_Direct._ XII. Remember what thy body is, and what it will shortly be, and how loathsome and vile it will be in the dust. And then think how far such a body should be pampered and pleased; and at what rates.[429] Pay not too dear for a feast for worms: look into the grave, and see what is the end of all your pleasant meats and drinks; of all your curious, costly fare. You may see there the skulls cast up, and the ugly hole of that mouth which devoured so many sweet, delicious morsels; but there is none of the pleasure of it now left. Oh wonderful folly! that men can so easily, so eagerly, so obstinately, waste their estates, and neglect their souls, and displease their God, and in effect even sell their hopes of heaven, for so small and sordid a delight, as the pleasing of such a piece of flesh, that must shortly have so vile an end! Was it worth so much care, and toil, and cost, and the casting away of your salvation, to pamper that body a little while that must shortly be such a loathsome carcass?[430] Methinks one sight of a skull or a grave, should make you think gluttony and luxury madness. Eccles. vii. 2, "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart." David saith of the wicked, "Let me not eat of their dainties;" but, "let the righteous smite me and reprove me," Psal. cxli. 4, 5. So dangerous a thing is feasting even among friends, where of itself it is lawful, that Job thought it a season for his fears and sacrifice; Job i. 4, 5, "And his sons went and feasted in their houses every one his day, and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them." But Job sacrificed for them, saying, "It may be my sons have sinned, and cursed" (that is, thought provokingly, unreverently, unholily, or contemptuously of) "God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." A funeral is a safer place for you than a feast.
_Direct._ XIII. Go into the houses of the poor sometimes, and see what provision they live upon, and what time they spend at meat; and then bethink you, whether their diet or yours do tend more to the mortification of fleshly lusts? and whether theirs will not be as sweet as yours at the last? and whether mere riches should make so great a difference in eating and drinking between them and you? I know that where they want what is necessary to their health, it is lawful for you to exceed them, and be thankful; but not so as to forget their wants, nor so as to turn your plenty to excess. The very sight now and then of a poor man's diet and manner of life would do you good: seeing affecteth more than hearsay.
_Direct._ XIV. Look upon the ancient christians, the patterns of abstinence, and think whether their lives were like to yours. They were much in fastings and abstinence, and strangers to gluttony and excess; they were so prone to excess of abstinence, rather than excess of meat, that abundance of them lived in wildernesses or cells, upon roots, or upon bread and water: (from the imitation of whom, in a formal, hypocritical manner, came the swarms of friars that are now in the world:) and will you commend their holiness and abstinence, and yet be so far from any serious imitation of them, that you will, in gluttony and excess, oppose yourselves directly against them?
I have now detected the odiousness of this sin, and told you if you are willing how you may best avoid it: if all this will not serve, but there be "any profane person among you like Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright," Heb. xii. 16,[431] who for the pleasing of his throat will sell his soul, let him know that God hath another kind of cure for such: he may cast thee into poverty, where thou shalt be a glutton only in desire, but not have to satisfy thy desire; he may shortly cast thee into those diseases, which shall make thee loathe thy pleasant fare, and wish thou hadst the poor man's fare and appetite; and make thee say of all the baits of thy sensuality, "I have no pleasure in them," Eccles. xii. 1. The case will be altered with thee when all thy wealth, and friends, and greatness cannot keep thy pampered carcass from corruption, nor procure thy soul a comfort equal to a drop of water to cool thy tongue, tormented in the flames of God's displeasure: then all the comfort thou canst procure from God and conscience will be but this sad memento, "Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and thou art tormented," Luke xvi. 25. James v. 1, 5, "Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you--Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter: ye have condemned and killed the just," &c.