ICHTHYOPHAGIA; OR, FISH-EATING. 283
I have heard say that the Pope’s laws do by name except boys, old men, and sick and weak persons, such as work hard, women with child, sucking children, and very poor people. Bu. I have often heard the same. Fi. I have also heard a very great divine, I think his name is gerson, say further, if there be any other case of equal weight with those which the Pope’s laws except by name, the force of the precept gives way in like manner. For there are peculiar habits of body which render the want of some things more material than an evident disease; and there are distempers that do not appear that are more dangerous than those that do: Therefore he that is acquainted with his own constitution, has no need to consult a priest; even as infants do not, because their circumstances exempt them from the law. And therefore they that oblige boys, or very old men, or persons otherwise weak, to fast, or to eat fish, commit a double sin: First, against brotherly charity: And secondly, against the very intention of the pope, who would not involve them in a law, the observation of which would be pernicious to them.
Whatsoever Christ has ordered, he has ordained for the health of body and mind both; neither does any pope claim to himself such a power, as by any constitution of his, to bring any person into danger of life: As, suppose that any person by not eating in the evening, should not rest at night, and so for want of sleep be in danger of growing light-headed, he is a murderer, both against the sense of the church, and the will of God. Princes, as oft as it suits with their conveniency, publish an edict threatning with a capital punishment: How far their power extends I will not determine; but this I will venture to say, they would act more safely, if they did not inflict death for any other causes, than such as are express’d in the holy scriptures. In things blame-worthy, the Lord dehorts from going to the extremity of the limits, as in the case of perjury, forbidding to swear at all; in murder, forbidding to be angry; we by a human constitution force persons upon the extreme crime of homicide, which we call necessity. Nay, as oft as a probable cause appears, it is a duty of charity, of our own accord, to exhort our neighbour to those things that the weakness of his body requires: And if there be no apparent cause, yet it is the duty of christian charity kindly to suppose it may be done with a good intention, unless it carries along with it a manifest contempt of the church.
A profane magistrate very justly punishes those that eat contumaciously and seditiously; but what every one shall eat in his own house, is rather the business of a physician than a magistrate: Upon which account, if any person shall be so wicked as to cause any disorder; they are guilty of sedition, and not the person that consults his own health, and breaks no law, neither of God nor man. In this the authority of the pope is misapplied; ’tis absurd to pretend the authority of popes in this case, who are persons of so much humanity, that if they did but know a good reason for it, they would of their own accord invite them to those things that are for their health, and defend them by dispensations against the slanders of all persons. And besides, throughout italy, they permit flesh to be sold in certain markets, for the sake of the health of such persons as are not comprehended in that law. Besides, I have heard divines that have not been precise in their
