A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

The second part of the Christian fast, is the inward and spiritual exercise, which is the end of the outward, and without which it is of no ¹value: for as the Apostle telleth us, Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things; and The Kingdom of God consisteth not in meats and drinks, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the holy Ghost. In which regard the Lord hath always rejected the outward fast as hypocritical and superstitious, if the inward fast were not joined with it. Thus he chargeth the Jews, that they fasted to themselves and not to him, when they rested in the external abstinence and bodily humiliation; and telleth them, that if they would keep a fast which should be acceptable unto him, they must execute judgement, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother, and not oppress the fatherless, ⟨p. 673⟩²stranger and poor, nor so much as imagine evil against their brother in their heart. So elsewhere he rejecteth the fast of the Jews, because therein they only afflicted their souls with bodily abstinence, and did hang down their heads like a bulrush for a day, and did spread sackcloth ³and ashes under them, but did not join with it the Spiritual fast, in abstaining from carnal pleasures and covetous exactions, losing the bonds of wickedness, and undoing the heavy burdens, ceasing from oppression, and doing the works of mercy. To which purpose one demandeth; What doth