wickedness And so to love instruction to thank those that reprove them to obey their Teachers to incline their Ears to their godly Admonitions to endeavour to do as much Good as they have done Evil And that in the midst of the People openly giving glory to God by their publick Repentance whom they have boldly dishonoured by their scandalous wickedness This might avail them and prove acceptable unto his offended Majesty but to bewail themselves thus only at the last gasp or when they can no longer act their wickedness no body can tell how it will be taken But they have just reason to fear lest the same measure be dealt to them with which Solomon saith some shall be served Whose dreadful doom is Recorded in the first Chapter of his Wise Instructions in these remarkable words Ver. 24 25 c. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon you Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me For that they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices From which terrible sentence God of his infinite mercy deliver us And let all that read these things endeavour to deliver themselves by hearkening to such good counsel as hath been here given That is by turning to the Lord with all their Heart and with Fasting and with Weeping and with Mourning PART II. Concerning FASTING CHAP. X. What is meant by Fasting AMONG those Humiliations wherewith Penitent Sinners ought to prostrate themselves before God to sue for mercy the Reader cannot but observe that Fasting hath been frequently mentioned as holding a principal place And therefore I think it useful to treat a little of it by it self The Church having set apart certain times for it wherein if those wicked men I now spoke of will not humble themselves and Repent of their Evil doings whereby they are pulling down Judgments upon themselves and upon others yet all good men should embrace the opportunities of casting down themselves frequently before God to joyn with Gods Ministers in those supplications like them prescribed in the Prophet Joel upon their solemn Fast 2. 17. Spare us good Lord spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever Beseeching him to deliver us as from all blindness of heart c. so more especially from all Sedition privy Conspiracy and Rebellion from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from hardness of Heart and contempt of his Word and Commandment Which solemn Prayers were never more necessary than in these days and for that reason Fasting ought not to be neglected but attend upon them as an help unto them and a means to make them more effectual This shall be proved when I have first shown what Fasting is And in proper speaking Fasting is an abstinence from all manner of Food whether it be Meat or Drink As we may be satisfied if it need any proof from that question which was askt our Saviour in v. Luke 33. Why do the Disciples of John Fast often and make Prayers and likewise the Pharisees but thine Eat and Drink Which place is remarkable for two things for it shows both that Prayers were a concomitant of Fasting as I said just now and that Fasting is so opposite to Eating and Drinking that he who Eats and Drinks doth not Fast Which is still more confirmed by the words wherein the other Evangelists put this Question which are these Why do the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees Fast but thy Disciples Fast not ii Mark 18. ix Matth. 14. Here they call that not Fasting which S. Luke calls Eating and Drinking It being one and the same thing to Eat and Drink and not to Fast Nor is any other notion to be found of Fasting in the holy Scriptures or in any ancient Writer Jewish or Christian but this Forbearance of all manner of Meat and Drink while the Fast lasts Some think indeed that speaking improperly there are examples in Scripture of Fasts which consisted only in abstinence from the better sort of Food and contenting themselves with harder fare Thus Josephus saith that the Fast which Esther and her Maidens observed together with the Jews in Shushan when they neither did Eat nor Drink three days night nor day was forbearing all delicate Meat and Drink for that time as Grotius observes out of him upon iv Esth 16. Which may receive some confirmation from what Daniel saith of himself x. 2 3. In those days I Daniel was mourning three full Weeks I ate no pleasant Bread neither came Flesh nor Wine in my mouth neither did I anoint my self at all till three whole Weeks were fulfilled His Mourning which comprehends Fasting was nothing else it should seem but abstinence from all things pleasant and desirable as the word is in the Hebrew Language while he allowed himself a courser sort of diet which nothing but mere necessity commended to his appetite And if we let this pass for truth it doth not prejudice what I said of Fasting that usually and speaking exactly it signifies Eating and Drinking nothing at all And if the Holy Writers speak otherwise it is upon some extraordinary occasion when the Humiliation continued so long that it was impossible to Fast strictly without any refection at all as it was in these Fasts of three days and three weeks But I am not satisfied that Daniel's Mourning was such as hath been now supposed for his words may signifie no more but that when he did Eat and Drink nothing that was pleasant came into his mouth And then his meaning is that for three weeks he kept a Fast Eating and Drinking nothing at all till the Evening as the manner was on Fasting days and then abstaining from Flesh and Wine and using only a courser sort of Bread For thus Ezra Fasted eating no Bread at all nor drinking Water For he Mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carried away x. 6. just as Daniel did The Fast of Esther indeed doth not so easily admit this Interpretation because they did in that neither Eat nor Drink three days night or day But if we take the words rigidly they will not admit of Josephus's Interpretation no more than of this for they that fare hardly do notwithstanding Eat and Drink And therefore I am apt to think the true meaning is that they made no set Meal at all neither night nor day But if any of them
Ashes when they humbled themselves before God in the days of old was because then it was the custom of Mourners in that manner to express the sense they had of the loss which they bewailed But now that custom is quite antiquated at least in these parts of the World there are no such things used by those that lament any worldly loss And therefore we are no more bound to wear Sackcloth on our Bodies and throw Ashes on our Heads when we humble our selves and mourn for our Sins than we are to rend our Garments which is not used in those Churches where the other is still thought fit to be retained But we are as I said to express the same thing by other signs and tokens which are more proper to the age and the place wherein we live Now they that Mourn for a near Relation or Friend suppose in these Countries are still wont to forbear their meat to abstain from all manner of pleasures to neglect the care and culture of their Bodies to retire themselves from company to lay aside business to shut up themselves in private to cover their faces to keep silence to bewail their loss and to refuse presently to be comforted And thus it will become those who have highly offended God to bemoan and lament themselves after the self-same manner when they are in good earnest grieved for their Sins As for whipping and lacerating the Body I do not find that it was ever used in the Church anciently either under the Old Testament or the New But there are plain indications rather that they lookt upon it as a Paganish custom which they were not to imitate And indeed it represents God under a vile Notion as if he delighted in our bloud and was in love with cruelty Nor is there any thing like it to be found in the Penances anciently injoyned in the Christian Church and therefore it is not to be approved But such expressions of grief and sorrow are only to be used as Nature and the custom of the Country direct us unto in other cases of distress and sadness CHAP. VIII The Vse which Wicked men ought to make of this Doctrine BY what hath been briefly said in this Argument all Wicked men who have highly provoked God by their lewd way of living may see if they please to open their Eyes into what a woful condition they have brought themselves being unworthy to Eat or Drink to lift up their Eyes unto Heaven to enjoy the light of the Sun or any of the least of those common Blessings which God bestows upon all Creatures as sincere Penitents have been constrained to acknowledge by their deep Humiliations Dejections and Abasement of themselves even to the Earth before his offended Majesty So evil and bitter a thing it is to depart from God and to cast his holy Laws behind our backs with neglect if not contempt in the opinion of all those who have been awakened to a lively sense of Him and of the duty which is owing to Him And whensoever they that now make a mock of Sin shall become so serious as to reflect upon their ways and consider solemnly how they have opposed God and set themselves against his Authority it will strike them with the like consternation and amazement And they will not think fit so much as to look up unto Him whom they have so insolently affronted without Tears in their Eyes and with a most sad and sorrowful Countenance Nay the most dejected looks are best becoming great Offenders and the most doleful lamentations ought to come out of their mouths if silence confusion astonishment laying their hands on their mouths or putting their mouths in the dust be not much more beseeming When they remember that they deserve to be thrust down into utter darkness there to bewail their mad contempt of God in extream horror and anguish of Spirit And this is but the first step neither to the recovery of Gods favour unto which they should be glad upon any terms to be restored and have just reason to look upon it as a bad sign if they expect to recover it upon easier conditions than these They have too slight thoughts of their misdoings who look upon this injunction as too harsh and severe Be afflicted and mourn and weep Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into heaviness Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord c. For if mens hearts be rightly affected they will not only readily accord to this but think they are very kindly used if they be after all received to Mercy Nay every honest heart will judge it reasonable that his sorrowful Humiliations should bear some proportion to the offences of which he stands guilty The more he hath provoked Gods displeasure the more he will be displeased at himself His affliction will be the heavier his sorrow the deeper and sadder his loathing of himself the more vehement as a very abominable Creature and consequently he will lay himself the lower and be the more abased when he comes to sue for pardon There is nothing stranger than the carelessness of men about their Souls in this regard as S. Chrysostom excellently discourses in the beginning of his Comments upon the Epistle to the Corinthians You shall see many saith he bath themselves in Tears and refuse to be comforted for a great many days his phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thousand days because they have lost some dear Friend a Child or some other Relation whom God hath taken out of the World But though they lose their precious Souls every day they scarce ever lay it to heart but slightly pass it over with a few sighs at the best Nay where shall we find the man that is so much as sorry for what he hath done who is there that groans that smites his Breast that is full of Solicitude and Care and Fear lest he be undone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I think there is none I am not acquainted with them they are not to be met withal who are concerned about their Souls though they perish with a remedy just at hand But what a retchlesness is this How dost thou think to be reconciled to God when thou art not so much as sensible that thou hast offended Thou wilt say but I do confess my sins I condemn my self for them True thou sayst so with thy mouth but let thy heart tell me so Sigh deeply at that word Sigh so sadly that thou mayst ever hereafter be of good chear For if we did worthily grieve for our sins if we sighed heartily for our offences nothing else would make us sad but this one trouble would drive away all other sadness Thus he And then we may be bold to think we have worthily lamented our sins and bewailed our wretched estate when the affliction it hath given us makes us more fearful to offend hereafter If we can find in our hearts so much as to play with
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
in the vi Chapter and the offenders are so many that the Church perhaps cannot judge that is punish them God takes the matter into his own hand and some way or other inflicts such punishments on them as he did upon the Corinthians In which case the few good that are among them ought to lament them and weep over them as they should have done if the Censures of the Church had been denounced and executed upon them For which there is the greater reason because as they are members of the same Body so they are in danger to suffer with them in the same common calamity especially if they do not humble themselves to deprecate Gods heavy displeasure If we make a particular application of this to our selves in this Nation we are very blind if we do not see that the hand of God as the Prophet speaks hath been divers ways stretched out against us in a destroying Pestilence even then when the Sword of War was also drawn between us and our Neighbours and afterwards in a devouring Fire whereby many fair Buildings and Holy Places were laid in Ashes which are things that ought not to be forgotten though alas they little now affect mens Minds And therefore we have been again terrified by the great hazard the Church and Kingdom was lately in when their old Enemies strugled once more to get the upper-hand and had brought us even to the brink of the Precipice where we stood for some time trembling to think what would become of us And though we were then mercifully delivered yet when we consider how restless the Spirit of Sedition and Rebellion hath been since among us and brought us again so near the very same dreadful danger that we were just upon the point of beholding all Order and Government over-turned All serious Christians cannot but think that this is a lamentation as the Prophets words are and ought to be for a lamentation The prevention indeed of that utter Confusion by a wonderful Providence ought to fill our hearts with joy But the thoughts of such frequent Calamities which have threatned us ought to put us in Fear also lest in conclusion they should fall upon us if neither Gods mercies nor his Judgments can amend us The only way to keep them off is for all good men and women to humble themselves and weep in secret for these things On which they cannot cast their Eyes seriously to take a view of them but they will find them soliciting their Tears and their Sighs and hear them call upon them to be afflicted and mourn and to let their joy sometimes at least be turned into heaviness This alone is a sad and melancholy sight to behold the Spirit of Blindness and Giddiness of Faction and Rebellion that hath seized on a great part of the Nation Our senseless Contentions and Oppositions the wide Breaches and Divisions for which we can see no Healing may justly challenge if there were nothing else to trouble us great thoughts and searchings of heart II. Especially if we consider the other thing not only how insensible most people are of all such matters which in bodily distempers is counted the worse symptom in the world but how few have been amended by the publick Judgments which have either threatned us or faln upon us The complaint which God makes by the Prophet ii Jer. 30. may still be continued In vain have I smitten your Children they received no correction And which the Prophet makes to God Ver. 3. O Lord are not thine Eyes upon the truth Thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction They have made their faces harder than a Rock they have refused to return For which stubborn impiety and impudent wickedness which hath every where too much abounded among us every good man ought to be very much afflicted and not only content himself with this that he doth not follow them in their ungodly practices but bewail also as many as have sinned and have not Repented as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. xii ult of the Vncleanness and Fornication and Lasciviousness and other abominable sins which they have committed For this is really the saddest spectacle of all other to behold such numbers as have not been at all touched with any remorse for their own Sins nor any grief for publick Calamities nor any Fear of future danger But have taken their pleasures to the full in the most sorrowful times that this Nation hath seen and would not abate of their mirth and laughter in the least when all things lookt cloudily about them but incouraged one another to think only of eating and drinking and rising up to play which all sober men cannot but look upon to be as unseemly a sight as if men should go and dance about their Parents or nearest Relations when they saw them a dying The ancient Pythagoraeans were wont when any person forsook their School to set a Coffin in the place where he used to sit And then to make a solemn Funeral for him bewailing him with their Tears as one that was really dead And we have not well learned Christ as the Apostle speaks if we do not think we have greater reason to bewail those who have so far forsaken God and their Holy Religion that nothing he can say or do will move them to a sober sadness But they go on with a stiff neck and an hard heart to laugh at all goodness They are in so deplorable a condition that we may give them up for dead and take up a lamentation over them as lost men who will never have any feeling and therefore are the greatest objects of all good mens pity Who have reason to mourn for them and follow them with their Tears as they would a Friend that is carried to his Grave Or rather they are more to be lamented because they are dead even while they live According to that of the Son of Sirach xxii Ecclus. 12. Seven days do men mourn for the dead but for a Fool and for an ungodly Man all the days of his life And if we take into our consideration the causes of that bold confidence which hath made them mock at all seriousness even when we have been in the greatest dangers we shall see still the greater reason for our Humiliations They may be resolved into these two First their obstinate unbelief which makes them contemn all that is told them of future danger And secondly their pride and scornfulness which makes them despise even Gods present chastisements As for the first of these it is too notorious that many men have hardned their hearts against the belief of the Judgment to come in the other World Which dull Infidelity leads them into all manner of licentious living and lets their furious desires loose to run without any check or bridle into the foulest profaneness And when they are deeply drencht in the pleasures of Sense
was forced to taste any thing for the support of Nature which might otherwise have failed in some Constitutions it was privately and of the meanest sort of Food Or according to the usual manner of Fasts they ate and drank nothing at all neither in the day nor in the night for three whole days and nights together save only in the Evening and then also they forbare all manner of delicate Food The summ of what need be said in this matter is that a compleat and perfect Fast consists in total abstinence from all Meat and Drink until the Evening and then also in Eating and Drinking sparingly and that of the meaner sort of Food An imperfect and partial Fast consists in abstinence from some kind of Food which we most love or in feeding sparingly of any kind and denying our appetite that full satisfaction which it desires at the usual times of repast They that cannot indure the first of these may yet easily bear the last and therein perform something of this duty of Fasting if their abstinence either in the quality or quantity of Meat and Drink do in some measure afflict them while in some measure it also refreshes them For no abstinence can partake in the least of the nature of Fasting if there be not something in it that afflicts us which I shall show hereafter is the very thing designed in Fasting And thus perhaps we are to understand our Church in that part of its Tables and Rules which are set down before the Common-Prayers concerning Days of Fasting or Abstinence The particle or may either signifie abstinence to be another name For Fasting or it may distinguish abstinence from Fasting as a lesser thing If we follow the later sence then the intention of the Church is that upon all those days there named they that are able should Fast that is wholly forbear all Food till the Evening and they who are not able to do this yet should abstain from all delicate Food and feed abstemiously so that while they give Nature some support they also afflict and humble it In short they that cannot wholly abstain on those days yet should abstain from set Meals and take privately some slender refreshment CHAP. XI Of the Obligation we have to Fast THERE being no positive Precept left by our Blessed Saviour about Fasting some have thence concluded it is a matter of liberty and not of necessity That is we may use it if we please but are not tied to the practice of it But before they had made this conclusion they should have considered that there is no such Precept neither for Prayer to God but only directions how to Pray as there are also how to order our selves when we Fast And therefore the proper Inference from that Observation of there being no positive Precept for Fasting should have been this that there was no need of any Precept to enjoyn this duty it being no less known and practised by all good men than Prayer to God and giving of Alms with which it is joyned in our Saviours famous Sermon on the Mount vi S. Matth. 1 2 3 c. 16 17. In which Sermon our Lord instructing his Disciples about the principal duties of a Christian life it is not to be thought that he would have mentioned this unless he intended it should be one part of our Christian duty Which being not in downright terms commanded as some others are but only supposed it is so much the more to be regarded as a duty unto which there is an antedent obligation so plain and so commonly owned that he needed to do no more but only teach them to what they should have respect in the performance of it Adding moreover that so performed as he directed it would be accepted with God and openly rewarded by him Which is a further confirmation that it is a Christian duty because there is the very same promise made to the regular practice of it that there is to giving Alms and to Prayer Which as they are natural duties which men learnt without any Institution so I take Fasting to be also All mankind being inclined to abstain from Meat and Drink when they are in great Grief and Sorrow and when they have any serious business to which they would apply their minds such as Meditation especially and solemn Prayer And therefore all Nations from ancient times have used Fasting as a part of Repentance and as a means to turn away Gods anger as we may gather from the Ninevites who proclaimed a Fast and put on Sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least hoping God would turn from his fierce anger denounced against them if they turned every man from his evil way for which by these Humiliations they professed themselves heartily sorry iii. Jon. 5 6 c. Which was not a notion peculiar to them but to all the World I could without much labour show if this little Book were not designed for other purposes Those words of our Saviour may suffice to show us the inclinations of other Countries as well as of the Jews xi Matth. 22. Where he saith if Tyre and Sidon had enjoyed such means of being good as Chorazin and Bethsaida had they would have Repented long ago in Sackcloth and Ashes that is humbled themselves with Fasting after the example of the Ninevites for on such solemn occasions they put on Sackcloth and threw Ashes on their heads which usually accompanied Fasting as Fasting did Prayer to God for mercy And for this cause John Baptists Disciples we read in the Gospel Fasted oft he Baptizing them as S. Paul speaks xix Acts 4. with the Baptism of Repentance that he might prepare them to receive our Lord. Who was so far from reproving this practice either of theirs or of the Pharisees as a superfluous thing that he saith his Disciples hereafter should do the same For the present indeed he did not press it upon them but the only reason was that it was not then in season For Fasting is proper for Mourners but while he was with them it was a time of joy altogether the great Jubilee iv Luke 18 19. when it was as improper to Fast as to forbear to Eat and Drink at a Wedding This is the sence of his Answer to those that questioned why his Disciples Fasted not at all when those of John and of the Pharisees Fasted often ix Matth. 14. And he seems to me to mean no more in those words which follow Ver. 16 17. No man putteth a piece of new Cloth unto an old Garment c. neither do men put new Wine into old Bottles c. but this only That congruity is to be observed in all things For that 's the thing he had said before Mourning of which Fasting was a part did not suit with the Bride-chamber And the suitableness of one thing to another is always to be attended for if we mind not how they agree and sort together we shall commit