THE HOLY FAST OF LENT Defended against all its PROPHANERS OR A Discourse shewing that Lent-Fast was first taught the World by the Apostles as Dr. Gunning now Bishop of Ely Learnedly proved in a Sermon Printed by him in the year 1662. by his Majesties special Command Together with a Practical Direction how to FAST LONDON Printed in the Year 1677. THE HOLY FAST OF LENT Defended against its PROFANERS TO go about to prove that the Holy Fast of Lent was first taught the World by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus I know very well is as they say Actum agere to do what has been done and that very efficaciously fifteen years agoe by Dr. Gunning now Bishop of Ely in his Elaborate and useful Treatise on this Subject Printed by his Majesties special Command in the year 1662. And I perswade my self had the rest of the Clergy taken but a quarter of the pains in Reading and Studying that Rational Discourse which the Learned Author did in compiling of it they would have been so well satisfied of the great benefit of Religious Fasting in general as also that the first Planters of Christianity were the first Institutors of the Lent-Fast in par-ticular that they would not have dared but to have Religiously observed it themselves to have taught the like Observation to their Parishoners in their respective Districts But it being too too manifest that very little notice is taken of that Sacred Penitential time either by Priest or People I resolved to press its observation not only by renewing my Lord of Ely's Arguments but also by superadding some particular Reflections of my own Omnipotent Iesus who wrought so many Miracles of Love when you were upon Earth Curing the Blind Deaf and Dumb now from Heaven work upon me a miracle of Iustice and Wither my hand or strike me Blind if I be about to write any thing in favour of Superstition or Will-worship But if I design nothing but to perswade a practice which was taught the World either by your Blessed Self or your Holy Apostles Bless me according to your great mercy and bless my poor Labours to all those into whose hands they shall come I confess it was my Unhappiness to be Educated in Puritanism or Non-Conformity and to look upon the keeping of Lent as a fruitless Superstition But thanks be to Almighty God I now dare no more eat Flesh in Lent than I dared to Work upon a Lords Day when I was a Non-Conformist But how was this strange Change wrought in me I 'le tell you Reading in one of Bishop Andrews his Sermons upon Ash-Wednesday how we were to take notice thâ—t before Popery was batch'd St. Hierom taught the keeping of Lent was an Apostolical Tradition c. Hereupon I began to reason with my self If the Apostles ordained the keeping of Lent why should not I keep it And I confess setting my self to the keeping of it before Easter I was so satisfied of the great benefit of Religious Fasting that one might as soon have perswaded me that Hony was not sweet as that Fasting was not strangely profitable to the Soul or that Lent-Fast had any thing of Superstition in it So true did I find those words of our Blessed Saviour Iohn 7 17. If any one will do his that is Gods Will he shall know concerning my Doctrine whether it be from God or I speak from my self My deerest Friends would you indeed gladly be satisfied whether Fasting in Lent be Superstition or no Set your selves in a Christian manner to Fast that Holy Time and you shall know whether such a practice be from God or a human Invention That is Content your selves every day in Lent with onely one temperate Meal of less Savoury and less Nourishing Victuals not out of any Superstitious intention as if one Meat were more unclean than another but out of a Pious design to humble your selves before God for your sins judging your selves unworthy of the coursest fair and the smallest quantity judging your selves that you may not be judged of our Lord. Take the Rod into your own hand and gently Chastise your selves here to prevent the more severe Animadversion of your Lord hereafter Being well assured that the All-merciful Jesus will not permit the same faults to be punished twice If you punish your selves for them in this World He 'l not punish you for them in the other provided your exterior Humiliation be accompanied with a hearty interior repentant sorrow It is not imaginable what difficulty our proud Nature makes to condemn it self though never so deservedly To acknowledge for example a practice to be Holy and Good which for many years we have totally neglected as Superstitious and to no purpose A little experimental knowledge of the great Spiritual benefit of Religious Christian Fasting would strangely conduce to open our Eyes to see the force of such Arguments as prove Lent-Fast to be Apostolical Had we a little tasted how good it is for the Soul to afflict the Body with Fasting we should easily be perswaded to see a pious observation of Lent was well worthy the Institution of the Apostles and well worthy our Blessed Lords Fasting forty days to animate us thereunto And the truth is In this latter Age amongst too too many Christians little more than the name of Fasting being retained the thing it self according to the Primitive practice being in a manner lost no wonder vast multitudes should easily be perswaded to deem Lent an useless Superstitious Ceremony Having put away a good Conscience as to a Religious Observation of that Holy Time no wonder if we made Shipwrack of our Faith of its Apostolical Institution Too too many Christians in Lent and upon other Fasting-days giving themselves all liberty of drinking Wines and other strong Liquors both at Meals and betwixt Meals and stuffing themselves plentifully at Noon with all sorts of Fish and other Viands which their Purses could reach provided they were not Flesh and pampering Nature again in the Evening with a large proportion of solid Sustenance and with whatsoever quantity of strong drink they please no wonder if such Fasters as these were easily convinced such a Lent-Fast as this was never appointed by the Holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus Is this the Fast our B. Saviour excused his Disciples from as above their spiritual strength till such time as they should have received the Holy Ghost after his departure Is this the Fast that has a power to cast out Devils to obtain the Holy Ghost for our selves or others to appease God All-mighties Anger towards a particular Person City or Country Would Nineveh think you have escaped the Destruction which Ionas in the Name of Almighty-God threatned it with had its King Proclaimed and practised such a Fast as this Might he not rather justly have feared for such a damnable Hypocrisie of pretending to humble himself by Fasting when he did nothing less that he and his people instead of within forty
of it profess from Generation to Generation to have observed it from the first planting of Christianity amongst them and wheresoever Lent is not observed its Non-observers do profess only from such a time to have not observed it and their Ancestors before that time for divers Generations ever since they cannot well tell when had blindly observed it whence it is manifest that the observation of Lent is the ancient Christian practice and its non-observance a Novelty And indeed had the keeping of Lent been a Novelty and not heard of in the Primitive times its observance being so burthensome and contrary to flesh and blood and besides as its Opposers say Superstitious also it s not possible it should be introduced not into one but into all the Christian Countrys of both the Eastern and Western Church in a short time and with a small industry of its Introducers and without great opposition both from good Men for its Superstition and from bad Men for its troublesomeness to Corrupt nature But no Ecclesiastical History though far lesser matters be Recorded makes mention of any such opposition made against Lent in its first bringing in or how or by whom it was brought in even into so much as one particular Diocess But all Records testifie that the prime Doctors both of the Greek and Latin Church in the fifth and sixth Century have been most Religious Observers and Zealous defenders of it which certainly they would never have been had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty and not heard of in the first 300. years And indeed whosoever maturely considers the genius and temper of the Christian Doctors and Bishops for the first five hundred years after our Saviour will find it impossible for all the power of Hell to impose a Novelty upon them For they were not like the seeming Zelots of our Age pretenders to new Lights but their Profession was not to correct Antiquity but faithfully to deliver to Posterity what they immemorially from the Apostles had received from their Ancestors and their great Answer to Introducers of new Doctrines or Practices was Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est We must Innovate nothing but stick close to what has been delivered to us by our Fore-fathers Does a Montanus upon pretext of Divine Inspiration endeavor to impose upon Christians the observation of three Lents in the year the Church of Christ replys by one of her prime Doctors S. Hierom We Fast one Lent within the compass of the whole year according to the Tradition of the Apostles The Montanists keep three Lents in the year as if three Saviours had suffered For other Instances I refer my Reader to the Golden Treatise of S. Vincentius Lerinensis against Innovations As for Pretenders to discover new truths by reading of the Holy Scriptures it s easily conceivable how such persons may be imposed upon by subtil Sophisters and lead into Superstitious practices and made to believe Erroneous Doctrines to wit by bad and new Interpretations of good and antient Scriptures But on the other side how shall a Teacher of Novelties deceive a Country which is resolved to hold fast whatsoever Doctrin or Practice was taught them by their immediate Progenitors who received the same Doctrin or Practice by an uninterrupted delivery from Father to Son from the Apostles Let him pretend Scriptures and bring a thousand places out of the Law Psalms Prophets and Apostles what will the Reply be The Scriptures you alledge we Reverence and have ever been taught to Reverence them as Divine but we have been taught to interpret and understand them in another manner and sense then you alledge them Let him pretend Authority of Doctors as Learned as Origen or as Holy as Cyprian nay if he will a whole Provincial-Council as numerous as that in Africa which determin'd Re-baptization of Persons Baptized by Hereticks they reply We must not Innovate we must hold to what was taught us by our Ancestors What means then to make persons thus disposed to leave their antient faith and practice and admit of a Novelty you must prove to them that you and they and other Christians in several Countrys have been taught so to believe by your immediate Predecessors and uninterruptedly from Father to Son from the Apostles but then you cease to be a Preacher of Novelties contrary to the supposition Apply what has been said to our present Controversie Now that the study of the Christian Church in the fifth Century was not to deliver to Posterity Doctrins of her own devising but carefully to keep what she had received from her Fore-elders and faithfully to teach her Children what she had been taught by her Fathers is manifest out of S. Vincent cited above who lived in that Age and testifies that often asking of very many his Contemporaries famous for their Sanctity and Learning how he might be able to discern the truth of the Catholick Faith from the falsity of heretical pravity he always received this Answer in a manner from them all That if he desired to remain sound in his Faith he must fortifie it first with the Authority of the divine Law and then with the Tradition of the Catholick Church that is as he explicates himself afterwards He must examin what has always all over the Christian Church and by all Christian Doctors or in a manner by all been Believed and hold to that against all Novelties though defended by private Doctors never so Holy or never so Learned or producing never so many Scriptures for themselves if interpreted after a new manner But saies the same S. Vincent chap. 2. Here perhaps some body may ask seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect and is it self sufficient and more than sufficient for all things what need is there to add to it the Authority of the Ecclesiastical or Churches understanding of it Because the holy Scripture by reason of its depth is not by all taken in one and the same sense for Photinus expounds it one way Sabellius another Donatus another Arrius another And chap. 41. He tells us how the third General Council held in his days at Ephesus proceeding according to this rule Condemned Nestorius For the Fathers of that Christian Synod in number about 200. having consulted the sentiment of their Predecessors the eminent Doctors of the Oriental and Western Church S. Peter of Alexandria S. Athanasius S. Theophilus S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Basil S. Gregory Nyssen S. Felix S. Iulius S. Cyprian S. Ambrose concerning their Controversie in debate they resolved to hold their Doctrin to follow their Counsel to believe their Testimony to obey their Judgment Quae tandem c. What were at length saies S. Vincent the Voyces and Votes of them all but that what was anciently delivered should be kept what was of late invented should be exploded After which we admired and proclaimed the great Humility and Sanctity of that Council In which so many Priests in a manner also the greater part
defend the Catholick Faith that they might break in pieces your Arguments Hitherto S. Augustin l. 1. 2. contra Iulianum I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Austen though superabundant to the force of my Argument it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that Lent-Fast was generally practised in the 4th and 5th Century both by the Eastern and Western Churches and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Hierom S. Ambrose S. Basil S. Crysostom and the rest of the Holy Fathers Greek and Latin deemed the observation of Lent to be a pious Christian practice but they with humble submission judged it to be Superstition Will-worship and the Doctrin of Devils Yet few I think but have so much regard for these Primitive Doctors as to allow them so much judgment as to know what was the practice of their several Churches in their days and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to that particular which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse unless you can think that these Holy Fathers were of one Faith their Flocks which Reverence them as Sts. of another For the 4th and 5th Age practising Fasting in Lent not as a piece of Piety begun by themselves but commended to them by Tradition from the Apostles it not only follows that it could not be first begun by their immediate Progenitos which had it been they could not possibly have been ignorant of it but also that it must necessarily have been first taught the world by the Apostles For if the first Converts of the Apostles all over the World had not only been taught no such observation but also had been positively instructed to look upon Abstinence from certain kind of Meats as Superstition and the Doctrin of Devils and with all had been charged not to receive any other Doctrin though Preached to them by an Angel sent from Heaven and they in like manner teaching their Children the same they had learnt as none can doubt but they did How is it possible that the Christians in the 4th Century should most tenaciously adhere to this principle of admitting no new Doctrin or Practice but to hold fast to what was delivered them by their Ancestors from the Apostles and yet should themselves Superstitiously Abstain from Meats and not pretend Scripture for it neither but Apostolical Tradition But had the Pastors of the 4th Century Abstained from certain Meats on pretext of Scripture in such a manner understood by them or upon account of some Decree of a General Council or Law of some Emperor made in the second or third Century or pretending to follow some person or persons raised up by God in the third Age to teach the Christian world a more strict observance it might well be conceiv'd how the 4th Age might abstain from Meats upon a Religious account though no such thing had been taught the world by the Apostles but the quite contrary And from what has been said all well put together I think it is efficaciously concluded against all Opposers of Lent-Fast that it was taught the world by the Apostles But it is not a Tippet or a Surplice I am Arguing for but a practice which if rightly observed is sufficient to make all the world Saints and therefore for the more abundant satisfaction of my Reader I shall now adjoyn positive Evidences out of the Writers of the first 300. years that the Holy Fast of Lent was practised in those most pure and Primitive Times S. Denys B. of Alexandria who lived in the middle of the third Age in his Epistle to Basilides the Bishop Records the Fast before Easter as Universal as the joy and Feast of Easter It will be confessed saies he of all agreeably that we ought to begin the Feast viz. of Easter and Ioy until that time humbling our souls in Fastings they truly which make too much hast and before well toward mid-night break their Fast we blame as regardless and not Masters of their Appetite giving over the Race a little before the Goal Such indeed as are much worn by the Fasts and toward the end as it were faint we easily pardon if they eat sooner And in the same Epistle he mentions in special manner the six days of Fasts to wit those of the last week not alike observ'd of all Origen in the beginning of the same Age. Hom. 10. In Leviticum Habemus Quadragesimae dies c. We have the days of Lent Consecrated to Fasting we have the fourth and sixth day of the week on which we solemnly Fast. And certainly a Christian has liberty to Fast at all times but not out of a Superstitious Observation but by the Vertue of Continency The first General Council of Nice held a little after the year 300. did not first ordain the keeping of Lent but in the sixth Canon makes mention of it as a time known to all the Christian world for in that Canon the Fathers ordain that two Provincial-Councils should be celebrated by the Bishops of every Province every year one of them ante dies Quadragesimae c. before the days of Lent to the end that all Contests if any such be being made up a pure and solemn gift may be offered to God Now how should Lent be observed all over the Christian world so early before any General Council What other Universal cause could there be of so Universal an Observation but the first teaching of the Apostles Or if such a practice had been Superstitious and the Doctrin of Devils how came so Venerable and holy a Councel not to take notice of it As if they could be ignorant of such Scriptures as falsly understood are alledged against it by Non-Conformists In the second Age Tertullian in his Book de Iejunio c. 1 2. tells us that it was not the Sentiment of some one particular Man but of all Catholick Christians who are by him contumeliously called Psychici that the Pascal Fast was Constituted by God and observed by the Apostles His words are Nam quod c. For as to what appertains to Fasts they oppose that there are certain days Constituted by God They surely think that in the Gospel those days are determined for Fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away and those days only are now the legitimate days of Christian Fasts c. And that thus the Apostles observed the rule of Fasting imposing no other Yoke of certain or Set-Fasts to be kept of all in common And c. 13. Ye prescribe against us that the solemn times for this matter are to be believed already constituted in the Scriptures or in the Tradition of our Elders and that no further observance is to be superadded for the unlawfulness of Innovation Maintain this your ground if you can for lo I convince you even your selves Fasting besides the Paschal Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away
less my self that I may have the more to give to those that are in Necessity my Fast is an act of Charity If I Fast the better to dispose my self for Prayer 't is an act of Religious Devotion If I Fast judging my self not worthy of any Delicacies nor of my fill of even the coursest Fare 't is an act of Humility and disposes my soul moreover as little to affect fine Cloaths or stately Dwellings as I do good Victuals and consequently moderates my desires of Money and Riches which are not desirable by corrupt Nature but for these or such like uses If I Fast that I may be better able to pay my Debts or provide my Children Portitions 't is an act of Justice and Christian paternal Piety If to moderate my inordinate Appetite of Meat and Drink 't is an act of Temperance In fine 't is hard to name a Virtue which Fasting does not strangely help to procure maintain and encrease And after all this can either Pagan or Christian deny the holy Fast of Lent to have a Divine Character stamp'd upon it and must it be still stigmatized with the ignominious brand of Superstition and Will-worship But how do I know assuredly the Apostles of our B. Saviour taught the Primitive Christians to Fast in Lent Am I able to produce a grand Jury of so many Venerable old Men who have been miraculously kept alive ever since and are ready to avouch as much upon solemn Oath No not I. How do I then know it Has an Angel appeared to me and told me as much No. How then Why how did the Israelites who lived above two thousand years after the Institution of the Sabbath know that God Almighty commanded their first Father Adam to keep it holy They had no book of it the Book of Genesis being written above two thousand years after by Moses I conceive they knew it thus Adam instantly upon God-Almighties Command set himself Religiously to observe that day and taught his Children to do so also his Children practised and taught their Children downwards till Moses his days Nor had any reason to doubt of the Divine Institution of that first holy day because it was not transmitted and recommended to them by a Book Nor would it have been a sufficient excuse for any one then to have pretended how could they be certain that some of their Ancestors betwixt them and Adam had not of their own head superstitiously devised a Religious observation of that day before all others unless they could have produced some positive evidence of such an Innovation In like manner I say concerning the holy Fast of Lent The Holy Apostles first taught the observation of it in the several Countrys where they Preached the Gospel their Converts fell to the practice of it and taught their Children in like manner and so one Generation another till our present days and this all over the Christian World Now unless Non-Conformists can shew when this burdensome precept of Fasting-Lent was imposed upon Christendom since the first planting of Christianity I cannot see how they can more excuse themselves from this Obligation than could the Israelites excuse themselves from the keeping of Saturday Sabbath which was ordained two thousand years before they were born and there was also as yet no written Word of God at all for any such observation But what proof can be brought that all intermediate Generations since the Apostles in several Christian Countrys have kept Lent A much stronger then Iacob could bring to prove to his Children that Saturday-Sabbath had been kept ever since Adam He could only produce the Testimony of the present Generation that so they had been taught by their Fathers and Grand-fathers time out of mind nor had they any Tradition amongst them of a later beginning of such an Observation Written Records Divine or Human he had none I besides the Testimony of those of the present Age in several Christian Countrys who affirm that they have Immemorially from the first planting of Christianity amongst them Religiously observed Lent will produce by and by Records of above a thousand years standing for its Apostolical Institution But positively to prove that the Apostles appointed Lent I argue thus Two hundred years agoe England France Spain Germany Italy and all the Eastern Church universally Fasted Lent as 't is evident by the Records and Annals of our own and those other Christian Countrys Therefore the Apostles taught Lent to their first Converts both in the Eastern and Western World where they Preached For it cannot be imagined that so many several Countrys Kings and Subjects Priests and People could by chance fall upon the yearly practice of Abstaining from flesh forty days before Easter Therefore they must either all at first be taught so by their first Masters of Christianity which is the Conclusion intended to be proved or some Universal Supream Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil must so have commanded them to do or some Preachers first in one Country and then in another must so have perswaded them to do in some Age since But no Annals of our own or other Christian Countrys make any mention of any such Preachers or any such Ordination made by any general Council Pope Prince or Emperor Nor yet have we or other Cbristian Countrys wanted Ecclesiastical Historiographers who in their Memorials have taken notice of far lesser matters than such an Innovation as this must needs have been had the Apostles taught the World no such Observance And the truth is 't is pure Ignorance in Ecclesiastical History and the works of the Primitive Fathers that makes so many waver in the Belief of the Apostolical Institution of Lent in which if they were well Conversant they could not possibly doubt of it Further Not only two hundred years ago but twelve hundred years agoe Lent was Universally observed in the whole Christian World both in the Eastern and Western Church as is manifest out of the pious works of the prime Pillars and Pastors of Christs Church in the fourth and fifth Century of Christianity Nor do the Opposers of Lent deny so much and therefore appeal to the first 300. years after our Saviour for which time and for which only they pretend the Christian worship was untainted and not infected with the Superstitious observation of Lent And no doubt they have a great deal of reason to think so Charitably of the Primitive Christians who for the first 300. years after our Saviour were all over the World sought after to death for their Religion that they would have a care to keep that Religion unspotted and teach the same faithfully to their Posterity which they were all ready every day to dye for and many of them actually did dye for Besides what a reproach would it be to our B. Saviour that his Church should be Universally over-run with Superstition within 300. years after his Death and yet Moses should be able so to establish a Religion as it