recommended the Custom of his side That there were too deposited in Asia the Remains of very great Saints and Martyrs Philip and his three Daughters St. John who lay in our Lord's breast Polycarp Thraseas Sagaris and Melito who all had kept the 14th day of the Passover according to the Gospel and so adds he have I according to the Tradition of my Kinsmen or Countrymen or my Predecessors in this See i with some of whom I conversed They were seven and I am the eighth and they always kept the Day when Leaven was forbid I therefore who am now 65 Years old in the Lord and have conversed with our Brethren of the whole World and have perused all holy Scripture am not at all moved at those who trouble and threaten me For my Betters have said God is rather to be obeyed than Man This Holy Man was himself a great Evidence of the Antiquity of the Custom for which he stands He was about the 8th Bishop from St. John for however the Word is to be rendered about so many sate in the same interval at Rome and writes this about 90 Years after his Death when he himself had been a Christian 65 Years of them and able to testifie of all those Years if he was baptized Adult as they then generally were We may too think that he had some particular Instances in his View of the Practice of those Persons whose Names he vouches if we may infer from what we chance to know of two of them Melito and Polycarp For Melito who was Bishop of Sardes had as Eusebius tells us in another place (k) Hist Eccl. 4.26 some twenty Years before wrote a Treatise of the Lord's Day and two Books concerning the Passover or the Christian Solemnity at that time of the Year there having been a great Dispute raised about it at Laodicea then when Sagaris the Bishop of that Place named here by Polycrates received his Martyrdom a Dispute I suppose of the same nature with This. And in it Polycarp here too mentioned had been engaged before who went to Rome as St. Jerome (l) Catal. Scâ—ip Eccl. expresses it about some Questions concerning the Paschal Observation in Anicetus his Pontificate And the Conversation which he had with Anicetus about that Subject we have related by Irenaeus a Disciple of Polycarp's and who had been bred up in Asia He now Bishop of Lyons in France though declaring for Victor yet interposing and endeavouring to moderate the Heat of the Controversie in a piece which Eusebius has sav'd of that Letter (m) 5.24 among other things told Victor as follows And the Presbyters before Soter who presided in the Church which you now govern I mean Anicetus and Pius and Hyginus and Telesphorus and Xystus neither kept the 14th day themselves nor permitted those of their Church to do it And nevertheless they not keeping it held Communion with those who came from other Dioceses where it was kept Although then when they were together in Rome the keeping it was more contrary to those who kept it not n And none were ever refus'd Communion for this Matter But the Presbyters before you who kept it not sent the Eucharist to those of the Dioceses who kept it And when Blessed Polycarp was at Rome in Anicetus his time and there were some Differences between them about other things They presently agreed never proceeding to have any Contention on this Subject Anicetus not prevailing with Polycarp to forego a Custom which he had all along observ'd with St. John the Disciple of our Lord and the other Apostles with whom he had conversed and Anicetus alledging That he for his part ought to keep the Custom of the Bishops his Predecessors And these things standing so they communicated together and in the Congregation Anicetus gave Polycarp the Respect of Celebrating the Eucharist and they departed from each other in Peace in all the Churches those who kept and those who did not keep preserving Peace and Communion one with another Here then we have Polycarp a Disciple of St. John attesting to the Asian Tradition an undeniable Witness of its Apostolical Antiquity We know too that this Discourse of his with Anicetus must be at farthest in the year 161 if we reckon Anicetus his Death with Bishop Pearson and in the year 153 if with Mr. Dodwell between 30 and 40 years before this Dispute of Victor's And indeed it seems plain from the same piece of Irenaeus his Letter that this Difference had been taken notice of almost from St. John's time though mutually tolerated For to that purpose he mentions the behaviour of Anicetus Pius Hyginus Telesphorus Xystus all Bishops of Rome up to the year of our Lord 101 by Bishop Pearson 102 by Mr. Dodwell very near the time of St. John's Decease From all which we see not only what good Authority the Asiaticks disputing with Victor had for their Tradition but that this matter had been long before brought into Question and made so remarkable very early that those of both sides must have had some distinct and more than general remembrance of the successive Practice of their several Customs convey'd down to them Neither indeed could those of Victor's Judgment have ever oppos'd the Asiatick Observation whose Antiquity was so well prov'd if they had not produc'd on their side as good Evidence for their own such Evidence I say as they might well be furnisht with from the elder Memorials of the same debate And thus did both sides of this Great Dispute however they differ'd in the particular manner of their Paschal Observation absolutely agree in the general concerning the Apostolical Antiquity of it A little while after this time Clemens of Alexandria wrote a Treatise concerning the Paschal Observation and some Dissertations concerning Fasting all which are lost And the Design of his Paschal Book as Eusebius tells us (o) Eus Eccl. H. l. 6. c. 13. was to deliver down the Traditions which he had receiv'd from those before him about that subject and in it he made mention of Melito and Irenaeus whose Relations he set down Hippolitus likewise a Bishop and Martyr a Disciple of Irenaeus in the year 221 wrote a Book of the Paschal Season in which (p) Eus E. H. lib. 6. c. 22. as Eusebius says he gives an Account of the past Times by a repeated Cycle of 16 Years concluding in the first Year of Alexander the Emperour's Reign which Book is wanting But a Table of his engraven in Stone was happily dug up at Rome the last Age which beginning at that first Year of Alexander gives all the Easter Days which were then to come for 112 Years with as much Formality and Method as they have been us'd to be calculated since (q) Apud Bâ—â—her in Vidorium Such express Accounts of the Paschal Season there have been heretofore given very near the Apostles times which had they been preserved might have more particularly informed us
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-Friday is mentioned peculiarly not simply for its being a Common 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-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-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
Occasion for such a mention the Church having been generally imployed hitherto either in Apologies for their Religion against the Heathens or the Defence of it against Heathenish Heresies or the suffering of Persecution for it But now in the next Age when Christianity comes to be owned and countenanced by the Government their Writings will be more frequent and more copious and express and amongst other Observations of our Religion we shall not fail to find sufficient Information of this after which we are inquiring But before we come to those happy Days the last fierce Persecution it self began by Diocletian in the East according to Baronius in the Year 302 and there continued by the Cruelty of those who governed that part of the Empire gave occasion for some sort of mention of Forty Days which it may be to our Purpose to observe Before the Persecution began and in the beginning of this Century the Episcopal Chair of that great Christian City Alexandria in which the above-nam'd Dionysius had sate was now fill'd by one Peter a very venerable Person Eminent for his Knowledge and Sanctity and who at last suffered Martyrdom in the Year 311. And upon the rising of this sharp Persecution the Christians had behaved themselves very differently some had endured to the last with admirable Constancy some yielded and deni'd their Religion after the suffering of grievous Torments some upon the offer of Torture after they had undergone the Pains of Imprisonment and some at the first Accusation Of those too who had not renounc'd some had escaped by Flight some by buying off the Prosecution and some by hiring Witnesses to attest to some Idolatrous Act of theirs which had been never done Of all these sorts there were many who desired to be re-admitted to the Communion of the Church and some had now long sought it with much Lamentation to whose various Circumstances different Rules were therefore to be suited such as this Peter after deliberation had with his Brethren delivered in a Discourse now lost but from which some Excerpts had been made in form of Canons and by that means preserved to us The first Canon as Zonaras and Balsamon give it is thus a Whereas now the fourth Easter is come upon this Persecution it may suffice for those who were accused and imprisoned and indured insufferable Tortures and intolerable scourgings and many other grievous Cruelties but after all were betrayed by the Weakness of the Flesh for those I say though they were not admitted into Communion at first by reason of that their great Apostasie yet because they strove much and resisted a long while for they fell not upon Choice but were betrayed by the Weakness of the Flesh and because they bear still in their Bodies the Marks of their Lord and some of them have been mourning these three Years for these I say it may suffice That a Penance of Other Forty Days to be reckon'd from after their Admission should be additionally inflicted on them for their Admonition which Forty days tho' our Saviour had fasted after Baptism yet He was tempted of the Devil in which they too being exercised super abundantly and more earnestly sober may watch unto Prayer continually meditating on that Answer given by our Lord when he was urged by the Tempter to fall down and worship him Get thee behind me Satan for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve This is the first Canon and for the better understanding of it we only add That the second imposes another Year's Penance upon those who had suffered the Pain and Misery of Imprisonment but did not resist Torture and that the third puts those off to the End of another Year for Trial and not till then to receive their Sentence who out of Fear and Cowardliness had yielded presently § II. Forty Days of Fasting and strict Devotion are here singularly and eminently mentioned but in what part of the Year they were plac'd it is not here certainly determined If by the fourth Easter is come as I have render'd it may be understood is now coming and the Bishop's Discourse may be dated before Easter those Forty Days would then be in all probability before Easter too and the very Lent which we are now looking after They must undoubtedly have some near Aspect upon Easter For why else is it mentioned and the Years of Persecution reckoned by it And no time was so proper to re-admit Penitents solemnly to Christian Communion as this of the Passover when the Pardon of our Sins was recogniz'd by the solemn Memory of our Saviour's Death on the Friday and the Holy Communion the Sacrament of his Death was so solemnly frequented on the Sunday neither was any Season of the Year more fit for the stricter Humiliation of the Penitent than that on which all good Christians were ready to join in something of the like Devotion For this Reason we may justly suppose St. Cyprian (b) Ep. 56. Edit Oxon. was consulted before Easter about the same Case the Reconciliation of those who had been Penitents three Years that if he had answered favourably they might have been admitted at the approaching Festival So have we under this Supposition a Lent of Forty Days for Penitents at least to be kept throughout by them and with great Severity while the rest beginning as early and using such Abstinence as their Discretion directed and the Necessities of their Conscience required equalled generally the Austerities even of those at the latter End And this way if we are allowed to conceive the Canon the Other Forty Days there mentioned may then respect the former Three Lents that had gone before except any one would rather understand that one particular Lent to be intimated which had been kept by these Christians just before they were Baptized which too was done generally at Easter and which they were now ordered to keep in the same manner again before they should be again received into the Church And thus the Forty Penitential Days will be the very Forty Days of Lent if we suppose the Synod to be held before Easter as the Nicene Council did order afterwards But if it was not and they did not concur with such a Lent they will however infer It. Let us then suppose the Synod to have been assembled after Easter And very probably it was for it is not unlikely that the Order of the Council of Nice in this Particular was a Change of the old Practice which Order was reversed in a little time by the Council of Antioch and besides we see that the Synod of Ancyra a Synod held on occasion of the same Persecution and much about the same time did meet after Easter for they speak of the Great Day the Day of Easter and seem to reckon it to be about a Year before it would come again Under this Supposition that Synod of Ancyra will help us to understand the other of
Abolition of Sins this is the Doctrine of the Rabbins according to Maimonides The Guilt of the Transgression of an Affirmative Precept or of a Sin of Omission if it does not deserve Excommunication by their Law for Death it never does is Expiated by Repentance alone The Guilt of the Transgression of a Negative Precept or of a sin of Commission if it deserves neither Death nor Excommunication is suspended by Repentance at present and Expiated by the Day of Propitiation And the Guilt of a Sin of Commission to which Death or Excommunication is due is suspended by Repentance and by the Day of Expiation and not Expiated but by Afflictions But the Guilt of the Profanation of the Name of God is suspended by Repentance the Day of Expiation and Afflictions and Expiated only by Death (c) Maâ—m de Poenit. Cap. 1. §. 7 8 9. Now Repentance is describ'd to consist of these Acts 1. Forsaking the Sin in Deed and in Thought and Resolving within our selves never again to commit it 2. Grieving for it 3. Vowing to God against it and 4thly the Profession of all this with our Mouths (d) Cap. 2. §. 3. with Confession of sins against Men before Men satisfaction being made also (e) Sect. 11. and of Sins done in private against God before God alone (f) Sect. 7. And therefore as he adds (g) Sect. 5. a Penitent is to cry day and night before God to strive with Him by Tears and Supplications to Give Almes to Avoid the Occasions or Opportunities of Sin to change his Name and his whole course of Life and to go into Voluntary Banishment And further he tells us (h) Sect. 8. that that all times are fit for Repentance and Crying to God but the most proper and acceptable Season is the Propitiation Day with the nine days before it This we have in general out of Maimonides In the Penitential Exscripts at the end of Morinus de Poenit. (i) Pag. 151. there are further Directions for particular Cases and some things thence it may be for our Use to observe A Murderer is to go into Banishment or on Pilgrimage for three Years to bear Forty stripes save one in every City to which he comes and to say I am a Murderer neither to eat Flesh nor to drink Wine except on Sabbaths and Holy-Days Not to shave his Head or Beard or to wash his Cloths or Body nor so much as to comb his Hair above once a Month or twice at most To ty the Hand and Arm that did the Murder in an Iron Chain to his Neck and to go barefoot and mourning for the Fact if any one Reproaches him to be silent and those three Years not to walk for Pleasure nor to use any Recreation and during his Pilgrimage to lay himself at the door of the Synagogue that they who go in and out may pass over him but they are not to tread upon him The Adulterer is to undergo Afflictions as bitter as Death for he is by the Law Guilty of Death for a Year not to eat Flesh nor drink Wine except c. every day in the Winter to sit in Snow or Ice for an hour and in the Summer amidst Bees or Wasps or as it is in the other Penitential (k) Page 157. every day that he suffers not from the Cold or Heat to Fast and to take nothing but Bread and Water in the Evening every day to confess his Sins with Tears and Sighs and to be beat with the 39 stripes and to ly upon the Ground or a Plank without straw c. except on Holy-Days to wear Sack-cloath also and to lead a mournful Life and to keep from all Conversation with Women He also that is guilty of some other sorts of Uncleanness is to Fast Forty Days continued l in them to use neither Flesh nor Wine nor to take any thing warm except on Sabbaths c. An Idolater as soon as he Returns and Repents is to wash himself and to endure Afflictions and Tribulations in proportion to his Crime He is to put on Mourning to weep and to afflict himself all the Days of his Life making his Confession thrice every day not to wash c. or to eat Flesh c. to be present at no Feast These are the most Criminal Cases and I shall only observe of the other there mention'd what we saw in one instance above that Forty Days are commonly specified for a more solemn Penitence and injoin'd in almost all of them as also in general that the Penitent is suppos'd to be as a Mourner Now no one that reads these Penitential Injunctions and knows any thing of the Practice of the Antient Church but will easily discern the Correspondence He will presently call to mind the severity of old that was us'd especially to Adulterers Murderers and Relaps'd Idolaters the Difficulty they found to be Restor'd and the Long and Rigorous Penances they underwent How they Lamented and Mourn'd and Prostrated themselves before the Doors of the Churches at the feet of the Brethren some of them not re-admitted till after many years others not Reconcil'd till the Point of Death and some not at all though left to the Mercy of God passing their time in Fasting and other Hardships for the Humiliation of their Body and Spirit and a testification of their sorrow both before God and Men. So like in very many points was the behaviour of Penitents both in the Synagogue and in the Church not to mention Change of Name or course of Life Pilgrimaging Voluntary Banishment or Abjuration especially of Murderers The tying up of their Arms in an Iron Chain and such kind of Practices which were frequent in after Ages and might have been sometimes us'd before though not then recorded But for a general view of this Correspondence of Practice in the Primitive Church we need only to compare Tertullian's Tract of Penitence or but only to look back upon those two Passages already cited thence in the second Chapter of the First Part. And as for the Vertue assigned to all kind of Afflictions we may find a suitable Opinion of them in Hermas the Antient Christian Writer He is told by the Angel that he is Afflicted to the end his Family may suffer and Repent and when he answers that behold they already Repent from the bottom of their Hearts the Angel replies I know they do But doest thou think m that the Sins of those who Repent are presently blotted out No not so quickly But he that is a Penitent must Afflict his Soul and behave himself Humbly in all he has to do and endure many and grievous Vexations and when he has suffer'd much then God may have mercy on him § I. c Ibidem etiam Exhortationes Castigationes Censura Divina Nam Judicatur magno cum Pondere ut apud certos de Dei conspectu summumque Futuri Judicii Praejudicium est siquis ita deliquerit ut
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