our destruction, if so plain and clear and unques-" tionable determination cannot fright us from this unworthy and devouring excess? And those men must be very ambitious to be damned, who make appointments, and meet to be drunk, that they may not be disappointed of the other. Nor can this desperate appetite consist but in a mind wholly possessed with contempt of Heaven, and all hope of salvation: and yet St Paul seems to resort to the old primitive punishment as the most like to prevent this last unavoidable one, to try if contempt and disdain can draw men from that which hell-fire cannot terrify them from: "And now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a drunkard, with such a one no, not to eat." To be a Christian and a drunkard was such a contradiction, to put off the man and retain the Christian was such a mockery, that he who affected it was not thought fit for any part of human society. It is not from original sin, or the corrupt nature of mankind, but from the corruption of their manners, from wicked and licentious education, that men are more afraid of any temporal disgrace, any present disadvantage, than of eternal punishment: they cannot be induced to believe that their lives are near an end, whilst they enjoy health and vigour of mind; and damnation is a thing so far off, and, as they believe, easy to be

compounded for in the last moment of life, besides. the putting it off by not thinking of it, that few. men displease themselves by any apprehension of it; and therefore it must be some present uneasiness, some incapacity upon earth as well as in Heaven, that must magisterially reform men from this noisome malady. If, as persons overgrown with the infection of leprosy, they be excluded from the courts of princes and the chambers of great men; if they were made incapable of any dignity or office, or of being admitted into the company of gentlemen, by a declared reproach upon all who shall presume to keep them company; if the observation and experience that men of excellent parts do, in few years, become fools by excessive drinking, could prevail with others to believe that they shall, from the same surfeits, be rendered inferior in their understanding to all who. are more temperate than they, and thereby grow. unfit as well as unworthy for those employments they pretend to; these castigations and these reflections might possibly make such impression upon the minds of those who are possessed with this. frenzy, together with a combination of all noble and generous persons against them, that this unchristian brutality, which dishonours all nations where it is permitted, would be rooted out, or confined to that abject sort of men, which, being abandoned

by their own lusts and excesses, are not looked upon as a noble part of any Christian nation, but ranked amongst the dregs of the people. And truly if such a collection were made and published, as very many men's own experience and observation can produce of the public mischief and ruin that hath befallen states in the discovery of counsels, and the lessening and alienating the affection and reverence that is due to the government, by this single vice of drunkenness; that hath befallen armies in having their quarters beaten up, their towns surprised, their forts betrayed, and the whole discipline which should preserve them dissolved by the pernicious excess of drink in the generals and principal officers; that hath befallen private families, in the quarrels, breach of friendship and murders, which have had no other original or foundation but drunkenness; men could not but conclude, that it is a sin that God is wonderfully offended with, and a scourge that he chastises all those with who are delighted in it, and would abhor both it and them proportionably; and that they can have no peace with God or man, who do not labour with all their faculties to drive it out and keep it out of their families, their towns and countries, with the same vigilance and severity as they use against the most devouring plague and pestilence that sweeps all before it.

It is too great an indulgence to this wickedness, it may be in some who are not guilty of it, and an evidence that they do not abhor it enough, to say that the natural temper and constitution of men is so different that wine works different effects in them; and that it hath such an insinuation into many, that it can as hardly be shut out as flattery can, and infuses its poison so subtilly that it hath wrought its effects before it be discerned or suspected, and therefore could very hardly be prevented; that the same excess which is visible in some men to the loss of their reason and other faculties, is not discernable in others, nor makes the least impression upon them; that it never produces any mischievous effect in many, and so cannot be, at least in the same degree, sinful in all men; and, lastly, that it is a part of conversation from which men cannot retire rudely; and they who are once entered into it, especially if it be with persons superior to themselves, and upon whom they have some dependence, can very hardly refuse to submit to the laws they prescribe for the present, or withdraw from that excess which they do not like, nor must presume to censure or contradict. It is great pity that our Saviour nor his disciples had not the foresight to discern these distinctions and casual obligations, that they might not so positively have shut out all transgressors, who may have so

reasonable excuses for the excesses they commit, from any hope of salvation; but it is much more pity that any men, who pretend to pay submission and obedience to his injunctions, and to believe and give credit to his dictates, should delude them selves and others with such vain and impious imaginations, and hope to avoid a judgment that is so unavoidably pronounced, by such weak excuses as cannot absolve men from the most trivial and lightest trespasses. Cannot he that wisely declines. walking upon the ice for fear of falling, though possibly it might carry him sooner to his journey's. end, as wisely forbear drinking more wine than is necessary, for fear of being drunk and the ill consequences thereof? Is there any man so intemperate as to drink to an excess, when his physician assures him it will increase his fever, though he hath a better excuse then from his thirst, or improve some other disease the strength whereof already threatens him with death? Can we be temperate that we may live a month the longer, which at best we cannot be sure of; and will not the fear. of eternal death make any impression upon us? There is not in the whole catalogue of vices to which mankind is liable, any one (swearing only excepted) that hath not more benefit as well as pleasure for its excuse and reward: the revengeful and malicious person finds some ease and ad