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-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
marked with B much according to Russinus his Version made about the End of the fourth Century And to begin with what concerns the Fast in general it can never be supposed though some would be willing it should That Irenaeus in the last of the two doubtful Passages however rendered speaks any thing to the Disparagement of the Fast it self as if those who long before his time had Governed the Church less exactly had shew'd their less Exactness in the Institution of a Lent Had He said so he had indeed effectually silenc'd one part of the Grand Dispute that concerning the End of the Fast for he had declared against any Fast at all but he must have been taken then for an ill Arbitrator by Victor and the rest as well as by Polycrates who all equally joined in the Tradition of the Fast and must of necessity by the change of the Question have become a common Adversary and turned the whole Dispute upon himself But this Great Man used another method and went by the common Principle For he speaks to Victor of the Practice of those of his own side who differed from the common Custom but with whom Communion had been always held and was not now refused by Victor himself Some of those Differences it is plain he charges with less Exactness and reflects upon the Authors of them whoever they were but not upon Victor's Predecessors or his own and his Argument then for Peace proceeds thus with great force That the Bishop of Rome should not break off Communion with the Asiaticks for their different manner for those who joined with him against them and remained in his Communion had their different Customs too There is therefore no Reflection from this place upon the Original of Lent but on the contrary there is a strong Confirmation of its Apostolical Antiquity under either Version For those who according to Valesius Governed the Churches with that little Exactness as to be Authors of an undue Custom were very Ancient long before the days of Irenaeus and are supposed here to have had Cotemporaries who observed the right Manner But further in the other I think more exact Interpretation those who were long before Irenaeus his time and consequently very near to the time of St. John are said expresly to have been though not faithful and exact yet Retainers and Keepers of a Custom which had therefore been rightly practised yet earlier even before the days of those who were long before Irenaeus § III. Thus much concerning the Antiquity of a Lent I could not omit to add from these few Lines of Ireneaus casually preserved to us and which speak very casually to that Matter To the Manner of Keeping Lent they are more express and direct but very brief and concise as wrote on another design and not for Victor's or our Information in the Particular we desire to see In this transient Mention of the Manner he says some observed One day some Two and some More not expressing who they were or in what they were less Exact for Victor might understand him well though we do not Those who kept but One day and whose Resurrection-day was a Sunday in all probability kept what we call Good Friday the Weekly Day of the Passion and if they did not too use some sort of Abstinence though not so strict on the Saturday they were so little exact as to offend against the Rule and to brâ—â—◠〈◊〉 their Fast before Easter-Day But if there were any whose One Day was the Saturday they who begun their Fast so late little wanted that Rule to tell them when to end it and their neglecting the Passion-Day could not seem very exact to those that observed it As to the Two or More days it is not neither determined after what sort they were kept whether in One continued Fast uninterrupted by any Food as two or more of those days were certainly fasted by some of the next Age especially in the Passion-Week or whether the Fasts were several though the Days were continued each Day ended with some Refreshment If those More days were very Many they were as we have intimated already (*) Ch. 2. §. 1. likely to have been kept in the last Manner There might too have been more Days than Two kept together not only once just before Easter but oftner and at some distance within the Compass of a larger time Hereafter Examples will appear of such Fasts and the several Practices may have been old though the mention of them in Books be later Hitherto the Words are plain and of certain Construction though we may not know every particular Case to which they might referâ—â— but those that follow are of ambiguouâ— Interpretation and particularly the word Forty is expounded as we see by some of Days and by some of Hours It is not absolutely necessary to any design of these Papers That forty Days should be here named expresly for they may well be admitted under the latitude of the word More if we shall hereafter see Reason to understand them so early I hope therefore I am not partial when I judge the Old Translation of this Place to be preferable to the Modern For first a Day of 40 Hours is a space of time never before heard of neither determined by the Sun's Appearance nor Revolution And if we should admit of such a single Day measured not by the Sun's Motion but by our Saviour's lying in the Grave yet it would be strange to join two or more of those days together Valesius therefore wonders That the Absurdity has been endured and that no Body has seen that the Greek word for Day must be changed into that for Fast and the Sentence run so Some measure their Fast by 40 Hours c. This Change he is forced to by the Sense not countenanced by the Authority of any Copy But not to object the Odness of this Fast that was to begin at soonest after Breakfast on the Friday and which took notice of our Lord's Burial but not of his Crucifixion much less of his previous Sufferings and Apprehension to pass this over for this might be one of those less exact Manners which once had place though afterwards left off yet still the mention of Hours of Day and Night would be very redundant especially where the Author is so Brief for what need is there of this Circumstantial Description and how could Forty Hours have otherwise come together Such Objections as these to which the New Interpretation lies open do put us upon looking out for another more proper which I take that of Ruffinus to be For the Forty Days which somâ— are unwilling to find so soon in the Church will appear hereafter not to have been so unhâ—â—â—â—â—f for a Fast as 40 Hours but rather to have been a Number much celebrated within 〈◊〉 little while in the Christian Lent and in all probability sacred before to Abstinence in the Jewish Church Ruffinus
his Version is thus e And some Forty Days so that they make the Day by Computation of Hours of Day and Night And if the Place be understood as commonly it is and there be no more meant by it than that the One or More days before spoke of were the Civil or Periodical Days and consisted each of 24 Hours yet the Inconvenience Valesius urges will not follow and a Fast of Forty such Days will not exclude we know so much Refreshment every Evening as may support Nature The greatest Incongruity I can find in that Acception of the Words is That it makes Irenaeus on a Subject he does but touch to give Victor unnecessarily a verbose Description of a Day one and the same thing where the only Intention was to put him in remembrance of a Variety I should rather therefore think That when he had given a short Account of the different Numbers of Days he should then add a short mention of the different Quantities of a Day That some computed the day Vulgarly by the Appearance of the Sun and some Civilly by its Revolution And according to this Design of Irenaeus I have directed one of the Translations above to which this of Ruffinus will agree Neither will it I suppose be very material to object That a Fast only from Sun-Rising to Sun-Set has not been usual since among Christians for it might have been practised then though disus'd afterwards as less exact and as we have seen the Jews have all along fasted in that manner upon most Occasions and the Mahometans continually do Neither will it be wondered That so known a Difference as that of the Vulgar and Revolutional Day should have been expressed so negligently in few Words And as for any other lesser Criticism c it may easily be satisfied for if only by the natural force of the Sence and its apposite suitableness to the Scope of the Place And thus far have we learned from Irenaeus That the Observation of Lent was very Ancient and that its Fast then consisted not of One or Two days but More and in some Places very probably of Forty b Euseb Hist 5.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c All Valesius his Manuscripts put no stop after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that determined him to his way of Rendring this Place But Ruffinus his Copy seems to have had the stop and Sir Henry Savil reads so as to change the place of the Copulative Particle thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mr. Thorndyâ—e in his Service of God at Relig. Assemb p. 247. says This Reading is acknowledged by Petitus This Lection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it has any Copy to justifie it is certainly to be preferred for the Reason at the End of this Chapter But if it had no Manuscript on its side and a Change must be somewhere made in this Sentence such a Trajection of a Particle by conjecture is much more allowable than the Substitution â— alesius makes afterwards of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sence by the one is much more advantaged than by the other And indeed the advantage of the Sence is so great that if such an Alteration is not to be admitted to join this last Sentence to the preceding I should then take the Sentence to begin there without Connexion and as it might happen in the Excerpts of a Letter d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is true may signifie to Govern in a Church but it does as well to ' Hold or Keep a Practice as in St. Mark vii 3 4. And this last Sence is more suitable to the Place e Quidam enim putant uno tantum die observari debere jejunium alii duobus alii vero pluribus nonnulli etiam quadraginta ita ut Horas diurnas nocturnásque computantes Dient statuant CHAP. IV. The Practice of Fasting mentioned about the Year 200 by Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian § I. The Weekly Fasts of Wednesday and Friday mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus § II. Testimonies out of Tertullian concerning both the Weekly and Ante-Paschal Fasts § III. Observations upon those Testimonies Some part of the Ante-Paschal Fast thought necessary by the Catholicks of his time the rest Discretionary § I. NEXT in Order of the Christian Authors that remain to us is Clemens of Alexandria and who would have assisted us much in this Argument had his Book Of the Paschal Season his Dissertations about Fasting and possibly that about the Ecclesiastical Canons and against those that followed the Errour of the Jews (a) Euseb Hist 6 1â— been now extant In what is come to our hands there is nothing to be found of the Anniversary Ante-Paschal Fast or Paschal Feast of the Weekly Fasts and Festivals there 〈…〉 acâ—â—â—ental mention made and only for the sake of an Allegory b The truly knowing Person says he knows the hidden Meaning of the Fast of those two days Wednesday and Friday whereof the first belongs to Mercury the Idol God of Gain the other to Venus the Heathen Goddess of Pleasure For he fasts all his Life from Love of Money and of Pleasure And such a one having performed what is commanded makes that the Lord's Day in which he puts off the Evil Mind and takes up the Knowing one celebrating that Resurrection of our Lord which has been so wrought in himself This is indeed Allegorical all but it has a certain Ground upon which it descants and supposes as constant an Observation of those two days of the Week as of the weekly Day of the Resurrection They were the ordinary days of Christian Assemblies the Stations we before heard of (c) Ch. 2. §. 1. commonly fasted to a Certain Hour as the Jews had their Meetings in their Synagogues on their Mundays and Thursdays when generally the devouter Sort did likewise Fast (d) Luke 1â— 12 Of these Days Friday was apparently chose for one because on it our Saviour had suffered and Wednesday is said to be the other because he had been then sold to the High Priests and further we cannot but think that these which were kept in some manner every Week in the Memory of our Lord's Passion should in the Passion-Week it self have been kept with great Solemnity § II. But this stated Observation of those two Days in the Week is more directly mentioned by Tertullian a Cotemporary of Clemens as the Paschal Solemnity is also expresly remembred by him He wrote the Treatises now extant about the year 200 and a little after and when most of them were wrote was of the Heresie of Montanus so that what we are to cite out of him cannot be well understood without some knowledge of his Sect. Montanus whom our Author unhappily followed is supposed to have begun his New Doctrine about the Year 172. He is said not to have differed from the Catholicks in the main Articles
fast For now says he we are known to fast by abstaining from that Salutation But if there be any reason for such a Custom you may at your own home if you please and among your Family from whom your fasting cannot well be concealed defer that Ceremony of Peace but otherwise where-ever you may conceal your Fast you are to remember the Command and by this means you will both keep your Rule abroad and your Custom at home For so on Good Friday when the Devotion of Fasting is Common and as it were Publick we justly forbear the Salutation taking no care to conceal from the rest what is done together by us all § III. NOW from these Testimonies of Tertullian it appears First That the Religious Assemblies or Stations of Wednesday and Friday were now well known and practised in the Christian Church and generally supposed to have descended from the Apostles as recommended by their example to the devouter Christians and not as injoin'd the whole Body by any Precept Secondly The constant Opinion of the Catholicks of his time presum'd That those days in which the Bridegroom our Saviour was taken away were to be fasted not at Pleasure but by Direction being design'd and determin'd to that Duty from the Beginning This is certainly the Catholick Sence as it is represented by Tertullian in the second Chapter in express words where he speaks both of the Designation of our Saviour and the Observation of the Apostles and as it is again intimated by him in the 13th Nor could it have been brought in question by Mr. Daillé had he not studied his own Hypothesis too much Neither is that judgment of the Catholicks concerning those days any ways disparaged by the Interpretation they give there to our Saviour's Words (t) Matth. ◠15 For though this Saying of his may be well understood at large as it is by most Commentators of those Distresses and Afflictions the Disciples should fall under upon his Departure the very mention of which they could not now bear vet it will too very properly admit the other Meaning and particularly imply some stated Days of Fasting hereafter to be observed by them and which our Saviour here predicts at least if not directs They were priviledged now by their attendance on the Bridegroom the Messias from the ordinary Monday and Thursday Fasts of the stricter Jews or from others extraordinary set up by John but when the Bridegroom should be taken away that Exemption he tells them would cease and withal new Cause of Fasting would arise and new times be appointed And then he adds under the Figures of a Garment and of Bottles of Wine That neither would those Fasts of his new Institution be proper as yet under the old Dispensation neither were his Disciples prepared now to undertake and observe them but that hereafter when all things should be new his New Dispensation should have New Fasts of its own and his Disciples too become for them New Men by the Renewing of the Holy Ghost This Exposition of the Text concerning such new Fasts in general after our Saviour's Death seems to be most natural very apt I am sure it is to the Occasion and Prosecution of that Saying And if then those general Words were by the first Christians applied in particular to that very time of the Year in which He suffer'd and on which they fasted as by Apostolical Tradition it is no wonder For such secondary Applications of Scripture to Subjects not seeming at first sight to have been intended by it is very usual in the New Testament And it is the known manner of the Jews to accommodate the words of the Bible to such Practices as they take to be of Divine Authority though they are hinted only and alluded to there not expressed much less commanded Thirdly Those Days which were to be so fasted are twice expresly mentioned in the Plural Number And of Those Two are obvious the Friday and the Saturday in which he was Taken Crucified and Buried These at least must I think be understood by Tertullian's Catholicks neither has he given any where any contrary Intimation For in the 14th Chapter of his Treatise of Fasting the Saturday said there to be fasted sometimes is in all probability not the Holy Saturday but any other Saturday in the Year p And in his Book of Prayer good-Good-Friday is mentioned peculiarly not simply for its being a Common fast-Fast-Day but because it was a Fast-Day in which there was the usual Opportunity for the Holy Kiss and in which it was omitted Whereas on the Saturday they Assembled late and spent the Evening in Baptizing the Catechumens and that Day having in its Office no Place for that Ceremony consequently gave not our Author the same occasion to speak of it And thus much seems evident concerning Two of Those Days But they were reckoned by others as we have observed before from Wednesday and by some from Monday the Fifth day before the Passover the day of the Caption of the Paschal Lamb ordered by Moses (u) Exod. 12.3 in conformity to which they suppos'd our Saviour to have been at that time singled out as it were by the High-Priests and determined for Sacrifice This is certain That by many all those Days were particularly observed as we shall presently know from an Author but fifty Years younger who is indeed the first that tells us of such a Practice but as we often intimate must not therefore be supposed the first that knew it done Fourthly Of Those Days the Friday was the most remarkable for in that He was taken away actually Apprehended Crucisied and laid in the Grave and accordingly It was always kept with a singular Devotion by the whole Church the latter half of the Night in which the Apostles should heretofore have watch'd in Watching and the Day too in Fasting and Praying And for this Reason only we need not have wondered if good-Good-Friday had been particularly mentioned in the 14th Chapter of Fasting as it is in the Treatise of Prayer I confess from some words of the last Mr. Daillè would infer That good-Good-Friday was not then observed by all Christians because the Devotion of that Day is said to be Common and as it were Publick or as he sometimes understands almost Publick And his Observation would have been true had Tertullian said as it were or almost Common but when it is first term'd Common without any Restriction and after too said to be kept by All that Consideration alone should have lead that very Learned Person to the true Meaning of this Phrase as it were Publick For Publick he knew does not only signifie what belongs to all but what is expos'd or appears to all which last Sence opposed to Hiding and Concealing the Scope of the place evidently requires And besides it is plain why Tertullian puts in his as it were for he had after his strict manner urged the Command of not Publishing a Fast so absolutely
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-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
Alexandria more particularly In its 6th Canon it decrees c That those who had yielded cowardly to bare Threats and had not professed their Repentance till the time of the Synod should be only admitted to Hear the Scripture and the Sermons as hopeful Vnbelievers were permitted to do untill the Great Day and that after the Great Day they should be of the Class of those who Kneel'd and Pray'd and Supplicated for Pardon as the Catechumeni did for Baptism and so continue three Years And then for two Years more they should Communicate with the Brethren in Prayer but not in the Eucharist And finally after six Years thus spent they should be received into full and free Communion We find by this Canon that the Penitential Space of time were it longer or shorter was generally determined by Easters and see that Peter of Alexandria therefore reckoned by them And further when he does those miserable Penitents the Favour after some Years Mourning to enjoin them only the Penance of Forty Days we understand his Indulgence to have been so much as to have remitted that Yearly time they should otherwise have been kept at least from the Eucharist and to have given them their Lent immediately For lastly when he says they should fast other forty days and says this after Easter we cannot doubt but that he refers to the Forty days lately pass'd in Abstinence and which concluded the preceding Year which too as it seems were pass'd in ordinary course and not by any particular Injunction of his for he appears not to have given any Orders in this Matter before So very probable it is even from this accidental Testimony That a Lent of Forty Days was kept at Alexandria before the Council of Nice and that we should so think we are now going to see what great Reason there is from that Council it self a Dion Alex. Can. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Conc. Anâ—yr Can. VI. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. VII § I. good-Good-Friday and Days of solemn Fasting mentioned by Constantine § II. The Forty Season expresly mentioned by the Council of Nice § III. And that Forty Days are to be understood proved from St. Chrysostome § I. WE come now to the first General Council Assembled at Nice under the first Christian Emperour in the Year 325 and amongst other things taken into their Consideration another Paschal Difference was then adjusted The Syrians it seems a and Cilicians without Taurus and the Mesopotamians though they kept the Resurrection-day on a Sunday according to the Resolution in Victor's time b yet agreed so much with the Jews as to follow their wrong Calculation and begin the Year sooner than they ought by which means this Paschal Season often happened before the Aequinox whereas the rest of Christendom had all used a more Reformed Account of their own agreeable to the Directions of Moses It was therefore thought fit by the Council That such a notable Difformity among Christians and such an Agreement with the Jews in the Principal Christian Solemnity things in that time as it appears very scandalous should no longer continue which Regulation the Emperour himself considered so much as to notifie and recommend it to the Churches in a Circular Letter transmitted to after Ages by Eusebius There c he tells them That a Question having been raised about the most Holy Day of the Passover it was thought fit by unanimous Consent to keep it every where on the same Day That it was extreamly improper to keep that most Holy Feast from which we have received the Hopes of Immortality after the Custom of the Jews who embrued their hands in that wicked Action That setting aside the Jewish Manner there was a truer Course and Calculation by which the Solemnity of that Observation which had been kept from the first Passion-Day might be hereafter perpetuated to all Ages That besides the Absurdity of Erring with their Enemies the Jews there was an Vnfitness in their Disagreement among themselves That our Saviour had delivered to us One Feast the Day of our Redemption or Freedom that of his most Holy Passion and that he had ordain'd one Catholick Church and that therefore they might consider How improper it was for some Parts of that Church to be Fasting whilst others were Feasting and some after the Days of the Passover were over to be in Joy and Festivity while others were at their Solemn Fasts and both of them for the same common Reason That he promised himself their Assent to that which was already uniformly observed in Rome and Africk and all Italy in Aegypt Spain France Britain Libya all Greece the Dioceses d of Asia and Pontus and in Cilicia within Taurus and not only because there were the Greater Number but because it was the right Course and the Christians were besides to have no Communication with their and our Saviour's Enemies the Jews In this Imperial Letter we may 1 observe the extraordinary Notice that is taken of good-Good-Friday That alone of all the Paschal Season is specified and easter-Easter-Day it self is unmentioned as if it were the less Principal And this it may be was done in Honour to the Catholick Doctrine and against the New heresie of Arius which depressed infinitely the Dignity of our Saviour and the Merit of his Sufferings as it was the Day of the Passion of God and not of any Creature Whereas on the contrary the Resurrection of a Creature should have been mentioned before its Passion as the more Extraordinary and Remarkable of the Two both for its Cause and Manner and its Effects and Virtue But whatever might be the Reason of this singular Mention of good-Good-Friday this is certain That every Friday for the sake of the Passion had by an Edict of this Emperour e the like Exemption from Civil Business with the Lord's Day it self as we may remember Origen above gave it an equal Remembrance if Tertullian too did not distinctly specifie it before 2. Solemn and prescribed Fastings are here spoke of and before Easter But how many they generally were and how far they reach'd we are not told from this no more than from other Authorities we have heretofore vouch'd We should indeed presume that they might have made up the Holy Week from Dionysius or it may be a Week or two before from what we observed on Tertullian and when we concluded from Peter of Alexandria That they were about Forty a Term remembered by Irenaeus before we could not have been thought to have stretch'd too far and been over-fond of that Number But a Canon of the same Council accidentally mentioning the Ante-Paschal Fast will sufficiently authorize the Opinion § II. THE 5th Canon f after it has decreed upon the Occasion it is suppos'd of Arius having been received into Communion by Eusebius notwithstanding his Excommunication That those who have been Ejected by one Bishop should not be Admitted by another to provide against unjust Excommunications upon Quarrel and Passion does
at the same time make some Satisfaction for what is past and fortifie our selves against Temptations for the future Watch and pray says he that ye enter not into temptation And I presume they the Disciples were therefore so far tempted because they slept Our Lord himself was surrounded with Tentations presently after his Baptism when he had performed his Fasts Forty Days And therefore may some one say We too should rather fast after Baptism Now in this place I confess it is not evident that the Paschal Vigils and the Forty Days Fast before Easter are particularly meant and therefore heretofore I did not bring this Passage for a Proof but neither is it improbable that they are intended for the time of the Apostles sleeping agrees to the time of those Vigils and the Forty Days Abstinence of our Saviour being not mentioned with any intimation of the one continued extraordinary Fast but as so many Fastings may also well refer to those of the Catechumen § II. IT has appeared already from the Synod of Alexandria That Forty Days had been in Use for a Penitential Fast before thâ—◠〈◊〉 and that in all likelihood those Days were just before Easter I shall therefore be content to add only two Authorities The one concerning the Number of those Days and the other concerning their Place And as for the Fast of Penitents how proper Forty Days are for that Office I shall give the Authority of St. Jerome in his Commentary on Jonas excribing the whole Passage the rather because it will be of further Service hereafter The old Translation of the 3d. Chapter of Jonas at the 14th Verse was thus Yet three days and Nineveh shall be destroyed upon which he says g The Number Three which is put by the Septuagint is not proper for Penitents And I can't but wonder how it came to be so translated seeing in the Hebrew there is no Agreement either in the Letters or Syllables or Accents or Words Besides the Prophet sent from Judaea on so long a journey was to require a Penitence worthy of his Preaching that such old and putrid Vlcers might be cured with a Plaister that should lie some longer time upon them Now Forty is a number that is proper for Penitents and Fasting and Prayer and Sackcloth and Tears and Perseverance in deprecating God's Anger For which reason Moses also fasted forty days in Mount Sinai and Elias flying from Jezabel and the Wrath of God impending upon Israel is describ'd to have fasted forty days Our Lord likewise himself the true Jonas who was sent to preach Repentance to the World fasted forty days and leaving to us the Inheritance of his Fasting still prepares our Souls for the Eating of his Body by the same Number Here we have the Fitness of Forty Days for Penance in the Judgment of St. Jerome and we suppose of the Church of his time the onely Remark thence we make as yet The Fitness of Easter-day for the Re-admission of those Penitents into the Bosom of the Church we shall find from Gregory Nyssen in the Preface of that excellent Letter which he wrote to Letoius Bishop of Metilene about Canonical Penances and sent him probably for an Easter Present It thus begins h This too is one of those things which appertain to the Holy Festival the consideration of the Rightful and Canonical Dispensation which is to be exercised upon Offenders that every Spiritual Malady which has been contracted by any Sin may have its proper Cure For seeing this Catholick Festival the Festival of the Creation kept throughout the World every Year in the stated Period of the Annual Circle is celebrated for the Resurrection of him that fell and Sin is a Fall and Rising up from the Fall of Sin is a Resurrection it must be very proper on this Day not only to bring to God by the Grace of the Font such as are transform'd by Regeneration but those too who by Penitence and turning to God are come back from dead Works into the way of Life to lead these as it were by the hand to that saving Hope from which they have been estranged by Sin The meaning of this Preface is plain That a Penitential Discourse was as proper a Subject before Easter as a Catechistical And this he might think fit to premise because in those times there might seem to be more occasion for the Catechistical then when by the Grace of God the number of those who needed solemn Penance was very inconsiderable in respect of the multitude of Adult Converts to Christianity And for the same reason I presume Penance appears more formally in the Lents of some Ages hereafter than it did before because few grown Persons were then to be baptiz'd to whom Catechistical Discourses belong'd and occasion for the other the Penitential Exhortations there was then too much not but that the solemn Preparation of Penitents by Lent might have been as ancient well nigh as that of the Candidates for Baptism The Reason certainly for their Admission at Easter was the same as our Author has suggested and we have before observ'd b Cyr. Hieros Prologus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Catech. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d Catech. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e Catecâ— 18. In his Discourse on the Saturday he tells them he spares them in Consideration of the fatigue they had undergone from their continuing on the Fast begun on Friday and from their Watching 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this both Watching and Fasting is express'd by St. Hilary to have been commensurate to the time of our Lord's Passion and is therefore reckoned to have continued three days Hilar. in Can. 15. Matth. Venturi ad Baptismum prius confitentur credere se in Dei Filio in Passionc Resurrectione ejus huic Professionis Sacramento sides redditur Arque ut bane verborum sponsionem quaedam rerum ipsarum veritas consequatur toto in Jejuniis Passionis Dominicae tempore demorantes quádam Domino Passionis societate junguntur Igitur sive ex Sponsionis Sacramento sive Jejunio omne illud Passionis Dominicae cum Domino agunt tempus hujuâ— spei â—rque comitatûs Dominus misertus ait Secum Triduo esse f Tert. de Bapt. c. 20. Ingressuros Baptismum Orationibus crebris Jejuniis Geniculationibus Pervigiliis orare oportet cum confessione omnium retro Delictorum Simul enim de Pristinis satisfacimus conflictatione Carnis Spiritus subsequuturis Tentationibus munimenta praestruimus Vigilate Orate inquit ne incidatis in tentationem Et ideo credo tentati sunt quoniam obdormierunt lpsum Dominum post Lavacrum statim tentationes circumsteterunt quadraginta diebus jejuniis functum Ergo nos dicet aliquis à Lavacro potius jejunare oportet Et quis enim prohibet nisi necessitas Gaudii gratulatio Salutis g Hieron in Joh. c. 3. Trinus
numerus qui ponitur à Septuaginta non convenit Poenitentiae satis miror cur ita translatum sit cum in Hebreo nec Literarum nec Syllabarum nec Accentuum nec Verbi sit ulla Communitas Alioqui de Judea tanto itinere missus Propheta in Assyrios dignam suae Praedicationis Poenitentiam flagitabat ut antiqua putrida vulnera diu apposito curarentur Emplastro Porro Quadragenarius numerus convenit Peccatoribus Jejunio Orationi Sacco Lachrymis Perseverantiâ—e deprecandi ob quod Moyses quadraginta diebus jejunavit in Monte Sina Helias fugiens Jezabel Dei desuper ira pendente quadraginta dies jejunasse describitur Ipse quoque Dominus verus Jona missus ad Praedicationem Mundi jejunavit quadraginta dies haereditatem nobis Jejunii relinquens ad esum Corporis sui sub hoc numero nostras animas praeparat h Greg. Nyss Ep. Can. ad Letoium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. IX § I. A Lent always and every where observed though not of Forty Days § II. Mr. Daillé's Objections against it from Cassian § III. From St. Jerome § IV. From St. Chrysostome § I. THE Reader may perceive by the liberty we have taken of this Digression concerning Baptism and Penance that we are now at leisure and free of all Difficulties concerning the Actual Observation of the Forty Season And indeed about the Fast of it Mr. Daillé henceforth gives us no trouble but against the Apostolical Right he is still looking out for Evidence But in that Point the Reader may have already understood how little we are concern'd who do not pretend to prove That a Lent of so many certain Days was observ'd in the latter end of the Apostolical Age but that some Lent there then was generally kept by all and probably of Forty Days by some in the second Century a thing that will not I presume appear so strange when we come to the Second Part of this Discourse Though therefore I am inclinable to believe that there was very anciently some regard had to the Number Forty and that this in process of time increased very much so as to have been the Solemn Number of Lent in many Churches by the End of the Third Century yet I am willing to allow from what we have seen of St. Chrysostome That this Observation grew so universal from the Recommendation of the Nicene Fathers Those Forty Days too though regarded and observed yet I do not say that they were all of them fasted and every where equally but am ready to allow what St. Chrysostome intimates (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 15. that in his time at Antioch some fasted Two some Three and some all the Weeks of them at their own Discretion and what Socrates will hereafter tell us of the same kind § II. That also which Cassian a Disciple of St. Chrysostome's says and is us'd to be produc'd upon this Argument as an unanswerable Objection against the Antiquity of Lent I have no need to dissemble It is to be known says he b that this Observation of forty days as it is now strictly injoyn'd had no being as long as the Perfection of the Primitive Church continued For those who enlarged the Fast throughout the whole Year were not confined by the necessity of this Ordinance nor within such narrow bounds of Fasting as if under a Legal Restraint But when the Multitude of Believers daily falling off from that Apostolical Devotion began to grow worldly then it was thought fit by the Bishops of the Vniversal Church That Men immersed in the Cares of the World and wholly ignorant if I may so say of any such thing as Abstinence and Repentance should be reduced to the Holy Duty by this Canonical Injunction of Fasts and compelled to it as it were by the Imposition of a Legal Tenth c An Injunction advantageous to the weak and which cannot be prejudicial to the perfect those who being under the Grace of the Gospel by their voluntary Devotion already exceed the prescribed Law I shall not now observe what some might venture to say That Cassian speaks all this upon Mistake supposing with Eusebius here what he evidently does in another place d That the Aegyptian Essenes describ'd by Philo were Disciples of St. Mark and that the Primitive Christians lived all at first in that Austerity I shall only remark that Cassian speaks here of the forty days and not of a Lent in general and of their being fasted by Injunction and not at Discretion And therefore those Perfect Men of his who fasted the whole Year might however have fasted some peculiar time before Easter with a more peculiar Devotion for that they fasted all the Days cannot be meant by him much less with an equal Abstinence and they might too some of them have so particularly fasted Forty Days though not by Legal Direction yet by their own Choice notwithstanding any thing said in this place If too we understand the time when these Forty Days were first imposed by common Consent to have been that of the Nicene Council this is no more than we before had from his Master St. Chrysostome But if he means some elder Times and he may the very first Age For they began to be luke-warm very early as we learn from some parts of the New Testament we have then a Testimony from Cassian of a much higher Antiquity for this Quadragesimal Institution However that which he adds concerning the Imposition of Forty Days whenever it began that it was no hinderance to the Perfect is very observable and to be consider'd by all Pretenders to Perfection For the Injunction he intimates though not made for the Perfect would however be kept by them and they would shew they were under Grace by Exceeding and not by Transgressing the Ecclesiastical Law In as much as he that fasts every day will not fail to fast forty and he that is ready to offer his whole Time will not hold back the Tenth § III. WE see how far Cassian's Expressions are from any Reflexion upon the Institution of Lent and those of St. Jerome alledg'd usually for the same Purpose apparently require the same Construction and need only to be seen if the Reader will bear the length of the Passage e Some may say if it be not lawful to observe Days and Months c. we then are under the like Guilt who observe Wednesday and Friday and the Lord ' s Day and the Fast of the Forty Season and the Holy Days of the Passover and the Joy of the Pentecost and the several Days that are kept in several Countries in Honour of Martyrs To this he that will give the plain Answer will reply That the Days the Jews observe are not the same with ours For we do not celebrate the Passover of Vnleavened Bread but of the Resurrection and the Cross neither do we in Pentecost reckon the Seven Weeks with the Jews
but in Veneration of the Coming of the Holy Ghost And least the want of orderly Assembling should be a Cause of Decay of Religion therefore Days in which we should come together have been appointed not that the Day in which we meet is of it self more solemn but that in what day soever it be we meet there may arise a Festival Joy from our mutual sight one of another This is the plain Answer But he that would endeavour to give a more Acute and Refined one will say That all Days are equal and that Friday is not the only day of the Crucifixion nor the Lord ' s Day of the Resurrection but that there is always a resurrection-Resurrection-Day to Him and that he always feeds on our Lord's Body but that such Days of Fasting and Assembling have been prescribed by Wise Men for the sake of those who are employed more about the World than God and cannot or rather will not assemble together every day of their Life The Plain Answer for ought appears is not judg'd by St. Jerome to be the worst And the other the more Subtil one relishes we know of the Refinement and Allegory of Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus from whom I suppose it was taken and what we before observed is now to be remembred That the Lord's Day it self is here put in the same Case with the Days of Lent c. and that the reason for their Institution is common and that they are said alike all of them to have had Prudent Men for their Authors Now those prudent Men if they were the Authors of the Observation of the Lord's Day must have been the Apostles themselves as we presume the Authors of the Observation of a Lent were at least Apostolical but if they are to be understood the Authors of the Injunction of such an Observation in that sense possibly the Authors for the Lord's Day might have been Apostolical and those for an Additional Lent beyond good-Good-Friday or Saturday yet later He too that makes this last answer and seems to slight the Ordinance of Times and Days does it in Vertue of his great Perfection such of which Cassian now spake One who is above the Ordinance because he never wanted it as a charitable Christian is above the Law against Stealing and does not plead for the Abridgment of the Fast but for the Extending it throughout the Year therefore accounting no Single Day Holy because All are so to him § IV. THESE are the Objections against the devout Institution of Lent brought out of St. Jerome and Cassian others there are from St. Chrysostome but of the like Nature and not worth the answering As when he says in the Passage above produced That every Communion is a Passeover he speaks it partly in the sense now mentioned and besides in opposition to the Jewish Superstition of those Syrians who took the Levitical Designation of the Passover to be still in force And when he elsewhere prefers the Abstinence from Vice as from Swearing before that from Meats it is plain he speaks not against the Observation of that Abstinence as a thing not to be practis'd but as a thing absurd and unprofitable without a suitable Conversation a necessary Concomitant and always to be presum'd As therefore we have Mr. Daille's Confession for the Universal Observation of these Forty Days at the latter end of this Age and that Lent hereafter increased rather than diminished so we hope the equal Reader will confess That the Prejudices that very Learned Person would have raised against it from some Authors about that time are very unjustly grounded I have therefore now no more to do in this first Part of my Task and am to shut up my Evidence and conclude here with a brief Recapitulation But in that I shall be assisted by two Cotemporary Authors about the Middle of the fifth Age. Sozomen and Socrates whom the Reader will be pleased to hear b Cassian Coll. 21. Cap. 30. Sciendum sane bane Observantiam Quadragesimae quamdiu Ecclesiâ—e islius Primitivae â—ersâ—â—tiv permansit penitus non fuisse Non enim Pracepti bujus necessiate nes quasi legali sanctione constricti arâ—tissimis Jâ—â—â—ierum terâ—â—inis claâ—debantur qui totum anni spariam aquali jejanâ—â— concludebant Verum cum ab illa Apostoliâ—a Devotione dâ—scendens quotidie Credâ—â—ium multitudo suis opibus â—â—cubaret id tune universis Sacerdotibus placuit ut bomines this secularibus illigatos pene ut ita dixerim continentâ—e compunctionis ignaros ad opus sanctum â—â—anonied jejuniorum indictione revocarent velut Legalium Decimarum c necessitate compellerent quaâ—utique Infirmis prodesse possu Perfectis prajudicare non possiâ— qui sub gratia Evangelli constiuâ—i volâ—â—â—aria Legem devotione transcendunt c This Tenth of the Days of the Year is 36 the Number of Fast Days in a Lent oâ— 6. Weeks such as the Alexandrians kept as well as the Luiâ—s And this Number is the Integral Tenth of the Days of a Solar Year but exactly so of the Aegyptian Year which reckon'd but 360 days and accounted the other as super-numerary For this Notion of Tithing of the Year looks like a Subtilty of their Calculation d Cass de Coenob Inst 2.5 In primordiis â—idâ—i punck quidem sed probaâ—issimi snui a Marco Norman susâ—â—pâ—re â—lâ—â—â—â—l non solum illa magnifica retinebam quae priâ—â—us Crâ—â—enti◠〈◊〉 bas legimus celebrassâ— verum his multo sablâ—â—loâ—â—â—â—â—rant Ea igitur tempasiate cum Eâ—eleâ—i◠〈…〉 Perfectio penes sucessores suos adhue recenti memoria inviolata permaneret fervensque Paucorum sides needum in Multitudinem diffusa repuisset e Hieron in cap. 3. Ep. ad Galat. Dicat aliquis si Dies observare non licet Menses Tempora Annos Nos quoque simile Crimen incurrimus Quartam sabbati observantes Parasceven Diem Dominicam jejunium Quadragesimae Paschâ—e Festivitatem Pentecostes Laetitiam pro varietate Regionum diversa in honorem Martyrum tempora constituta Ad quod qui simpliciter respondebit dicet non eosdem Judaicae observationis dies esse quos nostros Nos enim non Azymorum Paschà celebramus sed Resurrectionis Crucis Nee septem juxta morem Israel numeramus Hebdomadas in Pentecoste sed Spiritus sancti veneramur Advemum Et ne inordinata congregatio populi fidem mimueret in Christo propterea dies aliqui constituti sunt ut in unum omnes pariter veniremus Non quo celebrior sit dies illa qua convenimus sed quo quacunque die conveniendum six ex conspectu mutuo latitia major oriatur Qui vero oppositae quastioni acutius respondere conatur illud affirmat omnes dies â—quales esse nec per Parasceven tantum Christum crucifigi Die Dominica resurgere sed semper sanctam Resurrectionis esse Diem semper cum Carne vesci Dominica Jejuniorum autem Congregationum interea dies propter cos
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-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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
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
several Kinds of Fasts Sect. II. Several Occasions of Fasting particularly Penitence and Baptism p. 20 Chap. III. Concerning the Fast before the Festival of the Resurrection Sect. I. The General Presumption for its Apostolical Antiquity Sect. II. A Particular Proof of it from Irenaeus Sect. III. The different Length of that Fast down to Irenaeus his time with some probably of 40 days p. 31 Chap. IV. The Practice of Fasting mentioned about the Year 200 by Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian Sect. I. The Weekly Fasts of Wednesday and Friday mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus Sect. II. Testimonies out of Tertullian concerning both the Weekly and Ante-Paschal Fasts Sect. III. Observations upon those Testimonies Some part of the Ante-Paschal Fast thought Necessary by the Catholicks of his time the rest Discretionary p. 46 Chap. V. Sect. 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 Transtation concerning the Fast of the Quadragesima or the Forty Season Sect. II. A distinct Account of the Passion-Week from Dionysius of Alexandria about the middle of the Third Century Sect. III. What were the first Paschal Solemnities mentioned by St. Cyprian and concerning the Passion-Week p. 70 Chap. VI. Sect. I. A mention of a Forty Days Fast by Peter of Alexandria before the Council of Nice Sect. II. Very probably they were the Days before Easter p. 88 Chap. VII Sect. I. good-Good-Friday and Days of solemn Fasting mentioned by Constantine Sect. II. The Forty Season expresly mentioned by the Council of Nice Sect. III. And that Forty Days are to be understood proved from St. Chrysostome p. 98 Chap. VIII Sect. I. This Forty Season particularly observed by the Candidates for Baptism Sect. II. And by Penitents p. 112 Chap. IX Sect. I. A Lent always and every where observed though not of Forty Days Sect. II. Mr. Daille 's Objections against it from Cassian Sect. III. From St. Jerome Sect. IV. From St. Chrysostome p. 122 Chap. X. Sect. I. Sozomen 's Account of the keeping of Lent in his Time about Ann. Chr. 440. Sect. II. What Additions have been made since Sect. III. Socrates his Account of the Practice of the same Age I suppose by the Novatians Sect. IV. His Wonder That Lents of differing Lengths should all of them be called the Forty Season Sect. V. The Conclusion p. 133 PART II. The Essay concerning its Original Preface p. 149 REPART I. That most of the Ancient Christian Ordinances were derived from the Jews Chap. I. or II. for so it is to be reckon'd hereafter by the error of the Press Sect. 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 Sect. II. Baptism It was a Rite by which as well as by others Proselytes were admitted into Judaism Sect. III. Christian Baptism as expressed in the New Testament an Imitation of it p. 153 Chap. III. Sect. I. The Nature of the Paschal Sacrifice and the Description the Jewish Traditions give of that Supper Sect. II. Agreeable to the History in the Gospels of our Lord's Supper and to the Nature of it p. 167 Chap. IV. Sect. I. The Church of Christ succeeds to the Church of the Jews Sect. II. The Officers of the One rais'd from the Officers of the Other The Apostles of each Sect. III. And the Bishops Sect. IV. The Presbyters or Elders of the Jews Sect. V. The Christian Presbyters and their Power Sect. VI. The Ministerial Officers of the Jews Sect. VII Answered by our Deacons p. 175 Chap. V. Sect. I. The Excommunicates of the Jews and their Condition Sect. II. The Condition of Mourners among the Jews compared with that of the Excommunicate Sect. III. Their Excommunicates restrained from the Liberty not only of Civil Conversation but of Religious Communion Sect. IV. Excommunication mentioned in the New Testament as practis'd by the Jews and by Christians p. 209 Chap. VI. Sect. I. Circumstances relating to Baptism under Five Heads practis'd in the Church of Christ in the Second Century Sect. II. These all agreeable to Jewish Custom and First in General as to the Persons baptiz'd and Baptizing and the Solemn Time of Baptism Sect. III. In Particular Secondly as to the Distinction and Instruction of its Candidates Sect. IV. Thirdly As to the Action of Baptism Sect. V. Fourthly Its Confirmation Sect. VI. And Lastly the Sequel and Close of the whole Ceremony p. 236 Chap. VII Sect. I. Several Particulars practis'd in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper by the Primitive Christians which vary'd from those of the Paschal Supper Sect. II. These speak Our Lord's Supper to have succeeded the Paschal in its general nature as a Memorial of Thanks Sect. III. The Description of a Jewish Offering of Praise and Thanks with the Feasting upon it Sect. IV. The Christian Eucharist answer'd to it and in what manner Sect. V. A Tradition of the Jews That in the days of the Messiah only the Eucharistical Sacrifice should remain p. 266 Chap. VIII Sect. I. The Distinction of Clergy and Laiety specified by Tertullian That of Bishops Priests and Deacons by Him Irenaeus also being his Leader for the Apostolical Authority of Bishops Sect. II. And by Ignatius as the other at least of the Laiety and Clergy by St. Clemens of Rome Sect. III. The First Distinction deriv'd from the Language of the Old Testament The Offices of the Second from those of the Jewish Sanhedrim and likewise of the Temple the Upper parts of our Churches being also suppos'd to answer the Temple Courts of the Priests and the Altar p. 291 Chap. IX Sect. I. The Sentence and Effects of Excommunication with Christians as with Jews and the Relaxation of it alike Sect. II. Their Agreement in the estimate of the Guilt of Sins and the appointments of Penance p. 318 Chap. X. Sect. I. A Parallel of Christian Rites mention'd by Tertullian and Sect. II. Of those Vsages mention'd by Origen particularly about Prayer 1. Disposition of Mind 2. Posture of Body 3. Direction of the Face Sect. III. 4. Times of Daily Prayer Sect. IV. 5. Matter and Method Sect. V. The Antient Order of Christian Prayer Sect. VI. And the Order of the Jewish Sect. VII Compar'd Sect. VIII A Parallel of some few other Usages p. 332 Chap. XI Sect. I. The Second Prejudice against a Jewish Origination of Lent from want of Authority in the Talmudical Writings Sect. II. Answer'd by shewing 1. That those Traditional Accounts were not without some Antient Foundation of their own Sect. III. Secondly That they are Confirm'd in many points by Collateral Evidence Sect. IV. And Thirdly That they were not borrow'd by the Jews from Foreign Authors Sect. V. The Third Prejudice against such an Origination from the Novelty of it Answer'd p. 364 REPART II. A Conjecture concerning the Original of Lent Chap. I. Our Easter kept for some time with the Jewish
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-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
of Faith e though some of them were accused of Sabellianism f but only in some Rigours of Practice which he enjoyn'd as by Divine Command He absolutely forbad all second Marriages condemn'd all declining of Danger in time of Persecution made the Abstinence of the ordinary Stations to be longer and more severe dismissing their Assemblies later and allowing then a very spare Refreshment He ordered the Fast before Easter to consist of Two Weeks f 2 and besides instituted two New Lents or Seasons of Fasting g each of a Week excepting the Saturday for they fasted no Saturday but that before Easter b These and such like Ordinances he pretended to be dictated by the Holy Spirit to him and his two Prophetesses on whom the Comforter had at last according to our Saviour's Promise descended in a more plentiful manner than upon the Apostles and with fuller and more perfect Instructions Consequently those of this Sect from theâ—r pretences to the Spirit and to a stricter manner of Life took themselves to be the only spiritual Persons calling the Catholicks Carnal and Animal Men i and esteem'd the Writings of their two Prophetesses above the other Books of the New Testament k supposing them to be both the Completion and Conclusion of it and admitting afterwards no more l Of this Sect was Tertullian a Man of an austere Life and rigid Temper and a fierce Disputer but excellently Learn'd and after his peculiar fashion very Eloquent His Book concerning Fasting happens to be preserv'd where in Justification of his own Party he summs up the Opinion and the Practice of his Adversaries the Catholicks about that Matter m They accuse us saith he that we keep Fasts of our own that for the most part we prolong the time of our Stations to the Evening and that we use the Dry Diet feeding on no Flesh nor Broth nor any Juicy Fruit neither Eating nor Drinking any thing that is Vinous and that besides we then abstain from Bathing an Abstinence consequent to such a Dry Food This they object to us for an Innovation and conclude it to be unlawful either to be judg'd Heretical if it be a Humane Doctrine or to be condemn'd for false Prophecy if it pretends to be an Ordinance of the Spirit So that we are either way to be Accus'd as those who preach another Gospel For as to Fasts they tell us That certain Days have been appointed by God As when in Leviticus the Lord commands Moses That the 10th day of the 7th Month should be a Day of Propitiation saying * Lev. 2â— 27. It shall be holy to you and you shall afflict your Souls and every Soul that afflicts not it self that day shall be destroyed from among my People And in the Gospel they suppose those Days determined to Fasting in which the Bridegroom was taken away and that those only now are the days appointed in ordinary for Christian Fasts the old Observances of the Mosaical Law and the Prophets being now abolish'd for when they have a mind they can understand what is meant by that the Law and Prophets were unto John and therefore that as for any other time Fasting is to be used according to Discretion and upon particular Occasions and Causes not by the Command of any new Discipline For so did the Apostles not laying upon the Disciple any other Burden of Set Fasts and such as should be observed in common by All and consequently not of Stations neither which have indeed their Set Days Wednesday and Friday but so as that they are to be kept discretionally not by force of any Command nor beyond the last hour of the Day the Prayers then being generally ended by Three in the Afternoon after the example of St. Peter mentioned in the * Acts 10.30 Acts. But the Dry Diet our Xerophagy is they say a new Name for a new affected Duty too like the Heathen Superstition being such an Abstinence as is used to Apis and Isis and the Mother of the Gods This is his Representation of the Catholicks Thoughts concerning the Ante-Paschal Fast from which he argues in the 13th Chapter n You plead says he that the Christian Faith hath its Solemnities already determined by Scripture or Tradition and that no other Observation is to be super-added because of the Vnlawfulness of Innovation Keep to that ground if you can for here I find you your selves both fasting out of the Paschal Season besides those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away and also interposing the Half-fasts of your Stations and sometimes too living on Bread only and Water as every particular Person thinks fit You answer indeed that these things are done at your Liberty and not by Command but then you have quitted your Ground and gone beyond your Tradition when you do such things as have not been appointed you And so in the next Chapter o in answer to those who compar'd them to the Galatians as Observers of Days and Months he replies That they observe not the Jewish Ceremonies but that to the New Testament there belong new Solemnities Otherwise says he if the Apostle has abolished all Religion of Days and Times and Months and Years Why do we both Montanists and Catholicks celebrate the Paschal Season yearly in the first Month Why do we pass the fifty days following in Joy and Exultation Why do we consecrate Wednesday and Friday to Stations and Friday or good-Good-Friday p to Fastings Although you Catholicks also sometimes continue Saturday a day never to be fasted except in the Week before Easter for a Reason given in another place q And lastly in the next the 15th Chapter r taking notice that the Apostle condemn'd those who commanded to abstain from Meats foreseeing Marcion and Tatian and such Hereticks who would enjoin perpetual Abstinence in contempt of what the Creator had made in Vindication of their own Sect from Heresie he subjoins For how very little is the Prohibition of Meat we have made We offer to our Lord two Weeks of Dry Diet and those not whole Weeks neither Saturdays and Sundays being exempted abstaining then from such Food which we do not reject but only defer To these Testimonies of Tertullian out of this Book we may subjoin another out of his Dissertation about Prayers s Where after he has explained the Lord's Prayer and spoke of some Requisites to Prayer he then comes to censure some superstitious Observances about it and particularly taxes a Custom that had began to prevail Those who were in a Fast towards the Conclusion of their Assemblies and just before the Communion not saluting their Brethren with the Holy Kiss then always us'd on that occasion This declining to salute had been the Fashion of the Jews in their Fasts as a sign of Sorrow and is reprov'd here by Tertullian in Christians as being a kind of Ostentation of their Fasting and contrary therefore to the Direction of our Saviour which commands us not to appear to men to
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
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
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-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
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
the consideration of our Saviour's and the Mercy of his Expiation more sensibly Ador'd in the consideration of those Sins whose Pardon we implore For that Double Reason and with this Double Duty has Good Friday been always observ'd Nor will the Devout Practice be blam'd by any Regular Church or Christian Regular I say not speaking of those who will not keep the Day because the Papists do for by the same reason they may refuse to keep Sunday or because it is injoin'd to the Prejudice they say of their Christian Liberty for so they may refuse to yield to an Argument because it convinces them § III. NOW these two Great Duties when they are once fix'd upon their proper Day which they will fully imploy will also require that we should come in some measure Fit for so weighty an Office and should be Prepar'd in a more than Ordinary manner for the Extraordinary Performance For according to the Supposition I now us'd were we to celebrate the Anniversary of our Lord's Passion only and with no respect to our Sins since our Baptism yet we should come upon the solemn Day too Rashly and Unworthily if we did not appoint some others to go before it and usher it in and should seem to have too low thoughts of the sacred Mystery if we did not take care to rise up to the high Consideration by the steps and ascents of some previous Meditations To the keeping of the Great Memorial rightly such Preparatory Remembrances would be wanting that we may bring to it a fuller and livelier Perception of the Mercies of God in Christ may the better comprehend with all Saints the Dimensions of that surpassing inestimable Love may more profoundly Adore more gratefully Thank and more zealously Devote our selves and our Service having before-hand endeavour'd to Confirm and Actuate our Faith to Raise and Quicken our Hope and to Oblige and Inflame our Charity But such a Preparatory Season is still more needful for the other the Penitential part that we should afore begin to Recollect our past Transgressions to Reflect upon their Guilt and to dispose our Minds to an Abhorrence of them that we should beseech God humbly for his Grace to promote this Holy Work should review our Baptismal Covenant bewail its Breaches and Repair them by Confession to God and Restitution to Men Renewing our Vows and Mortifying our Lusts and recovering and improving our virtuous Habits against that Friday when we are solemnly to appear in the Divine Presence Contrite and truly sorrowful for our Sins stedfastly resolv'd to Forsake them and as much as in us lies Qualified for their Pardon Thus would a Preparation have been Necessary to either of those Two Offices Apart but much more justly will they expect it when join'd together when we are to be Provided both fitly to Contemplate the Mystery and effectually to be Benefited by its Expiation For these Holy and Important purposes Lent is instituted a solemn and large space of time to be Religiously imploy'd by each private Christian at his Discretion as the condition of his Soul shall require and the circumstances of his Worldly Affairs permit Accordingly the First Day of it gives Warning of the then distant Propitiation Day and calls us early to our Duty actually entring us on the Godly Work by Reflection on our Sins and Acknowledgment of Divine Justice by Fasting and Prayer and engaging us to go on and to make use of the following Intermediate Season for the perfecting our Repentance and for our Increase in the Knowledge of the Cross of Christ that Wisdom and Power of God A notice very necessary to those who want a solemn Monitor and which by the Grace of God may some time or other serve to Awaken and Reclaim them but always Acceptable and Welcome to the Good Christian who the more sensible he is of his own Offences and of the Mercy of God in Christ the more ready he will be to comply with the Advice and the more glad of the occasion Some days therefore of those many that follow are presum'd to be set apart for such Preparatory Thoughts and Actions Wednesdays we may suppose and Fridays those Weekly Passion Days when also Opportunities of Publick Devotion are every where presented and in our Great City Exhortations likewise and Instructions are administer'd by the Wife and Pious Order of the present Diocesan But the last Week is more particularly Dedicated to this Office and then the Church expects its devout Members daily to appear before God together to meditate on the Passion of their Lord and with Penitent Hearts and earnest Resolutions of Dying likewise unto Sin to Attend thenceforth upon him to his Cross and wait till his Resurrection and also Directs us to pass the time not in such Rigorous Austerities as unprofitably afflict the Body but in such an Abstinence from divertive Pleasures and even from common Liberties of Food and Pursuits of Business as may speak our Thoughts and Affections to be otherwise imploy'd and freeing them from Avocation and Distraction may Cherish and Improve them By this Orderly and Natural Method we are design'd to be brought at last to the Memorial of our Expiation with such a sence of our Sins and of the Mercy of our Suffering Saviour as may procure from God the Pardon of what is Past and his Grace and Assistance for the Future that the following Years may have reason to bless those Forty Days and still successively advancing may every Lent find Fewer and Lighter Sins to Confess and be still more ready to Lament them This is the Innocent and Godly Intention of that Time which those of us who Understand will certainly Commend and those who Commend should take care to Pursue FINIS Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1. INstitutiones Grammaticae Anglo-Saxonica Meso-Gothicae Aâ—ctore Georgio Hicksio Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbytero 4 to 2. Christ Wasit Senarius five de Legibus Litentia veterum Poetarum 4 to 3. Misna Pars Ordims primi Jeraim titul Septem Latine vertit Commentario illustravit Gulielmus Guistâ—â—s Accedit Mosis Maimonidis Praesatio Edvardo Pocockio Interprete 4 to 4. Joannis Antiocheni Cognomento Mallalae Hist Chronica è M.S. Bibliothecae Bodleianae Praemittitur Dissertatio de Authore Per Humph. Hodium D. D. 8 vo 5. Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book 1606. concerning the Government of God's Catholick Church and the Kingdoms of the whole World 4 to 6. True Conduct of Persons of Quality Translated out of French 8 vo 7. A Treatise relating to the Worship of God divided into Six Sections Concerning First The Nature of Divine Worship Secondly The peculiar Object of Worship Thirdly The true Worshippers of God Fourthly Assistance requisite to Worship Fifthly The Place of Worship Sixthly The solemn Time of Worship By John Templer D. D. 8 vo 8. A Defence of revealed Religion in six Sermons upon Romans 1.16 wherein it is clearly and plainly