A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

Yea at the present hath not drunkenness more trouble attending it then sobriety! Reckon up the consuming of mens estates, the troubles of their families, the sicknesses of their bodies, the shame ⟨p. 309⟩and contempt that it bringeth on them here, and the wounds of their consciences, and tell me whether it were not more pleasure to forbear those cups then to drink them. And hath not Gluttony more trouble attending it then temperance! By that time the charge be paid, the sickness that fullness breedeth be endured, the physician paid, and all the effects of gluttony overcome, you will find that the pleasure was little to the pain. The like I may say of Uncleanness, worldliness, passion, pride, and all other sins that usually bring a punishment with them.

Yea at the present hath not drunkenness more trouble attending it then sobriety! Reckon up the consuming of mens estates, the troubles of their families, the sicknesses of their bodies, the shame ⟨p. 309⟩and contempt that it bringeth on them here, and the wounds of their consciences, and tell me whether it were not more pleasure to forbear those cups then to drink them. And hath not Gluttony more trouble attending it then temperance! By that time the charge be paid, the sickness that fulness breedeth be endured, the physicion paid, and all the effects of gluttony overcome, you will find that the pleasure was little to the pain. The like I may say of Uncleanness, worldliness, passion, pride, and all other sins that usually bring a punishment with them.

2. And then for Castigatory sufferings, it is not Godliness that is the cause of them (as sufferings.) Sin less, and suffer less. Provoke not God, and he will spare the rod. Do you hurt your selves like careless children, and then blame God for bidding you, [Take heed?] God doth not punish men for Holiness, and well doing. It is for want of Holiness that you are punished. I think therefore that it is part of the Pleasure of a Holy life, that it keeps men out of the way of punishment. You must have pain, and unpleasant physic, when once you have taken a surfeit of sensual delight, and made your selves sick with too much of the creature. Holiness would have prevented this: And when that's too late, it would cure it by the cheapest means that your health will bear. Is it not then unreasonable when you have troubled your selves, to blame your physician for troubling you in order to a cure?