Thomas Ken on Daniel and the Lenten fast
Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711)
IN a Sermon preached at King James II’s chapel in Whitehall, Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711) offered some remarks on Lent and on the discipline of fasting.
His subject was the prophet Daniel, who made appeal to God over the Exile of the Jews under Babylonian rule (597 -539 BC) by “prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Dan 9:3), and who “ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine into his mouth” (see Dan 10:2).
In keeping with the Reformers, Ken recommended that those who fast in Lent should not cherry-pick things to “go without”, but should adopt a general simplicity of fare – always in keeping with our health and situation, and without becoming legalistic about it.
NOTHING is more plain than this, that Daniel did not think the bare abstaining from flesh to be fasting, when in the mean time we indulge ourselves in all the most palatable wines, all the delicacies of fish, and all the luxury of banquets. This is a licentious notion, which rose by the decay of christian piety. When he fasted, his diet was afflicting, and such as became a mourner; not to humour, but to chastise nature; not to pamper his appetite, but merely to appease it.
The ancient Christians knew no such distinction between fish and flesh; their lenten-fare was bread and water and salt; and their first meal on fasting days, was not till the evening.
I mention this example, to show you what the ancients thought fasting, and how they kept Lent; I do not exhort you to follow them any further, than either our climate, and our constitutions will bear; but we may easily follow Daniel, in abstaining from wine, and from the more pleasurable meats, and such an abstinence as this, with such a mourning for our own sins, and the sins of others, is the proper exercise of a primitive spirit, during all the weeks of Lent.
Prose Works Of Thomas Ken. A Sermon Preached At The King’s Chapel In Whitehall, 1685.
More by Thomas Ken here. He also wrote many prayers, and a preparation for Holy Communion.
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"[Politicians] are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the same time, by personally discountenancing public worship, they are weakening, they are even abolishing, among the multitude, that moral restraint which is of more general influence upon manners than all the laws they frame."
I FIND, by experience, that by often seeing her Portrait, & that of her Dearest Son, I many times recall Him & His Merits, her & her Perfections, to my mind, which before was void of such Heavenly Guests.
I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty,
March 15th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Hmmm… I haven’t been doing very well. Thanks for this timely reminder, Nicholas. Of course Robert Herrick springs to mind: “Is this a fast to keep the larder lean?”, etc. It’s so much harder when it becomes a matter of personal responsibility and self-criticism instead of mere satisfaction of rules or “official guidelines”. I shall renew my repentance, helped by you excellent Via Crucis.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I’m delighted you liked the Via Crucis. I’ve recently added some short quotations from the Divines to each Station, including a new Introduction by Jeremy Taylor which I felt explained the devotion better than I ever could. “HOLY Meditation produces the passions and desires it intends, it makes the object present and almost sensible … and at last goes step by step with JESUS, and carries part of the Crosse, and is nailed fast with sorrow and compassion, and dies with love”. Wonderful.