we follow

has called them forth, lest the expostulation of the Lord, recorded against God's people, apply also to ourselves. They had "taken words" (the penitent language of our text), and turned to the Lord; but how soon did the salutary impressions produced by affliction lose their force and vanish away. "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee, for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away?" It is only when " on that we shall know the Lord." (Hos. iv. 3, 4) Nor let us boast ourselves in the appointment of this solemnity, or in the services thereof, however suitable in themselves, or however devotionally observed, lest there should be pride in our very humility, and our devotions be turned into splendid sins. But let us rather ascribe "all holy desires and all good counsels" to Him, who alone can make our ways acceptable to Himself, and who, we trust, by putting into our hearts thus to humble ourselves before Him, has been graciously dealing with us now, as with his church of old: "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope." (Hos. ii. 14, 15.) Surely then, brethren, we may hope that this day, so much to be remembered, may be viewed as a token of the good hand of God over us; that He hath already turned, and repented, and left a blessing behind Him. Has not the decree already gone forth for our beloved fatherland; “Destroy it not, for there is a blessing in it,” as when the commandment went forth from on high, in reply to the supplications of Daniel, in his day of humiliation. We trust that the language of the text will be realised in our happy experience, that in the third day (even this present year) He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight;"-not only live by His "preserving to us the kindly fruits of the earth, so as in due time we may enjoy them; but live also the life of faith in the enjoyment of our manifold religious privileges, feeding on "the bread that cometh down from heaven," and drinking of the "well of water that springeth up unto everlasting life," until we reach that better land, "where they hunger no more, neither thirst any more, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto fountains of living waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Rev. vii. 17.) Even so. Amen.

THE NATIONAL FAST.

A SERMON

PREACHED BY

THE REV. J. F. DENHAM, M.A., F.R.S.,

AT

ST. MARY-LE-STRAND CHURCH, WESTMINSTER,

MARCH 24, 1847.

"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ?”—Isaiah lviii. 5-8.

THE whole of this chapter contains a severe reproof of the Jews in the Prophet's time, particularly for their hypocrisy, in pretending to make themselves accepted with God, by fasting and outward humiliation, without true repentance; with great promises, however, of God's favour upon condition of their reformation.

The portion of it chosen for our text affords an illustration of two important points; the first is, that outward forms and means of humiliation are not forbidden by the prophet; the second is, that unless attended with inward contrition and a renunciation of sin, such outward forms are of no value. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen."

Our first observation upon the text is, that outward forms and means of humiliation are not forbidden by the prophet.

This distinction is not unimportant. It prevents us from going to the extreme on the one hand of making a merit of fasting and other outward forms of humiliation, and, on the other, of entirely decrying them as means and aids of piety.

It appears, that only one fast was commanded, or rather, per

haps, allowed to continue, by the great Hebrew Lawgiver, namely, on the day of atonement. Other general fasts were, however, in the course of ages introduced among the Jews; which were celebrated at fixed times, every successive year. Thus the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, in the reign of Zedekiah, led to the establishment of a fast on the seventeenth day of the fourth month. (Jer. lii. 6, 7 ; Zech. viii. 9.) Another fast was instituted to commemorate the burning of the city by Nebuzaradan. (2 Kings xxv. 8, &c.) Another to bewail the murder of Gedaliah at Mizpah (Jer. xli. 1, &c.); and another to commemorate the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem on the part of Nebuchadnezzar. (2 Kings xxv. 1; Zech. viii. 19.)

On particular and signal occasions extraordinary fasts were appointed. Thus, when the children of Israel had suffered a calamitous defeat at the hand of the Benjamites. (Judges xx. 26.) Other instances of fasting on occasion of loss in battle are found. (1 Sam. xxxi. 11, 13; Baruch i. 5.) In Joel, chaps. i. and ii., a fast is enjoined with a view to avert the Divine wrath, as displayed in the terrible consequences of the invasion of the land by an army of devastating locusts.

We find traces of the custom among the Heathen nations; as when the inhabitants of Nineveh fasted in order to avert the destruction of their city, which was foretold by the Prophet Jonah (Jonah iii. 5); and, in later ages, the custom was found among the Romans. There were also private fasts among the Jews, although the Mosaic law did not require them. These were held in connection with individual or family incidents, and agreed, in aim and tendency, with fasts of a general and public nature, as in the instances of Hannah, Samuel's mother (1 Samuel i. 7), and David for the illness of his child. (2 Sam. xii. 22.) In many instances, prayer seems to have been accompanied with fasting, as in the instance of Anna, the Prophetess, recorded by St. Luke, ii. 37. Fasts were also considered as a useful exercise in preparing the mind for special religious impressions, as in the instance of Daniel, x. 2, &c.

In coming to the New Testament we do not find that our Lord made fasting any part of his religion; but observe, he did not forbid it; and even gave rules, as we have already heard in the gospel of the day, for its due observance. "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face: that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret : and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 17, 18.) When the disciples of John put the question

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to him, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?" he plainly excuses their avoidance of this practice: "Can the children of the bride-chamber fast?" and though he alludes to a period when "they shall fast;" yet his words do not amount to a command, but to a prediction that his followers would mourn when he should "be taken away from them; as we know the Apostles did in the interval between his death and resurrection. Compare Matthew ix. 15, Mark xvi. 11. That the early Christians observed the ordinary fasts which the public practices of their day sanctioned is clear from more than one passage of the New Testament Scriptures (Acts xiii. 2, xiv. 23; 2 Cor. vi. 5): but this they probably felt themselves bound to do, as long as the Mosaic institutions and the regulations of their forefathers continued entire. The same practice was also, as might naturally be expected, handed down to the early Christian church.

From this brief and impartial survey of the subject you will gather the conclusion which it had in view to establish,-that outward forms and means of humiliation, if not absolutely enjoined by the Jewish or Christian religion, are in neither of them prohibited.

The question is left open to be determined on grounds of expediency upon which, if it shall appear (as it might soon be made to do) that occasional abstinence, either wholly or in part, from accustomed food really tends to abate the passions, and to make the mind more pliable to the holy instructions of the word of God, more disposed to serious self-examination, charity, and repentance :-then, upon these grounds alone, every Christian has quite sufficient reason to adopt the practice; the modes of the duty being left to the dictates of his own particular circumstances and occasions. Observe, too, another consequence which follows from the short historical outline of the subject which has been laid before you, namely, that the Church, both Jewish and Christian, has ever exercised the power of appointing fasts, which the pious and obedient members of each have ever felt it to be their duty to observe. Let us now attend to the second general proposition of the discourse, that unless attended with inward contrition, charity, and renunciation of sin, such outward means of humiliation are of no value. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt though call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is

not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh." Now we know that it is very possible that men may observe these outward means, without any inward good dispositions, or reformation of conduct; and that it is further possible to substitute a punctilious regard to outward forms of humiliation, for a reformation of disposition and behaviour; and that it has ever been a very common form of hypocrisy to make this substitution.

The Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, contain instances of these various perversions of the duty now under consideration.

Thus we read in the twenty-first chapter of the first Book of Kings that when Ahab's wife, Jezebel, laid her scheme for the legalized murder of Naboth, the Jezreelite, she covered her treachery and cruelty by ordering, in Ahab's name," a fast to be proclaimed." (Ver. 9.)

In our Saviour's time the Pharisees who, as a body, were the most wicked men of the age, practised fasting with great punctuality and ostentation. Those "hypocrites," as he called them, " put on a sad countenance and disfigured their faces, that they might appear unto men to fast." (Matt. vi. 16.) He introduces a Pharisee, in his well known parable, as boasting before God that he fasted twice in the week (on the fifth day of the week, on which Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai, and on the second day on which he came down); and yet he is in that parable the very impersonation of pride, self-justification, and uncharitableness.

In the prophecies we find the most severe reproofs directed to the same hypocritical observances of fasting, and other outward forms of humiliation; but in none of them do we meet with a severer rebuke of this error than in the chapter which furnishes the text on this occasion.

In the first verse the Prophet is commanded to "cry aloud, spare not, but lift up his voice like a trumpet, and shew the people of God their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." "Yet," as we learn from the second verse, this people maintained a short observance of all the outward forms of religion;' they seek Me daily" in all the ordinances of public worshin: they affect to “delight to know My ways as a nation

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