When we see people _drunk_, or in a violent passion, we own they are so long in a state of delusion, thinking, saying, and doing irregular things, by the mere force of their blood and spirits. Here we all see the power of our bodies over our reason; and never suppose a man capable of judging or acting wisely, so long as he is under the violence of _passion_, or heated by _drink_.
Now this is more or less the constant, _natural_ state of all mankind; who are by bodily impressions, and the agitations of the blood and spirits, in the same kind of _delusion_, as men that are _drunk_, or in a _passion_, tho’ not always in the same degree.
Sometimes the disorder is more _violent_ than at others. But it never ceases. Men are always in some _passion_ or other; and this, even when it is not to that degree, as to be visible to others, yet occasions the same weakness of mind, the same disordered imagination, and the same wrong apprehension of the nature of things.
A _silent envy_, a _secret vanity_, which no body sees, disorders our judgments in the same manner as more _violent_ passions.
You may increase the _vanity_ or _envy_, till it end in distraction, as it sometimes happens. But then you may be sure, it disordered our understanding in some degree, long before it came to madness. All men therefore while, in a natural state, resemble those who are drunk, or in a violent passion; having some passion or other that affects their spirits and disorders their judgment, in the same manner tho’ not in the same degree.
XXX. *Another circumstance of drunkenness is this, that it gives us a taste peculiar to it, so as to leave a dulness and indisposition towards any thing else. An habitual drunkard has no pleasure like that confused heat of thoughts that arises from inflamed blood. The repeating this so often has given him a turn of mind that relishes nothing but what relates to intemperance.
Now this is naturally the state of all people, in some respect or other. There is something has got hold of them, and given them a taste for it, in the same manner that drinking has formed the taste of a drunkard. All people are not intemperate; but all are under some habit that affects the mind in the same manner as intemperance.
Some people have indulged themselves so long in _dressing_, others in _play_, others in _sports_ of the field, others only in little _gossiping stories_, that they are as much slaves to these, as the intemperate man to liquor.
Now we readily own, that a man who has enslaved himself to drinking, has thereby rendered himself incapable of being a _reasonable judge_ of other happiness; but then we do not enough consider, that we are hurt in the same manner by any thing else that has taken hold of us, and given us a temper and turn of mind peculiar to it.
It is to as little purpose to talk of the happiness of religion, to one that is fond of _dress_, or _play_ or _sports_, as to a drunkard; for the pleasures of these particular kinds, make him as deaf to all either proposals of happiness, and as incapable of judging of them.
*A lady abominates a _sot_, as a creature that has only the shape of a man: but then she does not consider, that perhaps, drunken as he is, he can be more content with the want of _liquor_, than she can with the want of _fine cloaths_. And if this be her case, she only differs from him, as one intemperate man differs from another.
Thus it appears, whether we consider the nature, circumstances or effects of drunkenness, that all mankind are more or less in the same state of weakness and disorder.
Hence also appears the absolute necessity of denying our natural tempers and inclinations, and giving ourselves up without reserve to the light and wisdom of God; since by our natural corruption and slavery to the body, we are always under the power of its blind motions, and since all our inclinations and judgments, are only the judgments of heated blood, drunken spirits and disordered passions.
XXXI. Every one sees people in the world, whom he takes to be incapable of _sober_ judgments and _wise_ reflections, because he sees they are full of themselves, blinded with prejudices, violent in their passions, wild and extravagant in their imaginations.
Now when we see these, we should reflect that we see ourselves; for we as certainly see a _true representation_ of ourselves, when we look at such people, as we see a true picture of our state when we see a man in the agonies of death.
You are not _dying_ as this man is; but still he shews you your own _true picture_. He shews you that your life is in the midst of death, that you have in you the seeds of sickness and mortality, and that you are only at a _little uncertain distance_ from those who are lying upon their last beds.