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. 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.

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; 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.

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. 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. 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.” 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: 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. 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.