---

I. I AM TO ENTER UPON THE APOSTLE'S DEHORTATION, OR PROHIBITION — "Be not drunk with wine." For the right understanding of which I premise this, that wine is one of the good creatures of God which He hath given for the use of men. And He hath given it for these three considerable purposes.

1. To the inhabitants of those places where it grows, for part of their ordinary drink. For God hath so constituted the nature of man's body that he stands in need of drink as well as of meat.

2. Wine was given to cherish and refresh us when we are weak and languishing.

3. As wine is given to cure the infirm and fainting, so likewise to cheer and delight the sound and healthy. It is lawful to drink it not only for necessity, but sometimes for pleasure. Wine, without doubt, was given us by our gracious Benefactor to delight the taste, and refresh the palate, especially when sorrow and trouble clog the mind, and begin to oppress and weigh it down. As drinking, so sobriety may be abused. Men may effect those mischiefs by their abstaining from immoderate drinking, which they could never be able to do if they drank extravagantly. Generally the shrewdest contrivers and executors of mischief are those who are not addicted to intemperance: and their very sobriety renders them the more able to do harm. And yet I cannot say that this sort of men are wholly free from drunkenness; for it is possible they may be drunk even with their sobriety, i.e., with the conceit of it; they may be intoxicated with pride and arrogance, or with spite and malice, or with a heady confidence of success in their evil enterprizes. They may, as the prophet speaks, "stagger, but not with strong drink, and be drunken, but not with wine." That which makes this sin is, first, the not restraining of our extravagant desire and appetite, which I mentioned before, and, secondly, the actual gratifying and satisfying of our desires. Which brings me to the next thing observable, viz., the reason of the apostolical dehortation, expressed in those words, "wherein is excess": as much as to say, Re not drunk with wine, because there is a strange excess attends it. This is the genuine meaning of this clause of the text.Now, in drunkenness there is excess not only formally, but causally (to speak in the language of the schools). It is both excess in itself, and the cause and origin of many other excesses.

1. The first evil of drunkenness is that injury which is done to the body by it.

2. This is a vice which injures not only the bodies but the estates of men. A drunkard is a spendthrift: the extravagant drinker is profuse and lavish.

3. A sottish course of drinking injures the name and reputation, no less than the bodies and estates of men.

4. The intemperance of the tongue usually attends that of the brain. Drunkenness first sets the tongue a going, and then soon makes it run too fast.

5. Wrath and fury, slaughter and bloodshed, are the cursed fruits of drunkenness. "Strong drink is raging," saith Solomon (Proverbs 20:21).

6. Lust and lewdness, whoredom and fornication, are the frequent attendants of extraordinary drinking.

7. Among the direful effects and consequences of extravagant drinking this must not be omitted, that the soul and all its faculties are corrupted and debauched by it.False notions are drunk in with the wine: undue and unbecoming apprehensions are entertained. Let us hear what men say for drink.

1. It is good nature and friendship, they say, to sit and drink, even till they can drink no more.

2. They say that it is for company and good fellowship's sake that they drink sometimes to immoderation.

3. Others defend their immoderate draughts after this manner; We are persons well bred, we cannot be so rude and unmannerly as to refuse our glass when it comes to our turn.

4. Some excuse their drunkenness by saying, "It is to put away melancholy."

5. There are those who defend their immoderate drinking, especially of wine, by the serviceableness of it, to exalt their parts, and to make them witty.

6. There is another excuse made by some men, which, though it be not worth the answering, yet that I may remove all the pretences of drinking men, I will say something to it. They are no common drunkards, they say, and when they exceed in drink, they do not, like others, spend their money, but are drunk gratis. They cannot afford to indulge so costly a vice, but they only take these opportunities when they may have wine at others' charges.

7. There is another great objection or pretence of drunkards yet behind, which is this, they happen to be in the company of these persons who engage them to drink healths, and these going often round, and there being an obligation on them to pledge their next neighbour, and to drink cup for cup, they are sometimes unhappily overcome of the liquor which presents itself so fast to them. In the last place, I am to offer to you some proper means and helps whereby you may effectually extirpate this odious vice.They are such as these:

1. Weigh this express command of God in the text, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess."

2. Consider the dreadful woes that are denounced against this sin. Read with trembling (Isaiah 5:11).

3. Consider that this vice is condemned even by those that are guilty of it. There is not a drunkard that breathes but at one time or other is cast by his own verdict, he passes sentence against himself.

4. That you may do so, learn to relish the pleasures of religion and holiness. Re acquainted with the excellency of virtue and goodness, understand the intrinsic worth of these.

5. That you may cast off this abominable vice, and stifle your excessive delight in intemperate drinking, and in that mirth which attends it, sit down, and seriously think of the distresses and miseries which your brethren labour under, in one part or other of the world.

6. That you may effectually abandon this vice, be careful to avoid all the occasions of it.

(John Edwards, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

WEB: Don't be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,