interest, and declares on our side. It is the part of the minister of CHRIST to labour without ceasing,-to suffer without resentment, and to leave his cause in the hands of God, with full trust in Him.

A Thanksgiving for St. Peter's Day, when my Father and two of my Brothers most wonderfully escaped being drowned.

O eternal and most merciful God, who hast made us happy in the knowledge of Thy providence, which governs and preserves all things both in heaven and earth; by whose goodness my father and two of my brothers were, as on this day, delivered from sudden and untimely deaths: accept of my hearty thanks and praise for this great mercy vouchsafed to the whole family; and grant that none of us may, while we live, forget these wonderful expressions of Thy loving-kindness to us, the most undeserving of all Thy people.

We had sinned many ways against Thee, O LORD, and this was a loud, a distinct, and merciful call of thine, to every one of us, to repentance, which I most humbly beseech Thee give us grace to hear, to remember, and obey.

The greatest happiness, O merciful Father, which I can desire, either for myself or those who were sharers in this great deliverance, is what I now humbly beg for; that we may all of us gratefully acknowledge Thy great love for us; meditate on Thy tender mercies; magnify Thy great and good providence; and by these mighty favours, be reduced to an obedience becoming our redemption.

Pass by and pardon the ingratitude we have any of us been guilty of; and give us grace to consider, that by the merciful goodness of God, we are delivered from a world of dangers, which would otherwise overwhelm us.

And according to Thy wonted mercies, preserve us, for the time to come, to serve Thee. May the same watchful Providence, which has before time defended us from such imminent dangers, guard us, the remainder of our days, through all the changes and

chances of this mortal life. This I most humbly beseech Thee to grant, for Thy own goodness sake, and for the merits of our Saviour CHRIST JESUS. Amen.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who saved thy life from destruction.

LORD, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him; or the sons of men, that Thou so regardest them?

But what is my father's house, that Thou shouldst have such respect to so poor, so sinful a cottage?

I am oppressed with the load of mercies which we have received from Thee.

2 Pet. iv. 10.

"As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as stewards of the manifold grace of God." We have received them freely, not for ourselves, but for others; no man is excused; as stewards we are accountable. Every man should be content with his own talents.

OXFORD,

The Feast of St. Peter.

These Tracts are published Quarterly, and sold at the price of 2d. for each sheet, or 7s. for 50 copies.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1837.

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

SUPPLEMENT TO TRACT XVIII.

ON THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM OF FASTING PRESCRIBED BY OUR CHURCH.

THE following observations were occasioned by some questions, signed "Clericus," addressed to the Editor of the British Magazine, in April last; as they related to my tract, I felt called upon to answer them as far as I could; and they are now re-printed, with some additions, in the hope that they may remove some difficulties, which stand in the way of returning to the wise Rules of our Church, with respect to the Christian duty of Fasting.

Oxford.

The Feast of St. James.

E. B. P.

I. Wednesday Fast. I did not mean to imply that this was a fast of our church. In p. 6, I meant to speak of the example set us by the early church; in p. 10, "the two-sevenths of the which the church has wished to be in some way separated year, by acts of self-denial and humiliation," include the forty days of Lent, not the Wednesday. Undoubtedly many pious Christians have an especial respect for the Wednesday, as the day on which our SAVIOUR is supposed to have been betrayed, and also because their church has, in consequence, hallowed it by the use of the Litany. It would be natural for any Christian, who would add

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occasional private fasts, to select the Wednesday: and this it were well to bear in mind, for the church prescribes what is generally necessary only; those who strive at higher degrees of holiness, and are constantly stretching forward, will, when accustomed to them, practise themselves in private acts of self-denial at other times.

II. Does a feast ordinarily supersede a fast, or how is the fast to be engrafted upon the feast? Our church, in that she has made one exception, (viz. that her weekly Friday fast is to give way to the birth-day of her Lord,) and one only, seems to me to imply, that on all other occasions the fast is to be retained. Yet this does not supersede the feast'. The glad remembrance on each such feast-day still remains, whether that God then

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crowned with exceeding glory the labours and patience of His blessed servants, the Apostles, or whether it were some act of mercy conveyed to us directly in His SoN. The act of fasting (when the habit is acquired) chastens, but diminishes not our joy; nay, on the festivals of the blessed apostles, it carries on the lesson of the vigil, and teaches us how we must enter into His rest.' This, then, seems to me to answer the third question, Are the vigils to be kept as fasts, in such cases, as well as the day itself? I should answer, yes; because the vigil, or fast, of the preceding evening, is intended to prepare the soul, by previous abstinence and meditation, that it may rise disposed, and refreshed, and unencumbered, ready to receive God's holy influences on the morrow, and this ground is even increased by the additional solemnity of that morrow. There appears, however, to be this difference between the vigil and the Friday, or the Lent fast,—that in the vigil, not humiliation, but preparation for a solemn service, is the main object, the fasting is incidental only; as indeed the very name leads one to think of the watching and previous meditation, not of the abstinence, except as far as it facilitates this end.

1 Bingham mentions that the 51st Canon of the Council of Laodicea forbad the celebration of the birth-days of martyrs, i. e. the days of their martyrdom (and so saints'-days) during lent: they were to be transferred to the Saturday or Sunday. This, however, has not been adopted by our church.

IV. Rogation days; or, the three days preceding our Lord's ascension. This, according to Bingham, is a Western fast, unknown in the East, where the whole period of Pentecost was one season of joy. This fast appears to have been a sort of extended vigil, preparatory to the day "when the Bridegroom was taken away," and teaching us that, laying aside our worldly appetites, we should "in heart and mind thither ascend, and with Him continually dwell." "Doubtless," says Cæsarius', bishop of Arles, "he loves the wounds of his sins, who does not, during these three days, seek for himself spiritual medicines, by fasting, prayer, and psalmody." The council of Orleans, A. D. 511, ordained that they should be kept after the manner of Lent. There is something salutary both in the eastern and the western view; in most periods, however, of church history, the earnestness and distrust of self implied by this preparation for the festival of the Ascension is more fitted and more salutary for us than the unbroken exulting joyousness of the eastern church.

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V. Should the observance of the church's fasts be public? and if so, how should it be regulated? Undoubtedly we are not to fast, any more than to pray, or give alms, to be seen of men:" but as no one has ever interpreted our SAVIOUR's warning as forbidding public or Common Prayer, so neither can it apply to public or common fasting. If we do publicly only what the church requires, there is no more boastfulness in so doing than in going publicly to church. "In the season of the Passion," says Tertullian2, "when the religious observance of fasting is universal and in a manner public, we scruple not to lay aside the kiss of charity, (this omission was the public avowal that a person was fasting,) not caring to conceal an observance which all are sharing with us." But further, since fasting is to be accompanied by retirement, all that the world need know is, that we do fast; the degree of self-denial need be, for the most part, known

1 Ap. Augustin. t. v. p. 299, App. ed. Bened. Serm. 174, alias de tempore 173, quoted by Bingham, book 13, c. i. sec. 10, as Augustine's.

2 Sic et die Paschæ, quo communis et quasi publica jejunii religio est, merito deponimus osculum, nihil curantes de occultando quod cum omnibus facimus. Tertul. de Orat. c. xiv.