vinegar. But in this circumstance moderation is to be reckoned in proportion to the present Customs, to the company, to education, and the judgment of honeft and wife persons, and the neceffities of na ture. 4. Eat not too much: load neither thy stomach 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 whitherfoever it looketh, and thrust it with him into the dish. A very little is sufficient for a Man well nurtured, and he fetches not his wind short upon his bed. Signs and Effects of Temperance. We shall best know that we have the grace of Temperance by the following signs, which are as fo many arguments to engage us also upon its study and practice. 1. A temperate man is modest: greediness is unmannerly and rude. And this is intimated in the advice of the Son of Sirach, When thou fittest among st many, reach not thy hand out first of all: Leave off first for manners Sake, and be not insatiable, left thou offend. 2. Temperance is accompanied ornatum vitæ, in quo decorum illud with gravity of deportment: greediness is garish, and rejoyces loofly at • Cicero vocat Temperantiam & honeftum fitum eft. * the fight of dainties. *3. Sound, but moderate fleep is its fign and its effect. Sound sleep cometh of moderate eating, be riseth early and his wits are with him. * 4. A fpiritual joy and a devout prayer. * 5. A fuppressed and seldom 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 person is not curious of fancies and deliciousness. He thinks not much, and speaks not often of meat and drink; hath a healthful body and long life unless it be hindred by some other accident: whereas to gluttony, the pain of watching and choler, the pangs of of the belly, are continual company. And therefore Stratonicus faid handsomely 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 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, all the man besides is gone. Of Drunkenness. But I defire 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 fo great disreputation 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, 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 foul or the understanding part of man; and therefore in Scripture is more frequently forbid den and dec'aimed against than the other: and Sobriety hath by use obtained to signifie temperance in drinking. Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderate that is besides or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the use of drink. The ends are digestion of our meat, chearfulness and refreshment of our spirits, or any 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 Luke 21, 34. Saviour in these words, [Take heed to your selves lest at any time your bearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. Surfeiting, that is the evil effects the 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 Κραιπάλη ἀπὸ προ τηραίας, aut ἀπὸ χθιζῆς οίνο ποσίας. Schol. in Ariftoph. Idem terè apud Plutarch. Vinolentia animi quandam remiffionem & levitatem, Plutarch de Garrul. ebrietas futilitatem fignificat. 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 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 effest: 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 Eccluf. 31. of Syrach, shew not thy valiantness in wine, for wine bath destroyed many. 25. Evil Confequents to Drunkenness. The evils and sad consequents of drunkenness (the Ecclus, 31. confideration 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. I. It causeth woes and mischief, wounds and for• Multa fa- row, fin and * shame; it maketh bitterness of spirit, ciunt ebrii brawling and quarrelling, it increaseth rage and lessenque poftea eth strength, it maketh red eyes and a loose and babdet. Seneca. ling tongue. 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: 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. 23.29. 26. fubrios pu Prov. 23.33. Infaniæ comes eft ira, contubernalis ebrietas. Ebrietas eft voluntaria infania. Plutarch. Corpus onuftum Horat. king a Man brutish in his paffions, 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 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 quenches the Spirit of God, for no man can be filled with the Spirit of God and with Wine at the same time. And therefore S. Paul makes them exclusive of each other: Eph. 5. 18. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excefs, but be fil- "Οινός σε τρώει μελιηδής, ὅε τι καὶ ἄλλε led with the Spirit. And Βλάπτει, δε αν μια χανδόν όλη μαδ' αίσιμα σίνα. fince Jofeph's cup was put Ουδείς δε ! into Benjamin's sack, no man had a divining goblet. 6. It opens all the sanctuaries of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the soul, all its weaknesses and follies; it multiplies fins and discovers them, it makes a man uncapable of being a private friend, or a publick Counsellor. 7. It taketh a man's foul into flavery Prov. 31. 4. and imprisonment more than any Vice whatsoever, Oudis because it difarms a man of all his reason and his σκοπής. Οσ wisdom whereby he might be cured: and therefore x λός commonly it grows upon him with age; a Drunkard πιπαι being still more a fool and less a man: I need not Philem. add any sad examples, since all story and all ages have too many of them. Amnon was slain by his brother Abfalom when he was warm and high with Wine. Simon the High Priest and two of his Sons were flain by their brother at a drunken feast. Holofernes was drunk when Judith flew him: and all the great things that Daniel spake of Alexander were drowned with a furfeit Alexandruma κέναι. intemperan tia bibendi & ille Herculanus ac fatalis scyphus perdidit. of 1 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 grea evils are prepared to punish this vice; no less than shame and flavery, and incest; the first upon Noah, the fecond upon one of his Sons, and the third in the person of Let. 1 Signs of Drunkenness. But if it be enquired concerning the periods and distinet significations of this crime, and when a man is faid to be drunk; to this I answer, that drunkenness is in the fame manner to be judged as sickness: As every illness or violence done to health in evesy part * of its continuance is a part or degree of fickness, so is every going off from our natural and common tem***per and our usual severity of behaviour, a degree of drunkennefs. 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. 1. Apith gestures. 2. Much talking. 3. Immoderate laughing. 4. Dulness of sense. 5. Scurrility, that is wanton, or jeerTing, or abusive language. 6. An useless understanding. 7. Stupid fleep. 8. Epilepfies, or fallings and reelings, and beastly vomitings. The least of these, even when the tongue begins to be untied, is a de gree of Drunkenness. 1. But that we may avoid the fin of Intemperance in meats and drinks, besides the former rules or meafures, those counsels also may be useful.. : Rules for obtaining Timperance. 1. Be not often present at feasts, nor at all in dissolute company, when it may be avoided: for variety *of pleasing objects steals away the heart of man: and company t |