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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at c''ff?>-ent reduction ratios. Those too large to be «''- rirely included in one exposure are filmed bcuginnlng in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de rdduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6. ii est film6 d partir de I'angle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite. et de haut en bas. en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^ THE FIRST MIRACLE OF CHRIST AND PROHIBITION; A SERMON PREACHED IN ST PETFR'9 phttx^^^ ov n^r^r. ' ^^^-.^S CHURCH, BROCKVILLE. ON IHE SECOND SUNbAY AFTER EPIPHANY (17TH JANUARY), 1886. BY GEORGE J. LOW, Rector. PRINTED BY C^ BLACKEn> ROBINSON. 5 JORDAN STREET. 1886. THE First Miracle of Christ AND PROHIBITION. glory^L'St' z°' """'" '•' ^"-^ " ^^"^ °^ ^^'"^^' -'^ "-'f-'^'l 'o^'*' His T T IS a thing for which we ought to be very thankful, brethren, A that the Church's yearly system of teaching brings before' us every incident of our dear Lord's life, and forces into promi- nence, each in turn, every saying, every work of His, whether we personally care to view it or not. In these days, when there are so many different kinds of religion, I think we may without much difficulty discern that each particular kind of religion has its own special "hobby," so to speak. It takes one or two "texts," and out of them manufactures its own theology : every other text must be made to fit into that, and is warped and twisted and turned until it does, after a fashion, fit in ; and if, after all the manipulation, this cannot be effected, then it is summarily dismissed from the count as a "Judaism," or a "metaphor," or an " Oriental hyperbole," or something of that sort. And as in other bodies, so in the Church of England indi- vidual preachers have their " hobbies," their favourite doctrines their favourite "texts." It is human nature after all-; we are' all partialists, more or less ; and if we were left unrestricted, our congregations would too often be fed with some particular kind of spiritual diet, which might be wholesome and beneficial in due proportion, but if persisted in to the exclusion of all other kinds ol food, would produce spiritual dyspepsia — a morbid unhealthy state— no matter what that particular doctrine may be. Now what a grand and wholesome corrective to the indi- vidual preacher's fancies is the system of the Church, which forces us, whether we will or no, to take in every species of food which the Holy Scriptures contain. For to me this is one of the greatest evidences of the Divine origin of the Scriptures, that they are so multiform, so complex, so many-sided. Our spiritual nature is like our physical nature, very complex ; and he who imagines he can administer to every mind diseased by one prescription, is as great a charlatan as he who thinks he can cure every kind of physical ill by one particular dose. The Bible is not of this nature; it is very complex, and rightly so; it contains elements apparently antagonistic to one another ; just as our food for our bodies must contain many diverse elements, acid and alkaline, sweet and bitter. He that prophesieth, says St. Paul in the Epistle for this day, should prophesy (/.^., preach) " according to the proportion of faith." The true Churchman, then, I conceive, should endeavour, as a rule, to put himself ^m rapport with the liturgical services of the day, and like St. Chry- sostom and other mighty preachers of old, make the pulpit reecho the teachings of the lectern and the altar. Now what is the great lesson of to-day, this second Sunday after Epiphany ? What is the keynote which the Church strikes, to which we should attune our harmonies? The Gospel for the day furnishes it to us, and our text is the essence of that Gospel. This whole Epiphany season is but an elaboration of the great song of praise begun at Christmastide : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace." " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed Hir. people : and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us." " The Dayspring from on high hath visited us." The manifestation ot God in the flesh is the theme : the different modes and degrees of that manifestation the elaboration of the theme. Manifest first to the shepherds of Bethlehem ; then to the Eastern sages ; then, after twelve years, to the doctors of the Temple, if only they had had eyes to see ; then after a long period of obscura- tion manifest to all the beholders at this marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, when His Divinity shone forth in this first miracle that He wrought. Let us view this light as it then burst forth, so unexpectedly ; let us analyze its rays and see what we can learn therefrom. " Thisbeghmitig of miracles." Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, never performed a single miracle — never let the world know that He was the Messiah — until He was thirty years of age. All that long period of time, from His birth, when " all the sons of God shouted for joy," until His baptism, when the voice from heaven was heard saying, " Thou art My beloved Son " (Luke iii. 22), is wrapt in obscurity, save that one gleam which we catch of the Holy Child when He was twelve years of age, and went up, " after the custom of the feast," to His confirma- tion at Jerusalem. We dwelt upon this on Sunday last. Does He not by this very obscuration reveal Himself — to speak in paradox ? Does He not manifest Himself as the typical, the representative, the perfect human character ? Does He not show us hereby that He does not countenance precociousness in children and youths ? Does He not teach us that even if we think we have a call from God we must bide our time until the outward call comes ? '* So also Christ glorified not Himsell to be made an High Priest, but He that said unto Him, Thou art My Son " (Heb. v. 5). Next let us consider the circumstances under which He " manifested forth His glory." It was at a marriage feast. In the East such entertainments often lasted a whole week. What a strange environment, judging with human judgment, does the Lord select for manifesting forth His glory ! A scene of festivity, a time of making merry — of congratulations — of eating and drinking ! What a contrast to his precursor, John the Baptist — the last prophet of the old dispensation — the connecting link between the Law and the Gospel — who comes into view in the dreary wilderness, clad in camel's-hair cloth and leathern girdle — hermit-like in his cloth- ing and in his diet — ascetic, austere. To quote the words of Dean Alford's Commentary : " Our Lord at once opens His ministry with the character which He gives of Himself" (Luke vii. 33, 34, 35). "John the Baptist," says He to the Pharisees, " came neither eating bread nor drinking wine ; and ye say. He hath a devil : the Son of Man is come eating and drinking ; and ye say. Behold, a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of pub- licans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children." " He also," as Archbishop Trench admirably remarks, "gives us His own testimony against the tendency which our indolence ever favours, of giving up those things and occasions to the world and the devil, which we have not Christian boldness to mingle in and purify . . . And such is the verdict of modern religionism, which would keep the leaven distinct from the lump, for fear it should become unleavened/' We are not given the name of the host, or of the bride or bridegroom. Doubtless they were relatives or connections of our Lord according to the flesh. Cana was not very far from Nazareth : and the Virgin Mother had evidently considerable authority in the household. (St. John ii. i, "There was a marriage . . . and the mother of Jesus was there"; again, verse 5, " His mother saith unto the servants," etc.) Our Lord was invited to this wedding feast, and He went. )r )f " And when they wanted wine." This does not mean that there- was none originally supplied, but that, for some reason or other, the wine ran short : either the festivities lasted longer, or the guests were more numerous, than had been calculated for. You will observe the Revised Version renders the passage correctly : "And when the wine failed." Here let me quote a passage of Archdeacon Farrar's " Life of Christ ": " Whether the marriage festival lasted for seven days, as was usual among those who could afiford it, or only for one or two, as was the case among the poorer classes, we cannot tell ; but at some period of the enter- tainment the wine suddenly ran short. None but those who know how sacred in the East is the duty of lavish hospitality, and how passionately the obligation to exercise it to the utmost is felt, can realize the gloom which this incident would have thrown over the occasion, or the misery and mortification which it would have caused to the wedded pair. They would have felt it to be, as in the East it would still be felt to be, a bitter and indelible disgrace." In order to avert this threatened disaster — in order to dissi- pate the gloom impending over this festive gathering — in order to enhance their joy and happiness — in order to show that He entered heartily into all their lawful pleasures, and sanctioned their innocent enjoyments — the Son of God, the Eternal Word made flesh, " manifested forth His glory." And how did He do so ? I must answer this question with a statement which, I know, will shock the feelings of many modern religionists — a statement opposed to the spirit of the age — one which may possibly call forth a storm of vituperation, and yet it must be said ; for it is the truth — the truth of God and of His Holy Word. Our Lord Jesus Christ began His Messianic career — began that glorious and dazzling series of mercy -giving, life-prolonging, pain-destroying, evil-dispelling miracles — with the production i! 8 of an alcoholic, intoxicating drink. And that in no mean quantity : on the lowest computation the amount of wine thus divinely manufactured was one hundred and twenty gallons. (See Alford in loc.) Now let us face this fact ; for faced it must be. Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we all confess to be God, of God, and yet very man, began his official career as the Messiah with the miraculous creation of an intoxicating element : He was all through His official life assailed by the Pharisees as a " wine- bibber" : and His last official act was His consecrating that same intoxicating element to be the sacrament of His own most precious blood. Now what are we to make of this ? Was Christ mistaken ? Was He ignorant of the laws of hygiene and physiology ? Is His doctrine behind the times ? For there is of necessity a terrible mistake somewhere. Either our modern moral reformers are wrong, or Jesus Christ was wrong. I put it plainly, but so it is. The Dominion Churchman very truly said last week : If Christ had worked that miracle to-day in one of our Scott Act counties He would have been convicted of a crime. And so it is. If Jesus Christ was right. Prohibition is wrong. If Pro- hibition is right, Jesus Christ was wrong. That is simply the naked truth. And what escape can be framed from this dilemma, viz.: that not only our Lord Jesus Christ, but the whole Word of God, from beginning to end, countenances and makes provision for the drinking of intoxicating liquor : therefore either the con- sumption of such liquor is lawful and right, or the Word of God is wrong. There are three effijrts to answer this : I. The effort of some to prove that there are two kinds of " wine " and " strong drink " mentioned in the Bible, one alco- holic and the other non-alcoholic; that whenever "wine" is commended it means the unfermented juice of the grape. I have only to say of this that such a plea is beneath contempt. No accurate scholar would ever think of thus " handling the Word of God deceitfully." A great deal of capital has been made by some of the fact that two words, in special, occur to