Of Fasting.
Fasting, if it be considered in itself, without relation to
spiritual ends, is a duty nowhere enjoined or counselled. But Christianity hath
to do with it as it may be made an instrument of the Spirit, by subduing the
lusts of the flesh, or removing any hinderances of religion. And it hath been
practised by all ages of the church, and advised in order to three ministries;
1. To prayer; 2. To mortification of bodily lusts; 3. To repentance: and it is
to be practised according to the following measures:
Rules for Christian Fasting.
1. Fasting, in order to prayer, is to be measured by the
proportions of the times of prayer; that is, it ought to be a total fast from
all things, during the solemnity, unless a palpable necessity intervene. Thus
the Jews ate nothing upon the Sabbath-days till their great offices were
performed; that is, about the sixth hour: and St. Peter used it as an argument,
that the apostles in Pentecost were not drunk, because it was but the third
hour of the day; of such a day in which it was not lawful to eat or drink till
the sixth hour: and the Jews were offended at the disciples for plucking the
ears of corn on the Sabbath, early in the morning, because it was before the
time in which, by their customs, they esteemed it lawful to break their fast.
In imitation of this custom, and in prosecution of the reason of it, the
Christian church hath religiously observed fasting, before the holy communion;
and the more devout persons (though without any obligation at all) refused to
eat or drink till they had finished their morning devotions: and further yet,
upon days of public humiliation, which are designed to be spent wholly in
devotion, and for the averting God’s judgments, (if they were imminent,)
fasting is commanded together with prayer: commanded (I say) by the church to
this end - that the spirit might be clearer and more angelical, when it is
quitted in some proportions from the loads of flesh.
2. Fasting, when it is in order to prayer, must be a total
abstinence from all meat, or else an abatement of the quantity; for the help
which fasting does to prayer cannot be served by changing flesh into fish, or
milk-meats into dry diet; but by turning much into little, or little into none
at all, during the time of solemn and extraordinary prayer.
3. Fasting, as it is instrumental to prayer, must be attended
with other aids of the like virtue and efficacy; such as are removing for the
time all worldly cares and secular business; and therefore our blessed Saviour
enfolds these parts within the same caution, ‘take heed, lest your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world, and
that day overtake you unawares.’ To which add alms; for upon the wings of
fasting and alms holy prayer infallibly mounts up to heaven.
4. When fasting is intended to serve the duty or repentance, it
is then best chosen when it is short, sharp, and afflictive; that is, either a
total abstinence from all nourishment, according as we shall appoint or be
appointed, during such a time as is separate for the solemnity and attendance
upon the employment: or, if we shall extend our severity beyond the solemn
days, and keep our anger against our sin, as we are to keep our sorrow, that
is, always in a readiness, and often to be called upon; then, to refuse a
pleasant morsel, to abstain from the bread of our desires, and only to take
wholesome and less pleasing nourishment, vexing our appetite by refusing a
lawful satisfaction, since, in its petulancy and luxury, it prayed upon an
unlawful.
5. Fasting designed for repentance must be ever joined with an
extreme care that we fast from sin; for there is no greater folly or indecency
in the world than to commit that for which I am now judging and condemning
myself. This is the best fast; and the other may serve to promote the interest
of this, by increasing the disaffection to it, and multiplying arguments
against it.
6. He that fasts for repentance must, during that solemnity, abstain
from all bodily delights, and the sensuality of all his senses and his
appetites; for a man must not, when he mourns in his fast, be merry in his
sport; weep at dinner, and laugh all day after; have a silence in his kitchen,
and music in his chamber; judge the stomach, and feast the other senses. I deny
not but a man may, in a single instance, punish a particular sin with a
propalate, he may choose to fast only; if he have sinned in softness and in his
touch, he may choose to lie hard, or work hard, and use sharp inflictions; but
although this discipline be proper and particular, yet because the sorrow is of
the whole man, no sense must rejoice, or be with any study or purpose feasted
and entertained softly. This rule is intended to relate to the solemn days
appointed for repentance publicly or privately; besides which, in the whole
course of our life, even in the midst of our most festival and freer joys, we
may sprinkle some single instances and acts of self-condemning, or punishing;
as to refuse a pleasant morsel or a delicious draught with a tacit remembrance
of the sin that now returns to displease my spirit. And, though these actions
be single, there is no indecency in them; because a man may abate of his
ordinary liberty and hold freedom with great prudence, so he does it without
singularity in himself or trouble to others; but he may not abate of his solemn
sorrow: that may be caution; but this would be softness, effeminacy, and
indecency.
7. When fasting is an act of mortification, that is, is intended
to subdue a bodily lust, as the spirit of fornication, or the fondness of
strong and impatient appetites, it must not be a sudden, sharp, and violent
fast, but a state of fasting, a diet of fasting, a daily lessening our portion
of meat and drink, and a choosing such a course diet,
which may make the least preparation for the lusts of the body. He that fasts
three days without food will weaken other parts more than the ministers of
fornication; and when the meals return as usually, they also will be served as
soon as any. In the meantime, they will be supplied and made active by the
accidental heat that comes with such violent fastings: for this is a kind of
aerial devil 0 the prince that rules in the air is the devil of fornication;
and he will be as tempting with the windiness of a violent fast as with the
flesh of an ordinary meal.
But a daily subtraction of the nourishment will introduce a less busy habit of
body; and that will prove the more effectual remedy.
8. Fasting alone will not cure this devil, though it helps much
towards it; but it must not therefore be neglected, but assisted by all the
proper instruments of remedy against this unclean spirit; and what it is unable
to do alone, in company with other instruments, and God’s blessing upon them,
it may effect.
9. All fasting, for whatever end it be undertaken, must be done
without any opinion of the necessity of the thing itself, without censuring
others, with all humility, in order to the proper end; and just as a man takes
physic, of which no man hath reason to be proud, and no man things it
necessary, but because he is in sickness, or in danger and disposition to it.
10. All fasts ordained by lawful authority are to be observed in
order to the same purposes to which they are enjoined, and to be accompanied
with actions of the same nature, just as it is in private fasts; for there is
no other difference, but that in public our superiors choose for us what in
private we do for ourselves.
11. Fasts ordained by lawful authority are not to be neglected;
because alone they can do the thing in order to which they were enjoined. It
may be, one day of humiliation will not obtain the blessing, or alone kill the
lust; yet it must not be despised if it can do anything towards it. And act of
fasting is an act of self-denial; and, though it do not produce the habit, yet
it is a good act.
12. When the principal end why a fast is publicly prescribed is
obtain by some other instrument, in a particular person - as if the spirit of
fornication be cured by the rite of marriage, or by a gift of chastity - yet
that person so eased is not freed from the fasts of the church by that alone,
if those fasts can prudently serve any other end of religion, as that of
prayer, or repentance, or mortification of some other appetite; for when it is
instrumental to any end of the Spirit, it is freed from superstition, and then
we must have some other reason to quit us from the obligation, or that alone
will not do it.
13. When the fast publicly commanded by reason of some
indisposition in the particular person cannot operate to the end of the
commandment, yet the avoiding offence, and the complying with public order, is
reason enough to make the obedience to be necessary. For he that is otherwise
disobliged, as when the reason of the law ceases as to his particular, yet
remains still obliged if he cannot do otherwise without scandal; but this is an
obligation of charity, not of justice.
14. All fasting is to be used with prudence and charity; for
there is no end to which fasting serves but may be obtained by other
instruments; and, therefore, it must at no hand be made an instrument of
scruple; or become an enemy to our health; or be imposed upon persons that are
sick or aged, or to whom it is, in any sense, uncharitable, such as are wearied
travellers; or to whom, in the whole kind of it, it is useless such as are
women with child, poor people, and little children. But in these cases the
church hath made provision and inserted caution into her laws; and they are to
be reduced to practice according to custom, and the sentence of prudent
persons, with great latitude, and without niceness and curiosity, having this
in our first care, that we secure our virtue; and, next, that we secure our
health, that we may the better exercise the labours of virtue, lest, out of too
much austerity, we bring ourselves to that condition that it be necessary to be
indulgent to softness, ease, and extreme tenderness.
15. Let not intemperance be the prologue or the epilogue to your
fast, lest the fast be so far from taking off anything of the sin, that it be
an occasion to increase it; and, therefore, when the fast is done, be careful
that no supervening act of gluttony or excessive drinking unhallow the religion
of the past day; but eat temperately, according to the proportion of other
meals, lest gluttony keep either of the gates to abstinence.
The Benefits of Fasting.
He that undertakes to enumerate the benefits of fasting may, in
the next page, also reckon all the benefits of physic, for fasting is not to be
commended as a duty, but as an instrument; and in that sense no man can reprove
it, or undervalue it, but he that knows neither spiritual arts nor spiritual
necessities. But by the doctors of the church it is called the nourishment of
prayer, the restraint of lust, the wings of the souls, the diet of angels, the
instrument of humility and self-denial, the purification of the spirit; and the
paleness and meagerness of visage, which is consequent to the daily fast of
great mortifiers, is, by St. Basil, said to be the mark in the forehead which
the angel observed when he signed the saints in the forehead to escape the
wrath of God. “The soul that is greatly vexed, which goeth stooping and feeble,
and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul, shall give thee praise and
righteousness, O Lord!”