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pleasant being rejected as being less useful, less apt to nourish, or more agreeing with an infirm stomach, or when the day is festival by order, or by private joy. In all these cases it is permitted to receive a more free delight, and to design it too, as the less principal: that is, that the chief reason why we choose the more delicious, be the serving that end, for which such refreshments and choices are permitted. But when delight is the only end, and rests itself, and dwells there long, then eating and drinking is not a serving of God, but an inordinate action; because it is not in the way to that end, whither God directed it. But the choosing of a delicate before a more ordinary dish is to be done, as other human actions are, in which there are no degrees and precise natural limits described, but a latitude is indulged; it must be done moderately, prudently, and according to the accounts of wise, religious, and sober men: and then God, who gave us such variety of creatures and our choice to use which we will, may receive glory from our temperate use, and thanksgiving; and we may use them indifferently without scruple, and a making them to become snares to us, either by too licentious and studied use of them, or restrained and scrupulous fear of using them at all, but in such certain circumstances, in which no man can be sure he is not mistaken.

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 stuck 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 it 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 ever so delicate; and be it plain and common, so it be wholesome, and fit for you, it must not be refused upón curiosity: for every degree of that is à degree of intemperance. Happy and innocent were the ages of our forefathers, who ate herbs and parched corn, and drank the pure stream, and broke their fast with nuts and roots; 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.

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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 withersoever it looketh, and thrust it not with him into the dish. little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth not his wind short upon his bed."

Signs and Effects of Temperance.

A very

We shall best know, that we have the grace of temper.

ance 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 Stratonicas 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 others as immoderate drinking, and the outward 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.

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 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 make him drunk, and if he know before hand 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 reasons 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."

Evil consequents to Drunkenness.

The evils and sad consequents of drunkenness (the consideration of which are as so many arguments to avoid the sin) are to this sense reckoned by the writers of holy Scripture, and other wise personages of the world. 1. It causeth woes and mischief,† wounds and sorrow, sin and shame; it 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 im*Luke xxi. 34, + Prov. xxiii. 29.

potent as age. And Solomon, in enumerating the evils of this vice, adds this to the account,* "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 reigns of all those evils, to which a man is by his nature or is by 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 extinguishes 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, 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. Ammon was slain by his brother, Absolom, 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 instances, and righteous persons, and + Ephes. v. 18.

* Prov. xxiii. 33.

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Prov. xxxi. 4.

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