and when they were permitted flesh, ate it only dressed with hunger and fire; and the first sauce they had was bitter herbs, and sometimes bread dipped in vinegar. But, in this circumstance, moderation is to be reckoned in proportion to the present customs, to the company, to education, and the judgment of honest and wise persons, and the necessities of nature. cise natural limits described, but a latitude is in- | stream, and broke their fast with nuts and roots;2 But temperance in meat and drink is to be estimated by the following measures. Measures of Temperance in eating. 1. Eat not before the time, unless necessity, or charity, or any intervening accident, which may make it reasonable and prudent, should happen. Remember it had almost cost Jonathan his life, because he tasted a little honey before the sun went down, contrary to the king's commandment; and although a great need, which he had, excused him from the sin of gluttony, yet it is inexcusable, when thou eatest before the usual time, and thrustest thy hand into the dish unseasonably, out of greediness of the pleasure, and impatience of the delay. 2. Eat not hastily and impatiently, but with such decent and timely action, that your eating be a human act, subject to deliberation and choice, and that you may consider in the eating: whereas he that eats hastily, cannot consider particularly of the circumstances, degrees, and little accidents and chances, that happen in his meal; but may contract many little indecencies, and be suddenly surprised. 3. Eat not delicately, or nicely; that is, be not troublesome to thyself or others in the choice of thy meats, or the delicacy of thy sauces. It was imputed as a sin to the sons of Israel, that they loathed manna and longed for flesh; "the quails stunk in their nostrils, and the wrath of God fell upon them." And for the manner of dressing, the sons of Eli were noted of indiscreet curiosity: they would not have the flesh boiled, but raw, that they might roast it with fire. Not that it was a sin to eat it, or desire meat roasted; but that when it was appointed to be boiled, they refused it: which declared an intemperate and a nice palate. It is lawful in all senses to comply with a weak and a nice stomach; but not with a nice and curious palate. When our health requires it, that ought to be provided for: but not so our sensuality and intemperate longings. Whatsoever is set before you, eat; if it be provided for you, you may eat it, be it never so delicate; and be it plain and common, so it be wholesome, and fit for you, it must not be refused upon curiosity: for every degree of that is a degree of intemperance. Happy and innocent were the ages of our forefathers, who ate herbs and parched corn, and drank the pure z Felix initium, prior ætas contenta dulcibus arvis ; Facilèque serà solebat jejunia solvere glande. BOETH. 1. 1. de Consol. Arbuteos fœtus, montanaque fraga legebant.-Ov. M. 1. 104. 4. Eat not too much load neither thy stomach nor thy understanding. "If thou sit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and say not there is much meat on it. Remember that a wicked eye is an evil thing: and what is created more wicked than an eye? Therefore, it weepeth upon every occasion. Stretch not thy hand whithersoever it looketh, and thrust it not with him into the dish. A very little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth not his wind short upon his bed." Signs and Effects of Temperance. We shall best know, that we have the grace of temperance by the following signs, which are as so many arguments to engage us also upon its study and practice. 1. A temperate man is modest; greediness is unmannerly and rude. And this is intimated in the advice of the son of Sirach, "When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thy hand out first of all. Leave off first for manners' sake, and be not insatiable, lest thou offend." 2. Temperance is accompanied with gravity of deportment; greediness is garish, and rejoices loosely at the sight of dainties. 3. Sound, but moderate, sleep, is its sign and its effect. Sound sleep cometh of moderate eating; he riseth early, and his wits are with him. 4. A spiritual joy and a devout prayer. 5. A suppressed and seldom anger. 6. A command of our thoughts and passions. 7. A seldom-returning and a never-prevailing temptation. 8. To which add, that a temperate person is not curious of fancies and deliciousness. He thinks not much, and speaks not often, of meat and drink; hath a healthful body and long life, unless it be hindered by some other accident: whereas to gluttony, the pain of watching and choler, the pangs of the belly, are continual company. And therefore Stratonicus said handsomely concerning the luxury of the Rhodians, "They built houses, as if they were immortal; but they feasted, as if they meant to live but a little while." And Antipater, by his reproach of the old glutton Demades, well expressed the baseness of this sin, saying, that Demades, now old, and always a glutton, was like a spent sacrifice, nothing left of him but his belly and his tongue, all the man besides is gone. Of Drunkenness. But I desire that it be observed, that because intemperance in eating is not so soon perceived by a Cicero vocat Temperantiam ornatum vitæ, in quo decorum illud et honestum situm est. b Plutarch. de cupid. divit. others as immoderate drinking, and the outward | mischief,' wounds and sorrow, sin and shame; it visible effects of it are not either so notorious or so ridiculous, therefore gluttony is not of so great disreputation amongst men as drunkenness; yet, according to its degree, it puts on the greatness of the sin before God, and is most strictly to be attended to, lest we be surprised by our security and want of diligence, and the intemperance is alike criminal in both, according as the affections are either to the meat or drink. Gluttony is more uncharitable to the body, and drunkenness to the soul, or the understanding part of man; and therefore in Scripture is more frequently forbidden and declaimed against than the other and sobriety hath by use obtained to signify temperance in drinking. с Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderate, that is besides or beyond that order of good things, for which God hath given us the use of drink. The ends are, digestion of our meat, cheerfulness and refreshment of our spirits, or any end of health; besides which if we go, or at any time beyond it, it is inordinate and criminal, it is the vice of drunkenness. It is forbidden by our blessed Saviour in these words, "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness" surfeiting, that is, the evil effects, the sottishness and remaining stupidity of habitual, or of the last night's drunkenness. For Christ forbids both the actual and the habitual intemperance; not only the effect of it, but also the affection to it: for in both there is sin. He that drinks but little, if that little makes him drunk, and if he know beforehand his own infirmity, is guilty of surfeiting, not of drunkenness. But he that drinks much, and is strong to bear it, and is not deprived of his reason violently, is guilty of the sin of drunkenness. It is a sin, not to prevent such uncharitable effects upon the body and understanding: and therefore a man that loves not the drink, is guilty of surfeiting, if he does not watch to prevent the evil effect: and it is a sin, and the greater of the two, inordinately to love or to use the drink, though the surfeiting or violence do not follow. Good therefore is the counsel of the son of Sirach," Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many." maketh bitterness of spirit, brawling and quarrelling; it increaseth rage and lesseneth strength; it maketh red eyes, and a loose and babbling tongue. 2. It particularly ministers to lust, and yet disables the body; so that in effect it makes man wanton as a satyr, and impotent as age. And Solomon in enumerating the evils of this vice, adds this to the account,h "thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things:" as if the drunkard were only desire, and then impatience, muttering and enjoying like an eunuch embracing a woman. 3. It besots and hinders the actions of the understanding, making a man brutish in his passions, and a fool in his reason; and differs nothing from madness, but that it is voluntary, and so is an equal evil in nature, and a worse in manners. 4. It takes off all the guards, and lets loose the reins of all those evils, to which a man is by his nature or by his evil customs inclined, and from which he is restrained by reason and severe principles. Drunkenness calls off the watchmen from their towers; and then all the evils, that can proceed from a loose heart, and an untied tongue, and a dissolute spirit, and an unguarded, unlimited will, all that we may put upon the accounts of drunkenness. 5. It extinguisheth and quenches the Spirit of God, for no man can be filled with the Spirit of God and with wine at the same time. And therefore St. Paul makes them exclusive of each other.* "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." And since Joseph's cup was put into Benjamin's sack, no man had a divining goblet. 6. It opens all the sanctuaries of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the soul, all its weaknesses and follies; it multiplies sins and discovers them; it makes a man incapable of being a private friend, or a public counsellor. 7. It taketh a man's soul into slavery and imprisonment more than any vice whatsoever,m because it disarms a man of all his reason and his wisdom, whereby he might be cured, and therefore commonly it grows upon him with age; a drunkard being still more a fool and less a man. I need not add any sad examples, since all story and all ages have too many of them. Amnon was slain by his brother Absalom, when he was warm and high with wine. Simon the high priest and two of his sons were slain by their brother at a drunken feast. Holofernes was drunk when Judith slew him and all the great things that Daniel spake of Alexander," were drowned with a surfeit of one night's intemperance: and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot are upon record to eternal ages, that in those early in stances, and righteous persons, and less criminal | enough to break off: for every reason to doubt, is a drunkenness, than is that of christians in this period sufficient reason to part the company. of the world, God might show, that very great evils are prepared to punish this vice; no less than shame, and slavery, and incest; the first upon Noah, the second upon one of his sons, and the third in the person of Lot. Signs of Drunkenness. But if it be inquired concerning the periods and distinct significations of this crime; and when a man is said to be drank; to this I answer, that drunkenness is in the same manner to be judged as sickness. As every illness or violence done to health, in every part of its continuance, is a part or degree of sickness: so is every going off from our natural and common temper, and our usual severity of behaviour, a degree of drunkenness. He is not only drunk, that can drink no more; for few are so: but he hath sinned in a degree of drunkenness, who hath done any thing towards it beyond his proper. measure. But its parts and periods are usually thus reckoned. 1. Apish gestures. 2. Much talking. 3. Immoderate laughing. 4. Dulness of sense. 5. Scurrility, that is, wanton, or jeering, or abusive language. 6. An useless understanding. 7. Stupid sleep. 8. Epilepsies, or fallings and reelings, and beastly vomitings. The least of these, even when the tongue begins to be untied, is a degree of drunkenness. But that we may avoid the sin of intemperance in meats and drinks, besides the former rules of measures, these counsels also may be useful. Rules for obtaining Temperance. 1. Be not often present at feasts, nor at all in dissolute company, when it may be avoided; for variety of pleasing objects steals away the heart of man: and company is either violent or enticing; and we are weak or complying, or perhaps desirous enough to be abused. But if you be unavoidably or indiscreetly engaged, let not mistaken civility or good nature engage thee either to the temptation of staying, (if thou understandest thy weakness,) or the sin of drinking inordinately. 2. Be severe in your judgment concerning your proportions, and let no occasion make you enlarge far beyond your ordinary. For a man is surprised by parts; and while he thinks one glass more will not make him drunk, that one glass hath disabled him from well discerning his present condition and neighbour danger. "While men think themselves wise, they become fools:" they think they shall taste the aconite and not die, or crown their heads with juice of poppy and not be drowsy; and if they drink off the whole vintage, still they think, they can swallow another goblet. But remember this, whenever you begin to consider, whether you may safely take one draught more, it is then high time to give over. Let that be accounted a sign late Chi ha bevuto tutto il mare, può bere anche un trano.-SENEC. ep. 83. 3. Come not to table, but when thy need invites thee: and if thou beest in health, leave something of thy appetite unfilled, something of thy natural heat unemployed, that it may secure thy digestion, and serve other needs of nature or the spirit. 4. Propound to thyself (if thou beest in a capacity) a constant rule of living, of eating and drinking which though it may not be fit to observe scrupulously, lest it become a snare to thy conscience, or endanger thy health upon every accidental violence; yet let not thy rule be broken often nor much, but upon great necessity and in small degrees. 5. Never urge any man to eat or drink beyond his own limits and his own desires. He that does otherwise, is drunk with his brother's surfeit,” and reels and falls with his intemperance; that is, the sin of drunkenness is upon both their scores; they both lie wallowing in the guilt. 6. Use St. Paul's instruments of sobriety; "Let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation." Faith, hope, and charity, are the best weapons in the world to fight against intemperance. The faith of the Mahometans forbids them to drink wine, and they abstain religiously, as the sons of Rechab: and the faith of Christ forbids drunkenness to us; and therefore is infinitely more powerful to suppress this vice, when we remember, that we are christians, and to abstain from drunkenness and gluttony is part of the faith and discipline of Jesus, and that with these vices neither our love to God nor our hopes of heaven can possibly consist; and therefore, when these enter the heart, the others go out at the mouth: for this is the devil, that is cast out by fasting and prayer, which are the proper actions of these graces. 7. As a pursuance of this rule, it is a good advice, that as we begin and end all our times of eating with prayer and thanksgiving; so, at the meal, we remove and carry up our mind and spirit to the celestial table, often thinking of it, and often desiring it; that by enkindling thy desire to heavenly banquets, thou mayest be indifferent and less passionate for the earthly. 8. Mingle discourses, pious, or in some sense profitable, and in all senses charitable and innocent, with thy meal, as occasion is ministered. 9. Let your drink so serve your meat, as your meat doth your health; that it be apt to convey and digest it, and refresh the spirits: but let it never go beyond such a refreshment, as may a little lighten the present load of a sad or troubled spirit; never to inconvenience, lightness, sottishness, vanity, or intemperance; and know that the loosing the bands of the tongue, and the very first dissolution of its duty, is one degree of the intemperance. 10. In all cases be careful, that you be not brought under the power of such things, which otherwise are lawful enough in the use. "All P Nil interest, faveas sceleri, an illud facias.-SENEC. cerning meats and drinks: there being no certain degree of frequency or intention prescribed to all persons; but it is to be ruled as the other actions of a man, by proportion to the end, by the dignity of the person in the honour and severity of being a christian, and by other circumstances, of which I am to give account. things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought | concerning which judgment is to be made, as conunder the power of any;" said St. Paul. And to be perpetually longing, and impatiently desirous of any thing, so that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man's liberty, and to become a servant of meat and drink, or smoke. And I wish this last instance were more considered by persons, who little suspect themselves guilty of intemperance, though their desires are strong and impatient, and the use of it perpetual and unreasonable to all purposes, but that they have made it habitual and necessary, as intemperance itself is made to some men. 11. Use those advices, which are prescribed as instruments to suppress voluptuousness, in the foregoing section. SECTION III. Of Chastity. READER, stay, and read not the advices of the following section, unless thou hast a chaste spirit; or desirest to be chaste; or at least art apt to consider, whether you ought or no. For there are some spirits so atheistical, and some so wholly possessed with a spirit of uncleanness, that they turn the most prudent and chaste discourses into dirty and filthy apprehensions; like choleric stomachs, changing their very cordials and medicines into bitterness; and in a literal sense, turning the grace of God into wantonness. They study cases of conscience in the matter of carnal sins, not to avoid, but to learn ways how to offend God and pollute their own spirits; and search their houses with a sun-beam, that they may be instructed in all the corners of nastiness. I have used all the care I could, in the following periods, that I might neither be wanting to assist those that need it, nor yet minister any occasion of fancy or vainer thoughts to those that need them not. If any man will snatch the pure taper from my hand, and hold it to the devil, he will only burn his own fingers, but shall not rob me of the reward of my care and good intention, since I have taken heed how to express the following duties, and given him caution how to read them. Chastity is that duty, which was mystically intended by God in the law of circumcision. It is the circumcision of the heart, the cutting off all superfluity of naughtiness, and a suppression of all irregular desires in the matter of sensual or carnal pleasure. I call all desires irregular and sinful, that are not sanctified, 1. By the holy institution, or by being within the protection of marriage; 2. By being within the order of nature; 3. By being within the moderation of christian modesty. Against the first, are fornication, adultery, and all voluntary pollutions of either sex. Against the second are all unnatural lusts and incestuous mixtures. Against the third is all immoderate use of permitted beds; q 1 Thess. iv. 3-5. r Virginitas est, in carne corruptibili, incorruptionis perpetua meditatio.-ST. AUG. 1. de Virg. c. 13. Chastity is that grace, which forbids and restrains all these, keeping the body and soul pure in that state, in which it is placed by God, whether of the single or of the married life. Concerning which our duty is thus described by St. Paul, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the gentiles which know not God." q Chastity is either abstinence or continence. Abstinence is that of virgins or widows: continence of married persons. Chaste marriages are honourable and pleasing to God: widowhood is pitiable in its solitariness and loss, but amiable and comely, when it is adorned with gravity and purity, and not sullied with remembrances of the passed license, nor with present desires of returning to a second bed. But virginity is a life of angels, the enamel of the soul, the huge advantage of religion, the great opportunity for the retirements of devotion; and, being empty of cares, it is full of prayers: being unmingled with the world, it is apt to converse with God; and by not feeling the warmth of a too-forward and indulgent nature, flames out with holy fires, till it be burning like the cherubim and the most ecstasied order of holy and unpolluted spirits. Natural virginity, of itself, is not a state more acceptable to God; but that which is chosen and voluntary in order to the conveniences of religion and separation from worldly encumbrances, is therefore better than the married life; not that it is more holy, but that it is a freedom from cares, an opportunity to spend more time in spiritual employments; it is not allayed with businesses and attendances upon lower affairs: and if it be a chosen condition to these ends, it containeth in it a victory over lusts, and greater desires of religion, and self-denial; and therefore is more excellent than the married life, in that degree in which it hath greater religion, and a greater mortification, a less satisfaction of natural desires, and a greater fulness of the spiritual; and just so is to expect that little coronet or special reward, which God hath prepared (extraordinary and besides the great crown of all faithful souls) for those," who have not defiled themselves with women, but follow the virgin Lamb for ever." But some married persons, even in their marriage, do better please God, than some virgins in their state of virginity: they, by giving great example of conjugal affection, by preserving their faith 'Apoc. xiv. 4. unbroken, by educating children in the fear of God, by patience and contentedness and holy thoughts, and the exercise of virtues proper to that state, do not only please God, but do in a higher degree than those virgins, whose piety is not answerable to their great opportunities and advantages. However, married persons, and widows, and virgins, are all servants of God and coheirs in the inheritance of Jesus, if they live within the restraints and laws of their particular estate, chastely, temperately, justly, and religiously. The evil consequents of Uncleanness. The blessings and proper effects of chastity we shall best understand, by reckoning the evils of uncleanness and carnality. 1. Uncleanness of all vices is the most shameful. "The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time; they know not the light for the morning is to them as the shadow of death. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth; he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards." Shame is the eldest daughter of uncleanness." t V 2. The appetites of uncleanness are full of cares and trouble, and its fruition is sorrow and repentance. The way of the adulterer is hedged with thorns; ▾ full of fears and jealousies, burning desires and impatient waitings, tediousness of delay, and sufferance of affronts, and amazements of discovery.w 3. Most of its kinds are of that condition, that they involve the ruin of two souls; and he that is a fornicator or adulterous, steals the soul, as well as dishonours the body, of his neighbour; and so it becomes like the sin of falling Lucifer, who brought a part of the stars with his tail from heaven. 4. Of all carnal sins it is that alone which the devil takes delight to imitate and counterfeit; communicating with witches and impure persons in the corporal act, but in this only. 5. Uncleanness with all its kinds is a vice, which hath a professed enmity against the body. "Every sin which a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body."x 6. Uncleanness is hugely contrary to the spirit of government, by embasing the spirit of a man, making it effeminate, sneaking, soft, and foolish, without courage, without confidence. David felt this after his folly with Bathsheba, he fell to unkingly arts and stratagems to hide the crime; and he did nothing but increase it, and remained timorous and poor-spirited, till he prayed to God once more to establish him with a free and princely spirit. And no superior dare strictly observe discipline upon his charge, if he hath let himself loose to the shame of incontinence. 7. The gospel hath added two arguments against uncleanness, which were never before used, nor indeed could be: since God hath given the Holy Spirit to them that are baptized, and rightly confirmed, and entered into covenant with him, our bodies are made temples of the Holy Ghost, in which he dwells; and therefore uncleanness is sacrilege and defiles a temple. It is St. Paul's argument," Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ?" a and " He that defiles a temple, him will God destroy. Therefore glorify God in your bodies," that is, flee fornication. To which, for the likeness of the argument, add, "that our bodies are members of Christ; and therefore God forbid that we should take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot.". So that uncleanness dishonours Christ, and dishonours the Holy Spirit: it is a sin against God, and in this sense a sin against the Holy Ghost. 8. The next special argument, which the gospel ministers especially against adultery, and for the preservation of the purity of marriage, is that marriage is by Christ hallowed in a mystery, to signify the sacramental and mystical union of Christ and his church. He therefore that breaks this knot, which the church in their mutual faith have tied, and Christ hath knit up into a mystery, dishonours a great rite of christianity, of high, spiritual, and excellent signification. d 9. St. Gregory reckons uncleanness to be the parent of these monsters, blindness of mind, inconsideration, precipitancy or giddiness in actions, selflove, hatred of God, love of the present pleasures, a despite or despair of the joys of religion here, and of heaven hereafter. Whereas a pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation, sober counsels and ingenious actions, open deportment and sweet carriage, sincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and selfdenial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spiritual comfort, and a pleasure of spirit infinitely greater than the sottish and beastly pleasures of unchastity." For to overcome pleasure is the greatest pleasure; and no victory is greater than that, which is gotten over our lusts and filthy inclinations."e 10. Add to all these, the public dishonesty and disreputation, that all the nations of the world have cast upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces. Abimelech, to the men of Gerar, made it death to meddle with the wife of Isaac: and Judah condemned Thamar to be burnt for her adulterous conception: and God, besides the law made to put the adulterous person to death, did constitute a settled and constant miracle to discover the adultery of a suspected woman, that her bowels should burst with drinking the waters of jealousy. The Egyptian law was to cut off the nose of the adulteress, and the offending part of the adulterer.. The Locrians put out the adulterer's both eyes. The Ger |