and vigour. Faith without prayer must needs be weak and languishing, as being deprived of its proper food and nourishment; and prayer without fasting, or abstinence at least, will be heavy and dispirited, like an oppressed and smothered flame, unable to mount aloft, and reach the throne of God: and both, where there is no true faith, will be but as strange fire, unhallowed and unacceptable. Ask, and it shall be given you, says our Lord, seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ; even the treasury of the divine grace and favour and assistance, whereby we shall be enabled to will and to do according to his good pleasure 1: but then we must ask in faith, and in purity, with holy hands, and a clean heart, with pious affections, and sincere desires of being cleansed from all our filthiness both of flesh and spirit, and of perfecting holiness in the fear of God1. And such prayer as this is an employment so truly heavenly, as must needs be of wondrous efficacy to drive out every vile affection, and engage men in a conversation becoming the gospel of Christ TM. m And that our prayers may be offered up with a prevailing fervour, such abstinence is highly needful as will render the head clear and bright, and make our thoughts our own. For nothing more indisposes a man for spiritual exercises, and hinders the operations of the mind, than the fumes that arise from a loaded stomach; which make him fitter for sleep than contemplation and prayer, and bring a lifeless heaviness upon the soul, as if it were all over earth. 1 g Matt. vii. 7. 2 Cor. vii. I. h Phil. ii. 13. i James i. 6. k 1 Tim. ii. 8. I And therefore our blessed Lord, and his apostles, and all holy men ever since, as they often retired into places of privacy, where without interruption they might converse with God, and with greater freedom pour out their souls before him; so at those more solemn times they either totally abstained from food, if their constitution would bear it, or else eat very sparingly of such coarse fare as should but just suffice to support nature, till their intended devotions were finished. For as prayer is called by the ancients, the "wing of the soul," so they said fasting" was "that which gave wings to prayer ;" made it sprightly and vigorous, and as near of kin to the devotion of pure spirits, as the soul's union with the body would permit. 66 But all things of this nature must be guided by an honest prudence, which will proportion both the length and frequency and degrees of abstinence and fasting, according to the strength of men's several constitutions and other accidental circumstances that may occur; otherwise they will prove injurious to devotion as well as health, and by dispiriting the body too much, either destroy that religious fervour which they were designed to promote, or else heat the brain into the ungovernable and indecent raptures of enthusiasm. Nor is fasting only of use as it is a help to devotion, but it is very necessary too by way of discipline; there being some vices, which proceeding from too great indulgence to the body, and being grown habitual, and become a second nature by long custom and practice, can never be conquered but by the severities of mortification: whereby the corrupt desire being by degrees abated, the flesh is at length humbled, and subdued to the spirit. And therefore it is, that we are exhorted to mortify the deeds of the body", fornication, uncleanness, and all inordinate affection and evil concupiscence°; to be as it were dead to the world, and to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts P, that the body may be kept under and brought into subjection 9. All which expressions denote the exercise of some rigour and severity upon vicious flesh and blood, in order to its submission to the government of religion; the substracting so much from its usual nourishment, as may in due degree impoverish the over-heated spirits, and allay the boilings of the blood, and clear the mind from the fumes of luxury and excess, that the man may be able coolly and calmly to reflect upon the iniquity of his past sins, attend to the checks of his conscience, and the advice of his reason, and comply with the motions of the good Spirit of God, to a sincere repentance and amendment. Nothing of this nature can be done in the heat and hurry of a full career of lewdness; when the pampered body is impatient of restraint, and rushes into all excess of riot, with as much fury, and as little thought, "as the horse does into the battle." And therefore, the only way in such a case is to tame the unruly beast, by withdrawing the fuel of his impure flames, or as St. Paul expresses it, by not making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. This kind of unclean spirit goeth not out but by such discipline as this; and till the headstrong sinp Gal. v. 24. n Rom. viii. 13. 91 Cor. ix. ult. o Coloss. iii. 3. 5. r Rom. xiii. ult. ner is by such methods become quiet, and sedate, and capable of cool thinking, it will be to almost as little purpose to talk to him of faith, and repentance, and prayer, &c., as to preach to a swine against nastiness and intemperance, when swilling at a full trough, or taking his repose on a dunghill. Which shews of what great use the enjoining severe penance upon notorious sinners is, and what reason all good people have to wish that that excellent discipline of the primitive church were again restored; and what little hopes we can have of a thorough reformation till it is. Those that need it most are the furthest from exercising it upon themselves, and would but laugh at those that should advise them to it and therefore, till God or the church does it for them-God by sickness and affliction, or the church by her censures and the rod of disciplinethings will be at the lewd pass they are; or rather, as we find by a melancholy experience, will daily grow worse and worse, till the measure of men's iniquity is full, and the time is come for judgment. Thus we see how necessary prayer and fasting are to enliven and support our faith, in order to the ejecting those foul and destructive vices which have taken possession of our souls; how mutually all three assist each other, and how irresistibly powerful their joint forces will be to vanquish and drive out the most obstinate and stubborn sin. But then, we must not think it strange, or be discouraged, if we meet with great opposition, and endure many a painful throe, like the pangs of a woman in travail, before the great work be completed. As the evil spirit here, when our Lord charged him to come out of the possessed man, and enter no more into him, cried and threw him down, and rent him sore, with racking inward pains, and left him as one dead. Suppose the spirit of intemperance and uncleanness has had long possession of the soul of any one, and often thrown him into a lustful fever, and made him wallow in filthiness not to be mentioned; or suppose the man swells with pride, or pines away with envy, or foams and gnasheth his teeth with the fury of revenge, or lies grovelling upon the earth with covetousness; suppose a man has been long under the power of any of these wickednesses, let him resolve never so sincerely to conquer and root it out, and set about it never so vigorously, and pray never so heartily, and add fasting to his prayers too, and all this in humble affiance in the Divine assistance, to make his endeavours successful: he must after all expect to find it a work of difficulty and time, and to meet with great reluctancy from depraved, corrupted nature, and many strong temptations both from within and without, which it will be no easy matter to resist and deny effectually. And if sometimes he should happen to be worsted, and borne down again into a commission in some degree of the vice he is contending with, it will be no strange thing. But then, instead of being discouraged by this ill success, so as to give over the conflict, it should engage him to contend with still greater resolution; to be more and more watchful and circumspect, more constant and fervent in prayer for the Divine assistance, trusting less in his own strength, and more in God's, and keeping his body still more under by prudent severities if there be occasion; remembering that these |