Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.

Sect. I. Of sobriety in the general sense.

CHristian Religion in all its mo∣ral parts is nothing else but the Law of Nature and great Rea∣son, complying with the great necessities of all the world, and promoting the great profit of all relations, and carrying us through all accidents of va∣riety of chances to that end which God hath from eternal ages purposed for all that live according to it, and which he hath revea∣led in Jesus Christ: and according to the Apostles Arithmetick hath but these three

parts of it: 1. Sobriety. 2. Justice. 3. Reli∣gion. For the grace of God bringing salvation hath appeared to all men;* 1.1 teaching us that denying ungodlyness and wordly lusts, we should live 1. Soberly, 2. Righteously, and 3. Godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The first contains all our deportment in our per∣sonal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies, and our spirits. The second enlarges our du••y in all relations to our Neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct Religion, and entercourse with God.

Christian sobriety is all that duty that con∣cerns our selves in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures and thoughts, and it hath within it, the duties of 1. Temperance. 2. Cha∣stity. 3. Humility. 4. Modesty. 5. Content.

It is a using severity, denial, and frustrati∣on of our appetite when it grows unreason∣able in any of these instances: the necessity of which we shall to best purpose understand, by considering the evil consequences of sen∣suality, effeminacy or fondness after carnal pleasures.

Evil consequents of voluptuousness or Sensuality.

1. A longing after sensual pleasures is a dis∣solution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft, and wandring unapt for noble, wise, or spiritual imployments; because the principles upon which pleasure is chosen and pursued, are sottish, weak, and unlearned,

Tu si animum v••••isti p••tius quàm animus te est quod gaudea••: Qui animum vin••unt quàm quo•• animus, s••mper probiores cluent. ••••num.

such as preferre the body before the soul, the appetite before reason, sense before the spirit, the pleasures of a short abode, before the pleasures of eternity.

2. The nature of sensual pleasure is vain, empty, and unsatisfying, biggest alwaies in expectation, and a meer vanity in the enjoy∣ing, and leaves a sting and tho••n behinde it, when it goes off. Our laughing if it be loud and high commonly ends in a deep sigh, and all the instances of pleasure have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty on the face and sweetness on the lip.

3. Sensual pleasure is a great abuse to the Spirit of a man being a kinde of fascination or witchcraft blinding the understanding and enslaving the will. And he that knows he is free-born or redeemed with the blood of the Son of God,* 1.2 will not easily suffer the free∣dom of his soul to be intangled and rifled.

4. It is most contrary to the state of a Christian whose life is a perpetual, exercise,* 1.3 a wrastling and warfare, to which, sensual pleasure disables him, by yielding to that enemy with whom he must strive if ever he will be crowned. And this argument the Apostle intimated:* 1.4 He that striveth for masteries is temperate in all things: Now they doe it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incor∣ruptible.

5. It is by a certain consequence the grea∣test impediment in the world to martyrdom: that being a fondness, this being a cruelty to

the flesh: to which a Christian man arriving by degrees must first have crucified the lesser affections: for he that is overcome by little arguments of pain, will hardly consent to lose his life with torments.

Degrees of Sobriety.

Against this voluptuousness, sobriety is opposed in three degrees:

1. A despite or disaffection to pleasures, or a resolving against all entertainment of the instances and temptations of sensuality, and it consists in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring a∣gainst them, disapproving and disliking them upon good reason and strong resolution.

2. A sight and actual warre against all the temptations and offers of sensual pleasure in all evil instances and degrees: and it con∣sists in prayer, in fasting, in cheap diet, and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and a∣voiding occasions, and using all arts and in∣dustry of fortifying the Spirit, and making it severe, manly and Christian.

3. Spiritual pleasure is the highest degree of Sobriety, and in the same degree in which we relish and are in love with spiritual de∣lights, the hidden Manna,* 1.5 with the sweet∣nesses of devotion, with the joyes of thanks∣giving, with rejoicings in the Lord with the comforts of hope, with the deliciousness of charity, and alms-deeds, with the sweetness of a good conscience, with the peace of meek∣ness and the felicities of a contented ••pirit: in the same degree we disrelish and loath the husks of swinish lusts, and the parings of the

apples of Sodom: and the tast of sinful plea∣sures is unsavoury as the Drunkards vomit.

Rules for suppressing voluptuousness.

The precepts and advices which are of best and of general use in the curing of sensuality are these:

1. Accustom thy self to cut off all super∣fluity in thy provisions of thy life: for our de∣sires will enlarge beyond the present posses∣sion so long as all the things of this world are unsatisfying: if therefore you suffer them to extend beyond the measures of necessity or moderated conveniency, they will still swell: but you reduce them to a little compasse, when you make nature to be your limit.* 1.6 We must more take care that our desires should cease, then that they should be satisfied: and therefore reducing them to narrow scantlings and small proportions, is the best instrument to redeem their trouble and prevent the dro∣psie, because that is next to an universal de∣nying them: it is certainly a paring off from them all unreasonableness and irregularity.* 1.7 For whatsoever covets unseemely things, and is apt to swell to an inconvenient bulk is to be chastened and tempered: and such are sen∣suality,* 1.8 and a Boy▪ said the Philosopher.

2. Suppresse your sensual desires in their first approach: for then they are least, and thy faculties and election are stronger; but if they in their weakness prevail upon thy strengths, there will be no resisting them when they are increased, and thy abilities lessened: you shall scarce obtaine of them to end, if you suffer them to begin.

3. Divert them with some laudable im∣ployment, and take off their edge by inad∣vertency, or a not attending to them. For since the faculties of a man cannot at the same time with any sharpness attend to two objects, if you imploy your spirit upon a book or a bodily labour, or any innocent and indifferent imployment, you have no room left for the present trouble of a sensual temptation▪ For to this sense it was that A∣lexander told the Queen of Caria,* 1.9 that his Tutor Leonidas had provided two Cooks for him [Hard marches all night, and a small dinner the next day:] these tamed his youth∣full aptnesses to dissolution, so long as he eat of their provisions.

4. Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next to the Sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be injoyed; for then they paint, and smile, and dresse themselves up in tinsel and glasse, gems and counterfeit ima∣gery:* 1.10 but when thou hast rifled and discomposed them with en∣joying their false beauties, and that they begin to go off,* 1.11 then be∣hold them in their nakedness and weariness: See what a sigh and sorrow, what naked unhansome proportions and a filthy carkasse they dis∣cover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no more abused. And I have known some wise persons have advised to cure the passions and longings of their children by letting rhem taste of every thing they passio∣nately

fancied: for they should be sure to finde lesse in it then they looked for, and the impatience of their being denyed would be loosened and made slack: and when our wishings are no bigger then the thing de∣serves, and our usages of them according to our needs (which may be obtained by trying what they are, and what good they can doe us we shall finde in all pleasures so little en∣tertainment, that the vanity of the possession will soon reprove the violence of the appe∣tite, And if this permission be in innocent instances, it may be of good use: But So∣lomon tried it in all things, taking his fill of all pleasures: and soon grew weary of them all. The same thing we may doe by reason which we doe by experience, if either we will look upon pleasures as we are sure they look when they goe off, after their enjoy∣ment, or if we will credit the experience of those men who have tasted them and loathed them.

5. Often consider, and contemplate the joyes of heaven, that when they have filled thy desires which are the sails of the soul, thou mayest steer onely thither, and never more look back to Sodom. And when thy soul dwels above, and looks down upon the pleasures of the World they seem like things at distance, little and contemptible, and m••n running after the satisfaction of their sot••••sh appetites seem foolish as fishes, thousands of them running after a rotten worm that covers a deadly hook; or at the best b••t like children with great nois pursuing a bubble rising from a wallnut-shel, which ends sooner then the noise.

6. To this, the example of Christ and his Apostles, of Moses and all the Wise men of all ages of the world will much help: who understanding how to distinguish good from evil, did choose a sad and melancholy way to felicity, rather then the broad, pleasant and easie path to folly and misery.

But this is but the general. Its first par∣ticular is temperance.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Tit 2.11, 12.
• * 1.2

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Arrian. c 2 l. 1.
• * 1.3

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c. Epist. cap 34.
• * 1.4

  1 Cor 9 ••5.
• * 1.5

  Apoc. 2.17.
• * 1.6

  Desideria tua parvo redime, hoc n. tantum cura••e d••bes u•• d••sinant. Senec.
• * 1.7

  L. 3. Eth: c. 12.
• * 1.8

  Facilius est initia affe∣ctuum p••o∣hibere quàm impetum ••e∣g••re Senec cp: 86.
• * 1.9

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.10

  Voluptates abeuntes ••esses & p••nit••uità plenas ani∣mis n••stru natura subje∣cit, quo minus cupidè re∣petantur. Senec.
• * 1.11

  Laeta venire Venus, tristis abi••e solet.