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]