The Apostles Enforced Sobriety. 125 which, as we have seen, abstinence from intoxicating drink is the appointed guardian. (3.) They enforced the virtue of sobriety-freedom from unnatural excitement; and they selected for this purpose a word (neepho), the acknowledged meaning of which, at that time, was total abstinence from wine, or such a sober state of body and mind as is consequent on this abstinence.* This is the very word used in Greek to express the abstinence enjoined upon the priests during their ministrations; and, whether the apostles intended to convey the full sense of the term or not, its very selection intimated their conviction that the sobriety which was based on total abstinence was that which they could most cordially approve. To break the force of this conclusion, attention is often drawn to the passages in which bishops are enjoined "not to be given to wine," and deacons and elder women "not to be given to much wine"; hence it is inferred that some wine was permitted. But (1) cautions against excess can never be held to express approval of the acts referred to. "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" is not an approval of wrath while the sun is above the horizon. (2.) A general condemnation of all that was comprised under the name of wines (Greek oinoi, Latin vina), would have included some drinks perfectly harmless. (3.) Bishops were to be "not given to wine" (literally, “not near to wine "), and both these and deacons' wives were enjoined to be “ abstinent” (neephalious),† a command not to be obeyed by any indulgence in wines capable of exciting the animal. nature and deadening the mental and spiritual powers. It may, in conclusion, be affirmed that the New Testament does not contradict, but coincides with, the letter of the Old, while the ideal of religious perfection it holds II, *See "Temperance Biblical Commentary," pp. 361-5. † 1 Tim. iii. 2, "vigilant" in English Version, but in the same version, iii. "sober." up to imitation calls for the exercise of the greatest selfrestraint in leading to separation from articles whose influence for evil, on the bodies and minds of men, has been universally lamented. The "moderation" alluded to in Phil. iv. 5 is not moderation in wine-drinking or any kind of drinking, but moderation of mind in the midst of injustice and sufferings from without. 5. The Scriptures lay down general principles of action, which, without any straining, cover the whole ground of total abstinence practice. To "love his neighbor"; to care for the stranger; to build his house with a battlemented roof; to hold the owner of an ox known to push with his horns answerable for any harm the ox might do; to guard against coming or contingent evil; to break down occasions of sinful transgression; to take stumbling-stones out of the way-all these are principles of action prominently adduced and illustrated in the Old Testament: and in the New there is not less earnestly impressed upon all the duty of sacrificing sensuous pleasure (even if a real good, as an eye or right hand) rather than incur spiritual loss; the duty of so acting that others shall not be led into temptation or into conduct by which their own consciences may be defiled; the duty of sacrificing our own pleasure for others' good; the duty of subordinating our present and physical interests to the development of the inner and higher life; the duty of doing all things to the glory of God; the duty of not neglecting any known means of good-all these lines of duty are written with heavenly brilliance in the New Testament scriptures, and ought to be imprinted with equal brightness on the Christian's heart and life. But how can this be done without a cordial exemplification of the practice of total abstinence? How are the intemperate to be cured if they do not cast away that which ensnares them? if The Wine of the Lord's Supper. 127 How can the causes of so much temptation, seduction, and stumbling be removed while drinking customs are sanctioned by the influential and the pious? How can men effectually guard themselves against danger while they invite it by habitually using the intoxicating cup? How can the intemperate be assisted to reform, and the young to grow up in habits of abstinence, if the sober and elder portions of society content themselves with advice which their own example does not, to say the least, comport with and confirm? How can Christian spirituality be realized in its utmost beauty and excellence while the wine which mocks and deceives is consumed day by day? How can Christian self-denial fulfil "what remains of the sufferings of Christ" when it is incompetent to the resignation of "moderate" doses of intoxicating drink? How can Christian benevolence bind up bleeding hearts, and staunch the chief sources of human wretchedness and vice, when the brewery and distillery and drink-shop are afflicting society with every species of vice, every degree of misery, every depth of degradation? How can the believer be blameless concerning the neglect of opportunities of usefulness, while he leaves untried the means of doing good provided in the personal and associated influences of the temperance reform? Whatever in Christianity is pure and purifying, sweet and saving, luminous and light-giving, selfprotecting and self-sacrificing, brotherly and beneficent, God-honoring and Christ-imitating, finds in the practice of total abstinence either a congenial assistant or an appropriate instrument for attaining the supreme object of all Christian prayer and endeavor, that God's will " 'may be done upon earth even as it is done in heaven." OBJECTIONS. Many objections have been disposed of in the course of this discussion, but there are several which 'may be separately reviewed before this chapter concludes. 1. It is said “that by using wine in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, the Saviour gave it a special honor inconsistent with the character ascribed to it by the advocates of total abstinence." Several points of consequence are overlooked by persons who raise this objection: (1.) That the word "wine" does not once occur in the New Testament in reference to the institution and celebration of the Lord's Supper. The phrase used by the Saviour is the fruit of the vine," and the apostle Paul simply speaks of "the cup." Those, therefore, who assume, contrary to evidence, that the Greek word oinos always meant the intoxicating juice of the grape, gain nothing by the assumption, unless they also show that "the fruit of the vine" is also of necessity an inebriating fluid. Who, however, can pretend to advocate a proposition so utterly ridiculous? Who does not know that the "fruit of the vine,” as it exists in its natural state, is not and never can be of an intoxicating quality; and that, when the expressed juice becomes so by passing through the fermenting process, it so far ceases to be the fruit of the vine and vital growth, and becomes the fruit of the vat? The wine of commerce can only claim to be considered the fruit of the vine to the extent that it is physically identical with the substance which the vine produces, and this identity can never be so complete as when the expressed juice of the grape is preserved and presented, in the sacramental service, chemically the same as it exists within the uncrushed cluster. Besides, it is notorious that, beyond the change in the grape-juice effected by fermentation, the adulterations of various liquors are so ingenious that the ablest connoisseurs cannot tell fabricated from genuine wines; and are so extensive that very Sacramental Consistency. 129 few who purchase even the high-priced sorts can have (2.) That as all ferment and fermented things were forbid den to the Jews at the Passover, when the Lord's Supper was instituted, it is more in accordance with the symbolical meaning of that prohibition (one which the apostle applies to Christians-1 Cor. v. 6-8) to take the unfermented than the fermented juice of the grape. We need not enter into the controversy whether the Jews celebrated their Passover with fermented or unfermented wine: if with the former, they must have broken their law; and whenever they do so now, they break their law; and those who assume that the Lord used such wine must also assume that he broke the law he came to fulfil (as a Jew) to the letter.* Modern science has demonstrated (what careful observation must always have shown) that the fermentation of grape-juice is similar to the fermentation of bread or beer; and, therefore, that whatever spiritual symbolism is conveyed by the absence of fermentation must be expressed more clearly by unfermented than by fermented wine. If it is argued that consistency would require the bread used to be unleav * The casuistry by which the modern Jews (who used fermented wine) and their Christian apologists defend this breach of the Levitical law is a striking illustration of the leaven of sophistry which characterized the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees. Its inconsistency is not less marked, for, while some say that fermented solids only were meant, others assert that the fermentation of grape-juice is not like the fermentation of beer, and some that the grapejuice does not ferment at all! |