A25478:1295
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically resolved by sundry ministers
London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1676
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
5. Lastly, I shall speak of the abuse of a religious fast.
And this great Ordinance is several ways abused.
1. There is a Pharisaical abuse of it by ostentation.
When men fast to put on a disguise of extraordinary devotion and sanctity, as the Pharisees did thus; and by disfiguring their faces and counterfeiting a solemn and dejected countenance, and by mortified habits, &c. did seek to gain the reputation of extraordinary holiness among the people. As the Pharisee in the parable among other things boasted of his often fasting, I fast twice a week. Strict piety hath such a real value in it, that some that have it not, yet will pretend to it, as thinking to advance their reputation by it.