To be near unto God - pagina 295

fasting of the right sort, and declares that it has are only safe reward of grace with God. therefore, when on one hand we oppose dead formalism in fasting, and on the other hand bring into practice the true fasting, which hsis been appointed of God. And as we look back upon the past, and look around us in the churches, we must observe that dead, formal fasting has assiduously

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been abandoned, and that real, religious, and DiA'inely appointed fasting also has almost utterly died out. want eternal This leads to spiritual loss. "This is eternal life, that they might know life. thee, the only true God." Nothing advances one in this knowledge of the only true God like And prayer becomes more fervent and prayer. tender by fasting. Can we escape therefore the fatal conclusion that by the disuse of fasting our prayers become less fervent, and that we consequently suffer loss in this ever ripening knowledge of God, which is eternal life? If this applies to ourselves and to our families, does it not equally apply to our churches? And when every time again we observe in our churches, that there are evil spirits at large, which can not be driven out except by fasting and prayer, is it too much to say, that the disuse of fasting is one cause, among others, that these spirits continue to harrass the life of the church? Should fasting, as a rule, on a given day of the week be introduced again? By itself there would be nothing against this. But it is to be feared that before long it would end in formalism again. Isaiah 58 and I Cor. 7:5 show that fasting, in the spiritual sense, has a much broader basis than a

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