(3.) Fasting.1

We proceed now to make a few explicatory remarks on our Lord's account of the difference between the duty of fasting, as performed by the disciples of the Scribes, the Pharisees, and by his disciples, the children of the kingdom.

"Moreover, when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." 2

In speaking of fasting, our Lord makes use of the same sort of language, as he employs in reference to alms and prayer. "When thou doest alms," "when thou prayest," "when ye fast." He does not enjoin these exercises, but he proceeds on the principle, that the children of the kingdom were to perform them. He takes for granted, that they would do alms, pray, and fast.

The first thing to be done here, is to ascertain the true meaning and reference of the word "fast." To fast, means to abstain from food; but as it is plain, that it is a religious duty that our Lord refers to, the word must be understood as expressive of abstinence from food for a religious purpose, and in connection with, and in subservience to, religious exercises.

There is no general injunction, either in the Old or in the New Testament, of abstinence from food, whether partial or total, as connected with, or subsidiary to, religious duties.

the forgiveness of sins as the only condition at all. It is natural that, by this mode of handling the Scripture, it should swarm with contradictions."THOLUCK.

"The rule of christian ethics, in regard to fasting, is, that it is neither enjoined nor recommended, but only justified as the natural expression of certain states of feeling analogous to those of the disciples under the sense of separation from their Master. In such states of the interior life, all outward signs of peace and joy-all participation in social intercourse and enjoyment—are unnatural and repugnant." Luke v. 33.-NEANDER. Vide Vernede, iii. Ser. xxiii. 2 Matth. vi. 16-18.

The only fast of direct Divine appointment, was that to be observed by the Jews on the tenth day of the seventh month, -the great day of expiation;1 and even with regard to it, we do not find abstinence expressly commanded: if observed, it must have been merely because found subservient to the great purpose of that day, which was mental humiliation on account of sin,—the afflicting the soul.

In the later ages of the Jewish commonwealth, there was a number of other public fasts observed annually, but we have no reason to think they were of direct Divine appointment. The true account of the matter seems to be this. The use of a full, and especially of a luxurious diet, is inconsistent with that clear, calm, state of thought and feeling which devotional exercises require. When the mind and the heart, are very much engaged with any subject, especially if that subject is of a serious and mournful kind, there is an indisposition to take food; and in that state of mind produced by a deep sense of the evil of sin, and of the supreme importance of things unseen and eternal, to refrain from food seems a natural expression of our sense of our own unworthiness, and the comparative insignificance of all earthly things. These seem the principles on which the practice of fasting is founded, and though like kneeling or prostration in prayer, not of express Divine appointment, it may be, it has been, found, useful as a help to the right performance of those spiritual exercises in which, under every dispensation, all really acceptable religion consists.

"Fasting,"-abstinence, either total or partial, from food, seems in all ages of the world to have been connected with seasons of peculiarly solemn devotion. The inhabitants of Nineveh connected fasting with their deprecation of the Divine vengeance, denounced by the prophet Jonah.2 In circumstances of remarkable danger, the pious kings and prophets of Israel called on the people to engage in fasting

Lev. xxiii. 27-29. Zach. viii. 19. Acts xxvii. 9.

2 Jonah iii. 6, 7, 8.

as well as in prayer. And indeed so closely associated were the ideas of fasting, and a season of extraordinary prayer,— especially for deliverance from threatened judgments, that the ordinary name for such a season seems to have been, a fast. A season of extraordinary devotion was called a fast, on the same principle, that we describe a very pious man, as much in his closet, often on his knees.

It was the practice of the pious, under the Old Testament dispensation, not only devoutly to observe the public fasts, but to set apart periods of time, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, for extraordinary religious exercises, and with these they seem to have usually connected abstinence, partial or total. David tells us, that he "humbled his soul with fasting." Daniel "set his face to seek the Lord by prayer, and supplication, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." Nehemiah "mourned certain days, and fasted." And Anna, the prophetess, "served God with fastings and prayers."

The natural course of things, the tendency in the depraved mind of man to rest in what is external, and to substitute what was originally the means or the sign, for the end, and the thing signified, manifested itself with regard to fasting, and in the days of our Lord, a great part of the religion of the Jews, especially of the Pharisees, seems to have consisted in literal abstinence, total or partial. The Pharisees fasted often; "I fast," says the Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray, "I fast twice a-week.”

Our Lord did not prohibit fasting as a means or an expression of religion. Whatever he says on the subject is rather favourable to the practice. In the passage before us, he takes for granted that his disciples would fast. He defends his disciples for not fasting while he was with them; but says, after his departure, they would fast. He mentions fasting along with prayer, to describe that extraordinary de

12 Chron. xx. 3.
2 2 Sam. xii. 16.

3 Psal. xxxv. 13.

Ezra viii. 21. Jer. xxxvi. 9. Joel i. 14.
Jer. xiv. 12.

Dan. ix. 3. Neh. i. 4. Luke ii. 37.

votion which was the appointed means of obtaining that faith which was necessary to cast out demons of the most malignant kind.'

We find our Lord's primitive disciples fasting and praying, or praying with fasting, on occasions peculiarly important and solemn; and the Apostle Paul seems plainly to hint that it was the ordinary and proper practice of Christians in general, occasionally to "give themselves to prayer and fasting," that is, to observe seasons of extraordinary devotion, and to use abstinence, total or partial, as a subsidiary to the religious exercises engaged in on these occasions.2

In the degenerate Christian, as in the degenerate Jewish Church, fasts were put out of their place; and, instead of a means or expression of devotion, were constituted principal parts of religious worship. The fasts appointed by the Roman Catholic Church are very numerous. This abuse has led to an opposite extreme among Protestant Christians, and I apprehend that the use of abstinence from food, as a means or expression of devotion, is exceedingly little known, at any rate, among the professors of Christianity in our country and age.

Fasting, in connection with religion, is plainly entirely instrumental-a means in order to an end. It is a wellknown fact that abstinence produces different effects on different constitutions; that a measure of abstinence, which might be useful to one, would be injurious to another; that what might fix attention in one would distract it in another; and, as there is no express statute in the case, "wisdom is profitable to direct ;" but, at the same time, I am afraid many of us are blameable in having left altogether untried, a means which nature seems to dictate, and which has been employed with success, by many of the wisest and best men in all ages, for giving greater intenseness to our attention, and greater fervour to our devotion, in those seasons of extraor

1 Matth. ix. 14, 15; xvii. 21.

2 Acts xiii. 2, 3; xiv. 23. 1 Cor. vii. 5.

dinary religious service in which, it would appear, the saints, both under the Old and New Testament dispensations, engaged. Indeed, I am afraid these seasons are themselves much more unfrequent than they might be. It appears to me that fasting, in our Lord's use of the term, is just equal to observing a season of extraordinary devotion with which abstinence from food was connected as at once the means and the expression of devotion.

The fasts referred to are not the public fasts, just as the prayers referred to are not the public prayers. The fasts referred to are seasons of extraordinary devotion which the individual observes for his own spiritual improvement. Having shown his disciples how, in the ordinary exercises of devotion, they should exceed the Pharisees, he proceeds to show how they should exceed them in their extraordinary exercises of devotion.

And, you will observe, he does not say that their fasts are to be more frequent or more rigid than those of the Pharisees; but he does say, they are not to have that character of ostentation which belonged to the fasts of the Pharisees. In fasting, as in prayer, they are to seek, not man's applause, but God's approbation; and, in the manner in which they conduct their extraordinary, as well as their ordinary devotions, they are to show this.

We are now ready to enter on the exposition of our Lord's words; and, after these preliminary remarks, much time will not require to be devoted to their exposition. "When ye fast," that is, when ye devote a portion of time to the purpose of extraordinary devotion, especially to the exercises of penitential confession and deprecatory supplication, accompanied by abstinence, "be not as the hypocrites," that is,

act not in the manner in which these hypocrites, these stageplayers, the Pharisees, behave.' Then he proceeds to give us an account of the manner in which they conducted themselves: "They put on a sad countenance, and disfigured their faces, that they might seem to men to fast." It was