observance which was preparatory to the greatest Feast which was followed with the 50. days Solemnity Thus Philo contemporary of the Apostles concerning the Hebrew Christians in and about Alexandria where S. Mark was set Bishop by S. Peter I omit the Testimony of the 68. Canon of the Apostles for that Ecclesiastical Writers do not unanimously agree that those Canons at least all of them were made by the Apostles although the sixth General Councel Celebrated above a 1000. years agoe received and approved 85. of them There can be no doubt but they are very antient Bishop Gunning thinks they were made in the second Century by the Successors of the Apostles who in that Age were commonly as he says called Apostles The 68â—h Canon runs thus If any Bishop or Priest or Deacon or Lector or Cantor shall not Fast the sacred Lent Quadragesimam before Easter or Wednesday or Friday let him be deposed unless he be hindred by weakness of body But if he be a Laick let him be deprived of the Communion Indeed the Canon does not seem first to institute Lent but rather supposes it and urges its observance by inflicting a penalty upon Non-observers All which makes for my designed purpose for who could so early except the Apostles be the first Authors of such an Institution when as yet there had been no General Council except that of the Apostles at Hierusalem But have we no Scripture for the Observation of Lent Fast We have Scripture that our B. Saviour Fasted 40. days and we have also in Scripture that if any man says he is in Christ he ought to walk as he walk'd Moreover we have yet more express Scriptures as interpreted not by some one or two Fathers but by the whole body of Catholick Christians as Bishop Gunning well observes out of Tertullian cited above They that is the Catholick Christians who are called by him Psychici surely think that in the Gospel those days are determin'd for Fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away and a little after the Paschal Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away Those words then of our B. Lord in excuse of his Disciples not Fasting whilst he was with them Can you make the Children of the Bridegroom fast while the Bridegroom is with them But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them then shall they fast in those days Those words I say in the sense of the Primitive Church in the second Century were intended by our B. Saviour to signifie that Christians after his departure should Fast yearly upon Good-Friday the day of his death and the rest of the Pascal or Lent-Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away I add whether those words in those days did in the intention of our Saviour signifie Lent-Fast or no it 's evident had not the Primitive Christians Fasted Lent they would never have interpreted our Lords words as they did which is sufficient for my purpose to wit to evince that the most Primitive pure Church did Fast Lent And besides according to common sense who are more likely to understand aright our B. Saviours or his Apostles words they who lived in the next Age to them or we who live sixteen hundred years after Do we or any other Nation in the world understand our written Laws according to the sense a crafty witty Lawyer can wrest them to signifie or accordingly as they have been immemorially understood since the first making of them and as cases and disputes have by our Learned Judges been decided by them More-over suppose but only the Primitive Christians for whose sake the Holy Scriptures were written rightly understood them and let after Generations interpret the same Scriptures in the sense they were interpreted by their Ancestors and let this be their great enquiry how their Fore-elders understood them and its impossible they should ever be mis-understood but leave their Interpretation to every private mans sentiment and you open a gap to all Innovations and Heresies as Bishop Gunning judiciously observes Reason says he pag. 23. and experience and the direction of all Wise men in the Church of God Antient and Modern the House of Wisdom Councels Reverend Fathers and Writers and our Church in particular have directed and commanded us not to interpret the Scripture in things of publick concernment to the Churches rule of believing and doing but as we find it interpreted by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church as they had received it from those before them For that the leaving of every man to make any thing of any Text upon any device out of his own head to the founding of any new and strange Doctrin or Practice as necessary there from or to the opposing any constantly received Doctrin or Practice of the Church-Vniversal for in other matters they may happily with leave quietly abound in their own sense leaves all bold Innovators which can draw any disciples after them to be as much Law-givers to the Church by their uncontrolable Law interpreting as any Pope or Enthusiast can or need pretend to be and hath been and ever will be to the end of the World the ground of most Hâ—resies and Schisms brought into the Church by Men who departing from the teaching and stable Interpretation of the Church in their own Instability and Science falsly so called pervert the Scriptures to their own and others their obstinate followers destruction And indeed he who has so much Pride and Self-conceit as to prefer his own seeming sense of holy Scriptures before the sense which Holy Fathers and Christian. Doctors unanimously attest to have received from their Fore-elders is nextly disposed to vilifie and reject the whole Letter of Sacred Scriptures upon pretext of being uncertain whether the Letter now commonly owned and approved by the unanimous consent of Christian Doctors be indeed that Letter which was left the World by the Apostles But if a yearly Religious Observation of the Holy Fast of Lent be of such singular benefit and Spiritual advantage to all Christians and if also the Apostles of our Lord Jesus did recommend such an Observation to the several Countrys by them Converted to the Christian Faith how comes it to pass that none of all their Writings which have come to our hands makes express mention of it Hear Bishop Gunning p. 138. Ritual Observances being Visible and as it were legible in the Vniversal Churches constant practice needed not to be set down in her written rule Or those which are therein set down not necessarily so evidently but that they might need the Interpâ—etation of such the Churches practice And indeed whoever will impartially consider the nature of the Books of the New Testament will be so far from wondering that all the Rituals of Christianity are not expresly declared in them that he will rather wonder there is so much in them of the exterior Rites of Christian Religion as there is Had any
Fasting and whatsoever most severe Mortifications in exchange for its intolerable eternal torments And no less gladly and willingly ought we to do or suffer any thing never so troublesome to flesh and blood to prevent our falling into the same state of immutable unsufferable misery Often and seriously to think of this to wit that except we Repent with Fasting Weeping and Mourning we must Perish and that eternally would make the most rigorous severity seem gentle and easie Otherwhiles let us call to mind the eternal joyful Easter a Religious devout Lent-Fast will end in And this will make us cry out with the great S. Paul The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us Whatsoever we can suffer by Fasting or whatsoever other Christian severity in this our time upon this Earth is light easie if compared with the immense weight of eternal glory which expects us in the other Life Courage therefore O my soul. Sigh Pray and Fast Heaven will make amends for all Si credis omnia patere si non pateris non credis c. O Christian Man says the Divine S. Crysostom If thou believest be willing to suffer all things if thou art not willing to suffer thou doest not believe for such and so great things are promised us that rather than fall short of them we ought to suffer a thousand deaths undoubtedly a few Lent-Fasts Immortality Glory a Kingdom an eternal Kingdom is proposed unto us To which Kingdom He who to teach us the way to it Fasted 40. days and 40. nights bring all devout Imitators of his Quadragesimal Fast. Amen FINIS A Postscript IF any one be offended at the proving of Lent to be an Apostolical Institution by the unanimous Tradition of all Christian Countrys they are desired to Reflect First how they would Tryumph had they a like Tradition but even of one Country for a Non observance of Set-Fasts And Secondly how that all Christian Churches agree that a Sacred Reverence is to be given to whatsoever Doctrins or Practâ—ces can be proved to be Apostolical by a truly universal unanimous Tradition But the dispute betwixt the Church of Rome and Church of England is whether certain Doctrins or Practices were indeed always every where by all or in a manner by all Christian Doctors acknowledged as Apostolical I say by all or in a manner by all for as Bishop Gunning well observes p. 132. he would in a dangerous degree disserve our common Christianity who would reject some Book of H. Scripture the Epistles for example of S. James and S. Jude or something for being a Tradition Apostolical for the positive possible Rejection of some one Socrates or other Ecclesiastical Writer or some one or a few Fathers against the known generality and consent of the rest of Antient Writers and immemorial witness or practice of whole Christian Countrys And the reason is manifest especially in our present particular matter of Practice Had the H. Apostles for example in the several Countrys they Converted to Christianity taught no such thing as Abstinence from certain Meats on Fasting-days nor no Set-Fasts on Friday or Lent but had positively taught that to observe Solemn Set-Fasts was Legal as the Heretick Aerius and that Abstinence from certain Meats was vain and unprofitable as the Heretick Jovinian according to S. Aug. l. de Ser. n. 35. 82. That some one or a few pretenders to Christianity should either be ignorant what was taught them by the Apostles or would wilfully teach otherwise than they had been taught is no wonder but that all the several Christian Countrys in the World should make a distinction of days and meats and this ever since they were Christians they positively unanimously attesting as much and all their most antient Records partly positively witnessing the same partly being silent as to any Innovation and yet no such thing should be taught them but rather the quite contrary by the first Planters of the Christian Faith amongst them this is impossible And whoever goes about to weaken the force of Vniversal Tradition rightly understood invalidates as much as in him lyes all revealed Religion It being impossible to know assuredly any Books as to all that 's contained in them to be Divine Revelations but by such a Tradition Concerning this see Bishop Gunning above Christo Jejunanti Gloria
of it profess from Generation to Generation to have observed it from the first planting of Christianity amongst them and wheresoever Lent is not observed its Non-observers do profess only from such a time to have not observed it and their Ancestors before that time for divers Generations ever since they cannot well tell when had blindly observed it whence it is manifest that the observation of Lent is the ancient Christian practice and its non-observance a Novelty And indeed had the keeping of Lent been a Novelty and not heard of in the Primitive times its observance being so burthensome and contrary to flesh and blood and besides as its Opposers say Superstitious also it s not possible it should be introduced not into one but into all the Christian Countrys of both the Eastern and Western Church in a short time and with a small industry of its Introducers and without great opposition both from good Men for its Superstition and from bad Men for its troublesomeness to Corrupt nature But no Ecclesiastical History though far lesser matters be Recorded makes mention of any such opposition made against Lent in its first bringing in or how or by whom it was brought in even into so much as one particular Diocess But all Records testifie that the prime Doctors both of the Greek and Latin Church in the fifth and sixth Century have been most Religious Observers and Zealous defenders of it which certainly they would never have been had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty and not heard of in the first 300. years And indeed whosoever maturely considers the genius and temper of the Christian Doctors and Bishops for the first five hundred years after our Saviour will find it impossible for all the power of Hell to impose a Novelty upon them For they were not like the seeming Zelots of our Age pretenders to new Lights but their Profession was not to correct Antiquity but faithfully to deliver to Posterity what they immemorially from the Apostles had received from their Ancestors and their great Answer to Introducers of new Doctrines or Practices was Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est We must Innovate nothing but stick close to what has been delivered to us by our Fore-fathers Does a Montanus upon pretext of Divine Inspiration endeavor to impose upon Christians the observation of three Lents in the year the Church of Christ replys by one of her prime Doctors S. Hierom We Fast one Lent within the compass of the whole year according to the Tradition of the Apostles The Montanists keep three Lents in the year as if three Saviours had suffered For other Instances I refer my Reader to the Golden Treatise of S. Vincentius Lerinensis against Innovations As for Pretenders to discover new truths by reading of the Holy Scriptures it s easily conceivable how such persons may be imposed upon by subtil Sophisters and lead into Superstitious practices and made to believe Erroneous Doctrines to wit by bad and new Interpretations of good and antient Scriptures But on the other side how shall a Teacher of Novelties deceive a Country which is resolved to hold fast whatsoever Doctrin or Practice was taught them by their immediate Progenitors who received the same Doctrin or Practice by an uninterrupted delivery from Father to Son from the Apostles Let him pretend Scriptures and bring a thousand places out of the Law Psalms Prophets and Apostles what will the Reply be The Scriptures you alledge we Reverence and have ever been taught to Reverence them as Divine but we have been taught to interpret and understand them in another manner and sense then you alledge them Let him pretend Authority of Doctors as Learned as Origen or as Holy as Cyprian nay if he will a whole Provincial-Council as numerous as that in Africa which determin'd Re-baptization of Persons Baptized by Hereticks they reply We must not Innovate we must hold to what was taught us by our Ancestors What means then to make persons thus disposed to leave their antient faith and practice and admit of a Novelty you must prove to them that you and they and other Christians in several Countrys have been taught so to believe by your immediate Predecessors and uninterruptedly from Father to Son from the Apostles but then you cease to be a Preacher of Novelties contrary to the supposition Apply what has been said to our present Controversie Now that the study of the Christian Church in the fifth Century was not to deliver to Posterity Doctrins of her own devising but carefully to keep what she had received from her Fore-elders and faithfully to teach her Children what she had been taught by her Fathers is manifest out of S. Vincent cited above who lived in that Age and testifies that often asking of very many his Contemporaries famous for their Sanctity and Learning how he might be able to discern the truth of the Catholick Faith from the falsity of heretical pravity he always received this Answer in a manner from them all That if he desired to remain sound in his Faith he must fortifie it first with the Authority of the divine Law and then with the Tradition of the Catholick Church that is as he explicates himself afterwards He must examin what has always all over the Christian Church and by all Christian Doctors or in a manner by all been Believed and hold to that against all Novelties though defended by private Doctors never so Holy or never so Learned or producing never so many Scriptures for themselves if interpreted after a new manner But saies the same S. Vincent chap. 2. Here perhaps some body may ask seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect and is it self sufficient and more than sufficient for all things what need is there to add to it the Authority of the Ecclesiastical or Churches understanding of it Because the holy Scripture by reason of its depth is not by all taken in one and the same sense for Photinus expounds it one way Sabellius another Donatus another Arrius another And chap. 41. He tells us how the third General Council held in his days at Ephesus proceeding according to this rule Condemned Nestorius For the Fathers of that Christian Synod in number about 200. having consulted the sentiment of their Predecessors the eminent Doctors of the Oriental and Western Church S. Peter of Alexandria S. Athanasius S. Theophilus S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Basil S. Gregory Nyssen S. Felix S. Iulius S. Cyprian S. Ambrose concerning their Controversie in debate they resolved to hold their Doctrin to follow their Counsel to believe their Testimony to obey their Judgment Quae tandem c. What were at length saies S. Vincent the Voyces and Votes of them all but that what was anciently delivered should be kept what was of late invented should be exploded After which we admired and proclaimed the great Humility and Sanctity of that Council In which so many Priests in a manner also the greater part
were so many Metropolitans and of so great Erudition and Learning as they were almost all able to dispute of Dogms to whom when their gathering together in one seemed to add a confidence of daring and decreeing something from themselves yet notwithstanding they would presume nothing arrogate nothing at all to themselves but take all possible heed lest they should deliver to their Posterity what themselves had not received from their Fathers and not only well disposed the matter for the present but also give example to them that were to come to wit that they should reverence the Dogms of Sacred Antiquity and condemn adinventa the additional inventions of prophane Novelty Had Abstinence from certain kind of Meats for 40. days before Easter been a Superstitious Novelty its manifest no Introducer of it could have perswaded it to a Christian Church thus principled as the Doctors of this Age were They would all unanimously have reclaimed nothing must be Innovated besides what has been delivered to us by our Ancestors Or was Lent first taught in the Age fore-going and were the present Pastors of this 5th Age in the actual belief and practice of it If so how possibly could they profess to be such Zelots for Antiquity and such Exploders of Novelty and yet themselves most Religious Observers of a Superstitious practice never heard of till it was of late invented by their immediate Progenitors And how would their Adversary Nestorius have upbraided them with it when they objected to him the Novelty of his Doctrin Or perhaps was Lent first introduced in the third Age But that could not be neither the Doctors of that Age being no less Zealous for delivered doctriâ—s and practices nor less Opposers of Novelties than the 5th Age as is manifest by the contest betwixt the Bishop of Carthage and the Bishop of Rome and his Collegues where the Assertors of Re-baptization wanted neither Wit nor Eloquence nor number nor verisimilitude of truth nor Oracles of the Divine Law but understood after a bad and a new manner as S. Vincent says chap. 9 10. How then came they to lose their cause S. Stephen and his Collegues reclaimed Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est Nothing is to be innovated besides what has been delivered to us Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage holding Rebaptization against the Divine Canon against the rule of the Universal Church against the sense of all his fellow-Priests against the Custom and Institutions of his Ancestors and hereby as S. Vincent observes giving a form of Sacriledge to all Hereticks this overthrew him This then was not an Age wherein to Introduce either Novel practices or Doctrins into the Church nor any other before S. Vincent For he tells us chap. 9. Mos iste c. That Custom has always flourished in the Church and by how much any one has been more Religious the more readily has he opposed new Inventions We have hereof plenty of examples every where And this manner of discoursing proves a Priori that had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty it could not possibly have been brought into the Christian Church for the first 500. years and yet its manifest by all the Christian Writes of the 4th and 5th Age that it was then Universally practised both in the Eastern and Western Church whence it follows that it is no Superstitious practice but true Christian Piety and was taught the World by the first planters of Christianity Although our Learned Adversaries deny not but that the prime Doctors and chief Champions of Christianity of the 4th and 5th Age were Zealous Observers and Preachers of the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent and for this cause appeal to the first 300. years yet for the satisfaction of others less Learned I have thought fit to Transcribe their Testimonies as they are cited by Bishop Gunning in his Learned Treatise in defence of the Paschal or Lent-Fast Hear then the Testimonies of the Christian Doctors of the 4th and 5th Century and if you have the least grain of Christian modesty dread to call that Superstition which so many Grave Fathers extol as singular Christian Piety S. Basil in his Sermons de Iejunio makes mention of Lent-Fast For he makes mention of five days Fasting together commanded to be observed by all degrees all over the world which returned by an orderly course Now in other his Contemporaries we find express mention of a Forty-days Fast nor was there ever by Christians Fasted five days consequently but in Lent and the reason he mentions five days is because the Grecians only Fasted five days in every week in Lent leaving out Saturday and Sunday Hear his own words Hom. 1. Let us as becomes Saints receive the days that are at hand not with a sad Soul but with a chearful affection Be not sad when thou art Cured Whoever amidst sumptuous Feasts and continual delights was made partaker of any Spiritual gift Moses that he might a second time receive the Law needed a second Fast. Doest thou not eat Flesh But thou eatest up thy Brother Doest thou abstain from Wine But thou doest not forbear to injure thy Neighbour Thou expectest the Evening before thou take thy refection but spends the whole day in Law-Courts Let not Drunkenness introduce thee to the mysteries of Fasting The Wrestler is exercised before he wrestle for the Prize the Faster is prepared to Fast by Temperance Do not as if thou would'st Revenge thy self on the days of Fasting or mock the Author of the Law lay up against these five days the Treasure of Surfetting Our Lord who has brought us to the recourse of this time give us as to Combatants throughout these days in which we are called out to Combate to declare the strength and Nerves of Continence Orat. 2. Fasting is at all times profitable to those who voluntarily undertake it but much more at this time when the denuntiation of Fasting is proclaimed all over the World Nor is there any Island nor Continent nor City nor Nation nor the farthest corner of the World where the Edict of Fasting is not heard S. Gregory Nazianzen Orat. 4. Christ Fasted a little before his Temptation we before the Paschal feast And Orat. 41 42. Yesterday I was Crucified with Christ to day I am as it were glorified with him S. Epiphanius In expositione fidei Catholicae The same Church has been wont to observe Lent continuing in Fastings But the 6. days of the week before Easter all the people continue in dry dyet using then Bread Salt and Water at the Evening Yet those that are very devout pass two three and four days and some the whole week untill Cock-crowing on Easter-day S. Ambrose in his book de Helia Jejunio A Lent is fasted with us all days except Saturday and the Lords-day And Serm. 25. Our Lord after he had fasted 40. days overcame the Devil not but that he could have overcome him before his fastings but that he might shew unto us that then
defend the Catholick Faith that they might break in pieces your Arguments Hitherto S. Augustin l. 1. 2. contra Iulianum I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Austen though superabundant to the force of my Argument it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that Lent-Fast was generally practised in the 4th and 5th Century both by the Eastern and Western Churches and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Hierom S. Ambrose S. Basil S. Crysostom and the rest of the Holy Fathers Greek and Latin deemed the observation of Lent to be a pious Christian practice but they with humble submission judged it to be Superstition Will-worship and the Doctrin of Devils Yet few I think but have so much regard for these Primitive Doctors as to allow them so much judgment as to know what was the practice of their several Churches in their days and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to that particular which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse unless you can think that these Holy Fathers were of one Faith their Flocks which Reverence them as Sts. of another For the 4th and 5th Age practising Fasting in Lent not as a piece of Piety begun by themselves but commended to them by Tradition from the Apostles it not only follows that it could not be first begun by their immediate Progenitos which had it been they could not possibly have been ignorant of it but also that it must necessarily have been first taught the world by the Apostles For if the first Converts of the Apostles all over the World had not only been taught no such observation but also had been positively instructed to look upon Abstinence from certain kind of Meats as Superstition and the Doctrin of Devils and with all had been charged not to receive any other Doctrin though Preached to them by an Angel sent from Heaven and they in like manner teaching their Children the same they had learnt as none can doubt but they did How is it possible that the Christians in the 4th Century should most tenaciously adhere to this principle of admitting no new Doctrin or Practice but to hold fast to what was delivered them by their Ancestors from the Apostles and yet should themselves Superstitiously Abstain from Meats and not pretend Scripture for it neither but Apostolical Tradition But had the Pastors of the 4th Century Abstained from certain Meats on pretext of Scripture in such a manner understood by them or upon account of some Decree of a General Council or Law of some Emperor made in the second or third Century or pretending to follow some person or persons raised up by God in the third Age to teach the Christian world a more strict observance it might well be conceiv'd how the 4th Age might abstain from Meats upon a Religious account though no such thing had been taught the world by the Apostles but the quite contrary And from what has been said all well put together I think it is efficaciously concluded against all Opposers of Lent-Fast that it was taught the world by the Apostles But it is not a Tippet or a Surplice I am Arguing for but a practice which if rightly observed is sufficient to make all the world Saints and therefore for the more abundant satisfaction of my Reader I shall now adjoyn positive Evidences out of the Writers of the first 300. years that the Holy Fast of Lent was practised in those most pure and Primitive Times S. Denys B. of Alexandria who lived in the middle of the third Age in his Epistle to Basilides the Bishop Records the Fast before Easter as Universal as the joy and Feast of Easter It will be confessed saies he of all agreeably that we ought to begin the Feast viz. of Easter and Ioy until that time humbling our souls in Fastings they truly which make too much hast and before well toward mid-night break their Fast we blame as regardless and not Masters of their Appetite giving over the Race a little before the Goal Such indeed as are much worn by the Fasts and toward the end as it were faint we easily pardon if they eat sooner And in the same Epistle he mentions in special manner the six days of Fasts to wit those of the last week not alike observ'd of all Origen in the beginning of the same Age. Hom. 10. In Leviticum Habemus Quadragesimae dies c. We have the days of Lent Consecrated to Fasting we have the fourth and sixth day of the week on which we solemnly Fast. And certainly a Christian has liberty to Fast at all times but not out of a Superstitious Observation but by the Vertue of Continency The first General Council of Nice held a little after the year 300. did not first ordain the keeping of Lent but in the sixth Canon makes mention of it as a time known to all the Christian world for in that Canon the Fathers ordain that two Provincial-Councils should be celebrated by the Bishops of every Province every year one of them ante dies Quadragesimae c. before the days of Lent to the end that all Contests if any such be being made up a pure and solemn gift may be offered to God Now how should Lent be observed all over the Christian world so early before any General Council What other Universal cause could there be of so Universal an Observation but the first teaching of the Apostles Or if such a practice had been Superstitious and the Doctrin of Devils how came so Venerable and holy a Councel not to take notice of it As if they could be ignorant of such Scriptures as falsly understood are alledged against it by Non-Conformists In the second Age Tertullian in his Book de Iejunio c. 1 2. tells us that it was not the Sentiment of some one particular Man but of all Catholick Christians who are by him contumeliously called Psychici that the Pascal Fast was Constituted by God and observed by the Apostles His words are Nam quod c. For as to what appertains to Fasts they oppose that there are certain days Constituted by God They surely think that in the Gospel those days are determined for Fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away and those days only are now the legitimate days of Christian Fasts c. And that thus the Apostles observed the rule of Fasting imposing no other Yoke of certain or Set-Fasts to be kept of all in common And c. 13. Ye prescribe against us that the solemn times for this matter are to be believed already constituted in the Scriptures or in the Tradition of our Elders and that no further observance is to be superadded for the unlawfulness of Innovation Maintain this your ground if you can for lo I convince you even your selves Fasting besides the Paschal Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away