Drunkenness
DBUITKEinirESS.
elusion of this point, and show us briefly the chief causes of lying.
Theol. The chief causes of lying are these : custom, fear, covetousness, the devil.
Phil. What be the remedies ?
Theol. The remedies be these: disuse, godly boldness, contentment, earnest prayer.
DRUNKENNESS.
Phil. You have spoken enough of the vice of lying to cause aU such to abhor it and forsake it, as have any drop of grace, or spark of God's fear in them ; but as for them that are filthy, let them be more filthy.
Now, I pray you, speak your judgment of the seventh sign of condemnation, which is drunkenness.
Theol. It is so brutish and beastly a sin that a man would think it should not need to be spoken against; but that all reasonable men should even abhor it, and quake to think of it ; for it is a most swinish thing: it maketh of a man a beast ; it taketh away the heart of man from all goodness, as witnesseth the prophet Hosea, iv.
11, "Whoredom, wine, and new wine, take away their heart."
For what heart, what stomach, what appetite can whoremongers and drunkards have to any thing that is good? either to hear or read the word of God, or to pray or to meditate in the same?
Alas! they are far from it; far from God ; and far from all grace and goodness.
Therefore the prophet Joel saith, i.
5, "Awake ye drunkards; weep and howl ye drinkers of wine."
BRUKKENNESS.
Yea, the mighty Grod of heaven doth pronounce a woe against them, saying, Isa. v.
11, " Woe unto them that rise up early to follow drunkenness ; and to them that continue until night, till the wine do inflame them."
Our Lord Jesus himself giveth us a caveat to take heed of it, Luke xxi.
34, " Take heed, saith he, that your hearts he not overcome with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life ; and so that day come upon you unawares."
Thus you hear how hoth Christ himself, and sundry of the prophets, do thunder down from heaven against this gross beastliness which now aboundeth and reigneth amongst the sons of men.
PJiil. True indeed; but yet nothing will make men leave it, for it is a most rife and over-common vice.
We see many that think themselves somebodies, and as we say no small fools, which yet will be overtaken with it; and thereby lose all their credit and reputation with all wise men : yea, do prove themselves to be but swine and brute beasts, as the Holy Ghost avoucheth, saying, "Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging; whosoever is deceived therein is not wise," Prov. xx. 1.
Theol. The wise king, in the same book, doth most notably and fully describe unto us the inconveniences and mischiefs which do accompany drunkenness, and follow drunkards at the heels, "To whom is woe? to whom is sorrow? to whom is strife? to whom is babbling? to whom are wounds without cause? to whom is the redness of the eyes ?
Even to them that tarry long at the wine: to them that go and seek out mixed wine," Prov. xxiii. 29.
In the same chapter he saith, ver.
20, 21, " Be not of the number of
DBUKKBirSTESS.
them which are bibbers of wine, nor of them which glut themselves with flesh; for the drinker and the feaster shall become poor: and the sleeper shall be clothed with rags."
Moreover he saith, ver. 33, "Their eyes shall behold strange women :" and that "they shall be like him that lieth in the midst of the sea, and sleepeth on the top of the mast."
In all these speeches, the Holy Ghost doth, in most Hvely manner, describe imto us the properties of drunkards; even their staggering, their reeling, their snorting, their senseless sensuality.
Behold, then, what be the cursed fruits and events of drunkenness, even these which follow: woe, alas! grief, misery, beggary, poverty, shame, lusts, strife, babbling, brawling, fighting, quarrelling, surfeiting, sickness, diseases, swinish sleeping, security, and sensuality.
So then, I conclude that drunkenness is a vice more beseeming a hog than any reasonable man; and, as one saith, "It is the metropolitan city of all the province of vices."
Well, therefore, saith the heathen writer (Demosthenes), "When the wine is in, a man is as a running coach without a coachman."
Phil. Let us hear what executions have been done upon drunkards in former ages, that now men may learn to take heed by their examples.
Theol. Ammon, one of David's ungracious children, being drunk, was slain by his brother Absalom.
Benhadad, king of Syria, being drunk, was discomfitted by Ahab, king of Israel.
Elah, king of Israel, being drunk, was slain by Zimri his servant, and captain of his chariots; who also succeeded him in the kingdom.
Lot, being drunk, committed incest with his own daughters; and therefore was punished in his
DRUNKENNESS.
posterity.
Thus we see, what executions have been done, even upon kings, for this kind of sin.
Therefore, let man learn, once at last, to shun vice, and embrace virtue; and as the apostle saith, to make an end of their salvation in fear and trembling.
For all our shifts and starting holes will serve us to no purpose in the end: but when we have fisked* hither and thither, never so much, yet at the last we must be fain to be shut up in God's wrath.
Antil. What I pray you, do you make it so great a matter if a man be a little overtaken with drink, now and then?
There is no man but he hath his faults : and the best of us all may be amended.
If neighbours meet together, now and then, at the ale-house, and play a game at maw, for a pot of ale, meaning no hurt, I take it to be good fellowship, and a good means to increase love amongst neighbours, and not so heinous a thing as you make it.
Tkeol. I see you would fain make fair weather of it, and smooth over the matter with sweet words, as though there were no such great evil ; but howsoever you mince it, and blanch in it it over, yet the apostle saith flatly, "That drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God,"
1 Cor. vi. 10.
I think this one sentence is enough to amaze and strike through the hearts of all drunkards in the world: for it is as much in effect, as if the apostle had said, all drunkards are notorious reprobates, and hell-hounds branded of Satan, and devoted to perpetual destruction and damnation ; but you say you mean no hurt.
I answer, whatsoever you mean, yoiu' actions are * Run about carelessly, here and there.
DEXnTEElTNlBSS.
naught, and your fellowship as had ; for what good meaning can yon have? or what good fellowship call you it, for poor labouring men, artificers, and such like, to sit idly aU the day long in taverns and ale-houses, mis-spending their time and their money in gaming, rioting, swearing, staring, swiUing, embezzling, bibbing, brawling, and brabbling? There is no true fellowship in it : it is mere impiety ; if we may call it impiety, for poor men to five idly, dissolutely, neglecting their callings, while their poor wives and children sit crying at home for bread, being ready to starve, to beg, or to steal.
I pray you speak your conscience, what good fellowship is there in this?
Antil. Yet, for all that, there be some which abstain from ale-houses, and yet are as bad as any other; for they will backbite and slander their neighbours: they will do them a shrewd turn as soon as any other: they are envious, they censure los, and disdain our company: yet we think ourselves as good as they, for all their shews of holiness.
Theol. You speak more than you know, or can justify, against some better than yourself; but, if it were so, you should but justify one sin by another—a lesser by a greater; which is to no purpose.
Antil. Wm you then condemn all good fellowship?
Theol. No, no; I do greatly allow godly and Christian fellowship; and acknowledge it to be one of the chiefest comforts we have in the world.
I know we are commanded to love brotherly fellowship; but as for your pot-companionslup, I hate it, and abhor it; for it is written, " He that foUoweth the idle shall he filled with pover-