A Sovereign ANTIDOTE Or A Precious MITHRIDATE For Recovery of Souls twice dead in SIN and buried in the Grave of Long Custome to the Life of Grace With hopeful Means God blessing the same to prevent that three-fold and worse than Aegyptian Plague of the Heart Drunkenness Swearing and Profaneness Wherein is a sweet composition of Severity and Mercy Of Indignation against Sin of Compassion and Commiseration to the Sinner with such Christian moderation as may argue Zeal without Malice and a desire to win Souls no will to gall them By R. YOUNGE of Roxwell in Essex Imprimatur Ex Aed Lamb. Feb. 5. 1663. G. Stradling S.T.P. Rev. in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. Ã Sac. Domestic London Printed by J. Hayes and are to be sold by Mrs. Crips in Popes-Head Alley with 39 other Pieces composed by the same Author 1664. A Sinner rescued from Satans subtilty and slavery SECTION I. NOt to admonish our brother is to hate him as the Holy Ghost witnesseth Lev. 19.17 But to scorn our brother should admonish us is more to hate our selves That little which Croesus learned of Solon saved his life And had Pilate taken that fair warning his wife gave him it might have saved his soul which once lost cannot be redeemed with ten thousand worlds no not with the enduring of ten thousand thousand years torments in Hell Enough I suppose together with a desire of my Readers eternal welfare to encourage me to speak others to hear Wherefore let none in the least be offended with what I shall deliver or with me for it For not only the searcher of hearts but the world shall witness that I fight not against you but against your sins and you have no such foes as your faults And these are they I seek to subdue and batter down before you as well knowing that unless they die you cannot live Yea if I make you smart give me the more thanks love me the better for it Sharp reprehension is the healing of the soul and love to the soul is the soul of love And let this serve for an Apologie and if you please for a Protection Sect. 2. Considering the numberless number of those that by professing themselves Protestants discredit the Protestant Religion Who because they have been Christened as Simoâ— Magus was received the Sacrament of the Lords Supper like Judas and for company go to Church also as Dogs do are called Christians as we call the Heathen Images gods yea and being blinded by the Prince of darkness 2. Cor. 4.4 think to be saved by Christ though they take up Arms against him and are no more like Christians then Michals Image of Goats-hair was like David Who make the world only their god and pleasure or profit alone their Religion Who are so graceless that God is not in all their thoughts except to blaspheme him and to spend his daies in the Devil's service Who being Christians in name will scoff at a Christian indeed Who honour the dead Saints in a cold profession while they worrey the living Saints in a cruel persecution Who so hate Holiness that they will hate a man for it and say of good living as Fâ—stus of great Learninq It makes a man mad whose hearts will rise at the sight of a good man as some stomacks will rise at the sight of sweet meats Whose Religion is to oppose the power of Religion and whose knowledge of the Truth to know how to argue against the Truth Who justifie the wicked and condemn the just who call Zeal madness and Religion foolishness Who love their sins so much above their souls that they will not only mock their Admonisher scoff at the means to be saved and make themselves merry with their own damnations but even hate one to the death for shewing them the way to eternal life who will condemn all for Round-heads that have more Religion then an Heathen or knowledge of heavenly things then a child in the womb hath of the things of this life or conscience then an Atheist or care of his soul then a Beast and are mockers of all that march not under the pay of the Devil Who with Adam will become Satans bondslaves for an Apple and like Esau sell their birthright of Grace here and their Blessing of Glory hereafter for a mess of pottage Who prefer the pleasing of their palates before the saving of their souls who have not only cast off Religion that should make them good men but reason also that should make them men Who waste vertues faster then riches and riches faster then any vertues can get them Who do nothing else but sin and make others sin too who spend their time and patrimonies in Riot and upon Dice Drab Drunkenness who place all their felicity in a Tavern or Brothel house where Harlots and Sycophants rifle their Estates and then send them to rob Who will borrow of every one but never intend to satisfie any one Who glory in their shame and are ashamed of that which should and would be their glory Who desire not the reputation of honesty but of good fellowship Who in stead of quenching their thirst drown their senses and had rather leave their wits then the wine behind them who place their Paradise in their throats Heaven in their guts and make their belly their god Who pour their Patrimonies down their throats and throw the house so long out at windows that at length their house throws them out of doors Who think every one exorbitant that walk not after their Rule Who will traduce all whom they cannot seduce even condemning with their tongues what they commend in their consciences Who as they have no reason so they will hear none Who are not more blind to their own faults then quick-sighted in other mens Who being displeased with others will flie in their Makers face and tear their Saviours Name in pieces with oathes and execrations as being worse then any mad dog that flies in his Masters face that keeps him Who swear and curse even out of custom as Currs bark yea they have so sworn away all grace that they count it a grace to swear and being reproved for swearing they will swear that they swore not Sect. 3. Or perhaps they are covetous Cormorants greedy Gripers miserly Muck-worms all whose reaches are at riches Who make gold their god and commodity the stern of their consciences Who hold every thing lawful if it be gainful Who prefer a little base pelf before God and their own salvation and who being fatted with Gods blessings do spurn at his precepts Who like men sleeping in a Boat are carried down the stream of this World untill they arrive at their Graves-end Death without once waking to bethink themselves whither they are a going to Heaven or Hell Or Ignorant and Formal Hypocrites who do as they see others do without either conscience of sin or guidance of reason Who do what is morally good more for
that one man hath drank two gallons of vvine and two more three gallons of vvine a piece at a time that one Drunkard in a fevv hours drank four gallons of vvine that four ancient men drank as many cups of vvine at one sitting as they had lived years vvhich vvas in all three hundred cups of vvine amongst four men and lastly that three women came into a Tavern in Fleet-street vvhen I vvas a boy take it upon Claptons Oath and credit vvho drevv the Wine and drank forty nine quarts of Sack tvvo of them sixteen a piece the third to get the victory seventeen quarts of Sack Which being so vvhat may the many millions of these ding-thrifty dearth-makers consume in a year in all the three Nations It is much to be feared that as we turn the sanctuary of life into the shambles of death so God may send a famine after such a satiety and pestilence after famine Or rather that our Land which hath been so long sick of this disease and so often surfeted of this sin should spue us all out who are the Inhabitants Nor need it seem incredible that common drunkards should drink thus for they can disgorge themselves at pleasure by only putting their finger to their throat and they will vomit as if they were so many live Whales spuing up the Ocean which done they can drink a fresh Or if not so yet custome hath made it to pass through them as through a tunnel or streiner whereby it comes out again as sheer wine as it went in as hath been observed Nor hath the richest Sherry or old Canary any more operation with them than a cup of six hath with me And no marvel for if Physick be taken too oft it will not work like Physick but nature entertains it as a friend not as a Physician Yea poyson by a familiar use becomes natural food As Aristotle in an example of a Maid who used to pick spiders off the walls and eat them makes plain 3. Br. That as Drunkards have lost the prerogative of their Creation and are changed with Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4.16 from men into beasts so they turn the sanctuary of life into the shambles of death yea thousands when they have made up the measure of their wickedness are taken away in Gods just wrath in their drink as it were with the weapoâ— in their bellies it faring with them as it did with that Pope whom the Devil is said to have slain in the very instant of his Adultery and carry him quick to hell being suddenly struck with death as if the execution were no less intended to the soul than to the body That by the Law of God in both Testaments He that will not labour should not eat Gen. 3.19 Pro. 20.4 2 Thes 3.10 because he robs the Common-wealth of that which is altogether as profitable as land or treasure But Drunkards are not only lazie get-nothings but they are also riotous spend-alls and yet these drunken drones these gut-mongers these Quagmirists like vagrants and vermine do nothing all their life-long that may tend to any good as is storied of Margites and yet devour more of the fat of the Land than would plentifully maintain those millions of poor in the Nation that are ready to famiâ—h A thing not fit to be suffered in any Christian Commoâ—-wealth yea far sitter they were stoned to death as by the Law of God they ought Deut. 21.20 21. since this might bring them to repentance whereas now they spend their days in mirth and suddenly they go down into hell Job 21.13 Drunkards being those swine whom the legion carries headlong into the Sea or pit of perdition 4. Br. That every hour seems a day and every day a month to a drunkard that is not spent in a Tap-house yea they seem to have nailed their ears to the door of some Tavern or Tap-house and to have agreed with Satan Master it is good being here That where ever the Drunkards house is his dwelling is at the Ale-house except all his money be spent and then if his wife will fetch him home with a lanthorn and his men with a barrow he comes vvith as much sence as Michals image had That the pot is no sooner from their lips but they are melancholy and their hearts as heavy as if a milstone lay upon it Or rather they are vexed like Saul with an evil spirit which nothing will drive away but drink and Tobacco They so wound their consciences with all kind of prodigious wickedness and so exceedingly provoke God that they are rackt in conscience and tortured with the very flashes of bell-fire That they drink to the end only that they may forget God his threats judgments that they may drown conscience and put off all thoughts of death and hell and to hearten and harden themselves against all the messages of God and threats of the Law which is no other in mitigating the pangs of conscience than as a saddle of gold to a galled-horse or a draught of poison to quench a mans thirst That if they might have their wills none should refuse to be drunk unpunished or be drunk unrewarded at the common charge As how will they boast what they drank and how many they conquered at such a meeting making it their only glory That the utmost of a Drunkards honesty is good-fellowship that temperance and sobriety with them is nothing but humour and singularity and that they drink not for strength or need but for lust and pride to shew how full of Satan they are and how near to swine That though these swinish swill-bowls make their gullet their god and sacrifice more to their god-belly than those Babyloâ—ians did to their god Bel Bel and the Dragoâ— v. 3. yet they will say yea swear that they drink not for love of drink though they love it above health wealth credit child wife life heaven salvation All. They no more care for wine than Esau did for his pottage for which he sold his birthright Isa 56.12 5. Br. That Drunkards are the Devils captiâ—es at his command and ready to do his will and that he rules over and works in them his pleasure 2 Tim. 2.26 Eph. 2.2 that he enters into them and puts it into their hearts what he will have them to do Joh. 13.2 Acts 5.3 1 Chron. 21.1 opens their mouths speaks in and by them Gen. 3.1 to 6. stretcheth out their hands and they act as he will have them Act. 12.1 2. Rev. 1.10 he being their father Gen. 3.15 Joh. 8.44 their king Joh. 12.31 14.30 and their god 2 Cor. 4.4 Eph. 2.2 And which is worst of all that drunkenness not only dulls and dams up the head and spirits with mud but it beastiates the heart and being worse than the sting of an Asp poysoneth the very soul and reason of a man whereby the faculties and organs of repentance and resolution are so corrupted and captivated that it makes
As how doth the Holy Ghost stigmatize such a one His mouth is full of cursing Psal 10.7 Rom. 3.14 or He loveth cursing Psal 109.17 And indeed whom can you observe to love this sin or to have their mouths full of cursing but Ruffian and sons of Belial such as have shaken out of their hearts the fear of God the shame of men the love of heaven the dread of hell not once caring what is thought or spoken of them here or what becomes of them hereafter yea observe them well and you will find that they are mockers of all that march not under the pay of the Devil Sect. 2. And whence do these Monsters of the earth these hellish miscreants these bodily and visible devils learn this their damnable cursing and swearing Are not their tongues fired and edged from Hell as S. James hath it Jam. 3.6 Yea it is the very language of the damned as you may see Rev. 16.1 21. Only they learn it here before they come thither and are such proficients therein that the Devil counts them his best Scholars and sets them in his highest form Psal 1.1 And well they deserve it with whom the language of hell is so familiar that blasphemy is become their mother-tongue Besides it is the very depth of sin roaring and drinking is the horse-way to Hell whoring and cheating the foot-way but Swearing and Cursiâ—g follows Korah Dathan and Abiram And certainly if the infernal Tophet be not for these men it can challenge no guests But see how witless graceless and shameless even the best are that use to curse for I pass over such as call for a curse on themselves saying God damn me Sink me Co found me Tâ—e Devil take me and the like which would make a rational man tremble to name because I were as good knock at a deaf mans door or a dead mans grave as speak to them Sect. 3. Thou art crossed by some one perhaps thy wife child or servant or else thy horse the weather the dice â—owls or some other of the creatures displease thee and thou fallest a cursing and blaspheming them wishing the plague of God or Gods vengeance to light on them or some such hellish speech falls from thy foul mouth And so upon every foolish trifle or every time thou art angry God must be at thy beck and come down from heaven in all haste and become thy Officer to revenge thy quarrel and serve thy malicious humour O monstrous impiety O shameless impudency to be abhorred of all that hear it not once taking notice what he commands in his Word as Bless them that persecute you bless I say and curse not Rom. 12.14 And again Bless them that curse you and pray for them which hurt you Luk. 6.28 which is the practice of all true Christians 1 Cor. 4.12 Sect. 4. But this is not one half of thine offence For whom dost thou curse Alas the Creatures that displease thee are but Instruments thy sin is the cause and God the Author 2 Sam. 16.11 Psal 39.9 10. Gen. 45.8 Job 1.21 from whom thou hast deserved it and ten thousand times a greater cross but instead of looking up from the stone to the hand which threw it or from the effect to the cause as Gods people do thou like a mastiff dog sâ—ttest upon the stone or weapon that hurts thee But in this case Who are you angry withal Does your horse the dice the rain or any other creature displease you Alas they are but servants and if their Master bid smite they must not forbear they may say truly what Rabshakeh usurped Isa 36.10 Are we come without the Lord And all that hear thee may say as the Prophet did to Senacherib 2 King 19.22 Whom hast thou blasphemed and against whom hast thou exalted thy self even against the Holy One of Israel Sect. 5. Besides why dost thou curse thine enemy if he be so but because thou canst not be suffered to kill him For in heart and Gods account thou art a murtherer in wishing him the pox plague or that he were hanged or damned Nor will it be any rare thing at the day of judgment for cursers to be indicted of murther For like Shimei and Goliah to David thou wouldst kill him if thou durst thou dost kill him so far as thou canst I would be loath to trust his hands that bans me with his tongue Had David been at the mercy of either Shimei or Goliah and not too strong for them he had then breathed his last Nor is it commonly any sin committed or just offence given thee that thou cursest Who could have less deserved those curses and stonâ—s from Shimei than David Yea did not that head deserve to be tongueless that body to be headless that so undeservedly cursed such an Innocent as after it fell out For the curses and stones which Shimei threw at David rebounded upon Shimei and split his heart yea and at last knockt out his brains and the like of Goliahs curses which is also thy very case For Sect. 6. What will be the issue the causeless curse shall not come where the Curser meant it Pro. 26.2 yea though thou cursest yet God will bless Psal 109.28 but thy curses shall be sure to rebound back into thine own brest Psal 7.14 15 16. Proâ— 14.30 Cursing mouths are like ill made Pieces which while men discharge at others recoil in splinters on their own faces Their words wishes be but whirlwinds which being breathen forth return again into the same place As hear how the Holy Ghost delivers it Psal 109. As he loved cursing so shall it come unto him and as he loved not blessing so shall it be far from him As he cloathed himself with cursing like a garment so shall it came into his bowels like water and like oyl into his boâ—es let it be unto him as a garment to cover him and for a girdle wherewith he shall alwaies be girded Ver. 17.18 19. Hear this all ye whose tongues run so fast on the Devils errand you loved cursing you shall have it both upon you about you and in you and that everlastingly if you persevere and go on for Christ himself at the last day even he which came to save the world shall say unto all such Depart from me yâ— cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Mat. 25.41 Where they shall do nothing but curse for evermore for they no further apprehending the goodness mercy bounty of God than by the sence of their own torments the effects of his justice shall hate him and hating him they shall curse him Rev. 16.11 They suffer and they blaspheme there is in them a furious malice against him being cursed of him they re-curse him they curse him for making them curse him for condemning them curse him because being adjudged to death they can never find death they curse his punishments because they are so unsufferable curse his mercies
because they may never taste them curse the bloud of Christ shed on the Cross because it hath satisfied for millions and done their unbelieving souls no good curse the Angels and Saints in heaven because they see them in joy and themselves in torment Cursings shall be their sins and their chief ease Blasphemies their prayers Lachrymae their notes Lamentation all their harmony these shall be their evening songs their morning songs their mourning songs for ever and ever And indeed who shall go to Hell if Cursers should be left out Wherefore let all those learn to bless that look to be heirs of the blessing Sect. 7. But to be in Hell and there to continue everlastingly in a bed of quenchless flames is not all For this is the portion even of Negative and viceless Christians if they be not vertuous Of such as do not swear except they fear an Oath That abound in good duties if they do them not out of faith and because God commands them that he may be glorified and others edified thereby Whereas thou dost supererogate of Satan in damning many souls besides thine own Thou hast had a double portion of sin to other men here and therefore must have a double portion of torment to them hereafter The number and measure of thy torments shall be according to the multitude and magnitude of thine offences Rev. 20.12 13. 22.12 Luk. 12.47 Mat. 10.15 Rom. 2.5 6. And those offences if I could stand to aggravate them by their several circumstances would appear to be out of measure great and numerous I 'le mention but one of ten With thy swearing and cursing thou dost not only wound thine own soul worse than the Baalites wounded their own bodies for thou wilfully murtherest thine own soul and that without any inducement as hath been proved But thou art so pernicious that this is the least part of thy mâ—schief for thou drawest vengeance upon thousands by thy infectious and damnable example as how can it be otherwise Thou dost not only infect thy companions but almost all that hear or come near thee Yea little children in the streets have learnt of thee to rap out oaths and belch out curses and scoffs almost as frequently as thy self and through thy accustomary swearing learned to speak English and Oaths together and so to blaspheme God almost so soon as he hath made them And not onely so but thy example infects others and they spread it abroad to more like a malicious man sick of the plague that runs into the throng to disperse his infection whose mischief out-weighs all penalty It is like the setting a mans own house on fire it burns many of his neighbours houses and he shall answer for all the spoil So that the infection of sin is much worse than the act Sect. 8. Nor wilt thou cease to sin when thou shalt cease to live but thy wickedness will continue longer than thy life For as if we sow good works succession shall reap them and we shall be happy in making them so so on the contrary wicked men leave their evil practices to posterity and though dead are still tempting unto sin and still they sin in that temptation they sin so long as they cause sin This was Jeroboams case in making Israel to sin for let him be dead yet so long as any worshipped his Calves Jeroboam sinned Neither was his sin soon forgotten Nadab his son and Baasha his successor Zimri and Omri and Ahab and Ahaziah and Jehoram all these walked in the wayes of Jeroboam which made Israel to sin and not they alone but millions of the people with them So that it is easie for a mans sin to live when himself is dead and to lead that exemplary way to Hell which by the number of his followers shall continually aggravate his torments As O what infinite torments doth Mahomet endure when every Turk that perisheth by his jugling doth daily add to the pile of his unspeakable horrors And so each sinner according to his proportion and the number of souls which miscarry through the contagion of his evil example And look to it for the blood of so many souls as thou hast seduced will be required at thy hands and thou must give an account for the sins perhaps of a thousand Thou dost not more increase other mens wickedness on earth than their wickedness shall increase thy damnation in hell Luk. 16. Sect. 9. It were easie to go on in aggravating thy sin and wretchedness and making it out of measure great and the souls that miscarry through the contagion of thy evil example numerous For is not the Gospel and the Name of God blasphemed among the very Turks Jews and Infidels and an evil scandal raised upon the whole Church through thy superlative wickedness and other thy fellovvs Yea does not this keep them off from embracing the Christian Religion and cause them to protest against their ovvn conversion Which makes me vvonder that Swearers Drunkards and such vvicked and prophane wretches are not like dirt in the house of God throvvn out into the street by excommunication Or as excrements and bad humours in mans body vvhich is never at ease till it be thereof disburthened as Austin vvell notes That they are not marked vvith a black coal of infamy and their company avoided as by the Apostles order they ought Rom. 16.17 2 Thes 3.6 14. Eph. 5.5 7. 1 Cor. 5.5 11. 1 Tim. 1.20 That they are not to us as Lepers vvere among the Jews or as men full of plague sores are amongst us We vvell knovv the good husbandman weeds his field of hurtful plants that they may not spoil the good corn And when fire hath taken an house we use to pull it down lest it should fire also the neighbours houses Yea the good Chirurgion cuts off a rotten member betimes that the sound may not be endangered Nor will the Church of England ever flourish or be happy in her Reformation until such a course is taken Memb. 4. Swearer Sir I unfeignedly bless God for what I have heard from you for formerly I had not the least thought that swearing by faith troth or any other creature was so grievous a sin as you have made it appear from the Word And I hope it shall be a sufficient warning to me for time to come Sect. 1. Mestenger If so you have cause to bless God indeed For all of you have heard the self-same Word but one goes away bettered others exasperated and enraged wherein Will only makes the difference And who makes the difference of Wills but God that made them He that creates the new heart leaves a stone in one bosom puts flesh into another Sect. 2. Of Hearers there are usually four sorts Mat. 13. 19 to 24. as first an honest and good heart will not return from hearing the Word unbettered Yea he will so note what is spoken to his own sin that it shall encrease his knowledge and lessen his