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
now make no reckoning of it would do well nay they are bound in Conscience to consider if they meet with this little Book what I have therein represented and I hope they will be convinced that they ought to do a great deal more if they be able than Fast and Pray and Humble themselves before God on that day For if they be perswaded that Fasting is a Christian duty and that there is frequent occasion for it both upon their own account and others and so become sensible that the weekly Fasts were wisely ordained they will easily see that there is great Use also of this yearly Fast of Lent that the defects of their weekly Humiliations and Devotions may hereby be supplied If there were no other reason for it this might be sufficient to satisfie pious and humble minds who being sensible of the slightness of their weekly Humiliations and Repentance cannot but be disposed to hearken to the voice of the Church which calls them to Fast before Festivals especially to a most solemn Fast before the most solemn yearly Festival that by taking a stricter account of themselves and perfecting their Humiliations and Repentance they may have a right as Mr. Thorndike speaks to the blessing which we then celebrate For which very reason Peter Martyr * In cap. xx L. Judicum p. 171. thinks the annual Fast was ordained among the Jews by God himself because many sins had been committed by the people in the whole year foregoing and the Ceremonies of the Law had not been diligently observed And that suggests another reason why this Fast of Lent should be diligently observed For besides what relates to our private concerns there may have been some publick offence committed by the community I mean by the whole body of the People which may justly require the publick Humiliation of the whole Church We see for instance several wholsome Laws and Constitutions both in Church and State generally disregarded or at least not observed There are certain vices also in some Ages universally prevail without any check whereby the people become less sensible of their guilt There was a time when the Holy Communion was not administred for several years together in a great many Parishes of England It is still perhaps not so frequently administred much less attended as it ought to be The publick Prayers which are the chief are not so frequented as the Service of God requires And if nothing of this or any thing like it were known to be publickly done or omitted contrary to our Christian duty yet it would be very safe for us to suspect there may be much lurking wickedness which is not espied or at least that several sins of ignorance have been committed and that by mistake and through weakness many Errors may have been in the publick management of affairs both in Church and State The best of men being apt sometimes to do amiss even when their intentions and designs are right and good Upon which score if there were no other reason for it the Fast of Lent is most necessary that there may be a publick Humiliation for publick Errors if not for publick Sins Besides every one knows that this anciently was the Season for putting such persons to open Penance as stood convicted of notorious sins and for sending up Prayers to God like publick Embassadors as Tertullian * L. de Poenit. c. ix and others speak to sue in their behalf for Peace and Reconciliation and to beseech God to grant them true Repentance and perfect Remission and Forgiveness And if this Godly discipline be not now practised there is the greater reason for all good Christians to bewail it and looking upon this as one publick neglect joyn together in publick Repentance For which there must be some time appointed and what time so proper as this which was the time anciently appointed for this now neglected discipline And the time wherein the whole Christian Church as one man humbled themselves before God both high and low rich and poor to beg of God a general pardon of all offences with Fasting and Alms and with resolution of amendment of life Insomuch that they who always live in a strict and circumspect care to please God in every thing may find also something to do at this Season as well as other men if it be but in bewailing higher offenders and putting up fervent Prayers for them which avail much from a righteous man But if they be so exact and circumspect as they ought they may find likewise that they have not performed the duties of their particular places and relations with such diligence but there are many defects many oversights and slips for which they have need to ask a pardon But if there were nothing of this that could be supposed yet there is a benefit which the most perfect Christians may reap from the Observance of this Lent Season and that of an inestimable value in their account Which is that it will be a time of retirement from the hurry of the World which is very desirable to all wise and good minds that they may enjoy God and themselves without disturbance but hard to meet withal especially in populous Cities unless by common consent men forbear their visits and keep at home which is most suitable to a time of Fasting and decline their wonted meetings during this Season unless upon their necessary business that they may have leisure to be better acquainted with themselves and with the affairs and enjoyments of another World Whence it is that S. Athanasius * Lib. de Virgin p. 1047 c. calls Fasting the life of Angels not only because during the time we can live without Meat and Drink we imitate their happy life and are as he speaks of their order and placed in their rank but because it clarifies the mind and gives it both ability and leisure to withdraw it self from the company of things here below and raise its thoughts to the Celestial company above To which purpose S. Chrysostom as his manner is discourses more copiously in a Sermon he made at the entrance of the Lent Fast * Hom. 1. in Gen. Which Season he desires his Auditors to prepare themselves to entertain with the same joy that a chaste and modest Virgin is brought withal to her Bridal Chamber Let none of you saith he be sad let no dejection appear in any countenance when he is invited to this Fast but let all be exceeding glad and glorifie God the great Curator of Souls who hath provided for them this Remedy Whose Advent ought to be received with much pleasure because the ensuing days of Fasting are the true Holy-days and time of rest Wherein is the safety of Souls wherein is Peace wherein is Concord and happy Agreement wherein all busie provision for this life being laid aside there is no noise no tumult no running about of Cooks no slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep but these being
their Souls xvi Lev. 29 31. lviii Isa 5. which explains the first word in S. James and shows it to be the very same with that in Joel turn unto him with Fasting And if we search farther wherein this afflicting themselves consisted we shall find an Explication of the rest that follow For it did not consist barely in abstinence from food but in putting on also the habit of mourners sackcloth and ashes and in the action of renting the garments in bewailing and lamenting their conditition which are the next phrases in S. James mourn and weep And if we still proceed further in our enquiry we shall find that on such days of afflicting themselves they also abstained from all sorts of pleasure they would not so much as wash their faces much less annoint their heads no nor look up but hanged down their heads in confusion of face Musick and Songs were perfect strangers to them nor would they take any rest but they punished their bodies with watchings and lying on the bare ground To testifie their sorrow and grief for what evil they had done or for the evils they felt or feared And accordingly here it follows in the Apostle in perfect conformity to those customs let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into heaviness or into hanging down of the head with shame and grief And if we go on to search into the ground of all this it will further illustrate the thing in hand For it is visible that upon occasion of any sorrowful accidents they were wont in those Eastern Countries to express their sense of it by putting on sack-cloth lying on the ground strowing ashes on their heads and such like things Which is notorious more especially in case of the loss of their Friends and near Relations Thus Jacob bewailed the supposed death of his Son Joseph xxxvii Gen. 34 35. And thus Rispah the Concubine of Saul lamented her Children whom the Gibeonites hanged on a Gibbet 2 Sam. xxi 10. and thus Job when he heard of the calamity befaln his Family rent his mantle shaved his head fell down upon the ground and remained in silence without speaking a word for seven days i. Job 20. and thus his Friends also hearing of all this evil and beholding when they came to visit him in what a lamentable condition he lay himself lift up their voice and wept and rent every man his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads and sat down with him upon the ground in silence ii Job 12 13. Nor are there wanting numerous examples which I shall omit of the very same customs among other Nations as well as among the Jews and these Arabians No wonder then if pious men who were touched with a sense of their sin and of the Divine displeasure used the very same signs and testimony of their grief which were customary in other cases of far less consequence For what greater mischief can befall us than the loss of Gods favour or rather what calamity is equal or nearly approaching to it And therefore there is more reason to bewail our offences against him which put us out of his favour most heavily and with the most doleful tokens of our sorrow for them than there is to bewail the loss of the dearest Friend we have in this World or the greatest misfortune as we term it that can possibly befal us And accordingly we read that when holy Job humbled himself before God for his too peremptory vindication of his own innocence he doth it in the same manner that he had bewailed his Afflictions saying I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes xlii 6. And the Prophets often call upon the Israelites to put on sackcloth and to bewail themselves in ashes when they would have them mourn for their sins and as it is in 1 Sam. vii 2. lament after the Lord that is seek the recovery of his favour by an hearty Repentance For they did not think it fit for grievous offenders to look up to him whose authority they had affronted without Tears in their Eyes and a sad and sorrowful countenance in the most mournful posture and habit and the bitterest expressions of their grief and inward anguish As knowing that they deserved to be unprofitably bewailing their sins in a more dismal place where there is Nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Why will some say doth God delight to hear our shrieks and groans or would you have us be our own Tormentors Is it reasonable a man should be cruel to his own flesh and make it his business to put himself to pain There is Nothing from which humane Nature more abhors than sorrow and grief and Nothing is more Friendly to it than Pleasure and Joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing that saddens and afflicts us is a real Disease and Sickness To which we cannot but be averse and by all means study to avoid Unto which I answer as Solon did to one who told him when he wept for his Son that he troubled himself but profited Nothing by it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the very reason said he why I cannot but weep So when men say that Nature is hurt by Sorrow the reply may justly be that 's one of the things which should make you sorrowful To see how you have spoiled the Beauty and Goodliness of Humane Nature how you have sullied it by your sins and darkned the brightness and chearfulness of it by Eclipsing the light of Gods countenance which we were made to enjoy and to rejoyce therein and causing this World to become Nothing but a Scene of Misery a place of mourning and lamentation either for our sins or for our sufferings It is a sad fight indeed to behold a Creature made for great Happiness to be now so altered that in all the Creation there is not one so full of complaints as Man But it will be a sadder if his first complaint be not of the cause of all this which is our Sins These if they be not sorrowfully bewailed are the most grievous and lamentable of all things else in the account of those who rightly weigh them But besides this we must consider that this is the way to make men leave their sins and so be restored to true Joy and Gladness If they can take pleasure in evil courses as well as in good they will never be at the trouble of an exchange Nor scarce think of it till they be mourning there where Tears will never cease to flow and drown them in Eternal Sorrows Nay more than this to think of our sins without due sorrow and grief for them is in truth to repeat them So far are they from leaving them who are not grieved for them that whensoever they call them to mind without such grief it is in effect again to commit them Their minds are pleased with them and there they do that over again which was done before in outward
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
acknowledges when L. 2. de bonis oper c. 14. not only he but S. Ambrose and S. Hierom say the Lenten Fast was ordained by our Lord they mean not by his Precept but by his Example Now this example of the Apostles was so prevalent that there needed not so much as an Ecclesiastical Constitution for this Fast from whence others derive it but all for a long time easily followed such great patterns of devotion I say all for no Church can be found wherein a solemn Fast before Easter was not observed which is a strong argument to prove it derived it self from such a beginning as I have mentioned for otherwise it cannot be conceived how it should prevail universally in all Countries where the Name of Christ was preached As it is plain it did by the eldest Records we have of the Church which I shall not here set down at large because it is besides my purpose and as many as are sufficient I shall have occasion to mention in what follows CHAP. XVI Of the Variety in its Observation THE Reader may take notice that I have hitherto mentioned only a solemn Fast before Easter which S. Clement calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Paschal Fast not yet determining the length of it but affirming that it was observed more or less from the very beginning I say more or less because it cannot be denied that there was great variety in the length of it For Irenaeus as it is commonly known writing to Victor Bishop of Rome about the difference there was in the time of observing Easter saith there was also a difference in the observation of the Fast before it Some supposing they ought to Fast one day some two others more for some he saith extended it to forty and Euseb L. v. c. 24. reckoned their day by the hours of day and night that is Fasted from Evening to Evening Which words some contend relate only to the Fast in the week before Easter as the first part of them do but the whole cannot unless we understand forty not of days but only of hours Which is against the foregoing words in which he speaks of days and against the ancient reading which Ruffinus followed who Translates the words to the same sence that I have done And his Translation is from more ancient Greek Copies than any of those which some are pleased now to follow and is confirmed by Jo. Christophorson and Sir Henry Savil who read and distinguish the words in the same manner Which things I have briefly touched to show that whatsoever variety there was it is still a confession of a Fast before Easter distinct from all other In that there was no variety but all observed the Fast as much as they did Easter that is the memory of our Lord's Resurrection And Irenaeus saith that this variety did no begin in his Age but as his words are long before us with our Ancestors So it is evident from thence that the Fast was not a new thing but come down to them from times long before them that is from the Apostles This if fairly considered might help to settle all the controversies which are about this Fast of Lent Which many have taken a great deal of pains to prove is not an Apostolical Constitution nor so ancient as their days But none of their arguments prove any more than this that the Fast of forty days length doth not derive it self from their Ordinance or Example For they are of no force at all to prove that the Paschal Fast that is a Solemn time for Fasting and Prayer and such holy duties before Easter of more or fewer days as the devotion of Christians inclined them doth not proceed from Apostolical Example And if this were agreed it would help to give us a right understanding in all the rest For when the Fast came to be generally extended to the length of forty days and so received and observed in the Church which the forenamed Zanchy saith it appeared to him was non it a multò post Apostolorum tempora not very long after the Apostles times that may be truly thought to be only by an Ecclesiastical Constitution And so S. Austin expresly resolves that those forty days before Easter should be observed Ecclesiae consensio roboravit the consent of the Church hath established Which being thus setled and confirmed so long ago I cannot understand why any body should now go about to overthrow it but rather imploy their pains and learning in showing how it was and how it ought now to be observed In which I cannot but commend the Wisdom and Piety of the forenamed Zanchius who looks upon these forty days before Easter as Tempus ex pia veteris Ecclesiae Ordinatione continuatum Ib. in quartum praecept p. 696. c. a time continued and extended to this length by the pious Ordinance of the ancient Church in which the faithful are more diligently than at any other time excited to Repentance both by Fastings and by Prayers and by hearing Gods Word and by other pious exercises I suppose he means giving Alms more liberally admonishing one another and such like whereby they are prepared the more worthily to partake of the Holy Communion at Easter And if any one saith he thus define the forty days Fast who is there that can justly dislike it None but those certainly who love to live licentiously without any bridle or those whom prejudice makes inconsiderate and will not let them understand the meaning and intention of the Church in this Institution Which was not to tye every one to Fast the whole forty days but to imploy themselves all that time in some or other of the forenamed holy Exercises with more than ordinary strictness and as many of those days as they could bear in Fasting For as there was variety before so there was after the Fast was determined to forty days in which some Fasted more some fewer days as may be clearly proved For if Dionysius of Alexandria * Biblioth Patrum Tom. 1. p. 308. say true about the year 255. of the six days before Easter which were the severest part of the Fast and S. Basil in his time calls the five days of Fasting desiring his Auditors to keep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a five days truce with their mouth * Orat. 1. de jejunio that all did not Fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equally and alike But some continued to Fast all the six days others only fasted two days others three others four and some none at all Then we may well suppose the rest of the forty days before-going were not kept by all with the like strictness but some fasted more days some fewer and some were not able to bear any Fast at all But besides this inference which may be drawn from his words we have express testimony that they were observed variously as men could bear For S. Chrysostom I observe Hom. xvi ad
Pop. Antiochen in a Sermon of his in the third week in Lent saith that it was a general custom among his people to ask one another in Lent time how many weeks every one had Fasted And that one might hear them answering that some had fasted two others three others all the weeks Which difference he doth not censure but only tells them that none of them had fasted to purpose if they had not abstained from evil speaking and backbiting and were not cured of their wicked habit of Swearing and such like sins And Petitus hath evidently proved that in S. Austin's time and Leo the Great 's they fasted but three days in a week at Rome during the Lent season And so Socrates represents their practice at Rome in his time which was near that of Leo's that they fasted three continued weeks before Easter except upon the Saturdays and Lord's days And S. Ambrose saith in one of his Sermons that he heard complures Serm. 34. very many of the faithful fasted interchangeably one week in Lent and dined in another For which indeed he reproves them but it was a thing practised or some thing like it in other places L. vii cap. 19. as Sozomen tells us For having said how some Countries made Lent to consist of Six weeks of days others of Seven he saith some fasted three of these Six or Seven weeks alternately or scatteredly as his word is sometimes forbearing all Food and sometimes using it and others continuedly fasted the three weeks immediately preceding Easter without any interruption Which variety I suppose arose from the various tempers dispositions imployments and perhaps devotion of divers people who not condemning nor censuring one another preserved still an uniformity in this variety All being more than ordinarily diligent in some or other of the solemn Religious Exercises of this Season during the whole time And thus Irenaeus saith that in the variety that was in this Fast long before his time there was a perfect agreement among Christians The difference of the Fast not dissolving the union of Faith No nor the bond of Peace For he saith expresly they all lived peaceably one with another as they did also in his days Nay S. Austin makes this diversity in Ecclesiastical customs to be represented by the divers colours wherewith the raiment of the Kings Daughter Psal xlv was embroidered This variety Epist 86. saith he consists well enough with one Faith which is the inward glory of the Church For it is only in the Garment that is in external observations nay the Garment is thus varied by divers celebrations so that it is not torn by contentions Which sence of things if we all had ingrafted in our minds and both studied and heartily loved this blessed temper we might with singular profit keep this Fast of Lent Which was wisely prolonged by the Church to forty days and in some places to more as I might plainly show were it the business I design not to tie every one precisely to Fast so many days but that all might have scope and room enough in some part or other of this time if not in the whole for such holy Exercises as these to call themselves to the strictest account to examine their Consciences narrowly to humble and afflict themselves for all their sins and particularly to amerce as I may call it and punish themselves by frequent Fastings for their frequent abuses of Gods good Creatures to form and settle holy resolutions of thorough amendment to pray to God with greater ardor both in private and publick for his pardon and for his holy Spirit to meditate upon the wonderful love of God in our Saviour Christ who will receive penitent sinners unto Mercy and to fit themselves to receive the Tokens and Pledges of the same with the higher joy and gladness because with the fuller assurance of his being reconciled to us being thus disposed through the Death and Passion of Christ Jesus And here it may be briefly noted that the Paschal Fast was thus inlarged rather than any other time chosen for these holy Exercises because then we remember the bitter Agonies and Passion of Christ for our sins which are the most powerful motives to make us hate and forsake them and the clearest demonstration what the deserts of them were and how stupendious the loving kindness of God which would accept and also find a ransom for us Which account of it S. Austin I observe gives in his famous Epistle to Januarius In what part of Epist 119. the Year could the observation of it be appointed more congruously nisi confinis atque contigua Dominicae Passioni But that which was bordering upon and contiguous unto the Passion of our Lord As for the limitation of this solemn Season of Humiliation to the number of forty days therein I suppose the Church had a respect to Christ's Fasting forty days in the dedication of the New Covenant as Moses and Elias had done in the giving and restoring of the Old Not that they thought themselves bound precisely and absolutely by that example but looking upon it only as a convenient direction as a learned Writer of our own * Dr. Field of the Church L. 3. c. 20. speaks in determining the length of this Fast wherein they might also be put in mind of that sore trial and temptation which Christ then indured for our sakes This being a number likewise famous in Scripture upon many other accounts for the Rain which made the Flood continued forty days and so many days the Spies spent in searching out the good Land and Ezekiel in the type he was ordered to draw of the Siege of Jerusalem lay on his right side to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days iv 6. after which number of days also Jonah threatned Nineveh should be destroyed and so many our Saviour staid with his Disciples after his Resurrection before he ascended unto Heaven Which might move the Church to think of this number rather than any other but without any opinion that it was strictly bound thereunto for then the Church would have precisely kept to it which it hath not done For deducting the Saturdays and Sundays which were not anciently Fasted in the Eastern Church nor in some parts of the Western no not at Rome it self there do not remain forty days And if only the Sundays be deducted as now in the Western Churches there will still want of that number of forty days For those in the Caput as they call it or beginning of the Fast which being put to the rest make up that number it must be confessed were not observed at the first but added afterward CHAP. XVII Of the Manner of its Observation NOW in the manner of Fasting it must be acknowledged also there was a variety as well as in the number of days which they Fasted For in the Holy week as it was called they that were strict would Eat
nothing but Bread and Water and Salt which was called dry diet and was proper to those six days as we read in Epiphanius * Haeres lxxv n. 6. In two of which days just before Easter some Eat nothing at all In the rest of the Lent some would Eat only Fish others allowed themselves also Birds because of the same Nature they thought with Fish being made out of the Water as Moses testifies But others forbore all Fish likewise as well as Flesh which was the custom of the Greeks Yet the famous Monks of Mount Athos would Eat Oisters because they had no bloud in them Some contented themselves with Eggs and Fruit others forbore both and lived upon Bread and Herbs and Roots And S. Hierom saith there were some who would not so much as Eat a bit of Bread which Socrates also testifies But in this variety they all agreed in one thing which was to Eat nothing at all until the Evening and then such Food only as was least delicate not confining themselves to any particular thing but as their Bodies would bear No man pretended to Fast if he Eat a Dinner though it were of Fish only or any other less nourishing thing And though on other Fasts they broke them at Three a Clock in the Afternoon they did not take that liberty in the Lent Fasts but continued them as I said till night At which time also they did not indulge themselves the best fare of any sort whatsoever but contented themselves with the meanest which they used also with much moderation Socrates indeed saith that some fasted only till the Ninth hour which is our Three of the Clock but they were very few if we will believe all other ancient Writers In short they fasted all day and used Abstinence at night Out of all the Records of the Church which speak of this I shall select only a passage out of S. Austin which most lively describes the true sort of Abstinence and reproves the false It is in his Books about the Manners of the Catholick Church compared with L. 2. cap. 13. those of the Manichees Where speaking of the great Abstinence to which the Manichees pretended he puts this Query to them If there be a man to be found as there may who is so moderate that he doth not Eat twice in one day and at Supper with a little Bacon hath only a dish of Herbs ointed and seasoned with the same Lard served up to him sufficient to suppress his hunger quenching his thirst also for his health sake with two or three draughts of diluted Wine and this is his daily diet On the other side there is one who tastes no Flesh nor drinks a drop of Wine but hath exquisite and far-fetcht foreign Fruits of the Earth with Mushrooms and such like things set before him in variety of dishes and sprinkled with good store of Spice at Three of the Clock in the Afternoon and Eats also a good Supper of the same things at the beginning of Night drinking therewith Mede and Cyder and other good Liquors like enough to Wine and excelling it in sweetness and that not merely to quench thirst but as much as he list for his pleasure Which of these two as to Eating and Drinking do you judge to be most Abstemious I do not think you so very blind but you see that the latter is a Glutton in comparison with the former And what can be more mad than to say that he who fills his Belly even to belching with all manner of pleasant things save only Flesh-meat and Wine hath kept the rule of Sanctity but that the other who Eats only so much of the vilest food seasoned with a little smoaky Lard as will suffice for the refection of his Body with three cups of Wine merely for the support of health is prepared for certain punishment Thus that great man whose words I have endeavoured to contract a little represents as I take it the practice of the Catholicks in their Fastings By which we may make a just judgment of our own in these days and not deceive our selves with a dangerous opinion that we have performed this duty when we have only changed our diet not forborn our Dinners or if we have crambed our selves with delightful Suppers This is not only against all ancient practice and the repeated admonitions of the Holy Fathers but is still condemned by good men in all Churches Particularly by Lindanus an Panopliae L. 3. C. xi excellent Writer in the Roman Church in the last Age whose words I shall not translate at large but only observe in short that he sadly bewails the state of the Catholick Church in which the shadow only of Fasting is left As for those that cannot possibly Fast so long it never was the intention of the Church to oblige them but they were anciently exhorted as appears by S. Chrysostom whose discourse on this Subject I shall produce anon to take some refreshment But then it was only to support their Spirits from fainting and they all humbled themselves before God with Supplications and Prayers especially upon the most solemn days of Prayer and bewailed those sinners which now did open Penance and beseeched God to give them true Repentance and endeavoured to perfect their own and gave Alms to the Poor and spent more time than ordinary in reading and hearing God's Holy Word in which and such like holy Exercises both one and other passed this time of Lent satisfying themselves with these Spiritual pleasures while they denied their appetites in bodily delights That is they that could not Fast took care notwithstanding to perform all those Christian duties which it is the very design and end of Fasting to help and promote CHAP. XVIII The great Vsefulness thereof AND now who sees not the reasonableness of this Observance and the great benefit we may receive thereby If instead of contending about it for which thus understood I can see no ground we would all set our selves to make the best use we can of what the Church hath piously ordained and for many Ages profitably practised I do not know how it appears to others but it seems very strange to me that what the Church had strengthened and confirmed by an unanimous consent in S. Austin's time should find any dissenters from it in these days And yet I fear there are some I wish they be not many who scarce observe Good-Friday that is the day of our Saviour's Passion with any of that strictness which I have mentioned but Eat and Drink and do all other things as upon the rest of the days of the year A thing never heard of in the Church of Christ till these later days which among other scandals affords matter for the lamentations of the best Men and Women among us during the Lenten season especially upon that Great and Solemn day when by common consent Christians anciently made a Conscience of fasting strictly And they who