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.
The measure of eating.
It is a very great oversight in the education of youth, that they be not taught betimes some common and necessary precepts about diet, acquainting them what tendeth to health and life, and what to sickness, pain, and death; and it were no unprofitable or unnecessary thing, if princes took a course that all their subjects might have some such common needful precepts familiarly known; (as if it were in the books that children first learn to read in, together with the precepts of their moral duty;) for it is certain, that men love not death or sickness, and that all men love their health and life; and therefore those that fear not God, would be much restrained from excess by the fear of sickness and of death: and what an advantage this would be to the commonwealth, you may easily perceive, when you consider what a mass of treasure it would save, besides the lives, and health, and strength of so many subjects.[420] And it is certain, that most people have no considerable knowledge, what measure is best for them; but the common rule that they judge by is their appetite. They think they have eaten enough, when they have eaten as long as they have list; and not before. If they could eat more with an appetite, and not be sick after it, they never think they have been guilty of gluttony or excess.
First, therefore, you must know, that appetite is not to be your rule or measure, either for quantity, quality, or time.[421] For, 1. It is irrational, and reason is your ruling faculty, if you are men. 2. It dependeth on the temperature of the body, and the humours and diseases of it, and not merely on the natural need of meat. A man in a dropsy is most thirsty, that hath least cause to drink: though frequently in a putrid or malignant fever, a draught of cold drink would probably be death, yet the appetite desireth it nevertheless. Stomachs that have acid humours, have commonly a strong appetite, be the digestion never so weak, and most of them could eat with an appetite above twice as much as they ought to eat. And on the contrary, some others desire not so much as is necessary to their sustenance, and must be urged to eat against their appetite. 3. Most healthful people in the world have an appetite to much more than nature can well digest, and would kill themselves if they pleased their appetites; for God never gave man his appetite to be the measure of his eating or drinking, but to make that grateful to him, which reason biddeth him take. 4. Man's appetite is not now so sound and regular as it was before the fall; but is grown more rebellious and unruly, and diseased as the body is: and therefore it is now much more unfit to be our measure, than it was before the fall. 5. You see it even in swine, and many greedy children, that would presently kill themselves, if they had not the reason of others to rule them. 6. Poison itself may be as delightful to the appetite as food; and dangerous meats, as those that are most wholesome. So that it is most certain, that appetite is not fit to be the measure of a man. Yet this is true withal, that when reason hath nothing against it, then an appetite showeth what nature taketh to be most agreeable to itself; and reason therefore hath something for it (if it have nothing against it); because it showeth what the stomach is like best to close with and digest; and it is some help to reason to discern when it is prepared for food.
Secondly, it is certain also, that the present feeling of ease or sickness, is no certain rule to judge of your digestion, or your measure by; for though some tender, relaxed, windy stomachs, are sick or troubled when they are overcharged, or exceed their measure, yet with the most it is not so; unless they exceed to very swinishness, they are not sick upon it, nor feel any hurt at present by less excesses, but only the imperfection of concoction doth vitiate the humours, and prepare for sicknesses by degrees (as is aforesaid); and one feeleth it a month after in some diseased evacuations; and another a twelvemonth after; and another not of many years, till it have turned to some uncurable disease (for the diseases that are bred by so long preparations are ordinarily much more uncurable, than those that come but from sudden accidents and alterations, in a cleaner body). Therefore to say, I feel it do me no harm, and therefore it is no excess, is the saying of an idiot, that hath no foreseeing reason, and resisteth not an enemy while he is garrisoning, fortifying, and arming himself, but only when it comes to blows: or like him that would go into a pesthouse, and say, I feel it do me no harm; but within few days or weeks he will feel it. As if the beginning of a consumption were no hurt to them, because they feel it not! Thus living like a beast, will at last make men judge like beasts; and brutify their brains as well as their bellies.
Rules for the measure of eating.
Thirdly, it is certain also, that the common custom and opinion is no certain rule; nay, certainly it is an erring rule; for judging by appetite hath brought men ordinarily to take excess to be but temperance. All these then are false measures.
If I should here presume to give you any rules for judging of a right measure, physicians would think I went beyond my calling, and some of them might be offended at a design that tendeth so much to their impoverishing, and those that serve the greedy worm would be more offended. Therefore I shall only give you these general intimations. 1. Nature is content with a little; but appetite is never content till it have drowned nature.[422] 2. It is the perfection of concoction, and goodness of the nutriment, that is more conducible to health, than the quantity. 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quantity of some light and passable nourishment, than half so much of gross and heavy meats. (Therefore those that prescribe just twelve ounces a day, without differencing meats that so much differ, do much mistake.) 4. A healthful, strong body must have more than the weak and sickly. 5. Middle-aged persons must have more than old folks or children.[423] 6. Hard labourers must have more than easy labourers; and these more than the idle, or students, or any that stir but little. 7. A body of close pores, that evacuateth little by sweat or transpiration, must have less, especially of moisture, than another. 8. So must a cold and phlegmatic constitution. 9. So must a stomach that corrupteth its food, and casteth it forth by periodical bilious evacuations. 10. That which troubleth the stomach in the digestion is too much, or too bad, unless with very weak, sickly persons. 11. So is that too much or bad which maketh you more dull for study, or more heavy and unfit for labour (unless some disease be the principal cause.) 12. A body that by excess is already filled with crudities, should take less than another, that nature may have time to digest and waste them. 13. Every one should labour to know the temperature of their own bodies, and what diseases they are most inclined to, and so have the judgment of their physician or some skilful person, to give them such directions as are suitable to their own particular temperature and diseases. 14. Hard labourers err more in the quality than the quantity, partly through poverty, partly through ignorance, and partly through appetite, while they refuse that which is more wholesome (as mere bread and beer) if it be less pleasing to them. 15. If I may presume to conjecture, ordinarily very hard labourers exceed in quantity about a fourth part; shopkeepers and persons of easier trades do ordinarily exceed about a third part; voluptuous gentlemen and their serving men, and other servants of theirs that have no hard labour, do usually exceed about half in half (but still I except persons that are extraordinarily temperate through weakness, or through wisdom); and the same gentlemen usually exceed in variety, costliness, curiosity, and time, much more than they do in quantity (so that they are gluttons of the first magnitude). The children of those that govern not their appetites, but let them eat and drink as much and as often as they desire it, do usually exceed above half in half, and lay the foundation of the diseases and miseries of all their lives.[424] All this is about the truth, though the belly believe it not.
When you are once grown wise enough what in measure, and time, and quality, is fittest for your health, go not beyond that upon any importunity of appetite, or of friends; for all that is beyond that, is gluttony and sensuality, in its degree.
Direct. VIII. If you can lawfully avoid it, make not your table a snare of temptation to yourselves or others. I know a greedy appetite will make any table that hath but necessaries, a snare to itself; but do not you unnecessarily become devils, or tempters to yourselves or others.[425] 1. For quality, study not deliciousness too much: unless for some weak, distempered stomachs, the best meat is that which leaveth behind it in the mouth, neither a troublesome loathing, nor an eager appetite after more, for the taste's sake; but such as bread is, that leaveth the palate in an indifferent moderation. The curious inventions of new and delicious dishes, merely to please the appetite, is gluttony inviting to greater gluttony; excess in quality to invite to excess in quantity.