(50) CHAP. II. Of Chriflian Sobriety. C SECT. I Of Sobriety in the general fence. Hriftian Religion in all its moral parts is no thing else but the Law of Nature, and great Reafon,complying with the great neceffities of all the World, and promoting the great profit of all Relations, and carrying us through all accidents of variety of chances to that end which God hath from eternal ages purpofed for all that live according to it, and which he hath revealed in Jefus Chrift: and according to the Apostle's Arithmetick hath put these three parts of it, 1. Sobriety, 2. Juftice 3. Religion. For the Grace of God bringing falvation bath appeared to all men,teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lufts, we should live, 1. Soberly; 2. Righteously; and, 3. Godly in this prefent world,looking for that blefled hope and glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour Jefus Chrift. The firft contains all our deportment in our perfonal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and our fpirits. The fecond enlarges our duty in all relations to our Neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct Religion, and entercourfe with God. Chriftian Sobriety is all that duty that concerns our Lelves in the matter of meat and drink and pleafures and thoughts; and it hath within it the duties of, 1. Temperance; 2. Chastity; 3. Humility, 4. Mo defty; 5. Content, It is a ufing feverity, denial and frustration of our appetite when it grows unreasonable in any of these inftances: the neceffity of which we fhall to best purpose understand by confidering the evil confequences of fenfuality, effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures. Evil Confequents of Voluptuousness or Senfuality. 1. A longing after fenfual pleafures is a diffolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loote, foft and wandring, unapt for noble, wife or fpiritual employments; because the principies upon which pleasure is chofen and pursued, are fottish, weak and unlearned, such as preferr the bo- Tu fi animum vicisti potiùs quàm animus te, eft quod gaudeas! dy before the Qui animum vincunt quàm quos animus,femper probiores cluent. foul, the appe tite before reason, fence before the fpirit, the pleasures of a fhort abode before the pleasures of eternity. 2. The nature of fenfual pleature is vain, empty and unfatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the enjoying, and leaves a fting and thorn behind it when it goes off. Our laughing, If it be loud and high, commonly ends in a deep figh,and all the inftances of pleasure have a fting in the tail,though they carry beauty in the face and fweetnefs on the lip. 3. Senfual pleasure is a great abuse to the spirit of a man, being a kind of fascination or witchcraft blinding the understanding and enflaving the will. And he that knows he is free-born or redeemed with the blood of the Son of God, will not eafily fuffer the freedom of his Soul to be entangled and rifled. σεαυτό προαίρεσιν, ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο, μὴ ὀλίγο αὐτῷ πωλήσης. 4. It is most contrary to the ftate of a Chriftian; whofe life Arian, c. 2. l. 1. Μόνον σχέ και πίσω πωλες Θέλεις ὀλύμπια νικήσει; Δε is a perpetual exercife, a wreft-Taxler, drayxol copav, à ling and warfare, to which fen. fual pleasure difables him by yielding to that enemy with whom πέχεθαι πμμάτων, γυμνάζει ae's avdyxlu, &c. Epift cap. 35. be must strive if ever he will be crowned And this argu a ment the Apostle intimated: He that striveth for ma 2 Cor. 9. 25. fteries is temperate in all things: Now they do it to obtain a corruptible Crown, but we an incorruptible. 5. It is by a certain confequence the greatest impediment in the world to martyrdom; that being a fondnels, this being a cruelty to the flesh; to which a Chriftian man arriving by degrees muft firft have crucified the lefler affections: for he that is overcome by little arguments of pain, will hardly confent to lofe his life with torments. Degrees of Sobriety. Against this Voluptuoufnefs Sobriety is opposed in three degrees. 1. Adefpite or difaffection to pleasures,or a refolving against all entertainment of the inftances; and temptations of fenfuality: and it confifts in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them, difapproving and difliking them upon good reafon and ftrong refolution. 2. A fight and actual war against all the temptations and offers of fenfual pleature in all evil inftances and degrees: and it confifts in prayer, in fasting, in cheap dier, and hard lodging, and laborious exercifes, and avoiding occafions, and ufing all arts and induftry of for lying the Spirit, and making it fevere, manly and chriftian. 3. Spiritual pleafure is the highest degree of Sobriety; and in the fame degree in which we relifh and are Apoc. a. 17. în love with spiritual delights, the hidden Manna,with the tweetneffes of devotion, with the joys of thankf giving, with rejoycings in the Lord, with the comforts of hope, with the delicioufnefs of charity and almsdeeds, with the fweetness of a good Confcience, with the peace of meeknefs, and the felicities of a contented fpirit; in the fame degree we difrelish and loath the husks of fwinifh lufts, and the parings of the apples of Sodom; and the tafte of fintul pleasures is unfavory as the Drunkard's vomit. Rules Rules for fuppreffing Voluptuousness. The precepts and advices which are of the best and of general ufe in the curing of fenfuality are thefe: me, hoc enim 1. Accuftom thy felf to cut off all fuperfluity in the provifions of thy life; for our defires will enlarge beyond the prefent poffeffion, fo long as all things of this world are unlatisfying: if therefore you fuffer them to extend beyond the measures of neceffity or moderated conveniency, they will ftill fwell: but you reduce them to a little compafs, when you make nature to be your limit. We muft more take care that Defideria tua our defires fhould cease,than that they should be fatif- parvo r. dified, and therefore reducing them to narrow fcantlings tantum curaand fmall proportions is the beft inftrument to redeem re debes ut their trouble, and prevent the dropfie, becae that is definant, Se next to an univerfal denying then, it is certainly a paring off from them all unreasonablenefs and irregularity. For whatsoever covets unfeemly things, and is Lib. 3. Eth, apt to fwell to an inconvenient bulk, is to be chaftened cap. 12. and tempered: and fuch are fenfuality, and a Boy, faid the Philofopher. nec. 2. Suppress your fenfual defires in their firft ap- Facilius eft proach; for then they are least, and thy faculties and initia affe &uum prohielection are ftronger; but if they in their weakness bere quàm prevail upon thy ftrengths, there will be no refifting impetum rethem when they are increased, and thy abilities leffened. gere. Senec. You shall fcarce obtain of them to end, if you suffer them p. 86. to begin. 3. Divert them with fome laudable employment, and take off their edge by inadvertency, or a not attending to them. For fince the faculties of a man cannot at the fame 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 prefent trouble of a fenfual temptation. For to this fence it was NuxΝυκτιποthat Alexander told the Queen of Caria, that his Tu elaronstor Leonidas had provided two Cooks for him [Hard jaeision. E 3 marches marches all night, and a fmall dinner the next day :] these tamed his youthful aptneffes to diffolution, so long as he ate of their provifions. 4. Look upon pleatures not upon that fide that is next the Sun, or where they look beauteoufly, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed; for then they paint and fmile, and drets themselves up in tinfel and glafs gems and countefeit imaVoluptates abeuntes feffas & pa- gery; but when thou haft rifled and nitentiâ plenas animis noftris naeura fubjicit, quò minùs cupidè difcompofed them with enjoying their falfe beauties,and that they be repetantur, Seneca. Læta venire Venus, triftis abire folet. gin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. See what a figh and forrow, what naked unhandfome proportions and a filthy carcafe they difcover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already difcovered, and be no more abufed. And I have known fome wife perfons have advised to cure the paffions and longings of their children by letting them tafte of every thing they paffionately fanfied; for they fhould be fure to find lefs in it than they looked for, and the impatience of their being denied would be loofened and made flack; and when our wifhings are no bigger than the thing deferves, and our ufages of them according to our needs, (which may be obtained by trying what they are, and what good they can do us) we fhall find in all pleafures fo little entertainment that the vanity of the poffeffion will foon reprove the violence of the appetite. And if this permiffion be in innocent inftances, it may be of good ufe: But Solomon tried it in all things, taking his fill of all pleasures, and foon grew weary of them all. The fame thing we may do by reafon which we do by experience, if either we will look upon pleasures as we are fure they look when they go off, after their enjoyment; or if we will credit the experience of thofe men who have tafted them and loathed them. 5. Often confider and contemplate the joys of Heayen, that when they have filled thy defires which are the fails of the Soul, thou may'ft fteer onely thither and |