292

while the Acts adduced by us

father of famous memory promulgate, shewed, declared, and opened, and thereby perceiving that one day or one meat of itself is not more holy, more pure or more clean than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity, cleanness and holiness; and that all men should by them live to the glory of God, and at all times, and for all meats, give thanks unto Him; of which meats none can defile Christian men, or make them unclean at any time, to whom all meats be lawful and pure, so that they be not used in disobedience or vice; yet forasmuch as divers of the king's subjects, turning their knowledge therein to satisfy their sensuality, when they should thereby increase in virtue, have of late time more than in times past broken and contemned such abstinence which hath been used in this realm upon the Friday and Saturday, the Embring days, and other days commonly called Vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent, and other accustomed times; the king's majesty considering, That due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue men's bodies to their soul and spirit; and considering also that fishers, and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much flesh shall be saved and increased, and also for divers other considerations and commodities of this realm, doth ordain and enact, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same,―That no person or persons of what estate degree or condition he or they be, shall at any time after the first day of May in the year of our Lord God 1549 willingly and wittingly eat any manner of flesh, after what manner of kind or sort soever it shall be ordered dressed or used, upon any Friday or Saturday, or the Embring days, or in any day in the time com-536 monly called Lent," &c. The scope and reason and motive of which law, if it be considered according to the principal end of it, subduing the flesh to the soul and spirit,—for there is added another end also which was political,-may well admonish us (though it was hard to contain the particulars in a law) to abstain also at such times of mortification from whatsoever food else is more delicate or costly, of hotter nature, and of higher nourishment. The formers of that law (which

do so represent and acknowledge it.

293

3, 12.

is now the law of our land) had no doubt before their eyes the approbation of God and His gracious answer to Daniel so chastening himself as in the Holy Scripture is described, “I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my Dan. 10. 2, mouth;" which that ministers of God's word should not as well have before their eyes as our civil magistrate, is a great shame. But if But if you look back to the Common Prayer Book, which was the matter of your commission, and of your Grand Debate, as you call it, and of your proposal; there if you think the act of parliament, ratifying and establishing the Common Prayer Book, and therein the religious fast of Lent, designed the end to be the service of God no otherwise than as other political laws are and be, you should evidently contradict that act of parliament which professes there and then an establishment of the order of the public and divine service, and should imagine the prayer for the first Sunday of Lent to have the suspicion of such a sense as this, O Lord, who for our sakes didst fast forty days and forty nights, give us grace to use such abstinence, that our seafaring men and mariners, and young cattle, and the like, may be maintained. How worthy a conceit were this?

To conclude this chapter: for the substance of the Paschal or Lent fast we have heard, to name no more now than St. Austine, Habet auctoritatem, et in veteribus libris,-et ex Evangelio; præcipitur enim nobis, et ex Lege, et ex prophetis, et ex ipso Evangelio; and the same also cont. Faustums, avowing abstinence from some sort of meats, of delicacy and higher nourishment, flesh, &c., edomandi corporis causâ,—propter corporis castigationem (sicut, saith he, per Quadragesimam fere omnes) to be commanded from the Apostles and the Prophets you have tried it now, as to the kind of flesh or fish, by our law; and let the reader judge of the issue.

e Epist. lv. [vid. p. 47. sup.] Ad Ps. cx. [vid. p. 93. sup.]

Lib. xxx. c. 3-5. [vid. p. 91. sup.]

294

Opponents of the Lent and other set fasts

CHAPTER IX.

537

THE JUDGMENT WHICH THE ANCIENT FATHERS MADE OF SUCH AS OPPOSED THE CHURCH'S SET FASTS OR FEASTS, AND PARTICULARLY THIS PASCHAL OR LENT FAST.

ST. AUGUSTINE in his Book of Heresies, n. 53, writing of the Aërians, thus saith; Aëriani ab Aërio quodam sunt, qui—in Arianorum hæresim lapsus, propria quoque dogmata addidisse nonnulla [fertur], dicens-nec statuta solemniter celebranda esse jejunia, sed cum quisque voluerit jejunandum, ne videatur esse sub lege: dicebat etiam presbyterum ab episcopo nullá differentiá debere discerni; that is, "the Aërians are named from one Aërius, who having fallen into the heresy of the Arians, did add thereto some opinions of his own, affirming that the solemn set fasts were not to be observed; but that every man was to fast when he pleased, lest he should seem to be under the law; he also said that there was no difference to be put between a priest and a bishop." And n. 82. of the same book, he thus saith of the Jovinianists, à Joviniano quodam monacho ista hæresis orta est ætate nostrá, cum adhuc juvenes essemus;—dicebat, nec aliquid prodesse jejunia, vel a cibis aliquibus abstinentiam;-cito tamen ista hæresis oppressa et exstincta est, nec usque ad deceptionem aliquorum sacerdotum potuit pervenire; that is, "the heresy of the Jovinianists in my time, when I was young, sprang from one Jovinian a monk,-who said that fasting and abstinence from certain meats was not at all profitable;-but this heresy was soon extinct, and proceeded not so far as to deceive any priests."

Joannes Damascenus in his Book of Heresies', writeth thus of the Aërians or Eustachians, Aëriani ab Aerio Pontico.Fuit autem sacerdos Eustachii episcopi ejus, cui Arianæ hæreseos crimen objectum est, filius. Jejunium feriâ quartâ et sextá et quadraginta diebus servari, et Pascha celebrari prohibet ; stata hæc damnat omnia.- Quod si quis jejunium servare velit, id ab eo certis statisque diebus servari negat oportere, sed quando volet. Negat enim se lege teneri: negat etiam quicquam

i [Vol. viii. col. 18.]

k [Ubi sup. col. 24.]

1

[Vid. p.

71. sup.]

how judged of by ancient Fathers and Councils. 295

inter presbyterum et episcopum interesse; that is, "the Aërians 538 were named of Aërius of Pontus, who was a priest, son to Eustachius a bishop, the same that was charged with Arianism. He forbids fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays and in Lent, and the observation of the Pasch; he condemns these set solemnities, saying, that if any one would keep a fast, he ought not to observe it upon certain set days, but when he pleaseth; for he denies that he is bound to it by a law: he also denies that there is any difference between a priest and a bishop."

Epiphanius in his seventy-fifth Heresy m, which is the Aërians'; εἰτά φησι, τί ἐστι τὸ Πάσχα ὅπερ παρ' ὑμῖν ἐπιτελεῖται; Ιουδαϊκοῖς πάλιν μύθοις προσανέχετε; οὐ γὰρ χρὴ, φησὶ, τὸ Πάσχα ἐπιτελεῖν· τὸ γὰρ πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός—ἀλλ ̓ οὔτε νηστεία, φησὶ, ἔσται τεταγμένη· ταῦτα γὰρ Ιουδαϊκά ἐστι, καὶ ὑπὸ ζυγὸν δουλείας—εἰ γὰρ ὅλως βούλομαι νηστεύειν, οἵαν δ ̓ ἂν αἱρήσομαι ἡμέραν ἁπ ̓ ἐμαυτοῦ νηστεύω διὰ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν· ὅθεν παρ ̓ αὐτοῖς πεφιλοτίμηται μᾶλλον ἐν κυριακῇ νηστεύειν, τετράδα δὲ καὶ προσάββατον, καὶ θ ̓ ἐξ. "afterwards he saith, What is the Pasch which is performed with you? do you adhere again to Jewish fables? for, saith he, ye ought not to perform the Pasch; for Christ our Passover is slain ;-for there is to be no set fast; for these things are judaical, and under the yoke of bondage;—but if I fast at all, I fast what day I please for my own liberty; whence they commonly affect to fast upon the Lord's day; but on Wednesday and Friday," &c.

And Theophilus of Alexandria in his first Paschal Epistle" saith, Homines provocantur, terrarum deserentes humilia, cum ecclesiá primitivorum dominicæ passionis festa celebrare ; —non est ergo, non est hæreticorum ulla solennitas, nec qui errore decepti sunt illius possunt communione lætari; "men are provoked, forsaking the low things of the earth, to celebrate the solemnities of the Lord's passion with the Church of the primitive ones; there is not therefore, there is not any solemnity that heretics will keep, nor can those which are deceived with error be delighted with the communion thereof."

Synodus Gangrensis, can. 19. Εἴτις τῶν ἀσκουμένων χωρὶς σωματικῆς ἀνάγκης ὑπερηφανεύοιτο, καὶ τὰς παραδεδομένας νηn [Vid. p. 40. sup.] o [Vid. p. 109. sup.]

[Vol. i. p. 907.]

296

Testimony of prelates of our own Church,

στείας εἰς τὸ κοινὸν καὶ φυλασσομένας ὑπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας παραλέοι, ἀποκυνοῦντος ἐν αὐτῷ τελείου λογισμοῦ, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω if any of the religious without any bodily necessity shall proudly contemn and break the fasts delivered in common and observed of the Church, a perfect deliberation in him rejecting them, let him be anathema.”—Epistola synodica patrum synodi Gangrensis de hæreticis quibusdam Eustathianis, καὶ τῶν νηστειῶν τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τεταγ- 539 μένων ὑπερφρονοῦντες καὶ ἐσθίοντες. Concilium Moguntinum sub Carolo Magn. can. 35, Siquis indictum jejunium superbiendo contempserit et observare cum cæteris Christianis noluerit, șe, anathema sit, nisi emendare se studeat.—Evagrius' noteth certain heretics of Alexandria οὐκ αἰδεσθέντας τὸν καιρὸν τῆς τοῦ σωτηρίου Πάσχα πανηγύρεως, “ not reverencing the time of the celebration of the salutary Pasch."

66

CHAPTER X.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE RIGht reverend FATHERS IN GOD, LAUNCELOT ANDREWES BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, AND JOHN COSIN THE PRESENT LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM; ALSO, IN SOME MEASURE, OF THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT, AND BISHOP MOUNTAGUE.

BISHOP ANDREWES in his fifth Sermon of Repentance, p. 216, saith, "He [Christ] that in this places saith, cum jejunatis, 'when ye fast,' saith in another, tum jejunabunt, then they shall fast,' and that amounts to a precept, I trow ;" and p. 217, "they that were under grace went far beyond them under the law in their cum, and in their jejunatis both;” and in p.223 and 224 of the same Sermon, speaking of the yearly recurrent fast of Lent, he saith, "it is a custom of the Church, while it was a Christo recens, yet fresh and warm from Christ; the Church which was the mother of the Apostles themselves, at all times kept; every where observed; then, and ever since. Some, to shift it, frame to themselves a fear of I wot not what superstition, where no fear is; before any superstition was stirring, any popery hatched, it was, this fast was; lex abstinendi in Quadragesima semper fuit in Ecclesid, saith the oracle

P [Vol. i. col. 531.]

[Vol. iv. col. 1015.]

Lib. ii. c. 8. [vid. p. 57. sup.]

8

[Viz. Matt. vi. 16.]