and life be the cause of eating and drinking, yet pleasure, a dangerous pleasure, thrusts herself into attendance, and sometimes endeavours to be the principal; and I do that for pleasure's sake which I would only do for health; and yet they have distinct measures, whereby they can be separated, and that which is enough for health, is too little for delight, and that which is for my delight, destroys my health, and still it is uncertain for what end I do indeed desire; and the worst of the evil is this, that the soul is glad because it is uncertain, and that an excuse is ready, that under the pretence of health, "obumbret negotium voluptatis," "the design of pleasure may be advanced and protected." How far the ends of natural pleasure may lawfully be enjoyed, I shall afterward consider: in the meantime, if we remember that the epicure's design is pleasure principally, we may the better reprove his folly by considering, that intemperance is a plain destruction to all that, which can give real and true pleasure. 2. It is an enemy to health, without which it is impossible to feel any thing of corporal pleasure. 2. A constant full table hath in it less pleasure than the temperate provisions of the hermit, or the labourer, or the philosophical table of scholars, and the just pleasures of the virtuous. 3. Intemperance is an impure fountain of vice, and a direct nurse of uncleanness. 4. It is a destruction of wisdom. 5. It is a dishonour and disreputation to the person and the nature of the man. 1. It is an enemy to health: which is, as one calls it, "ansa voluptatum et condimentum vitæ;" it is that handle by which we can apprehend, and perceive pleasures, and that sauce that only makes life delicate;' for what content can a full table administer to a man in a fever? And he that hath a sickly stomach, admires at his happiness, that can feast with cheese and garlic, unctuous beverages, and the low-tasted spinach: health is the opportunity of wisdom, the fairest scene of religion, the advantages of the glorifications of God, the charitable ministries to men; it is a state of joy and thanksgiving, and in every of its period feels a pleasure from the blessed emanations of a merciful Providence. The world does not minister, does not feel, a greater pleasure, than to be newly delivered from the racks or the gratings of the VOL. V. stone, and the torments and convulsions of a sharp cholic: and no organs, no harp, no lute, can sound out the praises of the Almighty Father so spritefully, as the man that rises from his bed of sorrows, and considers what an excellent difference he feels from the groans and intolerable accents of yesterday. Health carries us to church, and makes us rejoice in the communion of saints; and an intemperate table makes us to lose all this. For this is one of those sins, which St. Paul affirms to be πρόδηλοι, προάγουσαι εἰς κρίσιν, "manifest, leading before unto judgment." It bears part of its punishment in this life, and hath this appendage, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, that it is not remitted in this world, nor in the world to come: that is, if it be not repented of, it is punished here and hereafter, which the Scripture does not affirm concerning all sins, and all cases. But in this the sinner gives sentence with his mouth, and brings it to execution with his hands; Pœna tamen præsens, cum tu deponis amictum The old gluttons among the Romans, Heliogabalus, Tigellius, Crispus, Montanus, "notæque per oppida bucca"," famous epicures, mingled their meats with vomitings; so did Vitellius, and entered into their baths to digest their pheasants, that they might speedily return to the mullet and the eels of Syëne, and then they went home and drew their breath short till the morning, and it may be not at all before night: Hinc subitæ mortes, atque intestata senectusi. Their age is surprised at a feast, and gives them not time to make their will, but either they are choked with a large morsel, and there is no room for the breath of the lungs, and the motions of the heart; or a fever burns their eyes out, or a quinsey punishes that intemperate throat that had no religion, but the eating of the fat sacrifices, the portions of the poor and of the priest; or else they are condemned to a lethargy if their constitutions be dull; and, if active, it may be they are wild with watching. g Juv. 1. 143. h Ib. 3. 35. i Ib. 1. 144. Plurimus hic æger moritur vigilando: sed illum So that the epicure's genial proverb may be a little altered, and say, "Let us eat and drink, for by this means to-morrow we shall die;" but that is not all, for these men lead a healthless life; that is, are long, are every day dying, and at last die with torment. Menander was too short in his expression, μόνος οὗτος φαίνεται εὐθάνατος; that it is indeed death, but gluttony is a pleasant death.' - Εχοντα πολλὴν τὴν χολάδα παχὺν, Καὶ μόλις λαλοῦντα, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμ ̓ ἔχοντα πᾶν ἄνω, For this is the glutton's pleasure, "To breathe short and difficultly, scarce to be able to speak, and when he does, he cries out, I die and rot with pleasure." But the folly is as much to be derided as the men to be pitied, that we daily see men afraid of death with a most intolerable apprehension, and yet increase the evil of it, the pain, and the trouble, and the suddenness of its coming, and the appendage of an insufferable eternity. Rem struere exoptas cæso bove, Mercuriumque Arcessis fibra' They pray for herds of cattle, and spend the breeders upon feasts and sacrifices. For why do men go to temples and churches, and make vows to God and daily prayers, that God would give them a healthful body, and take away their gout, and their palsies, their fevers and apoplexies, the pains of the head and the gripings of the belly, and arise from their prayers, and pour in loads of flesh and seas of wine, lest there should not be matter enough for a lusty disease? Poscis opem nervis, corpusque fidele senectæ : Esto age: sed grandes patina tucetaque crassa But this is enough that the rich glutton shall have his dead body condited and embalmed; he may be allowed to stink and suffer corruption while he is alive; these men are for the present living sinners and walking rottenness, and hereafter will be dying penitents and perfumed carcasses, and k Juv. 3. 232. 1 Pers. 2. 44. m Pers. sat. 2. their whole felicity is lost in the confusions of their unnatural disorder. When Cyrus had espied Astyages and his fellows coming drunk from a banquet loaden with variety of follies and filthiness, their legs failing them, their eyes red and staring, cozened with a moist cloud and abused by a doubled object, their tongues full of sponges, and their heads no wiser, he thought they were poisoned, and he had reason: for what malignant quality can be more venomous and hurtful to a man than the effect of an intemperate goblet, and a full stomach? It poisons both the soul and body. All poisons do not kill presently, and this will in process of time, and hath formidable effects at present. But therefore methinks the temptations, which men meet withal from without, are in themselves most unreasonable and soonest confuted by us. He that tempts me to drink beyond my measure, civilly invites me to a fever; and to lay aside my reason as the Persian women did their garments and their modesty at the end of feasts: and all the question then will be, Which is the worse evil, to refuse your uncivil kindness, or to suffer a violent head-ache, or to lay up heaps big enough for an English surfeit? Creon in the tragedy said well; Κρεῖσσον δέ μοι νῦν πρός σ ̓ ἀπέχθεσθαι, γύναι, Η μαλθακισθένθ ̓ ὕστερον μέγα στένειν", "It is better for me to grieve thee, O stranger, or to be affronted by thee, than to be tormented by thy kindness the next day and the morrow after;" and the freedman of Do-' mitius, the father of Nero, suffered himself to be killed by his lord: and the son of Praxaspes by Cambyses, rather than they would exceed their own measures up to a full intemperance, and a certain sickness and dishonour. For, as Plutarch said well, to avoid the opinion of an uncivil man, or being clownish, to run into a pain of thy sides or belly, into madness or a head-ache, is the part of a fool and a coward, and of one that knows not how to converse with men, 'citra pocula et nidorem,' in any thing but in the famelic smells of meat and vertiginous drinkings. Ebrius el petulans, qui nullum forte cecidit, Eur. Med. Porson. 292. • Juv. 3. 280. “A drunkard and a glutton feels the torments of a restless night, although he hath not killed a man;" that is, just like murderers and persons of an affrighting conscience; so wakes the glutton, so broken, and sick, and disorderly are the slumbers of the drunkard. Now let the epicure boast his pleasures, and tell how he hath swallowed the price of provinces, and gobbets of delicious flesh, purchased with the reward of souls; let him brag "furorem illum conviviorum, et fœdissimum patrimoniorum exitium culinam," "of the madness of delicious feasts, and that his kitchen hath destroyed his patrimony;" let him tell that he takes in every day," Quantum Sauseia bibebat, As much wine as would refresh the sorrows of forty languishing prisoners; or let him set up his vainglorious triumph, That he hath knocked down Damalis with the twenty-fifth bottle, and hath outfeasted Anthony or Cleopatra's luxury; it is a goodly pleasure and himself shall bear the honour. Rarum ac memorabile magni Gulturis exemplum, conducendusque magister". But for the honour of his banquet he hath some ministers attending that he did not dream of, and in the midst of his loud laughter, the gripes of his belly, and the fevers of the brain, "Pallor et genæ pendulæ, oculorum ulcera, tremulæ manus, furiales somni, inquies nocturna," as Pliny reckons them, “paleness and hanging cheeks, ulcers of the eyes, and trembling hands, dead or distracted sleeps," these speak aloud, that to-day you eat and drink, that to-morrow you die,' and die for ever. It is reported concerning Socrates, that when Athens was destroyed by the plague, he in the midst of all the danger escaped untouched by sickness, because by a spare and severe diet, he had within him no tumult of disorderly humours, no factions in his blood, no loads of moisture prepared for charnel-houses, or the sickly hospitals; but a vigorous heat, and a well-proportioned radical moisture; he had enough for health and study, philosophy and religion, for the temP Juv. 9. 117. Rupert. 4 Hor. Od. 1. 36. 13. r Juv. 2. 114. |