temperate in all things: Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible 1.'

5. It is by a certain consequence the greatest impediment in the world to martyrdom; that being a fondness, this being a cruelty to the flesh; to which a christian man arriving by degrees must first have crucified the lesser affections: for he that is overcome by little arguments of pain, will hardly consent to lose his life with torments.

Degrees of sobriety.

AGAINST this voluptuousness, sobriety is opposed in three degrees.

1. A despite or disaffection to pleasures, or a resolving against all entertainment of the instances and temptations of sensuality: and it consists in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them, disapproving and disliking them upon good reason and strong resolution.

2. A fight and actual war against all the temptations and offers of sensual pleasure in all evil instances and degrees: and it consists in prayer, in fasting, in cheap diet, and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and avoiding occasions, and using all arts and industry of fortifying the spirit, and making it severe, manly, and christian.

3. Spiritual pleasure is the highest degree of sobriety; and in the same degree in which we relish and are in love with spiritual delights, the hidden manna," with the sweetnesses of devotion, with the joys of thanksgiving, with rejoicings in the Lord, with the comforts of hope, with the deliciousness of charity and almsdeeds, with the sweetness of a good conscience, with the peace of meekness, and the felicities of a contented spirit: in the same degree we disrelish and loath the taste of sinful pleasures.

11 Cor. 9. 25. 2 Apoc. 2. 17.

Rules for suppressing voluptuousness.

THE precepts and advices which are of best and of general use in the curing of sensuality are these:

1. Accustom thyself to cut off all superfluity in the provisions of thy life; for our desires will enlarge beyond the present possession so long as all the things of this world are unsatisfying: if therefore you suffer them to extend beyond the measures of necessity or moderated conveniency, they will still swell: but you reduce them to a little compass, when you make nature to be your limit.

2. Suppress your sensual desires in their first approach, for then they are least, and thy faculties and election are stronger: but if they in their weakness prevail upon thy strengths, there will be no resisting them when they are increased, and thy abilities lessened. You shall scarce obtain of them to end, if you suffer them to begin.

3. Divert them with some laudable employment, and take off their edge by inadvertency, or a not attending to them. For since the faculties of a man cannot at the same time with any sharpness attend to two objects, if you employ your spirit upon a book or a bodily labour, or any innocent and indifferent employment, you have no room left for the present trouble of a sensual temptation.

4. Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed. When our wishings are no bigger than the thing deserves, and our usages of them according to our needs, (which may be obtained by trying what they are, and what good they can do us) we shall find in all pleasures so little entertainment, that the vanity of the possession will soon reprove the violence of the appetite. Solomon took his fill of all pleasures, and soon grew weary of them all. The same thing we may do by reason

which we do by experience, if either we will look upon pleasures, as we are sure they look, when they go off, after their enjoyment; or if we will credit the experience of those men who have tasted them and loathed them.

5. Often consider and contemplate the joys of heaven, that when they have filled thy desires, which are the sails of the soul, thou mayest steer only thither, and never more look back to Sodom. And when thy soul dwells above, and looks down upon the pleasures of the world, they seem like things at distance, little and contemptible, and men running after the satisfaction of their sottish appetites seem foolish as fishes, thousands of them running after a worm that covers a deadly hook.

6. To this, the example of Christ and his apostles, of Moses and all the wise men of all ages of the world will much help; who, understanding how to distinguish good from evil, did choose a sad and melancholy way to felicity, rather than the broad, pleasant and easy path to folly and misery.

But this is but the general. Its first particular is temperance.

SECTION II.

Of temperance in eating and drinking.

SOBRIETY is the bridle of the passions of desire, and temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle, a restraint put into a man's mouth, a moderate use of meat and drink, so as may best consist with our health, and may not hinder, but help the works of the soul by its necessary supporting us, and ministering cheerfulness and refreshment.

Temperance consists in the actions of the soul principally; for it is a grace, that chooses natural means in order to proper and natural, and holy ends: it is exer

cised about eating and drinking, because they are necessary but therefore it permits the use of them, only as they minister to lawful ends; it does not eat and drink for pleasure, but for need and for refreshment, which is a part or a degree of need. I deny not but eating and drinking may be, and in healthful bodies always is, with pleasure; because there is in nature no greater pleasure, than that all the appetites which God hath made should be satisfied: and a man may choose a morsel that is pleasant, the less 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, 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 humane 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 too 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.

I. 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 humane 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 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