flictions: But although this Difcipline be proper and particular, yet because the Sorrow is of the whole Man, no Sence muft rejoyce, or be with any Study or Purpose feafted and entertained foftly. This Rule is intended to relate to the Solemn Days appointed for Repentance publickly or privately: Befides which in the whole Courfe of our Life, even in the midft of our most Festival and freer Joys, we may fprinkle fonie fingle Inftances and Acts of felf-condemning, or punishing; as to refufe a pleasant Morfel or a delicious Draught with a tacit Remembrance of the Sin that now returns to difpleafe my Spirit. And though thefe Actions be fingle, there is no Undecency_in them, because a Man may abate of his ordinary Liberty and bold Freedom with great Prudence, fo he does it without Singularity in himself, or Trouble to others, but he may not abate of his folemn Sorrow: That may be Caution, but this would be Softness, Effeminacy and Undecency. 7. When Fafting is an Act of Mortification, i. e. is intended to fubdue a bodily Luft, as the Spirit of Fornication, or the Fondnefs of ftrong and impatient Appetites, it muft not be a fudden, fharp and violent Faft, but a State of Fafting, a Diet of Fafting, a daily leffening our Portion of Meat and Drink, and a chufing fuch a courfe Diet which may make the Digiuna affai leaft Preparation for the Lufts of the Body. He that chi mal man- fafts three Days without Food, will weaken other gia. Parts more than the Minifters of Fornication: And when the Meals return as ufually, they alfo will be ferved as foon as any. In the mean Time they will be fupplied and made active by the accidental Heat that comes with fuch violent Faftings: For this is a kind of aeral Devil; the Prince that rules in the Air is the Devil of Fornication; and he will be as tempting with the Windinefs of a violent Faft, as with the Flesh of Chi digiuna & altro ben an ordinary Meal. But a daily Subtraction of the Nounon fa, Spa- rifhment will introduce a lefs bufie Habit of Body, ragna il pane, and that will prove the more effectual Remedy. va. See Chap. 8. Fafting alone will not cure this Devil, though 2. Sect.2.&3. it helps much towards it: But it muft not therefore & al inferno be be neglected, but affifted by all the proper Inftruments of Remedy against this unclean Spirit, and what it is unable to do alone, in Company with other Inftruments, and God's Bleffing upon them, it may effect. 9. All Fafting, for whatfoever End it be undertaken, must be done without any Opinion of the Neceffity of the Thing itfelf, without cenfuring others, with all Humility, in Order to the proper End; and juft as a Man takes Phyfick, of which no Man hath Reafon to be proud, and no Man thinks it neceffary; but because he is in Sickness, or in Danger and Difpofition to it. 10. All Fafts, ordained by lawful Authority, are to be observed in Order to the fame Purposes to which they are enjoyned; and to be accompanied with Actions of the fame Nature, juft as it is in private Fafts: For there is no other Difference, but that in publick our Superiors chufe for us, what in private we do for ourselves. 11. Fafts, ordained by lawful Authority, are not to be neglected, because alone they cannot do the thing in Örder to which they were enjoyned. It may be one Day of Humiliation will not obtain the Blef fing, or alone kill the Luft, yet it must not be defpifed if it can do any thing towards it. An Act of Fafting is an Act of Self-Denial, and though it do not produce the Habit, yet it is a good A&t. 12. When the principal End why a Faft is publickly preferibed is obtained by fome other Inftrument in a particular Perfon, as if the Spirit of Fornication be cured by the Rite of Marriage, or by a Gift of Chaftity; yet that Perfon fo eafed is not freed from the Fafts of the Church by that alone, if thofe Fafts can prudently ferve any other End of Religion, as that of Prayer, or Repentance, or Mortification of fome other Appetite: For when it is inftrumental to any End of the Spirit, it is freed from Superftition, and then we must have fome other Reafon to quit us from the Obligation, or that alone will not do it. 13. When the Faft publickly commanded, by Reafon of fome Indifpofition in the particular Perfon, can not 1 not operate to the End of the Commandment; yot 14. All Fafting is to be used with Prudence and Charity: For there is no End to which Fasting serves, but may be obtained by other Inftruments: And therefore it must at no Hand be made an Inftrument of Scruple, or become an Enemy to our Health, or be impofed upon Perfons that are fick or aged, or to whom it is in any Sence uncharitable, fuch as are wearied Travellers; or to whom in the whole Kind of it it is useless, such as are Women with Child, poor People, and little Children. But in thefe Cafes the Church hath made Provifion and inferted Caution into her Laws; and they are to be reduced to Practice according to Custom and the Sentence of prudent Perfons, with great Latitude, and without Nicenefs and Curiofity: Having this in our firft Care, that we fecure our Vertue; and next, that we fecure our Health, that we may the better exercise the Labours of Vertue, left out of too much Aufterity we bring ourselves to that 5. Bafil Mo-Condition, * that it be neceffary to be indulgent to naft. Conftit. Softness, Eafe and extreme Tenderness. e. s. Caffian. fam neceffita col. 21. c. 22. 15. Let not Intemperance be the Prologue or the Nè per cau. Epilogue to your Faft, left the Faft be fo far from tis eo impintaking off any thing of the Sin, that it be an Occafion gamus, ut vo- to increase it: And therefore when the Faft is done, be careful that no fupervening Act of Gluttony or exceffive Drinking unhallow the Religion of the paffed Day; but eat temperately according to the Proportion of other Meals, left Gluttony keep either of the Gates to Abftinence. Taptatibus ferviamus. Αμμυόμε 101 Tv μέραν. Naz, The Benefits of Fafting. He that undertakes to enumerate the Benefits of Fasting, may in the next Page alfo reckon all the Be nefits . nefits of Phyfick: For Fafting is not to be commended as a Duty, but as an Inftrument; and in that Sence no Man can reprove it or undervalue it, but he that knows neither Spiritual Arts nor Spiritual Neceffities. But by the Doctors of the Church it is called the Nourishment of Prayer, the Restraint of Luft, the Wings of the Soul, the Diet of Angels, the Inftrument of Humility and Self-Denial, the Purification of the Spirit: And the Palenefs and Meagerness of Vifage which is confequent to the daily Faft of great Mortifiers, is by St. Bafil faid to be the Mark in the Forehead which the Angel obferved when he figned the Saints in the Forehead to escape the Wrath of God. [The Soul that is greatly vexed, which goeth ftoop-Baruch 2, 123 ing and feeble, and the Eyes that fail, and the hungry Seul, fhall give thee Praise and Righteousness, O Lord.] SECT. VI. Of keeping Feftivals, and Days Holy to the Lord: particularly the Lord's-Day. TRUE Natural Religion, that which was conmon to all Nations and Ages, did principally rely upon Four great Propofitions: I. That there is one God; 2. That God is nothing of thofe Things which we fee; 3. That God takes Care of all Things below, and governs all the World; 4. That he is the great Creator of all Things without himself: And according to these were framed the Four first Precepts of the Decalogue. In the firft, the Unity of the GodHead is exprefly affirmed. In the fecond, his Invi, fibility and Immateriality. In the third is affirmed God's Government and Providence, by avenging them that swear falfly by his Name; by which allo his Omnifcience is declared. In the fourth Com mandment he proclaims himself the Maker of Hea ven and Earth; for in Memory of God's Reft from the Work of fix Days, the feventh was hallowed into a Sabbath; and the keeping it was a confeffing God to be the great Maker of Heaven and Earth, and confequently to this, it alfo was a Confeffion of his Goodnefs, his Omnipotence and his Wifdom, all which were written with a Sun-Beam in the great Book of the Creature. So long as the Law of the Sabbath was bound upon God's People, fo long God would have that to be the folemn manner of confeffing these Attributes: But when, the Priesthood being changed, there was a Change alfo of the Law, the great Duty remained unalterable in changed Circumftances. We are eternally bound to confefs God Almighty to be the Maker of Heaven and Earth; but the manner of confeffing it is changed from a Reft or a doing nothing to a fpeaking fomething, from a Day to a Symbol, from a Ceremony to a Subftance, from a Jewish Rite to a Chriftian Duty: We profefs it in our Creed, we confess it in our Lives, we defcribe it by every Line of our Life, by every Action of Duty; by Faith and Trust, and Obedience: And we do alfo upon great Reason comply with the Jewifh manner of confeffing the Creation, fo far as it is inftrumental to a real Duty. We keep one Day in feven, and fo confefs the manner and circumftance of the Creation; and we rest alfo that we may tend holy Duties: So imitating God's Reft better than the Jew in Synefius, who lay upon his Face from Evening to Evening, and could not by Stripes or Wounds be raifed up to fteer the Ship in a great Storm. God's Reft was not a natural Ceffation; he who could not labour, could not be faid to reft: But God's Reft is to be understood to be a beholding and a rejoycing in his Work finished; and therefore we truly reprefent God's Reft, when we confefs and rejoyce in God's Works and God's Glory. This the Chriftian Chutch does upon every Day, but especially upon the Lord's-Day, which the hath fet apart for this and all other Offices of Religion, being determined to this Day by the Refurrection of her dearest Lord, it being the first Day of Joy the Church ever had. And now upon the Lord's-Day WC |