whereas to gluttony, the pain of watching and choler, the pangs of the belly, are continual company. And therefore Stratonicus said handsomely concerning the luxury of the Rhodians: "They built houses as if they were immortal, but they feasted as if they meant to live but a little while *." And Antipater by his reproach of the old glutton Demades, well expressed the baseness of this sin, saying that Demades now old, and always a glutton, was like a spent sacrifice, nothing left of him but his belly and his tongue, alk the man besides is gone. Of Drunkenness. But I desire that it be observed, that because intemperance in eating is not so soon perceived by others as immoderate drinking, and the outward visible effects of it are not either so notorious or so ridiculous, therefore gluttony is not of so great disreputation amongst men as drunkenness: yet according to its degree it puts on the greatness of the sin before God, and is most strictly to be attended to, lest we be surprised by our security 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 drunkenness to the soul or the understanding part of man: and therefore in scripture is more frequently forbidden and declaimed against than the other: and sobriety hath by use obtained to signify temperance in drinking. * Plutarch. de cupid. divit. Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderate that is besides or beyond that order of good given us the use of drink. or any things for which God hath The ends are, digestion of our nor meat, chearfulness and refreshment of our spirits, end of health; besides 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 blessed Saviour in these words: Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. (Luke xxi. 34.) Surfeiting, that is the evil effects the sottishness and remaining stupidity of habitual, or of the last night's drunkenness. For Christ forbids both the actual and habitual intemperance: not only the effect of it, but also the affection to it for in both there is sin. He that drinks but little, if that little make him drunk, and if he know before-hand his own infirmity, is guilty of surfeiting, not of drunkenness. But he that drinks much and is strong to bear it, and is not deprived of his reason violently, is guilty of the sin of drunkenness. It is a sin not to prevent such uncharitable effects upon the body and understanding: and therefore a man that loves not the drink is guilty of surfeiting, if he doth not watch to prevent the evil effect: and it is a sin, and the greater of the two, inordinately to love or to use the drink, though the surfeiting or violence do not follow. Good therefore is the counsel of the son of Sirach, Shew not thyself valiant in wine, for wine hath destroyed many. (Ecclus. xxxi. 25.) Evil Consequents to Drunkenness. The evil and sad consequents of drunkenness (the consideration of which are as so many arguments to avoid the sin) are to this sense reckoned by writers of holy scripture, and other wise personages of the world. 1. It causeth woes and mischief, wounds and sorrow, sin and * shame; it maketh bitterness of spirit, brawling and quarrelling; it increaseth rage and lesseneth strength; it maketh red eyes and a loose and babbling tongue (Prov. xxiii. 29. Ecclus. xxxi. 26). 2. It particularly ministers to lust, and yet disables the body; so 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 shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things (Prov. xxiii. 33): as if the drunkard were only desire, and then impatient, muttering and enjoying like a eunuch embracing a woman. 3. It besots and hinders the actions of the understanding, making a man brutish in his passions, and a fool in his reason; and differs nothing from madness, but that it is voluntary and so is an equal evil in nature, and a worse in manners. 4. It takes off all the guards, and lets loose the reins of all those evils to which a * Multa faciunt ebrii quæ postea sobrios pudet. Seneca. Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat. Horat. Ebrietas est voluntaria insania. No. 4. Seneca. M man is by his nature or by his evil customs inclined, and from which he is restrained by reason 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 dissolute spirit, and an unguarded, unlimited will, all that we may put upon the accounts of drunkenness. 5. It extinguisheth and quencheth the Spirit of God, for no man can be filled with the Spirit of God and with wine at the same time. And therefore St. Paul makes them exclusive of each other: Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. (Eph. v. 18). And since Joseph's cup was put into Benjamin's sack, no man had a divining goblet. 6. It opens all the sancturies of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the soul, all its weaknesses and follies: it multiplies sins and discovers them; it makes a inan incapable of being a private friend, or a public counsellor. 7. It taketh a man's soul into slavery and imprisonment more than any vice whatsoever, because it disarms a man of all his reason, and his wisdom whereby he might be cured (Prov. xxxi. 4); and therefore commonly it grows upon him with age; a drunkard being still more a fool and less a man: I need not add any sad examples, since all story and all ages have too many of them. Amnon was slain by his brother Absolom when he was warm and high with wine. Simon, the High Priest, and two of his sons were slain by their brother at a drunken feast. Holofernes was drunk when Judith slew him and all the great things that Daniel spake of Alexander were drowned with a surfeit of one night's intemperance *: and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot are upon record to eternal ages, that in those early instances, and righteous persons, and less criminal drunkenness than is that of Christians in this period of the world, God might shew that very great evils are prepared to punish this vice; no less than shame and slavery, and incest; the first upon Noah, the second upon one of his sons, and the third in the person of Lot. Signs of Drunkenness. But if it be inquired concerning the periods and distinct significations of this crime, and when a man is said to be drunk; to this I answer, that drunkenness is in the same manner to be judged as sickness : as every illness or violence done to health in every part of its continuance is a part or degree of sickness, so is every going off from our natural and common temper and our usual severity of behaviour, a degree of drunkenness. He is not only drunk that can drink no more; for few are so: but he hath sinned in a degree of drunkenness who hath done any thing towards it beyond his proper measure. But its parts. and periods are usually thus reckoned. gestures. 2. Much talking. 3. Immoderate laughing. 4. Dulness of sense. 5. Scurrility, that is, wanton, or jeering, or abusive language. 6. An use 1. Apeish * Alexandrum intemperantia bibendi et ille Herculanus ac fatalis scyphus perdidit. |