The Practice of Piety

1 Of the Author.

The first that ordained Fasting was God himself in Paradise:¹ and it was the first Law that God made, in commanding Adam to abstain ⟨p. 628⟩from eating the forbidden fruit. GOD would not pronounce nor write his Law without Fasting, ²and in his Law commands all his people to Fast. So doth our Saviour Christ teach all his Disciples under the New Testament likewise.³ By religious Fasting a man comes nearest the life of ^*Angels, and to do Gods will on earth, as it is done in heaven. Yea, Nature seemeth to teach man this duty, in giving him a little mouth, and a narrower throat: for, Nature is content with a little, Grace with less. Neither doth Nature and Grace agree in any one act better,⁵ then in this exercise of religious Fasting: for it strengtheneth the memory, and cleareth the ⟨p. 629⟩mind: illuminateth the understanding, and bridleth the affections: mortifieth the flesh, and preserveth chastity: preventeth sickness, and continueth health: it delivereth from evils, and procureth all kind of blessings.

The first that ordained Fasting was God himselfe in Paradise:¹ and it was the first Law that God made, in commanding Adam to abstaine ⟨p. 628⟩