always contingent, and is fo far from fatisfying, that it deftroys the appetite and capacity of pleasure. For he that feasts every day, feafts no day. And however men treat themselves, fometimes they will need to be refreshed beyond it. But what will they have for a feftival, whofe every day is a festival? Even a perpetual fulness will make them glad to feek pleasure from emptiness, and variety from poverty or an humble table.

Further Intemperance is the nurse of vice. It creates rage and anger, pride and fantastic principles. It makes the body a fea of humours, and thofe humours the feat of violence. By faring deliciously every day, men become fenfeless of the evils of mankind, inapprehenfive of the troubles of their brethren, unconcerned in the changes of the world, and the cries of the poor, the hunger of the fatherless, and the thirft of widows.

And it is a perfect deftruction of wisdom. A man that is wife in the morning, and fit for business, fhall by indulging his appetites,

render himself, before the even-tide, unfit for every honeft purpose; the man by degrees falls away, and leaves a beaft in his

room.

AND now, after all this, do but confider, what a strange madness, and prodigious folly, poffeffes many men, that they love to fwallow death and diseases and difhonour, with an appetite which no reason can restrain.

We expect that our fervants fhould not dare to touch, what we have forbidden. to them. We are watchful that our children should not swallow poisons and unwholfomẹ nourishment; we take care that they should be well mannered, and civil, and of fair demeanor. And we our felves defire to be, or at least to be accounted, wife; and would infinitely scorn to be called fools. And wę are fo great lovers of health; that we will buy it at any rate. And then for honour; it is that which the children of men purfue with paffion; it is one of the nobleft rewards of virtue, and the proper ornament of the wife and valiant.-And yet all thefe things are not valued or confidered, when

intemperance calls upon the man, to act a fcene of folly and madness, and unhealthinefs, and difhonour.

We

We do to God, what we would defire feverely to punish in our fervants. correct our children, for meddling with dangers, which themselves prefer before immortality. And tho' no And tho' no man thinks himself fit to be defpifed, yet he is willing to make himself a beast, a fot, and a ridiculous monkey, with the folly and vapours of liquor. And when he is high in drink or fancy, proud as a Grecian orator in the midst of popular applause, at the fame time he shall talk fuch unbecoming language, fuch mean low things, as may well become a changeling and a fool,

Every drunkard cloaths his head with a mighty scorn; and makes himself lower at that time, than the meaneft of his fervants. The boys can laugh at him, when he is led like a cripple, directed like a blind man, and speaks like an infant, imperfect noises, lifping with a faultering tongue, and an empty head, and a vain and foolish heart.

So cheaply does he part with his honour; for which he is ready to die, when it is disparaged by another, when himself deftroys it, as bubbles perish by the breath

of children.

Do not the laws of all wife nations mark the drunkard for a fool, with the meaneft and most scornful punishment? And is there any thing in the world fo foolifh, as a man that is drunk? But, good God! what an intolerable frenzy hath feized upon great portions of mankind, that this folly should poffefs the greateft fpirits, and the wifeft men, the best company, the most sensible of the word honour, the most jealous of lofing the fhadow, and the moft carelefs of the thing?

Is it not an horrid thing, that a wise, a learned, or a noble perfon, fhould dishonour himself as a fool, destroy his body as a murderer, leffen his eftate as a prodigal, difgrace every good caufe he is concerned in, and become an appellation of scorn, a scene of laughter and derifion; and all, for .the reward of forgetfulness and madness ?

-for there are in immoderate drinking no other pleasures.

I fhall conclude the whole with the faying of a wife man: He is fit to fit at the table of the Lord, and to feast with saints, who moderately uses the creatures which God hath given him ;-but he that despises even lawful pleasures, shall not only fit and feast with God, but reign together with him, and partake of his glorious kingdom for ever,

SERMON