Of Sobriety in the general sense.

Christian religion, in all its moral parts, in nothing else but the law of nature, and great reason; complying with the great necessities of all the world, and promoting the great profit of all relations, and carrying us through all accidents and variety of changes, to that end which God hath from eternal ages purposed for that live according to it, and which he hath revealed in Jesus Christ: and, according to the apostle’s arithmetic, hath but these three parts of it; 1. Sobriety, 2. Justice, 3. Religion. “For the grace of God, being salvation, hath appeared to all men; teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live. 1. Soberly, 2. Righteously, and, 3. Godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The first contains all our deportment in our personal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and our spirits. The second enlarges our duty in all relations to our neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct religion, and intercourse with God.

Christian sobriety is also that duty that concerns ourselves in the matter of meat, and drink, and pleasures, and thoughts; and it hath within it the duties of 1. Temperance, 2. Chastity, 3. Humility, 4. Modesty, 5. Content.

It is a using severity, denial, and frustration of our appetite, when it grows unreasonable in any of these instances: the necessity of which we shall to best purpose understand, by considering the evil consequences of sensuality, effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures.