Selected quad for the lemma: saint_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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this is done by that Heathenish Custom of drinking Health to a dear Friend a great Person to the Prince himself which many Persons think they ought not to refuse upon pain of forfeiting their Allegiance a most reasonless and ridiculous Practice What influence hath my drinking upon another mans health May I not as soon eat or sleep or talk or dig or thresh or buy or sell his Health as drink it or is he a jot more concerned in the one than in the other yea if immoderate and needless bibbing be as it is a sin how much more unlawful is it to swear or curse or lie or steal a health to a friend than 't is to drink it I called it a Heathenish Practice and so it is and most of the rest but now mentioned The Pagans had their Arbitrum bibendi their Master of Misrule at their drunken meetings whose office it was to give orders how long and how much every one must drink they were wont to throw the Die and to drink according to their Casts to drink so many Healths as there were Letters in their Mistresses names Hakw Apol. 410. The Drunken Greeks Deos Amicos inter pocula salutant nominatimque appellant evacuato Poculo Drank whole ones as Healths to their Idols and to their Friends making mention of them by name and having drunk to any one took care to have a full Cup delivered him and would be sure to look to his Liquor The Lacedaemonians eundem Calicem circumagebant would have the same Cup go round Theat 800. You see whose Copy we write after not a word of any such Practice in Abraham Isaac or Jacob in Christ Peter or any Saint of God recorded in Scripture Declined indeed by all grave and prudent Persons who will pray for their Friends Health but drink only for their own Let us for a Conclusion study to be Sober By way of Motive let me have leave to press you with what we have said already Consider it then 1. As it is a Duty we owe unto God Doth that nothing prevail with us who is it that made us and preserveth us and giveth us Life and Breath and all things who spares us and keeps us out of Hell whose Patience and Bounty and goodness do we spend upon every day Is there no Grace no Gratitude no good Nature in us to comply with the God of all our mercies or if there be not is not he that denounceth so many Woes against the contrary Sin able to bring them all upon our heads Is he not a consuming fire a great God and a terrible And shall we no more regard the Power of his wrath or do we think to wet our selves at such a rate that the flames of Hell shall not take upon us Whatever it be if it be a Duty we owe to God we are bound to discharge it How many more Engagements to such a Duty as this is we ought to obey should God command us with Abraham to sacrifice an only Son shall we stick at the sacrifice of a stinking Lust or with the same Abraham to forsake our native Countrey shall we not forsake a nasty Ale-house In obedience unto God Daniel would pray though he were thrown in to the Lions in Rebellion against God shall we drink though we be thrown into Hell 2. As a Duty to our own Souls Let us every one consider what his Soul is worth that excellent Piece of God's Workmanship created after his own Image redeemable by nothing but the blood of his own Son is this a Soul to be drunk away To be sent swimming towards the Chambers of Death in a tub of Ale When the Harbour men ordinarily lie in an Ale house and their loading is nothing but Drink can the end of their Voiage be any thing but destruction This is a Sin and every Sin is damnable this is a great Sin against the very Law of nature defacing more of the Image of God in us than any other Sin that is committable and when our Trade is in great Sins our Returns must needs be in a great Damnation It disposeth us unto other Sins Now doth the Original Corruption of it self without any help at all put us the Lord knows sufficiently forward to any thing that is evil have we any need to improve it to dung it and water it ever and anon that it may bring forth more fruit unto death And what are the Sins we are apt to reel into when we are Drunk are they such Peccadillos such small and venial faults that we should not care how often we put our selves into the next capacity of committing them If it be babling of every idle word c. If it be contention the Apostle tells us it brings forth Confusion and every evil work James 3. If it be Whoredom and Adultery God will judge us for it yea though it be committed no where but in the heart If it be Contempt and scorn of the People of God It were better that a Mill-stone c. If it be Security 't will bring sudden Destruction upon us as Travail upon a woman with Child and we shall not escape 1 Thes 5.3 But Pauperis est numerare Pecus This Sin is too rich to bring the Revenues of it into any Catalogue What evil is it that Drunkenness doth not dispose us to shaking off all those restraints that should keep our original Corruption in any order and putting us into a posture of breaking every one of Gods Commandments And if he that shall break one of the least of these Commandments and shall teach men so shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5.19 he that shall be made fit to break them all and shall make himself so must needs discover an Ambition to be one of the greatest in the Kingdom of Hell But Repentance will help all this True but where shall we have it Repentance is the gift of God and he gives it by means to the use of which this Sin doth mightily indispose us A belly-ful of Ale and a heart ful of penitent tears seldom meet together That God can turn us no body doubts And such were some of you but c. 1 Cor. 6.11 is a Gospel Instance that we should not doubt it but that he who in all his Life had never yet grace enough to civilize him should at last presume to have enough to save him is such a hazard that no man that knows the worth of a Soul would be perswaded to put it upon it for a thousand Worlds Besides is the use of our Senses our Understandings Reason Judgment Memory of no value that we should so often so easily be perswaded to deprive our selves of them Was that Candle of the Lord as Solomon calls the Intellectual powers of the Soul Pro. 20.27 that we should throw Drink upon it to put it out Are we weary of our Essences as men that we have a mind to wash