Let it therefore be your constant care to keep your selves within the bounds of Temperance and Sobriety. And that both for Others sakes, and for your Own. You should be examples, O be not stumbling Blocks to younger people. Your vices may propagate when your persons are past it; and those that are Eye or Ear-witnesses of your follies, may derive the practice of them to the Child that is yet unborn; and although you may recover by true Repentance, yet they may stumble upon you, and fall and never rise again. Entail not a Curse upon your Posterity, do not nourish in them, ⟨p. 118⟩that natural depravation, which in equity you ought rather to cure. And for your Own sake be sober, be vigilant; for you are upon the confines of the everlasting World; a World wherein all sensual enjoyments will be for ever out of date; endeavour to go off the Stage without a Blemish. When some Courtiers were sent to Sr Fr. Walsingham, being sick and sad, to make him merry, God, said he, is serious in his Law, Jesus Christ was serious in his Death, the Holy Ghost is serious in his dealing with our Souls, all in Heaven and Hell are serious, and shall a Man that hath one Foot in the Grave, Laugh and Jest? Take warning by poor Noah, One hours Drunkenness discovered that, which Six hundred years Sobriety had concealed. If his inexperience did in any degree excuse him, you can make no such pretence. If you have any regard to the Health and Vigour of your Bodies, to the quiet and welfare of your Souls, to the pleasing and honouring of God, bridle your appetite and check the pleasures of your Senses. In short, there is, as we observed before, no better way to spin out your lives, to make Old-age pleasant, and Death easy, than the exercise of ⟨p. 119⟩this Virtue. The instance of Cornaro a learned and rich Venetian is common, that with a sparing and orderly Diet lived to a great Age with little inconvenience. To deny a mans self, is the way to please himself at length; and by opposing the preternatural desires of the Body, we contribute to the true happiness even of the Body it self.
Let it therefore be your constant care to keep your selves within the bounds of Temperance and Sobriety. And that both for Others sakes, and for your Own. You should be examples, O be not stumbling Blocks to younger people. Your vices may propagate when your persons are past it; and those that are Eye or Ear-witnesses of your follies, may derive the practice of them to the Child that is yet unborn; and altho you may recover by true Repentance, yet they may stumble upon you, and fall and never rise again. Entail not a Curse upon your Posterity, do not nourish in them, ⟨p. 118⟩that natural depravation, which in equity you ought rather to cure. And for your Own sake be sober, be vigilant; for you are upon the confines of the everlasting World; a World wherein all sensual enjoyments will be for ever out of date; endeavour to go off the Stage without a Blemish. When some Courtiers were sent to Sr Fr. Walsingham, being sick and sad, to make him merry, God, said he, is serious in his Law, Iesus Christ was serious in his Death, the Holy Ghost is serious in his dealing with our Souls, all in Heaven and Hell are serious, and shall a Man that hath one Foot in the Grave, Laugh and Iest? Take warning by poor Noah, One hours Drunkenness discovered that, which Six hundred years Sobriety had concealed. If his inexperience did in any degree excuse him, you can make no such pretence. If you have any regard to the Health and Vigour of your Bodies, to the quiet and welfare of your Souls, to the pleasing and honouring of God, bridle your appetite and check the pleasures of your Senses. In short, there is, as we observed before, no better way to spin out your lives, to make Old-age pleasant, and Death easie, than the exercise of ⟨p. 119⟩this Vertue. The instance of Cornaro a learned and rich Venetian is common, that with a sparing and orderly Diet lived to a great Age with little inconvenience. To deny a mans self, is the way to please himself at length; and by opposing the preternatural desires of the Body, we contribute to the true happiness even of the Body it self.
