cited notions about fasting," or that "we have new-fangled notions about Christian antiquity," or, perchance, that "we are half papists in this, though sound in other respects," and the like, and so we are dismissed. Meanwhile, with a little patience, and a few years, (if God allots them to us,) our new-fangled notions will have become old; it will be seen, that in proportion as we love the old Catholic Christianity, we must hate the modern corruptions of it in popery; and, if we do not influence those older than ourselves, (which we should not even expect to do, since it is not natural, and we, on the contrary, shall constantly have to learn something of almost all our elders,) we shall, in our turn, gradually become older, and shall be able to influence those whom God in His ordinary dealings intends that we should influence—our younger brethren; and that, too, when we shall not only be convinced, on the authority of the church, and of older Christians, that regular prescribed fasting is good, but have known it for ourselves, and shown it forth, by God's grace, in our lives.
VI. In what is the abstinence of fasting to consist? On this question I can say no more than I have already said. Persons, constitutions, occupations, states of health, habits of mind, vary so indefinitely, that I do not see how a rule, which must take all these into account, can be general. I do not indeed think it a sufficient answer, which some urge, that fasting, e.g., sours their temper, &c. &c., for it remains to be proved, whether, if undertaken, not as an experiment, but as a duty, not as an isolated act, but as a habit, it would have that effect. Undoubtedly the flesh will rebel at first, as it does against every attempt made to subdue it, but this does not prove that it would not be tranquil and weaned at last. Again, the habit of fasting would naturally be accompanied by some degree of corresponding change in our other habits, which might tend to make it lighter; as of old, when men, e.g., on fast-days, abstained from all unnecessary exercise or fatigue, which might incapacitate the soul from performing its duties aright, unless the body had its usual refreshment. And some such arrangement, I should think, parochial ministers, even with extensive cures, might make, allotting to
