company is either violent or enticing; and we are weak and complying, or perhaps defirous enough to be abufed. But if you be unavoidably or indifcreetly engaged, let not mistaken civility or good nature engage thee either to the temptation of staying (if thou understandeft thy weakness) or the fin of drinking inordinately.

2. Be fevere in your judgment concerning your proportions, and let no occafion make you enlarge far beyond your ordinary. For a map is furprized by parts, and while he thinks one glafs more will not make him drunk, that one glass has difabled him from well difcerning his prefent condition and neighbour danger. While men think themselves wife, they become fools: they think they fhall taste the Aconite and not die, or crown their heads with juice of Poppy and not be drowfie; and if they drink off the whole vintage, still they think they can fwallow another goblet. But Sente. Ep. remember this, whenever you begin to confider whe- bevuto cutther you may fafely take one draught more, it is then to il mare high time to give over. Let that be accounted a fign puo bere late enough to break off: for every reason to doubt, trane. is a fufficient reafon to part the company.

3. Come not to table but when thy need invites thee; and if thou beeft in health, leave fomething of thy appetite unfilled, fomething of thy natural heat unemployed, that it may fecure thy digeftion, and ferve other needs of nature or the fpirit.

4. Propound to thy felf (if thou beeft in a capacity) a conftant rule of living, of eating and drinking : which though it may not be fit to obferve fcrupuloufly, leaft it become a finare to thy confcience, or endanger thy health upon every accidental violence; yet let not thy rule be broken often, nor much, but upon great neceffity and in fmall degrees.

*

83. Chi ha

anche un

5. Never urge any man to eat or drink beyond his Nil intereft, faveas fcele own limits and his own defires. He that does otherri, an illud wife is drunk with his brother's furfeit, and reels and facias. Sener falls with his intemperance; that is, the fin of drunkenness is upon both their scores, they both lie wal lowing in the guilt.

Sect. 2. 6. Ufe S. Paul's inftruments of Sobriety: Let us who are of the day be fober, putting on the breaft-plate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of falvation. Faith, Hope and Charity are the beft weapons in the World to fight against intemperance. The faith of the Mahometans forbids them to drink Wine, and they abftain religiously, as the Sons of Rechab: and the faith of Chrift forbids drunkenness to us, and therefore is infinitely more powerful to suppress this vice, when we remember that we are Chriftians, and to abftain from drunkenness and gluttony is part of the Faith and Difcipline of Jefus, and that with these vices neither our love to God, nor our hopes of heaven can poffibly confift; and therefore when these enter the heart, the others go out at the mouth: for this is the Devil that is caft out by fafting 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; fo at the meal we remove and carry up our mind and fpirit to the celeftial table, often thinking of it, and often defiring it; that by inkindling thy defire to heavenly banquets, thou may'ft be indifferent and lefs paffionate for the earthly.

8. Mingle difcourfes pious, or in fome fenfe profitable, and in all fenfes charitable and innocent, with thy meal as occafion is miniftred.

9. Let your drink fo ferve your meat, as your meat doth your health; that it be apt to convey and digeft it, and refresh the fpirits: but let it never go beyond fuch a refreshment as may a little lighren the present load of a fad or troubled spirit: never to inconvenience, lightnefs, fottifhnefs, vanity or intemperance : and know that the loofing the bands of the tongue, and the very first diffolution of its duty, is one degree of the intemperance.

10. In all cafes be careful that you be not brought under the power of fuch things which otherwife are lawful enough in the ufe. All things are lawful for me, but I will mot be brought under the power of any

thing, faid St. Paul. And to be perpetually longing, and impatiently defirous of any thing, fo that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man's Liberty, and to become a servant of meat and drink, orfmoke. And I wish this last inftance were more confidered by perfons who little fufpect themselves guilty of intemperance, through their defires are strong and impatient, and the use of it perpetual and unreasonable to all purposes, but that they have made it habitual and neceffary, as intemperance it felf is made to fome men. 11. Use those advices which are prescribed as inftruments to fupprefs Voluptuoufnefs in the foregoing Section.

SECT. III.

Of Chastity.

REader, fay, and read not the Advices of the following Section, unless thou haft a chafte Spirit, or deft reft to be chaste, or at least art apt to confider whether you ought or no. For there are fome Spirits fo atheistical, and fome fo wholly poffeffed with a spirit of uncleanness, that they turn the most prudent and chafte difcourfes into dirt and filthy apprehenfions; like cholerick ftomachs changing their very cordials and medicines into bitter nefs; and in a literal fenfe turning the Grace of God into Wantonnefs. They study cafes of confcience in the matter of carnal fins, not to avoid, but to learn ways hor to offend God and pollute their own fpirits; and fearch their houses with a Sun-beam, that they may be inftru&tTM ed in all the corners of naftiness. I have used all the care I could in the following periods, that I might neither be wanting to affift those that need it, nor yet minifter any occafion of fancy or vainer thoughts to thofe that need them not. If any man will fnatch the pure taper from my hand, and hold it to the Devil, he will only burn his own finger's, but shall not rob me of the reward of my care and good intention, fince I have taken heed how to express the following duties, and given him caution how to read them.

Chastity

Chastity is that duty which was myftically intended by God in the Law of Circumcifion. It is the circumcifion of the heart, the cutting off all fuperfluity of naughtiness, and a fuppreffion of all irregular defires in the matter of fenfual or carnal pleasure. I call all defires irregular and finful that are not fanctified, 1. By the holy Inftitution, or by being within the protection of marriage; 2. By being within the order of nature; 3. By being within the moderation of Chriftian modefty. Against the first are fornication, adultery, and all voluntary pollutions of either fex. Against the fecond are all unnatural lufts and incestuous mixtures. Against the third is all immoderate use of permitted beds; concerning which judgment is to be made as concerning meats and drinks: there being no certain degree of frequency or intention prefcribed to all perfons, but it is to be ruled as the other actions of a man, by proportion to the end, by the dignity of the perfon in the honour and severity of being a Chriftian, and by other circumstances, of which I am to give account.

Chastity is that Grace which forbids and reftrains all thefe, keeping the body and foul pure in that ftate in which it is placed by God, whether of the fingle or of the married life. Concerning which our duty 1 Thef. 4. 3, is thus defcribed by St. Paul. [For this is the will of God, even our fanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication; that every one of you should know how to peffefs his veffel in fanctification and honour: not in the luft of concupifcence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.]

4. 5.

Chastity is either abftinence or continence. Abftinence is that of Virgins or Widows: Continence of married perfons. Chafte marriages are honourable and pleafing to God: Widowhood is pitiable in its folitarinefs and lofs, but amiable and comely when it is adorned with gravity and purity, and not fullied with the remembrances of the paffed licence, nor with preVirginitar fent defires of returning to a fecond bed. But Virgini ty is a life of Angels, the enamel of the Soul, the huge

cât in carne

advantage

nis perpetua

advantage of Religion, the great opportunity for the corruptibili retirments of Devotion: and being empty of cares incorruptio it is full of prayers; being unmingled with the world meditatio it is apt to converfe with God; and by not feeling S. Aug 1. de the warmth of a too forward and indulgent nature, flames out with holy fires, till it be burning like the Cherubim, and the moft ecftafied order of holy and unpolluted Spirits.

Vir. c. 13.

Natural virginity of it felf is not a ftate more acceptable to God: but that which is chofen and voluntary in order to the conveniences of Religion and sepa ration from worldly incumbrances, 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 fpiritual employments; it is not allayed with bufineffes and attendances upon lower affairs: and if it be a chofen condition to these ends, it containeth in it a victory over lufts, and greater defires of Religion, and felf-denial, and therefore is more excellent than the married life, in that degree in which it hath greater Religion, and a greater mor tification, a lefs fatisfaction of natural defires, and a greater fulness of the spiritual: and juft fo is to expect that little coronet or fpecial reward which God hath prepared (extraordinary and befides the great Crown of all faithful Souls) for those who have not defiled Apoc. 14. 4. themselves with men, but follow the Virgin Lamb Ila. 56. 45. for ever.

But fome married perfons, even in their marriage, do better please God than fome Virgins in their state of virginity. They by giving great example of con jugal uffection, by preferving their Faith unbroken, by educating children in the Fear of God, by pati ence and contentedness and holy thoughts, and the exercise of vertues proper to that ftate, do not only pleafe God, but do it in a higher degree than thofe Vir gins whofe piety is not answerable to their great op portunities and advantages.

However, Married perfons and Widows and Virgins are all fervants of God, and co-heirs in the inheritance of Jefus, if they live within the restraints and laws of

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theit