Daniel's confession.
Dan. ix. 3 — 7. And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes : and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments ; ive have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments : neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our ki?igs, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us, confusion of faces, as at this day.
FROM the earliest period, even from the time that God first had a visible Church in the world, there have been particular seasons set apart for humiliation, and fasting, and prayer. In the Christian Church, the appointment of forty days at this part of the year (Lent) for that purpose is of great antiquity a. The two days with which this season commenced were observed with peculiar solemnity : the one (Shrove Tuesday) was spent in recollecting and confessing b their sins ; the other (Ash Wednesday) in fasting and supplication. That these institutions were carried to a very foolish excess, and that they degenerated into many absurd superstitions, under the reign of Popery, is readily acknowledged : but they were good in their origin ; and our Church has wisely retained such a portion of them as might tend to the real edification of her members : and if we were more observant of them than we are, we should find sub- stantial benefit to our souls. But, alas ! we have run into an opposite extreme, insomuch that not
a The number of days for fasting was not always precisely the same as now : but the appointment itself may be traced almost to the times of the Apostles.
b The word " shrove " is from the old English word " shrive," which signifies, to confess.