of Lent, thus conducted, can effect,-which can no other ways be effected,-and which can be greater than the infinite numbers of sins, and doubtings, and scruples, and fears, and troubles, and vexations, and sicknesses, and peevishness, and murmur, and complaints, and laborious arts of excuse, and cheating the law, and slavery, and tyranny, occasioned and effected by it. 9. For although fasting is not only an excellent ministry to some parts of religion, but of health also, Accipe nunc, victus tenuis quæ quantaque secum yet all the world knows that long fasting is the most destructive thing in the world to our bodies, and breeds diseases sharper and more incurable than fulness and intemperance; and therefore the canon law forbids a fast of two or three days, and a fast beyond our strength. Therefore it is certain, that the church cannot command a long fast: and therefore, in the beginning of the custom of Lent, it was but a fast of one day, or two at most, eating at night. And although this fast was then a fast of liberty, and permitted to every one's choice; yet it might be enjoined in every government, according to the fore-described measures. But that instead of a fast, the church should prescribe a diet, an ill diet, not only unpleasant, but unwholesome, and that with so much severity, and with so much danger, and so many snares, is no exercise of that power which Christ hath given to her, but of that power which is usurped, ill-gotten, and worse administered. It is against the law of charity, and therefore ought not to be a law of the church; that men be tied for forty days together to keep from their usual diet, not to be temperate, but to be vexed and rule 1, this I say is uncharitable, and therefore unlawful. Hoc hic quidem homincs tam brevem vitam colunt. Quas herbas pecudes non edunt, homines cdunt": As the cook in the comedy complained, "Eating herbs and ill diet make men to live such short lives."--And what in y Hor. S. ii. 2. 7. Cap. Non dico, &c. non Mediocriter. de Consecr. dist. 5. terest of religion is served by eating fish and nettle-pottage, is not obvious to him that hath tried it, or can consider it. Thestylis hanc nimio pultem sale fecit amarum ; And I remember to have death and sickness are in this pot. heard a friar, none of the meanest of his order, say, that he never kept Lent for a long time together but, at Easter, he had a great fit of sickness: and therefore as the canonists say, that a future labour and weariness may legitimate the breach of the strict measures of the law, as well as if it be actual and present; so may the fear of sickness as well take off the obligation, as when it is present: and of this, every man that is not of an athletic health, hath reason to be afraid. 10. But that which relates also very much to the law, though not so much to us, is this, that all this trouble is for little or no good; if there be any good in it, it is relative and transient, and contingent, and inconsiderable, and without hazard otherwise to be acquired. For though fools and poor folks are sometimes pressed with the evils of such a change of diet, yet the witty and the rich can change all that law into the arts and instruments of pleasure. For the greatest feasts, and the greatest epicurisms use to be in fish. So he in the comedy, Musice hercle agitis ætatem; ita ut vos decet : Vino et victu, piscatu probo, electili Vitam colitis c, Wine and choice fish make music at the table. In re præsenti, ex copia piscaria They are forbid no sorts, no quantity, no delicacies, of fish or wine. And if this be objected to them, they answer, that fish is less pleasant, less nutritive, than flesh, and therefore wisely chosen by the church to be the entertainments of our Lenten table: but if you object, that fish is therefore not to be eaten because it is unwholesome, breeds ill juices, and afflicts the body; they answer, that we are not mistaken; that fish is a b Mantuan. Mostell. act. 3. scen. 2. 40. Ernesti, vol. 1. pag. 432. Casina, act. 2. scen. 8. 63. Ernesti, vol. 1. p 257. e Vide Paul. Zacchia Quæ. medico-legal. lib. 5. tit. 1. quæst. 2. lib. 2. de Conviv. cap. 25. vide Athenæum, lib. 1. Deip. cap. 25. delicacy; that Alexander the Great was so delighted with little fishes, that he would send them for presents to his dearest friends; that Suetonius tells the same of Augustus Cæsar; that Bullinger tells that the Rhodians esteemed them, that loved and lived much upon fish, to be gentlemen and well bred, and all other, clowns and of a rude palate; that Julius Cæsar at one triumphal feast entertained his guests with eight thousand lampreys; that the great feast which Metellus made, and which we find described in Macrobius, was especially made costly and delicious with the fish there presented. quo pertinet ergo Proceros odisse lupos ? He therefore that objects against the severity and affliction of the Lenten diet, knows not the arts of feasting; and complains of the church for a step-mother, when she is not only kind, but fond also of making such provisions. But if fish be unwholesome, then eat herbs, but at no hand flesh. Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis Suggerit, atque epulas sine cæde et sanguine præbet. For lions and wolves, tigers and bears, eat flesh; but God hath provided great variety of other things besides flesh. In some places, milk is permitted,-in all, herbs, and fruits, and broths and these are agreeable to a weak stomach; according to that of St. Paul, "Qui infirmus est, olus manducat;" "He that is weak, eateth herbs ;"-it is the argument of Bruyerinus". 11. But I shall make a better use of it, if I shall observe that St. Paul gives it as a note of infirmity, when Christians, upon pretences and little arguments, shall not dare to eat flesh, but instead of them eat herbs;-they are weak in the faith that do it; and do not consider, that flesh can as well be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, as lettuce and asparagus and that a little flesh and coarse and common, Lib. 3. Saturnal. cap. 13. ■ Ov. Met. xv. 75. Gierig. vol. 2. pag. 368. will better serve the end of fasting,-and that fasting better serve the end of religion, than variety of fish, and a belly filled with fruits, and wind, and superstition. All, or any thing, of this may be done in discipline, and with liberty: but because it may be unfit for so very many, and for all at some time, and may produce much evil, and hath in it no more good than to give us cause to say that it may be used, it is a very unfit thing to become the matter of an ecclesiastical law, a trouble and danger to the body, and a great snare to the conscience, which it may entangle, but it can never cleanse. -Pinguem vitiis, albumque, neque ostrea, Nec scarus, aut poterit peregrina juvare lagois i. 6 To eat fish or herbs is of so little use in religion, it is so trifling an exercise of the body by restraining the appetite, that besides that all "bodily exercise profiteth but little," this is so little of that, as it is conducted, and as it is even in the very permissions of the law, that it is not worth all this discourse about it; only to rescue the conscience from such snares and little entanglements is of great concernment. Fasting is very good to some purposes, at some times, and to some persons: but laws regard that quod plerumque est ;' and therefore, in the matter of a periodical and long-continued fast, cannot but be uncharitable and unreasonable, and therefore when there is cause for such injunctions, they are to be pressed with argument and exhortation, not by empire and necessity. For supposing the law otherwise without objection, yet he that fasts against his will, does not serve God; and therefore externally to be forced to do it, is not a lawful exercise of an ecclesiastical power. 12. The sum is this. If it be the fast of one day, it may be indicted by our lawful superior, with the measures of prudence and charity, and according to the needs of the church. But if it be the fast of many days together, it is a burden, and therefore not to be exacted, lest it be uncharitable. But if there be a law, the law ought to bend in all the flexures of reason and a probable necessity, and to prevail only by the reason of the thing, not the force of a command. But if it be no fast, but a change of diet, it is of so little profit, that it will not recompense the trouble, and will turn into super i Hor. S. ii. 2. 21. stition, and will more minister to evil than to good, and is not properly the matter of an ecclesiastical law, and the bishop hath no power to make a law in this matter: it is not for God, and it is not for religion, but for vanity, or empire, or superstition. 13. This only I am to add in order to the determination of our conscience in the practice of this inquiry, that if there be a law made by the civil power for the keeping Lent, then it is for civil regards, and the law is not for superstition, but therefore to be observed, as other civil laws are, with the same equity and measures of obedience; of which I am to give further accounts in the chapter of interpretation and diminution of human laws. But if it be still an ecclesiastical law, indicted and suggested by the spiritual power, and only corroborated by the civil power, and for them efformed into a law, then it obliges the conscience no otherwise, than it did, and ought to do, in the hands of the spiritual power; that is, only when the law is for good, and not for evil,—with Christian liberty, and not a snare,—when it is fit to be persuaded, and ought to be complied with, then and there it may be indicted, and is to be obeyed accordingly. RULE XX. Ecclesiastical Laws must ever promote the Service of God and the Good of Souls; but must never put a Snare or Stumblingblock to Consciences. 1. THE holy primitives, in their laws and actions, ever kept that saying of the Apostle in their eye and in their heart, Пávτa πpòs oinodoμyv yevέow, “Every word, every action, must be" πpòs cinodoμǹjv ris xpeias, " for the use of edifying." Let all things be done for edification: and therefore much more must laws, which have a permanent causality and influence upon the actions of the church; for therefore, they are either a permanent good or evil. 2. When the churches had hope of converting the Jews by gentleness and compliance in some outward rites, the church * 1 Cor. xiv. 26. Ephes. iv. 29. |