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

Here therefore, first cometh to be considered, our humbling & casting down, ⟨p. 27⟩which is a vile esteeming of our selves, answering to the outward exercise. For therefore do we abstain for a time, that we might thereby have a quicker feeling of our own unworthiness. Therefore we bring down the body, that the mind may be likewise brought down. Therefore we crucify the flesh, that the deserved death of the spirit, may be the better known. Therefore we abstain from our pleasures and commodities,¹ that through conscience of sin, and feeling of the wrath of God, either present, or to come, for the same, we might draw our selves to a greater sorrow. In which respect, the exercise which the other Evangelists ⟨p. 28⟩call Fasting, Saint Matthew calleth Mourning. Hereupon it cometh,² that weeping, which is a witness of our sorrow, is annexed unto the Fast; which the children of God have done so plentifully in this exercise,³ that they have bin said, to have drawn whole Buckets of Water; which the depth of the sorrow for their sins, and the anger of God against them hath ministered. And as these outward exercises are commanded, to draw us to a feeling of our unworthiness; so in the feeling thereof, by them we make a solemn confession of the same. For the children of God in time past, by their abstinence from meat & drink, confessed ⟨p. 29⟩them selves unworthy so much as of a crumb of bread, or drop of water: by putting on Sackcloth, unworthy of the worst rag to cover their shame with. So that if common honesty and health would have suffered, they would have stripped them selves stark naked. The same is to be understanded of the benefit of Sleep, and company of Marriage; as also of all other the commodities of this life: whereof they did not only confess them selves unworthy, but in that they put Dust and Ashes upon their heads, they gave to understand, that they were unworthy of the life it self, and that they deserved to be as far ⟨p. 30⟩