Best Sermon on Drunkenness
- Addictions & Substances
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Part of a sermon preached by Samuel Ward in 1622. The 2 paragraphs at the end are mine, as I sent this to my Dad who has been sober and saved now 54 years, and also married the same amount of time.
Myself, I'm 6 years sober, but only 5 without any drink at all.
(i spell corrected the "olde" English but there may be some that snuck through my editing.)
Seer, art thou also blind? Watch-man art thou also drunk,* or asleep? Or hath a Spirit of slumber put out thine eyes? Up to thy Watch-Tower, what descriest thou? Ah Lord! what end or number is there of the vanities. which mine eyes are weary of beholding? But what seest thou? I see men walking like the tops of trees shaken with the Wind; like Masts of Ships reeling on the tempestuous Seas. Drunkenness, I meane, that hate∣full Night-bird, which was wont to wait for the twilight, to seeke nooks and corners, to auoide the houting and wonderment of Boyes and Girles: Now as if it were some Eglet to dare the Sun∣light, to fly abroad at high noone in every street, in open Markets and Faires without fear or shame, without controule, or punishment, to the disgrace of the Nation, the outfacing of Magistracy and Ministry, the utter undoing (without timely prevention) of health and wealth, Piety and Virtue, Town and Country, Church and Commonwealth. And doest thou like a dumb dogge hold thy peace at these things, doest thou with Salomons sluggard fold thine hands in thy bosom, and give thy selfe to ease and drowsiness, while the en∣uious man causeth the noysomest and basest of weeds to over-run the choicest Eden of God? Vp and Arise, lift vp thy voyce, spare not, and cry aloud? What shall I crie? Crie woe and woe again unto the Crown of pride, the Drunkards of Ephraim.*
Take up a parable, and tell them how it stingeth like the Cockatrice, declare unto them the deadly poyson of this odious sinne. Shew them also the soveraigne Antidote and Cure of it, in the cup that was drunk off by him, that was able to overcome it: Cause them to behold the brazen Serpent and be healed. And what though some of these deaf Adders will not be charmed not cured; yea, though few or none of this swinish heard of habitual drunkards, accustomed to wallow in their mire, yea, deeply and irrecoverably plunged by legions of Devils into the dead sea of their fil∣thinesse; what if not one of them will be washed and made clean, but turn again to their vomit, and trample the pearls of all admonition under feet; yea, turn again, and rend their reprovers with scoffes and scorns, making jests and songs on their Alebench: Yet may some young ones be deterred, and some novices reclaimed, some parents and Magistrates awakened to prevent and suppress the spreading of this gangrene: and God have his worke in such as belong to his grace. And what is impossible to the worke of his grace?
Goe to them now ye Drunkards, listen not what I, or any ordinary hedge-priest (as you stile vs, but that most Wise and experienced royall Preacher) hath to say unto you. And because you are a dull and thick-eared generation, hee first deals with you by way of question, a figure of force and impression. To whom is woe, &c.* You use to say, Woe be to hypocrites. It's true, woe be to such and all other witting & willing sinners, but there are no kind of offenders on whom woe doth so palpably inevitably attend as to you drunkards. You promise your selues mirth, pleasure, and jollity in your Cups, but for one drop of your mad mirth bee sure of gallons and tons of woe, gall, wormewood and bitterness here and hereafter. Other sinners shall tast of the Cup, but you shall drink of the dregs of God's wrath and displeasure. To whom is strife. You talke of good fellowship & friendship, but wine is a rager and tumultuous make∣bate, and serts you a quarrelling, & meddling. When wit's out of the head and strength out of the body, it thrusts even Cowards and dastards unfenced and unarmed into needles frayes and combats. And then to whom are wounds, broken heads, blue eyes, maymed limbes
You have a drunken by-word: Drunkards take no harme, but how many are the mishaps and vntime∣ly misfortunes that betyde such, which though they feel not in drink, they carrie as markes and brands to their graue. You pretend you drink healths and for health, but to whom are all kind of diseases, infirmities, deformities, pearled faces, palsies, dropsies, headaches? If not to drunkards. Vpon these premises he forcibly inferrs his sober & serious advice. Looke upon these woeful effects and evils of drunkenness, and look not upon the Wine, looke vpon the blew wounds, vpon the red eyes it causeth, and look not on the red colour when it sparkleth in the cup. If there were no worse then these, yet would no wise man be overtaken with Wine: as if he should say, What see you in the Cup or drink, that counteruaileth these dreggs that lie in the bottom. Behold, this is the Sugar you are to look for, and the tang it leaves behind.
Woe and alas, sorrow and strife, shame, poverty and diseases; these are enough to make it odious, but that which followeth withall, will make it hideous and fearefull. For Salomon duly considering that he speaks to men past shame and grace, senseless of blows, and herefore much more of reasons and words insisteth not vpon these petty woes;* which they, bewitched and besotted with the love of Wine, will easily ouer-see and o∣uerleape: but sets before their eies the direfull end and fruite, the black and poison full tail of this sin. In the end it stingeth like the Serpent, it biteth like the Cockatrice (or Adder) saith our new Translation. All Interpreters agree, that he means some most virulent Serpent, whose poison is present and deadly. All the Woes hee hath mentioned before, were but as the sting of some Emmet, Waspe or Nettle, in comparison of this Cockatrice, which is even unto death; death speedy, death painful, and wofull death, and that as naturally and inevitably, as Opium procureth sleepe, as Ellebore purgeth, or any Poyson killeth. Three forked is this sting, and threefold is the death it procureth to all that are stung therewith.*
The first is the death of grace, the second is of the body, the third is of soule and body eternal. All sin is the poyson wherewithal the old Serpent and Red Dragon enue∣noms the soule of man, but no sin (except it bee that which is unto death) so mortal as this, which though not ever unpardonably, yet for the most part is also irreco∣uerably, and inevitably vnto death. Seest thou one bittē with any other Snake, there is hope & help. As the Father said of his son, when he had information of his gaming, of his prodigality, yea, of his whoring: but when he heard that he was poisoned with drunkenness, hee gave him for dead, his case for desperate and forlorn. Age and experience often cures the other; but his increaseth with years, and parteth not till death. Whoring is a deep Ditch, yet some few shall a man see return & lay hold on the ways of life, one of a thousād, but scarce one Drunkard of ten thousand. One, Ambrose mentions, and one have I known, and but one of all that ever I knew or heard of. Often have I been asked, and often haue I enquired, but neuer could meet with an instance, saue one or two at the most. I speak of Drunkards, not of one drunken; of such who rarely & casually haue Noah-like been surprised,* ouer-taken at unawares.
But if once a Custom, euer necessity. Wine takes away the heart,* and spoils the brain, overthrows the faculties and Organs of repentance and resolution. And is it not just with God, that hee who will put out his natural light, should have his spiritual extinguished? He that will deprive himself of reason, should lose also the Guide and Pilot of reason, God's Spirit and Grace: hee that will wittingly and willingly make himself an habitation of unclean spirits, should not dispossess them at his own pleasure?
Most aptly therefore is it translated by Tre∣melius, Haemorrhois, which Gesner confounds with the Dipsas, or thirstie Serpent, whose poison breedeth such thirst, drought, and inflammation, like that of Rats-bane, that they never leave drinking, till they burst and die withall. Would it not grieve and pitie any Christian soul, to see a towardly hopefull young man well natured, well nurtured, stung with this Cockatrice, bewailing his own case, crying out against the baseness of the sin, inveighing against company, melting under the persuasions of friends; yea, protesting against all enticements, vow, covenant, and seriously indent with himself and his friends for the relinquishing of it: and yet if he meet with a companion that holds but vp his finger, he follows him as a foole to the stocks, and as an Ox to the slaughter-house, having no power to withstand the temptation, but in he goes with him to the tippling house, not considering that the Chambers are the Chambers of death; and the guesse, the guests of death; and there he continues as one bewitched or conjured in a spell out of which hee returns not til he hath emptied his purse of money, his head of reason, & his heart of all his former seeming grace. There his eyes behold the strange woman, his heart speaketh perverse things, becoming heartless as one (saith Salomon) in the heart of the sea, resolving to continue, and return to his vomit what ever it cost him, to make it his daily work. I was sick, and knew it not.*I was struck and felt it not, when I awake I will seek it yet still.
And why indeed (without a miracle) should any expect that one stung with this viper should shake it off, and euer recouer of it again. Yea, so farre are they from recovering them∣selues, that they infect and become contagious and pestilent to all they come near. The Dragon infusing his venom, & assimilating his elses to himself in no sin so much as in this, that it becomes as good as meat and drink to them, to spend their wit & money to compasse alehouse after alehouse, yea town after towne to transform others with their Circean Cups, till they have made them bruits and swine, worse then themselves. The Adulterer and Usurer desire to enjoy their sinne alone, but the chiefest pastime of a drunkard is to heat and overcome others with wine that hee may discover their nakedness and glory in their foyle and folly
In a word, excesse of wine, and the spirit of Grace are opposites, the former expels the latter out of the heart, as smoke doth Bees out the Hiue: and makes the man a mere slave and prey to Satan and his snares, when by this poyson he hath put out his eyes and spoiled him of his strength, he vseth him as the Philistines did Sampson, leads him on a string whither he pleaseth, like a very drudge, scorn and makesport to himself and his Impes; makes him grinde in the mill of all kind of sins and vices. And that I take to be the reason why Drunkenness is not specially prohibited in any one of the ten Commandments because it is not the single breach of any one, but in effect the violation of all and every one, it is no one sinne,* but all sinnes, because it is the Inlet and sluice to all other sins.
The Divell having moistened, and steeped him in his liquor, shapes him like soft clay into what mould hee pleaseth: hauing shaken off his rudder and Pilot, dashes his soul upon what rocks, sands, and Syrts he listeth, and that with as much ease as a man may push down his body with the least thrust of his hand or finger. Hee that in his right wits and sober mood seems religious, modest, chast, courteous, secret, in his drunken fitts swears, blasphemes, rages, strikes, talkes,* talkes filthily, blabs all secrets, commits folly, knowes no difference of persons or sexes, becomes wholly at Sa∣tans command as a dead organ to be enacted at his will and pleasure. Oh that God would be pleased to open the eyes of some drunkard, to see what a dunghill and carrion his soul becomes, & how loathsom effects follow upon this spiritual death and sting of this Cockatrise which is the fountaine of the other two following, temporal and eternal death?
And well may it be that some such as are altogether fearless and careless of the former death will yet tremble and be moued with that which I shall in the second place tell them. Among all other sinnes that are, none brings forth bodily death so frequently as this, none so ordinarily slayes in the Act of sinne as this. And what can be more horrible then to die in the act of a sin without the act of repentance? I pronounce no definitiue sentence of damnation vpon any particular so dying; but what door of hope or comfort is left to their friends behind of their salutation? The whoremaster hee hopes to haue a space and time to repent in age, though sometimes it pleaseth God that death strikes Cosby and Zimry napping, as the devil is said to slay one of the Popes in the instant of his adultery and carry him quicke to hell.
Some Audacious Abominable Health-drinkers were so Wicked as to drink a Health to the great Prince of Darkness, their Father the Devil; and it is credibly Reported, he came boldly amongst them and carried away some of them, as bold as he was. One being told, that unless he left off his Drunkenness and Whoring he would lose his sight: He answered thus, Tum valeat Lumen ami∣cum,—Then Farewell Sweet Light.
>>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
As you know, liquor is a foul swill: the flame of the whiskey still born of the fire of hell, to produce what is rightly called "spirits" - though the advertisers fail to tag the word "unclean" before it. It causeth all manner of sin, as the sermon points out: and the Proverbs also declare - from strange women, to wounds without cause, to murder, and adultery, and incest, and vile thoughts. It kills the innocent in accidents that are no accident - for the drunkard driving any vehicle sits in a murder weapon, a slaying machine, fueled by loathsome drink!
The dastardly pushers of this intoxicating wrath are as guilty as those who consume it, who drink and die, and kill, and shall be judged guilty of every sin which their devil drink opened up the door of the inebriated brain to: truly "spirits" - EVIL spirits, that possess the soul and the body so that every corrupt idea and thought of the depraved heart, desperately wicked above all else, is released in word and in action.
All I can say is, repent of this horrific madness of drink: beer, wine, whiskey, vodka - they all are killers.
That's my message on it.
(Jesus is the only answer to drunkenness, and He can set you free and keep you free)
Myself, I'm 6 years sober, but only 5 without any drink at all.
(i spell corrected the "olde" English but there may be some that snuck through my editing.)
Seer, art thou also blind? Watch-man art thou also drunk,* or asleep? Or hath a Spirit of slumber put out thine eyes? Up to thy Watch-Tower, what descriest thou? Ah Lord! what end or number is there of the vanities. which mine eyes are weary of beholding? But what seest thou? I see men walking like the tops of trees shaken with the Wind; like Masts of Ships reeling on the tempestuous Seas. Drunkenness, I meane, that hate∣full Night-bird, which was wont to wait for the twilight, to seeke nooks and corners, to auoide the houting and wonderment of Boyes and Girles: Now as if it were some Eglet to dare the Sun∣light, to fly abroad at high noone in every street, in open Markets and Faires without fear or shame, without controule, or punishment, to the disgrace of the Nation, the outfacing of Magistracy and Ministry, the utter undoing (without timely prevention) of health and wealth, Piety and Virtue, Town and Country, Church and Commonwealth. And doest thou like a dumb dogge hold thy peace at these things, doest thou with Salomons sluggard fold thine hands in thy bosom, and give thy selfe to ease and drowsiness, while the en∣uious man causeth the noysomest and basest of weeds to over-run the choicest Eden of God? Vp and Arise, lift vp thy voyce, spare not, and cry aloud? What shall I crie? Crie woe and woe again unto the Crown of pride, the Drunkards of Ephraim.*
Take up a parable, and tell them how it stingeth like the Cockatrice, declare unto them the deadly poyson of this odious sinne. Shew them also the soveraigne Antidote and Cure of it, in the cup that was drunk off by him, that was able to overcome it: Cause them to behold the brazen Serpent and be healed. And what though some of these deaf Adders will not be charmed not cured; yea, though few or none of this swinish heard of habitual drunkards, accustomed to wallow in their mire, yea, deeply and irrecoverably plunged by legions of Devils into the dead sea of their fil∣thinesse; what if not one of them will be washed and made clean, but turn again to their vomit, and trample the pearls of all admonition under feet; yea, turn again, and rend their reprovers with scoffes and scorns, making jests and songs on their Alebench: Yet may some young ones be deterred, and some novices reclaimed, some parents and Magistrates awakened to prevent and suppress the spreading of this gangrene: and God have his worke in such as belong to his grace. And what is impossible to the worke of his grace?
Goe to them now ye Drunkards, listen not what I, or any ordinary hedge-priest (as you stile vs, but that most Wise and experienced royall Preacher) hath to say unto you. And because you are a dull and thick-eared generation, hee first deals with you by way of question, a figure of force and impression. To whom is woe, &c.* You use to say, Woe be to hypocrites. It's true, woe be to such and all other witting & willing sinners, but there are no kind of offenders on whom woe doth so palpably inevitably attend as to you drunkards. You promise your selues mirth, pleasure, and jollity in your Cups, but for one drop of your mad mirth bee sure of gallons and tons of woe, gall, wormewood and bitterness here and hereafter. Other sinners shall tast of the Cup, but you shall drink of the dregs of God's wrath and displeasure. To whom is strife. You talke of good fellowship & friendship, but wine is a rager and tumultuous make∣bate, and serts you a quarrelling, & meddling. When wit's out of the head and strength out of the body, it thrusts even Cowards and dastards unfenced and unarmed into needles frayes and combats. And then to whom are wounds, broken heads, blue eyes, maymed limbes
You have a drunken by-word: Drunkards take no harme, but how many are the mishaps and vntime∣ly misfortunes that betyde such, which though they feel not in drink, they carrie as markes and brands to their graue. You pretend you drink healths and for health, but to whom are all kind of diseases, infirmities, deformities, pearled faces, palsies, dropsies, headaches? If not to drunkards. Vpon these premises he forcibly inferrs his sober & serious advice. Looke upon these woeful effects and evils of drunkenness, and look not upon the Wine, looke vpon the blew wounds, vpon the red eyes it causeth, and look not on the red colour when it sparkleth in the cup. If there were no worse then these, yet would no wise man be overtaken with Wine: as if he should say, What see you in the Cup or drink, that counteruaileth these dreggs that lie in the bottom. Behold, this is the Sugar you are to look for, and the tang it leaves behind.
Woe and alas, sorrow and strife, shame, poverty and diseases; these are enough to make it odious, but that which followeth withall, will make it hideous and fearefull. For Salomon duly considering that he speaks to men past shame and grace, senseless of blows, and herefore much more of reasons and words insisteth not vpon these petty woes;* which they, bewitched and besotted with the love of Wine, will easily ouer-see and o∣uerleape: but sets before their eies the direfull end and fruite, the black and poison full tail of this sin. In the end it stingeth like the Serpent, it biteth like the Cockatrice (or Adder) saith our new Translation. All Interpreters agree, that he means some most virulent Serpent, whose poison is present and deadly. All the Woes hee hath mentioned before, were but as the sting of some Emmet, Waspe or Nettle, in comparison of this Cockatrice, which is even unto death; death speedy, death painful, and wofull death, and that as naturally and inevitably, as Opium procureth sleepe, as Ellebore purgeth, or any Poyson killeth. Three forked is this sting, and threefold is the death it procureth to all that are stung therewith.*
The first is the death of grace, the second is of the body, the third is of soule and body eternal. All sin is the poyson wherewithal the old Serpent and Red Dragon enue∣noms the soule of man, but no sin (except it bee that which is unto death) so mortal as this, which though not ever unpardonably, yet for the most part is also irreco∣uerably, and inevitably vnto death. Seest thou one bittē with any other Snake, there is hope & help. As the Father said of his son, when he had information of his gaming, of his prodigality, yea, of his whoring: but when he heard that he was poisoned with drunkenness, hee gave him for dead, his case for desperate and forlorn. Age and experience often cures the other; but his increaseth with years, and parteth not till death. Whoring is a deep Ditch, yet some few shall a man see return & lay hold on the ways of life, one of a thousād, but scarce one Drunkard of ten thousand. One, Ambrose mentions, and one have I known, and but one of all that ever I knew or heard of. Often have I been asked, and often haue I enquired, but neuer could meet with an instance, saue one or two at the most. I speak of Drunkards, not of one drunken; of such who rarely & casually haue Noah-like been surprised,* ouer-taken at unawares.
But if once a Custom, euer necessity. Wine takes away the heart,* and spoils the brain, overthrows the faculties and Organs of repentance and resolution. And is it not just with God, that hee who will put out his natural light, should have his spiritual extinguished? He that will deprive himself of reason, should lose also the Guide and Pilot of reason, God's Spirit and Grace: hee that will wittingly and willingly make himself an habitation of unclean spirits, should not dispossess them at his own pleasure?
Most aptly therefore is it translated by Tre∣melius, Haemorrhois, which Gesner confounds with the Dipsas, or thirstie Serpent, whose poison breedeth such thirst, drought, and inflammation, like that of Rats-bane, that they never leave drinking, till they burst and die withall. Would it not grieve and pitie any Christian soul, to see a towardly hopefull young man well natured, well nurtured, stung with this Cockatrice, bewailing his own case, crying out against the baseness of the sin, inveighing against company, melting under the persuasions of friends; yea, protesting against all enticements, vow, covenant, and seriously indent with himself and his friends for the relinquishing of it: and yet if he meet with a companion that holds but vp his finger, he follows him as a foole to the stocks, and as an Ox to the slaughter-house, having no power to withstand the temptation, but in he goes with him to the tippling house, not considering that the Chambers are the Chambers of death; and the guesse, the guests of death; and there he continues as one bewitched or conjured in a spell out of which hee returns not til he hath emptied his purse of money, his head of reason, & his heart of all his former seeming grace. There his eyes behold the strange woman, his heart speaketh perverse things, becoming heartless as one (saith Salomon) in the heart of the sea, resolving to continue, and return to his vomit what ever it cost him, to make it his daily work. I was sick, and knew it not.*I was struck and felt it not, when I awake I will seek it yet still.
And why indeed (without a miracle) should any expect that one stung with this viper should shake it off, and euer recouer of it again. Yea, so farre are they from recovering them∣selues, that they infect and become contagious and pestilent to all they come near. The Dragon infusing his venom, & assimilating his elses to himself in no sin so much as in this, that it becomes as good as meat and drink to them, to spend their wit & money to compasse alehouse after alehouse, yea town after towne to transform others with their Circean Cups, till they have made them bruits and swine, worse then themselves. The Adulterer and Usurer desire to enjoy their sinne alone, but the chiefest pastime of a drunkard is to heat and overcome others with wine that hee may discover their nakedness and glory in their foyle and folly
In a word, excesse of wine, and the spirit of Grace are opposites, the former expels the latter out of the heart, as smoke doth Bees out the Hiue: and makes the man a mere slave and prey to Satan and his snares, when by this poyson he hath put out his eyes and spoiled him of his strength, he vseth him as the Philistines did Sampson, leads him on a string whither he pleaseth, like a very drudge, scorn and makesport to himself and his Impes; makes him grinde in the mill of all kind of sins and vices. And that I take to be the reason why Drunkenness is not specially prohibited in any one of the ten Commandments because it is not the single breach of any one, but in effect the violation of all and every one, it is no one sinne,* but all sinnes, because it is the Inlet and sluice to all other sins.
The Divell having moistened, and steeped him in his liquor, shapes him like soft clay into what mould hee pleaseth: hauing shaken off his rudder and Pilot, dashes his soul upon what rocks, sands, and Syrts he listeth, and that with as much ease as a man may push down his body with the least thrust of his hand or finger. Hee that in his right wits and sober mood seems religious, modest, chast, courteous, secret, in his drunken fitts swears, blasphemes, rages, strikes, talkes,* talkes filthily, blabs all secrets, commits folly, knowes no difference of persons or sexes, becomes wholly at Sa∣tans command as a dead organ to be enacted at his will and pleasure. Oh that God would be pleased to open the eyes of some drunkard, to see what a dunghill and carrion his soul becomes, & how loathsom effects follow upon this spiritual death and sting of this Cockatrise which is the fountaine of the other two following, temporal and eternal death?
And well may it be that some such as are altogether fearless and careless of the former death will yet tremble and be moued with that which I shall in the second place tell them. Among all other sinnes that are, none brings forth bodily death so frequently as this, none so ordinarily slayes in the Act of sinne as this. And what can be more horrible then to die in the act of a sin without the act of repentance? I pronounce no definitiue sentence of damnation vpon any particular so dying; but what door of hope or comfort is left to their friends behind of their salutation? The whoremaster hee hopes to haue a space and time to repent in age, though sometimes it pleaseth God that death strikes Cosby and Zimry napping, as the devil is said to slay one of the Popes in the instant of his adultery and carry him quicke to hell.
Some Audacious Abominable Health-drinkers were so Wicked as to drink a Health to the great Prince of Darkness, their Father the Devil; and it is credibly Reported, he came boldly amongst them and carried away some of them, as bold as he was. One being told, that unless he left off his Drunkenness and Whoring he would lose his sight: He answered thus, Tum valeat Lumen ami∣cum,—Then Farewell Sweet Light.
>>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
As you know, liquor is a foul swill: the flame of the whiskey still born of the fire of hell, to produce what is rightly called "spirits" - though the advertisers fail to tag the word "unclean" before it. It causeth all manner of sin, as the sermon points out: and the Proverbs also declare - from strange women, to wounds without cause, to murder, and adultery, and incest, and vile thoughts. It kills the innocent in accidents that are no accident - for the drunkard driving any vehicle sits in a murder weapon, a slaying machine, fueled by loathsome drink!
The dastardly pushers of this intoxicating wrath are as guilty as those who consume it, who drink and die, and kill, and shall be judged guilty of every sin which their devil drink opened up the door of the inebriated brain to: truly "spirits" - EVIL spirits, that possess the soul and the body so that every corrupt idea and thought of the depraved heart, desperately wicked above all else, is released in word and in action.
All I can say is, repent of this horrific madness of drink: beer, wine, whiskey, vodka - they all are killers.
That's my message on it.
(Jesus is the only answer to drunkenness, and He can set you free and keep you free)
