The law unsealed

If it be asked here, Whether men or women, when health requireth vomiting, may not drink excessively for provoking to it, in place of Physic?

If it be asked here, Whether men or women, when health requireth vomiting, may not drink excessively for provoking to it, in place of Physick?

Answ. 1. That in some diseases there is more allowed of some sorts of drink then in health, cannot be denied: Yea, 2. a difference is to be put betwixt sorts of drinks; some are not inebriating, that is, the drinking of a great quantity of them will not disturb the use of reason; others are such that excess in them will not only indispose body and mind, but quite obstruct and remove the use of reason and judgement; the first sort of drink (which is more properly physical) may lawfully be drunken▪ but in no case is it lawful for a man to exceed in the use of that drink, which bringeth with it the disturbance of his reason; the reason is because this is sinful in it self, and expressly against Gods command, and defaceth his Image in us (which is in knowledge) and is derogatory to it therefore is it still reckoned a proper fruit of the flesh, Gal. 5. 21. and it secludeth from the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as fornication, theft. &c. and therefore can no mo•e be lawful under that pretext then the other are; see 1 Cor. 6 11. 12. it is also opposed to •n honest Christian walk, and to the putting on of Christ, Rom. 13. 13, and that is always true which we have Rom. 3. 8. that ill is not to be done that good may come of it; neither hath God made exception in drunkenness more then in fornication, for which some such pretexts will not be wanting with some to palliate that in Again, this is not the proper end of drink to procure womit (I mean the forementioned sort of drink which none ever read of as approved) beside, it draweth along with it many other sins, who can tell but when they are in drunkenness, they may blaspheme, curse, commit adultery, murder or such like? should they then actively remove the use of their reason by a practise which may be inductive to such abominations? yea may not death then come? and should it not always be looked for? and what a posture would a man be in, when in such a case, to meet death? moreover the distemper that followeth such drinking is not such as followeth Physic, which doth only make sick or indispose the body, and what influence it hath on the brain and reason, is but accidental and indirect, but it is otherwayes with that distemper that followeth drunkenness, which putteth the person in such a sort of fury and distraction that the carnal, unrenewed part doth most frequently get great advantage by it.