Besides, I must tell you, that in all such drunken meetings, the devil comes to drive his bargain with you, as well as your other cus- tomers. He bids for your souls, and offers you such pleasures as you there find in exchange for them, and is content to make your dying day the time of your delivering them into his possession. How do you like such trading as this, gentlemen ?
Quest. 3. You say, should you refuse to accompany them, and do •s they do, you should be branded for fanatics. I would fain know,
THE EEASO^ABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION. 511
whether such a plea for drunkenness as this, doth not justly cast the greatest reproach of fanaticism upon yourselves, and set a mark of true honour upon those men whom the world unjustly stigmatizes with that title? Gentlemen, I do assure you, the fanatics (as you call them) have reason to thank you for the honour and justice yoU have done them, in acknowledging them to be none of the members of your hellish society, but persons of a more sober and honourable character. And I appeal to your reason, whether it would not be more for your honour, to wear the unjust title of a fanatic, than the just censure of a drunken sot.
Excuse V. You say, you are obliged m point of loyalty to pledge him that consecrates the first glass to the health of the king or any person of eminency. I leave it still to your reason to be judge,
1. Whether the king have cause to account the manifest breach of the laws by which he governs, to be a signal expression of his subjects loyalty to him .? Is not his royal authority, his honour and safety in his laws ? And is he not finely honoured, think you, by such drunken loyalty as this ? Gentlemen, you have a king over you of sounder intellectuals, and more exemplary temperance and sobriety than to be thus imposed upon.
2. Can you think he reckons his health in the least degree ad- vanced or secured by the ruin and subversion of his subjects health ? No, no ; did the genteelest drunkards in England enquire, they would quickly find, it would more please him if they would consult their own health better, and pray for his more sincerely and fervently than they do.
Excuse VI. Your last excuse is, that you have plentiful estates that will bear it ; and since your pockets are full, why should your heads or stomachs be empty.
Quest The only question I would here state, and leave your own reason to determine, is this, whether you think the experience of the redundancy and over-plus of your estates in excess and drunkenness, be the very end and design God aimed at, in bestowing those things with such a bountiful hand upon you ? And whether the expence of it in this way, will please him as well, as if you clothed the naked, and fed the hungry with it, and brought the blessings of them that are ready to perish, upon you and your families ? Ah, gentlemen, you must come to a day of reckoning. Your reasons and consciences can never tell you, you can make up as comfortable an account with God, by setting down so many hundred pounds in wine and strong drink, more than was necessary and beneficial : Item, So many thousand pounds lost in play : So much upon whores ; as if you set down so much to feed and clothe the naked and hungry. So that all your ex- cuses for this sin are baffled by your own reason ; and it was easy to conclude, that such a traitor to reason as drunkenness is, which hath so often dethroned it, could not possibly receive a more favourable judgment and sentence than this now given upon it.
51^ THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION.
X.et all drunkards henceforth consider, what a voluntary madness the sin of drunkenness is, how it unmans them, and sets them below the very brutes. A grave * father calls it rightly,
" A distemper of the head, a subversion of the senses, a tempest in the tongue, the storm of the body, the shipwreck of virtue, the loss of time, a wilful madness, a pleasant evil, a sugared poison, a sweet sin, which he that hath, hath not himself; and he that com- mits it, doth not only commit sin, but himself is altogether sin."
It is a sin at which the most sober Heathens blushed. The policy of the Spartans was more commendable than their piety in making men drunk, that their children might gaze upon them as a monster, and be scared for ever from such an horrid practice. He that is mastered by drunkenness, can never be master of his own counsels. Both reason and religion condemn this course. Make a pause there- fore where you are, and rather throw that wine or beer upon the ground, which else will cast thy body upon the ground, and thy soul and body into hell.
Containing the result and issue of the third considtation with reason^ upon the case of uncleanness ; and the true report of the determi- nation of every man^s reason^ lo'ith respect thereunto.
§ 1. X HE bountiful and indulgent God hath made more abun- dant provision for the pleasure and delight of rational, than of brutal beings: And his wise and righteous laws order and limit their plea-' sures to their great advantage ; his allowance under those restrictions being large and full enough. Both reason and experience assure us, that the truest pleasures are most freely and honourably to be en- joyed within the pale and boundary of his laws ; and that there are none fit for the enjoyment of a man or Christian, to be found with- out, or beyond them.
That prudent owner provides best for his cattle, who puts them into inclosed fragrant fields, where they have plenty of proper and pleasant food, sweet and pure springs of water, the pleasant covert of shady trees, and all that is either necessary or convenient for them ; al- though those fields be so inclosed within pales or walls, that they can- not stray without these boundaries, into other men's ground, to be by
* Turbatio capitis^ subversio sensus, tempestab linguts, procella corjwi-iSy naiifragium r.irtutiSj amissio temporis, insania valuntaria, blande deemon, dulce venerium, suave pecca- tum, cjuam qui hahet, seipsam non habet, quam qui facit, peccatwn non tantuvifacit, sed ij>se Mus est peccatum.
THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION. 51 S
tliem impounded, and brought back lank, tired, and dirty, to their owner : or by straying into wastes and wildernesses, tall a prey (as stragglers use to do) to wolves and lions.