A Christian Directory Volume I Part 78

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 G.o.d: 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 G.o.d: it is idolatry: it hath the heart, which G.o.d should have; and therefore gluttons are commonly and well called belly-G.o.ds, and G.o.d-bellies, because that love, that care, that delight, that service and diligence which G.o.d should have, is given by the glutton to his belly and his throat.[404] He loveth the pleasing of his appet.i.te better than the pleasing of G.o.d; 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 G.o.d or G.o.dliness; 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 G.o.d 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 appet.i.te 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 coa.r.s.e or pleasant, (so it be wholesome,) as all temperate persons have, this is the heart of gluttony, and is the heart's forsaking of G.o.d, and making the appet.i.te its G.o.d.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 nouris.h.i.+ng ma.s.s into a burdensome, excrement.i.tious 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 dest.i.tute 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion, 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 inapt.i.tude of the blood to nourish us, being vitiated by excess. The loathing of meat and want of appet.i.te is ordinarily from the crudities or distempers caused by this excess; yea, the very canine appet.i.te 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 pa.s.sion, 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 s...o...b..te and most of the fevers which are found in the world, and bring such mult.i.tudes to the grave.

Even those that immediately are caused by colds, distempers of the air or infections, are oft caused princ.i.p.ally 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 mult.i.tudes 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 quant.i.ty 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d'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 d.a.m.nable 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 G.o.d, and neither is nor can be subject to his law:" so that they that are thus "in the flesh cannot please G.o.d; 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 l.u.s.ts: _sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus_: it pampereth the flesh to feed it, and make it a sacrifice for l.u.s.t. 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 l.u.s.ts; 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 sc.r.a.ps, and in the poorest manner, than thus to have turned thy plenty to thy d.a.m.nable 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. x.x.x. 9. "So they did eat and were filled, for he gave them their own desire; they were not estranged from their l.u.s.t," 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 languis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d. 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 appet.i.tes! 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-G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 d.a.m.ned 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 G.o.d," 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 (_caeteris 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 impoveris.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d and his salvation for.[416] Learn to be indifferent whether your meat be pleasing to your appet.i.te or not; and make no great matter of it: remember still what an odious, swinish, d.a.m.ning 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 l.u.s.ts," Gal. v. 24.

_Direct._ II. Live faithfully to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and die to recover you the mercies which you had forfeited, and now will you cast them to the dogs? and please a sinful appet.i.te with them? Did he die to purchase you provisions for your l.u.s.ts, 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 appet.i.te; 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 appet.i.te, and telling you of G.o.d's commands, and teaching you to fear all sensual excess. It is a graceless, disobedient, senseless heart that maketh men so boldly obey their appet.i.te; when the fear of G.o.d 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 l.u.s.ts, 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-G.o.d; 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 appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te, 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 G.o.d do not rule the soul, the appet.i.te will be unruled; and if a tender conscience be not porter, the throat will be common for any thing that the appet.i.te requireth. One sight of heaven or h.e.l.l, 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 quant.i.ty, 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 appet.i.te, and reason telleth you, that your health is more to be regarded than your appet.i.te. I hope you will not say, that G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 ma.s.s 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 appet.i.te.

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 appet.i.te, and not be sick after it, they never think they have been guilty of gluttony or excess.

First, therefore, you must know, that appet.i.te is not to be your rule or measure, either for quant.i.ty, 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 appet.i.te desireth it nevertheless. Stomachs that have acid humours, have commonly a strong appet.i.te, be the digestion never so weak, and most of them could eat with an appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te. 3. Most healthful people in the world have an appet.i.te to much more than nature can well digest, and would kill themselves if they pleased their appet.i.tes; for G.o.d never gave man his appet.i.te to be the measure of his eating or drinking, but to make that grateful to him, which reason biddeth him take. 4. Man's appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te as food; and dangerous meats, as those that are most wholesome. So that it is most certain, that appet.i.te is not fit to be the measure of a man. Yet this is true withal, that when reason hath nothing against it, then an appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te 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 impoveris.h.i.+ng, 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 appet.i.te 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 quant.i.ty. 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quant.i.ty of some light and pa.s.sable 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 const.i.tution. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 quant.i.ty, partly through poverty, partly through ignorance, and partly through appet.i.te, 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty (so that they are gluttons of the first magnitude). The children of those that govern not their appet.i.tes, 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 appet.i.te, 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 appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te, is gluttony inviting to greater gluttony; excess in quality to invite to excess in quant.i.ty.

_Object._ But, you will say, I shall be thought n.i.g.g.ardly 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-G.o.ds, or ignorant, fleshly people, you will sin against G.o.d, 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-G.o.ds?[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.