[ 391 ]
to drink away our Sense, our Understanding and our Life, as many daily do.
I would conclude this with an earnest and serious Monition to all the considering, rational Part of Mankind, who call themselves Christians, and would be called so, who are willing to act as such, and to answer to themselves, not supposing they had any other Account to give for all their Behaviour; I say, I would move them to enter so far into the Government of themselves, as becomes Men of Sense and of Virtue, to put a due Restraint upon themselves in the use of lawful Liberties, and to act, not like Madmen and Furies, but like Men of Understanding, to act in such a Manner, as they may not reproach themselves hereafter with wasting their Youth and Strength, and bringing Age and Weakness upon themselves before their Time.
Certainly, God Almighty, who form'd the Man, and who committed him, in a great Measure, to the Government of himself, did not do so with a general leave to live how he pleased; did not leave him to the gust of his Appetite, without giving the least Limits to himself by his Reason, but as he gave him superior Faculties, so he gave those Faculties, and placed them in a superiority one to another, that they might be a Check to the separate Motions and Operations, and keep the whole Machine in order.
If the Man breaks this Order; if he inverts Nature; if he gives himself Liberties that God and Nature intended him not, and such as are inconsistent with the good Order of the Machine, he will put the whole Fabrick out of Tune; nor can he expect the rest of the Motions can perform as they would otherwise do.
If
