_Directions for governing the Taste and Appetite._
_Tit._ 1. _Directions against Gluttony._
The most that is necessary to be said to acquaint you with the nature
and evil of this sin, is said before in chapter iv. part vii. against
flesh-pleasing. But something more particularly must be said, 1. To
show you what is and what is not the sin of gluttony. 2. To show you
the causes of it. 3. The odiousness of it. And, 4. To acquaint you
with the more particular helps and means against it.
I. Gluttony is a voluntary excess in eating, for the pleasing of the
appetite, or some other carnal end.[395] Here note, 1. The matter. 2.
The end or effect of this excess. (1.) It is sometimes an excess in
quantity, when more is eaten than is meet. (2.) Or else it may be an
excess in the delicious quantity, when more regard is had to the
delight and sweetness than is meet. (3.) Or it may be an excess in the
frequency and ordinary unseasonableness of eating; when men eat too
oft, and sit at it too long. (4.) It may be an excess in the
costliness or price; when men feed themselves at too high rates. (5.)
Or it may be an excess of curiosity in the dressing, and saucing, and
ordering of all. 2. And it is usually for some carnal end. Whether it
may be properly called gluttony, if a man should think that at a
sacrifice of thanksgiving he were bound to eat inordinately, and so
made the service of God his end, we need not inquire (though I see not
but it may have that name). For that is a case that is more rare; and
it is undoubtedly a sin: and it is gluttony, if it be done for the
pleasing of others that are importunate with you. But the common
gluttony is when it is done for the pleasing of the appetite, with
such a pleasure, as is no help to health or duty, but usually a hurt
to body or soul; the body being hurt by the excess, the soul is hurt
by the inordinate pleasure.[396]
Yea, it is a kind of gluttony and excess, when men will not fast or
abstain when they are required, from that which at other times they may
use with abstinence and without blame. If a man use not to eat
excessively nor deliciously, yet if he will not abstain from his
temperate diet, either at a public fast, or when his lust requireth him
to take down his body, or when his physician would diet him for his
health, and his disease else would be increased by what he eateth, this
is an inordinate eating and excess to that person, at that time. Or if
the delight that the appetite hath in one sort of meat, which is hurtful
to the body, prevail against reason and health so with the person that
he will not forbear it, it is a degree of gulosity or gluttony, though
for quantity and quality it be in itself but mean and ordinary.
By this you may see, 1. That it is not the same quantity which is an
excess in one, which is in another. A labouring man may eat somewhat
more than one that doth not labour; and a strong and healthful body,
more than the weak and sick. It must be an excess in quantity, as to
that particular person at that time, which is, when to please his
appetite he eateth more than is profitable to his health or duty. 2.
So also the frequency must be considered with the quality of the
person; for one person may rationally eat a little and often, for his
health, and another may luxuriously eat ofter than is profitable to
health. Eccl. x. 16, 17, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a
child, and thy princes eat in the morning. Blessed art thou, O land,
when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season,
for strength and not for drunkenness." 3. And in point of costliness,
the same measure is not to be set to a prince and to a ploughman; that
is luxurious excess in one, which may be temperance and frugality in
another. But yet, unprofitable cost, which, all things considered,
would do more good another way, is excess in whomsoever. 4. And in
curiosity of diet a difference must be allowed: the happier healthful
man need not be so curious as the sick; and the happy ploughman need
not be so curious, as state and expectation somewhat require the noble
and the rich to be. 5. And for length of time, though unnecessary
sitting out time at meat be a sin in any, yet the happy poor man is
not obliged to spend all out so much this way, as the rich may do. 6.
And it is not all delight in meat, or pleasing the appetite, that is a
sin;[397] but only that which is made men's end, and not referred to a
higher end; even when the delight itself doth not tend to health, nor
alacrity in duty, nor is used to that end, but to please the flesh and
tempt unto excess. 7. And it is not necessary that we measure the
profitableness of quantity or quality by the present and immediate
benefits; but by the more remote, sometimes: so merciful is God, that
he alloweth us that which is truly for our good, and forbiddeth us but
that which doth us hurt, or at least, no good. 8. All sin in eating is
not gluttony; but only such as are here described.
II. The causes of gluttony are these: 1. The chiefest is an inordinate
appetite, together with a fleshly mind and will, which is set upon
flesh-pleasing as its felicity. "They that are after the flesh do mind
the things of the flesh," Rom. viii. 6, 7. This gulosity, which
Clemens Alexandrinus calleth the throat devil, and the belly devil is
the first cause.[398]
2. The next cause is, the want of strong reason, faith, and a spiritual
appetite and mind, which should call off the glutton, and take him up
with higher pleasures; even such as are more manly, and in which his
real happiness doth consist. "They that are after the Spirit do mind the
things of the Spirit," Rom. viii. 6. Reason alone may do something to
call up a man from this felicity of a beast, (as appeareth by the
philosopher's assaults upon the epicures,) but faith and love, which
feast the soul with sweeter delicates, must do the cure.
3. Gluttony is much increased by use: when the appetite is used to be
satisfied, it will be the more importunate and impetuous; whereas a
custom of temperance maketh it easy, and makes excess a matter of no
delight, but burden. I remember myself, that when I first set upon the
use of Cornaro's and Lessius's diet, as it is called, (which I did for
a time, for some special reasons,) it seemed a little hard for two or
three days; but within a week it became a pleasure, and another sort,
or more was not desirable. And I think almost all that use one dish
only, and a small quantity, do find that more is a trouble and not a
temptation to them: so great a matter is use (unless it be with very
strong and labouring persons).
4. Idleness and want of diligence in a calling is a great cause of
luxury and gluttony. Though labour cause a healthful appetite, yet it
cureth a beastly, sensual mind. An idle person hath leisure to think
of his guts, what to eat and what to drink, and to be longing after
this and that; whereas a man that is wholly taken up in lawful
business, especially such as findeth employment for the mind as well
as for the body, hath no leisure for such thoughts. He that is close
at his studies, or other calling, hath somewhat else to think on than
his appetite.
5. Another incentive of gluttony is the pride of rich men, who, to be
accounted good housekeepers, and to live at such rates as are
agreeable to their grandeur, do make their houses shops of sin, and as
bad as alehouses; making their tables a snare both to themselves and
others, by fulness, variety, deliciousness, costliness, and curiosity
of fare. It is the honour of their houses that a man may drink
excessively in their cellars when he please: and that their tables
have excellent provisions for gluttony, and put all that sit at them
upon the trial of their temperance, whether a bait so near them, and
so studiously fitted, can tempt them to break the bounds and measure
which God hath set them.[399] It is a lamentable thing when such as
have the rule of others, and influence on the common people, shall
think their honour lieth upon their sin; yea, upon such a constant
course of sinning; and shall think it a dishonour to them to live in
sweet and wholesome temperance, and to see that those about them do
the like. And all this is, either because they overvalue the esteem
and talk of fleshly epicures, cannot bear the censure of a swine; or
else because they are themselves of the same mind, and are such as
glory in their shame, Phil. iii. 18, 19.
6. Another incentive is the custom of urging and importuning others to
eat still more and more; as if it were a necessary act of friendship.
People are grown so uncharitable and selfish, that they suspect one
another, and think they are not welcome, if they be not urged thus to
eat; and those that invite them think they must do it to avoid the
suspicion of such a sordid mind. And I deny not but it is fit to urge
any to that which it is fit for them to do; and if we see that modesty
maketh them eat less than is best for them, we may persuade them to
eat more. But now, without any due disrespect to what is best for
them, men think it a necessary compliment to provoke others more and
more to eat, till they peremptorily refuse it: but amongst the
familiarest friends, there is scarce any that will admonish one
another against excess, and advise them to stop when they have enough,
and tell them how easy it is to stop when they have enough, and tell
them how easy it is to step beyond our bounds, and how much more prone
we are to exceed, than to come short: and so custom and compliment are
preferred before temperance and honest fidelity. You will say, What
will men think of us if we should not persuade them to eat, much more
if we should desire them to eat no more? I answer, 1. Regard your duty
more than what men think of you. Prefer virtue before the thoughts or
breath of men. 2. But yet if you do it wisely, the wise and good will
think much the better of you. You may easily let them see that you do
it not in sordid sparing, but in love of temperance and of them; if
you speak but when there is need either for eating more or less; and
if your discourse be first in general for temperance, and apply it not
till you see that they need help in the application. 3. It is
undeniable that healthful persons are much more prone to excess, than
to the defect in eating, and that nature is very much bent to luxury
and gluttony, I think as much as to any one sin; and it is as sure
that it is a beastly, breeding, odious sin. And if this be so, is it
not clear that we should do a great deal more to help one another
against such luxury, than to provoke them to it? Had we not a greater
regard to men's favour, and fancies, and reports, than to God and the
good of their souls, the case were soon decided.
7. Another cause of gluttony is, that rich men are not acquainted with
the true use of riches, nor think of the account which they must make
to God of all they have.[400] They think that their riches are their
own, and that they may use them as they please; or that they are given
them as plentiful provisions for their flesh, and they may use them
for themselves, to satisfy their own desires, as long as they drop
some crumbs, or scraps, or small matters to the poor. They think they
may be saved just in the same way that the rich man in Luke xvi. was
damned; and he that would have warned his five brethren that they come
not to that place of torment, is yet himself no warning to his
followers. They are clothed in purple and fine linen or silk, and fare
sumptuously or deliciously every day; and have their good things in
this life, and perhaps think they merit by giving the scraps to
Lazarus (which it is like that rich man also did). But God will one
day make them know, that the richest were but his stewards, and should
have made a better distribution of his provisions, and a better
improvement of his talents; and that they had nothing of all their
riches given them for any hurtful or unprofitable pleasing of their
appetites, nor had more allowance for luxury than the poor. If they
knew the right use of riches, it would reform them.
8. Another cause of gluttony is their unacquaintedness with those
rational and spiritual exercises in which the delightful fruits of
abstinence do most appear. A man that is but a painful, serious
student, in any noble study whatsoever, doth find a great deal of
serenity and aptitude come by temperance, and a great deal of cloudy
mistiness on his mind and dulness on his invention come by fulness and
excess: and a man that is used to holy contemplations, meditation,
reading, prayer, self-examination, or any spiritual converse above, or
with his heart, doth easily find a very great difference; how
abstinence helpeth, and luxury and fulness hinder him. Now these
epicures have no acquaintance with any such holy or manly works, nor
any mind of them, and are therefore unacquainted with the sweetness
and benefit of abstinence; and having no taste or trial of its
benefits, they cannot value it. They have nothing to do when they rise
from eating, but a little talk about their worldly business, or
compliment and talk with company which expect them, or go to their
sports to empty their paunches for another meal, and quicken their
appetites lest luxury should decay: as the Israelites worshipped the
golden calf, (and as the heathens their god Bacchus,) Exod. xxxii. 6,
"They sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play."[401] Their diet
is fitted to their work; their idle or worldly lives agree with
gluttony; but were they accustomed to better work, they would find a
necessity of a better diet.
9. Another great cause of gluttony is, men's beastly ignorance of what
is hurtful or helpful to their very health:[402] they make their
appetites their rule for the quantity and quality of their food: and
they think that nature teacheth them so to do, because it giveth them
such an appetite, and because it is the measure to a beast: and to
prove themselves beasts, they therefore take it for their measure; as
if their natures were not rational, but only sensitive; or nature had
not given them reason to be the superior and governor of sense. As if
they knew not that God giveth the brutes an appetite more bounded,
because they have not reason to bound it; and giveth them not the
temptation of your delicate varieties; or giveth them a concoction
answerable to their appetites; and yet giveth man to be the rational
governor of those of them that are for his special service and apt to
exceed: and if his swine, his horses, and his cattle were all left to
their appetites, they would live but a little while.[403] If
promiscuous generating be not lawful in mankind, which is lawful in
brutes, why should they not confess the same of the appetite. Men have
so much love of life and fear of death, that if they did but know how
much their gluttony doth hasten their death, it would do more to
restrain it with the most, than the fear of death eternal doth. But
they judge of their digestion by their present feeling: if they feel
not their stomachs sick, or disposed to vomit, or if no present pain
correct them, they think they have eaten no more than doth them good.
But of this more anon in the directions.
10. Another great cause of gluttony is, that it is grown the commonest
custom, and being not known, is in no disgrace, unless men eat till
they spew, or to some extraordinary measure. And so the measure which
every man seeth another use, he thinketh is moderation, and is fit for
him: whereas the ignorance of physic and matters of their own health,
hath made gluttony almost as common as eating, with those that are not
restrained by want or sickness. And so every man is an example of evil
to another, and encourage one another in the sin. If gluttony were but
in as much disgrace as whoredom, yea, or as drunkenness is, and as
easily known, and as commonly taken notice of, it would contribute
much to a common reformation.
III. _The Greatness of the Sin of Gluttony._
To know the greatness of the sin, is the chief part of the cure, with
those that do but believe that there is a God: I shall therefore next
tell you of its nature, effects, and accidents, which make it great,
and therefore should make it odious to all.
1. Luxury and gluttony is a sin exceeding contrary to the love of God:
it is idolatry: it hath the heart, which God should have; and
therefore gluttons are commonly and well called belly-gods, and
god-bellies, because that love, that care, that delight, that service
and diligence which God should have, is given by the glutton to his
belly and his throat.[404] He loveth the pleasing of his appetite
better than the pleasing of God; his dishes are more delightful to him
than any holy exercise is; his thoughts are more frequent and more
sweet of his belly than of God or godliness; his care and labour are
more that he may be pleased in meats and drinks, than that he may
secure his salvation, and be justified and sanctified. And, indeed,
the Scripture giveth them this name, Phil. iii. 19, "Whose end is
destruction, whose god is their belly, who glory in their shame, who
mind earthly things," being enemies to the cross of Christ, that is,
to bearing the cross for Christ, and to the crucifying of the flesh,
and to the mortifying, suffering parts of religion. Nay, such a
devouring idol is the belly, that it swalloweth up more by
intemperance and excess than all other idols in the world do. And
remember that the very life of the sin is in the appetite and heart:
when a man's heart is set upon his belly, though he fare never so
hardly through necessity, he is a glutton in heart. When you make a
great matter of it, what you shall eat and drink as to the delight,
and when you take it for a great loss or suffering if you fare hardly,
and are troubled at it, and your thoughts and talk are of your belly,
and you have not that indifferency whether your fare be coarse or
pleasant, (so it be wholesome,) as all temperate persons have, this is
the heart of gluttony, and is the heart's forsaking of God, and making
the appetite its god.
2. Gluttony is self-murder; though it kill not suddenly, it killeth
surely; like the dropsy, which killeth as it filleth, by degrees.[405]
Very many of the wisest physicians do believe that of those who
overlive their childhood, there is scarce one of twenty, yea, or of a
hundred that dieth, but gluttony or excess in eating or drinking is a
principal cause of their death, though not the most immediate cause.
It is thought to kill a hundred to one of all that die at age. And it
will not let them die easily and quickly, but tormenteth them first
with manifold diseases while they live. You eat more than nature can
perfectly concoct, and because you feel it not trouble you or make you
sick, you think it hurts you not; whereas it doth by degrees first
alter and vitiate the temperament of the blood and humours, making it
a crude, unconcocted, unnatural thing, unfit for the due nutrition of
the parts; turning the nourishing mass into a burdensome,
excrementitious mixture, abounding with saline or tartareous matter,
and consisting more of a pituitous slime, or redundant serosity, than
of that sweet, nutrimental milk of nature, quickened with those
spirits and well-proportioned heat, which should make it fit to be the
oil of life. And our candle either sparkleth away with salt, or runs
away because there is some thief in it, or goeth out because the oil
is turned into water, or presently wasteth and runs about through the
inconsistent softness of its oil: hence it is that one part is tainted
with corruption, and another consumeth as destitute of fit nutriment;
and the vessels secretly obstructed by the grossness or other
unfitness of the blood to run its circle and perform its offices, is
the cause of a multitude of lamentable diseases. The frigid distempers
of the brain, the soporous and comatous effects, the lethargy, carus,
and apoplexy, the palsy, convulsion, epilepsy, vertigo, catarrhs, the
head-ache, and oft the phrensy and madness, come all from these
effects of gluttony and excess, which are made upon the blood and
humours. The asthma usually, and the phthisis or consumption, and the
pleurisy and peripneumony, and the hemoptoic passion, often come from
hence. Yea the very syncopes or swooning, palpitations of the heart,
and faintings, which men think rather come from weakness, do usually
come either from oppression of nature by these secret excrements or
putrilaginous blood, or else from a weakness contracted by the
inaptitude of the blood to nourish us, being vitiated by excess. The
loathing of meat and want of appetite is ordinarily from the crudities
or distempers caused by this excess; yea, the very canine appetite
which would still have more, is caused by a viciousness in the humours
thus contracted. The pains of the stomach, vomitings, the cholera,
hiccoughs, inflammations, thirsts, are usually from this cause. The
wind cholic, the iliac passion, looseness, and fluxes, the tenesmus
and ulcers, the worms and other troubles in those parts, are usually
from hence. The obstructions of the liver, the jaundice,
inflammations, abscesses and ulcers, schirrus, and dropsy, are
commonly from hence. Hence also usually are inflammations, pains,
obstructions, and schirrus of the spleen. Hence commonly is the stone,
nephritic torments, and stoppages of urine, and ulcers of the reins
and bladder. Hence commonly is the scorbute and most of the fevers
which are found in the world, and bring such multitudes to the grave.
Even those that immediately are caused by colds, distempers of the air
or infections, are oft caused principally by long excess, which
vitiateth the humours, and prepareth them for the disease. Hence also
are gouts and hysterical affects, and diseases of the eyes and other
exterior parts. So that we may well say that gluttony enricheth
landlords, filleth the churchyards, and hasteneth multitudes untimely
to their ends.[406] Perhaps you will say that the most temperate have
diseases: to which experience teacheth me to answer, that usually
children are permitted to be voracious and gluttonous, either in
quantity or in quality, eating raw fruits and things unwholesome; and
so when gluttony hath bred the disease, or laid in the matter, then
all the temperance that can be used is little enough to keep it under
all their life after. And abundance that have been brought to the
doors of death by excess, have been preserved after many years to a
competent age by abstinence, and many totally freed from their
diseases. Read Cornaro's Treatise of himself, and Lessius, and Sir
William Vaughan, &c. (Though yet I persuade none without necessity to
their exceeding strictness.) Judge now what a murderer gluttony is,
and what an enemy to mankind.
3. Gluttony is also a deadly enemy to the mind, and to all the noble
employments of reason, both religious, civil, and artificial.[407] It
unfits men for any close and serious studies, and therefore tends to
nourish ignorance, and keep men fools. It greatly unfits men for
hearing God's word, or reading, or praying, or meditating, or any holy
work, and makes them have more mind to sleep; or so undisposeth and
dulleth them, that they have no life or fitness for their duty; but a
clear head, not troubled with their drowsy vapours, will do more and
get more in an hour, than a full-bellied beast will do in many. So
that gluttony is as much an enemy to all religious and manly studies,
as drunkenness is an enemy to a garrison, where the drunken soldiers
are disabled to resist the enemy.
4. Gluttony is also an enemy to diligence, in every honest trade and
calling; for it dulleth the body as well as the mind. It maketh men
heavy, and drowsy, and slothful, and go about their business as if
they carried a coat of lead, and were in fetters; they have no
vivacity and alacrity, and are fitter to sleep or play than work.[408]
5. Gluttony is the immediate symptom of a carnal mind, and of the
damnable sin of flesh-pleasing, before described; and a carnal mind is
the very sum of iniquity, and the proper name of an unregenerate
state; "It is enmity against God, and neither is nor can be subject to
his law:" so that they that are thus "in the flesh cannot please God;
and they that walk after the flesh shall die," Rom. viii. 6-8, 13. The
filthiest sins of lechers, and misers, and thieves, are but to please
the flesh: and who serveth it more than the glutton doth?
6. Gluttony is the breeder and feeder of all other lusts: _sine Cerere
et Baccho friget Venus_: it pampereth the flesh to feed it, and make
it a sacrifice for lust. As dunging the ground doth make it fruitful,
especially of weeds; so doth gluttony fill the mind with the weeds and
vermin of filthy thoughts, and filthy desires, and words, and
deeds.[409]
7. Gluttony is a base and beastly kind of sin. For a man to place his
happiness in the pleasure of a swine, and to make his reason serve his
throat, or sink into his guts; as if he were but a hogshead to be
filled and emptied, or a sink for liquor to run through into the
channel; or as if he were made only to carry meat from the table to
the dunghill; how base a kind of life is this! yea, many beasts will
not eat and drink excessively as the gluttonous epicure will do.[410]
8. Gluttony is a prodigal consumer and devourer of the creatures of
God. What is he worthy of, that would take meat and drink and cast it
away into the channel?[411] nay, that would be at a great deal of cost
and curiosity to get the pleasantest meat he could procure, to cast
away? The glutton doth worse. It were better of the two to throw all
his excesses into the sink or ditch, for then they would not first
hurt his body. And are the creatures of God of no more worth? Are they
given you to do worse than cast them away? Would you have your
children use their provisions thus?
9. Gluttony is a most unthankful sin, that takes God's mercies, and
spews them as it were in his face;[412] and carrieth his provisions
over to his enemy, even to the strengthening of fleshly lusts; and
turneth them all against himself! You could not have a bit but from
his liberality and blessing; and will you use it to provoke him and
dishonour him?
10. Gluttony is a sin which turneth your own mercies, and wealth, and
food, into your snare, and to your deadly ruin. Thou pleasest thy
throat, and poisonest thy soul.[413] It were better for thee a
thousand times that thou hadst lived on scraps, and in the poorest
manner, than thus to have turned thy plenty to thy damnable sin. "When
thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware lest thou forget the
Lord," Deut. vi. 11, 12. "Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I
be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?" Prov. xxx. 9. "So
they did eat and were filled, for he gave them their own desire; they
were not estranged from their lust," Psal. lxxv. 29, 30.
11. Gluttony is a great time-wasting sin. What a deal of time is spent
in getting the money that is laid out to please the throat! and then
by servants in preparing for it; and then in long sitting at meat and
feastings; and not a little in taking physic to carry it away again,
or to ease or cure the diseases which it causeth; besides all the time
which is lost in languishing sickness, or cut off by untimely death.
Thus they live to eat, and eat to frustrate and to shorten life.
12. It is a thief that robbeth you of your estates, and devoureth that
which is given you for better uses, and for which you must give
account to God. It is a costly sin, and consumeth more than would
serve to many better purposes. How great a part of the riches of most
kingdoms are spent in luxury and excess![414]
13. It is a sin that is a great enemy to the common good: princes and
commonwealths have reason to hate it, and restrain it as the enemy of
their safety. Men have not money to defray the public charges,
necessary to the safety of the land, because they consume it on their
guts: armies and navies must be unpaid, and fortifications neglected,
and all that tendeth to the glory of a people must be opposed as
against their personal interest, because all is too little for the
throat. No great works can be done to the honour of the nation or the
public good; no schools or alms-houses built or endowed, no colleges
erected, no hospitals, nor any excellent work, because the guts devour
it all. If it were known how much of the treasure of the land is
thrown down the sink by epicures of all degrees, this sin would be
frowned into more disgrace.
14. Gluttony and excess is a sin greatly aggravated by the necessities
of the poor. What an incongruity is it, that one member of Christ (as
he would be thought) should be feeding himself deliciously every day,
and abounding with abused superfluities, whilst another is starving
and pining in a cottage, or begging at the door! and that some
families should do worse than cast their delicates and abundance to
the dogs, whilst thousands at that time are ready to famish, and are
fain to feed on such unwholesome food, as killeth them as soon as
luxury kills the epicure! Do these men believe that they shall be
judged according to their feeding of the poor?[415] Or do they take
themselves to be members of the same body with those whose sufferings
they so little feel? 1 Cor. xii. 26. It may be you will say, I do
relieve many of the poor. But are there not more yet to be relieved?
As long as there are any in distress, it is the greater sin for you to
be luxurious. Deut. xv. 7, 8, "If there be among you a poor man of one
of thy brethren in the land----thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor
shut thy hand against thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand
wide unto him," &c. Nay, how often are the poor oppressed to satisfy
luxurious appetites! Abundance must have hard bargains and hard usage,
and toil like horses, and scarce be able to get bread for their
families, that they may bring in all to belly-god landlords, who
consume the fruit of other men's labour upon their devouring flesh.
15. And it is the heinouser sin because of the common calamities of
the church and servants of Christ throughout the world. One part of
the church is oppressed by the Turk, and another by the pope, and many
countries wasted by the cruelties of armies, and persecuted by proud,
impious enemies; and is it fit then for others to be wallowing in
sensuality and gluttony? Amos vi. 1, 3-6, "Woe to them that are at
ease in Zion--ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of
violence to come near--that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch
themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and
the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of
the viol--that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the
chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of
Joseph." It is a time of great humiliation, and are you now given up
to fleshly luxury? Read Isa. xxii. 12-14, "And in that day did the
Lord God of hosts call to weeping and to mourning, and to baldness,
and to girding with sackcloth; and behold, joy and gladness, slaying
oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine, Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we shall die.--Surely this iniquity shall not be
purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord of hosts."
16. Luxury is a sin most unseemly for men in so great misery, and
incongruous to the state of the gluttonous themselves. O man, if thou
hadst but a true sight of thy sin and misery, of death and judgment,
and of the dreadful God whom thou dost offend, thou wouldst perceive
that fasting, and prayer, and tears become one in thy condition much
better than glutting thy devouring flesh. What! a man unpardoned,
unsanctified, in the power of Satan, ready to be damned if thus thou
die, (for so I must suppose of a glutton,) for such a man to be taking
his fleshly pleasure! For a Dives to be faring sumptuously every day,
that must shortly want a drop of water to cool his tongue, is as
foolish as for a thief to feast before he goeth to hanging: yea, and
much more. For you might yet prevent your misery; and another posture
doth better beseem you to that end: "Fasting" and "crying mightily to
God," is fitter to your state. See Jonah iii. 8; Joel i. 14; ii. 15.
17. Gluttony is a sin so much the greater, by how much the more will
and delight you have in the committing of it. The sweetest, most
voluntary and beloved sin is (_cæteris paribus_) the greatest; and few
are more pleasant and beloved than this.
18. Those are the worst sins, that have least repentance; but gluttony
is so far from being truly repented of by the luxurious epicure, that
he loveth it, and careth and contriveth how to commit it, and buyeth
it with the price of much of his estate.
19. It is the greater sin, because it is so frequently committed; men
live in it as their daily practice and delight; they live for it, and
make it the end of other sins: it is not a sin that they seldom fall
into, but it is almost as familiar with them, as to eat and drink:
being turned into beasts, they live like beasts continually.
20. Lastly, it is a spreading sin, and therefore is become common,
even the sin of countries, of rich and poor; for both sorts love their
bellies, though both have not the like provision for them. And they
are so far from taking warning one of another, that they are
encouraged one by another; and the sin is scarce noted in one of a
hundred that daily liveth in it: nor is there almost any that reprove
it, or help one another against it, (unless by impoverishing each
other,) but most by persuasions and examples do encourage it (though
some much more than others): so that by this time you may see that it
is no rare, nor venial, little sin.
And now you may see also, that it is no wonder if no one of the
commandments expressly forbid this sin, (not only because it is a sin
against ourselves directly, but also,) because it is against every one
also of the commandments. And think not that either riches or poverty
will excuse it, when even princes are restrained so much as from
unseasonable eating, Eccles. x. 16. If it was one of the great sins
that Sodom was burnt with fire for, judge whether England be in no
danger by it. Read, O England, and know thyself, and tremble: Ezek.
xvi. 49, "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom; pride,
fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness, was in her and in her
daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."
IV. _The Directions or Helps against it._
_Direct._ I. Mortify the flesh, according to the directions, chap. iv.
part vii. Subdue its inclinations and desires; and learn to esteem and
use it but as a servant. Think what a pitiful price a little
gluttonous pleasure of the throat is, for a man to sell his God and
his salvation for.[416] Learn to be indifferent whether your meat be
pleasing to your appetite or not; and make no great matter of it:
remember still what an odious, swinish, damning sin it is, for a
man's heart to be set upon his belly. "All that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts," Gal. v. 24.
_Direct._ II. Live faithfully to God, and upon spiritual, durable
delights. And then you will fetch the measure of your eating and
drinking from their tendency to that higher end.[417] There is no using
any inferior thing aright, till you have first well resolved of your
end, and use it as a means thereto, and mark how far it is a means.
_Direct._ III. See all your food as provided and given you by God, and
beg it and the blessing of it at his hand, and then it will much
restrain you from using it against him. He is a wretch indeed that
will take his food as from his father's hand, and throw it in his
face, though perhaps a petulant child would do so by a fellow-servant:
he that thinketh he is most beholden to himself for his plenty, will
say as the fool, Luke xii. 19, 20, "Soul, take thy ease, eat, drink,
and be merry, thou hast enough laid up for many years." But he that
perceives it is the hand of God that reacheth it to him, will use it
more reverently. It is a horrid aggravation of the gluttony of this
age, that they play the hypocrites in it, and first (for custom) crave
God's blessing on their meat, and then sit down and sin against him
with it: such are the prayers of hypocritical sensualists. But a
serious discerning of God as the giver, would teach you "whether you
eat or drink to do all to his glory" from whom it comes.[418]
_Direct._ IV. See by faith the blood of Christ as the purchasing cause
of all you have; and then sure you will bear more reverence to his
blood, than to cast the fruit of it into the sink of sensuality, and
to do worse than throw it upon the dunghill. What! must Christ be a
sacrifice to God, and die to recover you the mercies which you had
forfeited, and now will you cast them to the dogs? and please a sinful
appetite with them? Did he die to purchase you provisions for your
lusts, and to serve the flesh with?
_Direct._ V. Forget not how the first sin came into the world, even by
eating the forbidden fruit. And let the slain creatures whose lives
are lost for you, remember you of that sin which brought the burden on
them for your sakes. And then every piece of flesh that you see, will
appear to you as with this caution written upon it: O sin not as your
first parents sinned by pleasing of your appetite; for this our death,
and your devouring the flesh of your fellow-creatures, is the fruit of
that sin, and warneth you to be temperate. Revel not to excess in your
fellow-creatures' lives.
_Direct._ VI. Keep an obedient, tender conscience, not scrupulously
perplexing yourselves about every bit you eat, (as melancholy persons
do,) but checking your appetite, and telling you of God's commands,
and teaching you to fear all sensual excess. It is a graceless,
disobedient, senseless heart that maketh men so boldly obey their
appetite; when the fear of God is not in their hearts, no wonder if
they "feed" and "feast themselves without fear," Jude 12. Either they
make a small matter of sin in the general, or at least of this in
particular: it is usually the same persons that fear not to spend
their time in idleness, sports, or vanity, and to live in worldliness
or fleshly lusts, who live in gluttony to feed all this. The belly is
a brute, that sticks not much upon reason: where conscience is asleep
and seared, reason and Scripture do little move a sensual belly-god;
and any thing will serve instead of reason to prove it lawful, and to
answer all that is said against it. There is no disputing the case
with a man that is asleep; especially if his guts and appetite be
awake: you may almost as well bring reason and Scripture to keep a
swine from over-eating, or persuade a hungry dog from a bone, as to
take off a glutton from the pleasing of his throat, if he be once
grown blockish, and have mastered his conscience by unbelief, or
stilled it with a stupifying opiate. His taste then serveth instead of
reason, and against reason; then he saith, I feel it do me good; (that
is, he feeleth that it pleaseth his appetite, as a swine feeleth that
his meat doth him good when he is ready to burst;) and this answereth
all that can be said against it. Then he can sacrifice his time and
treasure to his belly, and make a jest of the abstinence and
temperance of sober men, as if it were but a needless self-afflicting,
or fit only for some weak and sickly persons. If the constant fear and
obedience of God do not rule the soul, the appetite will be unruled;
and if a tender conscience be not porter, the throat will be common
for any thing that the appetite requireth. One sight of heaven or
hell, to awaken their reason and sleepy consciences, would be the best
remedy to convince them of the odiousness and danger of this sin.
_Direct._ VII. Understand well what is most conducible to your health;
and let that be the ordinary measure of your diet for quantity, and
quality, and time.[419] Sure your nature itself, if you are yet men,
should have nothing to say against this measure, and consequently
against all the rest of the directions which suppose it: nature hath
given you reason as well as appetite, and reason telleth you, that your
health is more to be regarded than your appetite. I hope you will not
say, that God is too strict with you, or would diet you too hardly, as
long as he alloweth you (ordinarily) to choose that (when you can have
it lawfully) which is most for your own health, and forbiddeth you
nothing but that which hurteth you. What heathen or infidel that is not
either mad or swinish, will not allow this measure and choice, as well
as christians? Yea, if you believe not a life to come, methinks you
should be loth to shorten this life which now you have. God would but
keep you from hurting yourselves by your excess, as you would keep your
children or your swine. Though he hath a further end in it, and so must
you, namely, that a healthful body may be serviceable to a holy soul, in
your Master's work; yet it is the health of your bodies which is to be
your nearest and immediate end and measure.
[Sidenote: The measure of eating.]
It is a very great oversight in the education of youth, that they be
not taught betimes some common and necessary precepts about diet,
acquainting them what tendeth to health and life, and what to
sickness, pain, and death; and it were no unprofitable or unnecessary
thing, if princes took a course that all their subjects might have
some such common needful precepts familiarly known; (as if it were in
the books that children first learn to read in, together with the
precepts of their moral duty;) for it is certain, that men love not
death or sickness, and that all men love their health and life; and
therefore those that fear not God, would be much restrained from
excess by the fear of sickness and of death: and what an advantage
this would be to the commonwealth, you may easily perceive, when you
consider what a mass of treasure it would save, besides the lives,
and health, and strength of so many subjects.[420] And it is certain,
that most people have no considerable knowledge, what measure is best
for them; but the common rule that they judge by is their appetite.
They think they have eaten enough, when they have eaten as long as
they have list; and not before. If they could eat more with an
appetite, and not be sick after it, they never think they have been
guilty of gluttony or excess.
First, therefore, you must know, that appetite is not to be your rule
or measure, either for quantity, quality, or time.[421] For, 1. It is
irrational, and reason is your ruling faculty, if you are men. 2. It
dependeth on the temperature of the body, and the humours and diseases
of it, and not merely on the natural need of meat. A man in a dropsy
is most thirsty, that hath least cause to drink: though frequently in
a putrid or malignant fever, a draught of cold drink would probably be
death, yet the appetite desireth it nevertheless. Stomachs that have
acid humours, have commonly a strong appetite, be the digestion never
so weak, and most of them could eat with an appetite above twice as
much as they ought to eat. And on the contrary, some others desire not
so much as is necessary to their sustenance, and must be urged to eat
against their appetite. 3. Most healthful people in the world have an
appetite to much more than nature can well digest, and would kill
themselves if they pleased their appetites; for God never gave man his
appetite to be the measure of his eating or drinking, but to make that
grateful to him, which reason biddeth him take. 4. Man's appetite is
not now so sound and regular as it was before the fall; but is grown
more rebellious and unruly, and diseased as the body is: and therefore
it is now much more unfit to be our measure, than it was before the
fall. 5. You see it even in swine, and many greedy children, that
would presently kill themselves, if they had not the reason of others
to rule them. 6. Poison itself may be as delightful to the appetite as
food; and dangerous meats, as those that are most wholesome. So that
it is most certain, that appetite is not fit to be the measure of a
man. Yet this is true withal, that when reason hath nothing against
it, then an appetite showeth what nature taketh to be most agreeable
to itself; and reason therefore hath something for it (if it have
nothing against it); because it showeth what the stomach is like best
to close with and digest; and it is some help to reason to discern
when it is prepared for food.
Secondly, it is certain also, that the present feeling of ease or
sickness, is no certain rule to judge of your digestion, or your
measure by; for though some tender, relaxed, windy stomachs, are sick
or troubled when they are overcharged, or exceed their measure, yet
with the most it is not so; unless they exceed to very swinishness,
they are not sick upon it, nor feel any hurt at present by less
excesses, but only the imperfection of concoction doth vitiate the
humours, and prepare for sicknesses by degrees (as is aforesaid); and
one feeleth it a month after in some diseased evacuations; and another
a twelvemonth after; and another not of many years, till it have
turned to some uncurable disease (for the diseases that are bred by so
long preparations are ordinarily much more uncurable, than those that
come but from sudden accidents and alterations, in a cleaner body).
Therefore to say, I feel it do me no harm, and therefore it is no
excess, is the saying of an idiot, that hath no foreseeing reason, and
resisteth not an enemy while he is garrisoning, fortifying, and arming
himself, but only when it comes to blows: or like him that would go
into a pesthouse, and say, I feel it do me no harm; but within few
days or weeks he will feel it. As if the beginning of a consumption
were no hurt to them, because they feel it not! Thus living like a
beast, will at last make men judge like beasts; and brutify their
brains as well as their bellies.
[Sidenote: Rules for the measure of eating.]
Thirdly, it is certain also, that the common custom and opinion is no
certain rule; nay, certainly it is an erring rule; for judging by
appetite hath brought men ordinarily to take excess to be but
temperance. All these then are false measures.
If I should here presume to give you any rules for judging of a right
measure, physicians would think I went beyond my calling, and some of
them might be offended at a design that tendeth so much to their
impoverishing, and those that serve the greedy worm would be more
offended. Therefore I shall only give you these general intimations.
1. Nature is content with a little; but appetite is never content till
it have drowned nature.[422] 2. It is the perfection of concoction,
and goodness of the nutriment, that is more conducible to health, than
the quantity. 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quantity of
some light and passable nourishment, than half so much of gross and
heavy meats. (Therefore those that prescribe just twelve ounces a day,
without differencing meats that so much differ, do much mistake.) 4. A
healthful, strong body must have more than the weak and sickly. 5.
Middle-aged persons must have more than old folks or children.[423] 6.
Hard labourers must have more than easy labourers; and these more than
the idle, or students, or any that stir but little. 7. A body of close
pores, that evacuateth little by sweat or transpiration, must have
less, especially of moisture, than another. 8. So must a cold and
phlegmatic constitution. 9. So must a stomach that corrupteth its
food, and casteth it forth by periodical bilious evacuations. 10. That
which troubleth the stomach in the digestion is too much, or too bad,
unless with very weak, sickly persons. 11. So is that too much or bad
which maketh you more dull for study, or more heavy and unfit for
labour (unless some disease be the principal cause.) 12. A body that
by excess is already filled with crudities, should take less than
another, that nature may have time to digest and waste them. 13. Every
one should labour to know the temperature of their own bodies, and
what diseases they are most inclined to, and so have the judgment of
their physician or some skilful person, to give them such directions
as are suitable to their own particular temperature and diseases. 14.
Hard labourers err more in the quality than the quantity, partly
through poverty, partly through ignorance, and partly through
appetite, while they refuse that which is more wholesome (as mere
bread and beer) if it be less pleasing to them. 15. If I may presume
to conjecture, ordinarily very hard labourers exceed in quantity about
a fourth part; shopkeepers and persons of easier trades do ordinarily
exceed about a third part; voluptuous gentlemen and their serving men,
and other servants of theirs that have no hard labour, do usually
exceed about half in half (but still I except persons that are
extraordinarily temperate through weakness, or through wisdom); and
the same gentlemen usually exceed in variety, costliness, curiosity,
and time, much more than they do in quantity (so that they are
gluttons of the first magnitude). The children of those that govern
not their appetites, but let them eat and drink as much and as often
as they desire it, do usually exceed above half in half, and lay the
foundation of the diseases and miseries of all their lives.[424] All
this is about the truth, though the belly believe it not.
When you are once grown wise enough what in measure, and time, and
quality, is fittest for your health, go not beyond that upon any
importunity of appetite, or of friends; for all that is beyond that,
is gluttony and sensuality, in its degree.
_Direct._ VIII. If you can lawfully avoid it, make not your table a
snare of temptation to yourselves or others. I know a greedy appetite
will make any table that hath but necessaries, a snare to itself; but
do not you unnecessarily become devils, or tempters to yourselves or
others.[425] 1. For quality, study not deliciousness too much: unless
for some weak, distempered stomachs, the best meat is that which
leaveth behind it in the mouth, neither a troublesome loathing, nor an
eager appetite after more, for the taste's sake; but such as bread is,
that leaveth the palate in an indifferent moderation. The curious
inventions of new and delicious dishes, merely to please the appetite,
is gluttony inviting to greater gluttony; excess in quality to invite
to excess in quantity.
_Object._ But, you will say, I shall be thought niggardly or sordid,
and reproached behind my back, if my table be so fitted to the
temperate and abstinent.
_Answ._ This is the pleading of pride for gluttony; rather than you
will be talked against by belly-gods, or ignorant, fleshly people, you
will sin against God, and prepare a feast or sacrifice for Bacchus or
Venus. The ancient christians were torn with beasts, because they
would not cast a little frankincense into the fire on the altar of an
idol; and will you feed so many idol bellies so liberally to avoid
their censure? Did not I tell you, that gulosity is an irrational
vice? Good and temperate persons will speak well of you for it; and do
you more regard the judgment and esteem of belly-gods?[426]
_Object._ But it is not only riotous, luxurious persons that I mean; I
have no such at my table; but it will be the matter of obloquy even to
good people, and those that are sober.
_Answ._ I told you some measure of gluttony is become a common sin; and
many are tainted with it through custom, that otherwise are good and
sober: but shall they therefore be left as uncurable? or shall they make
all others as bad as they? And must we all commit that sin, which some
sober people are grown to favour? You bear their censures about
different opinions in religion, and other matters of difference; and why
not here? The deluded quakers may be witnesses against you, that while
they run into the contrary extreme, can bear the deepest censures of all
the world about them. And cannot you for honest temperance and sobriety,
bear the censures of some distempered or guilty persons that are of
another mind; certainly in this they are no temperate persons, when they
plead for excess, and the baits of sensuality and intemperance.
2. For variety also, make not your table unnecessarily a snare: have
no greater variety, than the weakness of stomachs, or variety of
appetites doth require. Unnecessary variety and pleasantness of meats,
are the devil's great instruments to draw men to gluttony: (and I
would wish no good people to be his cooks or caterers:) when the very
brutish appetite itself begins to say of one dish, I have enough, then
comes another to tempt it unto more excess, and another after that to
more. All this that I have said, I have the concurrent judgment of
physicians in, who condemn fulness and variety, as the great enemies
of health, and nurseries of diseases. And is not the concurrent
judgment of physicians more valuable about matters of health, than
your private opinions, or appetites? yet when sickness requireth
variety, it is necessary.
3. Sit not too long at meat: for beside the sin of wasting time, it is
but the way to tice down a little and a little more: and he that would
be temperate, if he sat but a quarter of an hour, (which is ordinarily
enough,) will exceed when he hath the temptation of half an hour
(which is enough for the entertainment of strangers); much more when
you must sit out an hour (which is too much of all conscience): though
greedy eating is not good, yet sober feeding may satisfy nature in a
little time.
4. See that your provisions be not more costly than is necessary:
though I know there must be a difference allowed for persons and
times, yet see that no cost be bestowed unnecessarily; and let sober
reason, and not pride and gluttony, judge of the necessity: we
commonly call him the rich glutton, Luke xvi. that fared sumptuously
every day; it is not said that he did eat any more than other men, but
that he fared sumptuously.[427] You cannot answer it comfortably to
God, to lay that out upon the belly, which might do more good another
way: it is a horrid sin to spend such store of wealth unnecessarily
upon the belly, as is ordinarily done. The cheapest diet (_cæteris
paribus_) must be preferred.
_Object._ But the scandal of covetousness must be avoided as well as
gluttony. Folks will say, that all this is done merely from a
miserable, worldly mind.
_Answ._ 1. It is easier to bear that censure than the displeasure of
God. 2. No scandal must be avoided by sin; it is a scandal taken and
not given. 3. With temperate persons your excess is much more
scandalous. 4. I will teach you a cure for this in the next direction.
_Object._ But what if I set variety and plenty on my table? May not
men choose whether they will eat too much? Do you think men are swine,
that know not when they have enough?
_Answ._ Yes, we see by certain experience, that most men know not when
they have enough, and do exceed when they think they do not. There is
not one of many, but is much more prone to exceed, than to come short,
and abundance sin in excess, for one that sinneth by defect: and is sin
so small a matter with you, that you will lay snares before men, and
then say, They may take heed? So men may choose whether they will go
into a whore-house, and yet the pope doth scarce deal honestly to
license them at Rome; much less is it well to prepare them, and invite
men to them. Will you excuse the devil for tempting Eve with the
forbidden fruit, because she might choose whether she would meddle with
it? What doth that on your table, which is purposely cooked to the
tempting of the appetite, and is fitted to draw men to gulosity and
excess, and is no way needful? "Woe to him that layeth a stumblingblock
before the blind!" "Let no man put a stumblingblock in his brother's
way." It is the wicked's curse, "Let their table be made a snare, and a
trap, and a stumblingblock." And it was Balaam's sin, that he taught
Balak to tempt Israel, or lay a stumblingblock before them.[428]
_Direct._ IX. Resolve to bestow the cost of such superfluities upon
the poor, or some other charitable use; that so it become not a
sacrifice to the belly. Let the greatest and needfullest uses be first
served; it is no time for you to be glutting your appetites, and
wallowing in excess, when any (yea, so many) about you, do want even
clothes and bread. If you do thus lay out all upon the poor, which you
spare from feeding your own and other men's excess, then none can say
that your sparing is through covetous niggardice; and so that reproach
is taken off. The price of one feast will buy bread for a great many
poor people. It is small thanks to you to give to the poor some
leavings, when your bellies are first glutted with as much as the
appetite desired: this costeth you nothing: a swine will leave that to
another which he cannot eat. But if you will a little pinch your
flesh, or deny yourselves, and live more sparingly and thriftily, that
you may have the more to give to the poor, this is commendable indeed.
_Direct._ X. Do not over-persuade any to eat when there is no need,
but rather help one another against running into excess; by seasonable
discourses of the sinfulness of gluttony, and of the excellency of
abstinence, and by friendly watchings over and warning one another.
Satan and the flesh, and its unavoidable baits, are temptation strong
enough; we need not by unhappy kindness to add more.
_Direct._ XI. When you feel your appetites eager, against reason and
conscience, check them, and resolve that they shall not be pleased.
Unresolvedness keepeth up the temptation; if you would but resolve once,
you would be quiet: but when the devil findeth you yielding, or
wavering, or unresolved, he will never give you rest: Prov. xxiii. 1-3,
"When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is
before thee, and put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to
appetite: be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat."
The words translated, "if thou be a man given to appetite," (agreeable
to the Septuagint and the Arabic,) are translated by Montanus, and in
the vulgar Latin, and the Chaldee Paraphrase, if thou have the power of
thy own soul, or be master of thy soul, _Compos animæ_, show that thou
art master of thyself by abstinence. Instead of, "put a knife to thy
throat," that is, threaten thyself into abstinence, the Syriac and
divers expositors translate it, Thou dost, or, lest thou dost put a
knife to thy throat, that is, Thou art as bad as cutting thy throat; or
destroying thyself, when thou art gluttonously feeding thyself. Keep up
resolution and the power of reason.
_Direct._ XII. Remember what thy body is, and what it will shortly be,
and how loathsome and vile it will be in the dust. And then think how
far such a body should be pampered and pleased; and at what rates.[429]
Pay not too dear for a feast for worms: look into the grave, and see
what is the end of all your pleasant meats and drinks; of all your
curious, costly fare. You may see there the skulls cast up, and the ugly
hole of that mouth which devoured so many sweet, delicious morsels; but
there is none of the pleasure of it now left. Oh wonderful folly! that
men can so easily, so eagerly, so obstinately, waste their estates, and
neglect their souls, and displease their God, and in effect even sell
their hopes of heaven, for so small and sordid a delight, as the
pleasing of such a piece of flesh, that must shortly have so vile an
end! Was it worth so much care, and toil, and cost, and the casting away
of your salvation, to pamper that body a little while that must shortly
be such a loathsome carcass?[430] Methinks one sight of a skull or a
grave, should make you think gluttony and luxury madness. Eccles. vii.
2, "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of
feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to
heart." David saith of the wicked, "Let me not eat of their dainties;"
but, "let the righteous smite me and reprove me," Psal. cxli. 4, 5. So
dangerous a thing is feasting even among friends, where of itself it is
lawful, that Job thought it a season for his fears and sacrifice; Job i.
4, 5, "And his sons went and feasted in their houses every one his day,
and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with
them." But Job sacrificed for them, saying, "It may be my sons have
sinned, and cursed" (that is, thought provokingly, unreverently,
unholily, or contemptuously of) "God in their hearts. Thus did Job
continually." A funeral is a safer place for you than a feast.
_Direct._ XIII. Go into the houses of the poor sometimes, and see what
provision they live upon, and what time they spend at meat; and then
bethink you, whether their diet or yours do tend more to the
mortification of fleshly lusts? and whether theirs will not be as
sweet as yours at the last? and whether mere riches should make so
great a difference in eating and drinking between them and you? I know
that where they want what is necessary to their health, it is lawful
for you to exceed them, and be thankful; but not so as to forget their
wants, nor so as to turn your plenty to excess. The very sight now and
then of a poor man's diet and manner of life would do you good: seeing
affecteth more than hearsay.
_Direct._ XIV. Look upon the ancient christians, the patterns of
abstinence, and think whether their lives were like to yours. They
were much in fastings and abstinence, and strangers to gluttony and
excess; they were so prone to excess of abstinence, rather than excess
of meat, that abundance of them lived in wildernesses or cells, upon
roots, or upon bread and water: (from the imitation of whom, in a
formal, hypocritical manner, came the swarms of friars that are now in
the world:) and will you commend their holiness and abstinence, and
yet be so far from any serious imitation of them, that you will, in
gluttony and excess, oppose yourselves directly against them?
I have now detected the odiousness of this sin, and told you if you
are willing how you may best avoid it: if all this will not serve, but
there be "any profane person among you like Esau, who for one morsel
of meat sold his birthright," Heb. xii. 16,[431] who for the pleasing
of his throat will sell his soul, let him know that God hath another
kind of cure for such: he may cast thee into poverty, where thou shalt
be a glutton only in desire, but not have to satisfy thy desire; he
may shortly cast thee into those diseases, which shall make thee
loathe thy pleasant fare, and wish thou hadst the poor man's fare and
appetite; and make thee say of all the baits of thy sensuality, "I
have no pleasure in them," Eccles. xii. 1. The case will be altered
with thee when all thy wealth, and friends, and greatness cannot keep
thy pampered carcass from corruption, nor procure thy soul a comfort
equal to a drop of water to cool thy tongue, tormented in the flames
of God's displeasure: then all the comfort thou canst procure from God
and conscience will be but this sad memento, "Remember that thou in
thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil
things: but now he is comforted and thou art tormented," Luke xvi. 25.
James v. 1, 5, "Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl for your
miseries that shall come upon you--Ye have lived in pleasure on the
earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of
slaughter: ye have condemned and killed the just," &c.
Yet after all this, I shall remember you that you run not into the
contrary extreme: place not more religion in external abstinence and
fastings than you ought: know your own condition, and how far either
fasting or eating is really a help or a hinderance to you in those
greater things which are their ends, and so far use them.[432] A
decaying body must be carefully supported: an unruly body must be
carefully subdued: the same medicines serve not for contrary tempers
and diseases: to think, that abstaining from flesh, and glutting
yourselves with fish and other meats, is acceptable to God; or that
mere abstaining so many hours in a week, and serving your appetite on
the rest, is meritorious; or that abstinence from meat will prove you
holy, without an abstinence from sin, all this is self-deluding error.
Nor must you raise a great many of perplexing scruples about all that
you eat or drink, to no edification, but merely to your vexation; but
in cheerful temperance preserve your health, and subdue concupiscence.
_Tit._ 2. _Directions against Drunkenness, and all Excess
of Drink._
I. The most that I have said against gluttony will serve against
excess of drink also, therefore I need not repeat it. Drunkenness, in
the largest sense, extendeth both to the affection and to the effect:
and so he is a drunkard (that is, reputatively, in the sight of God)
who would drink too much if he had it, and is not restrained by his
will, but by necessity.
Drunkenness in the effect or act, is sometimes taken more largely,
sometimes more strictly. Largely taken, it signifieth all drinking to
excess to please the appetite. Two things here make up the crime: 1.
Love of the drink, or pleasing the appetite, which we call gulosity.
2. Excess in drinking; which excess may be in quantity or quality.
Drunkenness strictly taken, signifieth drinking till reason have
received some hurt: and of this there be many degrees. He that hath in
the least degree disturbed his reason, and disabled or hindered it
from its proper office, is drunken in that degree: and he that hath
overturned it, or quite disabled it, is stark drunk, or drunk in a
greater degree.
All excess of drink is sinful gulosity or sensuality, of the same nature
with gluttony, and falls under all my last reproofs and directions. And
in some persons that can sit it out, and bear much drink without
intoxication, the sin may be greater than in some others, that by a
smaller quantity are drunk by a surprise, before they are aware; but
yet, _cæteris paribus_, the overthrow of the understanding maketh the
sin to be much the greater; for it hath all the evil that the other
degrees have, with more. It is a voluptuous excess in drink to the
depravation of reason. Gulosity is the general nature of it: excess is
the matter: depravation of reason is its special form.
It is excess of drinking, when you do drink more than, according to
the judgment of sound reason, doth tend to fit your body mediately or
immediately for its proper duty, without a greater hurt. Sometimes the
immediate benefit is most to be regarded (as, if a man had some
present duty of very great moment to perform). The present benefit
consisteth, 1. In the abatement of such a troublesome thirst or pain,
as hindereth you from doing your duty. 2. In adding that refocillation
and alacrity to the spirits, as maketh them fitter instruments for the
operations of the mind and body. That measure which doth one or both
of these without greater hurt is not too great. I say, without greater
hurt; because if any should in a dropsy or a fever prefer a little
present ease and alacrity before his health and life, it were excess.
Or if any man ordinarily drink more than nature will well digest, and
which causeth the inconcoction of his meat, and consequently
crudities, and consequently a dunghill of phlegm and vicious humours
fit to engender many diseases, this is excess of drinking, though he
feel it ease him and make him cheerful for the present time. And this
is the common case of most bibbers or tipplers that are not stark
drunkards: they feel a present ease from thirst, and perhaps a little
alacrity of spirits, and therefore they think that measure is no
excess, which yet tendeth to crudities and diseases, and the
destruction of their health and life.
Therefore (except in some great, extraordinary case of necessity) it
is not so much the present, as the future foreseen effects, which must
direct you to know your measure. Reason can foresee, though appetite
cannot. Future effects are usually great and long; when present
effects may be small and short. He that will do that which tendeth to
the hurt of his health for the present easing or pleasing of his
thirsty appetite, doth sin against reason, and play the beast. You
should be so well acquainted with your bodies, and the means of your
own health, as to know first whether the enduring of the thirst, or
the drinking to quench it, is like to be the more hurtful to your
health, and more a hinderance to your duty.
And for the present alacrity which strong drink bringeth to some, you
must foresee that you purchase it not at too dear a rate, by a longer
dulness or disablement afterwards: and take heed that you take not an
alien, counterfeit hilarity, consisting in mere sensual delight, for
that serenity and just alacrity of the spirits as doth fit you for
your duty. For this also is a usual (and wilful) self-deceit of
sensualists: they make themselves believe that a cup of sack or strong
drink giveth them a true assistant alacrity, when it only causeth a
sensual delight, which doth more hinder and corrupt the mind, than
truly further it in its duty: and differeth from true alacrity as
paint from beauty, or as a fever doth from our natural heat.
You see then that intemperance in drinking is of two sorts: 1.
Bibbing, or drinking too much. 2. Drunkenness (in various degrees).
And these intemperate bibbers are of several sorts. (1.) Those, that
when they have over-heated themselves, or are feverish, or have any
ordinary diseased thirst, will please their appetites, though it be
to their hurt; and will venture their health rather than endure the
thirst. Though in fevers, dropsies, coughs, it should be the greatest
enemy to them, yet they are such beastly servants to their appetites,
that drink they must, whatever come of it: though physicians forbid
them, and friends dissuade them, they have so much of the brute and so
little of the man, that appetite is quite too hard for reason with
them. These are of two sorts: one sort keep the soundness of their
reason, though they have lost all the strength and power of it, for
want of a resolved will; and these confess that they should abstain,
but tell you, they cannot, they are not so much men. The other sort
have given up their very reason (such as it is) to the service of
their appetites: and these will not believe (till the cough, or gout,
or dropsy, &c. make them believe it) that their measure of drinking is
too much, or that it will do them hurt; but say, that it would hurt
them more to forbear it; some through real ignorance, and some made
willingly ignorant by their appetites.
(2.) Another sort of bibbers there are, much worse than those, who
have no great, diseased thirst to excuse their gulosity, but call it a
thirst whenever their appetite would have drink; and use themselves
ordinarily to satisfy such an appetite, and drink almost as oft as the
throat desireth it, and say, it is but to quench their thirst; and
never charge themselves with intemperance for it. These may be known
from the first sort of bibbers by the quality of their drink: it is
cold small beer that the first sort desire, to quench a real thirst;
when reason bids them endure it, if other means will not quench it.
But it is wine, or strong drink, or some drink that hath a delicious
gust, which the second sort of bibbers use, to please the appetite,
which they call their thirst. And of these luxurious tipplers, next to
stark drunkards, there are also divers degrees, some being less
guilty, and some more.[433]
1. The lowest degree are they that will never ordinarily drink but at
meals: but they will then drink more than nature requireth, or than is
profitable to their health.
2. The second degree are they, that use to drink between meals, when
their appetite desireth it, to the hindering of concoction, and the
increase of crudities and catarrhs, and to the secret, gradual
vitiating of their humours, and generating of many diseases; and this
without any true necessity, or the approbation of sound reason, or any
wise physician: yet they tipple but at home, where you may find the
pot by them at unseasonable times.
3. The third degree are many poor men that have not drink at home, and
when they come to a gentleman's house, or a feast, or perhaps an
alehouse, they will pour in for the present to excess, though not to
drunkenness, and think it is no harm, because it is but seldom; and they
drink so small drink all the rest of the year, that they think such a
fit as this sometimes is medicinal to them, and tendeth to their health.
4. Another rank of bibbers are those, that though they haunt not
alehouses or taverns, yet have a throat for every health or pledging
cup that reacheth not to drunkenness; and use ordinarily to drink many
unnecessary cups in a day to pledge (as they call it) those that drink
to them; and custom and compliment are all their excuse.
5. Another degree of bibbers are common alehouse haunters, that love
to be there, and to sit many hours perhaps in a day, with a pot by
them, tippling, and drinking one to another. And if they have any
bargain to make, or any friend to meet, the alehouse or tavern must be
the place, where tippling may be one part of their work.