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for the sins of the whole world. That the Christian Lent, however, was not always of the length of forty days, and, indeed, not always of any uniform duration whatever, is a matter which we may defer for a sentence or two, until we have glanced at the obligation of fasting at all.

"The doctrine and practice of our Lord and His apostles respecting fasting may be thus described:-Our Saviour neglected the observances of those stated Jewish fasts which had been superadded to the Mosaic law, and introduced especially after the Captivity, to which the Pharisees paid scrupulous attention (Matt. xi. 18, 19); and He represented such observances as inconsistent with the genius of His religion (Matt. ix. 14-18; and parallel passages, Mark xi. 15-22; Luke v. 33-39). The practice of voluntary and occasional fasting He neither prohibited nor enjoined; He spoke of it, however, as being not unsuitable on certain occasions, nor without its use in certain cases (Matt. ix. 15; xvii. 21); He fasted Himself on a great and solemn occasion (Matt. iv. 2), and He warned His disciples against all ostentations and hypocritical observances of this kind (Matt. iv. 16-18). The doctrine of the apostles on this subject was to the same purport, neither commanding the practice of fasting, nor denouncing it as unlawful, unless either the observance or omission should involve a breach of some moral and Christian duty (Rom. xiv. 14-22; Col. ii. 16-23; 1 Tim. iv. 3-5). In practice the apostles joined fasting with prayer on solemn occasions (Acts xiii. 2, 3; xiv. 23)."*

But if no law was enacted by Christ or His apostles concerning fasts, there is enough to establish their occasional observance of them, if not to give colour to the hypothesis that such observance was implied or assured as a part of Christian discipline and experience (Matt. vi. 17, 18). Moreover, in some things the teaching of Christ assumed a temporary complexion, or was limited by a tem

* Riddle's Manual of Christian Antiquities.

porary reticence (John xvi. 12, 13). It was under the dispensation of the Spirit that the disciples were to be guided into "all truth ;" and it is possible to argue, in accordance with what may be called a kind of "development theory," that, looking at the Pharisaic abuses and hypocrisies of contemporaneous fasting, this kind of self-mortification was one the enforcement of which He reserved to the compelling power of the Spirit over the individual conscience, and over the communis sensus of the Church. If fasting was observed by our Lord and His apostles, it is fair to infer, from such practical recognition, that at least it is to be considered as an acceptable service, whenever the conditions which are essential to a true fast are complied with. Fasting is objectionable when regarded as in itself efficacious and meritorious; becoming, when used as an instrument of self-control: objectionable, when it is looked upon as in itself constituting a claim for consideration and forgiveness; becoming, when it appears as a voluntary tribute of love, humbly and gratefully rendered by men who either feel that their sins are forgiven, or else trust that they may be forgiven, on grounds other than their own doings or sufferings. To it, as to other phenomena of Christian practice, we may apply the pregnant words of the dying Herbert: "It is a good work if it be sprinkled with the blood of Christ."

But whatever encouragement the New Testament may give to the occasional practice of fasting, or of uncommon abstinence from mere æsthetic pleasures, whether of the body or the mind, it furnishes no precept as to the time when such fasting should be celebrated. The particular season, the frequency, the manner, the degree, and the duration, are alike left to the spiritual discretion of the individual, who has to decide upon these in the light of such facts of health, temperament, and disposition as he can best judge of. But in the case of a general or corporate fast, the very idea bears with

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it a decision as to several of these points by some competent and recognised authority. The Church-meaning thereby the aggregate of its members-can celebrate a common or universal fast only by a decree of the Church; and the set times of such a fast-in default of the express indications of Scripture-are to be referred to the authority of the Church, as depending on this for their decent and orderly observance. George Herbert supplies us with a poetical enforcement of this principle in his poem on "Lent," that fast of forty days before Easter, which is still reckoned of special and singular obligation.

Welcome, dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not temperance or authority,

But is composed of passion.

The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother what thou would'st allow
To every Corporation.

The humble soul, composed of love and fear,
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree:

He says, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not

The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;

Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.

Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:

Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,

Revenging the delight.

Then those same prudent profits, which the Spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,

And goodness of the deed.

Neither ought other men's abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.

'Tis true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day,
Yet to go part of that religious way

Is better than to rest:

We cannot reach our Saviour's purity;
Yet are we bid "Be holy e'en as He."
In both let's do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with Him than one
That travelleth by-ways.

Perhaps my God, though He be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more,
May strengthen my decays.

Yet, Lord, instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin, and taking such repast
As may our faults control:

That every man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlour; banqueting the poor
And among those his soul.

In the foregoing poem the idea of Lenten obligation is that of ecclesiastical appointment; but a Lent of forty days has been otherwise regarded as of apostolic institution. The latter theory has been chiefly confined to Roman Catholic advocates; some of whom, however, have so far modified it as to hold that Lent was 66 only such an apostolical rule or custom as left the church at liberty to alter it, as she did some other things upon just and proper occasions, and to abrogate it by introducing a contrary practice."* Such a qualification is very like a surrender of the position. On the other hand, it has been concluded

*Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church.

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that the fast of forty days in Lent was not of apostolic institution, from the extreme probability, touching on certainty, that the Lenten fast was originally of forty hours merely, or the time during which our Saviour lay in the grave, that is, the Friday and Saturday before Easter. This was the time, the interval between His passion and His Resurrection, in which the Bridegroom was taken away from the disciples, "the children of the bridechamber,” and in which it had been foretold or fore-enjoined that they should fast (Matt. ix. 15).

The practice of fasting, as it obtained in the second century, is incidentally, but in a way beyond challenge, because in a way of objection, established by Tertullian, who, whilst a follower of Montanus, reproached the Catholics that "they thought themselves obliged only to observe those two days in which the Bridegroom was taken away from them, and that these were the only legitimate fasts of Christians."* Still the practice was not uniform; and the want of uniformity was the occasion of a plentiful want of unanimity. Eusebius preserves a letter written to Pope Victor by Irenæus-Bishop of Lyons in the second century, and between whom and the apostle St. John, their common friend Polycarp, was a connecting link-in a spirit of accommodation worthy of his name, in which he pleads that the diversity of customs with regard to fasting should be allowed in the interests of peace, as being a diversity of already long-standing introduction, and one from which, in the generations of Christians that

* Tertullian, De Jejuniis. The Montanists understood the taking away of the Bridegroom in another sense for our Saviour's Ascension, or Assumption into Heaven, and therefore they kept one of their Lents or Fasts (for they had three in the year) after our Lord's Ascension, in opposition to the Church, which celebrated the whole time of Pentecost as a solemn festival. Montanists and Catholics agreeing on the reason of a fast, though they applied it to a different time according to their different apprehensions.-Bingham's Antiquities.