The Drunkards Character, Section 92 – Section 95
§ 92.
SEcondly,How drunhards will raise slanders of the conscionable. if wee refuse to participate with them in their sinne, it shall goe hard, but they will make us partake with them of their shame: as if Ioseph will not commit adultery with his Mistris, shee will accuse him for an adulterer, and make him worse thought of then her selfe. Innocency is no shelter against evil tongues; malice never regards how true any accusation is, but how spitefull.
The baggage World desireth nothing more then to scarre the face that is fairer then shee; and it is Sathans policie, (because report both makes jealousies, where there are none, and increaseth those that there are) to abuse our eares, in hearing; our tongues, in speaking; and our hearts, in believing lies, to disable us from discerning the truth.
Yea this of slander, like a …uge and mighty Polypheme, hath done such service to the uncircumcised, that examples therof in Scripture, are like moates in the Sun; as whom have wee mentioned therein, without mention of some false accusation? Naboth was a blasphemer upon record, and proved so by affidavit; Eliah, was a troubler of Israel; Ieremiah, an enemy to the State; Susanna, a Whore; Iohn Baptist, had a Divell; Paul, was a polluter of the Temple; Stephen, was a destroyer of the Law; all the Disciples, sectaries, subverters of the State, &c. Acts 28. 21. Yea, Christ himselfe was a Wine-bibber, a seducer of the people, a Beelzebub, and what not? And the same divell who spake in Iezabel, and those wicked ones of old, now speaks in our debauched drunkards; and deboyshed swearers, who resembling the Divell, Rev. 12. 10. Iob 1. 7, 9, 11. will charge a man (if hee bee not for their turne) with many things, as the Iewes did Paul, Acts 24. but proving nothing, verse 13.
Neither needs their any proofe;How apt others are to believe their slanders, and afterwards to spread them. for the common people as good as thought so before. Worldly mindes looking upon Iordan with Syrian eyes, thinke none can be of any other, then their owne diet, (as some Moores thinke there is no other complection then their owne, because they never saw men of more temperate Clymates) and because they finde their owne filthy lusts, so strongly prevailing with themselves; they cannot conceive how they should be capeable of a repulse from others; and indeed, it is hard for a wicked heart to thinke well of any other, because it can thinke none better then it selfe, and knowes it selfe evill.
Wherein also is another disadvantage, that cannot be helped; the multitude will sooner believe them, then our selves, affirmatives being apter to winne beliefe, then negatives are to uncredit them. You know the high Priests and Elders were not more ready to aise a slander upon our Saviour CHRIST, after his death, Matthew 28. 12. 13. then the common people were apt to believe the same, vers. 15. yea, the lewes believe it to this day. Calumny supports her selfe by lying,How pleasant it is to wicked men to …eare ill of the religious. and shee may doe it safely among evill minded men, because they are Judges, that, for the most part, will inquire no further, but believe at first. Yea, saith Luther, they hunger and thirst after these scandalous reports of the Godly, and if at any time they heare of the disgrace of some good and eminent person, like hungry Hogs, they muzzell in their excrements, and feast upon them, as upon dainties; there being nothing that so glads their hearts, that so opens their mouths, with so much insolency and triumph: O what care they take to spread the same abroad by a common fame! as let conscience say whether this be not so, yea, whether they will not censure, and condemne all the generation of Gods people, because they heare ill of some few, that care only to bee thought good.
As true it is there are such monsters, such white divels, who make Religion a very stalking-Horse to villany; yea too many men, that dishonour God, by wearing of his livory. But what was Sathan to the children of God? Iob. 1. 6. though he thrust himselfe into their company? or what wise man will tax all the Apostles, because one was a Iudas? To argue, because some are so and so, therefore the rest are alike, is a saplesse reason, onelyonly becomming a foole: yea, to condemne all, for a few that are bad, is as equall and just, as it was for Simeon, and Levi, to murther all the Sechemites, for the offence onelyonly of Hamor's Sonne, Gen. 34. 2. 25. 31.
But to goe on. Drunkards feede themselves with others adversity, as Beetels are fed with their fellowes dunge; and like flesh-flies, make the wounds of Gods children their chiefe nourishment; yea, Crocodile like, they would, if they could, fatten themselves with our warmest blood; and no wonder, when there are some that naturally feed upon poyson, and are fatned with it.
But they must needs be filthy creatures, that feede upon nothing but corruption. To delight in mens supposed sins, is the sport of Devills; recovery from sinne, is the joy of good men and Angells. Cham derides his Fathers nakednesse, it should have beene his sorrow, he makes it his sport; but it is ill for a man to make himselfe merry, with that which angers God.
§ 93
IF you will know the manner of theirThe manner of their dealing in this case. dealing in this case, it is lively exprest by the Author of the booke of Wisdome, Chap. 2. 12. to 23. which is a glasse more cleare then Chrystall, to shew the face of every drunkards heart.
As first, they will lie in waite to finde faults in us, and pry more narrowly into our actions, then the best man would willingly they should: and a reserved mans behaviour, you know, is like a verse, wherein every syllable is measured; yea, what is scarce thought a fault in other men, they will hold in us a heinous crime, and thereafter take occasion in every company to erect our faylings very high, like St. Pauls, for the gaze of all, whereas they hide our good parts under ground, like St. Faiths, that none may note them; for these Flyes will skip over all a mans sound parts, to wit, his excellencies, to fasten on a scab or ulcer; resembling our Prognosticators, that are more diligent to make mention of foule weather, then of faire; stormes and thunder they much harpe upon, but calme and serene dayes passe them unobserved; dealing by good men, as one did by Homer, who (as Erasmus relates) collected all the lame and defective Verses out of his workes, but past over infinite others, which were by him most excellently made.
Or, if in case they finde not spots, they will feigne them; for malice makes them so nimble eyed, that they'le finde a knot in a Bullrush, staying, or going, we know, one, or the other, is offence enough, to those that seeke quarrells; a crooked staffe will serve to beate a Dog, when a streight one cannot be found; Cambyses but dreamed that his Brother should be King of Persia, and put him to death.
Yea, these Spiders will turne every thing into poyson, and picke out of the most premeditated action, something to cavill at, either by misinterpreting things, and so turne good into evill, (as an easie invention may put false matters into true Syllogismes) or if they cannot wrest them sufficiently, they will remit them unto dissimulation, and coyne others, devise of him some slander or other, as Turtullus did of Paul, Acts, 24. 5. And indeed, if they did not so, they should want colour to persecute us.
The which if thou well considerest, will make thee so farre from beleeving evill reports of good men, especially from the Devills servants, (drunkards) that thou wilt thinke so much the better of them, for (though the blind eate many a flye) yet, in the judgement of the wise, not he that is accused, but he that is convicted, is guilty, as Lactantius hath it. Hereupon when those rayling lewes brought Paul to the Barre, Gallio drave them from the judgement seate, because he knew they had more malice then matter against him. In the Chancery are many accu…ations, they never meane to proove; yea, upright Cato was fifty times undeservedly indited, and accused by his fellow Citizens, yet every time acquitted, and found innocent; and Aristophanes ninty five times by the Athenians, and every time pronounced innocent. If it be enough to accuse, who shall be cleare? which occasions our Saviour to say, not, which of you can accuse? (for they accused him of many things) but, which of you can convince me of sinne? who can prove that I am a Conjurer, a Samaritane, a wine bibber, &c. as Erasmus upon the place. In a word, as I never yet read, or heard of a conscionable Israelite that hath not past under some calumniation, so I cannot yeeld him a true Israelite that deserves it.
§ 94.
NOw sundry reasons may be given,7 Reasons why they slander us. why drunkards and vicious followers of their owne lusts, like Miners, are ever working to blow up our untainted names: as doing it, either, with the Lapwing, to divert, by their false cryes, the traveling stranger from finding the nest of their filthinesse; or, with the curtayled Fox in the Fable, to endeavour to have all Foxes cut tayld; or, with the Fish Sepia, to darken with the pitchy inke of aspersions all the water, that so themselves may escape the net of censure, justly cast to catch them; or, they speake evill of us, because they cannot doe evill unto us; or, they doe it to incite and stir up others to doe the like; or, because God hath put an enmity betweene the men of the world, and his children; or they doe it, because Sathan will have them doe it; or else to have themselves thought as good as any other; they will not have any thought good that dwells neere them, &c.
But the chiefe reason and end why they doe the same, is, that they may discourage us in the way to Heaven, floute us out of our faith, and draw us backe to the world; that so they may have our company here in sinne, and hereafter in torment, as I shall prove anon.
But first see the former reasons explained;Ever such as scoffe at, and traduce others have greater faults themselves onelyonly let me premise this (and it may serve as an hand in the Margent) that as Cham was worse then Noah, whom he derided; and Ishmael worse then Isaac, whom he mocked; and Saul worse then David, whom he persecuted; and Iezabel worse then Naboth whom she defamed and murthered: so you shall ever see, that they which are wont to scoffe, and jeere at, traduce, and persecute others, have greater faults themselves, and cause to be jeered, and flouted at, traduced, and evill intreated; which they cannot tell how to cover, but by disgraceing of others.First reason of their raising slanders to divert mens thoughts from minding their villany. Whereas by this meanes, while the people laugh at us, by reason of their odious aspersions, they never mind them: as when a great man objected to the Player, his saucinesse, in that he durst personally tax men on the Stage; his answer was, be content, for while the people laugh at our foolery, they never mind your villany. As, is it not usuall for them (being conscious of their owne defects) to be ever defaming good men, that by this meanes, they may draw away the thoughts and consideration of the beholders, from climing up into their faults, while they are fixed and busied upon a new object? One colour we know, being laid upon another, doth away the former, and remaines it selfe. A cut-purse in a throng, when he hath committed the fact, will cry out, My masters, take heede of your purses; and he that is pursued, will cry, Stop Theife, that by this meanes he may escape unattached: and so in every like case, there is none apter, to cry, Treason, Treason, then Ahaliah, who hath slaine all the Kings seede. Yea, so it is, that the smallest spot in a sober mans face, shall excuse all the sores and ulcers of their bodies.
§ 95.
SEcondly, seeing the drunkards wicked and sinfull life,2 By depraving the godly themselves passe for indifferent honest men. is reproved by the others Godly conversation: as how is a vicious person discredited, and made contemptible, by the vertuous life of a holy man? seeing straight lines helpe to shew the crooked, as doubtlesse Pharaoh's fat kine, could not choose but make the leane ones more ill favoured: for the whiter the Swanne is, the more blacke is the Crow that's by her; hence a swarthy and hard featured visage, loves not the company of cleare beauties.
Whereas on the otherside, were all the world ugly, deformity would be no monster: among the Myconians baldnesse is no unseemely thing, because they are all so borne: yea, a base person may come to preferment, if none be thought better then himselfe: he which hath but one eye, may be King amongst the blinde: even Heliogabalus, that beastly monster, thought to make himselfe the sole god, and be onelyonly worshipped, by banishing all other Religions out of the world.
At least, as the splendor of the others vertues, doth obscure the meanesse of his credit; (as the Sunnes brightnesse obscures the light of a candle) so by depraving him, and all his fellowes, himselfe shall be judged vertuous, very cheape accounted a man of honesty and honour, though a drunkard or an Homicide.
And indeed, how should Naboth be cleanly put to death; or Ioseph fairely clapt in Irons, if first the one be not accused of blasphemy, and the other of treacherous incontinency? Whereas by using these meanes, those ends were easily atchieved: you know, if a man would have his Dog kild, he needs but give it out that he is mad:3 Drunk…rds censure and slander … godly to …acite and stirre up other … to doe the like. which leades me to a third reason, for.