(as they call it ;) but still, though they leave Egypt, they will be sure to hold fast to their flesh-pots. And the truth is, their very fasts and humiliations have been observed to be nothing else but a religious epicurism, and a neat contrivance of luxury; while they forbear dinner, only that they may treble their supper; and fast in the day, like the evening wolves, to whet their stomachs against night.

But these principles and practices are too rank for the strict, pure, and mortifying severities of Christianity. Let us, therefore, poor mortals, who dare not be perfect above our example, content ourselves to follow our great Master, and not be ashamed to be deceived with the universal church.

And truly, he that with spiritual design and prudent usage shall manage this religious solemnity, as with Christ he may be said to fast, so with Christ also he may conquer the tempter. And let all schisms and factions, and pretended reformers, ring about his ears peals of popery, will-worship, and superstition; yet still, like Christ in the wilderness, he may converse with God, though his abode be amongst such wild beasts.

And thus I have despatched the first general head of this discourse; which was to shew the extent and latitude of this duty of fasting, in the several sorts and kinds of it: I must now close up what I have spoke upon this subject with this cautional observation:

That in the whole economy of the gospel, mercy is predominant; and therefore the rigour of every precept is to be sweetened and reduced to this standing rule, as the vital reason running through every

great legislator of the new law to carry things with so much equity and evenness, as to fix upon the same law a different proportion of obligation, according to different tempers and occasions.

Now what Christ said upon another occasion may be said also of fasting; Every one cannot receive this saying. There may be a poison in abstinence, as well as in meats: and when natural weakness and infirmity will not reach the sweetness and perfection of the precept, it is the genius of the gospel to relax, and not to urge sacrifice, standing in competition with mercy.

Certainly he, that would make the rigours of the sabbath give way to the pulling of an ox or a sheep out of the ditch, would not now ruin a man, for whom even the sabbath was made, only to spare one of those. Where the performance depends upon a power rare and singular, it is there hard to make the duty universal. We know the body is subservient to the uses of the soul: but Christ never destroys one to save the other; nor bids any one put the knife to his throat so as to kill himself. We must distinguish between murder and mortification.

Christ commands no man to be a skeleton, or a walking ghost, or to throw away his health, in order to his salvation. A catarrh or a consumption is no man's duty self-denial may be a duty; but I am sure self-murder is a sin.

A potion may be sovereign and excellent, but not therefore to be equally administered to all. No application can be successful, but what is managed with caution and where there is caution, there must be distinction. Every vessel is not alike fit for new wine: an old, crazy cask betrays its burden, and

sinks under the vigour and spirituous emanations of too generous a liquor.

There is no soul but may pray, and be pious; but there are many bodies that cannot fast. It were a sad thing, if a man should be forced to make his tablecloth his windingsheet, and his poison his religion. No, undoubtedly: all the injunctions of Christ carry in them nothing but sweetness, convenience, and a tender compliance with the necessities and frailties of human nature.

The weakness of some tempers perform upon them the very same effects that fasting works upon others; and therefore those severities, which in others would be only an abridgment of their luxury, would in them be an intrenchment upon their being; and not only cut short their pleasure, but their very existence.

As soon as Jesus Christ had raised one from the dead, we read that he commanded something to be given her to eat, Mark v. 43; and, I am confident, the severity of no institution could have induced him, at that time, to have bid her fast; unless he only raised her from the state of death, that he might send her to it again.

The height of prudence is, in all precepts, laws, and institutions, to distinguish persons, times, and occasions, and accordingly to discriminate the obligation; and upon the same exigence of justice to dispense with it in some, upon which it confirms it in others. And prudence is but one part of Christianity, which takes in all moral virtues with advantage and addition; and what is absurd in the sanctions of right reason, will never be warranted by the rules of religion. Wherefore, as to the matter in hand, I shall

comprise all in this one word: let the observation of this solemn time be so strict, as not to bend to any man's luxury; so dispensable, as not to grate upon his infirmity.

II. I come now to the second general head proposed for the discussion of this subject; which is to shew, what are the qualifications that must render this duty of fasting both acceptable to God, and efficacious to this great purpose.

To give men a right information concerning which, I think to be a matter of very great moment; as perceiving that men egregiously abuse themselves in the practice of this duty, spoiling it with strange apprehensions, and loading it with many foreign and preternatural strictnesses, for which they will one day receive but small thanks, either from God or from themselves. The truth is, the sum of all their miscarriages about it seems to lie in this, that they depress it into a bodily exercise; which the apostle affirms to profit little; while they acquiesce barely in this, that they have fasted so long or so often; not at all considering in what manner or to what end: whereas, indeed, the former is but the mere bulk and rude draught of this duty; and these latter only stamp it divine, and make it spiritual.

Wherefore I shall lay down four conditions or properties, without a joint concurrence of all which, this duty of fasting can neither be pleasing to God, nor effectual to dispossess the unclean spirit, in the mortification of any strong corruption.

1st, The first is, that it is to be used, not as a duty either necessary or valuable for itself, but only as an instrument. There are some duties that carry in them an absolute necessity; as being founded upon

the necessary relation that the creature bears towards God, in respect of its being created by him, and its depending upon him; as also upon the relation that one creature bears toward another, arising from their natural equality and cognation.

Of the first sort are our loving God, adoring him, adhering to him, with the utmost exertion of all the powers and faculties of the soul; demeaning ourselves with that humility and prostration of spirit, that becomes poor shadows before self-sufficiency, weakness before omnipotence; a creature of yesterday, and but for a day, before him who is from everlasting to everlasting. In short, as it becomes a man to behave himself towards that divine power, from the arbitrary disposals of whose pleasure he first received his breath, and still holds his being.

Of the second sort are all the duties we owe to our neighbour, in the rank and condition our creation has placed us. As, that we bear a benign affection towards him; entertain a concernment for him; upon all occasions advance his good and emolument; by no means intrench upon his happiness, by defrauding, slandering, defiling, or any ways circumventing those, whom God has joined with us in the society and common ligaments of nature and humanity.

Now all these actions, with their respective branches and further improvements, are indispensably requisite, as parts of God's image in us; and without which the decorum and offices of that station which every man holds both towards God and his fellow-creatures, cannot be sustained.

These, therefore, are the principal duties, and chief pillars of morality; and whatever becomes necessary over and above these, it is so only by way of