itors of their dues become enslaved to a sensual habit, and fascinated to dissolute company-are diverted from the duties of religion, or the business of your worldly calling-Awaken criminal desires and excite guilty passions-stupify your conscience, extinguish the sentiments of honor and banish the thoughts of futurity; you are chargeable with a criminal excess. Though the world, perhaps, will not stigmatize you as a drunkard, yet you are not far from that odious character. They who serve divers lusts and pleasures-they who are given to appetite-they who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink— they who tarry long at the wine, and go to seek mixed wine, they who rise up early that they may follow strong drink, and continue until night, till wine inflame them -in a word, they who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof, fall under the condemnation of scripture, as well as the atrocious drunkard. I proceed,

II. To represent the guilt and danger which attend the vice under consideration.

1. This is an ungrateful abuse to God's bounty.

God gives us all things richly to enjoy, and fills our hearts with food and gladness. He not only allows us necessary supplies, but indulges to us a thousand comforts. A rich variety of creatures he has put into our hands, some for our support, others for our delight, And shall we abuse to his dishonor the fruits of his beneficence, which are given to strengthen our faculties gladden our hearts and awaken our gratitude?

2. This vice divests the man of his native dignity, and sinks him, below the brutal herds.

"Wine takes away the heart"-the understanding, which constitutes the man. It is only reason and speech, which raise man above the animal tribes. While these powers are suspended, what is he better than they? Man, brutalized by intemperance, is really more despicable, than the native brute. The latter

obeys; the former contradicts the nature which God has given him. The one appears in his proper form; the other assumes a monstrous figure. His motions are wild his visage distorted, his conversation silly, his manners ridiculous. Could the drunkard in a sober hour have a view of himself, as he appears under the power of intoxication, and be persuaded, that this uncouth and antic figure is really himself, he would, un less shame is extinguished, blush to be seen. He would retire to obscurity, conscious of his fall from manhood.

3. This vice is injurious to the body, as well as mind.

It benumbs the senses, enervates the limbs, palls the appetite, breeds diseases, creates dangers and hastens death. "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; that go to seek mixed wine."

3. This consumes men's substance.

When we see one given to intemperance, we at once predict his poverty, and we trust him with caution. The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and be clothed with rags."

We think the man unhappy whose substance is destroyed by fire. More wretched is he, whose estate is consumed by his lust. If this man has any sensibility left, how must his conscience reproach him? How must the cries of a helpless family pierce him? How must the demands of his disappointed creditors confound him? With what shame must he reflect on the infamous exchange which he has made of a decent fortune for a transient pleasure? How must it gall him to see strangers in possession of the inheritance which he received from his father's industry, and has alienated by his own folly? How must it mortify him to think that he is changed from a man of reputable business, to a

miserable, reeling drunkard? And that they who once approached him with respect, now point at him with the finger of contempt ?

But this is not the worst of his case; for,

5. He has wasted his conscience as well as his substance.

Dead to the feelings of honor, the obligations of virtue, and the apprehensions of futurity, he proceeds in his guilty course, without fear or restraint.

Ye, who have addicted yourselves to pleasure and gaming, to dissolute company, and the free use of strong drink, inquire, whether you cannot perceive some unhappy effects of your indulgence. Is not the love of these sensual objects growing upon you, and gaining a more absolute dominion over you? Are you not more indifferent about the concerns of immortality, than you were formerly ?-Is not your conscience more unfeeling to guilt, and less apt to rebuke your unworthy conduct?-Are you not more negligent in attending the duties of the closet, the family and the sanctuary? Are you not more disposed to make light of religion, to cavil at the scriptures and to despise reproof?-Can you not more easily flatter yourselves with safety in a way of sin, and with a hope that the threatenings contained in the Bible will never be executed? Can you not remember the time, when you would have shuddered to hear those licentious opinions, which now you listen to with pleasure; and to think of such stupidity of soul, as you now really feel? Is this a just description of your state? Then inquire from what cause this increasing irreligion and impiety have proceeded. You need not be long in doubt. Your own experience, if you consult it, will confirm the truth of the scripture, which describes the sensual, as hating instruction, despising reproof, scoffing at religion, and flattering themselves, that they shall have peace, though they add drunkenness to thirst.

6. Intemperance generates other vices-impure lustings, angry passions, profane language, insolent manners, obstinacy of heart and contempt of reproof. "Look not upon the wine," says Solomon, "when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup; for thine eyes shall behold a strange woman, and thine heart shall utter perverse things; yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, thou shalt say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. 7. Intemperance has most lamentable effects on families.

It subverts order and government. How shall a man command his children and his household, when he has not reason and virtue enough to command himself? How shall he govern their actions, when he is enslaved to his own passions? If sometimes, in a serious frame, he inculcates on them the duties of religion, his shocking example defeats his good exhortations. The parent, who would be regarded in his station, must make his actions and instructions agree.

The government, which an intemperate man exercises, is too passionate and wanton, too unsteady and inconsistent to be revered. Government, to be efficacious, must be calm and rational.

What devotion can there be in a family, whose head is given to intemperance? He is often absent at the hours of prayer. If he is present, he is incapable of leading in the solemnity. His sensual habit renders him indifferent, and, by degrees, averse to the sacred exercise. You may doubtless recollect instances of the discontinuance of family worship from this unhappy cause. Some who have early begun, and for a time observed this important duty, falling into licentious connexions, have intermitted, and, at last, laid it aside.

This vice destroys domestic peace and tranquillity. The man addicted to it, grows factious, peevish and VOL. III.

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fretful. He falls out with his best friends, hastily condemns their innocent, and even their most prudent behavior, is deaf to reason, spurns restraint and resents advice. He considers as enemies those who seek his welfare, and mistakes their kind offices as tokens of hatred.

He makes all around him unhappy, and those the most so, who stand in the nearest relation. When he is absent, how anxious are they, lest he fall into temptation and a snare? What pain they feel, when he foams out his own shame? How they wish to conceal from the world the infamy which he betrays, and at which he cannot blush? When he returns from abroad, how fearful are they, lest he come charged with passion to be let out on his household?

This sin brings family distress. It begets negligence, interrupts business, slackens industry, obstructs education, and spreads discouragement and langour. While the intemperate householder is indulging himself abroad, his family at home are miserable for want of the comforts, which his labor should provide, and his frugality should preserve; and his children are running wild for want of parental wisdom and virtue to guide and restrain them.

8. The scripture abounds in the most solemn warn. ings against this sin.

"Woe to them," says the prophet, "who are mighty to drink wine-the harp and the viol, the tabret and the pipe are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of his hands." Our Savior cautions us, that "we be not at any time overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, lest the day of the Lord come upon us unawares." St. Paul says to the Romans, "Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." He says to the Thessalonians, "Ye are children of light and of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness; therefore let us