A fruitful treatise of fasting

What so ever might make to the humbling and taming of the flesh, that did the godly men use for the most part in the time of their fasting. Neither did those corporal exercises displease God, seeing they came from a contrite hart and troubled spirit, wholly depending with strong faith on the great mercies of God. For David saith: A troubled spirit is a sacrifice to God, nether doth he despise a contrite and humbled hart.¹ But these outward signs of humiliation God utterly abhorreth, when they come not from a penitent and faithful ⟨image 15⟩hart, and casteth them away as hypocrytysh and devilish, as we read in the Prophet Isaiah,² wherefore fast we, say the hypocrites, and thou O God seest in not? We put our lives to straightness, and thou regardest it not. Behold, sayeth God, when ye fast, your lust remaineth s•yl, for ye do no less violence to your debtors. Lo, ye fast to strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Now ye shall not fast thus, that your voice might be herd above. Think ye this fast pleaseth me▪ that a man should chasten him self for a day, and to writhe his head about like an hoop, & to lie upon the earth in an hairy cloth? Should that be called fasting, or day that pleaseth the lord: Doth not this fasting rather please ⟨image 16⟩me, that thou loose him out of bondage that is in thy danger? that thou break the oath of wicked bargains? that thou let the oppressed go free, and take from them all manner of burdens? to deal thy bread to the hungry and bring the poor wandering home into thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and hide not thy face from thy neighbour, and that thou despise not thine own eshe? (If thou thus fastest) then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health flourish right shortly, thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall embrace thee. Then if thou callest, the Lord shall answer thee, if thou criest, he shall say, here I am, Yea if