This  answef,  however  satisfactory  to  an  unprejudiced  personi
was  far  from  being  so  to  the  scribes  and  pharisees,  who,  joining
with  some  of  John's  disciples,  then  present,  returned  to  Mat-
thew's house^  and  demanded  of  Jesus  why  his  disciples  wholly
neglected  to  fast,  a  duty  often  performed  by  the  rulers  of  Isra-
el, and  the  disciples  of  John  ?  To  this  the  blessed  Jesus  repli-
ed, it  is  not  a  proper  season  for  the  friends  of  the  bridegroom
to  fast  and  afflict  themselves,  while  they  enjoy  his  company :
*^  but  the  days,  will  come,  when  the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken
away  from  them,  and  then  they  shall  fast."  The  various  calam-
ities and  afflictions  that  shall  attend  them,  after  the  departure  of
their  Master,  shall  cause  them  to  fast,  which  they  shall  repeat
as  often  as  the  circumstances  of  distress  and  danger  with  which
they  are  surrounded,  shall  require.  And  added,  that  to  have
obliged  his  disciples  to  observe  the  precepts  of  frequent  absti-
nence, at  a  time  when  he  was  employing  them  to  preach  the
Gospel,  by  which  all  the  legal  ceremonies  of  the  law  were  to
be  abolished,  would  have  been  as  absurd,  as  to  sew  a  piece  of
new  cloth  upon  a  rotten  garment,  which  would  only  make  the
rent  the  worse  :  or  to  put  new  wine  into  old  leathern  bottles,
which,  on  the  first  fermentation  of  the  liquor,  would  burst.  In-
dicating, that  the  old  corrupt  nature  of  man  would  not  admit  of
a  thorough  reformation  being  made  at  once :  that  infant  virtue
must  not  immediately  be  put  to  the  greatest  trials,  lest  it  be  de-
stroyed by  the  severity  of  the  exercise.
