in danger and disposition to it." 11. Especially let any one recollect how much, which is humiliating in his youth, (even if God saved him from open sin,) might have been prevented by the habit of fasting, if he had then practised it; let him bear this in mind, when he fasts, and make his fast an act of humiliation for his own particular sins, as well as a discipline, so can he never be proud of his fasting.
I will only add, that fasting has by no means so many difficulties as Satan would persuade men, for fear they should try it. Even among the poorer, some act of self-denial as to the pleasures of sense might easily be practised, (1 Cor. vii. 5, might be hinted at;) and to instance one case only:—A poor woman mentioned, with much respect, her father's practice never to taste food before receiving the Lord's Supper; (adhering unconsciously to the practice of the universal Church in its better days, and indeed of our own in Bishop Taylor's time;) she added, "I never heard that his bodily health suffered from it." With regard to the rich, (who are obviously called upon to fast in greater degrees,) I have the authority of an eminent physician, whom I well know not to be wedded to any particular theory of medicine, that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the degree of fasting recommended in my tract would not only not be injurious, but be beneficial. He added, "Fasting is like the Sabbath—healthy to the body as well as to the soul."
VII. Is there any difference between abstinence and fasting? Not, I imagine, in our Church, although she retained the terms which were used to denote different degrees of abstinence in the Romish; and this I infer from her nowhere saying which are days of fasting, and which of abstinence, whereas the Romish Church does distinguish them; further, as Wheatley remarks, they are called in the second title (where they are enumerated), "days of fasting or abstinence." As in other cases, our Church seems to have used both terms, in order to show that she therein comprehended, without distinction, all to which these several names had been given.
VIII. Vigils. There appears to have been no difference between the regulations of these and other fasting-days. Whether
