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. E. B. P. OXFORD, The Feast of St. James. 1834. 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 VOL. II.-66. A : occasional private fasts, to select the Wednesday and this it were well to bear in mind, for the church prescribes what is generally necessary only; those who strive at higher degrees of holiness, and are constantly stretching forward, will, when accustomed to them, practise themselves in private acts of self-denial at other times. II. Does a feast ordinarily supersede a fast, or how is the fast to be engrafted upon the feast? Our Church, in that she has made one exception, (viz. that her weekly Friday fast is to give way to the birth-day of her LORD,) and one only, seems to me to imply, that on all other occasions the fast is to be retained. Yet this does not supersede the feast'. The glad remembrance on each such feast-day still remains,-whether that God then crowned with exceeding glory the labours and patience of His blessed servants, the Apostles, or whether it were some act of mercy conveyed to us directly in His SoN. The act of fasting (when the habit is acquired) chastens, but diminishes not our joy; nay, on the festivals of the blessed Apostles, it carries on the lesson of the vigil, and teaches us how we must "enter into His rest." This, then, seems to me to answer the third question, Are the vigils to be kept as fasts, in such cases, as well as the day itself? I should answer, yes; because the vigil, or fast, of the preceding evening, is intended to prepare the soul, by previous abstinence and meditation, that it may rise disposed, and refreshed, and unencumbered, ready to receive God's holy influences on the morrow, and this ground is even increased by the additional solemnity of that morrow. There appears, however, to be this difference between the vigil and the Friday, or the Lent fast, that in the vigil, not humiliation, but preparation for a solemn service, is the main object, the fasting is incidental only; as indeed the very name leads one to think of the watching and previous meditation, not of the abstinence, except as far as it facilitates this end. 1 Bingham mentions that the 51st Canon of the Council of Laodicea forbad the celebration of the birth-days of martyrs, i. e. the days of their martyrdom (and so saints'-day) during Lent: they were to be transferred to the Saturday or Sunday. This, however, has not been adopted by our Church. IV. Rogation days; or, the three days preceding our Lord's ascension. This, according to Bingham, is a Western fast, unknown in the East, where the whole period of Pentecost was one season of joy. This fast appears to have been a sort of extended vigil, preparatory to the day "when the Bridegroom was taken away," and teaching us that, laying aside our worldly appetites, we should "in heart and mind thither ascend, and with Him continually to dwell." "Doubtless," says Cæsarius', bishop of Arles, "he loves the wounds of his sins, who does not, during these three days, seek for himself spiritual medicines, by fasting, prayer, and psalmody." The council of Orleans, A.D. 511, ordained that they should be kept after the manner of Lent. There is something salutary both in the eastern and the western view; in most periods, however, of Church history, the earnestness and distrust of self implied by this preparation for the festival of the Ascension is more fitted and more salutary for us than the unbroken exulting joyousness of the eastern Church. V. Should the observance of the Church's fasts be public? and if so, how should it be regulated? Undoubtedly we are not to fast, any more than to pray, or give alms, " to be seen of men;" but as no one has ever interpreted our SAVIOUR's warning as forbidding public or Common Prayer, so neither can it apply to public or common fasting. If we do publicly only what the Church requires, there is no more boastfulness in so doing than in going publicly to church. "In the season of the Passion," says Tertullian, "when the religious observance of fasting is universal and in a manner public, we scruple not to lay aside the kiss of charity, (this omission was the public avowal that a person was fasting,) not caring to conceal an observance which all are sharing with us." But further, since fasting is to be accompanied by retirement, all that the world need know is, that we do fast; the degree of self-denial need be, for the most part, known 1 Ap. Augustin. t. v. p. 299, App. ed. Bened. Serm. 174, alias de tempore 173, quoted by Bingham, book 13, c. i. sec. 10, as Augustine's. 2 Sic et die Paschæ, quo communis et quasi publica jejunii religio est, merito deponimus osculum, nihil curantes de occultando quod cum omnibus facimus. Tertul. de Orat. c. xiv. only to GOD, or to those immediately in one's domestic circle, who, it may be hoped, will share our feelings and our practice, and with whom there is no parade. We are not to obtrude our practice on others, but neither (as Clericus well objects) dare we deny it, if discovered, any more than we should deny that we were walking to church, although it should be on some holy day which the world has disused. Nay, this very denial proceeds (in part, doubtless, from misinterpretation of our SAVIOUR'S precept, but in part also) from some sort of feeling that it is a great thing which we are doing. On the other hand, let a person familiarize his mind to the idea that fasting is but a "plain duty, (obedience to the Church,)" and he will feel, that to try to mislead persons as to his performance of that duty must needs be wrong, because it is deceitful, but is also wrong, as countenancing evil, and the neglect of duty. It is, undoubtedly, often very painful to speak of, or to avow, any of one's own religious practices, especially when asked in an irreverent spirit,—it seems like profaning the sanctuary of one's own heart:-yet there is in most minds that instinctive respect for a man's honest conviction, as well as for the simple straight-forwardness, which, when called upon, would cheerfully state the truth, that any unaffected avowal that we thought it our duty to fast, would instantly command respect—often perhaps lead to injury. Only, we must beware that we be not inconsistent or forward: a person who should voluntarily go into a mixed or large society, where the very object of meeting was relaxation or amusement, and yet purpose to fast there, would deservedly expose himself to the charge of inconsistency, because he has chosen for his fast a place manifestly unsuited to it, and he must bear the difficulties which he has brought upon himself. On the contrary, should it be convenient to his Diocesan, or Archdeacon, to hold a visitation on one of the Church's fasts, (the case proposed by "Clericus,") there would be nothing in the intercourse of a visitation dinner inconsistent with the abstemiousness of a fast-day. Generally speaking, however, retirement and self-collection seem so essential a part of fasting, that unless on some extraordinary occasion, which might give a decidedly religious character to the meeting I should think it best for any one, who would observe the Church's fasts, to abstain from all society, except that of his own circle. The Fellows of one of the most respected Colleges in this place, have for years, made it a rule neither to accept nor to give any dinner invitations on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. This has been a good beginning; and they have been the more respected for making this rule, even by those persons who have not thought it needful to follow their example. Some other persons, though probably but few, have extended their rule to all the fast-days of the Church, except on some extraordinary occasions, such as those above hinted, or where respect to persons in authority seemed to supersede their private judgment; on such occasions, they would practise a quiet, unostentatious abstemiousness. Nor do I think that any charge of singularity (in any obnoxious sense) does or would attach in any case when a person acts simply and unostentatiously. If a clergyman, e. g., were, in declining the invitation of an elder minister, to assign as his ground, that he did not dine out on fast-days, there would be something unbecoming in this sort of tacit reproof to an older labourer in God's vineyard; but though we must not disguise the truth, if asked for, we need not voluntarily put forward the grounds of our actions; we might leave it to circumstances to lay them open, as far as might be necessary; and if we make no parade of our practice, our Christian liberty will be respected. But, should it be otherwise, we are, of course, not to count that "some strange thing has happened unto us," though our good should be evil spoken of. After all our precautions against ostentatiousness, censure of others, and the like, our very practice, if accounted of any moment, will probably be regarded as implying blame of those who allow themselves in the things from which we think it our duty to abstain; especially shall we have much difficulty in the first outset, but from within, more than from without. We all, probably, magnify our own importance, and think that our neighbours canvass us more than they do; whereas some passing observation, that "we are good sort of people, but have exaggerated notions about the Church's authority," or that "our state of health or spirits leads us to |