God, with regard to temperance, if not sobriety too: how they have indulged their sensual appetities, perhaps to the impairing even their bodily health; certainly to the no small hurt of their souls. 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 into 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 the beasts that perish. It cannot be expressed 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 the 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 (although 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 some times wholly refraining from them: thus exercising a kind of holy re

venge 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 chast ened [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 a 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 a help to prayer, that it has so frequently been found a mean 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.

7. Not that there is any natural or necessary connection between fasting and the blessings God conveys thereby. But he will have mercy as he will have mercy: he will convey whatsoever seemeth him good, by whatsoever mean he is pleased to appoint. And he hath, in all ages, appointed this, to be a mean of averting his wrath, and obtaining whatever blessings we, from time to time, stand in need of. i

How powerful a mean this is, to avert the wrath of God, we may learn from the remarkable instance of Ahab. There was none like him, who did sell himself; wholly give himself up, like a slave, bought with money, to work wickedness. Yet, when he "rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and went softly: the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days.".

It was for this end, to avert the wrath of God, that Daniel

sought God," with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." This appears from the whole tenor of his prayer, particularly from the solemn conclusion of it. "O Lord, according to all thy righteousnesses [or mercies] let thy anger be turned away from thy holy mountain.-Hear the prayer of thy servant, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate.-O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive: O Lord, hearken and do, for thine own sake," Dan. ix. 3, 16, &c.

8. But it is not only from the people of God that we learn, when his anger is moved, to seek him by fasting and prayer; but even from the Heathens. When Jonah had declared, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed, the people of Nineveh proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them unto the least. For the King of Nineveh arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor stock, taste any thing. Let them not feed, nor drink water." (Not that the beast had sinned, or could repent; but that, by their example, man might be admonished, considering that for his sin, the anger of God was hanging over all creatures.) "Who can tell, if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" And their labour was not in vain. The fierce anger of God was turned away from them. "God saw their works," (the fruits of that repentance and faith, which he had wrought in them by his Prophet;)" and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them; and he did it not." Jonah iii. 4, &c.

9. And it is a mean not only of turning away the wrath of God, but also of obtaining whatever blessings we stand in need of. So when the other tribes were smitten before the Benjamites, "all the children of Israel went up unto the house of the Lord, and wept and fasted that day until even;" and then the Lord said, "Go up again; for to-morrow I' will deliver them into thine hand," Judges xx. 26, &c. So Samuel gathered all Israel together, when they were in bon

dage to the Philistines," and they fasted on that day before the Lord and when the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, the Lord thundered upon them with a great thunder, and discomfited them, and they were smitten before Israel," I Sam. vii. 6. So Ezra: "I proclaimed a fast at the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones; and he was entreated of us," Ezra viii. 24. So Nehemiah; "I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and said, Prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." And God granted him mercy in the sight of the King, Nehem. i. 4-11.

10. In like manner, the Apostles always joined fasting with prayer, when they desired the blessing of God on any important undertaking. Thus we read, Acts xiii, "There were in the Church that was at Antioch certain Prophets and Teachers as they ministered to the Lord and fasted,' (doubtless for direction in this very affair,) "the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had" (a second time)" fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away," ver. 1-3.

Thus also Paul and Barnabas themselves, as we read in the following chapter, when they "returned again to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples; and when they had ordained them Elders in every Church, and had prayed with fasting, commended them to the Lord," ver. 23.

Yea, that blessings are to be obtained in the use of this mean, which are no otherwise attainable, our Lord expressly declares in his answer to his disciples, asking, "Why could not we cast him out? Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nohing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit, this kind (of devils) goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting," Matt. xvii. 19, &c.; these being the appointed means of attain

ing that faith, whereby the very devils are subject unto

you.

11. These were the appointed means. For it was not merely by the light of reason, or of natural conscience, as it is called, that the people of God have been, in all ages, directed to use fasting as a mean to these ends. But they have been, from time to time, taught it of God himself, by clear and open revelations of his will. Such is that remarkable one by the Prophet Joel, "Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Turn you unto me, with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.-Who knoweth, if the Lord will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:-Then will the Lord be jealous over his land, and will spare his people. Yea, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil.-I will no more make you a reproach among the Heathen," ch. ii. 12, &c.

Nor are they only temporal blessings which God directs his people to expect in the use of these means. For, at the same time that he promised to those who should seek him with fasting, and weeping, and mourning, "I will restore to you the years which the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army," he subjoins," So shall ye eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God.—Ye shali also know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God." And then immediately follows the great gospelpromise, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shali see visions. And also upon the servants, and upon the handmaids, in those days will I pour out my Spirit."

12. Now whatsoever reasons there were to quicken those of old, in the zealous and constant discharge of this duty, they are of equal force still to quicken us. But above all these, we have a peculiar reason for being in fastings often, namely, the command of Him by whose name we are called. He does not, indeed, in this place, expressly enjoin, either