Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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B08586
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The sin and folly of drunkenness considered I. What it is. II. What is vicious or sinfull in drinking (whether men will call it drunkenness or no.) III. What may be said against it.
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Buckler, Edward, 1610-1706.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing B5351A; ESTC R215456
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19,630
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48
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never been born A Sin it is lying so heavy upon the Spirits of Parents that the Law of God did heretofore in pity provide them a way to be rid of such Children See Deut. 21.19 20 21. An insupportable cross must it needs be that can prevail with parents to seek the death of their Children yet this it seems was supposed enough to do it it being better to see them once buried than so often drowned for when they are in their graves they know the worst of them 2. Wives who were very ill-advised if their purpose was not to be married to Men and not unto Beasts Doth not Drunkenness waste their goods as well as our own make their lives bitter expose them to Temptations render our Society at least not desirable Can we dwell with them according to knowledge when we have lost our understanding Pray for them and instruct them when we are not able to speak govern them when we cannot govern our selves give them honour as weaker vessels when we have degraded our selves into much weaker Not to mention those abuses that we are very apt to offer even unto our own flesh when we have lost our Sobriety 3. Against our Children whose food and raiment and education contributes to to make up every drunken reckoning that we have a share in besides that mighty abomination of Example that we set before them Children being extreamly apt to imitate their Parents How many have instead of laying up for their Children drunk up from them what the good Providence of God had bountifully provided employing all their husbandry in turning whatever they have into Ale and leaving their Posterity to seek their bread out of desolate places Sobriety is a Dvty we owe 4. To our Families and 5. Against our Estates He that loveth Wine shall not be rich Prov. 21-17 That perhaps is no great matter but the drunkard and the Glutton shall come to poverty and drowziness shall cloath a man with rags in Prov. 23.21 But it is clearly our Duty to be providently careful to get and keep those things that are necessary and convenient for the sustentation of our nature and suitable to our condition See Pro. 27.23 ad finem Now is not daily sacrificing and the offering up of drink-offerings to an insatiable throat the way to any such thing 6. Against our Neighbours to whom in our drunken fits we are very ready to be injurious many wayes 1. To intice them to the same Sin Men that are of easie and Ductile natures upon whom there is any probability of prevailing can hardly follow their callings in quietness for solicitations of this nature A man going to be drunk is like a man ready to be drowned who will catch hold of any one that is next him that if it be possible they may sink together Drunkards and good Fellows would not so properly be two names of the same persons were it a Sin that is ordinarily committed by one alone And that handsomer notion of Company-keeping under which it is wont to pass would not be a language so easily understood 2. Whom are not our Tongues in such a case ready to fall upon in Lies Railing Slanders and what not I have read of a young man being invited to an entertainment spake very freely against the Bishop for which being afterwards questioned made only this reply That if he should be in the same condition again he thought he should fall about the ears of the twelve Apostles themselves in case they came in his way Theat P. 804. David speaks of some wicked men that their tongue goeth through the earth Psal 73.9 Our's are never fitted to travel at such a rate as when we are able to move them freely in our mouths when we are least able to go they are readiest to run and to run descant upon whomsoever they please One is a fool another a knave one covetous another proud every one is any thing that they please to style him One broacheth the censure another swears 't is true a third drinks upon it to confirm it This is the ordinary discipline of an Ale-House where being sate at Bench they take upon them to Judge the world 3. To the soberer sort of people our Debauchedness is a continual offence we fetch tears from their eyes and send grief to their hearts and if we come near them do even stink in their nostrils Sobriety is a Duty we owe 6. to our Neighbours 7. Against the Kingdom rendring us useless in our several stations for the publick good Drunkenness 1. Positively is the occasion of much evil 2. Negatively doth altogether unfit us for the doing of any good 1. Is the occasion of much evil I mean of suffering being it self so great an evil of Sin calling down the Judgments of God upon a whole Kingdom and in particular a scarcity of those Creatures which are abused in Esay 5.11 12. the Sin v. 13. the Judgment in Joel 1.5.10 11 12. So we devour the plenty and swallow down the necessary provisions of a whole Kingdom 2. It unfits us for the doing of any good for Counsel or Action in Peace or War in a private Capacity or a Publick to make Laws or to execute or to keep them Whether the mind or the body the head or the hand be to be employed we have not the use of either to any purpose If we be Rulers miserable is the condition of those that be under us as Eccles 10.16 17. Woe c. Prov. 31.4 5. If we be private persons no man that is wise and good will have any Society with us Cato the Elder being ask't why he rejected the Acquaintance of a Drunkard that did earnestly desire it Because saith he Vivere non possum cum eo qui melius et subtilius Palato quam Corde sentit I cannot live with one who hath more Sense in his Throat than in his Heart or his Head who is good at nothing but at Swallowing and is ever washing down his Brains into his Belly Sobriety is a Duty we owe. 8. Against the Church Drunkenness being a Scandal to the Gospel an Offence to such as desire to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World And the Person guilty so odious a member if he must needs pass for one that Christians are commanded not to eat with him 1 Cor. 5 11. But are enjoyned to put away from among themselves such a wicked person v. 13. You see I hope by this time that Sobriety is the Duty of Christians See now how little reason men have as to Conscience and Duty to put it to the Question whether they be Drunk To call for Proofs that they are and urge Arguments that they are not that they are able to give a man an answer if they lie in the High-way are able to hold up their hands if a Cart be like to be driven over them c. The question should be Whether we be Sober That is our Duty Whether
drunken fit killed Clytus his most familiar Friend As for modern instances of Blood and Ale mingled together there be but too many 7. Precept How prone we are being overcome with drink to be overcome of Lust you heard before 8. Precept requireth an endeavour by all Just and lawful means to procure preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of our selves and others and forbids whatever courses may tend to the contrary He hat doubts whether Drunkenness be a breach of this Commandment is hardly Sober But more of this afterwards 9. Precept I Shall reckon up some of those sins that are against this Commandment and let any man that is out of his Liquor call to mind whether he hath not been ordinarily guilty of them when he was in it viz. Lying Slandering Backbiting Detracting Whispering Scoffing Reviling rash Censuring c. and whatever is injurious to the good name of our Neighbours And for the 10. Precept It forbiddeth all inordinate lustings and motions of the heart which excess of drink is known to inflame and stir up in us as much as any thing Add hereunto that every Precept commanding any Duty commands withall that we use the means and helps that may further us in it Drunkenness makes us unfit to use any And every precept forbidding any sin forbids withall the means temptations and occasions that may put us upon it and Drunkenness putteth us under an incapacity of avoiding other means of sinning and is withall a principal means it self and so becomes not so much a transgression of this or that particular Precept as a general violation of the whole Law So 3. is Drunkenness a sin that doth dispose us to all other Sins And 4. Doth indispose us to Repentance As to the Act of Drunkenness I think no body will question it a habit of it puts a person under a very great indisposedness to repent and turn from his sins unto God For 1. 'T is a besotting Sin as you heard before abating our Intellectuals at a sad rate and so rendring us the more uncapable of apprehending what the Word of God doth press us with in order to our Conversion and when a sottishness is voluntarily contracted and contracted by so swinish a Sin as this how Justly may the Lord be provoked never to cure it But 2. 'T is a Sin that works us up to an high degree of Security under it self and the rest of our sins as you also heard from Luke 21.34 And so the Word of God leaves no impression upon us Eternity of torments in Hell with all the fire and brimstone that the Scripture speaks of either come not near our Consciences at all or if they do are soon quencht and put out again with a cup of Ale How many men be there that the greatest part of their lives have been divided I will not say equally between Hearing and Drinking Sermons and Ale-houses and yet continue to be so to this day And whence is this but that they leave all they hear behind them or are able to drown it presently in the bottom of a Tub. How many times have we heard that Drunkards are by name amongst them that shall not inherit the Kingdom of God That he that believeth not shall be damned that repenteth not shall perish c. and yet neither Sobriety nor Faith nor Repentance never came seriously into our thoughts Into so deep a sleep as well of the Mind as of the Body doth this Sin lull us 3. 'T is a persevering Sin having a certain kind of Witchcraft in it inticing us not to give it over when we have drunk our selves asleep as soon as we awake we will seek it yet again as Prov. 23.35 The Spirit of God that knows very well our disposition makes this our Language in Esa 56.12 Come c. It is a Sin that many Persons go reeling under the guilt of to their very grave and 't is grown into an Argument for the Innocency of it at least as to mens health that there be more old Drunkards than Physitians I have read of four old men that undertook to drink each of them as many boles as they had lived years and accordingly the youngest of them took off 58. the second 63. the third 87. and the oldest of all 92. Berclay Sum Bon. P. 33. Those Sins that we are so indisposed to forsake do mightily indispose us to Repentance a great part of which Duty is to leave and abhorre the Sins we repent of Judge then if Sobriety be not a Duty that we owe to our Souls and Drunkenness a Sin against them 3. Against our Bodies the health and Life of which we are bound to endeavour the preservation of and to do nothing that may bring diseases or death upon us unless we would be guilty of self-Murder Diseases that are the ordinary effects of Drunkenness Physitians tell us are such as these Crudities Oppitations but we need name none in particular when they tell us that it Strangles Nature and perverts the whole temperature of the body How many examples have we of this and that disease contracted by Drunkenness Cleomenes the Lacedemonian ad insaniam redactus est was brought by it to a Frenzie and madness Lacydes the Philosopher to a Palsie Agro a King to a mortal Plurifie Ennius the Poet to the Gout c. And many examples have we of Death in the Pot I mean of persons slain by their Drunkenness or in it 1. By it Drink and Vengance being their onely executioners Anacreon the Poet Dum liberius indulgeret was choak't Artesilas the Philosopher cum vinum immoderatè bibisset obiit Attila à vino plenus suffocatus subito mortuus est Promachus the Macedonian drank at such a rate that Alexander gave him a talent for his labour Sed triduo tantum supervixit He died within three dayes after 2. In it as Elah King of Israel 1 Kings 16.9 Amnon 2 Sam. 13.28 29. The Philistines as Judg. 16.25.30 Three fellowes in Germany after they had taken in their Cups after the brutish manner of that Countrey were the next morning found strangled and dead and so were buried under the Gallows Bercley Sum. Bon. P. 26. Bonosus a Drunken Emperour hang'd himself of whom it was said Not a man hang'd up but a Barrel Theat 804. Sobriety is then a Duty that we owe 3. To our Bodies and 4. Against our Families every part of them Ex. gr 1. Against our Parents Our Fathers did not beget us our Mothers did not bear us ten months in their wombs and twenty in their Arms to qualifie us for an Ale-house they did not wake for us and work for us and care for us and pray for us and do those Offices which they would have loathed to do for any others nor breed us and provide for us that we should so requite them to grieve their hearts and make them weary of their lives and give them cause to wish that we had