Christian Prayer and Fasting

1. Of avoiding Evil

This abstinence from evil is that which is chiefly signified by thy abstinence from food, etc., and is the chief end of fasting, as the Ninevites very well knew (Jonah 3:8 & 10). A day of fast, and not fasting from sin, the Lord abhorreth. It is not the vacuity of the stomach, but the purity of the heart, that God respects. If, therefore, thou wouldst have God to turn from thee the evil of affliction, thou must first turn away from thyself the evil of transgression. And without this fasting from evil, thy fast savours more noisome to God than thy breath doth to man. This made God so often to reject the fast of the Jews (Isaiah 1:13, 58:3, etc. & Zechariah 7:5). And as thou must endeavour to avoid all sin, so especially that sin wherewith thou hast provoked God, either to shake his rod at thee, or already to lay his chastening hand upon thee. And do this with a resolution, by the assistance of God’s grace, never to commit those sins again. For what shall it profit a man by abstinence to humble his body, if his mind swell with pride? or to forbear wine and strong drink, and to be drunk with wrath and malice? or to let no flesh go into the belly, when lies, slanders, and ribaldry, which are worse than meat, come out of the mouth? To abstain from meat, and to do mischief, is the devil’s fast, who doeth evil, and is ever hungry.

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