may sec in that great instance of luxurious Dives, Luke xvi. 19-26. The intemperate man's table proves a snare to his soul ; fulness breeds forgetfuhiess, wantonness, blockishness, and stupidity; and therefore no wonder if God shuts the gates of glory against intemperate persons. Look, as no leper might be in the camp of Israel, Num. v. ; and as no (rilcadite miglit pass over Jordan, Judges xii. ; and as no fearful man might enter into the wars of Midian, chap. vii. ; and as no bastard might enter into the sanctuary, Deut. xxxiii. ; so no luxurious person shall enter into heaven. Of all sorts of sinners, the luxurious sinner is most rarely reformed. The adulterer may become chaste, the thief may become an lionest man, the swearer may obtain a sanctified tongue ; but how rare is it to see a luxurious person repent, break off his sins, close with Christ, and walk to heaven ! Luxurious persons eat and drink away their Christ ; yea, they eat and drink away their souls, nay, they eat and drink away their own salvation. Mat. xxi. 31, 32; Luke xxiii. 43. They that serve their own bellies, serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore they shall never reign with him in the other world. Certainly that man that makes his belly his god, shall be for ever separated from God, Phil. iii. li). All belly-gods shall at last be found in the belly of hell. The intemperate person hath his heaven here ; his hell is to come. Now he has his sweet cups, his merry cups, his pleasant cups : oh, but there is a cup of shame and sorrow, ' and this shall be their portion for ever and ever,' Ps. xi. 6. The intem[)erate person hath been a gulf to devour many mercies, and therefore he shall at last be cast into a gulf of endless miseries. In a word, intemperance is a mother sin, a breeding sin ; it is a sin that is an inlet to all other sins ; we may call it ' Gad, for behold, a troop cometh,' Deut. xxxii. 17, 24. Oh the pride, the oppression, the cruelty, the security, the uncleanness, the filthiness, the profaneness that comes trooping after intemperance, Jer. v. 7-9. And therefore Aristotle concludes, that double punishments are due to drunkards ; first for their drunkenness, and then for other sins committed in and by their drunkenness. Now seeing that intemperance and luxury is so great a sin, is it any wonder to' see divine justice turn the most glorious cities in the world into a ruinous heap, when this sin of in- temperance is rampant in the midst of them ? Ah, London ! London ! the intemj)erance and luxury that has been within and without thy walls, has brought the desolating judgment of fire upon thee, that has laid all thy gloiy in ashes and rubbish. How many great houses were there once within and without thy walls, that should have been public schools of piety and virtue, but were turned into mere nurseries of luxury and debaucliery ! How liave the rules of the Persian civility been forgotten in the midst of thee ! Est. i. 6, 7. How many within and without thy walls did make their belly their god, their kitchen their religion, their dresser their altar, and their cook their minister, whose whole felicity did lie in eating and drinking, whose bodies were as sponges, and whose throats were as open sepulcln-es to take in all precious liquors, and whose bellies were as graves to bury all God's creatures in ! And how have many men been forced to unman them- selves, either to please some, or to avoid the anger or wrath of others, or else to gain the honourable character of being a high boy, or of
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 69
one that was strong to drink among others, or to drink down others ! Oh the drunken matches that have been within and without thy walls, 0 London ! — the Lord has seen them, and been provoked by them to kindle a fire in the midst of thee. Luxury is a sin that never goes alone ; it hath many other great sins attending and waiting on it ; it is as the nave in the wheel, which turning about, all the spokes turn with it. Idleness, fighting, quarrelling, jewling,! whoring, cheating, stealing, robbing, are the handmaids that wait on luxury, Frov. xxiii. 29-33 ; and therefore no wonder if God has appeared in flames of fire against it. I have been the longer upon this head, because luxury, intemperance, is one of the great darling sins of our age and day ; it is grown to epidemical, not only in the city, but in the countries 2 also, and it is a very God-dishonouring, and a God-provoking, and a soul- damning, and a land-destroying sin : and oh that what I have writ might be so blessed as to put some effectual stop to those notorious public excesses and luxuries that have been and still are rampant in most parts of the land.
But now, beloved, this sin of luxury and intemperance I cannot charge with clear and full evidence upon the people of the Lord, that did truly fear him and sincerely serve him, whose habitations were once within or without the walls of London ; nay, this I know, that for this very sin among others, their souls did often mourn before the Lord in secret. And truly of such Christians that live and wallow in luxury and intemperance, if we compare their lives and Christ's laws together, I think we may confidently conclude, Aut hcec non est lex Christi, autnos non sumus Christiani : Either this is not Christianity, or we are not Christians. And thus Tertullian, Cyprian, Justin Martyr, and othei'S concluded against the luxurious and intemperate Christians of their times. Salvian ^ relates how the heathen did reproach such luxurious Christians, who by their lewd lives made the gospel of Christ to be a reproach : Where, said the heathen, is that good law which they do believe ? Where are those rules of godliness which they do learn ? They read the holy Gospel, and yet are unclean; they hear the apostles' writings, and yet are drunk ; they follow Christ, and yet disobey Christ ; they profess a holy law, and yet do lead impure lives. And Panormitan having read the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of Matthew, and comparing the loose and luxurious lives of Christians with those rules of Christ, concluded that either that was no gospel, or the people no Christians. The loose and luxurious lives of many Christians was, as Lactantius declares, made by the heathen the re- proach of Christ himself: Quomodo bonus magister cuhts tarn 2oravos videmus discipidos ? — How can we think the master to be good whose disciples we see to be so bad ? Epiphanius saith that in his days many shunned the society of the Christians because of the looseness and luxuriousness of their lives. And Augustine confessed ^ that in his time the loose and luxurious lives of many who professed the Christian religion gave a great advantage to the Manichees to reproach