Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the LORD thy God hath blessed thee.
— 1 Corinthians 10:31, Deuteronomy 12:7, Colossians 3:17
Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me? And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
— Zechariah 7:5-6
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
— Romans 16:18
His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.
— Isaiah 56:10-12
They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
— Hosea 4:8-11
Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?
— 1 Samuel 2:29
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
— Luke 12:19
Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
— Philippians 3:19, 2 Timothy 3:4
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
— 1 Timothy 6:5
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
— 2 Peter 1:5-6
Directions for Governing the Appetite, Or, Directions against Gluttony, by Richard Baxter. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter Eight of Part Four of his work, “A Christian Directory, or, A Summ of Practical Theologie and Cases of Conscience Directing Christians How to Use Their Knowledge and Faith, How to Improve All Helps and Means, and To Perform All Duties, How to Overcome Temptations, and To Escape or Mortifie Every Sin: In Four Parts.” London, 1673.
The most that is necessary to be said to acquaint you with the nature and evil of this sin, is said before in my chapter, The Sinfulness of 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. To show you the odiousness of it.
4. To acquaint you with the more particular helps against it.
I. Gluttony is a voluntary excess in eating, for the pleasing of the appetite, or some other carnal end.
(1.) It is sometimes an excess in quantity, when more is eaten than is fit.
(2.) Or else it may be an excess in the delicious quantity, when more regard is had to the delight and sweetness than is fit.
(3.) Or it may be an excess in the frequency or length of eating; when men eat too often, 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.
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.
Yes, 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 temperance and without blame. If a man is accustomed to not eat excessively nor deliciously, yet if he will not abstain from his temperate diet, either at a public fast, or when his lust requires 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 eats—this is an inordinate eating and excess to that person, at that time. Or if the delight that the appetite has in one sort of food, which is hurtful to the body, prevails against reason and health so with the person that he will not forbear it, it is a degree of gluttony, though for quantity and quality it is in itself but 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 laboring man may eat somewhat more than one that does not labor; and a strong and healthful body may eat 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 eats 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 more often than is profitable to health. Ecclesiastes 10:16, 17, “Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes eat in the morning. Blessed are you, O land, when your king is the son of nobles, and your 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, excessive cost, which, all things considered, would do more good another way, is excess in whomever.
4. And in tastiness of diet a difference must be allowed: the happier healthful man need not be so particular as the sick; and the happy ploughman need not be so particular, 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 table is 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 food, 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 does not tend to health, nor alacrity in duty, nor is used to that end, but to please the flesh and tempt unto excess.
II. The CAUSES of gluttony are these:
1. The chief cause of gluttony is an inordinate appetite, together with a fleshly mind and will, which is set upon flesh-pleasing as its felicity. “Those who are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh.” This gluttony, which one calls the throat devil, and the belly devil is the first cause.
2. The next cause of gluttony is the lack 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 consists. “Those who are after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit” Reason alone may do something to call up a man from this felicity of a beast, (as appears by the philosopher’s assaults upon the epicures,) but faith and love, which feast the soul with sweeter delicacies, 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 makes it easy, and makes excess a matter of no delight, but burden.
I remember that when I first set upon the use of a prescribed diet, (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 of food, or more was not desirable. And I think almost all who are accustom to one dish only, and a small quantity—find that more is a trouble and not a temptation to them.
4. Idleness and lack of diligence in a calling is a great cause of luxury and gluttony. Though labor causes a healthful appetite, yet it cures a beastly, sensual mind. An idle person has leisure to think of his belly, what to eat and what to drink, and to be longing after this and that; whereas a man who is wholly taken up in lawful business, especially such as finds employment for the mind as well as for the body—has no leisure for such thoughts. He who is taken up with his calling, has something 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. They make their tables a snare both to themselves and others, by fullness, variety, deliciousness and costliness of fare. It is the honor of their houses that a man may drink excessively when he pleases—and that their tables have excellent provisions for gluttony, and put all who 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 has set for them.
It is a lamentable thing when such as have the rule of others, and influence on the common people—shall think their honor lies upon their sin; yes, upon such a constant course of sinning; and shall think it a dishonor to them to live in sweet and wholesome temperance, and to see that those about them do the same. And all this is either because they overvalue the esteem the talk of fleshly epicures and 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, Philippians 3:18,19.
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 are not urged thus to eat; and those who invite them think they must do it to avoid the suspicion of such a sordid mind.
I do not deny but it is fit to urge any to that which it is fit for them to do; and if we see that modesty makes them eat less than is best for them, we may persuade them to eat more. But without any due disrespect to what is best for them—men think it a necessary compliment to provoke others more and more to eat, until they peremptorily refuse it. But among the most familiar friends, there is scarcely any who 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 is first in general for temperance, and apply it not until you see that they need help in the application.
3. It is undeniable that healthful people are much more prone to excess, than to the lack of sufficient eating—and that nature is very much bent to luxury and gluttony, I think as much as to any one sin. Be sure that gluttony is a beastly, breeding, odious sin. And if this is 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 favor and regard, 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 to 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 16 was damned. And he who 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 what 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 temperance do most appear. A man who is but a serious student in any noble study whatever, finds a great deal of serenity and aptitude come by temperance, and a great deal of cloudy mistiness on his mind and dullness on his invention come by fullness and excess. A man who is used to holy contemplations, meditation, reading, prayer, self-examination, or spiritual converse above, or with his heart—does easily find a very great difference; how temperance helps him, and luxury and fullness 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 temperance—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 go to their sports simply to empty their paunches for another meal, and quicken their appetites lest luxury should decay. They are as the Israelites who worshiped the golden calf, (and as the heathens worshipped their god Bacchus,) Exodus 32:6, “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. If they were 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 teaches them so to do, because it gives them such an appetite. But this 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 fleshly; or nature had not given them reason to be the superior and governor of sense. As if they knew not that God gives the brutes an appetite more bounded, because they have not reason to bound it; and gives them not the temptation of your delicate varieties; or gives them foods answerable to their appetites. Yet God gives man to be the rational governor of those appetites which are for his special service and apt to exceed.
If a man’s swine, his horses, and his cattle were all left to their appetites—they would live but a little while. If gluttony is not lawful in mankind, which is lawful in brutes—then 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 hastens their death—it would do more to restrain it with the most, than the fear of eternal death does. 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 corrects them—then they think they have eaten no more than does them good. But of this more anon in the directions.
10. Another great cause of gluttony is, that it is grown to be the commonest custom, and is no disgrace, unless men eat until they vomit, or to some extraordinary measure. And so the measure which every man sees another use—he thinks is moderation, and is fit for him. Whereas the ignorance of their own health, has made gluttony almost as common as eating, with those that are not restrained by poverty 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, yes, or as drunkenness is—and as easily known, and as commonly taken notice of, this would contribute much to a common reformation.
III. The Greatness of the Sin of Gluttony.
To know the greatness of the sin, is the chief part of the cure, with those who do but believe that there is a God. I shall therefore next tell you of its nature, effects, and attendants, which make it a great sin, and therefore should make it odious to all.
1. Luxury and gluttony is a sin exceeding contrary to God—it is idolatry. It has the heart, which God should have; and therefore gluttons are commonly and well called belly-gods, and god-bellies; because that love, that care, that delight, that service and diligence which God should have—is given by the glutton to his belly and his throat. He loves the pleasing of his appetite—better than the pleasing of God. His dishes are more delightful to him—than any holy exercise is. His thoughts for his belly are more frequent and more sweet, than of God or godliness. His care and labor are more that he may be pleased in foods and drinks—than that he may secure his salvation, and be justified and sanctified.
Indeed, the Scripture gives them this reproach, Philippians 3:19, “Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, who glory in their shame, who mind earthly things”—being enemies to the cross of Christ, that is, to bearing the cross for Christ, and to the crucifying of the flesh, and to the mortifying parts of religion. Nay, such a devouring idol is the belly, that it swallows up more by intemperance and excess—than all other idols in the world do.
Remember that the very life of the sin is in the appetite and heart. When a man’s heart is set upon his belly, though he eats ever so little because he is poor—he is a glutton in heart. When you make a great matter of it, what you shall eat and drink as to the delight; and when you take it for a great loss or suffering if you fare hardly, and are troubled at it, and your thoughts and talk are of your belly, and you have not that indifference whether your fare is coarse or pleasant, (so long as it is wholesome,) as all temperate people have—this is the heart of gluttony, and is the heart’s forsaking of God, and making the appetite its god.
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