Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity,…

2. There are some so enslaved to their Appetites, that their Reason hath no power to rule them; but like brutes they must needs have what the Belly and Throat desire: And if they be the Children of the Rich, who have always full and pleasant food, constant flesh-pleasing, and true Gluttony, is taken for no sin; and like Swine, they do but live to eat, whereas they should but eat to live, and cheerfully serve God.

2. There are some so enslaved to their Appetites, that their Reason hath no power to rule them; but like bruits they must needs have what the Belly and Throat desire: And if they be the Children of the Rich, who have always full and pleasant food, constant flesh-pleasing, and true Gluttony, is taken for no sin; and like Swine, they do but live to eat, whereas they should but eat to live, and chearfully serve God.

But it's never so dangerous as when it turneth to the love of drink; Then the pleasing of the Throat, & the pleasing of the Brain by mirth going together, do so much corrupt the appetite and fantasy, that their thoughts run after it, and reason hath no power to shut their Mouths, nor keep them from the House of Sin. Some sin against an accusing Conscience, and under their convictions and Terrors do drink on, which yet they could forbear, if they knew there were Poison in the Cup. Some are more miserable, and have sinned themselves into fearedness of Conscience, and past feeling, and perhaps into infidelity, and a blinded mind, persuading them that there is no great harm or danger in the Sin, and that ⟨p. 29⟩it is but some precise people that make so great a matter of it: And some that have purposes to forsake the sin, when appetite stirs forget it all; and when Company enticeth, and when they see the Cup, they have no power to forbear. O what a pitiful sight it is, to see men in the flower of Youth and Strength, when they should most rejoice in God and Holiness, to be still thirsty after a forbidden pleasure, and hasting to the Tavern or Alehouse, as a Bird to the snare of the Fowler, and sweetly and greedily swallowing the poisonous Cup which God forbiddeth! And that false Repentance which Conscience and Experience force them to sometimes, is forgotten the next day when the temptation is renewed: Yea, the Throat-madness, and the merry and Belly-Devils are within them a continual temptation, which the miserable slaves cannot resist.