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A58177
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A persuasive to a holy life, from the happiness that attends it both in this world and in the world to come by John Ray ...
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Ray, John, 1627-1705.
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1700
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Wing R401; ESTC R13690
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51,693
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our true Interests but only our Mistakes and Excesses in and about them as the Bishop of Chester speaks teaching us so to regulate our selves in the use of them that they may truly deserve the name of Pleasure As for those Appetites and Actions which tend to the propagation and continuance of the Species and the Pleasures that attend them God hath not denied us a moâ—erate and regular satisfaction and use of them nay in some cases commanded it Now the most sincere Pleasure proceeds from such a moderate regular seasonable well circumstantiate use such an enjoyment as may be reflected upon without horror fear of punishment or consciousness of guilt which attends the excessive irregular unseasonable use or rather the abuse of them and renders the thought and memory of them very bitter and grievous But of this particular I have written in a former * Dissolution of the World pag. â—90 Treatise But here it may be objected That our Saviour in the Gospel hath abridged us of some Pleasures of this kind which are not in themselves sinful or unlawful as having been permitted by God to the Jews and practised by the Ancient Patriarchs and other men eminent for Piety without reproof I mean the use of many Wives To which I answer That granting Poligamy not to be in its self unlawful or to have any natural turpitude in it yet is our Saviour's Prohibition grounded up on good Reason viz. because God at the first created Mankind Male and Female that is one Female only as well as one Male and in effect he doth so still there being as many nay more Males than Females born into the World And therefore it is unreasonable that some men should have many Wives because they cannot have them unless others lack That there are more Males than Females born appears by the Catalogues in all places where accounts have been taken of the number of each Sex And I doubt not but the case is the same in all places where such accounts have not been taken It may here be asked why these Appetites are so vehement and importunate I answer To secure the great end of continuing the Species and carrying on the World For had they been weak and languid it might have come to pass that through inadvertency or to avoid the labour and trouble of bringing up Children and maintaining of Families the greatest part of men might have abstained from such Actions and so the Race of Mankind by degrees have been extinct and the World dispeopled That these Appetites are so extravagant and irregular and not without great difficulty to be moderated and ruled or kept within bounds as an effect of the Apâ—stacy of Man That God permits them so to continue one cause may be that thâ—y may be matter wherein to exercise Vertue For were these vicious Inclinations and inordinate Appetites taken away were men left in absolute indifferency to Good and Evil there could be no such thing as Vertue and Vice nothing praise or blame-worthy no place for Rewards or Punishments For the exercise of Vertue consists in resisting and striving against viciuos Appetites subduing Passions and mortifying of Lusts and those that labour herein are Vertuous Persons Those that are slothful that lay the Reins upon the Necks of their Lusts and follow whither they lead and hurry them away are vicious You will say Are not these Exercises painful and repugnant to our Natural Appetites and Inclinations and consequently contrary to Pleasure Is not the subduing of Lusts compared to the cutting off of Members which cannot be done without pain I answer It must be granted that there is difficulty at first in the New Birth in passing from one state to another all excellent things being hard to obtain Difficiliae quae pulchra The Heathen Poet tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gods have set Sweat before Vertue the way to which is long steep and rough at the first But afterward that becomes easy and delightful which was at first difficult and a great deal of pleasure and joy attends the very contention with and conquests of our Lusts and Passions and that godly sorrow that is required as one of the first acts in the change of our condition is always accompanied with secret pleasure And as it is said of wicked men That in the midst of laughter their heart is sorrowful so may it be said of good men That in the midst of their sorrow their heart is jâ—yful On the other hand there are far greater difficulties and pains to be undergone in the service and drudgery of impetuous Lusts * Bishop Wilkins The trouble of being cured is not so great as that of being sick nor is the trouble of being sober comparable to that of being debauched and intemperate Non est saith Seneca ut quib â—sdam dictum est arduum in virtutes asperumiter plano adeuntur Non vâ—nae vobis auctâ—r rei venio faciliâ— est ad beatam vitam via inite modo bonis auspiciis ipsisque Diis bene juvantibus c. The way to Vertue is not as some have written steep and rough but plain and level Let me become to you the Author of a new and not frivolous thing The way to a Happy Life is easy do but enter upon it with God's help It is much more difficult to do what the wicked men do What is more facile than calmness and quiet of mind What more laborious than anger What more remiss and void of trouble than Clemency What more busy and toilsome than Cruelty Chastity is vacant and at ease Lust is always occupied and unquiet He that tells Lies is hard put to it to maintain and make them good and yet for all his shifts is often detected and put to shame Whereas he that speaks truth is void of all fear and trouble The like may be said of other Vertues and Vices compared together So that Vertue is in it self more agreeable to Reason and more easy and eligible than Vice and it proceeds from the pravity and corruption of our Natures that we do not chuse it accordingly Besides In all Pleasures we are to consider whether the subsequent pain and sorrow do not outweigh the present enjoyment which if it do the voluptuaâ—y Philosophers themselves advise to abstain from them Now the Pleasures of sin as the Scripture calls them as Intemperance and Impurity do often bring upon the committers of them Pain and Sickness and sometimes noisome Diseases in this Life but to be sure Eternal Misery and distress in the world to come Between which and a short and transient Pleasure there is no proportion I might add hereto the Judgment of Seneca concerning the filthiness and unmanliness of these Vices of Intemperance and Lust Nulli saith he turpiùs occupati sunt No men are more sordidly employed Etiam si vana gloriae imagine teneantur speciosè tamen â—rrant Licet avaros mihi c. If men be taken with
Hermite as St. Jerome in his Life reports arrived to the Age of 115 Years an hundred whereof he spent in the Wilderness sustaining himself daily the first forty with a few Dates and a draught of Water and when Dates failed with half a Loaf of Bread which a Raven brought him St. Anthony as Athanasius witnesseth lived 105 Years of which he spent 90 in the Desert supporting his Body with Bread and Water only to which in his extreme old Age he added a few Sallet Herbs Arsenius The Emperor Arcadius his Tutor lived 120 Years fifty five whereof he spent in the Wilderness in wonderful abstinence Not long before our Times Ludovicus Câ—rnarus a Venetian Nobleman when he had lived unhealthfully to the 35th Year of his Age being frequently afflicted with divers Diseases at last by the advice of a certain Physician he used a restrained Diet whereby alone he gradually cured them all by little and little diminishing the quantity of his Meat and Drink till he descended to fourteen Ounces of Meat reckoning Bread Flesh Eggs and other Edibles and sixteen Ounces of Drink daily persevering in which Regimen he produced his Life healthful vigorous and free from Diseases above 100 Years as himself witnesseth in a Book he put forth entitled The benefits and advantages of a sober Life Whence we may collect saith Riverius out of whose Institutions I borrowed these Instances That a spare Diet doth very much conduce not only to the continuance of Health but also to the curing of contumacious Diseases and of long continuance For though Natural Heat having suddenly concocted that small quantity of Food taken in is afterwards employed about the superfluous Humours digesting dissipating and by little and little expelling them through the several Emunctories of the Body till at last the Body becomes pure and free from the Causes and Seeds of all Diseases Moreover It is very remarkable which the same Riverius adds That if an exact Diet cannot quite take away some chronical and incurable Diseases yet doth it much alleviate them and render them more tolerable so that the Sick persons may live a long time under them So we see not a fewdaily who produce their Lives many Years under an Ulcer of the Lungs a Scirrhus of the Liver or Spleen a Stone in the Reins or Bladder Aristotle in his Problems witnesseth That there was a certain Philosopher in his time named Herodicus who â—â—ough he laboured under a Consumption yet by a strict observation of Diet attained to 100 Years The Benefits of Temperance will best appear from the Mischiefs and Inconveniencies the contrary Vices of Intemperance and Excess bring upon us especially as to the impairing and ruining of our Health which is a natural consequent thereof For the Stomach by immoderate repletion being overcharged or clog'd with more than it can digest must needs slubber over its work as a Mill that is fed too fast and instead of a well concocted and benign Chyle transmit to the other Vessels a Crude and impure Juice full of many heterogeneous and noxious Particles or Qualities that breed an universal Distemper and Discrasie in the Body and lay the foundation of many future diseases an error in the first concoction as the old Physicians well observe being seldom or never corrected in the subsequent That most diseases owe their original to excess in eating and drinking appears in that they are cured by blood-letting purging vomiting sweating and other Evacuations whereby the abundance of superfluous Humours is exhausted It is a Proverbial Saying Plures occidit gula quà m gladius The Throat hath slain more than the Sword Rioting and drunkenness offer such violence to Nature do so inflame the Blood the vehicle of Life waste and dissipate the Spirits that Men guilty of them seldom live out half their days Insomuch that as Bishop Wilkins well observes no Man of ordinary prudence who is to take a Lease for Lives will be content if he can well avoid it to choose one whom he knows to be vicious and intemperate It may be objected that some who daily exceed all bounds in eating and drinking feeding themselves as the Apostle saith without fear do yet live to an extreme old Age. I answer That there are but very few of these and those of exceeding firm strength of Parts and temperament of Body who yet if they lived temperately might hold out much longer and would be more fit for all the Actions of the Mind and Understanding For saith Riverius Those who live intemperately must needs be fill'd with many noxious Humours and often troubled with Sickness neither can they without prejudice to their Health be long intent on the difficult Functions of the Mind both because in them the whole force of Nature and of the Spirits is spent in the concoction of Meats from which if by any contention of mind they be violently withdrawn concoction will be depraved and many crudities ensue and also because they have need of frequent Bodily Exercise to dissipate or Medicaments to purge out their ill Humours they daily accumulate So that though such men seem to live long in the Body yet in effect they live but little to their mind and to those ends for which Life was given being but a little while fit for the Functions of the Soul the greatest part of their time being necessarily bestowed on the Service of the Body And yet even in these the Body is not made of Steel or Adamant the strength of their Natural Temper cannot always resist and hold out against the rude shocks and batteries of so many excesses and debauches but must needs by degrees be weakened and impaired and at last utterly marred and subverted I might add further in commendation of this Grace of Temperance that it conduces much to the preservation of the External form and comliness of the Body an Endowment highly valued by all men Whereas on the contrary Vicious Courses but especially Intemperance defacing the inward pulchritude of the Soul do change even the outward Countenance into an abhorred hue as I have elsewhere noted out of Dr. Moor. I should now dismiss this Particular did not the great prevalency of this Vice of Intemperance especially in drinking invite me to superadd something further of the pernicious effects and consequents of it 1. First Then this Vice hath a very ill influence upon the Spirit and Soul of Man degrading it and subjecting it to the Body The generality of Heathen Philosophers as Bishop Wilkins observes agree in this That Sin is the Natural Cause of debasing the Soul immersing it into a state of sensuality and darkness deriving such an impotency and deformity upon the mind as the most loathsome Diseases do upon the Body I shall add but especially Intemperance which clouds the Understanding disabling it to any Studies of sublime and subtile Speculation the gross fumes of strong and inebriating Liquors having a like effect upon the Understanding as thick Foggs and Mists upon