7. How base a price dost thou set upon thy Saviour and salvation, that wilt not forbear so much as a cup of drink for them! The smallness of the thing showeth the smallness of thy love to God, and the smallness of thy regard to his word and to thy soul. Is that loving God as God, when thou lovest a cup of drink better? Art thou not ashamed of thy hypocrisy, when thou sayest thou lovest God above all, when thou lovest him not so well as thy wine and ale? Surely he that loveth him not above ale, loveth him not above all! Thy choice showeth what thou lovest best, more certainly than thy tongue doth. It is the dish that a man greedily eateth of that he loveth, and not that which he commendeth but will not meddle with. God trieth men's love to him, by their keeping his commandments.[437] It was the aggravation of the first sin, that they would not deny so small a thing as the forbidden fruit, in obedience to God! And so it is of thine, that wilt not leave a forbidden cup for him! O miserable wretch! dost thou not know that thou canst not be Christ's disciple, if thou forsake not all for him, and hate not even thy life in comparison of him, and wouldst not rather die than forsake him? Luke xiv. 26, 33. And art thou like to lay down thy life for him that wilt not leave a cup of drink for him? Canst thou burn at a stake for him, that canst not leave an alehouse, or vain company, or excess for him? What a sentence of condemnation dost thou pass upon thyself! Wilt thou sell thy God and thy soul for so small a matter as a cup of drink? Never delude thyself to say, I hope I do not so, when thou knowest that God hath told thee in his word, that "drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God," 1 Cor. vi. 10. Nay, God hath commanded those that will come to heaven, to have no familiarity with thee upon earth; "no, not so much as to eat" with thee! 1 Cor. v. 11. Read what Christ himself saith, Matt. xxiv. 48-51, "But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and to drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Read Deut. xxix. 19, 20: If when thou "hearest the words of God's curse, thou bless thyself in thy heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst; the Lord will not spare that man, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against him, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven, and the Lord shall separate him to evil." Thou seest here how God will spice thy cups.
8. Thou art the shame of human nature:[438] thou representest man in the likeness of a beast, and worse; as if he were made but instead of a barrel or a sink: look on a drunkard filthing and spewing, and reeling and bawling, and see if he be not uglier than a brute! Thou art a shame to thy own reason, when thou showest the world, that it cannot so much as shut thy mouth, nor prevail with thee in so small a thing. Wrong not reason so much as to call thyself rational; and wrong not mankind so much as to call thyself a man: Non homo sed amphora, said one of Bonosus the drunken emperor when he was hanged: It is a barrel and not a man.
9. Thou destroyest that reason which is the glory of thy nature, and the natural part of the image of God upon thy mind. If thou shouldst deface the king's arms or image in any public place, and set in the stead of it the image of a dog, would it not be a traitorous contempt? how much worse is it to do thus by God! If thou didst mangle and deform thy body, it were less in this respect; for it is not thy body, but thy soul, that is made after the image of God: hath God given thee reason for such high and excellent ends and uses, and wilt thou dull it and drown it in obedience to thy throat? Thy reason is of higher value than thy house, or land, or money, and yet thou wilt not cast them away so easily! Had God made thee an idiot, or mad and lunatic, thy case had been to be pitied: but to make thyself mad, and despise thy manhood, deserveth punishment. It is the saying of Basil; Involuntary madness deserveth compassion, but voluntary madness, the sharpest whips. Prov. xix. 29, "Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the fool's back;" especially for the voluntary fool: he that will make himself a beast or a mad-man, should be used by others like a beast or a mad-man, whether he will or not.
10. Thou makest thyself unfit for any thing that is good. Oh how unfit art thou to read, or hear, or meditate on the word of God! how unfit to pray! how unfit to receive the holy sacrament! what a dreadful thing is it to think of a drunken man speaking to God in prayer![439] Thy best posture till thou art sober is to be asleep: for then thou dost least hurt, and thou art made uncapable of doing good; yea, and of receiving any good from others; thou art not so much as capable of reproof or counsel: he that should cast pearls before such a swine, and offer to speak to thee for the good of thy soul, would but dishonour the name and word of God. As it is said of a drunkard, that when one rebuked him, saying, Art thou not ashamed to be thus drunken, replied, Art thou not ashamed to talk to a man that is drunken? it is a shame to the man that would cure thee by reason, when thou hast thrown away thy reason. And if thou have but a merry cup, and thinkest thyself the fitter for thy duty, yea, if thou do it well, as to the outward appearance, as the principle is false and base, so thou deservest blame for casting thy work upon so great a hazard. As Sophocles said of an orator that wrote well when he was half drunken, Though he did it well, he did it ignorantly and in uncertainty; for thy levity weakeneth thy judgment, and thou dost the good thou dost but at a venture; as a passionate man may speak well, but it is unlikely and uncertain; and therefore no thanks to him that it fell not out to be worse.
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.
12. Lastly, Thou sinnest not alone, but temptest others with thee to perdition. It is the great crime of Jeroboam that he made Israel to sin. The judgment of God determineth those men to death, that not only do wickedness, "but have pleasure in them that do it," Rom. i. 32. And is not this thy case? Art thou not Satan's instrument to tempt others with thee to waste their time, and neglect their souls, and abuse God and his creatures? Yea, some of you glory in your shame, that you have drunk down your companions, and carried it away (the honour of a sponge or a tub, which can drink up or hold liquor as well as you). And what is that man worthy of, that would thus transform himself and others into such monsters of iniquity?
IV. Next let us hear the drunkard's excuses (for even drunkenness will pretend to reason, and men will not make themselves mad without an argument to justify it). I. Saith the tippler, I take no more than doth me good: you allow a man to eat as much as doth him good, and why not to drink as much? No man is fitter to judge this than I, for I am sure I feel it do me good.
Answ. What good dost thou mean, man? Doth it fit thee for holy thoughts, or words, or deeds? Doth it help thee to live well, or fit thee to die well? Art thou sure that it tendeth to the health of thy body? Thou canst not so say without the imputation of folly or self-conceitedness, when all the wise physicians in the world do hold the contrary. No, it doth as gluttony doth; it pleaseth thee in the drinking, but it filleth thy body with crudities and phlegm, and prepareth for many mortal sicknesses: it maketh thy body like grounds after a flood, that are covered with stinking slime; or like fenny lands that are drowned in water, and bear no fruit; or like grounds that have too much rain, that are dissolved to dirt, but are unfit for use. It maketh thee like a leaking ship, that must be pumped and emptied, or it will sink; if thou have not vomits or purges to empty thee, thou wilt quickly drown or suffocate thy life. As Basil saith, a drunkard is like a ship in a tempest, when all the goods are cast overboard to disburden it lest it sink. Physicians must pump thee, or disburden thee, or thou wilt be drowned; and all will not serve if thou hold on to fill it up again; for intemperance maketh most diseases uncurable. An historian speaketh of two physicians that differed in their prognostics about a patient; one forsook him as uncurable; the other undertook him as certainly curable; but when he came to his remedies, he prescribed him so strict abstinence as he would not undergo: and so they agreed in the issue; when one judged him uncurable because intemperate, and the other curable if he would be temperate. Thou that feelest the drink do thee good, dost little think how the devil hath a design in it, not only to have thy soul, but to have it quickly; that the mud-walls of thy body being washed down may not hold it long. And I must tell thee that thou hast cause to value a good physician for greater reasons than thy life, and art more beholden to him than many others; even that he may help to keep thy soul out of hell a little longer, to see "if God will give thee repentance," that thou "mayst escape out of the snare of the devil, who taketh thee captive at his will," 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26. As Ælian writeth of king Antigonus, that having great respect for Zeno the philosopher, he once met him when he was in drink, and embracing him, urged him to ask of him what he would, and bound himself with many oaths to give it him. Zeno thanked him, and the request he made to him was, that he would go home and vomit. To tell him that he more needed to be disburdened of his drink, than he himself did need his gifts. The truth is, the good that thou feelest the drink do thee is but the present pleasing of thy appetite, and tickling thy fantasy by the exhilarating vapours: and so the glutton, and the whoremonger, and every sensual wretch will say, that he feeleth it do him good; but God bless all sober men from such a good. So the gamester feeleth the sport do him good; but perhaps he is quickly made a beggar by it. It is reason and faith, and not thy appetite or present feeling, that must tell thee what and how much doth thee good.
Object. II. But I have heard some physicians say, that it is wholesome to be drunk sometimes.
Answ. None but some sot, that had first drank away his own understanding. I have known physicians that have been drunkards themselves, and they have been apt to plead for their own vice; but they quickly killed themselves, and all their skill could not save their lives from the effects of their own bestiality; even as the knowledge and doctrine of a wicked preacher will not save his soul, if he live contrary to his profession. And what if the vomiting of a drunkard did him some good with all the harm? Are there not easier, safer, lawfuller means enough to do the same good without the harm? He is a brute himself, and not a physician, that knoweth no better remedy than this. But thy conscience telleth thee, this is but a false excuse.