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 interpretation of such the Churches practice And indeed whoever will impartially consider the nature of the Books of the New Testament will be so far from wondering that all the Rituals of Christianity are not expresly declared in them that he will rather wonder there is so much in them of the exterior Rites of Christian Religion as there is Had any of the Sacred Christian Pen-men written a Book on purpose to declare the whole manner of Christian Worship like Moses his Exodus or Leviticus we might reasonably have expected an account what days Christians were to set a apart for Fasting or Religious Feasting what Garments they were to use for Divine Worship c. But they only as is manifest Writing Books for other intents and purposes by way of History for example or moral Exhortations and making mention only by the by of some of our Christian Rites as they occurr'd nothing can be more unreasonable then to expect in their said Writings and express clear mention of every Christian Ceremonial Observance And why St. Paul or other of the Apostles should make mention of Lent in the Epistles they wrote to persons already instructed in the Christian Faith I understand not unless perchance the persons they wrote unto had been deficient in observing it But then again What though the Holy Apostles did not first institute the Lent Fast but it grew by little and little from the pious Observation of some particular Christians into an universal Practice ought not the Universal Practice of the whole Christian Church both Eastern and Western of above 1200 years continuance to have more poyse with us than the Non conformity of a few New-fashioned Christians sprung up in the Night of this last Age Besides we are commanded by our Civil and Ecclesiastical Superiours assembled in Parliament to fast Lent upon a Religious account as appears by the Statute 2 3. of Edw. 6. c. 19. For as much as divers the Kings Subjects have of late time more than in times past broken and contemned such Abstinence which has been used in this Realm upon the Friday and Saturday the Emb'ring days and other days commonly called Vigils and in the time commonly called Lent and other accustomed Times the King's Majesty considering that due and godly Abstinence is a means to Vertue and to subdue men's Bodies to their Soul and Spirit and considering also that Fishers c. doth Ordain and Enact with the assent of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual c. That no person or persons of what Estate Degree or Condition he or they be shall at any time after the First day of May 1549. willingly or unwillingly eat any manner of Flesh upon any Friday or Saturday or the Ember-daies or on any day in the time commonly called Lent Moreover if Lent be not to be observed upon a Religious account In the name of God what does it in the Calender of the Liturgy or Book of Common-Prayer more than Fairs and Markets Reflect also with B. Gunning upon the Prayer for the first Sunday in Lent O Lord who for our sakes did'st fast forty days and forty nights give us Grace to use such Abstinence that our Flesh being subdued to the Spirit we may ever obey thy Godly motions in Righteousness and true Holiness c. How unworthy it would be to make that Holy Prayer to bear such a sense as this O Lord who for our sakes did'st fast forty Days and forty Nights give us Grace to use such Abstinence that our Sea-faring Men and Mariners and young Cattel and the like may be maintained To conclude we offend the same all holy and all just God by the same if not worse sins than our fore-fathers Offended him why should we not seek to appease his anger by the same Humiliations of Fasting and Abstinence as they did We have Bodies no less subject to concupiscence than theirs why not keep them in subjection by the same chastizements as they have done We stand in need of the same Holy Ghost they did why should we expect to draw him down upon us but by Fasting and Prayer as they did Nor can our living in a Northernly Country excuse us our Ancestors who lived under the same climate fasted often and rigorously If we expect to go to the same Heaven with them we must expect to go by the same rough path of Christian Temperance as they went Besides the abounding of all iniquity amongst us Covetousness Drunkenness Glutony Lasciviousness Pride Malice Shedding of Innocent blood Profaness Perjury Blasphemy Infidelity Atheism cry aloud to Gods Vengeance against us and call every devout Christian to Fasting Weeping and Mourning to prevent those temporal Judgments we may justly fear and remove those spiritual plagues of Divisions Ignorance and Error which we too sensibly feel In that day saies the Holy Prophet Esay Chap. 22. V. 12 13 14. Did the Lord God of Hosts call to Weeping and to Mourning and to Baldness and to girding with Sackcloath and behold joy and gladness slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die saith the Lord God of Hosts Reflect here how the Holy Prophet by Gods own Command declares The eating of Flesh and drinking Wine when God calls to fasting weeping and mourning to be an iniquity which shall never be forgiven And when does Almighty God call to fasting weeping and mourning if he do not call then when our own and others sins require it and when the practice of the whole Christian World in all Ages invites to it and when our lawful Superiors who watch for our Souls good positively command it Whom all that has been said cannot perswade to a Religious observation of the Penitential time of Lent I have yet this one reasonable request to make them that they would but for one year fast as many days out of Private Devotion as they do who fast at set-times and days commanded by an extrinsecal Authority and I perswade my self they would find so great spiritual benefit thereby that they would clearly see fasting being good in it self its being commanded by our Superiors can never make it Superstition I deny not but the change of the Primitive Christian way of fasting into a meer abstinence from Flesh by Set-Fasters fasting from one sort of meat and feasting upon others making up what they wanted in Meat by Wine and strong Drink at meals and betwixt meals gave but two great occasion to many simple well meaning people to look upon all fasting as a meer superstition But a practise good and holy in it self as this has been shew'd to be ought not to be cast
A DISCOURSE Concerning the Holy Fast of Lent Together with the Sentiment of Dr. John Cosens late Bishop of Durrham Concerning the same Holy Fast THE Sacred Penitential Time of Lent is at hand what shall I do Shall I take notice of it or no If I do not take notice of it some will stigmatize me as a Black Non-Conformist and if I do take notice of it others will calumniate me as a Papist in Masquerade O Times O Manners Unhappy Age in which we live Dissipavit Deus ossa eorum qui hominibus placent God has broken the Bones of those who please Men. If I seek to please Men or fear to offend them I am no longer a Servant of Jesus Christ but a base Slave to the vile World If I Christianly observe this Sacred Time my own Conscience I am sure will applaud me whatsoever my Neighbours may say or think of me And a good Conscience even when it dictates Fasting and Abstinence is a continual Feast But will not the Holy Gospel say I am Superstitious God forbid I know they are the words of our Blessed Lord himself Matth. 15.11 Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a Man but that which comes out of the mouth this defiles a Man And had he spoken these words when it was objected to him by the Disciples of St. John that they and the Pharisees fasted often but his Disciples fasted not the Objection would not so easily have been answered But consulting the Sacred Text I find he is so far from disparaging the Holy Exercise of Fasting by saying Not that which goes into the mouth defiles that he tacitly commends it as a Duty too sublime for such Novices in Religion as his Apostles as yet were but the time would come when they should fast to wit after he should be taken away from them and should have strengthn'd them for so hard and necessary a Duty by a plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them The new Wine of rigorous Abstinence and Fasting was too strong for the frail Bottles of our Lord's Disciples before their Confirmation from the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost But can then that which goes into my mouth defile me Yes when I eat or drink in contempt of the equitable and just command of my lawful Superiour Ecclesiastical or Civil Though strictly speaking it is not the Meat then which defiles me but my disobedience to my Superiour Not to engage in long disputes For these Reasons methinks every good Christian ought Religiously to observe The Holy Fast of Lent 1. Because Fasting in it self has ever been look'd upon by all Christians as a Christian Duty and is not only highly commended by all the ancient Fathers of the most Primitive times but also by the Holy Scripture it self as having a singular Power to drive out the Devil This Devil goes not out but by Prayer and Fasting To obtain the Holy Ghost for our selves or others The Holy Apostles fasted and prayed that the Holy Ghost might descend upon those on whom they conferred Holy Orders To avert God's anger from a particular Person City or Country Thus Ahab and the Ninivites appeased the wrath of the Almighty To suppress Concupiscence to dispose the Mind for Prayer to encrease all Vertues in us in this Life and our Crown of Glory in the other If we fast in a due manner we have our Blessed Saviour's words for it that we shall have a Reward in Heaven If I fast to afflict and humble my self before God Almighty for my Sins my Fasting is an Act of Repentance If I eat less my self that I may have more to give to those that are in necessity my Fasting is an act of Charity If I fast the better to dispose my self for Prayer 't is an Act of Religious Devotion If I fast judging my self not worthy of any Delicacies nor of my fill even of the coursest Fare 't is an act of Humility and disposes my Soul moreover as little to affect fine Clothes or commodious Lodgings as I do good Victuals consequently moderates my desires of Money and Riches which are not desireable by corrupt Nature but for these or such like uses If I fast that I may be better able to pay my Debts or provide my Children Portions 't is an act of Justice and Christian Paternal Piety If to moderate my inordinate Appetite of Meat and Drink 't is an act of Temperance and exceedingly disposes to Temperance in the whole couse of my life when by experience I find my self as chearful and contented or rather more upon a fasting day than when I indulge to excess in eating and drinking In fine 't is hard to name a Vertue which fasting does not strangely help to procure maintain and increase As for the four Cardinal Vertues 't is the formal exercise of the highest degree of Temperance nor is Fortitude less seen in abstaining from what pleases us than in sustaining what afflicts us It makes Justice easie and is the Mother of wise and sober Thoughts It moderates our Passions defecates our Understandings and makes us more fit for Contemplation of Natural or Supernatural Verities O Angelical Abstinencè 2. Fasting then being of so singular use in a Christian life and Experience telling us That those who fast only when they please are pleased to fast very seldom or not at all our Spiritual Prelates who watch for our Souls good can do no less than oblige us by a Law to fast some times nor ought we do no less than Religiously observe their equitable Commands 3. I have all reason to think the Holy Fast of Lent was first appointed by the Holy Apostles themselves and consequently ought to be Religiously obseved by all good Christians For it cannot be imagined that so many several Countries Kings and Subjects Priests and People both of the Eastern and Western Churches could by chance fall upon the yearly practice of observing so solemn a Fast and all at the same time before Easter They must therefore either all at the first have been taught so by their first Masters of Christianity which is the Conclusion intended to be proved or some universal Supreme Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil must so have commanded them to do or some Preachers first in one Country then in an other must so have persuaded them to do in some Age since that is as a Pious thing but not as instituted by the Apostles and so received But no Annals of our own or other Christian Countries make any mention of any such Preachers or any such Ordination made by any General Council Pope Prince or Emperour Nor yet have we or any other Christian Countries wanted Ecclesiastical Historigraphers who in their Memorials have taken notice of far lesser matters than such an Innovation as this must needs have been had the Apostles taught the World no such observance And the truth is 't is pure Ignorance in Ecclesiastical History and the Works of the
Primitive Fathers that makes so many waver in the Belief of the Apostolical Institution of Lent in which if they were well conversant they could not possibly doubt of it Further Not only two hundred years ago but twelve hundred years ago Lent was universally observed in the whole Christian World both in the Eastern and Western Church as is manifest out of the pious Works of the prime Pillars and Pastors of Christ's Church in the fourth and fifth Century of Christianity Nor do the opposers of Lent deny so much and therefore appeal to the first 300 years after our Saviour for which time and which only they pretend the Christian Worship was untainted and not infected with the superstitious Observation of Lent Let us suppose then that for the first 300 years of Christianity the Church of Christ in England Italy Greece and other Countries observed no such thing as Lent-Fast and consider by what means possible the fourth Age could not only bring it in all over the Christian World but bring it in so secretly or covertly that the prime Doctors of the fifth Age should not be able to discern that this new burden was superadded to Christianity by their immediate Progenitors but should be verily perswaded that such an Observation had immemorially from Generation to generation descended from the first planters of Christianity the Apostles And yet it is evident that the fifth Age did not only keep Lent but also kept it as an Apostolical Institution and the prime Christian Doctors of that Age have left it upon Record in their deservedly admired Works that they kept this Holy Fast as an observance taught them by Tradition from the Apostles Hear their own words S. Hierom in his Epistle to Marcella We fast one Lent Quadragesimam within the compass of a whole year according to the Tradition of the Apostles in a season fit for us The Montanists keep three Lents in the year as if three Saviours had suffered Now if for the first 300 years there had been no such observance by Christians at Rome but in the fourth Century some Bishop of Rome or some Provincial or General Council or Christian Emperour had first introduced it could a Learned Priest of Rome of the fifth Age who had lived and conversed with the prime Fathers of the fourth Age no less than 70 years for he died Anno Dom. 420. Aetatis Suae 91. And one so well versed in all Ecclesiastical matters as S. Hierom was err so grosly as to mistake so new an institution for an Apostolical Tradition that is for an observance taught the City of Rome from Father to Son from the Apostles For the Greek Church hear the Testimony of Theophilus who was contemporary with St. Hierom and Patriarch of Alexandria to the Patriarchs of which See it was entrusted by the first General Council That they should yearly signifie before-hand to the rest of the Churches as well as their own the true time of Easter In his first Paschal Epistle he writes thus Let us cure the divers wounds of Vices c. And so may we enter the Fasts at hand begining Lent the 30th day of the month Mechir as it were our February the Egyptians reckoning 30 dayes in every Month. The Week of the Salutary Pasch on the fifth day of the Month Pharmuth or April and ending the Fasts according to the Evangelical Traditions on the evening of the Saturday being the tenth of Pharmuth and on the next Lords day the 11th of the same month let us celebrate the Feasts I add the Testimony of S. Cyril in his 20th Homily The immediate Successor to the same Theophilus in the Patriarchship of Alexandria De Festis Paschalibus So let us keep a pure fast saith he beginning the Holy Lent from such a day ending also the Fasts on the 7th day of Pharmuth late in the Evening according to the Traditions Apostolical The same S. Cyril in nineteen other of his Homilies De Festis Paschalibus preached in so many several years refers the same Fast of Lent to Tradition Appointment or Instruction Evangelical The Law of abstaining in Lent was always in the Church says the above-cited Theophilus Alexandrinus Now can it be imagined that these two Learned Patriarchs to whom by the whole Christian Church was committed the care of signifying the due time of Lent and Easter had the Holy Fast of Lent been so lately brought in by some Universal Ecclesiastical or Civil Authority could be ignorant of it and tell all the World also that they had been so taught to end Lent from Generation to Generation from the Apostles Add hereunto the Discourse of Learned Dr. Beverage against Dallee the French Huguenot in his Codex Canonum Vindicatus The Council of Nice the first General Christian Council little more than 300 years after our B. Saviour ordered that there should be in all Christian Provinces two Provincial Councils every year the one in Lent the other in Autumn whence that Learned Dr. inferrs that then Lent-Fast was as well known all over the Christian World as Autumn and consequently that Lent must of necessity have been appointed by the Apostles otherwise such an Universal Practice could not possibly have overspread the Christian World so early Note also wheresoever Lent is observed the Observers of it profess from Generation to Generation to have observed it from the first planting of Christianity amongst them nor does any of their Annals Ecclesiastical or Civil make any mention of a later Institution of it and reflect if the Holy Apostles had appointed Lent by Oral Preaching what other Arguments could we have had for its Apostolical Institution Hence it is that the Holy Fathers of the Primitive Times looked upon the observance of Lent not as a matter only of Counsel as left to our choice whether we would observe it or no but of Precept and Obligation Hear what St. Ambrose saies Ser. 26. To fast on other daies may serve to promote either our Cure or our Reward but not to fast in Lent is a Sin He that fasts at another time shall receive his reward but he who does not fast in Lent shall be Punished Nor is it a light Sin to break the fast of Lent which was enjoyned by our Lord to the Faithful If thou wilt therefore be a Christian thou must do as Christ did Thus That Great and Holy Prelate who flourished in the 4th Age and enlightned the whole Church of God with his Learning and Sanctity But if the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ did recommend a yearly observation of the Holy Fast of Lent to the several Countries by them Converted to the Christian Faith and such an observation be of such Singular benefit and Spiritual advantage to all Christians 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 universal