicene Council did order afterwards But if it was not and they did not concur with such a Lent they will however infer It. Let us then suppose the Synod to have been assembled after Easter And very probably it was for it is not unlikely that the Order of the Council of Nice in this Particular was a Change of the old Practice which Order was reversed in a little time by the Council of Antioch and besides we see that the Synod of Ancyra a Synod held on occasion of the same Persecution and much about the same time did meet after Easter for they speak of the Great Day the Day of Easter and seem to reckon it to be about a Year before it would come again Under this Supposition that Synod of Ancyra will help us to understand the other of
not to understand him of the Practice of the Catholicks of which Sozomen and others speak but of the Novatians of whose Affairs all own that he had a particular Knowledge if he was not inclined to their Sect. From their Dispute it was he enter'd upon this Discourse and from some Memorials of theirs he may have drawn up something of this Account which otherwise might easily have been as plain and full as that of Sozomen had it not been wrote in a different View And so if we suppose the Regard to Forty Days to have first prevail'd universally from the Council of Nice we may suppose that the Novatians having had no share in that Council continued at least at Rome in their old Custom and kept on their Three Weeks If this Conjecture pass for the Three Weeks I should then either think that the Romans had not begun to fast on Saturday till after the Novatians had left them Or that a Word or rather a Numeral Letter c should be supplied in the Original and Thursday be understood a Day as St. Augustine tells us d not commonly fasted in his Time and possibly not in Lent by the Romans in the Time of Novatian § IV. BUT on this I lay no stress and shall only take notice of the Remark which Socrates makes with some Wonder That Numbers of Days so different should all have the same Denomination and be call'd from the Number Forty It is plain that neither the Western nor Eastern Church of his Time did measure adequately either the Days they fasted or the Term of Days within which they fasted by the Number of Forty but however a regard they had to it and a Forty Season they all pretended to keep We have withal seen how that Denomination obtain'd so much that all spaces of Fasting and in all Seasons of the Year were call'd by it For so St. Jerome term'd the Two Fasts instituted by Montanus (e) Ch. 4. Note g though they were but of a Week each of them and in other times of the Year What Reasons were then assigned for this Common Name Socrates tells us not and I wish we knew It should seem at first sight That the Christians aspired in a Fast of so great Devotion to the Imitation of the most Solemn Fasts recorded in Scripture those of Moses and Elias and that particularly of their blessed Master And then when the Church had once fix'd upon that Number of Days for their Example in general the Fasts of lesser duration might well go under the same Name by an easie Metonymie But all this will be yet more natural if those Fasts so recorded were rather miraculous in the Manner than singular in the Extent of Days and the Number Forty had been always with the Jews the proper Number for an extraordinary Humiliation a Conjecture we are to offer hereafter in the other Part of this Discourse § V. AND thus have we viewed the Practice of Lent through the first 400 Years We have seen in the last of those Centuries when Christianity came to be more openly professed under the Christian Emperours and abounded in Writers many express and undeniable Testimonies of the general Observation though in a different manner of the Forty Season then commonly so called from Forty Days In the next Age above it the Third and as high too as the middle of it a time that affords us not many Authors and when there was little occasion to speak of this Matter we have however a very punctual Account of their strict Manner of keeping the Passion-Week from one of the greatest Men of the Church who happen'd to be consulted about a Nicety of Ending this Lent And that their great Strictness in the Holy Week equal to any that was used after may well induce us to imagine That these Men had not left the Devotion of all the preceding Weeks to be added by the very next Generation Especially when we find the Forty Season expresly mentioned in Origen a Master of this Dionysius as consecrated to Fasting For that place of Origen though we have it only from the Version of Ruffinus and he none of the most exact Translatours yet certainly if he was not the worst that ever was is much more likely to be truly render'd than wrong there being no reason to fasten the Falsity on this Word more than on any other of the Sentence nor any wonder to find that spoke of now which not long after was celebrated so much But to proceed we have seen further from Tertullian an Author to be reckon'd to the Second Century as well as to the Third that the Days in which our Lord was taken away Good-Friday and the Holy Saturday at least if not the whole Week were in the Opinion of the Church of his Time to be fasted by all from Apostolical Authority and that no other Days were to be fasted necessarily and as by Divine Precept but at Discretion only and as Christians should think fit in Godly Prudence Upon the account of which Discretionary Uncertainty the Argument he was engag'd in made it not proper for him to say any more concerning them nor to tell us the several Customs of several Churches about that Arbitrary part of Lent though it may otherwise be collected even from him that there was then such an Additional Time observed But to go yet higher and nearer to the Apostolical Age about the Year 190 and not 90 from the Death of St. John Irenaeus a Venerable and now a very Old Bishop who had conversed familiarly with the great Polycarp as Polycarp had with St. John and other Apostles has happened to let us know though incidentally only the various observation of his Time that some thought they ought to fast One some Two and some More Days and some Forty as we have learn'd too in the general both from him and the Bishops of almost the whole Church concurrently with him that some such Ante-Paschal Fast had been all along observed in all Places up to the Time of the Apostles themselves a Sozom. l. 7. c. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b In this place that our Witness may be the more credible hereafter in our Cause I have ordered at a small Correction of the Text to reconcile it to the Truth of the Fact For it has been abundantly proved and particularly by Quesnel in his Edition of Leo That the Bishop of Rome preached there very often in Sozomen's time who is therefore commonly delivered up here to a Charge of â—gaerâ—â—â— anâ— Negligâ—â—ce whereas a very slight Change of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing in which Criticks are not used to be difficult in Favour of any Author would have saved his Credit and rectifiâ—d â—he whole Matter b 2 Socrat. Hist Eâ—â—les 5.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e The Guess I intimate is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be inserted before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Exception run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d August ad Casulan Videant ergo Romani quid agant quia etiam ipsi nimium contumeliose bujus Disputatione tractarâ—tur apud quos omnibus istis sex diebus pâ—ater paucissâ—â—os claiâ—es out Monachos quotusquisque invenitur qui frequentet quoâ—â—lima Jâ—junia maxime quia ibi jejunandum quinta Sabbati non vidâ—â—â— Hoc de omni Septimana dictum ut è praemidis patet PART II. AN ESSAY Concerning the ORIGINAL OF LENT Subdivided into Two Repartitions PART II. AN ESSAY Concerning the ORIGINAL OF LENT Subdivided into Two Repartitions The First Shewing preparatorily That most of the Ancient Christian Ordinances were deriv'd from the Jews The Second Conjecturing That Lent is of the same Original HAving view'd the Ancient Observation of Lent we now proceed to enquire into its Original and concerning That the Conjectures are various Some ascribe its Rise to Apostolical Constitution some to casual Practice imitated and enlarged by others the one supposing forty Days to be the prescribed Number and that those who fasted sewer were deficient others imagining That one Day only the Day of the Passion was first kept by the Grief rather than Devotion of some good Christians and that this afterwards grew to that large number of Days by the Piety if not Superstition of following Ages all agreeing in this That it was a novel Institution at the earliest being wholly Christian and having no Precedent from any former Usage Now to these Conjectures not seeming to be very satisfactory I have adventured to add another drawn from the Custom of the Jews concerning their Great Fast and their Penitential Preparation before it hoping if it appears reasonably well grounded that it may help to give a clearer light as well as a better colour to a Season so much and so long observ'd in the Church of Christ And here I intended at first to have entered immediately upon the View of the Expiation-Day of the Jews and their Preparatory Season comparing them with our Expiation the Passion-Day and its previous Lent and the Parallel if I mistake not is so exactly correspondent as to make one apt to believe at the first sight that one of those Lines was drawn by the other But because I am sensible that some Objections may be raised both against the Design it self and the Authorities I am to use I shall endeavour first to remove them and possibly by the Answers I am to give I may not only smooth the way but make such Advances as may bring us at the same time nearer to the Admittance of what I have proposed There are Three Prejudices I foresee which may encounter this Undertaking 1. The first may be That it is not probable the Primitive Christians would imitate the Jews or fit they should 2. The other That the Traditional Writings they have are not sufficient Authority for the Knowledge of their ancient Customs 3. And the last may be this That such a Derivation of Lent must be false because it is new These Three Prejudices have occasioned the Addition of the first Member of this Part and the Reader if he pleases may pass it over But of Those the Two last will be easily satisfied by the Consideration of the First and upon that Subject I shall enlarge the more freely because it may be as delightful and instructive to observe the Original of many other Christian Institutions as of Lent PART II. REPARTIT I. That most of the Ancient Christian Ordinances were derived from the Jews CHAP I. § I. Not dishonourable for Christian Ordinances to be borrowed from the Jews and they generally were First such considered as are mentioned in Scripture as § II. Baptism It was a Rite by which as well as by others Proselytes were admitted into Judaism § III. Christian Baptism as expressed in the New Testament an Imitation of it § I. AMONG the Ancient Hereticks some it is known received our Saviour and his Gospel but rejected the Mosaical Law and blasphemed its God And there may be many now though more innocent who at this distance from the Rise of Christianity may either have lost the Remembrance of its Original and forget that the last Covenant has any Dependance on the first or else in Pride of our greater Priviledges may scornfully over-look the Dispensation of Moses as a beggarly Element and in the Vanity of a Neighbour-Nation may think it a Disparagement to the Christian Religion to be thought of Jewish Extraction And there may seem to have been more cause given for this Conceit from some learned Books of late which have treated concerning the Jewish and the Aegyptian Antiquities and which have been misunderstood so far by some to the Prejudice of the old Testament that those who have not considered the Matter well may look upon it as very dishonourable to Christianity to borrow any thing from that Nation which is suspected to have borrowed so much of all its Neighbours and to have robb'd even the Religion of the Aegyptians But they need not fear for Truth can never suffer from Truth and if it shall indeed appear that the Mosaick Religion was conformable to the Worship of their Eastern Neighbours It may notwithstanding no less maintain its Divine Authority Knowledge we know as well as Empire began in that part of the World and there the many Traditions concerning God descended from Noah and others of his inspired Sons were lodged and preserved blended we may think and much corrupted with many Falsities and Superstitions variously too by its various Depositaries the Chaldeans Aegyptians Phoenicians Arabians c. Now all These had something of the same Religion as they had of the same Language but in a different Dialect and Manner and what if God was pleased by the Ministry of Moses to reform it from the many Additions impious or immoral with which it had been severally adulterated Retaining some indifferent Customs innocently introduced Instituting others in opposition to the more dangerous Errours and directing some eminent Parts of the whole to a further Prospect of another and more perfect Revelation yet to come and all these Laws for the Use of a Peculiar People to reduce into one Code and authorize by a new Sanction Such a Reformed Religion we may suppose that of the Jews to have been and need not therefore be afraid if our Religion be said to be a further Reformation of that Judaism a Title Mr. Selden frequently gives it but to be understood not as if it were a Repurgation of the Old from any Errour but as it is the Completion and Perfection of it according to the Original Design And as certainly as our blessed Saviour and his Apostles were of Hebrew Lineage so certain it is that our Religion is grafted on the Jewish Neither do the Expressions only and Allusions of the Gospel relate to the Customs of the Law
Cross in the Forehead and Eyes and Nostrils and Ears and upon the Breast and on their Hands and Feet and leaves only Impositio of Hands to be conferr'd by the Bishop at any time afterward the Practice as I conceive of our Church l Whereas in the Latin Church the Priest anointed the other Parts pouring the Chrism upon the Head but it was reserv'd to the Bishop's confirmation to sign the Forehead with the Chrism at the same time he laid on his Hands Innoc. ad Decent And this signing they call'd the Spiritual Seal Ambros de Sacram. 3 2. the Holy Ghost being suppos'd to be given by that and the Imposition of Hands And this Confirmation the Bishop when present at the Baptism administer'd to the Baptiz'd when he had put on the white Garments after his first Anointing Ambros de â—is qui Myst Init. c. 7. And lastly Hands were laid upon him with a Blessing calling and inviting down the Holy Ghost m and as the same Author expresses it he was overshadowed by the Imposition of Hands n Fifthly The next Morning if not immediately on Easter-day they proceeded to the Eucharist k 7 In the Greek Church even the Infants receiving it and wore their white Garments all the next Week not allowing themselves the Use of Bathing for that time h 8 When also they had more perfectly expounded to them the Nature of those two great Mysteries the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist to which they had been lately admitted as we see in the Mystagogick Discourses of Cyril of Jerusalem made for that purpose § II. WITH so many Circumstances was the Initiation into the Church begun and perfected in those early days of Christianity neither is it to be imagin'd that all these Rituals were the pure Invention of such Simple Plain men as the first Christians appear to have been much less can it be thought that they were borrowed by those pious men from the Heathen Idolatry Whence therefore should most of these Circumstantials be deriv'd but from the same Religion from which the Sacrament it self was taken And whence else should They derive them who had been originally of that Religion or Well-willers to it as most of the first Christians were This conjectural Conclusion the account given above of Jewish Baptism (a) Ch. I. § 2 3. which we suppose the Reader to remember will confirm and it may be so far as to make us willing to suppose that a more exact Correspondence would have appear'd if the Information from the Jews had been less defective For First That the Jews proselyted Children by Baptism we have there seen and also that they requir'd Sureties for them which we shall the less doubt when we know that they do not Circumcise a Natural Jew withâ—ut a Godfather and Godmother (b) Buxt Syn. Jud. â— 4 The Passover also was their chief Festival and their Converts in probability capacited themselves by Baptism then particularly for its celebration neither could the natural Jews themselves (c) Maim de Sacrific Tract 1. cap. 9. § 9. partake of it if they had any Servant of their House Uncircumcis'd and as I suppose consequently Unbaptiz'd These sorts of men therefore I presume were amongst those who purified themselves before the Feast and added to the Solemnity of the Week or Fortnight before (d) Part 1. ch 5. § 3. And lastly tho' any Three would serve to confer it yet regularly it was to be done by commission from the Consistory and I presume by the Appointment of the Father or President of it to whom we suppose the Bishop to answer (e) Ch. 4. § 5. § III. Secondly There was likewise a great Distinction of Persons made by the Jews There was a Common Gentile and there was one who believ'd the Unity of God and took upon him to observe the Precepts to be kept by all the Descendants of Noah (a) Maim Tract de Regibus cap. 8. § 11. tho' he did not oblige himself further yet and this was a degree of approach into which he was solemnly admitted being call'd a Proselyte of their Gate as one permitted to live amongst them in the Holy-land Further there were those who profess'd their desire to become Jews (b) Ibid. § 10. and this Profession we find was solemn and they reputed by it of another rank for if they did not proceed to make it good within a Twelvemonth they were degraded we are told and to be esteem'd as a meer Heathen There was too yet as it should seem a further Class of such Stranger Servants as were Circumcis'd and Baptiz'd in the Quality of Servants (c) Maim Tract de Proh Congressu cap. 13. § 11. but wanted still a further Baptism to compleat them Jews as there were others who were Circumcis'd and Baptiz'd into perfect Judaism but not yet Sanctified by a Sacrifice (d) Above Ch. 2. §. 2. The Proselytes of the Jews were distinguish'd by these Advances and it is plain that their Proselyte of the First kind the Proselyte of the Gate was of the same rank with a Hearer and also that he who undertook to become a Jew was in the nature of a Christian Catechumen as he who was in immediate Preparation to be Circumcis'd or was Circumcis'd but waiting to be Baptiz'd was in a like Class to that of the Immediate Candidates and Probationers for our Baptism and he too who was actually Baptiz'd into Judaism but not yet Expiated by Sacrifice was in the Condition of one Baptiz'd a Christian but yet Vnconfirm'd and not admitted to full Communion So were the Steps made by a Convert of the Jews agreeable to those of a Proselyte to Christianity The Instruction also by which he was gradually brought on (e) The same §. was much alike to that recommended in the Apostolical Constitutions (f) See Note e of the former §. proceeding gently and by easie ascents Neither is it to be doubted but that the Jews were severe enough in their Scrutiny of him since they were so shy of Proselytes (g) The Section above cited of the Second Chapter and that a solemn Profession of Repentance for his former Heathenism was requir'd of him Now it is probable likewise that these different sorts of Persons with the Jews had their different Places and liberties of Access For the Apostolick Constitutions themselves suppose the placing of the Faithful in the Assembly according to their Sex and Age to be after the pattern of the Temple h And as a Christian Church has been describ'd to be separated in two Partitions whereof the Vpper part D Fig. 2 belongs to Men or the Chief of them and such as peculiarly attend on the Sacred Offices and the Lower part C to Women who are dispos'd of on either side of it leaving the middle for a Passage and to be taken up by Ordinary men or such who are not provided to go higher so we see (i) Ch.
Holy Entertainment being fitly provided and brought on the Table some part of the Bread and so of the Wine was I suppose taken up by the President or Chief of the company were he Apostle Bishop or Presbyter and bless'd in an extraordinary form expressing the reason of the Thanks then offer'd together with a Prayer that the Holy Ghost would sanctifie the Offering as Gifts brought to the Altar were esteem'd to be and sanctifie it particularly to that purpose for which it was prepar'd that the Bread might effectually represent the Flesh or Body for which it stood This Bread and Wine so offer'd and bless'd by the officiating President as if it had been wav'd at the Altar was the more Holy and Sacramental Part of which they communicated as of the Body and Blood of the Lord while the rest of the Oblation which was less holy as being consecrated only by vertue of the other like the remaining nine parts of the Bread of a Thanks-Offering serv'd together with other Provisions for the furnishing of the Supper at which they then fed And so when afterwards the Sacrament and Supper were divided about the time I presume when the Legal Sacrifices were going to cease the Christian Eucharistical Oblation as the Primitive Church speaks began then more distinctly to appear and was made after Morning-Prayer just as extraordinary Sacrifices with the Jews were offer'd after the Morning daily Sacrifice And then as under the Law what of the Eucharistical Sacrifice was offer'd at the Altar the Muram belong'd to the Priest so that part which had been offer'd by the Christian Priest being more especially sacred and his Portion was eaten in the Morning Sacramentally from his Hands the Congregation being as it were his Family while the other Residual Part was kept for the provision of the Love-Feast to be held in the Evening its accustom'd time Now as these solemn Suppers call'd by the name of Love or Charity were in imitation of those Sacrificial Feasts held by the Jews so were they of a like Name For if those of the Jews were not stiled Love-Feasts as possibly they might be yet they were plainly Peace-Feasts being made of Peace-Offerings of the most perfect kind and being Symbols and Pledges of Peace both in Heaven and Earth the Offerer and his Guests partaking in some degree of the Table of God and rejoycing together in mutual Good-will and Amity So did the Present partake of both parts of the Oblation in the Ancient Church agreeably to the practice of the Jews And when they sent Portions to the Absent they acted likewise according to their Custom We know that the Lay-Jews sent of their part (b) Neh. 8.10 and I know not whether the Priests might not so do of their share neither is it much material For tho' the Christian's Eucharist was an imitation of the Jewish yet it was not necessary that it should be bound to the niceness of all the Mosaick Rules Tho' therefore a Sacrifice by Moses's Law was not to be offer'd by night as all legal Acts were to be done by the Jews in the day and so the general practice of Christians was to celebrate the Eucharist in it yet they might think themselves at liberty to solemnize it before day whensoever any particular reason should require them so to do for to their Lord the Day and Night were both alike Likewise tho' the Eucharistical Bread was no more to be kept till next day than the Flesh by the Jewish Rituals as being not to be niggardly sav'd but all of it spent that night in a cheerful liberality and in this it was like their Manna yet the Christians might not think it unlawful in some cases to suffer some part of their Eucharist to be left unto another day For they had already invited all to their Feast who were capable of it and they had not been sparing in their distribution as far as was meet However even in this particular they observ'd something of the Levitical Precept burning still what should remain at last unspent And those of Jerusalem if we understand their Hesychius (c) Comm. in Levit. 8.3 with some kept very precisely to the Eucharistical Ordinance burning all that was left of each day's Communion as it is too order'd by our Church to be immediately divided among the Communicants a Rubrick intended to prevent the Papal Superstition but answerable withal to the nature of the Sacrament Now to all this I have nothing to add but only to take notice that the mixture of Water with the Sacramental Wine of which the Ancients speak was done too after the manner of the Jews and in their opinion did not make it less proper for a Cup of Thanksgiving For they likewise do not think (c) Maim de Solenn Pasch c. 7 §. 9. they celebrate their Paschal Supper duly with pure Wine but mix it with Water that they may the more freely drink the four Cups and also for the better Tast and their greater Pleasure § V. IT sufficiently appears I presume that the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord was understood by the ancient Christians to be in the nature of an Eucharistical not of a Propitiatory Sacrifice with the Jews But further That this kind of Sacrifice only should remain when all the rest should cease this also is consonant to the Tradition of the Jews as Kimchi tells us For upon this Saying of the Prophet (a) Jer. 33.11 That there should be heard again in Jerusalem the Voice of Joy and the Voice of Gladness the Voice of the Bridegroom and the Voice of the Bride the Voice of them that shall say Praise the Lord of Hosts for the Lord is good and his Mercy endureth for ever and of them that shall bring the Sacrifice of Praise or Thanks into the House of the Lord he comments on the last words in this manner The Prophet says not that they shall bring Sin-Offerings or Trespass-Offerings because in that day there would be no Wicked nor Sinners among them for as he before b told them they should all know the Lord. (c) Jer. 31.34 And so have our Masters of blessed memory told us That in the time to come all Sacrifices should cease except the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving This Saying of the Masters of Israel is a great Truth and better understood by Christians who know the Lord and themselves so well as to know that the Sacrifices for Sin are not ceas'd by the ceasing of Sin but superseded by the Sacrifice made for them by their Lord and High-Priest and that the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving they are thenceforth to make is the Commemoration their Lord has instituted for that their most gracious Redemption This is the Sacrifice of that New Covenant of which the Prophet there speaks and which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews from him alledges (c) Hebr. 8.8 And to this Sacrifice the same Author I suppose refers
and that of our Lord's Pâ—â—sion and Secondly between the Seasons that Precede both the one and the other of those Radical Fasts CHAP. II. § I. The Sacrificial Performance on the Jewish Expiation Day § II. Compar'd with that of our Saviour on His Passion Day § I. THE Day of Expiation or Attonement is with the Jews a very Great Day injoin'd by God under a very severe Sanction and observ'd by them always with a suitable Care It was appointed on the Tenth Day of their Seventh Month just six Months after the day of the Caption of the Paschal Lamb or Kid of the Goats and the Duties of it were Peculiar partly Sacrificial to be perform'd by the High Priest partly Devotional incumbent on the People The Sacrificial Office proper to the Day was proper to the High Priest (a) For this and the whole Section see Levit. 16. and he only and on that day only was allow'd to enter within the Vail into the Holy of Holies Besides the Propitiation he was then to make for himself and his House He was to make an attonement for the People of the Congregation and that was done by two Kids of the Goats for a Sin-Offering These two Goats were to be alike according to the Tradition both by the Jews (b) Maim de Cult Div. Tract 8. Cap. 5. §. 14. and by Barnabas (c) For this and what follows from Barnabas see Repart 1. Ch. 11. §. 2. lit d. and to be presented before the Lord at the Door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation There the High Priest cast Lots upon them one Lot for the Lord and the other Lot for the Scape Goat for Azazel suppos'd by some to be Satan d and the heads of both of them he bound about with two narrow pieces of Scarlet (e) Maim Ibid. 8.3.4 With the blood of that which was offer'd to the Lord he enter'd into the House and within the Vail to sprinkle it before the Mercy Seat and while he was in the House no one else was to be there no not in the space between the Altar and the House as the Rabbins say (f) Maim Ibid. 6.3.3 On the other Goat he laid both his hands and confess'd over him all the Iniquities of the Children of Israel and all their Transgressions in all their Sins in a Form the Misnah pretends to give (g) Codex Joma Sheringhami c. 6.2 putting them on the Head of the Goat and then he deliver'd him bearing all those Iniquities and Accurs'd as the Traditions of Barnabas call him into the hand of a Fit Man Ready and Bold I suppose h or an Executioner who was to be a Stranger not an Israelite says Maimonides (i) 〈◊〉 p. 8â— 7 to be carried into the Wilderness The People therefore spitting upon him and Goading him on as Barnabas tells us they were bid to do and the Misnah says (k) Joma 6.4 there were those who were ready to pluck him by the hair and cry Away be gone though they were kept off from so doing by the contrivance of a narrow passage In this manner he was lead into the land not inhabited to a Rock call'd Zuk l where his Leader they say i dividing the Piece of Scarlet put half of it on some point of the Rock on a Thorn m says Barnabas and ty'd again the other half between the Horns of the Goat and so push'd him down headlong to be broke to pieces by the Fall § II. Such an Annual Expiation Day was appointed for the Jews and its Sacrifice whereby the Attonement was made for the Sins of that Year was so Perform'd There was in like manner a certain Day appointed to come in its due time when an Attonement should be made for the Sins of the whole World not of one Nation only or of one Year or Age by a Priest supereminently High and with a Sacrifice truly singular and extraordinary and of it self deserving to be accepted The Day of our Saviours Passion every good Christian believes to have been the Day of the Expiation of Mankind And that he in that Sacrificial Action was both the Priest and the Sacrifice the whole Tenor of the Epistle to the Hebrews positively avows He is there said to be a merciful and faithful High Priest making Reconciliation for the Sins of the People (a) Hebr. 2.17 the High Priest of our Profession (b) 3.1 our Great High Priest who is pass'd into the Heavens (c) 4.14 Call'd of God as was Aaron after the Order of Melchisedech (d) 5.4 10. invested with an Vnchangeable Priesthood (e) 7.24 a High-Priest who is set on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens (f) 8.1 And this High Priest was of necessity to have something to offer says the Apostle (g) 8.3 He therefore enter'd once into the Holy Place not by the Blood of Goats and of Calves but by his own Blood having obtain'd eternal Redemption for us (h) 12. and thorough the Eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God (i) 14. For Christ is not enter'd into the Holy Places made with hands which are the Figures of the True but into Heaven it self now to appear in the Presence of God for us Nor yet was He to offer himself often as the High Priest entreth into the Holy Place every year with the blood of others but now once in the end of the World hath he appear'd to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of Himself being once offer'd to bear the Sins of many (k) 9.24 So are we sanctified thorough the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all (l) 10.10 who after he had once offer'd one Sacrifice for Sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God (m) 12. For by one Offering He hath perfected for ever them that are Sanctified (n) 14. Thus exactly adequate is the Correspondence between the Propitiations of the Old and New Covenant as it stands propos'd to us by the Divine Writer to the Hebrews Our Saviour is asserted to have been the High Priest and on his Passion Day to have officiated for us to have offer'd the Sacrifice of Himself to have bore our Sins in his own Body and with his own Blood to have enter'd into the Holy Place not made with hands and to have appear'd as before the Mercy Seat in the Presence of God Thus much of the Analogy the Apostle has expresly laid down and it may very naturally be carried further The Author therefore of the Epistle ascrib'd to Barnabas (o) Barn Ep. Cap. 7. and Tertullian after him (p) See Repartit 1. Chap. 11. §. 3. lit e. have both took notice that the two Kids of the Goats were chosen alike in as much as both of them were equal representatives of our Blessed Lord and that he was as that clean unspotted one which was offer'd to God and whose Blood was carried
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Spina And it may likewise be observ'd of the words relating to the abovementioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has under it the signification not only of Insula but also of Recessus seu Decrementum aquae vel Maris and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Hedg now and might the Thorns heretofore and withal expresses the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Buds which are mention'd by Barnabas CHAP. III. § I. The Devotional Duty of the Jews an their Expiation Day § II. Practis'd by Christians on the Passion Day § III. Some Circumstances of the Eves of those Days compar'd WHile this Reconciliation was making in the Temple at Jerusalem the People even those who were not present at it had their parts to perform and were to join with it wheresoever they resided Fasting that whole Day and afflicting their Souls from Evening to Evening (a) Lev. 23.32 For whatsoever Soul it was that was not afflicted in that same Day he should be cut off from among his People (b) 29. Now that they might be sure not to be defective in so necessary a Duty they took care to begin the Office of that Day earlier than the Sunset of the first Evening and to conclude it later than that of the second The Affliction also of their Souls they shew'd not by Fasting only but by all other Demonstrations of Penitence and Grief for Sin And therefore for the better performing that Duty as they prepare themselves some considerable time before of which we are to speak in the following Chapter so more particularly on the Ninth Day the day immediately preceding For then they repair to their Synagogues before day and continue long at their Devotion there going afterward to their Burying places for their greater Humiliation and in the Afternoon they wash themselves Confessing their Sins make ready their Candles which they are presently to use and particularly take care to Ask Pardon of those they have injur'd and to make satisfaction Then in the Synagogue with other Prayers they make a solemn Confession of their Sins and sometimes receive from one another their Forty stripes save one and afterwards they return home and eat a Formal Supper thereby to distinguish that day from the following in which they are neither to Eat nor Drink (c) For this and what follows see Buxt Syn. Jud. c. 25. And now before the Night beginning that Great Day is come they return to the Synagogue set up and light their Candles for each one and sometimes two as both for their Soul and their Body and after Proclamation is made of leave for the Excommunicate to join with them they begin their solemn Prayers of the Day which they continue towards Midnight some spending the whole Night and repeating the whole Psalter However before Sun-rising they come thither again and stay there all the rest of the Day Reading out of the Scriptures and Praying in which Prayers they take care that their second Service the Sacrificial Service for the Day be said before Noon After Noon they begin the Service of the Evening continuing their Devotions till the Sun is ready to set when they subjoin another Office for the Close of the Day and peculiar to that day and then when the Night of the next day is come they have the solemn Blessing pronounc'd by the Priests that are present and so are dismiss'd After this manner while the Temple stood the Jews heretofore are presum'd to have employ'd the Day of Expiation and not otherwise to have expected any benefit from the Sacrifice which was then offer'd and by which all their Sins were to be intirely Remitted And since the Destruction of their Temple and ceasing of their Sacrifices this their own Office the Jews still continue and impute so much to their due performance of it as to think (d) Rep. 1. Ch. 9. §. 2. that the Punishment of many offences is entirely Forgiven and of the rest at least suspended by that alone and without the help of the Expiatory Goats which are now wanting § II. NOW as it is certain what was laid down in the Chapter foregoing that the Day of our Saviours Passion was the Great and Last Day of Expiation when that one Propitiatory Sacrifice was made for the Sins of the whole World and of all Ages by that our Great and Catholick High Priest (e) Tert. adv Marc. 49. so is it not to be question'd but that the whole World had it then known what Propitiation our Blessed Lord was making for them would have join'd the Affliction of their own Souls with that his bitter Passion and would in their several Habitations have accompanied his Oblation for their Sins with their own Confession of them with bitter grief for their Commission and strong and earnest Supplication for their Pardon This All Mankind could not have fail'd to have done on that Day had they but known what our Saviour was then doing for them But that then was hid from the Eyes of the Apostles themselves When therefore the Mystery of his Death came to be reveal'd and the Propitiation of that day was made known if his Disciples thought fit to keep an annual Memorial of it and that duty the Paschal Season of the Jews so solemnly kept could not but suggest to Christians they could not neither fail of Solemnizing the return of that Day with that Profound Veneration of our Suffering Lord and that Penitential Supplicatory Devotion to the Father which the Original Day it self would have requir'd from them Now that such a Day was kept yearly in memory of the Passion of our Lord in the first and Apostolical Age is a truth which the former Part of this Discourse may have clear'd to us (f) Part 1. Chap. 3. and that it was all along observ'd with as great a strictness of Fasting and Humiliation as the Jews themselves us'd on their day of Propitiation is likewise manifest as it is also most certain that the Grief and Affliction they then were under was not for the Death and Loss of their Lord and Master but for the Guilt of their Sins and the Sins of the World for which their Lord and Master had that day suffer'd So much correspondence there was most evidently between the Practice of the Jews and of the Christians on their two Great Fast Days Thus should our Saviour's Expiatory Sacrifice which completed and superseded the Jewish have been attended answerably and thus actually was the Annually Memory of it afterwards celebrated with a suitable Devotion And this though not done by the Primitive Church in vertue of any such strict Injunction as that under the Old Covenant might yet be well taken up upon the cogent reason of so just a Congruity And as the Jews continue their Devotional Office now when by the Judgment of God an end is put to the Sacrificial so
and Ceremonies borrowed thence For why should not their Expiation Day be imitated by our Passion Day when our Sundays and Wednesdays and Fridays and the old Stationary Days our Easter and our Pentecost are all after the like Example And if we have followed the Jews in their Methods of Humiliation and ways of Abstinence and Penance why not in the Solemnity of a Season for such Duties And now if this Derivation I have propos'd might be taken for granted I might then observe against the Followers of Socinus that an Anniversary and very Remarkable Testimony has been all along given by the whole Church of God to the Expiatory Sacrifice of our Blessed Lord as possibly the Discontinuance of that antient and laudable Practice may have given too much way to the late Revival and Modern Increase of that Great Error in Belief But I will not offer to found a Truth so Sacred and which is otherwise so well grounded upon any Conjecture however Probable it may appear § II. But though I do not after all affirm positively that the first Christians had this Correspondence in their View at the Institution of that Holy Time for I shall leave it as Probable only and to the Judgment of the Readerâ— yet this I think I may securely assert that such a Respect if they had it was very Just and Proper and that the same Consideration is a very good reason for the Continuance of the Observation by all True and Orthodox Christians For our Saviour's Passion the Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World and of all Ages was indeed once offer'd in the fullness of time and by Him never to be Repeated but eternally therefore to be Commemorated by the Believing Redeem'd part of Mankind in all their Generations to come And if the Resurrection of our Lord was always thought fit to be recognis'd with a Weekly and therefore certainly with an Annual Solemnity his Death also as surely as it was fixt in Time and known to have come to pass the Friday before so as necessarily did it demand its Anniversary also if not Weekly Memorial For though his Resurrection indeed was exceedingly Glorious and Triumphant yet his Passion was no doubt much the more Mighty and more Remarkable Work in as much as the Death of the Eternal Son of God was far more Wondrous than his Rising from it and it was yet more Wonderful that he should submit to the Ineffable Condescension for our sakes For the cause of his Passion it was our Saviour tells us that he came into the World (a) John 18.37 as if all the Discourses remember'd in the Gospel were but as Prefaces to it and all the Miracles of his Life serv'd only to signalise it In was â—he Basiâ— and Ground work of the Church on which our Salvation stands a mighty Foundation and deeply laid Had we therefore no constant Need of this Expiation of our Lord for our repeated continual Transgressions and had we been absolutely Innocent ever since our first Regeneration by Baptism yet the Death in which we were Baptis'd and by which we had been once Redeem'd could not have fail'd of a pious and grateful Commemoration once at least in the Year and this Day if any other would have had its place in the Christian Calendar In that Case indeed the Day would have been kept Eâ—charistically and as the Sacrament of our Lord's Death is now to be Celebrated in a sad and astonishing Remembrance of his bitter Passion intermixt tho' and temper'd with Joy and thanks for the Propitiation it made But though our Intervening Offences have necessarily chang'd the manner of the Celebration and turn'd our Joy into Mourning yet the Commemoration it self is far from being superseded by them and is rather inforc'd by greater reason for we are now to be call'd to the Remembrance of our Sins as well as of our Lord's Passion And if we now countercharge the Supposition and as before we regarded only the Death of our Lord abstractly from our Sins after Baptism so here we regard those only and take no notice of any Anniversary of the Passion yet even the separate consideration of those Sins might well have challeng'd to them some One Day in the Year wherein after an extraordinary manner we should confess and lament their guilt humbly beseech their Pardon and intreat the Benefit of that Expiation for them For though the Sacrifices for Sin have ceas'd by that one Propitiation of Our Saviour yet by deplorable Experience we know that our Sins cease not they are generally as numerous and frequent as they were before the Covenant and much more heinous having now become exceeding Sinful as committed against greater Light and higher Obligations If therefore we will understand our selves aright Confession of Sins and Supplication for Forgiveness continue to be the daily Duty of Christians as well as of Jews make a no less Proper and Necessary Part of our ordinary Publick Devotions and are still as fit to be the express Business and peculiar Office of some Extraordinary Time And if such an Appointment should be made by the Governours of the Church that we should meet together for this Purpose annually on a solemn Day to take the more publick Shame to our selves and to give the greater Glory to God no Good Christian sure would refuse to concur in so common and necessary a Work but as he is ready to meet and celebrate any other Fast indicted on the occasion of Temporary Calamities so he would never decline to join in a Humiliation assign'd for much more weighty spiritual reasons for the saving of Immortal Souls and averting of Eternal Vengeance He only that is without Sin might seem unconcern'd in such an Order but he then would not not be without Charity and would be in this also like our Saviour that he would condescend to humble himself for the Sins of his Brethren And were there now such a General and Solemn Christian Fast to be appointed and were we to find it a proper Season it could not undoubtedly be more congruously plac'd in the whole Circle of the Year than on the Day of our Lord's Passion were there any such day already observ'd For as all the Refuge of our Supplications must be in that Expiation and by it only God can be intreated so a lively Remembrance of that Death would best give us the due sence of the Guilt and Demerit of all Sins but most bitterly reproach us with our own those Bold and Ungrateful Transgressions of a most Gracious Covenant that was seal'd in such Precious Blood So fitly and naturally do both those Duties of Celebrating the Memory of our Lord's Death and Mourning for our own Sins concur on the same Day the Recognition of that our Expiation and the Affliction of our Souls being as closely join'd together by Eternal Reason as ever they were by the Law of Moses the Duties also heightning each other our Humiliation increas'd by