4. What should be the effect of it. The desolations which the sword should make in all these kingdoms are represented by the consequences of excessive drinking (v. 16): They shall drink, and be moved, and be mad. They shall be drunken, and spue, and fall and rise no more, v. 27. Now this may serve, (1.) To make us loathe the sin of drunkenness, that the consequences of it are made use of to set forth a most woeful and miserable condition. Drunkenness deprives men, for the present, of the use of their reason, makes them mad. It takes from them likewise that which, next to reason, is the most valuable blessing, and that is health; it makes them sick, and endangers the bones and the life. Men in drink often fall and rise no more; it is a sin that is its own punishment. How wretchedly are those intoxicated and besotted that suffer themselves at any time to be intoxicated, especially to be by the frequent commission of the sin besotted with wine or strong drink! (2.) To make us dread the judgments of war. When God sends the sword upon a nation, with warrant to make it desolate, it soon becomes like a drunken man, filled with confusion at the alarms of war, put into a hurry; its counsellors mad, and at their wits' end, staggering in all the measures they take, all the motions they make, sick at heart with continual vexation, vomiting up the riches they have greedily swallowed down (Job xx. 15), falling down before the enemy, and as unable to get up again, or do any thing to help themselves, as a man dead drunk is, Hab. ii. 16.
{"chapter_id":"Jer.xxvi","chapter_title":"Chapter XXV","kind":"whole-body-P","position":20,"unit_key":"Jer.xxvi-p20","work_key":"Jer","work_title":"Commentary on Jeremiah","xpath":"/ThML/ThML.body/div1[4]/div2[26]/div[3]/p[7]"}