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.