Christian Prayer and Fasting

14. All fasting is to be used with prudence and charity; for there is no end to which fasting serves but may be obtained by other instruments; and, therefore, it must at no hand be made an instrument of scruple; or become an enemy to our health; or be imposed upon persons that are sick or aged, or to whom it is, in any sense, uncharitable, such as are wearied travellers; or to whom, in the whole kind of it, it is useless such as are women with child, poor people, and little children. But in these cases the church hath made provision and inserted caution into her laws; and they are to be reduced to practice according to custom, and the sentence of prudent persons, with great latitude, and without niceness and curiosity, having this in our first care, that we secure our virtue; and, next, that we secure our health, that we may the better exercise the labours of virtue, lest, out of too much austerity, we bring ourselves to that condition that it be necessary to be indulgent to softness, ease, and extreme tenderness.

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