Justice and truth are two of the chief bands that preserve human society. If truth and justice perish from the earth, the sons of men would become like the savages of the wilderness, where the strong or the crafty animals prey upon the weak, the simple, and the innocent. The Lord God, the author of nature, is a God of justice, and he has written something of this law in the consciences of men. But the God of grace has given us much plainer rules for the practice of it, hath allured us to righteousness by sweeter motives, and hath guarded it by more awful and solemn terrors. These things have been the subject of the former discourse; and that we may, as far as possible, assist towards the rooting out injustice from the hearts and lives of christians, I have begun to point out some of the chief principles, or springs of it.
The first which I mentioned is covetousness, a vicious weed that grows in corrupt nature, and is fruitful of a thousand unrighteous actions.
I proceed now to the second, that is pride. When a person sets too high a value upon himself, and aggrandizes himself in his own esteem, he is ready to imagine that all things are due to him, and there is very little left to become due to his neighbour. The proud, as well as the covetous man, is full of self, and he forgets the command of love to his neighbour: He treats him as if he was not made of the same clay, and lives as though he were obliged to no duty to his fellow-creatures. This is evident in a variety of instances.
It is pride that forbids us to give due respect to those that are above us in the family, in the church, or in the civil state: And instead of paying the honours that are due to superiors, we are tempted to treat them with insolence and scorn. Many a father in our degenerate age, has found this unhappy effect of raising his children too soon and too high: And the mother has seen her sin, and felt it in her punishment, when she has cockered up her young offspring in pride, and thereby taught them to break the rules of justice, to slight all her authority, and make a scoff of that pre-eminence which God and nature have given her. The proud man is ready to say in his heart, “All that are around me ought to pay me respect, and do me justice,” while he is regardless of the respect due to others. “Let them carry it towards me as they ought, and I will carry it toward them as I please.”
It is pride that inclines us to throw a blot here and there upon the good name of our neighbour, and to blemish his reputation, lest he should outshine us. When some honourable mention is made of another person in our company, especially if it be one of our own sex, our own rank or degree in the world, do we not feel something rising within to lessen their honour, and to stain their character? It is through this vanity and ambition of mind, that we are tempted to defame and reproach our neighbour, and to rob him of his just honour among men, and we endeavour to build our own fame and credit upon the ruin of his. But it is a sandy, or rather an impious foundation; and the fame that is built upon such ground will never stand. Pride inclines us to assume more respect than is due to ourselves, and to take it away from our neighbour, even as covetousness tempts us to take more money to ourselves than is due, and to deprive our neighbour of it. Thus both of them are opposite to the sacred rule of justice; one to that justice which we owe to our neighbour’s estate, and the other to his good name.
But the evil influence of pride spreads farther also; for it teaches us to practise unrighteousness in matters of property: It instructs us in the methods of oppression, and inspires us with a wicked courage to practise it; Ps. lxxiii. 6, 7, 8. When pride compasses men as a chain, and they wear it as a golden ornament, then violence covers them as a garment; and though their eyes stand out with fatness, and they have more than heart could wish, yet they are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression. They gripe those that are poor, because they themselves are mighty. They refuse to pay the just demands of their neighbours, they speak loftily, and stand it out with them against all right and justice, because they are great in the world. It is the rule of justice to change places with our humble neighbour, and ask ourselves, what we should think due to us, if we were in his place. Or at least we should set ourselves and our neighbour upon the level, and consider what is just and right on both sides. But the heart of pride cannot bear such a rule, it exalts itself far above the level of mankind, and practises toward those that are around it with a superior insolence and injustice. Cursed pride, the first-born of hell! It seized our first parents and tempted them to aim at godhead, to practice injury to God himself, and assume a right to the fruit of the forbidden tree! Vile iniquity, that hath tainted all the seed of Adam! It is a haughty poison that was infused into our veins with the first sin; and where shall we find the son or daughter of Eve that is not infected with it? Blessed be the grace of God, wheresoever its dominion is broken, so that it does not break out into all the works of unrighteousness.
The third spring of injustice among men is profuseness and luxury. When persons affect to live in a manner above what their circumstances will afford, they are tempted to intrench upon the property of their neighbour, either by cheating or by violence.
It is the language of luxury, “I must indulge my appetite, my table must be furnished with a costly variety, and I must eat and drink with elegance, as is the modish phrase. I must treat my friends when they visit me, with fashionable entertainments; I must keep fine company, and make a figure in the world; I must appear in such an equipage as my neighbour allows himself, though he be ten times richer than I am. I must have many changes of raiment, for it is a mean and vulgar thing to appear too often in the same dress: My house must be furnished after the mode, and I must shine at home and abroad in silks or in silver; for I cannot bear the thought that such or such a one should out-shine and over-top me.” Then the patrimony is sold or mortgaged to raise present supplies, and the rich food and clothing, and luxurious expences of a twelve-month, devour and swallow up seven years income, or the gain of half their lives.
What remains then, when their own substance is not sufficient to supply their vanity, but that they make an inroad upon the property of their neighbour? They run deep into debt with the artificer and trader, and they never concern themselves how to make payment. The workman has built them palaces, instead of such common dwellings as their character requires, and the artificers of various kinds have furnished out their bravery of apparel or equipage: But the unhappy creditors are ready to starve in tattered raiment, through the oppression and injustice of their luxurious neighbour. And when they make a modest demand of what is due to them, they meet with nothing but a frown or a jest, and the reproachful names of saucy and impertinent. But, wo to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high;—for the stone shall cry out of the wall against the oppressor: The beam out of the timber shall answer it, and shall bear witness against unrighteousness; Hab. ii. 9, 11.
This is the crying guilt of many, and very commonly practised in this city, in greater or in less degrees; but perhaps the profuse wretch pursues a bolder course of injustice, and betakes himself to robbery and plunder: He lies at watch on the high-ways, he seizes and assaults the innocent traveller, and deprives him of his wealth and every thing valuable, in order to support his own wild and extravagant expences. Luxury must be fed, though justice be starved; and luxury must be clothed, though justice go naked.
My hearers perhaps will think themselves unconcerned in all this story, and take no share of conviction to themselves, nor do I know any of them to whom half this charge belongs. But let it be considered, that men do not usually rise to this degree of madness all at once. Unrighteousness has several steps and stages in its race; if we indulge our appetites, and spread our tables, or form our apparel or our furniture but a little beyond our income, if we once begin to admit such a manner of life and expence as exceeds our estate, in order to please our own sensual or vain inclinations, or to vie with our neighbours, we expose ourselves to most evident temptations of injustice, and lead our souls into sinful snares. “We cannot live frugally as our fathers did: The fashion is altered, and we must follow it, whether the purse can bear it or no.”
Hence arise the impetuous desires of hasty and extravagant gains by gaming, in order to recover what is lost by luxury. Men venture largely upon the turn of a dye, and defraud their honest creditors of their bread and life, to pay, what they call in their cant, the debts of honour. A wanton sort of justice and illegal equity! It is the luxurious fashion of life that hath filled our land with the itch of gaming; and if the turn of a wheel can entitle them to thousands, they despise the slow and tedious ways of supplying their wants by labour, business, or traffic. Thus honest industry is discouraged, and trade, which is the political life of our nation, lies groaning and expiring.
Hence proceeds the wicked custom of breaking promises to those that we deal with, and long delays of payment, till we imagine that the debt is cancelled, by being almost forgotten. A vain and criminal imagination! As though the daily increase of interest, and the patience of the creditor, could make the principal cease to be due! As though time, and unjust delay could pay debts without money.
Hence flows the unrighteous practice of borrowing without any design to pay, which is gross and shameful iniquity: I would hope none of the professors of religion have so far abandoned all sense of righteousness. Yet there are too many, who, when once they have borrowed, grow so careless and negligent of payment, that it brings a disgrace upon their profession, and a blot upon their character. Profuse and thoughtless sinners, who run in debt to every one that will trust them for the daily conveniencies of life! Though they have no reasonable prospect of paying, yet they ask their neighbour to lend, with a free and courageous countenance, and put a bold face upon their venturous iniquity, being too proud to let their poverty be known. But the God of justice beholds their crime, and writes their names down in his book among the unrighteous. Ps. xxxvii. 21. The wicked borroweth and payeth not again.
Hence it comes to pass that there are so many bankrupts in our days, even among the professors of strict religion: A shameful and ungodly practice, if it arise from luxury and profuseness, or from a careless neglect of their proper affairs! It was thought sufficient, in the days of our fathers, to deserve an expulsion from the church of Christ, unless they could evidently make it appear, that it was merely the unforeseen and frowning providences of God, they were reduced to this extremity.—There is many a man hath groaned away his latter years in poverty, and perhaps in a cold prison, and in most forlorn circumstances of life, by means of the profuseness of his youth: And he hath been taught to read the guilt of his luxury and injustice in a long and painful lesson.
But a profuse and sensual humour is not only the spring of unrighteousness among persons of better rank and circumstance in the world, but it tempts servants also to be unjust to their masters: They will now and then provide a treat for themselves and their friends; they must eat nicely, and drink to excess: And thus they waste their master’s substance. They must keep good company in the world, and now and then spend a licentious hour or two, while their just and reasonable service at home is neglected; and perhaps the purse of the master must pay for all.
Under the same head I may bring a charge of injustice against the careless and wasteful servant, who persuades himself that his master is rich enough, and therefore he is not solicitous to buy or sell, or manage any affairs for him to the best advantage. He permits the goods of his master to be wasted or embezzled, he grows liberal and generous at his master’s cost, and has no thought of the golden rule of our Saviour, to manage his master’s concerns with the same frugality and conduct, as he would expect a servant should do for him. But it is time I proceed to the next particular.
The fourth occasion of injustice, is sloth and idleness. For the slothful man is a brother to him that is a great waster; Prov. xviii. 9.
Whosoever wants the necessaries, or the conveniencies of life, is bound to obtain them by labour and diligence, if he is not possessed of them by any other methods of favourable providence. In the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread, was the command given to Adam, when he was turned out of paradise, and forfeited his property in the fruits of Eden. But when once a person gets an aversion to business, when he finds a pleasure in sauntering and trifles, and indulges idleness and a lazy life; then he is tempted to seek the supports and comforts of nature by some practices of unrighteousness. The slothful man will be clothed with rags, unless he procure better clothing by fraud or violence; Prov. xxiii. 21.
Hence it is that persons learn the art of stealing, and possess themselves of the goods or the money of their neighbour by thievery. They mark out the houses in the day, and break them up at midnight for plunder. They remove the ancient land-marks, to enlarge their own borders; they violently take away flocks, and feed upon them. They go forth to their unrighteous work in the morning, and rise betimes for a prey. They reap down the corn in their neighbour’s field, and the wicked gather the vintage. They cause the naked to lodge without cloathing, and take away the sheaf from the hungry. These are they that rebel against the light, they abide not in the paths thereof. Though God does not lay folly to them, nor punish their crimes by his immediate judgments, yet his eyes are upon their ways; Job xxiv. 2-23. And many times his providence brings their crimes to light, and they are punished for their iniquity by the sentence of the judge. O what a shame and scandal is it, that in a nation professing christianity, there should be such multitudes trained up to the pilfering trade, and educated for infamy, for transportation, and the gibbet!
There are others, whose hands refuse to labour, and whose temper of mind delights in idleness, but they venture not upon these bolder crimes; they learn other unrighteous arts of cheating and falsehood, and fall into the same evil practices, which I have just before described under the head of luxury. But when luxury, pride, and sloth join their forces together, the temptation to injustice becomes exceeding strong, and there are few who have power to resist it. Such was the unjust steward, whom our blessed Saviour represents in a parable, procuring himself a way of living by cheating his Lord: Luke xvi. 1, 2, 3, 4. He had wasted his master’s goods, and he was to be cashiered from his service: What shall I do, said he, I have not been used to work, I cannot dig; there is the sloth of the man: He had lived well in his stewardship, and was grown proud, to beg I am ashamed. Well, I can purloin no more of my Lord’s estate for myself, but I can do it for his debtors; I will cheat him in his accounts, and make all his debtors my friends, by cancelling a good part of their obligations, and then I shall get a livelihood amongst them. O that all such practices had been found no where but in parables!
Some that have been reduced to poverty by idleness, and have borrowed boldly what they could never pay, yet wipe their mouths, and think themselves innocent and righteous, because they have not a sufficiency to make payment: Whereas, in truth, it is their own sloth that makes them poor, and keeps them so. Some of these idle creatures waste their days in drowsiness and inactivity. “A little more sleep, a little more slumber, so poverty comes upon them like an armed man without resistance.” Others are a little more sprightly, and they spend their hours in an inquisitive impertinence, in public news and private slander, in searching and tatling of the affairs of other persons and their families, while they eat, and drink and live upon the labour of the diligent, and unjustly serve themselves out of the industry of their neighbour. So the worthless drone wastes the summer’s day in buzzing and trifling, he gads abroad, and wanders with idle flight; then he returns, and feeds upon the honey that the bee has gathered, and abuses the industry of a better animal.
St. Paul takes notice of this sort of people at Thessalonica who call themselves christians, and reproves them with just severity; We hear there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy bodies. Now them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread: For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work neither should he eat; 2 Thess. iii. 10, &c. And in his letter to the Ephesians, he exhorts the thief to diligence. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands, the thing which is good; and that not only for his own support, but that he may have to give to him that needeth; Eph. iv. 28. How little do those christians read their bibles! Or how little do they mind what the great apostle tells them! They profess they were never brought up to work, and give that answer roundly as a sufficient excuse for idleness: And therefore when they become poor and necessitous, they think it the duty of others to maintain them, without stretching out their hand for any thing but to beg and receive. They will apply themselves to no employment, though they are told their duty continually: Their pride, indolence, and sloth withhold them from labour, though they are called to it daily in the loudest language in which God now-a-days speaks to his creatures; and that is the voice of reason, of scripture, and of providence.
But there is another sort of sloth and idleness, that leads on to the practice of injustice too, and that is when men are busy in their trades, and the affairs of life, but seldom look into their accounts, or perhaps keep none at all: And thus they live upon the spend, and are utterly ignorant whether their income will support it. They eat and drink with daily chearfulness, and sleep sound upon their pillow, while they know not whether their food and raiment, and even the bed they rest on, be their own or no. Perhaps they have let their accounts run long behind, they are a little jealous of their circumstances, and then it is an unpleasant and tedious task to take a thorough review of them. By this means they run on venturing and heedless, till justice overtakes them, and ruin seizes them at once. Then they see what a shameful and cruel inroad they have made upon their neighbour’s property: They find then that they have fed and clothed themselves and their household out of their neighbour’s estate. What shall I say to persons of this character? Their souls are generally hardened on all sides against conviction, and it is with much difficulty they are ever brought to confess their own folly, their sloth and unrighteousness. Ask thyself, O man, O woman, ask thyself this short and solemn question, “Am I willing my neighbour should deal thus with me, and spend my substance for his daily support?”
Here let it be observed, that I would always except from this accusation such as are mere children and cannot work, or such as are aged, and past all ability of labour, such as are weak and sick, and rendered thereby utterly incapable of working, and such as seek work with honest diligence, and would be glad to be employed in any thing they can do, if they could find others to employ them. Some of these indigent and necessitous persons are in every city, and they seem to be marked out by providence as the proper objects of compassion and bounty, and are not to be blended with the slothful and idle creatures in the general charge of unrighteousness.
Fifthly, The next spring of injustice is malice and envy. This is the vilest of all, and the most like the devil; for it contrives mischief, and brings injury upon others, without seeking gain and advantage to self. This is a vile iniquity, and has a great deal of the spirit of cruelty and of hell in it, where ill-nature and spite reign and triumph.
Though envy and malice awaken and excite the sinner to acts of unrighteousness and violence, and tempt us to rob our neighbour of what is his due; yet these vicious principles aim more frequently to disturb the peace, or health, and good name of our neighbour, than to injure his estate. It is wrath and hatred that boils up the blood into fury and revenge, and moves us to smite our neighbour with the fist of wickedness; nor is the guilty passion allayed till it has practised mischief to his body, or his reputation, or his family, or to something that belongs to him. Hence proceed murders and death, and all the train of evils and injuries of the cruel and bloody kind. It was from this principle that Cain slew Abel his brother, that the sons of Jacob sold Joseph into slavery: It was from this principle that Sanballat and Tobiah joined their rage and their counsels against the Jews, that they might hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and endeavour to destroy the builders, and throw down the work; Neh. ii. 10.
I hope there are no examples of this flagrant injustice to be found among us who profess piety. But are there none of us guilty of some lesser injuries rising from the same principle? Are there none of us that indulge our tongues to backbite and slander, to make our neighbours look odious, or to make ourselves easy or merry? This is to play the madman, who casts abroad fire-brands, arrows, and death,—and saith, Am I not in sport? Prov. xxvi. 18, 19. Are there none of us that delight to teaze, and vex, and torture our neighbour by disagreeable speeches and sly reproach? Do we never envy and provoke one another, contrary to the apostle’s express prohibition? Gal. v. 26. Do we not take pleasure to repeat the things that make each other uneasy, in order to vent the gall within us, and scatter the venom upon our neighbour’s good name? This is malice and unrighteousness together; a complicated crime, which one would think should be abhorred by every christian, if one did not frequently see and feel the practice of it among the professors of the name of Christ. I might well compare such creatures to a wasp or hornet, who first teaze and disquiet us with their endless humming, and ere we can get rid of them, they fix their painful sting in our flesh; though neither the pain nor the teazing vexation they give us, can procure any conveniency to those peevish insects, those noisy animals of a little angry soul.
If we are poor, this evil humour tempts us to envy the riches of our neighbour, and we magnify and exalt them beyond the truth, that we may give some colour to our splenetic and uneasy carriage. If we are afflicted, or in pain, we envy the welfare and the ease of others, we enlarge our paraphrases upon their blessings, and blacken their character, that they may appear unworthy of such favours, and worthy of our indignation and envy. “When shall the time come, O Lord Jesus, thou king of righteousness, and king of peace, when shall that day appear, that Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah molest Ephraim? When shall it be that no ravenous beast shall come near Zion, and there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all thy holy mountain?”
The last spring of injustice that I shall mention, is unbelief, and distrust of the providence of God. When persons are in low circumstances, they are sometimes hurried by the power of this temptation to use sinful means in order to obtain what they want, or at least what they fancy they want for the comfortable support of life. The word of God has many engaging promises in it, to those who are diligent in their duty: Though the soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; yet the soul of the diligent shall be made fat: Prov. xiii. 4. It is the hand of a diligent man that maketh rich, for it hath the blessing of the Lord upon it. God can increase the handful of meal in the barrel, and lengthen out the stream of oil from the little cruse, that the debts of the widow may be paid thereby, and her family find provision; 1 Kings xvii. 12, 14. And even since the days of miracles have ceased, there are many christians who have lived by faith, and have found wonders of support, not much inferior to this ancient miracle.
But those who know not the way of living by faith, are too ready to indulge themselves in some little pilfering or cheating methods to procure a subsistence. Thus unbelief has a plain tendency to unrighteousness, but he that believeth shall not make haste; Is. xxviii. 16. He that believes the care of God toward his own people, and puts his trust in his Redeemer, who is Lord of all things, he that lives upon the covenant of God daily he shall not make haste to make himself rich, or to possess himself of the comforts of life by any methods of injustice; his faith and diligence shall be rewarded at least with daily bread.
And now having finished this subject, I must beg pardon of my reader for insisting so largely on those two virtues, justice and truth, in my text. But they are of so divine a necessity to make up the character of a christian, they are of so valuable importance to the glory of the gospel, and so shameful an inroad has been made upon them in various instances in our degenerate age, that I was willing to attempt something to retrieve this part of godliness: And O may the convincing and sanctifying Spirit of God attend it with his sacred influences, that those who are called by the sacred name of christian, may never bring a blemish upon it by deserving the characters of false and unjust!
[The Second Part of this Sermon.]
The next virtue mentioned in my text, is purity; whatsoever things are pure,—think on these things. The sense of this word αγνα in the Greek, is extended so far by some critics, as to include temperance in eating and drinking, as well as chastity and modesty in all our words and behaviour; and thus it signifies almost the same with sobriety, and implies a restraint upon all the excessive and irregular appetites that human nature is subject to. Under these two heads I shall treat of purity briefly, and shew under each of them how the light of nature, and how the gospel of Christ requires the practice of it.
I. Temperance in eating and drinking may be included in this command of purity, for we can hardly suppose the apostle omitted so necessary a virtue, and it is not mentioned at all, if it be not implied here. It is not beneath the doctrine of christianity to condescend to give rules about the most common affairs of human life, even food and raiment. It is a piece of impurity to imitate the swine, and to gorge ourselves beyond measure; to give up ourselves to fulfil every luscious appetite, and every luxurious inclination of the taste.
An indulgence of this sort of vice, what infinite disorders doth it bring upon mankind! If a man would read the character of a drunkard painted in very bright and proper colours, and receive the foulest ideas of it in the fairest oratory, he cannot find a better description than Prov. xxiii. 29-32. 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, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not therefore upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. Some men in our age well understand what Solomon here means. But at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. The pleasure will be attended with intolerable pain and mortal injury, when the excess of liquor shall work like so much venom poured into the veins, and cast thee into diseases as incurable as the biting of any serpent; it will do thee more mischief than an adder with all his poison. There are many that have felt the words of Solomon true, when their voluptuous sins have been dreadfully recompensed with ruin to their soul and body.
But the inspired writer dwells upon the loathsome subject, and bids us mark the particular effects of it: Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things; Prov. xxiii. 33. that is, says a learned paraphrast[30] upon the text, “thy thoughts will not only grow confused, and all things appear to thee otherwise than they are; but lustful and adulterous desires will be stirred up, which thou canst not rule, and thy mouth being without a bridle, will break forth into unseemly, nay, filthy, scurrilous, or, perhaps, blasphemous language, without respect to God or man.” Yea, thou shalt be, saith the wise man, as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast; ver. 34. that is, “Thou wilt sottishly run thyself into the extremest hazards, without any apprehensions of danger, being no more able to direct thy course, than a pilot who snores when a ship is tossed in the midst of the sea; no more able to take notice of the peril thou art in, than he that falls asleep on the top of a mast, where he was set to keep the watch.” They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When I shall awake, I will seek it yet again; ver. 35. It is as if the wise man had said, “That to complete thy misery, thou shalt not only be mocked, and abused, and beaten, but thou shalt be as senseless as if no harm had befallen thee: And no sooner wilt thou open thine eyes, but thou wilt stupidly seek an occasion to be drunk, and be beaten again.”
My friends, have ye never seen a drunkard make that odious figure, in which Solomon represents him? You find human nature is constant to itself: It appears now in Britain, just as it is described in the days of old at Jerusalem in all its vicious excesses. There is a great degree of likeness between our forefathers’ intemperance, and their children of late posterity. One would think one such a spectacle as this, or the mere report of it, with an assurance of the truth, should be enough to forbid our lips the excess of liquor, and to set a guard upon ourselves in the hour of temptation.
Not only those who overwhelm themselves with strong drink, and forget reason and themselves, but those that are mighty to drink wine, have a severe censure cast upon them, and a curse in the book of God: Is. v. 11. not only woe to them, that rise up early in the morning, that they may find strong drink, and continue till night, till wine inflame them; but woe to them that are mighty to drink wine, even though they are not utterly overcome by it, to the disorder and disgrace of their understandings, verse 22. The reason is, because nature will not bear such a quantity of wine or strong liquors at first; and it is presumed men have forced nature beyond its original capacity, and thus have grown up, by degrees of sin, to such a strength in drinking. These are they that call evil good and good evil, and that glory in their shame.
Hearken to thy father’s advice, O youth, and despise not thy mother’s counsel; hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way of temperance. Be not among wine-bibbers, amongst riotous eaters of flesh; ver. 19. Youth is greedy of pleasure, and in danger of being corrupted by it; therefore avoid the society of drunkards and gluttons. You see they are joined together in the prohibition and threatening of the word of God, “for the glutton and the drunkard shall both come to poverty.” A wanton indulgence of the taste will tempt men to revelling and riot, thence follows a neglect of all business; and many a prodigal, who had a fair estate, is by this means become a beggar or a prisoner. Let us be watchful therefore when we sit down at a plentiful table, and put a knife, as it were, to our throat, if we feel the danger of a sharp and wanton appetite; let the guard of our virtue be as sharp and active as our thirst or hunger. Let us not be desirous of feasting ourselves with dainties, for they too often prove deceitful meat: And though they are never so tempting to the palate, yet they may disturb the health of the body, or indispose the mind for the service of virtue. But this leads me to the next general head, and that is, To consider how the light of nature condemns this vice, this sort of impurity.
If it were my business to make a flourish with learned citations, it were an easy matter to bring the Greeks and Romans hither to pass sentence upon the glutton and the drunkard, and all the luxury of the taste; for it is too mean an indulgence either for a man or a christian. It does not become human nature to endanger the welfare of all its powers, and enslave them all to the single sense of tasting, “I am greater, says Seneca, and born to greater things, than to be a slave to this body, or to live merely to become a strainer of meats and drinks.” The wisest of men, and the best writers of all ages, even in the heathen nations, have passed their heavy censures on these impure and brutal follies, whereby we are reduced to the rank of beasts that perish, or perhaps sunk below them by the practices of intemperance; for there are but few of that lower rank of creatures, who swill themselves beyond the demands of nature; or, at least, beyond what nature is able to bear.
Let us argue a little upon this head from the principles of reason, and consider that the chief designs of food are these two, the support of our nature, and the refreshment of our spirits. Therefore give food to him that is hungry, that life may be maintained: Give drink to him that is thirsty, to assist the supports of life, and to refresh it. Give strong drink to him that is ready to faint, that his spirits may be recruited: and wine to him that is heavy of heart, that he may forget his sorrows; Prov. xxxi. 6, 7. It is evident that every thing, which goes beyond the mere necessity of nature for its support, does not presently become sinful; because the refreshment of nature is also one end and design of our food. Remember that the supports of nature are designed by the God of nature to make us fit for all the services and duties of life, and the refreshments of it are ordained by the same Author of nature, to render us chearful in the discharge of those duties. The one is necessary to give us a capacity to perform, and the other proper to render the performance chearful and delightful to us, and to intermingle our labour with such innocent delights as may awaken our thankfulness to the bounty of our Creator.
Thence it will follow, that the rich are allowed to furnish their tables with a variety of pleasing and grateful food; and that feasts designed for chearful enjoyment of our friends, are by no means forbidden by the light of reason, or of scripture: For we gain vigour for action, by having the spirits raised and exhilerated. But it will follow also, that when we have our choice of what we shall eat or drink, we ought to determine not merely by pleasure and appetite, nor feed till we are unfit for service. If we know, or have a good guess beforehand, that this cup, or this dish, will render us unfit for the proper business of the day, or incapable of the several duties we are called to; yet if, for the sake of mere sensuality, we venture upon it, God will number it among our sins against the light of nature. Those ends therefore for which God hath ordained our various food, both in his creation and in his providence, namely, the support of nature, and its refreshment; let these be our designs in eating, and give rules for our determination what food we should partake of.
It must be granted indeed, that a sickly person may be indulged in more solicitude about food, and may make it a matter of more distinguishing choice than persons vigorous and healthy. But then the great end must still be kept in the eye, that is, the recovery of strength for future service, where they are much cut off from present work: For neither the sick nor the healthy, should live for the sake of eating, but both should eat for the sake of living and working.
Now if the light of nature requires such purity and temperance, how much more doth the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ oblige us to it?
I. It is the command of our Redeemer, “that we take heed of surfeiting and drunkenness, lest our hearts at any time be overcharged with them;” Luke xxi. 34. And what charge doth the holy apostle give, Eph. v. 18. Be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs. Do not be so indulgent to your palate and your glass, as to let excess of wine overtake you, lest you christians should do as heathens have done, and break out into irregular songs, and licentious or profane mirth; but seek rather the largest influences of the blessed Spirit, and give a sacred loose to a devout frame: Break out into divine psalms or songs; comfort yourselves, and edify your neighbours thereby. In Rom. xiii. 13, 14. St. Paul advises us how we should behave ourselves in this point; Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness;—but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil it in the lusts thereof. Put on the spirit of the gospel, and the ornaments of christianity, and then you cannot for shame seek the pleasures of the brute, nor sink down into the base impurities of the animal nature: If you have put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and are his disciples indeed, then look like christians; let the very life of Christ be manifest in your lives: Live above these animal desires, these lower designs of the flesh, which is not the chief nature of the man, much less should it be the chief end of christians to gratify it.
II. Let christians consider, that the original ruin of their natures, soul and body, arose from the indulgence of a foolish appetite. When our mother Eve saw the fruit of the forbidden tree, she thought it was pleasant to the eye, and good for food: She tasted it herself, and tempted Adam to the sin that ruined him and all his offspring. When therefore a temptation to this sort of guilt appears, let us think of all the miseries of our fallen state, and not dare to repeat that crime, which had such dismal consequences. It brought iniquity, pain, and death into human nature, and begun all that dishonour to God, and all that mischief among men, that ever was found in this lower world.
III. Every saint ought to have a mortal quarrel with the flesh, because he carries about the seeds of iniquity in it, and the springs of perverse appetite which ought always to be kept under, lest our very spirits become carnal, and we lose our heavenly crown. Therefore saith the apostle; 1 Cor. ix. 27. I keep under my body, and bring it under subjection, and endeavour to be temperate in all things, that running in the christian race, I may obtain the prize. It is the business of a christian to eat and drink in due season, for strength and refreshment, not for luxury and drunkenness, which Solomon forbids to princes; Eccl. x. 17. It was an excellent saying of that holy man, Mr. Joseph Allein; “I sit down to my table not to please my appetite, or to pamper my flesh, but to maintain a servant of Jesus Christ, that he may be fit for the Lord’s work.”
IV. The saints should be pure and holy; even in the affairs of the natural life; for they have meat to eat, that the world knows not of: they drink of the pleasures that flow from God, and from his covenant; and therefore should not be over-solicitous about pleasing their meaner appetites. Those that indulge themselves in carnal delicacies, and make enquiry for the pleasures of the flesh, as the main business of life, what shall I eat, and what shall I drink? Those that live in a round of sensuality, they debase their souls, make themselves unfit for the duties and pleasures of a christian, unfit for divine communications, for holy fellowship, heavenly meditation, and lively exercises of faith, upon unseen things; they damp their zeal for God, blunt their relish for religious delights, and are perpetually defiling their own consciences. These are they that make their God their belly, while they profess to be christians. But the apostle, in Phil. iii. 18, 19. tells us, “whatsoever they profess, they are enemies of the cross of Christ, and I cannot speak of it, says he, without weeping.”
Now if there be any such sinners amongst us, such slaves to a paltry appetite, that make it a business of too solemn and solicitous enquiry, “How we shall regale the palate, and gratify the taste:” If there are any of us that know not how to forbid ourselves a savoury or luscious dish, even though we know or expect it will discompose the flesh or the mind: If we have not temperance enough to deny the superfluous or excessive glass, when it comes to our turn, nor virtue nor courage enough to refuse it, let us take our share in the reproofs of this discourse; and let us remember that we have had fair warning this day from the word of God, that we may not drown our souls in sensual indulgences, and make ourselves unfit for the duties of life, or for the business or the joy of heaven.