bited, and if conjugal abftinence is not pofitively enjoined, it is at leaft ftrongly recommended.

Of the four annual fafts of the Greek Church, the first and most folemn is that of Lent, and the fecond in point of folemnity and duration is that of Advent. The Advent fast is as ftrictly obferved as the lenten, but the abftinence prescribed is much lefs rigid. For though they are obliged to refrain from flesh, butter, eggs, and milk, yet they are allowed the free ufe of oil, wine, and all forts of fish, as at other times. The faft continues forty days, beginning on the fifteenth of November. This faft, fome pretend, was inftituted in honour of Mofes, as that of Lent was in honour of the fast of Chrift; and the reafon given for determining the number of days in the Advent fast to forty is, that as Mofes, by a faft of forty days upon the Mount, was prepared to receive the two tables of the Law from God, fo it is, a fortiori, incumbent upon Christians to prepare themselves, by a like abstinence, as far as human infirmity will permit, for the reception of the eternal word, the true and great Law-giver, coming in the flesh. It muft however be admitted, that the Greeks were fomewhat tardy in making the discovery, if it be true, that after the expiration of the twelfth century, this regulation was unknown among them. In the Greek Churches Advent was never obferved with much uniformity, whether we examine its duration, or the number of its fafts. Conftantinople alone, where, above all places, uniformity might have been expected, ex

hibited

hibited fpecimens of three very different ufages. Some, as the Monks ftill do, kept a faft of forty days, others of three weeks, and others fafted one week only. This last alone is obligatory on the people, though many of them from principles purely confcientious, ftill obferve the faft of forty days.

OF THE

COLLECTS, EPISTLES, AND GOSPELS,

IN ADVENT.

LONG before our Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments was compiled, or the Reformation itself thought of, the Offices for the feafon of Advent, had in the Western Churches undergone a confiderable change. Among churches of different countries, whofe ufages were different, variety in the selection of leffons from the Prophecies, Epiftles and Gofpels must naturally be expected and it has often happened, that in the fame church, the offices of one Sunday have been transferred to another; and fimilar variations made, especially where the offices were common to the whole feafon of Advent, and not appropriated to any particular day.

THE

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

AFTER the reduction of the number of the Sundays of Advent to four, and the appropriation of peculiar offices to each, the Gospel for the fourth Sunday before Christmas, or the first in Advent, commonly was the narration given by St. Matthew of Chrift's folemn entry into Jerufalem fix days before his death; and this Gofpel has been retained by the original compilers *, and fubfequent revifors of the English offices. But other churches † have referved this Gospel for the fixth Sunday in Lent, or the Sunday next before Easter (once univerfally known throughout England by the name of Palm Sunday), probably because they thought the circumftances it relates better adapted to that day, which is in reality the fixth day before the commemoration of Lord's Crucifixion and Death. In the place of this has been substituted the beginning of · St. Mark's Gofpel, with a defign to denote, that the intention of the Church, at the commencement of her ecclefiaftical year, was to celebrate the first coming of Jefus Chrift in the flesh, to deliver mankind from the death of fin. Others, again, have felected for the Gofpel of this day a paffage from St. Luket, which relates to the fecond coming of our Lord. This laft is the Gospel ap

*They found it in the Miffal of Sarum.

The Roman and Gallican,

Chap. xxi. 25.

pointed

pointed in the Roman Miffal, and in fuch of the Gallican Miffals as I have had the means of examining*.

The mutations of the Epiftle for this day have been more numerous than thofe of the Gofpel. Without specifying any of the changes, I fhall fimply observe, that the paffage adopted by the Church of England has for feveral centuries been employed on the fame occafion by the general concurrence of the Western Churches; with this only difference, in the Roman and Gallican Miffals the Epiftle begins at the eleventh verfe, but in our Liturgy at the eighth.

The prefent Collect, which is confonant to the Epiftle, was compofed at the Reformation. The Collect formerly used in England, and still appointed by the Roman and Gallican offices for this day, is, with fome variation, the fame that we and they read on the fourth Sunday of Advent †.

* Before the overthrow of the Church of France, the Miffals of different diocefes differed confiderably, as thofe of York, Sarum, and Lincoln, formerly did in England. The Roman Miffal is uniformly one and the fame, like our Book of Common Prayer. When alteration has been made in either, its observation was not partial but univerfal.

+ GREGORY's Collect, and that of the Roman, Gallican, and Sarum Miffals for the first Sunday in Advent is, Excita quæfumus Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni; ut ab imminentibus peccatorum noftrorum periculis, te mereamur protegente eripi, te liberante falvari; qui vivis. That for the fourth Sunday is, Excita, quæfumus Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni; et magnâ nobis virtute fuccurre, ut per auxilium gratiæ tuæ, quod noftra peccata præpediunt, indulgentia tuæ propitionis acceleret; qui vivis, &c.

SECOND

SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

In the time of GREGORY the Great (590), and for many centuries after; in the time of RUPERTUS, who wrote early in the twelfth; and of DURANDUS, who flourished about the end of the thirtenth century, the Gospel from St. Luke, which, in the latter ages, the western Churches in general have transferred to the firft Sunday, was uniformly appointed to be read on the fecond; and in the Church of England it retains its ancient fituation. This Gospel refers to the end of the world, and the figns that shall precede our Lord's coming to judgment.

In the place of this Gospel the Gallican and Roman Churches read the narrative related by St. Matthew, of the deputation of two of John's difciples to Christ, and of the testimony that Jesus gave of the Baptist.

The Epiftle for this day has had the fingular felicity to retain its place with little interruption among the selections appropriate to Advent.

The Collect, which correfponds with the Epistle, was compofed by the Compilers of our Liturgy. The ancient Collect for this day was, Excita, Domine, corda noftra ad præparandas unigeniti tui vias; ut per ejus adventum purificatis tibi mentibus fervire mereamur; qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia fe cula, &c.

Rom. xv. 4.