[396] Even fruitful land, saith Plutarch, enricheth not if it cost too much the manuring. So here.
[397] As Isaac's pleasant meat, Gen. xxvii. 7.
[398] Non potest temperantiam laudare is, qui summum bonum ponit in voluptate. Est enim temperantia libidinum inimica. Cicero. Saith Aristotle, He is temperate that takes pleasure to deny fleshly pleasure; but he is intemperate that is troubled because he cannot have them. Ethic. 1. 2. c. 3.
[399] Socrates dixit, eos qui præcocia magno emerent, desperare se ad maturitatis tempus perventuros. Laert. in Socrat. Cum vocasset ad cœnam divites, et Zantippen modici puderet apparatus; Bono, inquit, esto animo. Nam siquidem modesti erunt frugique, mensam non aspernabuntur; sin autem intemperantes, nulla nobis de hisce cura fuerit. Idem ibid. Dicebat alios vivere ut ederent, se autem edere ut vivat. Ibid.
[400] Hic est mos nobilium ante alios: artes quæ liberales fuerunt, mechanicæ evasere: ipsique qui bellorum duces, philosophi, rectores urbium, ac patres patriæ esse solent, venatores; atque aucupes facti sunt, utque intelligas nullam esse reliquam spem salutis, nobilitati tribuitur quod est Gulæ. aut proculdubio vanitatis. Petrarch.
[401] 1 Cor. x. 7.
[402] Of this see more in my book of "Self-denial."
[403] See Plutarch's precepts of health.
[404] Rom. xvi. 17, 18. They serve not the Lord Jesus, but their own bellies.
[405] It is a common saying that Gula plures occidit quam gladius. Quicquid avium volitat, quicquid piscium natat, quicquid ferarum discurrit, nostris sepelitur ventribus. Quære nunc cur subito moriamur? Quia mortibus vivimus. Senec. Hierom saith, that he had read of some that had been sick of the arthritis and podagra, that were cured by being brought to poverty by confiscation of their estates, and so brought to a poor diet.