Caution 1: Against Drunkenness

Take heed and beware of the detestable Sin of Drunkenness, which is a beastly sin a voluntary madness, a sin that unmans you, and makes you like the beast that perishes; indeed, sets you below the brute beasts, which will not drink to to excess; or if they do, yet it's not their sin. One of the Ancients calls it,A distemper of the Head, a subversion of the senses, a tempest in the tongue, a storm of the body, the shipwrack of vertue, the loss of time, a wilful madness, a pleasant devil, a sugar'd poyson, a sweet sin, which he that has, has not himself, and he that commits it, does not only commit Sin, but he himself is altogether sin. It is a Sin at which the most sober Heathens blushed. The Spartans brought their Children to loath it, by shewing them a Drunkard, whom they gazed at as a-Monster: even Epicurus himself, who esteemed happiness to consist in Pleasure, yet was temperate, as Cicero observes: Among the Heathens, he was accounted the best man, that spent more Oyl in the Lamp, than Wine in the Bottle. Christianity could once glory in its professors: Tertullian says of the Primitive Christians, They sat not down before they prayed, they eat no more than might suffice hunger, they drank no more than was sufficient for temperate men; they did so eat and drink, as those that remembred they must pray afterward. But now it may blush to behold such beastly sensualists adorning themselves with its name, and sheltring themselves under its wings.

And among those that profess Christianity, how ordinarily is this sin committed by Sea-men? This insatiable Dropsie is a Disease that reigns especially among the inferiour and ruder sort of them. Some of them have gone aboard drunk, and laid the [•]oundation of their Voyage in sin. O what a preparation is this! They know not whether ever they shall see the Land of their Nativity any more; the next Storm may send them into Eternity: yet this is the Farewe[•] they take; this is their preparation to meet the Lord. And so in their returns, notwithstanding the terrible and astonishing Works of the Lord, which they have beheld with their eyes, and their marvellous preservation iu so great and terrible extremities; yet thus do they requite the Lord, assoon as their dangers are over, as if they had been delivered to commit all these abominations. But a few hours, or days since, they were reeling to and fro upon a stormy Ocean, and staggering like drunken men, as it is Psalm 107:27. and now you may see them reeling and staggering in the streets, drowning the sense of all those precious Mercies and Deliverances in their drunken Cups.

Reader, If you be one that is guilty of this sin, for the Lords sake, bethink your self speedily and weigh, with the reason of a man, what I shall now say, in order to your Conviction, Humiliation and Reformation. I need not spend many words, to open the nature of this sin to you: we all grant, that there is a lawful use of Wine and strong Drink, to support Nature, not to clog it; to cure Infirmities, not to cause them. Drink no longer water, but use a little Wine, for your stomachs sake, and your often infirmities, says Paul to Timothy, 1 Timothy 5:23. mark; drink not water, but wine, sed modice (i. e.) medice; pro remedio, non pro delicius, says Ambrose: that is, use it modestly, namely Medicinally, not for pleasure, but for Remedy. Indeed, God allows it, not noly for bare necessity, but for chearfulness and alacrity, that the body may be more fit and expedite for duty, Proverbs 31:7. But further no man proceeds, without the violation of Sobriety. When men sit till Wine have inflamed them, and reason be disturbed (for Drunkenness is the privation of reason, caused by immoderate drinking) then do they come under the guilt of this horrid and abominable Sin. To the Satisfaction and refreshment of nature, you may drink; for it is a part of the Curse, to drink, and not be satisfied: but take heed you go no further, For Wine is a [mocker] strong Drink is raging, and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise, Proverbs 20:1. The Throat is a slipery place; how easily may a sin slip through it into the Soul? these sensual Pleasures have a kind of inchanting power upon the Soul; and by custom gain upon it, till they have enslaved it, and brought it under their power. Now this is the sin against which God has delivered so many Precepts, and denounced so many Woes, in his Word: Ephesians 5:18. Be not drunken with wine wherein is excess, Romans 13:18. Not in rioting and drunkenness. not in chambering and wantonness, Isaiah 5:11. Wo to them that rise early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them; with many other of dreadful importance. Now to startle you for ever from this abominable and filthy lust, I shall here propound to your Consideration these ten ensuing Arguments: and oh that they might stand in the way, as the Angel did in Balaam's, when you are in the prosecution of your sensual Pleasures! And the first is this.

Arg. 1. It should exceedingly disswade from this Sin, to consider that it is an high abuse of the Bounty and Goodness of God, in affording us those sweet Refreshments, to make our Lives comfortable to us upon earth. In Adam we forfeited all right, to all earthly, as will as heavenly Mercies. God might have taken you from the Womb, when you were a Sinner but of a span long, and immediately have sent you to your own place: you had no right to a drop of water, more than what the bounty of God gave you. And whereas he might have thrust you out of the world, as soon as you camest into it, and so all those days of mercy you hast had on earth, might have been spent in howling and unspeakable misery in Hell: Behold the Bounty and Goodness of God in you; I say, behold it, and wonder: He has suffered you for so many years to live upon the earth, which he has prepared and furnished with all things fit for your necessity and delight; out of the earth on which you treadest, he brings forth your food and [Vvine] to make glad your heart, Psalm 104:14, 15. And dost you thus requite the Lord? Has Mercy armed an enemy to fight against it with its own Weapo[•]s? Ah that ever the Riches of his Goodness, Bounty, and Long s[•]ffering (all which are arguments to lead you to repentance) should be thus abused! If God had not been so bountiful, you could not have been so sinful.

Arg. 2. It degrades a man from the honor of his Creation, and equalizeth him to the beast that perishes. Wine is said to take away the heart, Hosea 4:11. (i. e.) the wisdom and ingenuity of a man, and so brutifies him; as Nebuchadnezzar, who lost the heart of a man, and had the heart of a beast given him, Daniel 4:32. The heart of a man has is generosity and sprightliness, brave vigorous spirit in it, capable of, and fitted for noble and worthy actions and employments; but his lust effeminates quenches and drowns that masculine vigour in the puddle of excess and sensuality. For no sooner is a man brought under the dominion of this Lust, but the government of Reason is renounced, which should exercise a coercive power over the Affections; and all is delivered up into the hand of Lust and Appetite; and so they act, not by discretion and reason, but by Lust and Will, as the Beasts do by Instinct. The spirit of Man entertains it self with intellectual and chast Delights, the soul of a Beast is onely fitted for such low, sensitive and dreggie Pleasures. You hast something of the Angel, and something of the Beast in you; your Soul partakes of the nature of Angels, your Body of the nature of Beasts: Oh how many pamper the Beast, while they strave the Angels! God in the first Chaper, put all the Creatures in subjection to you; by this Lust you puttest your in self Subjection to the creature, and are brought under his power, 1 Corinthians 6:12. If God had given you the feet or head of a beast, Oh what a misery would you have esteemed it! And is it nothing to have the heart of a Beast? Oh consider it sadly.

Arg. 3. It is a Sin by which you greatly wrongest and abuseth your own Body. The Body is the Souls Instrument, it is as the Tools are to a skilful Artificer, this Lust both dulls and spoils it, so that it's utterly unfit for any service of him that made it. Your body is a curious piece. not made by a word of command, as other Creatures, but by a word of counsel, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought, (says the Psalmist) Psalm 139:14. or as the Vulgar: Ace pictus sum, Painted as with a Needle, like a Garment of Needlework of divers colors, richly embroydered. Look how many members, so many wonders. There are Miracles enough (says one) between head and foot, to fill a volume. There is (says another) such curious workmanship in the eye, that upon the first sight of it some Atheists have been forced to acknowledge a God; especially that fifth Muscle in the eye is wonderful, whereby (as a learned Author observes) Man differs from all other Creatures, who have but four; one to turn the eye downward, a second to hold it forward, a third to move it to the right hand, a fourth to the left; but none to turn it upward as a man has. Now judge in your self, did God frame such a curious piece, and enliven it with a Soul, which is a spark, a ray of his own light, whose motions are so quick, various and indefatigable, whose flights of reason are so transcendent, did God, think you, send down this curious piece, the top and glory of the Creation, the Index and Epitome of the whole world, Ecclesiastes 12:2. did God (I say) send down this picture of his own perfection, to be but as a striner for meats and drinks, a spung to suck in Wine and Beer? Or canst you answer for the abuse and destruction of it? By this excess you fillest it with innumerable diseases under which it languisheth; and at last your life, like a lamp extinguisnt, being drowned with to much Oyle. Infinite Diseases are begotten by it (says Zanch.) hence come Apoplexies, Gouts, Palfies, sudden Death, trembling of the hands and legs; herein they bring Cain's curse upon themselves, says Ambrose. Drunkenness slays more then the Sword. Oh! what a terrible thing will in be to consider upon a Death-bed, that these pangs and aches are the fruits of your Intemperance and Excess! Vvho has wo▪ Who has sorrows Vvho has contention? Vvho has babling? Vvho has wounds without cause? Vvho has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at Vvine, they that go to seek mixt Vvine, Proverbs 23:29, 30. By this Enumeration, and manner of Interrogation, he seems to make it a difficult thing to recount the miseries that Drunkenness loads the outward man with: for look as Vermine abound where there is store of Corn, so do Diseases in the bodies of Drunkards, where crudities do so abound: Now methinks if you have no regard to your poor Soul, or the glory of God; yet such a sensible Argument as this, from your body, should move you.

Arg. 4. Drunkenness wastes and scatters your estate, Proverty attends excess: the Drunkard shall be cloathed with Rags, and brought to a morsel of bread. Solomon has read your fortune, Proverbs 21:17. He that loves Wine and Oyl shall not be rich, Luxury and Beggary are seldom far asunder. When Diogenes heard a Drunkards house cryed to be sold; I thought, quoth he, it would not be long ere he vomited up his house also. The Hebrew word [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and the Greek word [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], which signifie Luxury; the former is compounded of two words, which signify, You shalt be poor; and the latter signifies the losing of the possession of that good which is in our hand. The Drunkard and the Glutton shall surely come to poverty, Proverbs 23:21. In the Hebrew it is, He shall be disinherited, or disposessed. It does not only dispossess a man of his Reason, which is a rich and fair inheritance given to him by God, but it also dispossesses him of his estate: it wastes all that either the provident care of your Progenitors, or the blessing of God upon your own industry, has obtained for you. And how will this sting like and Adder, when you shalt consider it? Apicius the Roman, hearing that there were seven hundred Crowns only remaining of a fair estate, that his Father had left him, fell into a deep Melancholly, and fearing want, hanged himself, says Seneca. And not to mention the miseries and sorrows they bring hereby upon their Families, drinking the tears, indeed, blood of their Wives and Children: Oh what an account will they give to God, when their reckoning day comes! Believe it, Sirs, there is not a shilling of your estates, but God will reckon with you for the expence thereof. If you have spent it upon your lu[•]ts, while the necessity of your families, or the poor, called upon you for it; I should be loth to have your account to make, for a thousand times more than ever you possessed. O woful expence, that is followed with such dreadful reckonings!

Arg. 5. Consider what vile and ignominious Characters the Spirit of God has put upon the subjects of this sin. The Scripture every where notes them for infamous, and most abominable persons. When Eli supposed Hannah to be drunken, Count not your hand-maid a daughter of Belial, said she, 1 Samuel 1:16. Now a Son or daughter of Belial is, in Scripture-language, the vilest of men or women. So Psalm 69:12. They that sit in the gate, speak against me, and I am the Song of Drunkards, (i. e.) of the basest and vilest of men, as the opposition plainly shows; for they are opposed to them that sit in the gate, that is, honourable persons. The Lord would have his people shun the society of such, as a pest. Not to eat with them, 1 Corinthians 5:11. Indeed, the Scripture brands them with Atheism; they are such as have lost the sense and expectation of the Day of Judgment; mind not another world, nor do they look for the coming of the Lord, Matth. 24. 27, 28. He says the Lord delayeth his coming, and then falls a drinking with the drunken. The thoughts of that day will make them leave their Cups, or their Cups will drown the thoughts of such a Day. And will not all the contempt, shame and infamy, which the Spirit of God has poured on the head, of this sin, cause you to abhor it? Do not all Godly, indeed Moral Persons, abhor the Drunkard? Oh methinks the shame that attends it, should be as a fence to keep you from it.

Arg. 6. Sadly consider, there can be nothing of the sanctifying Spirit in a soul that is under the dominion of this lust; for upon the first discovery of the Grace of God, the Soul renounces the Government of Sensuality. The Grace of God that brings Salvation, teaches men to live soberly, Titus 2:11, 12. That is one of its first effects. Drunkenness indeed may be found among Heathens, that are lost in the darkness of Ignorance; but it may not be once named among the Children of the Day. They that be drunken are drunken in the night; but let us that are of the day be sober, 1 Thessalonians 5:7, 8. And the Apostles often oppose Wine and the Spirit as things incompatible, Ephesians 5:16. Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. So Jude 19. Sensual, not having the Spirit. Now what a dreadful Consideration is this: If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his, Rom 8. 9. Sensual persons have not the Spirit of Christ, and so can be none of his. It's true, Noah, a Godly man, once fell into this sin, but as Theodoret says, and that truly, it proceeded ab inexperientiae non ab intemperantia, from want of experience of the force and power of the Grape, not from Intemperance; and besides, we find not that ever he was again overtaken with that sin; but you know it, and yet persistest. O wretched Creature! the Spirit of Christ cannot dwell in you. The Lord help you to lay it to heart sadly.

Arg. 7. It's a Sin over which many direful woes and threats hang in the Word, like so many lowring clouds, ready to power down vengeance upon the heads of such Sinners. Look as the condition of the Saints is compassed round with Promises, so is yours with Threatnings, Isai. 5. 11. Wo to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, and continue until night, until Vvine inflame. So Isai. 28. 1, 2. Wo to the Crown of Pride, to the Drunkards of Ephraim, &c. With many other, too long to enumerate here. Now consider what a fearful thing it is to be under these woes of God: Sinner, I beseech you, do not make light of them, for they will fall heavy: assure your self, not one of them shall fall to the ground: they will all take place upon you, except you repent.

There are woes of Men, and woes of God: Gods woes are true woes, and make their condition woful to purpose on whom they fall. Other woes (as one says) do but touch the skin; but these strike the Soul; other woes are but temporal, these are eternal; others do only part between us and our outward comforts, these between God and us for ever.

Arg. 8. Drunkenness is a leading sin, which has a great retinue and attendence of other sins waiting on it, it's like a sudden Land-flood, which brings a great deal of dirt with it. So that look as Faith excels among the Graces, because it enlivens, actuates, and gives strength to them; so is this among sins. It is not so much a special sin against a single Precept of God, as a general violation of the whole Law, (says accurate Amesius.) It does not only call off the guard, but warms and quickens all other Lusts, and so exposes the Soul to be prostituted by them. (1.) It gives occasion, indeed, is the real cause of many contentions, and fatal quarrels, Proverbs 23:29. Vvho has Wo▪ Vvho has sorrow, Who has [contention] babling, wounds without cause? They that tarry long at the wine, &c. Contentions and Wounds are the ordinary effects of drunken meetings: when Reason is deposed, and Lust heated, what will not men attempt? (2.) Scoff and reproaches of the ways and people of God. Psalm 69:12. David was the Song of the Drunkards. (3.) It's the great incendiary of Lust: You shall find rioting and drunkenness joyned with chambering and wantonness, Romans 13:13. Nunquam ego ebrium castum putabo, says Hierome, I will never think a drunkard to be chaste. Solomon plainly tells us, what the issue will be, Proverbs 23:33. Your eyes shall behold a strange woman, and your heart shall utter perverse things, speaking of the Drunkard. It may be called Gad, for a troop followeth it. Hence one aptly calls it, The Devils bridle, by which he turns the sinner which way he pleases: he that is overcome by it, can overcome no other sin.

Arg. 9. But if none of the former Considerations can prevail, I hope these two last may, unless all sense and tenderness be lost. Consider therefore in the 9th place, That Drunkards are in Scripture marked out for Hell: the Characters of Death are upon them. You shall find them pinioned with other Sons of death, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10. Know you not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither Fornicaters, nor Idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor Abusers of themselves with Mankinde, nor Thieves, nor Covetous, nor [Drunkards,] nor Revilers, nor Extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. Oh dreadful thunderbolt! He is not asleep but dead, that is not startled at it. Lord, how are guilty sinners able to face such a Text as this is! Oh Soul! Darst you for a superfluous Cup adventure to drink a Cup of pure unmixed wrath? Oh think when the Wine sparkles in the glass, and gives its color, think, I say, what a Cup of trembling is in the hand of the Lord for you. You will not now believe this; Oh but the day is coming, when you shalt know the price of these brutish pleasures. Oh it will then sting like an Adder. Ah! this short-lived beastly pleasure is the price for which you sellest Heaven, and rivers of pleasure that are at Gods right hand.

Obj. But I hope I shall repent, and then this Text can be no bar to my Salvation.

Sol. True, if God shall give you Repentance, it could not. But in the last place, to awaken you throughly, and startle your secure Conscience, which Sensuallity has brawned and cauterized, let me tell you.

Arg. 10. That it is a sin out of whose power few or none are ever rescued or reclaimed. On this account it was that Saint Augustine called it the Pi[•] of Hell: he that is addicted to this Sin, becomes incurable (says a Reverend Divine) for seldom, or never, have I known a Drunkard recalled. And its power to hold the soul in subjection to it, lies in two things especially: (1) as it becomes habitual; and habits are not easily broken; be pleased to view an Example in the case, Proverbs 23:35. They have stricken me, shalt you say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me and I felt it not. When I shall awake, I will seek it yet again. (2.) As it takes away the heart, Hos. 4 11. that is, the understanding, reason and ingenuity of a man, and so makes him uncapable of being reclaimed by counsel. Upon this account it was, that Abigail would not speak less or more to Nabal, till the Wine was gone out of him, 1 Samuel 25:36, 37. plainly intimating, that no wholsome counsel can get in, till the Wine be gone out. When one asked Cleostratus, whether he were not ashamed to be drunken, he tartly replied; And are not you ashamed to admonish a Drunkard? intimating that no wise man would cast away an admonition upon such an one. And it not only renders them uncapable of councel for the time, but by degrees it besots and infatuates them; which is a very grievous stroke from God upon them, making way to their eternal ruine. So then you see upon the whole, what a dangerous gulph the sin of Drunkenness is. I beg you for the Lords sake, and by all the regard you have to your souls, bodies, and estates, beware of it. Oh consider these ten Arguments I have here produced against it. I should have proceeded to answer the several Pleas and Excuses you have for it. But I mind brevity, and shall shut up this first Caution, with a very pertinent and ingenious Poem of Mr. George Herbert, in his Temple.

Drink not the third glass, which you canst not tame When once it is within you; but before Mayst rule it as you list, and pour the shame which it will pour to you, upon the floor. It is most just to throw that on the ground, Which would throw me there, if I kept the round.

He that is drunken may his Mother kill, lie with his Sister; he has lost the Reins; Is outlaw'd by himself: all kind of ill did with the liquor slide into the veins. The Drunkard forfeits Man, and does devest All worldly right, save what he has by Beast.

Shall I to please anothers wine-sprung mind, lose all my own? God has giv'n me a measure Short of his Can, and Body: must I finde a pain in that wherein he finds a pleasure? Stay at the third glass; if you lose your hold, Then you are modest, but the wine grows bold.

If Reason move not Gallants, quit the room, (all in a shipwrack shipt their several way.) Let not a common Ruine you entomb; be not a Beast in courtesies, but stay; Stay at the third Glass, or forgo the place; Vvine above all things does Gods stamp deface.