3. Not that we are to imagine, the performing the bare outward act, will receive any blessing from God. _Is it such a fast that I have chosen, saith the_ Lord: _a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?_ Are these outward acts, however strictly performed, all that is meant by a man’s _afflicting his soul? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the_ Lord? No surely. If it be a mere external service, it is all but lost labour. Such a performance may possibly afflict the body. But as to the soul it profiteth nothing.
4. Yea, the body may sometimes be afflicted too much, so as to be unfit for the works of our calling. This also we are diligently to guard against: for we ought to preserve our health, as a good gift of God. Therefore care is to be taken, whenever we fast, to proportion the fast to our strength. For we may not offer God murder for sacrifice, or destroy our bodies to help our souls.
But at these solemn seasons, we may even in great weakness of body, avoid that other extreme, for which God condemns those who of old expostulated with him for not accepting their fasts. _Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?――Behold in the day of your fast, you find pleasure_, saith the Lord――If we cannot wholly abstain, we may at least abstain from pleasant food; and then we shall not seek his face in vain.
5. But let us take care to afflict our souls as well as our bodies. Let every season either of public or private fasting, be a season of exercising all those holy affections, which are implied in a broken and contrite heart. Let it be a season of devout mourning, of godly sorrow for sin: such a sorrow as that of the _Corinthians_, concerning which the apostle saith, _I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow_ (ἡ κατὰ Θεὸν λύπη· the sorrow which is according to God, which is a precious gift of his Spirit, lifting the soul to God from whom it flows) _worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of_. Yea, and let our sorrowing after a godly sort, work in us the same inward and outward repentance; the same entire change of heart, renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness; and the same change of life, till we are holy as he is holy in all manner of conversation. Let it work in us the same _carefulness_, to be found in him, without spot and blameless; the same _clearing of ourselves_, by our lives rather than words, by our abstaining from all appearance of evil; the same _indignation_, vehement abhorrence of every sin; the same _fear_ of our own deceitful hearts; the same _desire_ to be in all things conformed to the holy and acceptable will of God; the same _zeal_ for whatever may be a means of his glory, and of our growth in the knowledge of our Lord _Jesus Christ_: and the same _revenge_ against _Satan_ and all his works, against all filthiness both of flesh and spirit, _2 Cor. vii. 9_, &c.
6. And with fasting let us always join fervent prayer, pouring out our whole souls before God, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, humbling ourselves under his mighty hand, laying open before him all our wants, all our guiltiness and helplessness. This is a season for enlarging our prayers, both in behalf of ourselves and of our brethren. Let us now bewail the sins of our people, and cry aloud for the city of our God: that the Lord may build up _Zion_, and cause his face to shine on her desolations. Thus we may observe the men of God in ancient times always joined prayer and fasting together. Thus the apostles in all the instances cited above: and thus our Lord joins them in the discourse before us.