_Answ._ A beast may do so, that hath no higher faculty to guide him. And a man may take in the consideration of his thirst to guide his reason in judging of the due quantity and time; but not otherwise. A man must never drink to please his appetite, either against reason, or without it. And no man must so captivate his reason to sense, as to think that his appetite is his principal rule or guide herein; nor be so brutish as to know no otherwise what doth him good or hurt, but by his present feeling; sometimes true reason may tell a man, that thirst is a sign that drink is needful to his health, and then he may take it. Sometimes (and commonly with blockish people) pleasing a thirst may hurt their health, and they are so foolish that they do not know it; either because they are ignorant of such things, or because their appetite maketh them unwilling to believe it, till they feel it; and because they judge only by the present effects: so a man may kill himself with drinking cold drink in a heat, in some fevers, in a dropsy, a cough, cachexy, &c. And excess doth insensibly vitiate the blood, and heap up matter of many diseases which are incurable, before the sot will believe that drinking when he was thirsty did him any harm. If really it will do no harm, you may drink when you are thirsty (because it will do good). But if it will quench natural heat and hinder concoction, and breed diseases through unseasonableness, or ill quality, or excess, it is neither your thirst, nor your sottish ignorance of the hurt, that will excuse you from the sin, or prevent the coughs, stone, gout, cholic, swellings, palsies, agues, fevers, or death, which it will bring.
_Quest._ II. Is it not lawful to drink a health sometimes when it would be ill-taken to refuse it, or to be uncovered while others drink it?
_Answ._ Distinguish between, 1. Drinking measurably as you need it, and unmeasurably when you need it not. 2. Between the foreseen effects; and doing it ordinarily, or when it will do hurt, or extraordinarily, when it will more prevent hurt. And so I conclude,
1. It is unlawful to drink more than is good for your health, by the provocation of other men.
2. It is unlawful to do that which tempteth and encourageth others to drink too much. And so doth the custom of pledging healths, especially when it is taken for a crime to deny it.
3. Therefore the ordinary pledging or drinking of such healths is unlawful, because it is the scandalous hardening of others in their sin unto their ruin.
4. But if we fall in among such furious beasts as would stab a man if he did not drink a health, it is lawful to do it to save one's life, as it is to give a thief my purse; because it is a sin not simply evil of itself to drink that cup, but by accident, which a greater accident may preponderate.
5. Therefore any other accident beside the saving of your life, which will really preponderate the hurtful accident, may make it lawful; as possibly in some cases and companies the offence given by denying it may be such as will do more hurt far, than yielding would do. (As if a malignant company would lay one's loyalty to the king upon it, &c.)
6. Christian prudence therefore (without carnal compliance) must be always the present decider of the case, by comparing the good and evil effects.
7. To be bare when others lay the honour of the king or superiors upon it, is a ceremony that on the aforesaid reason may be complied with.
8. When to avoid a greater evil we are extraordinarily put on any such ceremony, it is meet that we join such words (where we have liberty) as may prevent the scandal, or hardening any present in sin.
9. And it is a duty to avoid the company which will put us upon such inconveniences, as far as our calling will allow us.
V. But because it is the drunkard's heart or will that needs persuasion, more than his understanding needs direction, I shall before the directions yet endeavour his fuller conviction, if he will but read, and consider soberly, (if ever he be sober,) these following questions, and not leave them till he answer them to the satisfaction of his own conscience.
_Quest._ I. Dost thou know that thou art a man? and what a man is? Dost thou know that reason differenceth him from a beast that is ruled by appetite and hath no reason? If thou do, let thy reason do its office, and do not drown it, or set the beast above it.