The Practice of Piety

This Abstinence from evil, is that which is chiefly signified by thy abstinence from food,¹ &c. and is the chief end of fasting, as the Ninevites very well knew.² 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 respecteth. If therefore thou wouldest have God to turn from thee the evil of affliction: thou must first turn away from thy self, the evil of transgression. And without this fasting from evil, thy fast savours more noisome ⟨p. 646⟩to God, ⁴then thy breath doth to man. This made God so often to reject the fast of the Jews. 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 Gods grace, never to commit those sins again. ^*For what shall it profit a man by abstinence to humble his body; if his mind swells with pride? Or to forbear wine, and strong drink, and to be drunk with wrath and malice? Or to let no flesh go into thy belly, when lies, slanders, and ribaldry (which are worse then