since his Actions are Diametrically contrary to the Royal Will and Pleasure specified at first by his Majesties Letter to the Bishop of London which was ordered to be Communicated to the rest of the Clergy and afterwards signified to the Civil Magistrate By the Queens most Gracious Message to the Justices of Middlesex and Lastly by a more forcing Proclamation in which they Recommended the suppressing Profane Swearing and Cursing as the first and chiefest of those Offences which were accounted more especially to hasten and bring down God's Judgments upon this Unfortunate Kingdom 21 But Thirdly there are many of those Profligate Wretches who dare own themselves Church-men and if they pretend to any Religion it is the Reformed Orthodox and Protestant Faith they are of The third Motive drawn from the Obedience due to the Church They appear openly in our Congregations and shew a bold Face in the most solemn of our Assemblies and intrude into the most Sacred of our Ordinances the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper But let those Profaners of all that is good and sacred be assured that the Church is not their Mother that within her Bosom there are cherished no such Vipers that her Sanctuary is no Asylum for such Vermine to have recourse to For her Doctrine's drawn out of the Pure fountain of God's Word (a) Article 39. her Articles (b) Homily 7. her Homilies and her whole Constitutions are directly Opposite to the Profane and gives no manner of Encouragement for him to persevere in his Extravagancies However the lewd World may esteem of things now yet when the Last Day comes no Question but the Church will say to those her Hangers on I know you not You would have none of my Counsel but despised all my reproof therefore Eat ye of the Fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices If therefore any Man has any Zeal to stand up for her and to promote her Cause and to enlarge her Borders He cannot do it better than by a Sober and Conscientious Conversation to let his Communication be Yea Yea and Nay Nay 22. Come we now to consider the last Motive The fourth Motive drawn from the Judgments of God which if all the rest fail may prove strong enough to work upon the most obdurate and hardned Conscience unless it be Judgment Hell and Damnation-proof Men may be so brazen faced as not to blush at their being worse than Heathens they may be so resractory as not to be reduced by the strictest Humane Laws They may be so unchristian and so unnatural as to chuse to be disowned by their Mother the Church rather than part with their customary Vices But I hope they are not so much in the power of Devil as that the terrors of the Lord against such Offenders both in this Life and in another can make no impression upon them 23. Let those Wretches be never so free from the Laws of the Kingdom and the Censures of the Church 1. Judgments upon Swearers in this life yet the Hand of the Lord will find them out and even on this side the Grave pay them home for their rash Oaths and blasphemous Execrations We have some tho' not many fresh Instances of God's signalizing his Vengeance on such horrid Criminals For what was the reason of the small company of the Israelites killing 100000 Aramites in one day 1 Kings 20.20 If you consult Holy Writ you will find it was for Blaspheming God And what was the cause of Sennacherib's meeting with such an Unnatural and barbarous Death Was it not the Blaspheming the Lord Jehovah both by his General Rabshekab and by his own Hand-writing in a Letter he sent to Hezekiah And doth not God in our times take the Sinner at his word and cut him off in an Instant with the damnable Execration in his Mouth True it is such Instances of God's immediate Vengeance in this World are very rare and few examples of this nature are upon Record But let us take a view of the impenitent Blasphemer lying upon his Death-bed in his last Agonies and ready to give up his polluted Breath at his last gasp Let us there examine him what Fruitor Profit he has in those things whereof he is now ashamed Can you think his gentile Oaths and accomplished Execrations will now do him any advantage in that Eternity into which he is just ready to Launch No I am perswaded you will hear him tell you another story and if the Devil has not quite gagged his Conscience you will hear him in the bitterness of his Soul utter out this or some such complaint Damned Caitif that I am In what an unavoidably miserable condition am I involved What a lamentable prospect of endless Wo have I now in my sight What a horrible Scene is just ready to open and deliver me up to the devouring Flames Ob cursed Tongue How hast thou been employed for thine own Ruine Heaven thou canst not appeal to for the power thereof thou hast often defied God thou can'st not call upon whose Name thou hast often and shamefully prophaned by thine unclean Lips Oh Heavens Drop down upon me and crush me into nothing Oh Mountains fall upon me and cover me from the face of him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the Wrath of the Lamb Oh Earth Let thy Bowels gape and hide me in thy dark Caverns But alas in vain do I vent my wishes to those who cannot will not help me Come then ye Infernal Furies and hurry my accursed Soul to its deserved Mansions Come ye bewitching and infatuating Spirits and take your cheap Bargain home to your fiery Habitations Thus raving and despairing railing and cursing himself he ends his abominable odious and sinful Life 24. But if this is not melancholy enough to strike Horror into the Adamantine Heart 2. Eternal Judgments upon Swearers yet let him his prospect beyond this and the Grave For admit he may escape the thunderbolts of Divine Wrath tho' the Lightning may not devour him nor the Arrows of the Lord take hold of him in this life yet can he expect to escape the Judgment of God for ever Shall not Hell be his Portion and Eternall Misery his stipend for all his Blasphemies Shall he not with Dives lift up his Eyes in Hell being in Torments and roar out in vain for one drop of water to cool his inflamed Tongue That Fire that world of iniquity which delighted in venting out its Curses and Oaths here on Earth Will not the punishment be adaequate and suitable to the Crime And is it not fit that That Member suffer most which was chiefly instrumental in plucking down the misery upon the whole Consider this then ye that forget God that forget your selves and forgoe your own Interest both Temporal and Eternal for what vanishes like Smoke into empty Air consider ye that Glory in your Shame that Triumph in your wickedness that Out-dare Heaven with
THE Reformed Gentleman OR THE Old English Morals Rescued From the Immoralities of the Present Age. SHEWING How Inconsistent those Pretended Genteel Accomplishments Of Swearing Drinking Whoring and Sabbath-Breaking Are with the True Generosity of an English Man Being Vices not only contrary to the Law of God and the Constitutions of our Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil but such as cry loud for Vengeance without a speedy Reformation To which is added a Modest Advice to Ministers and Civil Magistrates with an Abridgement of the Laws relating thereto the King's Proclamation and Queens Letter to the Justices of Middlesex with their several Orders thereupon By A. M. of the Church of England Nobilitas sola est atque Vnica Virtus Juvenal Imprimatur Rob. Midgley July 28. 1692. London Printed for T. Salusbury at the King's Arms in Fleetstreet near St. Dunstan's Church 1693. TO THE READER Impartial Reader IF ever any Age needed a Boanerges this Lethargick one of ours certainly does nothing but Thunderclaps and Miraculous Judgments being able to raise Mankind from their dead sleep of Sin and to rouse than from their Carnal Security and Impious Stupidity 'T was this lamentable Prospect of the unconcernedness of the Nation we live in that set me upon the following undertaking Never did any People commit such Enormities and seemed so insensible whether they had been guilty of them or no as our English Vitiosoes at present For if you tell the Prophane Wretch of his Swearing tho the Oath iâ— scarce out of his Mouth yet you shall hear him avouch by an Oath or two more that he did not Swear If you tax another of being Drunk Pshaw Pshaw crys the Brute that 's a small Fault pray who is free from the Piccadilloes of the Bottle If you charge a Third with Whoring Who replys the Lascivious Spark can forbear indulging the inviting Motions of Flesh and Blood And what man but an Anchorite or Hermit can resist the Impetuous Inclinations of his Youth If in the last place you advise any to be more Religiously Observant of the Lords-Day Why who says the Licentious Libertine has required this at our hands Is it not enough to go twice a day to Church on the Sunday but we must be Puritans and Pharisees at home too This being the true Account of the desperate Case of our debauched Times What remains but that some one should tho I perhaps have not with Rigour and Menaces with Thundrings and Lightnings enough made them sensible of their Condition lest soothing themselves up with the conceit of Gods Mercies and Christ's meritorious Death and Satisfaction for their Sins they remain still in the Suburbs of Hell and dance so long about the Pit of Destruction till they irrecoverably fall into their Eternal Ruin Do the Physitians use gentle Applications and only stroke their Apoplectic Patients No certainly they find Rubbing and Chafing Pinching and Wounding Scarrifying and Cupping little enough to make them recover of their Dead Fit And shall the Soul in as deep an Apoplexy as ever the Body felt have soft things said to her Shall the Obdurate Conscience and the Heart as hard as the nether Milstone be softly anointed as it were with Oyl and bound up as if nothing ailed them Certainly those Balsamicks would do better when the Wound is laid open and searched throughly when the Soul is touched to the quick the Conscience pricked with the Sense of its own Guilt and the Heart brought down to a Melting Bleeding Temper I am confident the Binding up the Sore before it be half Dressed and drawing a Skin over the unhealed Part is a ready way to cause a Grangreen And I am as confident that speaking Peace to a People when there is no Peace belongs to them and the gentle treatment of Vice is the great Cause of its spreading the Contagion and of making the Infected insensible of the Plague till such time as it has got such sure footing that a Cure without a Miracle is despaired of And since things are in such a desperate Case what sober man can forbear wishing that Impiety were reduced into some decree of Modesty and that Wickedness were but scared into Corners that it may at least from henceforth not dare to out-face the Light and boast of its numbers in the Eye of the World And any rational man would be forward to think this might easily be done in a Country where Christianity is professed in its Original Purity and where the Fundamental Laws and Institutions favour the Attempt But alas we find tho we have Statutes to that purpose made to our hands tho the Great Wheels have moved and we might have expected the lesser Orbs would have followed the Motion yet most men stand still and those which do move make but a very tardy motion by reason of the Opposition of a Major Party whose Clamours are so great as to make the suppressing of Prophaness and Debauchery the Great Grievance of the Nation So that tho there should be a Scheme proposed by the Best and Wisest of the Nation for accomplishing the Design tho there were more Laws made to back those already in force yet when that is done it would be to little Effect unless there could be found Persons of that Courage Generosity Conduct and Prudence as might accordingly put the same in Execution But where to meet such as are Endowed with those Qualifications will be the harder Task if we consider that we live at present in a World which never yet was so happy as the Good made the Larger and the Rising Party As Reformed as this Age pretends to be he knows very little of the World that sees not the great need this Corrupted Island has of a Speedy Reformation A Work of so great a Consequence which not only Good Men ought to endeavour but the Bad ought to desire and all ought one way or other to promote But what Rubs and Remora's what Disappointments and unexpected Discouragements has so Necessary a Work met with of late from some who should have been by the Obligation they lie under its forwardest Promoters and Encouragers It would seem too reflecting to insist hereon and therefore I leave the persons concerned to consider with themselves whether they have acted like Christians or so much as like Englishmen in doing what in them lies to hinder so Glorious a Design That we are a People that do need a Reformation That we are not such white and undefiled Creatures as we take our selves to be That as long as we continue in those Open and Crying Sins under which our Land at present groans we cannot expect the Consummation of such Mercies as are already begun for us but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and Fiery Indignation devouring us from the face of the Earth That all our Pretences to Religion and of our being of this or that Church signifie nothing without a Holy Life and the keeping our selves Pure from the
the Breach by reconciling you to your Offended God Doubtless you who are now Guilty of this Sin and fool your selves up with the Hopes of repenting Hereafter are out in your Measures and are in the ways that tend and lead to the Chambers of Death when it will perhaps prove too late when one foot is got into the Grave 25. Now to speak a word or two of the next kind of Vncleanness Fourthly Of Incest and the effects thereof wherein the parties concerned fall within that Degree of Kindred which does forbid all Carnal knowledge tho' in the state of Matrimony and this Uncovering of a Relations Nakedness Married or Single we call Incest The little Noise that is made about it within this Northren World would make one think there was no such Fornication amongst us But among the many Vnlawful it would not be hard to find some Vnnatural Embraces were they not so commonly hushed up by the Inglorious Criminals and concealed by the rest of the Relations to avoid the disgracing their Families thereby From the want of due Conviction thereof is it that they go Unpunished and escape the Censure of a Spiritual Court and the Sentence of an Earthly Tribunal but the just Judge will overtake and his Hand will find them out What the Consequence of this Sin is over and above the Common Miseries which if together with Fornication and Adultery may be said to endure appears from the Examples of those who have met with Divine Vengeance in or presently after the Act. Lot's Daughters got nothing by uncovering their Fathers Nakedness but Shame to themselves and an intailed Curse to their Miserable Posterity Reuben tho' the first born fell short of his Portion in the Old Mans Benedicat because he went up and defiled his Fathers Bed Amnon met with sowre Sauce after the Rape and Incest he committed upon his Sister And Absalom's untimely Death may be assigned to his having layn with his Fathers Concubines as the Chiefest tho' not the only Cause thereof Profane Writers are not wanting in Instances of this kind too long and many to be ennumerated in a Discourse of so small a Bulk Nor are our own Annals and the present times unfurnished which because it would seem Invidious to rip open the faults of such as lye in the Dust and too reflecting upon many now alive I shall forbear to particularize Else such could be named which tasted deeply of the Cup of God's Wâ—ath even in this Life for this Crime and what their Portion is in the other World my Câ—arity will not admit me to judge 26. The Last and Highest Degree of Uncleanness is that of Rape Fifthly Of Rape and the Consequence thereof wherein the Ravisher bears no regard to any thing but his Lust for whomsoever that prompts him to enjoy his Violence constrains to yield to his Embrace Virgin or Widow Sister or Mother Married or Single are all alike to him One would think from the Multitude of Common Prostitutes in and about the World there would be no such thing as Violence used But if you Visit the Courts of Judicature you shall find many of those Guilty Wretches holding up their Hands at the Bar. So Offensive have these Constraints been to most Nations that we find by the Laws thereof that they are punished with immediate Death No less Punishment doth the Statute Laws of our Land inflict upon the Offender and not only the Principal but the Abettors of the Crime have tasted of the same Ignominious Punishment And how the Fortune-stealer for so our Gentile Ravisher is now adays called will answer his Rape at the Last Day I am struck with Horror to imagine His Miseries are the same with other Letchers but aggravated by being not only his Better self-Hater but the Common Nusance Pest and Disturber of Civiliz'd Societies 27. Thus have I at length winded my self out of that Labarynth of Lust A word of Advice to the Chast and the Vnchast and passed through all its Chambers and proved them to be the direct Road to Want Misery Diseases and Death to the Wrath of God and Eternal Flames And if there is so great a Train of Mischiefs attending in the outward Apartments of Uncleanness such as are obvious to every View and which I have only treated on What and How many must needs be the Evils which are admitted into her closer Retirements and into her Unseen and Unobserved Secresies It remains now that I should give a Word of Advice to such as have not as yet been infected with this Epidemical Distemper as well as to those that at present do Labour under it And so the Precautions and Antidotes I prescribe to the One may prove Effectual Remedies to heal the other 28. To the first I have the Apostles Words ready to say Keep your selves Pure Let not Sin reign in your Mortal Bodies that you should obey it in the Lusts thereof Neither yield your Members as Instruments of Vnrighteousness to Sin But yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the Dead and your Members as Instruments of Righteousness unto God Your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in you Flee Fornication therefore and every Sin that defiles that Sacred Place For you are not your own you are bought with a Price Glorifie therefore God in the Chastity of your Bodies as well as in the Purity of your Spirits which are Gods 1 Cor. 19.20 And over and above the avoiding the Evil Consequents of Uncleanness which are in themselves Motives sufficient to deter Men from the pursuit thereof you have stronger inducements thereto For thereby you ensure to your selves the Peace and Tranquillity of an Undefiled Conscience and all the Comforts flowing from a Chast and Humble Conversation You imitate the Inspirer of your Souls in being Pure as he is Pure and in a Word by this Angelick Virtue you prepare and fit your selves for the Beatific Vision for so Blessed are the Pure in Heart pronounced by our Saviour that they and only they shall see God Mat. 5. 29. To the Poor Infected Wretch I shall add to what I have already said Repent of thy Vncleannesses which thou hast Committed and Mortify thy Members which are upon the Earth Suffice it that thou hast hitherto yielded thy Members servants to Vnrighteousness now return and yield them Servants unto God unto Holiness Be not carried away with thy Lusts any longer moderate the Impetuous Heat of thy Youth Be no longer the Vassal to Impurity Let not an Idle Exchange Girl or Common Actress captivate thy Soul Hearken not any longer to the Allurements of those Minions and suffer not Solomons Wanton to lead thee as an Oxe to the Slaughter or as a Fool to the Correction of the Stocks Be no longer fond of those thy dear bought Pleasures and hunt not after what will cost thee the wasting of thy Estate the Misery of thy Relations the Impairing of thy Health
I 'll tell you what you are The Society whereof you are has a great Prevalence over you to make you of the same Mould with the whole If that he good you cannot but in Complaisance be or seem to be so too if That be Evil it would he no false Logick to conclude the Parts to be of the same Marke with the whole This is too evident to need Demonstration and were it to be doubted in other Vices yet in this of Uncleanness the Influence which one Debauch'd Companion has upon another to render him so too proves the Consequence to be too true A Loose Libertine and Licentious Conversation does easily incline a man to Joyn with the Multitude in one Common way of Lewdness and Debauchery Familiarity and Example Fear and Shame private Obligations and publick Engagements are as great Inducements to depraved Nature to comply with those to whom one stands Obliged in any of the former Respects And here I cannot chuse but blame such as out of a Frolick to see the Tricks of the Town and to experience the truth of what they Hear associate themselves with Lewd and Profligate persons running from Bandy-House to Baudy House from one Brothel to another 'till at last they carry the Coals of Fire so long that they are inflamed by Lust in good earnest 6ly To employ your Eyes and Thoughts and to help you to better Company I shall advise you in the next place to be frequent in reading and Meditating the Holy Scriptures for wherewithall shall a Young Man cleanse his way says the Royal Psalmist but by taking Heed thereto according to thy Word Herein you will see Life and Death Blessings and Cursings Promises and Threatnings Mercies and Judgments The one a Royal Priviledge appropriated to the Upright and Clean the other as a Punishment to the Man of Unclean Lips and a Lewd Conversation Herein you will see a Generously Chast and Continent Joseph exalted from a Dungeon to a Throne whilst the Incestuous Reuben is put by his Fathers Blessing Herein you will read of 24000 Israelites being killed in one day amidst their Whoredoms Numb 5. whilst Phineas for his Zeal in punishing the Delinquents atones for the Rest and obtains for himself a Covenant of Peace the Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood Herein you will see the Cause of the Massacre of Schechem and his People who were for Dinab's Rape cut off Root and Branch in one day Herein you will have a view of the Untimely ends of Hophni and Phineas of Amnon and Absalom of Incontinent Jezebel and and many others who by their Whoredoms Adulteries and Incestuous Embraces provoked the Merciful God to plague them with sundry Diseases and divers kind of Deaths 7ly When you have done your utmost to resist and find notwithstanding the Carnal part to be predominant Mortify as St. Paul advises your Members which are upon the Earth Keep under your unruly Body and bring it into Subjection that you do not become Cast-aways As Drunkenness and Gluttony increase so do Temperance and Sobriety take away the Oyl from the Flames To feed low and abstain from rich and delicious fare to Eat and Drink only to satisfie Nature without endeavouring to humour your Palats or satiate your Appetite will by degrees moderate your Lusts Fasting for whole Days and then to return to a full Table and Excess is not the way to cast out this Devil for it is as a Worthy * Bishop Taylor Prelate of our Church observes a Flatulent airy Spirit which an Empty Windy Stomach gives Life and Motion to It must be a constant Abstinence in the moderate use of coarse and homely Fare such as will not be prejudicial to your Health that will be of greatest Force to subdue your Corrupt Natures and to beat down those Insurrections which ever and anon arise and raise a Civil War between your outward and your inward Man 8ly To that of Fasting and all the other forementioned Helps add that of Frequent Prayer All the rest without this are but as dead Letters Herein the Soul owns its weakness and acknowledgeth that 't is not in Man to direct his ways sensible whereof it sends up this winged Messenger of Prayer to crave for Assistance from above and never leaves intreating till some such Answer as this be given My Grace is sufficient for thee Be you instant therefore in imploring for the Spirit of Purity for Chast Thoughts and Temperate Reins Make such as these your daily and hourly requests Create in us a Clean Heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us wash us throughly from our Wickedness and cleanse us from our Sin Purge us with Hysop and we shall be clean wash us and we shall be whiter than Snow Purifie our Hearts and search throughly if there be any Wickedness in us And since your Prayers have no express promises of a success unless your own Endeavours back them take up Holy Job's Resolution of making a Covenant with your Eyes that you will not look upon a Maid And with David keep your Mouth as with a Bridle that you offend not with your Tongue Let your Hearts be filled with Chast desires and your Minds employed in Contemplating on the Goodness and the Mercy of the Lord which should lead you to repentance Let your hands be pure and so lift them up to the Throne of Grace and turn your Feet into the ways of Righteousness Eph. 6.13 14 15 16.17 Thus being Arm'd with the whole Armour of God your Loins girded about with the Truth and having the Breastplate of Righteousness being shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace and taking above all things the Shield of Faith whereby you will be able to withstand the fiery Darts of the Devil and the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit you will be the better able to grapple against your Lusts and be guarded against a Relapse which oft proves more dangerous and desperate than the disease 9thly The Last Antidote commonly prescribed against Uncleanness is Marriage By this holy Ordinance God has taken off all reason of Complaint and the Oppression Tyranny Injustice and all other Invectives cast upon the Deity for implanting in Man such Naturals which must be satisfied and for prohibiting the fullfilling of these by Express Laws are quite wiped away the Murmurings and Imputations of Cruelty Severity and the like are here silenced And if the Letcher after such a Liberty granted shall continue in his Unlawful Amours if he shall forsake his own to Climb up into an Adulterous Bed He has no plea drawn from the strength of Inclination the bent of his Constitution or the like to excuse himself withal not can he Charge the Sin any where but upon his own Corrupted and Vitiated Will St. Paul seems to intimate as much and declares this Honourable Institute was appointed to avoid Fornication Not is it enough to forbear all unlawful and forbidden Embraces nor
profaned Fourthly The Lords-Dâ—y profaned by publickly Exposing to sale and that is by publickly Exposing Goods to sale thereon This is that which Righteous Nehemiah could not endure when he contended with the Rulers of Israel and would not suffer the Carriers nor the Merchants of the Land to bring up their Wares to Jerusalem on the sabbath-Sabbath-Day Neh. 13. And how small a Matter soever it may seem to some in our times yet by Him it was reckoned the cause for which God plagued Israel and suffered them to be led Captive intO a strange Land And without doubt our Legislators of the Last Age and the Beginning * Statute 29. Car. 2. of this were of Opinion that the suffering the least Ware to be sold off on the Lords-Day would prove an Introduction to a greater Profaneness which made them prohibit the Exposing of any Commodity to sale thereon upon the Forfeiture of all so Exposed be it of never so great a value which was to be sold and the Money converted to the use of the Poor And truly they who now take it ill should they for the selling of a Trifle be forced to pay the Penalty which the Statutes of our Land require will hereafter think that Punishment easie and Light to what they shall then feel from the great Lawgiver when they shall give up their Last accounts 10. And here some one may say An Objection Answered and what Works may Lawfully be done on the Lords-Day Sure this must be some Puritan How strict he is What will be allow nothing to be done this Day Must we do no manner of Work thereon Does God require we should be tyed up from all Motion and Action but that of the Soul and Spirit Is it not better to Work than Sin on this Day To which I reply Ex Confesso it must be granted that there are three sorts of Works which the strictest Christian may on this Day perform viz. Works of absolute Necessity not fained or which might have been done the Day before or may be done the Day after Works of Charity and lastly Works of Piety Beyond these none may lawfully use his Christian Liberty Nor did our Saviour relax any thing of the strictness save in these respects As to that whether it is not better to Work than to Sin on this Day True it is Saint * In tit Ps 91. Austin's Opinion is so affirming that it is better to Plough than to Dance on the Lords-Day But then it is not thence to be concluded that the Greater destroys the Less or that the Guilt of Profaning this Holy and Blessed Day by our Ordinary calling is less in its own Nature because it can be Violated by a more Horrid and aggravated Sin 11. But to proceed if the doing that upon this Day Fifthly The Lords-Day profaned by the Works of the Flesh such as are first Tipling thereon which at another time is both Lawful and Necessary to be done be so great an Offence as certainly it is How extreamly must the Crime be aggravated when we do that thereon which is Unlawful or at least Unnecessary to be done at any other Time Such as the Works of the Flesh to wit Carousing Feasting Dancing Singing Gaming Rioting and the like Tho' the Naming of these is abominable to any serious Man yet the Practise of them is so Universal and Common that there is a Necessity as it were of insisting some time upon each of them 12. 'T is strange methinks that Men should be so absurd as to imagine the small service they pay to God by an Hour or two upon a Sunday should tolerate them in serving of Sin and Satan all the Day and all the Week after Yet it is too true to need any Demonstration that most especially of the Inferiour Rank of Men are no sooner out of a Church but strait you find them in an Alehouse or a Tavern where they do not as they pretend go only to satisfie their Natures but to spend on that their Idle Day all the Profit and Gain of the foregoing Week An Intolerable thing this And a Profanation not to be endured in any Civil much less in a Christian Society notwithstanding the Cry of all the Ale-House-keepers and Vintners to the Contrary Who will give out where their Complaints can be admitted the Hearing that the Suppressing of Tipling on the Lords-Day would tend Immediately to their Ruin and Destruction But better it is they should Murmur than that the whole Land Mourn better they should lose the taking of Pounds than so many Wives and Children should be undone and Perish by reason of the Extravagancie of the Man Will those Inn-keepers and Vintners supply the wants of the Indigent Wife and Children when they are by their means reduced to beggery Will the Host or Hostess exchange their draughts of cold Water for a Cup of small Beer No it is certain the Man himself shall not be welcom without Money in his Pocket tho' he has spent his All to Enrich them and Mortgaged his Estate to the Tap and Tankard 13. Another sort of Profanation of this Holy Ordinance is by Luxurious Feastings A second Work of the Fâ—esh is Feasting on the Lords Day and Voluptuous Entertainments too common on this Day It is true this Day is a Festival but such a One as ought not to be Dedicated to any but to the Memory of a Crucified Redeemer A Festival indeed it is in which the Soul not the Body should be Glutted with good things in which we should strive not for the Meat which perisheth but for that which endureth to Everlasting Life in which we should thirst after the Living Water and Hunger after the Bread of Life which is able to make us Live for ever The sincere Milk of the Word the Flesh and Blood of a Dying Saviour are indeed Dainties and Repasts which every faithful Soul is satisfied with and Breatheth after But Gluttony and Gormandizing Pampering and High-feeding are but pitiful subsequents of a Morning Sermon and worse Preparatives for an Afternoons Lecture Were Hospitality and feeding the Poor at the Bottom of those Feasts there might be something said in Excuse thereof But forasmuch as the Cost and Luxury of the Treats is but barely to keep up Mutual Correspondence and to return former Entertainments they might be very well let alone till some more seasonable Time All that I can conceive may be alledged in favour hereof is that the Sanctity of the Day may have some Influence upon the Guests to keep them within the Bounds of Sobriety and Temperance But alass there is no such Notice taken nor has it any Influence to with-hold the Epicure from his Excess as is evident enough to any who have been at those Luxurious Tables And what is the mind after such Repletions good for Can the full fraught Stomach forbear sending up its fumes into the Drouzie Head which cannot hold from sleeping one single
his own Friend to be sure for he not only exposes himself to the Penalties of Human Laws if his Rnavery should be found out but imprecates upon himself all the Punishments and Curses which God usually inflicts upon the Wretch even in this Life and which without Repentance will be his Portion in the next And how great those Judgments are is next to be considered The Second Motive from the Greatness of the punishment which is either Human or Divine 29. So far is the Profligate Criminal from escaping punishment that all the Laws both Human and Divine are ready to lay hold of him How strict our Constitutions are against this Impiety if any one will consult * 5 Eliz. Cap. 9. Made perpetual 29. Eliz. Cap. 5. those Statutes made and Provided in this case will be manifest The Heathen when willing to express a Religious Man would Title him only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man of his Word And when they described a Wicked Man did think him fully delineated when they called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perjurious No milder a Brand does the Wretch receive from the Law according to our general Acceptation of the thing For besides Fines Imprisonments and the Pillory he has as Ignominious a Character as a Heretick or Infidel being as uncapable as them of bearing any Office of assisting at any honourable Court or giving his Evidence in any Cause 30. But admit he may escape undiscerned by Mortal Eyes Gods Judgments upon the Perjurious in this Life or if found out that he is so hardned in his Impiety that thâ—â—asest stigma cannot shame him that Fines and Penalties that the Prison and Pillory cannot startle him to his Amendment yet I trust he is not so past Cure that the Judgments of the Lord cannot prevail upon him And herein God glorifies and signalizes his Justice in a Wonderful Manner He doth not will not hold them Guiltless that take his Name in Vain He pays them home in their own Coyn as the Common expression is even in this Life Instances of this truth there are enough even within the Compass of a short review and there is no need to run over any other Annals but our own Experience and knowledge for satisfaction in this point How many I will forbear mentioning particular Names have there been whom God's hand has smitten in a more immediate manner punishing the Offence in the very Moment of its Commission How many dreadful spectacles have there been of those whom Divine Vengeance has not hurried away but left according to their Wishes standing Monuments of his Justice to die by a fearful and lingring Disease by some plague or another which has consumed them as it were piece-meal How many others are there who carry in their own Breasts their Hell upon Earth And on those I cannot forbear bestowing a Melancholy thought or two and Commiserate their most miserable Condition Whatsoever the Heathens might relate of the Perjured's being visited by the Furies every fifth day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to that of Hesiod Whatever Poets feign of Prometheus Vultur or Ixions Wheel are even on this side the Stygian Lake verified with a Witness These poor Wretches are lashed with the Twinges of a self accusing Conscience whose strokes are more piercing then all the snaky Whips and pointed Scorpions are This Worm gnaws with a greater Appetite and makes a Deeper Impression in the Sinners Bosom then the Devouring Fowl could ever upon the others Bowels And the continual round of endless Despair leaves him in such a Labyrinth that every step he advances towards the Ridding himself out of it intricates him the more therein Nor does the punishment always terminate in the Person but his Posterity more or less feel the sad Effects of their Predecessors perfidiousness This is too Visible to need any farther Illustration saving from the Example of that Great Man who entailed a Curse to his Family for the non-performance of a Thing he had engaged himself by an Oath to have done He was I presume more a Christian then that we should doubt of his not repenting of the thing himself yet the Misfortunes of his Posterity loudly proclaim the Almighties Displeasure at that Offence 31. Thus far of the Miserie 's incident to the perjurious in this Life God's Judgments upon the Perjured in another Life but what will his Portion be in that Lake of Fire and Brimstone I am struck with horror at the very thoughts thereof Methinks I see him ranked there with the most Black Infernal Devils howling and shrieking through the very anguish of his Spirits There is he Convinced tho' too late of God's Justice towards such profane Wretches There he is Sensible how damnable a false Heart a double Tongue and unhallowed Lips are There he would wish those torments were but Notion and the Fire were but Painted and the flames but Visionary as he often has thought while on Earth but to his Cost he finds the Reality of them and will for ever acknowledge the Eternity of them too In that Prison that Dungeon of Everlasting misery he has a full view of the Black Kalendar of Criminals and sees the Catalogue of offences of which Profane Swearing and Cursing Blasphemy and Perjury are not the Last nor least not with Repenting but eternally despairing Eyes 32. And are not these thoughts terrible enough in all Conscience to melt down the most Adamantine Heart Can it be imagined that men are so flinty and Obdurate as that neither a Sense of their Guilt nor an Esteem they may have for their Reputation nor the fear of Human punishments much more of God's Temporal and Eternal Judgments can win upon them to repent of their Evil ways He is certainly possessed with a stupidity beyond that of Lethargy who can live and forswear himself with Hell Flames about his Ears notwithstanding the insupportable Wrath of a justly incensed and provoked Judge is ready to seize him and hale him before the Judgment Seat of that strict Tribunal who will leave no Sin unpunished tho' never so much palliated and glossed over with the thin Varnish of weak human Excuses and Evasions Repent then oh Man whosoever thou art and perjure thy self no more Let the time past suffice that thou hast broken thy Vows and Promises and for the future make thy Vows unto the Lord of an Amendment of thy Life and be sure to see them performed Of Drunkenness CHAP. II. The Origine of this Sin traced How and wherein 〈◊〉 Difficulty of exactly defining it consists Drunkennâ— described by its Effects and the reasonableness such a Description considered in four Particulaâ— The false Ends of Drinking Answered A Debâ—tation drawn from the Effects of this Sin which 〈◊〉 1. The Breach of that Duty we owe to God our Neigâ—bour and our selves 2. The advancing Satans Kinâ—dom thereby 3. The cause of many other Sins Aâ— 4. The making us Obnoxious to the Woes in Holy
Wâ— denounced against such offenders The Difficulty becoming Sober and the safety of doing it betiâ— fully considered The Sin of Drunkenness traced from the Origine of it down to our times 1. COme we now in the neâ— place to take a view â—â— that generally prevailing Vice â—â— Intemperance in Drinking Tâ—â— Origine of which Brutal Immorality we can Traâ—â— from beyond the Flood For it is upon Record thâ—â— in the Days of Noah when the Floods came and destroyed the Earth they were Eating and Drinking and giving in Marriage Which words cannot bâ— thought literally to signifie the bare Acts of Eatinâ— and Drinking c. but the Extravagant Use and thâ— Abuse of God's Creatures by perverting them from their proper genuine and natural End to Excess â—d Luxury Nor was the Universal Deluge of force â—ough to purge away the Corruptions of those â—uilts with which the old Debauched World had â—ained polluted and poisoned the then Inhabited â—arth For we find Noah tho' a good Man and a â—reacher of Righteousness accidentally overtaken â—ith the Effects of an unacquainted intoxicating Liâ—uor which not only Exposed his Nakedness to the â—iew of an Unnatural Ham but gave occasion for â—ch of his Posterity as followed the steps of an acâ—ursed Canaan to improve their Fathers weakness â—nd Infirmity to a Sin and Trade 2. Hence was it that we hear of the Bacchanalian â—rews whose Looseness and Extravagancy in Drinkâ—ng intitled them the Votaries of that swinish Deity But yet the allowed Intemperance in excessive Drinking among the Heathens was only to be â—een among the more Licentious Admirers of Bacchus whilst the more Sober and Considerative â—ere perfect Abhorrers of and Enemies to such Riots and Enormities That Universal Sin of Drunkenness has but of late years crept into the Christian Church and but very lately dared to shew its head openly in the World for those that were Drunken as the Apostle testifies were drunken in the Night 1 Thes 5.7 But now all Vices in general as well as that in particular have lost their former Modesty and nothing more Common then to hear the Wretch glory in his shame as if it were a piece of his Prowess to be mighty to Drink Wine and of strength to mingle strong Drink How incredibly this notable Trade of high-Drinking has been improved within these few years since the Importation of Wines and Other Foreign Liquors has been the Staple Merchandize of the Nation is too apparent Old King Edgar's temperate wooden Cups and moderating Pins that were stuck into them for marks Sp. Chron. are now quite forgotten and now there must be no limitation no restraint in a Bumper It has been I am glad there is little reason to say it is now a necessary Adjunct for a Loyalist to be a great Drinker Carousing and taking off full Glasses giving great supplies to that spungy Branch of the Royal Revenue of Excize the which is heartily to be wished were exchanged for a more Honourable Subsidy and especially since the main Objection against the suppressing such Beastly Immoralities is so prevalent upon that account 3. But tho' this Brutal Contagion is so Universal and all Ages Sexes and Degrees are more or less infected therewrth Drunkenness what it is very difficult to define yet 't is one of the most difficult things in the world to define exactly what Drunkenness is and when Men may be said to be guilty thereof There are so many tricks and evasions used by the Offenders to wipe off such a scandalous disreputation from them that unless we can meet with Instances of Dead Drunk Sots they will make us believe that we fall short of convicting any person of the Offence Tho' of late days there are not wanting too many Instances of this kind nothing being more common than to find the Epicuraecan at the Devil drowning his Cares for the World as well as his concern for Eternal Welfare in some plentiful and luxurious Debauch and having setled his Brains with the intoxcating Glass to see him in a reeling March retire to his Lodgings where he like his fellow Brutes lays himself down on his careless Pillow and rises in the Morning with the like unconcernedness upon him as before 4. Upon the account of Mens different Constitutions some being more able to bear a Gallon than others are a Quart and the different occasions of the same Man at one time more than another Wherein the difficulty consists and the like arises the difficulty of prescribing such and such a quantity of Drink beyond which is excess But thus have most declared that to drink more than to satisfie our Thirst of which our Nature not our Appetite should be Judge To exceed the bounds of exhilaration and cheating up the fainting Spirits when occasion requires either and to transgress the end for which this action of Drinking was first ordained viz. The preservation of Health is such a degree of Intemperance as falls under the notion of a Sin and which must be seriously repented of And the reason that the least degree of Inmmoderate Drinking is a crime is I humbly conceive because of the Prolifick Nature of the Sin which is too apt having fled out past the Barriers of Moderation not to stop there but headlong to be carried on to the very worst Extremes There are as I may so say such secret Inchantments in the bewitching Wine that when Circes has got but the opportunity of giving Man a Taste tho' at first he may suck in the Philtrated Potion with caution yet he cannot forbear returning so often to the Trough till at last he is transformed into as natural a Swine as any Hog of them all and can tumble in his Mire with the same delight as others of the same species and wash himself with the rest and return with them to wallow again 5. It is no hard matter for Men if they would deal ingenuously with themselves Drunkenness described by its Effects and the reasonableness of such a description considered in some particulars to know when they are guilty or not of transgressing the bounds of Prudence and Moderation but Confess and be Hang'd is so nigh their Thoughts that they had rather sooth themselves up with a supposed Innocence than fall foul upon and censure their dearly beloved Selves But yet so far one may venture to convict another of Intemperance in Drinking as the Effects consequent thereon shall be more or less sinful That this is the exactest measure and most reasonable method for the rightly apprehending the different degrees of this Vice is past dispute if we consider it in some Instances 6. As first if a Man of a cholerick Constitution inclinable to Passion and prone to take occasion to be angry apt to kindle into a flame at every accidental spark The first particular considered and obnoxious to prosecute his Revenge with the utmost malice but in his sober Mood is careful to curb