It is a mere mocking of God, and God looks upon it so, especially for people to pretend from time to time to keep a fast, and humble themselves before God, and yet to continue in their sins, contending all the year what they do on fast days. It would be accounted nothing but mockery by a master, if a servant pretended to humble himself before him and to keep a solemn day, a public day of fasting, and then openly to show that we don't care how much we have provoked God, is a kind of solemn mocking of God, [an] open mockery in sight of the world. The more set and solemn the mockery, and so much the greater ado we make about it, so much the more provoking. It is a dishonor to religion in general when persons make such an abuse of it. It would be provoking to any one of us, if a man should come to us to pretend a great deal of friendship with a flattering tongue, and we knew there was nothing of it in his heart. We should nauseate his pretenses, especially if at the same time he openly showed himself our enemy in his practice.