Sermon 27: Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount, Discourse VII

01:466 An Introductory Comment [to Sermons 21-33]

The unifying theme of these next thirteen ‘discourses’ on the Sermon on the Mount, with all their variations and nuancings, is the Christian life understood as the fruit of justifying faith. But given such faith, what follows? Wesley’s answer is given in this extended exposition of the Christian life based on the locus classicus of evangelical ethics, ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ (i.e., Matthew 5-7). Since Tyndale, this ‘sermon’ had been understood as ‘the epitome of God’s laws and promises’ for Christian believers; cf. Clebsch, England’s Earliest Protestants, p. 184; see also William Burkitt, Expository Notes…on the New Testament (eleven editions between 1700 and 1739), Preface to chapter 5: ‘Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount comprehends the sum and substance of both the Old and New Testaments.’

Taken together, the following sermons are not a thirteen-part essay, tightly organized and argued. Instead, they are separate sermons, drawn from materials running back to 1725, arranged in a triadic pattern that seems to have been original with Wesley. Each is a discourse in its own right; yet the series is designed so that each appears as a part of a whole. This means that the sermons may be read singly or together, but with an eye on their shared aim: ‘to assert and prove every branch of gospel obedience as indispensably necessary to eternal salvation’; cf. Wesley’s open letter (Nov. 17, 1759) to John Downes in reply to the latter’s abusive Methodism Examined and Exposed (1759).

Many of the great and near-great commentators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had devoted their talents to the interpretation of Matthew 5-7 as the principal summary of Christian ethics, or, in Henry Hammond’s phrase, as ‘an abstract of Christian philosophy’; cf. his Practical Catechism (1st edn., c. 1644), II.1, in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (1847), p. 83. Chief among these earlier works, in the order of their influences upon Wesley’s thought, were Bishop Offspring Blackall, ‘Eighty-Seven Practical Discourses Upon Our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’, Works, I.1-561; II.609-939; 01:467John Norris, Practical Discourses; the American, James Blair, Our Saviour’s Divine Sermon on the Mount in IV Volumes (1722; 2nd edn., 1740, with a preface by Daniel Waterland); John Cardinal Bona, Guide to Eternity… (six editions in English between 1672 and 1712); and Henry Hammond, op. cit. Echoes of all these are scattered along the way, together with lesser borrowings from Bengel, Poole, and Henry. This makes it all the more remarkable that Wesley came up with a model of his own, both inform and substance. This series thus reminds us, yet again, of Wesley’s ready appeal to tradition—even while he maintains his own originality and independence.

Benjamin Ingham records in his Journal that ‘during the voyage [to Georgia] Wesley went over our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’ with the ship’s company aboard the Simmonds. There are also other records of his preaching, very early on, from one or another text in Matthew 5-7. For example, his second sermon was preached at Binsey (near Oxford), November 21, 1725, on Matt. 6:33. A first draft of the sermon which appears here as ‘Discourse VIII’ seems to have been written out in 1736. Later, it was the example of the Sermon on the Mount that encouraged Wesley to break out of his High Church prejudices in Bristol, April 1, 1739: ‘In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I begun expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also) to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street;’ cf. Journal entries for this whole story of the unplanned outbreak of the Wesleyan Revival.

The records show that, between 1739 and 1746, Wesley preached more than one hundred sermons from separate texts in the Sermon on the Mount. There is, however, no recorded instance of his having treated that Sermon as a whole anywhere else. Evidently, he was prepared to allow this series, once published, to stand as his sufficient comment on the subject.

In his introduction to ‘Discourse X’, §§1-3, Wesley repeats his explanation (cf. ‘Discourse I’, Proem, §10) of how he had conceived the design of Matthew 5-7, according to its three unfolding themes: (1) ‘the sum of true religion’; (2) ‘rules touching that right intention which we are to preserve in all our outward actions’; and (3) ‘the main hindrances of this religion’. He then adds a clarifying summary: ‘In the fifth chapter [of St. Matthew] our great Teacher…has laid before us those dispositions of the soul which constitute real Christianity…. In the sixth [chapter] he has shown how all our actions…may be made holy, and good, and acceptable to God, by a pure and holy intention…. In 01:468the former part of [ch. 7] he points out the most common and fatal hindrances of this holiness; in the latter [part] he exhorts us, by various motives, to break through all [such hindrances] and secure that prize of our high calling [of God in Christ Jesus]’ (cf. Phil. 3:14).

The thirteen discourses are divided almost equally over the three chapters of St. Matthew: five for chapter five, four each for six and seven. Of the first five, Discourse I is devoted to the first two Beatitudes; Discourse II to Beatitudes three through five (with a hymn to love based on 1 Cor. 13); Discourse III to the remainder of the Beatitudes; Discourse IV turns to Christianity as ‘a social religion’ in which inward holiness (our love of God) prompts outward holiness (love of neighbour); Discourse V is a balancing of law and gospel. Discourses VI-IX are based on chapter six: VI to the problems of purity and holiness of intention (to the ‘works of piety and of mercy’); VII to fasting; VIII to a denunciation of greed and surplus accumulation; IX to the mutually exclusive services of God and Mammon. Discourses X-XIII turn to various hindrances to holy living and to their avoidance: X to ‘judging’ (contrary to love), ‘intemperate zeal’, ‘neglect of prayer’, ‘neglect of charity’; XI to the noxious influences of ill-example and ill-advice with which the world deludes us; XII to false prophets and unedifying preachers (and yet also our duties to attend church nonetheless and to avail ourselves of all means of grace); XIII is an inevitable comment on the parable of the houses built on sand and rock. Discourse XII was also published separately in the same year that it appeared in SOSO, III (1750), under the title, ‘A Caution Against False Prophets. A Sermon on Matt. vii. 15-20. Particularly recommended to the People Called Methodists’. This went through seven editions during Wesley’s lifetime. For a stemma delineating the publishing history of that sermon (‘collected’ and ‘separate’) and a list of variant readings, see Appendix, ‘Wesley’s Text’, Vol. IV, see also Bibliog, Nos. 130 and 13o.i.

Obviously there is no interest, in any of these sermons, in critical textual problems or in the historical context. Everywhere it is assumed that in St. Matthew’s text we are dealing with divine ipsissima verba—i.e., with a direct address from ὁ ὤν, ‘the self-existent, the Supreme, the God who is over all, blessed for ever’ (§9 below). The Sermon on the Mount, in Wesley’s view, is the only Gospel passage where Christ designed ‘to lay down at once the whole plan of his religion, to give us a full prospect of Christianity’. What matters most in our reading, therefore, is an awareness of Wesley’s sense of the wholeness of the message he is interpreting, of his conviction of the honest integration of an evangel profoundly ethical with an ethic that is also vividly 01:469evangelical. Maybe more than anywhere else in SOSO this particular bloc displays Wesley’s distinctive concern for integration and balance—between the faith that justifies and the faith that works by love.

01:592 Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,
Discourse the Seventh

Matthew 6:16-18

Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face;

That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

11. It has been the endeavour of Satan from the beginning of the world to put asunder what God had joined together;

1

See Matt. 19:6; Mark 10:9.

to separate inward from outward religion; to set one of these at variance with the other. And herein he has met with no small success among those who were ‘ignorant of his devices’.

2

2 Cor. 2:11. Cf. No. 42, ‘Satan’s Devices’.

Many in all ages, having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,

3

Rom. 10:2.

have been strictly attached to the ‘righteousness of the law’,

4

Rom. 2:26; 8:4.

the performance of outward duties, but in the meantime wholly regardless of inward righteousness, ‘the righteousness which is of God by faith’.

5

Phil. 3:9. Cf. No. 24, ‘Sermon on the Mount, IV’, III.1 and n.

And many have run into the opposite extreme, disregarding all outward duties, perhaps even ‘speaking evil of the law, and judging the law’,

6

Cf. Jas. 4:11.

so far as it enjoins the performance of them.

22. It is by this very device of Satan that faith and works have been so often set at variance with each other. And many who had a real zeal for God have for a time fallen into the snare on either hand. Some have magnified faith to the utter exclusion of good 01:593works, not only from being the cause of our justification (for we know that man is ‘justified freely by the redemption which is in Jesus’)

7

Rom. 3:24.

but from being the necessary fruit of it—yea, from having any place in the religion of Jesus Christ. Others, eager to avoid this dangerous mistake, have run as much too far the contrary way; and either maintained that good works were the cause, at least the previous condition, of justification, or spoken of them as if they were all in all, the whole religion of Jesus Christ.

33. In the same manner have the end and the means of religion been set at variance with each other. Some well-meaning men have seemed to place all religion in attending the prayers of the church, in receiving the Lord’s Supper, in hearing sermons, and reading books of piety; neglecting meantime the end of all these, the love of God and their neighbour. And this very thing has confirmed others in the neglect, if not contempt, of the ordinances of God, so wretchedly abused to undermine and overthrow the very end they were designed to establish.

44. But of all the means of grace there is scarce any concerning which men have run into greater extremes than that of which our Lord speaks in the above-mentioned words; I mean religious fasting. How have some exalted this beyond all Scripture and reason!

8

Wesley’s own asceticism, on this and other points, was moderate by comparison with the rigorous fasts of the Carthusians, Cistercians, and Carmelites, or such ascetics as Gregory Lopez, Peter of Alcántara, not to mention the innumerable ‘Fast Days’ proclaimed by the Puritan Parliaments (1642-59). He would also have known the curious justification for abstinence from meat on fast days provided by the Elizabethan Homily ‘On Fasting’, Pt. II (Homilies, p. 257): viz., to encourage the fishing industry and for ‘the sooner reducing of victuals to a more moderate price, to the better sustenance of the poor’.

And others utterly disregarded it, as it were revenging themselves by undervaluing as much as the former had overvalued it. Those have spoken of it as if it were all in all; if not the end itself, yet infallibly connected with it: these as if it were just nothing, as if it were a fruitless labour which had no relation at all thereto. Whereas it is certain the truth lies between them both.

9

There is nothing more characteristically Anglican in Wesley than his avoidance, as here, of all stark disjunctions. Before him, Peter Heylyn had complained of ‘how much truth was lost on both extremes and yet how easy to be found by those who went a middle way in search thereof…’; cf. Historia Quinquarticularis (1659), p. 508. Thomas Fuller had prayed that ‘we may hit the golden mean and endeavour to avoid all extremes: the fanatic Anabaptists on the one side and the fiery zeal of the Jesuits on the other, so that we may be true Protestants or, which is far better, real Christians indeed’ (Good Thoughts in Bad Times; Mixt Contemplations in Better Times [1645]; cf. Thoughts and Contemplations, ed. James O. Wood [London, SPCK, 1964], p. 124). Wesley had himself borrowed William Tilly’s dictum that ‘the truth lies in the middle way between both these [antithetical] opinions;’ cf. Tilly’s Sermon VIII, in Sermons, p. 228.

In Wesley this principle of a third alternative may be seen further in Nos. 32, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XII’, II.5; 70, ‘The Case of Reason Impartially Considered’, §§1-5, II.10; 83, ‘On Patience’, §3; 97, ‘On Obedience to Pastors’, §2; 120, ‘The Unity of the Divine Being’, §25. Cf. also Notes on John 2:24; his letter to John Bennet, June 1744; to Miss March, Mar. 29, 1760; to Alexander Knox, Aug. 29, 1777. See also his Preface to A Concise History of England (Bibliog, No. 357, Vol. 15 of this edn.).

It is not all; nor yet is it nothing. It is not the end; but it is a 01:594precious means thereto, a means which God himself has ordained; and in which therefore, when it is duly used, he will surely give us his blessing.

In order to set this in the clearest light I shall endeavour to show, first, what is the nature of fasting, and what the several sorts and degrees thereof; secondly, what are the reasons, grounds, and ends of it; thirdly, how we may answer the most plausible objections against it; and fourthly, in what manner it should be performed.

10

Cf. the heads of Blackall’s very similar Discourse LVII, ‘Of the Nature and Duty of Fasting’, in Works, II.627-28, et. seq.

1

1I. 1. I shall endeavour to show, first, what is the nature of fasting, and what the several sorts and degrees thereof. As to the nature of it, all the inspired writers, both in the Old Testament and the New, take the word to ‘fast’ in one single sense, for not to eat, to abstain from food. This is so clear that it would be labour lost to quote the words of David, Nehemiah, Isaiah, and the prophets which followed, or of our Lord and his apostles; all agreeing in this: that to fast is not to eat for a time prescribed.

22. To this other circumstances were usually joined by them of old, which had no necessary connection with it. Such were the neglect of their apparel, the laying aside those ornaments which they were accustomed to wear; the putting on mourning, the strewing ashes upon their head, or wearing sackcloth next their skin. But we find little mention made in the New Testament of any of these indifferent circumstances; nor does it appear that any stress was laid upon them by the Christians of the purer ages, however some penitents might voluntarily use them as outward signs of inward humiliation. Much less did the apostles or the Christians cotemporary with them beat or tear their own flesh. Such ‘discipline’ as this was not unbecoming the priests or worshippers of Baal. The gods of the heathens were but devils; and it was doubtless acceptable to their devil-god when his priests 01:595‘cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner, till the blood gushed out upon them’.

1 Kgs. 18:28.

But it cannot be pleasing to him, nor become his followers, who ‘came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’.

33. As to the degrees or measures of fasting, we have instances of some who have fasted several days together. So Moses, Elijah, and our blessed Lord, being endued with supernatural strength for that purpose, are recorded to have fasted without intermission ‘forty days and forty nights’.

But the time of fasting more frequently mentioned in Scripture is one day, from morning till evening. And this was the fast commonly observed among the ancient Christians. But beside these they had also their half-fasts (semi-jejunia, as Tertullian styles them) on the fourth and sixth days of the week (Wednesday and Friday) throughout the year; on which they took no sustenance till three in the afternoon, the time when they returned from the public service.

44. Nearly related to this is what our Church seems peculiarly to mean by the term ‘abstinence’; which may be used when we cannot fast entirely, by reason of sickness or bodily weakness. This is the eating little; the abstaining in part; the taking a smaller quantity of food than usual.

I do not remember any scriptural instance of this. But neither can I condemn it, for the Scripture does not. It may have its use, and receive a blessing from God.

55. The lowest kind of fasting, if it can be called by that name, is the abstaining from pleasant food. Of this we have several instances in Scripture, besides that of Daniel and his brethren: who from a peculiar consideration, namely, that they might ‘not defile themselves with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank’ (a ‘daily provision’ of which ‘the king had 01:596appointed for them’), ‘requested’ and obtained of ‘the prince of the eunuchs’ ‘pulse to eat, and water to drink’.

Perhaps from a mistaken imitation of this might spring the very ancient custom of abstaining from flesh and wine during such times as were set apart for fasting and abstinence; if it did not rather arise from a supposition that these were the most pleasant food, and a belief that it was proper to use what was least pleasing at those times of solemn approach to God.

66. In the Jewish church there were some stated fasts. Such was the fast of the seventh month, appointed by God himself to be observed by all Israel under the severest penalty. ‘The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, […] on the tenth day of the seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; […] and ye shall afflict your souls…to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.’

In after ages several other stated fasts were added to these. So mention is made by the prophet Zechariah of the fast, not only ‘of the seventh’, but also of ‘the fourth, of the fifth, and of the tenth month’.

Zech. 8:19.

In the ancient Christian church there were likewise stated fasts, and those both annual and weekly. Of the former sort was that before Easter, observed by some for eight and forty hours; by others, for an entire week; by many for two weeks; taking no sustenance till the evening of each day. Of the latter, those of the fourth and sixth days of the week, observed (as Epiphanius writes, remarking it as an undeniable fact) ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ—‘in the whole habitable earth’,

at least in every place where any 01:597Christians made their abode. The annual fasts in our Church are ‘The forty days of Lent, the Ember days at the four seasons’, the Rogation days, and the vigils or eves of several solemn festivals: the weekly, ‘all Fridays in the year, except Christmas Day’.

But beside those which were fixed, in every nation fearing God there have always been occasional fasts appointed from time to time as the particular circumstances and occasions of each required. So when ‘the children of Moab and the children of Ammon […] came against Jehoshaphat to battle, […] Jehoshaphat set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.’

And so ‘in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, in the ninth month’, when they were afraid of the King of Babylon, the princes of Judah ‘proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people of Jerusalem.’

Jer. 36:9.

And in like manner particular persons who take heed unto their ways, and desire to walk humbly and closely with God, will find frequent occasion for private seasons of thus afflicting their souls before their Father which is in secret. And it is to this kind of fasting that the directions here given do chiefly and primarily refer.

2

1II. 1. I proceed to show, in the second place, what are the grounds, the reasons, and ends of fasting.

18

Blackall (Works, II.628-29), speaks of ‘the obligations [to fast], the good purposes fasting ministers to, and what good ends it serves for…’. The development of these points is similar, though not identical.

And first, men who are under strong emotions of mind, who are affected with any vehement passion such as sorrow or fear, are often swallowed up therein, and even ‘forget to eat their bread’.

19

Cf. Ps. 102:4.

01:598At such seasons they have little regard for food, not even what is needful to sustain nature; much less for any delicacy or variety, being taken up with quite different thoughts. Thus when Saul said, ‘I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me;’ it is recorded, ‘He had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.’

1 Sam. 28:15, 20.

Thus those who were in the ship with St. Paul, ‘when no small tempest lay upon them’, and all ‘hope that they should be saved was taken away’, ‘continued fasting, having taken nothing’,

Acts 27:[20,] 33.

no regular meal, for fourteen days together. And thus ‘David, […] and all the men that were with him’, when they heard that ‘the people were fled from the battle, and that many of the people were fallen and dead, and Saul and Jonathan his son were dead also’, ‘mourned, and wept, and fasted until even, for Saul, and Jonathan, and for the house of Israel.’

2 Sam. 1:[11, 4,] 12.

Nay, many times they whose minds are deeply engaged are impatient of any interruption, and even loathe their needful food, as diverting their thoughts from what they desire should engross their whole attention. Even as Saul, when on the occasion mentioned before he had ‘fallen all along upon the earth, and there was no strength in him’, yet ‘said, I will not eat’, till ‘his servants, together with the woman, compelled him.’

20

1 Sam. 28:20, 23.

22. Here then is the natural ground of fasting. One who is under deep affliction, overwhelmed with sorrow for sin, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God, would without any rule, without knowing or considering whether it were a command of God or not, ‘forget to eat his bread’, abstain not only from pleasant, but even from needful food. Like St. Paul, who after he was ‘led into Damascus, was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink’.

Acts 9:[8,] 9.

Yea, when the storm rose high, when ‘an horrible dread overwhelmed’

one who had long been without God in the world, his soul would ‘loathe all manner of meat’; it would be unpleasing and irksome to him. He would be impatient of anything that should interrupt his ceaseless cry, ‘Lord, save! or I perish.’

01:599How strongly is this expressed by our Church in the first part of the homily on fasting!

“When men feel in themselves the heavy burden of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, and behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell, they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, and cannot but accuse themselves, and open their grief unto Almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied (taken up), partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathsomeness (or loathing) of all worldly things and pleasure cometh in place; so that nothing then liketh them more than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour of body to show themselves weary of life.

24

Cf. the Elizabethan Homily ‘On Fasting’, Pt. I (Homilies, p. 249); except for his two parenthetical asides, Wesley’s only changes are slight omissions.

”

33. Another reason or ground of fasting is this. Many of those who now fear God are deeply sensible how often they have sinned against him by the abuse of these lawful things. They know how much they have sinned by excess of food; how long they have transgressed the holy law of God with regard to temperance, if not sobriety too; how they have indulged their sensual appetites, perhaps to the impairing even their bodily health, certainly to the no small hurt of their soul. For hereby they continually fed and increased that sprightly folly, that airiness of mind, that levity of temper, that gay inattention to things of the deepest concern, that giddiness and carelessness of spirit, which were no other than drunkenness of soul, which stupefied all their noblest faculties, no less than excess of wine or strong drink. To remove therefore the effect they remove the cause; they keep at a distance from all excess. They abstain, as far as is possible, from what had wellnigh plunged them in everlasting perdition. They often wholly refrain; always take care to be sparing and temperate in all things.

44. They likewise well remember how fullness of bread

increased not only carelessness and levity of spirit but also foolish and unholy desires, yea, unclean and vile affections. And this experience puts beyond all doubt. Even a genteel, regular sensuality is continually sensualizing the soul, and sinking it into a level with the beasts that perish. It cannot be expressed what an effect variety and delicacy of food have on the mind as well as the body; making it just ripe for every pleasure of sense, as soon as 01:600opportunity shall invite. Therefore on this ground also every wise man will refrain his soul, and keep it low; will wean it more and more from all those indulgences of the inferior appetites which naturally tend to chain it down to earth, and to pollute as well as debase it. Here is another perpetual reason for fasting: to remove the food of lust and sensuality, to withdraw the incentives of foolish and hurtful desires, of vile and vain affections.

55. Perhaps we need not altogether omit (although I know not if we should do well to lay any great stress upon it) another reason for fasting which some good men have largely insisted on: namely, the punishing themselves for having abused the good gifts of God, by sometimes wholly refraining from them; thus exercising a kind of holy revenge upon themselves for their past folly and ingratitude, in turning the things which should have been for their health into an occasion of falling. They suppose David to have had an eye to this when he said, ‘I wept and chastened’ or punished ‘my soul with fasting;’

and St. Paul, when he mentions ‘what revenge’ godly sorrow occasioned in the Corinthians.

66. A fifth and more weighty reason for fasting is that it is an help to prayer; particularly when we set apart larger portions of time for private prayer. Then especially it is that God is often pleased to lift up the souls of his servants above all the things of earth, and sometimes to rap them up, as it were, into the third heaven.

And it is chiefly as it is an help to prayer that it has so frequently been found a means in the hand of God of confirming and increasing not one virtue, not chastity only (as some have idly imagined, without any ground either from Scripture, reason, or experience), but also seriousness of spirit, earnestness, sensibility, and tenderness of conscience; deadness to the world, and consequently the love of God and every holy and heavenly affection.

77. Not that there is any natural or necessary connection between fasting and the blessings God conveys thereby. But he will have mercy as he will have mercy:

he will convey whatsoever seemeth him good, by whatsoever means he is pleased to appoint. 01:601And he hath in all ages appointed this to be a means of averting his wrath, and obtaining whatever blessings we from time to time stand in need of.

How powerful a means this is to avert the wrath of God we may learn from the remarkable instance of Ahab. ‘There was none like him, who did sell himself’—wholly give himself up, like a slave bought with money—‘to work wickedness.’ Yet when he ‘rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, […] and went softly, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days.’

It was for this end, to avert the wrath of God, that Daniel sought God ‘with fasting and sackcloth and ashes’. This appears from the whole tenor of his prayer, particularly from the solemn conclusion of it: ‘O Lord, according to all thy righteousnesses (or mercies), […] let thy anger be turned away from thy holy mountain…. Hear the prayer of thy servant, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate…. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do, […] for thine own sake.’

88. But it is not only from the people of God that we learn when his anger is moved to seek him by fasting and prayer; but even from the heathens. When Jonah had declared, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed, the people of Nineveh proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them unto the least. For the King of Nineveh arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed, nor drink water.’ (Not that the beasts had sinned, or could repent; but that by their example man might be admonished, considering that for his sin the anger of God was hanging over all creatures.) ‘Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?’ And their labour was not in vain. The fierce anger of God was turned away from them. ‘God saw their works’ (the fruits of that repentance and faith which he had wrought in them by his prophet), ‘and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them; and he did it not.’

901:6029. And it is a means not only of turning away the wrath of God, but also of obtaining whatever blessings we stand in need of. So when the other tribes were smitten before the Benjamites, ‘all the children of Israel went up unto the house of the Lord, and wept, and fasted that day until even.’ And then the Lord said, ‘Go up again; for tomorrow I will deliver them into thine hand.’

So Samuel ‘gathered all Israel together’ when they were in bondage to the Philistines, ‘and they fasted on that day before the Lord’. And when ‘the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, the Lord thundered upon them with a great thunder, and discomfited them, and they were smitten before Israel.’

1 Sam. 7:5, 6, 10.

So Ezra: ‘I proclaimed a fast at the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones; …and he was entreated of us.’

Ezra 8:21, 23.

So Nehemiah: ‘I […] fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and said, […] Prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.’

[Neh.] 1:4, 11.

And God granted him mercy in the sight of the king.

1010. In like manner the apostles always

joined fasting with prayer when they desired the blessing of God on any important undertaking. Thus we read (Acts thirteen): ‘There were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers…. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted’ (doubtless for direction in this very affair) ‘the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had’ (a second time) ‘fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.’

[Acts 13:] ver. 1-3.

Thus also Paul and Barnabas themselves, as we read in the following chapter, when they ‘returned again to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples; […] and when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, commended them to the Lord.’

Yea, that blessings are to be obtained in the use of his means 01:603which are no otherwise attainable our Lord expressly declares in his answer to his disciples, asking, ‘Why could not we cast him out? Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit, this kind’ (of devils) ‘goeth not out but by prayer and fasting’

—these being the appointed means of attaining that faith whereby the very devils are subject unto you.

1111. These were the appointed means; for it was not merely by the light of reason, or of natural conscience (as it is called), that the people of God have been in all ages directed to use fasting as a means to these ends. But they have been from time to time taught it of God himself, by clear and open revelations of his will. Such is that remarkable one by the prophet Joel: ‘Therefore thus saith the Lord, Turn you unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning…. Who knoweth if the Lord will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him? […] Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly…. Then will the Lord be jealous over his land, and will spare his people. Yea, […] I will send you corn and wine and oil…. I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen.’

Nor are they only temporal blessings which God directs his people to expect in the use of these means. For at the same time that he promised to those who should seek him with fasting, and weeping, and mourning, ‘I will render you the [y]ears which the grasshopper hath eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army,’ he subjoins: ‘So shall ye eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God…. Ye shall also know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God.’

And then immediately follows the great gospel promise: ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. And also 604upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.’

1212. Now whatsoever reasons there were to quicken those of old in the zealous and constant discharge of this duty, they are of equal force still to quicken us. But above all these we have a peculiar reason for being ‘in fastings often’,

namely the command of him by whose name we are called. He does not indeed in this place expressly enjoin either fasting, giving of alms, or prayer. But his directions how to fast, to give alms, and to pray, are of the same force with such injunctions. For the commanding us to do anything thus is an unquestionable command to do that thing; seeing it is impossible to perform it thus if it be not performed at all. Consequently the saying, Give alms, pray, fast in such a manner, is a clear command to perform all those duties; as well as to perform them in that manner which shall in no wise lose its reward.

And this is a still farther motive and encouragement to the performance of this duty; even the promise which our Lord has graciously annexed to the due discharge of it: ‘Thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.’

Such are the plain grounds, reasons, and ends of fasting; such our encouragement to persevere therein, notwithstanding abundance of objections which men, wiser than their Lord, have been continually raising against it.

1

1III. 1. The most plausible of these I come now to consider. And, first, it has been frequently said, ‘Let a Christian fast from sin, and not from food: this is what God requires at his hands.’

37

Probably an echo of the Moravian rejection of fasting; cf. JWJ, Dec. 31, 1739. For more on the Anglican tradition on this point, cf. Robert Nelson, Festivals and Fasts, pp. 362-67.

So he does; but he requires the other also. Therefore this ought to be done, and that not left undone.

38

See Matt. 23:23, and III.2, below.

View your argument in its full dimensions, and you will easily judge of the strength of it:

If a Christian ought to abstain from sin, then he ought not to abstain from food;

01:605But a Christian ought to abstain from sin;

Therefore he ought not to abstain from food.

That a Christian ought to abstain from sin is most true. But how does it follow from hence that he ought not to abstain from food? Yea, let him do both the one and the other. Let him, by the grace of God, always abstain from sin; and let him often abstain from food, for such reasons and ends as experience and Scripture plainly show to be answered thereby.

22. ‘But is it not better’ (as it has, secondly, been objected) ‘to abstain from pride and vanity, from foolish and hurtful desires,

39

1 Tim. 6:9.

from peevishness, and anger, and discontent, than from food?’ Without question it is. But here again we have need to remind you of our Lord’s words, ‘These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.’

40

Matt. 23:23; Luke 11:42.

And indeed the latter is only in order to the former; it is a means to that great end. We abstain from food with this view, that by the grace of God, conveyed into our souls through this outward means, in conjunction with all the other channels of his grace which he hath appointed, we may be enabled to abstain from every passion and temper which is not pleasing in his sight. We refrain from the one that, being endued with power from on high,

41

See Luke 24:49.

we may be able to refrain from the other. So that your argument proves just the contrary to what you designed. It proves that we ought to fast. For if we ought to abstain from evil tempers and desires, then we ought thus to abstain from food; since these little instances of self-denial are the ways God hath

42

Orig., 1748, ‘has’.

chose wherein to bestow that great salvation.

33. ‘But we do not find it so in fact.’ (This is a third objection.) ‘We have fasted much and often. But what did it avail? We were not a whit better: we found no blessing therein. Nay, we have found it an hindrance rather than an help. Instead of preventing anger, for instance, or fretfulness, it has been a means of increasing them to such a height that we could neither bear others nor ourselves.’ This may very possibly be the case. ’Tis possible either to fast or pray in such a manner as to make you much worse than before; more unhappy, and more unholy. Yet the fault does not lie in the means itself, but in the manner of using it. Use it still, but use it in a different manner. Do what God commands as he 01:606commands it, and then doubtless his promise shall not fail; his blessing shall be withheld no longer; but ‘when thou fastest in secret, he that seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.’

44. ‘But is it not mere superstition’ (so it has been, fourthly, objected) ‘to imagine that God regards such little things as these?’ If you say it is, you condemn all the generation of God’s children. But will you say, These were all weak superstitious men? Can you be so hardy as to affirm this both of Moses and Joshua, of Samuel and David, of Jehoshaphat, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all the prophets? Yea, of a greater than all—the Son of God himself? It is certain both our Master and all these his servants did imagine that fasting is not a little thing, and that he who is higher than the highest doth regard it.

43

See Eccles. 5:8.

Of the same judgment, it is plain, were all his apostles, after they were ‘filled with the Holy Ghost and with wisdom’.

44

Cf. Acts 6:3.

When they had ‘the unction of the Holy One’,

45

Cf. 1 John 2:20.

‘teaching’ them ‘all things’,

46

Cf. John 14:26.

they still ‘approved themselves the ministers of God, by fastings’, as well as ‘by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left’.

47

Cf. 2 Cor. 6:4-5, 7.

After ‘the bridegroom was taken from them, then did they fast in those days’.

48

Cf. Mark 2:20.

Nor would they attempt anything (as we have seen above) wherein the glory of God was nearly concerned, such as the sending forth labourers into the harvest, without solemn fasting as well as prayer.

55. ‘But if fasting be indeed of so great importance, and attended with such a blessing, is it not best’, say some, fifthly, ‘to fast always? Not to do it now and then, but to keep a continual fast? To use as much abstinence at all times as our bodily strength will bear?’ Let none be discouraged from doing this. By all means use as little and plain food, exercise as much self-denial herein at all times, as your bodily strength will bear. And this may conduce, by the blessing of God, to several of the great ends above-mentioned. It may be a considerable help not only to chastity, but also to heavenly-mindedness; to the weaning your affections from things below, and setting them on things above.

49

See Col. 3:2.

But this is not fasting, scriptural fasting; it is never termed so in all the Bible. It in some measure answers some of the ends thereof, but still it is another thing. Practise it by all means; but not so as 01:607thereby to set aside a command of God, and an instituted means of averting his judgments, and obtaining the blessings of his children.

66. Use continually then as much abstinence as you please; which taken thus is no other than Christian temperance. But this need not at all interfere with your observing solemn times of fasting and prayer. For instance: your habitual abstinence or temperance would not prevent your fasting in secret if you was suddenly overwhelmed with huge sorrow and remorse, and with horrible fear and dismay. Such a situation of mind would almost constrain you to fast; you would loathe your dainty food; you would scarce endure even to take such supplies as were needful for the body, till God lifted you up ‘out of the horrible pit, and set your feet upon a rock, and ordered your goings’.

50

Cf. Ps. 40:2 (BCP).

The same would be the case if you was in agony of desire, vehemently wrestling with God for his blessing.

51

See Gen. 32:24-32.

You would need none to instruct you not to eat bread till you had obtained the request of your lips.

77. Again, had you been at Nineveh when it was proclaimed throughout the city, ‘Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them cry mightily unto God:’

52

Jonah 3:7-8.

would your continual fast have been any reason for not bearing part in that general humiliation? Doubtless it would not. You would have been as much concerned as any other not to taste food on that day.

No more would abstinence, or the observing a continual fast, have excused any of the children of Israel from fasting on the tenth day of the seventh month, the great annual day of atonement. There was no exception for these in that solemn decree, ‘Whatsoever soul it shall be that shall not be afflicted’ (shall not fast) ‘in that day, he shall be cut off from among his people.’

53

Cf. Lev. 23:29.

Lastly, had you been with the brethren in Antioch at the time when they fasted and prayed before the sending forth of Barnabas and Saul, can you possibly imagine that your temperance or abstinence would have been a sufficient cause for not joining 01:608therein? Without doubt, if you had not, you would soon have been cut off from the Christian community. You would have deservedly been cast out from among them ‘as bringing confusion into the church of God’.

54

Cf. Canon II of the Dedication Council of Antioch (‘in Encaeniis’), A.D. 341 Cf. No. 101, ‘The Duty of Constant Communion’, I.4 and n.

4

1IV. 1. I am, in the last place, to show in what manner we are to fast, that it may be an acceptable service unto the Lord. And, first, let it be done unto the Lord, with our eye singly fixed on him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven; to express our sorrow and shame for our manifold transgressions of his holy law; to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above; to add seriousness and earnestness to our prayers; to avert the wrath of God, and to obtain all the great and precious promises which he hath made to us in Christ Jesus.

Let us beware of mocking God, of turning our fast as well as our prayer into an abomination unto the Lord, by the mixture of any temporal view, particularly by seeking the praise of men. Against this our blessed Lord more peculiarly guards us in the words of the text: ‘Moreover, when ye fast, be ye not as the hypocrites’ (such were too many who were called the people of God), ‘of a sad countenance’; sour, affectedly sad, putting their looks into a peculiar form; ‘for they disfigure their faces’, not only by unnatural distortions, but also by covering them with dust and ashes, ‘that they may appear unto men to fast’. This is their chief, if not only design. ‘Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward’—even the admiration and praise of men. ‘But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face’—do as thou art accustomed to do at other times—‘that thou appear not unto men to fast’ (let this be no part of thy intention: if they know it without any desire of thine it matters not; thou art neither the better nor the worse), ‘but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.’

55

Matt. 6:16-18.

22. But if we desire this reward, let us beware, secondly, of fancying we merit anything of God by our fasting. We cannot be too often warned of this; inasmuch as a desire to ‘establish our own righteousness’,

56

Cf. Rom. 10:3.

to procure salvation of debt, and not of grace, 609is so deeply rooted in all our hearts. Fasting is only a way which God hath ordained wherein we wait for his unmerited mercy; and wherein, without any desert of ours, he hath promised freely to give us his blessing.

33. Not that we are to imagine the performing the bare outward act will receive any blessing from God. ‘Is it such a fast that I have chosen?’ saith the Lord. ‘A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?’ Are these outward acts, however strictly performed, all that is meant by a man’s ‘afflicting his soul’? ‘Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?’

57

Isa. 58:5.

No, surely. If it be a mere external service, it is all but lost labour. Such a performance may possibly afflict the body. But as to the soul, it profiteth nothing.

44. Yea, the body may sometimes be afflicted too much, so as to be unfit for the works of our calling. This also we are diligently to guard against; for we ought to preserve our health, as a good gift of God. Therefore care is to be taken, whenever we fast, to proportion the fast to our strength. For we may not offer God murder for sacrifice, or destroy our bodies to help our souls.

But at these solemn seasons we may, even in great weakness of body, avoid that other extreme for which God condemns those who of old expostulated with him for not accepting their fast. ‘Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?’ ‘Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,’ saith the Lord.

58

Isa. 58:3.

If we cannot wholly abstain, we may at least abstain from pleasant food; and then we shall not seek his face in vain.

5. But let us take care to afflict our souls as well as our bodies.

59

See Lev. 23:27-32; Isa. 58:5.

Let every season, either of public or private fasting, be a season of exercising all those holy affections which are implied in a broken and contrite heart.

60

See Ps. 51:17.

Let it be a season of devout mourning, of godly sorrow for sin: such a sorrow as that of the Corinthians, concerning which the Apostle saith, ‘I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.’

61

2 Cor. 7:9.

‘For godly sorrow’ (ἡ [γὰρ] κατὰ θεὸν λύπη), 01:610the sorrow which is according to God, which is a precious gift of his Spirit, lifting the soul to God from whom it flows, ‘worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of’.

62

2 Cor. 7:10.

Yea, and let our sorrowing after a godly sort work in us the same inward and outward repentance; the same entire change of heart, renewed after the image of God,

63

See Col. 3:10.

in righteousness and true holiness;

64

Eph. 4:24.

and the same change of life, till we are holy as he is holy in all manner of conversation.

65

See 1 Pet. 1:15.

Let it work in us the same carefulness to be found in him without spot and blameless;

66

See 2 Pet. 3:14.

the same ‘clearing of ourselves’

67

Cf. 2 Cor. 7:11.

by our lives rather than words, by our abstaining from all appearance of evil;

68

See 1 Thess. 5:22.

the same indignation, vehement abhorrence of every sin; the same fear of our own deceitful hearts; the same desire to be in all things conformed to the holy and acceptable will of God;

69

See Rom. 12:1.

the same zeal for whatever may be a means of his glory, and of our growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the same revenge against Satan and all his works, against all filthiness both of flesh and spirit.

2 Cor. 7:9-11.

66. And with fasting let us always join fervent prayer, pouring out our whole souls before God, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, humbling ourselves under his mighty hand,

70

See 1 Pet. 5:6.

laying open before him all our wants, all our guiltiness and helplessness. This is a season for enlarging our prayers, both in behalf of ourselves and of our brethren. Let us now bewail the sins of our people, and cry aloud for the city of our God: that the Lord may build up Zion, and cause his face to shine on her desolations.

71

See Dan. 9:16-18.

Thus we may observe the men of God in ancient times always joined prayer and fasting together; thus the apostles in all the instances cited above; and thus our Lord joins them in the discourse before us.

77. It remains only, in order to our observing such a fast as is acceptable to the Lord, that we add alms thereto: works of mercy, after our power, both to the bodies and souls of men. ‘With such sacrifices’ also ‘God is well pleased.’

72

Heb. 13:16.

Thus the angel declares to 01:611Cornelius, fasting and praying in his house, ‘Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.’

Acts. 10:4.

And this God himself expressly and largely declares: ‘Is not this the fast that I have chosen: …to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thy own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

73

Orig., ‘rearward’, i.e., ‘rearguard’; the errata sheet in Wesley’s Works, (1771), as in his own annotated copy, II.276 (correcting the mis-spelling ‘rare-ward’) calls for ‘rereward’, which is also the spelling in 1787, and in AV; see also OED, where ‘rereward’ is listed as a variant of ‘rearward’.

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am…. If (when thou fastest) thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make thy bones fat: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring…whose waters fail not.’

Isa. 58:6-11.