Prayer The Argument to press it is the same with one of the former The end of all things is at hand 't is the last Age of the world and how long soever that Age may be yet your end of all things cannot be far off be ye therefore Sober the Duties ye have to do and the preparation ye are to make will not be done at an Ale-house nor by a person that is not himself He must live a Sober man that would be sure to die so And the command in 1 Pet. 5.8 back't by an Argument that may fright us into Obedience Be Sober for your Adversary the Devil c. If those that have Reason and Grace have enough to do to preserve themselves from such an enemy how much in danger shall we be when we have neither The Apostles word of Command to Christians in their Engagements against the Devil is Stand And he commendeth to them the whole Armour of God that having done all they may stand Eph. 6.13.14 i. e. Persevere in their Christian course stand in a way of Faith and in a way of Duty in what posture shall we be for this when we cannot so much as stand upon our Leggs Instead of arming our selves against the Devil we arm the Devil against our selves if we lose our Sobriety See how 2. God forbids the contrary Sometimes 1. In most patheticall Expressions to allure us from it Not in rioting and drunkenness Rom. 13.13 by reading which Scripture St. Augustine is reported to have been converted Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess Eph. 5.18 Observe the Love and Sweetness that runs through these expressions Cast off the works of darkness amongst which this is a very dark one indeed you may instead of it Put on the Lord Jesus Christ Be not drunken with Wine but is there any thing instead of it wherewith we may be fitted at a better rate Yes Be ye filled with the Spirit And mark what the Love and Kindness of God would insinuate none but Sober persons can put on Christ neither will the Spirit of God fill any but Sober hearts Sometimes 2 In most terrifying Expressions to fright us out of it Such I hope you will judge all those Woes that are directed against it by the Lord in Scripture as Esa 5.11.22 and 28.1 Hab. 2.15 If you ask what these Woes have in the womb of them I cannot tell only this we may be sure of that Vae minantis a Woe of threatning when God doth pronounce it cannot bring forth less than Vae dolentis a woe of Lamentation wherever it lights So against God 2. Against our own Souls Drunkenness having a mischievous influence upon them both 1. Physically as they are rational 2. Morally as they are sanable 1 As they are Rational abating the Excellency and depriving us of the use of those noble faculties that the goodness of God hath bestowed upon us the Act of it turning men into very Beasts and a Habit of it into Fools How little of Wisdom Wit Judgment Memory Intention how much of Sottishness Nonsence Folly do we ordinarily find in those Brains that are steept in Ale In Hosea 4.11 Whoredom and Wine and new Wine take away the heart The Heart you know is usually put to signifie the whole inner man and all the Powers of it These drunkenness as to their use and excellency takes away and in many persons to such a degree that they have nothing left but their shapes to prove themselves men Much according to the Character that Demetrius gives of one of them Ecce quadratam Statuam habentem syrma ventrem pudenda et barbam We may safely add a little in the Englishing of it Behold a well made Statue having a Cloak if he have not drunk it away a mouth a throat a belly and a beard a head a skull but not a word of any thing within that is worth the naming We cannot well take a nearer way to soak out of our Souls whatever is ingenious or rational than to pickle them up in drink good parts perishing no other way at such a rate as they do by drowning 2. As they are sanable And this it doth as 1. It is Sin 2. It is a great Sin 3. Disposing us to other Sins 4. Indisposing us to Repentance 1. It is a sin a transgression of the Law in 1 Pet. 5.8 if there were no more Be sober It 's a work of the flesh Gal. 5.21 But other things are Sins too be it so yet the wages of every Sin is death Rom 6.23 i. e. Hell but this is 2. A great Sin So are not all I mean in comparison with others You may take the altitude of it in these particulars viz. 1. 'T is a Sin against the very Law of Nature as well as against the written Law of God being amongst those evils in which there is so much evil and deformity that if there were no external Law at all against it a rational nature must needs look upon it with abhorrency So the School-men making several ranks of natural Precepts place General Precepts in the first such as are per se nota as honestum est faciendum pravum vitandum Then Particular ones in the second and amongst those that videndum est Temperatè We must live Soberly And that instinct and impression of nature that hath in beasts some similitude with that Law of nature that is in man doth we see ingage them to sobriety Those many Laws made by Pagans a-against intemperancy must needs be by Direction from nature having not the Scripture to be guided by Now that sin which doth not only break through all the restraints which are set it by the Law of God but withall flies in the face of Nature and Reason and bespeaks a man less obedient to his Principles than beasts are to their's is a great Sin Some things are Mala quia prohibita This is prohibitum quia Malum 2. 'T is a Sin that defaceth the Image of God in us at a rate beyond all other sins For whereas we all lost in Adam the gracious qualities of our Souls by this sin we throw away the natural qualities of our Souls too The first sin took away our Holiness and Righteousness this as if that were not enough takes away our Reason and Understanding also But of this already 3. 'T is a Sin that is by name set down amongst those Sins that do exclude us from the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.10 3. It disposeth us to other Sins I shall 1. Set down some Sins by name 2. Shew our disposition to all Sins when we are not Sober 1. Some Sins are by name in Scripture set down as the ordinary effects of Drunkenness viz. ex gra 1. Babling Prov. 23.29 When a swoln Tongue shall be set a running by an intoxicated brain what loud loose impertinent lewd idle and ridiculous discourses will it not tumble into If a man had nothing else to do and
should write down an hours discourse that passeth between half a dozen in this element and on purpose to discover the vertue of a Tongue when 't is tip't with Ale should read it over to them when they were Sober 't would clearly be enough to turn their stomacks such a hotch-potch a confusion of witless senceless reasonless immodest and unhandsome stuff as except publisht by Authors of the same Character was never before extant in the world The Tongue at best is an unruly evil as James 3.8 and hath need of a bridle to keep it in as Psal 39.1 but Drunkenness gives it the rein and switch and spur that this free beast knows not where to stay 2. Brawling and Contention Strong drink is raging in Prov. 20.1 and who is it that hath Contention and wounds without cause but they that tarry long at the Wine in Pro. 23.29 30 And that evil Servant is then said to fall a beating his fellow-servants when he began to eat and drink with the drunken in Mat. 24.49 'T is an odd method methinks that men use to drink and be Friends when had they not drank they had never faln out 3. Whoredom Prov. 23.31.33 This Sin brought Lot to bed with his own daughters in Gen. 19.33.35 St. Augustine hath a sad story to this purpose Ecce hodie ebrietatem perpessus matrem praegnantem nequiter oppressit Sororem violare voluit Ex A Lap. in Dan. 5.2 Nunquam putabo Ebrium esse castum was Hierom's censure if you could shew him a Drunkard he would presently shew you a Whoremonger 4. Scorn and contempt of God goodness and good men David a man after Gods own heart was the Song of the Drunkards Psal 69.12 5. Security under all these and their other Sins Death and Judgment never troubling their brains at all Take heed saith Christ lest at any time c. and so that day come upon you unawares in Luk. 21.34 These sins the Spirit of God himself being witness are the ordinary results of the sin of Drunkenness But secondly 2. Our disposition to all Sins whatsoever when we are not sober This will appear 1. By some general Considerations 2. By a view of all the Commandments of God 1. Consider we in general three Things viz. 1. The Seeds and principles of all Sins are in our polluted natures and as carnal and unregenerate we are capable of committing them Whatever hath been in any mans practice is by nature in every mans bosom As the plot of all diseases lies in the humors of the body so the seeds of all Sins in the Corruptions of the Soul None I think will deny but that every prohibition of any kind of Sin which we have in Scripture belongs to all be it Sodomy Incest Blasphemy c. A sufficient Argument that every mans nature is subject to it 2. That these Lusts do not actually break out into all the Sins that they are big with is from some restraint or other that is laid upon us when by shame or fear or natural Conscience or the like our corruptions are rein'd in If water or any other heavy body doth not at any time move down-ward 't is not because it hath not a natural inclination so to do but because something or other hinders it 3 Drunkenness throws all these restraints off Shame is rei turpiter actae And what seems unseemly to a man that cannot discern between good and evil He that being Sober is not ashamed to be drunk how should he being drunk be ashamed of any thing That is he that being a Man is not ashamed to turn himself into a Swine how should he being a Swine be ashamed to wallow in the mire Fear ariseth from the apprehension of some evil likely to fall upon us there ariseth from too much drink too thick a vapour to see any such thing In praelia trudit inermem 'T will put a man upon any thing without fear or wit And as for Conscience that is cum scientia which is no more if so much employed in a Drunkard thô he be awake than in a Sober person when he is asleep 'T is a practical Syllogism which a man in that Condition is as good at as an Asse is to play a Lesson upon the Harp 2. View all the Commandments of God and see which of them it is that a Drunkard is not disposed to transgress For the 1. Precept forbidding us to have any other Gods but one against which we sin when what is due to God we bestow upon any thing else and so the Drink the Throat the Belly the Companions of a Drunkard are his Gods these have his Affections his Time his Estate these he sacrificeth to and serveth and loves with all his heart with all his soul with all his mind and with all his strength Yea which is more gross set up an Idol of what stuff you will and what will sooner qualifie a person for the worship of it than drink will In Hosea 4.11 you have the people given to Drunkenness and see what follows in v. 12 13. 2. Precept forbidding Will-worship and Superstition Are any in the world more inclined to this than persons of loose lewd licentious and drunken principles Those that care not whether they serve God at all or not are not wont to be over-scrupulous how they serve him For the 3. Precept how many common drunkards do you know in the world that are not withall common Swearers Their throat indeed is ordinarily a thorow-fare for Ale and Oaths where Almighty God and his very good Creatures are abused by turns And of this let Experience be Judge For the 4. Precept When persons given to this vice are at Liberty this day is pitcht upon to chuse It is observed in one of our Homilies that upon the Lords day the Devil was more served and God more dishonoured than upon all the week besides which some Synods have taken notice of and complained against desiring the Magistrate that Games and Drinking-matches upon that day might be restrained Heylin Hist Sab. part 2. C. 6. 5. Precept Can drunken Superiours or Inferiors discharge the Duties they owe one to another Pray what Duty is it in Parents Husbands Masters Ministers Magistrates Children Wives Servants People that drink doth qualifie them for Yea what sin as to these Relations that it is not ready to put them upon It makes Parents grievous and Children rebellious the Husband like a Lion and the Wife like a Sow Masters intolerable Servants useless Ministers odious sottish and able to do no good and the People as unable to retain any Magistrates not able to bear the Sword how should they when they are not able to bear themselves And the People under them lost to all good order 6. Precept How many Murders have been committed by men in their Drunkenness Augustine reports of one that killed his own Father and mortally wounded two of his own Sisters A Lap. in Dan. 5.2 Alexander in a
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
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
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
our selves down into a lower Kind was God's Judgment upon Nebuchadnezar such a Priviledg that we daily go about to inflict it upon our selves what harm hath our Reason and our Understanding at any time done us that we must needs our selves do execution upon it have we too much of it when we are sober that we have any need in the world to abate it by being drunk At this rate it is that we use a precious Soul not only prepare it for destruction hereafter but degrade it from its glory and excellency in the mean time Consider we Sobriety 3. As a Duty to our Bodies which being fearfully and wonderfully made Ps 139.14 't is a fearful and a wonderful Sin to do any thing that may destroy them and in a manner unmake them again and render every member useless as to the Services they were appointed We find in Scripture two glorious Priviledges that even our Bodies are capable of Ex. gr 1. To be members of Christ 1 Cor. 6.15 Now look upon a body with a swollen tongue clammed to the roof of an unsavoury mouth a face at once both roasted and sod eyes ghastly staring in a vertiginous head reeling to and fro in the streets lying senseless in the Kennel or swearing railing roaring raving brawling in a Tavern and ask any one that hath any acquaintance at all with the Temperance Purity Meekness and Holiness of Christ whether this be one of his members or no not fit indeed to be a member of Bridewell or of Bedlam 2. To be Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.19 Look upon persons in the pickle but now mentioned and will any man say The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord are these No the Temple of God is holy 1 Cor. 3.17 and res delicata Spiritus Christi the Spirit of Christ too delicate and tender for so nasty a habitation God doubtless will never dwell in us when no man that loves his Peace or his Stomach will willingly dwell with us Besides what delinquency have our bodies been guilty of that we should impose upon them so severe a Penance as Drunkenness doth amount to If they do any thing amiss 't is at the instance of those Lusts that dwell in our hearts or if they were indeed faulty be there no other wayes to be revenged upon them but this Why do we not punish them with Hunger and Thirst and Cold and Nakedness and Stripes and Imprisonment will nothing do the deed but Ale If we have a mind to ruin these houses of Clay there be twenty ways thô not fit yet fitter to he pitcht upon than this Let me allude to and vary that of the Apostle Ro. 14.20 For meat destroy not the work of God Our Bodies are of Gods making For drink destroy not the work of God 4. As a Duty to our Families If we have Parents is it our Duty to bring down their Gray Hairs with Sorrow to the Grave And if they have any sence of Piety no course of ours will contribute more to it than this If we have Wives they have an interest in our Estates that we should not consume and in our company that we should not deprive them of If we have Children is this all the love we can shew them to undo them by our Practice and debauch them by our example Briefly where is our natural Affection to her that is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone and to them that are little Models of our selves if we can take their Livelyhood out of their mouths and their contentment out of their hearts and swallow it down our Throats 5. As a Duty to our Estates which God never gave us to consume upon our Lusts nor that we should piss them out against a wall the Poor we have always with us many that are truly and really and necessarily so who are able to receive whatever we are able to bestow without the impairing of our Estates at all or if this please not because it is a Duty and we have a mind to be Poor and Miserable and Wretched and Indebted and Thredbare and Ragged and Lowsie and unable to provide Bread or Drink or Cloaths or Callings or a Livelyhood for our Children and to procure all this in a way of Sin there be yet I think many wayes that are better than this to do it by Some have voluntarily left their Estates to others yea Kings and Emperors their Kingdomes why do not we rather leave our Estates than run out of them Better go from them and carry our Health and Wits and Senses and Christianity along with us than carry them and these together to the Tap-head and there leave them Crates threw all his Goods into the Sea were not this better than to throw them into our Guts 6. As a Duty to our Neighbours Shall we put our selves into such a posture that nothing but a Miracle can keep us from abusing them 'T is Pauls Exhortation Rom. 15.2 Let every one of us please his Neighbour for his good to Edification If we please any one by our Excess we are sure 't is not for his good and it doth only aedificare ad Gehennam if it edifie at all 't is to the nethermost Hell by giving him an occasion to practise or like or not reprove or not mourn for what Gods Soul abhorres 7. As a Duty to the Kingdom the Land of our Nativity where we have had our Birth our Breeding so many good things as a Land flowing with Milk and Honey can well afford us the welfare whereof we are bound to promote and to be Serviceable to the concernments of it with all our might and can we think that this can be done by Drinking doth not that make us unfit for any thing I have read that King Antigonus being very drunk and meeting with Zeno the Philosopher wish'd him to command what he would of him and bound it with an Oath se prestiturum quicquid postularet Theat 802. Zeno replyed Abi et Vome Go your way and spue To desire any thing else of him had been to no purpose being fit for that onely Should a drunkard offer his Service to the Kingdom and desire an Employment if Zeno were to give him his Commission he would dispatch it in a very few words Abi et Vome Command him to Vomit or Sleep as being fit for nothing else But thô this should be enough to shame us into Sobriety that otherwise we are good for nothing there is in our guilt of this Sin an Addition of much more we are a Plague and a Curse to the whole Nation by Drinking down the Judgments of God upon it 8. As a Duty to the Church Will any body that hath read the Bible believe us to be Christians Did Christ ever give us any License in his Word or Encouragement in his Practice for such a course Doth not the Law curse it the Gospel condemn it and all that fear God abhorre it Is it not our Duty or is this the way to adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour I might easily add many Arguments more but this shall suffice as to the first Branch of the Point Sobriety of Body FINIS