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Q.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE SOLEMN FAST OF LENT.

WHAT do you mean by the season of Lent?

A. Lent, in the old Saxon signifying the Spring, has been applied to the Spring fast, or the time of humiliation observed by Christians before the festival of Easter.

Q. What was the probable origin of this fast?

A. This fast probably, like other Christian observances, is of Jewish origin, corresponding with the preparation of the Jews for the yearly expiation; their humiliation being forty days before the expiation, and ours is forty days before the expiation of the sins of the whole world, by the death of Christ.

Q. Is not this fast of great antiquity?

A. From the very first ages of Christianity, it was customary for Christians to set apart some time for mortification and self-denial, to prepare for the solemn feast of Easter.8

Q. Why is this solemn season limited to forty days? A. The number forty was very anciently appropriated to seasons of repentance and humiliation. This was the number of days, during which God covered the earth with the deluge; the number of years in which the children of Israel did penance in the wilderness; the number of days Moses fasted in the mount, and Elijah in the wilderness :* the Ninevites had this number of days allowed for their repentance; and our Lord, when he was pleased to fast in the wilderness, observed the same length of time."

Q. Wherein consists the propriety of observing this fast? A. The duties of humiliation and repentance are of constant obligation, and are the essential and uniform characteristics of the sincere Christian. But there is great propriety in setting apart a season for the more particular and solemn discharge of duties, which otherwise might be entirely forgotten, or only imperfectly and superficially discharged. When the mournful anniversary approaches of the sufferings and death of Christ, it is highly proper that

Euse. Eccle. Hist. lib. v. cap. 24. j Deut. if. 9. k 1 Kings xis. 8,

h Gen. vii. 4.

1 Jonah iii. 4.

i Num. xiv. 34.

m Matt. iv. 2.

the Church should lay aside the songs of praise and triumph which distinguished the preceding joyful festivals, and in humility and penitence prepare to sympathize in the sorrows of her Lord; it is highly proper that Christians should call to mind the sins which brought their Saviour to the cross, and express their deep sorrow for them by acts of humiliation and self-denial. The solemn and devout exercises of this holy season tend also to strengthen in the soul the sentiments of piety and virtue, and to prepare us for successfully encountering the temptations of the world.

Q. How was the season of Lent observed by the primitive Christians?

A. This season of humiliation was observed by the primitive Christians with the most rigid strictness. No marriages were allowed. Their festivals were transferred from the ordinary week days to Sunday or Saturday; which last day, among the eastern Christians, was a festival like Sunday. Except on these two days, the Eucharist was not consecrated during Lent; that being an act more suitable to festivals than fasts. The primitive Christians, during this season, exhibited every external mark of deep penitence and sorrow, particularly abstinence and fasting. They extended the fasting, on every day in Lent, beyond the hour of three in the afternoon, at which time other fasts ended, to the evening.

Q. How should devout Christians spend their time during this season of Lent?

A. With a design to punish ourselves for our past transressions, and to express our sorrow for them, we should practise the duties of abstinence and fasting, according to the circumstances of our health, and our outward condition in the world. Our external behaviour should correspond with the humiliation and seriousness we now profess. Public assemblies for pleasure and diversion should therefore now be avoided, and the festivities of social intercourse in some degree abated. The public services of the Church should be regularly and reverently attended; and we should devote a more than usual portion of our time to religious retirement; to self-examination, penitence, and prayer; to acts of charity and mercy; especially to devout and serious meditation on religious subjects.

Q. Explain the duty of religious meditation.

A. The duty of religious meditation consists in such a serious application of the mind to any Christian doctrine or

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virtue, as will dispose firmly to believe and embrace it, or earnestly and vigorously to endeavour to acquire it.

Q. How ought we to prepare ourselves for the exercise of this duty?

A. Before we enter on this duty, we should impress upon our minds a lively sense of the holy presence and inspection of God; that we are unworthy, on account of our sins, to present ourselves before him; and that we are incapable, without his assistance, to think any thing that is good. Adoring his infinite majesty with profound reverence, we should humbly beseech him to enlighten our understandings, to discern the nature and excellence of the divine truths and duties that are to be the subjects of our meditations, and to incline our wills to embrace and choose them.

Q. In what manner ought we to conclude the duty of religious meditation?

A. We should conclude the exercise of this duty, by earnestly beseeching God to affect our minds with a constant sense of our obligations to him; that he would enable us to perform those resolutions which we may have made of advancing in piety and virtue; that he would not leave us to ourselves, but would so assist us with his grace, that we may persevere in his love and service to the end of our lives.

Q. What are the advantages that result from the exercise of holy meditation?

A. Religious meditation will have a powerful influence on our hearts and life, and is admirably calculated to quicken our progress in all the graces of God's holy Spirit. It will illuminate our understandings with the knowledge of our duty, and store our memories with the most powerful reasons to excite us to the performance of it. It will quicken the sensibility of conscience, and powerfully urge its remonstrances. It will tend to increase the reverence and ardour of our supplications to God, by impressing us with his greatness, and our unworthiness. It will habituate our minds to spiritual objects, and raise them above the perishing things of this life. It will strengthen our holy purposes, arm us against temptation, and inflame our souls with earnest desires to obtain the favour of God, as our supreme and satisfying good.

Q.

CHAPTER XVII.

ASH-WEDNESDAY, OR THE FIRST DAY OF LENT.

A FAST.

WHY does the fast of forty days, called Lent, begin

on Ash-Wednesday, which is forty-six days before Easter?

A. Sunday, being the day on which we commemorate the resurrection of our Saviour, does not allow of fasting. If, then, the six Sundays are deducted out of the six weeks of Lent, there remain only thirty-six days of fasting. To make up, therefore, the number of forty, four days are added from the week preceding, which makes Wednesday the first day of Lent, called Ash-Wednesday.

Q. Why is the first day of Lent called Ash-Wednesday?! A. This name is derived from the custom that prevailed in the primitive Church, for penitents at this time to express their humiliation, by lying in sackcloth and ashes. By the coarseness of sackcloth, they ranked themselves among the meanest and lowest condition of men. By ashes, and sometimes earth, cast upon their heads, they made themselves lower than the lowest of the creatures of God, and put themselves in mind of their mortality, which would reduce them to dust and ashes.

Q. What was the discipline of the primitive Church at the beginning of Lent?

A. In the primitive Church, such persons as stood convicted of notorious crimes, were put to open penance: they were excommunicated by the Bishop, and not admitted to reconciliation with the Church, until after the most public testimonies of sorrow and repentance, and the greatest signs of humiliation."

Q. How were penitents readmitted into the Church?

A. When they had finished the time prescribed for undergoing these severities, if their repentance, upon examination, was found to be real, they were readmitted into the Church, by the imposition of the hands of the clergy; the party to be absolved kneeling before the Bishop, or, in his

n Tertullian. De Penitential

absence, before the Presbyter; who, laying his hand upon his head, solemnly blessed and absolved him; whereupon he was received with universal joy, and restored to the communion of the Church.

Q. What have you to observe in regard to the form of service for the day?

A. On this day, some solemn forms of supplication and humiliation are appointed to be used at morning prayer; and the penitential psalms of David are appointed to be used instead of the psalms for the day. The first lesson for the morning, taken from Isaiah, displays the guilt and depravity of man, and concludes by pointing out to him the way of salvation through a Redeemer. The second lesson, from St. Luke, is an excellent summary of our Saviour's sermon on the mount, and enforces those Christian graces and virtues, without which all expressions of penitence are empty and vain. The first lesson for the evening contains an animating encouragement to repentance, in God's declaration of mercy to the Ninevites; and the second lesson enforces the same duty, by displaying the second coming of Christ to judge the world. The epistle and the gospel caution us against resting in external expressions of sorrow, while our hearts are devoid of the emotions of real contrition. Thus admirably calculated is the service of the day, to enforce the duties of humiliation and repentance.

Q. Explain the nature of true repentance.

A. Repentance consists in such a lively sorrow for our past sins, and in such sincere and effectual resolutions, through divine grace, to forsake them, as produce a complete change in our principles, desires, and conduct; a change so great and universal, that it is styled in Scripture, a new nature.

Q. What are the considerations that should excite us to sorrow for our sins?

A. Who can forbear grieving, when he reflects, that by his transgression he has forfeited the favour of God, the only source of bliss, and incurred shame, remorse, everlasting misery? Who can forbear grieving, when he reflects, that he has been inattentive to the salvation of his immortal soul; that he has been ungrateful to his gracious Benefactor, and best Friend; that he hath affronted Heaven with the very blessings he received from thence; that he hath fallen under the heavy displeasure of God, whose infinite patience he has abused; that he has "despised the riches of God's

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