The Life of Faith. r 3 3 it was a way of tranfmitting the memory of thole things to poflcrity, 17. Another bath been by the confiant coraraentoration of the great works cf Cbrift, by the dayes or feafons of the year, which were annually obferved : How far here alto the Church did well or ill, I now meddle not : But doubtlefs the ob ferving of anniverfary folemnities for their commemoration, was a way of preferving the memory of the ads themfelves to pofterity. How long the day of Chrifis Nativity bath been celebrated, I know not : Reading what Selden hath Paid ore one fide ; and on the other finding no currant Author men- tion it (that I have read) before Nazianzene: and finding by Cbryfofforae, that the Churches ofthe Eafi, till his time had differed from the Wefern Churches, as far as the fixth of. January is from the 25 ofDeeember. But that is of lefa mo- ment, becaufe Chrifts birth is a thing unqueflioned in it felt. But we find that the time ofhis fatting forty dries, the time of his Paffion, and of his Rcfurrc Lion, and the giving of the Holy Ghoft, were long before kept in memory, by fome kind ofobfervation by falls or fetlivals : And though there was a controverfìe about the due feafon of the fucceffive ob- fervation of Eafter, yet that fignified no uncertainty of the fir(t day, or the feafon of the year. And though at firft it was but few Baits that were kept in fatting at that feafon, yet they were enough to commemorate both the forty daies fatting, and the death of Chrift. 03. And the hories of the Heathens and enemies of the Church, doalto declare how long Chrittianitycontinued, and what they were,and what they fuffered who were called Chet- ftians ; fuch as Plinies, Celfus, porphyry, Plotinus, Lucian, Parr® toxins, and others. 19. And the conftant infirublion of Children by their Pa- rents, which is Foxily-tradition, hath been a very great means alto ofthis commemoration. For it cannot be (though force be negligent) but that multitudes in all times would teach their children, what the ChriftianReligion was, as to its do, dlrine and its biffory. And the practice of catechizing, and teaching children the Creed, the Lords Prayer, and the Deca- logue, and the Scriptures, the more fecund this tradition in families, S ä 20. Laftly,
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