1. A strong and vigorous constitution will be readily acknowledged to }ye so great an external blessing and mercy, that no man of sound intellects ought to do any thing to destroy it ; but is obliged to use all proper methods for the preservation of it. If therefore temper- ance shall be found to preserve it, and excess to impair and destroy it ; let your own reason judge, which of these two courses you are obliged to take. Consult either the best physicians, or your own and other men's experience ; and they will tell you, That apoplexies, palsies, gout, and innumerable other diseases are bred by such ex- cesses, in the soundest And strongest constitutions, and death itself hastened by such intemperate courses ; whereas temperance and so- briety might have made your lives more comfortable and durable. As strong as you are, frequent drunkenness will bring Cain's curse upon your vigorous bodies, and make you go shaking and trem- bling (as he did) about the world.
2. Let it be demanded of your own reason, whether it do really judge that God bestowed more strength and vigour upon your bodies, than he hath upon others, to arm a stronger enemy, than others are ; to fight more vigorously against him, than others do, or can do ? Or, whether it were not designed by him for greater use and service to his glory in the world, than others of his people (how willing soever they be) can do, for want of that strength you have ? I am confi- dent, no man of sound intellects will dare to assert the former, or, deny the latter.
S. And lastly. For your glorying in drinking down, and conquer- ing others ; you will certainly put your own reason to a blush, by of- fering such a plea as this to it. You are not yet arrived to impudence enough, to deny di'unkenness to be a sin; and your reason is yetsound enough, easily and naturally to infer, that by "how much the more any
THE KEASOXABLENESS OF PEESONAL REEOHMATIOy. 50T
man exceeds and goes beyond others in sin, by so much the greater sinner that man is.
And as for the honour and glory you talk of, in exceeding others in your abilities to drink : your reason will quickly make you ashamed of that glory ; and prove, as well as assert it to be a mark of basest infamy.
Do you think, that Lombard was really honoured, or stigmatized, whom Tiberius Caesar dubbed a knight, for drinking off three gal- lons of wine at one draught, and simamed him Trigongius, that is to say, the three-gallon knight, which story * Pliny, in his Natural History, relates to the perpetual infamy of them both ? Or think you, it added to the glory of Tiberius himself, who knighted this three-gallon (not thrice gallant) knight, to have his name changed among the people, from Tiberius into Biberius ; as afterward they did the name of that monster Nero, into Mero ?
Gentlemen, I appeal to your own reason, if the vast continent you have within you for wine and strong drink, be really your honour; whether the butt or hogshead, whence you have it, be not, for the same reason, much more honourable than you ? Your reason will plainly give the conclusion.
But, oh ! consider not only what reason saith, but what God, the fountain of that reason, saith in Isa. v. 22. " Woe to them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink."" Methinks it should make you sit in as little ease upon the tavern, or ale-house bench, as that court-parasite sat at a rich banquet furnish* ed with variety of dainties, and all sorts of generous wine; over whose head, Dionysius caused an heavy sword to be hanged, with the point downward, by a single hair every moment ready to drop perpendicularly upon it.
Excuse II. As for those that throw themselves into these excesses, on purpose to delude those anxious cares and thoughts, which cru- ciate and oppress them, whenever they are sober and solitary : I shall only propound three plain questions to the small remainders of reason in them, which yet I presume sufficient to determine rightly upon them.
Quest. 1. Whether they think that which greatly increaseth want and poverty, be a rational cure and proper remedy for it ? And whe- ther a jar pf oil be not as fit to quench a flame, as tavern and ale- house scores and reckonings are to buoy up a sinking trade, and keep bailiffs from men's doors ? Certainly none but a sottish fool can think it to be otherwise. Your own improvidence, or God's afflictive pro- vidence, have brought you into other men's books ; and certainly you cannot think, if you be in your wits, that chamberlains bills for so many bottles of wine, and flaggons of beer, will be accepted by your creditors for good bills, to quit your scores with them. Were you
* Plin. Nat. Hist. I. H. c. 22.
508 THE REASONABLENESS OF FERSONAL REFOIIMATION.
sober, frugal, and industrious, you would put yourselves thereby into a better way to obtain a blessing from God, and respects and forbearance from men, than in the course you now take.
Quest. 2. Nor can you, without manifest impudence, propound such a question as this to your own reason, whether the addition of injustice to profaneness, be a rational plea or excuse for it? And is not that the very case here ? Whose money is that you so lavishly and prodigally waste out of your consuming estates? It is either your creditors, or the small remains of your own. Whether the one or the other, methinks that wine and drink should not go down very pleasantly, which must be mingled with manifest injustice, or with the tears, and (in a sense) the blood of your wives and chil- dren. If your reasons can allow tliese things for lawful excuses, then you are excused, else self-condemned.
Quest. 3. I shall trouble your reason with the decision but of one question more, and it is briefly and plainly this :
Whether the addition of far greater troubles, or causes of troubles to the inner man, be a proper expedient to alleviate and ease the loads and burdens of your outward troubles already grown almost too heavy for you to bear.
I dare venture all that I am worth, upon sound reason's side, that it will never allow, or comprobate such an absurdity, as the aflirma- tive part of this question draws along with it.
Believe it, sirs, all the outward necessities, cares and fears, which now oppress you upon the score of worldly affairs, (which frame not to your minds) are much more tolerable, and comparatively light and easy, to the stings, wounds, and lashes, of a guilty conscience : But when all these inward troubles shall be superadded to your outward troubles, they will, in conjunction, make a burden too heavy for man to bear.