Two guides to a good life The genealogy of vertue and the nathomy of sinne. Liuely displaying the worth of one, and the vanity of the other.

The properties of true Fasting.

THere are foure thinges required of him that will truely fast.

The first is a voluntarie motion he must not doe it vpon constraint. The second, is zeale without vainglo∣rie, he must not doe it to bee praised or seene of men.

The third, praier, he must cal for the assistance of god.

The fourth, almes-deedes, hee must giue to the poore, to shew the fruits of his fasting: for to faste or vse a sparing diet, not to the intent that we may be the better able to relieue others, but to enrich our selues, is no fast, but rather a chiefe point of auarice.

The better to incourage vs to exer∣cise

fasting and to auoide gluttonie, is to lay before vs the example of Christ, who notwithstanding he were Lorde of al treasure both in heauē and earth, yet voluntarilie fasted forty daies, and fortye nightes: and of Iohn Baptiste, whose best delicates was but Locustes and wilde honny: And of the apostles, that so awed their bodies with tempe∣rate diet, as they were glad to pull the eares of corne to satisfie hunger.

We read that Gallen was a hundred and twenty yeare old, and when it was wondred how hee liued so long, hee made answere, that he neuer rose from his table with a full stomach.

The Egyptians vsed in the midst of their banquets, to bring in the anatho∣my of a dead body dried, that the hor∣ror thereof might keepe them within the bounds of temperance: so that for the bodyes health, and for the vigour and alacritye of the soule, there is no∣thing better then fasting, nor any thing

worse or more fatall than this sinne of gluttonie.