wholly inconfiftent with every generous fentiment, and even with common honefty; and that any conftant pursuit whatever, which engages the whole attention, and takes it off from those sublime views of futurity, and those preparations for immortality, which are abfolutely neceffary toward our being found fit for that final ftate, is highly criminal; if these, and various other confiderations be allowed their due weight, it will appear, that covetousness is a vice altogether unfuitable to the dignity of our nature, and that the fafe fide to err on, with regard to riches, is, To be too indifferent, rather than too anxious about them.

If the fole defign of the appetite of hunger be, To oblige us mechanically, by means of pain, to take that due care of fupporting the body by proper nourishment, which we could not have been fo agreeably, and effectually brought to, by pure reason, it is obvious, that the view we ought to have in eating, is the fupport of life. That kind of food, which is fittest for nourishing the body, and the least likely to breed diseases, is evidently the best. And if artificial dishes, unnatural mixtures, and high fauces, be the least proper for being affimilated into chyle and blood, and the most likely to produce humours unfriendly to the constitution; what is commonly called rich feeding is, in truth, flow poifon. It is therefore very ftrange, that men fhould have fo little command of themselves, that, for the fake

of

of the trifling pleasure of having their palates tickled with a favoury tafte, they fhould venture the fhortening of their days. At the fame time, that the enormous expence of a rich table might be fpared, and the fame, or rather indeed a much higher pleasure, in eating, might be enjoyed, if people would but give themselves time and exercife to acquire a hearty appetite. But I really believe that is what fome have never experienced, and confequently have no conception of.

The vices we are in danger of running into, by which our table may become a fnare to us, are, bestowing too great expence, or too much time at our meals, over-gorging nature, or hurting our health by a wrong choice of food. Nothing íeems more evident, than that to waste or fquander away the good gifts of Providence, especially in fo fordid a manner, as upon the materials of gluttony, is altogether unjuftifiable. The only rational notion we can form of the defign of Providence in bestowing riches upon fome, and finking others in poverty, is, That men are placed in thofe different circumstances with a view to the tryal and exercife of different virtues. So that riches are to be confidered as a stewardship, not to be lavished away in pampering our vices, and fupporting our vanity, but to be laid out in such a manner as we fhall hereafter be able to answer for, to Him, who entrusted us with them. And whoever bestows yearly in gorging and gluttony, what might fupport a great many families in induftry

6

dustry and frugality, let him fee to the confequences.

Again, if we be really fpirits, though at prefent embodied; it feems pretty plain, that the feeding of the body ought not to engross any very great proportion of our time. If indeed we look upon ourselves as more body than spirit, we ought then to bestow the principal attention upon the body. But this is what few will care to own in words; which makes their declaring it by their practice the more abfurd, and inconfiftent.

If it be our duty to preferve our health and life for usefulness in our ftation, it can never be innocent in us to pervert the very means appointed for the support of the body, to the destruction of the body. We are here upon duty, and are to keep upon our poft, till called off. And he who trifles with life, and lofes it upon any frivolous occasion, must answer for it hereafter to the Author of life.

Lastly, if it be certain, that in the future world of spirits, to which we are all hastening, there will be no occafion for this appetite, nor any gratifying of appetites at all, nothing is more evident, than the abfurdity of indulging it in such an unbounded and licentious manner, as to give it an abfolute afcendant over us, and to work it into the very mind, fo as it shall remain, when the body, for whose fake it was given, has no farther occafion for it. The defign our Maker had in placing us in this state of discipline, was to give us an opportunity

opportunity of cultivating in ourselves other forts of habits than thofe of gluttony and fenfuality.

Of the many fatal contrivances, which our fpecies, too fertile in invention, have hit upon for corrupting themselves, defacing the bleffed Maker's image upon the mind, and perverting the end of their creation; none would appear more unaccountable, if we were not too well accustomed to fee inftances of it, than the favage vice of drunkennefs. That ever it fhould become a practice for rational beings to delight in overturning their reafon; that ever men should voluntarily choofe, by fwallowing a magical draught, to brutify themselves; nay to fink themselves below the level of the brutes; for drunkenness is peculiar to our fpecies; this madnefs must appear to other orders of being wonderfully fhocking. No man can bear the least reflexion upon his understanding, whatever he will upon his virtue. Yet men will indulge a practice, by which experience convinces them, they will effectually lose their understanding, and become perfect idiots. Unthinking people are wont to look with great contempt upon natural fools. But in what light ought they to view a fool of his own making? What can be conceived more unfuitable to the dignity of human nature, than the drunkard, with his eyes ftaring, his tongue ftammering, his lips quivering, his hands trembling, his legs tottering, and his

ftomach

ftomach heaving. Decency will not fuffer me to proceed in fo filthy a defcription. The swine wallowing in the mire is not fo loathsome an object as the drunkard'; for nature in her meaneft dress is always nature: but the drunkard is a monster, out of nature. The only rational being upon earth reduced to abfolute incapacity of reafon, or speech! A being formed for immortality funk into filth and fenfuality! A creature endowed with capacities for being a companion of angels, and inhabiting the etherial regions, in a condition not fit to come into a clean room, among his fellow-creatures! The lord of this world funk below the vileft of the brutes!

One would think all this was bad enough: but there is much worse to be said against this most abominable and fatal vice. For there is no other that fo effectually and fo fuddenly unhinges and overturns all virtues, and deftroys every thing valuable in the mind, as drunkenness. For it takes off every restraint, and opens the mind to every temptation. So that there is no fuch expeditious way for a person to corrupt and debauch himself, to turn himself from a man into a demon, as by intoxicating himself with ftrong liquor. Nor is there, perhaps, any other habit fo bewitching, and which becomes fo foon unconquerable as drunkenness. The reafon is plain. There is no vice which so effectually deftroys reason. And when the faculties of the mind are over-turned, what means can the un

happy