For, is there any benefit in fasting at those times? Does it add any thing to your piety and devotion? Does it calm your mind and put you into a better state for prayer, than when you take your usual meals? If it has not something of this effect, where is the use of it at any time? And if it has this effect, how comes it that you will have but one or two such days in the year? Why will you not thus assist your devotions, thus calm your mind, thus raise your heart, ’till the day comes on which King Charles was murdered? Is not this like staying till then before you repent?
XVIII. Farther; when the disciples of our Lord could not cast the evil spirit out of a man that was a lunatic, he not only tells them, it was for want of faith, but also gives them a very important instruction in those words, Howbeit this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. Matt. xvii. 21.
Now, does this look as if fasting were designed only for a day or two in the year? Is it ranked with prayer, as being equally prevalent with God? And is not this sufficient to teach us, that we must think of fasting as we think of prayer; that it is a proper way of devotion, a right method of applying to God? And if that prayer is most prevailing which is attended with fasting, it is proof enough surely, that fasting is to be a common part of our devotion.
Is it powerful enough, by the blessing of God, to cast out devils, and cure lunatics? And shall we neglect it, when we pray against the evil tempers which possess our hearts? Shall we not then pray to God in the most powerful prevailing manner that we can?
*If we were to fast without praying, would not this be a way of worship of our own invention? And if we pray and neglect fasting, is it not equally chusing a worship of our own? For he that has taught us the use and advantage of prayer, has also taught us the use and advantage of fasting. And has likewise joined them together, as having the same power with God.
XIX. *We may also observe, that the reason of self-denial and abstinence is perpetual, because we are perpetually united to a body, that is more or less fit to join with the soul in acts of holiness, according to the state it is in.
It is therefore absolutely necessary that we avoid every degree of indulgence, every kind of irregularity, that may make our bodies less active or less fit for the purpose of a holy life.
Christian temperance is no more that which passes for temperance in the sight of men, than Christian charity is that which passes for charity in the world.
A worldly man may think himself temperate, when he only abstains from such excesses as may make him fitter to enjoy a healthful sensuality.
But Christian temperance is of quite another kind, and for other ends. It is to keep the body in a state of purity and submission, and to preserve in the soul a divine and heavenly taste.