from our evil ways; yet it is plain in the prophets, that this inward grief was expressed by outward signs of fasting, weeping, and mourning. And that this was not peculiar to the genius of the Old Testament appears by the directions given by St. James concerning repentance: Be afflicted and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Which words, if examined by the phrases of the Old Testament, our best guide in interpreting the New, import outward expressions of grief and sorrow used by devout people in token of hearty repentance. The great Fast on the day of expiation, was called a day of afflicting their souls ;' which consisted not only in abstinence from food, but in putting on the habit and appearance of mourners; which in those Eastern countries was sackcloth, lying upon the ground, strewing ashes on their heads. And in such days of afflicting their souls, they abstained from all sorts of pleasure. And to these expressions of sorrow the words of St. James plainly allude; and were so literally practised by the primitive Christians of those countries. For, if any one fell into any notorious sin after baptism, they did not think it sufficient that he should repeat his crime no more, but he was obliged, by a long course of mortification, prayers, tears, and good works, to endeavour to wash out the stain of guilt.

Q. Are we obliged to use the same testimonies of our inward grief, whereby it was expressed in ancient times?

A. I think not; because the using of sackcloth and ashes formerly, when men humbled themselves before God, was in conformity to the custom of mourners in "Jam. iv. 9, 10. 'Lev. xvi. 29-31.

manner.

those times, who expressed their sense of grief after that But then I think we ought to express the same thing by other signs proper to the custom of mourners in our days. By forbearing our usual meals, by abstaining from all manner of pleasure, by neglecting the adorning our bodies, by retiring from company, by laying aside business, and by bewailing our loss. A sinner, saith St. Cyprian, ought to lament the death of his soul, at least as much as the loss of a friend: and St. Chrysostom makes use of the same comparison. And surely it will become us to mourn and lament, who have offended God, our best friend, whose favour we have consequently lost, if we are heartily sorry for having offended him.

Q. How is a day of fasting to be observed by serious Christians?

A. Not only by interrupting and abridging the care of our bodily sustenance, but by carefully enquiring into the state of our souls; charging ourselves with all those transgressions we have committed against God's laws, humbly confessing them with shame and confusion of face, with hearty contrition and sorrow for them; deprecating God's displeasure, and begging him to turn away his anger from us. By interceding with him for such spiritual and temporal blessings upon ourselves and others, as are needful and convenient. By improving our knowledge in all the particulars of our duty. By relieving the wants and necessities of the poor, that our humiliation and prayers may find acceptance with God. If the fast be public, by attending the public places of God's worship.

Q. What ought we chiefly to beware of in our erercises of fasting?

A. We ought to avoid all vanity and valuing our

selves upon such performances; and therefore in our private Fasts, not to proclaim them to others by any external affectations, that we may not appear to men to fast.3 Not to despise or judge our neighbour, who does not, and it may be, has not the same reason to tie himself up to such methods. Not to destroy the health of our bodies, and thereby make them unfit instruments for the operations of our minds, or the discharge of our worldly employments. Particular care ought to be taken, that we do not grow thereby morose and sour, peevish and fretful towards others, which severity to ourselves may be apt to incline us to; for that it is so far from expressing our repentance, that it makes fresh work for it by increasing our guilt.

THE PRAYERS.

FOR FASTING.

O LORD, who for our sakes didst fast forty days and forty nights; give me grace to use such abstinence, that my flesh being subdued to the spirit, I may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness; to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

FOR THE DIVINE FAVOUR UPON OUR FASTING.

TURN thou me, O good Lord, and so shall I be turned; be favourable, O Lord, be favourable unto me, who turn to thee in weeping, fasting, and praying; for thou art a God full of compassion, long-suffering, and of great pity; thou sparest when I deserve punishment,

Mat. vi. 18.

and in thy wrath thinkest upon mercy. Spare me, good Lord, spare me, and let me not be brought to confusion; hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is great; and after the multitude of thy mercies look upon me, through the merits and mediation of thy blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

PROFESSION OF REPENTANCE.

I ACKNOWLEDGE, O God, my own vileness by reason of my sins and am heartily grieved for the loss of thy favour. What humiliation, O Lord, can sufficiently express the greatness of such a loss! But I will weep and mourn, because I have offended thee; and I will repent as it were in dust and ashes. I will mortify those inordinate appetites, which have so sadly betrayed me; I will contradict all those inclinations which have made me stray from the ways of thy commandments. And do thou, O Lord, wean my soul from the pleasures of the body, which so often corrupt it, and render it incapable of relishing spiritual enjoyments. Let it not contract too great a familiarity with the delights and satisfactions of sense, since it was created for more exalted pleasures, and must shortly quit those here below; that so, when I come to leave this world, I may be qualified for the blessed conversation of spirits in thy heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAP. I.

THE FORTY DAYS OF LENT.

Q. What do you mean by Lent?

A. Lent, in the old Saxon language, is known to signify the Spring, or the time of humiliation generally observed by Christians before Easter, the great Festival

of our Saviour's resurrection. And a man must know little of ecclesiastical history, or have but a small acquaintance with the primitive fathers of the church, who doth not acknowledge the observation of Lent to be most ancient.

Q. How may we judge of the antiquity of this Fast?

A. From the dispute that was very early in the church concerning the observation of Easter, one point whereof was, concerning the ending of the ante-paschal Fast, which both sides determined upon the day they kept the Festival; which is sufficient to let us know that there was then such a Fast kept by both sides, and had been, in all probability, as anciently kept as the feast of the resurrection. And Irenæus, who lived but ninety years from the death of St. John, and conversed familiarly with St. Polycarp, as Polycarp had with St. John, and other Apostles, has happened to let us know, though incidentally, that, as it was observed in his time, so it was in that of his predecessors, but with great variety as to the length of it. And their being no church to be found anciently, wherein there was not a solemn Fast observed before Easter, is a sufficient argument to derive it from the practice of the first Christians; for otherwise it cannot be conceived how it should so universally prevail in all countries where Christianity was planted.

Q. Why was the solemn season of humiliation limited to forty days?

A. The church had, I suppose, a respect to forty days, as what was esteemed a proper penitential season, which seems very anciently to have been appropriated to humiliation. For, not to reckon up the forty days in which God drowned the world; or the forty years in which

Gen. vii. 4.