and the Pharisees cavilling against Christ. 179 &c. dià rí &c., "and the Pharisees murmured against the disciples of Christ." It were enough for the Jews this to oppose; but though there was no such Paschal fast before the Pasch of the Jews, yet for all that we know there was authority sufficient in and under the New Testament to add this observance; our Lord calls it ἐπίβλημα ἱματίου καινοῦ, 242❝ an additament of a new garment." I have shewed you the substance and circumstance of the duty here prescribed; I have given you an account of the fasting of John, and his disciples; of Christ our Lord, and His disciples; of the Scribes and Pharisees also, with their disciples; which are all the persons that entered the drame of this text: I have cautioned you μὴ ὁμοίως Φαρισαίοις, that we fast not in hypocrisy like unto the Pharisees; but I know none excused from the duty itself, but such only whom those words of Christ may in some sense reach, où dúvavтai vηoтeveiv, “they cannot fast." Of δύνανται νηστεύειν, all other good Christians He hath said, "in those days they shall fast, they will fast." He said it, I say, who both could command them what should be their duty to do, and could foresee what faithfully and certainly they would do. Those days what they were, they could know: what they took themselves to be commanded to do, and by whom, and on what days, and what they have done, ye have heard. That this precious new wine, even for the more precious old wine's sake, may not be poured out, spilt, or lost; for that cause I have made this profusion of sand and labour: that no vessels old or new may perish, is my heart's desire and prayer. 433 Fasts why appointed by the Church; CHAPTER I. OF THE CHURCH'S FASTS IN GENERAL. ch. 7. 34; As Almighty God in the beginning created man to glorify and serve Him, both in his body, with the bodily appetites and senses thereof, and in his spirit, with its intellectual knowledge and will, both which are God's, and man soon 1 Cor.6.20; departed from God in his first fall by a rebellion in both Jas. 2. 26. those, breaking His first express command, both to gratify his own bodily appetite and sense, and his inordinate desire of being made wise to know good and evil; as it is written, Gen. iii. 6, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat:" and as in men's personal acquired corruptions men farther depart from God, by pleasing, obeying, and fulfilling both the lusts of their flesh lusting against the Spirit of God, and the vanity of their own blinded, fleshly, and corrupt minds, therethrough both bearing enmity with God by their carnality or law in their members, leading them captive to the law of sin, so as that they obey it in the lusts thereof, and also alienated and enemies in their mind by wicked works: Col. 1. 21. so in our returning unto our heavenly Father, we cannot 431 hope for reconciliation or peace with Him, but by being renewed both in the spirit of our minds by a new and contrite heart and spirit, and also by the mortification and subduing of our flesh, crucifying it with the sensuality, affections, and lusts thereof. Agreeable hereto the holy Church of Christ in her begetting and bearing children unto God, hath according to the wisdom taught her from God conjoined together both the earnest preachings of repentance, which is petávola, a change of the mind, or renewing of the spirit or inward man, and bodily fastings or mortifications. And be |