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Order of Contents

Articles  2
Quote  1
Latin  1

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Articles

1500’s

Bucer, Martin – ch. 12. ‘Lent & Other Fasts, & the Taking of Food’  in On the Reign of Christ  tr. Satre & Pauck  in Melanchthon & Bucer  in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19  (London: SCM Press LTD, 1969), bk. 1, pp. 253-55

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2000’s

Clark, R. Scott – ‘Resources on Lent’  (2018)

Clark quotes the following against Lent:  Whittaker, Sibbes, Owen, reformers in Basel, Lefevre d’Etaples, Manton, Calvin, Zwingli & Cartwright.

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Quotes

1600’s

Leading English Presbyterian & Independent Ministers

The Grand Debate between the most reverend Bishops & the Presbyterian Divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as Commissioners for the Review & Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer...  (London, 1661)

‘Exceptions’, p. 4

“V. That there may be nothing in the [Anglican] Liturgy which may seem to countenance the observation of Lent as a religious fast, the example of Christ’s fasting forty days and nights being no more imitable, nor intended for the imitation of Christians than any other of his miraculous works were, or than Moses his forty days fast was for the Jews, and the Act of Parliament 5 Elizabeth, forbid­ding abstinence from flesh to be observed upon any other than a politic consideration, and punishing all those who by preach­ing, teaching, writing or open speech shall notify that the for­bearing of flesh is of any necessity for the saving of the soul, or that it is the service of God otherwise than as other politic laws are.”

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‘The Papers’, pp. 69-68 irregular page numbering

“[Bishops:] ‘It is desired that nothing should be in the Liturgy which so much us seems to countenance the observation of Lent as a religious fast, and this as an expedient to peace, which is in effect to desire that this our Church may be contentious for peace’s sake, and to divide from the Church catholic that we may live at unity among ourselves: For saint Paul reckons them amongst the lovers of conten­tion who shall oppose themselves against the custom of the Churches of God [1 Cor. 11:16]; that the religious observation of Lent was a custom of the Churches of God appears by the testimonies following: Chrysostom, Sermon 11 in Heb. 10; Cyril, Catec. myst. 5; St. Augustine, Epistle 119, ut 40. dies ante Pascha observetur, Ecclesiae consuetudo ro­boravit: and St. Jerome ad Marcell, says, it was secundum traditionem Apostolorum; This demand then tends not to peace, but dissension. The fasting forty days may be in imitation of our Saviour for all that is here said to the contrary; for though we cannot arrive to his perfection, abstaining wholly from meat so long, yet we may fast forty days together, either Cornelius his fast, till three of the clock af­ternoon, or saint Peter’s fast till noon, or at least Daniel’s fast ab­staining from meats and drinks of delight, and thus far imitate our Lord.’

Reply:

If we had said that the Church is contentious if it a­dore God in kneeling on the Lord’s Days, or use not the white garment, milk and honey after baptism, which had more pretense of apostolical tradition, and were generally used more anciently than Lent, would you not have thought we wronged the Church?  If the purer times of the Church have one custom, and later times a contrary, which must we follow? Or must we necessarily be contentious for not fol­lowing both? or rather may we not by the example of the Church that changes them, be allowed to take such things to be matters of liberty and not necessity?  If we must needs conform to the custom of other Churches in such things, or be contentious, it is either because God has so command­ed, or because He has given those Churches authority to command it:

If the former, then what Churches or what ages must we conform to? If all must concur to be our pattern, it will be hard for us to be acquainted with them so far as to know of such concurrences: And in our case we know that many do it not; If it must be the most, we would know where God commands us to imitate the greater num­ber, though the worse; or has secured us that they shall not be the worst? or why we are not tied rather to imitate the pu­rer ages than the more corrupt? If it be said that the Church has authority to command us, we desire to know what Church that is, and where to be found and heard that may com­mand England and all the Churches of his Majesty’s domi­nions. If it be said to be a general council:

1. No gene­ral council can pretend to more authority than that of Nicea, whose 20th Canon, backed with tradition and common pra­ctice, now binds not us, and was laid by without any re­peal by following councils.

2. We know of no such things as general councils at least that have bound us to the reli­gious observation of Lent. The bishops of one empire could not make a general council.

3. Nor do we know of any such power that they have ever the universal Church, there being no visible head of it, or governors to make u­niversal laws, but Christ (as Rogers on the 20th Arti­cle forecited shows). Our 21st Article says that ‘General councils may not be gathered together without the com­mandment and will of princes’ and doubtless all the hea­then, and Mahomedans and all the contending Christi­an princes will never agree together (nor never did) to let all their Christian subjects concur to hold a ge­neral council. It says also:

‘and when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, where­of all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God; therefore things ordained by them, as necessary to salvation, have neither strength nor au­thority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures;’

And if they may err ‘in things pertaining unto God and ordained by them as ne­cessary to salvation,’ much more in lesser things. And are we contentious if we err not with them? Our 39th Ar­ticle determines this controversy, saying:

‘It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all pla­ces one or utterly like; for at all times they have been diverse, and changed according to the diversity of coun­tries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be or­dained against God’s Word.’

And after:

‘every particu­lar or national Church has authority to ordain, change or abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.’

They that believe not this should not subscribe it, nor require it of others.

As for the testimonies cited by you, they are to little purpose. We deny not that the custom of observing Lent, either fewer days or more, was as ancient as those authors, but:

1. That Lent was not known or kept in the 2nd or 3rd ages [centuries], you may see as follows: Tertullian, On Fasting, bk. 2, ch. 14, pleading for the Montanists:

‘Si omnem in totum de­votionem temporum, et dierum, et mensium, et annorum e­rasit Apostolus, cur Pascha celeramus anno circulo in mense primo? cur quodragin […]a inde diebus in omni exul­tatione decurrimus? cur stationibus quartam et sextam, sabbati dicamus? et jejunits Parasceven? quanquam vos etiam sabbatum si quando continuatis; nunquam risi in Pascha jejunandum, etc.’

And ch. 15, excusing that rigor of their fasts:

‘quontula est apud ncs interdictio ciborum, duus in anno. Hebdomadas xerophagiarum nec totas; excap­tis scilicet sabbatis, et dominicis offerimus Deo;’

The old general fast at that time was only the voluntary, un­constrained fasting on Good Friday, and after that on one or two days more, and then on six. Irenaeus in a fragment of an epistle in Eusebius, History, bk. 5, ch. 26, Gr. Lat. 23. says:

‘The controversy is not only of the day of Easter, but of the kind of fast itself: for some think they should fast one day, some two, others more, some measure their day by 40 hours of day and night; and this variety of those that observe these fasts began not now in our age, but long before us with our ancestors, who as is most like, propagated to posterity the custom which they retain, as brought in by a certain simplicity and private will; And yet all these lived peaceably among themselves, and we keep peace among ourselves, and the difference of fasting is so far from violating the consonancy of Faith as that it even commends it.’

Thus Irenaeus (read the rest of the chapter). Thus is the true reading confessed by Bellarmine, Rigaltius, etc. and Dionisius Alexander, Epistle Can. ad Basil, p. 881. Basil[?] says, ‘Nor do all equally and alike sustain those six days of fasting; but some pass them all fasting, some two, some three, some four, some more.’ And the catho­lics in Tertullian, On Fasting, ch. 2, say:

‘neque de caetero differentur jejunandum, ex arbitrio, non ex imperio nova disciplinae, pro temporibus et causis uniuscujusque sic et Apostolos observasse, nullum aliud imponentes jugum certorum, et in commune omnibus obeundorum jejuniorum;’

And Socrates admires at many countries that all differed about the number of days, and yet all called it Quadragesi­ma, bk. 5, ch. 22, Eat. Gr. 21. So Sozomen, bk. 7, ch. 19, Gr. and Nicephorus, bk. 12, ch. 34, which may help you to expound Jerome and the rest cited by you, as Ri­galitus does, to Tertullian, On Fasting, 128, as showing that they did it with respect to Christ’s 40 days’ fast, but not as intending any such thing themselves as any fast of 40 days. It is against the Montanists that the Quadragesima was but once a year that Jerome uses the title of apostolic tradition. And how to expound him, see Epistle to Lucin.:

‘u […]aqueque provincia abundet in suo sensu, et precepta Majorum leges Apostolicus arbi­tictur;’

But says Augustine, to Casulan, Epistle 86:

‘In E­vangelicis et Apostolicis literis, totoque Instrumento quod appellatur Testamentum Novum, animo id revolens video preceptum esse jejunium: quibus autem diebus non oportet jejunare, et quibus oporteas, precepto Do­mini vel Apostolorum non invenio definitum.’

And that Christians’ abstinence in Lent was voluntary: ‘quanto magis quisque vel minus voluerit, vel potuerit.’ Au­gustine affirms, Contra Faustus the Manichee, bk. 30, ch. 5. And Socrates, above cited says:

‘ac quontam nemo de eare praeceptum literarum monumentis proditam potest osten­dete, perspicuum est Apostolos liberam potestatem in ea­dem cujusque menti, ac arbitrio permississe: ut quisque nec metu, nec necessitate inductus quod bonum sit ageret.’

And Prosper, On the Contemplative Life, Bk. 2, ch. 24:

‘veruntamen sic jeju­nare, vel abstinere debemus ut nos non jejunandi, vel absti­nendi necessitate subdamus, ne jam deveti, sed inviti, rem voluntariam faciamus.’

And Cassianus, bk. 2, col. 21, ch. 30, says:

‘in primitiva ecclesia equale fuisse jejunium per totum annum: Ac frigescente devotione, cum negligerentur jejunia in­ductum Quadragia Sacerdotibus.’

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Latin Article

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – 100. ‘On the Fortieth [Lent] & Bacchanalian Festivals’  in Select Theological Disputations  (Utrecht, 1659), vol. 3, pp. 1383-91

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