Drunkenness is so beastly a sin, a sin so much against nature, that
I wonder that any who have but the appearance of men can give up
themselves to so beastly, yea, worse than beastly a thing.
Many that have begun the world with plenty, have gone out of it in
rags, through drunkenness. Yea, many children that have been born to
good estates, have yet been brought to a flail and a rake through
this beastly sin of their parents.
Yea, it so stupefies and besots the soul, that a man who is far gone
in drunkenness is hardly ever recovered to God. Tell me, when did
you see an old drunkard converted? No, no; such a one will sleep
till he dies, though he sleep on the top of a mast; so that if a man
have any respect either to credit, health, life, or salvation, he
will not be a drunken man.
"And Noah was uncovered." Behold ye now, that a little of the fruit
of the vine lays gravity, grey hairs, and a man that for hundreds of
years was a lover of faith, holiness, goodness, sobriety, and all
righteousness, shamelessly as the object to the eye of the wicked.
"And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years." He
lived, therefore, to see Abraham fifty-and-eight years old; he lived
also to see the foundation of Babel laid, nay, the top-stone
thereof; and also the confusion of tongues; he lived to see of the
fruit of his loins, mighty kings and princes. But in all this time
he lived not to do one, work that the Holy Ghost thought worthy to
record, for the savor of his name or the edification and benefit of
his church, save only, that he died at "nine hundred and fifty
years:" so great a breach did this drunkenness make upon his spirit.