Bishop of Ipres, in his zealous paftoral inftruction in 1768 (30), adds a serious charge in his diocefe, that all clergymen refrain from all banquets, entertainments, and assemblies of diverfion; from looking out at the windows or doors at any perfons masked, &c. that they never appear abroad at this time, only in the church, or on the road to it, or with the fick in their hofpitals; and pass this time fequeftrated in mind and body, and in recollection attend all parts of the public office, and at the forty hours prayer. The Baron of Montmorency, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer or Treasury in Flanders in the reign of Philip II. and joined the most eminent virtues of a contemplative state, with the duties of his distracting office, among the devout prayers which he compofed for the festivals of the year, has left us pathetic devotions for Shrovetide, in which a pious foul laments the public diforders of the world, together with thofe of her own heart. Penitential Pfalms, and other fuch devotions and litanies, with entertainments on the fufferings of Christ, and the holy Sacrament of the Altar, are most suitable at this time.

(30) I. 18.

THE

THE FIFTH TREATISE.

O N THE

FAST

OF

LENT.

L

CHAP. I.

On the Inftitution and Obligation of this FAST.

ENT is a moft folemn yearly faft of forty days, obferved by the Chriftian church before the feaft of Eafter (a) This great ecclefiaftical law is on many accounts most holy and moft venerable to Chriftians. It is venerable efpecially for its antiquity, for the universality of its obfervance, for its fanctity and manifold spiritual advantages. If we trace the religious obfervance of Lent through every age from our time, we shall find it clearly mentioned in the councils, and ecclefiaftical writers of every century, up to the very firft; and that fuch monuments and vouchers in all parts of the church evidently carry it as high as any fuch monuments are extant, that is, to the time when the immediate difciples of the apostles were living, and governed the chief fees. Daillé, the famous French Calvinift minifter, who has written against this holy faft with the greatest warmth, allows it to have been univerfally established in the church in the fourth century, and obferved ever fince that time (1). Indeed it is enforced fo frequently, and in terms fo clear in the fermons and other writings of the greatest lights of that time, and of the greatest paftors that ever adorned the church of God with their learning, zeal, and piety, in any age fince its first founders, that to call this in question would be "open madness, defpair, and extravagance. This confeffion, of the warmest adversary of this holy fast, carries its antiquity

(a) The Latin and Greek names fignify the faft of Forty Days, Quadragefima, Teσrapaxon. And hence are derived the French, Italian, Spanish, &c. words, to exprefs this holy term. The English word Lent fignifies the Spring faft, Lenten-Tide in the ancient English-Saxon language being the Spring feafon. See the English Saxon dictionaries of Junius, Benfon, Raymund, Lye, alfo Cambden, &c.

(1) Dallæus, 1. de Jejun. &c. Quadrag. c. 10.

quity very high; and we may ask him how it could be then fo universal if it was not far more ancient? Which indeed is clear by the pofitive evidence of the three foregoing ages. When a difpute was raised in the church in the fecond century, about the time when the folemn yearly faft was to be closed, as Eufebius expreffes it from the Synods of that time (2); and the feast of Eafter kept, which the Afiatics celebrated with the Jews on the 14th day of the first lunar month, most others with the church of Rome on the Sunday following, both when S. Polycarp came to Rome to confer with pope Anicetus about it, in 158, and when S. Irenæus wrote to pope Victor in favour of a toleration of this different cuftom of the Afiaticks; about the year 200, all churches agreed in keeping the folemn ante-pafchal faft of Lent (3). Some indeed have doubted whether Lent was first instituted of forty days; beoaufe S. Irenæus (4) mentions that Chriftians followed different rules of difcipline and practice, both in the number of days, and the manner of observing the fast before Easter. "For fome thought they ought to faft one day, others two, "others more; and fome extended this faft to 40 days. "They measure their day by comprizing the hours both of "the night and of the day. And this variety among those "that obferve the faft did not begin in our age, but long "before us among our ancestors, many of whom probably "not being very exact in their obfervance, handed down to "pofterity the custom as it had been through fimplicity or "private fancy introduced among them. Yet all thefe live "peaceably one with another, and we alfo keep peace to"gether. For the difference in obferving the faft does only "fo much the more commend the common unity of faith, "in which all are agreed (b)." Some (5) have understood

(2) Eufeb. 1. v. Hift. c. 23. (3) See S. Irenæus, Fragm. ep. ad Victor. ap. Euf. 1. v. Hift. ç. 24. and in Edit. nov. oper. ejus p. 340. (4) Loc. citat. (5) Beveridge, &c.

(b) Baillet (Sur les Fetes mobiles. Diff. fur la Careme), with fome others pretend, that S. Irenæus here fpeaks of the whole Lent, which he thinks fome then confined to a few days, and some even to one. The writers by placing the point before the word Forty, not after it, in which both manufcripts and printed copies vary, read the fecond period thus: "Some faft 40 hours, comprizing the night and the day." viz. The 40 hours that Chrift remained dead. But the learned bishop Beveridge, Dom Maffuet and others juftly reject this tranfpofition, because no one ever counted a day of 40 hours; and nothing could be more ridiculous than the fenfe they give this tranfpofed fentence: For in 40 hours who could doubt but the night must be joined with the day, especially if we fpeak of the space of time that Chrift lay in the grave, Let any one

repeat

this as fpoken of the whole faft of Lent; but take notice, that thofe who keep it according to the exact rule, make it of forty days (c). But Dom Maffuet (6) demonftrates that S. Irenæus fpoke of this difference in difcipline, not with regard to the whole Lent, but the part of it in which the faft was moft auftere, in which the paffion of Chrift is particularly commemorated: For this was peculiarly called the antepafchal faft, and this fome obferved with a faft of fuperpofition, (or of more days than one without taking any fuftenance) and all kept it at least a Xerophagie, or fast, on which in the meal taken in the evening they lived only on dried meats, that is, on bread, falt and water, as S. Epiphanius expounds it (7), to which fome added raw herbs or pulfe. This fevere faft was kept according to every one's devotion for more or fewer days in holy week, and by many all Lent. This is the variety of difcipline which this father appeals to,

as

(6) Differt. in S. Irenæum. 1. i. n. 23. p. 87. (7) S. Epiph. de Expof. Fidei.

repeat the fentence to himself and confider if any writer could have been capable of fuch nonfenfe and tautology. Dom Maffuet the learned Be'nedictin, editor of S. Irenæus s works, has demonftrated the abfurdi. ty and error of this pretended reading, and restored the new one given above. The fame had been before pointed out by bishop Beveridge (In Cod. can. vindic. 1. iii. de Jej. Quadrag. c. vii. p. 395.) who proves that S. Irenæus affirms none to have kept the true exact rule of Lent who did not faft 40 days: And he who wrote before the end of the fecond century fays, this had been established long before the time when he wrote; which muft carry us back at least 100 years; confequently to the time of the apoftles. Bishop Patrick (Difc. of fatting in Lent, ch. xvi. p. 143.) and bishop Hooper (Difcourfe of Lent, Part. 1. ch. 3.) make the fame remarks on this paffage of S. Irenæus, which Rufin and Chriftopherfon had tranflated accurately, referring 40 to the days. Henry Valois ftands self-condemned in referring it to hours; for to make fenfe he is obliged to blot out the word spa or day, and substitute veselav or fafting, foifting in this alteration against the authority of all manufcript and printed copies. To make the fenfe; "they measure "the faft (not the day, which would be nonfenfe) of 40 hours." In the true reading, the fenfe is clear and neceffary to exclude fome fafts of the Jews, in which they eat in the night, as the Turks now do. Thus do these three learned Proteftant bishops folidly refute the distorted falfe interpretation of the famous paffage of S. Irenæus given by Daille and fonie others. See Dr. William Beveridge (who died bishop of S. Afaph's, Anno, 1707.) Dr. George Hooper (made bishop of Bath and Wells in 1703.) Dr. Simon Patrick (who died bishop of Ely, in 1707.) Dom Maffuet, the Maurift monk (who publifhed the works of S. Irenæus at Paris, in 1710.) and Dom de l'ifle, Mauritt Monk; Hiftoire Dogmatique and Morale du Jeune, 1741. 1. ii. p. 104.

(c) Τοιαύτη ποικιλία ὁ νῦν ἐφ' ἡμῶν γεΓονυῖα, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῶν πρὸς ἡμῶν, τῶν παρὰ τὸ ἀκριβες, ὡς εἶκος, νηςεύονίων τὴν καθ ̓ ἁπλότητα καὶ ιδιωτισμὸν συνήθειαν ὡς τὸ μετέπειτα πεποιηκότων,

as is manifeft from other fathers. S. Dionyfius of Alexandria, about the middle of the third century, mentions this different manner of fafting on the fix days which immediately precede Eafter; faying (8), that fome paffed these fix days without taking any nourishment, others four, others only two. S. Epiphanius, in the fourth century, diftinguishes the faft of Lent into three parts: The first till holy week, in which the Xerophagie was not of precept: The second comprized the fix days of holy week, on which all were obliged to keep Xerophagie, that is, to take nothing at their meal after fun-fet but bread, falt and water: A third part of the faft was not of obligation like the two former, but of devotion or counsel only: This confifted in a fast of superpofition in holy week, which fome kept for two, others three, others four days, and fome the whole week. The council of Ancyra, in the fourth century, confirms, as of precept, the practice of those which S. Irenæus calls exact, in thefe words:

It is neceffary to faft the forty days of Lent, using only xerophagie or dry meats (9)." But this feverity feems to have been of precept only in few churches, except for holy week, in which it was univerfal. The name of the forty days faft (d) demonstrates that Lent was of about that number of days, or that the beginning was about the fortieth day before Easter, which, by fubtracting the Sundays, will leave thirty-fix for the faft, if we begin the number from Sunday the forty-fecond day, or fix weeks before Easter (e).

(8) Dionyf. Alex. ep. Canon. ad Bafilid. Can. i. T. i. Conc. p. 835. (9) Conc. Ancyr. Can. 50. T. 1. Conc. 13. 1506. (a) Quadragefima. Teocapanocǹ.

(e) The council of Laodicea, held, according to bishop Beveridge, in 365, according to Daille in 360, not only commands the entire 40 days to be falted without using at the meal in the evening any other than dry meats, but clearly fhews that it confifted of many weeks. For it forbids the falt to be tranfgressed on Thursday in the last week, (which probably fome pretended to do in honour of Christ's laft fupper) faying this would break and difhonour the whole Lent, (can. 50.) It forbids any to be admitted to baptifm who had not begun their preparation among the Catechumens, at leaft before the end of the two first weeks of Lent, (can. 45). And it mentions that (according to the difcipline of the Greek church) the holy myfteries were only to be offered on Saturdays and Sundays every week of Lent, (can. 59). The fathers in that fourth century clearly explain Lent to be of forty days, as S. Ambrofe (1. de Noe & Arcâ c. xiii. & l. 4. in Luc.) S. Gregory Nazianzen (Carm. de Silentio Jejunii) S. Jerom. (in cap. 3. Jonæ). Theophilus of Alexandria, who in his first and fecond paichal epiftles counts by the days of the Egyptain months, of which Lent was compofed in thofe years, forty days; and often calls it the faft of that term.

Daillé