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expose them, and make them confess the Crime when it is to be read in their Punishment.
Whence come Palsies and Epilepsies, Falling-Sickness, trembling of the Joints, pale dejected Aspects, Leanness, and at last Rottenness, and other filthy and loathsome Distempers, but from the criminal Excesses of their younger times? 'Tis not enough to say that it was lawful, and they made use of none but their own Wives; the natural Course of things go on their own way; Nature's Streams flow all in the same Channels; if the Fountain is drawn dry, if the Vitals are exhausted, the Engines of Nature worked with unreasonable Violence, the Parts feel the same unreasonable Force, and the Consequences will be the same, whether the Facts were justifiable, and lawful in themselves or not.
Thus, as above, 'tis lawful to eat and drink; and the Kinds and Quantities of Food which we are to eat are perfectly left to our own Discretion; nay, we are left, as I have said, even to regale and divert our selves both with Eating and Drinking. But the Epicure, who gives himself all manner of Liberties, that gives a loose to the gust of his Appetite, that gorges his Stomach with rich Sauces and surfeiting Dainties, that rather devours than feeds upon what is before him, and knows no Bounds to his eating but the meer mathematical Dimensions of his Bowels: What comes of him? He swells up with Fat, is over-run with Rheums, Catarrhs, and all scorbutick Distempers, and at last sinks under the Weight of his own Bulk, is choaked with the very Food he eats, and dies in the middle of his dainty Meats: and the Drunkard, gorged with Wine, does the same.
Thus
