Tracts for the Times/Tract 18
THOUGHTS
ON THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM OF FASTING.
ENJOINED BY OUR CHURCH.
To a person but little accustomed to observe any stated Fasts, the directions given by our Church on this subject, would probably occasion two very opposite feelings. On the one hand, he would be struck by the practical character and thoughtfulness evinced by some of the regulations; on the other, he would probably feel repelled by the number of days, and the variety of occasions, which the Church has appointed so to be hallowed. Most Christians, who really loved their Saviour, (unless prevented by the habits of early education,) would probably see something appropriate and affectionate in the selection of the Friday, for a weekly commemoration of their Saviour's sufferings, and of humiliation for their own sins, which caused them; or, at all events, they would feel that there was some thoughtfulness in the direction annexed, that this weekly Fast should not interfere with the Christian joyousness brought back by the Festival of their Lord's Nativity, when these should in the cycle of years coincide. Again, if they should fail to appreciate the wisdom of appointing certain days to be kept sacred in memory of the holy men who left all to follow Christ, and consequently should be rather deterred than attracted, by observing that many of these days were ushered in by a preceding Fast; still they would hardly fail to be struck by the provision, that this previous Fast should not interfere with the Christian's weekly Festival of his Lord's Resurrection, but that "if any of these Feast-days should fall upon a Monday, then the Fast-day should be kept on the Saturday, not upon the Sunday next before it."[1] Again, he must observe, that during certain periods of the Church's year, which are supposed to be times of especial joy to the Christian, those, namely, following the Nativity and the Resurrection, these preparatory Fasts are altogether omitted. Some or other of these regulations would probably strike most thoughtful minds, as instances of consideration and reflection in those who formed them. The Clergy more especially would appreciate, abstractedly at least, the imitation of the Apostolic practice of Fasting, when any are to be ordained to any holy function in the Church; and some probably will feel mournfully, that if the Church were now more uniformly to observe those acts of Fasting and Prayer, which were thought needful, before even Paul and Barnabas[2] were separated for God's work, we should have more reasonable grounds to hope, that many of our Clergy would be filled with the spirit of Barnabas and Paul.
On the other hand, it is naturally to be expected, that one not accustomed to any outward restraint in this matter, would feel indisposed to ordinances so detailed; that, although he could reconcile to himself the one or the other of these observances, which most recommended themselves to his Christian feelings, he would think the whole a burthensome and minute ceremonial, perhaps unbefitting a spiritual worship, and interfering with the liberty, wherewith Christ has made him free. This is very natural; for we are by nature averse to restraint, and the abuse of some maxims of Protestantism, such as the "right of private judgment," has made us yet more so: we are reluctant to yield to an unreasoning authority, and to submit our wills, when our reason has not first been convinced; and the prevailing maxims of the day have strengthened this reluctance: we have been accustomed to do, "every one that which was right in his own eyes," and are jealous of any authority, except that of the direct injunctions of the Bible: we have, I fear also, so untruly spiritualized our religion, that we have almost lost sight of that part of it, which is adapted to us, as being yet in the flesh: in our zeal for the blessed truths of the cross of Christ, and of our sanctification by the Holy Spirit, we have begun insensibly to disparage other truths, which bring us less immediately into intercourse with God, to neglect the means and ordinances, which touch not upon the very centre of our faith.
The practical system of the Church is altogether at variance with that which even pious Christians in these days have permitted themselves to adopt; much which she has recommended or enjoined would now be looked upon as formalism, or outward service: in our just fear of a lifeless formalism, we have forgotten that every Christian feeling must have its appropriate vehicle of expression; that the most exalted acts of Christian devotion, that our closest union with our Saviour, is dependant upon certain forms; that the existence of forms does not constitute formalism; that where the Spirit of Christ is, there the existence of forms serves only to give regularity to the expression, to chasten what there might yet remain of too individual feeling, to consolidate the yet divided members "in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
Yet, as in every case in which the current of prevailing opinions, either in faith or practice, has for some time set in one direction, there have not been wanting indications, that Christians have felt their system incomplete; that there was something in the tranquil piety of former days, which they would gladly incorporate into the zealous excitement of the present; that although religion is in one sense strictly individual, yet in the means by which it is kept alive, it is essentially expansive and social; that the only error here to be avoided, is a reliance upon forms; that the forms themselves, as soon as they are employed to realize things eternal, and to cherish their communion with their Saviour, become again spiritual and edifying.
It is accordingly remarkable in the present day to observe, in how many cases individuals have been led back by their own Christian experience to observances, in some respect similar to those which the Church had before suggested and provided for them. In the more advanced period of their Christian course, or amid the respite from the unceasing circle of active duty, which God has granted them through an interval of sickness, they have seen the value of those rites, the scrupulous adherence to which they once regarded as signs of lifelessness. In either case they would willingly own, that the union provided by the Church is not only more ordered, and less liable to exception, than one which individuals could frame; but also, that, as being more comprehensive, it would more effectively realize their objects.
It is granted, then, that the proportion of the Fast Days enjoined by the Church will, to persons unaccustomed to observe them, appear over-large, and the variety of the occasions for which they are adapted, over-minute and arbitrary. The question however occurs, whether we ought to be influenced by such considerations to reject the entire system, or whether we ought not rather to be moved by the indications of a practical character evinced in some regulations, to make the trial of those, whose benefit we do not at present discern. Now it would seem plain that, in a practical matter, he who from the traces of wisdom or thoughtfulness in one regulation should infer the probable wisdom and reasonableness of others emanating from the same source, would act more wisely than one, who, on account of the apparent unreasonableness and superfluity of some provisions, should proceed to condemn the whole. For in practical matters, the great test of the expediency of any habit, for which we have not direct divine authority, is experience: they only who have tried a line of conduct, or narrowly watched its effects upon others, can speak with certainty as to its result. Of all the lesser courses of action, which tend so powerfully to form our moral habits, it would be impossible, probably, for one who had not tried their effect, to predict certainly what that effect would be; or if we could guess the nature of the effect, certainly we should not be able to foresee its degree and amount. With the exception of gross and flagrant sins, whose character and wages we know from authority, there is probably no one line of action, with regard to which we might not beforehand prove very plausibly to ourselves, that it would not have the effects, to which it is in fact tending, and which we afterwards perceive to have been its natural results. Yet such abstract reasonings about the possibilities or tendencies of things would not be listened to in any other case. When sick, men eagerly listen to the means, however improbable, by which any disease, resembling their own, was removed. Be it a poison, which they are bidden to take, yet if it be proved satisfactorily that, in cases like their own, that poison has been the messenger of health, they would not hesitate. They would listen to no abstract reasonings, that it was improbable that what had been an instrument of death could be their life; they would look to those, whom it had restored to health, and would do the like. The sight of one person, undeniably raised from death to life, would affect men more than any à priori demonstration that the medicine was pernicious or deadly. Much more then, since this medicine has been recommended to us by the great Physician of our souls; since it has been beneficial, wherever it has not been substituted for all other means of restoring or maintaining our spiritual health. The only question is,—not whether Fasting be in itself beneficial, but—whether certain regulations concerning it tend to promote or to diminish its efficacy; and in this case, the testimony of those who have proved their value, is manifestly of primary importance; the preconceived opinions of such as have not tried them, are but mere presumptions. If then either in the regulations or the histories of those holy men, through whom these recommendations have become part of the system of our Church, we find indications that they themselves knew from experience the value of what they recommended, we have evidence of the value of their advice, which we may not, without peril of injury to our souls, neglect.
It was in part, by some such process as the preceding, that the writer of these pages was led to consider what one may be allowed to term the less solemn Fasts of the Church, those which Christians now ordinarily pay less regard to; for the first day of Lent, and the annual commemoration of our Saviour's sufferings, are, I suppose, still very commonly observed. As the history of every mind is, under some modifications, the mirror of many others, it may to some be useful to see by what course of reflection or experience an individual was brought to feel the value of the regulations of the Church in this respect.
It will perhaps to some seem strange to find placed among the foremost of these advantages, the Protection thereby afforded—protection against one's self; protection against the habits and customs of the world, which sorely let and hinder one in systematically pursuing what one imagines might be beneficial. I speak not of course of any known duty; in that case the opinion or practice or invitations of the world were nothing; but with regard to those indefinite duties or disciplines, which one thinks may be performed as well at one period as at another, and which, on that very account, are frequently not performed at all, or at best occasionally only, and superficially. No thoughtful Christian will doubt of the propriety and duty of fasting, whatever he may understand by the term. "The bridegroom is taken away from us, and so we must fast in these days:"[3] our Blessed Saviour has given us instructions how we ought to fast,[4] and therefore implied that His disciples would fast: the Apostles were "in fastings often:"[5] in fastings,[6] as well as in sufferings for the Gospel, or by pureness, by knowledge, by all the graces which the Holy Ghost imparted, they approved themselves the Ministers of God. "Our Lord and Saviour," says Hooker,[7] "would not teach the manner of doing, much less propose a reward for doing that which were not both holy and acceptable in God's sight." And yet, after all the allowances which can be made for that fasting, which is known to our Father only who seeth in secret, one cannot conceal from one's self that this duty is in these days very inadequately practised. It is, in fact, a truth almost proverbial, that a duty which may be performed at any time, is in great risk of being neglected at all times. The early Christians felt this, and appointed the days of our Blessed Saviour's crucifixion and murder, the Wednesday and Friday of each week,[8] to be days of fasting and especial humiliation. Those days, in which especially the bridegroom was taken away, the days, namely, in which He was crucified and lay in the grave, were besides early consecrated as Fasts by the widowed Church. Nor was it because they were in perils, which we are spared; because they were in deaths oft, that they practised or needed this discipline. Quite the reverse. Their whole life was a Fast, a death to this world, a realizing of things invisible. It was when dangers began to mitigate, when Christianity became, (as far as the world was concerned,) an easy profession, it was then that the peril increased, lest their first simplicity should be corrupted, their first love grow cold![9] Then those who had spiritual authority in the Church increased the stated Fasts, in order to recal that holy earnestness of life, which the recentness of their redemption, and the constant sense of their Saviour's presence, had before inspired. Fasts were not merely the voluntary discipline of men, whose conversation was in heaven; they were adopted and enlarged in periods of ease, of temptation, of luxury, of self satisfaction, of growing corruption.
To urge that Fasts were abused by the later Romish Church, is but to assert that they are a means of grace committed to men; that they would subsequently be unduly neglected, was but to be expected by any one, who knows the violent vacillations of human impetuosity. It was then among the instances of calm judgment in our Reformers, that cutting off the abuses which before prevailed, the vain distinctions of meats, the lucrative dispensations, and, above all, the subtle poison of the intrinsic acceptableness of Fasting, and, (which was closely allied to it,) the monstrous doctrine of human merit, they still prescribed Fasting "to discipline the flesh, to free the spirit, and render it more earnest and fervent to prayer, and as a testimony and witness with us before God of our humble submission to His high Majesty, when we confess our sins unto Him, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, bewailing the same in the affliction of our bodies."[10]
They omitted that, which might be a snare to men's consciences, they left it to every man's Christian prudence and experience, how he would fast; but they prescribed the days upon which he should fast, both in order to obtain an unity of feeling and devotion in the members of Christ's body, and to preclude the temptation to the neglect of the duty altogether. Nor is the interference in this matter any thing insulated in our system, or one which good men would object to, had not our unhappy neglect of it now made it seem strange and foreign to our habits. In some things we are accustomed to perform a duty, which is such independently of the authority of the Church, in the way in which the Church has prescribed, and because she has so appointed. We assemble ourselves together on the Lord's day, because God has directed us by His Apostle not to forsake such assemblies; but we assemble ourselves twice upon that day rather than once, not upon any reason of the abstract fitness of so doing, but because the Church has prescribed it. And probably at an earlier period of our lives, perhaps even later, when indisposition or indolence or any prevailing temptation has beset us, there are few amongst us who have not owed their regular perseverance in public worship to this ordinance of the Church; there is no one assuredly who having broken this ordinance, has afterwards by God's mercy been brought back to join more uniformly in the public worship of his God and Saviour, who has not been thankful for this restriction. This then is protection.[11]
The like has undoubtedly taken place even in the celebration of the Supper of our Lord. Individuals have been induced to join, and that beneficially to themselves, in the Communion even of their Saviour's body and blood, just so often in the year as their Church has prescribed to them. This is not so unusual a case as it might seem. One cannot doubt, that in many cases, where the Holy Communion is celebrated but three times in the year, this is so done, because such is the smallest number, of which the Church admits, and the Minister supposes that his flock would not join with him more frequently. Had the Church made no such regulation, many probably, who now partake three times a year, might not have joined even thus often; yet would it not be true to say that such persons in all cases partook without real devotion, or any love to their Saviour. Again, where there are opportunities of a monthly Communion, there may be some, who would not have desired the privilege unless the provision had been made for them, and they had been invited by the Church so to do; yet will it not of necessity follow that they partake coldly or unacceptably. A warmer love would indeed lead the one to a more frequent, the other to a more glad Communion; nor have such persons well understood the principles of their Church; still, God forbid that we shall judge that they had not partaken worthily and devotionally.
Here again then is protection; in either case, we have a command of God, obeyed in such wise as is prescribed by the Ministers, whom He has made the Stewards of His Word and Sacraments; and since we in these cases admit their regulation, why should we think it strange or incongruous, that they have given us their godly admonitions in another ordinance of God?
Nor is it to the undecided, or the timid, or the hesitating, or the novice only, that this protection is beneficial; although no reflecting Christian will speak lightly of the value of any mean, which tends to strengthen the broken reed or to kindle anew the smouldering flax. The comparison of our own times with those of the Reformers were proof enough of the benefit of authoritative interposition in these matters. Is human nature changed? or have we discovered some more royal road, by which to arrive at the subjugation of the body, the spiritualizing of the affections? or have we, even from, without, fewer temptations to luxury and self-indulgence? or will not even the more pious and decided Christians among us confess, upon reflection, that they had probably been now more advanced, had they in this point adhered to the Ancient Discipline of our Church? Our Reformers kept and enjoined one hundred and eight days in each year, either entirely or in part, to be in this manner sanctified; two sevenths of each year they wished to be in some way separated by acts of self-denial and humiliation. Let any one consider what proportion of each year he has himself so consecrated, and whether, had he followed the ordinances of the Church, his spirit would not probably have been more chastened and lowly, more single in following even what he deems his duty, whether self would not have been more restrained, whether he would not have walked more humbly with his God.
Yet authority is a valuable support against the world, even to minds who yet are not inclined to compromise with the world unlawfully. There are many situations in life, in which it were almost impossible to continue without observing a system of habitual and regular Fasting, certainly not one, attended with those accompaniments, which the Fathers of our Church thought it desirable to unite with it. It is true, that every Fast may be made a Feast, and every Feast a Fast, that as far as self-denial is concerned, if there be a stedfast purpose, the objects may perhaps be better accomplished in the midst of plenty and luxury, than by the purposed spareness of a private board; it is possible also, that the acts might be in some measure concealed; still there are very many minds, and those such as one would be the most anxious to protect, to whom the very suspicion that they might be observed, would be matter of pain and a species of profanation; they would shrink from any thing which might be construed into Pharisaic abstinence, or which would seem to pretend to more than ordinary measures of Christian prudence. To such mild and unobstrusive spirits, the recommendation or direction of the Church is an invaluable support; they may now adopt the line of conduct which they love, unimpeded by any scruple, lest their good should be evil spoken of; they are acting under authority; they pretend to nothing more than the Founders of their Church have deemed expedient for every one; their conduct involves no lofty pretensions; they follow in simplicity and faithfulness an old and trodden track, which has been marked out for them as plain and safe.
The first advantage then which may result from the authoritative interposition of the Church in regulating this duty, is the securing of greater regularity and more uniform perseverance in its performance; not undoubtedly as in itself an end, but as leading to great and important ends; for as those pious men, who laid so much stress thereon, themselves say, "when it respecteth a good end, it is a good work; but the end being evil, the work is also evil."[12] "Fasting is not to be commended as a duty, but as an instrument; and, in that sense, no man can reprove it, or undervalue it, but he that knows neither spiritual acts, nor spiritual necessities."[13]
But further, it is not even true, that all the purposes of Fasting can be attained by mere self-denial in the midst of luxury. For the acquisition of the habit of self-denial, although an important object, is by no means the sole end of Fasting.[14]
[15] The great purpose, in connection with which it is chiefly mentioned in Holy Scripture, is prayer. The influences of Society, rightly chosen, may dispose the mind to more fervent (possibly only more excited) prayer; it is solitude generally, or communion with a single friend, which brings us to a humble, contrite, lowly, intercourse with our God. In the present day, the first paramount evil which destroys its tens of thousands, is probably self-indulgence; the second, which hinders thousands in their progress heavenwards, is the being "busy and careful about many things," whether temporal or spiritual. "We have kept the vineyards of our mother's children, but our own vineyards have we not kept." The tendency of the age is to activity, and we have caught its spirit; if we be but active about our Master's calling we deem ourselves secure; we think not, until we are precluded from active exertion, "how much activity belongs to some (ages and some) natures, and that this nature is often mistaken for grace."[16] Meanwhile an activity, which leads us not inwards, has taken place of that tranquil retiring meditation on the things of the unseen world which formed the deep, absorbing, contemplative, piety of our forefathers; even the conception of the joys of heaven, which very many of us form, is but a glorified transcript of our life here; we look, when through God's mercy in Christ we shall be delivered from the burthen of the flesh, to be like the "Ministers of His, who do His pleasure;" but we look not, comparatively at least, to that which our Fathers longed for, to be with Christ and to see Him as He is. Our age is in general too busy, too active, for deep and continued self-observation, or for thoughtful communion with our God. It would not be too broad or invidious a statement to say, that for real insight into the recesses of our nature, or for deep aspirations after God, we must for the most part turn to holy men of other days: our own furnish us chiefly with that which they have mainly cherished, a general abhorrence of sin, they guide us not to trace it out in the lurking corners of our own hearts: they teach us to acknowledge generally the corruption of our nature, the necessity of a Redeemer, and the love we should feel towards Him; but they lead us not to that individual and detailed knowledge of our own personal sinfulness, whence the real love of our Redeemer can alone flow. A religious repose and a thoughtful contemplation would be a second advantage of complying in this respect with the instructions of our Church.[17]
Braced and strung by retirement into ourselves, and tranquil meditation upon God, we should return to our active duties with so much more efficiency, as we ourselves had become holier, humbler, calmer, more abstracted from ourselves, more habituated to refer all things to God. Were human activity alone engaged on both sides, then might we the rather justify the prevailing notions of the day, that energy is to be met by counter-energy alone: but now, since "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," it especially behoves us to look wherein our great strength lies, and to take heed that "the weapons of our warfare be not carnal." It is tempting to adopt into the service of God the weapons or the mode of warfare, which in the hands of His enemies we see to be efficacious; but the faithful soldier of Christ must not go forth with weapons which he has not proved; the Christian's armoury, as the Apostle continues to describe it, is mainly defensive; and when he has urged his brethren to assume it, he exhorts them to add that whereby alone it becomes effectual—a duty in which again we appear to ourselves to be inactive—"praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Fasting, retirement, and prayer, as they severally and unitedly tend to wean us from ourselves and cast us upon God, will tend to promote singleness of purpose, to refine our busy and over-heated restlessness into a calm and subdued confidence in Him, in whose strength we go forth. Nor shall we until the day of judgment know how much of the victory was granted to those, who in man's sight took no share in the conflict; how far the "unseen strength" of Fasting, humiliation, prayer, put forth by those of whom the world took no account, was allowed by God to prevail. The world saw only that the Apostle whom they had imprisoned, escaped their power; they knew not that the prayer of the Church had baffled their design.[18] In the present conflict throughout the world, in which the pride of human and Satanic strength seems put forth to the utmost, humility and a chastened dependent spirit would seem to have an especial efficacy. On these, as the graces most opposed to the world's main sin, we might look the more cheerfully for God's blessing; thus shall we at least be saved from augmenting the evil we would oppose. "Fasting directly advances towards chastity, and by consequence and indirect powers to patience, humility, and indifference. But then it is not the fast of a day that can do this; it is not an act, but a state of fasting, that operates to mortification."[19]
A third benefit, which might be hoped to result from the more assiduous practice of this duty, would be a more self-denying extensive charity. "Fasting without mercy, is but an image of famine; Fasting without works of piety is only an occasion of covetousness;"[20] and an Apostolic Father[21] gives us this excellent instruction, "A true Fast is not merely to keep under the body, but to give to the widow, or the poor, the amount of that which thou wouldest have expended upon thyself; that so he who receives it may pray to God for thee."
It may perhaps seem strange to some that the present age should be thought wanting in self-denying charity. And yet let men but consider with themselves not what they give only, but what they retain; let them enquire a little further, not only what wants are relieved, but what remediable misery remains unabated; or let them but observe generally the glaring contrasts of extremest luxury and softness, and pinching want and penury; between their own cieled houses, and the houses of God which lie waste; or let them only trace out one single item in the mass of human wretchedness, disease, insanity, religious ignorance, and picture to themselves what a Christian people might do, what the primitive Christians would have done to relieve it,—and then turn to what is done, to what themselves do, and say whether means to promote self-denying charity can well be spared.
A further important object of the stated and frequent recurrence of the prescribed Fasts of our Church, is the public recognition of the reality of things spiritual. Here also very many have felt, (and it is a feeling whose strength is daily increasing,) that some public protest is needed against the modes of acting, tolerated (would one must not say, reigning!) in our nominally Christian land: that the Church, or the body of believers, ought to have some recognized mode of distinguishing themselves from those, who manifest by their deeds, that although "amongst us, they are not of us;" and who, on the principles of our Church, would have gone out or been removed from us. It has been with a right view of what the ideal of the Christian Church should be, its holiness, and its purity, although not, I must think, with a just conception of the nature of the Church, that men jealous for the honour of their God and their Redeemer, have in some measure formed Churches within the Church. The plan has, I think, been defective, sacred and praiseworthy as was the object contemplated. It is true, that the mere union in the celebration of the weekly festival of our Lord's Resurrection does not, as things now are, furnish a sufficient condemnation of the maxims and offences of the world; that the Church and the world are too much amalgamated; that while the light of the Church has in part penetrated the gross darkness of the world, there is yet danger, lest that light itself should be obscured. Yet the remedy for this, under God's blessing, is not to be sought in rescuing or concentrating some scattered rays of that Church, while the Church itself is abandoned to the world. The Ordinances of the Church itself afford the means of its own restoration. Not to speak of those ulterior and fearful powers, committed to it, (and which other communions exercise,) of ejecting from its bosom "the wicked person," the observance of its own other institutions would virtually eject them. Not indeed at once, (as indeed God Himself has thought fit to allow even His own Blessed Spirit but gradually to leaven our corrupted mass,) not at once, for at present, long continuance in opposed habits would prevent many from receiving the Ordinances of the Church, but yet, one should trust, steadily and increasingly; the mists which now encircle the Church, would disperse, and its glorious elevation on Zion's hill would more effectually be seen. Those, whom the easy Service of the Lord's Day repels not, who would fain serve God on the seventh day, and Mammon on the remaining six, would be brought to some test of what spirit they were; and if the Church, like Him, who is its Head, and because joined to that Head, becomes a stone of stumbling, if some shall more openly fall back unto perdition, still it will have performed its office; many, one may be sure, (for our assurance rests on God's Word,) would also be awakened from their lethargy of death; and if it be to some a savor of death, it will, by God's mercy, be to many more a savor of life, unto life. Yet the result of any system, built upon God's Word, belongs not to us. Were the consequences of more Apostolic practice a great apparent defection and desolation, we dare not hesitate. "It must be made manifest that they are not all of us." Meanwhile a beacon will be held out to those, who would wish to see their path: the plea, that every shew of religion, which the world tolerates not, is the mere excess and badge of a party, could no longer be held; those, who shrink from what might seem a voluntary or ostentatious forwardness, would no longer be deterred from uniting in observances, which, if authorized, they would love; and there might again be no separation but between those who serve God, and those who serve Him not. The world has seen that its own principles are leading to its own destruction; it acknowledges that its increased laxity has fearfully increased its corruption; offences, which even it abhors, are multiplied; vices, which disturb even its peace, stalk more openly; yet while it reaps the bitter fruits of its own ways, it dares not strike the root.
The Fasts, appointed by our Church, appear eminently calculated, not in truth as a panacea of all evil, but as one decided protest against the "corruption which is in the world by lust,: as one testimony to the conviction of men of the reality of things eternal.
Men may "fast for strife and to smite with the fist of wickedness," as they may also "for pretence make long prayers;" yet will not men, in general, submit to inconvenience and privation, except for a real and substantial object; the world has easier paths for its followers: he, who suffers hardship for an unseen reward, at least gives evidence to the world of the sincerity and rootedness of his own conviction; he attests that he is a pilgrim journeying to a better country, and however men may for a while neglect his testimony, it cannot be silenced.
Such are some of the advantages, which a recurrence to the system of our Church in respect of Fasting might, in dependance upon God's blessing, tend to realize: a more uniform, namely, and regular observance of an injunction of our Blessed Saviour; a deeper humiliation, and a more chastened spirit in carrying on His will; a more thorough insight into ourselves, and a closer communion with our God; a more resolute and consistent practice of self-denying charity; a more lively realizing of things spiritual; a warning to the world of God's truth and its own peril. I have spoken with reference to prevailing habits and general character only, partly because they are these habits which the regulations of a Church must mainly contemplate;[22] in part also, because, in whatever degree, they will probably form a portion of our own. The evil or defective character of any period is not formed by, nor will it exist in, those only who are evil; it encompasses us, is within us; we also contribute in our degree to foster and promote it; nay, it is from us probably that it receives its main countenance and support. Our own standard is insensibly lowered by the evil, with which we are environed. A self-indulgent age is not a favourable atmosphere for the growth of self-denial; nor an age of busy and self-dependant activity for that of a calm and abiding practical recognition, that every thing is in God's hands; nor a period absorbed in the things of sense for thoughtful meditation on things eternal. The predominant evils will indeed appear in the Christian in a subdued form; yet whether the temptation be to an unconscious compliance with them, or unwittingly to oppose evil with evil, the danger lies nearer here than in any other part of duty. And if the salt in any wise lose its savour, wherewith shall the self-corrupting world be preserved? wherewith the salt itself be salted?
"Touching the heart with softer power
For comfort than an angel's mirth,"
it has been to them an oppressive day; its tremendous truths overwhelmed rather than consoled; it was so unlike all other days, that the mind was confounded by its very greatness; it seemed unnatural to do any thing, which one would do even on any other holy day, and the heart was equally unsatisfied with what it did or did not do. Something of this kind has taken place in very many minds; and the reason probably was, that the solemnity of that day was too insulated; that, (if one may use the expression,) it was out of keeping with the religious habits of the rest of the year. This then the weekly Fast and solemn recollection recommended by the Church are calculated to remedy; as indeed, had they been observed, these feelings would never have found place. In whatever degree its advice is adhered to, Good Friday becomes a day of more chastened, and yet, probably, of intenser feeling; it is connected with a train of the like emotions, affections, and resolves; insulated no longer, but the holiest only among the holy. "Neither in moral or religious, more than in physical and civil matters," says a very acute observer of human nature, "do people willingly do any thing suddenly or upon the instant; they need a succession of the like actions, whereby a habit may be formed; the things which they are to love, or to perform, they cannot conceive as insulated and detached: whatever we are to repeat with satisfaction, must not have become foreign to us."[25] The principle is of important application in the whole range of our duties; nor could it be too often repeated, in warning, "that what is not practised frequently, can never be performed with delight." We are sensible of the value of habits in moral action, and are not surprised that one, who makes only desultory efforts, should never succeed in acquiring any habit; we feel it in some degree in our public worship of God, and think it natural that one who does not diligently avail himself of all his opportunities of attending it, should join in it but coldly and lifelessly; it is strange to him, and therefore at best a stiff and austere service: and yet, in other matters, we act in defiance of this maxim; we have allowed our Fasts to become rare, and therefore it has come to pass, that so many never fast at all; our holy days have passed for the most part into neglect, and therefore the few that remain excite but little comparative feeling; our daily service is well nigh disused, and therefore our weekly is so much neglected; we have diminished the frequency of our communions, and therefore so many are strangers to the Lord's Table, so many formal partakers. Not so the Apostles, nor the Primitive Church, nor our own in its Principles, or in its most Apostolic days: they knew human nature better; or, rather, acting from their own experience and self-knowledge, they ordained what was healthful for men of like nature with themselves; what was a duty at any period of the year, must needs be performed throughout; each portion had its Festivals and its Fasts, and the varying circle formed one harmonious whole of Christian humiliation and Christian joy.[26]
The Church was in those days consistent; its ministers derived their commission not of man, but of God, who called them inwardly by His Spirit, and outwardly through those to whom, through his Apostles, He had delegated this high office. The admission into Holy Orders was no mere outward consecration or ceremony, but an imparting of God's Spirit to those who were separated to this work through the prayers of the congregation, and the delegated authority of the Bishop. Christian edification was not left to each man's private judgment, but each was taught by those who had authority and experience, what was good and expedient for his soul's health. We also have been in these days becoming consistent; if we fast, we fast for ourselves; if we keep a holy day, or select a portion of the weekly service, it is because we of our own minds deem it convenient; we have become in all things the judges of the Church, instead of reverently obeying what has been recommended to us; we judge beforehand what will be useful to us, instead of ascertaining by experience whether that recommended by elder Christians be not so.
Yet I would fain hope that there will not long be this variance between our principles and our practice; but that, instead of examining what is the present practice of any portion of our Church, and enquiring how this may be amended, men would first investigate, in the Canons and the Rubrics,[27] what the real mind of the Church is, and see whether adherence to these would not remove the regretted defect.
One only objection can, I think, be raised by any earnest-minded Christian to this weekly Fast, namely, that the means employed, mere self-denial in so slight a matter as one's food, is so petty and trifling a thing, that it were degrading the doctrine of the Cross to make such an observance in any way bear upon it. One respects the feelings of such a person and his love for the Cross; but the objection probably proceeds from inexperience in the habit of Fasting. For let any one consider from his childhood upwards by what the greater part of his habits have been formed and by what they are continued: not by any great acts or great sacrifices, (as far as any thing might be relatively great,) but by a succession of petty actions, whose effect he could not at the time foresee, or thought too minute to leave any trace behind them, and which have in fact, whether for good or for evil, made him what he is. Practice will universally shew, that the motive ennobles the action, not that the action dishonours the motive. "True it is," says Bishop Taylor,[28] "that religion snatches even at little things; and as it teaches us to observe all the great commandments and significations of duty, so it is not willing to pretermit any thing, which, although by its greatness it cannot of itself be considerable, yet by its smallness it may become a testimony of the greatness of the affection, which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty." He who pronounced a blessing upon the gift of a cup of cold water to a disciple in His name, will also bless any act of sincere self-denial practised in memory of Him. Only let us not mock God, let us deny ourselves in something which is to us really self-denial; let us, in whatever degree we may be able to bear it without diminishing our own usefulness, put ourselves to some inconvenience, in sorrow and shame for those sins, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," which made our Saviour a man of sorrows, and exposed him to shame, and we shall not afterwards think the practice degrading to Him, or without meaning. The Fast of the early Christians during Lent was an entire abstinence until evening, on the Friday, until three o'clock; unused as we for the most part are to any such discipline, many of us would at the first not be well able to endure it; at all events its introduction had best be gradual: the Church has left the mode of observing her Fasts free to the conscience of each, only let them consist in real self-denial, and be accompanied by charity and prayer.
The early Church acted, as it supposed, upon our Blessed Saviour's own authority, in connecting these acts of bodily abstinence with the memory of His death. The Bridegroom was taken away! Yet if any one should find in himself any abiding repugnance to associate matters, necessarily humiliating, with the doctrine of the Cross, let him not endeavour to force his feelings; the Church wished to lay no yoke upon her members; let him perform the acts in mere compliance with the advice of the Church, and the experience of elder Christians; when he shall have attained the habit of self-denial and self-humiliation, the doctrine of the Cross will, without effort, connect itself with each such performance.
The other Fasts of the Church require the less to be dwelt upon, either because, as in Lent, her authority is yet in some degree recognized, although it be very imperfectly and capriciously obeyed; or, as in the case of the Ember Weeks, the practice has direct scriptural authority; or in that of the other Festivals, because when we shall again value the privilege of having the blessed examples of Martyrs and Saints set before us to
Remind us, how our darksome clay
May keep the ethereal warmth our new Creator brought;
we shall feel also the advantage of ushering in each such day by actions which may remind us how they entered into their glory, by taking up their Saviour's cross and following Him.[29]
Only with regard to the Ember Weeks, it may be permitted to observe, how this institution yet more fully embraces the objects which some good men are endeavouring, by voluntary association, to attain. For the solemn period of the four Ember Weeks is obviously calculated for prayer, not for those only who are to be ordained to any holy function, but for all who shall have been so called, that God "would so replenish them with the truth of this doctrine, and endue them with innocency of life, that they may faithfully serve Him;" and thus, not only some few individuals, more nearly known to each other, but all the Ministers and all the people of Christ should, with one mind and one mouth, implore a blessing upon the Ministry, which He has appointed.
And this also is an especial privilege of the whole public Fasting of our Church, beyond the voluntary discipline adopted by individuals, that it presents the whole Church unitedly before God, humbling themselves for their past sins, and imploring Him not to give His heritage to reproach. The value of this united humiliation and prayer God only knoweth; yet, since He hath promised to be present where two or three are gathered together in His name, how much more when His Church shall again unite before Him "in weeping, fasting, and praying;" how much more shall he spare, though we deserve punishment, and in His wrath think upon mercy. He who spared the Ninevites, how much more may we trust that He will spare us, for whom He has given His well-beloved Son.
"Let us, therefore, dearly beloved, seeing there are many more causes of fasting and mourning in these our days, than hath been of many years heretofore in any one age, endeavour ourselves both inwardly in our hearts, and also outwardly with our bodies, diligently to exercise this godly exercise of fasting, in such sort and manner, as the holy prophets, the apostles, and divers other devout persons for their time used the same. God is now the same God that he was then; God that loveth righteousness, and that hateth iniquity; God which willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live; God that hath promised to turn to us, if we refuse not to turn to him: yea, if we turn our evil works from before his eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek to do right, relieve the oppressed, be a right judge to the fatherless, defend the widow, break our bread to the hungry, bring the poor that wander into our house, clothe the naked, and despise not our brother which is our own flesh; Then shall thou call, saith the prophet, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say. Here am I: yea, God, which heard Ahab, and the Ninevites, and spared them, will also hear our prayers, and spare us, so that we, after their example, will unfeignedly turn unto him: yea, he will bless us with his heavenly benedictions, the time that we have to tarry in this world, and, after the race of this mortal life, he will bring us to his heavenly kingdom, where we shall reign in everlasting blessedness with our saviour Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen." Homily on Fasting, part 2.
"Lord have mercy upon us, and give us grace, that while we live in this miserable world, we may through thy help bring forth this and such other fruits of the Spirit, commended and commanded in thy holy word, to the glory of thy name, and to our comforts, that, after the race of this wretched life, we may live everlastingly with thee in thy heavenly kingdom, not for the merits and worthiness of our works, but for thy mercies sake, and the merits of thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all laud, honour, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen." Homily on Fasting, part 1.
POSTSCRIPT.
In the preceding remarks, the observance of the Fasts enjoined by the Church has been recommended on the ground of the practical wisdom and spiritual experience of the Holy Men, by whose advice they were adopted, rather than on that of the direct authority of the Church. And this has been done, not because the writer doubted of the validity of that authority in this instance, but because it involved a question, which would to many appear distant and abstract; whether, namely, the Church's Laws on this subject were by long disuse virtually abrogated. For I am persuaded that many excellent men, who would shrink from contravening a distinct command of their Church, do in fact neglect these, from some notion that the Church herself has tacitly abandoned them. This notion does indeed appear to me to rest on a wrong supposition.
For, 1st. Since the Church has not annexed any censures to the neglect of this Ordinance, (which may correspond to the penal provisions of a civil law,) the mere silence of the Church, or of her Spiritual Authorities, is no proof of her acquiescence in the breach of its directions.
2. It would be admitted in any other case, that the mere multitude of those who broke any law, did not alone abrogate that law; that the intrinsic sanctity of the law cannot depend upon the obedience which men may yield to it; that the laxity or remissness of men, at one period, cannot annihilate the authority by which that remissness was to be controlled. The disobedience of others, be they many or few, nay, though they should be even the majority, can have no force in absolving us from the law by which we are in common bound. It is true that observances, which the Church has at one time on her own authority ordained, she may at another abrogate; yet, until she do this, it is to be presumed that she wishes them to be retained in force. And it has already happened, that ordinances have for a time fallen into disuse, which yet were never intended to be abrogated, and which afterwards have been very beneficially revived. It is within the memory of man, that the yearly Commemoration of our Blessed Saviour's death was in country congregations very generally omitted. This is now, I trust, almost universally observed; nor is there any apparent reason, why this other ordinance of the Church, whereby we humble ourselves for the sins which caused that Death, should not, if men once came seriously to consider it, be promptly, and with very wholesome results, restored. I doubt not, that if the question were formally proposed to the Spiritual Authorities of our Church, whether they would think it adviseable that our stated Fasts should be abolished, they would earnestly deprecate it. Their silence therefore on this subject is rather to be ascribed to the supposed hopelessness of attempting to bind our modern manners to Ancient Discipline, than to any dispaiagement of the institutions themselves. Our institutions in many cases sleep, but are not dead; nay, one has reason to hope, that although the many neglect them, a faithful few have ever been found, who have experienced and could testify the value of those, which the world seems most entirely to neglect.
Yet, although these grounds of Church authority appear to myself perfectly valld, and I doubt not that many others will feel their weight, as soon as they shall reflect upon them, the other argument, drawn from the practical wisdom and experience of the enacters of these regulations, seems to lie nearer to men's consciences. The argument lies in a narrow compass. Regular and stated Fasts formed a part of the Discipline, by which all Christians of old, (if health permitted,) subdued the flesh to the spirit, and brought both body and mind into a willing obedience to the Law of God. They thought this Discipline necessary as an expression and instrument of repentance, as a memorial of their Saviour, to "refrain their souls and keep them low," to teach them to "trust in the Lord," and seek communion with Him. The value of this remedy for sin has come to us attested by the experience, and sealed by the blood of Martyrs; who having learnt thus to endure hardships, like good soldiers of Christ, at last resisted to the blood, striving against sin. Shall we untried pronounce that to be needless for ourselves, which the Goodly Company of the Prophets, the Noble Army of Martyrs, the Holy Church throughout all the world, found needful?
I can hardly anticipate other than one answer. Only let not any one be deterred by the irksomeness, or perplexities, or harassing doubts, which every one must find in resuming a neglected portion of duty. It were scarcely a discipline, if its practice brought with it an immediate reward; and we have besides to pay the penalty of our sloth and diseased habits. "Patiently to lack what flesh and blood doth desire, and by virtue to forbear what by nature we covet, this no man attaineth unto, but with labour and long practice."[30] And if it be that blessed instrument of holiness, which they who have tried it assure us, it will not be without some struggle with our spiritual enemy, that we shall recover the ground which we have lost. Only let us persevere, not elated with the first petty victories over ourselves, which may be perhaps conceded to us, in order to produce over-confidence and carelessness; nor dejected by the obstacles which a luxurious and scoffing age may oppose; nor by the yet greater difficulties from within, in acquiring any uniform or consistent habit. Men, aided by God, have done the like; and for us also, His grace will be sufficient.
- OXFORD.
The Feast of St. Thomas.
These Tracts may be had at Turrill's, No. 250, Regent Street, at 3d. per sheet, 1½d. the half sheet, and 1d. per quarter sheet.
KING, PRINTER, ST. CLEMENT'S, OXFORD.
- ↑ See Tables prefixed to the Common Prayer-book.
- ↑ Acts xiii. 2–4. iv.23.
- ↑ Matth. ix. 15. Mark ii. 20. Luke v. 35.
- ↑ Matth vi. 16–18.
- ↑ 2 Cor. xi. 27.
- ↑ Ib. vi. 5.
- ↑ Eccl. Pol. B. V. §. 72. Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, B. ii. c. 3. rule O.
- ↑ See Bingham, Antiq. of the Christian Church, B. xxi. c. 3.
- ↑ Cassian. Collat. xxi. c. 30. ap. Bingham, B. xxi. c. 1.
- ↑ First Part of the Homily on Fasting.
- ↑ "No doubt but penitency is as prayer, a thing acceptable to God, be it in public or in secret. Howbeit, as in the one, if men were only left to their own voluntary meditations in their closets, and not drawn by laws and orders unto the open assemblies of the Church, that there they may join with others in prayer, it may soon be conjectured what Christian devotion would that way come unto in a short time; even so in the other, we are by sufficient experience taught, how little it booteth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of repentance, and so to leave them altogether to themselves. O Lord, what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed, the best, the perfectest, the most righteous amongst us all, and yet clean past them over unsorrowed for, and unrepented of, only because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of discipline, wherein the public example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in mind, and even in a manner to draw them to that, which now we all quite and clean forget, as if penitency were no part of a Christian man's duty," Hooker, l. c.
- ↑ First Part of the Homily on Fasting.
- ↑ Bishop Taylor, Works, iv. 212.
- ↑ "Much hurt hath grown to the Church of God through a false imagination that Fasting standeth men in no stead for any spiritual respect, but only to take down the frankness of nature, and to tame the wildness of the flesh. Whereupon the world being bold to surfeit, doth now blush to fast, supposing that men, when they fast, do rather bewray a disease, than exercise a virtue. I much wonder what they, who are thus persuaded, do think, what conceit they have, concerning the Fasts of the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, our Lord Jesus Christ himself." Hooker's Eccl. Pol. B. v. §. 72.
- ↑ "If the Church intends many good ends in the Canon, any one is sufficient to tie the law upon the conscience, because, for that one good end, it can be serviceable to the soul; and indeed Fasting is of that nature, that it can be a ministery of repentance by the affliction, and it can be a help to prayer, by taking off the loads of flesh and a full stomach; and it can be aptly ministerial to contemplation. Now, because every one is concerned in some one or more of these ends of Fasting, all people are included within the circles of the law, unless by some other means they be exempted." Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, B iii. c. 4. rule 19.
- ↑ A Fragment, written in illness, by the Rev, Richard Cecil.
- ↑ "It is best to accompany our Fasting with the retirements of religion and the enlargements of charity; giving to others what we deny to ourselves." Bp. Taylor, Works, iii. 102. "Fasting, saith Tertullian, is an act of reverence towards God. The end thereof, sometimes elevation of mind; sometimes the purpose thereof clean contrary. The reason why Moses in the Mount did so long fast, was mere divine speculation; the reason why David, humiliation." Hooker, l. c.
- ↑ Acts xii. 5.
- ↑ Bp. Taylor, Works, iii. 97.
- ↑ Chrysologus Serm. 8. de Jejun. ap. Bingham, Book xxi. c. 1. §. 18.
- ↑ Hermas Pastor, Lib. iii. c. 3, p. 105. ed. Coteler. Fasting without alms-giving, says Augustine, is a lamp without oil.
- ↑ "We must observe all that care in public Fasts, which we do in private; knowing that our private ends are included in the public, as our persons are in the communion of saints, and our hopes in the common inheritance of sons." bishop Taylor, Works, iv. 103.
- ↑ Ap. Bingham, b. xxi. c. 1. §. 14. Chrysostom is there speaking of the nt Fast, but the application is the same.
- ↑ "Forasmuch as Christ hath foresignified that when Himself should be taken from them, His absence would soon make them apt to fast, it seemed that even as the first Festival Day appointed to be kept of the Church was the day of our Lord's return from the dead, so the first sorrowful and mournful day was that which we now observe, in memory of His departure out of this world. It came afterwards to be an order, that even as the day of Christ's resurrection, so the other two, in memory of his death and burial, were weekly. The Churches which did not observe the Saturday's fast, had another instead thereof, for that when they judged it meet to have weekly a day of humiliation, besides that whereon our Saviour suffered death, it seemed best to make their choice of that day especially, whereon the Jews are thought to have first contrived their treason together with Judas against Christ." Hooker, l. c.
- ↑ Goethe aus meinem Leben, tom. ii. p. 179. The author is there lamenting "the nakedness which, Jeremy Taylor says, the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves," and which our own happily avoided. In the contrast there drawn, it is not a little remarkable to see, that the doctrine of Apostolical Succession which has of late been by some regarded as cold and unpractical, is put forward as that which gives to the Romish Sacraments a warmth, which the Lutheran Church does not possess. He sums up thus; "All these spiritual miracles spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil; there can they neither be sown, nor planted, nor nurtured. One must obtain them by prayer from another country; and this cannot every one do, nor at all times. Here then we are met by the highest of these symbols derived from an old venerable tradition. We hear that one man can be favoured, blessed, consecrated from above more than others. Yet, in order that this may appear no mere natural gift, this high favour, united as it is with a weight of duty, must be transmitted from one commissioned individual to another; and the greatest good which man can attain, and yet cannot possess himself of by any exertions or power of his own, must be preserved and perpetuated upon earth by a spiritual inheritance. Nay, in the consecration of the Priest, every thing is united, which is necessary for effectually joining in those other holy ordinances, whereby the mass of Believers is benefitted, without their having any other active share therein, than that of Faith and unconditional confidence. And thus the Priest is enrolled in the succession of those who have preceded or shall come after him, and in the circle of those anointed to the same office, to represent Him, from whom all blessings flow; and that the more gloriously, because it is not Himself whom we respect, but His office; it is not before His bidding that we bow the knee, but before the benediction which he imparts, and which seems the more sacred, the more immediately derived from Heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot, by any sinfulness or viciousness of his own, weaken it, or render it powerless." The author manifestly speaks of the value of the Sacraments, with the feelings with which a spectator might be inspired, but still as one, in whom great powers of observation could supply every thing but the warmth of actual experience.
- ↑ "We are more apt to Calendar Saints' than sinners' days, therefore there is in the Church a care not to iterate the one alone, but to have frequent repetition of the other." Hooker, l.c.
- ↑ In respect to the ordinance of Fasting, it might contribute to regularity, if Clergymen were to observe the direction of their Church as contained in the Rubric after the Nicene Creed.
- ↑ Life and Death of the Holy Jesus, Works, t. iii. p. 96. Of Fasting.
- ↑ The only case in which the preparatory Fast is omitted (besides those already alluded to, pp. 1, 2.), is the Festival of St. Michael and all Angels, in which this ground for the Fast also ceases. See Wheatley.
- ↑ Hooker, l.c.