Part 582

Thou disposest thyself to almost every sin.[440] Drunkenness breaketh every one of the commandments, by disposing men to break them all. It disableth them to the duties of the first commandment above all, viz. to know God, and believe, and trust, and love him: it utterly unfitteth men for the holy worship required in the second commandment, as I have showed: he that hateth the guilt of former sin, in his worshippers, hateth present wickedness much more. Prov. xxi. 27, "The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind." Idolatry, and wantonness, and excess in eating and drinking, usually dispose to one another. See 1 Cor. x. 7. Sacrifices of mirth and joviality, and gluttony and drunkenness, are fit for idols and devils, but unfit for God! And therefore commonly we find that it is the drunkards and riotous people in every town, that are the great enemies to the preaching of the gospel, and to all holy exercises, and to all that fear God, and will not be as mad as they: when there is a sacrifice to be offered to Bacchus, and any merry meeting where potting and feasting, and dancing and roaring, is to be the game, there it is that the ministers and servants of Christ are slandered, and scorned, and railed at.[441] There it is that hellish reproach of godliness, like the devil's cannons, are let fly without control (though through God's mercy they have more powder than bullet, and do little execution). There it is that the devil sitteth as president in his council, plotting what to do against the people and ways of Christ. And though it be drunken, sottish counsel, it is the fitter for his business; for it is a brutish thunderbolt that he hath to cast; a senseless, furious work that he hath to do; and no other instruments will serve his turn. He hath a plot to blow up the reputation and honour of serious godliness; but he that setteth fire to his train must withal blow up himself: and none is so fit for this work as a drunkard or a sensual sot: few others will venture to cast their own souls into the fire of hell, that they may procure a little stinking breath to be blown into the faces of the godly; few others would set their own houses on fire, that they may trouble God's servants by the smoke. Their very work is to do as those in Dan. iii. to cast the servants of Christ into those flames, which must devour those that cast them in, and must scarce touch a thread of the garments, or a hair of the head, of those for whom it was prepared:[442] and who would do this, that knew what he did, and were well in his wits? must he not be first made drunk that doth it? Also drunkenness disposeth you to swearing, and blaspheming, and perjury, and speaking contemptuously and unreverently of God, and to speak profanely and jestingly of the Scripture: and thus "fools make a mock of sin," Prov. xiv. 9. You are good for none of the holy exercises of the Lord's day: that is the day that you must defile with your filthy sin; the day in which God sendeth abroad his gracious invitations, and the devil his wicked incitations; in which God giveth most of his grace, and the devil infecteth most with sin; in which God is best served by his sincere ones, and the devil is most served by his impious ones.[443] And you dispose yourselves to sin against your governors: you have no hold of tongue or action when you are drunken. How many in their drunkenness have reproached and abused father and mother; and spoken treason against their king, or reviled magistrates and superiors; and perhaps attempted and done mischief as well as spoken it! If you are superiors, how unfit are you to judge or govern! Is it not lawful for any to appeal from you, as the woman did from Philip drunk to Philip sober? You will be apter to abuse your inferiors than well to govern them. Also drunkenness destroyeth civility, justice, and charity. It inflameth the mind with anger and rage; it teacheth the tongue to curse, and rail, and slander; it makes you unfaithful, and uncapable of keeping any secret, and ready to betray your chiefest friend, as being master neither of your mind, or tongue, or actions. Drunkenness hath made men commit many thousand murders; it hath caused many to murder themselves, and their nearest relations; many have been drowned by falling into the water, or broke their necks with falling from their horses, or died suddenly by the suffocation of nature. It draweth men to idleness, and taketh them off their lawful calling: it maketh a multitude of thieves, by breeding necessity, and imboldening to villany. It is a principal cause of lust and filthiness, and the great maintainer of whoredoms; and taketh away all shame, and fear, and wit, which should restrain men from this or any sin: what sin is it that a drunken man may not commit? no thanks to him that he forbeareth the greatest wickedness! Cities and kingdoms have been betrayed by drunkenness; many a drunken garrison hath let in the enemy. There is no confidence to be put in a drunken man; nor any mischief that he is secure from.