A94156:859
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, Thy duty is to be temperate as to the quantity of thy diet. Reason is content with a little, Religion with less. Although no certain proportion of food can be prescribed to men, for those showers which drown the clay valleys, do hardly quench the thirst of the sandy hills? Neither the bodies of men, nor their stomachs are all of a size; yet this is a certain rule, for a man to eat or drink so much as to oppress nature, and to unfit himself for prayer, is a degree of intemperance. God gave man food to further, not to hinder him in his general, and particular calling; and surely they sin who feed till like fatted horses, they are unfit for service. Turtull. speaking of the carriage of the Primitive Christians at their meals tells us, 1They do not sit down before they have prayed; they eat as much as may satisfy hunger, they drink so much as is sufficient for temperate men, are filled as they that remember they must pray afterwards.
First, Thy duty is to be temperate as to the quantity of thy diet. Reason is content with a little, Religion with less. Although no certain proportion of food can be prescribed to men, for those showers which drown the clay vallies, do hardly quench the thirst of the sandy hills? Neither the bodies of men, nor their stomacks are all of a size; yet this is a certain rule, for a man to eat or drink so much as to oppress nature, and to unfit himself for prayer, is a degree of intemperance. God gave man food to further, not to hinder him in his general, and particular calling; and surely they sin who feed till like fatted horses, they are unfit for service. Turtull. speaking of the carriage of the Primitive Christians at their meals tells us, 1They do not sit down before they have prayed; they eat as much as may satisfie hunger, they drink so much as is sufficient for temperate men, are filled as they that remember they must pray afterwards.
- 1Non prius discumbitur quam oratio ad deum praegustetur; editur quantum esurientes cupiunt; b•bitur quantum pudicis est utile, ita saturantur ut qui meminerint eti am per noctem sibi adorandum deum esse. Tertull. Apologet.