likewife, when our circumstances not permitting us, ordinarily, to indulge our appetite, we yet fet no bounds to it, when we have an opportunity of gratifying it. He is the temperate man, whofe health directs his appetite-who is best pleafed with what beft agrees with him-who eats, not to gratify his tafte, but to preferve his life who is the fame at every table, as at his own-who, when he feafts, is not cloyed; and fees all the delicacies before him, that luxury can accumulate; yet preferves a due abitinence amidit them. The rules of temperance not only oblige us to abstain from what now does, or what we are fure joon will, hurt us: we offend against them, when we avoid not whatever has a probability of being hurtful to us.They are, further, tranfgreffed by too great nicety about our food-by much folicitude and eagerness to procure what we most relish-by frequently eating to fatiety. We have a letter remaining of an heathen, who was one of the moft eminent perfons in an age diftinguished by the great men it produced, in which he expreffes how uneafy it made him, to be among thofe, who placed no fmall part of their happiness in an elegant table, and who filled themfelves twice a day. In thus defcribing temperance, let me not be understood to cenfure, as a failure therein, all regard to the food that beft pleafes us, when it is equally wholefome with other kinds when its price is neither unfuitable to our circumftances, nor very great-when it may be conveniently procared-when we are not anxious about it when we do not frequently feck after it when we are always moderate in its ufe. To govern our appetite is neceffary; but, in order to this, there is no neceffity, that we should always mortify it-that we should, upon every occafion, confider what is leaft agreeable to us. Life is no more to be paffed in a con flant felf-denial, than in a round of fenfual enjoyments. We should endeavour, that it may not be, at any time, painful to us to deny ourselves what is improper for us; and, on that as well as other accounts, it is moft fitting that we should frequently practice felf-denial-that we should often forego what would delight us. But to do this continually, I cannot fuppofe required of us; because it doth not feem realonable to think that it fhould be our duty wholly to debar ourfelves of that food which our palate is formed to relish, and which we are fure may be used, without any prejudice to our virtue, or our health. Thus much may fuffice to inform us, when we incur the guilt of eating intemperately. The diffuafives from it, that appear of greatest weight, are thefe: It is the groffeft abufe of the gifts of Providence. It is the vileft debafement of ourselves. Our bodies owe to it the most painful ́ difeafes, and, generally, a fpeedy decay. It frequently interrupts the ufe of our nobler faculties, and is fure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them. The flraits to which it often reduces us, occafion our falling into crimes, which would, otherwife, have been our utter abhorrence. Dean Bolton. § 131. On Intemperance in Eating. SECT. II. To confider, firft, excess in our food as the groffeft abuse of the gifts of providence. The valt variety of creatures, with which God has replenished the earth-the abundant provifion, which he has made for many of them-the care, which he has taken that each fpecies of them should be preferved the numerous conveniencies they adminifter to us--the pleafing change of food they afford us--the fuitable food that we find, among their different kinds, to different climates, to our different ways of life, ages, conflitutions, diftempers, are, certainly, the moft awakening call to the highelt admiration, and the gratefulleft fenfe, of the divine wisdom and goodness. This fenfe is properly expreffed, by the due application of what is fo graciously afforded us--by the application of it to thofe purposes, for which it was manifetly intended. But how contrary hereto is his practice, who lives as it were but to eat, and confiders the liberality of providence only as catering for his luxury! What mischief this luxury doth us will be prefently confidered; and, in whatfoever degree it hurts us, we to fuch a degree abuse our Maker's bounty, which must defign our good-which, certainly, is directed to our welfare. Were we, by indulging our appetites, only to make ourselves lefs fit for any of the offices of life, only to become lefs capable of difcharging any of the duties of our Atation, it may be made evident, that, in this refpect likewife, our ufe of the Divine beneficence is quite contrary to what it requires. He who has appointed us our bufinefs here-who, by our peculiar capacities, has fignified to us our proper employments, thereby difcovers to us how far merely to please ourselves is allowed us; and that, if we do fo, to the hindrance of a nobler work, it is oppofing his intention; it is defeating the end of life, by thofe very gifts, which were beftowed to carry us on more chearfully towards it. When my palate has a large fcope for its innocent choice-when I have at hand what may most agreeably recruit my ftrength, and what is moft effectual to preferve it; how great ingratitude and bafenefs fhew themfelves in the excefs, which perverts the aim of fo much kindnefs, and makes that to be the caufe of my forgetting with what view I was created, which ought to keep me ever mindful of it! As the bounty of Heaven is one of the ftrongest motives to a reasonable life, how guilty are we if we abuse it to the purposes of a fenfual! Our crime must be highly aggravated, when the more conveniences our Maker has provided for us, we are fo much the more unmindful of the task he has enjoined us when by his granting us what may fatisfy our appetite, we are induced wholly to confult it, and make ourfelves flaves to it. Let intemperance in our food be next confidered, as the shamefullest debasement of ourselves. Life, as we have been wifely taught to confider it, is more than meat. Man could not be fent into the world but for quite different purposes, than merely to indulge his palate. He has an understanding given him, which he may greatly improve; many are the perfections, which he is qualified to attain; much good to his fellowcreatures he has abilities to do: and all this may be truly faid of all mankind; all of us may improve our reafon, may proceed in virtue, may be ufeful to our fellow creatures. There are none, therefore, to whom it is not the fouleft reproach, that their belly is their God-that they are more folicitous to favour, and thereby to strengthen, the importunity of their appetite, than to weaken and mafter it, by frequent refiftance and restraint. The reafonable being is to be always under the influence of reafon; it is his excellence, his prerogative, to be fo: whatever is an hindrance to this degrades him, reflects on him difgrace and contempt. And as our reafon and appetite are in a conftant oppofition to each other, there is no indulging the latter, without leffening the power of the former: If our appetite is not governed by, it will govern, our reafon, and make its most prudent fuggeftions, its wifeft counfels, to be unheeded and flighted. The fewer the wants of any being are, we must confider it as fo much the more perfect; fince thereby it is lefs dependent, and has lefs of its happiness without itself. When we raise our thoughts to the Beings above us, we cannot but attribute to the higher orders of them, ftill farther removes from our own weakness and indigence, till we reach God himself, and exempt him from wants of every kind. Knowing thus what must be afcribed to natures fuperior to curs, we cannot be ignorant, what is our own best recommendation; by what our nature is raised; wherein its worth is diftinguished. To be without any wants is the Divine prerogative; our praife is, that we add not to the number of thofe, to which we were appointed-that we have none we can avoid that we have none from our own mifconduct. In this we attain the utmost degree of perfection within our reach. On the other hand, when fancy has multiplied our neceffities-when we owe I know not how many to ourfelves-when our eafe is made dependent on delicacies, to which our Maker never fubjected itwhen the cravings of our luxury bear no proportion to thofe of our natural hunger, what a degenerate race do we become! What do we but fink our rank in the creation. He whofe voracioufnefs prevents his being fatisfied, till he is loaded to the full of what he is able to bear, who eats to the utmost extent of what he can eat, is a mere brute, and one of the loweft kind of brutes; the generality of them obferving a juft moderation in their food-when duly relieved feeking no more, and forbearing even what is before them. But below any brute is he, who, by indulging himself, has contracted wants, from which nature exempted him; who must be made hungry by art, must have his food undergo the molt unwholfome preparations, before he can be inclined to talle it; only relishing what is ruinous to his health; his life fupported by what neceffarily fhortens it. A part this, which, when acted by him, who has reafon, reflection, forefight given him, wants a naine to reprefent it in the full of its deformity. With privileges fo far be yond thofe of the creatures below us, how great is our bafenefs, our guilt, if thofe endowments are fo far abused, that they serve us but to find out the means of more grefsly corrupting ourselves! I cannot quit this head, without remarking it to be no flight argument of the difhonour we incur by gluttony, that nothing is more carefully avoided in all well-bred company, nothing would be thought by fuch more brutal and rude, than the difcovery of any marks of our having eat intemperately-of our having exceeded that proportion of food, which is proper for our nourishment. Dean Bolton. $132. On Intemperance in Eating. SECT. III. To confider, further, excefs in our food as haftening our death, and bringing on us the most painful diseases. It is evident, that nothing contributes more to the profervation of life, than temperance. Experience proves it to be actually fo; and the structure of the human body fhews that it must be fo. They who defcribe the golden age, or the age of innocence, and near a thousand years of life, reprefent the cuftomary food of it, as the plaineft and moft fimple. Whether animal food was at all ufed before the flood, is quèftioned: we certainly find, long after it, that Lot's making a feat is defcribed by his baking unleavened bread. Abraham entertained thofe, whom he confidered of fuch eminence, as that, to ufe the words of fcripture, 66 he ran to "meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground;" Abraham's entertainment, I fay, of perfons thus honoured by him, was only with a calf, with cakes of meal, with butter and milk. Gideon's hofpitality towards the moft illuftrious of guests thewed itfelf in killing a kid of the goats; and we read that fe looked upon this to be a prefent, which his prince would not difdain. Perhaps my reader would rather take a mea with fome of the worthies of profane hiftery, than with thefe, whom the facred has recorded. I will be his introducer. He fhall be a guel at an entertainment, which was, certainly, defigned to be a fplendid one; fince it was made by Achilles for three fuch conflerable perions, as Phanix, Ajax, and Unger; perfons, whom he himself repre fents as being, of all the Grecian chiefs, thofe whom he most honours. He will easily be believed herein; for this declaration is fcarce fooner out of his mouth, than he and his friends, Patroclus and Automedon, feverally employ themselves in making up the fire-chopping the meat, and putting it into the pot-Or, if Mr. Pope be allowed to defcribe their tasks on this occafion, Patroclus o'er the blazing fire Heaps in a brazen vafe three chines entire: Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains: But who is dreffing the fish and fowls? This feaft, alas! furnishes neither. The poet is fo very bad a caterer, that he provides nothing of that kind for his heroes on this occafion; or, on another, even for the luxurious Phæacians. Such famples thefe of Homer's entertainments, as will gain entire credit to what is faid of them in Plutarch, "that we must rife almost hungry "from them." Symp. Lib. II. Qu. 10. Should the blind bard be confidered as a ftroller-keeping low company, and therefore, in the feafts he makes for the great, likely more to regard the quantity of the food which he provides for them, than the kind of it: would you rather be one of Virgil's guests, as he lived in an age, when good eating was underfloodconverfed with people of rank-knew what dishes they liked, and would therefore not fail to place fuch before them? You fhall then be the gucft of the Roman poet-Do you chufe beef, or muttonwould you be helped to pork, or do you prefer goat's-flefh? You have no ftomach for fuch fort of diet. He has nothing elfe for you, unless Polyphemus will spare you a leg or an arm of one of the poor Greeks he is eating; or unless you will join the halfdrowned crew, and take a bit of the ftags, which are dreffed as foon as killed; or unlefs you are a great lover of bread and apples, and in order to fatisfy your hunger, will, in the language of Ajcanius, eat your table. Dido, indeed, gives Eneas and his companions a moft fplendid entertainment, as far as numerous attendants conftitute one; but the poet mentions nothing, that the heroes had to eat, except bread; whatever elfe was got for them he includes in the general term Dapes; which, in other parts of the Eneid, is applied to all the coarfe fare already mentioned. As the luxury of mankind increafed, their lives fhortened: The half of Abraham's age became regarded as a stretch, far beyond the customary period. So in profane hiftory we find, that when the arts of luxury were unknown in Rome, its feven kings reigned a longer term, than, afterwards, upon the prevalency of thofe arts, was completed by its first twenty empe. rors. Such perfons, indeed, among the ancients, whofe precepts and practice most recommended temperance in diet, were eminent inftances of the benefit accruing from it, in the health preferved, and long life attained by it. Gorgias lived 107 years. Hippocrates reached, according to fome writers, his 104th year, according to others his 109th. Pythagoras, of whom it was obferved, that he was never known to eat to faticty, lived to near 100 years; if Jamblichus may be credited. D. Laertius fays, that according to moft writers he was, when he loft his life, in his goth year. Out of his fchool came Empedocles, who lived, as some fay, to 109; and Xenophilus, who lived to above 105. Zeno lived to 98: his difciple and fucceffor Cleanthes to 99. Diegenes, when he died, was about 95. Plato reach'd his 81ft year; and his follower Xenocrates his eighty-fourth. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Lacedemonians, who, when they obeyed his laws, were not le's diftinguished by their abilemioufhefs than by their fortitude, lived to 85; and their King 4gifilaus took pay of Tachos at 80; afterwards aflifted Nectane bas; and, having established him in his kingdom, died, in his return to Sparta at 84. Ceto, the Cenfor, is introduced by Tally reprefenting himself as, when in his 84th year, able to affift in the fenate-to speak in the aflembly of the people, and to give his friends and dependents the afliitance, which they might want from him. Lucian introduces his account of longlived perfons, with the obfervation, that it might be of use, as fhewing that they, who took the most care of their bodies and minds, lived the longeft, and enjoyed the best health. To come nearer to our own times: the difcovery of a new world has confirmed the obfervations furnished by the old; that in thofe countries, where the greateft fimplicity of diet has been used, the greatest length of life has been attained. Of the ancient inhabitants of Virginia we are told, "That their chief dish was maiz, and that they drank only water: That their difeafes were few, and chiefly proceeded from exceffive heats or colds." Atl. Geog. vol. v. p. 711. "Some of them lived to upwards of 200 years." PURCHAS, Vol. v. p. 946. The fobriety of the ancient. inhabitants of Florida lengthen'd their lives. in fuch fort, that one of their kings, fays Morgues, told me, he was three hundred years old; and his father, whom he then fhewed me alive, was fifty years older than himself." PURCHAS, vol. v. p. 961. And if we now fearch after particular inftances of perfons reaching to extreme old age, it is certain that we must not refort for them to courts and palaces; to the dwellings of the great or the wealthy; but to the cells of the religious, or to cottages; to the habitations of fuch, whose hunger is their fauce, and to whom a wholefome meal is a fufficiently delicate one. Martha Waterhofe, of the township of North Bierley in Yorkshire, died about the year 1711, in the 104th year of her age: her maiden fifter, Hefter Jager, of the fame place, died in 1713, in the 107th year of her age. They had both of them relief from the township of Bierley nigh fifty years. Alridgement of Phil. Tranf. by JONES, vol. ii. p. 2. p. 115. Dr. Harvey in his anatomical account of T. Parr, who died in the 153d year of his age, fays-that, if he had not changed his diet and air, he might, perhaps, have lived a good while longer. His diet was old cheeie, milk, coarfe bread, small beer, and whey. Dr. T. Robinfon fays of H. Jenkins the fifherman, who lived 169 years, that his diet was coarfe and four. Dr. M. Lifter, having mentioned feveral old perfons of Craven in Yorkihire, faysThe food of all this mountainous country is exceeding coarfe. Abr. of Phil. Tranf by LowTHORP. vol. iii. p. 307, &c. Buchanan fpeaks of a therman in his own time, who married at 100, went out in his little fishing boat in the roughest weather at 140, and at last did not die of any painful distemper, but merely worn out by age. Rer. Scot. Hifi. lib. i. ad fin. Plaarch mentions our countrymen as, in his time, growing old at 120. To account for this, as he does, from their climate, feems less rational than to afcribe it to their way of living, as related by Diodorus Siculus, who tells us that their diet was fimple, and that they were utter ftrangers to the delicate fare of the wealthy. In our feveral neighbourhoods we all of us fee, that they who leaft confult their appetite, who leaft give way to its wantonnefs er voracioufnels, attain, generally, to years far exceeding theirs, who deny themselves nothing they can relish, and conveniently procure. Human life, indeed, being expofed to fo many thoufand accidents, its end being hattened by fuch a prodigious diverfity of means, there is no care we can take of ourfelves, in any one refpect, that will be our effectual prefervative; but, allowing for cafualties and difference in conftitutions, we every where perceive, that the age of thofe, who neglect the rules of temperance, is of a much shorter date than theirs, by whom thefe rules are carefully followed. And if we attend to our ftructure, it muft thence be evident that it cannot be otherwife. Dean Bolton. § 133. On Intemperance in Eating. The human body may be confidered as compofed of a great variety of tubes, in which their proper fluid is in a perpetual motion. Our health is according to the condition, in which thefe veffels and this fluid are. The ruptured, or too relaxed, or too rigid ftate of the one; and the redundancy or deficiency, the refolved or vifcid, the acefcent or the putrefcent ftate of the other, is a diforder in our frame. Whether our excefs be in the quantity or quality of aliment, we muft fuffer by it, in fome or other of theje ways. By the ftomach being frequently loaded, that fulness of the veffels entues, by which the fibres are weakened-the circulation becomes languid-perfpiration is leffened -obtructions are formed-the humours become vifcid and foon putrid. In the progress to this laft ftate, different difeafes take place, according to the general ftrength or weakness of the folids, or according to the debility of fome particular gan; according to the conftitution of the ar, according to our reft or motion; acording to the warmth in which we keep, or We are tempted to exceed in the quantity of our food, by the feasoning of it, or by the variety of it. The ftimulus of fauce ferves but to excite a falfe appetite-to make us eat much more than we fhould do, if our diet were quite fimple. The effect is the fame, when our meal is compofed of feveral kinds of food: their different tafles are fo many inducements to excefs, as they are fo many provocations to eat beyond what will fatisfy our natural wants. And thus, tho' we were never to touch a difh, which had its relish from any the leaft unwholfome ingredient; tho' our diet were the plaineft, and nothing came ever before us, that had any other elegance than from the feafor, in which it was brought to our table, or the place in which it appeared there; we yet might greatly hurt ourselves; we might be as intemperate, and as speedily deltroy ourfelves by our intemperance with roaft and boiled meat, as with fricaffees and ragouts. The quality of our aliment may be mischievous to us, either as univerfally prejudicial to the human conflitution, or as unfuitable to our own;-unfuitable to the weakness of our whole frame, or to fome defect in the formation of a part of it, or to that taint we have in us, from the difcafes or vices of our parents. We may be greatly prejudiced by the kind of our food in many other ways; and we, ordinarily, are fo, by not regarding what agrees with the climate, in which we are---what with the country we inhabitwhat with the manner of life we lead. From the great heat that spices occafion, and from the length of time they continue it, we may truly fay, that their copious and daily ufe in food must be injurious to all conftitutions, So for falted meats, the hurt that may be feared from them, when they are our conflant meals, is easily collected, from the irritation they muft caufe in their paffage thro' the body-from the injury, that must hence enfue to its finer membranes-from the numerous acrid particles, that muft hereby be lodged in the pores of the fkin, the obftructions which this muft produce, ard 1 3 the |