or reading, or praying, or meditating, or any holy work, and makes them have more mind to sleep; or so indisposeth 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 fullbellied 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'. 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." 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*. 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 r Saith Basil, A ship heavy laden is unfit to sail : so a full belly to any duty. Rom. viii. 6-8. 13. t Semper saturitati juncta est lascivia. Hieron. not eat and drink excessively as the gluttonous epicure will do ". 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 *? 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; 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'. 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"." Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord *?" "So they did eat and were filled, for he gave them their own desire; they were not estranged from their lust." 66 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 u Ventri obedientes animalium numero computantur non hominum. Senec. y Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter. a Prov. xxx. 9. Senec. b Psal. lxxv. 29, 30. 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? 13. It is a sin that is a great enemy to the common good princes and common-wealths 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 almshouses built and 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 killeth the epicure! Do these men believe that they shall be judged according to their feeding * When a friend of Socrates complained to him, What a dear place is this? Wine will cost so much, and honey so much, and purple so much: Socrates took him to the meal-hall, Lo, saith he, you may buy here half a sextare of good meal for a halfpenny, (which boiled in water was his meat) God be thanked the market is very cheap then he took him to an oil shop, where a measure (Choenix) was sold for two brass dodkins. Then be led him to a broker's shop where a man might buy a suit of clothes for ten drachms: you see, quoth he, that the pennyworths are reasonable, and things good, cheap throughout the city. Plutarch. de Tranquil. Anim. p. 153. : of the poor? Or do they take themselves to be members of the same body with those whose sufferings they so little feel? 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. "If there be a poor man of one of thy brethren in thy 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 labours upon their devouring flesh. 15. And it is the more heinous 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? "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 chaunt 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 themf Amos vi. 1. 3—6. d 1 Cor. xii. 26. • Deut. xv. 7. selves. 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. 66 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 8 See Jonah iii. 8. Joel i. 14. Joel ii. 15. |