studying, and beating his brain how to fave his head, can be prefumed to mind powdering his hair, or while he knows he is eating his last meal, to play the critick upon taftes; no doubt whofoever is fo wholly taken up, can neither attend making or receiving invitations, tho' the tempter we own is fo much a courtier, as to be always ready for both.

Let the wary chriftian therefore remember, that he is hoc agere, that he is to keep all his hours, and (if poffible) his very minutes filled up with business, and that grace abhors a vacuum in time, as much as nature does in place; and happy beyond expreffion is that wife and good chriftian, whom, when the tempter comes, he fhall find fo doing: for as much as he, who is thus prepared to receive the tempter, cannot be unprepared to receive his Saviour; fince, next to his foul, his time is certainly the most precious thing he has in the world, and the right fpending of the one the fureft and moft unfailing way to fave the other. But,

5thly, and lastly, Watching implies a conftant and severe temperance, in oppofition to all the jollities of revelling and intemperance. We have before obferved the great analogy and resemblance between the carrying on the fpiritual and the temporal warfare; and ac cordingly as to this latter we may observe far

ther,

ther, how whole armies have been routed and overthrown, and the greatest cities and the strongest garrisons furpris'd and fack'd, while those who should have been watching the motion of the enemy, were fotting it at their cups, equally unmindful both of their danger and defence: for fuch debaucheries feldom happen either in camps or befieged towns, but their wakeful enemies quickly getting intelligence of the diforder, come upon them on a fudden, and find them as the poet describes fuch, Somno vinoque fepultos; that is to say, buried, in a manner, before dead, or rather already dead to their hands, and fo scarce worthy to receive another and a nobler death from their enemies fword: for when men have once drank themselves down, the enemy can have nothing more to do but to trample upon them,

How came Ahab with an handful of men in comparison to overthrow the vaft infulting army of Benhadad king of Syria? Why, we have an account of it, 1 Kings xx, He and two and thirty kings his confederates were drinking themfelves drunk in their pavilions, v. 16. as if he had drawn together such a numerous and mighty army, headed by fo many princes, only for the glorious and warlike expedition of carousing in their tents, or to fight

it out hand to hand in the cruel and bloody encounters of drinking healths; but their succefs was answerable, they fell like grafs before the mower, cut down and slaughter'd without refistance; and happy were those who had their brains fo much in their heels, as to be fober e- ́ nough to run away.

Accordingly in the management of our christian warfare, fo much resembling the other (as I fhew before) it is remarkable watching and fobriety are still joined together in the fame precept; as Luke xxi. 34. Take heed to yourselves (fays our Saviour) left at any time your hearts be overcharged with furfeiting and drunkenness, and fo that day come upon you unawares; which if it fhould, and chance to find men in fuch a condition, it would prove a fad conviction, that men may eat and drink their own damnation more ways than one. And the fame injunction is repeated over and over by the apostles; as, Let us watch and be sober, fays St. Paul, 1 Theff. v. 6. and be ye fober, and watch unto prayer, fays St. Peter, 1. Pet. iv. 7. And again, Be fober, be vigilant, because your adverfary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about feeking whom he may devour, 1 Pet. v. 8. Of fo peculiar a force is temperance against the fierceft affaults of the devil, and fo unfit a match is a foaking, fwilling

fwine to encounter this roaring lion. Concerning which it is further worth our observing, that as we read of no other creature but the fwine which our Saviour commiffion'd the devil to enter into, fo of all other brute animals there are none so remarkable for intemperance as they, did not fome, I confefs, of an higher species very often out-do them.

In short, he who has an enemy must watch; but there can be no fuch thing as watching, unless fobriety holds up the head, for as much as without it fleeping is not only the easiest, but the best thing that fuch an one can do, as being for the time of his debauch like other beafts, always most innocent when afleep, though for the fame reason also I confefs more in danger of being caught and destroyed before be wakes.

Let that wife and circumfpect christian therefore, who would always have a watchful eye upon his enemy, with a particular caution take heed of all intemperance; and I account that intemperance, which immediately after eating and drinking unfits a man for business, whether it be that of the body, or that of the mind; it renders a man equally useless to others, and mischievous to himself; and we need fay no more nor no worfe of intemperance than this, that it lays him wretchedly open, even

as

as open to throw out as to pour in, a kind of common-fhore for both; it makes his own tongue his executioner, fometimes by fcandalous words, and fometimes by dangerous truths, and that which is the certain confequent of both, by procuring him dangerous enemies, unless poffibly fometimes to prevent a greater mischief, the brute cries, peccavi, arraigns himself, makes his folly his apology, and so forfooth proves himself no criminal by pleading that he was a fot. But this is but one mischief of a thousand, which intemperance exposes its miferable flaves to; for I look. upon this vice as a kind of mother vice, and the producing caufe of infinitely more, and senfuality (which is but another name for the fame thing) as the very throat of hell, or rather that broad way, by which three parts of the world (at least) go to the devil.

And therefore as the pious and prudent chriftian warriour will be fure to keep himself far enough from fuch a traitor as downright excefs; so to this purpose let him, as much as poffible, fhun all jovial entertainments, banquetings, and merry meetings, (as they are called) if they may deferve that name, which feldom fail to bring fo fad an account after them ; an account which will be fure to remain, when all bills are cleared, and all reckonings