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vantage from having brought some signal misfor tune upon his enemy; others will be more wary how they displease and provoke him: the covetous man is a great gainer by his pursuit, and is able, if he were willing, to do much good with what he hath gotten ill the lustful person finds ease, by having quenched or rather allayed a fire that burned him, and which a sudden reflection or sharp animadversion could not extinguish. The drunkard only hath none of these pretences for his excess, none of these deceitful pleasures in the exercise of it; no man was ever drunk to quench his thirst, or found other delight in it than in becoming less a man than God hath made him; which must be a horrible deformity, and disguise him from the knowledge of God. They who can perform the office of strong beasts, in carrying more drink than others can, should be put to carry it the same way they do, which would be much more innocent; and their strength doth but deceive them, and decays to all noble purposes, when it seems exalted in that base and servile work. Besides, it may be the guilt of his weak companion, who falls sooner under his hand, is inferior, how penal soever, to his who triumphs in his brutish unwounded conquest, and believes he is less drunk, because he is not so much dead. They who apply their power and quality to the propagation of this unmanly and

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unruly licence, and draw men from obeying or considering Heaven, to please them, are fit to be degraded from that qualification they so disho nourably prostitute, and to be condemned to that conversation they so much affect; and they, who out of modesty and good manners, out of gratitude and obedience, are disposed to submit to those commands, ought well to consider, that they do at the same time renounce their Christian liberty, and enter into a servitude which hath no bounds or limits: for with what security or reason can he refuse to perform the lowest and the basest office that man shall require him, upon whose command he hath been content to be drunk? That he is not a pandar, that he is not an assassinator, that he is not a rebel, is not to be imputed to any restraint in or from his own conscience, but to the temper and constitution of his patron, which doth not invite him to those debaucheries; for to say that honour and the law make those much more penal than the other, so that his commands can more easily be disputed and contradicted in those cases, is no excuse; for where the conscience lies waste, and all regard to God's law is rejected, obedience to the law of man is no otherwise retained than in order to prevent discovery; and where the penalty may be declined or eluded, the impiety makes no impression: so that he who hath barefaced, and upon deliberation,

violated any one of God's express commandments, hath given earnest to the devil that he will break any of the rest, when the like opportunity and convenience shall be offered.

It is yet much more wonderful that there should be any Christian government, in which there are no laws established to punish this damnable sin; and that there should be such a compassion for it, that the same crime, even homicide itself, that is committed by a sober man is punishable with death, should not be penal to a man that is in drink as if the guilt of one sin should be absolved · by the being guilty of another; and that, when under the law, drunkenness was punished with death, under the gospel it should excuse a mur-/ derer from death, who by the law and the gospel. ought not to be suffered to live; that a circumstance of high aggravation should be applied to the mitigation of a censure, that ought to be the more severe; nay, even to constitute such an innocence as is not worthy of a censure. The philosopher can assure us, Non facit ebrietas vitia, sed protrahit, drunkenness doth but produce and manifest the malice that lay concealed, creates it not;, Vis vini quicquid mali latebat emergit, wine infuses no ill desires, it only makes those appear which lay hid; it publishes what the heart hath entertained, and makes vice more impudent that was as mischievous before the licentious person doth then

that in the streets which he doth at other times in his chamber; and because he upbraids justice aloud and provokes it, he must be unchastised, and only admonished that he be more wary in his excesses. What is this but to cherish and foment an abomination, against which no less judgment than that of hell-fire is denounced? There is not in the whole body of the civil law one text that declares drunkenness to be a crime, or that provides a punishment. for it; on the contrary, Ebriis quandoque venia dari solet, derelinquentibus, tanquam sepultis, et nescientibus, pardon is rather given to such offenders, as to persons buried, and not knowing what they do and Calvin says expressly, Jure nostro pana minuitur, quod in ebrio dolus abesse putetur; it is the privilege of a drunkard to be less punished than other men, because he is supposed to mean no harm. And that we may not impute this mon strous indulgence to the easiness and corruption of the judges, the Digests have an express text, (Li. 49. Titu. 16.) per vinum et lasciviam lapsis. capitalis pœna remittenda est, a capital punishment must not be inflicted upon those who are criminal through wine or lust: which must be an excellent law to govern nations by. And yet the latter may seem to be more excusable than the former, since it may proceed from the impulsion of nature; whereas the other is affectedly and industriously

entered upon with the nauseating and aversion of nature, and is purely the effect of a malicious ap- petite and wantonness. What shall we say then to that which is most horrible, that in any Christian country it should not be looked upon as a sin, as an offence that needs God's forgiveness? In Germany, they are not obliged to confess being drunk, as if sobriety were a Christian virtue inconsistent with the health and temper of the nation, and the contrary necessary to be dispensed with for the public good and benefit. We may surely say, that Christianity hath not done its perfect work in that country, how catholic soever it is; that whereever that sin is permitted, Christ is not sufficiently preached; and where it is cherished and countenanced, neither his apostles or himself are credited or believed; that no integrity of opinion can absolve the guilt of that practice; and we may as reasonably presume of salvation upon the faith of the Alcoran, as with the exercise of this brutish sin, against which damnation is so positively denoun ced.

OF ENVY.

Montpellier, 1670.

IF envy, like anger, did not burn itself in its own fire, and consume and destroy those persons

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