A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

3 For the matter, it is great feasting. Jerome wrote to Eustachius in the desert; If I did eat any thing boyled, Luxuria fuit; so great was his temperance, All our art is too little to please our palates: we have piles of dishes to make barricadoes against the appetite. Feasts indeed have their just allowance: our Saviour himself honoured a great feast, with his presence and miracle, John 2. But they must not be unseasonable. as to feast whence need to fast; when God calls to mourning, then to revel, Amos 6. GOD threatens plagues, they fall to dances; therefore Verse 7. the banquet of these jovial fellows shall be removed. Not excessive: Nabal the churie made a feast like a King; you know a churls feast. He feeds his family with the mouldy remnants a month after. Not profane, such was Belshazzars, when the temple was ransacked to furnish his cupboard of plate. Nehemiah read the Law of God every day of the feast: if men did think of that Law, they would not make God and Belial meet at one board; Joseph and Mary went up to Jerusalem to the great feast with Jesus, but there they left Jesus, Luke 2. Twelve years they could ⟨p. 129⟩keep him, yet at a feast they lost him. Bede says; the men went in one company; the women in another: the children sometimes with the father, sometimes with the mother: betwixt them both CHRIST was lost: so easily is CHRIST lost at a feast. It is observable, Verse 46. that in the Temple they found him: they lost him at a feast, but they found him again in the Church. The end of such feasts is commonly the beginning of a fray. Upon the Sodomites feasting, heaven rained down fire and brimstone. Upon Jobs children feasting the house fell down. Against Belshazzar feasting, the finger on the wall wrote characters of destruction. What Dives hath dined, the devil takes away. If gluttony be the founder, Satan is the confounder. The host provides meat for the belly, the guest a belly for the meat: death destroys them both.^d Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Paul says,