
“God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks.”
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1735) : Bad Commentators spoil the best of books, So God sends meat (they say) the devil cooks.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks.”
“God sends meat and the devil sends cooks.”
Originally in A. Borde Dietary of Health xi. (1542 )
Used and popularised by Deloney in 1574. Dictionary of Proverbs http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7PMZJqSR4sAC&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=god+sends+meat+deloney&source=bl&ots=ASloRAQyP1&sig=xQyq5EwO7MuEouEj2kHOFGMvuE8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UW_3UqP3DYGGhQfrnIGwBQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=god%20sends%20meat%20deloney&f=false
Epigram on Goldsmith’s Retaliation. Vol. ii. p. 157. Compare: "God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat", Thomas Tusser, A Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557); "God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks", John Taylor, Works, vol. ii. p. 85 (1630).
“God never sends th' mouth but he sendeth meat.”
Part I, chapter 4.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Diary entry (November 1855), as quoted in The Shadow of the Telescope: A Biography of John Herschel by Günther Buttmann
As quoted in an interview with Cal Thomas (November 2001), he later indicated that the remarks "do not accurately reflect what I believe I said", as quoted in "Ashcroft Invokes Religion In U.S. War on Terrorism" in The Washington Post (20 February 2002) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0220-03.htm