309 we bear by compaffion in the fufferings of our divine Redeemer, the greater will be the jubilee and devotion we Thall feel in our hearts from the glorious. triumph and joy of his Refurrection. But alas! how faint has our compunction been for our fins, how weak our feeling for the bitter agonies which our loving Saviour underwent for us? Our mother the church has been plunged in grief, and covered with mourning. Have we ever wept with her? If we are not fenfible what reafon we have to weep, how deplorable must be our blindness and hardness of heart? When Jeremie lamented the fall of Jerufalem, and the captivity of the people of God, all his grief and tears could not avert those calamities. But our forrow will be the remedy of our evils. These tears prepare our fouls for folid joy. We are members of that church which fanctifies herself and her children by her tears, and before we could be enrolled in their number, by the most folemn proteftations we renounced the vain joys of the world. Shall we not be faithful to our engagements, fly the diffipation and vanities of the world, and be penetrated with fuch a fenfe of our miferies as will be in us a fountain of tears? O holy church, my tender mother! O devout fervants of God, weep for me! weep in particular out of compaffion for my wretched infenfibility that I do not weep for myself, and for thofe evils and fins, for which the Son of God poured forth torrents of tears and blood. Divine Saviour, may it be our only comfort and joy to attend you in fpirit, in your fufferings and death, and unite our fighs and tears with your precious blood. If we thus follow you at Gethfemani and on Mount Calvary, we fhall also Thare in the joy of your Refurrection, and fing triumphant Alleluias in your train of devout loving fouls.

THE

THE SEVENTH TREATISE.

ON THE

RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD.

CHAP. I.

On EASTER-DAY.

HE Jewish Paffover, called by them Pafcha, was kept by the Jews in memory of their miraculous deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, by the flaughter of all the firstborn of the Egyptians; the name was derived from the Hebrew verb, Pafach, which fignifies to pafs, or leap over, because the destroying angel who flew the firft-born of the Egyptians, paffed over the houses of the Hebrews without hurting their firft-born, their doors being marked with the blood of the Pafchal Lamb, which was killed the evening before, and was an illuftrious type of Chrift, who by his precious blood delivered us from the tyranny of the devil. This great feaft the Jews kept on the fourteenth day of the first month of the Ecclefiaftical, or facred Lunar Year, called by Mofes, Abib, by Efdras, and the later Jews, Nifan (1), correfponding to the greateft part of our march, and part of April. This was the moon of the vernal equinox, and was the feventh month of the civil year of the Jews, which they followed in all computations, in fecular affairs, and which they began from the month, Tifri, or the autumnal equinox.

The Pafchal Lamb, which the Jews killed, tore to pieces, and eat, and whofe blood preserved them from the hand of the destroying angel, was a figure of the death of our Saviour, and of his blood fpilt for our Redemption." Chrift, "our Pafch, is facrificed," fays St. Paul (2): by his Refurrection, he put the feal to this great work, which mystery we commemorate on the Sunday after the fourteenth of the moon of March, or which begins in March. This feftival

(1) Exod. xii. 46. Num. ix, 12. John xix, 36.

is

(2) 1 Cor. v. 7.

is the true Chriftian Pafch, and is called in the English-Saxon language, Eafter-Day (a).

In the beginning of the church, the Jewish converts in fome places, kept this folemnity on the fourteenth day itfelf, the fame on which the Jews celebrated their Passover. The Apostles had the condefcenfion to allow them this liberty, to fhew the Jews that the gofpel of Christ did not condemn the Mofaic law, which it had made void by fulfilling it. But the Christian Pafchal feast was in general appointed by the Apoftles to be kept on the Sunday that fol lowed the 14th day of the moon of March. The Roman, and all other churches of converted Gentiles obferved this rule. The contrary custom was only tolerated for fome time, that the fynagogue might be buried with honour; as St. Auftin fays, of the legal ceremonies in general (3). But that reason gradually losing its force, the church abolished more and more the practice of typical obfervances, which from the time of Chrift's death, and the confirmation of the new alliance, or covenant, had loft both their obligation, and all their virtue and meaning. Those Jewish converts to Chriftianity, who pretended that Chriftians lie under an obligation of obferving the Jewish ceremonial precepts, were from the beginning condemned by the church, are one of the first fects of heretics that arofe in the church, are called the Nazarean heretics, and are refuted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians, &c. (b). The church's condefcenfion in to

(3) St. Aug. ep. 19.

(a) This name fignifies the feaft of April: for the English-Saxons called that month Eofter, from their Goddess of that name, as Bede informs us, 1. de Ratione Temporum, c. 13. See Alford. Annal. ad ann. 449. Though Dr. Sparke and Verftegan, (Ant. p. 20) derive both Ofter-Monat, or the month of April, and the name of Eafter from Oeft, or Ooft, rifing, or the Eaft; or from Ofteren, Refurrection.

(b) John Toland, whofe want of integrity in his principles and conduct, ought to have more difcredited the cause of infidelity, than his impious writings could fupport it, wrote his Nazarenus, to give a falfe hiftory of these ancient heretics, pretending, that all the converted Jews were fuch in the beginning of the church, and that they believed Chrift, to be no more than a man, at most the greateft of the prophets : That the converted Gentiles remained still attached to their old fuperftitious ideas and practices, &c. And that Christianity originally was a very different fyftem from what it is fince become.

Mofheim to fap the foundation of Toland's impious book, wrote a book, intitled, Judicia antiqua Chriftianorum Difciplina, in which he pretends that the Nazarean heretics only fprung up among the new con→ verted Jews in the fourth century, when the Emperors began to believe in Chrift. His only argument is drawn from the filence of St. Irenæus,

Ter.

lerating in converted Jews the ufe of feveral ceremonies of their law, continued till about the time of the destruction of the city and temple of Jerufalem, in the year feventy, about forty years after the death of Chrift. From that time the practice of the Jewifh ceremonies has been ever condemned as fuperftitious. Two exceptions were, however, made for fome ages. ft. In abstaining from eating blood and things ftrangled (4), which law was given to Noah and his children long before the Jewish difpenfation (5), and confirmed by the Apostles in the great council at Jerufalem (6). The other exception was the temporary toleration of those Oriental churches who kept Eafter on the 14th day with the Jews (c). Pope Anicetus tolerated that cuftom in St. Polycarp, when he came to Rome to confer with him on that head in 158 (7). Pope Victor in 188, threatened Polycrates, Bishop of Ephefus, and the other Afiatics, with ecclefiaftical cenfures, if they did not conform to other churches; but proceeded no farther. The greatest part of the Afiatic churches were infenfibly fallen into the practice of the church of Rome, when in 325, the general council of Nice ordained, that all churches fhould celebrate Easter,

on

(4) Enforced by Can. Apoft. 63. Tertullian, Origen, Clemens of Alexandria, the letters of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, &c. (5) Gen. ix. 4. (6) Acts xv. 28. (7) S. Iren. 1. iii. c. 3. Us. l. v. c. 24. S. Hier. de Script. c. 17.

Tertullian, Origen, and Eufebius, in whofe writings no mention is made of the Nazarean heretics: from whence he rejects all that St. Epiphanius, and St. Jerome relate concerning the antiquity of this fect. It is, however, evident from incontestable monuments; and S. Austin, Origen, &c. mention their erroneous tenets: whence Beaufobre has refuted this mittake of Mofheim. See Beaufobre, Differt. fur les Nazareens, a la fuite du Supplement de la Guerre des Huffites. Mofheim himself afterwards fixes the origin of the Nazarean heretics at the time of the deftruction of Jerufalem. See his Inftitutiones Hift. Ecclef. printed in 1755, Sec. 1. cap. 5. p. 67. See Toland's Nazarenus refuted by Thomas Maugel, in his Remarks on the Nazarenus; and by Paterfon, in his Antinazarenus.

(c) It continued in force out of refpect to this decree of the Apostles in many parts of the Weft, till the 12th century, as appears from the Penitential of S. Theodorus of Canterbury in England, the canons of Pope Gregory III. &c. In most Oriental churches the precept of abftaining from blood and things ftrangled is ftill in force. (See Beveridge in Cod. Canon, l. ii. c. 7. §. 5. p. 261.) Dr. Delany, the learned Proteftant Author of the life of David, &c, maintains that Christians are still obliged to obferve it. See his book, The Dorine of Abftinence from Blood defended, London 1734. See alfo Steph. Curcellæus, Diatriba de efu Sanguinis, Op. Theol. p. 958. and the Dif fertations of Natalis Alexander, Gravelon, &c. on this fubject.

on the Sunday that follows the 14th day of the moon cf March; and the Emperor Conftantine caufed this decree to be published throughout the whole Roman empire. Thofe who obftinately adhered to their old practice, were from that time looked upon as Schifmatics, and called Quartodecimans (d).

The feaft of Eafter is the regulator of all the other great moveable festivals of the year, and has always been celebrated in the church with the greatest folemnity, as the first among the five principal feafts of the Chriftian religion. The adminiftration of the most holy Sacraments of Baptifm and the Eucharift, is performed on it with the utmost folemnity; and the church commands all her children to receive the latter on it, threatening otherwife to cut them off from her communion, fo that a difobedience to this her precept is a kind of voluntary excommunication of a perfon's felf. Thofe, indeed, who are found unclean on this festival, are obliged to defer their Pafch, by the advice of their fpiritual director, and make it on the fecond month, with the unclean in the old law (8). The forty days faft of Lent, is inftituted at this time to be a preparation to this great feftival, and it is diftinguished by every other privilege. "This," fays St. Gregory Nazianzen (9)," is the feftival of festivals, "and the folemnity of folemnities, as far above all the "other feafts in the year, even of Chrift himself, as the "fun outfhines the stars." This diftinction and extraordinary devotion were due to the great mystery which we commemorate on it: a mystery great in the ancient types and prophecies, by which it was foretold: great in itself, and great in its fruits.

The mystery of Chrifl's Refurrection was foretold many ways by the ancient Prophets. Ofee proclaimed that our Redeemer, the new Samfon would throw himself upon death as upon his prey, and fhould vanquish and tear in pieces that furious lion. "I will redeem them (the Ifraelites) from death: O death, I will be thy death! O hell! " I will

(8) Num. ix. 6, 7, 10, 11. cha ii. p. 476.

(9) S. Greg. Naz. Or. 42. de Paf

(d) The Irish and Scottish churches in the 6th and 7th centuries were engaged in an erroneous cuftom of keeping Eafter with the Quartodecimans when the Sunday fell on the 14th day, in all other years with the universal church: but were brought over to perfect conformity very foon after the year 700. See Bede, Adamnan (ap. Mabil. A&. Bened. T. iv. p. 556.) the Notes on the Life of S. Wilfred, 12 QA. P. 231. S. Columba, July 6, p. 39, &c. ed. Lond.