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
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
uncorrupted rule of life For though there were at the first some Tares scattered by the Enemy which grew up among the good Corn yet it cannot be denied that there was never greater Sanctity nor more perfect Innocence than was among the generality of the Faithful who as far as we can find always observed some such solemn Fast as I have treated of before the Memory of Christ's Resurrection And therefore let not us now in these days refuse much less reject the service of that which they found very helpful to them for the preserving and perfecting of the Church in Purity and Holiness and which good men in later times have been so far from thinking superfluous that they have rather inclined to like the custom of the Greek Church who beside the great Lent have other three Lents of shorter continuance and less strict observance at other solemn times of the Year Let us not lay aside the use of Fasting the example of which flowed from the Prophets John Baptist our Lord Christ and his Apostles Nor of this great Fast which is commended to us by most ancient Custom if not by greater Authority by the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Church in the best Ages and by the practice of all the Faithful and which is of very great moment to dispose the mind for the Reading and Hearing of God's holy Word for Prayer for Hymns and all other Christian duties whereby we may also draw upon our selves and our Families nay and upon the Church and Kingdom whereof we are members all manner of Blessings both by appeasing his Divine displeasure and averting publick Judgments and on the contrary procuring great prosperity What if one part of Lent be now neglected that is the publick discipline of the Church against notorious Offenders is not in these later Ages exercised shall all the rest therefore be laid aside with it A serious Believer who hath any love to himself and the publick safety would rather conclude that there is so much the greater reason to be more diligent in that part of it from the practice of which nothing but our own Wills can hinder us since notorious Offenders it seems are grown so numerous that it is impossible to bring them to do open Penance for their scandalous sins and wickedness That is every man who hath as yet a sense of God and Goodness remaining in him ought to look upon the ensuing Lent as a time set apart for the calling himself to a strict and severe account And accordingly if any man find that he hath been a Fornicator though never so close and secret a Drunkard or constant Tipler an Extortioner an hard-hearted Worldling a Calumniator or Backbiter a Blasphemer of God an hinderer or slanderer of his Holy Word or any other great Sinner he ought to apply himself conscientiously to Fasting and Prayer and giving Alms and all other duties which have been ever accounted proper for this Season And let him not spare himself but spend this time as much as he can in all manner of Humiliations which have been often mentioned in this Treatise retiring himself from company and from business to the utmost of his power that he may lament his sins and acknowledge his wretchedness and most earnestly sue to be reconciled to God whom he hath offended Lamentations indeed and wailings and such like things are not the whole business of Repentance yet I have demonstrated they are a part of it And let me now add they are such a part though but small in comparison that they alone may obtain great Blessings from God upon us If well disposed people would in every Parish of this Nation leave off their business upon the first day of Lent that they might go to Church in a mournful habit with Fasting and Tears and dejection of face and prostrations and all other such acknowledgments of their wretchedness imploring the Divine Mercy it might prolong our tranquillity and prevail for an adjournment at least of those Judgments which if we consider our sinful life we cannot but think we have justly deserved and had reason long ago to expect should have been inflicted on us Especially if we continued all the Lent long to frequent the holy Assemblies as often as necessary business would permit to beseech God in the most mournful manner to take pity upon us For then this outward part of Penitence with Sorrow and Grief and affliction of Spirit though no great Reformation should follow we might be confident would obtain from God those Temporal benefits which we call the outward parts of his favour For so it did in the case of Ahab concerning whom God saith to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days c. The vengeance though already denounced was put off till a further day because he took that revenge upon himself which is mentioned in the foregoing Verse He rent his Cloaths and put Sackcloth upon his Flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly 1 Kings xxi 27 28 29. And therefore what may we not expect from this means when it is but the outward part of Repentance and the best part is not wanting But we truly humble our selves in the sight of God so as to submit our selves unto him to do whatsoever he would have us faithfully resolving to become new men and endeavouring so to be Or as our Church excellently exhorts us on the first day of Lent If we would remembring the dreadful Judgments hanging over our heads and alway ready to fall upon us return unto our Lord God with all contrition and meekness of heart bewailing and lamenting our sinful life acknowledging and confessing our offences and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of Penance Then our afflicting our selves our mourning our weeping our heaviness and all the bodily Exercises before named would profit not a little but be so acceptable unto God that he would give us the greatest Blessings even perfect remission and forgiveness as we pray in the Collect for this Season When these bodily Exercises are the effects of true Contrition of Spirit and when they are earnests of a new life and a means we use to accustom our selves to Sobriety to Self-denial to Retirement to shake off bad Company to Devotion to Self-examination to Meditation to Pity and Commiseration of the wants of others to Charity and works of Mercy then will the Lord have mercy upon us as the Prophet speaks and he will multiply to pardon lv Isa 7. But let all those especially who truly fear God among us apply themselves with all seriousness to this much neglected duty For others I doubt unless they be forced to it will not regard these Admonitions Let it not content them that they do not follow the bad in their ungodly practices but let them also lament the scandal which they give and bewail the deplorable estate of
such wretched Souls and deprecate the Divine displeasure beseeching him to turn his anger from us and to spare us for the sake of those pious Souls that with Fasting Mourning and Weeping humbly supplicate his Mercy If the Church did now exercise that ancient Discipline so much spoken of it would be the duty of the very best among us to be present at the Censures passed upon notorious Offenders and I showed out of S. Paul to bewail them and lament over them in the most doleful manner And why should we not do that voluntarily in our private retirements on Fasting-days which the Church doth not call for to be done in publick Nay we should the rather do it as I have often said and bewail this among other things that men are impatient of such discipline or any thing like it that they will not submit to the government of their Spiritual Pastors which is so great a sin that it is next to Rebellion against their Sovereign and that Offenders are so multiplied as beyond all measure to exceed the number of the Good who are not able to curb and restrain them This is a lamentable state of things and ought to affect the hearts of those who fear God with Grief and Sorrow especially when they consider the obstinate hardness of mens hearts in these evil courses their great insensibleness either of their sin or danger and the cause of all this their gross Infidelity Which it should be part of every good mans business to bewail in secret beseeching God all the Lent long to put a stop to the floods of ungodliness that they may not like a deluge overwhelm us It is not the custom of these parts of the World to mourn in Sackcloth and Ashes and therefore I have not pressed the very same significations of Sorrow Grief and Humiliation which were anciently used in the Eastern Countries but something like them and equivalent to them if we be not willing to use it is because we think it a slight matter to offend the Divine Majesty and are not afraid of his Almighty displeasure For let us but awaken in our Souls a sense of the hainous nature of those sins which we and others have committed against God and of the danger we have incurred by our undutifulness to him and we shall not think it unreasonable to submit to some such discipline as this which is here proposed instead of that which was practised of old in other Nations Let every one of us lay aside all this Lent our fine Cloaths and the usual attire of our Bodies for that is still the custom of Mourners in all places and let us retire our selves as much as is possible for so Mourners also do making no visits nor willingly receiving any if nothing but civility oblige us to it Let the time be spent in this retirement in Reading and Prayer in examining our Consciences and bewailing our Offences in taking a view of the miserable estate of mankind and imploring the Divine Mercy towards them in laying to heart the sufferings of any of our Christian Brethren and such like Spiritual Exercises which we are too apt to neglect in a croud of business and of company Let the consideration of it move us to afflict our selves with Fasting or if that cannot be with a spare Diet Let the rich especially and those that live deliciously deny their appetites keep a slender Table and punish their excesses with harder fare Drink no Wine nor strong Liquors without necessity make no Feasts nor accept of invitations to them Give Alms liberally and frequent the publick Prayers and there let us humble our selves before God and blush to lift up our Eyes unto Heaven Yea let us Pray with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit as the Apostle enjoyns vi Ephes 18. that is address our selves to him in all sorts of holy thoughts and devout affections and that with great fervour and ardent desires with Tears and knocking our Breasts and bended knees as Theophylact expounds the words beseeching him by the Mystery of his holy Incarnation by his holy Nativity and Circumcision by his Baptism Fasting and Temptation by his Agony and Bloudy Sweat by his Cross and Passion c. graciously to deliver us Tremble to think that you have so oft prayed in the Litany that God would PITIFVLLY BEHOLD THE SORROWS OF YOVR HEARTS when perhaps you had no SORROW at all there and now if you have any let it be testified in all the sorrowful actions that I have named And forbear Musick and Dancing and all such like pleasures Let those that have been slothful content themselves with less sleep that they may have more time for Prayer and Heavenly thoughts They that have been too Voluptuous will do well also to lye hard though not upon the ground Finally let there be a general Abstinence from all manner of Recreations unless the preservation of Health make them necessary and then use them privately Leave the Play-houses quite empty and make the Churches full Go to no publick shows nor meetings but spend the time when you come from Church in setting all things right at home For S. Chrysostom I remember having heard that some of his Auditors since his last Sermon had been at an Horse-race bewails it in his next as the loss of all the pains he had bestowed upon them from the beginning of Lent And among other things tells them it gave great scandal to Jews and to Gentiles who seeing those that were at Church daily mingle themselves at those meetings with such as came not thither think saith he that all we do is a delusion and that we are all alike no better than themselves A great deal more he saith on this subject in his Sixth and Seventh Sermon upon Genesis and begins his Forty first Sermon with the very same matter In like manner S. Basil * Hom. viii in Hexaem p. 110. chides those who as soon as Sermon was done went and plaid at Dice and Tables It being to no purpose to afflict the Body with Fasting if the Mind continue vain and full of vicious Affections And therefore S. Chrysostom frequently beseeches his hearers that when they came home they would spend their time in ruminating upon what they had been taught and conferring one with another about it and thereby free themselves from all bad desires and flee the snares of the Devil For when the Devil saith he sees our Minds solicitous about these Divine matters and perpetually conversant in them he dares not approach us but flees away before the face of a more powerful Spirit working in us Now all this that hath been said doth not come up to the Primitive strictness but it approaches something near unto it and is a great mortification of sensual Nature which delights in company and merry meetings in Feasts and Jollity in Sport and Plays in Laughter and all manner of Mirth and Pleasure Which we ought to lay aside and deny our selves at this Season that we may fulfil the Apostolical Precept iv Jam. 9. 10. Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to heaviness Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up Let the Reader cast his Eyes back to the latter end of the Seventh Chapter of this Book and when he hath perused it again consider with himself what he hath to do Especially in the Great Week of Lent as they anciently called the Week just before Easter which had that Name given it saith the great Man before mentioned because S. Chrysost Hom. xxx in Genes in it certain great and unspeakable benefits were bestowed upon us There was an end put in this Week to the long continued War Death was extinguished the Curse was taken away the tyranny of the Devil dissolved and he himself disarmed God reconciled to mankind Heaven made enterable Men associated with Angels things distant conjoyned the Partition-wall taken down the inclosure laid open the God of Peace pacified all things both in Heaven and in Earth And therefore we call it the Great Week because the Lord graciously conferred on us such a multitude of Gifts therein For which reason many both inlarge their Easting and are remarkable for Watchings and holy Pernoctations and Alms Showing by their deeds the honour they have for this Week For if our Lord freely bestowed such great benefits upon us therein how can we think it decent in us not then to make a show of all possible reverence and honour For even Kings themselves declare in what admiration they have those venerable Days by commanding a vacation to all those who manage Civil affairs by shutting up the doors of the Courts of Judgment and requiring a cessation of all strife and contention that men may have nothing to do but to apply themselves to the right performance of Spiritual offices with the greatest quietness and tranquillity And more than this they honour these Days with another liberality loosing the bonds of Prisoners and letting them go free that as far as Humane power reaches they may imitate their Lord. For as he set us at liberty when we were fast tied and bound with the Chains of our Sins and gave us the injoyment also of innumerable good things so we in like manner ought the best we can to be imitators of this loving kindness of the Lord. You see how every one of us should show in all things the reverence and the honour which is becoming those Days which were the procurers of so many and such good things And therefore now if ever let me intreat you to expel all Worldly thoughts and to keep the Eye of your Mind clear and vigilant Now is the time to Fast more strictly to make more earnest Prayers to be more exact and large in confession of Sins to be diligent in all the actions of Piety to give Alms more liberally to exercise the strictest Patience Forbearance Meekness and all other Vertue That coming with these accomplishments unto Easter-day we may partake of the bounty of the Lord. THE END