Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/188

 fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink?..... as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing." 2 Sam. xi. 11.

Now take the example of the Apostles. St. Peter was fasting, when he had the vision which sent him to Cornelius: Acts x. 10. The prophets and teachers at Antioch were fasting, when the revealed to them His purpose about Saul and Barnabas: Acts iii. 2, 3. Vide also Acts xiv. 23. 2 Cor. vi. 5. xi. 27.

Weigh well the following text, which, I am persuaded, many men would deny to be St. Paul's writing, had not a gracious Providence preserved to us the epistle containing it. "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away." 1 Cor. ix. 27.

Lastly, Consider the practice of the Primitive Christians.

The following account of the early Christian Fasts, is from Bingham, Antiq. lib. xxi.

.—"The Qhadragesimal Fast before Easter," says Sozomen, "some observe six weeks, as the Illyrian and Western Churches, and all Libya, Egypt, and Palestine; others make it seven weeks, as the Constantinopolitans and neighbouring nations as far as Phœnicia; others fast three only of those six or seven weeks, by intervals; others the three weeks next immediately before Easter."

The manner of observing Lent among those that were piously disposed to observe it, was to abstain from all food till evening, for anciently a change of diet was not reckoned a fast; but it consisted in perfect abstinence from all sustenance for the whole day till evening.

.—The next Anniversary fasting days were those which were called Jejunia quatuor temporum, the Fasts of the Four Seasons of the Year..... These were at first designed..... to beg a blessing of God upon the several seasons of the year, or to return thanks for the benefits received in each of them, or to exercise and purify both body and soul in a more particular manner, at the return of these certain terms of stricter discipline and more extraordinary devotion. [These afterwards became the Ember Fasts.]

.—In some places they had also Monthly Fasts throughout the year; except in the two months of July and August..... because of the sickness of the season.

.—Besides these they had their Weekly Fasts on Wednesday and Friday, called the Stationary Days, and Half-Fasts, or Fasts of the Fourth and Sixth Days of the Week..... These Fasts, being of continual use every week throughout the year, except in the Fifty Days between Easter and Pentecost, were not kept with that rigour and strictness which was observed in the time of Lent.....[but] ordinarily held no longer than 9 o'clock, i.e. 3 in the afternoon." J. H. N.