REV. ROBERT MEEK, RECTOR OF BRIXTON DEVERILL, NEAR WARMINSTER, WILTS; 66 OF ENGLAND;" THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND A FAITHFUL WITNESS AGAINST THE ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF دو SAINTS," &c. LONDON: J. HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 1835. 295. PREFAАСЕ. Passion Week is that season of the ecclesiastical year, which, from the earliest days of the Christian church, has been set apart for the special and religious commemoration of the last sufferings of the Redeemer, and of the benefits of redemption, which he obtained for us. The practice of setting apart particular days for "the remembrance of some special acts and passages of our Lord in the redemption of mankind; such as his incarnation and nativity, circumcision, manifestation to the Gentiles, presentation in the temple; his fasting, passion, resurrection, and ascension; the sending of the Holy Ghost, and the manifestation of the sacred Trinity;" can be traced to the early and purest days of Christianity. This pious and reasonable custom, as Wheatly remarks, "so soon prevailed over the universal church, that in less than four hundred years after our Saviour, we meet with these days, distinguished by the same names we now call them by; such as Epiphany, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, &c., and appointed to be observed on those days the Church of England now observes them on." This fact is important, as it proves that the objection which some urge against the fasts and festivals of the Church of England, as of Popish origin, is wholly without foundation. If the same fasts and festivals are observed in the Romish church, she derived them from the same pure source as the Church of England. In course of time, when men departed from "the faith once delivered to the saints," and the Church of Rome defaced the simplicity of Christianity by unscriptural errors and corruptions, the number of such holy days was increased. Days were set apart in honour of the martyrs and other holy men: "insomuch that at last the observation of holy days became both superstitious and troublesome: a set of dead saints, not over eminent in their lives either for sense or morals, crowding the calendar, and jostling out the festivals of the first saints and martyrs. But at the Reformation of the Church, all these modern martyrs were thrown aside, and no festivals retained in the calendar, as days of obligation, but such as were dedicated to the honour of Christ, &c., or to the memory of those that were famous in the gospels." That there is nothing unscriptural or superstitious in such a practice, as some assert, will appear from the fact of a similar practice in the Jewish church. The Jews observed the feasts of the Passover, of Weeks, and of Tabernacles; these were festivals appointed by God. To these festivals of divine appointment, they added others ordained by themselves; as, the the feast of Purim,† and of the dedication of the Temple. The fact of our Lord's honouring the last of these feasts, confessedly of man's institution, refutes and condemns the prejudice of those, who brand with the epithets of "superstition" and "will-worship," the observation of days and seasons for religious purposes for which a divine origin cannot be alleged. The passage usually urged against the practice of the Church of England, correctly under+ Esther 9. * Wheatly. 1 Maccab. iv. 59. |