Two treatises. 1. The holy exercise of a true fast, described out of God's…

¹But for as much, as the kingdom of heaven standeth not in these things; and the Lord being a Spirit, will be worshipped in spirit and trueth: either ⟨p. 25⟩these exercises must lead us to some farther thing, or else the same accusation will lie against us, wherewith the Prophet charged the Israelites, who contenting them selves with the outward ceremony of abstinence,² were sent home as empty as they came. And indeed, unless we bring more with us, then this our abstinence, our Fasts may be matched with the Beasts Fast of Nineveh; ³for they also both eat nothing, and were covered with Sackcloth: yea the Beasts Fast, may be so much better then ours, as there be some kinds of Beasts, that can longer endure without meat and sleep then we. Where the Papists fast, which was showed ⟨p. 26⟩before to be childish, may here be proved to be beastly and brutish: For if they did only abstain from Meat, they judged them selves to have holden a good Fast unto the Lord. There follow the inward virtues helped forward by the bodily exercise; which in the number^* two. The one is the humbling and casting down of our selves before the high Majesty of God, with sorrow for our sins: The other, is the assurance that we have, that with forgiveness of them, we shall obtain the thing that we stand in need of, and make suite for.

¹But for as much, as the kingdome of heauen standeth not in these thinges; and the Lord being a Spirit, will be worshipped in spirite and trueth: either ⟨p. 25⟩these exercises must lead vs to some farther thing, or else the same accusation will lie against vs, wherewith the Prophet charged the Israelites, who contenting them selues with the outward ceremonie of abstinence,