_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 appetite; 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 appetite, and telling you of God's commands, and teaching you to fear all sensual excess. It is a graceless, disobedient, senseless heart that maketh men so boldly obey their appetite; when the fear of God 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 lusts, 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-god; 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 appetite 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 appetite, 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 God do not rule the soul, the appetite will be unruled; and if a tender conscience be not porter, the throat will be common for any thing that the appetite requireth. One sight of heaven or hell, 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 quantity, 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 appetite, and reason telleth you, that your health is more to be regarded than your appetite. I hope you will not say, that God 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. God 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.]