Sermons upon the Book of Job

I pray you then, must it not needs be as it were a gulf of hell, where they meet together to make compacts of wickedness and treason? Therefore let us mark well this sentence, to the end that sith we know men to be so much inclined to vices, that they mar the thing that is good,§40 and turn it into evil: we may take the more heed to our selves, that when we eat and drink one with an other, we confess our selves alway sinners, for offending God thereby. True it is in deed, that we must not be scrupulous and superstitious, as some be which eat not a bit of bread with quietness of conscience: If a man tell them, that they ought to advise themselves what they do: thereupon they conclude that men can neither eat nor drink without offending of God. And when they are once come to such scrupulousness, as to think that §50they sin in all things that they do: they fall to concluding: Well, then let us set all at random: I say, there are such as these to be found. But this is not as we ought to do, this is not as the Scripture leadeth us. Therefore let us wake and keep sure watch, that we be not taken unawares. When we be set at the table to drink and to eat, let us pray unto God, beseeching him of his gracious goodness, to keep us in such sobriety, that being nourished by his gifts, we may be the better disposed to serve him: so as our meats may not serve to overcharge §60us, but to sustain us, and to give us strength, that we may be the better able to occupy our selves in the service of our God. And that he will grant us the grace so to pass through these corruptible things, as we may always labour for the heavenly life, whereunto he calleth us by his word. For God maintaineth us not in this world to live for a day, or for ten, or for fifty years: but to the intent we should come to the said heavenly glory. Let us then consider how we ought to behave our selves: and when we be at the table, let us feed for our repast in such wise, as if God himself dieted us. And although we be in this world taking our nourishment of the food that we know:

I pray you then, must it not needes be as it were a gulfe of hell, where they meete togither to make cōpactes of wickednesse and treason? Therfore let vs marke well this sentence, to the end that sith we know men to be so much inclined to vices, that they marre the thing that is good,§40