3. *Another reason or ground of fasting is this. Many of those who now fear God, are deeply sensible how often they have sinned against him, by the abuse of these lawful things. They know, how much they have sinned by excess of food; how long they have transgrest the holy law of God, with regard to temperance, if not sobriety too: how they have indulged their sensual appetites, perhaps to the impairing even their bodily health; certainly to the no small hurt of their soul. For hereby they continually fed and increased that sprightly folly, that airiness of mind, that levity of temper, that gay inattention to things of the deepest concern, that giddiness and carelessness of spirit, which were no other than drunkenness of soul, which stupified all their noblest faculties, no less than excess of wine or strong drink. To remove therefore the effect, they remove the cause: they keep at a distance from all excess. They abstain, as far as is possible, from what had well nigh plunged them in everlasting perdition. They often wholly refrain; always take care to be sparing and temperate in all things.
4. *They likewise well remember, how fulness of bread, increased not only carelessness and levity of spirit, but also foolish and unholy desires, yea, unclean and vile affections. And this experience puts beyond all doubt. Even a genteel, regular sensuality, is continually sensualizing the soul, and sinking it into a level with the beasts that perish. It cannot be exprest what an effect variety and delicacy of food have on the mind as well as the body: making it just ripe for every pleasure of sense, as soon as opportunity shall invite. Therefore on this ground also every wise man will refrain his soul, and keep it low; will wean it more and more from all those indulgences of the inferior appetites, which naturally tend to chain it down to earth, and to pollute as well as debase it. Here is another perpetual reason for fasting: to remove the food of lust and sensuality, to withdraw the incentives of foolish and hurtful desires, of vile and vain affections.
5. Perhaps we need not altogether omit, (altho’ I know not if we should do well, to lay any great stress upon it) another reason for fasting, which some good men have largely insisted on: namely, the punishing themselves for having abused the good gifts of God, by sometimes wholly refraining from them: thus exercising a kind of holy revenge upon themselves, for their past folly and ingratitude, in turning the things which should have been for their health, into an occasion of falling. They suppose _David_ to have had an eye to this when he said, _I wept and chastened_, or punished _my soul with fasting_: and St. _Paul_, when he mentions _what revenge_ godly sorrow occasioned in the _Corinthians_.
6. A fifth, and more weighty reason for fasting, is, that it is an help to prayer: particularly, when we set apart larger portions of time for private prayer. Then especially it is, that God is often pleased to lift up the souls of his servants, above all the things of earth, and sometimes to wrap them up, as it were, into the third heavens. *And it is chiefly, as it is an help to prayer, that it has so frequently been found a means in the hand of God, of confirming and increasing not one virtue, not chastity only, (as some have idly imagined, without any ground, either from scripture, reason or experience) but also seriousness of spirit, earnestness, sensibility and tenderness of conscience; deadness to the world, and consequently the love of God and every holy and heavenly affection.
7. Not that there is any natural or necessary connexion, between fasting, and the blessings God conveys thereby. But he will have mercy _as_ he will have mercy: he will convey whatsoever seemeth him good, by whatsoever means he is pleased to appoint. And he hath in all ages appointed this, to be a means of averting his wrath, and obtaining whatever blessings we from time to time stand in need of.
How powerful a means this is, to avert the wrath of God, we may learn from the remarkable instance of _Ahab_. _There was none like_ him, _who did sell himself_; wholly give himself up, like a slave bought with money, _to work wickedness_. Yet when he _rent his cloaths and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and went softly: the word of the_ Lord _came to_ Elijah, _saying, Seest thou how_ Ahab _humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days._