A Sober Mind is Temperate and Self-Denying

You must be temperate and self-denying, and not indulgent of your appetites. This is one of the lessons that the aged men must learn; and some think it properly signifies a moderate use of meat and drink, to save our mind from being clouded, and our wisdom from being corrupted, that is, our hearts from being overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. We commonly put a sober man in opposition to one that is drunk, or addicted to drunkenness.

Let me therefore warn young men to dread the sin of drunkenness. Keep at a distance from it; avoid all appearances of it and approaches towards it. It has slain its thousands—its ten thousands of young people; has ruined their health, brought diseases upon them, and cut them off in the flower of their days. How many fall as unpitied sacrifices to this base lust! It has ruined their estates and trades at their first setting out; when the time that should have been spent in the shop and warehouse is spent in the tavern — when the money they should buy goods with, and pay their debts with, is thrown away in the gratification of an inordinate love of wine and strong drink — no wonder if they soon break.

Take heed of the beginnings of this sin, for the way of it is down-hill; and many, under pretense of an innocent entertainment, passing the evening in a pleasant conversation, are drawn in to drink to excess, and make beasts of themselves. You should tremble to think how fatal the consequences of this are—how unfit it renders you for the service of God at night, yes, and for your own business the next morning. How many are thus besotted, and sunk into that drowsiness which clothes a man with rags.

Yet that is not the worst — it extinguishes convictions and sparks of devotion and provokes the Spirit of grace to withdraw. And it will be the sinner’s eternal ruin if it be not repented of and forsaken in time; for the Word of God hath said it, and it shall not be unsaid; it cannot be gainsaid that “drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” “Look not then upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup,” is charming, is tempting. Be not overcome by its allurements, for at the last it “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.”

If you saw the devil putting the cup of drunkenness into your hand, I dare say, you would not take it out of his. You may be sure the temptation to it comes from him, and therefore ought to dread it as much as if you saw it. If you saw poison put into the glass, you would not drink it; and if it be provoking to God and ruining to your souls, it is worse than poison. There is worse than death; there is hell in the cup, and will you not then refuse it?

How many better ways may you spend your evening, when you are fatigued with the business of the day, than in immoderate drinking? I am sorry we cannot urge against you, so much as gladly we would, the scandal of it; it is grown so fashionable. But whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, we will insist upon the sin of it, and its prejudice to the soul both here and for ever, and beg of you in consideration of this, to frighten yourselves from it.

It is a sin that is in a special manner shameful and hurtful to those who profess religion. You that have been well-educated, that have been brought up in sober families, have had examples of sobriety set before you, and have known what the honors and pleasures of a sober conversation are, if, when you set up for yourselves, you think yourselves happy in getting clear from the restraints of a sober regimen, and take the liberty of the drunkards, what a reproach will it be to you! What a degeneracy! What a fall from your first love! Where will it stop? Perhaps you have given up your names to the Lord Jesus at His table, and dare you partake of the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils? Let Christians, that are made to our God kings and priests, take to themselves the lesson which Solomon’s mother taught him, “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings”; so it is not for Christians “to drink wine,” but with great moderation, “lest they drink and forget the law,” forget the gospel (Prov. 31:4,5).

Yet this is not all I have to warn you against under this head; let not young people be solicitous in their diet to have all the delights of sense wound up to the height of pleasurableness. Be “not desirous of dainties, for they are deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:3). It is true, the use of them is lawful, but it is as true that the love of them is dangerous; and the indulging of the appetites of the body to them is oft prejudicial to the soul and its true interests. Learn betimes to relish the delights that are rational and spiritual, and then your mouths will be out of taste to those pleasures that are brutal, and belong only to the animal life. Be afraid lest by indulging the body and the lusts of it, you come by degrees to the black character of those that are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4).

The body is made to be a servant to the soul, and it must be treated accordingly. We must give it that which is just; let it have what is fitting, but let it not be suffered to domineer, for nothing is so insufferable as “a servant when he reigneth” (Prov. 30:22); nor let it be pampered, for “he that delicately brings up his servant from a child, shall have him become his son at the length” (Prov. 29:21).

Be dead therefore to the delights of sense; mortify the love of ease and pleasure. Learn to endure hardness. Use yourselves to deny yourselves. So you will make it easy to yourselves, and will the better bear the common calamities of human life, as well as sufferings for righteousness’ sake. Those that would approve themselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ, must endure hardness, must inure themselves to it (2 Tim. 2:3).

Rev. Matthew Henry (1662–1714) pastored a Presbyterian congregation at Chester, England, for twenty-five years. He is best known and loved for his Bible commentary (1708–10). This series of articles is taken from his The Young Christian.

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