to what the Wise man saith iv Ecclus 21. There is a shame that bringeth sin and there is a shame which is glory and grace No man hath reason to blush if he come from his Corporal repast to partake of the Spiritual A sober hearer though he have Dined is not unfit for this Assembly As on the contrary a listless and careless though he remain Fasting gets no good thereby I do not speak this to unloose you from the strictness of Fasting God forbid for I much approve and praise those who are Fasting but I would have you to understand that you should come after a sober manner and not merely out of Custom unto Spiritual things and that it is not Eating but negligence disorderly passions and affections and lusts uncurbed that make men unfit for our Sermons For beloved if by reason of the weakness of thy Body thou canst not continue all the day Fasting no wise man will reprove thee for it For we serve a gentle and merciful Lord who exacts nothing of us beyond our strength nor doth he simply require Fasting and Abstinence of us and that we should remain Fasting till this hour but that throwing away all cares for the things of this life we should bestow all our leisure in Spiritual imployments And if we order our life with a sober mind and whatsoever leisure we have be imployed in Spiritual things and we Eat merely for necessity and so much as needs and no more bestowing all our life in some good work or other there is no need then that we are in of that help which is received from Fasting Which was not ordained for such kind of men but because humane nature is negligent and delights in pleasure and seeks for ease and liberty therefore our most merciful Lord like a tender hearted Father devised this medicine of Fasting that delicacies and making much of our selves might be cut off and we might translate our thoughts about the things of this life unto Spiritual imployments If therefore there be any here present whom the infirmity of their body will not permit to continue Fasting without their Dinner I exhort such both to refresh their bodily infirmity and not to deprive themselves of this Spiritual instruction but having taken their bodily repast to be so much the more studious of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For there are certainly there are ways by which far wider doors of confidence towards God may be opened than by mere Abstinence from Food He therefore that takes some Food being unable to Fast let him give larger Alms let him send up more fervent Prayers let him be more forward and show greater alacrity in hearing God's Word In those things his bodily infirmity can be no hindrance to him Let him be reconciled to his Enemies let him drive all remembrance of injuries out of his heart and if he hath done these things he hath kept the true Fast which the Lord requires of us For he commands us to abstain from Meat for these things sake that we should check the wantonness of the Flesh and make it obedient and tractable to fulfil his Commandments Wherefore knowing these things I beseech you who can Fast that you intend and increase as much as is possible this your good and laudable forwardness for the more the outward man decays the more your inward man is renewed Fasting brings under the Body and bridles its disorderly motions It makes the Soul also more clear and bright giving it wings also and making it light and ready to sore aloft As for our Brethren who cannot Fast do you exhort them that they would not for this cause refrain from their Spiritual Food Tell them what I now say and let them know that not he who Eats and Drinks moderately is unworthy of this Auditory but he that is lazy and dissolute And tell them also what the Apostle saith in that Oracle of his that both he that Eateth Eateth to the Lord and he that Eateth not to the Lord he Eateth not and giveth God thanks In like manner let him that Fasteth give thanks to God who gives him strength able to support the labour of Fasting and he that Fasteth not let him also give thanks that nothing of this nature can do him hurt nor hinder him from minding the Salvation of his Soul if he be pleased to attend it For it cannot be told how many ways our most merciful God hath provided by which if we will we may attain the highest confidence in him These things I have said for the sake of the absent that occasion of shame might be taken from them and they might know there is no reason to be ashamed on this score For to have Eaten doth not bring confusion upon us but to have done an ill thing Sin is a great shame which if we have admitted we ought not only to blush but to hide our selves for shame and like condemned persons bewail our selves as miserable wretches and yet not then to despond but to make the more haste to Penitence and Pardon For he is such a gracious Lord that he requires no more when by negligence we fall into sin but that we acknowledge our Errors and proceed no further nor return again to the same offences I omit the rest for he repeats the same thing often over in that Sermon In the conclusion of which after he had expounded a portion of Holy Scripture he excuses himself for holding them so long which yet he tells them was not without reason but that they who were present might be able to teach those who were absent the forenamed Lesson which he desires them to carry home with them and instruct their absent Neighbours in it And the next day but one he begins his Sermon with the very same Lesson again having also in his Sermon upon the day between these two told them that two days Hom. xi in a week were allowed unto all wherein to intermit their Fasting Which he compares to the resting places and Inns which are upon the Rode that weary Travellers may turn in and refresh themselves a while to enable them to go on their journey the more chearfully and to the Ports and Havens on the Sea-shore into which the Mariners may run their Vessel when they have been tossed with the Waves and there wait for the opportunity of a fair Wind to carry them forward Such Shores and Havens saith he such Rests and stays hath God granted us for two days in the week in this course of the Lent Fast that the labour of it being a little remitted and they that travel in it refreshed may afterwards go on with the greater alacrity Of the same Opinion was his great Friend S. Basil in his Book of true Virginity * Tome 1. p. 717. Where he saith we may apply to Fasting those words of the Holy Scripture Turn not to the right hand nor to the left For as it is dangerous to
wickedness And so to love instruction to thank those that reprove them to obey their Teachers to incline their Ears to their godly Admonitions to endeavour to do as much Good as they have done Evil And that in the midst of the People openly giving glory to God by their publick Repentance whom they have boldly dishonoured by their scandalous wickedness This might avail them and prove acceptable unto his offended Majesty but to bewail themselves thus only at the last gasp or when they can no longer act their wickedness no body can tell how it will be taken But they have just reason to fear lest the same measure be dealt to them with which Solomon saith some shall be served Whose dreadful doom is Recorded in the first Chapter of his Wise Instructions in these remarkable words Ver. 24 25 c. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon you Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me For that they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices From which terrible sentence God of his infinite mercy deliver us And let all that read these things endeavour to deliver themselves by hearkening to such good counsel as hath been here given That is by turning to the Lord with all their Heart and with Fasting and with Weeping and with Mourning PART II. Concerning FASTING CHAP. X. What is meant by Fasting AMONG those Humiliations wherewith Penitent Sinners ought to prostrate themselves before God to sue for mercy the Reader cannot but observe that Fasting hath been frequently mentioned as holding a principal place And therefore I think it useful to treat a little of it by it self The Church having set apart certain times for it wherein if those wicked men I now spoke of will not humble themselves and Repent of their Evil doings whereby they are pulling down Judgments upon themselves and upon others yet all good men should embrace the opportunities of casting down themselves frequently before God to joyn with Gods Ministers in those supplications like them prescribed in the Prophet Joel upon their solemn Fast 2. 17. Spare us good Lord spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever Beseeching him to deliver us as from all blindness of heart c. so more especially from all Sedition privy Conspiracy and Rebellion from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from hardness of Heart and contempt of his Word and Commandment Which solemn Prayers were never more necessary than in these days and for that reason Fasting ought not to be neglected but attend upon them as an help unto them and a means to make them more effectual This shall be proved when I have first shown what Fasting is And in proper speaking Fasting is an abstinence from all manner of Food whether it be Meat or Drink As we may be satisfied if it need any proof from that question which was askt our Saviour in v. Luke 33. Why do the Disciples of John Fast often and make Prayers and likewise the Pharisees but thine Eat and Drink Which place is remarkable for two things for it shows both that Prayers were a concomitant of Fasting as I said just now and that Fasting is so opposite to Eating and Drinking that he who Eats and Drinks doth not Fast Which is still more confirmed by the words wherein the other Evangelists put this Question which are these Why do the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees Fast but thy Disciples Fast not ii Mark 18. ix Matth. 14. Here they call that not Fasting which S. Luke calls Eating and Drinking It being one and the same thing to Eat and Drink and not to Fast Nor is any other notion to be found of Fasting in the holy Scriptures or in any ancient Writer Jewish or Christian but this Forbearance of all manner of Meat and Drink while the Fast lasts Some think indeed that speaking improperly there are examples in Scripture of Fasts which consisted only in abstinence from the better sort of Food and contenting themselves with harder fare Thus Josephus saith that the Fast which Esther and her Maidens observed together with the Jews in Shushan when they neither did Eat nor Drink three days night nor day was forbearing all delicate Meat and Drink for that time as Grotius observes out of him upon iv Esth 16. Which may receive some confirmation from what Daniel saith of himself x. 2 3. In those days I Daniel was mourning three full Weeks I ate no pleasant Bread neither came Flesh nor Wine in my mouth neither did I anoint my self at all till three whole Weeks were fulfilled His Mourning which comprehends Fasting was nothing else it should seem but abstinence from all things pleasant and desirable as the word is in the Hebrew Language while he allowed himself a courser sort of diet which nothing but mere necessity commended to his appetite And if we let this pass for truth it doth not prejudice what I said of Fasting that usually and speaking exactly it signifies Eating and Drinking nothing at all And if the Holy Writers speak otherwise it is upon some extraordinary occasion when the Humiliation continued so long that it was impossible to Fast strictly without any refection at all as it was in these Fasts of three days and three weeks But I am not satisfied that Daniel's Mourning was such as hath been now supposed for his words may signifie no more but that when he did Eat and Drink nothing that was pleasant came into his mouth And then his meaning is that for three weeks he kept a Fast Eating and Drinking nothing at all till the Evening as the manner was on Fasting days and then abstaining from Flesh and Wine and using only a courser sort of Bread For thus Ezra Fasted eating no Bread at all nor drinking Water For he Mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carried away x. 6. just as Daniel did The Fast of Esther indeed doth not so easily admit this Interpretation because they did in that neither Eat nor Drink three days night or day But if we take the words rigidly they will not admit of Josephus's Interpretation no more than of this for they that fare hardly do notwithstanding Eat and Drink And therefore I am apt to think the true meaning is that they made no set Meal at all neither night nor day But if any of them
uncorrupted rule of life For though there were at the first some Tares scattered by the Enemy which grew up among the good Corn yet it cannot be denied that there was never greater Sanctity nor more perfect Innocence than was among the generality of the Faithful who as far as we can find always observed some such solemn Fast as I have treated of before the Memory of Christ's Resurrection And therefore let not us now in these days refuse much less reject the service of that which they found very helpful to them for the preserving and perfecting of the Church in Purity and Holiness and which good men in later times have been so far from thinking superfluous that they have rather inclined to like the custom of the Greek Church who beside the great Lent have other three Lents of shorter continuance and less strict observance at other solemn times of the Year Let us not lay aside the use of Fasting the example of which flowed from the Prophets John Baptist our Lord Christ and his Apostles Nor of this great Fast which is commended to us by most ancient Custom if not by greater Authority by the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Church in the best Ages and by the practice of all the Faithful and which is of very great moment to dispose the mind for the Reading and Hearing of God's holy Word for Prayer for Hymns and all other Christian duties whereby we may also draw upon our selves and our Families nay and upon the Church and Kingdom whereof we are members all manner of Blessings both by appeasing his Divine displeasure and averting publick Judgments and on the contrary procuring great prosperity What if one part of Lent be now neglected that is the publick discipline of the Church against notorious Offenders is not in these later Ages exercised shall all the rest therefore be laid aside with it A serious Believer who hath any love to himself and the publick safety would rather conclude that there is so much the greater reason to be more diligent in that part of it from the practice of which nothing but our own Wills can hinder us since notorious Offenders it seems are grown so numerous that it is impossible to bring them to do open Penance for their scandalous sins and wickedness That is every man who hath as yet a sense of God and Goodness remaining in him ought to look upon the ensuing Lent as a time set apart for the calling himself to a strict and severe account And accordingly if any man find that he hath been a Fornicator though never so close and secret a Drunkard or constant Tipler an Extortioner an hard-hearted Worldling a Calumniator or Backbiter a Blasphemer of God an hinderer or slanderer of his Holy Word or any other great Sinner he ought to apply himself conscientiously to Fasting and Prayer and giving Alms and all other duties which have been ever accounted proper for this Season And let him not spare himself but spend this time as much as he can in all manner of Humiliations which have been often mentioned in this Treatise retiring himself from company and from business to the utmost of his power that he may lament his sins and acknowledge his wretchedness and most earnestly sue to be reconciled to God whom he hath offended Lamentations indeed and wailings and such like things are not the whole business of Repentance yet I have demonstrated they are a part of it And let me now add they are such a part though but small in comparison that they alone may obtain great Blessings from God upon us If well disposed people would in every Parish of this Nation leave off their business upon the first day of Lent that they might go to Church in a mournful habit with Fasting and Tears and dejection of face and prostrations and all other such acknowledgments of their wretchedness imploring the Divine Mercy it might prolong our tranquillity and prevail for an adjournment at least of those Judgments which if we consider our sinful life we cannot but think we have justly deserved and had reason long ago to expect should have been inflicted on us Especially if we continued all the Lent long to frequent the holy Assemblies as often as necessary business would permit to beseech God in the most mournful manner to take pity upon us For then this outward part of Penitence with Sorrow and Grief and affliction of Spirit though no great Reformation should follow we might be confident would obtain from God those Temporal benefits which we call the outward parts of his favour For so it did in the case of Ahab concerning whom God saith to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days c. The vengeance though already denounced was put off till a further day because he took that revenge upon himself which is mentioned in the foregoing Verse He rent his Cloaths and put Sackcloth upon his Flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly 1 Kings xxi 27 28 29. And therefore what may we not expect from this means when it is but the outward part of Repentance and the best part is not wanting But we truly humble our selves in the sight of God so as to submit our selves unto him to do whatsoever he would have us faithfully resolving to become new men and endeavouring so to be Or as our Church excellently exhorts us on the first day of Lent If we would remembring the dreadful Judgments hanging over our heads and alway ready to fall upon us return unto our Lord God with all contrition and meekness of heart bewailing and lamenting our sinful life acknowledging and confessing our offences and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of Penance Then our afflicting our selves our mourning our weeping our heaviness and all the bodily Exercises before named would profit not a little but be so acceptable unto God that he would give us the greatest Blessings even perfect remission and forgiveness as we pray in the Collect for this Season When these bodily Exercises are the effects of true Contrition of Spirit and when they are earnests of a new life and a means we use to accustom our selves to Sobriety to Self-denial to Retirement to shake off bad Company to Devotion to Self-examination to Meditation to Pity and Commiseration of the wants of others to Charity and works of Mercy then will the Lord have mercy upon us as the Prophet speaks and he will multiply to pardon lv Isa 7. But let all those especially who truly fear God among us apply themselves with all seriousness to this much neglected duty For others I doubt unless they be forced to it will not regard these Admonitions Let it not content them that they do not follow the bad in their ungodly practices but let them also lament the scandal which they give and bewail the deplorable estate of
such wretched Souls and deprecate the Divine displeasure beseeching him to turn his anger from us and to spare us for the sake of those pious Souls that with Fasting Mourning and Weeping humbly supplicate his Mercy If the Church did now exercise that ancient Discipline so much spoken of it would be the duty of the very best among us to be present at the Censures passed upon notorious Offenders and I showed out of S. Paul to bewail them and lament over them in the most doleful manner And why should we not do that voluntarily in our private retirements on Fasting-days which the Church doth not call for to be done in publick Nay we should the rather do it as I have often said and bewail this among other things that men are impatient of such discipline or any thing like it that they will not submit to the government of their Spiritual Pastors which is so great a sin that it is next to Rebellion against their Sovereign and that Offenders are so multiplied as beyond all measure to exceed the number of the Good who are not able to curb and restrain them This is a lamentable state of things and ought to affect the hearts of those who fear God with Grief and Sorrow especially when they consider the obstinate hardness of mens hearts in these evil courses their great insensibleness either of their sin or danger and the cause of all this their gross Infidelity Which it should be part of every good mans business to bewail in secret beseeching God all the Lent long to put a stop to the floods of ungodliness that they may not like a deluge overwhelm us It is not the custom of these parts of the World to mourn in Sackcloth and Ashes and therefore I have not pressed the very same significations of Sorrow Grief and Humiliation which were anciently used in the Eastern Countries but something like them and equivalent to them if we be not willing to use it is because we think it a slight matter to offend the Divine Majesty and are not afraid of his Almighty displeasure For let us but awaken in our Souls a sense of the hainous nature of those sins which we and others have committed against God and of the danger we have incurred by our undutifulness to him and we shall not think it unreasonable to submit to some such discipline as this which is here proposed instead of that which was practised of old in other Nations Let every one of us lay aside all this Lent our fine Cloaths and the usual attire of our Bodies for that is still the custom of Mourners in all places and let us retire our selves as much as is possible for so Mourners also do making no visits nor willingly receiving any if nothing but civility oblige us to it Let the time be spent in this retirement in Reading and Prayer in examining our Consciences and bewailing our Offences in taking a view of the miserable estate of mankind and imploring the Divine Mercy towards them in laying to heart the sufferings of any of our Christian Brethren and such like Spiritual Exercises which we are too apt to neglect in a croud of business and of company Let the consideration of it move us to afflict our selves with Fasting or if that cannot be with a spare Diet Let the rich especially and those that live deliciously deny their appetites keep a slender Table and punish their excesses with harder fare Drink no Wine nor strong Liquors without necessity make no Feasts nor accept of invitations to them Give Alms liberally and frequent the publick Prayers and there let us humble our selves before God and blush to lift up our Eyes unto Heaven Yea let us Pray with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit as the Apostle enjoyns vi Ephes 18. that is address our selves to him in all sorts of holy thoughts and devout affections and that with great fervour and ardent desires with Tears and knocking our Breasts and bended knees as Theophylact expounds the words beseeching him by the Mystery of his holy Incarnation by his holy Nativity and Circumcision by his Baptism Fasting and Temptation by his Agony and Bloudy Sweat by his Cross and Passion c. graciously to deliver us Tremble to think that you have so oft prayed in the Litany that God would PITIFVLLY BEHOLD THE SORROWS OF YOVR HEARTS when perhaps you had no SORROW at all there and now if you have any let it be testified in all the sorrowful actions that I have named And forbear Musick and Dancing and all such like pleasures Let those that have been slothful content themselves with less sleep that they may have more time for Prayer and Heavenly thoughts They that have been too Voluptuous will do well also to lye hard though not upon the ground Finally let there be a general Abstinence from all manner of Recreations unless the preservation of Health make them necessary and then use them privately Leave the Play-houses quite empty and make the Churches full Go to no publick shows nor meetings but spend the time when you come from Church in setting all things right at home For S. Chrysostom I remember having heard that some of his Auditors since his last Sermon had been at an Horse-race bewails it in his next as the loss of all the pains he had bestowed upon them from the beginning of Lent And among other things tells them it gave great scandal to Jews and to Gentiles who seeing those that were at Church daily mingle themselves at those meetings with such as came not thither think saith he that all we do is a delusion and that we are all alike no better than themselves A great deal more he saith on this subject in his Sixth and Seventh Sermon upon Genesis and begins his Forty first Sermon with the very same matter In like manner S. Basil * Hom. viii in Hexaem p. 110. chides those who as soon as Sermon was done went and plaid at Dice and Tables It being to no purpose to afflict the Body with Fasting if the Mind continue vain and full of vicious Affections And therefore S. Chrysostom frequently beseeches his hearers that when they came home they would spend their time in ruminating upon what they had been taught and conferring one with another about it and thereby free themselves from all bad desires and flee the snares of the Devil For when the Devil saith he sees our Minds solicitous about these Divine matters and perpetually conversant in them he dares not approach us but flees away before the face of a more powerful Spirit working in us Now all this that hath been said doth not come up to the Primitive strictness but it approaches something near unto it and is a great mortification of sensual Nature which delights in company and merry meetings in Feasts and Jollity in Sport and Plays in Laughter and all manner of Mirth and Pleasure Which we ought to lay aside and deny our selves at this Season that we may fulfil the Apostolical Precept iv Jam. 9. 10. Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to heaviness Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up Let the Reader cast his Eyes back to the latter end of the Seventh Chapter of this Book and when he hath perused it again consider with himself what he hath to do Especially in the Great Week of Lent as they anciently called the Week just before Easter which had that Name given it saith the great Man before mentioned because S. Chrysost Hom. xxx in Genes in it certain great and unspeakable benefits were bestowed upon us There was an end put in this Week to the long continued War Death was extinguished the Curse was taken away the tyranny of the Devil dissolved and he himself disarmed God reconciled to mankind Heaven made enterable Men associated with Angels things distant conjoyned the Partition-wall taken down the inclosure laid open the God of Peace pacified all things both in Heaven and in Earth And therefore we call it the Great Week because the Lord graciously conferred on us such a multitude of Gifts therein For which reason many both inlarge their Easting and are remarkable for Watchings and holy Pernoctations and Alms Showing by their deeds the honour they have for this Week For if our Lord freely bestowed such great benefits upon us therein how can we think it decent in us not then to make a show of all possible reverence and honour For even Kings themselves declare in what admiration they have those venerable Days by commanding a vacation to all those who manage Civil affairs by shutting up the doors of the Courts of Judgment and requiring a cessation of all strife and contention that men may have nothing to do but to apply themselves to the right performance of Spiritual offices with the greatest quietness and tranquillity And more than this they honour these Days with another liberality loosing the bonds of Prisoners and letting them go free that as far as Humane power reaches they may imitate their Lord. For as he set us at liberty when we were fast tied and bound with the Chains of our Sins and gave us the injoyment also of innumerable good things so we in like manner ought the best we can to be imitators of this loving kindness of the Lord. You see how every one of us should show in all things the reverence and the honour which is becoming those Days which were the procurers of so many and such good things And therefore now if ever let me intreat you to expel all Worldly thoughts and to keep the Eye of your Mind clear and vigilant Now is the time to Fast more strictly to make more earnest Prayers to be more exact and large in confession of Sins to be diligent in all the actions of Piety to give Alms more liberally to exercise the strictest Patience Forbearance Meekness and all other Vertue That coming with these accomplishments unto Easter-day we may partake of the bounty of the Lord. THE END