Constant Temperance Better than Occasional Fasting
Matthew 17:21
However, this kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting.


And whosoever struggles with any unruly corruption, will perhaps find, that the constant turn of a well-guided abstinence will, in the issue, give a surer despatch to it, than those extraordinary instances of total abstinence and higher severities, only undertaken for a time. As a land flood, it carries a bigger stream and comes with a mightier force and noise, yet presently dries up and disappears; but the emissions of a fountain, though gentle and silent, yet are constant and perpetual; and whereas the other, being gone, leaves nothing behind it but slime and mud, this, wheresoever it flows, gently soaks into verdure and fertility. This constant temperance, therefore, is by all means intended by the rules of Christianity; the constancy of which, running through our whole lives, makes abstinence our diet, and fasting our meat and drink.

(R. South, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

WEB: But this kind doesn't go out except by prayer and fasting."




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