A Christian Directory Volume I Part 80

III. The greatness of this sin appeareth in what is said before of gluttony. More specially, 1. Think how base a master thou dost serve, being thus a slave to thy throat. What a beastly thing it is, and worse than beastly! for few beasts but a swine will be forced to drink more than doth them good. How low and poor is that man's reason that is not able to command his throat!

2. Think how thou consumest the creatures of G.o.d, that are given for service, and not for gulosity and luxury. The earth shall be a witness against thee, that it bore that fruit for better uses, which thou mispendest on thy sin. Thy servants and cattle that labour for it shall be witnesses against thee. Thou offerest the creatures of G.o.d as a sacrifice to the devil, for drunkenness and tippling is his service.

It were less folly to do as Diogenes did, who, when they gave him a large cup of wine, threw it under the table that it might do him no harm. Thou makest thyself like caterpillars, and foxes, and wolves, and other destroying creatures, that live to do mischief, and consume that which should nourish man; and therefore are pursued as unfit to live. Thou art to the commonwealth as mice in the granary, or weeds in the corn. It is a great part of the work of faithful magistrates to weed out such as thou.

3. Thou robbest the poor, consuming that on thy throat which should maintain them. If thou have any thing to spare, it will comfort thee more at last, to have given it to the needy, than that a greedy throat devoured it. The covetous is much better in this than the drunkard and luxurious; for he is a gatherer, and the other is a scatterer.[435]

The commonwealth maintaineth a double or treble charge in such as thou art. As the same pasture will keep many sheep which will keep but one horse; so the same country may keep many temperate persons, which will keep but a few gluttons and drunkards. The worldling makes provision cheaper by getting and sparing; but the drunkard and glutton make it dearer by wasting. The covetous man, that sc.r.a.peth together for himself, doth ofttimes gather for one that will pity the poor when he is dead, Prov. xxviii. 8; but the drunkard and riotous devour it while they are alive. One is like a hog that is good for something at last, though his feeding yield no profit while he liveth; the other is like devouring vermin, that leave nothing to pay for what they did consume.

The one is like a pike among the fishes, who payeth when he is dead for that which he devoured alive; but the other is like the sink or channel, that repayeth you nothing but stink and dirt, for all that you cast into it.

4. Thou drawest poverty and ruin upon thyself. Besides the value which thou wastest, G.o.d usually joineth with the prodigal by his judgments, and scattereth as fast as he. Prov. xxi. 17, "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich."

"There is that scattereth and yet increaseth," Prov. xi. 24. But this is not the issue of thy scattering. Prov. xxiii. 19-21, "Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thy heart in the way. Be not amongst wine-bibbers, amongst riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."[436]

5. Thou art an enemy to thy family. Thou grievest thy friends. Thou impoverishest thy children, and robbest those whom thou art bound to make provision for. Thou fillest thy house with discontents and brawlings, and banishest all quietness and fear of G.o.d. A discontented or a brawling wife, and ragged, dissolute, untaught children, are often signs that a drunkard or riotous person is the master of the family.

6. Thou art a heinous consumer of thy precious time. This is far worse than the wasting of thy estate. Oh that thou didst but know, as thou shalt know at last, what those hours are worth, which thou wastest over thy pots! and how much greater work thou hadst to lay it out upon! How many thousands in h.e.l.l are wishing now in vain, that they had those hours again to spend in prayer and repentance which they spent in the alehouse, and senselessly cast away with their companions in sin! Is the gla.s.s turned upon thee, and death posting towards thee, to put an end to all thy time, and lay thee where thou must dwell for ever; and yet canst thou sit tippling and prating away thy time, as if this were all that thou hadst to do with it? Oh what a wonder of sottishness and stupidity is a hardened sinner, that can live so much below his reason! The senses' neglect of thy soul's concernment, and greater matters, is the great part of thy sin, more than the drunkenness itself.

7. How base a price dost thou set upon thy Saviour and salvation, that wilt not forbear so much as a cup of drink for them! The smallness of the thing showeth the smallness of thy love to G.o.d, and the smallness of thy regard to his word and to thy soul. Is that loving G.o.d as G.o.d, when thou lovest a cup of drink better? Art thou not ashamed of thy hypocrisy, when thou sayest thou lovest G.o.d above all, when thou lovest him not so well as thy wine and ale? Surely he that loveth him not above ale, loveth him not above all! Thy choice showeth what thou lovest best, more certainly than thy tongue doth. It is the dish that a man greedily eateth of that he loveth, and not that which he commendeth but will not meddle with. G.o.d trieth men's love to him, by their keeping his commandments.[437] It was the aggravation of the first sin, that they would not deny so small a thing as the forbidden fruit, in obedience to G.o.d! And so it is of thine, that wilt not leave a forbidden cup for him! O miserable wretch! dost thou not know that thou canst not be Christ's disciple, if thou forsake not all for him, and hate not even thy life in comparison of him, and wouldst not rather die than forsake him? Luke xiv. 26, 33. And art thou like to lay down thy life for him that wilt not leave a cup of drink for him?

Canst thou burn at a stake for him, that canst not leave an alehouse, or vain company, or excess for him? What a sentence of condemnation dost thou pa.s.s upon thyself! Wilt thou sell thy G.o.d and thy soul for so small a matter as a cup of drink? Never delude thyself to say, I hope I do not so, when thou knowest that G.o.d hath told thee in his word, that "drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of G.o.d," 1 Cor.

vi. 10. Nay, G.o.d hath commanded those that will come to heaven, to have no familiarity with thee upon earth; "no, not so much as to eat"

with thee! 1 Cor. v. 11. Read what Christ himself saith, Matt. xxiv.

48-51, "But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and to drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Read Deut. xxix. 19, 20: If when thou "hearest the words of G.o.d's curse, thou bless thyself in thy heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst; the Lord will not spare that man, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against him, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven, and the Lord shall separate him to evil." Thou seest here how G.o.d will spice thy cups.

8. Thou art the shame of human nature:[438] thou representest man in the likeness of a beast, and worse; as if he were made but instead of a barrel or a sink: look on a drunkard filthing and spewing, and reeling and bawling, and see if he be not uglier than a brute! Thou art a shame to thy own reason, when thou showest the world, that it cannot so much as shut thy mouth, nor prevail with thee in so small a thing. Wrong not reason so much as to call thyself rational; and wrong not mankind so much as to call thyself a man: _Non h.o.m.o sed amphora_, said one of Bonosus the drunken emperor when he was hanged: It is a barrel and not a man.

9. Thou destroyest that reason which is the glory of thy nature, and the natural part of the image of G.o.d upon thy mind. If thou shouldst deface the king's arms or image in any public place, and set in the stead of it the image of a dog, would it not be a traitorous contempt?

how much worse is it to do thus by G.o.d! If thou didst mangle and deform thy body, it were less in this respect; for it is not thy body, but thy soul, that is made after the image of G.o.d: hath G.o.d given thee reason for such high and excellent ends and uses, and wilt thou dull it and drown it in obedience to thy throat? Thy reason is of higher value than thy house, or land, or money, and yet thou wilt not cast them away so easily! Had G.o.d made thee an idiot, or mad and lunatic, thy case had been to be pitied: but to make thyself mad, and despise thy manhood, deserveth punishment. It is the saying of Basil; Involuntary madness deserveth compa.s.sion, but voluntary madness, the sharpest whips. Prov. xix. 29, "Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the fool's back;" especially for the voluntary fool: he that will make himself a beast or a mad-man, should be used by others like a beast or a mad-man, whether he will or not.

10. Thou makest thyself unfit for any thing that is good. Oh how unfit art thou to read, or hear, or meditate on the word of G.o.d! how unfit to pray! how unfit to receive the holy sacrament! what a dreadful thing is it to think of a drunken man speaking to G.o.d in prayer![439]

Thy best posture till thou art sober is to be asleep: for then thou dost least hurt, and thou art made uncapable of doing good; yea, and of receiving any good from others; thou art not so much as capable of reproof or counsel: he that should cast pearls before such a swine, and offer to speak to thee for the good of thy soul, would but dishonour the name and word of G.o.d. As it is said of a drunkard, that when one rebuked him, saying, Art thou not ashamed to be thus drunken, replied, Art thou not ashamed to talk to a man that is drunken? it is a shame to the man that would cure thee by reason, when thou hast thrown away thy reason. And if thou have but a merry cup, and thinkest thyself the fitter for thy duty, yea, if thou do it well, as to the outward appearance, as the principle is false and base, so thou deservest blame for casting thy work upon so great a hazard. As Sophocles said of an orator that wrote well when he was half drunken, Though he did it well, he did it ignorantly and in uncertainty; for thy levity weakeneth thy judgment, and thou dost the good thou dost but at a venture; as a pa.s.sionate man may speak well, but it is unlikely and uncertain; and therefore no thanks to him that it fell not out to be worse.

Thou disposest thyself to almost every sin.[440] Drunkenness breaketh every one of the commandments, by disposing men to break them all. It disableth them to the duties of the first commandment above all, viz.

to know G.o.d, and believe, and trust, and love him: it utterly unfitteth men for the holy worship required in the second commandment, as I have showed: he that hateth the guilt of former sin, in his worshippers, hateth present wickedness much more. Prov. xxi. 27, "The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind." Idolatry, and wantonness, and excess in eating and drinking, usually dispose to one another. See 1 Cor. x. 7.

Sacrifices of mirth and joviality, and gluttony and drunkenness, are fit for idols and devils, but unfit for G.o.d! And therefore commonly we find that it is the drunkards and riotous people in every town, that are the great enemies to the preaching of the gospel, and to all holy exercises, and to all that fear G.o.d, and will not be as mad as they: when there is a sacrifice to be offered to Bacchus, and any merry meeting where potting and feasting, and dancing and roaring, is to be the game, there it is that the ministers and servants of Christ are slandered, and scorned, and railed at.[441] There it is that h.e.l.lish reproach of G.o.dliness, like the devil's cannons, are let fly without control (though through G.o.d's mercy they have more powder than bullet, and do little execution). There it is that the devil sitteth as president in his council, plotting what to do against the people and ways of Christ. And though it be drunken, sottish counsel, it is the fitter for his business; for it is a brutish thunderbolt that he hath to cast; a senseless, furious work that he hath to do; and no other instruments will serve his turn. He hath a plot to blow up the reputation and honour of serious G.o.dliness; but he that setteth fire to his train must withal blow up himself: and none is so fit for this work as a drunkard or a sensual sot: few others will venture to cast their own souls into the fire of h.e.l.l, that they may procure a little stinking breath to be blown into the faces of the G.o.dly; few others would set their own houses on fire, that they may trouble G.o.d's servants by the smoke. Their very work is to do as those in Dan. iii.

to cast the servants of Christ into those flames, which must devour those that cast them in, and must scarce touch a thread of the garments, or a hair of the head, of those for whom it was prepared:[442] and who would do this, that knew what he did, and were well in his wits? must he not be first made drunk that doth it? Also drunkenness disposeth you to swearing, and blaspheming, and perjury, and speaking contemptuously and unreverently of G.o.d, and to speak profanely and jestingly of the Scripture: and thus "fools make a mock of sin," Prov. xiv. 9. You are good for none of the holy exercises of the Lord's day: that is the day that you must defile with your filthy sin; the day in which G.o.d sendeth abroad his gracious invitations, and the devil his wicked incitations; in which G.o.d giveth most of his grace, and the devil infecteth most with sin; in which G.o.d is best served by his sincere ones, and the devil is most served by his impious ones.[443] And you dispose yourselves to sin against your governors: you have no hold of tongue or action when you are drunken.

How many in their drunkenness have reproached and abused father and mother; and spoken treason against their king, or reviled magistrates and superiors; and perhaps attempted and done mischief as well as spoken it! If you are superiors, how unfit are you to judge or govern!

Is it not lawful for any to appeal from you, as the woman did from Philip drunk to Philip sober? You will be apter to abuse your inferiors than well to govern them. Also drunkenness destroyeth civility, justice, and charity. It inflameth the mind with anger and rage; it teacheth the tongue to curse, and rail, and slander; it makes you unfaithful, and uncapable of keeping any secret, and ready to betray your chiefest friend, as being master neither of your mind, or tongue, or actions. Drunkenness hath made men commit many thousand murders; it hath caused many to murder themselves, and their nearest relations; many have been drowned by falling into the water, or broke their necks with falling from their horses, or died suddenly by the suffocation of nature. It draweth men to idleness, and taketh them off their lawful calling: it maketh a mult.i.tude of thieves, by breeding necessity, and imboldening to villany. It is a princ.i.p.al cause of l.u.s.t and filthiness, and the great maintainer of wh.o.r.edoms; and taketh away all shame, and fear, and wit, which should restrain men from this or any sin: what sin is it that a drunken man may not commit? no thanks to him that he forbeareth the greatest wickedness! Cities and kingdoms have been betrayed by drunkenness; many a drunken garrison hath let in the enemy. There is no confidence to be put in a drunken man; nor any mischief that he is secure from.

12. Lastly, Thou sinnest not alone, but temptest others with thee to perdition. It is the great crime of Jeroboam that he made Israel to sin. The judgment of G.o.d determineth those men to death, that not only do wickedness, "but have pleasure in them that do it," Rom. i. 32. And is not this thy case? Art thou not Satan's instrument to tempt others with thee to waste their time, and neglect their souls, and abuse G.o.d and his creatures? Yea, some of you glory in your shame, that you have drunk down your companions, and carried it away (the honour of a sponge or a tub, which can drink up or hold liquor as well as you).

And what is that man worthy of, that would thus transform himself and others into such monsters of iniquity?

IV. Next let us hear the drunkard's excuses (for even drunkenness will pretend to reason, and men will not make themselves mad without an argument to justify it). I. Saith the tippler, I take no more than doth me good: you allow a man to eat as much as doth him good, and why not to drink as much? No man is fitter to judge this than I, for I am sure I feel it do me good.

_Answ._ What good dost thou mean, man? Doth it fit thee for holy thoughts, or words, or deeds? Doth it help thee to live well, or fit thee to die well? Art thou sure that it tendeth to the health of thy body? Thou canst not so say without the imputation of folly or self-conceitedness, when all the wise physicians in the world do hold the contrary. No, it doth as gluttony doth; it pleaseth thee in the drinking, but it filleth thy body with crudities and phlegm, and prepareth for many mortal sicknesses: it maketh thy body like grounds after a flood, that are covered with stinking slime; or like fenny lands that are drowned in water, and bear no fruit; or like grounds that have too much rain, that are dissolved to dirt, but are unfit for use. It maketh thee like a leaking ship, that must be pumped and emptied, or it will sink; if thou have not vomits or purges to empty thee, thou wilt quickly drown or suffocate thy life. As Basil saith, a drunkard is like a ship in a tempest, when all the goods are cast overboard to disburden it lest it sink. Physicians must pump thee, or disburden thee, or thou wilt be drowned; and all will not serve if thou hold on to fill it up again; for intemperance maketh most diseases uncurable. An historian speaketh of two physicians that differed in their prognostics about a patient; one forsook him as uncurable; the other undertook him as certainly curable; but when he came to his remedies, he prescribed him so strict abstinence as he would not undergo: and so they agreed in the issue; when one judged him uncurable because intemperate, and the other curable if he would be temperate. Thou that feelest the drink do thee good, dost little think how the devil hath a design in it, not only to have thy soul, but to have it quickly; that the mud-walls of thy body being washed down may not hold it long. And I must tell thee that thou hast cause to value a good physician for greater reasons than thy life, and art more beholden to him than many others; even that he may help to keep thy soul out of h.e.l.l a little longer, to see "if G.o.d will give thee repentance," that thou "mayst escape out of the snare of the devil, who taketh thee captive at his will," 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26. As aelian writeth of king Antigonus, that having great respect for Zeno the philosopher, he once met him when he was in drink, and embracing him, urged him to ask of him what he would, and bound himself with many oaths to give it him. Zeno thanked him, and the request he made to him was, that he would go home and vomit. To tell him that he more needed to be disburdened of his drink, than he himself did need his gifts.

The truth is, the good that thou feelest the drink do thee is but the present pleasing of thy appet.i.te, and tickling thy fantasy by the exhilarating vapours: and so the glutton, and the wh.o.r.emonger, and every sensual wretch will say, that he feeleth it do him good; but G.o.d bless all sober men from such a good. So the gamester feeleth the sport do him good; but perhaps he is quickly made a beggar by it. It is reason and faith, and not thy appet.i.te or present feeling, that must tell thee what and how much doth thee good.

_Object._ II. But I have heard some physicians say, that it is wholesome to be drunk sometimes.

_Answ._ None but some sot, that had first drank away his own understanding. I have known physicians that have been drunkards themselves, and they have been apt to plead for their own vice; but they quickly killed themselves, and all their skill could not save their lives from the effects of their own b.e.s.t.i.a.lity; even as the knowledge and doctrine of a wicked preacher will not save his soul, if he live contrary to his profession. And what if the vomiting of a drunkard did him some good with all the harm? Are there not easier, safer, lawfuller means enough to do the same good without the harm? He is a brute himself, and not a physician, that knoweth no better remedy than this.

But thy conscience telleth thee, this is but a false excuse.

_Object._ III. But I wrong n.o.body in my drink; the hurt is my own.

_Answ._ No thanks to thee if thou wrong n.o.body: but read over the former aggravations, and then justify thyself in this if thou canst. It seems thou makest nothing of wronging G.o.d by disobedience. But suppose it be no one's hurt but thy own: dost thou hate thyself? is thy own hurt nothing to thee? what! dost make nothing of the d.a.m.ning of thy own soul?

whom wilt thou love if thou hate thyself? It is the aggravation of this sin, as well as fornication, 1 Cor. vi. 18, that it is against your own bodies, and much more as against your own souls.

_Object._ IV. But I was but merry, I was not drunken.

_Answ._ It were well for you if G.o.d would stand to your names and definitions, and take none for a sinner that taketh not himself for one.

There are several degrees of drunkenness short of the highest degree.

And if your reason was not disturbed, yet the excess of drink only, and tippling, and gulosity, will prove a greater sin than you suppose.

_Object._ V. But I drink but a little; but my head is weak and a little overturneth it.

_Answ._ If you know that beforehand, you are the more unexcusable, that will not avoid that measure which you know you cannot bear. If you knew that less poison will kill you than another, you would be the more fearful of it, and not the less.

_Object._ VI. But I have a thirst upon me, and I take no more than will quench it.

_Answ._ So the wh.o.r.emonger saith, he hath a l.u.s.t upon him, and he taketh no more than will quench it. And the malicious man that beateth you or undoes you, may say, that he hath a pa.s.sion upon him, and he taketh no more revenge on you than satisfieth it. But if you add drunkenness to thirst, read your doom again, Deut. xxix. 19. If it be a natural, moderate thirst, moderation will satisfy it; if it be a diseased thirst, as in a fever or dropsy, the physician must direct you in the cure; and small drink is fitter for a thirst than strong: but if it be the thirst of a drunkard's raging appet.i.te, that hath been used to be pleased, and therefore is loth to be denied, you had best quench it upon better and cheaper terms, than the displeasing G.o.d and d.a.m.ning your souls; lest you find it more troublesome in the flames of h.e.l.l, to want a drop of water for your tongues, than it would have been to have bridled a beastly appet.i.te.[444] And lest you then cry out as Lysimachus, when thirst forced him to yield to the Scythians for a little drink, _Quam brevis voluptatis gratia, quantum felicitatis amisi_! For how short a pleasure did I lose so great felicity! Take heed of reasoning your souls into impenitence.

_Quest._ I. Is it not lawful to drink when we are thirsty, and know of no harm that it is like to do us, seeing thirst telleth us what the stomach needeth?

_Answ._ A beast may do so, that hath no higher faculty to guide him.

And a man may take in the consideration of his thirst to guide his reason in judging of the due quant.i.ty and time; but not otherwise. A man must never drink to please his appet.i.te, either against reason, or without it. And no man must so captivate his reason to sense, as to think that his appet.i.te is his princ.i.p.al rule or guide herein; nor be so brutish as to know no otherwise what doth him good or hurt, but by his present feeling; sometimes true reason may tell a man, that thirst is a sign that drink is needful to his health, and then he may take it. Sometimes (and commonly with blockish people) pleasing a thirst may hurt their health, and they are so foolish that they do not know it; either because they are ignorant of such things, or because their appet.i.te maketh them unwilling to believe it, till they feel it; and because they judge only by the present effects: so a man may kill himself with drinking cold drink in a heat, in some fevers, in a dropsy, a cough, cachexy, &c. And excess doth insensibly vitiate the blood, and heap up matter of many diseases which are incurable, before the sot will believe that drinking when he was thirsty did him any harm. If really it will do no harm, you may drink when you are thirsty (because it will do good). But if it will quench natural heat and hinder concoction, and breed diseases through unseasonableness, or ill quality, or excess, it is neither your thirst, nor your sottish ignorance of the hurt, that will excuse you from the sin, or prevent the coughs, stone, gout, cholic, swellings, palsies, agues, fevers, or death, which it will bring.

_Quest._ II. Is it not lawful to drink a health sometimes when it would be ill-taken to refuse it, or to be uncovered while others drink it?

_Answ._ Distinguish between, 1. Drinking measurably as you need it, and unmeasurably when you need it not. 2. Between the foreseen effects; and doing it ordinarily, or when it will do hurt, or extraordinarily, when it will more prevent hurt. And so I conclude,

1. It is unlawful to drink more than is good for your health, by the provocation of other men.

2. It is unlawful to do that which tempteth and encourageth others to drink too much. And so doth the custom of pledging healths, especially when it is taken for a crime to deny it.

3. Therefore the ordinary pledging or drinking of such healths is unlawful, because it is the scandalous hardening of others in their sin unto their ruin.

4. But if we fall in among such furious beasts as would stab a man if he did not drink a health, it is lawful to do it to save one's life, as it is to give a thief my purse; because it is a sin not simply evil of itself to drink that cup, but by accident, which a greater accident may preponderate.

5. Therefore any other accident beside the saving of your life, which will really preponderate the hurtful accident, may make it lawful; as possibly in some cases and companies the offence given by denying it may be such as will do more hurt far, than yielding would do. (As if a malignant company would lay one's loyalty to the king upon it, &c.)

6. Christian prudence therefore (without carnal compliance) must be always the present decider of the case, by comparing the good and evil effects.

7. To be bare when others lay the honour of the king or superiors upon it, is a ceremony that on the aforesaid reason may be complied with.

8. When to avoid a greater evil we are extraordinarily put on any such ceremony, it is meet that we join such words (where we have liberty) as may prevent the scandal, or hardening any present in sin.

9. And it is a duty to avoid the company which will put us upon such inconveniences, as far as our calling will allow us.

V. But because it is the drunkard's heart or will that needs persuasion, more than his understanding needs direction, I shall before the directions yet endeavour his fuller conviction, if he will but read, and consider soberly, (if ever he be sober,) these following questions, and not leave them till he answer them to the satisfaction of his own conscience.