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A56708
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A treatise of repentance and of fasting especially of the Lent-fast : in III parts.
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Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing P857; ESTC R26184
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77,506
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248
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such indecencies as are expressed by those two following comparisons S. Chrysostom indeed understands these comparisons and most now follow him herein as if our Lord had said that his Disciples being yet raw and infirm were not able to bear the severe discipline of Fasting but might receive hurt by it as an old Garment doth by the sewing a new piece of Cloth to it and old Bottles by putting new Wine into them But besides other Objections that may be made to this which I cannot answer it seems unaccountable why Christ's Disciples should not be as strong as John's and very hard to affirm that John imposed such discipline upon his Disciples as Christ judged would be prejudicial and noxious unto his I rest therefore in the forenamed exposition which agrees with the scope of our Saviour who intended not to reject Fasting or to say his Disciples were not yet fit for it but that it was not yet fit for them For there being to every thing a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven in which time God had made every thing beautiful as Solomon speakes in iii. Eccles 1 11. now was the time of gladness while he was present in person with them and they were in the midst of the Marriage-feast mentioned xxii Matth. 2 3 c. in which Fasting was unbeseeming But the time of Mourning was coming when he was taken away from them and they fell into great distresses and in those days they would Fast without any bidding And accordingly we find they were in Fastings often as S. Paul speaks of himself 2 Corinth xi 27. and herein as well as all things else approved themselves as Ministers of God vi 4 5. and taught others also the frequent use hereof which was observed so carefully in all following Ages that S. Basil boldly pronounces Repentance Hom. 1. de Jejunio without Fasting to be an idle business But the practice of the Church shall be the subject of another Chapter when I have first shown in the next of what use Fasting is in Religion And I shall end this Chapter with this plain proof of the truth of what hath been said which will serve for an Introduction to what follows If it be a duty to call our selves to an account for our Sins to humble our selves before God to Repent and to beg pardon for them we may easily know what obligation we have to Fasting And it may safely be referred to the judgment of any man of common sense whether it become a Penitent to present himself before God Full or Fasting and in which of these ways he thinks Sorrow and Grief is to be expressed and the compassion of him whom we have Offended most likely to be moved CHAP. XII The Ends and Vses of Religious Fasting FASTING serves as a help to so many Christian duties with which it is frequently joyned that I cannot mention them all in this little Treatise Wherein I consider it chiefly as an act of Humiliation and a part of Repentance whereby we both abase our selves before God and acknowledge our unworthiness of the least of his Mercies and also afflict and punish our selves for our former excesses and other sins which it helps us also to cure and is a remedy against That it is an act of abasement and serves to humble and lay us low in our own thoughts the Psalmist in so many words tells us when he saith xxiv Psal 13. My clothing was Sackcloth I humbled my Soul with Fasting Nor had Sackcloth or any other part of the ancient discipline a different meaning For by putting on such course clothing as Mr. Mede observes they ranked themselves with men of the meanest and lowest condition Which was the intention also of putting Ashes and sometimes Earth upon their Heads as if they were below the lowest of Gods Creatures And of sitting or lying upon the ground with which by that posture they levelled themselves And it may be added of pouring out water before the Lord which was a very ancient Ceremony upon their Fasting-days 1 Sam. vii 6. in token of their Humiliation saith Rabbi Solomon upon that place As if they had said Behold O Lord we are before thee as these waters that are poured out that is nothing worth The same they confessed by abstaining from all sort of Food which was an acknowledgment that they were not worthy to live upon Gods Earth any longer Thus when Ahab in the 1 Kings xxi 27. rent his clothes which was another act of Humiliation making them look like beggars and put Sackcloth on his flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly as a man quite dejected God himself in the 29. Ver. calls this Ahabs humbling himself before him and promises thereupon to remit something of the sentence pronounced against him in not executing it so soon as was intended And that it is a natural effect and expression of Sorrow I need not trouble my self to demonstrate Daniel calls it by the name of Mourning x. Dan. 2 3. And what he calls mourning and eating no pleasant Bread in the beginning of the Chapter the Angel afterward Ver. 12. taking special notice of it calls chastening himself before his God And so we translate the Psalmists words lxix Psal 10. When I wept and chastened my Soul with Fasting c. For no abstinence or sorrow can deserve the name of Penitence but such as is afflictive which is so much intended in Fasting that they are words of the same signification According to that known rule among the Jews Wheresoever the Scripture speaks of afflicting the Soul it means Fasting Thus the great Fast appointed by God to be yearly observed on the Seventh day of the Tenth month is described in the xvi Lev. 29 31. It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you and ye shall afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever And whatsoever Soul it be as it follows xxiii 29. that shall not be afflicted on that same day he shall be cut off from among his people And this was the end of all other Fasts as appears by those words of Ezra which are the most express of any to this purpose viii 21. Then I proclaimed a Fast at the River Ahava that we might afflict our selves before our God For hunger and thirst is in it self troublesome painful to the Body as S. Austin very well observes Nam fames sit is dolores sunt Vrunt Lib. x Confess c. 31. sicut febris necant nisi alimentorum medicina succurrunt And should call to our mind the true cause of all pain and anguish that our Conscience feeling the sharp stings of guilt and we being pricked in the Heart as the Apostle speaks may more thankfully embrace the remedy and speedily also seek for relief by an unfeigned Repentance Fasting hath also something of a penal chastisement in it whereby we take revenge upon our selves as I showed in the fifth Chapter and punish our selves for
way but contented our selves with Prayers and some kind of Repentance without such Humiliations and chastening of our selves as our sins and our condition required CHAP. XIII Of Fasting-days particularly Wednesdays and Fridays THE Church of God therefore hath always set some time a part for Fasting as well as Prayer And thought it a duty of such continual use that it is not safe it should be long intermitted For mankind being subject frequently to run into sin it is but reason they should be frequently put in mind of calling themselves to an account and returning to him with sorrowful Humiliations for their faults And therefore it is a most ancient and no less wholsom Ordinance of the Church that we should from week to week assemble our selves for this end To search and try our ways and with Fasting and Prayer to turn unto the Lord that thereby we may turn away his wrath from us which otherways either in general or particular may fall upon us To except against this because there is no Divine commandment upon Record for it is very unreasonable For in the ancient Religion of the Jews there was no Precept given by their Law-giver for more Fasts than one throughout the whole Year which was that I named before on the great day of expiation and yet notwithstanding they held themselves obliged to observe many other Fasts upon set days in several months some of which are remembred in Scripture and approved by God though not prescribed by his particular Commandment Read vii Zach. 3 5. viii 19. where you will find that four Fasts in several months having been upon good reason ordained they durst not alter them though the reason seemed to be altered without a Divine direction which their Elders by whose authority they were first appointed desired to receive from the Prophet But it is most to my purpose to observe that there were also weekly as well as those monthly Fasts among that people which our Saviour found in use when he came and did not reprove no more than Prayer and paying of Tithes which the Pharisee mentions together therewith in xviii Luke 11 12. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself God I thank thee that I am not as other men c. I Fast twice in the week I give Tithes of all that I possess Which were all commendable things if his vanity had not made him glory in them and despise other people And therefore the Pharisees frequent Fasting is mentioned I observed before in other places of the Gospel together with that of John's Disciples who also Fasted oft without the least reflection upon them for it as if they were superstitious or did more than needed No our blessed Saviour rather approves of their strictness in this For he saith his Disciples should not be behind with them in Fasting hereafter though for the present there was a special reason why they did not practise it Of which speech of our Saviour I shall make considerable use presently when I have noted that the two days on which they Fasted every week were the second and the fifth that is our Munday and Thursday Which days no doubt were chosen because they had been of old days of Prayer which the devouter sort observed with Fasting also for such reasons as I have already named If we may give credit to Maimonides these days were appointed by Moses himself for solemn Assemblies which he knew could not with safety be long discontinued And therefore saith he Our Master Moses appointed Israel to read the Law at Morning Prayer upon the Sabbath day and upon the Second and the Fifth that they might not rest three days from hearing the Law Upon which days even they that dwelt in the Villages as Mr. Thorndike * Relig. Assemblies chap. viii further observes out of him were bound to assemble in the Synagogues though on the rest of the days in the week they did not tye them to it no more than they did to Fasting on those days with which the stricter and devouter sort of people observed them as not only the Gospel but their own Writers inform us Now these two days having been thus set apart from ancient time for Prayer and Fasting those pious Jews who became Christians could not think of being less Religious and devout under the Gospel than they had been under the Law and therefore still continued to observe two such days every week though not the very same For as instead of the Seventh which was the Jewish Sabbath they now kept the First day of the week as the principal time for their Assemblies so instead of the Second and the Fifth they chose the Fourth and the Sixth which are our Wednesdays and Fridays for the two other days on which they weekly held solemn Assemblies And for the very same reason it is likely for which Moses or the Elders chose the other because they were at the same convenient distance from the Lords day as Munday and Thursday were from the Jewish Sabbath and hereby it was provided that as Maimon speaks no three days passed without the more solemn sort of Assemblies Certain it is that there was no Church in Epiphanius his time which did not look upon these two days as the stated days for Fasting and Prayer Which he avows so confidently against the Aerians that he fears not to ask this question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. * Haeres lxxv n 6. Who is there that consents not in this throughout all the Climates of the world that the Fourth day and the day before the Sabbath i. e. the Sixth day are Fasts determined or appointed in the Church No body he knew durst contradict this challenge and undertake to shew the contrary which is the more remarkable because he represents them as set days by a setled Decree or Ordinance and that of the Apostles For so it follows that it was ordained by an Apostolical constitution all should Fast on those two days Which doth not seem to me so unlikely as it doth to some when I reflect upon those words of our Lord in answer to those that askt Why the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees Fasted oft but his did not Wherein as he no way condemns what either the one or the other did for that which was a vertue in John's Disciples could not be a crime in the Pharisees so he doth not go about to excuse his Disciples from the like obligation But plainly saith that though it was not fit for the present yet when he was gone from them they also should Fast in those days And I see no cause why we should not think that he means they should Fast as oft about which the question was as the other did Which being twice every week of which it is very reasonable to understand the often Fasting both of John's Disciples and of the Pharisees I cannot but conclude the Apostles also when our Saviour had left the World