TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
SUPPLEMENT TO TRACT XVIII.
ON THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM OF FASTING
PRESCRIBED BY OUR CHURCH.
The following observations were occasioned by some questions, signed "Clericus," addressed to the Editor of the British Magazine, in April last; as they related to my tract, I felt called upon to answer them as far as I could; and they are now re-printed, with some additions, in the hope that they may remove some difficulties, which stand in the way of returning to the wise Rules of our Church, with respect to the Christian duty of Fasting.
Oxford.
The Feast of St. James.
I. Wednesday Fast. I did not mean to imply that this was a fast of our church. In p. 6, I meant to speak of the example set us by the early church; in p. 10, "the two-sevenths of the year, which the church has wished to be in some way separated by acts of self-denial and humiliation," include the forty days of Lent, not the Wednesday. Undoubtedly many pious Christians have an especial respect for the Wednesday, as the day on which our Saviour is supposed to have been betrayed, and also because their church has, in consequence, hallowed it by the use of the Litany. It would be natural for any Christian, who would add
