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
that he could not in the usual Nicety of his Style call even this Publick without some Limitation Fifthly Of other Days than those in which our Saviour was taken away there is no express mention in Tertullian But for ought appears thence other Days there might have been observ'd and some reason from him there is to think they were We have seen before how very probable it is That the Montanists had a Fast before Easter of Two Weeks besides their other two Fasts at other times of the Year and had not the Catholicks of that Age observ'd some such Lent too additionally to the ordinary prescribed Days Tertullian must have been obliged to have accounted for this Innovation also as well as for the other Whereas in the 15th Chapter he thinks himself bound to defend the other two Weeks only as the Fasts peculiar to those of his own Sect and leaves us therefore to infer That there was little difference between them concerning the Ante-Paschal Fast the Catholicks it seems having nothing to object to the Montanists about the Length of it but only about the Necessity as by Divine Command and the Montanists on the other side not being able to defend their certain fix'd Fortnight by producing any number of Days tho' more which the Catholicks kept because they were kept by them uncertainly and under no Divine Obligation From Tertullian's Management of this Dispute such reason there is to think that the Catholicks of his time had a longer Lent than of those days only And upon the same Considerations the violent Presumptions of Mr. Daillè against it will be found of no force neither is he to be suffered to conclude That the Catholicks then kept no such Lent because he did not find it formally mentioned amongst Tertullian's Objections in the 13th and 14th Chapters Had indeed their Lent been then as Determined and Formal as that of the Latine and Greek Church is now the Forty Days before Easter might probably have been mentioned as well as the Fifty after but in that Age there was a great difference between them For the Feast of the Fifty days was universally kept by all and very solemnly conspicuous if only by the Posture they used their not kneeling at their Prayers But neither was Forty nor any other number of Days fix'd then generally for a Fast and besides as the Days were at Discretion and rarely I suppose Forty so the Fast was for the most part Private and not distinguished by any Publick Action For the same Reason of Uncertainty the same Additional Days ought not to have been specified in the 13th Chapter nor mentioned in any other manner than they there are under the general Title of other days besides those in which the Bridegroom was taken away Neither I suppose did he in that place think so much of justifying his Ante-Paschal Lent a thing the Catholicks would easily allow in Substance though not in Form as of his other two Lents which were absolute Novelties in the Church of Christ and upon that account he might retort so upon the Catholicks in general concerning the Abstinence they thought fit to use through the Course of the rest of the Year But if any Adversary will impose upon Tertullian the necessity of pleading there only for his Ante-Paschal Lent I may then I think with as much reason desire him to understand the Author there as the word will signifie we know n 2 not speaking of other days Besides but of other days Before those in which the Bridegroom c. And then this Passage instead of being an Objection against such a Lent at that time will become an express Testimony for it b Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. ' O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f Hier. ad Marcellum Theodorâ—t Ibidem f 2 In Sozomen's Time as we shall find hereafter Ch. 10. § I. the Ante-Paschal Fast of the Montanists was of Two Weeks and there is all Reason to think That it had been so from the beginning of their Separation For by that time the Catholicks we shall see fasted a much longer Space and these great Fasters would hardly have been left behind had not those Two Weeks been the Space determined them by their Prophet and they obliged as here follows to keep punctually to all his Institutions g Hieron ad Marcel Illi tres in anno faciunt Quadragesimâ—s quasi tres Passi sint Salvatores This is express for Three Lents and that one of them was kept after Pentecost the same Author informs us in his Comm. in Matth. cap. 9. Montanus Prisâ—illa Maximilla etiam post Pentecosten faciunt Quadragesimam When the other New one was kept I do not find ascertained But it is plain from Tertullian that both made but Two Weeks without the Saturday as you may see in his Book de Jejun cap. 15. which we are going to cite They were therefore of a Week each and were kept as appears from the 13th Chapter at the same time when their Two Yearly Synods were held h This I take to be evident from that place of Chap. 14 de Jejun hereafter to be alledg'd where Tertullian expresly says of the Saturday and according to the Opinion of his Sect that it was Nunquam nisi in Pascha jejunandum i These Names occur every where in Tertullian and in this Treatise de Jejun particularly k Theodoret. in loco supra alleg e l Epiphanius concerning this Heresie numer 2. m Tertul. de Jej. c. 1. Arguunt nos quod Jejunia propria custodiamus quod Stationes plerumque in Vesperam producamus quod etiam Xerophagias observemus siccantes Cibum ab omni Carne omni Jurulentia Vvidioribus quibusque Pomis nequid Vinositatis vel edamus vel potemus Lavacri quoque abstinentiam congruentem arido Victui Novitatem igitur objectant de cujus Illicito praescribant aut Haeresin judicandam si Humana Praesumptio est aut Pseudoprophetiam pronunciandam si Spiritalis Indictio est dum quaqua ex parte Anathema audiamus qui aliter adnunciamus Nam quod ad Jejunia pertineat certos dies à Deo constitutos opponunt Vt cum in Levitico praecipit Dominus Moysi decimam Mensis septimi Diem Placationis Sancta inquiens erit vobis dies vexabitis animas vestras omnis anima quae vexara non fuerit die illa exterminabitur Certè in Evangelio illos dies Jejuniis determinatos putant in quibus ablatus est Sponsus hos esse jam solos Legitimos Jejuniorum Christianorum abolitis Legalibus Propheticis vetustatibus Vbi volum enim agnoscunt quid sapiat Lex Prophetae usque ad Johannem Itaque de caetero indifferenter jejunandum ex arbitrio non ex imperio novae Disciplinae pro temporibus causis uniuscujusque Sic Apostolos observasse nullum aliud imponentes jugum certorum in commune omnibus obeundorum Jejuniorum proinde nec Stationum
end at the Time of our Saviour's Resurrection A Bishop of the Neighbourhood having been troubled about this Nicety sends to Dionysius the Famous Bishop of that Capital City for a Resolution and his Answer here follows d You wrote to me right Trusty and most excellent Son inquiring what Hour of Easter-Day the Fast should end For some Brethren you say think it ought to end at Cock-Crow and some the Evening before For the Brethren of Rome as they say wait for the Crowing of the Cock and those here you tell me are something sooner But you desire me to give you the exact Hour and that very precisely and scrupulously determin'd a thing troublesomely nice and in which it is easie to mistake This indeed will be agreed by all That we ought to begin our Festival Joy after our Saviour's Resurrection Humbling our Souls with Fasting till that time comes But you have proved in your Letter very well from the Holy Gospels That it is not very exactly determined there at what Hour it was that he arose Those places of the Gospels he then considers and infers thus That the Setting out and the Going of the Disciples to the Sepulchre was in the deep of the Morning and very early but that they spent in their Going and about the Sepulchre to Sun-Rising This says he being the State of that Case To those who are so scrupulous as to inquire for the very Hour or Half or Quarter of an Hour when to begin the Festival we Answer thus We blame those who make too much haste and give over before Midnight And those who hold out longer and continue till the Fourth Watch we commend But to those who leave off in the mean time as their Inclination or Ability has served them we are not severe For not to be nice about Hours the Six Days of Fasting themselves are not kept equally and alike by All. Some continuing without Food pass over e the whole Six Days some Two some Three some Four and some not One. Now to those who have endured such Passings over without Sustenance and grow unable to hold out and are ready to faint to them leave is to be given for an earlier Refreshment But if there be any who have been so far from thus passing over the preceding Four Days that they have not so much as fasted f nay it may be have feasted and then coming to the Two last and onely Days and passing over the Friday and Saturday think they do a great thing if they hold on to Day-Break As to these I cannot think that they have strove alike for the Mastery with those who had been engaged in the Exercise more Days before Here is from great and unquestionable Authority a very accurate Account of the Manner in which the Christians of Alexandria and that Country passed the Week before Easter Nor is it to be doubted but that those generally of other Places observed it with more than ordinary Abstinence though they might not come up to all this Austerity and though the Aegyptian Christians as well as Jews for so I take Philo's Essenes to have been may have been the greatest Fasters each of their own Religion Some we are told wholly abstain'd from Food or pass'd over all the Six Days some Four beginning with Wednesday some Three and some Two And these last did the least of those who pretended to Pass Over for he mentions none who thought fit to begin on the Saturday and so to pass over but One whole Day He mentions indeed some who pass'd over not so much as One but it is plain that these were very few in comparison of the Rest and it is besides observable that those who did not Pass over a day altogether might however in the Language of this Author have Fasted a day till the Evening and in this manner it is probable they that Pass'd not over one day did however Fast more than one and possibly all the Six in the self-same Manner in which we now keep the most solemn of our Fasts Such Abstinence was us'd in the Passion-Week at Alexandria and in probability in most other Churches for the Account of Dionysius begins with the mention of Rome and Other places and does not at all seem to appropriate the Practice to that single City When therefore St. Cyprian a Cotemporary and Correspondent of Dionysius speaks occasionally of the first Solemnities of the Passover which detained his Brethren the Bishops at their own Churches g we may very well understand them to be the Devotions of the Holy Week and suppose that the Season of Seven Days before Easter and Seven after which by the Law of Theodosius the Great was made a Vacation in the Courts of Justice h had been before kept holy by the pious Usage of the elder Christians And this will seem the less strange if we reflect upon the Practice of the Jews about the same Season We shall hereafter endeavour to shew that very much of the Christian Usages were derived from them and it will not be deny'd by any That our Easter answers in some sort to their Passover-Day and the Seven Holy-days after the one to the Seven after the other This is acknowledg'd but it is not improbable that the Days before Easter had some such regard too The Monday of that Week we have seen in the last Chapter was supposed to be the Day in which the High-Priests resolved on our Saviour's Death as it was appointed in their Law for the Day in which they were to single out their Paschal Lamb and this as we there observed may have seemed sufficient Reason to the Ancient Christians to begin their stricter Devotion then But it is besides observable and remarked by Theophylact i That the Jews commonly began to make Entertainments and commenced their Festivity the Day before that on which he supposes our Saviour was entertained at Bethany the sixth day before the Passover if they did not earlyer And this in the general is the more probable from the Appellation the Jews now give the Sabbath before the Passover calling it the Great Sabbath a Greatness I suppose in which the rest of the days of that Week had their share For as the Scripture tells us (k) John 11.55 That many came up before the Passover to purifie themselves and to offer Sacrifices for their Sins so too we may presume many came to pay the Peace-Offerings they had vow'd and of them the most solemn the Eucharistical were not capable by reason of their Leavened Bread which accompanied them (l) Levit. 7.13 to be offered on any of the latter seven days and made up therefore as we have reason to think the Solemnity of the Season before Now if those days before the Passover were thus distinguished among the Jews by their Festivity they might be among Christians as much distinguished by their Abstinence according to the Rule of that Apostolical Constitution produc'd by the Audaeans for
their keeping the 14th Day after the manner (l 2) See Ch. 1. §. 3. I suppose of the Asiaticks which Epiphanius thus gives us m When They the Jews Feast do you Fast and Mourn for them for in the day of their Feast they Crucified Christ and when they Mourn eating their Vnleavened Bread with Bitter Herbs do you Feast For here the time of Feasting first mention'd might be extended also to those Days Before (m 2) See Part 2. Rep. 2. Ch. 1. §. 2. Ch. 3. §. 3. and not to a Week only but a Fortnight For with the Jews the First Twelve Days of that Month are esteem'd Festival (n) Buxt S. Jud. c. 17. as sacred to the Erection of the Tabernacle And though we are told that the Jews do no Penitential Office this whole Month yet its Festivalness must be understood of its first half For from the Morrow of the Passover the 16th day they are like Mourners and continue under that sadness some above Thirty Days and some all save one to Pentecost (o) Ibid. c. 19. And so tho' that Constitution specifies the 14th day only for the time of Jewish Mourning because on that only they were bound to eat the bitter Herbs and that p Unsavoury Bread yet the reason of the Ordinance might reach to the 7 Weeks from the 16th in which the Jews forbid themselves all chearfulness and which as we have seen were still pass'd by Christians on the other hand with all demonstrations of Joy But to return to the Instances of this Age of which we were now speaking It is plain from what we chance to know of this Matter That the Passion-Week was strictly observed And it will be unreasonable to think as some would perswade us to do That there was then no time fasted before that Week because here is no mention made by Dionysius of such a Time For the Holy Man describes the Fasting of this Week but casually and upon occasion only being led from the different Ending of the Fast to consider its different Beginning The Beginning therefore of such a Fast only was to be considered by him which continued without Interposition of Food till easter-Easter-Day and for that Reason the Fasts of the preceding Weeks which were discontinued and separated from the last Week by the intervening Saturdays and Sundays had no place here and could not properly be mentioned by him on this Argument On the contrary we cannot but presume That those who kept this Week so strictly did not fail to use some sort of Abstinence more than ordinary in the time before if any such Season was then any where in use with Christians such a Season as we had some Reason to infer from Irenaeus and Tertullian and shall find in the beginning of the next Age much celebrated and observed well nigh universally To which I may add That if the Conjecture I offer at on Socrates (q) Ch. 10. §. III. be admitted it will then be probable That full Three Weeks were formally kept at this time in Rome For if in the Days of Socrates when the Catholicks generally observed so large a Lent the Roman Novatians observed but Three Weeks it was in all likelihood for this Reason Because the Novatians of that Place where the Schism was first founded adhered more stifly to the Usages of their first Separation and would not comply with the Enlargements the Catholicks made as those of the same Sect in other Cities might have been induc'd to do a Orig. cont Câ—is l. 8. p. 392. Edit Câ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Orig. Hom. 10. in Levit. Hâ—â— tam 〈◊〉 ideo 〈◊〉 â—t Absâ—inentiâ— Christianae franâ— laxâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 Quaâ—â—ag 〈◊〉 dieâ— jejuniis consecratos liabemus Quartam Sextâ—â—â— Septimanâ—â— dies 〈◊〉 solenniter jejunâ—mâ—s d Dion Alex. Can. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may properly signifie to Passover Put off Postpone from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vltra Post as in Phot. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Post quinque dies and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be that their Food was put off for a Day or a Day put off for their Food as the word Prorogate will agree in both Constructions and in the latter I suppose Dien Cibationi solitoe superponere is to be taken in Solinus Cap. 28. tho' Salmasius understands it not de cibo sumendo but de sumpto Exerc. Pl. in Sol. p. 324. Epist Simplic Ver. p. 203. as if the Day were put upon the Food Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may answer to that other signification of the Latin Pro in Prorogare as in Prolatus productus protractus and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be to Prolong and Protract or put over the Fast for one or more Days in which sence Jejunii superpositio Conc. Illiber Can. 26. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See Ch. 8. lit e may be well understood And possibly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may also be much the same with our Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifie transigere Producere Diem jejunio to Pass the Day in Fasting so as Tertullian might mean by his Sabbatum continuare See the last Ch. lit 0 f Fasting a Day must be understood here in Contradistinction to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the passing over a Day and must therefore be taken for such an Abstinence as will allow some Sustenance at least at the latter end of the Day g Cyprian Epist 56. Edit Oxon. Quoniam scripsistis ut cum plur thus Collegis de hoc ipso plenissime tractem nunc omnes fere inter Prima Paschae Solennia apud se cum Fratribus demorantur quando Solennitati celebrandoe apud suos satisfecerint ad me venire coeperint tractabo cum singulis plenius b Just Cod. Lib. 3. Tit. 12. § 7. Inter dies Feriales recensentur Sacri Paschâ—e Dies qui Septenario numero vel pracedunt vel sequuntur i Theophyl in Joan. 12.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i 2 This Particular may be spoke by our Author out of Exodus For according to Maimon De sacr Pasch Tract 1. Cap. 10. § XV. this Circumstance with some others praescribed at the first Institution were observed the first Passover only and never after m Epiph. Haer. 7. § XI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n Maimonid de solenn Pasch seu de Ferment Azm. Cap. 6. § I. This is observed by Petavius upon the place CHAP. VI. § I. A Mention of a Forty Days Fast by Peter of Alexandria before the Council of Nice § II. Very probably they were the Days before Easter § I. AND so have we seen all along through the three first Centuries as much mention of the Ante-Paschal Fast as could be expected from the scarcity of Authors and the rarity of the
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-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
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
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
the Baptiz'd were upon the Confession of their Sins admitted and oblig'd to a course of Repentance for them as now the Jews very carefully Wash and Baptise themselves on the Eve of their Propitiation Day And thus our Saviour as he fulfill'd all Righteousness in submitting to that Baptism so he might likewise in complying with the Ceremony consequent to it and undertaking the Form of Humiliation for Sin He entering upon a solemn Fast as the Rest were to do though performing it in an extraordinary manner But to return to my subject whatever the fortune of this last Conjecture may be the Reader I hope will not be unwilling to allow that Forty days might have been always with the Jews a Penitential space of time that it is so look'd upon by them now and has been time out of Mind and that the Forty Days ending in the Day of Expiation are of the same nature § III. AND now I come to trace the Parallel which yet the Reader must have been drawing to himself before For if we do but consider their Propitiation Day as the Great commanded Fast determin'd by Moses and the Seven or nine before it as days sometime after generally agreed on to prepare and predispose for That and also some other Days afterwards added to those for the same purpose by the Devotion of succeeding times but in a various number at the Discretion of several Persons and Places and all these severally added out of the Forty which are to be reckon'd backwards from the Radical Fast and which comprehended a solemn space of Penitential Time This I say if we do but recollect we cannot at the same time but think that we have here an exact Pattern of our Christian Lent For when the Passion Day was once put for our Expiation Day as indeed such it was and I presume in the beginning was so esteem'd universally some Few days before it were then judg'd fit to be taken in for a Preparation (a) Part 1. Ch. 3. and those were most naturally taken which make up the Holy Week and which also in a little while absolutely Obtain'd (b) Ch. 5. At the same time to these Others were also added but discretionally as several Persons thought fit and several Churches directed and so many added by some as to make up the number Forty a number of Days that was always look'd upon as the most solemn for a Fast which those therefore reckon'd who did not altogether keep them and which gave Denomination consequently even to the Lesser Spaces that were fasted within them (c) Ch. 10. That is I suppose the Holy Week as soon as it came to be observ'd Universally to have answer'd the Seven or Ten Days of the Jews For it was not necessary that the Days should be precisely of the same Number though they were of the same Nature for that the Particular considerations of Christianity might otherwise determine as when they resolv'd to keep the Passion Day not upon the day of the Month but of the Week That Passion Week therefore was kept with more than ordinary strictness of Penitential Devotion and if the Sunday of it was exempted from Fasting it was because it had with us the privilege of a Sabbath for the Jews fast not their Sabbath of Penitence As there was too another apparent Conformity between the Jews and Eastern Christians in the observation of the Holy Saturday for whereas those Christians never fasted on any Saturday or Sabbath no more than the Jews yet on the Passion Saturday they always fasted as the Jews do likewise on that single Sabbath upon which their Expiation Day may fall Now this Holy Week which with the following Festival one was a time of Vacation in Courts of Justice by the Imperial Law (d) Part 1. Ch. 5. §. 3. under the Christian Emperours and might have had the same immunity before by Private Custom of the Church was in this too not unlike to that Penitential time of the Jews in which they Hear no Causes nor administer any Oaths (e) Buxt S. J. Cap. 25. And it is observable that when a Larger Lent came to be formally kept as that of Forty days was at least after the Council of Nice either by the Determination or Agreement of the Catholick Church that then in a little time the same Vacation was enlarg'd too and it became unlawful to give any Oaths during the whole Quadragesimal Season A Privilege that was after extended to other times of Publick Fasting as also of Festivity Such is the Correspondence between the Antepaschal Fast of the Christians and the Ante Propitiation Fast of the Jews and by that if I mistake not a good and rational Account is given of the Practice of the Antient Church why they first chose to keep such a Fast in general and yet notwithstanding differ'd in the Particular of its length every Church if not Person being left to their liberty therein why one Portion of its time the Passion Week came in a little while to be commonly observ'd and reputed more Holy as also why all the while there was such a Regard to Forty Days as that some fasted them in the Beginning others afterwards us'd their Name and all in some time endeavour'd to come as near the Number on either hand as the repetition of Weekly Periods would allow them p No one can be a Nazarite for less than Thirty Days and when a Jew makes the Vow simply and expresses not the Time Thirty days are understood So Maimon Tractat. de Nazeriatu Cap. 3. § 1 And this was the Rule antiently as appears by Josephus speaking of Bernice De Bello Judaic lib. 2. cap. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r Daill de Quadrag lib. 3. cap. 16. Hi Sacri Patrum Lus◠CHAP. V. § I. This Origination of Lent very Probable and its Observation a Testimony to our Lord 's Expiatory Sacrifice However § II. The Consideration of that Expiatory Sacrifice is a good reason for our observing the Passion Day and likewise § III. Some Preparatory time before it § I. A Very great Resemblance if I mistake not has appear'd between the Christian Fast of Good-Friday and the Jewish of their Propitiation Day in the Ground and Reason of the Observation in the Manner of the Abstinence and in the other Penitential Duties And likewise no less Similitude has been discover'd between the respective Preparatory Seasons in their Reason also and Manner and in the space of Time And this so near a Resemblance might of it self have perswaded us that it could not have arisen by chance and that if both the Pieces were not Copies the one was Drawn by the other and it would have been as plain also in ordinary presumption if one Observation must have been the Copy that the Jewish was the Original But all this grows more undeniable when we come to reflect that our Church it self was deriv'd from Theirs and most of its Offices Discipline
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
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
their Propitiation-Day (n) Ibid. c. 5. §. 6. And in this manner not one but more days were sometime pass'd in a continual Fast as three days were by Esther (o) Esther 4.16 and the rest of the Jews of that time and as the forty were miraculously by Moses Elias and our Blessed Saviour And such a protracted Fast of two or three or more days was afterwards in Use with Christians especially before Easter as we shall find hereafter These are the several Kinds of Fasting a Duty all along observed by devout Men and acceptable to God under both Testaments whether as it was helpful to their Devotion or as it became a part of it It was helpful as it served medicinally to restrain the looser Appetites of the Flesh and to keep the Body under and as it gave Liberty and Ability to the Mind to Reflect and Consider and Attend either while they were actually assisting at Divine Service or preparing for some solemn part of It. It was too an Act of Worship it self either as it proceeded from a Sence of their Sins and of the Misery of their Condition from those Sins or as it was expressive of that Sence before God and intended to deprecate his Anger and to supplicate for his Mercy and Favour to which purpose it was accompanied with such Circumstances of an Afflicted Humbled State as were proper to raise Commiseration and obtain Relief Thus under the Old Testament they put on Sackcloth lay in Ashes mourn'd and wept and thus Esther is expressed by Jâ—sâ—phus p to have supplicated God as he says after the Custom of her Nation Casting her self down upon the Ground Putting on a Mourning Habit and Abstaining from Meat and Drink and all things Delightful for those three days Neither was the Practice of the first Christians much different from this of the Jews on the like occasion as we shall presently find § II. We have seen the various Manner of Fasting and proceed now to the Occasions and Times of Fasting in the Primitive Church That which I shall first mention was the Fast of a Penitent one who had committed after Baptism some grievous Sin and was excluded from the Assembly either by his own Conscience or by Publick Sentence and desired to be reconciled to God and the Church The Course of this their second Repentance was much more severe than of that before their Baptism it appeared so upon the sight of them as they are described by Tertullian then a Catholick and about the Year 200 q Neither Washed nor Trimmed Neglected and Vnclean taking no Delight in any thing living in the Roughness of Sackcloth and the Filth and Harshness of Ashes their Faces disfigured with Fasting For the Discipline they were under directed them as before he tells us at large in his manner of Style r To lye in Sackcloth and Ashes to disfigure their Body with a neglected Vncleanness and to deject their Mind with Grief All the while to use no other Meat or Drink but what is simple and natural Bread and Water not to satisfie the Appetite but to keep up Life and frequently to nourish and strengthen their Prayers with strict Fasting to Groan to Weep to Roar to the Lord their God day and night to fall down at the feet of the Presbyters to kneel to the Friends of God and to beg of all the Brotherhood to intercede for them Such was the rigorous Penance of lapsed Christians and their Fasting truly an Affliction of their Souls as it is termed in the Old Testament Another solemn Occasion of Fasting was the Profession of Repentance those made who were converted to the Faith and preparing to be Baptized Before the Reception of that Sacrament it was not only the Practice of the Candidates to Fast but of the whole Congregation with them as Justin Martyr in his admirable Apology has inform'd the Emperour and us He is supposed by Mr. Dodwell to have wrote no later than the Year 138 and there after he had given an account of our Faith he adds this Relation s As many as are perswaded and do believe that these things taught and said by us are true and promise to be able to live accordingly they are instructed to Pray and with Fasting to beg of God Remission of their Sins we Praying and Fasting together with them Then they are brought by us to the Place where Water is and are regenerated in the same manner of Regeneration wherewith we were regenerated before For in the name of the Father c. Such a Common Fast there was anciently at the Administration of this Sacrament that it could not be the work of every day of their Assembling but must have had some set time as we know the most solemn time was on easter-Easter-Day those who were baptized into his Death then as it were rising up with him The whole Congregation having Fasted together with them before not only upon that particular Reason but upon a common Account as we shall immediately see And though the Fast and Humiliation of the other Penitent was proper to his Person and to be undertaken at any time whensoever he was sensible of his Offence yet there might too have been some more solemn time even for this Duty whether the Penance were injoin'd upon a notorious Sinner or something of it voluntarily undergone by a more secret Offender And no time could be more fit for this purpose than that in which the whole Congregation would join together in Prayer and Fasting for themselves and them such a time as the Season before Easter was in which all prepar'd more worthily to receive and some therefore strove to be again thought worthy in any degree to receive the solemn Communion of that Great Day Thus did the Fasting on both those occasions frequently take the opportunity to close in with the Fast before Easter an Observation I now only mention incidentally designing no more by the early Practice of these two occasional Fasts the one Publick and the other both Publick and Common than to prepare the Reader the easier to admit the great Antiquity of this both Publick and Universal Fast which we are now coming particularly to consider g Maimonides de Cultu Divino put out by Lud. de Viel Tract 2. Cap. 6. Because the Sacrifice of the Congregation belonged to all the Children of Israel and all of them could not assist it was provided of old that there should be chose â—it Men who should be present at them as Deputies of the whole Nation And as the Priests and Levites were divided into their Courses so were these each Course serving their Week and giving their Attendance either at the Temple iâ— they lived near it or else at the Synagogues of their Habitation Praying four times a day and Fasting the Mundays Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays of their Week Their meeting at these Prayers and their Attendance on this Duty was called a Station and they the Men of the
marked with B much according to Russinus his Version made about the End of the fourth Century And to begin with what concerns the Fast in general it can never be supposed though some would be willing it should That Irenaeus in the last of the two doubtful Passages however rendered speaks any thing to the Disparagement of the Fast it self as if those who long before his time had Governed the Church less exactly had shew'd their less Exactness in the Institution of a Lent Had He said so he had indeed effectually silenc'd one part of the Grand Dispute that concerning the End of the Fast for he had declared against any Fast at all but he must have been taken then for an ill Arbitrator by Victor and the rest as well as by Polycrates who all equally joined in the Tradition of the Fast and must of necessity by the change of the Question have become a common Adversary and turned the whole Dispute upon himself But this Great Man used another method and went by the common Principle For he speaks to Victor of the Practice of those of his own side who differed from the common Custom but with whom Communion had been always held and was not now refused by Victor himself Some of those Differences it is plain he charges with less Exactness and reflects upon the Authors of them whoever they were but not upon Victor's Predecessors or his own and his Argument then for Peace proceeds thus with great force That the Bishop of Rome should not break off Communion with the Asiaticks for their different manner for those who joined with him against them and remained in his Communion had their different Customs too There is therefore no Reflection from this place upon the Original of Lent but on the contrary there is a strong Confirmation of its Apostolical Antiquity under either Version For those who according to Valesius Governed the Churches with that little Exactness as to be Authors of an undue Custom were very Ancient long before the days of Irenaeus and are supposed here to have had Cotemporaries who observed the right Manner But further in the other I think more exact Interpretation those who were long before Irenaeus his time and consequently very near to the time of St. John are said expresly to have been though not faithful and exact yet Retainers and Keepers of a Custom which had therefore been rightly practised yet earlier even before the days of those who were long before Irenaeus § III. Thus much concerning the Antiquity of a Lent I could not omit to add from these few Lines of Ireneaus casually preserved to us and which speak very casually to that Matter To the Manner of Keeping Lent they are more express and direct but very brief and concise as wrote on another design and not for Victor's or our Information in the Particular we desire to see In this transient Mention of the Manner he says some observed One day some Two and some More not expressing who they were or in what they were less Exact for Victor might understand him well though we do not Those who kept but One day and whose Resurrection-day was a Sunday in all probability kept what we call Good Friday the Weekly Day of the Passion and if they did not too use some sort of Abstinence though not so strict on the Saturday they were so little exact as to offend against the Rule and to brâ—â—◠〈◊〉 their Fast before Easter-Day But if there were any whose One Day was the Saturday they who begun their Fast so late little wanted that Rule to tell them when to end it and their neglecting the Passion-Day could not seem very exact to those that observed it As to the Two or More days it is not neither determined after what sort they were kept whether in One continued Fast uninterrupted by any Food as two or more of those days were certainly fasted by some of the next Age especially in the Passion-Week or whether the Fasts were several though the Days were continued each Day ended with some Refreshment If those More days were very Many they were as we have intimated already (*) Ch. 2. §. 1. likely to have been kept in the last Manner There might too have been more Days than Two kept together not only once just before Easter but oftner and at some distance within the Compass of a larger time Hereafter Examples will appear of such Fasts and the several Practices may have been old though the mention of them in Books be later Hitherto the Words are plain and of certain Construction though we may not know every particular Case to which they might referâ—â— but those that follow are of ambiguouâ— Interpretation and particularly the word Forty is expounded as we see by some of Days and by some of Hours It is not absolutely necessary to any design of these Papers That forty Days should be here named expresly for they may well be admitted under the latitude of the word More if we shall hereafter see Reason to understand them so early I hope therefore I am not partial when I judge the Old Translation of this Place to be preferable to the Modern For first a Day of 40 Hours is a space of time never before heard of neither determined by the Sun's Appearance nor Revolution And if we should admit of such a single Day measured not by the Sun's Motion but by our Saviour's lying in the Grave yet it would be strange to join two or more of those days together Valesius therefore wonders That the Absurdity has been endured and that no Body has seen that the Greek word for Day must be changed into that for Fast and the Sentence run so Some measure their Fast by 40 Hours c. This Change he is forced to by the Sense not countenanced by the Authority of any Copy But not to object the Odness of this Fast that was to begin at soonest after Breakfast on the Friday and which took notice of our Lord's Burial but not of his Crucifixion much less of his previous Sufferings and Apprehension to pass this over for this might be one of those less exact Manners which once had place though afterwards left off yet still the mention of Hours of Day and Night would be very redundant especially where the Author is so Brief for what need is there of this Circumstantial Description and how could Forty Hours have otherwise come together Such Objections as these to which the New Interpretation lies open do put us upon looking out for another more proper which I take that of Ruffinus to be For the Forty Days which somâ— are unwilling to find so soon in the Church will appear hereafter not to have been so unhâ—â—â—â—â—f for a Fast as 40 Hours but rather to have been a Number much celebrated within 〈◊〉 little while in the Christian Lent and in all probability sacred before to Abstinence in the Jewish Church Ruffinus
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
fast For now says he we are known to fast by abstaining from that Salutation But if there be any reason for such a Custom you may at your own home if you please and among your Family from whom your fasting cannot well be concealed defer that Ceremony of Peace but otherwise where-ever you may conceal your Fast you are to remember the Command and by this means you will both keep your Rule abroad and your Custom at home For so on Good Friday when the Devotion of Fasting is Common and as it were Publick we justly forbear the Salutation taking no care to conceal from the rest what is done together by us all § III. NOW from these Testimonies of Tertullian it appears First That the Religious Assemblies or Stations of Wednesday and Friday were now well known and practised in the Christian Church and generally supposed to have descended from the Apostles as recommended by their example to the devouter Christians and not as injoin'd the whole Body by any Precept Secondly The constant Opinion of the Catholicks of his time presum'd That those days in which the Bridegroom our Saviour was taken away were to be fasted not at Pleasure but by Direction being design'd and determin'd to that Duty from the Beginning This is certainly the Catholick Sence as it is represented by Tertullian in the second Chapter in express words where he speaks both of the Designation of our Saviour and the Observation of the Apostles and as it is again intimated by him in the 13th Nor could it have been brought in question by Mr. Daillé had he not studied his own Hypothesis too much Neither is that judgment of the Catholicks concerning those days any ways disparaged by the Interpretation they give there to our Saviour's Words (t) Matth. ◠15 For though this Saying of his may be well understood at large as it is by most Commentators of those Distresses and Afflictions the Disciples should fall under upon his Departure the very mention of which they could not now bear vet it will too very properly admit the other Meaning and particularly imply some stated Days of Fasting hereafter to be observed by them and which our Saviour here predicts at least if not directs They were priviledged now by their attendance on the Bridegroom the Messias from the ordinary Monday and Thursday Fasts of the stricter Jews or from others extraordinary set up by John but when the Bridegroom should be taken away that Exemption he tells them would cease and withal new Cause of Fasting would arise and new times be appointed And then he adds under the Figures of a Garment and of Bottles of Wine That neither would those Fasts of his new Institution be proper as yet under the old Dispensation neither were his Disciples prepared now to undertake and observe them but that hereafter when all things should be new his New Dispensation should have New Fasts of its own and his Disciples too become for them New Men by the Renewing of the Holy Ghost This Exposition of the Text concerning such new Fasts in general after our Saviour's Death seems to be most natural very apt I am sure it is to the Occasion and Prosecution of that Saying And if then those general Words were by the first Christians applied in particular to that very time of the Year in which He suffer'd and on which they fasted as by Apostolical Tradition it is no wonder For such secondary Applications of Scripture to Subjects not seeming at first sight to have been intended by it is very usual in the New Testament And it is the known manner of the Jews to accommodate the words of the Bible to such Practices as they take to be of Divine Authority though they are hinted only and alluded to there not expressed much less commanded Thirdly Those Days which were to be so fasted are twice expresly mentioned in the Plural Number And of Those Two are obvious the Friday and the Saturday in which he was Taken Crucified and Buried These at least must I think be understood by Tertullian's Catholicks neither has he given any where any contrary Intimation For in the 14th Chapter of his Treatise of Fasting the Saturday said there to be fasted sometimes is in all probability not the Holy Saturday but any other Saturday in the Year p And in his Book of Prayer Good-Friday is mentioned peculiarly not simply for its being a Common Fast-Day but because it was a Fast-Day in which there was the usual Opportunity for the Holy Kiss and in which it was omitted Whereas on the Saturday they Assembled late and spent the Evening in Baptizing the Catechumens and that Day having in its Office no Place for that Ceremony consequently gave not our Author the same occasion to speak of it And thus much seems evident concerning Two of Those Days But they were reckoned by others as we have observed before from Wednesday and by some from Monday the Fifth day before the Passover the day of the Caption of the Paschal Lamb ordered by Moses (u) Exod. 12.3 in conformity to which they suppos'd our Saviour to have been at that time singled out as it were by the High-Priests and determined for Sacrifice This is certain That by many all those Days were particularly observed as we shall presently know from an Author but fifty Years younger who is indeed the first that tells us of such a Practice but as we often intimate must not therefore be supposed the first that knew it done Fourthly Of Those Days the Friday was the most remarkable for in that He was taken away actually Apprehended Crucisied and laid in the Grave and accordingly It was always kept with a singular Devotion by the whole Church the latter half of the Night in which the Apostles should heretofore have watch'd in Watching and the Day too in Fasting and Praying And for this Reason only we need not have wondered if Good-Friday had been particularly mentioned in the 14th Chapter of Fasting as it is in the Treatise of Prayer I confess from some words of the last Mr. Daillè would infer That Good-Friday was not then observed by all Christians because the Devotion of that Day is said to be Common and as it were Publick or as he sometimes understands almost Publick And his Observation would have been true had Tertullian said as it were or almost Common but when it is first term'd Common without any Restriction and after too said to be kept by All that Consideration alone should have lead that very Learned Person to the true Meaning of this Phrase as it were Publick For Publick he knew does not only signifie what belongs to all but what is expos'd or appears to all which last Sence opposed to Hiding and Concealing the Scope of the place evidently requires And besides it is plain why Tertullian puts in his as it were for he had after his strict manner urged the Command of not Publishing a Fast so absolutely
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 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
Alexandria more particularly In its 6th Canon it decrees c That those who had yielded cowardly to bare Threats and had not professed their Repentance till the time of the Synod should be only admitted to Hear the Scripture and the Sermons as hopeful Vnbelievers were permitted to do untill the Great Day and that after the Great Day they should be of the Class of those who Kneel'd and Pray'd and Supplicated for Pardon as the Catechumeni did for Baptism and so continue three Years And then for two Years more they should Communicate with the Brethren in Prayer but not in the Eucharist And finally after six Years thus spent they should be received into full and free Communion We find by this Canon that the Penitential Space of time were it longer or shorter was generally determined by Easters and see that Peter of Alexandria therefore reckoned by them And further when he does those miserable Penitents the Favour after some Years Mourning to enjoin them only the Penance of Forty Days we understand his Indulgence to have been so much as to have remitted that Yearly time they should otherwise have been kept at least from the Eucharist and to have given them their Lent immediately For lastly when he says they should fast other forty days and says this after Easter we cannot doubt but that he refers to the Forty days lately pass'd in Abstinence and which concluded the preceding Year which too as it seems were pass'd in ordinary course and not by any particular Injunction of his for he appears not to have given any Orders in this Matter before So very probable it is even from this accidental Testimony That a Lent of Forty Days was kept at Alexandria before the Council of Nice and that we should so think we are now going to see what great Reason there is from that Council it self a Dion Alex. Can. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Conc. Anâ—yr Can. VI. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. VII § I. Good-Friday and Days of solemn Fasting mentioned by Constantine § II. The Forty Season expresly mentioned by the Council of Nice § III. And that Forty Days are to be understood proved from St. Chrysostome § I. WE come now to the first General Council Assembled at Nice under the first Christian Emperour in the Year 325 and amongst other things taken into their Consideration another Paschal Difference was then adjusted The Syrians it seems a and Cilicians without Taurus and the Mesopotamians though they kept the Resurrection-day on a Sunday according to the Resolution in Victor's time b yet agreed so much with the Jews as to follow their wrong Calculation and begin the Year sooner than they ought by which means this Paschal Season often happened before the Aequinox whereas the rest of Christendom had all used a more Reformed Account of their own agreeable to the Directions of Moses It was therefore thought fit by the Council That such a notable Difformity among Christians and such an Agreement with the Jews in the Principal Christian Solemnity things in that time as it appears very scandalous should no longer continue which Regulation the Emperour himself considered so much as to notifie and recommend it to the Churches in a Circular Letter transmitted to after Ages by Eusebius There c he tells them That a Question having been raised about the most Holy Day of the Passover it was thought fit by unanimous Consent to keep it every where on the same Day That it was extreamly improper to keep that most Holy Feast from which we have received the Hopes of Immortality after the Custom of the Jews who embrued their hands in that wicked Action That setting aside the Jewish Manner there was a truer Course and Calculation by which the Solemnity of that Observation which had been kept from the first Passion-Day might be hereafter perpetuated to all Ages That besides the Absurdity of Erring with their Enemies the Jews there was an Vnfitness in their Disagreement among themselves That our Saviour had delivered to us One Feast the Day of our Redemption or Freedom that of his most Holy Passion and that he had ordain'd one Catholick Church and that therefore they might consider How improper it was for some Parts of that Church to be Fasting whilst others were Feasting and some after the Days of the Passover were over to be in Joy and Festivity while others were at their Solemn Fasts and both of them for the same common Reason That he promised himself their Assent to that which was already uniformly observed in Rome and Africk and all Italy in Aegypt Spain France Britain Libya all Greece the Dioceses d of Asia and Pontus and in Cilicia within Taurus and not only because there were the Greater Number but because it was the right Course and the Christians were besides to have no Communication with their and our Saviour's Enemies the Jews In this Imperial Letter we may 1 observe the extraordinary Notice that is taken of Good-Friday That alone of all the Paschal Season is specified and Easter-Day it self is unmentioned as if it were the less Principal And this it may be was done in Honour to the Catholick Doctrine and against the New heresie of Arius which depressed infinitely the Dignity of our Saviour and the Merit of his Sufferings as it was the Day of the Passion of God and not of any Creature Whereas on the contrary the Resurrection of a Creature should have been mentioned before its Passion as the more Extraordinary and Remarkable of the Two both for its Cause and Manner and its Effects and Virtue But whatever might be the Reason of this singular Mention of Good-Friday this is certain That every Friday for the sake of the Passion had by an Edict of this Emperour e the like Exemption from Civil Business with the Lord's Day it self as we may remember Origen above gave it an equal Remembrance if Tertullian too did not distinctly specifie it before 2. Solemn and prescribed Fastings are here spoke of and before Easter But how many they generally were and how far they reach'd we are not told from this no more than from other Authorities we have heretofore vouch'd We should indeed presume that they might have made up the Holy Week from Dionysius or it may be a Week or two before from what we observed on Tertullian and when we concluded from Peter of Alexandria That they were about Forty a Term remembered by Irenaeus before we could not have been thought to have stretch'd too far and been over-fond of that Number But a Canon of the same Council accidentally mentioning the Ante-Paschal Fast will sufficiently authorize the Opinion § II. THE 5th Canon f after it has decreed upon the Occasion it is suppos'd of Arius having been received into Communion by Eusebius notwithstanding his Excommunication That those who have been Ejected by one Bishop should not be Admitted by another to provide against unjust Excommunications upon Quarrel and Passion does
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
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-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
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