Prophecy. This fatisfied the believing Querift, faved the Credit of the God, and brought pretty Offerings to his Vicar.

SUCH Ufe did the Pagan Priests make of the Duty of Fafting; and that the Romish Priests have perverted it to as wicked and deceitful Purposes, I have fhewn in another Paper. It is agreeable to their Cunning and their Avarice, to make the People poor and mad; and it must be owned a pretty prieftly Art, that of driving Men out of their Eftates and their Understandings with their own Confent; and leading them into a Belief, that Starving is a Duty, and Lunacy is Grace.

By the Law of Nature, we are not obliged to faft at all, unless in the Way of Phyfick, when we are ill, through an Over-fulness of the Veffels, or any other Disorder, which may be removed or leffened by Abftinence. In this Cafe, we ought to faft for our Health fake; and whatever is neceffary for Self-Relief, or Self-Prefervation, becomes alfo a Duty, and a Piece of Natural Religion, when it does not contradict a pofitive Law of God. But to abstain, upon certain Days, from the comfortable Ufe of God's good Creatures, which ought to be received with Thankfulness, out of a vain Pretence to pleafe Him, or to promote our own Salvation, is a strange and barbarous Chimæra, which the Law of Nature abhors; and can be the Effect of nothing but Distraction in the People, or Craft in the Priests. We

might as rationally imagine, that going naked at certain fevere Seafons of the Year, would draw us nearer Heaven; and that the afflicting our Skins with Froft and Snow, would do great Service to our shivering Souls; and that though Self-Preservation be an effential Law of Nature, yet Self-Destruction is also an effential Law of Nature

FASTING, therefore, being no Part of the Law of Nature, the Jewish Law of Ceremonies, which is abolished, cannot make it a Duty: And for the Examples of Fafting, taken from the Prophet Daniel, and other holy Men of the Old Testament; they were either voluntary, fuch as any one may perform when he is in a fafting Humour, which no body pretends to reftrain; or they were the Effect of Sorrow, when Grief had deftroyed Appetite, and then there was no Devotion in them; or they were extraordinary and fupernatural, and being inimitable, cannot be neceffary. Miraculous Fafting cannot be a Duty, where the Gift of Miracles is not given.

As to the New Testament, there is not a ftated Fast appointed in it: We are indeed commanded to fast and pray; but we are no where told how much, or how often, we are to do either; but are left to choose proper Occafions, and proper Inclinations, for doing both. St. Paul is fuch a generous Advocate for Liberty of this. Kind, that he condemns all those who condemn others for taking it. Let not, fays he, him that eateth

eateth, defpife him that eateth not: And let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth; for God hath received him. One Man efteemeth one Day above another: Another efteemeth every Day alike. Let every Man be fully perfuaded in his own Mind. (Rom. Ch. xiv. ver. 3, and 5.) The fame Spirit of Charity. and the fame good-natured rational Advice, runs through the whole Chapter.

THE Inftitution of Lent was founded upon our Saviour's Faft of Forty Days in the Wildernefs; as if weak impotent Mortals could imitate the Omnipotent Son of God, in Works done by divine Power only! They might as well pretend to walk upon the Sea once a Year, or to raise the Dead at all Times: Befides, our Saviour performed this Faft but once, and his Apostles never, as far as we know. Once a Twelve-month you must keep Lent, is not a Gospel Precept.

No Society, therefore, of Men can enjoin any Time, or Measure, of Fafting (except where the Law directs the fame) without departing from the Gospel, contradicting St. Paul, and setting up their own Authority in defiance of both the Gospel and the Saint. Such an Injunction would be impracticable, and even cruel. To many Conftitutions it might be dangerous, and even fatal; and to all Men, it would render Life wretched and burthenfome. The good God has no where commanded frail Men to worship him with Pain and Sickness of Body,

nor

nor to hasten their own Death by the Means of their Devotion. This would be to represent him as delighting in human Mifery, and human Sacrifices; a fort of Worship fuitable to the terrible Spirit of Moloch, or any other Damon, but no wife acceptable to the God of Mercy, and the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift.

THE Popish Priefts know well, that it is intirely impoffible that all Men fhould comply with this their Difcipline of Hunger; and perhaps that very Impoffibility is their best Reason for maintaining it. It is certain that from hence they draw vaft Gain, by hiring out Difpenfations for Eating on the Days of Fasting; and the Lucre which they make by breaking the Canon, is an unanswerable Argument for defending it. No Man is denied the Privilege of breaking Lent, who can pay for breaking it. He who cannot fast at all, may, for a competent Fee, eat Fish, which is a more luxurious Diet than Flesh; and he who cannot faft upon Fish, may, for a more competent Fee, fast upon a Belly-full of Roaft-Beef; which, though a chaster Sort of Food than Fish, is more strictly forbidden by that Church.

INDEED, fuch are the vaft Fees arifing to the Popish Church, from Licences for a Liberty to eat, when it is a Duty to fast, that the whole Inftitution of Fafting there, seems only a religious Roguery, defign'd for starving the People, to feed the Priefts. For my felf, I

think the Parfon has fo little to do with this Matter, that I do not think, that any Direction ought to be taken about Fasting, but from our Conftitution, or our Phyfician. If it be our Duty to faft on certain Days, no Tribe of Priests can difpenfe with the Pleasure and the Laws of Almighty God; though it is a Task which (for Money) they never refufe: And if it be not our Duty, it is infolent and wicked in them to command what neither God nor Nature requires; and it is in us a Sin and a Folly to obey them. Even the Proteftant Priests, long fince the Reformation, have known how to make the right Ufe of this Power. I my self have feen feveral formal Difpenfations, figned by Archbishop Sheldon, under the Archi-Epifcopal Seal, to licence the eating of Flesh in Lent; which Difpenfations, I prefume, were not granted without Application and Fees.

RELIGION is a voluntary Thing; it can no more be forced than Reason, or Memory, or any Faculty of the Soul. To be devout against our Will, is an Abfurdity; and it is ridiculous in others to hope to make us fo, in fpite of our felves. We have no Power over the Appetites of others, no more than over their Confciences. Neither a Man's Mind, nor his Palate, can be fubject to the Jurifdiction of another; and whoever takes upon him to regulate one's Throat and Stomach, and direct one how much to fwallow, may (with equal Reason) affume Dominion over the other Offices of Nature, and dictate how much one

ought