vinegar. But in this circumftance moderation is to be reckoned in proportion to the prefent Customs, to the company, to education, and the judgment of honeft and wife perfons, and the neceffities of na

ture.

:

4. Eat not too much load neither thy ftomach nor thy understanding. If thou fit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and fay not there is much meat on it. Remember that a wicked eye is an evil thing: and what is created more wicked than an eye? Therefore it weepeth upon every occafion: Stretch not thy hand whither foever it looketh, and thrust it with him into the difh. A very little is fufficient for a Man well nurtured, and he fetches not his wind short upon his bed.

Signs and Effects of Temperance.

We fhall beft know that we have the grace of Temperance by the following figns, which are as fo many arguments to engage us alfo upon its ftudy and practice.

Cicero vocat Temperantiam ornatum vitæ, in quo decorum illud & honeftum fitum eft.

*

1. A temperate man is modeft: greediness is unmannerly and rude. And this is intimated in the advice of the Son of Sirach, When thou fitteft amongst many, reach not thy hand out first of all: Leave off first for manners fake, and be not infatiable, left thou offend. 2. Temperance is accompanied with gravity of deportment: greediness is garish, and rejoyces loolly at the fight of dainties. 3. Sound, but moderate fleep is its fign and its effect. Sound fleep cometh of moderate eating, he rifeth early and his wits are with him. * 4. A fpiritual joy and a devout prayer. * 5. A fuppreffed and feldom anger. *6. A command of our thoughts and paffions. 7. A feldom returning, and a never-prevailing temptation. 8. To which add, that a temperate perfon is not curious of fancies and delicioufnefs. He thinks not much, and speaks not often of meat and drink; hath a healthful body and long life unless it be hindred by fome other accident: whereas to gluttony, the pain of watching and choler, the pangs

*

of

of the belly, are continual company. And therefore Stratonicus faid handfomely concerning the luxury of

the Rhodians. They built hou es as if they were Plutarch. de immortal, but they feasted as if they meant to live cupid, divit. "but a little while." And Antipater by his reproach of the old glutton Demades well expreffed the bafeness of this fin, faying that Demades now old, and always a glutton, was like a spent Sacrifice, nothing left of him but his belly and his tongue, all the man befides is gone.

Of Drunkenness.

But I defire that it be obferved, that because intemperance in eating is not fo foon perceived by others as immoderate drinking, and the outward visible effects of it are not either fo notorious or fo ridiculous, therefore Gluttony is not of fo great difreputation amongst men as Drunkenness: yet according to its degree it puts on the greatness of the fin before God, and is most strictly to be attended to, left we be surprised by our fecurity and want of diligence, and the intemperance is alike criminal in both, according as the affections are either to the meat or drinks. Gluttony is more uncharitable to the body, and drunkennefs to the foul or the understanding part of man; and therefore in Scripture is more frequently forbid den and declaimed against than the other and Sobriety hath by use obtained to fignifie temperance in drinking.

Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderate that is befides or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the ufe of drink. The ends are digeftion of our meat, chearfulness and refreshment of our spirits, or any end of health; befides which if we go, or at any time beyond it, it is inordinate and criminal, it is the vice of drunkenness. It is forbidden by our Bleffed Luke 21, 34. Saviour in these words, [Take heed to your felves left at any time your hearts be overcharged with furfeiting and drunkenness. Surfeiting, that is the evil effects

the

Kpaswaan awo wpornpatas, aut d x otro worías. Schol. in Ariftoph. Idem ferè apud Plutarch. Vinolentia animi quandam remiffionem & levitatem, ebrietas futilitatem fignificat. Plutarch de Garrul.

the fottishness and remaining ftupidity of habitual, or of the last night's drunkenness. For Chrift forbids both the actual and habitual intemperance; not only the effect of it, but also the affection to it: for in both there is fin. He that drinks but little, if that little make him drunk, and if he know beforehand his own infirmity, is guilty of furfeiting,not of drunkennefs. But he that drinks much and is ftrong to bear it, and is not deprived of his reafon violently, is guilty of the fin of drunkenness. It is a fin not to prevent fuch uncharitable effects upon the body and understanding: And therefore a man that loves not the drink is guilty of furfeiting, if he doth not watch to prevent the evil effet: and it is a fin, and the greater of the two, inordinately to love or to use the Drink, though the furfeiting or violence do not follow. Good therefore is the counfel of the Son Eccluf. 31. of Syrach, shew not thy valiantnefs in wine, for wine bath deftroyed many.

25.

Prov. 23.29.

26.

Evil Confequents to Drunkenness.

The evils and fad confequents of drunkenness (the Eccluf, 31. confideration of which are as fo many arguments to avoid the fin) are to this sense reckoned by Writers of holy Scripture, and other wife perfonages of the world. I. It caufeth woes and mischief,wounds and forMulta fa row, fin and * fhame; it maketh bitterness of spirit, ciunt ebrii brawling and quarrelling, it increaseth rage and leffenque poftea eth ftrength, it maketh red eyes and a loose and babfubrios pudet. Seneca. ling tongue. 2. It particularly minifters to luft, and yet difables the body; fo that in effect it makes man wanton as a Satyr,and impotent as age. And Solomon in enumerating the evils of this vice adds this to the account, Thine eyes fhall behold strange women, and thy heart fball utter perverfe things: as if the Drunkard were only defire, and then impatient, muttering and enjoying like a eunuch embracing a woman. 3. It befots and hinders the actions of the understanding, ma

Prov. 23.33.

king a Man brutish in his Infani comes eft ira, contubernalis obrietas.

paffions, and a fool in his

Plutarch. -Corpus onuftum

Horat.

Hefternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat.

Senec.

reafon; and differs nothing from madness, but that it is voluntary, and fo Ebrietas eft voluntaria infania. is an equal evil in nature,and a worse in manners. 4. It takes off all the guards, and lets loofe the reins of all those evils to which a man is by his nature or by his evil customs inclined, and from which he is reftrained by reafon and severe principles. Drunkenness calls off the Watchmen from their towers; and then all the evils that can proceed from a loose heart, and an untied tongue, and a diffolute fpirit, and an unguarded, unlimited will, all that we may put upon the accounts of drunkenness. 5. It extinguisheth and quenches the Spirit of God, for no man can be filled with the Spirit of God and with Wine at the fame time. And therefore S. Paul makes them exclufive of each other: Eph. s. 18. Be not drunk with wine

wherein is excefs, but be fil- "Ous de trabui penindus, os te za! annue led with the Spirit. And B, fur gardér inn fund' atsipa ❤ng. fince Jofeph's cup was put

Homer.

into Benjamin's fack, no man had a divining goblet. 6. It opens all the fanctuaries of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the foul, all its weaknesses and follies; it multiplies fins and discovers them, it makes a man uncapable of being a private friend, or a publick Counfellor. 7. It taketh a man's foul into flavery Prov. 31. and imprisonment more than any Vice whatsoever, us because it difarms a man of all his reafon and his . "O Midian, ä! wisdom whereby he might be cured: and therefore x s commonly it grows upon him with age; a Drunkard ** ** ****. being still more a fool and lefs a man: I need not Philem. add any fad examples, fince all ftory and all ages have too many of them. Amnon was flain by his brother Abfalom when he was warm and high with Wine. Simon the High Prieft and two of his Sons were flain by their brother at a drunken feaft. Holofernes was drunk when Judith flew him: and all the great things that Daniel fpake of Alexander were drowned with a furfeit Alexandrum tia bibendi & ille Herculanus ac fatalis fcyphus perdidit.

of

intemperan

of one night's intemperance; and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot are upon record to eternal ages, that in thofe early inftances, and righteous perfons, and lefs criminal drunkennefs than is that of Chriftians in this period of the world, God might thew that very great evils are prepared to punish this vice; no less than fhame and flavery, and inceft; the first upon Noah, the fecond upon one of his Sons, and the third in the perfon of Lot.

But if it be enquired concerning the periods and diftinct fignifications of this crime, and when a man is faid to be drunk; to this I anfwer, that drunkenness is in the fame manner to be judged as fickness: As every illness or violence done to health in evesy part ... of its continuance is a part or degree of fickness, fo is every going off from our natural and common temper and our ufual feverity of behaviour, a degree of drunkennefs. He is not only drunk that can drink no more; for few are fo: but he hath finned in a degree of drunkennels who hath done any thing towards it beyond his proper meafure. But its parts and periods are ufually thus reckoned. 1. Apith geftures. 2. Much talking. 3. Immoderate laughing. 4. Dulnefs of fenfe. 5. Scurrility, that is wanton, or jeering, or abufive language. 6. An useless understanding. 7. Stupid fleep. 8. Epilepfies, or fallings and reelings, and beaftly vomitings. The least of these, even when the tongue begins to be untied, is a degree of Drunkenness.

But that we may avoid the fin of Intemperance in meats and drinks, befides the former rules or meafures, thofe counfels alfo may be useful.

Rules for obtaining Temperance.

1. Be not often present at feasts, nor at all in diffolute company, when it may be avoided: for variety of pleasing objects fteals away the heart of man: and

. company