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THE belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of
wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the
guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with
wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it
weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear
contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not
drunkenness through wine, but fulness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking
Jerusalem through the prophet. "For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in
that she ate her bread in fulness and abundance?" And because through
fulness of bread they were inflamed with uncontrollable lust of the flesh,
they were burnt up by the judgment of God with fire and brimstone from
heaven. But if excess of bread alone drove them to such a headlong downfall
into sin through the vice of satiety, what shall we think of those who with
a vigorous body dare to partake of meat and wine with unbounded licence,
taking not just what their bodily frailty demands, but what the eager
desire of the mind suggests.
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