Reader, if thou be one that is guilty of this sin, for the Lord's sake bethink thyself speedil}', and weigh, with the reason of a man, what I shall now say, in order to thy 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 thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmity,'' saith Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim. v. 23. Mark, drink not water, but Avine; Sed modice, (i. e.) medice : pro remedio, non pro deUciis^ saith Ambrose*; that is, use it modestly, viz. medicinally, not for pleasure, but for remedy. Yea, God allows it, not only for bare necessity, but for cheerfulness and alacrity, that the body may be more fit and more expedite for duty, Prov. xxxi. 7. but further no man proceeds, with- out 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 and go no further; "For *' wine is a [mocker,] strong drink is raging, and whosoever is de- " ceived thereby, is not wise," Prov. xx. 1. The throat is a slippery place ; how easily may a sin slip through it into the soul ? These !§ensual 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 hath delivered so many precepts, and denounced so many woes, in his
* Qui dedit aqxiamy dedit vinunu
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word. Epb. v. 18. *' Be not drunken with wine, wlierein is excess." Rom. xiii. 13. " Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering " and wantonness,'' Isa. v. 11. " Woe to them that rise up 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 thee for ever from this abominable and filthy lust, I shall here propound to thy consideration these ten en- suing arguments ; and oh that they might stand in the way, as the angel did in Balaam's, when thou art in the prosecution of thy sen- sual pleasures ! And the first is this ;
Argument 1. It should exceedingly dissuade from this sin, to con- sider that it is an high abuse ot" the bounty and goodness of God in affording us those sweet refreshments, to make our lives comforta- ble to us upon earth. In Adam we forfeited all right to all earthly as well as heavenly mercies : God might have taken thee from the womb, when thou wast a sinner but of a span long, and immediately have sent thee to thine own place ; thou hadst no right to a drop of water more than what the bounty of God gave thee : And whereas he might have thrust thee out of the world as soon as thou earnest into it, and so all those days of mercy thou hast had on earth might have been spent in howling and unspeakable misery in hell : Behold the bounty and goodness of God to thee ; I say, behold it, and won- der : He hath suflPered thee for so many years to live upon the earth, which he hath prepared and furnished with all things fit for thy ne- cessity and delight: Out of the earth, on which thou treadest, " he " bringeth forth thy food, and [wine] to make glad thy heart," Psal. civ. 14, 15. And dost thou thus requite the Lord.? Hath mercy- armed an enemy to fight against it with its own weapons? Ah ! that ever the riches of his goodness, bounty, and long-sufferino-, all which are arguments to lead thee to repentance, should be thus abused I If God had not been so bountiful, thou couldst not have been so sinful.
Arg. 2. It degrades a man from the honour of his creation, and equalizeth him to the beast that perisheth : Wme is said to take away the heart, Hos. iv. 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, Dan. iv. 32. The heart of a man hath its generosity and sprightliness, brave, vigorous spirits 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 afiections, and all is delivered up into the hands 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 itself with intellectual and chaste delights ; the soul of a
SOO A SOBER CONSIDEJIATION'
beast is only fitted for such low, sensitive, and dreggy pleasures. Thou hast something of the angel, and something of the beast in thee ; thy soul partakes of the nature of angels, thy body of the nature of beasts. Oh ! how many pamper the beast while they fstarve the angel f God, in the first chapter, put all the creatures in subjection to thee; by this lust thou puttest thyself in subjection to the creature, and art brought under its power, 1 Cor. vi. 12. If God had given thee the head or feet of a beast, oh ! what a misery wouldst thou have esteemed it ? and is it nothing to have the heart of a beast.'' Oh ! consider it sadly.