Christian Prayer and Fasting

11. Fasts ordained by lawful authority are not to be neglected; because alone they can do the thing in order to which they were enjoined. It may be, one day of humiliation will not obtain the blessing, or alone kill the lust; yet it must not be despised if it can do anything towards it. […]

10. All fasts ordained by lawful authority are to be observed in order to the same purposes to which they are enjoined, and to be accompanied with actions of the same nature, just as it is in private fasts; for there is no other difference, but that in public our superiors choose for us what […]

9. All fasting, for whatever end it be undertaken, must be done without any opinion of the necessity of the thing itself, without censuring others, with all humility, in order to the proper end; and just as a man takes physic, of which no man hath reason to be proud, and no man things it […]

8. Fasting alone will not cure this devil, though it helps much towards it; but it must not therefore be neglected, but assisted by all the proper instruments of remedy against this unclean spirit; and what it is unable to do alone, in company with other instruments, and God’s blessing upon them, it may effect.
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7. When fasting is an act of mortification, that is, is intended to subdue a bodily lust, as the spirit of fornication, or the fondness of strong and impatient appetites, it must not be a sudden, sharp, and violent fast, but a state of fasting, a diet of fasting, a daily lessening our portion of […]