De Coron cap. 3. Aquam adituri ibidem sed aliquanto prius in Ecclesia sub Antistitis manu contestamur nos Renuntiare Diabolo Pompae Angelis ejus Debinc ter Mergitamur amplius aliquid Respondentes quam Dominus in Evangelis determinavit Inde suscepti Lactis Mellis concordiam praegustamus ex eaque die Lavacro quotidiano per totam hebdomadem abstinemus i Tertull. de Baptismo cap. 7. Exinde egressi de Lavacro perungimur benedicta Vnctione de pristina Disciplina quâ Vngi Oleo de cornu in Sacerdotium solebant This Vnction is express'd antecedently to the Milk and Honey in the Enumeration the same Author makes lib. 1. advers Marc. cap. 14. Nec aquam reprobavit Creatoris qua suos abluit nec Olenm quo suos ungit nec Mellis Lactis societatem qua suos Infamat nec Panem qno ipsum Corpus suum repraesentat k Tertull. de Resurr Carnis cap. 8. Scilicet Caro eluitur ut Anima emaculetur Caro ungitur ut Anima consecretur Caro Signatur ut Anima muniatur Caro manus impositione adumbratur ut Anima Spiritu illuminetur Caro corpore sanguine Christi vescitur ut Anima de Deo saginetur And that this Sign was made on the Forehead he elsewhere tells in the comparison he makes De Praeser Haer. cap. 40. Mithra signat illic in Fronte Milites suos l When the Priest in our Office of Baptism signing the Child with the Sign of the Cross on the Forehead receives it into the Congregation of Christ's Church for that Sign might also have been made in the Ancient Church with Water only according ording to that of the 22d Chapter of the 7th Book of the Apost Constit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m De Baptism cap. 8. Dehinc manus imponitur per Benedictionem advocans invitans Spiritum Sanctum § III. b Constit Apost lib. 2. cap. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m This place in the Wall and as it were beyond the Floor of the Synagogue seems to be at least as the Gate p entering into the Court of the Priests from whence the Law is suppos'd to be fetch'd if it be not as a Desk or Ducan of that Court of which see Lightf Temple-S cap. 23. by which name if I mistake not the Jews now call the space rail'd in before their Ark or Heical m 2 This last Particular is imply'd by Maimonidess in the place last cited and affirm'd by Buxtorf in his Syn. Jud. cap. 10. an Author very exact and so esteem'd by the ablest Judges however the Jews may have given themselves the liberty to vary from it as they do also in other disposals of the Synagogue which Maimonides gives us and the Author of Ceseph Misna would reconcile § IV. b Lampridius de Alex. Severo Vbi aliquos voluisset vel Rectores Provinciis dare vel Praepositos facere vel Procuratores ordinare Nomina eorum proponebat hortans populum ut siquis quid haberet criminis probaret dicebatque grave esse cum id Christiani Judaei facerent in Praedicandis Sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt non fieri in Provinciarum Rectoribue quibue Fortunâ— hominum committerentur Capita CHAP. VII § 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 § II. These speak Our Lord's Supper to have succeeded the Paschal in its general nature as a Memorial of Thanks § III. The Description of a Jewish Offering of Praise and Thanks with the Feasting upon it § IV. The Christian Eucharist answer'd to it and in what manner § V. A Tradition of the Jews That in the days of the Messiah only the Eucharistical Sacrifice should remain § I. THE Sacrament of the Lord's Supper has plainly appear'd (a) Ch. 3. to be rais'd by our Saviour from a Paschal Supper and from that Original it might have been expected that it should have been afterwards celebrated at that time of the year only and in a Night-meal and with Vnleaven'd Bread and if the First Christians shall be found to have vary'd in these particulars it may perhaps seem a harder task to reconcile such a different practice with the Usage of the Jews Now such a Difference there was in the Practice of the succeeding Christians In the Scripture it self (b) Act. 2.42 the Breaking of Bread in the Apostle's Fellowship and with Prayers daily repeated is suppos'd to be done as an Office of that Sacramental Communion Neither is it necessary that I should bring any Proofs from the next 〈◊〉 for such a frequent celebration of it And that it was not administer'd with Vnleaven'd Bread would 〈◊〉 from its continual administration ou◠〈◊〉 the Paschal Season and through â—â—â—rest of the year But it is besideâ— known that the Greek Church has always us'd Leaven'd Bread on that occasion and the Latins too are confess'd by the ingenious Jesuite Sirmondus (c) 〈…〉 Azâ—â—◠〈◊〉 Opâ—â—â—â— to have so done in the beginning tho' their Variation since to the contrary Usage has much contributed to the widening of the Schism between those two Churches This Sacrament of our Lord's Supper was known too in a little time by another Name and was stil'd the Eucharist That is the common Name of it in Tertullian d so it is call'd by Irenaeus e and before him about the year 140 Justin Martyr speaking of the Sacramental Bread and Wine says f And this Food is call'd by us the Eucharist and in the same fence is the Word frequently us'd by Ignatius g in the very beginning of this Age. And as it had this Name very early so it also chang'd the Hour of its Celebration very early as I presume Tertullian remarks the Change in these words The Sacrament says he d of the Eucharist which our Lord order'd at the time of Meals and to all Persons indifferently we receive even in our Assemblies before Day and from the hands of none but the Presidents Likewise in Justin Martyr's Description in the place above-cited this Sacrament appears to have been then celebrated at Morning Prayer And then when the Sacramental part of the Lord's Supper was taken in the Morning it was divided from the other Refectory part for the same Disorders I suppose which the Apostle St. Paul had blam'd in the Corinthians (h) 1 Cor. 11.20 and this remain'd in its place and continued to be a Supper at which the Assembly met again and feasted together with great sobriety as before God These Suppers where all Christians the Poor as well as the Rich were admitted and entertain'd were call'd Love-Feasts They are expresly own'd in Tertullian's Apology i are distinctly mention'd in Ignatius k and probably so to be understood in St. Jude (l) Jude 12. vers And these for some time continued in the Church but were afterwards not so frequent and at last for the
à Communicatione Orationis Conventus omnis Sancti Commercii relegetur Praesident probati quique Seniores Honorem istum non Pretio sed Testimonio adepti neque enim pretio ulla res Dei constar § II. l Morinus his Translation agrees with the Printed Text and makes the Forty Days to be discontinued But it should seem that they were intended to be continued by the Prohibition that follows of not washing the while above Twice or Thrice and that for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However there is no need of this place for an instance of such a Fast of Forty Days together such a Penance being afterwards thrice injoin'd in the same short Paragraph m Herm. Part. lib. 3. Sim. 7. Numquid ergo ait protinus putas aboleri delicta illorumÌ„ qui agunt Poenitentiam Nou proinde continuò Sed oporter eum qui agit Poenitentiam Affligere animam suam Humilem animo se proestare in omni negotio Vexationes multas variasque perferre Cumque perpessus fuerit omnia quae illi instituta sunt tunc forsitan qui eum creavÃt qui formavit Vniversa commovebitur erga eum clementiâ suâ CHAP. X. § I. A. Parallel of Christian Rites mention'd by Tertullian and § II. Of those Vsages mention'd by Origen particularly about Prayer 1. Disposition of Mind 2. Posture of Body 3. Direction of the Face § III. 4. Times of Daily Prayer § IV. 5. Matter and Method § V. The Antient Order of Christian Prayer § VI. And the Order of the Jewish § VII Compar'd § VIII A. Parallel of some few other Vsages THE many Christian Ordinances which have already appear'd to be deriv'd from the Jews may be more than were necessary to prepare the Reader for a like account of Lent I shall therefore take leave to add only so much as may be compâ—ehended in this one Chapter more § I. It is known from Terâ—ullian that the Antient Christians made frequent use of the sign of the Cross His words a are these When ever we Move and set forward on any action when we Come in and when we Go out when we put on our Shoes or Wash or are at Table when Candles are lighted when we lye down when we sit whatsoever it be that we are doing we still as it were wear away our Forehead by signing it with the Cross And we have already seen (b) Ch. 6. §. 5. that when this sign of the Cross was first made on the Forehead of a Christian Confirm'd it might be well taken from a like Practice us'd in all Probability at the Confirmation of a Proselyte Jew when the Priest mark'd him on the Forehead to God and first put on that Frontlet or Tephillim between his Eyes a Sacred dress memorial to himself and distinctive to others which he was after to wear when free from Impurity before God and Men he being suppos'd by it to own God and his Law and to be Arm'd and Warned against all Sin (c) Buxt Syn. 9. Now the Christians tho' they did not dress themselves with their badge of the Cross yet upon all proper occasions they repeated the Sign of it for a Profession of their Faith and Remembrance of their Duty a Sign which they continued perpetually to make and write on themselves when they sat in the house and when they walk'd by the way when they lay down and when they rose up (d) Deut. 6 7 8 9. This too they might use more particularly at those Actions Tertullian mentions they being such as are always begun by the Jews with their Proper Benedictions (e) Buxt S. Jud. Cap. 10. and were not I suppose undertook by those Primitive Christians without their peculiar Blessings in a literal and explicite conformity to that reinforcement of the Jewish Usage by St. Paul (f) 1 Cor. 10.31 whether ye Eat or Drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God And when such Acts of Devotion attended those ordinary actions they did not only in common form of the Jews require a Sign to accompany them but they wanted the Christian Sign more especially to shew in whose name they were offer'd that another Direction (g) Col. 3.17 of the same Apostle might also be formally observ'd whatever ye do in Word or in Deed do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus giving Thanks to God and the Father by Him as has been long ago remark'd on another occasion 2. The same Tertullian reckous up g 2 another celebrated Christian Rite for a Practice immemorial in his time that they thought it a Fault to Fast or to pray Kneeling on any Sunday or on the Fifty days between Easter and Whitsuntide all of them formerly Festival as sacred to the Resurrection of our Lord and the Promise of the Holy Ghost Now as the Sabbath of the Jews is chang'd into our Lord's Day so was this Observation of it transfer'd too for they think it by no means lawful to Fast on their Seventh Day as it is absurd to Fast upon any Festival For the same reason they kneel not neither at their Prayers on Sabbaths and Holydays (h) Maim Libello de Prec Cap. 5. §. 15. standing with Them being the proper Posture of ordinary Prayers and Kneeling or Falling down of Afflictive Humiliation 3. Whereas too the same Author mentions there i an Observation then Antient concerning the Bread and Wine of their Ordinary Food that they were very careful that none of it should fall upon the Ground this has also been formerly suggested to be Jewish for the Bread at least For though the Jews when they conclude the Sabbath and separate it from the following Week pour some of their Wine upon the Ground yet to their Bread they preserve always a particular Respect supposing an Angel deputed to watch the Negligence of those that let it fall to the ground and foreboding Poverty to themselves from such an unhappy Accident (k) Buxt S. Jud. 〈◊〉 16. 4. Our Author in another place in his Treatise of Prayer (l) Cap. 11. makes mention of some Customs then observ'd at that Duty which were apparently from the Jews It was the usage of some he tells us though he disapproves it 〈◊〉 to wash their hands before Prayer and so it is known the Jews are requir'd to do (m) Maim Ibid. Cap. 4. §. 2 3. 5. Others were us'd when they had done Prayers to sit down for a while n and for this they cited Hermes his Pastor where he is said (o) Hermae Past Lib. 2. in Proem when he Prayed to have sat down on the Bed The Argument Tertullian derides and the Practice he takes to be Ethnick but it seems rather to come from the Jews For they are directed to sit a while after Prayers in Meditation and Devotion and the Godly Men of old are rememberd to have pass'd one hour before Prayers and
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
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
if they reckoned by different Years or by different Beginnings of the same sort of Year So those Montanists in Sozomen (e) Lib. 7. cap. 18. who went by the Solar Year and kept the Resurrection-day on some Sunday near the sixth of April would no more agree with those who placed it by the 14th day of the first Lunar Month of the Jews than the 14th day of the Moon 's Age would always be upon the same day of April And so those who agreed to use the Year of the Moon 's according to the Jewish Form might still differ among themselves if some followed the erroneous Calculation of their cotemporary Jews and begun their Year sooner than Moses had directed as the Christians of Cilicia Mesopotamia and Syria did before the Council of Nice and if others amending the Jewish Calendar stayed till the Aequinox according to the Original Appointment as the rest of the World did to whom those Easterns therefore by the direction of that Council in a little while conformed And further those who were so far agreed as to keep their Easter-day on a Sunday and to observe the same Reformed Jewish Year might yet differ in their placing of the Sunday in that Year Some as the Latines (f) Buch. in Victorii Can. Pasc c. 11. assigning it to the 16th day of the first Month on which day our Saviour was by them supposed to have arose and thenceforth to any of the six days after on which the Sunday should happen and some to the 15th day the first and great day of the Jewish Paschal Feast and thenceforward to any of the six days after of the same Jewish Solemnity a Practice to which the Western Church has since agreed as the Alexandrians used to do who supposing the Resurrection to have been on the 17th f might think they came near enough to it when the Sunday was never to be further from it than two days before or four after And some might allow it to be on the 14th day the day in which the Paschal Lamb was sacrificed as amongst others the old Brittish Inhabitants of our Isle were found to do who if they thought our Saviour to have risen on the 16th day placed their Easter-Sunday as exactly near it as the Alexandrians plac'd theirs and if they thought he rose on the 17th they were yet more exact than any and put it as near as was possible so as never to be more distant from it than three days either before or behind it For such Reasons our old Predecessors might have thought fit thus to keep their Easter however they were blamed by our Austin for it and afterwards call'd Hereticks and Quartodecimani a term of Dislike more justly given to those of whom we are going to speak and who occasion'd this too nice and too long Digression which the Reader therefore finds in another Letter that he may if he pleases pass it over § III. THE most likely Question to happen concerning the Place of the Yearly Resurrection-Day whether it should be always kept on a Sunday or no was the great Controversie between the Churches of Lesser Asia and Rome and in which all Christendom became ingag'd a Dispute managed by the Bishop of Rome too warmly but which has done so much good as to give occasion for the preserving some Records relating to this part of the History of Christianity by which we are certainly inform'd of the Great and Universal Antiquity of Easter and its preceding Fast. Those Asiatick Churches besides their singularity in breaking off their Fast on the 14th day celebrated the Solemnity of the Resurrection on a fixt day of the first Month of the Jews whatever day of the Week it prov'd to be and the rest of the Christian World if it happened not to be a Sunday observed it on some Sunday near it But both the Parties kept the Festival and each of them contended That it had been so kept in their several Churches from their first Plantation For about this Matter at the Request of Victor Bishop of Rome the several Bishops of Christendom met in their several Synods and all of them except those of Asia properly so called agreed on these two Points as deriv'd to them from Apostolical Tradition 1. That the Solemnity of our Saviour's Resurrection was not to be celebrated on any other day but the Lord's Day 2. And that the Paschal Fast ought not to be ended till that Day This was the Answer of all those Synods to the Questions in difference and the Returns of many of them are mentioned by Eusebius to have been extant in his time g The general Result of those Synodical Determinations which Eusebius gives us is sufficient to satisfie us That the Bishops of both sides were fully possess'd of the Apostolical Tradition of their different Customs of observing Easter And such an uniform Concurrence of so many venerable Persons from such distant Places about such a solemn and observable a Practice and at a time no more remote from the Age of the Apostles cannot but induce us to give credit to this their single Affirmation as it is by him Authentically reported For as to the time of this Dispute it is well judg'd to have been agitated about the Year 190 of our Lord's Birth not 160 after his Passion and Resurrection the Memorial of which we now speak of not much above 120 Years from the Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul nor above 90 after the Death of St. John § IV. GREAT Regard is therefore to be had to the Judgement of the whole Christian Church of that time which Eusebius summarily reports to us g of their Tradition concerning Easter Had indeed the several Answers the Bishops of the Provinces sent remain'd to our days or had Eusebius given us more Extracts of them we could not have fail'd of many remarkable Particularities alledged by them in Favour and Justification of this general Assertion But they are all lost neither was it agreeable to that Historian's purpose to fill his Books with Proofs for the Antiquity of this Solemnity a Matter in his days never doubted by any For which Reason neither does he give us out of them any Instances in Confirmation of that particular Usage in which the great part of the World agreed with Victor and which afterwards generally prevail'd He rather thought fit at a time when the Asiatick Custom was left off to preserve some little Account of what they had to say for their singular Fashion and even out of that little we shall be able to see how well the general Tradition was grounded Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus the chief of the Asiaticks in his Letter to Victor a Fragment of which Eusebius gives (h) Euseb Eccl. Hist 5.24 professes That they kept the true Day unfalsified and then says in answer I suppose to Victor who had boasted of the Sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul and other Saints from whose Authority he might have
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
serving however to let us know in gross That the Solemnity was not then held an inconsiderable Matter but all along much debated and studied and determined with great Exactness Upon the whole Matter therefore we have seen that as we had some reason to presume the Apostolical Observation of a Yearly from the Weekly day of the Resurrection so this Presumptive Probability is besides actually confirmed to us by sufficient Authority And from these Premises I hope I may have leave to conclude if not That this Paschal Observation was delivered by the Apostles to all the Churches with the Weekly Lord's Day yet That it was a Tradition received by many Churches in the Apostolick Days And this I presume to take for a Truth in so high a degree of Evidence that it will not be questioned by such as shall consider impartially c Plin. Ep. l. 10. Ep. 97. Soliti stato die ante lucem convenire d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 g Euseb Hist Eccles l. 5. c. 23. In that time a great Controversie was raised the Bishops of Asia strictly so called judging by their Ancient Tradition That the Paschal Solemnity was to be kept on the 14th day of the Moon then when the Jews sacrificed the Lamb and that their Fasting ought to break off on that day whatever day of the Week it happened to be and the other Bishops of the rest of the World observing from Apostolical Tradition a different Custom and which now obtains That it was not fit to break up the Fast on any other day but the Day of the Resurrection Upon this there were several Synods and Consultations held by the Last and they all unanimously by their Letters declar'd this to the World for an Ecclesiastical Rule That the Solemnity of our Saviour's Resurrection from the Dead was to be kept on no other day but a Sunday and that on that Day only the Paschal Fasting was to cease There is yet to be seen the Writing of those of Palestine over whom Theophilus Bishop of Cesarea presided and Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem There is another too from those of Rome concerning the same Question speaking Victor to be Bishop Another of the Dioceses of France where Irenaeus was Bishop Another of those of Osroene and the Cities thereabouts One particularly from Bacchyllus Bishop of Corinth And several others all concurring in the same Opinion and giving the same Dâ—termination i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here commonly translated Kinsman but I have ventured to guess it may signifie a Countryman one of the same City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Bishop of the same See making the Succession to have been in a Family and the Kindred Spiritual This is certain the Number of Seven Predecessors agree well with the Distance between Him and St. John n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this Epistle of Irenaeus it seems very evident That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be understood not absolutely but in construction with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well in this place as others according to the common rendering notwithstanding a contrary Suspicion elsewhere suggested and to which a Defect in this place of some Particle to be understood gave the Occasion That Defect Valesius supplies by reading from Conjecture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have rather supposed then or something of that Sense to be understood CHAP II. Concerning FASTING § I. The several Kinds of Fasts § II. Several Occasions of Fasting particularly Penitence and Baptism § I. SO far we have view'd the Evidence for the Antiquity of the Paschal Solemnity in general with a more particular respect to the Festival of the Resurrection we now come expresly to consider the preceding Fast and its various Observation But first for the better understanding of what is to follow it will be fit to premise some Account of Fasts and their Variety and what were the more solemn times for that Duty There are Three Sorts of Fasting which Tertullian reckons up to us (a) De Je. jun. c. 2. consisting either in the Lessening or Deferring or Refusing of our Food The first sort is Abstinence not from all Food but from some kinds of it a Fast in part as Tertullian calls it (b) Tert. de Jejun c. 9. Portional Jejunium Abstinence from Flesh especially and Wine Or not only from Flesh and Wine but from any thing of Broth or any Juicy Vinous Fruit. Such a Dry Diet as Tertullian speaks of appropriated by him to his Fellow-Sectaries the Montanists (c) De Jejun c. 1. but used by Christians before and by Daniel (d) Dan. 10.2 3. when he mourned three full Weeks and eat no pleasant bread neither came flesh nor wine in his mouth neither did he anoint himself at all The second sort was when they did not Dine but deferred their Eating to some time of the Afternoon till after Three as the Catholicks did in Tertullian's Age who on certain days continued their Assemblies to that hour (e) De Jej. and both that their Assembling and that Fasting was call'd a Station from the Military Word says Tertullian (f) De Orat c. 14. but immediately from the Jewish Phrase and the Custom of those devout Men who either out of their own Devotion or as Representatives of the People Assisted at the Oblations of the Temple not departing thence till the Service was over g Such Stations are term'd Half-Fasts (h) De Jejun 13. Stat. semijejunia by Tertullian and were held later by the Appointment of Montanus But before their time we know from Hermes an Author very ancient and in the beginning of the Second Century that the Stations of the first Christians were sometimes kept as severely and that when they came at last to Eat nothing was to be tasted but Bread and Water that day i Such a kind of Fast as this ending in a moderate Refreshment towards Night is generally to be understood when any great number of Days is said to be fasted together This Fast is too supposed to have begun from the Evening before when the Stars appear'd For then the Day began with the Jews as well as with the Athenians k But under this kind which allows some time for Food in the 24 hours the Periodical Day we may too reckon that manner of Fasting which forbids to eat or to drink while the Sun is up the Vulgar Day but either gives liberty all the Night the Fast of the Mahometans during their Month Ramazan (l) Ricauâ—â— l. 2. c. 22. or else gives leave to refresh themselves provided it be done before their first sleep as is the manner of the Jews in all their ordinary Fasts (m) Maim de Jejun c. 1. §. 8. The third sort is when they Eat not at all the whole day from Sun-set or the Appearance of the Stars till the same season again as the Jews now do in their strictest Fasts as on the Ninth of their Month Ab or on
Station This is to be seen more at large in Lightfiâ—â— of the Temple-Service cap. 7. § 3. i Hermae Past l. 3. sim 5. Cum jejunarem sederem in monte quodam gratias agerem Deo pro omnibus que fecerat â—â—cum video Pastorem illum sedentem juxta me dicentem miâ—â— Quid tam mane hue venisti Respondi Quoniam Domine Staâ—iâ—â—â— habeo Quid est inquit Statio dixi Jejunium Illâ— Dâ—e quo jejumbis nihil omnino gustabis nisi Panem Aâ—â—â—â— Here Statio is taken simply for a Fast from the Practice I suppose of those Stationary Men on those four Days as it is otherwise in Tertullian for a Fast till after Three from the Custom it may be of other Devout Men who might not depart from the Temple till about that Hour when the Evening Sâ—â—risâ—ce was done k Plin. Nat Hist l. 2. c. 77. Ipsum Diem alii aliter observavere Babylonii inter duos solis Exortus Athenienses inter duos Oceasus Umbri à Meridie in Meridiem Vulgus omue à Luce ad Tenebras Sacerdotes Romani qui Diem definiere Civilem item Aegyptii Hipparchus à Media Nocte in Mediam p Jos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arch. 11.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 q Tert. de Poenit. c. 11. Illotos Sordulentos extra laetitiam oportet diversari in Asperitudine Sacci Horrore Cineris Oris Jejunio Vanitate r Cap. 8. Exomologesis prosternendi humilificandi hominis disciplina est conversationem injungens Misericordiae illicem de ipso quoque Habitu atque Victu mandat Sacco Cineri incubare Corpus Sordibus obscurare Animum Moeroribus dejicere illa quae peccavit tristi tractatione mutare caeterum Pastum Potum pura nosse non Ventris seilicet sed Animae causa plerumque vero Jejuniis preces alere Ingemiscere Lachrymari Mugire dies noctésque ad Dominum Deum suum Presbyteris advolvi Caris Dei adgeniculari omnibus Fratribus Legationes deprecationis suae injungere s Justin Apol. 2. Edit Commel p. 73. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. CHAP. III. Concerning the Fast before the Festival of the Resurrection § I. The General Presumption for its Apostolical Antiquity § II. A Particular Proof of it from Irenaeus § III. The different Length of that Fast down to Irenaeus his time with some probably of 40 days § I. IT is to be remembred That the second Point of that Dispute between Victor and the Asiaticks was concerning the Ending of the Ante-paschal Fast whether or no it ought to be left off before the resurrection-Resurrection-Day the Asiaticks as it seems concluding their Fast at the Lord's Supper on the 14th day of Nisan in the Evening and the Others who kept the Festival of the Resurrection on a Sunday not breaking off their Abstinence before thoughpossibly their Fast might have been more strict on the Friday the Anniversary of the Passion of our Lord. Now this Question concerning the Determination of the Fast so summarily reported by Eusebius is sufficient to let us know That there was such a Fast then kept by both sides and had been in all probability as anciently kept as the Feast of the Resurrection for of That we do not perceive that there was the least doubt made so much to use Ensebius his Words which here follow to this purpose Does their Difference of Fasting commend their Agreement in the Faith For a further Confirmation of this Truth it were to be wished now in an Age wherein it is doubted That there had been preserved to us either Melito's Treatises or the several Synodical Answers upon this Debate with Victor's and Irenaeus his Circular Letters or at least That Eusebius had given us a more circumstantial Extract But those Writings are lost either by the common Fate of many other Books or else because neglected when the Dispute was given up and the Practice of Victor universally prevail'd And Eusebius for his part might not think himself concern'd to collect out of them any Authorities for a Practice in which those of that time all agreed and which none of his time questioned It was the more proper business of his History to give an Account from them of the Controverted Points and for the rest to leave us to this their general and common Conclusion That each way of Ending the Fast and consequently the Fast it self was deriv'd from Apostolical Tradition (a) Faseb Eâ—d Hist 5.23 § II. HOWEVER it has chanced that a short Scrip of the former part of the same Letter of Irenaeus we cited before and which Eusebius produced to give a taste of the Temper and Address of that Good Man does not only serve to inform us with what Variety this their Lent was then kept which is one part of our Task to observe but helps us besides to a particular Argument for its High Antiquity For that Numerous Part of the Church that agreed with Victor about the Time of Ending the Fast did however observe that Fast very differently though without any Opposition or Division The Account of which amicable Variety among themselves Irenaeus thus briefly gives to Victor the better to qualifie his heat against the Asiaticks raised by that other angry Difference b For there is not only a Dispute about the Day but also about the Manner of the Fast. For some think they ought to fast One day some Two A B and some More Some too measure their Day by Forty Hours both of Day and Night and some More some Forty Their Day too c they measure by the Hours of the Day only and also by the Hours of the Night And this Variety of those that keep the Fast is not now risen in our days but long before in the time of those before us  those who it seems governed in the Churches with less exactness than they ought giving down to their Successors such Custom as had its Beginning from Simplicity and want of Knowledg those who it seems d retained what had been deliver'd to them with less exactness than they ought delivering to their Successors such Custom for Traditional which had been taken up by Simplicity and want of Knowledge Singularity And yet nevertheless all of them did and we now do keep Peace Communion one with another and the Difference of our Fasting commends the Agreement of our Faith Differences we see will still happen upon this Subject for neither is the World at an Agreement about the Meaning of this Place Though indeed it be no great wonder that the sence of such a concise Fragment should be a little uncertain where we have no help from what went before or came after to determine it I have therefore given a double Rendring of the doubtful Passage One marked with the Letter A according to Valesius which is embraced by Daillé and those who have a mind to depress the Antiquity of Lent and especially of the forty Days and another
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
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-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
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 lords-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
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
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-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-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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
not well otherwise to be understood but some of its chief Institutions are known to be derived thence For as before many of the Mosaick Rites were unquestionably design'd to presignifie our Saviour so some of them were afterwards taken into his Service always to minister unto him not admitted only for the present out of condescension to the Native or Proselyte Jews of whom then the greatest Number of Converts consisted but some formally adopted and others laudably continued for Perpetuity This has in part been already copiously demonstrated by many very Learned Writers and if any thing shall chance to be added by me I offer it with all submission And indeed it would not be pertinent to my Business to pretend in this Matter to any new Discoveries who am rather now by such Observations as are well Agreed and Received to try to favour another Guess I am by and by to advance But besides to be honest to the Reader and withal to put him out of any fear I am here to profess That I pretend not to the Depths of the Talmudical Learning nor intend to engage him in it having never dug in the dark Mine my self but only seen something of that which has been brought above ground by others and exposed to common Use either in the Translations of the Misnah or of Maimonides for of him I have not read much more than is in Latin or in the Works of modern Authors The Reader therefore will be pleased to go on and see how much of the Christian Appointments appears to have been copied from the Jewish And here he will presently find it agreed by all That the Two Sacraments were taken thence That the Weekly Observation of the Lord's Day was in Imitation of their Sabbath That the Discipline of the Christian Church came from the Jewish And that the Apostles Presbyters and Deacons were Officers after their Model But besides these Principal Ordinances which are expressed in the New Testament he will find too That many Circumstances which in the second Age attended those Ordinances were likewise Jewish as well as many other Vnscriptural Customs which are known to have been in use in those Days I shall first consider the Scriptural Vsages and afterwards those which are remembred in the next Age And the Scriptural I take by themselves both because of the Authority for their Practice and of the Consent for their Derivation though in the expounding of the Jewish Customs for the first I may happen to join what belongs to the later sort to avoid hereafter unnecessary Repetition § II. AND to begin with Baptism This was with the Jews a Sacramental Rite whereby those who were converted from Heathenism were initiated into their Religion A Rite little practised among them now for they have had a long while but very few Converts and such People as they tell us (a) Mâ—iâ—â— Issure Biaâ— c. 13. §. 14 18. ex Ed. Dom. Prideaux Oxon 1679. were always suspected by them as apt to Apostatize and draw away others as it happened in their Opinion in the Matter of the Golden Calf and at Kibroth Hattaavah For these Reasons it may be the Jewish Traditionaries have not been very particular on this Subject neither hath Maimonides treated of it by it self and expresly but occasionally only in a Treatise of Prohibited Marriages There he tells us (b) Issure Biah c. 13. §. 1. That the Admission of a Convert was made by these Three Steps First If he was a Male by Circumcision Then By Baptism And Last of all By Sacrifice First He that offered to become a Jew was examined by them concerning the Cause of his Conversion whether it was Religious and had some Part of the Law especially propos'd to him that of the Vnity of God and of the Crime of Idolatry and if he professed himself willing to adhere to it they circumcised him (c) Ibid. 14 15. Then after some convenient time they proceeded to baptize him This was to be done in the Presence and by the Authority of Three at least as Commissioners for the Action They stood over him when he was in the Water and again interrogated him proposing some of the harder and some of the easier Precepts of the Law and if he persisted in his former Resolution of taking upon him its Obedience they baptized him (d) c. 14. §. 6. Thus were Grown Persons baptized upon their own Engagements and Children too were admitted to the same Favour by the permission of the Consistory their Fathers or three others instead of a Father undertaking for them (e) c. 13. § 7. Lightfoot vol. 2. p. 118. And now by Virtue of this his Baptism he is taken out of the number of the Gentiles (f) Iss Bi. c. 13. §. 17. and ceases to have any Kindred upon the account of his natural Birth so much that as they say if his Mother should turn Jew also he may marry her by the Letter of Moses his Law though by the Decretals of the Canon Law he was bound to observe the prohibited Degrees on the Mother's side (g) Ibid. 14.12 13. So was the Proselyre held to be as an Infant then new born (h) 14.11 and to have become an Israelire to be in a state of Sanctity (i) 14.14 and under the Wings of the Divine Majesty (k) 13.4 So absolutely are they understood to be render'd Israelites now by this Baptism only but heretofore when their Temple was up the Proselytes were not reckon'd to be fully Holy nor to have lodg'd themselves perfectly under the Wings of God's Majesty until they were further admitted to his Worship by Sacrifice This Sacrifice is said to have been a Burnt-Offering either out of the Fold or else of two Turtles or two young Pigeons for an Atonement (l) 13.5 For he was it seems in the condition of those Israelites who when they were free from their Uncleanness and had wash'd wanted still an Atonement for their complete Purification that they might be able to partake of the Sacrifices (m) Maimon ex Interpr Lud. deVeil Lib. de Sacr. Tract 5. c. 1. §. 1 2. Only in this he differ'd that he wanted no Sin-Offering as they did because the Sins of his former State were already entirely remitted by his Baptismal Regeneration And to this I suppose I may add under the favour of the instance which follows and upon which they ground the Proselyting method that the Proselyte was like a Leper wash'd and wanting the Atonement himself Sprinkled and Purify'd by the Blood of his Offering And lastly according to the same Pattern I am just going to mention there was commonly after the Burnt-Offering (n) Mai. ibid. item Interprete eodem de Cultu Divino Ir. 5. c. 1. §. 6. a Peace-Offering presented that when he was in the Morning by the one made capable of partaking of the Sacrifices he might exercise that capacity in the Afternoon and by the
Answer to them the Master tells the Story of the Miseries of their Fore-fathers using also the Words in Deuteronomy (h) Deut. 26.5 A Syrian ready to perish was my Father c. Upon this the Table was brought again and He taking the Paschal Lamb in his hands and Elevating it propos'd to himself the Question Why it was offer'd and gave the Reason And so he elevated severally both the bitter Herbs and the unleavened Bread and after all the several Reasons given he subjoin'd a Hymn Let us therefore celebrate praise extol him who has done so many and so great and such stupendous Wonders To Him let us sing Hellelujah Praise the LORD ye Servants of the LORD concluding so Thanks be to thee O GOD King of the World who didst redeem us and our Ancestors and hast brought us to this Night Here they all drank again in the same manner as at first and wash'd again likewise here again beginning their Supper For then he took two unleavened Cakes and dividing one he put one half of it over the other Cake the half Cake being as they say to remember them of their former Poverty and so said over the Bread a Blessing After he dipp'd a piece of the Cake with some of the bitter Herbs in the Sauce and eat having blessed God with a proper Prayer and distributing to the rest to eat likewise So with a proper Prayer they tasted of the Peace-Offering and with another of the Lamb and after they fed freely of what was before them Only each was bound at the close of the Supper to end with some of the Lamb eating the Quantity of an Olive at least as they now do with a piece of one of the half Cakes which they substitute in place of the Lamb. When they had done eating they wash'd their hands and each having a third Cup distributed to them the Master having said over it the Grace after Meat and it is term'd thence the Cup of Blessing they drank it off And then there was another the fourth Cup put into their hands and the Hymn being re-continued with its proper Conclusion they again thanking God for the Fruit of the Vine drank that also and after that no more that night it being now towards midnight and they being after this to meditate yet on their Paschal Deliverance Thus according to the Tradition of the Jews the Paschal Supper was celebrated while the Temple stood and ever since it has been kept much after the same manner though the Paschal Lamb has been wanting And possibly if I might be allow'd to interpose a Guess in this matter this Supper might have been observ'd as now it is without the Sacrifice even when the Temple was in being by such as after the first Dispersions by the Assyrian and Babylonian Kings continued afterwards in remote Parts and not being able to keep the Feast at Jerusalem by reason of their Distance were however willing to keep up the solemn Memorial of that great Deliverance in the best manner they cou'd and as it is now done § II. NOW to this Account the History of our Saviour's Paschal Supper agrees The Cup mention'd by St. Luke (i) Luk. 22.17 19 20. which he took before the Bread and giving thanks divided it amongst his Disciples seems to have been their first Cup and might be however their second And the Bread which after he had given thanks he brake and gave to them was the same they now so bless and distribute after the second Cup. And lastly the Cup after Supper the Cup of Blessing as it is call'd by St. Paul in express Terms (k) 1 Cor. 10.16 what should it be but what the Jews call by that name and with which they thank for the Meal the third Cup Neither because our Saviour says in St. Matthew (l) 26.29 after the Cup that he would not henceforth drink any more of the fruit of the vine will it therefore follow that he did not drink the fourth Cup. For the same Saying is put in St. Luke (m) Luke 22.18 before the first Cup and can there signifie no otherwise than in general and that after that Solemnity was wholly over he would not drink of it except we will suppose that what he gave to the Disciples he took not himself But however this may be the Gospel hath yet one farther Particular agreeable to the Description of the Jews That when they had supp'd they sung a Hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives (n) Matth. 26.30 to meditate And it has besides been observ'd that our Saviour when he spoke the Bread to be his Body might have had a peculiar respect to that Phrase of the Body of the Lamb and could it be admitted that in those days as now an unleaven'd Cake was by any substituted for the Body of the Lamb It might then have been the easier understood to represent our Lord's Body These are the particular Correspondencies between the Paschal and the Lord's Supper and there was too another general one in their Nature as they were both of them to be Memorials of a former bloody Atonement Feasts of present Joy and Thanks but not without some afflictive Remembrance for the Past Here therefore it appears and from the Relation of the Scripture that our Lord thought fit to raise his other Sacrament likewise out of a Festival Commemoration the Jews were commanded to keep for their old Deliverance And hereafter it will appear further by the Construction the Primitive Church made that our Saviour in the Institution of his Feast did not consider only that single Annual Solemnity of theirs but their other more frequent Sacrificial Entertainments of Praise and Thanksgiving (o) See C. 7. of this Repartit CHAP IV. § I. The Church of Christ succeeds to the Church of the Jews § II. The Officers of the One rais'd from the Officers of the Other The Apostles of each § III. And the Bishops § IV. The Presbyters or Elders of the Jews § V. The Christian Presbyters and their Power § VI. The Ministerial Officers of the Jews § VII Answered by our Deacons THE Two Sacraments we see as they are described in the Scripture appear to have been transferr'd from the Old Testament to the New and by the one of them we are Admitted into the Christian Covenant and by the other we Recognize it Now those who were admitted into the Mosaical Covenant were admitted into a Body or Society and this Body had its Governours and Officers and whether the Christian Church were not a like Body and with like Officers we shall next inquire and from Scriptural Authority § I. And first It is plain that the Church of Christ comes into the place of the Congregation of Israel For it is known that the Word in the New Testament which we Translate Church is the same with that which stands in the Greek of the Old for the Congregation or Body of that
Holy Entertainment being fitly provided and brought on the Table some part of the Bread and so of the Wine was I suppose taken up by the President or Chief of the company were he Apostle Bishop or Presbyter and bless'd in an extraordinary form expressing the reason of the Thanks then offer'd together with a Prayer that the Holy Ghost would sanctifie the Offering as Gifts brought to the Altar were esteem'd to be and sanctifie it particularly to that purpose for which it was prepar'd that the Bread might effectually represent the Flesh or Body for which it stood This Bread and Wine so offer'd and bless'd by the officiating President as if it had been wav'd at the Altar was the more Holy and Sacramental Part of which they communicated as of the Body and Blood of the Lord while the rest of the Oblation which was less holy as being consecrated only by vertue of the other like the remaining nine parts of the Bread of a Thanks-Offering serv'd together with other Provisions for the furnishing of the Supper at which they then fed And so when afterwards the Sacrament and Supper were divided about the time I presume when the Legal Sacrifices were going to cease the Christian Eucharistical Oblation as the Primitive Church speaks began then more distinctly to appear and was made after Morning-Prayer just as extraordinary Sacrifices with the Jews were offer'd after the Morning daily Sacrifice And then as under the Law what of the Eucharistical Sacrifice was offer'd at the Altar the Muram belong'd to the Priest so that part which had been offer'd by the Christian Priest being more especially sacred and his Portion was eaten in the Morning Sacramentally from his Hands the Congregation being as it were his Family while the other Residual Part was kept for the provision of the Love-Feast to be held in the Evening its accustom'd time Now as these solemn Suppers call'd by the name of Love or Charity were in imitation of those Sacrificial Feasts held by the Jews so were they of a like Name For if those of the Jews were not stiled Love-Feasts as possibly they might be yet they were plainly Peace-Feasts being made of Peace-Offerings of the most perfect kind and being Symbols and Pledges of Peace both in Heaven and Earth the Offerer and his Guests partaking in some degree of the Table of God and rejoycing together in mutual Good-will and Amity So did the Present partake of both parts of the Oblation in the Ancient Church agreeably to the practice of the Jews And when they sent Portions to the Absent they acted likewise according to their Custom We know that the Lay-Jews sent of their part (b) Neh. 8.10 and I know not whether the Priests might not so do of their share neither is it much material For tho' the Christian's Eucharist was an imitation of the Jewish yet it was not necessary that it should be bound to the niceness of all the Mosaick Rules Tho' therefore a Sacrifice by Moses's Law was not to be offer'd by night as all legal Acts were to be done by the Jews in the day and so the general practice of Christians was to celebrate the Eucharist in it yet they might think themselves at liberty to solemnize it before day whensoever any particular reason should require them so to do for to their Lord the Day and Night were both alike Likewise tho' the Eucharistical Bread was no more to be kept till next day than the Flesh by the Jewish Rituals as being not to be niggardly sav'd but all of it spent that night in a cheerful liberality and in this it was like their Manna yet the Christians might not think it unlawful in some cases to suffer some part of their Eucharist to be left unto another day For they had already invited all to their Feast who were capable of it and they had not been sparing in their distribution as far as was meet However even in this particular they observ'd something of the Levitical Precept burning still what should remain at last unspent And those of Jerusalem if we understand their Hesychius (c) Comm. in Levit. 8.3 with some kept very precisely to the Eucharistical Ordinance burning all that was left of each day's Communion as it is too order'd by our Church to be immediately divided among the Communicants a Rubrick intended to prevent the Papal Superstition but answerable withal to the nature of the Sacrament Now to all this I have nothing to add but only to take notice that the mixture of Water with the Sacramental Wine of which the Ancients speak was done too after the manner of the Jews and in their opinion did not make it less proper for a Cup of Thanksgiving For they likewise do not think (c) Maim de Solenn Pasch c. 7 §. 9. they celebrate their Paschal Supper duly with pure Wine but mix it with Water that they may the more freely drink the four Cups and also for the better Tast and their greater Pleasure § V. IT sufficiently appears I presume that the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord was understood by the ancient Christians to be in the nature of an Eucharistical not of a Propitiatory Sacrifice with the Jews But further That this kind of Sacrifice only should remain when all the rest should cease this also is consonant to the Tradition of the Jews as Kimchi tells us For upon this Saying of the Prophet (a) Jer. 33.11 That there should be heard again in Jerusalem the Voice of Joy and the Voice of Gladness the Voice of the Bridegroom and the Voice of the Bride the Voice of them that shall say Praise the Lord of Hosts for the Lord is good and his Mercy endureth for ever and of them that shall bring the Sacrifice of Praise or Thanks into the House of the Lord he comments on the last words in this manner The Prophet says not that they shall bring Sin-Offerings or Trespass-Offerings because in that day there would be no Wicked nor Sinners among them for as he before b told them they should all know the Lord. (c) Jer. 31.34 And so have our Masters of blessed memory told us That in the time to come all Sacrifices should cease except the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving This Saying of the Masters of Israel is a great Truth and better understood by Christians who know the Lord and themselves so well as to know that the Sacrifices for Sin are not ceas'd by the ceasing of Sin but superseded by the Sacrifice made for them by their Lord and High-Priest and that the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving they are thenceforth to make is the Commemoration their Lord has instituted for that their most gracious Redemption This is the Sacrifice of that New Covenant of which the Prophet there speaks and which the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews from him alledges (c) Hebr. 8.8 And to this Sacrifice the same Author I suppose refers
Antient Practice though under suppos'd names represent the Psalmody to be perform'd most of it together as it stood until in the Fourth Century it was order'd by the Council of Laodicea (e) Can. 17. to be more intermixt with Lessons that the Attention of the Congregation might be the better refresh'd and secur'd by that variety This was the Primitive Order of the Christian Liturgy according to the General Descriptions we have of it for as to the lesser particulars many no doubt there were and some of them such as we find in the Liturgies going under the names of St. James St. Chrysostom c. § VI. NOW the Jews have their Liturgy too and their Morning Devotions consist of several Offices (a) Maim De Prec Cap. 7. 17. And here first I may mention those occasional Benedictions they are suppos'd to have made daily upon their Waking Hearing the Cock Crow Putting on their Cloths c. such as we intimated above and three and twenty of which they are directed to pronounce constantly every day and which run in this form Blessed art or be thou O Lord our God the King of the World who clothest the naked if they are putting on their Cloths or if they are covering their Heads who crownest Israel with Honour or if they are tying their Girdle who Girdest Israel with Strength But besides these Benediction which are to be said apart and on their proper occasions only (b) Ibid. §. 7. though some Synagogues are us'd to repeat them together as an Office the next stated Duty is that of Reading some part of the Law Written or Oral to which every one is every day oblig'd and this Duty as all others is still to be prefaced and concluded with its proper Prayers or Benedictions of which Prefatory Benedictions the first for Example is this Blessed is the Lord c. who hath sanctified us with his Precepts and hath commanded us to study the Law This office is not only Private but publickly also discharg'd in the Synagogue and read there Next to it is the Duty of Repeating the Psalms which has to it Benedictions with which it begins and ends And this Duty is so acceptable that the Practice of some is recommended who have daily repeated the whole Book however the Synagogue every day say over some Psalms and especially on their Sabbaths and other Great Days to which also they generally add some Verses of the Bible that are chiefly Laudatory as in some places the custom is to conclude with the Song at the Red Sea or with that of the 32d Chapter of Deuteronomy (c) Sect. 12 13. For it is in general to be noted that in several places the usages are various as to the choice of the Sections and Psalms and Hymns After this Duty there follows another of Repeating the Verses of the Law they call Shema from the first word of the first of them which is as it were their Creed and begins thus Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God This Repetition they are oblig'd to every Morning and Night whereever they are and it has too its proper Benedictions before and after and makes up also an Office in the Synagogue These foremention'd Offices may be differently perform'd in different Countries according to their particular Customs but that which follows and to which the others are but Introductory is constant and stated and uniformly observ'd by all the People of Israel being a Formulary of short Prayers now 19 in Number 18 of which were dictated by Esra as they say These Collects are regularly to be said by each of them at home or in Publick thrice every day and this Office in the Synagogue is always to be said for the Greater Solemnity by the Precentor or Deputy of the Congregation himself whereas the Foregoing might have been read by a Private Person Of those Prayers or Collects the Three First and Three Last are most remarkable those speaking the Glory of God and these returning Thanks (d) Maim de Prec Cap. 1. §. 4. the other Intermediate ones being Petitionary for Understanding Repentance Pardon Relief from their Distresses Healing their Infirmities Giving of seasonable Plenty Return from their Captivity Restoration of their Government Protection of Good Men Reinhabiting of Jerusalem the Coming of the Messiah c. the Requests gradually rising up according to Origens above-mention'd distinction of Supplications Prayers and Intercessions It is also further to be remark'd that though the three first Collects are noted to be wholly Doxological yet the rest are not to be thought to want that Duty all of them beginning or ending with a Benediction of God and the whole Formulary being accordingly call'd the 18 or 19 Benedictions as it is also prefaced with this Versicle Lord open thou our Lips and our Mouth shall shew forth thy Praise But the Third of those Prayers is more signally Glorificatory when it is said in Private referring to the Hymn of the Cherubins (e) Is 6. Ezek. 3.12 Holy Holy Holy c. and when in Publick expressing it And there is also a solemn Hymn of Glory which they call the Kadish pronounc'd particularly by the Deputy of the Assembly before and after every Service (f) Ord. Precum Subjunct Libr. 2â—o Libri Jad Chaz Titulo de Benedictionum Formulis Thus far goes an Ordinary Morning Service But on Mundays and Thursdays there still follows a Litany and such Prayers are particularly order'd to be pronounc'd from a Low Place (g) Buxt Syn. J. c. 10. After the Litany on Those Days (h) Buxt Ibid. c. 14. or after the Offices before described when there is no Litany as on the Sabbath (i) C. 16. the Law is brought from the Ark to the Desk in great Pomp and peculiar Portions of it are read there by several with Praevious and subsequent Benediction of God and then in the same manner it is carried back the People all the while Standing and as the Book comes and goes Chaunting out some Versicles and pressing to Kiss it Lastly on Sabbaths and other Great Days there follows Another Office the Additional Service peculiar to the Festival consisting now chiefly of the Commemoration of the Peculiar Sacrifices on that day heretofore offer'd And this Service of Prayers though having some the same is separate and distinct from that of the Daily Morning Prayers as the Daily and the Additional Sacrifices however some things in both might be of the same nature were never intermixt and dispatch'd together for greater speed and convenience but always separately offer'd and each Office kept intire to it self (k) Maim de Cult Div. Tract 6. Cap. 7. § VII NOW to this last describ'd Jewish Order of Morning Prayers so far did the Antient Christian agree as to begin likewise with Lections and Psalmody and from the Jewish Custom of sitting at the Repeating of those Psalms it is that such Portions of the Psaltery as
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Spina And it may likewise be observ'd of the words relating to the abovementioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has under it the signification not only of Insula but also of Recessus seu Decrementum aquae vel Maris and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Hedg now and might the Thorns heretofore and withal expresses the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Buds which are mention'd by Barnabas CHAP. III. § I. The Devotional Duty of the Jews an their Expiation Day § II. Practis'd by Christians on the Passion Day § III. Some Circumstances of the Eves of those Days compar'd WHile this Reconciliation was making in the Temple at Jerusalem the People even those who were not present at it had their parts to perform and were to join with it wheresoever they resided Fasting that whole Day and afflicting their Souls from Evening to Evening (a) Lev. 23.32 For whatsoever Soul it was that was not afflicted in that same Day he should be cut off from among his People (b) 29. Now that they might be sure not to be defective in so necessary a Duty they took care to begin the Office of that Day earlier than the Sunset of the first Evening and to conclude it later than that of the second The Affliction also of their Souls they shew'd not by Fasting only but by all other Demonstrations of Penitence and Grief for Sin And therefore for the better performing that Duty as they prepare themselves some considerable time before of which we are to speak in the following Chapter so more particularly on the Ninth Day the day immediately preceding For then they repair to their Synagogues before day and continue long at their Devotion there going afterward to their Burying places for their greater Humiliation and in the Afternoon they wash themselves Confessing their Sins make ready their Candles which they are presently to use and particularly take care to Ask Pardon of those they have injur'd and to make satisfaction Then in the Synagogue with other Prayers they make a solemn Confession of their Sins and sometimes receive from one another their Forty stripes save one and afterwards they return home and eat a Formal Supper thereby to distinguish that day from the following in which they are neither to Eat nor Drink (c) For this and what follows see Buxt Syn. Jud. c. 25. And now before the Night beginning that Great Day is come they return to the Synagogue set up and light their Candles for each one and sometimes two as both for their Soul and their Body and after Proclamation is made of leave for the Excommunicate to join with them they begin their solemn Prayers of the Day which they continue towards Midnight some spending the whole Night and repeating the whole Psalter However before Sun-rising they come thither again and stay there all the rest of the Day Reading out of the Scriptures and Praying in which Prayers they take care that their second Service the Sacrificial Service for the Day be said before Noon After Noon they begin the Service of the Evening continuing their Devotions till the Sun is ready to set when they subjoin another Office for the Close of the Day and peculiar to that day and then when the Night of the next day is come they have the solemn Blessing pronounc'd by the Priests that are present and so are dismiss'd After this manner while the Temple stood the Jews heretofore are presum'd to have employ'd the Day of Expiation and not otherwise to have expected any benefit from the Sacrifice which was then offer'd and by which all their Sins were to be intirely Remitted And since the Destruction of their Temple and ceasing of their Sacrifices this their own Office the Jews still continue and impute so much to their due performance of it as to think (d) Rep. 1. Ch. 9. §. 2. that the Punishment of many offences is entirely Forgiven and of the rest at least suspended by that alone and without the help of the Expiatory Goats which are now wanting § II. NOW as it is certain what was laid down in the Chapter foregoing that the Day of our Saviours Passion was the Great and Last Day of Expiation when that one Propitiatory Sacrifice was made for the Sins of the whole World and of all Ages by that our Great and Catholick High Priest (e) Tert. adv Marc. 49. so is it not to be question'd but that the whole World had it then known what Propitiation our Blessed Lord was making for them would have join'd the Affliction of their own Souls with that his bitter Passion and would in their several Habitations have accompanied his Oblation for their Sins with their own Confession of them with bitter grief for their Commission and strong and earnest Supplication for their Pardon This All Mankind could not have fail'd to have done on that Day had they but known what our Saviour was then doing for them But that then was hid from the Eyes of the Apostles themselves When therefore the Mystery of his Death came to be reveal'd and the Propitiation of that day was made known if his Disciples thought fit to keep an annual Memorial of it and that duty the Paschal Season of the Jews so solemnly kept could not but suggest to Christians they could not neither fail of Solemnizing the return of that Day with that Profound Veneration of our Suffering Lord and that Penitential Supplicatory Devotion to the Father which the Original Day it self would have requir'd from them Now that such a Day was kept yearly in memory of the Passion of our Lord in the first and Apostolical Age is a truth which the former Part of this Discourse may have clear'd to us (f) Part 1. Chap. 3. and that it was all along observ'd with as great a strictness of Fasting and Humiliation as the Jews themselves us'd on their day of Propitiation is likewise manifest as it is also most certain that the Grief and Affliction they then were under was not for the Death and Loss of their Lord and Master but for the Guilt of their Sins and the Sins of the World for which their Lord and Master had that day suffer'd So much correspondence there was most evidently between the Practice of the Jews and of the Christians on their two Great Fast Days Thus should our Saviour's Expiatory Sacrifice which completed and superseded the Jewish have been attended answerably and thus actually was the Annually Memory of it afterwards celebrated with a suitable Devotion And this though not done by the Primitive Church in vertue of any such strict Injunction as that under the Old Covenant might yet be well taken up upon the cogent reason of so just a Congruity And as the Jews continue their Devotional Office now when by the Judgment of God an end is put to the Sacrificial so
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
find a fuller and a higher correspondence not only in a Weekly but in a Forty Season and that likewise of Penitential Duty For first the Jews prepare themselves for the Day of Propitiation more particularly the Week before it They rise before Light assist at Publick Prayers confess their Sins thrice every day Fast and give Alms (b) â—or this whole Section See Buxt S. J. Cap. 26. And as the People fit themselves in a more especial manner by the Devotions of those seven days for the solemn Act of Humiliation commanded them by Moses so they tell us the High Priest heretofore imploy'd the same Week in a continual Exercise of his Office that he might be the better able to discharge the Difficult Duty of the Great Day (c) Jomâ— Cap. 1. The Sabbath also of that Week they distinguish by a peculiar Title and call it the Sabbath of Repentance Thus the Jews pass the seven preceeding days and so Leo de Modena (d) Câ—r des Juif P. 3. C. 6. distinguishes them from the rest For though all the ten of that seventh Month are call'd the Ten Days of Repentance reckoning the Day of Expiation for one yet the two first are in some manner Festival being the first of their Political Year and on them they abstain not from Dinner and Supper for which reason they may not be esteem'd as Penitential as the seven that follow These Ten Days are constantly so observ'd by all Jews the last the Tenth by Scriptural Precept and the others by Universal Custom And further to these are added out of the foregoing Month ordinarily a Week at least says Leo de Modena For even the German Jews begin their Humiliation as early according to a particular Rule they have (e) Morin de Poen 10.34.3 But other Nations generally take more time to that solemn Office and frequently Devout Persons begin from the First Day even of this preceeding Month to Fast to make Prayers and Confessions to repeat the Penitential Psalms and to Give Alms continuing so to do the whole Forty days However all Jews begin their Penitential Devotion the First day of that Month the Fortieth day before the Expiation though they may afterwards discontinue in the intermediate time On that day also they begin to blow the Horn in their Synagogues which they do every day that Month for an Alarm they say that they may Repent and be ready to meet the Judgment of God who according to their Tradition sits in Judgment the Ten days of the Next Month. § II. I have mention'd their Opinion of God's Judging the World in the Beginning of their Seventh Month and it may seem thence that their Custom of giving notice by the sound of the Horn may rather respect the Beginning of the Month Tisri than the Tenth Day of it and be rather the Warning of Thirty than of Forty days But this suspicion if it should arise will receive easy satisfaction from another concurrent Tradition of the Jews universally receiv'd by them that Moses went up upon the Mount the Last time on the First day of their Sixth Month and return'd again to them with the second Copy of the Law on the Fortieth after the Tenth of the Seventh their Expiation day (f) Rab. Salom. in Locum Deuter. proximè â—itand Now when he went up he commanded a Horn as they say to be sounded thorough the Camp to give notice to the People on what Errand he was going that they might not again commit the like Abominations in memory of which they now still sound it and we besides know from better Authority (g) Deut. 9.18 that Moses spent these forty days and forty nights in Fasting and Supplication for the Sins of the Children of Israel So that we are rather to think that they have since in some measure follow'd his pious Example and that on the day of his Ascent they begin to prepare for that of his Descent which in their Opinion is the tenth of Tisri and on which they have been since commanded always to Afflict themselves before the Lord at least one Day and Night The Forty days therefore here are not to be look'd upon as an accidental number and the bare Aggregate of Thirty and Ten but as they make up directly a full Penitential Season And indeed that Number seems to have been very antiently appropriated to Penance and Humiliation For not to reckon up the Forty Days by which God drown'd the World (h) Gen. 7.4 or the Forty Years in which the Children of Israel did Penance in the Wilderness (i) Numb 14.34 or the Forty Stripes (k) Deut. 25.3 by which Malefactors were to be corrected though these Instances may concur to strengthen the Opinion whoever considers that Moses did not once only fast this Number of Days (l) Deut. 9.9 18 25. that Elias Fasted also in that Wilderness by the same space (m) King 1.19.8 that the Ninevites had precisely as many Days allow'd for their Repentance (n) Jon. 3.4 and that lastly our Blessed Saviour when he was pleas'd to Fast observ'd the same Length of time (o) Matth. 4.2 whoever I say considers these Facts cannot but think that this number of Days was us'd by them all as the common solemn number belonging to Extraordinary Humiliation and that those were accustom'd to afflict themselves Forty days who would deprecate any great and heavy judgment though the Scripture does not specify the number as those we know p who had a Nazaritical Vow upon them were us'd to observe thirty days though the Scripture had not neither determin'd that space And this is no more than what St. Jerom a Father much vers'd in the Jewish Knowledge has expresly averr'd in his Comment on Jonas where he says that Forty is the number proper for Penitents and Fasting and Prayer c. and that for this reason Moses fasted forty days and so Elias and likewise our blessed Lord c. as may be seen at large in the Passage already exscrib'd above (q) Part 1. Ch. 8. §. 2. This is there positively and in good earnest said by St. Jerom as the Reason of those Examples though Mr. Daille puts it off r as if the Good Father had Play'd upon them while Hâ— himself rather plays with the Father And according to this the Penance of Forty days is very frequent in the Modern Penitentials of the Jews as we have also seen before (Å¿) Rep. 1. Ch. 9. §. 2. being there generally injoin'd upon any of the Greater Transgressions And to go yet a little further in this matter I cannot tell whether the Forty Days which our Blessed Saviour himself fasted in the Wilderness were not so pass'd by him in the nature of a Penitential Fast For the Baptism of John is known to be a Baptism of Repentance (t) Acts 19.4 preparing for the Messias to come and it may not be unreasonable to suppose that by it
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
and that of our Lord's Pâ—â—sion and Secondly between the Seasons that Precede both the one and the other of those Radical Fasts CHAP. II. § I. The Sacrificial Performance on the Jewish Expiation Day § II. Compar'd with that of our Saviour on His Passion Day § I. THE Day of Expiation or Attonement is with the Jews a very Great Day injoin'd by God under a very severe Sanction and observ'd by them always with a suitable Care It was appointed on the Tenth Day of their Seventh Month just six Months after the day of the Caption of the Paschal Lamb or Kid of the Goats and the Duties of it were Peculiar partly Sacrificial to be perform'd by the High Priest partly Devotional incumbent on the People The Sacrificial Office proper to the Day was proper to the High Priest (a) For this and the whole Section see Levit. 16. and he only and on that day only was allow'd to enter within the Vail into the Holy of Holies Besides the Propitiation he was then to make for himself and his House He was to make an attonement for the People of the Congregation and that was done by two Kids of the Goats for a Sin-Offering These two Goats were to be alike according to the Tradition both by the Jews (b) Maim de Cult Div. Tract 8. Cap. 5. §. 14. and by Barnabas (c) For this and what follows from Barnabas see Repart 1. Ch. 11. §. 2. lit d. and to be presented before the Lord at the Door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation There the High Priest cast Lots upon them one Lot for the Lord and the other Lot for the Scape Goat for Azazel suppos'd by some to be Satan d and the heads of both of them he bound about with two narrow pieces of Scarlet (e) Maim Ibid. 8.3.4 With the blood of that which was offer'd to the Lord he enter'd into the House and within the Vail to sprinkle it before the Mercy Seat and while he was in the House no one else was to be there no not in the space between the Altar and the House as the Rabbins say (f) Maim Ibid. 6.3.3 On the other Goat he laid both his hands and confess'd over him all the Iniquities of the Children of Israel and all their Transgressions in all their Sins in a Form the Misnah pretends to give (g) Codex Joma Sheringhami c. 6.2 putting them on the Head of the Goat and then he deliver'd him bearing all those Iniquities and Accurs'd as the Traditions of Barnabas call him into the hand of a Fit Man Ready and Bold I suppose h or an Executioner who was to be a Stranger not an Israelite says Maimonides (i) 〈◊〉 p. 8â— 7 to be carried into the Wilderness The People therefore spitting upon him and Goading him on as Barnabas tells us they were bid to do and the Misnah says (k) Joma 6.4 there were those who were ready to pluck him by the hair and cry Away be gone though they were kept off from so doing by the contrivance of a narrow passage In this manner he was lead into the land not inhabited to a Rock call'd Zuk l where his Leader they say i dividing the Piece of Scarlet put half of it on some point of the Rock on a Thorn m says Barnabas and ty'd again the other half between the Horns of the Goat and so push'd him down headlong to be broke to pieces by the Fall § II. Such an Annual Expiation Day was appointed for the Jews and its Sacrifice whereby the Attonement was made for the Sins of that Year was so Perform'd There was in like manner a certain Day appointed to come in its due time when an Attonement should be made for the Sins of the whole World not of one Nation only or of one Year or Age by a Priest supereminently High and with a Sacrifice truly singular and extraordinary and of it self deserving to be accepted The Day of our Saviours Passion every good Christian believes to have been the Day of the Expiation of Mankind And that he in that Sacrificial Action was both the Priest and the Sacrifice the whole Tenor of the Epistle to the Hebrews positively avows He is there said to be a merciful and faithful High Priest making Reconciliation for the Sins of the People (a) Hebr. 2.17 the High Priest of our Profession (b) 3.1 our Great High Priest who is pass'd into the Heavens (c) 4.14 Call'd of God as was Aaron after the Order of Melchisedech (d) 5.4 10. invested with an Vnchangeable Priesthood (e) 7.24 a High-Priest who is set on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens (f) 8.1 And this High Priest was of necessity to have something to offer says the Apostle (g) 8.3 He therefore enter'd once into the Holy Place not by the Blood of Goats and of Calves but by his own Blood having obtain'd eternal Redemption for us (h) 12. and thorough the Eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God (i) 14. For Christ is not enter'd into the Holy Places made with hands which are the Figures of the True but into Heaven it self now to appear in the Presence of God for us Nor yet was He to offer himself often as the High Priest entreth into the Holy Place every year with the blood of others but now once in the end of the World hath he appear'd to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of Himself being once offer'd to bear the Sins of many (k) 9.24 So are we sanctified thorough the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all (l) 10.10 who after he had once offer'd one Sacrifice for Sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God (m) 12. For by one Offering He hath perfected for ever them that are Sanctified (n) 14. Thus exactly adequate is the Correspondence between the Propitiations of the Old and New Covenant as it stands propos'd to us by the Divine Writer to the Hebrews Our Saviour is asserted to have been the High Priest and on his Passion Day to have officiated for us to have offer'd the Sacrifice of Himself to have bore our Sins in his own Body and with his own Blood to have enter'd into the Holy Place not made with hands and to have appear'd as before the Mercy Seat in the Presence of God Thus much of the Analogy the Apostle has expresly laid down and it may very naturally be carried further The Author therefore of the Epistle ascrib'd to Barnabas (o) Barn Ep. Cap. 7. and Tertullian after him (p) See Repartit 1. Chap. 11. §. 3. lit e. have both took notice that the two Kids of the Goats were chosen alike in as much as both of them were equal representatives of our Blessed Lord and that he was as that clean unspotted one which was offer'd to God and whose Blood was carried