cial Grace or Bleffing which I count more necessary than another, or if I am to confefs any Sin more particularly, and to beg Pardon of it, or if one Confideration hath more Force to move my Affection than others, I fhould do well to carry that along with me in my Mind, to support my Devotion in the Act. Finally, Thofe other Prayers we chuse for Helps to Devotion, fhould qualify us for the Ufe of this; for they are, or at least ought to be, the particular Explications of this. And because, even when we have been as particular in Prayer as it is requifite and fit for us to be, we may yet have fail'd, in not asking many Particulars, we should use this Prayer of our Lord more frequently and fervently, having This need fo to do, left otherwise we mifs of fome Neceffary Grace for not asking; whereas in the Lord's Prayer we ask all that is Needful. SER SERMON XI. Of Religious Fafting: MATTH. VI. xvi. Moreover, when ye faft, be not as the Hypocrites N this Exhortation of our Saviour it is implied that Fafting is a Duty, that is, that there is a Religious Faft required; and Fafting is upon a Religious Account, when it is an outward Expreffion and inftrumental Means of Religion, when it is an A& of Humiliation of our felves before GOD, whereby we exprefs to God our Sorrow for our Sins, and our Unworthiness of the very least of his Bleffings, whether this be for the averting and preventing of thofe Judgments, which we have reason to be afraid of, or for the removing of thofe Afflictions we feel, or which our Friends and Brethren fuffer under, or for the fubduing of our Own own Appetites and Paffions, or preventing of Sin for the Time to come, or in order to that, for the afflicting and punishing our felves for Sins paft. Of fuch Fafting, and for thefe Ends, there have been divers Examples in the Scriptures of the Old Teftament, as the Ifraelites in the Time of the Judges, and Samuel, and David, and Fe hoshaphat, and Daniel, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and others, whofe Fafting God accepted. So here in the Text our Saviour fuppofes his Difciples under a Sense of their Obligation to faft upon a Religious Account, because he directs them to faft in that manner, that they be fure of God's Rewards, and therefore fuppofes that they needed no new Commandment to fhew them what they ought to do in this Kind, nay, he attributes great Things to it, that could not be effected without it. This Kind, fays he, goeth not out but by Prayer aud Fasting, Matth. 17. 21. And we read that when Men would obtain God's fpecial Bleffing on, and Furtherance of great Undertakings, they began with Fafting. When the Prophets of Antioch, according to Divine Appointment, feparated Paul and Barnabas for the Work God had called them to, they firft fafted and prayed, and laid their Hands on them, and then fent them away. And I need not fay any more to prove that there is a fafting upon a Religious Account, which is a Duty. But on this Subject of Difcourfe I fhall do thefe Things i. Say fomething in the general about the Notion of Fafting, fhewing what Fafting is. 2. I shall take notice how that Religious Fasting, or the Pretence to it, is liable to be Abufed, and to be ordered in that Manner, and practifed for fuch Ends, that God will not accept or reward it. And, 3. Shall fhew, that however fuch Abuses are by no Means a fufficient Reafon to dif charge us from all Obligation to Religious Fafting, but that we ought to apply it to the true Ufes and Ends thereof, inftead of laying afide the Practice it felf, because it may be, and hath been, abused. 1 1. As to the Notion of Fafting. It is a vain thing to pretend to faft, and at the fame time to eat and drink plentifully of fuch Things as are delightful to the Palate, as they do who call Fifh-days Fafting-days, as if luxurious Kitchen Preparations and high Feeding could not come from the Ponds as well as from the Shambles. To pretend Religious Fafting while we please our felves with Fish and Wine, seems to be Mockery added to Hypocrify, fince there cannot be a greater Affront offered to the Rule of Fafting, than to allow that to be fo, which at the fame time admits of Gluttony and Drunkenness, as if Fafting con fifted only in putting a Difference between Meats. It may well be fuppofed that the Notion of Fafting is fufficiently explained in the Scripture, and accordingly our Church hath directed us to it, as a thing fufficiently plain, without making any new Rules about it. And indeed common Sense will inform any Man that it confifts in Abftinence for fome Time from our ufual Food, whether it be Meat or Drink. Thus when the Scribes and Pharifees asked our Saviour why he had not taught his Difciples to faft, they clearly fhewed what was, and ever mult be, meant by Fafting, Why, say they, do the Difciples of John faft often, and make Prayers, and likewife the Difciples of the Pharifees, but thine eat and drink? Luke 5. 33. that is, they always took their ufual Meals, and never intermitted them, to fpend their Time in Devotion, by which it is plain, that to eat and to drink is opposed to Fafting; and therefore it is Ridiculous to pretend to Faft, and at the fame time to be Luxurious with one fort of Food, and perhaps the most Delicious that can be procured. It is true indeed that the Scripture doth mention a fort of Fafting that confifted in Abftinence, not from all Eating and Drinking, but from fome Kinds of them. But then I obferve, that it did not confift in a fcrupulous Abftinence from one fort of delightful Food, and a free Ufe of another, T but |