them, their eyes red and staring, cozened with a moist cloud, and abused by a doubled object, their tongues full of sponges, and their heads no wiser, he thought they were poisoned: and he had reason; for what malignant quality can be more venomous and hurtful to a man than the effect of an intemperate goblet and a full stomach? It poisons both the soul and body. He that tempts me to drink beyond my pleasure civilly invites me to a fever, and to lay aside my reason, as the Persian women did their garments and their modesty at the end of feasts; and all the question then will be, which is the worst evil, to refuse your uncivil kindness, or to suffer a violent head-ache, or to lay up heaps big enough for an English surfeit. Creon, in the tragedy, said well :

It is better for me to grieve thee, O stranger, or to be affronted by thee, than to be tormented by thy kindness the next day and the morrow after.'

A drunkard and a glutton feels the torments of a restless night, although he hath not killed a man: that is, just like murderers and persons of an affrighting conscience. So wakes the glutton, so broken and sick and disorderly are the slumbers of the drunkard but for the honour of his banquet he hath some ministers attending that he did not dream of, and in the midst of his loud laughter, “Pallor et genæ pendulæ, oculorum ulcera, tremulæ manus, furiales somni, inquies nocturna," as Pliny reckons them; Paleness and hanging cheeks, ulcers of the eyes, and trembling hands, dead or distracted sleeps: these speak aloud that to-day you eat and

drink, that to-morrow you may die, and die for

ever.

It is reported concerning Socrates, that when Athens was destroyed by the plague, he, in the midst of all the danger, escaped untouched by sickness, because, by a spare and severe diet, he had within him no tumult of disorderly humours, no factions in his blood, no loads of moisture prepared for charnel-houses, or the sickly hospitals; but a vigorous heat, and a well-proportioned radical moisture; he had enough for health and study, philosophy and religion, for the temples and the academy; but no superfluities to be spent in groans and sickly nights.

Certain it is that no man ever repented that he rose from the table sober, healthful, and with his wits about him but very many have repented that they sat so long till their bellies swelled, and their health, and their virtue, and their God is departed from them.

INTEMPERANCE IS THE NURSE OF VICE.

By faring deliciously every day, men become senseless of the evils of mankind, inapprehensive 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 thrist of widows.

INTEMPERANCE IS A PERFECT DESTRUCTION

OF WISDOM.

A FULL gorged belly never produced a sprightly mind. When the sun gives the sign to spread the tables, and intemperance brings in the messes, and drunkenness fills the bowls, then the man falls away, and leaves a beast in his room. A full meal is like Sisera's banquet, at the end of which there is a nail struck into the head.

THE RULES AND MEASURES OF TEMPERANCE.

EVERY drunkard clothes his head with a mighty scorn; and makes himself lower at that time than the meanest of his servants; 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, lisping with a full and spongy tongue, and an empty head, and a vain and foolish heart; so cheaply does he part with his honour for drink or loads of meat; for which honour he is ready to die rather than hear it to be disparaged by another; when himself destroys it as bubbles perish with the breath of children. Do not the laws of all wise nations mark the drunkard for a fool, with the meanest and most scornful punishment? and is there any thing in the world so foolish as a man that is drunk? but, good God! what an intolerable sorrow hath seized upon great portions of mankind, that this folly and madness should possess the greatest spirits and wittiest men, the best company, the most

sensible of the word honour, and the most jealous of losing the shadow, and the most careless of the thing! Is it not a horrid thing, that a wise or a crafty, a learned or a noble person should dishonour himself as a fool, destroy his body as a murderer, lessen his estate as a prodigal, disgrace every good cause that he can pretend to by his relation, and become an appellative of scorn, a scene of laughter or derision, and all for the reward of forgetfulness and madness? for there are in immoderate drinking no other pleasures.

I end with the saying of a wise man ;- "He is fit to sit 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 sit and feast with God, but reign together with him, and partake of his glorious kingdom."

THE SACRAMENT.

WE sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure; when it is observed by unskilful and fantastic travellers, it looks like a Centaur to some, and as a castle to others; some tell that they saw an army with banners, and it signifies war: but another, wiser than his fellow, says, it looks for all the world like a flock of sheep, and foretells plenty and all the while it is nothing but a shining cloud, by its own mobility, and the activity of a wind cast into a contingent and in

:

artificial shape. our religion, in which some espy strange things which God intended not, and others see not what God hath plainly told; some call that part of it a mystery which is none; and others think all of it nothing but a mere ceremony, and a sign; some say it signifies, and some say it effects; some say it is a sacrifice, and others call it a sacrament ; some schools of learning make it the instrument in the hand of God: others say that it is God himself in that instrument of grace.* *

So it is in this great mystery of

Since all societies of Christians pretend to the greatest esteem of this, above all the rights or external parts and ministeries of religion, it cannot be otherwise but that they will all speak honourable things of it, and suppose holy things to be in it, and great blessings one way or other to come by it; and it is contemptible only among the profane and the atheistical; all the innumerable differences which are in the discourses, and consequent practices relating to it, proceed from some common truths, and universal notions, and mysterious or inexplicable words, and tend all to reverential thoughts, and pious treatment of these rites and holy offices; and therefore it will not be impossible to find honey or wholesome dews upon all this variety of plants.+

Worthy Communicant, p. 6.

+ Ibid. p. 8.