And, first, men who are under strong emotions of mind, who are affected with any vehement passion, such as sorrow or fear, are often swallowed up therein, and even forget to eat their bread. At such seasons they have little regard for food, not even what is needful to sustain nature; much less for any delicacy or variety, being taken up with quite different thoughts.Thus when Saul said, [105]I am sore distrest; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me; it is recorded, he had eaten no bread, all the day nor all the night. Thus those who were in the ship with St. Paul, when no small tempest lay upon them, and all hope that they should be saved was taken away, [106]continued fasting, having taken nothing, no regular meal, for fourteen days together. And thus David and all the men that were with him, when they heard that the people were fled from the battle, and that many of the people were fallen and dead, and Saul and Jonathan his son were dead also; [107]mourned and wept and fasted until even for Saul and Jonathan and for the house of Israel.
Nay, many times they whose minds are deeply engaged, are impatient of any interruption, and even loath their needful food, as diverting their thoughts, from what they desire should engross their whole attention. Even as Saul, when on the occasion mentioned before, he had fallen all along upon the earth and there was no strength in him, yet said, I will not eat, till his servants, together with the woman compelled him.
2. Here then is the natural ground of fasting. One who is under deep affliction, overwhelmed with sorrow for sin, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God, would without any rule, without knowing or considering, whether it were a command of God or not, forget to eat hisbread, abstain not only from pleasant, but even from needful food. Like St. Paul, who after he was led into Damascus, was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink, Acts ix. 9.
Yea, when the storm rose high, when an horrible dread overwhelmed one who had been without God in the world; his soul would loath all manner of meat; it would be unpleasing and irksom to him. He would be impatient of any thing that should interrupt his ceaseless cry, Lord save! or I perish.
How strongly is this exprest by our church, in the first part of the homily on fasting?
“When men feel in themselves the heavy burthen of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, and behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell; they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, and cannot but accuse themselves and open their grief unto almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied (taken up) partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathsomeness (or loathing) of all worldly things and pleasure cometh in place. So that nothing then liketh them more than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour of body to shew themselves weary of life.”
3. *Another reason or ground of fasting is this. Many of those who now fear God, are deeply sensible how often they have sinned against him, by the abuse of these lawful things. They know, how much they have sinned by excess of food; how long they have transgrest the holy law of God, with regard to temperance, if not sobriety too: how they have indulged their sensual appetites, perhaps to the impairing even their bodily health; certainly to the no small hurt of their soul. For hereby they continually fed and increased that sprightly folly, that airiness of mind, that levity of temper, that gay inattention to things of the deepest concern, that giddiness and carelessness of spirit, which were no other than drunkenness of soul, which stupified all their noblest faculties, no less than excess of wine or strong drink. To remove therefore the effect, they remove the cause: they keep at a distance from all excess. They abstain, as far as is possible, from what had well nigh plunged them in everlasting perdition. They often wholly refrain; always take care to be sparing and temperate in all things.
4. *They likewise well remember, how fulness of bread, increased not only carelessness and levity of spirit, but also foolish and unholy desires, yea, unclean and vile affections. And this experience puts beyond all doubt. Even a genteel, regular sensuality, is continually sensualizing the soul, and sinking it into a level with thebeasts that perish. It cannot be exprest what an effect variety and delicacy of food have on the mind as well as the body: making it just ripe for every pleasure of sense, as soon as opportunity shall invite. Therefore on this ground also every wise man will refrain his soul, and keep it low; will wean it more and more from all those indulgences of the inferior appetites, which naturally tend to chain it down to earth, and to pollute as well as debase it. Here is another perpetual reason for fasting: to remove the food of lust and sensuality, to withdraw the incentives of foolish and hurtful desires, of vile and vain affections.
5. Perhaps we need not altogether omit, (altho’ I know not if we should do well, to lay any great stress upon it) another reason for fasting, which some good men have largely insisted on: namely, the punishing themselves for having abused the good gifts of God, by sometimes wholly refraining from them: thus exercising a kind of holy revenge upon themselves, for their past folly and ingratitude, in turning the things which should have been for their health, into an occasion of falling. They suppose David to have had an eye to this when he said, I wept and chastened, or punished my soul with fasting: and St. Paul, when he mentions what revenge godly sorrow occasioned in the Corinthians.
6. A fifth, and more weighty reason for fasting, is, that it is an help to prayer: particularly,when we set apart larger portions of time for private prayer. Then especially it is, that God is often pleased to lift up the souls of his servants, above all the things of earth, and sometimes to wrap them up, as it were, into the third heavens. *And it is chiefly, as it is an help to prayer, that it has so frequently been found a means in the hand of God, of confirming and increasing not one virtue, not chastity only, (as some have idly imagined, without any ground, either from scripture, reason or experience) but also seriousness of spirit, earnestness, sensibility and tenderness of conscience; deadness to the world, and consequently the love of God and every holy and heavenly affection.