Section 1
pp. 425–4264 passages
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.
Sect. 1.
Fasting is then to be used, when a just and 1weighty cause or occasion thereof is offered. There be two just causes of a fast.
Fasting is then to be vsed, when a iust and 1weightie cause or occasion therof is offered. There be two iust causes of a fast.
- 1The just cause of a fashThe iust cause of a fash
The First is, when some judgement of God hangs over our heads, whether it be public, as Famine, Pestilence, the Sword, destruction, &c. or private. The Prophet Joel in the name of the Lord, calls the Jews to a strait and solemn fast; and that upon this just occasion, because the Lord had sent a great dearth upon the land, Joel 2. 14, 15, &c. Esther and her company fasted, when she had heard news of the intended destruction of the Jews, Ester. 4. 16. The people of Nineveh, which were not Jews, but foreigners in regard of the Covenant, when the ⟨p. 426⟩Prophet came, and denounced destruction unto them for their sins, they gave themselves generally to fasting and prayer. Jon. 3. 5. 8.