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Chapter V.

"HE THAT WASHETH HIMSELF AFTER THE TOUCHING OF A DEAD BODY, IF HE TOUCH IT AGAIN, WHAT AVAILETH HIS WASHING? SO IS IT WITH A MAN THAT FASTETH FOR HIS SINS, AND GOETH FORTH, AND DOETH THE SAME: WHO WILL HEAR HIS PRAYER? OR WHAT DOTH HIS HUMBLING PROFIT HIM?"

"WATCH AND PRAY THAT YE ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION."

O GRACIOUS Saviour, Who didst continue fasting and praying forty days and forty nights together in the wilderness, and after divers temptations, didst overcome Satan ;

Grant that I may chastise my flesh, and exercise myself in watching, fasting, prayer, and other spiritual exercises, and subdue all evil affections which rebel against the spirit.

O Blessed Redeemer, Who, for my sake, didst subject Thyself to many sorrows and necessities, to heat, cold, hunger, thirst, weariness, sweat, journeys, persecutions, and tribulations;

Strengthen me with the aid of Thy Holy Spirit, that I may willingly bear all adversities as coming from Thy Hand. AMEN. Bp. Andrewes.

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There are indeed persons who excuse themselves from bodily austerities by asserting that they are Jewish, or Popish, and altogether tending to rivet upon us again the chains of a bondage from which Christ hath set us free.

But I say at once that for such persons I am not writing; for first, the arguments which they use, if carried out consistently, would tend to the neglect of all religious observances : and, secondly, I never heard the duty of mortification of the flesh denied except by persons who were notoriously and grossly self-indulgent, and who in self-defence were obliged to maintain such an opinion.

When men's hearts have waxed fat, and their ears are heavy, and their eyes are closed in easy slumber, they will not see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts. The moral sense becomes obscured or perverted; the understanding is darkened. Expostulation is thrown away.

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