Page:Theartofdyingwel00belluoft.djvu/154

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necessity to dwell more at length on these sins, which the faithful ought rather to be ignorant of, and the names of which ought never to be heard amongst them. Thus does St. Paul speak in his Epistle to the Ephesians: "But fornication and all uncleanness, let it not be so much as named amongst you as becometh saints." Against all these crimes the following seem to me to be the remedies, and they are such as physicians use to cure the sick. First, they begin with fasting or abstinence, they forbid the patients meat and wine. So must every one do the same who is given to luxury, he must abstain from eating and drinking too much. This the Apostle prescribes to Timothy: " Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thy frequent infirmities." (1st to Timothy 23.) That is, use wine on the account of the weakness of your stomach, but only moderately to avoid drunkenness, for in much wine is luxury. Again, physicians give bitter medicine, bleed the "body, make incisions, and do other things painful to nature. So did the saints say with the Apostle, " But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a cast-away." (1st Epistle to Corinth, chap. ix. 27.) Hence the ancient hermits and anchorets led a life quite opposed to the pleasures and de light of the flesh, in fastings and watchings, lying on the ground in sackcloth and chas-