the twelve tribes, when they could not stand before Benjamin, (Judges xx. 26,) is another; that of Israel, at Mizpeh, when the Philistines pressed them, (1 Sam. vii. 6,) is another; that of the people of Jabesh-Gilead, (1 Sam. xxxi. 13,) is another; that of Israel after the death of Saul and Jonathan, (2 Sam. i. 12,) is another; that of Nehemiah, (Neh. i. 4,) is another; and that of Israel, (Neh. ix. 1,) is another. In the time of Joel we have an instance of a public fast, appropriate to a sad case, which the people had not religion enough to agree upon themselves, "required as a religious duty," by appointment of God, (Joel i. 14; ii. 12, 15). The fasts of evangelical protestants, private or public, are all voluntary; as much so as any other forms of self-denial or religious duty. Even the College Fast is not a church ordinance. If the Christian world should all agree to some annual fast, there would be no "usurping the prerogative of Christ." It would be spontaneous; but of conscience, which is the proper guide of Christians in these things, as of Old Testament saints, not of mere natural feeling, which is no guide at all. It would be on occasion, not from the absurd idea that going without food is meritorious, or the gifts of God to be despised.*

The pharisaical elements in some of the fasting of our Saviour's day are easily identified. They are two. The pharisees added many fasts to the one established by Moses. So common a book as "Coleman's Christian Antiquities" might have informed this writer of the fact. And they made a display, a self-righteousness of the observance. The boast in the parable, (Luke xviii. 12,) "I fast twice in the week," discloses both these facts. But of Anna, the prophetess, it is said that she "departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day," as a devout and accepted soul, to

The miraculous fasts of Moses and Elijah are omitted here because they were miraculous. But do they not imply a habit of fasting, though other examples in the lives of these holy men are not of record? It is not without significance, that only the two Old Testament saints, whose fasts were as protracted as that of the Saviour in the wilderness, were with him on the Transfiguration Mount.

†The addition of other anniversary fast-days, to the original Mosaic usage, (viz: on the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months, Zech. viii. 19,) seems to have come in contemporaneously with the rise of the pharisees. Jahn's Bibl. Ant. Lond. ed. p. 180. Pharisaism was thus historically an abuse of a usage which began long before, as it will long survive, the pharisees.

whom an expectation of the coming redemption had been imparted. Cornelius and Peter, too, seem to have been fasting about the same time— neither of them pharisees, nor observing any of the unauthorized fasts of the pharisees, nor observing the Mosaic fast or a private one, pharisaically. Fasting for many ends, and in a wrong spirit, of another kind, had, indeed, been already reproved in Old Testament times (Isaiah lviii. 3, 4; Jer. xiv. 12; Zech. vii. 5). Mere formalism in it had been forbidden (Joel ii. 13). What was distinctively, peculiarly pharisaical, was proud, public, self-righteous display. This, as a new abuse not known to the Old Testament, our Saviour forbade (Matt. vi. 16-18): "Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." And this was all he ever did forbid. The whole of "Christ's doctrine of fasting" here relates to the manner in which a disciple should not, and the manner in which he should do it; not to attract attention, but with the outward man ordered as at other times.

We are now prepared to estimate the astonishing superficialness, if it be not biblical ignorance, of some of the statements quoted above. "All that can be said for it, is that Christ has not forbidden fasting, provided men do not make a religion of it." May they make, then, a worldliness, an irreligion of it? -as they do a physical, intellectual, and merely moral regimen. And Christ approves of it only if it is not a religious usage he who approved of anything only as it was religious! And this is all that can be said for it not forbidden, if only it is not religious — when he has directed his disciples how to practise it as religious! "When fast." ye "Fasting as a re

Matt. vi. 16, 18;

It is here that His "doctrine" on the subject is to be found not in Matt. ix. 14— a doctrine for present practice, enjoining only what was needful; a Christian method of practising an immemorial duty. In chap. ix. 14, there is no doctrine whatever, only a prediction of future practice in one particular. To find all his doctrine where there is none, is as great a mistake as to use the words of Hosea vi. 6, quoted by Christ Matt. ix. 13, uttered in respect to Levitical sacrifices offered without the spirit of religion, to discredit fasting as a religious usage.

ligious usage was never practised by his followers while he was on earth. It is not asserted that he did not fast. His forty days in the wilderness stand in the way. Doubtless, too, in his absences from them for prayer he fasted for briefer periods. But did they eat their food as usual when

"Cold mountains and the midnight air

Witnessed the fervor of His prayer?"

Not to say that as he had not where to lay his head, so he had not where to obtain his food often, (and so they); could they have sympathized with him so little in his voluntary religious fasts as not to practise the same? Why did he tell them how to fast if they were "never to practise it?" He told them at the same time how to pray; were they never to pray ? "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet." "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head." The words are almost a demonstration. Moreover, "thy Father which seeth in secret," i. e., sees thy fasting, "shall reward thee openly." How could the Father see fasting which was not practised? These directions were given at the beginning of his ministry, when his disciples were few. And Peter was one of them, whom we find fasting afterwards. They were given before he was inquired of why they did not fast, and their observance of them was the occasion of the inquiry. When they fasted they did not appear to be doing so, to men; their anointed heads and washen faces made it a secret religious usage, as their Master intended. Therefore, supposing they did not fast at all, because it was not in the protracted and observable way – they made inquiry of him, why? He gave as a reason (Matt. ix. 14) their joy at his presence; not denying, still, that brief, occasional fasts were practised by them, even then, in the secret way he had required. And this inquiry was not made by the pharisees, as stated above, but by the disciples of John; the disciples of the pharisees (more ingenuous, doubtless, than their masters) accompanying them. Matthew mentions only the disciples of John; Mark and Luke those of the pharisees also ; naming those of John first, thus all three showing that the question originated with those of John: (Matt. ix. 14; Mark ii. 18; Luke v. 33.) The declaration of Christ, too, that a

certain species of demons could only be cast out by prayer and fasting, (Matt. xvii. 21; Mark ix. 29,) implies that he practised fasting himself, so being always in a condition to cast out the most violent deaf and dumb spirit; and that he would have his disciples do the same.*

It is implied in what is said above of the departure from gospel simplicity "a few centuries later," and the reproduction of "all pharisaic formalities and fastings," that in the first centuries Christians did not fast. This is as wide of the facts as other statements. And so common an authority as Mosheim is sufficient to confute it. He says of the first century; "the custom obtained that most Christians occasionally and privately joined abstinence from their food with their prayers; and especially when engaged in undertakings of great importance. Of any solemn public fasts, except only on the anniversary day of the crucifixion of Christ, there is no mention. Gradually, however, days of fasting were introduced." He admits that there is some force, however, in the arguments of those who hold that the fourth and sixth days of the week were so observed “while the apostles were still living." For apostolic fasting, on occasion, no day being fixed, there is yet better authority than this. Paul speaks of himself (2 Cor. xi. 27) as "in fastings often"; and if these are to be regarded as merely compulsory sufferings -like his stripes and perils and watchings we can hardly so regard the similar statement in chap. vi. 5, where he is reciting the things by which he approved himself as a minister of God. Many of these things are voluntary — labors, long-suffering, love, &c. One instance of his fasting occurred at Antioch, where other prophets and teachers fasted with him, and where he and Barnabas were set apart to their mission with fasting and prayer. On this mission he and Barnabas ordained elders in every church with prayer and fasting. (Acts xiii. 2, 3; xiv. 23.) Surely this was in the first century. And in his perilous voyage in the Mediterranean he obtained, after prayer and fasting, assurance of the deliverance of the ship's company from the wreck; and, not having fasted himself from fear of

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* Dr. Beard says of this, in Kitto: "It would appear that the practice was considered, in the days of Christ, to act, in certain special cases, as an exorcism." Think of our Saviour sanctioning an exorcism!

drowning, or from the mere "burden of some heavy woe," after the sailors had fasted fourteen days, being so frightened and anxious they could not eat - he obliged them to take meat for their health: (Acts xxvii. 21, 33, 34.) Some difference there between the apostle's fasting "as a as a religious exercise," and that of the sailors as "a natural expression of feeling!" Moreover, he enjoined fasting in a given case upon the Corinthians as an adjunct to prayer-both religious, -2 Cor. vi. 5. What becomes now of the strange statements on which we have commented? What need of an express command to make fasting, on occasion, and with great spiritual objects before us, a Christian duty, as it has always been a Christian practice? How plain that our Saviour intended to forbid the abuse of it, leaving its use untouched. How mistaken those When the Mo

who suppose it was "done away by Christ." saic economy fell, it left this, like prayer and alms-giving and other religious duties, standing. It has an unchangeable relation to spirituality, unworldliness, elevated and fervent conceptions of divine things, a just estimate of the importance of unseen and eternal objects, and prevalency in prayer. What that relation is, it is not the design of this paper to state.

ARTICLE V.

CHRIST'S TESTIMONY TO OUR CANONICAL SCRIPTURES.

The Testimony of Christ to Christianity.

By PETER BAYNE,

A. M., Author of the "Christian Life," &c., &c. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1862.

A NOTICEABLE fact in the religious drift of the times is the deification, not of the nature and person of Christ, but of his teachings. A divine wisdom is conceded to him by those who deny his proper deity. He was confessedly so filled with the Spirit of God as to be a safe and sufficient interpreter to man of