A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster

Quest. But nature knows best what's good for it self, and therefore that which it desireth is to be judged best: A Beast liveth as healthfully as a man, that obeyeth his appetite only. Is it not lawful to take either meat or drink on this account, that the Appetite is pleased with it?

Answ. 1. Some Beasts would presently kill themselves in pleasing their appetites, if man that is Rational ⟨p. 137⟩did not rule; restrain and moderate them. A Swine will burst himself with whey in half an hour. A Beast in new after-grass will surfeit, if he be suffered. No Beast knows poison from food, but would soon perish by it, in obeying his appetite. 2. And yet as a B••st hath no Reason, so he is better provided to live without Reason, than man is. His appetite is not so corrupted by sin as ours is! Original sin hath depraved and enraged our appetites. And if man had not more use for his reason than a Beast even in ordering his natural actions, God would not have given him reason to rule his appetite, and commanded him to use it herein. And who knows not that if a man did follow his appetite alone as Beasts do, he were like to murder himself the next day or week, or at least in a very little space? The appetite would presently carry us to that for quality, or quantity, or both, that would cast us into mortal diseases and soon make an end of us: And in those diseases, the pleasing it usually would be certain death. And indeed this is a beastly doctrine, that man that hath reason to rule his sensual inclinations, should lay it by and please his appetite without it like a brute! what more do all Gluttons, Drunkards, and Whoremongers, but follow there fleshly desires? And if the desires of the flesh might be followed, who would not be such as they, in some measure? That which is no sin in a Beast, is a heinous sin in a man, because man hath reason to rule his appetite, and a Beast hath none; and therefore is not capable of sin. And for the body, it's certain that most of the diseases in the world are bred and fed by the pleasing of the appetite; and I think that there's few that are laid in their graves, but this was the cause of it, though the ignorant know it not, and the sensual are loth to believe it.